Excerpt : ICC HAGUE

Friday, May 1, 2020

The vexative ICC issue has brought to the fore the obvious duplicity of the West when dealing with international issues affecting the third world countries, and revealed just how little respect they to pay to the interests of African nations. Whilst this is nothing new to most of us, some of our leaders seem dumbfounded that our nation can be spited by the West at all. Even more ridiculous is the thought these Wester powers can be blackmailed into playing ball! We have long sold our sovereignity to these folks for pittance, and lost political relevance on the world stage after we surrendered our collective intellect and aped their values to the exlcusion of our own. Worse still, we willingly developed the dependency syndrome and turned our nations into destitutes roaming their capitals seeking aid, basket in hand.

I do not share in the boundless hope of our government in pursuing the so-called international community in various fora to convince them to shield our President and his deputy from inceration at The Hague court. The AU was a big gamble that we pulled off, though it also did not achieve the ICC pull out threshold we desired. After breating fire in their anti-ICC rantings, they ended up resolving to apply to the UNSC for a mere one year defferal. It was a long shot. These leaders know that the UNSC outfit is a hollow mouthpiece for Western hegemony that has turned our nations into mere voting machines for their global pursuit of power. The UN is neither independent, nor just. It is simply a political laundrette for the super powers to 'legalise' their dirty politics to hoodwink the ignorant masses in our thirld world countries.

The race to save our leaders from the ignominy of sitting in the dock has now taken us to the ICC Assembly of State Parties meeting this week. Again, I hasten to add that the outcome is predictable. The proposed amendments to give immunity to sitting heads of state is likely to flop, not because the idea is offensive but because the West will simply attempt to torpedo it. In their scheme, this court was intended to punish third world leaders who are guilty of crimes against humanity in the court of public opinion. The immunity sought is simply repulsive to them. They must punish impunity now, not tomorrow. But only impunity by our leaders, not their leaders. In fact, not even war criminials from their nations will ever face this court because of its low threshhold of evidence required to convict suspects.

However, in our exasperation we must avoid overt hostile actions that will hurt the economy and that may be prejudicial to our national interest. A group of diplomats from the British High Commission were thrown out of an Eldoret hotel by the Deputy Governor. Others have threatened to throw them out of thier farms and urged government to cancel British army training grounds contract in Laikipia. These actions are likely to create hate against white men and plunge the nation into xenophobic attacks and must be avoided.

Some political leaders have also demanded that we do not do business with Bitain, US and other Western nations. If we pursue that path, we shall lose big time. We get a million tourists annually from these countries. We export our tea, coffee and horticulture to Europe under favourable trading terms. Clearly, these calls for severing economic ties with the West for their political duplicity is myopic and undermines our interest. other leaders have demanded that we withdraw our troops from Somalia as we cannot fight a proxy war for the West. So, were we in Somalia because of other interests and not to protect our borders? I have long pitched for the withdrawal but our forces are now so used to the goodies associated with this mission that they are unlikely to withdraw come what may.

In the end, this nation must decide whether to coorporate with the ICC court or not. That decision is ours. The sooner our leaders decide on this matter, the better. Political posturing in a global arena dominated by bully Western nations does not help. Lets decide on the question and live with the consequences.

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