An Instrument of Western Power
KHARTOUM/THE HAGUE/BERLIN (Own report) - Western efforts against Khartoum have reached new heights with the arrest warrant issued for the Sudanese president. The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) seeks to have Omar al Bashir arrested and brought to trial in The Hague on charges of genocide. These measures correspond to Berlin and Washington's years of efforts to weaken the government in Khartoum, while exacerbating tensions in the West Sudanese civil war region and threatening to set off a new round of armed conflict. This arrest warrant is being met with loud protests from the UN General Secretary, the African Union, the Arab League and Beijing. Whereas experts raise strong accusations against both the government in Khartoum and the rebels in Darfur, the ICC, with its unilateral arrest warrant, is contributing to the implementation of the interests of the Western industrial nations. They are out to take the control over the Southern and Western Sudanese regions, rich in raw materials, out of the hands of the government in Khartoum and roll back Arab influence in Africa. Critics have been warning for years that the ICC would prove to be an instrument in the hands of Western power policy.
Warnings
The ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo's issuing an arrest warrant for the Sudanese President Omar al Bashir is meeting sharp protest. An indictment against al Bashir would have "very serious negative consequences" on the UN mission in Darfur, warned the UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon. Because of the growing tension in the region, he has already ordered several units to be withdrawn from Darfur.[1] "If Bashir would be indicted and taken prisoner, there would be a power vacuum in Sudan," explained Tanzania's Foreign Minister Bernard Membe. Tanzania has the current chairmanship of the African Union.[2] The Arab League predicts also that the combat in Western Sudan could dramatically escalate, should the ICC issue an arrest warrant. Beijing subscribes to this assessment. The ICC should in no way contribute to the Darfur Conflict getting totally out of control, says a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson.[3]
Partisanship
In fact Moreno-Ocampos' arrest warrant is in line with Western policy that has been attempting to weaken Khartoum. Ever since 2003, when rebel militia attacked positions of the Sudanese police forces in Darfur, massacring 700 policemen, Washington and Berlin have clearly chosen sides - against the central government in Khartoum,[4] which they hold responsible for the bloody escalation and accuse of committing genocide. The USA and Germany took sides against Khartoum already during the war of secession in Southern Sudan - a partisanship that has been maintained. This becomes clear with German participation in the UN troop deployment in Southern Sudan. These troops have the mission of accompanying the implementation of the 2005 peace agreements, until the referendum on secession is held in 2011. Khartoum is being boycotted, while financial means, to enhance the possibility of state-building, are flowing into Southern Sudanese Juba from Berlin's Ministry of "Development".[5] Even the CDU-affiliated Konrad Adenauer Foundation is now active in Southern Sudan - in support of the SPLM secessionist organization.[6]
Booty Raids
The West's unilateral blame for the Darfur conflict, which has led to the Moreno-Ocampos arrest warrant for Omar al Bashir, is being criticized by German government advisors and even in publications of the German military (Bundeswehr). The German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) reminds that the last Darfur peace negotiations failed not because of Khartoum but because of the Rebels. Many of the nearly 20 militias "support themselves from booty acquired through raids and therefore show no interest in resolving the conflict."[7] With the extension of the conflict since 2007, one of the largest of the Militias, the Islamic JEM ("Justice and Equality Movement") "has clearly shown that it intends to resolve the conflict by military means," according to SWP estimates. They have replaced "their regional Darfur agenda with a national one of overthrowing the government."
In Power
Skepticism concerning the rebel militias' approach was also expressed in a publication of the Bundeswehr's Military History Research Institute,[8] where one reads "militarily" the Darfur rebels "never really had a chance" - in any case before 2003, when Khartoum's army was still tied down in the conflict in the South. "Besides," writes the publication, "it was predictable that the government would mercilessly retaliate. This they have proven throughout the decades of war with the Southern Sudanese rebels." The author, who, himself, had done extensive research in Darfur, writes "the suspicion" comes to the fore, that the rebels merely want to provoke Khartoum, to conjure up grounds for an international intervention. This could put "them in power" - also if necessary "after a government inflicted blood bath."
Roll Back
In any case, with their refusal of a peace agreement, the Darfur rebels are offering to further help weaken Khartoum's position, an opportunity Berlin and Washington are in fact taking advantage of. The objective is to take control over the mineral-rich areas of Southern and Western Sudan out of the hands of the Arab government in Khartoum, and thereby roll back Arab influence in Africa. Back in 1997, the US Foreign Minister Madeleine Albright called on the leader at the time of the black African, non-Arab, Southern Sudanese secessionist militia, SPLA, to take power in Khartoum.[9] When it became clear that he was in no position to do so, the West set their sights on autonomy and secession of Southern Sudan.
Capacity to Prevail
With the current arrest warrant for the Sudanese president, the ICC in the Hague is intervening in this development - and becomes a partisan to the West. Already in 2007 the ICC issued arrest warrants for a former member of the Khartoum government and an Arab militia commander. Now, for the first time ever, it has issued a warrant for the incumbent president of a nation. This act, in itself, takes on a paradigmatic significance. For years, critics have been warning that with the ICC "the major powers of the world" would have "a significant legal weapon at their disposal" that could "in the name of human rights" be used against weaker nations. This will possibly "destroy the entire system of international relations set up in the aftermath of the Second World War."[10] As a matter of fact, the ICC, established with Berlin's most active participation, is but one in a series of projects seeking to make Western interventions possible throughout the world, for example the "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) concept.[11] All of them serve to open up new global options of intervention. Because they have to be imposed by force, they cannot be to the benefit of all, only to those with the capacity to prevail: those states with significant military power.
Please read also: Nucleus of a Germ, Deutsche Geschäfte, Soldering Technique, Sudan: The Anti-Khartoum Front, Sudan: The Left Disguise, Smash and Rebuild and Transatlantic Front.
[1] UN-Generalsekretär gegen Verfolgung des sudanesischen Präsidenten; zeit.de 14.07.2008
[2] Afrikanische Union warnt vor Machtvakuum im Sudan; Deutsche Welle 15.07.2008
[3] China kritisiert Internationalen Strafgerichtshof; Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 15.07.2008
[4] see also Sudan: The Anti-Khartoum Front, Mit Rebellen gegen Khartum and Smash and Rebuild
[5] see also Die Bahn zur Unabhängigkeit, Heißer Frieden and New Sudan
[6] Verbindungsbüro Südsudan; www.kas.de/proj/home/home/84/1/
[7] Annette Weber: Die "Schlacht um Omdurman" und ihre Folgen für den Frieden im Sudan; SWP-Aktuell 50, Juni 2008
[8] Thilo Thielke: Krieg in Darfur, in: Wegweiser zur Geschichte. Sudan. Im Auftrag des Militärgeschichtlichen Forschungsamtes herausgegeben von Bernhard Chiari, Paderborn/München/Wien/Zürich 2008
[9] see also Sudan: Die Anti-Khartum-Front
[10] John Laughland: Kein Rechtsschutz ohne staatliche Souveränität; Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 08.05.2002. See also "Auf brutale Weise die Herrschaft des Rechtes aus der Weltpolitik entfernen"
[11] see also The Right of Might and Kein Kurswechsel
