Museveni: No Support for Al-Bashir

Uganda's President Y.K. Museveni says of the ICC's indictment of the Sudan's President:

“I do not condemn the International Criminal Court indictment against Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir”

Apparently Museveni is not worried at the present, however the conviction of senior Ugandan officials by the International Court of Justice has brought the potential for justice in the Great Lakes region a little closer to Museveni's door.

Meanwhile, the short arm of justice has already begun to catch Ugandans abusing international law abroad -- several government officials and advisors have recently been arrested for various crimes committed while using diplomatic passports.

President Museveni, who is the sitting Chairman of both the Commonwealth and East African Community, has not commented on the arrest of Ananias Tumukunde, Museveni's adviser on science and technology, who is on trial in London for money laundering and allegedly dealing in chemical and biological weapons. [See: "Museveni advisor has case to answer" Weekly Observer]


IWPR Reports on Museveni's Stance on the ICC's indictment of Al-Bashir:

"The Ugandan leader was speaking four days after cancelling a press conference that was supposed to follow his meeting with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, who has been urging African leaders to condemn the ICC’s move.

Mubarak’s visit to Uganda followed Moreno-Ocampo’s announcement that he was asking the ICC to indict al-Bashir.

The prosecutor’s request came three years after the United Nations Security Council asked him to investigate Darfur.

Moreno-Ocampo argues that al-Bashir masterminded and implemented a plan to destroy a substantial proportion of the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa peoples who populate Darfur.

These ethnic groups have been targeted in a campaign of violence and devastation waged by the Sudanese regular army and allied militia forces known as “janjaweed”, ostensibly to root out rebel guerrillas.

“His [al-Bashir’s] motives were largely political,” Moreno-Ocampo has said. “His alibi was a ‘counterinsurgency’. His intent was genocide.”

Although Museveni has spoken out against the West becoming too involved in African justice issues, his latest comments revealed his antipathy for the Sudanese leader.

The government in Khartoum was a major backer of the Lord’s Resistance Army, LRA, which fought a long war in northern Uganda from 1986 to 2006. "

> Read the Full Article / Source: Institute for War and Peace Reporting