Africa 'will not be colonised'
2009-07-06 22:17
Dakar - Gambian President Yahya Jammeh on Monday called the practices of the International Criminal Court (ICC) unacceptable and warned that Africa would not be colonised again.
Jammeh told state owned GRTS television shortly after returning home from an African Union summit in Libya, "What is also not acceptable is the fact that any Western country can have a court that can indict an African head of state."
"It is unacceptable and we are telling them enough is enough," he said.
"My position is that Africa will not be colonised again in any way. Our agreement is that Africa is a continent, we should be able to punish and try our people since we have been dealing with our own problems."
'Enough is enough'
Reacting to the AU stance on the war crimes warrant against Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir, Jammeh, a retired army officer and former wrestler, told state television African leaders at the summit had come to the conclusion that "enough is enough".
"There are worse criminals in the world who have invaded countries and killed millions of people for the past two to three hundred years and nothing came of it."
"They came to Africa and killed thousands of people who resisted slavery, and hundreds of thousands who wanted to be free, and nobody says sorry. As we speak today, they have invaded other countries that are innocent, killed their president and looted the country, killed millions and displaced over 10 million people all in the name of democracy and fighting dictatorship", he said.
He added, "I am not saying that there should be impunity for anyone but let there be equal dispensation of justice."
Jammeh said the ICC came into being with the co-operation of many African countries including Gambia.
But he added, "all these indictments that we are hearing [about] are only African heads of state. Not a single Western sitting head of state has been indicted."
Beshir, for whom the ICC earlier this year issued an arrest warrant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur, has dismissed such allegations as "propaganda".
The ICC is the world's only independent, permanent court with the jurisdiction to try genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.