WHEN President Robert Mugabe left for the AU summit a few days ago, big on his agenda was to sell his grandiose plan for the beneficiation of local resources as contained in Agenda 2063, the theme of the summit.
BY EVERSON MUSHAVA
But by the end of the meeting, the 91-year-old had taken the lead role in defending Omar al-Bashir as the International Criminal Court (ICC) and South African courts cornered the Sudanese strong man.
As AU chairman, Mugabe could have felt a need to defend an earlier anti-ICC resolution by the AU. Yet analysts said for Mugabe and dozens of African leaders who rallied behind al-Bashir, it was not so much about being sympathetic to the predicament of the embattled Sudanese leader.
“It was not about defending al-Bashir. It was about their own fears because a good number of those African leaders are themselves good candidates for the ICC. They have committed and continue to commit atrocities in their home countries and they know if al-Bashir goes then they will go too,” said Gabriel Shumba, a human rights advocate, now heading the Pretoria-based Zimbabwe Exiles Forum. Shumba fled Zimbabwe in 2003 after being tortured by state agents for representing opposition official Job Sikhala.
He said al-Bashir’s experience in South Africa had unnerved many African leaders because of the skeletons in their own cupboards, who now want to hide behind the insubstantial excuse that the international tribunal was a tool of extending western hegemony on Africa.
At least 34 countries in the 54-nation AU bloc are signatories to the 2002 Rome Statute that forms the basis of the ICC. However, many countries appear to be changing their attitude towards a tribunal often accused of only targeting African leaders while ignoring human rights abuses by leaders in other parts of the world.
Al-Bashir is wanted by the ICC, an intergovernmental organisation and international tribunal that sits in The Hague, Netherlands to prosecute individuals for various international crimes against humanity such as genocide, human rights violations and war crimes. He faces allegations of war crimes in the Darfur region committed soon after his military coup of 1989.
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After last week’s incident, South Africa — one of the signatories to the ICC — is having second thoughts about its participation after al-Bashir escaped.
The ICC “is no longer useful for the purpose for which it was intended,” said the ruling African National Congress (ANC) after a South African court had ruled that the Sudanese leader was not supposed to leave the country. Arresting al-Bashir could have caused a massive rift between South Africa and the majority of African countries. By ignoring the court ruling, South African has opened itself to accusations of sacrificing international statutes it signed to on the altar of political expediency, analysts said.
Firebrand South Africa opposition Economic Freedom leader Julius Malema said al-Bashir should be made to account for the Darfur genocide that left over 300 000 dead, and so were the calls by the another SA opposition, the DA, which said President Jacob Zuma’s ruling ANC should be prosecuted for aiding al-Bashir’s escape.
The ANC statement gives ammunition to fierce critics of the ICC such as Mugabe, who has repeatedly warned against participating in the ICC.
According to analysts, Mugabe’s condemnation of the ICC, like that of many African leaders, is self-serving. The only leader Zimbabwe has known since independence in 1980, Mugabe’s 35-year-rule is littered with allegations of gross human rights abuses.
These include the 1980s Gukurahundi that the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) said left over 20 000 people dead and a trail of destruction in the Midlands and Matabeleland provinces. Bodies of children and pregnant mothers killed by a military brigade that reported directly to Mugabe, were dumped in mine shafts, according to the CCJP and other organisations that have investigated the massacres.
Mugabe has called the killings a “moment of madness”, but has refused to apologise.
“The ICC is a constant reminder to heads-of-states that justice can be denied for too long but not forever,” said political analyst Alexander Rusero.
Attempts to pull the AU from the ICC are unlikely to work, according to analysts who say many other African countries still believe the tribunal is critical to preventing human rights abuses. They argue countries sign to the ICC as individual entities, hence the AU is the wrong platform to address a pull-out.
Already, countries such as Malawi and Botswana have insisted that they will not pull out. Botswana went further to state it would have arrested al-Bashir if he was in that country.
Political analyst Takura Zhangazha says despite the spirited effort by Mugabe and his allies in the AU, the ICC remained an important international court of referral.
“The AU needs to entrench the rule of law and respect for human rights on the continent to prevent such cases ever having to go to the ICC,” said Zhangazha.
“Moreover, political leaders must understand that they cannot act with impunity and violate the rights of their citizens or those of other countries. Of course the ICC together with the UN Security Council requires reform for them to be more universal and appear less to be serving the interests of a few powerful states, but the interests of universally acclaimed human rights.
“This however should not prevent those that seek justice for war crimes committed against them having their day in court whether they win or lose,” he said.
The first assignment after the ratification of the ICC in its current form was on the Congolese rebel leader, Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, who was accused of recruiting child soldiers to fight a protracted war in the resource-rich country. Others who have been indicted by the ICC are Thomas Lubanga, Germain Katanga, Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, Jean-Pierre Bemba, former Ivorian leader Laurent Gbagbo, and former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who was tried under the mandate and auspices of the Special Court for Sierra Leone — all from Africa. To date, the ICC has opened inquries into nine investigations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Uganda, Central African Republic I and II, Darfur, Sudan; Kenya; Libya; Côte d’Ivoire; and Mali while it is also conducting preliminary examinations in nine matters in Afghanistan, Colombia, Georgia, Guinea, Honduras, Iraq, Nigeria, Palestine and Ukraine.
Senior human rights researcher Dewa Mavhinga said: “Africa needs justice. There is a place for international justice because African governments have failed to ensure justice within their jurisdictions. If African leaders are not happy with the ICC in Hague, they must set up and empower an African Criminal Court.”
Lawyer and MDC-T MP Jessie Majome said it was not correct that the ICC targets only Africans.
“African leaders simply don’t want accountability for treating their nationals as little better than modern day slaves. That’s the reason why we don’t have an African court up to now. The closest we got in our region was the Sadc Tribunal but it was quickly dismantled by Zimbabwe’s influence. ICC is the only hope that Africans have for justice at the international level, or sometimes at all,” Majome said.
