We have lost interest in the ICC - Uganda President

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, has ruled in favor of the withdrawal of his country from the International Criminal Court (ICC).

“We have lost interest,” he said in a televised debate on Saturday night.

Museveni, in power since 1986, had agreed for the first time in his career to participate in a televised debate with six other opponents.

He had shunned the first debate but showed up Saturday night.

“The ICC is not serious, it is partisan. It is not balanced. There are so many leaders who should have been tried but the ICC is not serious, they did not and that’s why we lost interest in the ICC,” Museveni said.

“Uganda should leave the ICC. In fact, we should have already done it,” he added.

At the last summit of the African Union late January in Addis Ababa, the African leaders had supported a Kenyan initiative ultimately a common withdrawal of the ICC which in their eyes “hounds” the continent Africa.

Created in 2002 to try genocidal and war crimes, the ICC has opened investigations into eight countries in total, all in Africa: Kenya, Ivory Coast, Libya, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Mali and Uganda.

In Uganda, the ICC has investigated leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).