Last week Sudan President Omar Al-Bashir dodged a bullet.
While in South Africa for an AU summit last week, the high
court there barred him from flying out until an application to force Pretoria
to arrest him was heard.
This was all in aid of an arrest warrant for alleged crimes
against humanity that was issued by the International Criminal Court in 2009.
South African authorities granted immunity to all delegates
attending the summit, stalling human rights activists attempts to have him
arrested, long enough for him to fly back home on Monday.
"For the rest of us who know how this continent works, we were taken aback that a court could deliver such a ruling, but were never in any doubt that South Africa would not hand Bashir over to the ICC.
It would just have been plain bad manners....
You invite a man into your house and then hand me over to
his detractors? Never mind all the high sounding warnings about a drop in South
Africa’s standing in the eyes of the international community (read western
democracies), it just was never going to happen.
His escape from Pretoria may have been another thumbing of
the nose at the ICC, but Bashir knows that he can’t sleep easy.
Earlier this year Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta had his
case thrown out. Kenyatta and his deputy President William Ruto were charged
with being accessories to the post-election violence in Kenya in 2007 where
hundreds were killed and thousands displaced.
Which brings us back to the issue of the ICC’s relevance
today.
The court’s record in mainly trying African suspects lends
it to accusations of bias to the point of racism. Its critics argue that more
heinous crimes against humanity have been committed in the Middle East, for
instance, than any other house of horrors our blood thirstiest can conjure on
the continent.
If that is true, ICC may find it difficult to pick the low
hanging fruit on the African continent for a while. If it isn’t true, we can
expect that the UN-backed ICC will cast its net further afield and maybe go
after human rights abusers in Europe and North America for instance. Good luck!
Away from the geo politics, is the real suffering of people
from the Kenyan rift valley to Dafur to
Congo that under the current context are unlikely to see justice for the
wrong visited upon them.
It may be convenient to dismiss the ICC as a neo-colonial
tool to bring Africa under the thumb of the western capitals, but there are
many unresolved issues on this continent which if allowed to fester too long,
may force some of our politicians to clamour for their day in court at the
Hague, than be lynched locally.
Out political classes actually bring these “embarrassments”
upon themselves.
"If we promoted strong judicial and law enforcement agencies no one would want to create extra-territorial institutions to run around policing the world.
But the truth is, the nature of power is that it concentrates rather than diffuses power away from itself. Faceless, impartial institutions are just not convenient...
For the time being it serves their urge to hang on to power to
stifle institutional development but in the long run it is bound to boomerang
on them, as those same institution, neutered and detoothed, will be impotent to
serve them when they will have moved on into civilian life.
The world is changing. With information being transmitted
quickly and widely, hanging on to power unjustifiably will become increasingly
difficult. Hence the need for more robust institutions that will operate
without fear and favour in the service of the country.
The question then has to be what coincidence of
circumstances have to come together so that the political elite can see the
value of these?
First off it will not happen out of the goodness of their
hearts. Our political leaders have to be compelled to nurture these
institutions be it at risk to their absolute power. This calls for leadership
not only in government but in the opposition and civil society.
Secondly, enough indigenous capital has to be built up that
is credible enough to hold our governments accountable. Multibillion dollar
multinationals and their agents have little or no interest in rocking the boat
if the status quo aids their business. Local businessmen with a long term stake
in the economy beyond yearend bonuses are our best bet.
Of course both conditions among others, will take years, even
generations to mature fully but without them it’s unlikely that our political
leaders will survive the ignominy of being chased around the world because
someone else thought they need to be brought to book for crimes they have
committed against their own.
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