Media article

The Al Bashir Debacle

This article discusses the failure of states to comply with their obligation to execute the warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for the arrest of President Omar Hassan Ahmed Al Bashir of Sudan. There are serious charges against President Al Bashir, for which he will have to stand trial, including acts of genocide, based on action taken on instructions of President Al Bashir to eliminate nationals of Sudan who are not of Arab extraction. President Al Bashir may be depicted as the Adolph Hitler of Africa by virtue of his efforts to create a Sudanese Herrenvolk. Within this process, the death of between 200 000 and 400 000 members of African tribes in the Sudanese province of Darfur was caused, as well as the displacement of approximately 2,5 million people. A special focus of the article is the hosting of President Al Bashir by the South African government in June 2015 at a summit of the African Union in Johannesburg, in blatant defiance of the rule of law, and escorting him out of the country in contempt of an order of the High Court, Gauteng Division. Claiming that its obligations as a member state of the African Union, South Africa stated that this prevented it from executing the warrant of arrest.