 Ladies and gentlemen, we don't have, you know, the sound system, but I guess, you know, we could hear each other. So no problem. We're going to start. Probably other folks will join us. And we are on Zoom. It looks like people can't get away from Zoom, even though we're trying to, you know, bring everybody back to in-person. My name is Eric Agnero. I work for the Vermont International Community and International Involvement, the Vermont Institute, of course. I'm part of, as a representative of this institute, part of a group of institutions and organizations that join every year around the celebration of Africa Day to commemorate the creation of the organization of African Unity, which has become now the African Union. But also to look at what has been achieved all these years, and this year on behalf then of Towards Freedom, which is one of our main leader group in this coalition, the Caroline Fund, and of course Vicky, the Association of African Living in Vermont, and other groups that have supported us all these years. This is the third edition of Africa Day Burlington. And I would like to say a good thank you to Robin Lloyd from Towards Freedom, Robin who has fought for peace and international justice as no limit. I would like to salute a camera. That's how she likes me to consider Sandy Bear. Sandy Bear is a lawyer, an historian, a fighter whose determination has had many results, not only for all the women that support this community more than the men, but also for all the citizens of Vermont and beyond. I would like also to say thank you to Kurt Mehta, who is a very good friend of our institute and these groups. Kurt Mehta is a lawyer, he's a political analyst, he's a scholar and he's always been there when we needed him to comment, you know, the actuality mondial. Without further due, I would like to quickly introduce my friend, brother, and also a scholar that we respect very much within the Ivorian American community, Dr. Nyaka Lagoke. We came to the US almost in the same period, the Clinton years, you know, with a lot of exuberance, joie, and then Nyaka went into academia and then had a successful career that today is at the center of this meeting, this book that he wrote about a crisis that has shaken the Ivory Coast, our country. I was there as a reporter for CNN. I saw everything. I saw the involvement of the US, how the CIA even gave some, you know, incapacitating gas to reduce the resistance of those who didn't want someone to be placed as a president by the IMF, by the world's western powers. But also the crisis was followed by the indictment by the International Criminal Court of the president that didn't want to leave power because he thought he didn't lose the election. Without further due, I would like to introduce here Dr. Nyaka Lagoke who's presenting his new book, Laurent Babot's Trial. Laurent Babot was the former president of Ivory Coast who went to Hagan. And the indictment of the International Criminal Court of Pan-African Victory, this is Dr. Nyaka Lagoke who's sending a word of an introduction or go straight to... You have to say something? Yes. No, we can go straight to it. Yeah, as Erica mentioned, my name is Sandy Baird. I'm very pleased on behalf of the Vermont Institute of Community and International Public to have our author here, Nyaka Lagoke, right? His most recent book is on the International Criminal Court which was a court that was set up many years ago and Kurt actually was a part of it, right, when it was first set up? When it was first set up, yeah. You were working at the UN? I was working at the United Nations in Austria. Okay, so our speaker today has this book that has recently come out about the criminal criminal court. Providing out a history of that court, its purposes, its objectives, but also the curious fact that most of the indictments and most of the prosecutions have been against Africans, is that correct? So we want to introduce that subject to the court itself and its rather troubled practices. And Kurt also will comment on that as well, I hope. Okay, so anyway. Kurt, why don't you talk a little bit about your involvement? Kurt is a colleague of mine. He's an attorney. As Eric mentioned, he's a scholar and a historian himself. We've got many programs together and he is very insightful particularly about the problems and the practices in the developing world. Kurt was born in India, wasn't there very long, but has very deep knowledge about India, Pakistan, and also the whole developing world. So Kurt, why don't you tell us a little bit about your history with the International Court? I'm just going to limit what I say to the topic that Dr. Lorne is going to speak about. Okay, okay. Lorne is the one with the vision. Oh, okay. I don't want to go to jail. That's right. So in the 1990s, in the mid-1990s, I worked at the United Nations office in Vienna, Austria. There's a branch there along with the one people may know about in Switzerland and the big headquarters in New York City. I worked at the Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice branch. Our main focus was to go into post-conflict regions that essentially lost their legal system, either through expulsions, through killings, and through just total breakdowns of society. And we would go in and provide counsel to people who were previously attorneys, judges, and in law enforcement to try to recreate their legal systems from the ground up, taking into account those countries' cultures, histories, and then also trying to make sure that human rights were respected as far as human rights could be agreed upon, what the version could be, excuse me, that local country to what we may think of human rights in the West. So that was what my department essentially worked with. And at that department, we had a number of more senior attorneys than me who were trying to put together a permanent international criminal court. For folks that may know a little bit about history going back, most international tribunals in the past, before the creation of the ICC, were essentially ad hoc committees who want to go back to talking about the Nuremberg Trials to even the conviction of Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia for war crimes committed during the Yugoslavia wars in the 1990s. These were all ad hoc communities. So a couple of people at the branch at the United Nations that I worked with, as well as other well-minded people, and well-meaning people, were trying to put together a more permanent tribunal which would prosecute and try individuals that had been suspected of or accused of committing war crimes, crimes against humanity. And because there was no forum like that in the past, except for these ad hoc communities like Nuremberg and the Yugoslavia trials that took place, and the trials that took place with respect to the awful genocide in Rwanda in the 1990s. So that's a little bit about my background, you know, and then I came back to the States after that. So without further ado... I just want to thank you. Today, the PowerPoint is too short. I wanted to... I did not want to add any more slides. By the way, when I presented this PowerPoint, I was supposed to present this PowerPoint to my school. I was given only three minutes. So it's a very short one. I thank again Robin. You know, sometimes in life, there are people you're supposed to meet at a particular moment. You are definitely that person I was supposed to meet at this very moment, so I'm grateful to you. Grateful to my friend, Eric. I'm grateful to Sandy, and God knows what he's doing. So Kurt, thank you so much for your brief presentation. And there are people like him, beautiful souls who believed in true justice. And then that's why when I talk about the ICC, I do not generalize to attack everyone, you understand? But even though people like you have worked on the tool, because of some external forces, the way justice was supposed to be delivered, it was not what people like you worked for. So that is what I'm going to talk about. And I thank all of you. Megan, nice to see you again. And Yisha, nice to see you again. Thank you so much. So what we need to know, this is the International Criminal Court, the logo. Anyone can find online. It is based in the Hague in Netherlands. And a beautiful building. I had the opportunity to meet some people there. There is a treaty that was adopted, signed, ratified by many countries. This is how the International Criminal Court could start its activities. When we see the court of more than 100 members and then many countries in Africa have ratified the Treaty of Rome, which was signed in 1998. And I think the court started functioning in 2002. So as you remember, 2002, one year after the establishment of the International Criminal Court, there was a war in Iraq. And then the International Criminal Court did not move. And then even though the war in Iraq was fought over a lie, because the United States said that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and later on we realized that calling power was in the UN and it was not true. But hundreds of thousands of people were killed and people started questioning the rationale of the International Criminal Court. As I want to go very fast and then this is how I plan this conversation, I want us to have a very interactive conversation and there are two great lawyers here and then we will have that conversation. So when you look at the faces over there on the screen, most of the people that you see over there are more than 40, all of them were abducted, prosecuted, condemned, most of them are from Africa. How can you say that you are doing justice and then the faces of the prosecuted or the accused are faces from Africa? And we know the history of Africa. From slavery to colonialism and then people like me, we started questioning. People would say that actually the ICT was not a racist international criminal court. So there are many people, of course those who supported the ICT wrote many books but there are two people here and both of them are white. One is David Boyle from England. I had the privilege to meet with him in 2016 in Ghana at a conference organized by the ICC and the other one, an enemy Stephanie Mopas and she wrote a nice book in French, the Grand Roman de la Coupine International Justice. So those two, if you continue to read at least the book in English, David Boyle published a 600 page book more than 2,000 footnotes so that you can see that the guy was serious. So I was greatly inspired by these two books and some other ones to write my own. People may think because I'm black African then I may be biased. No, I love to talk about facts and then I was inspired by those two books and some other ones. So in the case of Africa, why when Babu was taken to prison after the electoral process, I don't want to take too much time to talk about the process. If you want to know, there were five features. Ethnicity, violence, neocolonialism, pan-Africanism and there is another one that I forgot. So we have time we can go into the details but just know two camps were fighting. Babu was in power. Mr. Waterloo, the current president, raised the rebellion, attacked the country, divided the country for eight years. His rebels were controlling the northern part of the country. When there was the electoral stalemate in 2010, 2011, the war resumed and the United Nations and France forces in the name of democracy in the name of humanitarian intervention supported the rebels and defeated the forces loyal to the former president. That is the background. And now defeated, like in November, he spoke about November, the defeat was taken and it was taken to a trial first in the northern part, it was there and then they called the country and they took him to the hate. Of course we say, you know what, if you want to do justice, do justice. You're not going to go and then I go after one camp and that was my argument and the argument of many people in Africa. But the faces that you see on the screen yes, they don't want to show it. Just the faces are the people who represent the leadership of Africa. We do not have time to talk about each one of them. You may recognize Malcolm X next to Kwame Nkrumah in the middle. You may recognize on the left in the middle Patus Domumba, the bottom column, you have Dr. King there. So if you were a black leader from 1958 to 1968, you were either sent to jail, ostracized, eliminated or killed. Nkrumah, who was the champion of non-Africanism, was overthrown February 24, 1966. So when the Europeans come and they talk about justice or beautiful souls like Kirk, when they come and say, and all of a sudden all the faces of the people who are black people our collective historical collective memory is about slavery, colonialism, neocolonialism, and we see the international criminal cult incapable of doing true justice as a tool in the hands of the colonial and imperial forces. Because of this, Africans mobilized and they decided that they were going to fight for Babu to be free. Spent eight years in the Hague, in prison. Thirteen times they denied him a bailout. Thirteen times. And then the trial took place after years. And finally they realized that he was not guilty. And then he was freed. And as I was talking about Kwame Nkrumah, there is one thing Kwame Nkrumah said many, many years ago. The forces a raid against us are, and I use the word most carefully, formidable. They parade in a world-wide combinations at all level. Political, economic, military, cultural, and so on. And even at the level of information services. I put together this. Megan, this is what I wanted you to see. This is what I call the Wheel of Imperialism. And then somewhere you can see that the last to be created was going to be that card in the field or in the judicial field. And all those institutions that you see over there are activated or they self-activated themselves when the Western world thinks that it has to pursue an agenda to assert, exert, and express the rule that they put together for the last 500 years. And so this is what I do. And here during Babu's trial people used different ways to fight. They said that they were going to put a bracelet on Babu's ankle. So I learned we're too upset. They took on the social media and then some put bananas on the ankles. Some other people put toilet paper. Some other one put some drones. They showed that people can ridicule the international court. To the point that the French media did not have any other choice but to report that and it went viral. So people were taken to the streets in the hay, during snow, sleet, sunny weather. People were organizing the media and then this is how they could not continue any longer and then Babu was going to be acquitted. There were those three judges, the one who took the decision from Italy, Kuno Tafusa, and the other one was Anderson, the black one you see was from Trinidad and the other lady, Kabusha. She was the one who was the dissentant voice. So briefly, this is what I want to say if you have any questions. Let's have an interactive conversation. Thank you so much. Thank you. Other any questions or comments? Am I the first one? Hello? All right, what do I do? Okay. Well, during your discussion yesterday and today, I was wondering about Qaddafi. I'm wondering because apparently he was trying to warn the rest of Africa that there was going to be a new wave of imperialism and I believe he was interested in developing a different currency, either that or going with the euro. Could you comment on how the West views him? I don't know if he was ever indicted or whether in the international criminal court. Qaddafi, for those of you who do not know Qaddafi, he was the leader of Libya. He was in power for 42 years. My voice? People can hear me. Nobody will hear. You know, it's a sensitive device. So he was in power for 42 years and then he wanted, towards the end of his life, to be replaced by his son. I think it's Saif or El Latif or something like that. That was his name. But for some reason, he never had time to do the transfer of power and then there was a rebellion that started in Benghazi. The U.S., again, thought that they needed to go and support what they called democracy, supported the rebels. They were affiliated with Al Qaeda. Qaddafi, in that time, and it's a great question, because I talk about that here in this book. Like I said, I have to do something short so that we can have interactive conversation. So the ICC wanted to go after Qaddafi during the crisis and then what they do, they threaten him, oh yeah, we take you to the ICC. And now I come around the British Prime Minister and the French leader, all of them. And even Hillary Clinton made some serious and strange comment about Qaddafi soldiers as people were, you know, excuse me, because it's a public conversation that they were using Viagra to go and rape women. So all these things were lies and they said all those things. They wanted to do a character assassination and they did the same thing with Babu, saying that Babu was accused, you know, I did not mention war crimes, they even raped, they even used that. So Qaddafi, I usually do not talk about Qaddafi, the way I talk about Kwameen Pruma. Qaddafi was a controversial leader. He brought wars. In the name of a revolution that he wanted to export, he brought wars to many African countries. Chad is one of them. Even the rebellion in my country, when the rebels were looking for money, Qaddafi was one of the backers, one of the people who founded the rebellion. But he's an African leader and he does not deserve to be killed the way it was killed by the international order. And I opposed that yesterday and I denounced that, like, what's the name? David Oil, the other, the Stephanie Mopas, the journalist who works with the French newspaper. So they describe all those things and when Qaddafi died, now the ICC went after his son, who was supposed to be his successor and then he was captured by the rebels, a little on the freedom. Now, as soon as Qaddafi died and then the people were saying, you know what, we want to take Qaddafi to the ICC, they did not want to take his son to the international criminal court because he was going to divulge so many things and then, later on, they dropped the case. And he wanted to run for president. It did not happen. So he was trying to do a currency. He wanted to build the African International Monetary Fund. He supported the launching of the satellite by providing $400 million that the Europeans promised to give to Africa for 15 years and they never did, they never provided their funds. So I did not read what I'm going to tell you, but I heard, it seemed to be credible, that Hillary Clinton wrote in her book that the reason why they went after Qaddafi is because he wanted to create an African currency. Okay. Are there other questions? Yeah. Thank you very much for sharing this information and I wonder what the African countries are doing to resist this trend. I agree with you very much that the multilateral system is being abused for regime change purposes suing the interests of the United States and the NATO countries. And I'm very encouraged by the fact that so many of the African countries have not adopted it. Sorry. I'm very encouraged by the fact that many of the, almost all of the African countries are not following NATO's line on the war in Ukraine and I find that encouraging. So I wonder if they're also doing something to resist this blatantly racist trend in the ICC prosecutions. Yeah. Thank you. So the situation, usually when I talk, I even said that when I talk to people, it is not easy to be a black person and it is not easy to be an African. It is not easy to be an African leader and my job is to share some information with people. I denounce the African leaders. If you have the opportunity to read a book, you will see that there are things that Babu that we talk about that I did not agree with. So I have denounced that. But when you see the things that I put on the board there, I did not have time to read what I wrote in the book. It is, listen, when they come after you and I know you know you're a cultured person, when they go after you, the media. Go ahead. Go ahead. No, no, no. It's a conversation. Go ahead. I don't want to interrupt you. No, I'm not going to forget. Say, go ahead. I'm serious. I'm serious. It's a question. It's a comment. Go ahead. And we go back to what she's saying. Let's go. Send it. What concerns me is something that Kurt told me last time we had this discussion. And Kurt and I probably have a difference, but I want to ask this question because I think Kurt said, brought up the question, but isn't the international criminal court a good idea? And is it, I think he was telling me, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, Kurt, that it is reformable? Is it? That's one question. It's my opinion that as long as it's controlled by the white European powers, it is not reformable, but I think that the two of us differ about that. And so I want to ask you, both of you, that question. Is it reformable? Before you answer, let me finish before... Yeah. Yeah. So it is not easy. And then there is a there is a a set of economic ties, economic ties that Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific have with the Europeans. Yes, but really with those two, those three groups, it is called the the Samoa Agreement. It was transformed recently into the Samoa Agreement. It used to be called the Cotone Agreement and there was a time that it was called the Lubeh Conventions or the Yaungdu Conventions. My friends, if you have the opportunity to go and read about that, people think that the African problem is about the basis. It is about the currency. But this one, it is more pernicious than you can imagine. The signed treaties with African countries, it was the initiative again of France. Later on, they were going to be followed by England as they wanted to build a kind of commonwealth brought the colonies which were not independent yet when the European Union was going to was created in 1957. The goal was the leader of France and they go to the agreement. They do military, economic, everything that you have under your soil. The professional commercial agreement that you can have, it has to be with France first. They did that. Now that Cotone Agreement, why am I talking about it? 48 African countries are members of the Cotone Agreement, now Samoa Agreement in 2005. The Cotone Agreement adapted to new realities. Criminal matters. They tell you if you want to be a good student or a good country with good behavior in the Cotone Agreement, you know what? A good boy. If you want to be a good boy you have to sign the ICC and you have to be a part of the ICC. And over there the European like a fund they forgive money and they go to use that as a blackmail just to give you an example. This is how they kept many African countries at bay in the Cotone Agreement about the ICC. Now, of course African countries they have different allegiances. Some, the Francophone ones they control many of them like puppets by their friends. So when there is a crisis and because everyone's crisis was a serious one Africa was divided that is the truth. So for people to come together as one they have to be a sense of what common purpose but usually they are divided. They are weak in the Africans but the African expresses their voice South Africa, Burundi many of those countries they oppose the ICC the African Union even was about to do like a collective withdrawal from the ICC I think it was in 2013 they had all those debates. So I cover that many great authors cover those things and so the streets in the case of Babu it was the people regular people like myself, like you guys who were speaking, attacking the Europeans and when they realized that what they were doing was not sustainable this is how they free the guy. The guy is 77 old, tired sick, they released him and he's now recalls. I wanted to just add some context also with what Nogaka said when we're talking about the quote unquote the European powers exercising control of the ICC what's interesting is most countries in Africa are member states of the ICC the International Criminal Court the irony is that the United States Russia, China, India, Israel and one or two I think there's Yemen and Qatar are the only countries that are not member states and the United States actually didn't even sign the original treaty of Rome that Nogaka referenced when he was up there talking about creating the ICC so it's a do I believe in reform? I do believe in reform, I think things can be reformed but when you have some of the biggest players in the world that are not participating it's going to be a difficult reform and again when we were trying to come up with this idea back in the mid 90s of coming up with this court we stopped these ad hoc tribunals when something bad would happen internationally whether it was in Rwanda whether it was in Nazi Germany whether it was in Yugoslavia we wanted to create something that was permanent and we wanted these rules and regulations written down so that you don't have a person like Herman Gehring during the Nuremberg trials saying you don't have jurisdiction over me these rules you're creating during the actual court case there's nothing put in writing beforehand so therefore we didn't commit the Nazis we didn't commit any crimes so what we were trying to work on is trying to avoid that type of a defense on the part of potentially some of these perpetrators the objective was not to create a situation where all the perpetrators were black African there were I can probably think of at least one or two other people in the last 30 years that were not nice in the international community that were not from Africa at least one or two one or two I'm joking obviously so I think reform is possible but damn it's going to be extremely difficult especially with what Nihaka is showing on the screen here in terms of the the makeup of who's been prosecuted so I think another question so one thing I think the United States they signed the treaty but they did not ratify it they signed it but they did not ratify it and then during the conversations to create the international criminal court many people they wanted to please the US because the US is the biggest player they wanted to please the US even the first prosecutor Ocampo from Argentina who was selected, he studied I believe in the United States so they thought that by positioning Ocampo who is like a US truing lawyer maybe they were going to have the favor of the United States and then Stephanie Moupas the French lady I was talking about she described that story in a book she gave all the concessions to the US the US signed it but they did not ratify it from 1998 till today and even Obama came he spoke about that like American president there are different ways of dealing with the ICC Bush definitely went against the ICC and he threatened any country in the world that was going to somehow by the rules of the international criminal court Clinton Clinton somehow seemed to have supported it did not ratify it Bush came and fought against it Trump before Trump from Obama came somehow used his diplomacy did not ratify the treaty and our beloved friend Donald Trump came and then he even wanted to dismantle the US so it can be reflected the US the United Nations has the same it's like it's a copy of you know or at least the international criminal court has the same problem as the United United Nations because the United Nations has set a number of countries that can like France on the Security Council sponsored a resolution against a rebellious country for example also in Africa I mean the warm is in the fruit so I think and then I don't believe in international justice unless all the countries are treated equally so it's difficult I don't know if reform will help unless the western world accept to come down from the Epidestal I just wanted to add as to why the United States never ratified the Treaty of Rome as Nagaka said so we have two reasons that we expound in the public one is that the belief is that the the charter of the of the Treaty of Rome and ICC the creation of the ICC violates the Constitution of the United States because it creates a court that our Supreme Court in the prosecution of individuals that are American so that's one reason so Americans should not be tried in courts outside of the United States and the ultimate arbiter of decisions regarding the lives and the freedom of Americans is the United States Supreme Court not an international law which is a matter of sovereignty I'm sorry Eric the second reason this is I'm paraphrasing paraphrasing a quote from Hillary Clinton when she when she was Secretary of State under President Obama as to why the United States did not participate in the ICC was she said something to the effect that the United States is in a special role in the world that we can't place our military leaders and soldiers in a position where they could be prosecuted by an international body because we are always on the side of good and at the time he just threw what he said yeah so and even at the time perhaps things may not look good for a potential perpetrator who's been identified for prosecution but that person in the context of history will be essentially exonerated so we're always on the side of good people may not realize that at a certain time so that was believe it or not a second reason yeah so I appreciate this context for the ICC and the question that popped in my mind and it really was actually when you said that it made sense to basically have a framework for having rules and laws that people have to adhere to before they get into situations where you have to try them sorry and my question is who's in charge of enforcement how does it basically how do you get away from basically creating this structure which in theory seems like a good idea and actually getting to enforcement which as we've seen is playing out in a way that isn't necessarily favorable so maybe just breaking those two apart in response to your statement so I mean I'm just going to give you my opinion and then Sandy Nogaka can you know put it in there yeah there are two sides my belief is that a lot of this comes down to money the people being targeted who have primarily been of African origin whether it's North Africa or Sub-Saharan Africa simply don't have the money and resources and the military firepower behind them to protect themselves compared to someone in Eastern Europe who may have committed you know obviously not in hit the person who his book is about but other individuals who may have committed the same type of crime and the jurisdiction of the court would apply to them where we the court will not touch these people because of the money in the backing that they have that unfortunately Africa doesn't have historically speaking so that's my one of my you know reasons why I think that's the case but it shows that there is a different level of standard absolutely no doubt no doubt thank you I am interested to know in terms of the effect of civil and administrative law historically in the range of African countries in what the view is about restitution and how harm is valued and the expectations of the international community to actually provide restitution what do you mean by restitution? well what I mean is if you're bringing people to trial numerous times and then they are exonerated that brings up a question of the legitimacy of process and it also means I guess a question of when I say harm to the legitimacy of countries and their status which as we're saying not only financially may not be able to bring you know resources because of privatization but then where is the equity in restoration is there a process to really look at restitution for the harm of basically the legitimacy and sovereignty and actualized resources that those countries actually produce I think what you're talking about it seems to me is a civil process well I guess that's a question in relation to the countries that are harmed are there is there in making restitution a means of having a civil process? I honestly don't know that really all I know is a little bit about this which is the criminal court which is essentially different which provides more criminal penalties for people who are prosecuted and convicted and I don't know if that even happened with Milosevic she of course died in prison but I think what you're talking about is civil actions maybe like reparations that might happen in this country for slavery but that's two kinds of different courts there's a civil court and then the criminal court and what we're saying today is the criminal court as far as I know there's no restitution that comes through a criminal court I mean if I'm not I mean it's a great question that you're asking if I'm understanding it correctly when we have situations when someone is wrongfully convicted they spend in this case Dr. Lawrence spent three years in prison right or entertainment right so is that the restitution you're talking about who pays for this guy's loss not only his loss but the loss of leadership and what people have accumulated actually in the leadership which affects obviously the financial worth of a country its valuation of its resources the natural resources and how those are brought to you know valuation so that's also the question not only to this one person but you know to the harm of dignity of the representation of the value of those countries I mean it's a great point I don't think I don't think there is such a process I mean you know could the former leader of Ivory Coast file an action in the International Board of Justice for a claim yes this is the ICJ not the ICC International Board of Justice I don't know if there's any precedent for that for the loss of the resources of the country you know the people of that country and then of course the individual whose life was interrupted like this you got gave some great answers already so there is no process for restitution and then when I went to Atlanta a couple of years ago there was a another beautiful white American soul people were attacking supporting what the ICJ was doing and she raised the question that somehow you raised she said but the guy was sent to prison for eight years and she said imagine in America that they put somebody in prison for eight years like no bailout for 13 times denied that there will be an outcry in America because it's black and African it's okay and that's why we're doing what we're doing there's no and the BEMBAC from Congo was also in prison and when I went to ask for restitution it was just rejected so there was no even conversation about it many of our prisoners in this country who are black but also white they are wrongfully convicted even of murders and they're on death row even for years there's no real process I suppose a wrongful conviction perhaps could get a little bit of money but it's not usual many innocent people I go to jail here for very long time and there's virtually nothing that can repair that I would like to add something in the case of Babu Babu was sent to prison because the US France and the European countries wanted the new guy to be able to be in power without any problem or disruption so he was kept over there as long as he would take for the new guy who was groomed at the IMF almost came to power in the tanks of the French army who was the guy responsible for putting in place all the structural adjustment policies from the IMF so he is the guy, a good boy of the western world so for this good boy to be there without any disruption Babu was kept if he would have taken 10 or 20 years for Alassan Watarra to be able to govern with no problem securing oil cacao and all these resources for the US and the European they would have stayed there they don't care about any reparation and the Robin she's been waiting for a year for hours for 8 years yeah, no I want to let Mr. Gnaka know that here in Vermont we have had an effort to bring a criminal to justice and that is George Bush and the person who pioneered and carried that effort forward ran for statewide office I was her campaign manager she's here with us today and I'd like her to tell everyone about it that's my friend thanks for remembering that Robin come on, it was very important it was important because a book had come out by the famous criminal trial lawyer Vincent Bulliose and it was titled the prosecution of George W. Bush for murder I mean that title in itself his wife was concerned that he had that title because it's very provocative but he showed a way that Bush could be prosecuted even in the state court and even though he did not personally you know shoot victims in Iraq he studied it intensely and to make a short story even shorter I picked up on it it was all Robin's fault she said there's this book that says that you can actually prosecute him in the state court and so I read I started reading it and I was very intrigued and I was already running for attorney general under the progressive ticket but because of that comment by Robin I started to explore it more and the result was we had a campaign centered in Robin's house that was our campaign headquarters and the only thing is it got off the ground really late it was in September and the elections were in November but Vermont was very hostile to Bush and in the southern part of Vermont there was an effort a grassroots effort that they would arrest him if he even crossed state lines so we thought if we got enough grounds well going I might actually get elected and the reason that didn't happen apart from the late start is after my first announcement and I had bulliosi next to me it got a lot of press coverage and then the press just completely silenced our campaign so I found out later there were people all over the state that said if we knew that you were running on that platform we would have voted for you so the role of the media is incredibly important in either advancing a cause or preventing it Thank you Hello my question is about the future of these kind of movements of leaders from the African youth and I'm curious if you know much about the political education of African youth about pan-Africanism about changing this national order and also even African youth who are living here in America like what kind of things are the youth learning history wise and gathering together to make any changes if you know Yes, so yeah something is happening I yesterday spoke about that a bit something is happening in Africa so when the crisis erupted 2010-2011 I had just finished my PhD I was looking for a job I was even thinking that I could get a job at the UN and then when it became serious somebody had to do what I did we were not many and they can tell the raft of the American power and some Obama when he speaks the entire universe listens all of them so when I was invited that the voice of America asked me questions several times everyone has spoken about what do you have to say but I even talk about that in the beginning inspired by Dr. King I believe I was convinced that this is the thing that we were going to win and then for based on some other factors that I cannot mention here and then we did it speaking to small gatherings 3, 4, 5 people I paid my ticket with my partner's money going to Namibia 24 hours to go and speak to like 20-25 people I went to the Hague I was the only Ivorian there and then more than 100 people most of them trying to support the ICC and then we did it step by step but I was convinced that we were going to win but I was not even though we were not many but we were not I was not alone of course so Paolo Cuolo said one of my favorite authors Alchemist that when you are pursuing your personal legend the universe conspires to make it happen so at the Hague the only Ivorian I met beautiful people like Sandy, Robin my wonderful friend Megan, Kurt and step by step like in the Bible the Bible talks about the dry bones coming together our position became the dominant position in the conference at the Hague same thing in Ghana where I confronted the prosecutor of the ICC so people like that exist they just need to meet and that's why we do what we are doing and then at the same time as we were doing that I know people who are scholars they want to be in some amphitheaters small rooms and talk but I became scholar afterwards I am an activist I am a politician I had my PhD 2009 not too long ago so I love to be speaking to communities and then because of what the French did because of the way they bomb the president of a sovereign country Megan too young to see that even the people would not like him they were so offended that they decided that they had to do something so it was a blessing in disguise they thought that by bombing and taking a president and then what they did to him that was exactly what happened to an African leader in 1961 called Patrice de Mumba many others the way they are arrested here but the way they are arrested here is something that happened like 50 years ago people said no so they are helping us by killing Gaddafi despite everything Gaddafi did that was not good so they are helping us there is a reawakening of the African people and then like I told you in France when people were debating you would not believe it white people they say no we can't be like that Stephanie Mopas she is a French lady working for the French media and she wrote a book to denounce what the Europeans were doing so it is happening people are in the streets in Mali in Mali in Bukina Faso against the French military bases the Babus case contributed to the revival of Pan-Africanism and it is happening and then we are doing what we can do we need to do better but it is happening that's why I'm here I'm happy to have met all these people like you that's my answer about the youth there is a movement that is being helped by the social media journalism is key I covered the war for CNN and I saw everything I went there I thought like a journalist there is no I tried to not do like an American journalist who is a bad guy who is a good guy I went there I thought everything was clear and then I realized what was happening so there is not much access to journalism the debate on mainstream is controlled by France, the US CNN, blah blah now thanks to the social media there is a movement that is going on but this movement unfortunately has to be fed with facts history they need to learn because you know even the criminal court and the western war the western imperialism can work on the algorithm to make you believe that you are doing like you are fighting against them but you know you're gonna go around with false information so it's important that the youth of the western world also join this fight because I came here I have a lot of friends that are progressive here but they don't have the real information and then they read everything through the lenses of CNN and the lenses of the progressive media here CNN is a fraud I've been there CNN is a fraud most of them are fraud and then the way journalism is done here is like you have to have your side it's either what you call it Fox News or MSNBC nothing in the middle no dialectics so we need in Vermont thinking based on the real fact and you guys have to know that these phony flags and phony independences that you see from Africa is all okay thank you I would like to say one thing before so the reason why in the beginning the title I put here was not the title as I've been working on the book for several years but I really started writing the book like let's say four or five years ago so because many people think that Pan-Africanism is like it's a dead idea many people think that Pan-Africanism or Pan-Africanism cannot claim victories and it's because people don't know so it happened like the Syria movement the decolonization of Africa the end of the apartheid movement I mentioned all those things here these are victories won by Pan-Africanists and by internationalists in the case of the ISIS here when I said ten years ten years or maybe eight or ninety people did it if you go maybe once a documentary you can see people going to the Hague some black Americans, some whites many Africans from different nationalities I'll show you a couple of things on the social media they took the social media there is a story people were doing all those things and then youth involved and then people from different nationalities and then this Babu's case it is a Pan-African victory in order to answer that segment of your question about Pan-Africanism so people are emboldened if Babu can be freed from the ICC then it is possible for us to win more victories and this is the mindset we are organizing in the streets of Africa from Madagascar to Morocco to Abidjan I just want to respond to what our friend Eric here was saying about how the ICC worked with allowing multinational corporations to come in and do extractivist projects for the benefits of Europeans not necessarily the people of the country I just wanted to mention that the ICC is not the only tool for doing this the old tools in the toolbox are still there and we have a case going on right now with Peru Peru which is notorious for having unstable presidents and lots of prosecutions for corruption and notorious for being very slow in processing these well when an indigenous school teacher was elected as president of the country and they wanted to get rid of him within one day they were able to arrest him and put him in jail and remove him from office and there have been many criticisms of Pedro Castillo, this president but one thing that he was doing there were 30 extractivist projects that he was not signing and not letting to go through and the US ambassador, former CIA agent had spoken with the Peruvian military the day before he was deposed and now they're sending 600 US troops to train there and all these extractivist projects are going through so this is an old playbook with new the imperialism has endless creativity for foisting new forms on us thank you I would like to acknowledge the presence of a friend, my brother actually who came from Canada Montreal to follow that discussion he just arrived thank you for being here so you can go ahead well I can't resist mentioning the extractive industries my father died in a plane crash in Ethiopia when I was an infant and he had just come off a top secret mission to Saudi Arabia and later on as an adult and as a journalist I wanted to find out what was behind that he was America's first master spy in the Middle East I've done FOIA, I've sued the CIA, I've gotten a lot of his papers and I ended up finding a theme that ran through the story of his death right up to the present the theme which is the title of my book is called follow the pipelines follow the pipelines I'm covering the mystery of a lost spy and the deadly politics of the great game for oil I just want to say it was amazing to me back then 47 it was the trans-Arabian pipeline that was causing all sorts of interests and even consternation because what it did is it elevated the US into being a major power not only in the Middle East but in the world and then you follow and then there was great resentment even from our allies the French, the British and the Russians were all really concerned that the US got this exclusive concession in Saudi oil and so there were all sorts of intrigue with oil now taking it right up to the present I've written stories about in fact right after the invasion of Ukraine I wrote a story about how I saw this as possibly the mother of all energy wars which I think it is I think it's so blatant it's so obvious now they can't hide it because once the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was attacked they began to and this was feeding natural gas to Europe great concern where are we going to find more natural gas and oil and it's still going on today this is why efforts at preventing climate change have been delayed because of this concern that they can't get their hands on enough natural gas and oil and the reason why I emphasize oil among all the other natural resources is because it's the fuel of the military and the theme I have found out 70 years is that if you aspire to be a great power then you have to secure your fuel supplies and even if you don't need to secure them now you may need to secure them later so the other guys don't get it and to me this is what the Ukraine wars about the whole eastern part of Ukraine the Donbas region is where the riches reserves of natural gas yet to be exploited mind you in Europe are in the Donbas it never gets discussed oil is censored out of discussion continuously but there you have it and to overcome that the other is the young people have caught on they see oil as the enemy they are out there in their demonstrations about the evil energy companies causing climate change and so there is the momentum for connecting generations around an issue that confronts all of it not only war and endless wars but many other other questions I think in the case of Africa you are talking about some of the richest reserves of rare earth metals that are the foundation of what we want our new economy to be we talk about the rechargeable batteries for vehicles and they are highly relying on lithium lithium is for whatever reason it doesn't occur in our ground in Europe and the United States it's always usually in developing countries just by chance and corporations are often in a position to have to exploit the politics of those countries and they take sides and they want leaders who give them specifically concessions to the detriment of the local people that live there often it's I'm sorry I don't know your name but you made the comment that it's an old playbook that's being revisited these issues were happening all the time in Africa in colonial times in the 1950s where these leaders being forced to sign agreements with these multinationals and with the governments of different countries in Europe people have friendlier faces now but the playbook is the same definitely and now there's a new dawn like China, Russia are major players on the continent to touch the subject because now I also had been consultant communication consultant for the African Union when I left Burlington 10 years ago I went there and then at one of the annual meetings Mugabe who used to be the president he's dead now of Zimbabwe who has had the same problem he was a good boy until the British prime minister and Clinton deceived him they said we're gonna help you try to get back some of the lens from Zimbabwe to the black farmers in Zimbabwe because even more, maybe of the lens arable lens were in the possession of the white farmers Tony Blair and Clinton didn't do that he had the pressure from his people he had to nationalize some of these lens so Mugabe was also a pariah but at one meeting in Addis Ababa, I remember vividly he said you know the Europeans used to rape us now China with China we can choose to go to bed with China this was literally his words because you know there's no rape here so how do you think that because me as someone who has been trained in the US my daughters are from here I love this country very much and I hope that I can push the leadership of this country to visit the way they do business with Africa so we can secure a good relationship I grew up with a portrait of JFK in my house my father wouldn't wear any other shoes but floor shine shoes so I'm a little American so how can we make sure that in this battle over there people don't go from one master to another one which could be Peke or could be the Kremlin so I know people love to talk about you know the rise of China in Africa and then the comeback of Russia in Africa and then the forceful engagement in Africa and then under the title of the new scramble for Africa the only thing that we want sometimes it is becoming a debate people think that Africans want to distance themselves from the United States from France and from England and then they want to go outside with Russia or China the same debate happened like 50 years ago in the context of the Cold War and that's all like there was a conference for the African student by Pan-African student movement so in Kampala 1958 I think July 7th to July 8th and there was a young girl she said we don't even care but we don't understand why America is so obsessed with the Cold War the only thing we want we just want food and shelter and education the same thing today so it is not that people love Russia or China when we were fighting for independence they were on our side when America and the French and the British when they made sure that Mandela goes to prison for 27 years those were fighting to end apartheid where Russia China and particularly particularly Cuba these are historical facts but here people do not want to remember and that's why they are so upset that they cannot rally the world around a movement against Russia but these are historical facts when I talk about the BRICS countries something that I love to say that I forgot to talk about yesterday something that I have an argument that I forgot to here we say that BRICS are Brazil, Russia, India China and South Africa they came together and then they created like a new paradigm of international development in order somehow to promote themselves the dominance of the Britain Woods institution which are IMF and the World Bank and so on what the BRICS countries are bringing to Africa is not like they brought wealth in Africa not yet, they have not brought wealth they have not brought some particular development beside what China is doing but what the BRICS countries are bringing to Africa it is the power of choice that you were talking about in the Muga-based Volga language so it is the power of choice and then we can choose to go and get money from the international development bank put together by the BRICS banks and controlled by China and then all we can go to the IMF now if you want to go to the IMF what they have been doing for years is that America has a new agenda in the past we want to give you money but you need to privatize your state companies if you don't do that we are not going to give you money when there was the issue of the international criminal court they did the same thing like the court said they have not ratified the treaty and they will make sure that you go to the ICC they have not ratified the ICC treaty but America provided the support to not to go and arrest people in Sudan in different parts or the French do that that was the ICC and now the new conversation is and I'm just giving you information it is about gay rights so gay rights same sex marriage so we respect if you want somebody wants to be homosexual this is your freedom no one is going to interfere in your sexuality but to see the American leaders go into African countries to push people to make sure that people put gay marriage in their respective constitutions if you don't do that they will not give you money come on seriously seriously and now they are going to talk to Uhuru Kenyatta even Obama when they had to talk the current president who was just elected same conversation same conversation with the president of Senegal Makisal same conversation everywhere now Ghana seem to be opposing that and now Ghana wants some money from the IMF two or three billions and because Ghana does not know people so the president came you know Ghana beyond eight you know we want to be free okay and then he has not changed the structure of the economy of Ghana and then the multinationals are exploiting the resources to the detriment of the masses and then coupled with corruption many other things that they were doing that were preventing sustainable development in Ghana Ghana needs money Ghana started talking to the IMF till today they have not received the money yet but in the meantime the conversation oh what is by the way your new position about same-sex marriage and this is what they do people need to know so so that is the conversation that is happening and Africa it is not easy it is not easy to be a leader in Africa and it is not easy to be an African but we hope things can change and then we are still alive people did that before we are doing it meeting new people and building a new momentum building international coalition so that we can attack or address different other issues yes thank you I think the other thing that is important to recognize with respect to you know we look at China in this country with a great deal of suspicion and skepticism but China and to a lesser extent the BRICS countries they also when African countries do business with them don't think that they are not remembering the fact that they don't have the horrible histories of colonialism and the brutality that was committed in Africa by the countries now that have smiles but not everyone forgets history China and the other BRICS countries to a lesser extent don't have that history on the African continent so it is a refreshing for African countries a refreshing new face on the block because they don't have that negative connotation with respect to western countries that they do I just want to say a comment rather than a question but I want to say that American people I think are the only people that believe we have a free press and that we are not subject to steady and endless propaganda we actually believe that our press and our media do not propagandize us it's the best propaganda available if you think about it because we bought it hook, line and sinker that we are a free country and one of the things that I've learned not by the mainstream media except for a couple of people is history you never hear about history in our mainstream media and I'm kind of blown away because my office is with the association of African living in Vermont I have been absolutely given the privilege of understanding how our history plays itself out in Africa not only in Africa but also in Latin America and as Kurt said the people of Latin America the people of Africa do remember and know history first hand and they know something that we don't know and that is that the white European powers have been the main colonialists since the dawn of capitalism in the 14th 15th century in Europe it is the main colonizers of the entire planet are the capitalist powers let's put it that way it's France, England the United States Germany latecomer and Italy latecomers they remember that so when a war breaks out between NATO powers against Russia and Russia who has aided a lot the third world especially during the cold war in their independent struggle those Latin Americans and Africans remember that and there's no way I don't think that they I don't think I have that opinion that they are going to ally easily with the NATO powers or I think Americans better get hip to that and pretty damn soon I think what? I'll be really if you don't have a problem just I'll be really quick to add to all those excellent points there's also the issue of sanctions and 40 countries are now under sanctions I've been hearing one third of humanity and up to half of the people on this planet are subject to sanctions by the United States and some European countries think of the ones that are under sanctions Iran Cuba African countries though so many African countries Venezuela Russia a big time but it doesn't seem to be harming Russia that much I would like to make a comment here and want to say something a little bit that joins the issue about how young people are being educated and also quote unquote who are the Americans because you know in the United States we have many people with different histories very much tied to colonialism and the move towards understanding what decolonializing means for people who are of the global majority and I say this particularly because there are some interesting intersections now even say among American African American community intersecting with Africans here who are students who do not want to see themselves viewed as coming through the same experience of quote unquote downtrodden being downtrodden here in the United States history of enslavement and yet they are also very interested in figuring out their place in the networks to be successful both economically and culturally collaboratively what that means to be distinctive and I think that this is an interesting issue because when we're talking about the quote unquote free press well I can tell you that many of us definitely know that the free press is not free and as somebody from a multiracial background that spans five generations definitely that is known but I think that this is an interesting issue about how people are being educated because it is very difficult here in the United States even say to start at the high school level because a lot of the history shows somehow that the leadership in Africa constantly is subject to destabilization and what though why that happens and how that's really understood and like I said that's why I asked my question before about the valuation of the resources because even to this day these resources are emergent but this affects investigation technology and the portrayal I saw an interesting thing about the arrest are you talking about the arrest warrant against South Africans invited Putin to come to South Africa if they did not because I have something to talk about the ICC was not able to arrest Bashi Bashi if the ICC was because the same debate that they had the same debate about Bashi it was supposed to go to South Africa I think it went and then there was it was supposed to go to another country Malawi and then and then over there pressure from the president Joyce Banda the lady who succeeded Mutarika and then somehow she renounced to host the African Union meeting so they've been doing the same thing so if they did not go and arrest Bashi Putin is not going to be the one to be arrested they're just doing that for PR purposes and then as we said because they know who to go above because the guy has a topic anyway so somebody wanted to ask somebody yes Banda oh okay yeah I would I would like to bring forth today someone who's no longer with us his name is Gary Davis if he was here he would have many opinions he was a world citizen and he was a world citizen oops I'm tied up here he dropped bombs on Germany and during his process of PTSD recovering from that he came to the conclusion that nation states cause war and he did not want to be a part of a nation state so he was he was a citizen of the world and he had no passports and I just bring this up to also connect to what we discussed in Quaker meeting this morning which some of us here were there about authority who do we give authority to and I think if Gary was here he would say the nations the United Nations is made up of a bunch of corrupt nations conniving together to to share power and to share power amongst the powerful what if there could be a government made up of people and that would be transcend boundaries and I think it's just an idea that it's very idealistic but the idea of every person in the world having equal representation there would be a sort of a parliament that would be largely made up of Chinese people and Indian people and maybe three or four Americans and this would be the this would be the true power of of of a democratic world so it's just a thought to think about so what any further questions or thoughts no so I guess maybe we you want to say a concluding word no no my concluding words would be what I sort of was saying before that it appears to me that there is a new world emerging a new world order put it that way and that the nations that are on the rise and I hope on a decent more decent rise than the white European are really focused in Africa, Latin America and maybe parts of Asia in other words in the developing world I believe that the United States should watch this carefully and decide essentially what side are we on sticking with the topic of the book that Nigaga wrote it's quite disappointing I can say personally from the standpoint of being involved in talks about developing this new world justice that we were looking to do back in the 90s that the perpetrators being prosecuted or individuals being prosecuted are unfortunately as Nigaga's call Black African that wasn't supposed to be what we intended we had higher hopes so honestly it's disappointing that's how I'm going to end it thank you so Sandy said it there is the emergence of a polycentric world that the world a polycentric world was born there is nothing the United States can do about it America can still be the most important power what America has to acknowledge recognized and know that China is like one of the biggest players today Russia has demonstrated a resilience that defeated the functions and then the resistance of Russia has freed many countries in the world that are willing to go against the dictates of the western world we don't want the only thing we want is what justice if people can implement justice we find if the ICC can be reformed and then they can do the right thing we don't have any problem we don't have time to talk too much about it today but what we see in the ICC we saw the same flaws with the Nuremberg tribe and you spoke about that when we were talking about the German we did not recognize the jurisdiction of the Nuremberg tribe same thing happened before the Nuremberg tribe with Lipzig tribe in Germany and in many other institutions they put together but we're not going to say that we don't want to see any institutions because victimizers need to be brought to justice and the position is that we want all victimizers to be brought to justice if you go after Vladimir Putin listen, remember that there's something that you need to fix you have to go back to George W. Bush if we can do that we don't have any problem with you but if you go to the Babu and you leave the other ones we will be there to denounce now I'm going to let you go with the last sentences I put in my book I quoted a lady that if you don't know I would like you to follow that lady she's from Nigeria and her name is she's a writer and novelist her name is Shemamanda Ngozi Adishie powerful lady so she became very famous because she wrote a book on feminism and also she gave a talk a TED talk in 2014 and then the title of the TED talk is the danger of a single story the danger of a single story and this is what she said stories matter many stories matter stories have been used to dispossess into my land both stories can also be used to empower and to humanize stories can break the dignity of a people both stories can also repair that broken dignity I would like to end this is the one talking I would like to end with this thought that when we reject the single story because there's never a single story about any place we regain a kind of paradise that was the purpose of my book that everything that they were saying about Babu could not be the only truth that there was another side and this is what I try to do in this book and then thank God we have been vindicated by history and then we won that Pan-African victory and Babu was freed and then people could see that the ICC is finally a tool in the hands of the most powerful and the ICC has been indicted before the drabinar of history therefore I put the title of my book Lurambah Wostral and the indictment of the international criminal court a Pan-African victory thank you very much people thank you so much refreshment