News

International Criminal Courth Belongs To Us Africans

May 24, 2010

Article By Wangari Maathai in the East African 
May 24th 2010

As the world gathers in Kampala, Uganda next Monday for the first Review Conference of the Rome Statute setting up the International Criminal Court, it is an important time to affirm Africa’s commitment to bringing an end to the impunity that prevails in too many countries on our continent. The lack of true justice prevents us from moving forward to a more stable, peaceful future.

We have many conflicts in Africa, and many of these conflicts are actually incited, financed, and organised by leaders. These leaders mobilise their supporters, mostly from their communities, to go and kill and rape and destroy members of other communities.

Eventually, as in Kenya, a shaky peace is achieved — but the same leaders who use violence against their own people remain in power and thereby make violence against humanity worthwhile.

Surely such leaders who commit unspeakable acts of horror cannot be trusted to create peaceful societies? Not until those who perpetuate these gross violations of human rights are held accountable.

In the aftermath of some of the most horrific conflicts in Africa in the 1990s — including Rwanda and Liberia — Africans were at the forefront of advocating for the creation of an international court.

In fact, of the current 111 states parties to the Rome Statute that founded the International Criminal Court, 30 are African.

One of the goals of the ICC is to encourage and stimulate local and national justice systems to reform and strengthen, so that in the future, national systems will be able to restore justice without the intervention of the ICC.

A great strength of the Rome Statute is that it criminalises rape as a weapon of war, along with other atrocities that specifically target women and girls. On a continent where violence against women is practiced on a mind-boggling scale, the ICC offers a glimmer of hope.

All of the current cases before the it — Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, and Sudan — include investigations of gross atrocities that target women.

The process is as important as the outcome, because it provides the “space” for bringing into the open discussions about how sexual crimes and other gender violence destroy communities across Africa.

But while the ICC is catalysing healthy debate across the continent, it will only truly work in bringing about accountability if Africans support its work. Take the case of Sudan.

Those wanted by the ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity are treated by many African leaders as though they were misunderstood heroes. If Africans are not ashamed of crimes against their own people, neither the ICC nor other governments can help them.

Both at individual state level and at the level of the African Union, there is a need to maintain support for the ICC, while simultaneously continuing to engage in peace processes and encouraging judicial reforms continent-wide.

The African Union Panel Report on Darfur (also known as the Mbeki Report for Thabo Mbeki’s leadership on the initiative) and the subsequent formation of a High Level Implementation Panel are good examples of how the African Union should proceed on issues of justice.

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.