Suchergebnisse

Between 1952 and 2012, there were a total of 88 successful military coups in Africa. Of those, 63 occurred prior to 1990, and 10 cases since the adoption, by the defunct Organization of African Unity (OAU), of the Lome Declaration in July 2000, banning military coups and adopting sanctions against regimes born out of this. The article shows that the African Union (AU) has followed in the footsteps of the OAU in this regard. Assisted by some African regional organisations and international partners, the combined effect of this policy of the AU -- assisted by other factors -- has been a significant reduction in the occurrence of this phenomenon. While not constituting a funeral arrangement for military coups in the immediate future, these developments -- if they were to continue -- may indeed make this eventuality achievable in the long run. But the article also reveals some challenges the AU is facing in ensuring this. Adapted from the source document.

For more than two decades, the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has been committing some of the most appalling human rights violations and war crimes against civilian populations in northern Uganda. The Ugandan Government has been unable to defeat the rebel movement and effectively protect the civilian populations from its carnage. This situation led the government to pass the Amnesty Act of 2000 in a bid to entice the group's leaders to end the fighting. Subsequently, the International Criminal Court (ICC), at the request of the Ugandan Government, issued arrest warrants in 2005 for the five main leaders of the movement, a move regarded by some as the main stumbling block to peace in Uganda, as the rebels are insisting on the annulment of these warrants before they can sign a definitive peace agreement. This article examines the dilemma that this situation seems to have created in the peace process in Uganda. It concludes that the ICC should be firm in combating impunity, but flexible in accepting other alternatives to attributive justice whenever necessitated by the situation, as its own statute acknowledges. Adapted from the source document.

The charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed by Sudan's President Al-Bashir, were not left undebated, as they raised fears that this might have serious implications for the peace process in Darfur and the stability of Sudan in general. The article looks at this dilemma in view of identifying a few possible scenarios of how the situation is likely to unfold following the issuance of an arrest warrant against President Al Bashir, taking into consideration the various local dynamics of the crisis as well as similar situations, such as the involvement of the ICC in the conflict in Northern Uganda. The article reviews a brief historical background to the conflict situation and the peace process in Darfur since the conflict began on a large scale in early 2003. It then, thirdly, looks at the involvement of the ICC in the situation in Darfur through the indictment of three Sudanese government officials, including President Al-Bashir, and three rebel commanders. Adapted from the source document.