http://europe.newsweek.com/gambia-pull-out-icc-citing-failure-prosecute-tony-blair-513759?rm=eu
GAMBIA TO PULL OUT OF ICC, CITING FAILURE TO PROSECUTE TONY BLAIR
Gambia said the court's failure to charge Blair over the Iraq War is pro-Western bias.
BY CONOR GAFFEY ON 10/26/16
Gambia has become the third African country in the past month to say it will pull out of the International Criminal Court (ICC), accusing the institution of persecuting Africans.
Gambian Information Minister Sheriff Bojang said in an announcement on state television Tuesday that the ICC was “an international Caucasian court for the persecution and humiliation of people of color, especially Africans,” AFP reported.
The decision comes despite the fact that the current ICC chief prosecutor is a former Gambian justice minister, Fatou Bensouda.
Bojang said the ICC had failed to prosecute Western countries for alleged war crimes. Nine of the ten investigations opened by the ICC have been based in Africa since The Hague-based court was set up in 2002.
Sheriff Bojang singled out former British Prime Minister Tony Blair as an example of the court’s Western bias. The ICC stated in 2006 that it did not have the mandate to prosecute Blair over the legality of the invasion and reaffirmed its stance after the publication of the so-called Chilcot report, a British inquiry into the Iraq War that found the U.K. had not considered all other options before joining the 2003 U.S.-led military campaign in Iraq to depose former dictator Saddam Hussein.
Gambia’s decision follows South Africa's announcement Friday that it had notified the United Nations it was pulling out of the ICC. The South African government said its role as a regional peacemaker in Africa was incompatible with the Rome Statute, the ICC’s founding charter.
South Africa’s Supreme Court has ruled that the government was wrong not to arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, the subject of an ICC arrest warrant, when he visited the country in 2015.
Earlier in October, Burundi’s parliament voted overwhelmingly in favor of leaving the ICC. Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza signed a decree on October 18 stating that its withdrawal would take immediate effect, although the Rome Statute requires that such a decision only takes effect a year after notice is given to the U.N. Secretary-General.
In April, Bensouda opened a preliminary investigation into events in Burundi since April 2015, when Nkurunziza announced his intention to run for a third presidential term. More than 430 people have been killed in a year of clashes between pro-government forces and opposition demonstrators, according to Bensouda.
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Gambia: The ICC Should Be Called the International Caucasian Court
BY SIOBHÁN O'GRADY OCTOBER 26, 2016
The nation of Gambia is the smallest on Africa’s mainland, ruled by dictator Yahya Jammeh, who has held power since he overthrew the prior government in a 1994 military coup. It’s also one of the top sources of migrants who regularly flee its deteriorating economy to seek better opportunities in the European Union, often risking their lives by paying smugglers to transport them on rubber dinghies to Italy and Greece.
Gambian officials blame the EU for lives lost on that perilous journey, and have repeatedly tried to convince International Criminal Court to prosecute the European government bloc for its failures to stop the smuggling. It hasn’t worked.
So this week Gambia became the third African nation — following Burundi and South Africa — to bail out of the International Criminal Court (or more properly, out of the treaty that binds it to the court). In a statement on state television, Gambian Information Minister Sheriff Bojang said the court was clearly designed by Western whites to target African blacks, echoing complaints by South African and Burundian officials that the international justice system focuses its attention solely on cases from Africa.
“[T]he ICC, despite being called International Criminal Court, is in fact an International Caucasian Court for the persecution and humiliation of people of colour, especially Africans,” he said.
Gambia itself has been accused of carrying out torture and arbitrary executions of those who oppose the Jammeh regime. Coincidentally, Fatou Bensouda, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, hails from Gambia, and previously served as justice minister under Jammeh. The ICC has not investigated Gambia, but Bojang said the court has failed to take seriously atrocities committed by westerners, pointing to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s involvement in the Iraq War. Last year, the court declined to indict him for civilian deaths in that conflict.
“There are many Western countries, at least 30, that have committed heinous war crimes against independent sovereign states and their citizens since the creation of the ICC and not a single Western war criminal has been indicted,” Bojang said.
So far, all three countries that have withdrawn from the court have had personal disagreements with its leadership. In Gambia, it was the failed prosecution of the EU. In Burundi, where the country has been in political turmoil since President Pierre Nkurunziza announced his decision to seek a third term last year, officials refused to allow ICC investigators to look into allegations of human rights abuses. And last year, South African officials refused to arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir after he visited for a conference in Johannesburg, despite the ICC’s requests they hand him over to the court to face charges for war crimes.
Former ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo is infuriated by the pattern of African nations leaving the court, and said “Burundi is leaving the ICC to keep committing crimes against humanity and possible genocide in its territory.”
“Burundi’s president wants free hands to attack civilians,” he said.
But in a phone call with FP after Burundi announced its decision to leave the court, Burundian Ambassador to Washington Ernest Ndabashinze presaged some of Gambia’s gripes, saying “it sounds like the ICC was created just for Africans.”
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Gambia pulls out of ‘racist’ ICC amid fears of a mass African exodus
‘The world is going backward. The chaos is coming’
Adam Withnall Africa Correspondent OCTOBER 26, 2016
Gambia has declared its intention to withdraw from the International Criminal Court, amid growing fears of a mass African exodus from the world body designed to prosecute those who commit the gravest atrocities.
The west African nation described the ICC as a racist organisation which is “involved in the persecution and humiliation of people of colour, especially Africans”.
It comes just a few days after South Africa began the formal process of withdrawal from the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the ICC. Burundi has also announced its intention to withdraw in due course.
The perception that the ICC is only used to punish African leaders has gained traction across the continent. Namibia and Kenya have raised the possibility of pulling out, while Uganda said it was sure to be a “hot topic” for the African Union’s next meeting in January.
All six ICC cases that are ongoing or about to begin involve people from African states. That said, all but one of those cases were brought by African nations themselves or the UN Security Council, and preliminary ICC investigations have opened elsewhere.
Gambia’s decision to withdraw is a particular blow to the court, as its chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, is herself a former Gambian justice minister.
Its information minister, Sheriff Baba Bojang, said in the statement late on Tuesday that the court was involved in "the persecution of Africans, and especially their leaders”.
He said “at least 30” Western countries had committed war crimes with impunity since the creation of the ICC in 2002, singling out the actions of UK prime minister Tony Blair in the Iraq War as an example.
Withdrawal was “warranted by the fact that the ICC, despite being called International Criminal Court, is in fact an International Caucasian Court for the persecution and humiliation of people of colour, especially Africans”, he said.
South Africa, once one of the ICC’s staunchest supporters, announced its decision to withdraw after a row over the government’s decision to grant free passage to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted for arrest by the court.
Gambian President Yahya Jammeh, one of Africa's longest-serving leaders, is accused by rights groups of various abuses including a clampdown on political opponents.
Burundi has been dogged by recent reports of state-sponsored violence along ethnic lines. Its president approved legislation on leaving the ICC last week. Former ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo said that by undermining the court, countries were giving the continent’s leaders free rein "to commit genocide". He told the AFP news agency Burundi’s president in particular “wants free hands to attack civilians”.
“The world is going backward,” he said. “The chaos is coming. Genocide in Burundi and a new African war are in motion.”
In a statement on the ICC’s website, the president of the assembly of member states Sidiki Kaba said he feared the path Africa appeared to be taking. The ICC relied on global cooperation “in order to ensure the right to universal justice to all victims of mass crimes”, he said.
He said he regretted the decisions of those leaving, which risked leading others to do the same, adding: “I urge them to work together with other states in the fight against impunity, which often causes massive violations of human rights.”
Under the terms of the Rome Statute, a country completes its withdrawal one year after it formally notifies the UN secretary-general of its desire to do so. Burundi and Gambia both said they had begun the process of leaving, though the UN said it had only received South Africa’s formal notification.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/gambia-international-criminal-court-south-africa-burundi-withdrawal-rome-statute-a7381336.html
Received on Wed Oct 26 2016 - 15:14:37 EDT