AU rejects ICC office in Africa Print E-mail
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Written by Hussein Bogere   
Wednesday, 28 July 2010 20:36

The African Union summit on its last day, Tuesday, delivered a diplomatic snub to the International Criminal Court by refusing to grant an earlier request from The Hague-based court to establish an office on African soil. The AU also urged the ICC to shelve its indictments against Sudanese leader, Omar al Bashir for at least 12 months until Africa concludes its own investigations into the case.
Asked about ICC’s request for an office on African soil, Jean Ping, the AU Commission chairman, said on Tuesday: “The idea was unanimously and totally rejected. Totally.”
It is still unclear why the ICC wants to establish an office in Addis Ababa, and so the AU received the proposal with suspicion.
In an earlier statement, Ping wondered why the ICC was more interested in opening up an office in Africa and not elsewhere.
“Why open in Addis Ababa? Why not in Latin America, Asia or Europe?” Ping asked.
The relationship between the AU and ICC has been anything but cordial with the African body accusing the court of targeting Africa.
“The majority of the African states decided not to comply with the double standards of the ICC. Thirty African countries ratified the Rome Treaty but more than half of those countries are against the way the ICC is implemented,” Ping earlier said.
It is in that spirit that the AU leaders stood in defence of Sudan’s president against the ICC. The leaders who met in Kampala reaffirmed their earlier position of not respecting the arrest warrants issued by the ICC.
Bashir is accused of committing crimes against humanity and genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region. As a result of the indictments, Bashir has seen his international movements restricted to only those countries where his safety is guaranteed, Uganda not being one of them.
“The Sudan situation needs to be put in a broader framework. We are not condoning impunity or any crimes committed, but these things need to be proved. We cannot get orders from the ICC,” said Dr Bingu wa Mutharika, chairman of the AU, at the end of the summit.
“We have instituted our own mechanism which will go and ask the questions. We have asked the ICC to extend for a period of 12 months and see whether the evidence they have corroborates ours,” he said. The African leaders also passed resolutions to make Africa the world’s food basket in the next five years and integrate NEPAD into the structures and processes of the AU. They further called for the creation of a Palestinian state and recommended the establishment of the pan African university with Kenya being allocated the East African slot.

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Comments (6)add comment
What would you expect?
written by Henry F Mulindwa , July 28, 2010

The court is needed in Africa because that is where gloss human rights violation is at its worst. Who can wonder why African leaders rejected the proposal? They know, almost all of them, that they are culprits in human rights violation. In Uganda, freedoms are on paper but the Police is there to beat up people,even shoot to death others who try to exercise their liberties to speak, to assemble, to organize, to demonstrate...The orders come from "Above" and we know who that is! Would Mugabe, Museveni,Kibaki, Kagame and others want the ICC in their backyard? Surely not!!


wow
written by fran , July 29, 2010

coodos to our leaders standing up to double standards.
A pan African University? i say we are on the right track. a continent growing teeth. finally we can join the global community as partners not beggars. we are shaping our destiny.
way to go. something about Kampala Held Summits is that there is an aura of power and patriotsm thah always gets things done our way.


Mr
written by kabayekka , July 29, 2010

If the AU rejects such international proposals it is up to the victims of those Africans who are being killed every day by self-seeking politicians that are going to make the big difference. One gets very fed up with some small time officials who most probably studied in mission schools on poor man's grants. Because they have never lost any of their relatives in the thousands of political persecutions going on all over this continent, they continously lecture and lobby to the international community for a stay of prosecution to criminals of their choice. Indeed Mr Ping the African continent is the well known oldest and first civilization and to put up an international judiciary institution is a very welcome priority for humanities. One is very sure that the ICC in its humane objectives will manage to get over 100 acres of land in some African countries, rent free for 50 years so that true international Justice for human life can take its course. The weak Africans must seriously be defended.


Bashir, is NOT the only culpable criminal that shd go to ICC, but all African dictators.
written by Nsi egumire Baitwenda , July 30, 2010

Surely, as Mulindwa above has asked...what would we expect from any of our dictators who are vampires that are basking gloriously at the mass human destruction of the people they claim to work for? If only our neo-colonilists, who are nobody BUT our so called African rulers could borrow a cue from the former Colonialists of our Contries,and compare and contrast how they are Governing our Countries vis-avis the Colonialists they replaced, they would surely would not be cushioning a man like Bashir from ICC. But wait a minute, who is better than Bashir anyway..?Lets not work our heads off looking at Bashir as the only criminal, which he is anyway, but almost all of our African leaders are like him, IF not worse than him. You go to look for fellow thief with the pursueers!! What a farce!


Mr
written by kabayekka , July 30, 2010

One is already in possession of individual requests for the ICC to prosecute Joseph Kony in about 1995. This same International Court answered that it does not deal with African individual legal requests over this court to prosecute genocide criminals. For the Europeans most probably it would not happen that way. How many Africans have suffered politically and died since 1995? If this International court is playing the same games as those played by the UN when it is in the pockets of the USA then Africa and most of the rest of the continents world wide will not benefit from this international credible judiciary institute. By now this very institute should have formalised a list of criminals busy right now executing human extermination and genocide in the State of Somalia. Why should this court be asking its headquarters to be in Ethiopia when this Ethiopian state has the largest modern killer military-arms stock on the African continent? Victims of war must come out all over Africa and stand up for their rights these days!


Its an eye opener!
written by Joseph , July 30, 2010

It makes us understand that most of African leaders are criminals so they do not want this office next to them.



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