WHEN THE chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court presented evidence yesterday in support of an arrest warrant for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan, he touched off a clash between two principles. The bedrock of the ICC is the pursuit of justice for genocide and crimes against humanity. That differs from the mission of the peacekeeper, the humanitarian aid worker, and the peace negotiator, who must often overlook past crimes in order to end wars and save lives in the future.
Responsibility for the murder, rape, and dispossession of black African villagers in the Darfur region of Sudan originates with Bashir. What makes the moral balance between justice and conflict resolution difficult is the near certainty that Bashir, far from turning himself over to the court in The Hague, is more likely to retaliate by increasing the suffering of more than 2 million uprooted Darfurians.
Seven members of an undermanned United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force were killed and 22 wounded last week. The regime claims the attackers were rebels, but the UN believes them to be members of the Janjaweed, an Arab militia backed by Bashir. If a three-judge ICC panel decides this fall that the evidence assembled by chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo of Argentina justifies a warrant for Bashir’s arrest, the Sudanese ruler could declare open season on the peacekeepers. International aid workers in Darfur will probably be in greater jeopardy than ever. Last month, before a gathering of militiamen loyal to his regime, Bashir had already threatened to call for a jihad against “the foreigners.”
The most nettlesome questions about an ICC indictment of Bashir come from diplomats and area specialists who say the only way to protect the millions of people still at risk in Darfur is to make peace between the regime and the disparate rebel groups. They warn that if Bashir is indicted for genocide and crimes against humanity, his government cannot be party to desperately needed peace talks.
This argument against the court’s work would have more weight if Bashir had ever shown the slightest inclination to make the concessions required for a resolution of the Darfur conflict. But he hasn’t. So despite the risk that indicting Bashir for his crimes may induce new dangers for Darfur, holding him accountable is the right thing to do. It might persuade African and Arab leaders to pressure him to call off his forces in Darfur, and it could conceivably deter future criminals in power from murdering hundreds of thousands of their own people.
