generalspeaking

Justice Bows Out

What an inhumanely errant world this is, that a mass murderer because he stands in the guise of a politician, a head of government, a totalitarian ruler, can evade justice.

Even when the world finally takes note, steps in to express its disgust of such a vile travesty and imposes the sanctions that it may through an organized, UN-associated court of world opinion the perpetrator of mass atrocities will have his coterie of like-minded defenders many who have themselves done the same with their nation's populations, and the world stands by helpless and, in the end, indifferent.

In Sudan, an Arab-dominated and -led government headed by President Omar al-Beshir, whose vicious assaults on his own people has left 2.7 million of them homeless, hundreds of thousands dead, and hundreds of thousands of women and girl children raped, forges on. The war against the country's southern-based ethnic minorities has been a horrendous blot on humanity, and has marked Sudan, along with other failed African states, as the very dregs of national human habitation.

Wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, stoutly defended by all members of the Arab League, as a legitimate and honoured leader in their midst, President al-Beshir, his corrupt regime and his continued entitlement to encourage his national army and the Janjaweed militias to continue their depredations on Darfurians living in squalid refugee camps, is set for re-election in the country's Sudanese-style democratic elections.

The major opposition party leaders have each in turn stepped down from opposing Sudan's current president in the election campaign, citing electoral tampering. The country's former prime minister has pulled out of the race. The former rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement withdrew both from the presidential vote and from parliamentary and state elections, characterizing the vote as frauds: "These elections are not about the crises Sudan is facing. Things will be worse after the election."

One can only ask how could they be worse? "Our pledge is that we will not allow the westerners to insult our country - whether it's the International Monetary Fund or the International Criminal Court", boasted President al-Beshir, before a crowd of thousands of supporters in Khartoum. And despite Western governments expressing increasing concern over the election's legitimacy, he boasted of an "exemplary" election.

This is the man who has beset his people with a campaign of aerial bombardments in the villages of the tribal regions, and in the refugee camps harbouring hundreds of thousands of helpless, homeless Darfurians. These are horribly dispossessed masses of humanity barely on the edges of subsistence, unable to return to their homes under prevailing conditions of warfare waged against them.

Even the aid ordinarily proffered to those in such dire conditions by humanitarian groups is denied them. President al-Beshir, in his rage over war crimes charges levelled against him, expelled 13 charitable organizations that had been giving humanitarian aid to the mass assemblage of war victims. But his Islamist regime remains steadfastly intact; not one murmur of concern from surrounding African countries nor from other Islamic countries to question his legitimacy and his deadly hostility to his own people.

Even the Save Darfur Coalition sees no option but to mute their indignant voices of opposition to the ongoing totalitarian regime they have been unable to move the international community to counter. The more international pressure brought to bear on this country's Islamist rulers, the more determined they are to ignore accusations of inhumanity, and to continue their course of response to rebels' demands of autonomy.

The United Nations timidly requested permission of the country's titan of human abuse to permit them to deploy a peacekeeping contingent in the country. African Union peacekeepers' presence proved fruitless in defending Darfurians. Yet the UN peacekeeping units currently in Darfur have themselves sustained accusations of not only sexual improprieties, but a clear incapacity to defend even themselves against attack, let alone the refugees living in those squalid, undefended refugee camps.

And here comes a resurgent, re-elected, gloatingly successful 'winner' of Sudan's 'exemplary' electoral process, to remain in power and continue to ravage its ethnic minorities who had the effrontery to think that they too should benefit from the vast riches being amassed through the country's vast petrochemical reserves.

Labels: Africa, Conflict, Societal Failures, United Nations

posted by Pieface @ Sunday, April 11, 2010