|
|
Sudan: ICC Must Not Have Double Standards
 |
 |
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
New Vision (Kampala)
OPINION
22 July 2008
Posted to the web 23 July 2008
Akbar Godi
Kampala
Beleaguered Sudanese President Omar Hassan el-Bashir may become the first sitting African head of state to be charged with war crimes in the International Criminal Court (ICC). Former Liberian president Charles Taylor was only arrested after bowing to international pressure to step down.
The United Nations Security Council resolution 1593 of March 2005 stated that justice and accountability are critical to achieve lasting peace and security in Darfur. However, analysts continue to doubt the sincerity of the court. Are crimes against humanity only committed by leaders of poor countries? The Security Council sent a team to investigate weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and found none. Britain and America invaded Iraq without a UN resolution to back their military action on a sovereign state. People died during the war to oust president Saddam Hussein and they are still dying to date. If the UN describes the Darfur crisis as a humanitarian crisis, which other English word can best describe what is in happening in Afghanistan and Iraq? The ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo should strive to make the court acceptable across the globe and stop it from being used as a re-colonisation tool. African leaders should join hands to solve the Darfur crisis. Indicting Bashir and his generals or ministers may aggravate the problem. If Bashir is indicted, what guarantee is there that his colleagues in the Great Lakes region will survive ICC? They may be indicted over the collapse of the state in Somalia, military campaigns in the DRC, the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and massacres in northern Uganda. The Security Council has powers to pass a resolution suspending an ICC arrest warrant or inquiry. They better do that to save Sudan from collapse.
If Bashir is indicted, it will put to disarray the much-sought Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) with South Sudan that ended the protracted bloody civil war across our border. The principle of privity in law is that only a party to an agreement is bound by it. Ocampo knows that Sudan did not ratify the Rome Statute that established the ICC.
Therefore, by indicting Bashir, the ICC would open a pandora's box. Even opposition parties in Sudan whose leaders were imprisoned by Bashir rejected the proposed indictment for fear that it may complicate matters in the country. The UN and AU should be weary of the ICC over Sudan.
|
The writer is the Arua Municipality MP
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2008 New Vision. 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. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
