Sudan’s President Omar al- Bashir, an ICC-indicted génocidaire, is spending four days in China, marking four years since he last traveled there, and indeed, anywhere outside of Africa and the Middle East. The invitation and acceptance of this trip shows a continued flagrant disregard for the International Criminal Court and the international community at large on behalf of both the Bashir and China. President Bashir’s last trip outside of Sudan resulted in a consideration of his arrest by South Africa’s court, but Bashir fled the country — with the help of South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma – before deliberations completed.
President Obama should express to China’s President Xi Jinping that welcoming a man such as Bashir into one’s country is abominable, disrespects the international community’s humanitarian standards, and above all, brushes aside all the marginalized groups in Sudan whom Bashir terrorizes.