One of the fears of the International Criminal Court’s indictment of Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir surely was the effect it might have not only within Sudan, but also in the region, where perhaps the indictment would draw sympathy, particularly from citizens of Arab states or from countries with sizable Muslim populations. A recent poll offers mixed news on this front:
A WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of seven majority-Muslim and African nations finds that, contrary to the position of their governments, publics in four nations approve of the indictment of Sudanese President Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur, one is divided and two are opposed.
Here is the accomapnying chart:
To be sure the news is better than one might have imagined. And it is reassuring that in the two sub-Saharan African countries included in the polling, Kenya and Nigeria, the support for the ICC action is strongest. But in several of these cases the will of the public is hardly vital to state policy. And in only three did an outright majority of respondents approve of the indictment. So there is certainly a positive spin to be placed on this polling data. But it is not universally reassuring when placed into its larger context.