Sudan's President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir |
Sudan's Bashir lands in Malawi
Sudan's President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir arrived in Malawi on Thursday for a regional trade summit in defiance of the 2009 International War Crimes warrant against him.
Al-Bashir and his 26-member delegation were welcomed with traditional dances and an honour guard of Malawi soldiers, though the southern African nation has a
treaty obligation to arrest him over war crimes committed in Sudan's troubled Darfur
region.
A foreign ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Malawi “would not arrest the Sudanese president.”
COMESA
"Why ? He is here as a friend of President Bingu wa Mutharika,"the official said, asking not to be named.
Al-Bashir will attend the annual summit of the 19-member Common Market for
Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), which opens on Friday in Malawi's capital
Lilongwe. On arrival at the airport, he did not speak to reporters but was
rushed to a hotel in downtown Lilongwe .
Crimes against humanity
Al-Bashir is the first sitting president indicted by the International Criminal Court, which issued a warrant for his arrest on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Malawi has ratified the Rome Statute, the ICC's founding document, which obliges the country to arrest him if Al-Bashir enters the country.
However, Mutharika said in March that African leaders should not be dragged to The Hague for crimes committed in Africa.
Other leaders expected at the summit are Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Eritrea 's Issaias Afeworki , Burundi 's Pierre Nkurunziza, and Swazi King Mswati III.
The Sudanese President has travelled abroad numerous times to countries that are not party to the ICC, receiving red-carpet welcome from China, where he made a three-day visit in June.
He has only been to three other countries that have treaty obligations to arrest him, travelling in May to Djibouti and in August to Chad.
Kenya invited him to attend a ceremony in August 2010 for the promulgation of its new constitution but later acknowledged it had made a mistake and has not welcomed him again.
International fugitive
With each of those three visits, ICC judges informed the UN Security Council and the Assembly of State Parties to the Rome Statute but that has yet to result in any concrete action regarding his travels.
The decision to welcome Al-Bashir will likely create further diplomatic headaches for Mutharika, who has already seen international aid slashed over worries about his autocratic tendencies.
"Al-Bashir is an international fugitive wanted on charges of heinous crimes – including genocide -- committed in Darfur," said Human Rights Watch's senior counsel on international justice, Elise Keppler. "Malawi should
arrest him, not host him," she
added.
The UN says at least 300,000 people have died since the uprising in Darfur started in 2003.
"President Mutharika's public reluctance to back the ICC is unacceptable," said Marek Marczynski, an international justice campaigner for Amnesty International.
Marczynski said: "The authorities have legal obligations to provide real justice for victims of crimes against humanity and other crimes under international law in Darfur and should not be welcoming international fugitives."
AFP/Uche Iheanacho
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