WHY is Africa always on the receiving end of decisions made by people in the Western hemisphere?
Africa is called the Dark Continent, but what is dark about Africa? Africa is the new frontier according to economists.
Over the past decade Africa supplied six of the world’s ten economies with the fastest growth.
By 2020 more than half of African households will have enough income to splurge some of it on nonessentials according to McKinsey.
Furthermore, more than half of Africa’s population is aged under 20, within three decades Africa will have a larger working-age population than China.
According to Accenture; Africa is the new frontier for growth.
The continent has seen a sharp increase in its economic performance, with its gross domestic product growing by an average of 6 percent between 2002 and 2008, making it the second fastest growing region in the world.
As Africa takes its position as an emerging power house, there is one important factor to consider in all this; Africa’s politics in relation to the outside world. Africa is not represented at the United Nations Security Council.
Having the veto power would go a long way in strengthening Africa’s position to negotiate and be heard in New York.
African leaders are the main target of the International Criminal Court, and those pursued by that Court appear to be those who find themselves at loggerheads with western giants like America.
The call for African solutions to African problems has fallen on deaf ears, in the case of Zimbabwe, despite all the pre-election posturing on how America and the European Union would stand guided by the African Union and SADC, when their sponsored party lost, the African Union and SADC were accused of not having made the correct assessments.
It would seem in the eyes of America and the EU; Africa cannot be trusted to politically and economically go pilot its own growth and development.
So does the ICC really have something against Africans? The ICC’s investigations are centred on African countries and all their suspects are African men.
There have been accusations and allegations that the ICC is guided by racial and colonial biases.
There are those who argue in support of the ICC’s targeting of Africa saying the continent is in no position to administer its own criminal justice against war criminals and human rights abusers pointing out that the continent does have its fair share of these.
Truth is the ICC is indeed being used as a western tool to punish leaders from small, weak nations while ignoring crimes committed by richer and more powerful nations.
Following the conviction of Charles Taylor, George Monbiot wrote an op-ed in The Guardian where he stated “if you run a small, weak nation, you may be subject to the full force of international law; if you run a powerful nation, you have nothing to fear.”
The ICC has so far received complaints about crimes in at least 139 countries, but currently, the Prosecutor of the Court has opened investigations into 8 situations in Africa; the DRC, Uganda, CAR, Sudan, Libya, Ivory Coast and Mali.
The Court is doing preliminary examinations on cases reported in Colombia, Afghanistan, Georgia, Honduras, Republic of Korea, Nigeria and Guinea.
Interestingly, America and Israel refuse to ratify, acknowledge and adhere to the ICC; although in the case of America, her politicians have no problem encouraging the Court to pursue its opponents who have ratified the Rome Statute.
In May, 2013 African presidents supported a petition calling on the ICC to drop crimes against humanity charges facing President Kenyatta and his Vice President Ruto, with the exception of course of Botswana’s President Khama. The concept that the ICC is targeting African leaders has gained momentum such that now some leaders are now calling for Africa to withdraw from the Court because of its biases.
Crimes against humanity committed in other parts of the world such as Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine perpetrated by Israel, America, Britain and their NATO allies did not attract the ICC despite that these cases have the same magnitude or higher than those the Court is investigating in Africa.
Can Africa really pull out of the ICC and what happens after it does that?