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THE SMART NEWS SOURCE | Mar 17 2010 04:44 | LAST UPDATED Mar 17 2010 04:44 |
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The African Union has decided not to cooperate with a war crimes warrant against Sudan President Omar al-Bashir and again appealed to the United Nations to delay the case, delegates said on Friday. Two delegates from different countries said the African Union summit had agreed to a text reading: "The AU member states shall not cooperate ... for the arrest and surrender of Sudan President Omar al-Bashir." The summit was expected later on Friday to formally announce its decision, which effectively allows al-Bashir to travel across Africa without fear of arrest under the warrant for war crimes and crimes against humanity issued by the International Criminal Court. The text was backed by Libyan leader and current AU chief Moammar Gadaffi, who has said the ICC represents a "new world terrorism", and won support from many countries who felt the court was unfairly targeting Africans. Thirty African states have signed the Rome statutes creating the court, and have treaty obligations to arrest al-Bashir if he travels on their territory. But the text adopted at the summit voices frustration felt by many African nations who say the UN Security Council ignored an early AU resolution calling for a one-year delay to the indictment. The UN Security Council can ask the court, via a resolution, to suspend investigations or prosecutions for 12 months, under Article 16 of the Rome Statute. The stay can be renewed. "We have been a little unhappy about the whole process, how this matter came before the ICC," Ghana's Foreign Minister Alhaji Muhammad Mumuni said before the final decision was taken. "The AU actually addressed a resolution to the security council asking the SC to defer the warrant for one year, and it was virtually ignored. That we thought was a slap," he said.  CONTINUES BELOW "We thought that as Africans, and having a clear understanding and a clear interest in the interest of peace in the Sudan and in Darfur, we thought that was a matter [where] the Security Council should have listened to Africa, at the very minimum," he said. The decision to effectively ignore the ICC warrant had strong support from Libya and other repressive countries that sympathise with Sudan, but even advocates of the court have worried that arresting al-Bashir could create a power vaccuum in Khartoum that would hinder the country's peace process. A 22-year civil war in southern Sudan only ended in 2005, in what had been Africa's longest civil war. Elections are now planned in February and a historic independence referendum is due in 2011. Under the peace deal, the south has a six-year transitional period of regional autonomy and takes part in a unity government until a 2011 referendum on self-determination. A recent increase in ethnic clashes has raised concern about the future of the peace process in the south, while the violence in Darfur still rages. The United Nations says up to 300 000 people have died and 2,7-million have fled their homes since ethnic minority rebels in Darfur rose up against the Arab-dominated regime in Khartoum in February 2003. Sudan's government says 10 000 have been killed. Rights activists said the AU decision ignored the plight of the victims of the violence. "This resolution, the result of unprecedented bullying by Libya, puts the AU on the side of a dictator accused of mass murder rather than on the side of his victims," said Reed Brody, a spokesperson for Human Rights Watch. "But it cannot erase the legal obligations undertaken by the 30 African countries which have ratified the ICC treaty," he added. - AFP TOPICS IN THIS ARTICLE
Comments
Nahor Ecnarraf on July 4, 2009, 8:48 am
This is absolutely disgusting. Our politicians signed an agreement to turn suspected war criminals in. Al Bashir has been indicted by the ICC. He should be handed over to stand trial for crimes of genocide committed against African people in Darfur. Our African politicians are afraid this will set a precedent for criminal indictments against themselves. They should be!
Philip Kwela on July 4, 2009, 11:09 am
I wonder what the African Union thinks it looks like to the World as the Latin Americans convict their presidents for human rights abuses (Fujimora in Peru) http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/615404, and to the SE Asians finally getting around to bringing the Khmer Rouge to trial for Genocide, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7893138.stm, as they try to give their "African Leaders" immunity from prosecution?
Especially the bit about praising someone inciting racial hate and slavery against Black Africans and claiming he's their friend and trying to blame white people for it, apparenlty totally ignorant of African history and what the Middle East/ Semetic and Arabic peoples were up to for two and a half millenia before the Europeans got past the Equator?
Alisdair Budd on July 4, 2009, 3:54 pm
Doesn't it sound like another Zimbabwe,that if Mugabe is not part of the solution, there can be no peace? What kind of continent is ours, where mass murderers and human rights abusers are glorified and honoured? Maybe everyone should leave the continent except, of course, for the Mugabes, Mbekis, Gadaffis.
malose nyatlo on July 4, 2009, 8:41 pm
The only reason for the AU decision is corruption! The AU is a boys club. If you are a member, then everything you do is alright, as long a you stick to the rules - NEVER BETRAY A BROTHER, IT IS US VERSUS THEM!!! Everything and everyone comes a very, very distant 2nd.
icemahn on July 6, 2009, 11:10 am
Double standards seem to wreck everything. There are about 50 odd high profile "war criminals" around in the USA. The latest potential war criminals being the prosecutors of an aggressive war against Iraq based on deception, that served in the Bush administration.
You cant have one set of rules for Africans and another set of rules for the Americans. This impasse is understandable although I dont support it. Its the same with ocupying other peoples lands, owning nuclear weapons, confiscating islands in broad daylight and many other things. If I were a superpower, I would know exactly where to start cleaning the mess, before I finally come to Al Bashir.
mandla yende on July 6, 2009, 11:16 am
Bush, Sharon, Blair & little Johnny First, then we can talk about Al Bashir & Mugabe. AU is 100% correct to stand by its members
Siphiwo Siphiwo, service delivery now on July 6, 2009, 2:53 pm
First Bush et al... then Mugabe? IF we were going to do this chronologically then Mugabe first? Double standards are apparently an integral tenant of "African" culture. Either it's that or African murders aren't murders and African rapes aren't rapes because Africans don't view other Africans as "human" and worthy of protection?
Marius de Kock on July 7, 2009, 7:07 am
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Having said that, the ICC will not be able to claim genuine moral authority until Americans fall within it's juristicion too. It's the best we have for now though.....