Zuma ceremony may land Sudan’s Bashir in trouble

Since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant of arrest for President Hassan Omar al-Bashir last month, the Sudanese President has taken to strutting around Africa and the Middle East, dismissing the order as inconsequential and not worth the paper it is written on.

The inauguration of Jacob Zuma as the next South African president on May 9, however, will present President Bashir with the first major test of just how far he can go in flouting the ICC order because he risks arrest should he attend the ceremony that will be held at the Union Buildings in Tshwane (Pretoria).

That is because he is considered a fugitive from the ICC, accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity in his country’s Darfur region.

South Africa is a signatory to the Rome Statute of the ICC and is therefore under obligation to facilitate, whenever possible, the arrest of fugitives and handing over of such persons to the court at The Hague in the Netherlands for trial.

South Africa, like most other African countries, was opposed to the idea of indicting President Bashir.

But on Friday The Star quoted an unnamed government official as saying “it would be obliged as a signatory of the Rome Statute to arrest and surrender Al-Bashir’’ to the ICC. Since the arrest warrant was issued, the Sudanese leader has visited Egypt, Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia.

In Sudan, President Bashir has attended several rallies condemning the ICC action and vowed never to be cowed by its order.

He has also ordered some 13 international NGOs out of Sudan for allegedly feeding the ICC with information that led to his indictment.

It has been made know that four African heads of state from Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania and Madagascar who came to power irregularly are not welcome at the Zuma inauguration.

Diplomatic representatives of the four nations based in South Africa have not been invited to the ceremony that will see Mr Zuma take over from caretaker President Kgalema Motlanthe.

Nor has the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, been invited, ostensibly so as not to offend the official Chinese delegation. The South African director general of foreign affairs Ayanda Ntsaluba made the announcement in Tshwane on Tuesday.

According to the Peter Faricius, foreign editor of the, The Star, “Mr Ntsaluba seemed to be referring to the African Union rule that suspended governments from AU business if they come to power by unconstitutional means.