ABBEY MAKOE
When the International Criminal Court (ICC) was founded back in 1998 – four years before it handled its first-ever case in 2002 after the Rome Statute was ratified by at least 60 countries – the noble intent was compelling.
Throughout its years of existence, the ICC has stood accused of bias against Africa in particular following a worrying trend of pursuing mainly African nationals for alleged wrong-doing.
By the time the ICC entered into force, some 140 countries had appended their signatures in support of the “court of last resort” – as the ICC is described in its founding literature.
Notably, three superpowers refused to attach their signatures to the ratification of the ICC. They were the US, Russia and China. The US went further than any of the world’s States that refused to subscribe to the ICC. Anticipating a collision with the functions of the ICC, the US threatened to withdraw its troops from the UN peacekeeping forces throughout the world unless its citizens – “both military and civilian” – were exempted from prosecution by the ICC.
The US was clear then, and remains clear today, that the ICC should not, and does not possess any jurisdiction over the citizens of the US who are strewn across the globe on dubious missions.
The foreign policy of the US is founded on the same principle as all other countries – “the national interest”. The US is known to pursue its enemies – real or perceived – anywhere in the world with scant regard, or none whatsoever, to the authority of the UN as a multilateral body.
Not only does the US use a string of military bases that it builds in virtually every continent and any region of its interest, but it also undertakes a unilateral imposition of economic sanctions against its geopolitical adversaries.
What is mind-boggling is the US “authority” to compel other states to obey their rules of engagement, and to further punish any country that dissents through sheer military intervention or coercive economic sanctions.
Examples of the transgressions of international law by the US abound. They include a blockade of Cuba continuously for over sixty years, a similar blockade of Venezuela to overthrow the government of Nicolas Maduro and effect regime change, the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 that included killing Iraqi leader President Saddam Hussein, Barrack Obama’s administration’s lead in the fanning of a civil war in Libya that included the rape and murder of Muammar Gaddafi - the list is endless.
I paint this background picture in light of my main thrust in today’s writing about the ICC’s dodgy dealings as a ploy of the West in geopolitics. The ICC recently issued a warrant of arrest for Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of some crimes against humanity in the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Now, without defending President Putin, there has been a plethora of video and pictorial as well as anecdotal “evidence” of the Ukrainian forces indulging in what some sections of the international media including the much-maligned Russia Today (RT), Moscow’s version of its own CNN, describe as Kyiv’s excesses.
Any investigation by the ICC cannot ignore the easily-available facts – thanks to social media and overall technological development. I’ve argued that the reason Kyiv’s backers led by the US, continue to frown on a negotiated settlement is not about the country that continues to be battered. The main reason is that the war conflict has been discovered for what it truly is: a US proxy war against Russia.
My next point of argument is the blatant lack of consistency on the part of the ICC, and I challenge anyone who still believes in its legitimacy or credibility to pause and think. How is it that after a very public outcome, and admission by the George W Bush administration, that Iraq’s Saddam had had no Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), the ICC had remained dead quiet and never demanded justice for the nearly 300 000 civilians killed (according to WikiLeaks) in “shock-and-awe”, as the devastating bombardment of Iraq was described by the US embedded media in tow?
The ICC’s founding preamble explains its purpose as follows: “To investigate, prosecute, and try individuals accused of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity and to impose prison sentences upon individuals who are found guilty of such crimes.”
Surely, former President George W Bush is still alive and methinks it’s never too late to pursue justice. President Bush’s Second-in-Charge during the illegal invasion of Iraq, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, is also still alive and he, too, can surely be hauled to The Hague to explain their blatant falsehoods before the UN Security Council to the effect that they possessed “evidence” of Iraq’s WMD?
The ICC simply has too much explaining to do. It owes that to the citizens of the 140 countries that signed up for its ratification. South Africa is one such country and I am one of the citizens.
In August, SA hosts the much-anticipated BRICS Summit and the leaders of all the BRICS countries are expected in-person to attend. They include Russia’s President Putin, who for clearly nefarious motives by the ICC now has a warrant of arrest to wrestle with.
The operators at the ICC cannot be expected to be oblivious to the geopolitical conundrum that they put SA under. In case President Putin does attend the BRICS Summit I bet the US – a non-signatory to the ICC, will lead the Western chorus of “arrest Putin”. Failure to do so would almost certainly put SA and President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Eurocentric media’s dock.
Inevitably, the guilty finding will be followed by loud cries for US-led sanctions against SA. The Western ranking agencies will typically have a field day. They will probably move SAA from “grey-listing” to whatever they consider the worst colour.
In this unequal, unipolar world order that the US and its European allies mischievously refer to as the “rules-based world order”, countries that insist the ICC can, and should never possess the power to investigate or charge them, will in turn use the same ICC as a weapon to punish “wayward States” such a SA that fail to arrest President Putin.
But I have a solution on the way forward for the government of President Ramaphosa and the ruling ANC. Instead of preparing for the nauseating headache of explaining yourselves to the hypocritical Western powers hell-bent on achieving their two-fold mission, that is first to “decouple” Russia and then halt the rise of China with military threats and economic sanctions.
In this way, the hegemony of the US would continue to permeate the entire global community with the help of the dollar as the main currency of trade. Not only that, the EU would play the role of repaying Washington’s massive financial and military backing by strictly adhering to their “Monkey-see, Monkey-do” approach to global politics.
Let the noise in SA’s ears be right now concerning the ANC’s resuscitation of its dormant resolution to withdraw the country from the ICC. By the time August comes, none of the treacherous diplomatic Western states that hunt like a pride of lions would expect Pretoria to do their dirty work of drumming up the beat of Russophobia.
The ICC has played Russian roulette with its credibility. It should have refrained from being a lapdog for the global north and a bulldog for the global south. In that way, all the sovereign states of the world would be in unison that the ICC is driven by the pursuit of justice on behalf of the weak and vulnerable. SA must remember that its foreign policy, too, must be based on the country’s national interest, and nothing else.
Pretoria must be smart and emulate Washington to the ICC: “Nothing about us without us.” And, Minister (Naledi) Pandor, please don’t make it a choice.