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CHIEF CHARUMBIRA

From George Maponga in Masvingo
The Pan African Parliament (PAP) has added its voice to the growing calls for Africa to dump the International Criminal Court, lambasting the Netherlands-based court of being used by imperialist Western nations to undermine and humiliate African leaders.

This comes hot on the heels of an attempt by the ICC to force the South African government to arrest Sudanese leader Omar Al-Bashir during the just-ended African Union mid-term summit on charges of crimes against humanity and genocide.

The ICC issued a warrant of arrest against Al-Bashir and wanted South Africa, which is a signatory to the Rome Statute to arrest president Al-Bashir during his visit to South Africa on AU business. However, plans to arrest Mr Al-Bashir went up in smoke after the SA government allowed the Sudanese leader to fly out of the country amid a barrage of criticism of the ICC by African leaders among them President Mugabe, who charged that the court was being used by Western nations to discriminate against Africans while war criminals such as former US president George W Bush and British premier Tony Blair, who committed war crimes in Iraq were let scot free.

One of Zimbabwe’s representatives to the Pan African Parliament Chief Fortune Charumbira on Tuesday said the African legislative body last week discussed the bias of the ICC against African nations.

Chief Charumbira, who is also the Zimbabwe Chiefs’ Council president, said the PAP resolved to push for the formation of an independent African court based on the continent to replace the ICC.

He said the body urged African countries to consider pulling out of the ICC, saying attempts to arrest Mr Al-Bashir in South Africa were an insult to Africans.

“There was a lot of debate in the PAP about the ICC and its impact on Africa.

“It was made clear during that debate that the ICC is being used for political manipulation by the West. The selective application of justice by the ICC has discredited it as an impartial court,’’ he said.

Chief Charumbira said the PAP was of the opinion that the African Court of Justice based in the Gambian capital of Banjul and the Human and People’s Rights Court head-quartered in the Tanzanian city of Arusha could be strengthened and empowered to deal with problems on the African continent replacing the ICC.

“It was revealed that about 60 percent of conflicts where foreign envoys mediated, failed to bring lasting peace.

“Examples that were cited included Libya, Somalia, South Sudan and Darfur where foreigners are trying to impose solutions from outside,’’said Chief Charumbira.

He said PAP wanted home-grown solutions for African problems as foreign hands did not understand local values which made it hard to find lasting solutions for conflicts.