Darfur doublespeak
July 13th 2008 00:57
Sudan's President Omar al-Bashri - to be indicted for war crimes
Photo: Rebecca Blackwell, Associated Press
Spike the bastard
An indictment of Sudan's president for war crimes in Darfur would be "disastrous" for the region and could affect humanitarian organisations working there.
Says who? Says Mahjoub Fadul Badry, who was speaking to the Arabiyah news channel, which described him as a Sudanese government spokesman.
Badry added that the indictment of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, to be sought tomorrow (July 14) by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, would be a violation of the country's sovereignty and would have "consequences".
While International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo has not yet named names, he has clearly indicated that he is aiming for the top leadership of the Sudanese government. Moreno-Ocampo has accused them of sponsoring the janjaweed militias who have unleashed a reign of terror on the country's Darfur region, where an estimated 300,000 people have died since the conflict began in early 2003.
The Badry quotes were picked up by other news services, and an Associated Press version of the story made it to the top of the Google news list when I opened up Google's international news page a little while ago.
This is not news, at least not prominent news, and it is interesting to see that it's a distinction which eludes Google's automated everything. If the item had come across the desk of a newspaper veteran, she would have sent it straight to the rubbish bin, before pausing at the last second and redirecting it to the editorial writer.
Who, if it was a slow news day, might have used it to reinforce the message that the Badry quotes contain the threats, the dishonesty and the self-serving obfuscation which has created the situation we have today.
Threatening to interfere with the work of humanitarian agencies there shows just how low the Sudanese government will go. You touch us, they are effectively saying, and the people of Darfur will pay! Then again, blustering and stone-hearted posturing is about all they have left.
Newspapers have gone electronic and the copy editors no longer have a spike at hand for the discarded stories. Pity. It's what President Omar al-Bashir firmly deserves.
Sources: AP, Arabiyah
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