YOU DIDN’T THINK I WAS SERIOUS, DID YOU?

Darfur sexual violence 'catastrophic' (Jeff Sallot, Globe and Mail, September 18th, 2004)

Louise Arbour says she will demand action from Sudanese officials over "absolutely catastrophic" levels of sexual violence and other atrocities in the Darfur region as she begins meetings tomorrow on a United Nations mission to the war-ravaged African country.

Ms. Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and a former Supreme Court of Canada judge, said yesterday from her office in Geneva that the international community should be outraged that such violence is continuing. She is to arrive in Khartoum tonight, leading a UN delegation that includes Juan Mendez, the UN's special adviser on the prevention of genocide.[...]

In a telephone interview, Ms. Arbour said that whether the attacks on civilians in Darfur legally constitute genocide doesn't matter to the victims.

Ms. Arbour said people are suffering now, particularly women who have been sexually attacked, regardless of whether an international tribunal some day rules that the violence violates the human-rights convention that bans genocide.

Civilized people, therefore, should be "leaping up and doing something" to halt the violence, she said.

Ms. Arbour was the first Chief Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court. She has built a very successful career by arguing genocide, human rights and war crimes are or should be legal concepts to be dealt with under international law. Well, international law is now winding its pokey way towards inaction in Darfur. Is she now calling for international lynch mobs?