The Current Question: The UN is pulling non-critical staff from Darfur after the indictment of Sudan's president increased tensions there. Isn't this like what happened in Rwanda in 1994 just before the genocide began--protecting UN lives at the cost of African ones?
The UN move to pull noncritical staff out of Sudan's Darfur region is a wise precaution under the circumstances. The prosecutor's decision to ask for an indictment against Sudan's President Bashir reflects the difficult trade-off between taking action against mass murder and genocide -- as the ICC sees it -- and preserving the uneasy security situation and ongoing peace efforts there. On balance, the decision to prosecute is correct if the evidence is strong, which it seems to be in most cases.
An important allied issue from the Arab world's perspective is whether other people who commit crimes of equal or similar magnitude in the Middle East will also be held accountable in some legitimate way. This includes other Arab regimes, the Iranian and Israeli governments, and those who have triggered the death and destruction in Iraq, including the U.S. and UK governments. Their actions have resulted in far more death and refugee flows than events in Sudan. Will they get away with it? Prosecuting the Sudanese for their actions, via a fair trial, should be the first step towards holding accountable all those leaders who have willingly unleashed death and destruction in their societies. We should work for an end to impunity, for sure, but also for an end to racism and colonialism...
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