Bashir footloose while thousands perish in Darfur

It’s not even been a month and yet President Omar El-Bashir is blatantly defying the international arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court.  In the space of a few days the President of Sudan has visited Egypt and Eritrea, and today is on his way to Libya.

Plans are also afoot for the President to travel to Qatar for an Arab summit. But BBC News online points out that it’s not clear whether he’ll go.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Darfuris are suffering now that aid agencies have been expelled from the region. None of you reading would be surprised to know that I think that this is pretty appalling really.

Amnesty International has warned that 2.2 million people could be at risk unless the Sudanese government reverses this decision.   President Bashir should not evade justice just because he’s a President. The states he visits have a duty to arrest the President.  Let’s hope this happens sooner rather than later. 

You may be interested in Glenys Kinnock’s piece in the New Statesman today.  There she writes that we may well see a ‘replay of the apocalyptic scenes of 1994’ in Goma (DRC). Alarming thoughts really…