Below are several excerpts from Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta’s speech as well as some video of the intense, perhaps pivotal moment in Africa’s complicated relationship with the International Criminal Court…
We refuse to be carried along in a vehicle that has strayed off-course to the detriment of our sovereignty, security and dignity of Africans.
In the face of a mutating global terrorist threat that is costing us lives and great economic loss, in the midst of playing our part in mediating multiple peace processes in our region, we have had to contend with an ICC pursuing weak and politicized cases…
This is not what Kenya signed up for when we joined the ICC. I highly doubt that those of you that are its members expected this to be the way the court would conduct itself…
When Kenya and the large group of African countries joined the International Criminal Court, it was to seek legal means to complement the other important tools that we have stood up. It is my sincere hope that our ICC reform agenda will succeed so that we can return to the instrument we signed up for. If it does not, I believe its utility for this continent at this moment of global turmoil will be extremely limited.
Via All Africa, the gambit paid off:
The African Union has adopted, without amendments, a proposal by President Uhuru Kenyatta to develop a roadmap for withdrawal from the Rome Statute.
Speaking during the 26th AU Summit meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, President Kenyatta said he was disappointed by the way cases brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC) were handled.
The anti-ICC wave in Africa has begun to crest, it seems, but the reverberations of this revolt will not be contained within that continent.