A friend once gave me a piece of advice that has stood me in good stead: You must want the consequences of what you want. It doesn’t sound like much but it is a powerful thought. Most of the time we concentrate on what we want without giving enough thought to the chain of consequences it engenders.
He gave this advice within a personal context. It is no good, he argued, bringing up children in Europe if you do not also want the consequence that they will be Westernized. It is no good sending girls to university if you do not want them to pursue a career. And so on. But his advice is most pertinent in the political arena.
Take the International Criminal Court’s decision to indict President Omar Bashir of Sudan this week. What the international community wants is justice for the people of Darfur who have been murdered, raped, displaced and starved to death. Yet the consequence of calling President Bashir to account through the ICC is to bring on more suffering for the very people in whose name justice was sought.
There is the usual problem of people who live in the West, like me, assuming that the leader of a country like Sudan will respond to pressure from the West in the way that a European leader might. Or put it another way, the terms of logic are different. The logic of those who have pushed for the indictment is the following. The situation in Darfur is intolerable and we need to act to end the suffering. Bringing charges of war crimes against President Bashir, the first serving head of state to be so charged, will be a historic step and will demonstrate the end of impunity. It will put pressure on Bashir and his government and this will lead the Sudanese government to seek a quick and peaceful resolution to the conflict in Darfur.
For a start, it is a warped logic to expect someone you believe has committed war crimes to suddenly make a U-turn and respect international law. If Bashir is really guilty of masterminding the murder, rape and pillaging of millions, why would he respond peacefully to pressure from a court he does not recognize? Does anyone really expect him to show up in The Hague for a trial that he no doubts considers biased and already rigged against him? Probably not, not of his own accord, but the pressure, the international pressure, just might be enough to either have him deposed or to lead his government to negotiate a peaceful settlement, or so the argument goes.
Maybe it will, but indications are to the contrary. Bashir wants to stay in power. It is immaterial to him that holding on to power may mean that millions of people in Darfur may die of starvation, violence or disease, it is a consequence he accepts. It is also immaterial to him that he be branded a murderer by people he considers to be politically motivated. Moreover, the indictment gives him ammunition to argue for a split between East and West, allows the good old conspiracy theories to flourish and creates more fodder for the rage that burns in Arab and Muslim hearts. You know the arguments: “The West cannot accept the existence of an Islamic government in Sudan and will come up with any means to destroy it” and “Why don’t they indict Israel’s leaders for war crimes?”
The answer to the last question is obvious. Israeli leaders are unlikely to be indicted for war crimes because the US will use its veto in the UN Security Council to make sure it does not happen (and it is rather ironic that the US can act through the UN Security Council to block the actions of the ICC, a body of which it is not a member).
In many respects indicting Bashir simply serves to fuel Arab anger at the double standards of the international community. Or perhaps now that a precedent has been set, it will make it easier to seek the indictment of Israel’s leaders?
Here once again I am reminded of my friend’s advice. I, for one, do not want such an indictment because one of the consequences of seeking justice at the ICC is likely to be a hardening of Israel’s position that in turn will make it harder to achieve peace. Put simply, peace precedes justice. It is only once a lasting peace has been achieved that the process of truth and reconciliation can take place, and it is then that justice can be sought.
The same applies in Sudan. The ICC has in one bold step put paid to the painstaking work of diplomats who for the last four years have been quietly negotiating with Khartoum and putting down the first building blocks for an admittedly fragile peace. It is naive not to have expected Bashir and his government to retaliate against foreign aid agencies as they have done. It must not be forgotten that the ICC itself made it clear that much of the basis for its case against Bashir is based on information gathered from international aid agencies.
Indicting a serving head of state for war crimes is indeed a great historical step, but it may prove to be an own goal. Sometimes it is worth remembering that the need to act is an end in itself and that it should always be accompanied by the question: Do we want the consequences? The indictment of Bashir is much more to do with a need to be seen to be doing something than with a realistic assessment of the situation on the ground. Let us hope that diplomats succeed in attempts to defer Bashir’s arrest warrant and that Bashir lets the aid agencies get back to work. Without them, millions of people face hunger and illness. The consequences are catastrophic.
