Friday, May 1, 2009

More Mamdani obfuscation

This guy is too much. In an article in the Mail & Guardian from last month he summarizes his argument. A central part is a defense of al-Bashir agains the ICC.
The prosecutor's case
The prosecutor's application charged President al-Bashir with (a) polarising Darfuri tribes into two races (Arab and Zurga or Black), (b) waging a violent conflict (2003-2005) leading to the ethnic cleansing of Zurga ethnic groups from their traditional tribal lands, and (c) and planning the malnutrition, rape and torture of internally displaced persons (IDPs) so as to "slow death" in the camps -- a process that the prosecutor claimed went on from 2003 to the time the application was submitted in 2008.

But this was only one-third of the prosecutor's case, the genocide charge. The other two-thirds were the charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes. Mamdani acts as if those didn't even exist- he completely ignores them, even though at the time of writing he is well aware that those were the charges that the judges approved. So just to get it straight: his idea of a good opinion piece about the ICC is to problematize the charges that were dropped, and ignore the charges that were actually made! I sincerely hope al-Bashir defense team hires him to provide expert background for his case. Make it more likely he loses.

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