Sir — The final day of the African Union summit has been dedicated to the issue of the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court against Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, charged with seven counts of war crimes and crimes against  humanity, including murder, rape and torture.

The thirty or so African states that are signatories to the ICC are obligated to arrest Bashir, should he set foot on their soil, and turn him over to the court. Nonetheless, the continental body has taken a decision not to cooperate with the international court.

"What we see here is very heavy-handed attempt by Libya to force states who are members of ICC to abandon their legal obligation and to give a free pass to Omar Al-Bashir to traipse around the continent without worry," Reed Brody, spokesperson for New York-Based Human Rights Watch told IPS. HRW has taken an active role in urging that the indictment of Bashir is upheld.

"But the fact is that States have legal obligation, they cannot erase by a political resolution here. The proposal for the rest of the states not to arrest Al Bashir is a slap on the face of people of Darfur."

One argument made by those who want to see the Bashir indictment suspended or dropped is that the court has unfairly targeted Africans, and would never bring similar charges against officials from the United States or Israel.

Responding to the efforts to thwart the ICC in an opinion piece in the New York Times, former U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan wrote: "One must begin by asking why African leaders shouldn't celebrate this focus on African victims. Do these leaders really want to side with the alleged perpetrators of mass atrocities rather than their victims.

"Is the court's failure to date to answer the calls of victims outside of Africa really a reason to leave the calls of African victims unheeded?"

Annan pointed out that in three of the cases of Africans facing indictment, it was the governments of their respective countries that put the cases up for consideration by the international court. "The fourth case, that of Darfur, was selected not by the international court, but forwarded by the U.N. Security Council."Namibia ratified its membership of the ICC in 2002; Namibian ambassador to Zimbabwe, Ndali-Che Kamati, who was in Sirte for the summit explains his government's view.