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African Union Says Up Yours to International Criminal Court
The African Union is asking all of its 53 members not to buckle under to the International Criminal Courts arrest warrant against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The International Criminal Court, or ICC, has never indicted anyone but Africans, and many consider it to be a tool of the United States. The Obama administration gives constant lip service to the Court, even though the U.S. is not a member of the ICC and has refused to make its own policies and military answerable to any outside authority.The African Union, meeting in Equatorial Guinea, said the ICC indictment against Gaddafi for alleged crimes against humanity complicates the task of bringing about a cease-fire in Libya. Twice, high level African delegations have attempted to forge a cease-fire, that would protect immigrant workers and refugees and allow for humanitarian aid to the civilian population. Both times, the rebels and their American and European backers rejected the African initiative out of hand a display of western arrogance that was deeply humiliating to the African Union. The insult still stings. Although the African Union cant do much to stop NATO from bombing an African nation at will, the AU decided, finally, that it can stand up to the International Criminal Court and its attempt to arrest Gaddafi, a former chairman and great benefactor of the African Union. The current AU chairman, Jean Ping, spoke for many member states when he said that the ICC was discriminatory in its prosecutions, and only went after Africans, disregarding crimes committed by the West in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. For that reason, the AU recommended that its members not cooperate with the execution of the warrant against Gaddafi. Posted by: tipper 2011-07-07 |
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