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The phrase “justice and peace” tends to roll easily from the modern tongue. But the requirements of the two are far from always being the same. Sometimes they may not even be compatible, as in the case of Omar al-Bashir, the President of Sudan, and the man who has just been charged with war crimes under international law, after years of massacre in Darfur.
The interests of justice here are clear. The indictment insists that “the prosecution evidence shows that al-Bashir masterminded and implemented a plan to destroy in substantial part
the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa groups. . . His
alibi was ‘counterinsurgency’. His intent was genocide.”
In terms of politics, it sends a clear message, too. This is the first time that official charges have been made against a sitting head of state. It is not, therefore, just a historic victory for human rights. It also tells other tyrants that there will be no impunity for their crimes.
But politics is a messier business. Charles Taylor, the former President of Liberia, is currently in The Hague awaiting trial. He was persuaded in 2003 to accept exile in Nigeria, in return for being allowed to leave power gracefully. But, three years later, he was arrested after meddling in Liberian politics from abroad.
His example is often cited in private by Robert Mugabe and his closest cronies, who fear that, if they give up power, they will swiftly be hauled before an international court. “The Old Man is staying,” one henchman said recently, “because I’m not ending up in The Hague.” President Bashir probably takes the same view.
In international politics, as in any kind of politics — ecclesiastical included — it is important not to leave your opponent nowhere to go except to maintain the bad behaviour you object to in the first place. The key question is this: does the arrest-warrant bring us nearer, or further away from, a solution in Darfur?
The UN fears it will make the job of its peacekeeping troops there more difficult. It may make the Darfuri rebels less likely to negotiate. It could make it harder for aid workers to feed the millions forced to live in displacement camps.
The trials of the former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and of Charles Taylor happened after they were removed from power. Justice and peace there did not conflict. But, in situations where such conflict was threatened, in South Africa and Chile, leaders such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu saw that there can be times when justice traps us in the prism of past hatreds. He concluded that an approach centred on helping the victim, rather than prosecuting the villain, offered a greater prospect of communal healing.
Where the logics of justice and peace collide — one backward-looking, finger-pointing, and retributive; the other forward-looking, problem-solving, and integrative — peace is preferred.
Judges in the International Criminal Court (ICC) now have three months to endorse the arrest warrants. The UN Security Council — which mandated the ICC to track down those responsible for war crimes in Darfur, but also mandated the UN secretariat to nurture peace agreements in Sudan to which the al-Bashir government is a party — has the power to forestall ICC investigations or trials. There are political mechanisms to move things forward constructively.
That is what the African Union wants. The African Union can sometimes be pusillanimous and self-serving. But it also offers a more direct perception of political reality on the ground. The requirements of peace may, on this occasion, mean respecting its view.
Paul Vallely is co-author of the report of the Commission for Africa.
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