adminFarai Kuvirimirwa Herald Reporter
AFRICAN leaders meet today in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for an extraordinary summit convened to discuss Africa’s membership of the Hague-based court saying it was being abused by the West to pursue its foreign policy goals in Africa. Since its inception 11 years ago, the ICC has launched investigations into just seven countries, all of them African – Uganda, DRC, Central African Republic, Sudan, Kenya, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, and Libya – and has indicted 27 people, again all of them Africans despite receiving over 8 137 communications from more than 130 countries as of 2009.
Because of this, the ICC has been accused of targeting Africans for prosecution and the AU has specifically demanded that the court drops the prosecution of Kenya President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto.
Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Cde Emmerson Mnangagwa yesterday said African leaders should present a united front against the ICC.
He said the selective application of the law when it comes to prosecuting African leaders as compared to their Western counterparts was a major cause for concern.
Cde Mnangagwa said it was no secret that Africa was being mistreated and humiliated by the ICC, adding that the glaring disparities in how Africans and Westerners were treated should make leaders on the continent stand up and stamp their authority.
“I hope African leaders can come together and speak with one voice,” he said. “The ICC is bent on humiliating the smaller countries; any little incident in Africa – they will drag the leaders to court.”
But even before the AU leaders met, some Western-sponsored organisations and individuals, among them Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, have been furiously lobbying against withdrawal from the ICC.
Cde Mnangagwa said Britain’s Tony Blair and George W Bush of the United States lied about Saddam Hussein possessing weapons of mass destruction and committed serious crimes in Iraq, but were never summoned to the ICC.
At least 34 African countries are signatories to the Rome Statute that created the tribunal, but Zimbabwe is not a signatory.
Online Reporter
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