Remains of medicines destroyed in the US attack on the al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant is Khartoum in 1998. Photo by Steven Fake and Kevin Funk (more HERE.) By Steven Fake and Kevin Funk
March 21, 2009 -- After an hour and a half of walking under the intense Sudanese sun, armed with crude maps printed from the internet, we paused before a field of rubble in an industrial area of North Khartoum.
Two teenagers sat on the porch in front of the still-partially standing
building, conversing and watching the world go by in this gritty, dusty
area of the Sudanese capital.
“Al-Shifa?”, we mustered as a question, the name of the massive
pharmaceutical plant that stood on this site until just over a decade
ago.
They nodded.
“Bill Clinton”, we responded, pointing to the ruins of the facility
that his administration bombed in 1998. The two boys chuckled.
Just over a decade after the US bombing of al-Shifa, on March 4 of
this year, a different leader — Sudanese head of state Omar al-Bashir —
was indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes
and crimes against humanity.
That Bashir is a war criminal whose policies are responsible for
widespread death and destruction in the western Sudanese region of
Darfur is well documented.
Yet, after stepping over rolls of decaying labels for life-saving
malaria medication at al-Shifa — and watching mounds of dark brown
medicine bottles, some still full, baking in the afternoon heat — it
seemed an appropriate point to pose what should be an obvious question:
why is the ICC not seeking to indict Clinton as well?