ICC
ICC's call to arrest Bashir is futile
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It is evident that the international criminal court will only be as effective as African countries want it to be. But does the ICC know that?
If it doesn't, it had better learn quickly. For instance, the ex-leader of Liberia, Charles Taylor, was only handed over to the court because Nigeria, Taylor's host, decided to play a fast one on him and organised both Taylor's temporary "escape" and recapture according to a script that could be entitled Double-Cross.
African co-operation, then, is extremely important to the ICC. And yet its officials do not seem to take African sensibilities into account when making pronouncements about pursuing culprits. The most damnable of those indicted by the ICC in Africa, is, of course, the Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir.
Bashir and his "janjaweed" marauders have committed unmentionable crimes in Darfur – and southern Sudan – that need to be punished. But without African co-operation, it can't be done. This is because realpolitik operates in Africa as much as it does anywhere else.
Just before Bashir travelled to the Sahara-Sahel summit that has been going on in Chad, the ICC drew attention to his case by adding genocide to the charges levelled against Bashir. And two of the ICC's stalwart champions in Africa, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, issued statements calling on Chad to arrest Bashir if he visited Chad.
This was bad timing. Drought and other difficulties are the current concerns of many of the countries in the region, and to "obsessively" hijack their agenda and replace it with that of the ICC is hardly diplomatic.
In any case, Chad is not the only country that has signed the Rome statute that established the ICC. Sudan, too, has signed it. It has not, however, ratified the treaty it. But for argument's sake, had Sudan ratified the treaty, would it be expected that Bashir should arrest himself and hand himself in to the ICC?
Taking an attitude to inter-African relations that is purely legalistic and almost theoretical, is quite naive. Certainly, as far as Chad and Sudan are concerned, ignoring their dynamic internal political realities and calling on them to observe a "higher loyalty" to international law – in the form of the ICC treaty – is an exercise in futility.
The two countries have actually been fighting each other "by proxy" – through dissidents from each other's countries – for years.
Things came to a climax in February 2008 when thousands of fighters from the Chad dissident group, United Front for Democracy and Change (who were closely allied to the Sudanese government) fought their way into the Chad capital, N'Djamena, arriving in 300 vehicles and spreading through the city.
These dissidents laid siege to the palace of Chad's president, Idriss Déby, and took the Chadian state radio off the air. Déby's survival was only assured by the 1,400 French troops stationed in Chad, though he claimed unconvincingly that it was all the work of his own troops.
Three months later, Chad repaid Sudan the compliment by sponsoring (but denying it had done so) an attack by rebels against Sudan that rocked the suburbs of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. Sudan immediately cut off diplomatic ties with Chad. That Bashir now feels able to visit Chad is the result of patient work by African mediators, and calling on Chad to arrest Bashir, as a matter of form, is like slapping them in the face. Each flare up of conflict between the two countries and their proxies costs many lives. Do the ICC and its allies not care about that?
Indeed, the African Union (AU), taking account of the incessant bloodshed, has called on African countries not to ruin the precarious peace in the region by acceding to the ICC's call and arresting Bashir.
The climate of opinion in Africa against the ICC will worsen if the ICC calls the British supermodel Naomi Campbell to give evidence at the Hague about a diamond that Charles Taylor is alleged to have given to her.
The allegation came from the actress Mia Farrow and the ICC will be reduced to a media circus if the two women are cross-examined by each other's counsel. The none-too-placid Campbell could provide the media with a series of "expletives deleted" that would only enhance the ICC's discomfiture – in the eyes of black people, at any rate.
(Published by The Guardian – July 26, 2010)