Europe’s lapdog in a theatre of the absurd, By Owei Lakemfa

The International Criminal Court (ICC), on March 17, added a comic dimension to the tragic war in Ukraine by issuing arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova. The ICC, a body notorious for persecuting people in the bad books of the European Union, the EU, and its allies, accused Putin of “illegal deportations of the population … from the territory occupied by Ukraine to the Russian Federation”.

It claims that: “There are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Putin is individually criminally responsible for these crimes (and) for failing to exercise proper control over his civilian and military subordinates who committed these acts, or allowed their commission…” . The ‘Court’ also charged Ms Lvova-Belova, 39, with the same crime. The ICC also said “there are reasonable grounds to believe that each suspect is responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of the population… from the occupied territories of Ukraine to the Russian Federation, with the prejudice of Ukrainian children”.

The ICC warrant does not say what it means to deport a population. Does this refer to Prisoners of War or hordes of mercenaries that the Russians captured and transferred to their territory? Or is the population of Russian-speaking Ukrainians evacuated from the war zone as relocated or evacuated from Ukraine to neighboring countries like Poland? Can Ukrainian President Zelensky be accused of deporting the population to other European countries?

This is in the realm of speculation, but what isn’t speculative is asking countries around the world to arrest the President of Russia is a sick joke. Any country that tries can be destroyed; it’s the equivalent of arresting a sitting President of the United States. These countries are not superpowers. Thus, the quixotic moves of the ICC can only serve the EU owners.

However, I must say that this is a new point for the ICC that specifically arrests and persecutes African leaders who refuse to follow the path set by the West. The war in Ukraine is one that pits Russia against the European Union and the latter has the ICC. Since 2002, the EU has been responsible for 63% of all ICC funding. In 2009, for example, only five EU members: Spain, Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom, paid 44% of the ICC budget. In 2020, the main funders of the ICC are Germany, France, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

So the ICC jumped in when the European Union asked them to; the only question he will ask: ‘How tall is the boss?’ Therefore, the ICC has no independence and no self-respect, and it certainly does not respect even those who have it. Let me give you an example. When the ICC in 2021 went astray to investigate Israel for the ongoing massacre of Palestinians, the ongoing killing of civilians, including children, and the ongoing theft of Palestinian land, then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson emphatically told the ICC so back off. because it has exceeded its limits. Although the ICC probe also covered rockets fired by Hamas and other Palestinian groups into Israel, the British Prime Minister in a letter stated: “This investigation gives the impression of a partial and prejudicial attack on Britain’s friends and allies.”

Apart from the European Union and some allies like Japan, plus the hordes of African countries pressured by the European Union to join the ICC, there is no self-respecting country; not China, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iraq, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Russia, Sudan, Syria; not even the USA’s allies build the contraption. In fact, the US, which has been at war almost non-stop for two centuries and has the largest number of military bases in the world, will not allow a murderous American mercenary like Blackwater, to be tried outside its own court.

In the same 2002, the ICC was born, the US Congress warned against investigating war crimes around the world, including places like Afghanistan and Iraq, passing the American Service Members Protection Act. The law prohibits financial aid to ICC member states that wish to hand over US personnel. The law also authorizes the US to use force to free Americans who may be detained by the ICC. America continues to pressure dozens of countries to sign bilateral agreements not to hand America over to the ICC. To counter the ICC joke, the Russian Investigative Committee countered with its own symbolic investigation against prosecutors and ICC judges who issued arrest warrants. He said that neither Putin nor Lova-Belova is criminally responsible and that Heads of State of the world have absolute immunity under the 1973 UN Convention.

Almost all cases brought to the ICC concern Africans and current sitting presidents like Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya and Vice President (now President) William Ruto, and Laurent Gbagbo of Cote d’Ivoire. The case of President Gbagbo is illustrative of how the ICC functions. There is an electoral dispute between Gbagbo and opposition leader Alhassan Quatara with each claiming victory in the election. The latter’s rebel army, with the support of French and United Nations forces, marched on the Presidential Palace on April 11, 2011 and captured Gbagbo as a Prisoner of War. But he was not treated as such and was not given the right to be tried in his own country. However, foreign forces contrary to the UN protocol on the diplomatic immunity of the President, bundled Gbagbo out of the country and deposited in the ICC jail for five years without trial when the rival was appointed as President of the country. He was then put on trial and after three more years, he was declared innocent.

The ICC was only used by the European Union to remove an uncooperative African president, and after being imprisoned for eight years, freed him when his rival in power in Cote d’Ivoire did the will of the Europeans, including destroying the African movement for a West African common currency. Although he was declared innocent, the Europeans still prevented Gbagbo from returning home until his officers were ready to lock him up. The African Union, AU, realizing that the ICC is primarily an instrument of neo-colonialism, on January 31, 2017 asked the 34 African countries that signed the ICC to make a collective withdrawal. Lives do not need to be lost in Ukraine, what the world needs is a negotiated peace settlement, not a clown performance by a crying lapdog.

Owei Lakemfa, former secretary general of African labor, is a human rights activist, journalist and author.