As Morsy dies in court, victor’s justice leaves Arab world in moral abyss

What you need to know:

  • Ex-presidents enjoying. Some countries like Kenya, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Angola, South Africa, Ghana and Senegal have outgrown the primitive schisms of victor’s justice. Ex-presidents are enjoying their retirement in their home country even where many have been accused of various crimes while in office. From the way things are going, Sudan in its trial of Omar Bashir while demonstrations are still raging on the streets, is trying to offer him up as a sacrificial lamb.

Mohammed Morsy, a former president of Egypt who briefly led an electoral triumph of the Muslim Brotherhood before he was overthrown by the US-backed military, died Monday after fainting in a court room where he was facing some form of “victor’s justice” that had already convicted and imprisoned him to life in jail for violently stopping contrived protests that accompanied the sweep to power of the religious movement associated with a conservative streak of Islam and introduction of Sharia law.
Victor’s justice has had so many other illustrations in Africa from the assassination of Patrice Lumumba in 1961, Desire Kabila 2001, Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, the ouster, exile and in some cases death of many African leaders starting with Kwame Nkrumah, Idi Amin, Yusuf Lule, Milton Obote, Haile Mengistu, Jean Baptiste Bagaza, Yakubu Gowon, Mobutu Sese Seko, etc. The list is impossible to reproduce here.
The collapse of many regimes has been followed by a primitive victor’s justice of looting and collapse of civil institutions and the social fabric of the State. The lesson of Morsi’s death – predicted last year by a group of three British MPs sent by the House of Commons to investigate the conditions under which he was detained, 23 hours solitary confinement without access to adequate medical care is that we still have a long way in inculcating institutional values to make Africa stand out as a serious player on the global stage.
Some countries like Kenya, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Angola, South Africa, Ghana and Senegal have outgrown the primitive schisms of victor’s justice. Ex-presidents are enjoying their retirement in their home country even where many have been accused of various crimes while in office.
From the way things are going, Sudan in its trial of Omar Bashir while demonstrations are still raging on the streets, is trying to offer him up as a sacrificial lamb. Sudan simply ran out of money and the long promised Western aid did not materialise.
In some cases, a few leaders have to confront their wrong deeds and ill-gotten wealth in the court system. Former South African president Jacob Zuma may yet be pardoned, but he is attending court at State expense and is not in jail. Zimbabwe totally shielded Robert Mugabe now 95 years old from any charges even where they were warranted.
This is an important page, the African Union (AU) must turn in building a soft protocol for managing the misdeeds of ex-leaders. After rejecting the ICC each time it pinches a sitting or former leader, the AU now has to devise alternative justice that does not carry the stain of victor’s justice.
It is a major leap forward that today’s coups do not carry the aftermath of bloody executions. But there is some element of vengeance that sends some countries away sniffing for harmless political opponents who are under international refugee protection.
The situation in Egypt should be one of the last. It is time to face the radical truth. The tepid economic performance and elite system in Egypt dominated by the military created conditions for the fervent Muslim Brotherhood to rise and thrive. The same conditions have dominated Sudanese political life since its independence in 1956, where neglect and a few false starts have kept most of the country in economic doldrums. In fact, global media is reporting that Sudan may be in the throes of famine. Between the two countries are more than 140 million people who are a potential formidable market for goods and services.
In Islam, the disposal of the body takes place almost immediately after the deceased breathes their last. Egypt’s first democratically elected president disappeared into the ground without the fanfare of an official send off, with “family members present.” Apparently he had been cut off access from his lawyers. A son was thrown in jail last year. So this disoriented disheveled man suffered one last indignity dying in a glass cage.

Mr Ssemogerere is an Attorney-at-Law and
an Advocate. [email protected]