Human Rights Groups Warn of Horrifying Slaughter of Civilians In Syria

While the videos could not be independently verified because Bashar al-Assad's iron-fisted grip on media and propaganda, human rights groups inside the country are claiming that Assad's loyalists murdered dozens of people, including women and children in the city of Homs.

The Observatory and the Local Coordination Committees, an umbrella group of activists, both said the death toll in Homs was at least 35, but the reports could not be confirmed. The groups cited a network of activists on the ground in Syria.
The Observatory said 29 people were killed in the religiously mixed Karm el-Zaytoun neighborhood of Homs on Thursday, including eight children, most of them when a building came under heavy mortar and machine gunfire.

Residents spoke of another massacre that took place when shabiha — armed regime loyalists — stormed the district, slaughtering residents in an apartment, including children.

"It's racial cleansing," said one resident of Karm el-Zaytoun, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. "They are killing people because of their sect," he said.

The casualties apparently occurred when a building came under heavy mortar and machine gun fire.

That comes just days after the head of the Muslim Red Crescent was killed (that's the Muslim humanitarian group equivalent to the Red Cross).

Meanwhile, there are indications that Hamas leader Khalid Meshaal has left Syria and is staying elsewhere as the terror group assesses the situation and is considering leaving the country for safer locales (Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar being the alternatives):

Analysts say Meshaal was also embarrassed by Assad's violent crackdown, with more than 5,000 people reported killed. Many victims of the security forces have been Sunni Muslims allied to the Muslim Brotherhood, whose support Meshaal relies on.

Assad is backed mainly by his minority Alawite sect and other minorities.

The sources said Meshaal would not publicly shut down the political headquarters of Hamas in Syria, where it has long been hosted by Assad and by his father before him.

"In the past month he may have only stayed five days in Syria and the rest he spent in Qatar, Turkey and Egypt," said the diplomat. "But he did not close the headquarters in Syria in full and there are some Hamas officials still there."

"Our belief is that Hamas will not announce a departure from Syria even if it happened," the diplomat added.

Elsewhere in Syria, the Free Syrian Army (the opposition militia) is claiming that they've captured a group of Iranian soldiers that have been operating at the behest of Assad. That conflicts with the Iranian account, which claims that these individuals are engineers who were kidnapped by unknown assailants. Separately, several other groups of Iranians have been taken by unknown groups inside Syria - some purportedly making their way through the country on pilgrimages.

Relishing Trips To Dictatorships, Sen. Kerry To Visit Darfur

To what end is Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) planning on visiting Darfur, Sudan?

US Democratic Senator John Kerry, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, will visit Darfur next week, a US official said on Monday, amid signs of thawing US-Sudan relations.

"John Kerry will arrive in the middle of next week, he will visit Darfur and meet with officials in the country. His visit will last a few days," the official said, requesting anonymity.

US President Barack Obama's new Sudan envoy Scott Gration is currently in Sudan, where he appealed for stronger relations with Khartoum and met several Sudanese officials.

Gration was in south Sudan on Monday and might meet President Omar al-Beshir in Khartoum before returning to the United States at the end of the week.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Beshir last month for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the six-year conflict in Darfur.

Beshir's regime has since expelled many international aid organisations working in Darfur, where Gration has said the humanitarian crisis is "on the brink of deepening."

It's being billed as a fact-finding mission, but we already know the facts. There's no way that the US is going to take action against Sudan to stop the genocide and ethnic cleansing in Darfur, and the Sudanese government in Khartoum is well on the way to finishing the job.

What makes little sense is the claim that the US-Sudanese relations are thawing, or that there is any reason to believe that they should thaw. Sudanese President Bashir has been indicted on war crimes and genocide charges, and this is a regime that the Obama Administration wants closer ties with? In what bizarro world is this Administration living in? This isn't a regime to have closer ties with. It's one to be even more wary of given that al Qaeda has been active in Sudan and the Darfur genocide shows just how far the regime is willing to go to carry out its destructive policies.

Kerry has been quite busy visiting despots and dictators, having just been to Syria to take the pulse of the Syrian dictator Assad, whose regime has been supporting Hizbullah and Hamas in its war against Israel and has been repeatedly engaging in destabilizing activities in Lebanon. Kerry is the Administration's frontman in dealing with these odious regimes, and he seems to relish the opportunity.

Sudan Wants All Aid Groups Out Of Country By End of Year

The Sudanese government in Khartoum cares less about its citizens and the untold misery and mayhem they endure than the aid groups that work tirelessly to improve their condition under the worst of circumstances.

The government now demands that all aid groups cease their work by the end of the year and leave the country. The government, including President Bashir, claim that the aid groups have been talking with the International Criminal Court and assisting in the preparation of war crimes and ethnic cleansing charges against the thug in Khartoum.

President Omar Hassan al-Bashir expelled 13 international aid groups this month, accusing them of helping the International Criminal Court, which issued an arrest warrant against him, accusing him of orchestrating atrocities in Darfur. Aid groups deny working with the court.

In an emotional speech to thousands of soldiers and police, Bashir said he had ordered Sudanese aid groups to take over the distribution of all relief inside the country — a move that could freeze the work of more than 70 foreign organizations still operating in Darfur and other strife-torn areas.

He warned aid groups to respect Sudan's sovereignty or "pay the price." He didn't elaborate.

If carried out, the order will also create a dilemma for international donors, including the governments of the United States and Britain, over whether they will be able to continue to pour millions into projects across the underdeveloped country without full control over how their aid is distributed.

Respect Sudan's sovereignty - but ignore Sudan's incessant war crimes and human rights abuses. Sadly, Sudan is right about the sovereignty issue and the fact that the world regularly turns a blind eye to war crimes and genocide and human rights abuses except when such charges are lobbed against either the US or Israel. Since Sudan isn't Israel or the US, they're expecting that this will all boil over without any lasting effect.

The only people who will truly pay the price for Sudan's criminality are its citizens, especially those who are left in Darfur.

Arrest Warrant Issued For Sudan's Thuggish President

This should have happened years ago, but it is a step in the right direction. Sudan's regime in Khartoum has been a willing and capable participant and enabler of the Darfur genocide and ethnic cleansing. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has repeatedly thwarted international efforts to assist the millions of Darfur refugees, whether it was the United Nations or the African Union. An arrest warrant was issued for Bashir.

The Netherlands-based International Criminal Court on Wednesday announced an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Darfur region — a move that could provoke a violent backlash.

But the three-judge panel said there was insufficient evidence to support charges of genocide.

"He is suspected of being criminally responsible ... for intentionally directing attacks against an important part of the civilian population of Darfur, Sudan, murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing and forcibly transferring large numbers of civilians, and pillaging their property," court spokeswoman Laurence Blairon said.
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Many observers are nervous about the fallout over the ICC's first warrant against a sitting head of state since it started work in 2002.

ICC prosecutors accuse al-Bashir of ordering war crimes in Sudan's western region of Darfur, where the Arab-led government is trying to put down a rebellion by the ethnic African population. At least 300,000 people have been killed and 2.7 million driven from their homes in fighting since 2003.

The arrest warrant was issued by the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands but it falls short of indicting him on charges of genocide. I don't see much coming from it and the Sudanese thug will simply shrug this off, just as he has watched hundreds of thousands murdered and millions displaced by the janjaweed and his own militias throughout Western Sudan. Sudan doesn't recognize the court's jurisdiction.

Actually, Bashir did more than just shrug it off. He said that the ICC could eat it.

Campaigning for his National Congress Party (NCP) outside Khartoum on Tuesday, President Bashir discounted the importance of the ICC's looming decision, saying that the Court could "eat" the indictment. Vice President Salva Kiir, a former southern rebel leader who now shares power with Bashir in a coalition government, struck a more conciliatory line.

"In the event of the court agreeing with the chief prosecutor," Mr. Kiir said on Tuesday, "the [Sudan People's Liberation Movement] will work with its partners in the NCP on how to politically and diplomatically handle the decision of the court." He urged the international community to remain engaged in Sudan, whatever the decision, warning, "The collapse of peace in Sudan shall not only hurt the Sudan itself, but shall also have serious repercussions in the region."

In Khartoum, some foreign embassies beefed up security for fear that Sudanese thugs might engage in some kind of demonstration or violence against governments that back the ICC efforts to bring the murderous thugs in Sudan to justice.

Sudan has done little to provide stability in the region, and the Darfur genocide and ethnic cleansing has meant that there are more than 2 million refugees scattered in the region and neighboring countries that are ill equipped to deal with the situation.

Of course, there are others who think that the ICC indictment will actually lead to greater woes for Darfur and Sudan. They're worried that it might lead to a renewal of the civil war that resulted in more than 2 million dead.

UPDATE:
Sudan expels an aid group that was helping Darfur refugees. Classy.

UN Failing Africa Again: Congo Violence Displaces 600,000+

This time, it's the situation in the Congo that deserves closer attention. The United Nations 17,000 member peacekeeping force in Congo, the largest such contingent in the world, is on the run after rebel groups have gone on the offensive against the regime there. 600,000 are displaced and the numbers continue to grow literally by the hour.

The misery in the Congo has its genesis in the 1994 genocide and ethnic cleansing in neighboring Rwanda, and we're now watching the same ethnic groups, the Hutus and Tutsis about to rip Congo apart. Millions of Hutus were forced to flee Rwanda following the 1994 genocide and settled in Congo, including many of those responsible for the genocide. They set up camps from which to carry out operations against the Tutsis in Rwanda. Now, they're on the march:

Rebels vowing to take Congo's eastern provincial capital of 600,000 people advanced toward Goma on Tuesday as Congolese troops and U.N. tanks retreated, while tens of thousands fled to a makeshift shelter.

The sudden influx tripled the size of the camp in Kibati in a matter of hours, said Ron Redmond, a spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency. A hundred refugees a day, mostly women and children, were also fleeing across the border into Uganda, that country's Red Cross said.

In Kibati, a few miles from the front line, young men also lobbed rocks Tuesday at three U.N. tanks with Uruguayan troops heading away from the battlefield.

There are no simple answers to dealing with the situation there, but the UN's presence does little to deter the combatants from going after people who are taking refuge at UN refugee camps.

The Congolese military and the UN have retreated in the face of this rebel army, leaving civilians in the path of the advancing army wondering about what will happen next.

Aid groups and UN officials warn of a human rights catastrophe. Considering that the UN is doing nothing but withdrawing from the field of battle, the African Union isn't likely to send in forces anytime soon, and the Congolese military is also retreating, I'd say that there's little anyone can do to stop the advancing rebel army from taking Goma.

No one at the UN seems prepared to actually force peace on this rebel army; making a sustained fight to the rebel army, rather than withdrawing to avoid a fight. This only enables and emboldens this group to take further territory and advance towards its goals. The use of helicopter gunships is a start, but those UN tanks and armored units need to stop retreating and begin holding their ground.

There's also suggestions that the rebel army is operating in cahoots with the Rwandan government, which expands the level of this crisis.

UPDATE:
It's also important to keep in mind that the failure to act to prevent the 1994 genocide is leading to further bloodshed and displacement of hundreds of thousands of people. It should once again be a clarion call for action to stop bad actors before they are able to carry out their plans, and shows that the UN cannot handle such situations with peacekeepers who are constrained by their rules of engagement from actually enforcing peace by going after those who wish to break it.

New Riots Erupt As Second Kenyan Legislator Murdered

Crime of passion or an assassination. The version differs depending on whether you're a member of the opposition or not. The outcome, however, will not change - more rioting and death and despair.

The lawmaker, David Kimutai Too, a teacher turned politician from the volatile Rift Valley, was gunned down by a policeman in Eldoret. Kenyan government officials were quick to say the killing was a “crime of passion” connected to a love triangle. Opposition leaders called it an assassination.

“How can police call this an ordinary murder before any investigations?” said William Ruto, an opposition leader. “There is nothing ordinary about having two members of Parliament killed like this.”

Political negotiations being brokered by Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary general, were halted on Thursday because of the shooting, and the current secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said he would travel to Nairobi on Friday to address the crisis

Mr. Too was the second member of the Orange Democratic Movement, Kenya’s main opposition party, to be killed in the past two days, and it seems that the bloodletting that began after deeply flawed elections in December and has claimed more than 800 lives is pushing Kenya ever closer to the brink of disaster.

A shock wave of outrage and panic shot across the country as the news of his death spread. In Kisumu, an opposition stronghold in the far west of the country, mobs of young men tore through the streets, burning tires, throwing rocks and blockading roads. Some carried gasoline bombs and vowed to burn down the police station.

Rwanda Revisited

History doesn't repeat itself. It stutters.

It's an often used quip to remind people that there are patterns in history. One such pattern is a history of genocide and ethnic cleansing that gets overlooked by the international media and the UN that refuses to take action other than passing weakly worded resolutions that do nothing to stop the carnage.

The latest human rights catastrophe is in Kenya, where disputed elections in December have led to ethnic cleansing, more than a quarter million people displaced and more than 1,000 dead. The prospects for even more carnage is on the horizon as the government is now engaging in strafing the opposition with helicopters.

Army helicopters strafed crowds with machine-gun fire and police struggled to separate rival gangs yesterday as Kenya endured yet more violence. About 100 people have been killed since Saturday, bringing the number of deaths in the wave of tribal bloodshed since last month's disputed election toward 900.

With vital roads blocked and tourists staying away, Kenya's economy is suffering. Chaos in East Africa's richest and best-developed country threatens the entire region. Near the tourist town of Naivasha, about 600 terrified people cowered inside a small police outpost. They were from the Luo tribe, as is the opposition leader, Raila Odinga. Outside were about 600 men armed with machetes from the Kikuyu tribe of President Kibaki.

At first, Kikuyus were the main victims of the violence as Luos and other smaller tribes, notably the Kalenjin, sought revenge for Mr. Kibaki's victory in what they believe was a rigged election. Now Kikuyus are striking back.

Many of the Luo refugees had been driven from their homes during the weekend. Now, with only one armed policeman to protect them, they faced murder at the hands of the Kikuyu mob.

Unable to offer protection, police summoned three army helicopters. These swept low over the Kikuyu crowd, firing bursts from their machine guns. This spread panic, forcing the crowd to disperse. The pilots seem to have been firing not to kill but to intimidate and scatter the mob. They do not appear to have inflicted any casualties.

Ralph Peters notes that the West's failures to address the mess in Kenya is due to a three-fold problem:

The horrific violence in Kenya has its roots in three things: the corruption we overlook, the forms of democracy we demand - and, above all, the tribes that left-wing academics insist are only wicked European inventions.

Our tolerance for corruption (our ambassador initially hailed Kibaki's "victory") may be the most pernicious remaining form of racism - our all-too-ready acceptance that developing countries just can't rise above it. And corruption is a cancer that infects every organ of a society.

At least we grasp, on some level, that corruption is wrong. It's the other two factors - ill-fitting forms of democracy and the persistence of tribes - that steer our good intentions into the express lane to Hell.

Kenya was long one of the continent's few stable states - yet people there kept on voting along tribal lines. As they do in Iraq. And Afghanistan. And Pakistan, Indonesia, Nigeria . . . just throw a dart at the map. Impose Western forms of democracy, and majority or plurality tribes win - then view their victories as license to loot. It doesn't even occur to them to share.

Tribalism is quite strong in most parts of the world, and ignoring that fact is troubling. Diplomats do this all the time, which is why the US middling response to the disputed elections isn't so much a conclusion of itself, but a symptom of an ongoing problem within the State Department - an unending series of failures to recognize the facts on the ground for what they are and not to carry out foreign policy based on those very facts.

Premeditated Bloodletting In Kenya

The violence in Kenya following the disputed elections of December 27 was not something spontaneous, but appears to have been premeditated. More than 650 people have been killed thus far, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced.

How else can you explain the appearance of flyers calling for violence right as the elections got underway or various politicians stoking ethnic rivalries?

Leaflets calling for ethnic killings mysteriously appeared before the voting. Politicians with both the government and opposition parties gave speeches that stoked long-standing hatred among ethnic groups. And local tribal chiefs held meetings to plot attacks on rivals, according to some of them and their followers.

As soon as the election results were announced, handing a suspiciously thin margin of victory to Kenya’s president, Mwai Kibaki — whose policies of favoring his own ethnic group have marginalized about half the country — all the elements lined up for the violence to explode.

Thousands of young men swept the countryside, burning homes and attacking members of rival ethnic groups. The killings go on. On Friday, six fresh corpses arrived at a morgue in the town of Narok, northwest of Nairobi, some with deep spear wounds. On a strip of white medical tape affixed to the victims’ foreheads was written their names, dates of death and the cause: “post-election violence.”

“It wasn’t like people just woke up and started fighting each other,” said Dan Juma, the acting deputy director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission. “It was organized.”

What is not clear is if there was a systematic plan to launch a nationwide ethnic war, and whether high-level political leaders played a role beyond possibly inciting violence through hate speech.

Before the election, it was easy to forget that even Kenya, with its reputation as an African success story and land of tolerance, was split along ethnic lines that are ripe for political manipulation. The grievances, typically about land, economic opportunity and political power, are real and often justified, though usually held in check.

New Violence Flares In Kenya After Opposition Protests

Opposition protests resumed in Kenya on Wednesday, and as many people here feared, violence erupted across the country once again.

The worst clashes were in Kisumu, Kenya’s third largest city and an opposition stronghold, where mobs of furious young men hurled stones at police officers, who responded by charging into the crowds and firing their guns.

One of Kenya’s television stations broadcast images of a police officer in Kisumu shooting an unarmed protester who was dancing in the street and making faces at security agents. After the protester fell to the ground, the officer ran up to him and kicked him several times. Witnesses said the protester later died.

“There’s been war since the morning,” said Eric Otieno, a mechanic in Kisumu. “The police are whipping women, children, everyone. We were just trying to demonstrate peacefully.”

Eric Kiraithe, a spokesman for the Kenyan police, said the only people wounded by police officers were hooligans destroying property and robbing people.

“What we are seeing are teams of young men trying to commit crimes,” Mr. Kiraithe said. “You cannot call this a demonstration.”

Opposition leaders have vowed to carry on protests for two more days, and it seems that Kenya’s security forces, which have deemed all protests illegal, are cracking down harshly. On Wednesday afternoon, police officers in padded suits sealed off downtown Nairobi, the capital, and ordered everyone out, sending wave after wave of bewildered office workers trudging down the roads leading to the suburbs.

Fourteen of Kenya’s leading donors, including the United States, issued a statement this week warning the Kenyan government that they were reviewing foreign aid in light of the crisis. The United States gives the country more than $600 million in aid each year.

More than 200,000 have been displaced so far, and the situation is not going to improve anytime soon. The opposition refuses to accept the election results, which declared incumbent President Kabaki the winner. US officials attempted to conduct a count, but found the process hopelessly flawed. They couldn't figure out who won because of widespread fraud and accounting irregularities.

Another Day at the Office

Yet again, we find that Darfur is still the locus of violence and genocide, and yet no one at the UN seems to think it serious enough to warrant calling it genocide or that the Sudanese government was once again responsible for the carnage:

According to several residents of Muhagiriya, a small town in southern Darfur, two columns of uniformed government troops, along with dozens of militiamen not in uniform, surrounded the town around noon on Oct. 8 and stormed the market. Muhagiriya was a stronghold of one of Darfur’s many rebel factions, but witnesses said there were few rebels there at the time and that government forces turned their guns — and knives — on civilians.

Ayoub Jalal, a mechanic, said his father was praying at a mosque when soldiers burst in. “They dragged my father and the others out of the mosque and slashed their throats,” said Mr. Jalal, who was interviewed by telephone.

Both the United Nations and the African Union confirmed that dozens of civilians had been killed and that witnesses consistently identified the attackers as government soldiers and allied gunmen. However, neither entity said it could independently verify who was responsible.

The Sudanese government denied any involvement, but witnesses said uniformed troops methodically mowed down anyone who tried to escape, including a group of fleeing children.

“The youngest child, a 5-year-old boy, I knew well,” said Sultan Marko Niaw, a tribal elder, who also spoke by phone. He said the boy’s name was Guran Avium: “A soldier had shot him in the back.”

Locals are loath to trust the UN because they see it siding with the Sudanese government and its passive/inactive approach just gets more Darfurians killed. The UN thinks that even that approach is far too much, and stonewalled until Darfur was pretty much ethnically cleansed of all opposition.

Those that are left are still under threat of continuing violence, and the UN will take its time in determining who was responsible even as all fingers point towards the Sudanese government.

All the witnesses seem to corroborate each other and the report that the Sudanese militias were involved in the slaughter.

I guess we'll get a shrug and a nod.

Had this been in Iraq and US forces alleged to have been involved, this would be splashed all over the front pages of all papers and media outlets, investigations would be demanded, and heads would roll. The media would have gone out of its way to portray this as a savage slaughter by US forces against hapless and defenseless civilians.

Here? Not so much. After all, it's only Darfurians, and the US can't be directly blamed for the ongoing bloodshed. The UN stands in the way of greater action, especially because Sudan and its foreign backers prevent more strenuous actions against those responsible for the genocide (which the UN continues to refuse to call as such) and ethnic cleansing.

Swinging From the End of a Rope

Ali Hassan al-Majid, more familiarly known as Chemical Ali, has been sentenced to be hanged for his role in using chemical weapons, genocide and committing war crimes during the Anfal campaign against the Kurds. More than 180,000 were killed during the campaign.

Al-Majid, who had headed the then-ruling Baath Party's Northern Bureau Command in the 1980s, stood silently for Sunday's verdict and said, ''Thanks be to God,'' as he was led from court.

Two others sentenced to hang for anti-Kurdish atrocities were former defense minister Sultan Hashim Ahmad al-Tai and Hussein Rashid Mohammed, a former deputy director of operations for the Iraqi armed forces.

Interrupting the judge as the verdict was read, Mohammed said the defendants were defending Iraq against Kurdish rebels. ''God bless our martyrs. Long live the brave Iraqi army. Long live Iraq. Long live the Baath party and long live Arab nations,'' he declared.

Two other former regime officials -- Sabir al-Douri, former director of military intelligence, and Farhan Mutlaq Saleh, who was head of military intelligence's eastern regional office -- were sentenced to life in prison. All charges were dropped against Taher Tawfiq al-Ani, a former governor of Mosul, because of insufficient evidence.

In the northern Kurdish city of Halabja, where an estimated 5,000 died in a chemical attack in 1988, people gathered Sunday in a small rally at the cemetery.

''We thank God that we have lived to see our enemies being punished for all of the atrocities they have committed against our people,'' said Lukman Abdul-Qader, head of the Halabja Chemical Attack Victims' Society.

These thugs have gotten what they deserved.

UPDATE:
Gateway Pundit displays some of Chemical Ali's gruesome handiwork - the victims of the chemical attacks, including mothers clutching their babies as they fell trying to outrun the gassings.

Others noting the judgment rendered on Chemical Ali: Sweetness and Light, Doctor Bulldog, Right Wing Champ, GOP Bloggers, The Jawa Report, and Aubrey J.

Rally for Action on Darfur

Protests have taken place around the world to demand intervention to end the fighting in Sudan's Darfur region.

Organisers of the Global Day for Darfur said events were taking place in 35 capitals to mark the fourth anniversary of the conflict.

Protests included a rally in Downing Street in London, as well as a march on Rome's Coliseum and a demonstration in the German capital Berlin.

Some 200,000 people have died since the conflict began, according to the UN.

Celebrities backing the campaign, such as George Clooney and Mick Jagger, have signed a statement accusing the international community of apathy.

It's not apathy. It's willful and calculated scheming by China and others to block any action that would bring UN peacekeepers to the region because of China's insatiable need for energy. Sudan refuses to permit peacekeepers to operate throughout the affected region and has had a hand in the genocide by backing the janjaweed in their ethnic cleansing of the region.

And there's yet another difficult question to ask - what should the US do about Darfur? Should the US intervene? And if you say yes, then what about the ethnic cleansing in Iraq that resulted in hundreds of thousands killed at the hands of Saddam Hussein and his thugs? Such is the difficult slippery slope of selectively demanding action by the US to deal with massive and overwhelming human rights abuses.

Frankly, I have no problem with the US intervening in Darfur because that region, like Iraq and many other places around the world simply become an incubator for terrorists and thugs to run rampant and cause mayhem and violence. Trying to impose some kind of governance is preferable to the alternative - anarchy fueling terrorism and those who would be open to terrorism because they lack any alternatives.

Named

The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor said today that he is presenting evidence accusing two senior figures in Sudan of crimes against humanity and war crimes linked to the conflict between the Sudanese government and rebel fighters in Darfur.

The prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said he had reasonable grounds to believe that Ahmad Muhammad Harun, a former Sudanese interior minister, and Ali Kushayb, a leader of the pro-government janjaweed militia, bear criminal responsibility in relation to 51 separate crimes. The evidence shows they acted together, and with others, with the common purpose of carrying out attacks against the civilian population of Darfur, Mr. Moreno-Ocampo said.

The court’s judges now have the task of assessing whether there are indeed reasonable grounds for the accusations, and if there are, to decide how to proceed, the statement said.

You can almost hear the complaints welling up in Khartoum about how this is all some conspiracy by the West and the US to gain control over Sudan. Never mind the hundreds of thousands of dead bodies strewn all over the Darfur region by your thugs and those condoned by the Sudanese government to commit these atrocities. For the Sudanese government, the real enemy is the West.

The Sudanese government has long claimed that it had nothing to do with the Darfur genocide, and yet links with the government kept popping up. This latest story continues to show the complicity of the Sudanese government in the situation in Darfur.

Some things don't change.

Sudanese President Claims US Exaggerating Darfur Violence

Sudan's president told attendees of the Nation of Islam's national conference via satellite Friday that the United States is exaggerating troubles in his country's volatile Darfur region so it can control the country as it has in Iraq.

President Omar al-Bashir was invited to speak at the three-day convention by representatives of longtime Nation leader Louis Farrakhan. Al-Bashir said he was using the address, which also was said to be broadcast live on Sudanese television, to call on the mass media and American public to learn the truth about his country.

"A number of governments, including the U.S., are putting pressure (on Sudan)," he said. "They're imposing solutions that don't respect the dignity of our nation."

More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million been chased from their homes in Darfur since 2003, when rebels from ethnic African tribes rose up against the central Arab-led government.

Al-Bashir denied reports of ethnic cleansing among tribes and said Darfur is "quite calm." He said its problems are limited to a small section in the region's north.

Things may be calm now because there is no one left living in those areas. The indigenous population has been forced to flee - many into neighboring countries. The janjaweed, with the blessing of the Sudanese government in Khartoum has slaughtered hundreds of thousands.

But don't take the word of the US or Europeans. The human rights groups also have found this situation intolerable as does the UN. The problem is that no one wants to take decisive action to put the situation to an end. Khartoum has repeatedly blocked UN peacekeeping operations and recently settled on a peacekeeping plan with the African Union.

Senate Democrat Fecklessness Continues

The Democrats continue their efforts to undermine the war effort in Iraq by micromanaging every aspect. They think that this is the path to victory? Can any of these luminaries point to a single military victory that was possible by the politicians in the rear dictating strategies or limiting manpower?

Senate officials said Thursday that the proposal now being drafted would be a new turn in their attempts to force the White House to halt its troop buildup in Baghdad. They described it as more substantive than the nonbinding resolution of opposition to the increase that stalled in the Senate last Saturday.

The officials would speak only if not identified because the central proposal was still being drafted and needs to be presented to all Senate Democrats when they return from a weeklong recess next Tuesday.

They said the proposal was intended to essentially overturn the 2002 resolution granting Mr. Bush the authority to remove Saddam Hussein from power, and limit the military to combating Al Qaeda in Iraq, keeping Iraq from becoming a haven for terrorists and training Iraqi forces. The proposal’s goal, officials said, would be to allow combat forces not engaged in those duties to be removed from Iraq next year.

The chief authors are Senators Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and Carl Levin of Michigan, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. The plan is to try to attach the proposal to an antiterrorism bill the Senate expects to begin considering Tuesday.

Biden is running for President so this has to be seen in the context of trying to outfox his competition. Problem is, all the Democrats are pushing even further to the left to gain a domestic political advantage, leaving the troops and national security out to dry.

The Democrats in Congress are proposing a losing strategy - both in terms of what it will do to US interests around the world, and to the long term national security.

Not a single Senator who supports this nonsense can defend it on grounds of national security. Not a single one. How does limiting the President's capabilities as commander in chief improve national security? How does limiting the military's capabilities to send reinforcements as it deems necessary to complete its mission improve chances for victory? It does not.

Yet, Democrat after leftist Democrat will claim that bringing the troops home is their top priority and so is restoring America's image abroad. Sorry, neither of those actually improves national security. Cutting and running undermines our image abroad and gives a cheap victory to the likes of al Qaeda who have stated all along that they will prevail simply by outlasting the short attention span theater that is the US polity. Allies will be more hesitant to engage in long range military operations, even when their national security is at stake because they will fear having the rug pulled out from under them.

Bringing the troops home before the job is done will only pave the way to even greater human rights atrocities.

It is always curious how the left will claim that the US should do more to stop the carnage in Darfur or other hellholes around the world, and yet ignore the hellish nightmare that Saddam Hussein inflicted on the region and was put to an end with the US invasion. Are not the hundreds of thousands killed by Saddam during his murderous reign the same as the hundreds of thousands killed in Darfur or Rwanda or Congo? The human rights abuses were there - well documented and available for all the world to note. Iraq used chemical weapons in its ethnic cleansing and genocidal Anfal campaign, yet that doesn't require military intervention?

Yes, there is still carnage going on in Iraq - some of it by the Ba'athist remnants, some by al Qaeda, and some by Shi'a insurgents and with the support of Iran and Syria. Leaving now will only create the fertile grounds for yet another killing field that will make Cambodia seem like a walk in the park. Denying al Qaeda the ability to maintain safe harbor in Iraq should be a priority, and yet withdrawing US troops would undermine that capability.

That is the future that the Democrats have in store should their efforts come to fruition.

UPDATE:
Others posting on the Democrats and their careless and relentless disregard for the Constitution and undermining the war effort for purely partisan political gain: Macranger, Decision 08, Sister Toldjah, Rick Moran, and Wizbang.

Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson's Website, The Virtuous Republic, The Random Yak, 123beta, Adam's Blog, basil's blog, Shadowscope, Cao's Blog, The Bullwinkle Blog, The Amboy Times, Phastidio.net, Conservative Cat, Pursuing Holiness, third world county, Woman Honor Thyself, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The Uncooperative Blogger ®, stikNstein... has no mercy, The World According to Carl, Pirate's Cove, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Sudan Denied AU Seat Over Darfur

There is some justice in the world (just a wee bit - these are international organizations with little actual power after all). Sudan was denied the chairmanship of the African Union, mostly because the Sudanese government continues to flaunt international organizations seeking to bring the Darfur genocide/ethnic cleansing to an end. The post went to a Ghanaian instead.

Sudan lost its bid to assume the rotating leadership of the African Union to Ghana on Monday after regional leaders snubbed Khartoum for a second time because of international outrage over bloodshed in Darfur.

Alpha Oumar Konare, the AU's top diplomat, told reporters Ghanaian President John Kufuor would take the post of AU chairman. "By consensus it is President Kufuor."

He said Sudan had supported the decision, which avoided a damaging dispute that would have eclipsed the main summit agenda, including raising peacekeeping troops for Somalia.

There's still the not insignificant task of dealing with the peacekeeping situation in Darfur. The AU has been trying to shift the peacekeeping to the UN, but Sudan has been blocking nearly all efforts to interpose peacekeepers in the region. That's on top of the fact that the Sudanese government has been in cahoots with the janjaweed who have perpetrated much of the violence in the region.

Sudan Seeking To Coopt African Union

Sudan would love to be the proverbial fox guarding the henhouse. Sudan wants to lead the African Union.

Are you kidding me?!

Sudan has opposed peacekeeping operations and would be the equivalent of putting Iran in charge of the IAEA or the Saudis in charge of religious tolerance, etc.

The 53-member AU meets this week in Ethiopia to choose its new chairman among African heads of states. The spiraling violence in Sudan's western Darfur region, where the AU has 7,000 peacekeepers, is expected to top the agenda.

Many observers say al-Bashir is a party to the conflict and should not chair the organization.

Khartoum says AU leaders already agreed to select al-Bashir during last year's summit.

"African heads of states will have to stick to their word, otherwise what is the point for the AU to hold meetings and reach agreements?" said Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ali Sadiq.

But several African countries — backed by Western nations — oppose al-Bashir's bid to become chairman despite the agreement reported last year, diplomats in Khartoum said.

Here's what it means for Sadiq. Your country is a massive violator of human rights, including genocide, ethnic cleansing, and have done absolutely nothing to stop the carnage for years on end. Hundreds of thousands have been killed in the Darfur genocide, and more than 2 million have been displaced. The Sudanese government in Khartoum has effectively aligned with the Janjaweed, the Arab fighters who have conducted much of the carnage and terror in Darfur, and as such cannot and should not hold any position of any authority until that changes. Sudan does not get the opportunity to co-opt international organizations that are struggling to deal with the messes you've created.

The AU has peacekeepers in Sudan because of the gross violations of human rights perpetrated by the Sudanese government. It is the height of hypocrisy to even consider allowing Sudan the right to head up an organization that is attempting to restore peace to Darfur. Sudan has opposed peacekeeping operations in Darfur and has turned a blind eye to all the violence in the region.

What exactly would anyone expect if Sudan assumed the leadership position in the AU? Does anyone expect the AU to continue its peacekeeping operations or would it be sent home by Khartoum. How many more will die to find out?

Reaction Pours In On Saddam's Death

A new dawn rises over Baghdad and it is the first one in recent Iraqi history where Saddam Hussein was not alive to see it. His hanging was justice delayed for the hundreds of thousands of people harmed by his actions - murder, rape, ethnic cleansing, genocide, war crimes including the use of chemical weapons, and support for terrorism around the world.

Thus far, there is no curfew in Baghdad.

Ed Morrissey live blogged the event.

Hundreds of Iraqis protested the death in Saddam's home town of Tikrit, but compare that to the celebrations elsewhere in Iraq and around the world. Indeed, the majority of people recognize that Saddam was a tyrant who not only ruined Iraq but caused such grief and misery for millions through his actions.

The next issue will be the disposition of the body. The Tikritis are calling for his body to be turned over to his family. The US and Iraqis appear leaning towards burying him in a secret location.

The Vancouver Sun headlines that the Butcher of Baghdad is dead. The Guardian says that witnesses thought that Saddam was a broken man. Newsweek notes that he was afraid. That compares with other reports saying that he was defiant until the end. People are going to see what they want to see in all this.

World leaders and selected experts weighed in:

US PRESIDENT GEORGE W BUSH:

Bringing Saddam Hussein to justice will not end the violence in Iraq, but it is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain, and defend itself.

FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTRY:

France, which advocates like all its European partners the universal abolition of the death penalty, takes note of Saddam Hussein's execution.

That decision belongs to the Iraqi people and to the Iraqi sovereign authorities.

France calls on to all Iraqis to look forward and to work for reconciliation and national unity.

More than ever the aim must be a return to the full sovereignty and stability of Iraq.

AUSTRALIAN FOREIGN MINISTER ALEXANDER DOWNER:

The people of Iraq now know that their brutal dictator will never come back to lead them.

While many will continue to grieve over their personal loss under his rule, his death marks an important step in consigning his tyrannical regime to the judgment of history and pursuing a process of reconciliation now and in the future.

US DEMOCRATIC SENATOR JOSEPH BIDEN, INCOMING CHAIR OF THE SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE:

Iraq has closed one of the darkest chapters in its history and rid the world of a tyrant.

Every effort was made to afford Saddam the judicial rights he denied to the 148 innocent victims of Dujail and to hundreds of thousands of other Iraqis during his brutal reign.

I hope that the families of his many victims can now begin the healing process.

BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY MARGARET BECKETT:

I welcome the fact that Saddam Hussein has been tried by an Iraqi court for at least some of the appalling crimes he committed against the Iraqi people.

He has now been held to account.

RICHARD DICKER, DIRECTOR OF HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH:

The test of a government's commitment to human rights is measured by the way it treats its worst offenders ... History will judge the deeply flawed Dujail trial and this execution harshly.

LARRY COX, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA:

The rushed execution of Saddam Hussein is simply wrong. It signifies justice denied for countless victims who endured unspeakable suffering during his regime, and now have been denied their right to see justice served.

TOMOHIKO TANIGUCHI, DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY OF JAPAN'S FOREIGN MINISTRY:

We have acknowledged that the judgment has been made according to due process and pay respect to the legal procedures that the Iraqi government has taken.

That said, what is most important in our view is to make this sentence not a new source of conflict but of reconciliation between the Iraqi people.

INDIAN FOREIGN MINISTER PRANAB MUKHERJEE:

We had already expressed the hope that the execution would not be carried out.

We are disappointed that it has been.

We hope that this unfortunate event will not affect the process of reconciliation, restoration of peace and normalcy in Iraq.

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO POLITICAL SCIENCE PROFESSOR CHARLES LIPSON:

This will be a public accounting for the crimes that he and his regime undertook systematically over many years, but sadly it won't do much, I think, to set Iraq on a path to stability.

The nature of the internal divisions are too deep. Saddam's execution won't be able to set right the problems that we allowed to take root.

SETH JONES, POLITICAL SCIENTIST/TERRORISM EXPERT:

This means very little in the long run for the level of violence over there.

I expect this will trigger some revenge killings.

But the insurgency has been caused by so many factors I don't think this will have any meaningful impact over the long term.

LIAQAT BALUCH, A LEADER OF PAKISTAN'S SIX-PARTY OPPOSITION ALLIANCE OF CONSERVATIVE RELIGIOUS PARTIES:

This will further increase hatred of America. No one liked or supported Saddam Hussein here but the way he was tried was improper and unjust.

Saddam was a bad guy and he had to be tried for his crimes but not that way.

America is trying to divide Iraq on sectarian lines. U.S. forces are brutally killing civilians there.

BRAZIL FOREIGN MINISTRY:

(Brazil) does not believe carrying out this sentence will contribute to bringing peace to Iraq.

The Boston Globe thinks that this plants the seeds of future strife.

The Washington Post combines Saddam's death with a car bombing in Kufa that killed 30+.

The last moments of Saddam were captured on video.

So what were Saddam's last words? His lawyers released his last written statement, but his final words before his execution were:

Palestine is Arab

To the end, Saddam sided with terrorism. And the Palestinians played to form as well - mourning his death because Saddam tossed money at the Palestinian suicide bombers.

JammieWearingFool has a good roundup of reactions as does Pajamas Media. Memeorandum has a monster wrapup on reactions.

Ed Driscoll notes Drudge's unusual use of two sirens relaying the story.

Others blogging and noting media reaction: Webloggin, Florida Masochist (who wont be watching the execution), Clarity and Resolve, Dr Sanity (who notes the cheering in heaven), Sensible Mom, Hot Air, QandO and Michelle Malkin.

Technorati: saddam hussein, saddam's death, iraq, kurds, dujail, shiites, bush, capital punishment, justice.

What's the Rush?

The New York Times thinks that there's a rush to execute Saddam Hussein - carrying out the sentence handed down by the Iraqi tribunal that determined he was guilty of murdering 148 people at Dujail.

It's been about three years since Saddam was captured by US forces. Saddam has not only faced a trial for crimes committed while he was the thug-in-charge in Iraq, but had an appeal heard (and denied). That's a legal process he denied his victims.

The real question is whether justice is delayed or denied by executing Saddam before the other trials for his crimes and whether the political considerations of waiting before the largest of the trials - the Anfal campaign trial - is brought to a close before carrying out the death sentence.

The Times writes:

What really mattered was whether an Iraq freed from his death grip could hold him accountable in a way that nurtured hope for a better future. A carefully conducted, scrupulously fair trial could have helped undo some of the damage inflicted by his rule. It could have set a precedent for the rule of law in a country scarred by decades of arbitrary vindictiveness. It could have fostered a new national unity in an Iraq long manipulated through its religious and ethnic divisions.

The Times seems to have quite a different take on what the criminal justice system is supposed to do. It is not about nurturing hope. It is about meting out justice and protecting society against those who have brought harm against it.

Yet, there may be good reason to delay the execution that has nothing to do with support or opposition to the death penalty.

It has to do with the enormity of the crimes that still remain to be heard.

Among the crimes awaiting or currently on the docket are the slaughter of more than 100,000 Kurds in the Anfal campaign. That bloody campaign included the use of chemical weapons, ethnic cleansing, and mass murder. There is good reason to delay the sentencing until after that trial is brought to conclusion.

There are good reasons to see that justice is carried out for the hundreds of thousands of Kurds who suffered at the hands of Saddam and his minions and this trial is potentially more significant than the trial just concluded due to the sheer number of people killed and affected by the Anfal campaign. The political dimensions of seeing that hundreds of thousands of Kurds are able to gain some measure of closure on that grisly chapter of their history should not be overlooked. It needs to be balanced with the operation of justice in the Dujail case.

Indeed, the US experience in dealing with crimes across multiple jurisdictions offers some guidance on what the Iraqi justice system should do. Consider the Beltway Sniper case, where the charges against John Allen Muhammad and Lee Malvo were brought in Virginia and Maryland for their murder spree around the Beltway.

The pair were first tried and convicted of murder in Virginia (where Muhammad now faces the death penalty and Malvo faces life in prison) but the pair were then extradited to Maryland where they were tried for their crimes in Maryland. The two will then be returned to Virginia for the carrying out of the sentences.

The Iraqi justice system could follow this model, by permitting the delay of the execution until after the Anfal trial is completed.

Yet, the Times is clearly siding with the likes of Ramsey Clark and others who think that the procedural difficulties were such that Saddam was not tried fairly. I disagree. Saddam was provided not only the opportunity to defend himself, but at times was able to use the trial as a podium from which to launch into tirades against the court, the US, and the Iraqi government that replaced his tyrannical rule. The tribunal operated under difficult circumstances, including assassinations and ongoing threats of physical violence, but managed to produce a just result.

It Shines for All thinks that Saddam should be sending thank you cards to the Times.

In the meantime, he remains in US custody. Saddam would have to be transferred to Iraqi custody in order for the sentence to be carried out.

Others commenting: Ed Morrissey and bRight and Early.

UPDATE:
An Iraqi judge has called for Saddam to be executed tomorrow. Saddam's lawyers say that he's been transferred to Iraqi custody, which is the final step before Saddam heads to the gallows.

UPDATE:
Dead at dawn? The execution is supposed to take place at 6AM Baghdad time or 10:00PM EST. Meanwhile, there is a report indicating that Saddam may be trying to get the US to block his execution. Good luck with that one.

Hussein's lawyers filed documents Friday afternoon asking for an emergency restraining order aimed at stopping the U.S. government from relinquishing custody of the condemned former Iraqi leader to Iraqi officials, a spokeswoman for a federal court in Washington D.C. said.

The documents were being processed and were not immediately made public. The Justice Department had not yet responded to the request.

A similar request by the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court, Awad Hamed al-Bandar, was denied Thursday and is under appeal. Al-Bandar also faces execution. The Justice Department argued in that case that U.S. courts have no jurisdiction to interfere with the judicial process of another country.

Al-Bandar argued that his trial violated his rights under the U.S. Constitution but Justice countered that foreigners being tried in foreign courts are not protected by the U.S. Constitution.

Technorati: saddam hussein, iraq, kurds, dujail, shiites, bush, capital punishment, justice.

Iraqi Court Upholds Saddam's Death Sentence

An Iraqi appeals court has upheld the death sentence for Saddam Hussein, Iraq's national security adviser said Tuesday. "The appeals court approved the verdict to hang Saddam," said the official, Mouwafak al-Rubaie.

On Nov. 5, an Iraqi court sentenced Saddam to the gallows for the 1982 killings of 148 people in a single Shiite town after an attempt on his life there.

He's one step closer to dancing from the end of the rope he so richly deserves. Of course, expect the usual suspects to complain about how Saddam's trial was marked by various discrepancies and other procedural issues that somehow nullify the atrocities he committed. Those same usual suspects were notably silent on those atrocities and that it took the US action to depose Saddam to put the Iraqis in a position to bring Saddam to justice.

UPDATE:
The New York Times has more, including that under Iraqi law, the sentence will likely be carried out within 30 days.

Reuters and other news agencies also quoted a court official, Raid Juhi, as saying that the verdict had been upheld.

It was not immediately clear when the execution under the verdict could be carried out, but under Iraqi law it is supposed to happen within 30 days of the final appeal. Mr. Hussein is currently being tried in a separate case on charges of genocide in connection with the deaths of 50,000 Kurds in a campaign that ultimately killed 180,000 Kurds in the 1980s.

The Shiite-led government has argued for a swift execution, saying that as long as Mr. Hussein is alive, he remains a powerful source of motivation for elements of the Sunni Arab insurgency fighting to restore him to power.

Earlier this year, Mr. Hussein’s chief lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi, said that Mr. Hussein had been expecting a death sentence handed down by the Iraqi court trying him on charges of crimes against humanity.

“Saddam Hussein is convinced of this,” Mr. Dulaimi said. “He knows the sentence has been issued from Washington, and if there’s an even greater punishment than the death sentence, he’ll get it.”

Never mind that Hussein is now on trial for the genocide and ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Kurds during the Anfal campaign, the Times has to carry water for the pro-Saddamists and take note of the current violence and strife ravaging Baghdad.

UPDATE:
Jason Smith notes that Saddam will be missing the Super Bowl. Too bad. So sad. Pajamas Media covers the story and notes that the swift appeal means that Saddam can't take advantage of Iraqi law that forbids the execution of persons over the age of 70.

Others taking note of the court's decision: Charles at LGF, Bill's Bites, Hot Air, TexasFreds (who offers the Administration some sharp criticism for not taking the reins and getting a grip on the situation in Iraq), NoisyRoom, Backseat Blogger, Thunder Pig, and Dread Pundit Bluto.

Technorati: saddam hussein, iraq, kurds, dujail, shiites, bush, capital punishment, justice.