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Via UN Dispatch, a New York Times video from July 2008, after the International Criminal Court’s Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo applied for an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omer al-Bashir. As you might recall, shortly following this announcement, Bashir launched an international “charm offensive” which even included some PR stunts in Darfur, including this rally: I bring this up now not only because I wanted to share this bizarre and unsettling video in case you missed it last summer, but also to raise a question that we at Enough—along with many other analysts—have been puzzling over: What is Bashir’s next ...

You might have missed it during the week, but the New York Times did an interesting piece on the somewhat dilapidated state of UN Peacekeeping operations these days. The details are not surprising: UN peacekeeping Missions are being called on to do more and more but doing it much less effectively. The key dilemma, the Security Council keeps sending peacekeepers to places like Congo and Darfur where there is no peace to keep and without sufficiently robust forces or the right mandate to enforce a peace and keep warring parties in their places. A Nigerian General makes a very common ...

Michael Gerson, a former White House speechwriter and key adviser in the Bush administration, writes today in his Washington Post column that he has “changed his mind” about the “usefulness of ICC indictments in situations such as Sudan.” Gerson now believes that the ICC arrest warrant provides a game-changing opportunity to,” hold Bashir personally responsible for achieving massive improvements, or personally responsible for committing massive crimes.” Gerson’s piece emphasizes the importance of international cooperation in pressuring Bashir immediately after the arrest warrant is issued. Hopefully the U.N. Security Council read the Post today ...

Enough co-Chair John Prendergast spent yesterday afternoon on Capitol Hill discussing U.S. relations with Sudan during a roundtable discussion with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Prendergast was joined by Sudan experts Roger Winter, Jerry Fowler, Michael Gerson, and Timothy Carney, as well as by U.S. Senators on the foreign relations committee. Below are a few highlights: The back and forth between senators and regional experts quickly moved to address the increasingly likely issuance of an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. In particular, the discussion focused on the internal politics of Bashir’s National Congress Party, or NCP, and the ...

While rumors continue to fly in the Hague and in New York regarding the expected indictment of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, talks between Darfur’s JEM rebels and the Sudanese government continue in Doha, Qatar. After the first day of talks on Tuesday (which, it is important to note, are not “Darfur peace talks,” but are better described as “talks about talks”), the JEM representative, Djibril Ibrahim, underlined the rebel group’s goal of “adopting confidence-building measures” before “address[ing] the key bones of contention.” For his part, Nafie Alie Nafie, President Bashir’s close adviser and the head of the Sudanese government delegation ...

“I gave the army a free hand to move out in all directions, to use all of its weapons, with no restraints, no restrictions, whatsoever.” –Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, in Agence France-Presse, September 2, 2002 With a report that the International Criminal Court will move against Sudanese President Bashir for crimes against humanity, we thought you might like to be reminded of some of his past comments and behavior. Here is a brief resume of his long and illustrious criminal record: On 30 June 1989 led fellow officers in a mutiny against the democratically elected Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi. General ...

His country’s unimaginable crisis is not stopping Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe from hosting a birthday party that will make Steve Schwarzman’s 60th birthday celebration look like a backyard barbeque. On the menu for Mugabe’s fete: “2,000 bottles of champagne (Moët & Chandon or ’61 Bollinger preferred); 8,000 lobsters; 100kg of prawns; 4,000 portions of caviar; 8,000 boxes of Ferrero Rocher chocolates; (and) 3,000 ducks.” Such luxury is par for the course for a man who two years ago celebrated his 84th with 20,000 cronies in a Gweru soccer stadium. This blatant example of Mugabe’s hubris exemplifies why observers must call ...

In addition to the questions regarding the exact timing of the International Criminal Court’s issuance of an arrest warrant against Omar al-Bashir, and which of the three categories of charges against Bashir—crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide—the judges will endorse, there is a third, slightly confusing ICC-related matter: Journalists and advocacy groups have occasionally (not always) conflated the terms indictment and arrest warrant and many are unsure of what exactly Ocampo requested to be handed down. It is important to understand the difference between the two terms. An indictment is a criminal accusation, while an arrest warrant is a ...

When news leaked last night of the International Criminal Court’s anticipated issuance of an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, we at Enough were sure of our opinion on the decision. As we argue in “What the Warrant Means: Justice, Peace, and the Key Actors in Sudan,” a strategy paper released today, the issuance of an arrest warrant against Sudan’s sitting head of state offers the Obama administration a chance to catalyze multilateral efforts to bring about a solution Sudan’s decades-long cycle of violence. The ICC’s likely move could constitute the crucial missing ingredient to conflict resolution efforts in ...

Lots of reports—and some conflicting information— currently swirling around regarding the arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omer al-Bashir. In a statement, the ICC insisted that they have yet to issue a warrant for Bashir, which may be true in the narrow sense, but with the multitude of leaks coming out of U.N. headquarters saying that such a decision has been reached and will appear soon, it is difficult not to conclude that a warrant is indeed a done deal. The Washington Post is saying that the court agreed with the prosecutor’s call for charges on war crimes, and crimes against ...