President Omar al-Bashir of SudanAs Transitional Justice advocate Howard Varney warns, “The brazen defying of the Bashir court order has profound implications for all South Africans, in particular victims of past crimes. It also has far reaching implications for the practice of transitional justice more generally. It is quite apparent that the government has no intentions of complying with its international treaty obligations and was and is probably bent on undermining the fight against impunity.”
Howard Varney calls, in an opinion editorial published on June 21, 2015, on South Africa’s political leadership to “stop perpetuating a sham and to get out of the ICC if it has no commitment to honouring its adoption of the provisions of the Rome Statue in which our former leaders played such an important role.” The op-ed can be downloaded below.
Howard Varney explains that “rather than offend the big men of Africa, our government chose to trash our Constitution and the rule of law – the very fabric of our post-apartheid democratic order.”
Journalist Martin Plaut suggests this development signifies another unfortunate step in South Africa’s decline under our present dispensation. We look forward to being proud of leaders who demonstrate integrity principle and courage – qualities that seem to be sorely missing in the present.
The op-ed can be accessed at: http://www.news24.com/
