Good Riddance to the African-Hater on the International Criminal Court

06 Jun 2012

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

For nine years Luis Moreno-Ocampo has dedicated the resources of the International Criminal Court to the exclusive task of prosecuting Africans. In the process, he has actively fomented imperial wars on the continent and encouraged the breakdown of fundamental principles of international law. He ends his term in office as he began it: as a lawyer for neocolonialism.

Good Riddance to the African-Hater on the International Criminal Court

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“He has committed the ICC’s resources almost exclusively to concocting indictments against Africans.”

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, leaves the ICC at the end of this month. The entire Black world ought to say “Good riddance.”

Moreno-Ocampo is from Argentina, and took office as the Court’s first prosecutor in 2003. He has committed the ICC’s resources almost exclusively to concocting indictments against Africans, while kissing Uncle Sam’s butt at every possible opportunity. Indeed, even as his term expires, Moreno-Ocampo continues to try to pin an ICC Marshal’s badge on the United States, even though the U.S. isn’t a signatory to the treaty that created the Court. In his last days in office, he remains determined to use the superpower to arrest Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. This, of course, would require that the U.S. commit acts of war against Sudan, in clear opposition to the will of the African Union. But, that appears to be Moreno-Ocampo’s purpose: to use the American superpower as a stick to threaten Africa.

The ICC prosecutor tried to enlist the U.S. as the Court’s enforcer back in June of 2010. Moreno-Ocampo had already indicted President al-Bashir for alleged crimes against humanity in Darfur, and was attempting to add a charge of genocide. However, the year before, the 53 member nations of the African Union had agreed that none would honor the ICC’s demand that the Sudanese leader be arrested if he set foot on their soil. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi presided over the African Union’s 2009 summit meeting. Apparently, this display of African dignity and independence enraged Moreno-Ocampo, who began asking countries with “special forces” and “rare and expensive capabilities that regional armies don’t have” to enforce ICC arrest warrants. Clearly, he was talking about United States, which has always refused membership in the International Criminal Court, preferring to remain a law unto itself.

“The ICC chief prosecutor joined in baseless claims that Libyan soldiers were imbibing vast quantities of Viagra in order to rape women.”

Moreno-Ocampo made himself useful to Washington and its European allies in 2011, during the NATO war against Libya. He also got a chance to get back at Gaddafi for standing up to the ICC in 2009. In the absence of any credible evidence whatsoever, the ICC chief prosecutor joined in baseless claims that Libyan soldiers were imbibing vast quantities of Viagra in order to rape women, which would be a crime against humanity. As later became apparent, it was all a fiction, but truth means nothing in Moreno-Ocampo’s political court.

He may be retiring as ICC prosecutor, but Moreno-Ocampo will always be a yapping puppy for imperial power. This week, he went before the United Nations Security Council urging countries that are not members of the ICC to go into Sudan to seize President al-Bashir by force – a blatant request that the United States commit an act of war against a sovereign African state. Moreno-Ocampo says al-Bashir cannot be allowed to defy the ICC with impunity. This, from an international prostitute of a lawyer who prosecutes only Africans while rich white nations rum amuk in the world. For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, to go BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at [email protected].

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