By Ugoji Egbujo

South Africa has reached a lamentable decision.  22 years after apartheid, South Africa has rejected a global consensus to hold monsters guilty of unspeakable acts of gross inhumanity accountable. To think that a South Africa, ruled by victims of apartheid, can come to such forgetfulness, such carefreeness , so spontaneously, is confounding. African governments, stampeded by Rwanda, were  once the staunchest supporters of  the court.

A court the cold war had, for decades, deprived the world. That fervency has faded, died. The practical realties of even tepid international accountability have proved to much for the culture of impunity embedded in governance in Africa to bear.  The narrow interests of unscrupulous political elite and the safety of their fantasies are all that matter.

Burundi withdrew from the ICC a few days ago.  Burundi is possessed by a leader who fancies himself as a medieval monarch. He wants to rule forever and at all costs. The ICC , for him, must be  a nuisance . Naked opportunism by a deluded despot is perhaps more tolerable than shameless cold treachery by a supposed ally. South Africa owes this continent so much. Gambia wants to leave too.

But Gambia under that bumbling dictator has never pretended to anything worthy of emulation.  An alive and kicking ICC must be Yahya Jammeh’sworst  nightmare. And that is why South Africa is a traitor. The lessons of apartheid didn’t last. Is it the interest of the Burundian roadside auto-mechanic who lives  on the brink of an all out civil war or the hubris of a Kenyatta , ensconced in privatized national wealth, that  should matter? Self serving pan Africanism  and empty  mischievous nationalism have been sold as principles.

Pejorative labels have been churned out -‘tool of modern imperialism’, ‘International Caucasian Court’. With half truths and  a good dose of emotionalism , cries of neo- colonialism found resonance. The docket of the court is lopsided. But it is totally African for objective reasons.

If the court existed to ensure that every family had access to clean water, its work would  still have been largely African. Justice is as scarce as clean water in Africa. But African leaders wouldn’t weigh  the comparative  benefits of the court. They are too shortsighted, too self absorbed, for such  considerations that require some sobriety.

Conceited leaders who live at a remove from the perilous reality  of the average African woman have the luxury to lapse into unending lamentations about  the erosion of  sovereignty.Leaders of beggarly nations whose sovereignties  have   since  been mortgaged  for aids and grants are the noisiest . Of what relevance is a theoretical sovereignty if citizens’ human dignity has been drained by hunger and violence and hopelessness perpetuated by wanton impunity?

They would point to the arrest warrant  the court issued against a siting African president  – Al Bashir of Sudan, and  feign indignation, and disown the court. Al-Bashir licensed the Janjaweed to rape and bring  gruesome death to millions. But because of Al-Bashir, South Africa is through with the court. Al- Bashir is a most despicable man who all men of goodwill should spare nothing to bring to justice.

Any ordinary African conversant with the conception and workings of the court must be in utter disbelief. The court is a novel attempt at setting standards and checking impunity. The court is therefore morally indispensable in social craters and dark spots where  local authorities lack the willingness or the capacity to bring to book principalities and powers,  committing egregious evil against humanity, from hitherto  unassailable towers and sanctuaries.

To be effective, the Rome treaty refused to countenance any immunities. Immunity accorded heads of governments by international law and conventions was a crippling handicap the Assembly of States Parties (ASP)  recognized and excised. A supranational determination to do justice must come at some cost to national sovereignties.  The ASP’s decision to surrender presidential immunity to check  ravenous impunity  was  why the court  was seen a ray of hope in the dark tunnel of sub-Saharan Africa filled with war lords, demagogues and  life presidents.

South Africa was conversant with these lofty ideas and  their costs.  She ratified the treaty and prided herself  cleansed of lepromatous apartheid ,member of a  new moral order.  But like a few others, when she was asked to work the treaty she had talked and brandished, she cowered. Having failed to abide by the provisions of the treaty and its domesticated implications by refusing to effect the arrest of a visiting Al Bashir, South Africa was in a moral fix.

But she could have lived on with some duplicity. She now claims the Rome treaty is in conflict with her local laws and her self appointed role of chief peace maker in Africa. That is a pathetic argument. The new norm is that no immunity is sufficient to shield against gross human rights abuses and war crimes.

The ordinary Gambian would not give up the court so flimsily. The ordinary African must be the greatest beneficiary of any system that checks systematized  decimation  of  a civilian population . Because there are simply no protective institutions and restraining political culture.

A continent of neglect and wars must in its own interest be the prime recipient of the attention of any  agency instituted to provide vigilance against  cannibalistic groups and murderous  emperors perpetuating their  domination and rules by  exterminating  opponents and squelching dissent.

Allegations of bias and prejudice are puerile. Africa constitutes 100% of the cases under investigation by the ICC. That seems skewed. But how did that come about?  Of the nine cases, six were self- referrals. The countries in crises voluntarily sought the intervention of the court.

Two other cases – Dafur and Libya- were referred to the court by the UN Security Council. In both instances if a standing court didn’t exist the UN Security Council would have  established a Rwanda -type ad hoc tribunal to investigate those cases. The UN Security Council would have still gone after Al-Bashir. And that leaves Kenya.

Kenya is important for two main reasons. First, it is the only one instance where the prosecutor exercised his propio- motu powers to initiate an investigation sans referral. Secondly an arrest warrant was issued in 2010 against Uhuru Kenyatta, a very powerful politician, who became president in 2013.The Kenya human rights commission  had  indicted Kenyatta for  planning  and funding post election violence.

Thousands were massacred, half a million were displaced. President Kenyatta  rallied against the ICC,  hounded witnesses into oblivion and destroyed the case. The ICC withdrew charges against him in 2014. Kenyatta had been rattled, he mobilized for a pan -African withdrawal from the court. The resentment he found righteousness to sow is now bearing fruit. The proposed  substitute , an African  criminal court,  is a ruse.

Africa is the major beneficiary of the ICC.Unfortunately the interests of the political elite are always in conflict with the interests of the ordinary people. The court has failed to summon courage against the atrocities of coalition force in Iraq and the Israelis and Palestinians. But that can’t be the priority of families in Nairobi  and Bangui slums who fear they might be  maimed, fractured and dislocated yet again by the greed and ambitions of mindless Uhuru Kenyatta and his ilk. The court will improve.

The shadow of the court looming over Bangui helps to soothe trepidations. The court must not die. The hope of the poor that the court’s jurisdiction be expanded to include massive corruption and theft of public resources must not be dashed.