Johannesburg - Threats by President Jacob Zuma and his Kenyan counterpart Uhuru Kenyatta to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC) are worrying, disappointing and not justified.
This is according to Amnesty International’s Netsanet Belay, who said on Wednesday that as much as the ICC was not perfect and had its weakness, those failings needed to be addressed through support and not threats of withdrawal.
Belay was speaking at the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory in Joburg during the launch of Amnesty International’s 2015/2016 Annual Report. The report offers an analysis of the global state of human rights worldwide, including the southern African region.
Detailing some human rights abuses in various countries, Belay also touched on South Africa’s failure to apprehend Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir last year when he was in South Africa to attend the AU summit. That resulted in a backlash because Bashir was wanted by the ICC for war crimes.
A few weeks ago, Zuma stated that he and leaders of other African countries had discussed the continent’s growing concerns about the manner in which the ICC had conducted itself in relation to African countries.
On the other hand, Kenyatta also openly threatened to withdraw from the ICC. This was after the court charged him in connection with post-election ethnic violence in 2007 and 2008 in which 1 200 people died.
Belay said there was no justification for South Africa and Kenya to withdraw from the ICC.
“Countries join by choice and it is the decision of that sovereign country to withdraw whenever they wish to withdraw. (But) such a withdrawal would not necessarily absolve that country from its current pending legal obligations. South African can’t afford to betray victims. It is your constitutional and moral obligation to remain in the ICC,” Belay said.
According to Muleya Mwananyanda, Amnesty International’s deputy director for South Africa, 2015 was a bad year for human rights in that many governments tortured people, and others sent refugees back to countries they were fleeing from over fears of being persecuted.
In Malawi, albinos were hunted and hacked for body parts. In Namibia, cases of women dying as a result of domestic violence were on the rise. In Lesotho, 23 soldiers were arrested for mutiny. They were tortured, and their lawyers were constantly harassed and were said to be on a hitlist circulated on social media, Mwananyanda said.
The report said that in South Africa, police continued to use excessive force and torture on suspects. It also found that there was violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex people as well as targeted violence against refugees, which had had resulted in death, displacements and property destruction.
The Star