 |
| . |
The International Criminal Court
(ICC) said it was "disappointed" at South Africa's failure to heed
its calls to detain Bashir on long-standing arrest warrants over the Darfur
conflict.
As his plane took off on the final
day of an African Union leaders' summit in Johannesburg, the local high court
was still hearing arguments over an urgent application to force the authorities
to detain him.
"Our position has always been
that South Africa's obligation is clear and unequivocal. It had an obligation
to arrest him," the ICC's chief deputy prosecutor James Stewart told reporters.
After Bashir had departed, South
African judge Dunstan Mlambo also issued a harsh rebuke of the government for
ignoring Sunday's court order, requiring the authorities to keep him grounded.
"The conduct of the respondents
-- to the extent that they have failed to take steps to arrest and detain
(Bashir) -- is inconsistent with the constitution of the Republic of South
Africa," Mlambo said.
President Bashir's hurried departure from Waterkloof military airport
outside Pretoria sparked anger from rights groups.
"When he took off from South
Africa today, he took with him the hopes of thousands of victims of grave
crimes in Darfur who wish at last to see justice done," Human Rights Watch
said in a statement.
"By allowing this shameful flight,
the South African government has disregarded not only its international legal
obligations, but its own courts."
South Africa is a signatory of The
Hague-based ICC, which has often been criticised for only targeting African
leaders.
 |
| . |
Dressed in his traditional white robes,
a smiling Bashir waved his cane in the air as he stepped off the plane after
landing back in Khartoum and then drove around in an open-topped car surrounded
by a crowd of supporters.
Sudanese officials in Johannesburg earlier shrugged off the court case and
said the South African government had given them assurances about Bashir's
trip.
 |
| . |
At the summit, Bashir had posed for a
group photograph on Sunday along with South African President Jacob Zuma and
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, who is the current chair of the 54-member
group.
"This is not the headquarters of
the ICC anyway and we don't want it in this region at all," said Mugabe at
the summit's closing press conference.
"There is the view that we should
distance ourselves from the ICC, but unfortunately the treaty that set it up
was signed not by the AU, but by individual countries," he added.
The ICC indictments relate to the western Sudanese region of Darfur, which
erupted into conflict in 2003 when black insurgents rose up against Bashir's
Arab-dominated government, complaining of marginalisation.
Khartoum unleashed a bloody counter-insurgency using the armed forces and
allied militia.
The United Nations says 300,000 people
have been killed in the conflict and another 2.5 million forced to flee their
homes.
The South African government said it would "enquire (into) the
circumstances" how Bashir left the country despite the court order, which
was obtained by the Southern African Litigation Centre, a legal rights group.
"It's an embarrassment for South Africa," Jakkie Cilliers, of the
Institute for Security Studies think-tank, told International Reporters.
"My feeling is that by allowing
him in they wanted to demonstrate to the world a common position of Africa on
the ICC."
The ICC had called on South Africa "to spare no effort in ensuring the
execution of the arrest warrants" against Bashir, 71, who seized power in
Sudan in an Islamist-backed coup in 1989.
The United States, which is not a signatory to the ICC, said it was
"disappointed that no action was taken" by South Africa.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon said the arrest
warrant was "a matter I take extremely seriously and the authority of the
ICC must be respected."
(an AFP Report)
0 comments :
Post a Comment