African Arguments

Top Menu

  • About Us
    • Our philosophy
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

Main Menu

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Climate
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • Think African [Podcast]
    • #EndSARS
    • Into Africa [Podcast]
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Africa Science Focus [Podcast]
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Debating Ideas
  • About Us
    • Our philosophy
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

logo

African Arguments

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Climate
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • Think African [Podcast]
    • #EndSARS
    • Into Africa [Podcast]
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Africa Science Focus [Podcast]
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Debating Ideas
Politics
Home›African Arguments›Politics›Bashir and the ICC: See Milosevic and the ICTY

Bashir and the ICC: See Milosevic and the ICTY

By Adam LeBor
July 11, 2008
2020
0

Should the ICC next week indict Sudanese President al-Bashir for war crimes it will make history. But it will not be unprecedented. In May 1999 the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
(ICTY) was the first international tribunal to indict a sitting head of state. The ICTY charged Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and four other senior officials with war crimes and crimes against humanity in Kosovo.

What lessons can be drawn from the Milosevic experience with regard to al-Bashir and the ICC? Firstly, there are numerous parallels between the conflicts in Darfur and Kosovo. Both took place in some of the most distant and most neglected provinces of a multi-ethnic state. Both Sudan and Yugoslavia are, or were, artificial post-Imperial constructs, with a weak central government and arbitrary borders that did not respect actual communal boundaries. Sudan was constructed partly out of the wreckage of the British empire, Yugoslavia welded together from the remnants of the Ottoman and Hapsburg empires.

In both states a powerful minority sought to accumulate and near-monopolise both national wealth and political power – the riverine Arabs of Khartoum and the Serbs in Belgrade. Khartoum and Belgrade both faced armed uprisings from their discontented minorities, organised in Darfur by the myriad of rebel groups, and in Kosovo by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Like Belgrade, Khartoum has also made extensive of paramilitaries, the Janjaweed, who are responsible for many of the worst atrocities against civilians. Perhaps the sharpest parallel is the way that President al-Bashir, like Slobodan Milosevic before him, has run rings around the international community and its faltering series of peace proposals.

Slobodan Milosevic denounced the ICTY when it indicted him, just as President al-Bashir has pledged that no Sudanese will ever be surrendered to the court. Yet in February 2002 Milosevic still found himself standing in the dock, flanked by two burly UN guards. He never saw Belgrade again. A little over four years later, in March 2006, he was found dead in his cell, his trial still unfinished. The Milosevic trial was confused and unwieldy, yet the former Serbian leader was at least called to account. Can we expect that one day soon President al-Bashir will stand in the dock at the ICC for the atrocities in Darfur? It is unlikely, but possible, I argue.

The key difference is that by the time of the Kosovo war the west, specifically the United States and NATO, realised that Slobodan Milosevic was no longer part of the solution, to be courted by international envoys and feted as a peacemaker. Milosevic was part of the problem, it was finally understood, and indeed seemed about to trigger a regional war involving Albania, Macedonia and even Greece and Turkey. So much so that he had to be got rid of. The rights and wrongs of NATO’s Kosovo intervention aside (and I believe that it was right to intervene), the bombing campaign and subsequent occupation of Kosovo brought home the reality of war to Serbia and its population for the first time. It was a strange anomaly of the Yugoslav wars that while fighting raged in Croatia and Bosnia from 1991-1995 Serbia remained peaceful, and Belgrade an oasis of bars and nightclubs. During the NATO bombing Serbs rallied round the government in a robust example of the Blitz spirit. But once the conflict was over a sour resentment against Milosevic finally curdled into action. The final trigger was his attempt to steal the election in late September 2000. That sparked the momentous events of October 5 when hundreds of thousands of demonstrators stormed the government buildings in Belgrade. By the end of the day the Milosevic era was over.

There are two key points here with regard to al-Bashir and the ICC. One: the demonstrators were only part of the story. Much of the “˜revolution’ was organised from Budapest, by US and western intelligence services. They provided funds and logistical support. One western diplomat told me how he would travel to Serbia with fat wads of hard currency to distribute to the protestors, especially the “˜Otpor’ youth movement, that specialised in non-violent civil resistance. These officials also made behind the scenes deals with the Yugoslav army and intelligence services to ensure that when Milosevic called for help, none came. And for months western governments had been ratcheting up the diplomatic pressure, setting up broadcasting stations outside Serbian government control on its borders. And two, crucially, there was a “˜friendly’ pro-western government ready and waiting to take power, led by Vojislav Kostunica. (Even if he has proved deeply disappointing in practice.)

Regime change seems a distant prospect in Khartoum. There is no equivalent nascent civil society in Sudan to be nurtured by western governments, nor any prospect of angry Sudanese youth rallying in their hundreds of thousands in the capital to bring down the government. Nor does there seem to be a ready made equivalent of Vojislav Kostunica to “˜democratise’ Sudan. On the contrary Al-Bashir and his ministers have proved extremely skillful in easing pressure over Darfur by presenting themselves as allies in the “˜War against Terror’. While the State Department thunders about human rights violations, the CIA is holding cosy meetings with some of those responsible for organising the ethnic cleansing in Darfur. Faced with a potential break-up of Sudan and increasing fears of Al-Qaeda in the horn of Africa, the west is extemely unlikely to work to bring down the al-Bashir government as they did against Milosevic in 2000.

What is possible is that the al-Bashir regime will crack and splinter under the pressure of any indictments, which do at least focus minds. There is nothing like the prospect of foreign bank accounts being frozen and a lifetime travel ban to the west to make former allies reveal all they know of each other’s misdemeanours. The lesson of Milosevic is that should al-Bashir be indicted, he could still fall, if the divisions within the Khartoum elite are skilfully enough exploited and enough deals can be struck for allies to turn on each other. That may or may not result in meaningful regime change. And whether that in turn brings peace to Darfur is another story.

Adam LeBor is the author of Complicity with Evil: The United Nations in the Age of Modern Genocide.

Previous Article

Darfur and the Doctrines of Command and ...

Next Article

A long-term, much needed shift in norms ...

Adam LeBor

0 comments

  1. Alex de Waal 11 July, 2008 at 16:32

    Adam LeBor’s contribution invites one comment based on Sudan’s history. Twice since independence, Sudanese civil society has led a non-violent popular uprising that has brought down a military dictatorship, once in 1964 and the second time in 1985. Sudanese activists long for a third intifada that will bring democracy and justice to Sudan. However, most agree that the prospects for this are remote. On seizing power in 1989, one of the first acts of Pres. Bashir and the National Islamic Front was a campaign of repression and terror aimed at civil society groups. It was sadly effective. But perhaps even more effective at dismantling the capability of Sudanese civil society to mobilize has been the commercialization of the voluntary sector. Long gone are the days when professionals, students and ordinary citizens mobilized in a spirit of voluntarism–today most in the NGO sector are concerned with writing their grant proposals. Once a vibrant force, Sudanese civil society is today a shadow of its former self.

Leave a reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  • Abiy Ahmed is set to become the Oromo Prime Minister of the EPRDF's 27-year rule.
    EthiopiaPolitics

    Wax & Gold: The tightrope challenges facing Ethiopia’s Abiy Ahmed

  • Politics

    African Political Thought, Part 2: The Thought of Liberation

  • People gather for an open air film screening in Khartoum, Sudan.
    Editor's PicksSocietySudan

    Charlie Chaplin and the reclaiming of Sudan

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter


  • 81.7K+
    Followers

Find us on Facebook

Interactive Elections Map

Keep up to date with all the African elections.

Recent Posts

  • We’ve already breached most of the Earth’s limits. How can we get back?
  • Africa’s topsy-turvy food paradox
  • Zambia: The president’s five-point plan to stay in power at all costs
  • The two defining challenges facing South Africa
  • ‘Don’t Agonize, Organize!’ Remembering Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem’s Advocacy on Sudan

Editor’s Picks

CultureEditor's PicksPoliticsZimbabwe

“Zimdancehall is dead”: Critics say ghetto sound was sold for a song

Zimdancehall was once known for its revolutionary lyrics. Now its singers are hyping up businessmen in songs and performing at Zanu-PF rallies. What started as indistinct chatter of disapproval on ...
  • Rasha Mekky with her adopted son Mostafa. Credit: Rasha Mekky.

    “People said it’s haram”: Happy mums show reality of adoption in Egypt

    By Lara Reffat
    May 25, 2022
  • Aderonke Ige at COP26 in Glasgow.

    We need a people-centred COP26. Instead, we have an elite marketplace

    By Aderonke Ige
    November 9, 2021
  • Some amazing African documentaries, picked with help from Film Africa.

    Amazing African documentaries you’re gonna wanna see

    By Sally Zohney, James Wan, Adam Matan, Oumar Ba & Ketty Nivyabandi
    October 23, 2018
  • At a Y'en A Marre protest in Senegal in 2011. Credit: seneweb.

    “People will become more radical”: Senegal and the limits of protest

    By Ndongo Samba Sylla & Leo Zeilig
    October 18, 2022

Brought to you by


Creative Commons

Creative Commons Licence
Articles on African Arguments are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
  • Cookies
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
© Copyright African Arguments 2020
By continuing to browse this site, you agree to our use of cookies.