The ICC issues an arrest warrant for Sudan's President

Man At The Top

Generally held responsible as one of the causes behind the 20 years lasting civil war and the Darfur conflict, Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir has been indicted last March by The International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Such decision might have turbulent and unpredictable consequences, or simply be a step towards a long-awaited peace


By FABRIZIO COLIMBERTI
from Palermo, ITALY


On March 4, ending months of deliberation, judges of the Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court, an independent judicial body of the United Nations, issued a warrant arrest for Sudan President Omar al-Bashir. In the warrant, Mr. Bashir is indicated as having played an "essential role" as indirect co-perpetrator of the Darfur conflict and the consequences suffered by the locals; specifically, he is being indicted for attacking, murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing, forcing out of their home and pillaging the properties of a large number of civilians. A charge for genocide has not been confirmed, as the judges have not found Mr. Bashir guilty of having specifically sought the destruction of the large ethnic groups of Fur, Masalit and Zaghwa, which constitute most of the population of Darfur. However, the Court reserved the right to reconsider its position if more substantial evidence should emerge in this direction.

The arrest warrant is not being considered legally binding from Sudanese authorities, the country not being one of the signatories of the Rome Treaty that instituted the ICC, and it is unlikely to be enforced within Sudanese borders despite international pressure. In addition, the President's high popularity in the central and northern regions of Sudan remains an issue, and the institutional response was to expel several NGO's from the country. At the moment, it is unclear who will prevail between Bashir and The Court. Instability in the whole Sudan - and Darfur in particular - is far from being over, but the Court's decision at least renewed the debate, and might capture the interest of the new American administration.

Held up without a gun

Within hours from receiving the news from The Hague, where the ICC is based, the government revoked the operating licences to 13 humanitarian organizations working in Darfur, that according to the New York Times constituted 60% of the material aid to the region. Some now fear the explosion of the umpteenth food or hygienic crisis. At the same time, a crowd of thousands gathered in Khartoum to show its support to Mr. Bashir. Sudanese officials ran to - at least, publicly - condemn the ICC's decision and defend the President.

The influence of the Khartoum-based leader remains a puzzling issue for whoever tried to intervene in the Darfur case in these last years. As reported by The Economist, this ICC's last move comes after a period of intense moral suasion in which Mr. Bashir has not been persuaded to loosen up his iron fist on the country. It is reasonable to imply that the ICC judges considered the risks as well as the political and humanitarian consequences implied by their actions.

Reactions to the Court's announcements from the international community were mixed. Most Western countries backed the decision; it was the UN Security Council that referred the case to the ICC in the first place, as prescribed in the case of countries not being part of the Rome Treaty.

At the same time, the ruling has been negatively received from the African Union, a major player in the region's long struggle for peace, the League of Arab States, Russia and China, with the former power once more confirming its non-interfering external policy. In the last few years, with multimillionaire infrastructural and transport investments and an unprecedented political capital, Beijing has by far become the first investor in the Sudanese oil industry and it has a clear interest in protecting its grip on the oil-rich area of southern Darfur.

All ICC opposes punctually denounce American and European interests in Sudanese oil fields and disclaimed the judges' decision as merely driven by diplomatic manoeuvring. Such reactions were also due to the fact that such pronouncement represented the first international warrant of arrest ever issued for a sitting Head of State by the ICC. Other warrants had been previously issued to sitting Head of States by UN-backed tribunals, The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for Slobodan Milosevic (Yugoslavia) and The Special Court for Sierra Leone for Charles Taylor (Liberia). Notably, such decisions contradicted a ruling from the International Court of Justice, a UN organ that had previously established that Head of States detain international immunity from criminal prosecution while in office.

Sudanese expatriates and human rights activists such as The Enough applaud the Court's decision, not only as a sign of interest from the international community but reminiscent of the beneficial effects that internationally established tribunals had in changing the regional dynamics towards reaching a peace process both in Yugoslavia and Liberia.

Yet, these two cases were very different compared to the Sudanese one. The Balkans were a bleeding scar at the heart of Europe, and Liberia was a regional instable player in the midst of a civil war. Nowadays, Sudan has been repeatedly forgotten by international media, it shows no clear signs of an alternative Islamic civil society or grassroots movement to deal with from the outside and has a fierce friend in a stable and determined China, covering for the actual establishment. Within the current state of things, there not seems to be room for solutions of any sort for Darfur. Still, a 2006 peace agreement between Khartoum and Chad has proved unsuccessful because, according to many, the President's figure itself represented an obstacle to an effective ceasefire.

A new chapter?

Remarkably, the ICC judges' warrant resulted in a general increase of the international pressure on Mr. Bashir. In the last month, defiant of the warning, laid back and in the aftermath of ICC's decision, he paid a visit to Eritrea, Egypt, Libya and Ethiopia. However, the warrant is still likely to restrict President Bashir's movements outside Sudanese borders.

Despite a general approval for the judges' move, external observers, such as The New York Times, whether supporting such decision, stressed how the proceeding could prove disastrous not only for the future of Darfur but even for its effects on the still fragile North-South peace agreement. Besides, international experts agreed with the views articulated by several African governments that the same success of the UN peacekeeping forces in Sudan could now be in peril, being their track record enough weak already.

In general, as other observers pointed out, the first effect of the warrant has been of showing who in the international community is on the side of justice and who is not. Moreover, as underlined by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, the ICC move has sent a clear message to other sitting Head of States not falling under its own jurisdiction - Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, above all.

An obvious case is being made to urge President Obama to re-ratify the ICC treaty, after President Bush had it 'unsigned' during his first term in office. Such move would certainly increase the legitimacy of the Court's actions. The US has been very supportive of the ICC until today, but without formally agreeing to the Treaty, the Court will always be easily accused of partisanship.

In definitive, what will happen in Sudan is unpredictable, and largely dependant on foreign governments. A consolidated custom in the history of modern Sudan.

A profile of Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir

Omar al-Bashir is a defining figure in contemporary African politics. A colonel in the Sudanese army, Bashir led a military coup in 1989 that, apart from establishing himself as the key actor in the national cabinet, led to the proclamation of Sharia law. This ensured him the back up of the National Islamic Front, an Islamic party active in the northern regions of the country led by Islamist ideology Dr. Hassan al-Turabi, today also known for having been Osama bin Laden's host during his Sudanese years (1992-1996).

Dramatically ignored by the international community - especially if compared to the more infamously celebre Darfur conflict - the war between Islamic northern and African southern communities of Sudan erupted in 1983. Under Bashir's autocratic ruling, it evolved in a massively bloody conflict, in part because of the secular tensions between the two peoples but mostly because of the abundance of natural resources of the country, concentrated in the southern provinces. The US Government estimates that such war, officially ended in 2005, resulted in at least 2 million dead civilians and about 4 million refugees.

More recently, what put Mr. Bashir under the international spotlight is his role in the Darfur crisis. A series of assault by local rebels in 2003 marks the beginning of the conflict between Sudan and Chad, a conflict that sees once again the Sudanese officials recurring to those Arab militias (Janjaweed) that previously constituted their armed arm in the civil war.

UN figures speak of a death toll of about 300,000 to 400,000 dead and 2,5 million displaced civilians. Khartoum claims Darfur to be the setting of a war against local terrorism currently resulting in the death of no more than 10,000 people, as Mr. Bashir himself declared in June 2008 to presenter David Frost on Al Jazeera English. However, reports of humanitarian agencies on the ground tend to confirm the scale of the events that took place there. Referring to these numbers, several international observers accuse the Cabinet leader of genocide.

Foreign Policy Magazine ranks Sudan as the second most failed state in the world (after Somalia). Considering that conflict-safe parts of Sudan experienced limited economic development in recent years, it is arguable that this could be a measure of how bad things are in Darfur.


(Published: 10.04.2009.)