Move by international criminal court could lead to politicians facing charge of crimes against humanity over violence that left more than 1,100 dead
The prosecutor of the international criminal court is due to arrive in Nairobi tomorrow for “decisive” consultations that could see some of Kenya‘s most powerful politicians indicted for crimes against humanity.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo will meet the president, Mwai Kibaki, and the prime minister, Raila Odinga, to seek permission to investigate last year’s post-election violence, in which at least 1,133 people were killed during ethnically motivated attacks or by the police.
The request has been prompted by the government’s refusal to establish a special local tribunal to try those most responsible for the deaths, a group that includes cabinet ministers from both sides of the coalition, according to the state-funded Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR).
News of Ocampo’s impending arrival has generated huge interest locally, where many people see international intervention as the only way to end decades of high-level impunity and prevent further election violence in 2012. It has also caused consternation in the government, which would probably have rebuffed Ocampo were Kenya not a signatory to the Rome statute of the international criminal court.
In rejecting a local tribunal, Kenyan ministers gambled that the Hague-based court would not pursue a case driven neither by civil war, nor rebellion – factors present in all the current ICC prosecutions involving Sudan, Uganda, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Central African Republic – and where the death toll was comparatively low.
Instead, Ocampo has made the case a priority, saying last month: “Kenya will be a world example on managing violence.” Civil society groups and foreign diplomatic missions have assisted him by providing protection to numerous witnesses who may eventually be called to testify.
“There is significant panic in government over this issue,” said Maina Kiai, the former head of the KNCHR. “Ministers are squirming.”
The worst of the ethnic violence that followed Kibaki’s dubious election victory echoed similar politically inspired – and subsequently unpunished – attacks that occurred around elections in 1992 and 1997. In negotiating a peace accord between Kibaki and Odinga, the former UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, included a mechanism to address this impunity.
The official commission of inquiry into the violence, adopted by parliament, recommended the establishment of a local tribunal to try high-level perpetrators. As a safeguard, it said a list of the main suspects would be handed to Ocampo if a special court was not set up.
Kibaki and Odinga presented a bill to parliament in February, but it was so weak and poorly drafted that MPs rejected it. An improved bill was later shot down by cabinet ministers – some of whom are now openly campaigning for president and talking of ethnic alliances – on the premise that a newly established truth and reconciliation commission could handle the issue of justice.
Few Kenyans believe it can. The local judiciary is neither independent nor capable, with a backlog of 800,000 cases. Police investigations are notoriously poor; the four men accused of burning to death 35 civilians in a church in the worst attack of the post-election chaos were acquitted by the judge due to shoddy prosecution work.
“The government wants to delay this issue until the next election,” said Gitobu Imanyara, an independent MP who will next week introduce a private members bill in a last-ditch bid to establish a local tribunal. “If ministers see eye to eye on nothing else, they do on this.”
Although Ocampo, who was handed the list of a dozen or so suspects by Annan in July, along with six boxes of evidence, is seeking the go-ahead from Kenya to pursue the case, permission is not necessarily required. The ICC’s pre-trial trial chamber has the power to authorise investigations where a country appears unwilling or unable to pass justice domestically.
Ndung’u Wainaina, director of the International Centre for Policy and Conflict, in Nairobi, said that at the least Ocampo needed to receive written confirmation that Kibaki and Odinga would not block investigations.
“ICC involvement is critical for Kenya – it’s our first opportunity to deliver a blow to impunity,” he said.
Some are more cautious. Wycliffe Muga, a columnist with the Star newspaper, said that indicting a few people could inflame ethnic tensions, and that institutional reform, however slow, was the only effective way to end the abuse of power.
Among victims, however, there appears to be overwhelming support for Ocampo’s mission.
“If there is no outside intervention I just wonder what will happen in 2012,” said Lillian Atingoh, 25, whose family home in the Rift Valley was burnt down last January. “There has been no reconciliation. It’s like, this thing is not over.”
Source: The Guradian
Comments