By Peter Makori, Kansas City Star Contributing Writer
The International Criminal Court’s indictment last week of Sudanese strongman Omar al-Bashir was long overdue.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, ICC chief prosecutor, presented indictment charges before the court in The Hague, Netherlands.
He singled out the Sudanese president as the principal culprit who should be arrested for the genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity that have become the darkest face in the country’s western Darfur region.
Al-Bashir becomes the second African head of state to be indicted for war crimes while in office. Former Liberian despot Charles Taylor was the first to be indicted and is facing war crimes for various atrocities he allegedly perpetrated in neighboring Sierra Leone.
But as expected, African presidents came to the defense of their colleague. They dismissed the indictment as a witch hunt, claiming that it would have far-reaching ramifications and undermine ongoing peace negotiations.
They accused the ICC of targeting the continent’s leaders, while allegedly turning a blind eye to other continents where human rights violations had happened.
African leaders meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Monday called on the U.N. Security Council to postpone the indictment so that negotiations could continue.
It appears to me that these leaders are suffering selective amnesia. They fail to mention the 2005 comprehensive peace agreement signed in Nairobi, where al-Bashir promised to ensure peace in the greater Sudan.
His government has since undermined the successful implementation of the peace deal, leading to war drums being sounded by rebels in the south.
The U.N. Security Council should never operate on the whims of leaders who have shown disrespect to their own constitutions of governance.
The indictment should be a wake-up call to these leaders. The recent happenings in Kenya and Zimbabwe — where incumbent presidents blatantly rigged elections and then unleashed their militias on unarmed citizens as a way of clinging to power — call for a global policing system to deal with these acts of political madness.
African presidents must demonstrate to the rest of the world that they are worth the credibility they crave.
The world should also watch closely the intentions of China and Russia, the two member nations that enjoy veto powers at the U.N.
The two have opposed the indictment of al-Bashir.
The ICC is an independent, non-political system whose obligations are clearly defined by the U.N. Security Council: to insure international peace, justice and respect for democratic governance.
Another dictator, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, was indicted for genocide and crimes against humanity but he died in custody before justice was handed down.
Judges at the ICC are considering issuing a warrant for al-Bashir’s arrest before the end of the year. It is encouraging that Moreno-Ocampo has stood his ground and urged the judges to consider his indictment on its own merit. He has insisted that indisputable evidence points to al-Bashir’s culpability in the genocide.
The prosecutor rightly argues that, as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of his country, al-Bashir had not shown evidence that he is out to insure lasting peace in Darfur.
He pointed out that the Arab criminal gang, known as the Janjaweed, had direct connection with Sudanese authorities, including the armed forces that the president commands.
The ICC should spread its net even wider and deal with rebels in Darfur if they are found to have contributed to human-rights violations in the region.
Africa might still remain a “dark continent” if politicians continue to exhibit leadership that is inconsistent with accepted conventions of modern human civilization and democracy.
Peter Makori is a Kenyan journalist who is an alumnus of the Alfred Friendly Press Fellowship program. To reach him, send e-mail to
