Africa's stunning victory over the International Criminal Court

By Owei Lakemfa

AFRICA This Tuesday, January 15, in The Hague, he won a brilliant victory against the International Criminal Court (ICC), a ploy of the West to maintain a neocolonial stranglehold on the continent. That day, the International Criminal Court dropped charges against Lauren Gbagbo, an anti-imperialist politician and outgoing president of Côte d'Voire, and ordered his immediate release.

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It was a great victory against the neocolonial powers who were trying to humiliate the continent by firing an African president on trumped-up charges of murder, rape, inhumane acts and persecution. But what is painful is that an innocent man was kidnapped in his country, imprisoned without trial for five years and tried for another three years before being released. Gbagbo, aged seventy-three, lost eight years of his productive life locked up in Europe and deprived of family life. Moreover, he had to remain in prison while his supporters and his family were persecuted. his wife, Simone, who was the first lady in the country, was publicly humiliated and harbaded before being sentenced to 20 years imprisonment, while her son Michael was sentenced to five years. Ms. Gbagbo spent seven years in prison before being released.

All these attempts were aimed at spraying a man who stood up to France and its centuries of exploitation of the Côte d'Voire. This is also the case, helping Western puppets such as outgoing president Alhbadan Quattara and their race boys who are tools of the recolonization of Africa.

When Blé Goudé started Gbagbo's "trial" with the ICC and co-accused, I wrote: VANGUARD Press release of February 12, 2016: "The fact is that it is essentially a political case and that Gbagbo is a prisoner of war who was captured on April 11, 2011 by the combined forces. rebels, French troops and the United Nations. Is the ICC realizing that its imprisonment will hurt national reconciliation in Cote d? Ivoire? What the country needs is national reconciliation, not just a trial. "

Gbagbo, the Ivorian president of the time, had been captured as a result of an avoidable civil war that had erupted after the controversial 2010 presidential election that had thrown him against his former jailer , Quattara. He was prime minister in 1992 when radical Gbagbo was arrested for allegedly supporting a national student protest and was sent to prison.

The elections were meant to unify the country after the northern rebels from where Quattara came from had seized half of the country. The chairman of the electoral commission went to the opposition headquarters to announce the results giving 54% of the vote in Quattara, while Gbagbo, outgoing president, addressed the Constitutional Court, who declared him the winner by 51% of the votes. Both were sworn in as UN president and the West recognizing the opposition that was encouraged to take up arms. I thought that what was needed was for the African Union to take the initiative to recount the votes in dispute. In my column of January 7, 2011 in VANGUARD Newspapers titled: MILITARY OPTION WILL NOT WORK IN ABIDJANI had pleaded against the use of armed conflict. I wrote: "I have no doubt that a military intervention will result in a terrible bloodbath among Africans. Another danger is that the military option may lead to the dissolution of the Ivorian armed forces and the police; the security implications for the country will be considerable. If this happens, the core of the new armed forces will likely be made up of the rebel army. This means that there will be serious ethnic and religious schisms in the new army, whose officer corps will be northern and Muslim. "

But the UN, France and the rebels have preferred the military option and more than 3,000 Ivorians have been killed. The country's armed forces have been defeated. Gbagbo was captured and parade shirtless before being taken to The Hague Prison. He and his supporters were persecuted, while rebel forces and their political leaders were not only left free but emboldened to tip the southern part of the country. But that could not last long because national reconciliation and development were impossible without the contribution of the southern leaders and the people who considered Gbagbo their leader.

The ICC case was built on fragile foundations. First, his investigations were biased. Quattara rebel forces that mbadacred people and allegedly exterminated some 800 Ivorians in two days were not investigated or charged. Second, some of the "evidence" she produced against Gbagbo was found to be false or fraudulent. For example, an alleged video footage showing Gbagbo supporters committing crimes was found to have been shot in Kenya. Third, it was absurd that the ICC seized Gbagbo and imprisoned him before spending years "investigating" when there should have been an investigation before his arrest. Fourth, France's political pressure on the ICC could not be concealed.

The South African columnist on foreign affairs, Shannon Ebrahim, in her column of November 25, 2018 entitled: It is time for the ICC to release Laurent GbagboGbagbo (as Ivorian president) was determined to relax France's control over the banking, insurance, transport, cocoa and energy sectors and invited companies from other countries to bid for government projects.

Gbagbo was shocked by the excessive spending in French projects, such as the bridge that France was to build in the capital, Abidjan, for 200 billion CFA francs, a contract that it canceled when the Chinese announced that They could build the bridge for 60 billion CFA francs in 2002. "

In my column of February 10, 2017 titled: The African response to the ICCI pointed out that "since its creation in 2002, the 10 cases under investigation / trial and the three preliminary investigations have been on Africa, with the exception of the preliminary investigation in Georgia".

That the ICC has pretended to scandalize African leaders such as Gbagbo, Kenya's outgoing president, Uhuru Kenyatta and Vice President William Ruto, while Western leaders who have perpetrated crimes against humanity in Iraq, in Libya, Afghanistan and Yemen their crimes. I have pointed out that the ICC is a European court made for Africans. "Europeans provide logistics, prisons and 63%, about two-thirds of the ICC budget."

My conclusion was: "The ICC and Western influence tribunals are essentially undermining the sovereignty of Africans and are new tools for recolonization." I also stressed that Africans are capable of compelling their leaders to respect the African Union regime. during the investigation, prosecution and conviction in Senegal of the former Chadian president, Hissène Habré.

Africans should no longer be treated as colonial subjects.

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