Tag: International Criminal Court (ICC)

The International Criminal Court (ICC) propagates injustice as stark as slavery or South African apartheid. It’s a Western court that prosecutes Africans exclusively. In June 2011, the ICC indicted Libyan President Muammar al-Qaddafi and his son Saif al-Islam Qaddafi. Now, six years later, Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has announced that she will investigate Burundian officials for crimes against humanity allegedly committed during the country’s past three years of civil unrest.

How much longer can Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Benjamin Netanyahu, AIPAC and associated Zionist organizations cover for Rwandan President Paul Kagame? How much longer can they claim that he was Rwanda’s savior, that he stopped a genocide recalling the Holocaust, then helped Rwanda rise from the ashes? This week another woman who dared to challenge him for the presidency says he has taken vengeance on her and her family.

Joseph Kabila was in Kampala Nov. 20 meeting with Rwanda’s Gen. Paul Kagame and Uganda’s Gen. Yoweri Museveni as the Congo city of Goma fell. Why would Kabila be in Uganda when the UN in a report by a group of experts found that M23, the army that seized Goma, was created, trained, financed and is sustained and commanded by Rwandan and Ugandan officers?

The sham treason trial of Rwanda’s top opposition leader, Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, has finally ended with her expected conviction. The U.S., which recently cut aid to Rwanda for its role in Congo atrocities, must call for Umuhoza’s release. She has been sentenced to eight years in prison by a kangaroo court. Her conviction by the kangaroo court must be set aside.

The State Department announced today that the U.S. “has cut this year’s planned military assistance to Rwanda amid concerns that the government in Kigali is supporting rebel movements in neighboring Congo,” according to the Washington Post. A three-year campaign by advocates for peace in the Congo and an end to the plundering of its mineral riches culminates successfully in today’s announcement. They have been pressing for implementation of the only law sponsored by then Sen. Obama allowing denial of aid to Congo's neighbors that destabilize the Congo.

The LRA is a raggedy bunch of a few hundred at most, poorly equipped, poorly armed and poorly trained. Addressing the problem called the LRA does not call for a military operation. Rather than the reason for accelerated military mobilization in the region, the LRA is the excuse for it. Alas, this message has no room in the Invisible Children video that ends with a call to arms.

If the International Criminal Court and ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo were committed to international justice, they would issue an arrest warrant for sitting Congolese President Joseph Kabila. But the Western powers that control the ICC have been expected to do whatever it takes to keep Kabila in power.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez condemned the killing of Libyan head of state Muammar Qaddafi as an “assassination” and “a disregard of life.” The Libyan leader was confirmed dead Oct. 20 by the rebel National Transition Council (NTC) with images of Libyan rebels displaying his corpse beamed around the world.

With the release of another 250,000 classified diplomatic cables from the U.S. State Department by the WikiLeaks website, Washington’s Africa policy has been further exposed for its imperialistic designs. These revelations point to the necessity of the anti-war and peace movements in the U.S. incorporating anti-interventionist and anti-imperialist demands with specific reference to the African continent into their political programs.

If a person really cared about human suffering – torture, mass rape, pillage, torching of homes with people alive inside, targeted rapes to spread HIV/AIDS, burying people alive, chopping off of limbs – then such a person would condemn these acts wherever they may occur and demand that the perpetrators of the crimes be brought to justice.

I recently received a phone call from an investigator for the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, and I shared my uncertainty about the ethics of collaborating with an "International Criminal Court" that was only indicting Black Africans.