Justice For The Victims Of Somali Warlords

Justice For The Victims Of Somali Warlords
Why Somali case is less valuable than the other African nations whose war criminals prosecuted at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
By Said Mohamed Gelle June 15, 2015

Today, a court in South Africa issued an order preventing Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir who is attending an AU summit in South Africa from leaving the country as calls are made for his arrest over what are termed war crimes and genocide committed during the Darfur conflict in Sudan.

Sudan and Somalia are non-signatory states of the international criminal court. Thus only Sudanese president and other senior Sudanese government officers are accused by the International Criminal Court (ICC) while at the same time ignoring to bring the perpetrators of the Somali civil war to justice.

The tribal and religious conflicts in the south and central regions of Somalia that began in 1990 are still ongoing and constitute one of the worst humanitarian and human rights crises ever witnessed since the end of the Second World War. An estimated 2.5 million civilians were killed. Entire cities, including the capital city Mogadishu, had been completely destroyed. More than 5 million refugees were either internally or externally displaced. This large-scale clan-based violence against civilians resulted in widespread atrocities including rape, torture, clan cleansing, the enslavement of the minority groups and other despicable inhumane acts. 

Ever since Somalia civil war started in 1990, there has not been a single indictment of any counts of war crimes in Somalia. Neither the International Criminal Court nor the powerless national courts under the federal government of Somalia motioned a trial of those responsible all those heinous crimes committed in Somalia.  Below are a few examples of other African conflicts dealt differently by the UN and the ICC whose perpetrators were held responsible for their acts.

Recently, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Vice President William Ruto have been accused and indicted by the ICC as responsible for orchestrating the civilian unrest during Kenya’s 2008 election. Imagine the difference between inciting a riot in an election period and the destruction and displacement of a whole nation and it's the population for over 25 years! Which one of these two scenarios deserve respect and recognition?

In 1994, a genocide took place in the central African country of Rwanda when at least 500,000 people were killed while also thousands more fled to the neighbouring countries looking for safety and protection from the warring Hutu and Tutsi tribes. Unlike the conflict of Somalia, the Rwandan conflict soon attracted international attention and in a few months after the genocide, the UN Security Council unanimously backed a plan proposed by ICC to set up an international criminal tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania in order to prosecute those responsibly. Since this tribunal was created, more suspects were detained while a number of criminals who allegedly participated in the torture and other wartime atrocities were persecuted. 

Why the UN and the ICC have failed to support the victims of the Somali conflict to have justice similar to other countries and set up a tribunal to prosecute the overwhelming number of perpetrators such as former warlords, Members and of the leaders of the religious extremist groups in Somalia who are freely living today with no fear of being accused or held accountable and responsible for their participation of the Somali’s 25 years old conflict and bloodshed.

Said Mohamed Gelle

saacidiin@hotmail.com