Threats to States’ sovereignty? Not on Ronald Reagan’s watch!

South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki recently touched on a thorny issue that has come to be one of the new emerging security threats; the “negative international economic climate” and the issue of world food prices.This was during the closing ceremony of the fifth ordinary session of the Committee of Intelligence and Security Services (CISSA), an annual meeting of intelligence chiefs of the African continent. This year’s conference was held in the South African town of Cape Town, which a few days earlier, had been the latest scene of xenophobic attacks. This happened right under the noses of African spy chiefs who were hammering out a strategy to contain existing and new threats to the continent. Mbeki, seemingly hemmed in by the acts of his countrymen on one hand, and criticism from domestic opposition on the other, who blamed him for not doing enough to stop the violence, could not have found a better audience to apologise for the madness, “In the past few days, we have witnessed shocking and unacceptable levels of intolerance by a small minority of South Africans against people from the rest of the continent, Mbeki explained. “On behalf of the government of South Africa and, indeed, in the name of all the people of South Africa, I would like to apologise for this criminal behaviour and reassure you that we shall not fail to uphold the dignity of one life, thus leading to calamity for entire nations,” he said. Reliable sources say that, CISSA had not long before– during a continental threat assessment¬– mentioned xenophobia as one of the new “emerging threats” that had to be fought. But a more important new threat was highlighted at the conference; this was what was termed as “threat to Africa’s sovereignty”. The meeting came to the conclusion that external interference in African States was the biggest danger to the continent. This particular issue was fuelled by the recent indictments by two foreign judges against Rwandan army officers. As a grouping of Africa’s top intelligence and security officers, CISSA were in a better position to access the level of threat posed by foreigners who undermine Africa’s sovereignty “under the guise of universal jurisdictions and judicial independence”. The security chiefs were not the first to condemn the actions of former French anti-terrorist judge, Jean-Louis Bruguiére and Fernando Andreu Merrelles from Spain.In mid May, African Ministers of Justice meeting in Addis Ababa gave out a strongly worded statement condemning “The issue of Universal Jurisdiction where foreign judges arrogate to themselves the and responsibility to take over, control and dominate judicial process in independent sovereign States for the purpose of political gain”. The ministers called the actions of the two European judges “a great affront to sovereignty of States”.The condemnation ball did not end there, it kept rolling. A few days later, it was the turn of the Pan African Parliament who called on African Heads of State to “add their voice in denouncing the attempt on the part of these judges at derogating on the well-established international standards of natural justice and self determination within a sovereign State”. It was not the first time that “independent” European judges had taken a swipe at African leaders; the list is endless. Indictments were issued against the King of Morocco and the President of Equatorial Guinea. A Belgian court also indicted Chad’s former leader, Hussein Habre, but African leaders came to his rescue when they resolved to block any attempt to try him outside the African continent. Djibouti’s Ismail Guelleh, Eduardo dos Santos of Angola, Sassou Nguesso of Congo and Gabon’s Omar Bongo, were also threatened with indictments. What many analysts concur is that there are always some obscure motives when these “Sheriffs of the Wild West” want to take over the roles of legitimate international tribunals like the International Criminal Court (ICC) or the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ICC last week indicted and had arrested former DR Congo Vice President, Jean Pierre Bemba in Belgium, for crimes allegedly committed in the Central African Republic (CAR) on the country’s request. The issue is not that Bemba was arrested by the ICC, but the selective indictment in this particular case.CAR had also requested the ICC to arraign French mercenary, Paul Barril, who was Bemba’s co-accused in the affair. Barril is yet to be worried by a knock on his door. This former head of an anti terrorist cell in former French president Francois Mitterand’s office, is not stranger to shady “security” deals in Africa and Rwanda in particular. When Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane was shot down on the night of April 6, 1994, Barril was in Kigali. As security advisor to the former President’s family, he was tasked to investigate the crash. In the next few days, the former senior French intelligence officer strutted in front of television cameras holding a black charred devise. He claimed in an all important manner that it was the famous “black box”, and that he, Mr Barril, would soon get to the bottom of the matter. The poor fellow in his ignorance did not know that a “black box” is not black, but a bright orange colour so as to facilitate its recovery in the event of a crash. That was the end of Barril’s black-but-not-orange box, and yet, no one bothered to ask him why he had misled the whole world. What was his true role in the plane crash?CISSA’s stand on these new emerging threats echo an article published in The New York Times of June 27, 1988. “The Reagan Administration has adopted a new policy under which Federal prosecutors must obtain the President’s approval before a foreign leader can be indicted by a Federal grand jury. An ambitious prosecutor had found the ideal means of climbing up the political ladder; he would indict the Prime Minister of the Bahamas, Sir Lynden O. Pindling, on suspicion of being involved with drug dealers. “The indictment of a foreign leader is a decision so important that the President should make it. Without a Political Prism,” a State Department official was quoted as saying at the time. So these judges who act like sheriffs in western movies should have taken a leaf from Ronald Reagan, after all, he acted in “Cowboy” films and was well aware that his pistol shot blanks and not real bullets. Ends