HOW ironic is it to an African child that the richest continent in terms of resources on planet earth is the poorest in the scheme of development. Discourses of peace and security in Africa in the contemporary world undress the injustices of the global North in politicising the international system to be centralised around the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) members.
The UNSC comprised Britain, United States (US), China, Russia and France. The most ironic part of all this is that there is not even one State from Africa in UNSC, yet their roundtable deliberations are mostly centred on Africa and its resources.
The US continues to undermine the international criminal law through its ambition to dominate the global village “by any means necessary”. Its relapsing from the Rome statute and subsequently the International Criminal Court (ICC) was a clear undermining of the international legal system. Its American Service Members’ Protection Act enacted in August 2002, known as the Hague Invasion Act, in retaliation to the Rome statute, is a clear indication of the highest degree of international politicisation of the global legal order by the US global hegemony executed in the comfort zone of the UNSC.
It appears the US is good at being ironic. Through its veto power in the UNSC, it has the power to instruct the ICC prosecutor to commence investigations into war crimes and or aggression as articulated by Article 8 of the Rome statute. Even though the US is no longer a signatory to this founding statute and or a member to the ICC, it still can refer any State for violations of war crimes to the ICC through the UNSC which is an extension of the colonial matrix of power by the imperialists.
The injustices of the international legal order have opened floodgates of terror on the continent of Africa since we cannot separate law from politics. Ironically, most of these terror groups are allegedly being funded and supported by the conceptual West to continue the neo-colonial project of destabilising the continent.
The ongoing attacks in the eastern and northern parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are being carried out by the M23, a militia group which is believed to be funded by the French and the US to destabilise the DRC while they loot the country’s cobalt and other key resources.
This terrorist group is believed to be using modern ammunition which the majority of African armies do not have. The Russian, Chinese and the United Arab Emirates intelligence have all claimed that the ammunition has Eurocentric origins.
Ever since Colonel Muammar Gaddafi died over a decade ago, Libya has never known peace. The situation in Libya continues to deteriorate. Political instability, economic recession, increased poverty levels and internal disputes have been rising in Libya since the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) illegally invaded Libya to brutally kill Gaddafi. Again here we still witness the illegal interference of the US and its Nato allies who went against article 5 of the UN Charter and no action was taken by the ICC against them although their activities resulted in loss of lives of innocent civilians including women and children, which the US ironically regards as “collateral damage”.
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Another militia, which has been causing harm to Africa is the Boko Haram, whose impact and aggression is being heavily felt in Nigeria and other parts of the Economic Co-operation of West African States (Ecowas), as well as the central parts of Africa.
A few years back, this group kidnapped over 200 young girls and the bandits do not only engage in kidnapping, but also burns and pillages villages killing and displacing many Nigerians in the process.
Still on Nigeria, the US and British are involved in its oil deposits. Indeed, destabilising Nigeria through terrorist attacks might be a good reason for the West to fund and support these groups so that the more Nigerians and other African States are busy fighting to end terror, the more the imperialist milk their resources.
