So, the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, has issued an arrest order against Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for his role in the Darfur atrocities that have claimed 300,000 lives (according to UN estimates).

Firstly, let’s talk about the ICC, of which neither the USA, Russia, China or India are party to. An article at First Drafts (the blog of Prospect magazine) also informs me that:

So far, the ICC has pursued cases only in Africa, and has not investigated any western complicity in alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide, whether they be in Iraq, Afghanistan, or most recently in Gaza.

Man, can I tell you something? As a person of the Global South? We’re so so so so sick of this. Americans can dump phosphorus on civilians in Fallujah (confirmed by Italian journalists and TV crews) and not a goddamned thing happens. Israel can dump phosphorus on civilians in Gaza (confirmed by world + dog) and not a goddamned thing happens. But one African dictator is complicit in the murder of other people and suddenly the whole world is alight with righteous indignation. Yes, yes, of course what happened is a bad thing, but talk about double standards, people!

Donald Rumsfeld can handwrite on a memo that he wants prisoners (who have been convicted of nothing, by the way) tortured. “Make sure this happens!” says Donny, and it gets quietly sunk in a morass of convenient concussed-goldfish amnesia. A US President, UK Prime Minister and Australian Prime Minister can collude to invade another sovereign country based on lies, leading to more than one million deaths, and … nothing happens. But one pissant dictator in some African country does something wrong, and suddenly everyone’s aghast.

The Security Council was responsible for referring the Darfur case to the ICC … after the United States conveniently made sure that its own citizens were immune from any subsequent prosecution. Do you think we don’t notice these things?

Can I share a dirty little secret with you? The average ex-second- and third-world person is actually quite happy that the Western economies are in meltdown. Gives you less chance to play colonial master to the rest of the world. My father was a UN peacekeeper in the Belgian Congo more than forty years ago. He came back to Malaysia hating the Belgians for how they treated the Congolese. Heard about that one? The arbitrary chopping off of hands and feet from the people famous for their chocolates? How about the cold-blooded execution of children (from a sniper’s rifle to the back of the head in one pure and perfect shot) from the descendants of the Holocaust™? How about the murder of Asians whose only crime was the desire to govern themselves, by a list of the who’s-who of Western powers? How about the entire attemped genocide of a people from the friendly and “multicultural” land Down Under?

And so you’ve finally decided to (yet again) pick on some small-time bully while letting all the really big players, like yourselves, off the hook. Congratulations. What’s next? Stealing pocket money from poor kids?