adminThe US should be answerable for crimes against humanity in Zimbabwe and their leaders should be dragged to the ICC kicking and screaming if the ICC is to remain credible.
Vukani Madoda
The so-called International Criminal Court should adjourn indefinitely.
This is one of those bogus institutions that is at the very least a big joke, and at the very best a piece of sublime mysticism and nonsense.
Governed by a lengthy Rome Statute and claiming to be the first permanent, treaty-based, international criminal court established to help end impunity for the perpetrators of the most serious crimes of concern to the world, this beast is not an international organisation at all.
It is not part of the United Nations and even the United States refuses to accede to its purpose and establishment.
There is nothing international about an organisation whose focus of investigation is mainly African countries; namely the DRC, Uganda, Kenya, Sudan, the Central African Republic, Mali, Cote d’Ivoire and Libya.
In fact, these are the only countries whose situations are under investigation by the ICC right now and all of them are in Africa while another two, Nigeria and Guinea, are under preliminary investigations.
So is this really an international criminal court or it some makeshift kangaroo court seeking relevance through subverting the sovereignty of African countries that are going through necessary transitional periods whose gains they will realise in due course?
Are you telling me that in the whole world these are the countries that are subject to the following crimes (a) The crime of genocide; (b) Crimes against humanity; (c) War crimes; and (d) The crime of aggression which the ICC claims to have jurisdiction over?
Can someone tell me why xenophobia is not a crime and why South Africa and Botswana, who are signatories to the Rome Statue, are not under investigation for xenophobic crimes?
I would also like to know why racism is not a crime and why US did not accede to the ICC establishment and yet it is keen to support its activities? In fact, it would save a lot of face if an explanation is given as to why the ICC is based in The Hague?
I thought it was US federal law, for instance, that advocates trial by a “jury of peers”. So whose peers are in The Hague? Certainly, the African countries under ICC investigation have no peers in The Hague.
Furthermore, is it not convenient that racism is not a crime in The Netherlands and only a shoddy Bureau of Discrimination with a Board comprising only white people attends to the issues of racism brought forward by the few daring and discriminated black people in that country?
Is it a coincidence that racism is not a crime in The Netherlands, the headquarters of ICC and that the US is not a signatory of the ICC and yet blatant cases of racial torture and discrimination continue to be the order of the day in the US?
In just a few years, US police brutally murdered Kelly Thomas in July 2011; Gil Collar on October 6, 2012; Andy Lopez Cruz on October 13, 2013; Eric Garner on July 17, 2014; Michael Brown on August 9, 2014; Ezell Ford on August 11, 2014; Tamir Rice in November 2014; and Antonio Martin in December 2014.
All of them were unarmed.
All of them shot by white police officers.
And as recently as June 8, 2015, an overzealous white US cop pulled a gun on black teenagers and heavy-handedly restrained a 14-year-old black girl in a swim suit.
These are just a few of the cases of crimes of US police brutality and racism which are not considered a crime by the ICC although they are blatantly and vividly crimes against humanity and crimes of aggression.
Only a few days ago another racially motivated crime in Charleston, South Carolina in the US claimed the lives of nine innocent black people at the hands of deranged white apartheid apologist Dylann Roof.
Nevertheless, according to the ICC, these are not crimes against humanity and racism – in all its forms – is also not a crime.
To understand what the ICC considers a crime you must be an African, because it is only Africans who commit crimes against humanity and that is why eight African countries are under ICC investigation.
The ICC exists to discipline and incarcerate African leaders and enemies of US foreign policy such as Afghanistan, Colombia, Georgia, Iraq, Ukraine, Palestine, and Honduras which are under preliminary ICC investigations.
The US has double standards and will persecute its enemies using an institute such as the ICC which it never acceded to.
All the crimes against humanity that are taking place within the US are swept under the carpet and every genocide that the US commits against black people or Libyans or Iraqis will never be brought to the ICC and the ICC will always remain silent on these atrocities.
So it should not be surprising that the ICC will become over-excited when The Sudan’s President Omar Al-Bashir attends an African Union Summit in South Africa.
While the international community has long aspired for international justice, the ICC is the worst manifestation of an international criminal court and Africans worth their salt should seriously consider pulling out of that phoney establishment and consider forming an African Criminal Court if necessary.
The ICC has shameless and mindboggling definitions of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. In fact, the definitions of such crimes depend on which continent or country they would want it to apply to.
The Nuremberg and Tokyo trials addressed war crimes, crimes against peace, and crimes against humanity committed during the Second World War; and the Germans and Japanese paid dearly for being the losers in that war.
In the 1990s after the end of the Cold War, tribunals like the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda were the result of consensus that impunity is unacceptable.
However, when looking at the war crimes of the US and its allies the same measure must apply.
Their atrocities the world over are unforgivable including the illegal sanctions which they imposed on Zimbabwe for the last 15 years.
The US should be answerable for crimes against humanity in Zimbabwe and their leaders should be dragged to the ICC kicking and screaming if the ICC is to remain credible.
Gone are the days of inferiority complexities that would have seen South African President Jacob Zuma being coerced into arresting President Al-Bashir.
If the ICC wants to be fair and act reasonably, it should not try crimes committed only within a specific time-frame and during a specific conflict.
It should try crimes throughout history dating back
even to the slave trade and the countries that still feed fat on the proceeds of those crimes against humanity should be held accountable, at least in monetary terms.
Perhaps if that happens there could be general agreement that ICC may sort of represent an independent, permanent criminal court.
With the current status quo however, the ICC should best operate in adjournment until the fat cats in the US are first brought to book
and the US pays for all its crimes against humanity, genocide, war crimes and crimes of aggression.
Dubulaizitha!
Online Reporter
Bongani Ndlovu