Why ICC is bad for Africa’s democracy

Editor, PLEASE ALLOW me to share my views on Stéphanie Nyombayire’s article, “We love you more than you love yourselves” (The New Times, November 6). Stéphanie is spot on in her well thought-out article. I just wish to add something: Like the author, I agree that Africans, collectively and as citizens of our respective countries, need to hold our leaders to account in every way, including for injustices they commit against their own people. This is a given that none can gainsay. Where I completely disagree with some commentators is in the notion that if no alternative institutions of justice have been put in place to bring African leaders to account, then the ICC is better than nothing. Sorry, for me, it is worse than nothing! You do not cure dysentery by infecting the patient with cholera. The ICC, at least in the way we have seen it operate, is not providing justice for individual victims of African tyrannical leaders; rather, it is effectively returning us under Western colonial control in which the leaders we freely elect to manage our affairs can be incapacitated from fulfilling the mandate we have given them. Another way to look at it is that our “former” (in quotes because in some cases colonial control never ended despite formal trappings of independence) colonialists have, through the ICC, which they control, arrogated to themselves the right to choose who our leaders will be. We saw that in the recent Kenyan elections when various Western governments openly blandished the indictments against some candidates in an attempt to blackmail the Kenyan people into not electing specific candidates in favour of the West’s preferred team, with threats that if the Kenyan people did not do as told their country would be blackballed. This to me brought home more than anything else the danger of having a court under the thumb of our colonizers which they can wield against us, but on which we have absolutely no power to return the favours. Do not forget for a moment that the worst international crimes, against weaker countries and their populations, are carried out by the most powerful countries. And those countries are for all practical purposes immune from the ICC (which is why that entity is focused solely on Africa because of the powerlessness of African countries). That is unacceptable. I am not saying this because I support impunity for African leaders. I am stating simply that the argument that it is either the ICC or impunity is a false choice. The notion that until we have alternative arrangements in place to try offending leaders, we must accept the ICC as a necessary evil is not acceptable. Sorry, as far as I am concerned, the ICC isn’t a solution, even a temporary one. It is a danger to African countries’ sovereignty and not a solution to impunity, since its selectivity and effective immunity for the biggest crimes committed by Western powers means that it is enthroning the impunity of the most powerful against people of weaker countries. As it now operates, the ICC looks like it is going after a chicken thief with the full force of the law while you give a pass to mass murderers. Selective “justice” targeting people according to their relative power, isn’t justice, it is arbitrary and naked application of power in the judicial arena. Mwene Kalinda, Kigali

Opinions

Why ICC is bad for Africa’s democracy