Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir arrives in Khartoum from Johannesburg
on June 15, 2015 even after a court ordered him not to leave South
Africa as it decided whether to arrest him over alleged war crimes for
which he has been indicted by the International Criminal Court. ANC has
slammed ICC as having run out of its usefulness.
South Africa’s ruling party has slammed the International
Criminal Court (ICC) as having run out of its usefulness, a day after
the Court demanded for the arrest of indicted Sudanese leader Omar
al-Bashir.
In a statement released on Monday evening,
the African National Congress (ANC) supported the decision by South
African authorities to let Bashir leave the country despite a court
order barring him.
The party’s topmost organ, the
National Executive Committee, called on the South African government to
appeal the order, but argued the ICC was targeting Africans.
“The
National Executive Committee (NEC) of the African National Congress
holds a view that the International Criminal Court (ICC) is no longer
useful for the purposes for which it was intended - being a court of
last resort for the prosecution of crimes against humanity.
“The
fact that compliance with the prescripts of the International Criminal
Court is voluntary and countries can choose whether to be a signatory or
not, means that gross human violations committed by non-signatory
countries go unpunished,” ANC said on Monday.
On
Sunday, the Pretoria High Court said it was “compelling respondents to
prevent President Omar al-Bashir from the leaving the country until an
order is made in this Court.”
The court order followed a
decision by activists to challenge South Africa which is a member of
the ICC to arrest Bashir who was in Johannesburg to attend the 25th
Ordinary Summit of the African Union.
ANC argued Bashir
had been granted immunity like every other accredited participant in
the Summit and that no one had contested that.
“The
matter before the High Court in Pretoria relating to the President of
Sudan has once again brought to the fore the fundamental flaws of the
workings of the ICC and the urgent need for the amendment of the Rome
Statute to ensure that justice knows no geographic boundaries or
geo-political dynamics,” the party argued.
Although
Sudan is not a member of the ICC, al-Bashir, 71, has been indicted for
five counts of crimes against humanity, two counts of war crimes and
three counts of genocide in the way his military quelled a mutiny in
Darfur.
DARFUR CONFLICT
In
2003, Darfur erupted into conflict when insurgents mounted a campaign
against Bashir’s government, complaining their region was politically
and economically marginalised.
The UN estimates that
more than 300,000 people have been killed in the conflict that has
forced some 2.5 million people to flee their homes, a figure contested
by Khartoum government.
But Bashir’s ping-pong game with the Court reflects the relationship the ICC has with Africa.
He has been to six ICC member states since his last indictment but none of them has dared arrest him.
Since its creation in 2002, the ICC has handled 22 cases, all of them in Africa.
Bashir was indicted in 2007 and later again in 2009.
In 2010, he attended the promulgation of the Kenyan Constitution, an incident that angered activists.
In 2011, Kenya’s High Court issued orders to arrest him if he set foot again on Kenyan soil.
The
decision was appealed by the Kenyan government, but not before Bashir
warned that no flights destined to Kenya would be allowed to use
Sudanese airspace.
ANC is now supporting the AU’s position for amendments to the Rome Statute.
“The
African National Congress calls for a review of the statutes of the ICC
to compel all member states of the United Nations to be signatories to
the Rome Statute to ensure that the ICC is able to act in accordance
with the function for which it was intended – a fair and independent
court for universal and equitable justice.”
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