The international criminal court's new chief prosecutor launched an aggressive defence of the institution, rejecting the view that it is "a pro-western, anti-African court".

Fatou Bensouda, from Gambia, will next month replace Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who has been accused of applying "selective justice" to Africa.

The decade-old court has sought justice for millions of victims in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, the Central African Republic, Darfur in Sudan, Kenya, Libya and Ivory Coast, Bensouda said on Wednesday.

"We have done it with strong co-operation of African state parties and we have benefited from the commitment and support of our partners within African civil society," she told the OpenForum conference in Cape Town, South Africa.

"However, this is unfortunately not the story relayed in the media. Again and again we hear criticisms about our so-called focus on Africa and about the court being an African court, having an African bias. Anti-ICC elements have been working very hard to discredit the court and to lobby for non-support and they are doing this, unfortunately, with complete disregard for legal arguments."

Bensouda, 50, who has served as Moreno-Ocampo's deputy, added: "With due respect, what offends me most when I hear criticisms about the so-called African bias is how quick we are to focus on the words and propaganda of a few powerful, influential individuals and to forget about the millions of anonymous people that suffer from these crimes … because all the victims are African victims.

"Indeed, the greatest affront to victims of these brutal and unimaginable crimes … women and young girls raped, families brutalised, robbed of everything, entire communities terrorised and shattered … is to see those powerful individuals responsible for their sufferings trying to portray themselves as the victims of a pro-western, anti-African court."

Such perceptions have been fuelled by a monopoly of African names on the court's most wanted list, including the Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir, and the Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony. The ICC's first conviction, in March, was of the Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga for recruiting and using child soldiers.

That verdict was condemned as anti-African by the Zanu-PF faction of Zimbabwe's government. Last year the country's president, Robert Mugabe, told the UN general assembly: "The leaders of the powerful western states guilty of international crime, like Bush and Blair, are routinely given the blind eye. Such selective justice has eroded the credibility of the ICC on the African continent."

The African Union (AU) lobbied hard for Bensouda to succeed Moreno-Ocampo after repeatedly criticising his perceived bias against the continent. Jean Ping, the AU commission chairman, said last year: "Frankly speaking, we are not against the ICC. What we are against is Ocampo's justice."

Bensouda set out her vision in her speech on Wednesday: "Real justice is not a pick and choose system. To be effective, to be just and to have a lasting impact, justice has to be guided solely by the law and the evidence. Our focus is on individual criminal behaviour against innocent victims. My focus is on Joseph Kony, on Bosco Ntaganda, on Ahmad Harun, on Omar al-Bashir."

To applause, she added: "The office of the prosecutor will go where the victims need us. Law is a shield for the powerless, not a club for the powerful, and no one will divert me from the course of justice.

"The world increasingly understands the rule of the court and Africa understood it right from the start. As Africans we know that impunity is not an academic, abstract notion. The African commitment to ending impunity is a reality and we have to find ways to focus attention on that."

In what some may interpret as a coded attack on the US, China and other major nations that have not signed up to the ICC, Bensouda said pointedly: "International justice gives power of leadership to small and medium countries, to principled states, those who are determined to use the power of the law, not the power of arms, to protect their citizens and their territories. Political leaders can lead efforts for international justice in the international arena by supporting the ICC."

The court's independence is paramount, she added. "We are a new tool, a judicial tool, not a tool in the hands of politicians who think they can decide when to plug or unplug us."

Later, asked whether America and China's continued absence was hampering the court's credibility, Bensouda told the Guardian: "I think maybe it is adding to the perception because they are not part of it, and at the [UN] security council they are there and also referring cases.

"I always say that it's not my role [to comment], really, as an officer of the court. It's up to states themselves to make that decision to join the court. It would be a good thing if we have universality but, even without it, the court is functioning effectively."

(Source:guardian.co.uk)