African critics of the ICC doing it for selfish reasons themselves

An Africa-centred campaign to discredit the International Criminal Court (ICC) could have repercussions for a potential move to bring before the court the cases of Kenyans accused of orchestrating the 2008 post-election violence.

The strongest critics of the ICC argue that it is biased against Africa. Led by Libya, the critics depict the court as a tool of Western powers intent on exercising neo-colonial control over African states.

The ICC’s indictment of Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir for war crimes in Darfur has been depicted as an egregious example of politically motivated persecution on the part of the Hague-based court.

President al-Bashir’s case was referred to the ICC by the United Nations Security Council, even though — as critics point out — the court’s jurisdiction is not recognised by three of the council’s five permanent members: China, Russia and the United States.

The charges against al-Bashir are disputed by some African leaders who contend that the conflict in Darfur does not warrant the unprecedented arrest warrant issued against a sitting head of state.

Rodolphe Adada, head of the joint African Union-United Nations mission in Darfur, told the Security Council in April that the death toll in Darfur now amounts to no more than 150 a month — compared to ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo’s contention that 5,000 people were dying each month from conflict-related causes in Darfur.

An official in the Barack Obama administration has also stoked doubts as to whether mass killings are currently occurring in Darfur.

J. Scott Gration, President Obama’s special envoy to Sudan, said last month that al-Bashir’s government is no longer engaging in a co-ordinated campaign of slaughter in Darfur.

A State Department official subsequently sought to clarify the Obama administration’s view, saying, “We continue to characterise the circumstances in Darfur as genocide.”

Critics of the court, including a few human rights advocates in the West, have singled out Moreno-Ocampo’s performance.

And that tactic may be proving at least partly successful.

A Washington Post report last week on the perception of the ICC in Africa noted, “Today, Moreno-Ocampo appears to be the one on trial, with even some of his early supporters questioning his prosecutorial strategy, his use of facts and his personal conduct.”

These challenges to the world’s first permanent tribunal on genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity has prompted a concerted counter-attack by ICC defenders.

Writing last week in The New York Times, former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan defended the ICC against the claim that it is an instrument in a Western plot against Africa. Annan characterised that view as an “outcry against justice” that “demeans the yearning for human dignity that resides in every African heart.”

The attempt by a few African Union member-states to undercut the court’s legitimacy “represents a step backward in the battle against impunity,” Annan added.