We could use international human rights laws to bring Mugabe and his henchmen to justice. He can, and should, be arrested and put on trial.
The Guardian – Comment Is Free – 5 April 2007
The world is fiddling while Zimbabwe burns. The country’s heroic trade union leaders organised a mass ‘stay away’ this week, in protest at the 80 percent unemployment rate, tumbling wages and rocketing prices.
The response of governments around the world was, as usual, a few mumbled words of support. No practical solidarity. It has always been like this, for many, many years.
Zimbabwe’s suspension from the Commonwealth a few years back was a pointless, futile gesture. It did nothing to undermine the Mugabe regime. EU sanctions are equally ineffectual. The Zimbabwean leader regularly evades the travel ban under the guise of attending UN and EU conferences. After making a brief conference appearance on day one, he disappears to go shopping, wining and dining.
Instead of moaning about the excesses of the Zimbabwean dictatorship, Britain should be working with the rest of the world – especially the African Union, the Commonwealth, the European Union and the United Nations – to do something practical and effective to undermine Mugabe’s tyranny. We could, for example, use international human rights laws to bring him and his henchmen to justice. Mugabe can, and should, be arrested and put on trial.
He’s not the only one who deserves to face justice. There are plenty of other tyrants, war criminals and human rights abusers who merit the same fate. But the unpunished crimes of others are no excuse to let Mugabe off the hook.
Almost every nation has signed the UN Convention Against Torture (UNCAT). They have incorporated it into their domestic law. In Britain, this incorporation is under Section 134 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988.
UNCAT empowers every signatory state to arrest and prosecute anyone who commits, authorises or condones torture anywhere in the world. It has a universal jurisdiction.
President Mugabe and his police and military torturers are obvious candidates for arrest under UNCAT. But not a single country is making any effort to put Mugabe on trial. Why not? If Slobodan Milosevic could be arraigned in The Hague, what is stopping the international community from also putting Robert Mugabe in the dock?
The Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, is all talk and no action. Her government has the power to organise warrants for Mugabe’s arrest and extradition, but it refuses to do so. Instead, Beckett and Blair wail impotently against the brutalities of the Zimbabwe regime and confine themselves to useless symbolic gestures.
The Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith QC, is another big disappointment. He has direct personal responsibility for enforcing Britain’s anti-torture law, but has failed to do so.
Mugabe is deeply implicated in the torture of thousands of critics and political opponents. Journalists are among his victims. I knew the reporters Ray Choto and Mark Chavunduka. They worked for The Standard newspaper in Harare. Tortured in 1999, their interrogators allegedly told them that they were being tortured on Mugabe’s personal orders. The President has since refused publicly to condemn their torture and has appeared to endorse it, implying that the two men got what they deserved.
I have sworn affidavits from Choto and Chavunduka, attesting to their torture. Their affidavits are backed by Amnesty International and corroborated by evidence given to the Zimbabwe High Court. According to Amnesty International:
“Military interrogators beat both men all over their bodies with fists, wooden planks and rubber sticks, particularly on the soles of their feet, and gave them electric shocks all over the body, including the genitals”.
These affidavits – and those of thousands of other torture victims – provide the legal basis for Britain, and other countries, to issue warrants for the Zimbabwean leader’s arrest. Unlike the EU’s tokenistic sanctions, arrest warrants would have a dramatic psychological impact, even though they would be difficult to enforce. They would put real fear into the heart of Mugabe and his torturing sidekicks. They would be forever haunted by the nightmare of one day ending up on trial like Milosevic. This might act as a deterrent; prompting them to avoid committing or authorising further torture on the grounds that it would leave them open to additional charges and potentially longer jail terms.
Once a warrant has been issued, Mugabe’s extradition could be sought from any of the countries he still regularly visits. Not long ago he enjoyed a junket in Malaysia. The only way he could avoid arrest is by limiting his foreign forays to the handful of rather unattractive countries without extradition treaties, like North Korea. Effectively, Mugabe would become a prisoner in his own country; living in permanent fear of arrest. A just punishment in itself.
Another more radical option would be for the air force of an UNCAT signatory state to intercept his plane in international airspace and force it down into a country where he could be arrested and put on trial. This would be a dramatic innovation in international law enforcement, but arguably a legal and justified one.
To excuse their inaction, some governments, including the UK, claim that President Mugabe has immunity from prosecution because he is a Head of State. But according to the UNCAT, there are no exemptions. No one is immune, not even serving Heads of State.
Over 60 years ago, following the Nazi atrocities, the Nuremberg Tribunal verdicts established the international human rights principle that in cases of crimes against humanity, such as torture, nobody is above the law. This Nuremberg principle still applies.
Moreover, under Article 27 of the UN Rome Statute 1998, which established the International Criminal Court, Heads of State are explicitly denied immunity from criminal responsibility for acts of torture.
This principle has been since reiterated in the case of Slobodan Milosevic, who was tried in The Hague. He was initially indicted for crimes against humanity in 1999, while he was Head of State of Yugoslavia. It was recognised by the international tribunal in The Hague that a Head of State does not have immunity from prosecution for grave human rights abuses.
The indictment, arrest and prosecution of Milosevic set a contemporary precedent for the arrest and trial of the Zimbabwean President.
If Slobodan Milosevic could stand trial in The Hague, why can’t Robert Mugabe?