"In Withdrawing From the International Criminal Court, Duterte Has Become a Hero for Africa"

The decision to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC) has made news around the world.

 

The ICC itself has come out asking the Philippines to reconsider its decision to withdraw from its membership.

"The Court encourages the Philippines to not follow through with the reported intention to withdraw, as it is an important State Party to the Rome Statute...."  "The membership of the Philippines in the system is essential for the aspirations toward universal ratification of the Rome Statute and strengthening the international rule of law," the ICC said.   *

(photo credit to Rappler)
 

President Rodrigo Roa Duterte cites among the many reasons for his decision to withdraw the Philippines membership was the “outrageous” attacks by United Nations officials and violations of due process by the ICC.

"There appears to be a concerted effort on the part of the U.N. special rapporteurs to paint me as a ruthless and heartless violator of human rights who allegedly caused thousands of extrajudicial killings," Duterte said.

The President has expounded that the acts being attributed to him will not create for the ICC to have a jurisdiction over his person, it is neither genocide, war crime, a crime of aggression, or a crime against humanity which makes it triable by the ICC.

“The deaths occurring in the process of a legitimate police operation lacked the intent to kill. The self-defense employed by the police officers when their lives became endangered by the violent resistance of the suspects is a justifying circumstance under our criminal law, hence they do not incur criminal liability,” Duterte said.

This article titled “In Withdrawing From the International Criminal Court, Duterte Has Become a Hero for Africa” written eloquently by Mr. Adam Garrie last March 15, 2018 in the EurasiaFuture website, talks about the repurcussions of the decision of President Duterte in pulling out the Philippines membership to the International Criminal Court with respect to the status of other member countries. *

 

Adam Garrie is a Director at Eurasia future ,a geo-political expert expert who can be frequently seen on Nedka Babliku’s weekly discussion show Digital Divides, RT’s flagship debate show CrossTalk as well as Press-TV’s flagship programme ‘The Debate’, as decribed by the website.

We have fully quoted the article written by Mr. Garrie for our readers personal consumption and full understanding of the message Adam Garrie wants to convey.

 

The deeply politicised International Criminal Court, of which none of the three global superpowers (China, Russia, US) are members, has long been associated with the prosecution and persecution of African leaders. In fact 90% of all defendants brought before the ICC have been Africans. In 2016, the Gambia, South Africa and Burundi announced their intention to withdraw from the court, but later changed their decision in the face of internatinoal pressure. In South Africa, the issue is particularly sensitive as in spite of the clearly anti-African bias of the ICC, South Africa has tended towards a commitment to international organisations, no matter how ineffective, owing to the spirit of reconciliation which formed the basis of Nelson Mandela’s post Apartheid government.

But the unjust double standards of the ICC which has seen African leaders sitting before a court, deprived of any dignity, while countries with larger militaries, vastly more weapons and a track record of large scale international war crimes have never been brought before the ICC, leaves the Court’s reputation in tatters.   *

Few Asian states are members of the ICC. Once The Philippines leaves, only Cambodia, Bangladesh, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, South Korea, Mongolia and Japan will remain as full members.  In terms of ASEAN, once The Philippines leaves, Cambodia will remain the only ASEAN member to remain a full member of the ICC.

For Africa though, the ICC’s clutches have been difficult to escape and far from escaping justice being an advisable position, the ludicrous way in which the ICC began a preliminary investigation into Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is demonstrative of the kind of unfair treatment than African states and leaders have suffered at the hands of an ICC which is more of a neo-colonial circus than anything resembling an attempt to bring actual war criminals to justice.

President Duterte’s war on drugs is as far from a “crime against humanity” as one can get. Duterte is helping to eradicate the scourge of narcotics that has ripped communities apart and turned areas of the country into a war zone where the reality of human rights is non-existent. In fighting drugs, drug culture, the drug trade and the financing of terrorism implicit in the drug trade, Duterte has done more to promulgate the basic human rights and social progress of his countrymen than any other leader in recent Philippine history.  *

Indeed, the ICC’s investigation into Duterte, which will now go nowhere due to the ICC shortly losing its jurisdiction over The Philippines, was symptomatic of a larger hybrid war against Duterte from a variety of state and non-state actors. Africa as a whole has been subject not just to months or years, but centuries of imperial exploitation which continues to this day in the form of corporate exploitation of African resources, African leaders who act as puppets of wealthy foreign regimes and a banking culture which has strangled Africa with debts that cannot realistically be repaid.

When Duterte stated that he rejects the “colonial mentality” with which the US treats The Philippines, he could have also been speaking for African leaders who for centuries have suffered under an even more pronounced version of this same colonial mentality.

In his commitment to rapidly withdraw from the corrupt ICC, Duterte will be setting an important precedent that can and should be followed by a majority of African states. The ICC, however noble its founding principles, has manifested itself as just another tool of neo-colonialism in an age where the multi-polar approach to trade, security and international justice, far outweighs anything that can be offered from remaining subservient to the institutions of former imperial masters.   *

Recent reports over the weekend during the Philippine Military Academy graduation rights, that the President has made a call to other countries that has ratified the Rome statute to withdraw from the treaty, as he cites the ICC was sponsored by the European Union for reasons of making up for its past  “sins” and “brutality.”

 

 

Report from Eurasia