Farce. Tragedy. Doom.

Some members of the African Union now want an African Court of Justice and Human Rights, because the International Criminal Court at The Hague has proven to be a court for "trying Africans only." That, at least, is one of the grounds for why they are calling for an "African" court. Kenyan supporters of the African court proposal express dissatisfaction with the manner in which the Kenyan cases have been handled at the ICC, among many other complaints against the ICC. 

The African court, its boosters say, will be an African court for Africans without the stain of the injustice and hypocrisy of the ICC or that of the United Nations Security Council. They may well be right. But they should not forget their history so quickly. The thirty-four African nations that signed up to the Rome Statute and ratified it did so because they believed that a line had to be drawn under the atrocities Africans themselves had perpetrated against their fellow Africans. They were not coerced into signing the Treaty; they were not hoodwinked. They signed and ratified voluntarily. The African court proposal is the geopolitical equivalent of buyer's remorse.

The line the African members of the ICC attempted to draw under the atrocities of post-colonial independent Africa is being erased. In the name of "peace" and "stability", "prosperity" and "development", many African governments are adopting "strength" and "continuity" as their watchwords when dealing with their peoples. What gains may have been achieved in Africa since Nelson Mandel was set free from his prison on Robben Island are slowly being reversed. Dissent to official government orthodoxy is treated as akin to high treason. Dissenters are at the mercy of rules and regulations designed to cow them, and compel them to tell the African story that African leaders want told.

That story is one in which the African leader is the saviour of his nation, his nation's Mandela. Through this leader's foresight, vision, intellect, benevolence, charisma and patriotism, he has forged ahead against all naysayers or received wisdom, bringing peace, stability, prosperity and wealth to his people against many odds. The enemies of the people have been defeated. The enemies of the nation have been vanquished. Without his firm guiding hand, his nation will descend into chaos, it will go to hell in a handbasket. If he has to crack a few eggs to make the national omelet, he will not shy away from making the tough choices of which heads to crack and which heads to pat. He cannot do his job effectively if he has to keep looking at the clock in fear that should he hand over the mantle of responsibility to another, he will be accused horrendously in a white man's kangaroo court.

In Kenya's case, and especially in Kenya's case, historical myopia has rewritten some discomfitting facts. Kenya had absolutely no reason to sign up to the ICC. Even with the massacres under the successive Kenyatta and Moi regimes, these were events unlikely to be repeated in the first half of the decade that Mwai Kibaki was President. The presence of so many foreigners, foreign governments' diplomatic missions, UN offices and foreign NGOs in Nairobi was optimistic proof that even with the bloodstained records of Kenyatta's and Moi's governments, "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity" were not a Kenyan staple. Then came the general election of 2007/2008. Then came, "Don't be vague; go to The Hague." Kenya was not a victim of an ICC conspiracy; Kenya was a volunteer.

Kenya is now volunteering to join a putative African Court of Justice and Human Rights in the wake of the experience with the investigation of the Kenyan cases at the ICC and the prosecution of the Deputy President. History repeats itself, first as farce and then as tragedy, and those who do not learn the proper lessons of history are not just doomed to repeat it, they are simply doomed. Kenya volunteered to the ICC. That decision came to bite it in its hind parts. Now it is volunteering to an "African" court. Farce. Tragedy. Doom.