The Weekly Observer, Uganda
September 24
Country in catch-22 over Sudan human rights
Once again New York is in a flurry of activities. It's United Nations General Assembly. Most world leaders will the whole of this week converge here.
Possibly there will not be the usual bashing that some of the Third World's most unwanted leaders come here to carry out; venting their anger over what they perceive as western influence of affairs in their countries. Last year, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe took the podium and when he looked up, he could see devil presidents dripping with blood. He said such leaders had no moral authority to speak about what was happening in Zimbabwe. He was referring to President George Bush, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. This time around Mugabe might return here with a more reconciliatory tone now that he has accepted that Zimbabwe is not his farm where he could do anything and go scot free.
There is however something else in the air here. From what is emerging, the debate might be about the first sitting president to be indicted for crimes committed against his own people. Yes, President Omar Bashir of Sudan will be the talk of the assembly. It's just a question of time before the pre-trial chambers of the International Criminal Court (ICC) decides whether to issue an arrest warrant for the role he played in human rights abuses committed in Darfur region.
The possibility of Mr. Bashir facing arrest warrants has put many African leaders in overdrive. Most suspect that they will be the next for not abiding by acceptable international norms for which they are in offices to perform. When in Mid-July the ICC prosecutor Luis Ocampo announced that he wanted Bashir to answer questions over his role as the head of government in ordering systematic ethnic cleansing of his population, the continent went on an immediate offensive.
South Africa's outgoing President Thabo Mbeki and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak went on a diplomatic push, trying to save Bashir by inferring that the ICC was only targeting African leaders in its pursuit of justice and that they were ready to "help their African brothers". Some fell for this trivial trap.
Who really needs a brother who cares less about the lives of his blood bothers? Some intimated that such a move could make Bashir unleash more terror on the helpless Darfurians. But instead of sending guns and helicopter gunships, Bashir decided to visit Darfur. While there he extended an olive branch, beseeching the traumatized elders there that he was ready for peace that could last. That was quite telling for a man who had sworn to rather divorce his wife than ever see Darfur out of the woods.
The argument being made by some African presidents about the ICC only targeting them is comical. If these good leaders respected and cared for the rights of their citizens and agreed to the tenets of democratic principles, the ICC issue would not arise. But more importantly, African countries compared to other countries have the largest ratification of the Rome statute that created the ICC. African countries were the first to refer cases to the ICC without being prompted or forced by Western powers. Of the four cases from Africa before the ICC, three were referred by African countries. Uganda was the first country to refer the case of northern Uganda to the ICC. The other two countries are DR Congo and Central African Republic. The fourth case of Sudan was referred to the ICC by the Security Council in 2005. But the central thesis is simple. Africa still has the largest committal of human rights abuses of any continent in the world.
The African Union Peace and Security Council is meeting here to try and put across their displeasure about the ICC. As to whether they have another alternative to try the multitude of crimes on the continent, is indeed a different question.
The silver lining though is that beginning January 2009 Uganda joins the United Nations Security Council. How Uganda behaves during this period will be watched with interest. In the debate about the ICC, Uganda has adopted two positions. There is the government position where they say in private that it's long overdue for Bashir to be tried since there in no love lost between Kampala and Khartoum, and the more nuanced position by virtue of Uganda being the Chair of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) whose position opposes the prosecution of President Bashir.
In a letter to the Security Council on behalf of the OIC, Uganda vehemently opposed the move by the ICC to try Bashir. But what does this tell on the country's changing positions given that we have the record of being the first country in the world to refer a case to the ICC? Were we only interested in sending fear into the ranks of the Lord's Resistance Army or we had failed to end the war and had to adopt a strategy that leaves us looking like prostitutes? I will stop here, lest the Minister of Ethics and Integrity, James Nsaba Buturo, misinterprets what I mean by prostitution.
The author, Dismas Nkunda, is a human rights expert and specialist on refugee issues.
