Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir (centre) attended the 2015 African
Union Summit in South Africa, despite facing an arrest warrant from the
International Criminal Court (AFP Photo/Gianluigi Guercia)
Pretoria
(AFP) - South Africa announced Friday that it would withdraw from the
International Criminal Court, dealing a major blow to a troubled
institution set up to try the world's worst crimes.
The
decision followed a dispute last year when Sudanese President Omar
al-Bashir visited the country for an African Union summit despite facing
an ICC arrest warrant over alleged war crimes.
South Africa refused to arrest him, saying he had immunity as a head of state.
Justice
Minister Michael Masutha told reporters in Pretoria that the ICC was
"inhibiting South Africa's ability to honour its obligations relating to
the granting of diplomatic immunity".
"There
is a view in Africa that the ICC in choosing who to prosecute has
seemingly preferred to target leaders in Africa," Masutha added to AFP.
The
ICC, set up in 2002, is often accused of bias against Africa and has
also struggled with a lack of cooperation, including from the United
States which has signed the court's treaty but never ratified it.
The
withdrawal "shows startling disregard for justice from a country long
seen as a global leader," Human Rights Watch said in a statement.
Amnesty
International said South Africa was "betraying millions of victims of
the gravest human rights violations and undermining the international
justice system".
The US said it was "concerned" by Pretoria's decision.
"We
do think that the ICC has made valuable contributions in the service of
accountability in a number of situations and we hope that other
governments would share that," State Department spokesman John Kirby
told reporters.
- Post-colonial bias? -
As
an ICC signatory, South Africa's failure to arrest Bashir last year led
to a wave of condemnation and an early threat from the government to
withdraw from The Hague-based court.
Bashir
has evaded arrest since his ICC indictment in 2009 for alleged war
crimes in Sudan's Darfur conflict in which 300,000 people were killed
and two million forced to flee their homes.
Earlier this month Burundi said it would leave the court, and Namibia and Kenya have also raised the possibility.
Welcoming South Africa's decision to withdraw from the ICC, Sudan urged other African member nations to follow suit.
"The
presidency of the republic... calls on African leaders and the people
of Africa who are still members of the ICC to take a collective step in
withdrawing from the ICC," a presidency statement said.
Burundi's
foreign minister Alain-Ayme Nyamitwe, meanwhile, said the country
expected others to follow, adding that it was important to note that
"the ICC is not popular in Africa".
South
Africa, which delivered a letter to the United Nations on Wednesday to
activate its official withdrawal, is likely to complete the process in
one year.
"It
could spark a domino effect on other African states," Anton du Plessis,
of the Institute for Security Studies think-tank in Pretoria, told AFP.
"South
Africa played an important role in developing the ICC and now to see it
playing such a destructive role is saddening," he said.
The
ICC said Friday it had not received any confirmation of the South
African position, adding that it relied on "the international community
in Africa and outside Africa... to fulfil its mandate."
- 'Disgraceful conduct' -
In
March, South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeal accused President Jacob
Zuma's government of "disgraceful conduct" over Bashir's visit and ruled
that the failure to arrest Bashir was unlawful.
The
government was facing a possible defeat in the Constitutional Court
next month over the issue, but said that Friday's decision meant its
legal battle would be dropped.
During
the summit, an emergency court order was obtained for Bashir's arrest,
though government lawyers admitted he had quickly flown out of the
country just before the order was issued.
"We
were called as a country to arrest and prosecute a sitting head of
state and the natural consequence would have been forced regime change
in that country by South Africa," Minister Masutha told AFP.
Of
the ten ICC probes since 2002, nine have been into African countries
and one into Georgia, though most ICC cases have been referred to the
court by African governments themselves.
In
a major setback, its highest profile case -- over Kenyan President
Uhuru Kenyatta's involvement in election violence -- collapsed two years
ago.
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