HomeOld_PostsAfrican perspective on the ICC: Part One

African perspective on the ICC: Part One

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ON October 12 2013 the African Union (AU) held an extraordinary summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to consider the way the International Criminal Court (ICC) has handled its business especially in regard to Africa.
The AU is seized with how the ICC has handled the indictment of President of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta, and his Vice–President, William Ruto – both are accused of committing crimes against humanity during the Kenyan General Elections of 2007.
Both deny the charges.
And the indictment of these two follows that of another African head of State, Al Bashir of Sudan.
One of the key resolutions made at the AU summit was that no sitting African head of state should be indicted during his tenure of office.
This resolution has generated a lot of passionate chatter, both off and on-line, from so-called human rights activists most of whom, as we all recall, make a living from salaries paid by the West.
What seems to have touched a raw nerve is the apparent immunity from prosecution which the resolution accords to any sitting African head of State! Even former Archbishop, Desmond Tutu, weighed in just before the summit by declaring that withdrawal from the ICC by the AU would be tantamount to “seeking a licence to kill” by African leaders!
What most of the self-righteous condemnations fail to acknowledge is that the AU is not coming up with anything new.
In any case, the fact that Kenyatta and Ruto won the recent general election with a decisive majority given to them by Kenyan voters is a good indication as to the vision and priorities which Kenyans had in mind.
One of the arguments advanced by self-appointed human rights activists is that over 30 African countries signed up to the ICC founding statutes of Rome and subsequently ratified the treaties signalling their willingness to abide by the requirements of the ICC.
But the issue here is the bias of the ICC which is focusing on African cases only.
Iraq is an example where Americans and the British murdered over 300 000 people, largely women and children.
The culprits, George Bush and Tony Blair, are roaming the world freely, notwithstanding efforts by some British and American citizens to have the two war mongers indicted at the ICC.
The same applies to Afghanistan which has known no peace ever since the USA army occupied it.
Innocent people in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen are being killed daily by American drones.
While all these war crimes are taking place, the ICC has remained mum.
When Bishop Tutu joins the chorus of human rights activists sponsored by the West, he is behaving as if he is not a product of African history.
He should be reminded that the behaviour of the ICC has, contrary to expectations of its signatories, confirmed an archetypal colonial pattern of dispensing justice.
This pattern is characterised by judicial outcomes in which the native is always assumed to be the guilty one and the colonial white master is always right.
It would be dereliction of duty if the AU remains silent when the ICC has blatantly transformed itself into a consolidated colonial court now safely ensconced in the Hague with powers to summon any African leader at any time regardless of whether his country signed the ICC statutes or not.
This is the dilemma confronting Al Bashir of Sudan.
The same situation was confronting Gaddafi just before he was murdered by NATO-sponsored terrorists in Libya.
If the ICC is now in the habit of summoning those whose countries never agreed to be members of the ICC, the question then is: on what basis other than colonial is it doing so?
Equally countries like the USA which are not signatories to the ICC sound like members and support the ICC on almost every other issue related to Africa. During the regime change war in Libya, the ICC sided with rebels and cited crimes against Gaddafi which had not been investigated even!
The ICC cannot be a court of law and a political player at the same time.
Archbishop Tutu should not romanticise the ICC and mislead generations.
Selective justice has been taking place for over 500 years during which Africans were enslaved and colonised by Europe.
Moreover the Anglo-Saxon West conducted genocidal wars of conquest against Red Indians in USA and Canada, against Aborigines in Australia, against Maoris in New Zealand and against Africans in Africa.
Up to this day no one has indicted them for such wholesale murders!
We should not romanticise the Western world and delude ourselves into believing that the ICC is a saviour to Africa.
Archbishop Tutu argues that the ICC is an African court and that the AU should not urge its members to withdraw from it.
He cites the fact that five of its 18 judges are African and that its vice president is from Botswana while its chief prosecutor is Fatou Bensouda from the Gambia.
The issue the AU is raising goes beyond Africa’s need for token representation symbolised by black faces at the Court; it is about selective justice there for everyone to see; it is also about its vision and blatant bias against Africa that resembles colonial courts during colonialism.
For us to understand why the incorrigible bias of the ICC against Africa is becoming more and more manifest, we need to recall the proverbial cliché that ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune’.
The ICC is fundamentally a European creation and this is why 70 percent of its budget is provided by European countries.
All those African judges Tutu mentions in his statement know where their promotions and salaries come from.

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