David Scheffer, who served under Clinton as the U.S. ambassador at large for war crimes issues, writes in the LA Times that, in this case, there is more than enough evidence to show that Bashir is using rape to not just oppress the women in Darfur but to exterminate their ethic groups.

Moreno-Ocampo bases his charge that Bashir is committing genocide through the orchestrated and targeted use of rape as a weapon of war based on two rarely-used ways of eliminating an ethnic group or people:

"causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group" or "deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part."

Although the mass-rapes in Darfur are not as fast-acting a method of genocide as killing everyone in the area, they do accomplish several things that might legitimately end the existence of the Fur, Massalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups. For one, the brutality of the assaults leaves many women infertile, which means that less children can be born. Furthermore, the women contend that they are raped in order to impregnate them with babies of mixed ethnicity who are not accepted as members of their ethnic group, which means that many of the children aren't considered part of the groups that Bashir is trying to destroy. Furthermore, because of the stigma of rape and having a baby fathered by a Janjaweed rapist, Moreno-Ocampo contends that "infanticide and abandonment are common" in Darfur among rape victims, reducing the children born to the ethnic groups targeted for destruction even more.

Scheffer writes of his experience:

In the 1990s, when I was the U.S. ambassador at large for war crimes issues, I met scores of women who had been raped during the atrocities in the Balkans, Sierra Leone, Uganda and the eastern Congo. In most cases, the experience was devastating to their character, their ethnic bonds and often to their physical health. Even if they were still physically able to bear children, these women typically were ostracized from their communities and could not marry their ethnic men. Confronted with these stories, I recognized that mass rape can destroy a substantial part of a group and thus constitute genocide.

He also urges the U.S. to continue blocking efforts by China, Russia and the African Union to block the ICC from issuing an arrest warrant for Bashir, which they claim is for the sake of UN peace keepers in the region. Protecting the peace keepers worked really well in Rwanda, right guys?

Rape As Genocide In Darfur [LA Times]

• Naomi Campbell's started her latest round of amends, this time a stint in a soup kitchen for assaulting a cop. Apparently she was ten minutes late. [The Mirror]
• No one will either confirm or deny that Ellen is a new Cover Girl. [AdAge]
• Nastia Liukin thrown in with the sharks. "Ms. Liukin was excited—giddy, almost—but perhaps also a tad intimidated. Dressed in a marbled, off-white bubble dress, Ms. Liukin had attended her first Fashion Week show, Peter Som’s spring 2009 collection, just that morning." [Observer]

• The "Ocampo" is the hot item in Sudanese fashion right now, There's been such a run on the tob, a traditional sari-like garment, that it's become impossible to find. "The real lure is the brand name—after Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the International Criminal Court prosecutor who has charged Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir with war crimes." [Deep Glamour]
• Alice Dellal is in the midst of a coke scandal. But more to the point, she's rocking punk chic! [Elle]
• As previously noted, Ed Norton's gonna be the face — wrist? — of Breil for the next two years. Here are the ads! [Oh No They Didn't]
• The charmed life: Carlos de Souza's It boy career. [Observer]
• Leah Buechley breaks the glass ceilng of the high-tech materials world. "In the several years since she first sewed a circuit board to a T-shirt, the 31-year-old University of Colorado computer-science researcher has done a lot to bring gender equality to the world of do-it-yourself." [Forbes]
• Wondering what the hell inspired the trippy Rodarte show? "Skeletons, Donnie Darko, and Space Opera." [Elle]
• This woman knows how to make an exit: Romeo Gigli's designer quits just in time for the Milan shows. [Reuters]
• The much-anticipated Louis Vuitton-Comme des Garcons bag, sported by sullen Japanese teens. [The Life Files]
• Victoria Beckham: close, but no cigar? "Beckham's dresses appear both curiously wearable and really rather fetching. Primly foxy, kitted out with all manner of tailoring trompe-l'oeil, they will be available in sizes 6-14. Victoria apparently had in mind Nigella Lawson and Dame Helen Mirren by way of muses. The adjectives being bandied between air kisses were "beautiful", "classy" and "desirable". Be that as it may, the consensus regarding Brand Beckham remains a hearty "Thanks, but no thanks"." [Telegraph]
• Looks like chasing Harry Winston's worthwhile; the company's way, way up. [WSJ]
• Faux-fur Converse chucks. 'Nuff said. [The Life Files]
• Obviously a terrible idea: "With no catwalk in sight, nine sharply dressed models climbed up a ladder and plunged into a large tank of water in Australia's first public underwater fashion shoot, delighting tourists and passers-by in Sydney's picturesque Circular Quay." [Reuters]
• Dita Von Teese for Wonderbra: "I took all the best bits of the most beautiful vintage lingerie I have collected over the years to make this...But I made sure it was all really comfortable too, which vintage lingerie can't really claim to be." [Telegraph]