International Criminal Court belongs to us Africans

Released in October last year, the Mbeki Report did not set out to help President Omar Hasan al-Bashir and others find a way out of the ICC indictment.

Instead, it stressed the importance of justice and reconciliation in Darfur by proposing a combination of mechanisms to repair the damaged relations between Darfurians and the state.

Further, the Mbeki Report emphasised the need to combat impunity for sexual crimes for building the confidence of the thousands of Darfuri victims.

In my country, Kenya, there is a need for national and local justice mechanisms to help us come to terms with the horrific post-election violence.

Sadly, those involved in the violence are still in the government. The Waki Commission, an international inquiry into the post-election violence, compiled lengthy documentation and produced a sealed list of those deemed most responsible.

Many are believed to be in senior leadership positions in Kenya. They precipitated the violence to get power and they got it.

The opening of ICC investigations into Kenya’s post-election violence is therefore a welcome development that gives hope to the victims and may serve to prevent similar events in the future.

I hope that it will not only serve as an example of justice, but that it will inspire our national leaders to build institutions that ensure that communities can expect justice from them. 

Many detractors of the ICC claim that it is only focusing on African countries. However, the ICC is actively engaged on other continents, and there are growing international calls for it to initiate a case on Burma. Atrocities such as genocide and rape as a weapon of war are not unique to Africa.

Our leaders need to support the work of the ICC in Africa, as well as other countries – or we are not really fully participating in the global community and what positive benefits it brings in terms for the potential for realising justice.

I call on African leaders to take this unique opportunity at the Review Conference that is being hosted in the heart of Africa, in Uganda, to affirm your support for the ICC.

Let us work together to bring an end to the culture of impunity by holding those who commit such crimes to account. Impunity not only perpetuates crimes against women, children and other civilians, it teaches successive generations how to continue the violence.

Let us seize this historic opportunity on our own continent to demonstrate our commitment to peace and justice.
Wangari Maathai is the 2004 Nobel Peace Laureate and a founding board member of the Nobel Women’s Initiative