SUDAN CRISIS

BASHIR: AFRICAN LEADERS CAUGHT IN ETHICAL DILEMA

By Hon Christopher M.Kibazanga

With the indictment of Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, the President of the Islamic regime in Khartoum-Sudan, African leaders have found themselves in ethical dilemma.

Ethical dilemma refers to the situation where by the alternative available to resolve a conflict, breach an ethical rule.

African leaders led by Tanzanian President and AU Chairman Jakaya Kikwete, want to protect the so-called sovereignty of Sudan and Africa as whole by prevailing over the ICC, to stay the indictment of Bashir.

Tanzania, during the time of the former President Julius Nerere (RIP), had distinguished herself as country that was not going to tolerate dictatorship and impunity on the continent.

This led the country to engage in liberation struggles on the continent. The ethical dilemma here notwithstanding, the contradictions of Tanzania, is love for African sovereignty and accepting impunity to rule the African continent.

It is in the public domain that the struggle against colonialism and imperialism was on the solid premises to ensure freedom and the protection of the fundamental human rights of people on the continent; to ensure justice for the African people; to ensure equitable distribution of natural resources and to ensure security for all.

This was the essence of the struggle for independence. We thought in order to achieve the stated goals, more emphasis was to be put on the struggle against disease, poverty and ignorance for obvious reasons - an informed and health society is an engine for national development and advancement.

The promise that Africa shall rise and shine again has turned out to mean the opposite. Fifty years down the road, the continent is almost in oblivion, almost trapped in the cobweb of failed states. The abuse of fundamental human rights of our people forms part of the definition of our beloved continent.

It s trapped in the fourfold cobweb of poverty, disease and ignorance as result of senseless wars and violence caused by good for nothing idiots posing as leaders and liberators. Why should African leaders pretend? .

Show me a single person who does not know that Bashir exported his war theatres to other parts of the continent? Who does not know that the people of northern Uganda were being raped, killed, and forced into displaced peoples camps with full knowledge of Sudanese government led by Bashir? Who does not know that Bashir held Southern Sudan in a state of war for two decades on the basis that the population was there is Black and are not muslims?

Who does not know that the killing machines captured in western Uganda during the ADF insurgency had the descriptions of Sudanese’s government?.

Today, there is a state of war in the Darfur on based on resource exploitation and distribution. What crime have those women and children committed a part from that they were born in an area rich in natural resources?.

Now that the AU is a paper tiger, how else do we ensure freedom and justice for our people if people like Bashir can be protected in the name of the continent sovereignty?.

Ethically and morally, how do you protect and save a people who export their violence to innocent people of Africa who finding themselves ruled by idiots and dare devils? What is more sinful - indicting a criminal or allowing a criminal continue killing, raping and displacing our people.

It does not matter who comes to your rescue when you’re drowning, African leaders have shown us that it doesn’t make any difference who rules you. Under normal circumstances, one would have expected that the AU would be an alternative to the ICC in the protection of our people on the continent.

But as things stand, the organisation is suffering from sameness - it is an organisation of the same people who have little regard for Africa and its people.

On January 26, 1986 when President Museveni was being sworn in at parliamentary building, he posed a question, “where were they when we were killing each other, where was the Organisation of African Unity, where was the international community and how can the principle of non interference in the internal matters of sovereign state be the basis of the world to looking on when people are killing each other.”

Sirs, the international community is here in Durfar-Sudan, trying to stop the madness of African leaders.

Hon Kibanzanga M Christopher,Member of Parliament of the Republic of Uganda and

Opposition Shadow Minister for Anti-Corruptionand Presidency