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March 13, 2009

ICC indictment of al-Bashir provokes aid worker kidnappings

Posted by Anna Bowen at 12:52 PM ET

The kidnapping of Medecins sans Frontiers P.E.Islander Laura Archer, and of Mauro D'Ascanio and Raphael Meonier Wednesday night comes on the heels of the International Criminal Court at the Hague accusation last week. The ICC accused Sudan President Omar al-Bashir of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Darfur region of Sudan, issuing another arrest warrant for the President. The ruling, a first for its accusation of a sitting president, perpetuated increased violence in the region, as well as causing the expulsion of several non-profits in the area, including Oxfam, CARE and Save The Children.

The UN reports that 300,000 people have been killed in the Darfur region since the violence began in 2003 and 2.7 million people have been displaced.

Last week President Omar al-Bashir said the accusations are a sign of a new colonialism, and reportedly a crowd of 2,000 gathered in his support in El Fasher last week, and still more gathered in Khartoum.

I'm wondering a few things, namely:
(1) Why has the ICC insisted on accusing Omar al-Bashir of war crimes right now? Probably the fact that no sitting president has ever been accused is for good reason. Not heeding the warnings that violence and anger would increase and NGOs would be forced out, removing needed assistance, seems like a pretty bad move at this point.

(2) Why does the story of one kidnapped Canadian make me write a blog post sooner than the fact of the ICC accusations in the first place? Because I can identify with her and her family? Yes, I suppose that's true. Because I know someone who was kidnapped overseas? Yes, that's true too. Because she made the front page of the G&M? Tripleyes.

(3) What do repeated kidnappings of white foreign aid workers tell us about the role of white foreign aid workers abroad? A couple of years ago at the R.A.C.E. conference that was held in Toronto at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), I was interested to see that there was a paper being given on the sticky issue of the Christian Peacemaker Teams kidnappings in Iraq. I went to the presentation with mixed feelings, because you need a stout heart to enter an academic environment where the golden calves of Canadian identity (Dallaire or Stephen Lewis) are fair game for critical anti-racist theorizing. I was surprised to find that the seminar was actually addressing how Jim Loney was able to subvert the typical white-anglo desire to find another hero by juggling the media with one hand and turning their expectation of him on its head with the other.

My heart absolutely goes out to the friends and families of those who were abducted and are being held, and we hope for their safe and speedy return.

But let's not forget the thousands of detainees and disappeared worldwide who don't make front page news.

I am grateful in a way that can never be adequately expressed in words. There are so many people that need this hand of solidarity right now today, and I'm thinking specifically of prisoners held all over the world, people who have slipped into an abyss of detention without charge, due process, hope of release; some victims of physical and psychological torture, people unknown and forgotten. It is my deepest wish that every forsaken human being should have a hand of solidarity reaching out to them.

-part of a statement made by J Loney the day he was returned to Canada

More entries on: War and peace

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