RWANDA: Arrest Order Not Implemented, Bashir Attends African Union Summit

The President of Sudan, Omar Al-Bashir, is attending the 27th African Union Heads of State Summit in Kigali without worry of being arrested, despite an international arrest warrant against him for alleged war crimes and genocide.

Mr Bashir is wanted at The Hague-based International Criminal Court for five counts of crimes against humanity, two counts of war crimes and three counts of genocide allegedly committed in Darfur, Sudan.

President Bashir who touched down at Kigali International Airport Saturday morning was promised security before arriving in Kigali when on Wednesday Rwanda stated he will be under diplomatic immunity while participating in the summit.

Rwanda’s Foreign Affairs minister Louise Mushikiwabo said Tuesday that her government had received an official request by the ICC to implement the arrest warrant upon his arrival which they turned down.

His visit to Rwanda comes amid previously criticised travels to other African countries including Uganda, Djibouti and South Africa where the arrest warrants were also not implemented despite international pressure.

Whereas the other countries are signatories to the Rome Statute which establishes the ICC and are obliged to arrest Mr Bashir on their territory, Rwanda is not a signatory and is not obliged to implement the warrant.

The ICC stated that Bashir and other high-ranking Sudanese political and military leaders conducted unlawful attacks on civilians in Darfur between 2003 and 2008.

His forces, according to the ICC, allegedly committed crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide by carrying out systematic acts of pillage on towns and villages.

Thousands of women were raped, men and children murdered while wells and water pumps were intentionally contaminated, the indictment reads in part.

This, according to the ICC prosecutor was reasonable ground to believe Mr Bashir acted with specific intent to destroy in part the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups who inhabited the pillaged areas.

Despite these allegations against Mr Bashir, fellow African presidents continue to defend him and criticise the ICC for being impartial. Close to 30 African Heads of State are expected to re-think their membership to the ICC during their meeting on Sunday.

Some civil society officials at the AU Summit have gone on to allege that the suspected crimes implicated against Bashir are “forgeries” that should not be given credence.

“The crimes are politically motivated. They are in the interest of the USA which wants to exploit Sudan’s oil,” Dr Joseph Chilengi, the presiding officer of the Economic, Social and Cultural Council, an advisory body of the African Union, said.

Mr Bashir has been in power since October 1993 and is one of the longest serving African presidents.

SUDAN: Bashir Cancels Plans For South Africa Summit Fearing ICC Arrest

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir will not be part of next month's summit of the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in South Africa.

While the Sudan embassy said President Bashir had pressing domestic issues to attend to, indications are that he may have been requested to skip the visit by both the South African and Chinese governments.

Highly placed government sources said the two countries fear the Sudan leader's presence would detract attention from the summit.

The Sudanese embassy in Pretoria on Wednesday confirmed its leader would skip the December summit.

Embassy spokesman Saif Ahmed said President Bashir will be represented by his deputy, Mr Bakri Hasan Saleh, at the summit.

"It is worth mentioning that the Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir is currently engaged in highly important domestic issues, including the following up of the national dialogue, as well as the Addis Ababa round of negotiations between the Sudan and the armed groups," Mr Ahmed said.

The South African government has been under pressure to avoid hosting President Bashir after the June debacle at the Africa Summit in Johannesburg when it failed to follow enforce a local court order to arrest the Sudan leader.

The court order was subsequent to a demand by the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague to hold the Sudanese leader.

The ICC wants him arrested for crimes against humanity, but the South African government defied the North Gauteng High Court's ruling ordering his detention.

Mr Ahmed stressed that President Bashir recently participated in three consecutive summits, suggesting he did not need to be part of the FOCAC summit in South Africa.

The summits were the China-Africa, conference in Beijing, the India-Africa Forum in New Delhi, and the summit of Arab-South American held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Last month, the International Criminal Court's prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said it had taken preemptive action to ensure that South Africa arrests Bashir, if he comes to South Africa again.

This seemed to refer to the possible attendance of the Sudanese leader at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (Focac) which is taking place in Sandton on December 4 and 5.

She appeared to be concerned that the continuing legal wrangles over Bashir's June visit might give Pretoria a pretext not to arrest him if he does enter South Africa again.

The ICC originally gave Pretoria until October 5 to submit its reasons for disobeying an explicit request from the court, on June 13, to arrest Bashir.

The court would then decide if South Africa had violated its obligations to the ICC to arrest Al-Bashir.

If so it would be referred to the UN Security Council for possible punishment.

STILL AWAITING EXPLANATION

On October 2, the South African government asked the ICC for more time to submit its reasons for not arresting the Sudanese leader, as it said the South African courts were still dealing with the same issue.

The South African government has appealed the decision by the North Gauteng High Court that the government violated the South African constitution by failing to arrest Bashir.

On October 15, Judge Cuno Tarfusser, presiding over the ICC's Pre-Trial Chamber II granted Pretoria's request for an extended deadline to submit its reasons.

He ordered South Africa to promptly inform the ICC of any relevant developments in the South African court case.

If there were no developments by December 15, South Africa should inform the ICC by December 31 of the state of the legal proceedings.

DR CONGO: Bosco Ntaganda Rwandese Or Congolese Terminator?

Bosco Ntaganda has a beautiful smile, according to those who have met him - but beneath the smile lies a ruthless operator who well deserves his nicknames "Terminator Tango" or "The Terminator".

Gen Ntaganda was first indicted in 2006 by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for allegedly recruiting child soldiers during the Democratic Republic of Congo's bloody five-year war.

He is now on trial at The Hague, where he was transferred following his surrender at the US embassy in Rwanda in March 2013.

His surrender has been described by some analysts as an act of self-preservation, motivated by the danger he was in after losing a power-struggle within his M23 rebel group.

Additional charges of rape, murder, persecution based on ethnic grounds and the deliberate targeting of civilians were added in May 2012 as a result of evidence given during the trial of his co-accused and former boss, warlord Thomas Lubanga - the first person to be found guilty by the court two months earlier.

A witness testified that as a child he had fought alongside "The Terminator" - saying he was a man who "kills people easily".

Mr Ntaganda denies all 18 charges against him.

The Terminator at a glance

Born in 1973, grew up in Rwanda
Fled to DR Congo as a teenager after attacks on fellow ethnic Tutsis
At 17, he began his fighting days - alternating between being a rebel and a soldier, in both Rwanda and DR Congo

2006: Indicted by the ICC for allegedly recruiting child soldiers
In charge of troops who carried out 2008 Kiwanji massacre of 150 people

2009: Integrated into Congolese national army and made a general

2012: Defects from the army, sparking a new rebellion which forces 800,000 from their homes
2013: Surrenders to US embassy in Kigali, after splits in his rebel group

Gen Ntaganda is "just as dangerous as [Ugandan rebel leader] Joseph Kony", ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has said.

"Not arresting Bosco, allowing him to walk freely, like he's not committed any crimes, is unacceptable."

Impunity and luxury
But that is exactly what happened for several years, with President Joseph Kabila refusing to arrest him - for the sake of DR Congo's peace, he said.

And so, the ex-rebel-turned-army general remained free in the eastern town of Goma, enjoying a life of impunity and luxury, which included fine wine and dining and games of tennis.

The local population was not so lucky.

They blame Mr Ntaganda and his soldiers for a series of rapes, looting and murders - in North and South Kivu provinces, and in the Ituri district of north-eastern DR Congo.

Bosco Ntaganda was born in 1973 in Kiningi, a small town on the foothills of Rwanda's Virunga mountain range, famous for its gorillas.

As a teenager, Mr Ntaganda fled to Ngungu, in eastern DR Congo, following attacks on fellow ethnic Tutsis in Rwanda.

He attended secondary school there - but did not graduate.

In 1990, at the age of 17, he joined the Rwandan Patriotic Front rebels in southern Uganda.

He fought, under the command of RPF leader - now Rwandan President - Paul Kagame, to end the genocide.

After Rwanda's unrest spilled over into DR Congo, he started to flip between fighting rebellions and serving in national armies - both Rwandan and Congolese.

The list of his alleged crimes is huge - and Congolese people say "The Terminator" is regarded as a man who leads from the front and personally takes part in military operations.

In November 2008, international journalists filmed him commanding and ordering his troops in the village of Kiwanja, 90km (55 miles) north of Goma, where 150 people were massacred in a single day.

He also commanded troops accused of having killed, because of their ethnicity, at least 800 civilians in the town of Mongbwalu, in Ituri district, after his troops took control of the rich gold mines in the area in 2002.

In early April 2012, he defected from the Congolese army - leaving Goma, taking with him up to 600 heavily armed soldiers.

On 11 April, Mr Kabila finally called for his arrest - but he said he would not be handing Gen Ntaganda to the ICC.

Later that year, Gen Ntaganda's M23 rebel group seized Goma before agreeing to withdraw.

Months of fighting forced some 800,000 people to flee their homes.

But in unexplained circumstances and with the rebels under intense international pressure, they split.

Gen Ntaganda lost out to loyalists of his rival, Col Sultani Makenga, and apparently fearing death, he walked into the US embassy in Kigali, from where he was transferred to The Hague to finally face justice.