17 July 2008
editorial
Johannesburg — The indictment of Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on genocide charges should send a strong message to other world leaders that the abuse of human rights on such an outrageous scale can no longer go unpunished.
The move by the ICC's top prosecutor to seek an arrest warrant for a sitting head of state - the first to date - indicates that they have a strong case against Bashir. But it has elicited mixed reaction from around the world, with strong support for Bashir among some veto-carrying United Nations Security Council members.
Predictably, SA and the African Union (AU) argue that such efforts to bring him to book will scupper increasingly fragile peace efforts. Bashir has also received support from some of the Arab countries and China, which is accused of supplying arms to Sudan.
But this is the same man who has previously spurned international efforts to end the strife in his troubled country, where many lives have been lost and millions more displaced. The indictment suggests there is prima facie evidence that he has presided over the Sudanese conflict, which has also threatened regional stability.
It should be noted that he is not the first high-ranking Sudanese who is wanted internationally for similar crimes. Sudan still refuses to hand over two other nationals - including a cabinet minister - who face outstanding arrest warrants for alleged crimes in Darfur.
There are no guarantees that the current shaky peace efforts will yield any fruit, given the past failure of similar efforts. Innocents continue to die while the world debates the merits and demerits of the ICC's intentions.
Instead of fiddling while Sudan burns, world leaders should be supporting the ICC's efforts to bring Bashir to book, and let justice run its course. If nothing is done it will send the wrong message to other tyrants.
World leaders must rally around international institutions such as the ICC that seek to bring errant leaders to book for gross human rights violations.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Business Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
