Sudan frustrated at AU for failing to pull out of International Criminal Court

President Uhuru Kenyatta confers with Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohammed during the just concluded extra-ordinary AU Summit in Addis Ababa. (Photo:PSCU)

Khartoum, Sudan: The Sudanese foreign minister Ali Karti has blamed the absence of certain nations from the African Union (AU) extraordinary summit that took place Saturday in Ethiopia, for the failure to call for a mass withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The two-day meeting which convened on Friday saw the participation of many African leaders including two who were indicted by the ICC namely Sudanese president Omer Hassan al-Bashir and Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta.

But unlike Bashir, the Kenyan president along with his deputy William Ruto has so far committed to cooperating with the Hague based court which charged them with crimes against humanity in connection with 2007-2008 Post Elections Violence (PEV).

After Ruto and Kenyatta ascended to the presidency in elections held earlier this year, they lobbied their peers in the continent to support deferring or dropping the cases against them.

Their calls drew sympathy from a continent that appeared to be generally frustrated with a court they perceive to be targeting Africans only.

The ICC has opened investigations into eight cases, all of which are in Africa including Uganda, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Central African Republic (CAR), Darfur, Kenya, Libya, Côte d’Ivoire and Mali.

Five of the eight cases were referred voluntarily by the African governments in question; two through a UNSC resolution supported by all but one African member in the council at the time and the Kenyan one was opened at the ICC prosecutor’s request.

The ICC intervened after the Kenyan parliament shot down several attempts to establish a local tribunal in accordance with a power-sharing agreement brokered by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Furthermore, many MP’s said they wanted the cases investigated at the Hague.

Nonetheless, Kenya along with Uganda pushed the AU for a summit to discuss the continent’s relations with the ICC. African officials initially said that an en masse withdrawal of African countries from the ICC will be on the agenda.

But later the proposal appeared to garner the support of few states besides Kenya, Sudan, Rwanda and Ethiopia. The last three are not signatories to the court.

The meeting ended up calling on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to defer the trials of Bashir and Kenyatta under Article 16 of the court’s Rome Statute which allows for a delay of a year subject to renewal.

"If that is not met, what the summit decided is that President (Uhuru) Kenyatta should not appear until the request we have made is actually answered," Ethiopian Foreign Minister Tedros Adhanom told journalists in Addis Ababa according to Reuters.

"We have agreed that no charges shall be commenced or continued before any international court or tribunal against any serving head of state or government, or anybody acting or entitled to act in such capacity during his or her term of office," Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said.

But Davis Malombe, deputy executive director of Kenya Human Rights Commission, expressed rejection to the idea of a deferral.

"The AU’s call for a deferral of the cases against Kenya’s President and Deputy President is nothing more than another attempt to derail and delay justice for Kenya’s victims and betrays the AU’s purported commitment to fight impunity," Malombe said.

"Victims have waited for over six years for justice. The UN Security Council has turned down two previous requests and it should do so again if such a request is presented before it" he added.

According to Agence France Presse (AFP), Kenyatta attacked the ICC saying it has been "reduced into a painfully farcical pantomime, a travesty that adds insult to the injury of victims".

"It stopped being the home of justice the day it became the toy of declining imperial powers," he said in prepared remarks, accusing the ICC of "bias and race-hunting".

"It is the fact that this court performs on the cue of European and American governments against the sovereignty of African states and peoples that should outrage us," Kenyatta said, urging the AU to unite in the face of a "divide and rule" policy.

"Africa is not a third-rate territory of second-class peoples. We are not a project, or experiment of outsiders," he added.

Sudanese foreign minister said that the meeting saw many calls for withdrawing from the ICC including from his government. He added that some countries while expressing readiness to walk out, said the time was not ripe for such a move.

He said that calls for withdrawal almost succeeded but still requires support by stronger steps, disclosing that this may become a real possibility for African ICC members if the UNSC does not respond positively to AU request for deferral.

Karti disclosed that unspecified states on Friday ministerial meeting adopted stances that "generally weakened" the African position.

"But in my overall assessment the meetings affirmed previous positions on not dealing with the International Criminal Court regarding any head of state" Karti said.

-Adapted from Sudan Tribune