As a political junkie, nothing sweetens my Spring Break vacation more than a dose of international justice. Indeed, there is plenty to celebrate about the International Criminal Court’s issuance of an arrest warrant for Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir.
Bashir’s regime has actively participated in the deaths of 300,000 Darfuris and the displacement of over 2.5 million others through a systematic pattern of murder, extermination, rape, torture and pillage. He is a war criminal who belongs behind bars. The indictment is also a boost for the toothless ICC, which has yet to convict a single war criminal. And by going after a sitting head of state instead of just rebel group leaders, ICC Prosecutor Luis-Moreno-Ocampo has sent a strong signal to the world’s despots: no one is above the law. Hence, in many ways, this decision is one of those few moments which international lawyers and human rights groups can rejoice in their arduous years of work.
But should they? While they uncork their champagne bottles, the decision has unleashed a major humanitarian crisis in Darfur and could threaten the viability of Sudan more generally. If the primary function of justice is to serve the interests of the aggrieved, Bashir’s indictment has actually harmed the welfare of Darfuris instead of promoting it. And by placing feel-good symbolism above real-world consequences for peace and stability, the ICC has rubbed even more salt on an already sore Darfur wound.
Hours after the ICC warrant was issued, the Sudanese government ordered as many as 10 foreign aid agencies to leave Darfur. If this pattern of expulsion continues, hundreds of thousands of Darfuris who rely on the mercy of the world’s largest humanitarian operation will be affected. The future looks grimmer still. The International Crisis Group predicts a flood of government-sponsored attacks on United Nations relief personnel and refugee camps, a state of emergency, opposition crackdowns and a spike in violent attacks. Darfuris must be asking: is this price worth paying for justice?
The ripple effects of the decision will be felt beyond just Darfur’s humanitarian crisis. Well-connected sources say powerful rebel groups in semi-autonomous South Sudan will now shelve peace talks and lobby instead for Bashir’s ouster. If true, it will spark the collapse of the fragile Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the south and Khartoum, and open the floodgates to even more violence. This is more than an apocalyptic prediction – in mid-February, Bloomberg cited Gebreil Ibrahim, economic adviser for the Justice and Equality Movement, the most powerful rebel group in Darfur, as saying he was skeptical about peace and urged Bashir to step down.
Optimists are hoping the arrest warrant will send pragmatists springing up from the fractious Khartoum regime, cohere oppositional forces and restrain Bashir. But history shows that brutal dictators respond to threats to their power with more repression, not less. Bashir himself, according to Sudan expert Alex De Waal, is known to respond to insults with fury. Is it wise to stoke the embers of a dictator’s wrath, particularly one that has proven capable of so much destruction? Fearing more bloodshed, the ICC previously issued warrants for bloodthirsty tyrants like Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic and Liberian president Charles Taylor after they left power. Why did this not apply to Sudan? Are Sudanese lives worth any less?
By now, readers of this column must be crying out as loud as Darfuris probably are on the ground: what is all this for? The sobering answer is probably empty justice. The ICC already issued two arrest warrants in 2007 for Sudanese Humanitarian Affairs Minister Ahmed Haroun and Janjaweed militia leader Ali Abdul Rahman, hoping at least for some fortuitous political changes. Not only are they both still in Sudan; Haroun’s government portfolio has broadened to include more responsibilities. How is the ICC going to seize Bashir if it cannot even seize his underlings? Arrest warrants, powerful symbols as they are, rarely catalyze a chain of benevolent political events.
If these trends continue, I suspect the transient euphoria following the ICC’s warrant may well translate into bitter regret in the nightmarish weeks that follow. Maybe then the ICC and the human rights groups that lauded its decision will get this registered in their rigidly legalistic minds: Justice is important, but, in humanitarian crises, it must be weighted against the security concerns and interests of the immediate victims which it serves. And, in this case, the price just isn’t right.
In one of his notorious fits of anger, Bashir announced at a rally in Sudan that the ICC could eat its warrant whole. Looking at Sudan today, I can’t help but wonder how long it will be before the ICC eats the words of its own warrant announcement. One thing’s for sure: it will be shorter than the time it takes to actually arrest Bashir.
Prashanth Parameswaran’s column appears Tuesdays in the Cavalier Dailly. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com
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