ADDIS ABABA, Dec 6 – RNW correspondents in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zambia went in search of supporters and detractors of Amnesty International\u2019s call to arrest former US president, George W. Bush, during his recent visit to the continent.
\nAiding and abetting in Addis Ababa
\nEthiopians have had a good laugh about Amnesty International\u2019s appeal, which most say is a \u2018foolish\u2019 publicity stunt to win African support for the rights group.
\n\u201cThis is a ridiculous attempt to show us that they are not a biased organization,\u201d Mikael Atsbeha, a cameraman, said. \u201cThey abuse the opportunity of Bush\u2019s visit to Africa to buy support.\u201d
\nHe also said the arrest is \u201cnever going to happen,\u201d because of the strong ties Ethiopia had with the Bush administration. Ethiopia has been a loyal ally in Bush\u2019s \u2018war on terror\u2019, fighting Islamic extremism in a US backed incursion into neighboring Somalia from 2006 to 2009. It even earned Ethiopia\u2019s leader Meles Zenawi the nickname \u2018America\u2019s poodle\u2019.
\nWhile most Ethiopians agree with Amnesty International that Bush should be arrested, they don\u2019t think it is their country\u2019s duty. \u201cBush is a criminal,\u201d said Abiy Demilew, a radio show host. \u201cBut Ethiopia should not be involved in arresting a former US president. We would pay for that in our relations with the US\u201d
\nEthiopia, one of the top recipients of US aid, \u201cwould be devastated by the aftermath of the arrest,\u201d Michael added. \u201cWe would pay big time.\u201d
\nEthiopia\u2019s government has not officially responded to Amnesty International\u2019s call but a senior government official said: \u201cbasically this is between the US and Amnesty\u201d.
\nMichael agrees: \u201cThe US, the most democratic country in the world, has the infrastructure to arrest Bush if he is charged with human rights abuses,\u201d he said. \u201cWhy don\u2019t they ask the Obama administration to arrest that guy?\u201d
\nMoney versus morals in Tanzania
\nUnlike George W. Bush\u2019s last visit to Tanzania in 2008 when angry protests greeted him, his stopover on Saturday was uneventful with the public and media hardly taking notice.
\nThe call for his arrest by Amnesty International was unheeded. Instead President Jakaya Kikwete accompanied him to visit HIV patients in Dar es Salaam.
\nSenior political analyst Azaveli Lwaitama calls Amnesty International\u2019s efforts to embarrass Bush wherever he goes a \u201ccourageous moral gesture,\u201d but says \u201cthe Tanzanian government needs every coin it can get, even from the devil.\u201d
\n\u201cA few weeks ago when David Cameron said that anti-gay attitude in this country would mean British aid drying up, the same government people talked about neo-imperialism. You now have the bigger imperialist Bush here and they are clapping,\u201d says Dr. Lwaitama.
\n\u201cAmnesty International asking poor countries like Zambia or Ethiopia or us to arrest Bush is preposterous. We depend so much on international aid. They had called for Canada to arrest him in October, they didn\u2019t. Now they expect us to do it?\u201d asked a HIV patient (name withheld) at a USAID-sponsored clinic.
\nThe media relegated the story of the proposed arrest to the back pages while highlighting the HIV programmes Bush visited. Mike Mande, a senior journalist, says, \u201cTanzania\u2019s constitution prohibits former heads of state from being prosecuted, it would have made more sense for Amnesty International to approach the International Criminal Court to stop him from flying here at all.\u201d
\nAid for AIDS in Zambia
\nZambia has failed to arrest former US president George W. Bush as called for by the international human rights organisation Amnesty, because it lacked adequate information says the country’s president Michale Sata who earlier hosted a luncheon for Bush and his family at State House.
\nThe Zambian government has come out strongly against Amnesty International with the country’s foreign affairs minister saying: \u201cTell them to hang, and also please ask them to create their own country and wait for Bush to visit their country so that they can arrest him to suit their wish and not here in Zambia,\u201d he said.
\nGeorge Bush has been visiting Tanzania, Ethiopia and Zambia on a mission to boost the fight against cervical cancer and HIV\/AIDS.
\nMillions of Africans are said to have benefitted from Bush’s initiative, the President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief – PEPFAR which saw many HIV infected Africans access free anti-retroviral drugs and clinical care.
\nBut John Lwando of Lusaka feels that Bush is on an image cleaning campaign, and that the Zambian government should have heeded the call by Amnesty International to arrest Bush who enjoyed tight security.
\n\u201cIn Iraq and Afghanistan he killed millions of innocent people in his unpopular wars and he himself acknowledges having supported water boarding and other forms of torture as a means of extracting confessions out of prisoners. It is therefore very unfortunate that the Zambian government downplayed this call for his arrest,\u201d he concludes.
\nThe article was published on Radio Netherlands Worldwide (http:\/\/www.rnw.nl)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ADDIS ABABA, Dec 6 – RNW correspondents in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zambia went in search of supporters and detractors of Amnesty International\u2019s call to arrest former US president, George W. Bush, during his recent visit to the continent. Aiding and abetting in Addis Ababa Ethiopians have had a good laugh about Amnesty International\u2019s appeal, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12749,"featured_media":31453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-31452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa"],"yoast_head":"\n