The Washington Post quotes Africa Center Director J. Peter Pham on the details surrounding President Omar al-Bashir’s escape from arrest in South Afrca, and the way in which this case contributes to a widespread dislike of the International Cirminal Court (ICC) throughout Africa:
It’s hard to deny that these optics have hurt the ICC’s credibility in Africa. “Many Africans look at the prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, and laugh outright that she poses as a paragon for legal virtue given that, while an African and a woman, she served as minister of justice for a literal tin-pot dictator, Yahya Jammeh of Gambia,” said J. Peter Pham, director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council, adding that the fact that a white South African judge of Afrikaner descent ordered Bashir’s travel ban only made things worse.
“Appearance alone just reinforces the stereotype of a runaway court out to get Africans,” Pham adds.