Zuma right to snub a global criminal court that’s a flawed, lopsided institution
WHEN President Jacob Zuma allowed Omar al-Basir to leave South Africa despite being charged with serious crimes by the International Criminal Court, it was analogous to a player receiving a yellow card for saving a goal. For Eusebius McKaiser (Cape Times, June 18), Zuma was a villain in the match. But for many Africans he may have come out as a hero.
Am I treating Darfur lightly with no concern for human tragedy? No. What McKaiser does not point out is a chronology of events that has turned the noble idea of the ICC into a political football.
South Africa domesticated the Rome Statute in 2002 with the best of intentions. But everyone who has a working knowledge of African current affairs could see how the ICC has been used to go only after African leaders, because its referral process is flawed. It protects the strong and powerful.
The US, in 2001, made it clear it will not allow its soldiers to be subjected to international justice.
Darfur was portrayed to Western audiences as a genocide perpetrated by one group (Arab) over another (African) by neo-conservatives and Zionists after the disastrous Iraq invasion. Through this racial categorisation, though false, it was hoped the focus would shift away from the Bush and Blair crimes in Iraq.
The UN’s own investigation had shown how complex the situation in Darfur was. According to the distinguished academic Mamdani, it was more a civil war where war crimes were perpetrated by both warring factions.
Recently, the Obama administration has taken a more sanguine approach to Bashir, which shows how expedient institutions like the ICC really are.
With South Africa heavily censured for its disastrous “yes” vote to impose a no-fly zone over Libya in 2011, which was violated with impunity by Western powers, and the recent xenophobic attacks on fellow Africans, it was really too much to expect Zuma to abide by lopsided ICC rulings despised by the majority of African countries. Hanief Haider