Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir is accused of genocide and crimes against humanity.
The reaction from Sudan came right according to script: After an international prosecutor accused President Omar al-Bashir of genocide, the government in Khartoum began angrily volleying salvos. Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha declared that the evidence against al-Bashir was false and that the country would not cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC).
On Monday the court's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, applied for the issuance of an arrest warrant for Sudan's president, accusing him of having committed genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The charges Moreno-Ocampo wants to file relate to a campaign of extermination of three Darfur tribes, which the United Nations claims has killed 300,000 people and displaced another 2.5 million.
Although human rights groups welcomed the indictment -- the first time a serving head of state has ever faced proceedings at the The Hague court -- they warned about a possible violent backlash from the Sudanese government. As a precaution, the United Nations prepared to pull out non-essential staff from Darfur on Tuesday.
German newspaper commentators also expressed mixed reactions to the historic indictment. Although they believe the prosecutor's decision should be welcomed, as it will send a clear message to all the world's murderous dictators, they worried about the impact it could have on the UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur.
The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:
"Is this an illegal attempt by criminal lawyers to get involved in politics? No. Although UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the Arab League and China, a friend of Sudan's, will complain that UN peacekeepers will find it a lot harder to operate in Sudan, the world judiciary is not at fault. In the first instance it is al-Bashir himself who is responsible for the disaster in the crisis region of Dafur, as well as the Chinese and Russians, who defend the regime because they do not like to get involved in the 'domestic affairs' of other countries. At the same time the Europeans and Americans were unwilling to even provide a couple of helicopters. Everyone just watched. All the chief prosecutor has done is put an official stamp on what everyone already knew: Bashir is an alleged mass murderer."
The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:
"Sudan doesn't recognize the ICC. It won't hand over its head of state -- just as it hasn't two other indicted politicians. And there is no international authority in Sudan that can enforce the warrant. That's the limitation of international law: It can draw up rules and get courts to declare violations of those rules, but it only has a limited ability to actually enforce those laws."
"That is why political objections -- which can't easily be dismissed -- have also been raised against the indictment. The laborious efforts to find a solution (or at least an improvement) to the Darfur drama now have no chance at all; and the rulers will completely choke off the little bit of help and relief the UN troops and aid organizations could provide the refugees. The situation in Darfur will, therefore, deterioate for certain. In the meantime, the hope that international condemnation -- if it does come about -- will destabilize al-Bashir's regime is very improbable."
The left-leaning Die Tageszeitung writes:
"There are two ways in which chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo can pursue legal proceedings. Firstly, he can conduct the entire investigation in secret. The fact that legal proceedings and a warrant exist is then only made public after the suspect has been arrested. That, for example, was the case with Congo's rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba and the three other Congolese prisoners of the court. Or Moreno-Ocampo can conduct the investigation in public, in which case a public warrant is issued for the suspects. This is what happened in the case of the leader of the brutal Lord's Resistance Army rebels in Uganda, a rebel commander from east Congo and the members of the Sudanese leadership. But they are all free to this day, leading one to conclude that if The Hague makes public a warrant it means the suspects have already been detained or the prosecutors have lost all hope of catching the criminals."
"Therefore, the warrant from The Hague is not a sign of success in the fight against crime. Yet, Louis Moreno-Ocampo had no other choice. Could he really have come to the conclusion that Sudan's dictator did not bear any responsibility for the Darfur atrocities after spending half a year investigating the crimes? This would have been an even bigger admission of failure. Viewed in this light, the warrant is consistent. But at the same time it shows how little the court can achieve in reality."
The conservative Die Welt writes:
"Even though the ICC -- which has no police or army -- relies on the help of its member states to arrest the accused, the court has sent a clear message to all the al-Bashirs, Mugabes and Kims out there: The world will become an uncomfortable place for them. In contrast to former crimes against humanity, such as the mass murder and genocide in Rwanda or in the Balkans, a court now exists, Moreno-Ocampo put on the record, that says: 'This is genocide.' He simply could not look away."
The Financial Times Deutschland writes:
"The fact that Sudan does not recognize the ICC is of no importance here: The UN Security Council explicity authorized the international court to investigate the atrocities in Darfur. So it is even more worrying that the UN secretary-general -- of all people -- should stab the ICC in the back."
"By warning about the negative implications on the peacekeeping mission in Darfur, Ban Ki-moon is clearly placing political considerations before international law. It is, of course, nice that the UN chief is concerned about his troops and the civilian population of Darfur. Yet, the 9,000 UN blue helmet peacekeeping troops have so far failed to make any progress, which could be further jeopardized by a tougher handling of al-Bashir. Since the Sudanese government officially agreed to the peacekeeping mission last year, Khartoum has been hindering the work of the UN troops whenever and wherever it could. The murder, forced displacement and rape of the population continue unabated."
-- Mark Waffel, 2:30 p.m. CET
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