An African Union 1st

(credit)

A weekend summit ended in the wee hours today, and from it emerged the 1st woman leader of the African Union.
She is Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (right), a physician and longtime public official in South Africa. Dlamini-Zuma narrowly won in her contest against the incumbent Chair of the African Union Commission. That would be Gabon's Jean Ping, an outspoken opponent of the International Criminal Court.
The election marked the 2d go-round for these candidates: as we then posted, in January neither garnered the necessary 2/3 vote. As late as this weekend, continued impasse seemed likely, with voting seemingly divided between the English- and French-speaking portions of Africa. The report of "'a definite sense of relief'" after Sunday's vote thus come as no surprise.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, was the site of this year's summit. It had long been set for Malawi, but the AU pulled out after that country made clear that Sudan's President, Omar al-Bashir, was not welcome to come and go on account of his indictment by the ICC. (prior post)
The summit, indeed, began with talk of the ICC, the permanent court launched at Rome 14 years ago today. It too has new leadership, including Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda of Gambia, sworn in just 4 weeks ago.
Specifically, there was a proposal to give criminal jurisdiction to Africa's regional human rights system. One report quoted Justice Gérard Niyungeko of Burundi, the President of the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights, as saying:

'An African court trying Africans will be more aware of the cultural, social environment and context of the crimes themselves.'

In a separate report, a representative of a Kenya-based NGO was quoted very differently; he called the plan "a sideshow that will not succeed." No post-summit reports indicate that the idea came to a vote at Addis Ababa, in any event.
All this provokes a question that only time will answer:

Will the advent of a new AU leader and a new ICC Prosecutor jumpstart a new relationship between the two institutions?

Bensouda on Bashir & Bosco (& Barack)

A lot of "B"s in one interview playing today at the Beeb.
Interviewed was Fatou Bensouda, who will become Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on July 1.
Karen Allen of the BBC  talked with Bensouda on the fringes of a conference in Cape Town, South Africa. Africa and the ICC, a theme on which we've frequently posted, thus was at the core of the interview. (Video, from which above image of Bensouda was made, is available here.)
The name of Bashir of course came up. That would be Omar al-Bashir, who has remained President of Sudan despite the years-old ICC warrant for his arrest. Some countries that belong both to the ICC and the African Union have allowed him safe passage; recently, one of them, Malawi, has reversed course and sought to ban Bashir.
On this, Bensouda said:

'[T]he step that Malawi has taken is very encouraging. We have of course had other African countries that have done similar things. I think Botswana has been very consistent in the position of arresting Bashir if he were to go to Botswana.
'But I also want to make one thing clear. What is out there in the media, mostly, is that African Union is not cooperating with the ICC. And of course there are certain examples why this is said. But I want to say that we have had tremendously good cooperation with individual African states.'

This comment moved conversation to another name, Bosco – Bosco Ntaganda, charged with war crimes when he, like his then-co-accused, Thomas Lubanga, was a Congolese rebel leader. Lubanga awaits ICC sentencing, having been convicted of recruiting child soldiers. Ntaganda managed not just to escape arrest, but also to become a general in the government's army, and so to wield much power. Earlier this month, the ICC added charges against Ntaganda, who reportedly "mutinied" in April and is now forcing children to join his new combat against the government.
On this, Bensouda said:

'[T]hose who have warrants out for them, for their arrest, should be arrested and surrendered to the ICC. This level of "blackmail," which I call it, in which perpetrators are saying that "If you do not drop warrants against me, or if you issue warrants against me, I continue to kill people," I think this is what the international community, especially those who are directly responsible for the arrest of Bosco, should take into account.'

Finally the BBC interview of Bensouda evoked the name Barack – President Barack Obama, who's deployed U.S. troops to Uganda to aid "the removal of Joseph Kony from the battlefield." On this, Bensouda reminded that the ICC relies on states to execute its warrants, including the years-old one for Lord's Resistance Army leader Kony, subject of a NGO-issued viral video, about IntLawGrrls have posted.
On the U.S. role, Bensouda said:

'It is not directly an assistance to the ICC as such, if I may put it that way. It is a request from Uganda, not from the ICC, from Uganda as a state. And also it is a push by Invisible Children on the United States government to do something. ... [T]he Kony 2012 video has done a lot to bring attention to this.'

Asked by the BBC if she thought the United States would ratify the ICC Statute should Obama win re-election this November, Bensouda gave a most politic reply:

'I have refrained from commenting on any state that is not party to the Rome Statute. But I do know that the universality of the court is a good thing for international criminal justice.'

Newest woman head of state pulls Malawi welcome mat away from Bashir

Joyce Banda's been busy in the month since she became the President of Malawi.
Her latest move: on Friday she reversed her country's policy regarding the International Criminal Court.
Last year, during the rule of its former President, Malawi welcomed Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir when Malawi hosted Common Market for the Eastern and Southern Africa summit. (prior post)
But this year the new President, Banda, hid the welcome mat.
A month ago today, Banda was sworn in as the 1st woman in southern Africa to lead her country, and the 3d woman in Africa to be head of state; in this, she follows 2011 Nobel Peace Prizewinner Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberia's President since 2006, and an IntLawGrrls foremother, Zewditu I, Empress of Ethiopia from 1916 to 1930.
Banda has asked the African Union not to permit Bashir to attend a summit set to be held in Malawi later this year.
A representative of Sudan responded that it has a "right" to attend the summit.
Banda explained her requested at a press conference Friday in the capital city, Lilongwe:

'Malawi is already going through unprecedented economic problems and it would not be prudent enough to take a risk by allowing one person to come and attend the summit against much resistance from our cooperating partners and donors.'

Bashir's presence last year, Banda asserted, "cost Malawi US$ 350.7 million from the US Millennium Challenge Corporation meant to rejuvenate Malawi's fledgling power supply." The loss is significant for Malawi, which ranks 171 out of 187 countries measured in the U.N. Development Programme's International Development Index.

The snub of Bashir is one of several bold moves by the woman whom Forbes Africa named the 3d most powerful woman in Africa back when she still was Vice President. (credit for Reuters photo of Banda, with Malawi's flag in background) In these other moves, she:
►  Averted an reported coup plot in the days after her predecessor's death.
►  Moved Britain to re-warm diplomatic relations, which chilled last year.
►  Fired the national police chief, appointed by her predecessor and "accused of instilling a climate of fear including arbitrary arrests and the shooting dead of 19 people during anti-government protests last year."
► Fired the wife of her predecessor; he'd appointed her to a lucrative foundation post.
►  Reaffirmed her commitment to women's rights by referring to her own "'brave'" decision to leave an abusive marriage.
►  Told a reporter:

'You ask how I feel to be the first female president in Southern Africa? If I fail, I will have failed all the women of the region. But for me to succeed, they must all rally around.'

Just asking

Anyone else see a disconnect between the mandate of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1970 and yesterday's sojourn of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in Libya?
As reported by the BBC, Libya's government extended a "welcome" to Bashir (far left). That government's leader, Mustafa Abdul Jalil (near left), went so far as to appear at a joint press conference with Bashir. (credit for AP photo by Abdel Magid Al-Fergany)
That government would be the Transitional National Council, now in power after the ouster of Muammar Gaddafi, the longtime Libyan leader who, at the time of his grisly death last year, was the subject of an international arrest warrant.

So too is Bashir.

As readers well know, the International Criminal Court has sought custody of Bashir since 2009, on charges of genocide and other international crimes in Darfur, Sudan. But pleas for cooperation in arresting the incumbent-cum-fugitive have fallen on deaf ears. Among the deaf: the Security Council, which requested the ICC to investigation in both instances; at least one of its permanent members, China; ICC member states including Kenya (but see newest developments here), Chad, Djibouti, and Malawi.

And now joining the deaf, the very Libyan opposition that profited from international condemnation of the country's former leader.

Query whether Libya's welcome jibes with these paragraphs of the February 26, 2011, Security Council resolution that set in motion the ICC investigation:

Stressing the need to hold to account those responsible for attacks, including by forces under their control, on civilians, ...
Mindful of its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security under the Charter of the United Nations,
Acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, and taking measures under its Article 41,
...
2. Urges the Libyan authorities to:
(a) Act with the utmost restraint, [and] respect human rights and international humanitarian law, ...

ICC referral
4. Decides to refer the situation in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya since 15 February 2011 to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court;
5. Decides that the Libyan authorities shall cooperate fully with and provide any necessary assistance to the Court and the Prosecutor pursuant to this resolution ....

The name given to Resolution 1970?

"Peace and security in Africa" – a worthy continental goal, sadly undermined by yesterday's welcome.

Mixed Migration in Southern Africa

This month, UNHCR released a report assessing its response to three African mixed migration movements: those from the Horn of Africa (pictured left), the Great Lakes region (pictured below right), and Zimbabwe to South Africa. These flows are "mixed" because they include both refugees and labor migrants, groups that can be nearly indistinguishable both facially and legally. Mixed migration movements raise questions about the adequacy of protection categories created by international refugee law and the need to address the interaction between asylum systems and restrictive labor migration policies.

The first two movements, encompassing migrants from Ethiopia, Somalia, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Burundi, often pass through Malawi and Mozambique en route to South Africa. The migration management systems in Malawi and Mozambique, both signatories to the UN and OAU refugee conventions, are struggling to cope with the migration flows. Their response has been to accommodate most refugees in camps, an approach that is bound to fail. Many of these refugees have no interest in staying in camps; indeed, some are fleeing refugee camps in Kenya and Tanzania. They have come to Malawi and Mozambique so that they can get to South Africa, where they hope to find work, family, members and possibly transit onwards to North America or Europe. And of course, while all of the migrants arriving in Malawi and Mozambique face significant protection issues during their journeys -- including inadequate access to food, water and shelter; harassment; robbery; extortion; and exploitation -- only some of them are refugees entitled to the protection of UNHCR.
The report is critical of UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration for failing to engage with the "mixed migration issue" in Malawi and Mozambique, but it is difficult to know exactly where UNHCR should draw its boundaries. Should its mandate be extended to cover those who do not fall within the UN Refugee Convention definition? If not, which UN entity should bear responsibility for protecting non-refugee migrants -- the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, or even the UN Development Program or UN-HABITAT? More importantly, does it make sense to distinguish between refugees and other mixed migrants given the "poor governance and harsh economic circumstances" in their countries of origin? These flows are primarily composed of young men, the vast majority of whom are presumably seeking greater economic opportunity as well as greater political freedoms.
These questions are no more easily resolved in the case of Zimbabwean migration flows, which are characterized by increasingly blurred lines between labor migrants and refugees. The report suggests that most Zimbabwean migrants fall somewhere in between, in a category the authors describe as forced or 'survival' migration.
The migration management system in South Africa further contributes to the blurriness. In 2009, South Africa registered over 220,000 new asylum seekers (most from Zimbabwe). Part of the reason for these extremely high numbers is that the easiest and often only way for migrants to stay and work in South Africa is to apply for refugee status. Because the lawful immigration channels for non-refugees are inadequate to address the demand for labor migration, most migrants turn to the asylum system. Unsurprisingly, South Africa's asylum system has become overwhelmed; it suffers from severe backlogs and exceptionally poor quality decisions. (credit for map of South Africa above left).
These are problems faced by immigration systems around the world; as borders become tighter, pressure on asylum processes increases. It is folly to imagine that mixed migration flows can be stopped through higher fences. Those desperate for a better life will find a way around them. We might do better by designing programs that provide safe and legal means for labor migration, recognizing the humanity in the search for greater opportunity, whether economic, political, or both.

On December 31

On this day in ...

... 1963 (45 years ago today), a 10-year-old entity (left) formed by British initiative, the Central African Federation, officially dissolved into 3 units. What had been Northern Rhodesia become independent Malawi; Nyasaland, Zambia. The remaining territory, "Southern Rhodesia[,] refused to hand political control over to its African majority"; it would not become independent Zimbabwe until 1980.

... 1930, Odetta Holmes was born in Birmingham, Alabama. At age 10, not long after she and her family had moved to Los Angeles, the girl's talent for singing was discovered. At age 19 she performed in the chorus of Finian's Rainbow, and while supporting herself through housecleaning, she pursued a career as an entertainer. Eventually Odetta would be known as the mother of folk music and a queen of the blues. She also was active in the U.S. civil rights movement, marching with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at Selma, Alabama, and singing at the 1963 March on Washington (above right) where King gave his renowned "I Have a Dream" speech (prior posts here and here). Odetta passed away at the beginning of this month, a few weeks shy of her 78th birthday. In the video clip below, Odetta delivers a powerful rendition of an old prison work song, Water Boy.