SUDAN, OMAR AL-BASHIR SHOULD SURRENDER NOW!

The present braggadocio of the Sudanese henchman in Khartoum, Omar al-Bashir, will eventually come to naught. History does not support his present defiance of a duly constituted International Criminal Court (ICC) as its issued warrant for his arrest, shall be executed somehow, somewhere and sometime. Omar al-Bashir should, on hindsight ask Libya's Mummar Qaddafi his experience being roiled-over against the international community? What about the other lunatic who held Iraq hostage for over three decades, Saddam Hussein? Today only his bones which lay beneath the earth somewhere in Tikiriti-Iraq testifies to his ever existence; and he died like a common criminal, hung by the neck until it snapped, in the gallows by the brave people of Iraq.

Icheoku says, Omar al-Bashir should be humble enough to start discussing terms of his surrender, indictment and possible imprisonment for war crimes against his people of Darfur origin. At least he stands to get a fair trial which he denied his people of Darfur who he summarily executed just for their skin color? An Arab killing real Africans just because he is a bigot and now that his hour has come to face his nemesis, he is hoofing and puffing at the international community? The International Criminal Court is a fair court as recently demonstrated when the former president of Serbian President Milan Milutinovic was found not guilty of war crimes by that court, which had earlier indicted him. So, Omar al-Bashir, if you have nothing to hide, begin your defense at the Hague today and right now by turning yourself in!

Omar al-Bashir and his apologists can call it whatever they like, but those people of Darfur who he sent to their early graves; decimating their villages and towns in the earth-scorching policy of his killer-government, are not White people but Africans. It therefore flies in the face of reason, for his government to tag the warrant for his arrest as a "neo- colonialist" move to destabilise Sudan; a Sudan which Omar al-Bashir had personally and single-handedly destabilised when he choose to exterminate a part of its population simply because they are blacks? The risk of such a warrant destabilizing Darfur is a levitating argument since Darfur has since been destabilized by the action and/or in-action of Omar al-Bashir himself. Such sentimental argument has since become mute and should not be factored in, in prosecuting the warrant for Omar al-Bashir's arrest. What is of consequence here is that the ICC has the backing of the United States of America and her European allies; so the so-called African Union can shout all they can or throw all the tantrums they want but Icheoku says, shame on them for waiting this long, until the ICC did a job they could have themselves since done. With over 300,000 Sudanese people of Darfur ethnicity killed and millions more displaced by Omar al-Bashir's government, who in his right mind will argue against bringing this bloody Dracula of Khartoum to justice?

Icheoku says, some pontificators who are arguing that the ICC is selective in its decisions on who to prosecute should read history. Unlike President George Bush who was prosecuting a war against a foreign sovereign, Omar al-Bashir was waging a war of extermination against his own people of Darfur, Sudan. Omar al-Bashir directed attacks on his unarmed civilian population, which population he had sworn an oath as president to defend and protect. The people of Darfur were not collateral damage to the conflict raging on in Sudan. No, they were victims of Omar al-Bashir's deliberate, intentional and calculated act of aggression on a civilian populace. Omar al-Bashir according to the warrant for his arrest, is being sought for "murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing and forcibly transferring and displacing large numbers of Darfur civilians and pillaging their property". Also, after Hitler's maniacal attempt to take-over the world failed, a subsequent war crimes tribunal en-panelled, tried some of his cronies for their role in the genocide. They were tried principally for exterminating their native as well as other civilian Jewish population and not necessarily for bombing London to near smithereens. The implication is that act of war is recognised by the international community and so Hitler was legally engaged in act of war with Britain; but his conduct of deliberately targeting Jews was what was frowned against? Therefore, to state that the ICC is selective by not indicting President George Bush on Iraq is stretching the parameters and hence, over-reaching. President George Bush did not deliberately target Iraqi civilian population for extermination, as most of Iraqi war-dead were victims of collateral damage occasioned by the armed hostilities between two nations? We all must be able to distinguish the two scenarios and accept that what Omar al-Bashir did against his people was heinous as it was horrendous; so his sentiments of "neo-colonialism" should not be allowed to fly. It is a plebeian argument meant to evoke an unfounded emotional passion of patriotism in the masses of Sudan and some faceless African nations.

Look at Egypt being "greatly disturbed" by the ICC's decision when they could, but chose not to stop the carnage of Darfur simply because it was a fellow Arab that was perpetrating the "genocide"? Also it was their crony Omar al-Bashir who had fought alongside Hosni Mubarak in their war against Israel in the 1970s? Further, Mubarak is a fellow dictator like Omar al-Bashir, and sees nothing wrong in his friend trying to wipe out real Africans from their land in Africa's Sudan? That the African Union said the ruling could strike a fatal blow to faltering peace moves in Darfur is a testament that this union has no moral basis for its existence. Icheoku asks, where was this African Union all these years since the mayhem in Darfur was taking place or were they hijacked by the Arabs thus rendering it impotent and hence being used as a mere tool? According to one commentator, by this warrant of arrest, Omar al-Bashir is now a wanted man; which Icheoku rephrases to read, Omar al-Bashir is now the world's most wanted genocidal criminal.

Icheoku congratulates the ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo's for bringing this warrant of arrest against one of Africa's bloodiest despot. We pray that the international community will give him the necessary back-up muscle to prosecute and put away this vampire of Khartoum for good. Icheoku says, the good news is that precedents favour the current position of the ICC, the good people of Darfur, Sudan, Africa, and the entire world. We have previously seen such grandstanding by other despotic African-terrorist-leaders eventually come to naught and this donkey in Khartoum will not be an exception? From Idi Amin Dada of Uganda to Libya's Ghaddafi to Liberia's Charles Taylor, it has been the same conclusion - they all capitulated and so shall this soon to be former president of Sudan. Saddam Hussein once taught he could take on the world and his epitaph in Tikiriti now possibly reads, "here lies the lunatic of Baghdad who killed and buried his own people in their thousands and in mass, unmarked graves".

Icheoku says, the present action of the International Court of Justice (ICC) has our full support and we pray that all the dictators of Africa should meet similar fate as befits every crazed-out lunatic of this world! How Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, a potential "indictee" of this court, escaped prosecution for the Odi and Zaki-Ibiam massacres is yet to be determined. Icheoku calls on Omar al-Bashir of Sudan to save himself and the world further pain, and immediately hand himself over to the ICC to be prosecuted for his crimes against humanity of Darfur!