Lusaka - Zambians have broken ranks with an African Union (AU) resolution calling on member states to pull out of the International Criminal Court (ICC), results of a government initiated survey shows.
About 93.3 percent of Zambians - stakeholders and ordinary people - want the country to maintain its membership of the ICC, according to results of the opinion sampling undertaken by the Ministry of Justice.
African leaders at February 2017 AU summit held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, backed a Kenyan proposal to push for members states to pull out of the ICC on accusations it is biased and “harassing” Africans.
Nigeria and Senegal however opposed the proposal to withdraw from the ICC.
“Elsewhere in the world, many things happen, many flagrant violations of human rights, but nobody cares,” Chad’s president, Idriss Déby, was quoted saying at the summit in support of the AU withdrawal from the ICC.
The ICC denies the allegation, insisting it is pursuing justice for victims of war crimes in Africa.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has never shied away from expressing his hatred of the ICC, and has been pushing African ICC member states to pull out of the organisation.
Set up in 2002 as the last resort to try war criminals and perpetrators of genocide never tried at home, the ICC has opened inquiries involving nine nations, all but one of them African: Kenya, Ivory Coast, Libya, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic (twice), Uganda, Mali and Georgia.
