Why African leaders are accomplices in crime

And the respondents may include John Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Harold Wilson, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Senior, John Major, Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl, Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi.

Yet, notwithstanding all this, there is just no Ararat from which African heads of state can defend anyone among them.

All of them are guilty of one crime or another — including mal-government, looting, corruption, complete neglect of mass suffering, nepotism and tribalism.

How many have not trampled underfoot all the tenets and institutions of good governance? How many have not rigged elections?

How many have not tried to tamper with the constitution to make themselves presidents-for-life? How many have not colluded to assassinate their rivals?

How many have not tried to impose their sons as heirs? And — most germane to our topic — how many have not organised armed clashes and ethnic cleansing?

Darfur, then, is merely the most spectacular, most tragic, example of this heartless playing around with human life.

Otherwise, which one of Africa’s leaders has the moral or political or juridical authority to declare that Mr Bashir does not deserve to face justice in the Hague? Which? Bongo? Bouteflika? Guebuza? Mubarak? Mugabe? Museveni? Sirleaf-Johnson? Wade? Zenawi?

But, of course, our own sense of justice — the tenet that you are innocent until proved guilty — constrains us to give Mr Bashir the benefit of the doubt. It is within the realm of possibility that the Tartar is not guilty.

But the fact remains that, under his regime, millions of human beings have been slaughtered in Darfur and that the culprit-victim line appears to coincide with the race line. The culprit appears to belong to the same race as those in charge in Khartoum.

That is why it has been claimed — rightly or wrong — that the blood-thirsty Janjaweed militia has vital links with official Khartoum.

It is why the leaders of a country like Kenya, Uganda or Tanzania should have an active subjective interest in that matter — if, for one thing only, because blood is thicker than water.

But, much more important than that, it is imperative for the world to be quite clear in its mind who the culprit is.

Yes, Mr Bashir is innocent till proved guilty. But, because he is among the prime suspects, some internationally sanctioned judicial authority must be the one to give him the certificate of innocence.

That is why it is upon the ICC that it devolves to investigate Mr Bashir.