The Uganda government now said Bashir had actually been invited. The ICC says Uganda is under an obligation to arrest Bashir if he goes to Kampala. Most governments in Africa can afford not to arrest Bashir, but not Uganda.
That is because the same ICC indicted Joseph Kony, leader of the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army rebels who waged a bloody civil war in the north of the country for nearly two decades.
Kony is indicted for much the same crimes as Bashir, who was once the rebel leader’s supporter and protector.
The indictment of Kony dramatically hobbled his rebellion inside Uganda, condemning him and his band of rebels to roaming the forests of Southern Sudan, eastern DR Congo, and even Central Africa.
It was also a victory for the Museveni government in its bid to complete the diplomatic isolation of the LRA.
If Bashir comes to Kampala and is not arrested, the Museveni government would be as good as saying Kony should be let off the hook too.
Interestingly, a fortnight ago, Kampala was the venue for a week-long ICC review meeting attended by representatives of the signatories to the Rome Treaty that established the court.
At the meeting, the view that the ICC was a Western tool used to go after African murderers only was repeated.
It is this idea, that the ICC is targeting Africans, that is fuelling the resistance to hauling Bashir to The Hague.
In one respect, the criticism represents Africa’s eternal victim mentality when dealing with the international community.
Whether it be the World Bank or the IMF, in which we are members and in which we remain of our own volition, we never stop carping about how they are “Western dominated” or “biased” against us or the Third World.
These can be harmful distractions. For example, for years our leaders blamed the World Bank for the austerity measures they forced down their throats, and refused to acknowledge that it was they who had mismanaged and bankrupted their economies in the first place.
There is a need to deal with this perception. One way the World Bank and IMF dealt with it was by sending Africans as their resident representatives to countries on the continent.
Believe it or not, that calmed the waters considerably, although the Bank continued doing pretty much what it used to do.
The ICC may thus want to establish continental courts. Perhaps ICC Africa would be based, say, in Johannesburg.
It would have been the one issuing the indictment of Bashir.
Or if The Hague issued it, then Bashir would be arrested and tried in South Africa, where his wife, children, and relatives can visit him in prison.
But, also, if someone like indicted war criminal and former Serb general Ratko Mladic is eventually arrested, he could be brought and tried in Johannesburg.
For us in Africa these are, ultimately, race issues. Seeing a major European war criminal being tried on our soil, would do immense good for the ICC’s tribal credentials in Africa.
* Charles Onyango-Obbo is Nation Media Group’s executive editor for Africa & Digital Media.