By Omar Bah
The leader of the Gambia Moral Congress has put up a robust defence against states threatening the International Criminal Court.
The United States Tuesday launched a blistering verbal attack on the International Criminal Court (ICC) and threatened sanctions against its judges if they proceed with a probe into alleged war crimes by Americans in Afghanistan.
“Regrettably, certain states pride themselves in breaching international treaties, bilateral agreements using arsenic methods, including the unconscionable use of sanctions. The deployment of sanctions is now the dominant rudimentary foreign policy tool of a certain state on any matter it feels dissatisfied with,” Fatty said in a Standard exclusive yesterday.
The GMC leader said Gambia looks up to nations with successful democratic institutions and practices in dealing with corruption and impunity.
“For over two decades, we battled against impunity in a predatory political environment. With the support of a formidable, organised domestic political opposition and the global community, we triumphed affording us critical opportunity for a new beginning,” he intimated.
He said The Gambia is now poised to consolidate this significant gain, including adopting best international practices.
“It is however disappointing that some states opt for the wrong choice by digging deeper into the trenches of unilateralism, remarkably distorting the very idea of multilateralism,” he warned.
He said global values such as respect for treaties, free trade, peaceful settlement of disputes, respect for sovereignty, etc “are now trivialized.”
Adding: “For an emerging democracy such as The Gambia with a newly established TRRC mechanism, such prohibitive conduct in international affairs is not encouraging. Notwithstanding, The Gambia must continue to evolve practices that promote fairness and equity in our domestic political processes as well as in our dealings with other states.”
“We will be in good and decent company among the comity of nations. The Gambia’s foreign policy interests will be better advanced through effective multilateral diplomacy, and that is the path our government has chosen. We must excel in this,” he stressed.
