S. Africa court: investigate Zimbabwe torture allegations

A South African judge has ordered prosecutors to investigate whether Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's government committed human rights abuses, saying it would benefit Zimbabweans tortured in their homeland and South Africans determined to see their own government live up to its international responsibilities.

The ruling yesterday by High Court Judge Hans Fabricius is the first under 2002 statutes spelling out South Africa's international law obligations, and a significant step for Africa.

“This is an attempt to actually make the South African government enforce those provisions,” said Mike Pothier, the Research Coordinator of the Catholic Parliamentary Office of the Bishops’ Conference of South Africa. The South African parliament in 2002 passed the International Criminal Court Act to comply with the global treaty that created the court, known as the ICC. South African law provides for the prosecution in South African courts of people accused of committing genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, whether they were committed in or outside South Africa. Foreign suspects can be arrested and prosecuted if they should come to South Africa.

“The main practical consequence,” he said, “is that if any of the Zimbabwean police officers, politicians, whoever they may have been, who are alleged to have carried out this torture, or instructed the police to carry out these raids or so on, if any of those people come to South Africa then they stand to be arrested once their on South African soil. And I think that is the key practical outcome, and the real reason why this matter was taken to court.”

Pothier explained, “It sets a precedent, you see. If human rights organisations, let us say in Zambia, in Kenya, in Uganda, in Namibia and various other African countries were to do the same thing, and get similar court orders from their own courts, then Zimbabwean authorities and Mugabe’s dictatorship would slowly become more and more isolated. And I think that that, ultimately, would be a very good thing.”

Listen to the full interview of Mike Pothier with Christopher Wells: