The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has turned down a request that it order Senegal to keep the former president of Chad, Hissène Habré, within its jurisdiction pending the resolution of court proceedings aimed at bringing him to trial on charges of torture and crimes against humanity.
Sitting in The Hague in the Netherlands, the court accepted an assurance by Senegal that it would not allow Habré to leave the country.
The Belgian government had asked the court to issue a provisional order against Senegal after President Abdoulaye Wade said in media interviews that he did not intend to hold Habré in the country indefinitely if the international community failed to provide funding for his trial.
Habré faces charges both in Senegal and in Belgium. The Belgian government argued to the ICJ that the implications of Wade's statement were that Senegal might lift the house arrest it had imposed on Habré.
But after noting the assurance given to the court by Senegal, the court declared that "there does not exist, in the circumstances of the present case, any urgency to justify the indication of provisional measures by the Court."
Belgium wanted the ICJ to issue the provisional order pending the hearing of an application in which it will ask the court to declare that Senegal should either bring Habré to trial itself or extradite him to Belgium.
Habré was indicted in Dakar in 2000 and placed under house arrest, but a Dakar appeals court ruled later that year that crimes against humanity did not form part of Senegalese law.
Senegal then referred the case to the African Union, and decided in 2007 to amend the country's law to include the offence of crimes against humanity. But Belgium wants to pursue the case itself, at least partly because of Senegal's pleas that it does not have the financial means to prosecute him.
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Is the ICC now the policeman in Africa?
Why doesn't the ICC take up the prosecution of those accused of raping, torturing and killing multitudes in the Middle East? Is the nature of prosecutions - or what may be called the charade in exoneration - of those who committed horrendous crimes against humanity in Iraq acceptable to ICC? If not, what is the ICC that-torments-and-harasses-the-African-Child doing about it?
[But then - just like the IMF, World Bank and the UN, the ICC is essentially a nasty ruse - a tool in the psyche war toolkit - of the imperial powers, the eternal victimizers of the African Child and plunderers of Mother Africa. So what would we expect from the ICC - "imperial court of (neo)colomialism"?]
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Are we to understand that the only 'justice' that the native can have is one which receives the imperial plunderer's nod? [What justice among the antelopes would be acceptable to the lions?]
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[If Senegal or any other country in Africa does not own its judicial system, and that it defers to a foreign sovereign power or entity on matters of justice on its lands, then can it be said to be a "sovereign state"? Why does such a country need a legislature or a justice system or a constitution?]
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There are many white mercenaries who have been accused of killing multitudes of natives in Africa. Such killers are often shielded by their governments in the west. The ICC knows about them - and it can access the needed information. What are they doing about it.
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If there were flourishing kingdoms/civilizations/advanced centers of learning in Africa before these appeared in Europe, why should the Africans defer to foreigners in matters of civilized living?
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"Belgium wants to pursue the case itself, .."
When it comes to Africa, Belgium wants to show it has the b* that the Africans don't have.
Belgians wanted to prosecute the lot of Bush, Blair, Rumsfeld, Cheney - for crimes against humanity that were committed in Iraq.
Did Habre kill more people? So why didn't Belgians pursue the big fish - if they are driven by principle? What happened: A few threats and they gave up the insolence.
Gosh! When it comes to Africa every white creep wants to teach the natives a lesson. It helps to seek the a psychoilogical advantage of having a naive ego-tripping native planted as a lawyer at ICC to give an air of legitimacy to the predators' drive to damn the African Child. [Of course, if the lawyer planted there should discover an independent thought not dictated by the masters, out (s)he goes. There are many hungry native lawyers just begging to do the window dressing for the colonial masters.]
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[By the way, feisty, pious Belgium, do you remember a - perhaps quite insignificant - native named Patrice Lumumba?]
I would like to have update regularily.