By Francis A. Boyle
(Francis A. Boyle is a Professor of Law at the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign U.S.A. On 8 April 1993 and 13 September 1993 he won two Orders from the International Court of Justice in The Hague -- the so-called World Court of the United Nations System -- that were overwhelmingly in favor of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina against Yugoslavia to cease and desist from committing all acts of genocide in violation of the 1948 Genocide Convention. This was the first time ever that any Government or Lawyer had won two such Orders in one case since the World Court was founded in 1921. He also won an Article 74(4) Order from the World Court to the same effect on 5 August 1993. Under Article 74(4) of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, when the Full Court is not in Session, the President of the Court exercises the Full Powers of the Court and can issue an Order that is binding upon the states parties to a pending lawsuit.)
The United Nations Organization (U.N.O.) has receded far distant from the positive role it used to play in Africa from the late 1950s to the 1980s when the U.N.O. worked vigorously for the decolonization of Africa from the white racist Western colonial imperial powers. Today what we are witnessing instead is the United Nations basically helping the white racist Western colonial imperial powers re-colonize the continent of Africa. I personally would not believe anything that the United Nations Organization is saying or doing in Africa. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon is a flunky for the United States. The Americans gave him the job. He does whatever the United States tells him to do. Africans are well advised to be extremely skeptical of the United Nations Organization as well as of its specialized agencies and affiliated organizations operating anywhere in Africa.
To be sure, technically the International Criminal Court (I.C.C.) is not an Organ of the United Nations Organization (U.N.O.). Legally, both the I.C.C. and the U.N.O. are supposed to be independent of each other. But both International Organizations operate in accordance with that well-known “Piper Principle” of international political science: He who pays the piper calls the tune! The same white racist Western colonial imperial powers call the tune for both the International Criminal Court and the United Nations Organization including all of its specialized agencies and affiliated organizations. Western money talks, international law and human rights walk -- especially in Africa.
When it supported the right of self-determination under international law in Africa, the United Nations overturned the historical legacy of the Berlin Conference of 1884-85 under which auspices the white racist Western imperial powers commenced their colonial division of the African continent, robbed Africa of its natural resources, and proceeded to inflict outright genocide upon Africans -- even for “sport.” By contrast, under the influence of Third World countries that fought for independence against the West, the United Nations supported a decolonization campaign that culminated in the independence of Namibia and the dismantling of the white racist criminal apartheid regime in South Africa. In theory, Africa was then legally free. But economically Africa was still dependent upon and subordinate to the Western Powers because of their continued imposition of neo-colonial economic control and political domination.
What we are seeing now is an attempt by the United States and the European States -- collectively organized into the NATO Alliance -- to actually recolonize Africa outright and in toto. The opening shot of this process was the 2011 U.S./NATO war of aggression and genocide against Libya that was sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council. This U.N.-authorized U.S./NATO military operation clearly had the objective of stealing all of Libya’s oil and gas resources. Up to 50,000 Africans were brutally exterminated in this process of U.S./NATO reconquering Libya after Muamar Gadhaffi had previously expelled the U.S. and the U.K. Thanks to U.S./NATO, Libya has now become Somalia on the Mediterranean with waves of African refugees drowning on their way to Europe.
Libya is scheduled to become a de facto base and staging area for U.S./NATO to project power southward into the heart of the African continent in order to steal the abundant natural resources of Africa. As demonstrated in Libya, the white racist Western colonial imperial powers that control NATO and the United Nations Organization will pay no attention whatsoever to the 1948 Genocide Convention when it stands in their rapacious path of invading, bombing, exploiting, persecuting, murdering, and occupying African States and Peoples of Color in order to steal their natural resources. This is what the new “scramble for Africa” is all about by the white racist Western colonial imperial Powers along the lines of the old Conference of Berlin. Now implemented today by means of the latest Western high-tech weapons systems such as genocidal drones.
France has always been one of the West’s major colonial imperial powers in Africa. Today France is deeply involved in consolidating the entire geopolitical space between the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Guinea for U.S./NATO as most recently demonstrated by its ousting the government of Cote D’Ivoire and its invasion of Mali using Guinea as a staging area for the attack. In fact, France never really left Africa. France still maintains garrison forces all over Africa to exert continued French control and domination upon these Black African States, governments, Peoples, leaders, and resources. I am of French Ancestry: Vive La France! -- But not in Africa!
Regretfully, with respect to many African leaders, the situation still remains analogous to what Frantz Fanon described in his classic book Black Skin, White Masks (1952). You have leadership Elites throughout Africa who do the bidding of the United States and the NATO states against the wishes and interests of their own people. The second and current I.C.C. Prosecutor Madame Fatou Bensouda from Gambia is a classic case of Black Skin, White Masks. The white racist Western colonial imperial powers who control the I.C.C. put her into office in order to deceive African States and Peoples into believing that the I.C.C. works for them rather than against their interests on behalf of U.S./NATO.
In this process of the modern Western re-colonization of Africa the International Criminal Court (I.C.C.) at The Hague functions as The White Man’s Court. The I.C.C. enables the white racist Western imperialist states to pursue and neutralize African leaders who do not do their bidding. Admittedly, some of the implicated African leaders have unsavory reputations. But so far every suspect the I.C.C. has gone after has been from Africa. This is no coincidence. In fact and in law, these African tin-pot dictators are small fish compared to the genocidal monsters of white racist U.S./NATO/Israel.
The I.C.C. refused to do anything about bringing to Justice Tony Blair despite the fact that British lawyers filed a perfectly correct Complaint against him for his numerous international crimes in Iraq. Likewise for the Complaint I filed with the I.C.C. in January 2010 against George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Condoleezza Rice, Alberto Gonzales and their lawyers because of their criminal policy and practice of “extraordinary renditions,” which is a euphemism for the enforced disappearances of human beings and their torture and thus constitute crimes against humanity in accordance with the I.C.C.’s Rome Statute. So far the I.C.C. has refused to do anything to serve Justice upon these Bush-era American international criminals. Ditto for President Obama and his administration for their drone murder policy and practices being run out of occupied Afghanistan that is an I.C.C. member state.
Right after Israel’s genocidal Operation Cast Lead against Gaza from December 2008 to January 2009, I recommended to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that Palestine accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, which President Abbas did do. And what happened? The first I.C.C. Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo threw it out on the bogus grounds that it was not for him to determine whether Palestine is a State. He reached this disingenuous conclusion despite the facts that Palestine then had de jure diplomatic State relations with about 130+ States and also possessed State membership in U.N.E.S.C.O., a U.N. specialized agency. This coward and hypocrite Moreno-Ocampo had the gall to toss aside Palestine’s acceptance of the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court like a piece of Kleenex, and refused to investigate Israel for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide against the Palestinians. Moreno-Ocampo would not lift even one finger to help the Palestinians in their moments of dire desperation. He is truly a despicable human being! So far his successor Ms. Black Skin, White MasksBensouda has demonstrated no propensity either for doing Justice for the Palestinians against the white racist Israeli genocidaires who have the full support and backing of the racist American genocidaires against Palestine and the Palestinians.
The I.C.C. will not touch white racist American, British, Canadian, European, and Israeli perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against Peoples of Color around the world. So far the I.C.C. has refused to prosecute any of the U.S./N.A.T.O. officials for their international crimes against the Afghani People despite the fact that Afghanistan is a party to the I.C.C. Rome Statute. Estimates run from 1 million to 4 million Afghanis exterminated by white racist Western colonial imperial powers since September 11, 2001. The I.C.C. has also refused to prosecute the white racist leaders of the U.S./NATO states for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide against Africans in Libya. The I.C.C. will not bite the white racist Western colonial imperial Hands that feed it.
I originally supported the establishment of an International Criminal Court because I figured it might serve as some minimal deterrent to the United States government inflicting aggression, genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity all over the world, including and especially against Peoples and States of Color in the Third World. I proved wrong in my estimations. I was naïve about the realities of American power ready, willing, and able to subvert and to pervert from the get-go an international institution that it never intended to join in the first place.
Of course the United States could never have permitted a real, independent, and effective International Criminal Court to come into existence! Otherwise, its highest level civilian and military officials would be -- and should be -- sitting behind bars in a Hague jail cell today. Instead we now witness The I.C.C. White Man’s Court stinking up The Hague.
My good faith advice today to Third World States who are not yet parties to the Rome Statute is not to join the International Criminal Court. And if Third World States are already parties to the I.C.C. Rome Statute, again my good faith advice to them is to pull out now before the white racist Western Colonial Imperial Powers sic the I.C.C. after them as their pet attack dog. The I.C.C. is the West’s Rottweiler against Africa and Asia!
Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (phone)
217-244-1478 (fax)
(personal comments only)
