The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Khartoum, Sudan | AFP | Sudan has agreed to hand ousted autocrat Omar al-Bashir and others to the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in Darfur, a member of Khartoum’s ruling body said Tuesday.
The Hague-based ICC has charged Bashir and three of his former aides with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Sudan’s western region during a brutal conflict from 2003.
“Those who have been indicted by the ICC, they have to go there,” Mohamed Hassan Al-Taishay, a member of the ruling sovereign council said, without mentioning their names.
His remarks, quoted in a statement issued by the sovereign council in Khartoum, came as a government delegation met rebel groups in the South Sudanese capital of Juba.
Taishay said the talks focused on justice and reconciliation in Darfur, where the United Nations says about 300,000 people have been killed and millions displaced since the conflict erupted.
Taishay said they had agreed several mechanisms for achieving peace in the region.
“First, all those who have been indicted by the ICC should appear before the ICC,” he said.
“Second, a special court be set up to investigate crimes committed in Darfur.”
The conflict in Darfur, the size of France, erupted when ethnic minority African rebels took up arms against Bashir’s then Arab-dominated government, accusing it of marginalising the region economically and politically.
The ICC has charged Bashir with genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the conflict.
It has also indicted three of his former aides, Ahmed Haroon, Abdulrahim Mohamed Hussain and Ali Kushied.
“We cannot achieve justice unless we treat the suffering of the victims because this is a truth that we can’t escape from,” Taishay said.
“In Darfur, crimes against humanity and war crimes have been committed.”
Bashir has denied the charges.
Bashir was ousted by the army in a palace coup last April after months of protests against his iron-fisted rule of three decades.
He was detained following his ouster and has since been jailed on corruption charges.
Anti-Bashir protesters, residents of Darfur and rebel groups from the region have consistently demanded that the ousted ruler be handed over to the ICC.
For years before his ouster and despite the ICC indictments, Bashir had regularly visited regional countries as well as Russia and China.
Days before the protests erupted in December 2018, he visited Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, becoming the first Arab leader to do so since the Syrian conflict began in 2011.
In 2018, Bashir helped broker a tentative peace deal in South Sudan after five years of intense conflict in the world’s newest country, which won independence from Khartoum in 2011.
ICC should also charge Paul Kagame,James Kabarebe and others for the rapings, attempted ethnic cleansing, beheadings and looting of minerals in Eastern D.R Congo
Mugabo, you forgot to include Mr. Museveni. This is because by funding, training and arming the RPA/F to invade Rwanda in October 1990; it is Mr. Musevni who was the remote cause (the invisible hand) of the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, and the Reverse Genocide in the DR Congo.
I am sure the news that Al Bashir will be handed over to the ICC, has jolted Mr. Museveni to his bone marrow. Firstly because, during his May 2016 Swearing in Ceremony; instead of causing the arrest of ICC wanted Bashir, with impunity Museveni invited and hosted the man with a swagger and pomp.
If that was not bad enough Mr. Museveni told his audience that included all the Diplomats that the West is after all “a bunch of useless people”.
Secondly, the FDC People’s Government, is compiling evidences and collecting petitionary signatures, in order to drag the big man to the Hague, for similar crimes against humanity committed against Ugandans.
What goes around comes around!
Mr.o and Mugabo, museveni can not be tried in the ICC. FOR crimes against humanity committed in the late 20th century, ICC doesn’t work retrospective. Museveni currently can only be tried for crimes in kasese . Otherwise, he is lucky to move on squat free for the past crimes.
But Alex, you may be right, but Mr. M7 has been aiding and abetting crime against humanity. E.g., he was aiding and hosted the M23 (the Banyamulenge) rebel group. This group committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. E.g. they conscripted and enlisted children under the age of 15 years into an armed group and using them to participate actively in hostilities. This kind of crime was Mr. M7’s classical 5-year war crime and crime against humanity in Luweero and Northern Uganda.
And when M23 were flushed out of the DR Congo Jungle by the combined forces of Tanzanian People’s Defense Force TPDF, Burundi and the UN forces; these criminals fled to Uganda and Mr. M7 hosted, housed and fed them. And many are still around and the government does not want to talk about them.