ICC: Ocampo, Libya, And Corruption

How could have Ocampo conducted his "investigation" since Libya is in the midst of a civil war and is enduring relentless and possibly criminal bombardment by NATO, since they exceed what the UN Resolution 1973 called for? Certainly Ocampo’s ICC does not have investigators on the ground in Libya.


[Black Star News Editorial]

The compromised Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and publicity whore Luis Moreno Ocampo is at it again.

ICC Prosecutor Ocampo is reportedly set to announce Monday that he will seek arrest warrants for three top Libyan officials, including possibly Muammar al-Quathafi.

This is of course another smoke screen by Ocampo. He has so politicized the court that his past and recent actions –or lack thereof– raises many questions about his alleged past accomplishments in going after human rights abusers in his native Argentina.

It’s hard to believe that it can be one and the same person of Argentina fame and today’s duplicity.

The first question is how could have Ocampo conducted his “investigation” since Libya is in the midst of a civil war and is enduring relentless and possibly criminal bombardment by NATO, since they exceed what the UN Resolution 1973 called for? Certainly Ocampo’s ICC does not have investigators on the ground in Libya.

Does his “investigation” amount to newspaper clippings from Western pro-NATO intervention newspapers? Has he also “investigated” the numerous alleged crimes, including executions of captured Black Africans by Benghazi?

Or did the “investigation” involve a call from the U.S. State Department, or from London, or Paris, instructing Ocampo to seek the arrest warrants as a way to hasten the end of the Libyan civil war?

The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 that authorized intervention in Libya called for the protection of civilians. At the urging of France’s erratic president, Nicholas Sarkozy, NATO has become a hired airforce and assassination team for the Benghazi insurgents bombing massively throughout Libya and targeting al-Quathafi’s residence in several failed bids to kill the Libyan.

Who believes that this is what Resolution 1973 had in mind?

Now with an assist in the form of arrest warrants from the ICC’s Ocampo –should the court’s judges grant them– NATO can then presumably send a commando team to try and “arrest” al-Quathafi, and possibly kill him should he “resist arrest.”

Ocampo is not serious about investigating war crimes and crimes against humanity. In 2005 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found Uganda liable for what amounted to crimes of war and crimes against humanity during its occupation of large parts of Congo, starting in 1997. The court awarded Congo $10 billion in compensation.

Uganda’s army and affiliated militia massacred Congolese civilians, burned many people inside their homes, raped both men and women, and looted Congo’s natural and mineral resources.

The crimes dealt with by the ICJ extended well into 2003, long after the ICC had been created by the Rome statute. Recently Ocampo has mounted a lame and immoral excuse that he is time barred from investigating those atrocities.

In 2006, The Wall Street Journal reported that Uganda’s Gen. Yoweri Museveni asked the United Nations to block the criminal probe. Nothing has happened since then during Ocampo’s watch.

What’s more, until recently, for supplying troops to prop the U.S.-backed Somalia government, Gen. Museveni had been a darling of Washington–Ocampo won’t dare upset Washington even if it means the reported 7 million Congolese that have died since the Ugandan invasion and occupation never get any justice.

Ocampo basked in the media attention that came with the indictments of Joseph Kony and other leaders of the ruthless Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and Sudan’s president Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

But when it comes to the hard work of going after genocidal killers such as Uganda’s Museveni and Rwanda’s Gen. Paul Kagame and Gen. Laurent Nkunda, for their roles in Congo massacres, Ocampo is nowhere to be found.

That’s why Ocampo’s Monday news conference in relation to Libya needs to be placed in context. He will get a pass from the corporate newspapers such as The New York Times; yet readers increasingly get their information from online news outlets which is a blessing.

The narcissist, Ocampo, is all about press conferences and having his name in the major newspapers. He must have conducted a “lightning investigation” of Libya, since the conflict erupted only in February of this year.

Meanwhile, Congolese still wait for his “investigation” of the genocidal killings that came with the Ugandan occupation.

Of course Ocampo could prove us wrong and demonstrate that he has a spine and moral fortitude by announcing that he’s also going after Gen. Museveni, Gen. Kagame, Gen. Nkunda, Bashar al-Assad –whose security agents have already killed several hundreds of unarmed civilians– and the leaders now violently crushing popular uprisings in Yemen and Bahrain as well. We are willing to take our chances.

How cynical is all this? Consider that the U.S., Ocampo’s paymaster, is not even a party to the Rome Statute. Yet the U.S. uses Ocampo and the court as an additional arm of U.S. foreign policy.

Is there a better definition for the word corruption?


“Speaking Truth To Empower.”

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