African leaders kicking against the International Criminal Court cite western imperialism and national sovereignty as their motivation. They couldn’t be farther from the truth.
South Africa is in the process of withdrawing from the International Criminal Court, Burundi is not far behind and Kenya may soon follow. Several African leaders also detest and have spoken out against the Hague Court; their motivation, they claim, stems from the court’s neocolonialist bias and infringement upon the sovereignty of African states.
There is a valid case in these accusations; all but one of the eleven cases prosecuted by the ICC has been from Africa. This is despite the fact that Britain under the Tony Blair administration committed, alongside the USA (which is not a member of the ICC), what are widely regarded as war crimes in the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003. However, if neocolonialism and infringement on national sovereignty were the real reasons behind the push to leave the ICC, then African leaders would have long exited the IMF, World Bank, and indeed the United Nations Security Council. But they haven’t, and therein lies the hypocrisy of their faux outrage.
The IMF and the World Bank are the most popular poster boys of western imperialism and neocolonialism. Created and controlled by the USA and her European allies, both organisations have been the major tools for superintending, and at times even subverting, Africa’s economic direction and progress. Thomas Sankara, one of Africa’s greatest leaders, railed against both institutions in one of his most notable speeches at the Organization for African Unity Summit in Addis Ababa. “We have been advised to go to these lenders,” he said of bodies like the IMF. “We have been proposed with nice financial set-ups. We have been indebted for fifty, sixty years and even more…that is imperialism controlled.”
Of course, African leaders know that the late Sankara’s charges on organisations like the IMF and World Bank still ring true today. They also know that for all intents and purposes, the United Nations Security Council represents the global domination of the world powers who make up its permanent members. Despite the continent’s subjugation by foreign overlords through these organisations, African leaders have chosen to focus their protest energy on an institution that, albeit with flaws, has repeatedly served as the real last resort for justice in a continent replete with catastrophic leaderships and bereft of strong legal institutions to hold them to account. It is not difficult to understand why.
At the heart of African leaders’ walkout from the ICC isn’t a righteous battle for sovereignty and anti-imperialism; it is rather a move motivated by self-interests. The governments of South Africa, Burundi and Kenya are all on the forefront of the push for ICC exit because they are led by or are defending leaders who have been accused of or are complicit in alleged crimes against humanity. South Africa’s row with the ICC began after the country’s government defied its own high court ruling to turn over Omar Al Bashir for prosecution at the Hague on charges of war crimes. Even its decision to leave the ICC is being challenged by the major opposition party in court.
Burundi is essentially being pulled out of the court because the country’s authoritarian president fears that, given his complicity in the violence and killings devouring the country, he perfectly fits the bill for an ICC investigation in the near future.
The Kenyan government’s grudge with the ICC emanates from the court’s prosecution of current president Uhuru Kenyatta and his vice, William Ruto, on allegations of crimes against humanity over their roles in the 2007 election conflict where over a thousand Kenyans were killed. Kenyatta’s government campaigned hard, not to prove his innocence, but to have the case against him dropped and the charges were eventually dropped after the ICC judges said witnesses withdrew their testimony out of intimidation.
As seen from the three instances cited above, none of the grudges over the ICC’s supposed victimization of Africa emanates from its treatment of the masses. In fact, in many the cases cited above, the ordinary people are often in favour of the ICC’s work. “At Waging Peace we work with victims of the genocide in Darfur and the slogan that’s chanted at the demonstrations we help organise is “Al-Bashir to ICC,” said Maddy Crowther of Waging Peace, a human rights organisation campaigning against genocide and systematic human rights violations in Sudan. “The call [from the streets] is for more international justice and engagement, not less.” She added. Her statement is reinforced by UPRONA, Burundi’s major opposition party in the parliament which described quitting the ICC as a “bad political and diplomatic decision”.
Conversely, institutions like the World Bank and IMF, which are tightly hugged and depended on by African leaders, do not enjoy a lot of love from ordinary citizens who often see them as the proponents of austerity. This is because the economic policies that they support, such as public expenses cuts and liberalisation of essential services sectors disproportionately target the poor and enrich the wealthy and powerful. “If they [African leaders] really need to be independent, they need to first leave the World Bank and IMF. The most essential independence is financial, ” said Désiré Nimubona, a Burundi-based journalist.
Ultimately, the choice to battle the ICC and hobnob with the World Bank, IMF and UN Security Council all comes down to interest. These organizations, for all their imperialism and neo-colonialism, ensure a steady stream of financial bailout for African leaders even if at the detriment of the countries they lead. The ICC’s snooping on their practices and human rights record does not favour them financially and threatens them with accountability for their actions. Fortunately, Africans across the continent are not totally unaware of this hypocrisy.
