Has Jimmy Carter Finally Gone Too Far In Sudan?

Jimmy Carter may know which side to pick when it comes to Palestinian Arabs vs Israel, but in a recent election he oversaw, he may have just committed a whopper. Dr. Walid Phares and Khairi Abaza write that

Carter gave his blessing (with perfunctory caveats) to a rigged election that has handed victory to a genocidal war criminal who granted safe haven to Osama bin Laden in the 1990s.

On the Carter Center’s website, he raised several concerns about the vote, but on the ground, the former president told reporters that he saw “no reasons for any concern” about the elections, except for “a few isolated stations way out,” that could experience some complications.[emphasis added]

Aside from the ongoing bloody history of Sudan, Phares and Abaza recount the blatant irregularities that Carter ignored in order to give the 'election' a clean bill of health.

In a country where a president accused of war crimes can run for reelection, where an ongoing genocide has yet to be addressed, and where most political parties dispute the political process, Carter has clearly put himself on the wrong side of history. Indeed, he has joined forces with a small ruling elite in Khartoum that has oppressed and slaughtered its own people—and supported America’s most dangerous foes.

Results from Sudan’s electoral commission show that El-Bashir has received an impossible 88 to 94 percent of the popular vote in a country where he was directly responsible hundreds of thousands of deaths. Carter endorsed this and gave his imprimatur to an electoral farce. By claiming that the vote was “an opening” for citizens of Sudan to “participate and present their views,” the former U.S. president has demonstrated clearly that he is no friend to Sudan’s people.

Read the whole thing.

Still, while Carter may have put himself on the wrong side of history, has he really put himself at odds with the Arab world, which itself has done nothing to help and has refused to shun al-Bashir--in spite of the fact that last year, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the Sudanese president for crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur.

The Arab world will not think any less of Carter for behaving as they do.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

Technorati Tag: Jimmy Carter and Omar Hassan al-Bashir and Sudan and and Darfur.