Paul Moorcraft
16 July 2008
opinion
Johannesburg — THE United Nations (UN) is tying itself in knots again. At the security council, Britain shot itself in the foot by failing to get new sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe, because Russia and China vetoed the plan.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown had trumpeted the anti-Mugabe measures as a success at the recent Group of Eight meeting in Japan. The British foreign office had assumed that Russia would agree and China would probably abstain. Instead, both unexpectedly used their security council veto. Britain, the US and the European Union were left looking foolish.
A part of the western cock-up at the UN was the reaction to the International Criminal Court's (ICC's) decision to indict an African head of state. Not Mugabe, but Omar al-Bashir, Sudan's president. This will be the first time the court's prosecutor has tried to indict a sitting head of state.
The prosecutor, Argentinian Luis Moreno-Ocampo, is accused of a personal vendetta against Bashir, because his Latin American machismo is said to be fired up by Khartoum's dismissal of previous indictments against minor leaders .
Moreno-Ocampo said Sudan's "entire state apparatus" had been involved with the killings of civilians in Darfur. Three International Criminal Court (ICC) judges will now take at least six weeks to decide whether to indict Bashir.
The African Union (AU) was immediately spooked - not surprising, since many of its leaders might fare badly if invited to courts in The Hague. It issued a statement saying the search for justice should be pursued in a way "that does not impede or jeopardise efforts aimed at promoting lasting peace".
The AU has a point - what matters for now is stopping the killing in Darfur. The same applies to Zimbabwe. It is fine for lawyers in the west to ask for the downfall of African tyrants, but what is the practical impact, not least on the long-suffering citizens of the continent's dictatorships?
The ICC can, inter alia, initiate indictments at the request of the UN Security Council. Although distinct from the UN, the ICC move will be seen in the Sudan as a further assault by the world body. Only a short time ago, it took an immense diplomatic effort to persuade China to lean on Khartoum to accept a joint UN-AU force to take over from the failed AU peace mission in Darfur.
The UN is the glue that is holding a complex network of Sudanese agreements together. If Bashir's indictment goes ahead, the genuine popular anger as well as
state-financed rent-a-mobs could threaten the whole UN edifice in Sudan. The still-strong ultraconservative Islamists in Khartoum will be tempted to backtrack on all the UN-supervised deals.
That means the unravelling of the UN-supervised peace agreement which ended Africa's longest war - the north-south conflict. It means completely derailing the stuttering Darfur peace process.
It could mean ending the massive UN humanitarian operation, not only in Darfur but also in the rest of Sudan. Tens of thousands of displaced people will starve.
Sudan could implode, possibly replicating the anarchy in Somalia.
Legal arguments also abound. Sudan is not party to the ICC-establishing treaty and it is not alone. The US, China, India and Russia, among many others, have very strong reservations about the ICC process.
Moreno-Ocampo's move is considered destabilising by many in the UN, including those who believe in the advancement of international law. It is a question of timing, not least on the eve of a deal on punishing Mugabe, and just before the Olympics in China, whose key ally in Africa is Sudan.
And presuming the UN does not rein in Moreno-Ocampo, how exactly is Bashir to be arrested?
Despite the continental significance of the ICC move, SA's government is more focused on the side effects. President Thabo Mbeki has a little more breathing space to get a political deal fixed in Zimbabwe. But this is a small window. The humanitarian and economic crisis in Zimbabwe is accelerating, and externally the US and the European Union will impose their own sanctions, even though SA voted against them in the security council.
Ironically, Pretoria opposes sanctions - the ANC's beloved tool of the 1980s. Yet even the despised Afrikaner rulers got one thing right, in the end: they released Nelson Mandela, for the sake of peace talks. In
stark contrast, the ICC wants to lock up Bashir, and thus destroy the peace process.
It may be morally satisfying to see tyrants such as Bashir in the dock. The unintended consequences of this week's legal manoeuvrings, however, could be at least as tragic as the intervention in Iraq.
Western consciences might be appeased, but the people of Sudan, especially in Darfur, will be the main victims of another bout of well-meaning intervention. Alternatively, this week could break the back of the ICC, established only in 2002. Bashir could well have the last laugh.
Prof Moorcraft is the director of the Centre for Foreign Policy Analysis, London.
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