ANT KATZ

In “Does being African mean choosing al-Bashir as our friend?”, columnist Geoff Sifrin writes that SA Jews “need to be clear: Our government – led by the ANC – has helped a perpetrator of genocide escape justice by breaking its own domestic laws …Will we be silent for fear of antagonising them? Or shout it to the rooftops?” he asks.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu Tuesday as having slammed the SA Government for even allowing al-Bashir into the country. But, said Tutu, some of the blame lay with “powerful nations” which had created the rationale to allow al-Bashir movement despite the ICC warrant of arrest and despite an SA High Court order to the contrary. Tutu didn’t name the “powerful nations” but countries like the US, Russia and China refuse to recognise the jurisdiction of the ICC.

RIGHT: THE MANY FACES OF AL-BASHIR
It is ironic that SA – which has been so critical of Israel’s “human rights violations” can have apparently been complicit in al-Bashir’s escape from justice  

Tali Nates, director of the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre (JHGC) and one the foremost speakers worldwide on genocide in Africa, told SAJR that she was fuming. “It’s a huge disappointment. I felt devastated. It was an amazing opportunity to assist in apprehending one of the biggest criminals in the world, guilty of the deaths of at least 300 000 people,” she said.

At a professional level, said Nates, “we need to remember African genocides. We must try to learn lessons from them. For Africans and for all of humanity.” SA had “failed on many levels – this is a country that we as Jews do admire,” she said. “It had a chance, and it failed”.

In “Al-Bashir and the Unabridged Birth Certificate” posted on Monday by Jewish blogger Howard Feldman. He said tongue-in-cheek: “It must be tremendously reassuring to the Department of Home Affairs that President Omar al-Bashir is over 18 years old. Otherwise they could never let him leave. That is not without his full unabridged birth certificate and signed affidavits from his parents saying that he is allowed to travel.”

SA’s lofty ideals are not reality

On a more serious note, Feldman continues: “The fact that SA has allowed a global figure to slip through their duplicitous fingers by allowing al-Bashir to leave… is not even disappointing. It is what we have come to expect… What is relevant is that once again the SA government has proven to its people that whereas they might preach lofty ideals, nothing could be further from reality. And that is very sad.”  Feldm’s blog on News 24 had been read over 9 000 times.

JHGC director Tali Nates, who is a second-generation Holocaust survivor, told Jewish Report that on a personal level she was particularly traumatised: “My father always believed that the Holocaust would ensure that genocide would never happen again,” she says. For the past few days, she keeps hearing her father’s voice saying that we have failed!

Tutu argued that allowing al-Bashir into the country spoke volumes about SA’s moral fabric, as it had on three occasions denied entry to the Dalai Lama.

Feldman told Jewish Report that he found it ironic that the SA government, which was always so quick to criticise Israel for so-called human rights violations, felt no shame in allowing someone considered to be one of the, if not the, biggest perpetrator of human rights violations, to escape the consequences.