Bashir’s ‘escape’ from Nigeria offers some relief to rights groups
July 16, 2013 (WASHINGTON) – The Sudanese government sought to downplay the significance of the sudden return by president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir from Nigeria as further details emerged on his condensed program of work during his participation in the HIV summit in Abuja.
This explanation contradicted slightly with the one provided yesterday by the spokesman for the Sudanese embassy in Nigeria Mohammed Moiz who attributed Bashir’s sudden departure to other engagements without giving details.
The New York Times (NYT) quoted delegates at the conference as saying that Bashir abruptly left the room in the middle of an official lunch on Monday.
Furthermore, during the afternoon session, when Bashir was scheduled to speak, he could not be found confirming the unexpected nature of his absence even by the organizers of the conference and the hosts.
Later Bashir’s press secretary told NYT that “most presidents don’t attend entire conferences”.
A Sudanese diplomat who would not give his name told The Associated Press that Bashir left at 3 p.m. Monday, less than 24 hours after he arrived and in the middle of a two-day summit which ends on Tuesday.
Bashir’s presence has stirred controversy given his status as an individual wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for allegations related to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide committed in Sudan’s western region of Darfur.
Conflict has raged through Darfur since 2003 when mainly non-Arab tribes took up arms against the government in Khartoum, accusing it of economic and political neglect. Khartoum armed Arab tribes to put down the insurgency.
Human rights groups and the United Nations estimate hundreds of thousands of people died in the conflict. The government says around 10,000 people were killed.
Sudan has refused to recognize the jurisdiction of the Hague-based court despite the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) referring the situation in Darfur to the ICC under a Chapter VII resolution in 2005.
The late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has forced the 2009 AU Sirte summit to adopt a resolution instructing members not to cooperate with the ICC in arresting Bashir.
Despite not being consulted into drafting this decision, several African countries that are ICC members used it as an cover to receive Bashir in spite of their theoretical obligations under the Rome Statute which is founding treaty of the court.
This included Chad, Djibouti, Malawi, Kenya, and now Nigeria.
Furthermore, African nations and politicians accuse the court of unfairly targeting the continent in its choice of cases to investigate and prosecute.
But some experts say while this argument appears true on the surface, it does not hold water with a close look.
“It’s true all of the court’s current investigations are in Africa, but 7 out of 8 of them came about because the governments where the crimes were committed asked for the court’s involvement or the UN Security Council referred the situation due to the gravity of the crimes. So CAR [Central African Republic], DRC [Democratic Republic of the Congo], Uganda, Mali and Cote d’Ivoire asked the court to get involved”, said Elise Keppler, Associate Director, International Justice Program, at Human Rights Watch (HRW).
“[T]he Council referred Libya and Darfur. How can the court be targeting if they are responding to direct requests from governments affected or the council? The prosecutor’s office acted on its own initiative only in Kenya where there was wide international and domestic disappointment and frustration that the Kenyan government did nothing to prosecute heinous post-election crimes”, she added.
Ironically the bulk of African states that were in the UNSC at the time voted in favor of referring the situations in Libya and Darfur to the ICC.
Bashir’s trip to Nigeria stirred the anger of human rights groups including the Nigeria Coalition on the International Criminal Court (NCICC) which condemned Abuja’s decision to receive the Sudanese leader and went to a local court on Monday with a motion to compel the government to arrest him in line with its obligations under the Rome Statute.
Diplomatic sources told Pan-African news agency (PANA) that the move by NCICC was the “last straw” for Bashir prompting him to cut short his trip.
HRW welcomed what it perceived as the fruits of civil society pressure forcing the Sudanese leader to rush home.
“Business as usual is over for this head of state suspected of the most serious crimes committed in Darfur. Al-Bashir faced intense pressure for his arrest from local activists when he tried to visit Nigeria, including court action. Moreover, the examples of former Liberian president Charles Taylor and Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, who were surrendered for international trial for grave crimes after years of safe haven, show that the highest-level fugitives can and do ultimately face justice. But Nigeria and other governments should better play their part in securing his arrest as soon as possible. The victims deserve to see justice done and he belongs in custody” Keppler said.
Nigeria was forced in the past to hand Taylor, the warlord who began that country’s devastating civil war in 1989.
In 2003, Taylor resigned under pressure and a promise from Nigeria’s government to give him a safe haven. When democratically elected leader Ellen Johnson Sirleaf demanded his extradition in 2006, Nigeria came under huge international pressure and was forced to go back on its word and hand him over.
SUDAN REGRETS UK REMARKS ON BASHIR VISIT
On Tuesday, Sudan’s foreign ministry expressed regret for the comments made yesterday by Britain’s Africa minister Mark Simmonds on Bashir
“The UK has a strong and abiding bilateral relationship with Nigeria. I am therefore disappointed that Nigeria has chosen to host President Al-Bashir of Sudan at an African Union event, despite International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants against him for alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. This undermines the work of the ICC and sends the victims a dismaying message that the accountability they are waiting for will be delayed further”, Simmonds said in a statement yesterday.
The Sudanese foreign ministry responded in a statement saying that the remarks of the British official amounts to a despise of the AU which is the organization that reflects the will of all African countries, pointing that African leaders in the AU’s Sirte Summit in 2009 decided not to cooperate with the ICC and renewed their decision in Addis Ababa’s summit recently.
The statement went on to say that the comments disregard the will of the African people and their democratic choices, considering it one of the worst examples of using double standards as well as moral and political inconsistency.
The foreign ministry further pointed that the British government has no moral grounds to speak on behalf of the victims of violence in Darfur, particularly as it harbors the leaders of the Darfur rebel groups who are responsible for the continuation of violence and assassination.
The US Embassy has also criticized Nigeria’s decision to welcome Bashir while the European Union High Representative Catherine Ashton issued a statement today expressing concern and urging Nigeria “to respect its obligations under international law to arrest and surrender those subject to an arrest warrant from the ICC”.
But Nigeria brushed aside the international criticism saying that the event was organized by the AU.
“President Al-Bashir was in Nigeria under the auspices of the AU, based on the Assembly’s decision to convene the Special Summit in Abuja to deal with three diseases that together constitute a heavy burden on member states,” the Nigerian foreign ministry said.
“Any attempt to make an issue out of the attendance of President Al-Bashir at the AU Summit will only amount to unnecessary shift from the important objectives of the special summit,” it added.
“It is, therefore, a matter between the African Union and the international community,” the ministry statement said.
The ICC judges issued an urgent request to Nigeria to arrest and surrender Bashir and reminded the West African nation of its obligations.
“Accordingly, it is under the obligation…to execute the pending Court’s decisions concerning the arrest and surrender of Omar Al Bashir,” the three-judge chamber said in document made public on Tuesday.
The row that erupted over Bashir’s trip highlights the increasing diplomatic difficulty faced by the Sudanese leader since his indictment.
Many countries have asked Bashir publicly or privately to stay away from summits it is hosting while other world leaders refuse to meet with him. At one point in 2011 his plane was forced to return to its point of origin on his way to China after Turkmenistan and Tajikistan refused to allow him into their airspace.
In late 2011, a local judge in Nairobi issued a provisional arrest warrant for Bashir in response for a motion by the Kenyan chapter of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) after the government of then president Mwai Kibaki allowed the Sudanese president to attend the promulgation of the country’s new constitution in August 2010.
The ruling infuriated Bashir who expelled the Kenyan envoy and gave Nairobi two weeks to reverse the decision before imposing sanctions.
The government in Nairobi convinced Khartoum that it would appeal the decision which it did a few weeks later. The appellate court refused a request by the government to suspend the warrant against Bashir and ordered that it stays in effect until the appeal is fully heard.
It is not clear when a decision might be made on the case.
Ironically the current Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta himself is awaiting trial at the ICC for his alleged role in the post-election violence of 2007. However, unlike Bashir he has cooperated with the court throughout the process which likely allowed him to avoid the isolation imposed on his Sudanese peer.
Another irony is the fact that Bashir was accompanied by his health minister Bahr Idriss Abu Garda, a former Darfur rebel leader, who stood before the ICC voluntarily after being charged in the 2007 killing of African peacekeeper.
ICC judges acquitted him saying that the prosecution failed to prove that ABu Garda played a role in the deadly assault that left 12 soldiers dead and wounded eight others.
(ST)