AFRICA HOBBLING OUT OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT

Africa, it seems, has begun the long-talked about process of withdrawing from the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Last week, Burundi was the first country to declare serious plans to pull out of the 124-nation organization. For a country that has an illegitimate government and a devastatingly deplorable record of human rights abuses that decision was not entirely surprising. And for good reasons.

The tiny eastern African country has been on the eye of the world Court since President Pierre Nkurunziza unleashed a wave of extra-judicial killings a year ago in an attempt to retain power for the third term against a promise he made to his people in 2005.

Street violence erupted and the African Union (AU) unreasonably blocked any moves to deploy international peace-keeping forces leaving the government there to butcher its people for months on end. Many were killed and thousands fled to refugee camps in neighboring countries.

That Burundi's decision was a pre-emptive move to avoid criminal proceedings at The Hague against some known personalities is obvious. Only last month, the UN named a number of Burundians it claimed perpetrated the alleged atrocities and demanded accountability. With the proposed pull-out, Nkurunziza feels, rather irrationally, that he would be safe from any punitive action by the world Court. He may be wrong.

Nevertheless, Burundi's action has opened a Pandora's box. A few days after the Bujumbura Parliament endorsed the move, South Africa fired a letter to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressing an interest to leave.

South Africa is, in many ways, the leader of the pack in the continent, and its shift away from the ICC - which a former South African Justice Richard Goldstone has described as "unfortunate on legal, moral and political grounds" - could trigger an exodus of African countries out of the Rome Statutes.

That proved to be somewhat true this Wednesday when the small West African country of Gambia joined the fray with President Yahya Jammeh charging that the ICC had become the "International Caucasian Court" because it only prosecuted people of color. The irony to be noted here is that the ICC's abrasive Chief Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, is a citizen of Gambia and was once Jammeh's adviser.

The push for a possible mass exit by African nations has been in the books at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, since six Kenyans were indicted by the ICC for their alleged connection to the 2007/2008 post-election violence in the East African country. The six including President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto were acquitted separately largely due to lack of evidence.

The ruling Jubilee Party in Kenya endorsed the country's departure from the ICC as early as 2013, and in 2016, Parliament passed a Bill to sever ties with the Court, emboldening Uhuru to declare emphatically that no Kenyan will ever again follow "the Hague-route" in future. Since then authorities in Nairobi have maintained a grim silence over whether or not to move ahead with the decision. Last week, the President's spokesman said the issue was still in the Cabinet. But this latest development could inspire Kenya to move ahead with speed.

There is already speculation that more African countries will leave for the same reason that the ICC is targeting only Africa leaving many other 'bad' countries to go scot free.

For the record, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Tunisia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, objected to a mass walk-out by African countries when it was proposed by among others Kenya during the AU Summit in July. They won that fight and are now advocating for reforms rather than a mass pull-out.

Unfortunately, the nascent AU-driven African Court of Justice and Human Rights which was created as Africa's answer to the ICC has not made any progress to address the crucial issue of widespread political and social killings under dictatorial regimes in the continent. This leaves the ICC as the only overseer of serious human rights abuses.

However, until the year-long notices expire and the long process of withdrawal is complete, Burundi, South Africa and Gambia will still be subjected to watch-dogging by the ICC and will be held responsible for any actions that breach ICC rules

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And that is my say.

(ALL MY BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE IN KENYA AND VIA AMAZON.COM)

AFRICAN LEADERS DOING LITTLE TO STEM ILLICIT DRUG TRAFFICKING

Over the past decade Africa has moved closer to the top tier of countries most involved in international smuggling of illicit drugs.

Global drug syndicates driven by criminal gangs, crafty businessmen and greedy politicians and aided and abetted by crooked policemen and border customs officials, have successfully and effectively stretched their nefarious activities into the continent to take advantage of unpatrolled borders, weak justice systems and official corruption.

Africa is now being described by US officials as the "new frontier in narcotics smuggling" and by UN officials as "the market of the future" for illegal drugs.

An estimated 200 million people worldwide are said to be consumers of illegal drugs and Africa represents a good chunk of that figure. Estimates say up to 40 metric tons of drugs pass through Africa every year.

Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Djibouti, Eritrea, Mozambique, and nations in West Africa, are some of the countries used as passage-ways for cocaine and heroine from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Thailand, India, Russia and several other countries. From Africa, a large amount of the narcotics is trans-shipped to Europe and America while some of it remains, turning young African men and women into zombies.

In Kenya several big boats - among them an Australian ship which was caught in 2014 with a ton of cocaine worth 240 million US dollars - have been seized at the port of Mombasa. In some cases, the government has ordered their destruction at sea. For some unknown reasons, the crew is always left free to go.

Containers filled with drugs and disguised as sugar or relief food have also been nabbed at Mombasa, many of them linked to prominent businessmen and politicians. In addition, huge amounts of the dangerous substances find their way through porous borders across many African countries.

The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the UK National Crime Agency (NCA), and the UN Office of Drug and Crime (UNODC), which have been working closely with the Kenya government to stem the infiltration of narcotics have identified a number of well-known Kenyans they say are directly linked to the drug trade. At least two are county governors and others are members of parliament. Despite such revelations the government has taken no action against the individuals who are left to flaunt their illegal wealth in politics and in real estate; and own expensive vehicles, motor-boats and choppers.

As I write, two high-profile cases are in court involving, among others, family members of a one-time international drug baron, Ibrahim Akasha, who was murdered in 2000 as he strolled along a street in Amsterdam. At the time of his murder, Akasha was said to be pursuing money from a drug king for the supply of a large consignment of heroine. Five years later, one of his sons was silenced at close range in a gang-like assassination in Mombasa.

Another case currently in court in Kenya involves the grandson of a Scottish aristocrat who is accused of smuggling 100 kilograms of cocaine in containers that arrived from Brazil.

In Tanzania, a notorious drug king operating under a cartel known as the Hassan Drug Trafficking Organization was caught earlier this year and in his possession were five different passports issued in Zanzibar under different names. The individual was known to be travelling around the world dealing in narcotics and using some of his proceeds to bribe senior government officials to look the other way.

There is another related problem: Thousands of Africans caught carrying illegal drugs for their masters are serving long prison sentences abroad. According to one report, South Africa alone has more than 1,500 of its citizens in jails overseas on trafficking offences. Some of them have been executed in countries such as China and Indonesia which have some of the toughest anti-drug legislations in the world.

The drug smuggling menace is a huge challenge for Africa. Leaders must do much more than just give lip service to the fight against narcotics. They must strengthen their borders, boot out corrupt officials, and arrest the big boys - whether local or foreign - and not concentrate only small fish.

And that is my say.

(My books THE POLITICS OF BETRAYAL, DASH BEFORE DUSK and THE WRETCHED AFRICANS, are available in Kenya and at Amazon.com)

NO LET-UP ON ILLEGAL AFRICAN MIGRATION TO EUROPE

"Just like a Slave Boat' was the headline the New York Times chose last Thursday to describe the dehumanizing conditions in decrepit wooden boats African migrants use to escape misery, authoritarian regimes, ethnic massacres and poverty, to seek a better life in Europe.

The respected American broadsheet splashed on its front page a five-column six-inch-deep color picture of a vessel laden with African runaways. The coverage spread to an inside page and carried four large images of people in different stages of distress at sea. One of the pictures showed frantic immigrants pulling half-naked people from a near-capsized rubber raft at sea. According to Rick Gladstone, the writer of the story, 29 dead bodies were found in one boat that had a capacity of 150 people.

The Times headline was not misplaced. The environment in the overcrowded boats is not any different from what existed in slave ships to America in the 17th century, or in the Arab dhows that plied between the eastern African coast and Arabia, a narrative of which is covered extensively in my book the Wretched Africans, now available at Amazon.

The New York Times images are not only depressing, but tell a poignant story of people who risk their lives for illusions of greener pastures abroad.

Years ago it was a trickle. Then it turned into an avalanche of humans paying large sums of money to agents to get a sitting or standing space in unseaworthy boats leaving the east and west African coasts for the long torturous journey north.

The majority of the immigrants come from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somali and Nigeria. From north Africa and the Middle East, Libyans, Syrians and Tunisians dominate the flow - leaving their war-torn countries through the Mediterranean Sea for Italy, Germany, or England. On one day in May this year, 4,000 immigrants from Libya were plucked out of the sea.

Thousands of Africans in deadly circumstances have been rescued by European Coast Guards and many more - 20,000 in the last two decades - have died from suffocation, hunger, and disease. Many children are born at sea and many die after their dinghies capsize.

Those who manage to reach the shores of Europe - an estimated 295,000 in 2016, according to the International Organization of Migrants - are either welcomed on humanitarian grounds, or sequestered in squalid, overcrowded detention camps for long periods of time before being deported to their countries of origin.

The immigration crisis has reached such a monumental level that receiving countries have been forced to tighten entry restrictions, some barring altogether, immigrants from entering their countries. The European Union has occasionally and zealously organized vessels to ferry the immigrants back home against protests from human rights organizations.

So what is the fundamental solution? Simple. Better management of our countries. If African countries could improve their people's standards of living and avoid civil wars, Africans would not want to flee their countries to seek better fortunes elsewhere.

And that is say.

CONGO'S JOSEPH KABILA MUST GO