THE African Union yesterday adopted a proposal by President Uhuru Kenyatta for the AU to develop a roadmap for the withdrawal of African nations from the Rome Statute.
The proposal was adopted alongside a report by the AU Ministerial Committee of Ministers of Foreign Affairs. The report draws a red line for the ICC on how it has been handling the case against Deputy President William Ruto and Joshua arap Sang.
The document asks the ICC to terminate the case against the DP and Sang as it lacks any believable evidence.
President Kenyatta said Africa should make a powerful statement that reflects its refusal to be carried along in a system that has no regard for the sovereignty of nations and tramples on the security as well as the dignity of Africans.
He said the only option left for Africa was to completely withdraw from the Rome Statute because the ICC’s utility at this time of global turmoil is extremely limited.
President Kenyatta said the continent’s leaders will be failing in their duty if they continued shoring up a dysfunctional instrument whose mainstay was to humiliate Africans and distract their governments from their mandates.
“We refuse to be carried along in a vehicle that has strayed off-course to the detriment of our sovereignty, security and dignity as Africans,” said the President.
The document and the proposal to instruct the Ministerial Committee of Ministers of Foreign to embark on drawing up the roadmap were adopted in the afternoon.
The ministers will first proceed to have meetings with the United Nations Security Council on the AU resolution asking for the termination of the Kenya cases and several other recommendations.
The outcome of the meetings between the ministers and the UN Security Council will determine the next course of action, which includes exercising the mandate for the mass withdrawal roadmap.
President Kenyatta pointed out that Kenya’s position, which is shared by other countries, was borne out of the total disrespect with which the ICC has treated the concerns of Kenya and other African nations.
“When Kenya and the large group of African countries joined the International Criminal Court . . . We sought to combat impunity while being sensitive to the reality of our young and fragile democracies.”