Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir
THE global news over the weekend and early this week datelined South Africa was most dramatic and must have attracted everyone.
A summit meeting of African leaders in South Africa was taking place and the news was that of the imminent arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for “crimes against humanity and war crimes” on the strength of an international arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
There in South Africa, we had African leaders in the titles of president or prime minister – heads of state and government. They were meeting in their annual summit just like their European counterparts who meet equally; annually or regularly. Omar al-Bashir is President of the Sudan in Africa just like any other leader of a European state.And he was attending that meeting in South Africa with his counterparts from elsewhere in Africa. But there was an arrest warrant for him, to be arrested and detained and later flown to The Hague to face trial for alleged “crimes against humanity and war crimes.”
Just imagine - you the reader of these lines -- what would you have done had you been in the shoes of South African President Jacob Zuma, the host of scores of such leaders of African people, prominent in their own right given the fact that they represent their respective people who elected them?
Would you move to arrest your colleague, President al-Bashir? Colleague? Yes! Whatever the allegations against him, he is in your country as president of his people, the Sudanese people! Eh! ‘Bwana!’
Yes, he is President, whatever the alleged crimes against him and you knew he was coming and did not object to his participation in that conference. So this was most likely dilemma that had faced South African President Jacob Zuma.
Putting in paradigm, what would have a British Prime Minister done had he/she been host of a G7 meeting in London, assuming an American President, say former President George Bush at that time been in attendance and then the British Prime Minister being pressurised to arrest him on the strength of an ICC warrant for ordering an invasion of Iraq to get rid of “weapons of mass destruction” which it was proved not there in the first place?
Would a British Prime Minister oblige the ICC and move to arrest Mr Bush and bundle him to The Hague? Hahahahaha! Impossible!
The big boys of this world would never do that! If you take a glance again at the quotation on the launch of this perspective, the AU is rightly mourning this fact: The ICC targets only African leaders and never other leaders elsewhere. Now let us look at the AU argument.
Up until now, we are seeing wars resulting in death and bloodshed of thousands of innocent people in the Middle East as is most remarkable in Iraq.
Once upon a time, Iraqis had a leader, Saddam Hussein. Iraqis were at peace at themselves. There was never a civil conflict during the reign of this guy. Suddenly, the unipolar power of this world’ hands itched – it was unhappy with its military boys just resting on their laurels – it had to keep them busy. “Hit Baghdad!
That guy Saddam or something has weapons of mass destruction. Go and get rid of him and those weapons…,” came the order. Indeed, Iraq was massively invaded. Baghdad was occupied. But the same power later conceded that there was nothing like weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; it had found none! But an invasion took place.
When a country is invaded, that is not a military parade at some given stadium; it is a war! Thousands of lives get lost and blood is spilled with wanton abandon.
An invasion is not a birthday party! Similarly, the big boys, under the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) moved to invade Libya for reasons best explained by themselves. Here was a Libya, at peace with itself, comfortable with its leader, Muammar Gaddafi.
Again thousands died in that bloody move. In both invasions by the big boys of this world, both leaders, the Libyan and Iraqi leaders were savagely murdered – the latter was publicly hanged and the latter killed the way one would kill an animal – care less about a funeral – even by close relatives! So this is the paradigm informed people must address.
So what moral justification does the ICC have to haunt African or Third World leaders? To raise these questions is not to propagate for impunity. Never! Since one given coin has two sides, it is only fair to look at both sides of the coin. Levelheaded people must always do this – if justice is to be seen as fair to all.
The Sudan is one of a handful of African countries, which has been engulfed in civil wars – with one side of the population demanding sovereignty. Surely lives have been lost, Darfur being one case in point.
Even after South Sudanese secured independence via a protracted armed struggle against their brethren in the North, we have recently seen the South Sudanese at each other’s necks. Is the ICC drafting charges similar to the one served on the Sudanese leader al-Bashir against some leaders in South Sudan?
The best advice would be to urge the ICC to have a balanced overview of the whole world, if its international arrest warrants are not to be seen as eschewed.
/Daily News.
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