"Can't touch this!"

Forgive me for the title- pun, this humanitarian crisis is no laughing matter, but i could not help myself.

In my title, i was refering to the Sudanese president's (Omar al-Bashir) denouncement of the warrent for his arrest issued by the International Criminal Court on March 4th of this year. This was the first time that the 7-year old court has sought to arrest a sitting head of state. Mr. Bashir has been indicted on SEVEN counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity(but not for genocide).

According to the New York Times, since 2003, up to 300,000 people have been killed and 2.7 million have been driven from their homes.

To the great applause of supporters(mostly Arab tribesmen), Bashir claimed that "No ICC or Security Council or any other party will change our path or touch an eyelash in our eye...The president of Sudan is not elected by Britain or America. Sudan is an independent country." He has claimed that the West seeks to create chaos in Sudan similar to Iraq, where he said U.S. forces "killed women and children, looted the country, and planted sedition...Those criminals want to do the same in Sudan."

Dauntingly enough, many Arab and African countries have lobbied in support of Bashir. The Arab League rejected the international arrest warrent, clearing the way for Bashir to attend an Arab Summit in Qatar later this month. It is important to note that only three Arab League states recognize the ICC-Jordan, Dijibouti, and Comoros (no statements have been made by any of them on the issue).

Ahead of the ICC warrant, the African Union, in January of this year, announced its own high-level panel that would investigate Darfur atrocities though the panel has no judicial powers and its mandate remains unclear.

Many African and Arab governments have come out and said that the ICC's move was counter-productive and hypocritical in that it failed to tackle alleged war crimes by Israel against Arabs, or by the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan. *I must admit that i do see quite a bit of validity in the argument against the hypocricy of this. I would propose that if the ICC really wants to claim legitimacy, the Netherlands-based court should expand some of these warrants.