By Kemo Cham
I chose the headline for this piece with mixed feeling.
On the one hand, I believe that single act by the South African government to allow Sudanese President Umar Al Bachir to leave their territory, despite a court order forbidden him to do so, has denied hundreds of thousands of people justice. On the other hand, I have misgivings about the constitution of the very court, [the International Criminal Court (ICC)] from which this whole embarrassing episode originated.
Having said that, I dare add that all those who even think that South Africa, I mean the political authorities, would even consider detaining Al Bachir, were living in a dream land. And something tells me that even the ICC)`s cry baby prosecutor, didn’t expect that.
In the first place, South Africa never intended to arrest Bachir, otherwise it wouldn’t have invited him to the AU summit, knowing that he is indicted by the ICC, of which SA is a signatory and is obliged to do as required. The Judge knows this and he saw an opportunity nonetheless to boost his profile. He clearly succeeded.
Almost everything about The Hague-based court is contradictory.
The AU, despite the fact that a huge number of the signatories to the ICC statute are African nations, remains the greatest critic to the court, and understandably so. It has expressed it several. And the current chairperson of the African Union Commission is a South African.
The ICC became functional in 2002, following the adoption of its statute in 1998, the very year Sierra Leone signed it before ratifying it in 2002. It has been ratified so far by 32 state parties.
123 countries are States Parties to the Rome Statute. Out of them 34 are African States, 19 are Asia-Pacific States, 18 are from Eastern Europe, 27 are from Latin American and Caribbean States, and 25 are from Western European and other States. This means Africa, as a continental representation, has the largest membership of as signatories.
So, it is largely this generation of the continent`s leaders who indeed signed. If it`s not the father President who posthumously handed power over to his successor son, or do so shortly before dying, it is a president under a governing party that has overstayed its welcome.
So, when these very same African leaders say the ICC is targeting only Africans, it leaves one wondering what they actually were thinking when they were signing it.
Identity confusion
Back to the Umar Al Bachir issue; his case this week illustrated another side of the identity confusion surrounding politics in Africa.
Here is a statement attributed to Bachir`s Foreign minister Ibrahim Gandour, when news that the indicted war criminal was traveling to South Africa last week, despite an ICC arrest warrant over his head.
‘’We call on all the African leaders to withdraw from this colonialist and racist court, because it just targets African leaders,’’ the minister said.
Yet Al Bachir was indicted for acts akin to racism. His forces, aided by the notorious Janjawed militia forces, in the early days of the Sudanese conflict in the Darfur region, meted out a reign of terror on mostly black Sudanese who were fighting against alienation in their home land.
Because Bachir needs protection, which he cannot get from his fellow Arab folks in the larger Middle East, he is shamelessly exploiting the racism card. But we have seen that shamelessness displayed several times before. Ugand`s Yuweri Museveni accepts the ICC only in terms of its indictment of Ugandan rebel leadr Joseph Kone. But he thinks they are a racist entity targeting Africans when it comes to Kenya`s politicians.
The AU, for its part, needs a case to use to push forward its position to an institution it sees increasingly as severing the counter interest of its member political leaders.
There is no doubt the existence of some credence in the argument that the ICC has served as an extension of the neocolonial tendencies of some western powers. Examples of these are as we have seen in the Ivory Coast, where, despite the obvious crimes committed during the senseless post 2010 election violence, we all know France wanted Gbagbo humiliated for daring to challenge its hegemony.
I am by no means arguing here in favour of Gbagbo`s actions which, admittedly, occasionally bordered on nepotism, so much for the Pan-Africanist he portrayed himself to be. But all said and done, I have issues with the circumstances surrounding his indictment.
While it wasn’t the ICC which indicted and tried Charles Taylor, it was the same imperialist tendencies that informed his indictment and eventual jailing, to the extent that so much money was spent trying to exercise vengeance in the name of victims who continue to languish in the shadow of the crimes committed by the convicts.
Therefore, Taylor`s case portrays another perfect example of the flaws in the Western supported courts seeking to dispense justice to the ever violated Africans.
Take a closer look at Burkina Faso (under the deposed dictator Blaise Campore, Equatorial Guinea, Gambia…and you will see the many questions raised by the ICC and like institutions.
It`s interesting that the current ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, happens to be a Gambian and served as Justice Minister under the military dictatorship that brought Jammh, a self confessed dictator with a river of blood in his palm, to power. Bensouda has consistently ignored calls for investigation of over alleged massacres under the watch of her former boss.
Even though I had so many issues with the ICC`s case with the 2008 post election violence in Kenya, how the court has handled the case against President Uhuru Kenyatta holds a lot of lessons as to how justice is selective.
Uhuru, admittedly among the few young generation African leaders I admire, mainly because of his leadership style, suddenly became darling of the West, making it difficult, given the significant role Kenya obviously plays in that enormously important East Africa, to pursue the case against him. Basically, Kenyatta`s election sent the message the Kenyans want and the US and the UK, the two countries which micromanage the ICC, couldn’t dare challenge that.
My issue is not why the case against Uhuru was dropped, I already stated I had issues with the whole case, it is the court`s spectacular demonstration of tailoring cases as it suits it.
It is also revealing, isn’t it, that all this noise about South Africa is coming immediately on the aftermath of one of the worst massacres of Africans in South Africa, the very country where a judge only now sees it fit to preach about justice.
So, while South Africa dealt a major blow to justice, that`s to be expected somehow.
(C) Politico 16/06/15
