Kenya may become the first country to pull out of the International Criminal Court (ICC) if President Uhuru Kenyatta agrees with the Parliament's vote on Thursday favoring suspension of “any links, cooperation and assistance" to the court. The vote was to protest ICC's indictment of Kenyatta and Vice President William Ruto for alleged orchestration of post-election violence in 2007-08. Ruto's trial is due to start in The Hague next week. Whatever the fate of the trial and eventual verdict, the ICC is in the dock again over charges that it has an anti-African bias. According to critics, it has prosecuted only Africans during its 11 years in existence. The court has issued arrest warrants for 20 individuals including Sudan's President Omar Al-Bashir. All of them have been charged with war crimes or crimes against humanity as is the case with Kenyan leaders. ICC, says its critics, is targeting Africans or has been established purposely to deal with the Third World. The charges leveled against Kenyan and Sudanese leaders seem to lend credence to their accusation. Bashir is held responsible for the death of 300,000 people in Darfur. Post-election violence in Kenya claimed more than 1,100 people. Does the killing of human beings, ask the critics, become “crimes against humanity” or “war crimes” only when it is caused by Africans. In support of their argument, they point out ICC's unwillingness to pursue perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity in countries or territories such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza and Chechnya. Is the prosecution of war in Iraq different from that in Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo or Uganda, except that those responsible for the continuing mayhem and murder in Iraq are the whites from the West? ICC, say critics, is also turning a blind eye to Western governments and defense companies who gave arms and weapons to Uganda and Rwanda as well as to the 25 militia groups in DR Congo. Introducing a motion for Kenya to suspend its links with ICC, the majority leader of Kenya's Parliament cited the fact that the United States and other major powers are not members of the court. This is likely to reopen the debate about Western hypocrisy. US attitude has especially invited charges of double standard. Washington's opposition to ICC was evident from the very beginning. It did eventually sign up to the ICC just before the December 2000 deadline to ensure that it could participate in decision-making about how the court works. However, by May 2002, the Bush administration “unsigned” the Rome Statute that created the ICC. The US even threatened to use military force if its nationals were held at The Hague. Worse still, US continues to pressure many countries to sign agreements not to surrender US citizens to the ICC. If US presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both argued against becoming a party to the ICC to protect US citizens and soldiers, as Adan Duale, the majority leader from Kenyatta's Jubilee coalition, told an emergency session of Parliament, who can blame Kenyan lawmakers for doing the same thing to protect their president and vice president from potential politically-motivated prosecutions? One hopes the Kenyan Parliament's decision, regrettable though it is, would persuade the Obama administration to rethink its stance toward an international law (Rome Statute) and institution designed to protect human rights.
