Slowly, but surely, public opinion is turning against the death penalty also in Africa. Fifteen years ago, only one of the continent´s countries, the island of Cape Verde off Africa´s West Coast, had abolished it. Now, ten countries have outlawed the death penalty. Another ten no longer practice it, even if they have yet to deny themselves of the possibility by way of deleting it from their laws. (19-JAN-05)
The information provided in this article derives from New York Times.
In terms of ridding themselves of the death penalty, two regions of Africa stand out. First and foremost, ten countries in West Africa have either banned executions altogether or halted them. Second, Southern Africa is also doing better than the rest of the continent. Here, five countries; South Africa, Namibia, Angola, Mozambique and Mauritius have abolished it. In Zambia and Malawi, the current presidents have said thye will not sign execution orders. In East Africa, Kenya is currently leading the way with President Mwai Kibaki having commuted the sentences of nearly 200 death row inmates. Kibaki has also vowed not to allow government-sponsored killings on his watch.
18 years on death row
In Uganda, Edmary Mpagi is just one representative of a growing movement trying to wipe out the death penalty across the continent. His own history, though, sets him apart from most others, within the movement and beyond. For 18 years, Mr Mpagi was on death row himself, convicted of murder all the way back in 1982. In July 2000, though, he was released when it merged that the man he was supposed to have killed turned out to be alive and well. Instead, Mr Mpagi was the victim, of fabricated evidence, coerced testimony and a generally slipshod trial. Hence, he personifies one of the main reasons why the death penalty should be abolished everywhere, namely that one might be proven wrong. When death is the penalty, though, there is no way to compensate for such errors.
An eye for an eye
Mr Mpagi still has the majority of his own people to convince. This would have been the case also in almost any other African country. Most people have long since run out of patience with the crime rates and consider it only fair and just to use violence against the violent, all the way to killing those who themselves have killed. The biblical idea of an eye for an eye is widely supported still. In the continent´s Islamic countries, a similar moral philosophy is shared by the vast majorities.
A small price to pay
Even if the death penalty foes claim to be gaining ground, the hope that the government of Uganda would remove the clause from the Constitution as part of the ongoing process of rewriting it, is dwindling fast. So far, President Yoweri Museveni has given no sign that this might happen. -It could be, comments Niels Jacob Harbitz, HRH´s Project Manager for Central and East Africa, -that the Ugandan government wants to keep the possibility of sentencing someone to death open at least until the war in the north is over. Killing your enemy, and doing so even with a formal, legal permission, carries a lot of symbolic weight in establishing yourself as the winner. Mr Museveni is fully aware that his donors, every year contributing more than half the annual state budget, would welcome a decision to abolish the death penalty. However, as part of the build-up to next year´s elections, I can easily imagine him wishing to do just this – kill off his enemies – and make a huge event out of every execution as well. This way, he probably wouldn´t need to rig the result to come out on top. It would be a small price to pay to become President for life, concludes Harbitz.
