Kagame Lashes Out Against ICC

Rwandan president, Paul Kagame lashes out against the International Criminal Court (ICC). His critiques of the ICC -primarily that poor nations are disproportionately targeted- are on point. However, one cannot help but point out that Kagame has deep self-interest in lashing out against the ICC. The two cases against him in both French and Spanish courts for his role in the 1994 assassination of former Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana, which unleashed the orgy of Hutu-Tutsi killings in Rwanda remains of concern. In addition, his two invasions of Congo in 1996 and 1998 that triggered the deaths of nearly 6 million people must be hanging over his head. Rwanda should certainly be wary, considering that the International Court of Justice has already ruled that Congo is entitled to $10 billion in reparations from Uganda because of the human rights abuses and the looting of Congo's resources during its participation in the 1996 and 1998 invasions. Rwanda is even more culpable in the Congo than Uganda but because they are not party to the International Court of Justice, no ruling can be brought against Rwanda by the Congo.

Should Kagame's US patrons decide to let him loose at some point in the future, he will be left to the devices of the levers of international justice. Nonetheless, his stance against the ICC cannot sit well with those humanitarian and policy institutions in Washington that have defended his past and current actions in the Congo, especially seeing that many of these institutions and policy analysts would love nothing more than to have the scalp of Sudan's President Omar Bashir's.

Read entire article of Kagame's outburst against the ICC.

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