The Arrest Warrant and ICC Pursuit of Justice without Fear or Favor
3/06/2006
By: Jwothab Amum Ajak,
In the pursuit of justice
without fear or favor, ICC has at last
unveiled the judges’ decision on the Chief
Prosecutor application for AW in respect of President
Bashir. However, the arrest warrant came as
no surprise to many keen observers of the ICC.
Simply because
ICC can not put its credibility, neutrality and independence
on the line and turn the arrest warrant into a political bargaining tool as
wanted by Khartoum. If NCP-led government would have succeed in exchanging the
arrest warrant with
any one of its many offerings that then was going to throw into the dust bin
the noble principle of accountability, equality and justice of the ICC
Court.
The Rome Statute establishing the Court did well by
enshrining the principle of equality before the international law. People
are all equal no exemption so far due to status whether a serving head of
state or a common soldier, something unheard before. Sure we are at a
critical historical point.
The
question whether President Bashir should or should not go to The Hague, is
not a matter for the Sudanese State. It is not the State that will answer
the charges. State does not give orders or commands nor does it kill or
rape. It is the individual who does all that and it is the individual person
not an artificial body like state that must answer. Justice must be done
and the real culprit is made to account for his crimes not scapegoats. After
all the heinous crimes of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity
Bashir is accused of cannot and are not part of State activities.
ICC is
only trying to give Bashir the same equal treatment like Milosevic and
Charles Taylor before, to answer for thousand of cases of deaths, rapes etc.
Statistically, nowhere in modern history could you find the equivalence of
crimes Bashir is accused of? Consequently the Sudanese and the world at
large are at an appointment with the most embarrassing, revelatory and
incriminating evidences ever presented in that Court. Concrete damaging
evidence from sources such as satellite photos, telephone conversations to
hard copies materials will be confronting Bashir.
Nothing
will spare him of otherwise what would be a grueling and tough trial
except a close Court hearing. That option I am not sure he will be
able to get or negotiate for.
The
justice-loving Sudanese people would like to see him not squandering the
historical court hearings opportunity but rather turn it to his advantage by
putting the records straight and vindicate himself. Staying a fugitive of
justice will not dismiss the charges nor prove his innocence on the contrary
it will tend to affirm rather than negate.
The
situation in Darfur has not only terribly tarnished Bashir’s name but
totally incapacitated and rendered him a liability to the nation.
The
question can he step a side and save the country from many hurdles and
sufferings? Can he do it?
The
answer to that is unfortunately not in Bashir’s hands. It is in the hands of
the army, security and intelligence services generals plus the strong
members of the ruling NCP booked for The Hague. They will definitely not
allow him, even if he wanted to hand himself over, not because there is no
justice in The Hague but because they
fear the trial per se will be an
indictment of their institutions. Trial will expose in Darfur
and elsewhere in the country the Islamist Party dirty laundry and criminal
intentions in the diabolic scheme so called Al-Barnamij
Al –Hadary or the civilizing project, euphemistically the
killing project to Arabicize and Islamicize the country.
According to many unofficial reports the going of President Bashir is just a
matter of time. He will be forced by diplomatic demands and circumstances.
This will create a succession problem. The most likely candidate to take
over as thing stands today is no longer the President favorite nor of the
majority on the list of fifty or so of the ICC. He is in a dilemma. If he
makes a hurried reshuffle in the government this will find resistance and a
big majority in the Party may decide not to respect them and might lead to
another unavoidable schism in the NCP. The regime is a long-way to settle
its internal squabbling for power.
I read someone saying “Al
Bahir is a victim of imperialism by the strongest”. Nay, Bashir is a victim
of his own ‘successes’. If lies, deception, political manipulation,
machination, sloganeering; military coup and civil wars to seize control of
government and society respectively are accomplishments. Bashir and his
Generals are reaping what they have been sowing. They thought they were
fighting all through distant wars where human rights of innocent civilians
were trampled on with impunity and with no Big Brother watching. However, in
the dawn of the
new ICC era, the ultimate goal of which is to put an end to the running away
impunity, they were in a twist of fate caught red-handed in
Darfur.
The
Khartoum regime apologists in unsuccessful attempts to abort the trail and
shield him from individual criminal responsibility have been doing all they
could by shifting the debate away from the core issue of individual criminal
responsibility for crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC and drawing
the world into the side line issue of regime change. In other words they
have been trying to exchange Bashir role as an accused, a crime perpetrator
and make him look like a victim of international political conspiracy to
make the Sudanese people and the world
worry
that the arrest will orchestrate a regime change followed by
upheaval and chaos.
The
Sudanese people who have a stake in power, for that matter
have no much concern
of the way Bashir
will exist from power. After all they did not have a say in the way
President Bashir grasped that power, when he and a bunch of power-hungry
adventurous officers ousted a democratically elected government. The
majority still resent the violent manipulative way of his accession to
power. Worst his notorious ultimatum (has never been withdrawn) that he
would not relinquish power except as a cold dead body. The Ingaz/NCP group
didn’t care more or less for constitutional matters such as the due respect
of the will of the Sudanese people to choose their rulers democratically nor
the respect of the law of the land, the Constitution. Logically, it will be
bizarre to expect them to respect international law
Many Sudanese - albeit for
different reasons- are contemplating the NCP regime demise. They are not
worried of the coming change. Because, change will bring the ultimate end of
a totalitarian government and give
the people the opportunity to swim the country out.
But if change happens and is accompanied by inertia, of course that
will not be strange because people know in such situations things get worst
before they get better, an inevitable labor pain of change. That will be far
better than the present status quo where the country progress now is held
hostage by the fate of one man drowning man.
Some
may argue that Khartoum, which has been very uncomfortable in its new found
role as peace maker in Darfur, will find the pretext with the issue of
arrest warrant to drop its effort to seriously find finality to the
resolution of the conflict in Darfur or to get the country back on track to
plural democracy. Keeping and maintaining peace or making one, things they
claim they are doing, are the prime responsibilities of any government. So
why should NCP officials wanted to be rewarded for supposedly doing their
job and duty? You break it you fix it.
These
shallow threats reminds us of the fact that Khartoum has had never been a
willing partner in all peace and agreements’ processes. True progress on
agreements such as CPA or on Darfur conflict resolution has not depended and
will not depend on Khartoum but on the largesse of the
international community.
