Laurent Gbagbo on trial at ICC, but AU keeps mum

Ivory Coast’s former president Laurent Gbagbo became the first ex-head of state to appear before the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague on Thursday – but you wouldn’t know about that historic moment at the African Union (AU) summit in Addis Ababa.

The AU made an enormous fuss about the ICC indicting Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta. These two cases prompted the Union to pass resolutions barring its member states from cooperating with the ICC.

And moves are still afoot for African states to withdraw en masse from the court because of this perceived prejudice against African leaders.

But no one is fussing about Gbagbo. One African diplomat offers the cynical view that “it’s the Ouattara factor, obviously”. He implied that Gbagbo’s mortal enemy, the current Ivorian President Allasane Ouattara, whom he fought so bitterly in the civil war which led to the ICC charges against him, was using his influence in West Africa and the AU to ensure he was not defended there.

There may be some truth in that. But Aisha Laraba Adbullahi, the AU’s commissioner for political affairs, has a more prosaic explanation for the apparent difference in the AU’s treatment of Al-Bashir and Kenyatta on the one hand and Gbagbo on the other. The difference, she pointed out, is that both Al-Bashir and Kenyatta are sitting presidents who should enjoy immunity from prosecution while Gbagbo is no longer in office.

She said many other parts of the world also respected the principle of granting sitting heads of state immunity from prosecution. “Mr Gbagbo is no longer serving as a leader and so we are following the case closely,” she said at a press briefing at the AU summit. “Let me make it clear that Africa as a continent and the Africa Union representing the African people do not condone impunity.”

Cynics might put a different slant on the discrepancy, suggesting that the AU leaders are fine with ICC justice as long it doesnt touch incumbents like them. But its true that others, with no ax to grind, also have problems with the ICC case against Gbagbo.

Eric-Aimé Semien, who heads the Ivorian Human Rights Observatory, has criticised the ICC for dispensing what looks very suspiciously like victor’s justice. As he said in a recent article for the Open Democracy website, both sides committed atrocities in the violence which ravaged the country from November 2010 to May 2011 after disputed elections. Ouattara was widely deemed to have won the elections, but Gbagbo disagreed, provoking a near-civil war in which at least 3 000 died and several thousands of people were injured, raped or disappeared.

The ICC opened an investigation in 2011. The prosecutor applied for a warrant of arrest on 25 October 2011 and the ICC judges issued it on November 23. Gbagbo was transferred to the ICC’s custody on November 30 that year and made his first appearance before the court to be formally charged on December 5.

Compared to this swift action, nothing has happened with the ICC prosecutor’s investigations of charges against members of the opposing camp. As Semien said only Gbagbo, his wife Simone Gbagbo and the youth leader of their political group, Charles Blé Goudé, have actually been prosecuted. Goudé is being tried in the same case as Gbagbo.

“To date, no person from the opposing camp has been, or is expected to be, prosecuted. The situation is even more serious at the level of national justice, since no proceedings were brought against the other camp, which is now in power. The ICC prosecutor has announced investigations against the other camp, but did nothing, leaving open a sense of justice of the victors over the vanquished,” he said.

This failure to act against the party in power diminished ICC justice as a deterrent against future crimes, he said, not only because it might encourage those from the Gbagbo camp to seek violent redress outside the court, but also because those in power had the greater means to commit crimes.

Thursday’s trial began with the reading of the charges against the two accused. They are both accused of four counts of crimes against humanity: murder, rape, other inhumane acts or – in the alternative – attempted murder, and persecution, allegedly committed in the context of the post-electoral violence in Côte d’Ivoire between 16 December 2010 and 12 April 2011. In essence they are accused of orchestrating the post-election violence against the opposition.

Addressing the different responses in the AU to the Gbagbo, Kenyatta and Al-Bashir cases, Semien said: “President Kenyatta was not yet president when the prosecutions against him started. This means that charges against him are not in relation to any presidential position.

“The AU position to not to give any support to the Gbagbo case is based on the fact that the AU, during the 2010-2011 post election crisis, argued that Gbagbo lost the elections and he should leave office otherwise they would take some sanctions against him and his regime. So for the AU, Gbagbo was no longer head of state of Côte d’Ivoire since the results of the 2010 election.

“As a result, all the crimes that occurred after the elections were related to his refusal to step down, in the AU view. So, for AU, he is no more than a simple criminal.”

He also elaborated on his criticism that the ICC appeared to be imposing victor’s justice in Côte d’Ivoire; “The fact that the ICC is developing victor’s justice is shocking a certain majority of the Ivorian people. Crimes were committed at both sides (Ouattara and Gbagbo) and nobody from the Ouattara side is prosecuted either by the ICC or at the local level. More than 400 pro Gbagbo people are imprisoned at the domestic level.

“People from the Ouattara side to whom some crimes could be charged have been appointed in the national administration or in the army. Moreover, the Gbagbo case seems not be given enough attention in the international community whereas the way it will be conducted will have a very serious impact on the reconciliation process, which is still incomplete and difficult to realise in Côte d’Ivoire because many Ivorian citizens are still supporting Gbagbo and Blé Goudé.

“Indeed, the threat of vengeance and recrimination is still present,” says Semien, recalling that the reason why the rebellion which eventually brought Ouattara to power was launched in 2002 on the feeling of political exclusion of Ouattara and the people supporting him.

He said the ICC was jeopardising its reputation and it’s future in Côte d’Ivoire. And so the AU should take more interest and show more commitment to this case.

Source : http://thezimbabwemail.com/world-18359-laurent-gbagbo-on-trial-at-icc-but-au-keeps-mum.html

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