Are African countries that are state parties to the Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court playing a shell game with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir? Since the issuance of his arrest warrant by the ICC in March 2009, Bashir has repeatedly received invitations from African leaders to attend summits and conferences that eventually result in the dispatching of non-fugitives of international justice to serve in Bashir’s stead. Were these recent invitations from countries like Uganda and Nigeria in good faith? Or have there been pre-arranged deals cut that a public invitation would be extended with the understanding that Bashir would not accept them?
Last week provides the most recent example of a possibly well-choreographed diplomatic dance. On Thursday, Amnesty International broke the news that the African Union had invited Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir to participate in the AU Peace and Security Council meetings on Darfur in Abuja, Nigeria. They urged the AU to rescind the invitation and, if Bashir made the visit, the Nigerian government “to arrest President Omar al Bashir and hand him over to the ICC.” After a day of headlines and ambivalent statements from Nigerian and AU officials about their commitments to fulfill obligations under international law, the Sudanese government announced on Friday that Second Vice President Ali Osman Taha would lead Sudan’s delegation to the AU meetings.
But it’s not just international or Western human rights groups that are offended by the invitations issued by African capitals. Last week, an uproar on the matter occurred for the second time this year in Uganda before Bashir turned down an invitation to attend the Special Summit of Heads of State and Government on Refugees, Returnees and Internally Displaced Persons in Africa. The Sudanese government eventually sent only two junior officials in a pattern of events that closely mirrored another Ugandan invitation in July. At that time, a senior Ugandan foreign affairs official told Reuters:
“The invitation still stands … (but) we will handle it through diplomatic channels to avoid embarrassment and inconvenience to anybody…It’s a codeword for an agreement that President Bashir delegates another senior cabinet-ranked person. That was agreed.”
Likewise, the Nigerian based NEXT online news portal quoted “reliable diplomatic sources” in Abuja as saying that the government does not want to break ranks with the AU yet seeks to fulfill international obligation:
“My reasoning is that [the] government is merely inviting Sudan as a country with a veiled message that someone higher in the Sudanese government but not Bashir would be the welcomed guest,” said the source.
What would be the motivations behind such deals? By extending the invitations to Bashir, these governments can play to a vociferous current in pan-African politics that rejects the ICC proceedings on Darfur and case against Bashir. In July, the AU approved a resolution to abstain from cooperation with the ICC over extraditing Bashir. Many at the time complained that such a resolution was pushed unfairly by Libyan leader Colonel Muamar Gaddafi. Yet by going along with the resolution, many African leaders have placed themselves in a position where in order to reflect African solidarity and preserve the legitimacy of an AU decision purportedly made on behalf of the entire continent, they must make decisions regarding Bashir that may lack support amongst their own constituencies. By reaching pre-arranged deals with Bashir that he will not take up their invitations, these countries could be craftily avoiding the full weight of international pressure calling for their enforcement of international law.
In the cases of Uganda and Nigeria, what is ‘good’ for the AU does not seem to translate necessarily into what is in the national interest, as expressed by local civil society and media. For instance, Nigerian human rights groups have said that they would protest any visit by Bashir. “The invitation is an insensitive display by the president of Nigeria,” said Innocent Chukwuma, head of the CLEEN Foundation.
As for President Bashir and the National Congress Party (NCP), the invitations from other African heads of state send the public message that the Sudanese president still retains legitimacy in the eyes of his continental counterparts. It helps, furthermore, Bashir and the NCP make the case domestically that the president can still carry out the full function of his responsibilities – a matter questioned by some within the NCP since the issuance of the arrest warrants. In fact, Bashir and the party’s chief interlocutor with the international community, Ghazi Salah Al-Deen, in a moment of honesty acknowledged last month that the court’s decision is “limiting the movement of the president…He has to study of course any particular (travel plan) on its own merits.”
All of this diplomacy is testing whether a head of state can effectively perform his functions while wanted on an outstanding arrest warrant. Are these countries really ignoring the decision of the ICC, or are they diplomatically circumventing it in order to avoid acting in what may be their own national interest? Countries are parties to the ICC because they have determined, independently of the AU, that its presence serves a warranted and legitimate role in the promotion and protection of international law. Some, including Uganda, have openly acknowledged the potential role of the Court in addressing their own crises.
Even if these countries know that Bashir will pass on their invitations, Nigeria and Uganda degrade the force of public condemnation and isolation that the ICC arrest warrants have had on President Bashir and the NCP. Of course, the stances of these countries are better than non-ICC members like Egypt, Ethiopia and Eritrea that have welcomed and hosted Bashir. Yet these countries should be clear about their commitments to fulfill international law and follow the lead of South Africa and Botswana. If it turns out that they are intentionally playing such a shell game with Bashir, they must realize that they are directly weakening the efforts of those within Sudan fighting to make Bashir’s arrest warrant – and inability to perform his position – an important issue in the upcoming national elections.
The opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Save Darfur Coalition.
Tags: African Union, Darfur, Human Rights, ICC, Omar al-Bashir
