The Observer (Kampala)
16 July 2008
editorial
The once thick blanket of immunity for dictators and leaders who commit or abet crimes against humanity and genocide is beginning to become threadbare.
The guilty must now be afraid and panicky.
The International Criminal Court prosecutor has asked for the arrest of President Omar Al Bashir of Sudan for crimes against humanity and genocide targeting the mainly black population of Darfur region.
About 300,000 have been killed by the Janjaweed militia that is allied to Bashir's government. Women and girls have been raped and some 2 million people rendered homeless.
As this goes on for about five years now, Khartoum is in denial, resisting the United Nations entry and restricting humanitarian activities, as well as media. Why has this been necessary if there is nothing to hide in Darfur?
While it is difficult to enforce the arrest of a sitting president, Bashir's indictment is symbolically important as it sends a strong warning to dictators who preside over atrocities against their own citizens, or even fail to stop such when it is in their power to do so, that being head of state will not offer them enough protection.
There are strong arguments about the impact this will have on the already suffering people of Darfur and the general political situation in Sudan. But this amounts to blackmail and holding the international community hostage. It's similar to the Zimbabwean government pleading that sanctions that will cause civil war in the country in a bid to fend off a blockade!
Closer to home, Lord's Resistance Army leader, Joseph Kony, is now a fugitive thanks to the ICC's arrest warrant for him and his senior commanders.
Other war lords such as Jean Pierre Bemba of the DR Congo and Charles Taylor of Liberia are also facing ICC charges at The Hague.
The message is very clear: Crimes against humanity are risky business regardless of who you are, where you are. The only lingering problem is selfish international interest that often rears its ugly head through double standards and unprincipled positions.
Take Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, who in the 1980s supervised the slaughter of his own people in Matebeleland because they were opposed to his rule. Because he was still a darling of the West, he got away with it! Or the absurd positions taken by China and Russia on Zimbabwe in the UN Security Council last week; were these powers acting in the interest of the Zimbabwean people, or in their own interest?
For international justice to be just, it must apply to all evenly, without fear or favour.
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