What we currently see is the government committing to cooperate with the ICC’s cases on one hand and taking every opportunity to politically attack the ICC and undermine it on the other but Jubilee Government today is against ICC and William Ruto was the one who did not trust Kenya Judiciary while he was with Raila on ODM and he preferred ICC .” If you follow Kenya politics you can see in 2009 how William Ruto statement By Nation News Team, Saturday, February 21, 2009 Agriculture minister William Ruto wants the secret envelope containing names of the post-election violence suspects handed over to the International Criminal Court at The Hague without further delay.
Mr Ruto says the two-month period given by former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan to Kenya to make a new attempt at setting up a local tribunal to try the suspects was unnecessary. Kofi Annan should hand over the envelope that contains names of suspects to the International Criminal Court at The Hague so that proper investigations can start,” Mr Ruto said. “Mr Annan should allow us to move forward. We cannot just get stuck in one place addressing the same thing.”
Mr Ruto’s latest stand contradicts the position of Prime Minister Raila Odinga, leader of his ODM party, who prefers a local tribunal.
A government motion to set up a special local tribunal was defeated in Parliament earlier this month, raising the possibility that suspects whose names were given to Mr Annan in a sealed envelope by the Waki Commssion could be taken to The Hague for trial.
The Hague option was to be activated should Kenya fail to establish a local tribunal as proposed by the commission that investigated the post-election violence. but why are they opposing ICC now ?
The leaders noted that Kenyans had placed their hopes on the ICC to get justice after the violence that rocked the country following 2007 elections saying if adopted, the decision would disillusion Kenyans who might not get justice for atrocities committed against them thus resorting to the rule of the jungle in future election.
The proposal, which will be debated in an emergency parliamentary session on Thursday, comes just days before Kenya’s Deputy President William Ruto will stand trial in The Hague accused of crimes against humanity. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta also faces serious charges; his trial is due to start on November 12.
The Kenyan government’s proposal to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC) Statute is an affront to the hundreds of thousands of Kenyans who lost their lives or were driven from their homes during the post-election violence that rocked the country in 2007-8. President Kenyatta and Deputy-President Ruto, who were both senior political figures at the time of the post-election violence, are accused of crimes against humanity including murder, forcible population transfer, and persecution. President Kenyatta is also accused of responsibility for rape and other inhumane acts – including forced circumcision and penile amputation – carried out by the Mungiki, a criminal gang allegedly under his control.
They were elected as President and Deputy President respectively in March 2013. The ICC’s Statute is clear that there can be no immunity, even for heads of state. Broadcaster Joshua Arap Sang also stands accused of murder, forcible population transfer and persecution as crimes against humanity. He is due to be tried with Deputy-President Ruto.
Even if Kenya withdraws from the Rome Statute, the decision will only come into effect in one year.Withdrawal could however preclude the ICC from investigating and prosecuting any future crimes committed after the withdrawal comes into effect. Cases could then only be brought before the Court if the government decides to accept ICC jurisdiction or the UN Security Council makes a referral.
“Essentially, a withdrawal would strip the Kenyan people of one of the most important human rights protections and potentially allow crimes to be committed with impunity in the future,
“These cases must proceed and the government has a legal obligation to cooperate fully. Put simply, there is no legal way that the government can evade the justice process in these cases,
“This move is just the latest in a series of disturbing initiatives to undermine the work of the ICC in Kenya and across the continent,There is no refuting the fact that Kenya is where we are today because of the 2007/08 post election violence. Support for institutional reforms as well as passage of the new constitution were all driven directly or indirectly by this moment of shame. The ICC – a primary result of the post election violence – is also why Kenya underwent such a peaceful election this year.
However it is time to accept that we are at the tipping point and that beyond here, the lessons of the PEV that have led to positive growth can force negative retrogression. I will not repeat myself so let us look at how we got here.
First, I have always suspected that the 2007/08 PEV led to a decision at international level that Kenya was too important to continue in a situation where nearly every election had even more violence than the last, to the extent that it was possible to project a point where an election would lead to national collapse. I am convinced that it was determined that this situation must stop, and the solution was to ensure that for the first time in the history of election-related violence, someone would be held accountable for the atrocities of the 2007 elections. This would also send a message to other African states with such ‘habits’.
The process that was initiated culminated in the ‘Waki’ Report. The then President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Odinga then underwent considerable international pressure to start a local process to handle those suspected as responsible for the violence, or face the indignity of having their country, and maybe even they themselves, at the International Criminal Court. The two principals tried everything they could to make this happen despite their reservations, but their own political establishments had not realized the gravity of the situation and thought it was a bluff; even coming up with funny slogans about it.
Ordinary Kenyans then became quite upset that politicians seemed to be dancing on the graves of the Kenyans who had died over the years, as these politicians pursued their ambitions. A cry then seemed to go out in every village across the country that politicians must learn that violence cannot continue to be a strategy for winning elections, and the ICC became the way that this lesson would be taught.
Kofi Annan then called the politicians bluff and handed over the ‘Waki’ report to the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court; one Mr Luis Moreno-Ocampo. Mr Ocampo got UN authority for the court to get into the Kenyan situation and used this report to start his investigations, which enabled him to move remarkably fast. Before we knew it, six Kenyans had been charged at the ICC for crimes against humanity. The ICC had unleashed the ‘dog’ on our politicians and Kenyans were ecstatic that impunity was now been tackled.
The Kenyan political establishment panicked and started back-peddling furiously on nearly everything they had said earlier. All of a sudden they believed in a local process and parliamentarians quickly mobilised to pull Kenya out of the Rome Statute; 1.4 million Kenyans put a stop to that in a petition. A desperate diplomatic offensive was then initiated to stop the ICC and allow Kenya to set up a local process; this also collapsed because it was clear Kenyans did not support it.
The political establishment had been beaten in its own game; and then the coin dropped. They realised that they were not going to win the war against the ICC process by fighting it, because this suggested they did not want to stop election-related violence. They then went out to prove that they had learnt their lesson, and were committed to violence-free politics such that Kenya would never need ICC again.
The political leadership of the two tribes that had been at the centre of political violence over the decades got into a political pact, and against all odds went ahead to win the 2013 election with a landslide. The election was also one of the more peaceful ones in Kenya’s history.
Now we need to ‘leash the dog’. Most Kenyans have supported the ICC process because it seemed able to contain the Kenyan politician and the last election proved that we achieved that. To continue to go after politicians who have literally surrendered leads to the loss of pro-ICC goodwill. At this rate it will not matter what the courts decide; Kenyans will not accept it and the lessons sought, will have been lost. Lack of this goodwill also means the ICC cases that depend on Kenyan witnesses could crumble; showing the ‘dog’ as harmless. This does not help, because should there ever be a next time (God forbid), the ICC might not be enough to stop the violence. Worst case scenario; with all these talk of referendum maybe we could also have one on what Kenyans think.
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