Gambia has announced that it has withdrawn from the International Criminal Court.
The announcement was made on Tuesday after similar decisions had been taken by South Africa and Burundi.
According to The Guardian UK, Gambia accused the tribunal of the “persecution and humiliation of people of color, especially Africans.”
The Information Minister of Gambia, Sheriff Bojang, said in an announcement on state television, that the court had been used “for the persecution of Africans and especially their leaders” while ignoring crimes committed by the west.
He singled out the case of the former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, whom the ICC decided not to indict over the Iraq war.
According to him, “There are many western countries, at least 30, that have committed heinous war crimes against independent sovereign states and their citizens since the creation of the ICC and not a single western war criminal has been indicted.”
“The Gambia has been trying without success to use the court to punish the EU for deaths of thousands of African migrants trying to reach its shores.”
The withdrawal, Sherriff said, “is warranted by the fact that the ICC, despite being called International Criminal Court, is in fact an International Caucasian Court for the persecution and humiliation of people of color, especially Africans.”
The ICC, which was set up in 2002, is often accused of bias against Africa and has also struggled with a lack of cooperation, including from the US, which signed the court’s treaty but has never ratified it.
The court at the weekend asked South Africa and Burundi to reconsider their decision to leave as Namibia and Kenya have also raised the possibility of withdrawing from the Court.
