Should Africa quit ICC or ICC quit Africa? Rethinking ICC – Africa relations With the current judicial proceedings at the International criminal court (ICC) indicting current African leaders, ICC and its entire systems has come under heavy scrutiny from fanatics and sympathizers as well. All through the years, the very existence of the court and its prominence had been at the periphery of the public sphere that majority of the common citizenry knew little or nothing about it. Most currently, regional politics in Africa have drastically shifted attention to ICC interrogating its relations and mode of doing business with Africa. With the Kenyan case alongside other African cases in the ICC judicial mileage, Africa as a continent through the African union has deliberated pulling out of the Rome statute that automatically binds them to the ICC political and perceived judicial arbitrage. It is now as a scholar and a Pan- Africanist, I contest this thought and decision as cowardice and challenge the African Union to explore the dynamics of reverting and rephrasing the premise from should; “Africa should pull out of the ICC protocol” to “ICC should pull out of Africa”. In my contention, i am completely opposed to Africa pulling out of the ICC but instead contend that Africa should use its tyranny of numbers to push for a political bid that campaign for ICC to pull out of Africa. Why do I recommend this argument? To answer this question, I am obliged, briefly to explore developments on ICC and its relations with Africa as a continent and nuance this to its relations with the global west. Pan-Africanism pointing on alleged biasness to Africa has heavily contested this relationship; however, I leave this judgment to your providence as a reader as it is far –fetched in this article. Bellowing from the Rome statute, the international criminal court (ICC) was formed with the sole objective of “ending impunity, mediating crimes against humanity as well as war crimes”. I enjoin the objectives on parenthesis as they compose the main agenda of the institution in its entirety and still underline the open-ended nature of the jurisdiction presented by omission of scope of power to allude to its universality. In this article, I am obliged to note the redundant nature in which the court has conducted the business of disseminating justice through time across the globe. I contend that despite its universal claims to justice, ICC is obsessed with African politics and more so leaders in expense of the West who have also been actors against universal justice system. In the recent past, there has been a resurgence of conflicts around the globe with examples in Conflicts in Iraq, Iran, Syria while in Africa region Kenya, Sudan, Somalia, Congo and Mali just to mention a few. In all these cases, ICC has managed to take hostage of the political situation in Kenya, Somalia and Sudan with the indictment of top official political leaders to trial. While this is the case, I am lost in the definition and the scope of definitions, application of its judicial power given that the same atrocities have been committed directly or indirectly by political leaders from powerful states yet the court take no judicial measure to indict western political leaders. At some point out of arrogance, if not ignorance super powers have defended this anomaly suggesting that the respective countries are not signatories to the Statute. It is at this juncture that I pose a question of is there limit of justice?. Will humanity sit back silently to witness atrocities against humanity being committed and still stay silent on assumption that the very law that regulates does not bind the perpetrators does not bind them. If this is the case, I think there is need to reinvent the wheel of philosophy that gives prominence to humanity to law. For example, the case of the Rwandan crisis that led to the infamous genocide, the African continent was represented as a continent of savage inhabitants full of barbarism. Coming closer the recurrent civil wars evident in most of the African countries have fastened the far-fetched ideology of African human cannibalism from the perspectives of the west. However, a long historical journey of ancient imperialism clearly reveals the dark past of sadism and impunity perpetrated by the western lords. The silent graves and the monumental slave houses established and used by the former colonies masters is just a somber reminder of the failure of the ICC to administer universal justice to the unsung heroes and heroines who can only be venerated but rarely celebrated. A closer look at the narrow door of no return at slave house at the door of no return at Goree Island in Dakar, Senegal renders a mental imagery of the pain, degradation and neglect of human rights by the slave master, yet up to date the ICC vibrant noble duty to service the world with justice has ignored this err. Glance of these ancient histories awakens my spirit of pan-Africanism to question the authenticity of ICC in meeting its international mandate of Justice for all humanity. On this note, while the authenticity of Africa and African countries participation in the Rome statute that endorses the ICC protocol is highly contested, i argue that Africa should push ICC to pull out of Africa and instead address the unmentioned cases of injustice perpetrated by the west, and lords of poverty as described by Graham Hancook. I suggest that it is high time that African countries learn how to exercise their sovereignty alongside African nationalism to overcome western neo-imperialism that currently dominates the region. Commencing this debate, I am placing the continent on the spot criticism for its kleptocracy in the management of regional politics. It is this state of underdevelopment in most of the African countries that has subjected the continent to a culture of aid dependence, hence paving way for western manipulation. Currently “Aid” for which i abbreviate as “Agenda for Indefinite Displacement” has constantly displaced African supremacy, at some point earning derogatory titles such as “Failed states, Third world states, Fragile states) titles that constantly reflect in the way Africa is perceived internationally. Following Greg Mills’s assertion in his book “why is Africa poor and what Africans can do about it”, Africa has the capacity to change the cynical yet sarcastically picturesque image painted by the West. Only after doing this will such puppets of the international community such as the ICC respect imbued authority of an African state. On this ground pulling out the ICC further makes the continent vulnerable to further manipulation than the initial cost of contesting for a voice in the global community altogether. On this note, AFRICA SHOULD RETHINK THE ROLE AND PLACE OF ICC in the continent.
Posted on: Sun, 03 Nov 2013 11:47:52 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015