By ISAAC NEWTON KINITY Published October 10, 2009 Recent statements by Libya President Muammar Gaddafi cannot go unchallenged. On October 4, Kenya’s East African Standard Newspaper reported President Gaddafi to have stepped forward, to shield Kenya against what he perceives as aggression against Africa. On July 3, President Gaddafi rallied the African Union (AU) to pass a resolution, binding its members to cease co-operation with the International Criminal Court (ICC), to protest the indictment of President Hassan Omar al Bashir of Sudan. In both cases, the AU was totally opposing intervention by the international community, to prevent the continued loss of lives of the innocent and defenseless children, and women in the hands of their leaders. It is unfortunate that the victims of the killings in Sudan and in Kenya are all black Africans. Would the AU under President Gaddafi behave the same way if these killings affected Egypt, Morocco, and Libya – the white Africans there? Are President Gaddafi’s actions intended to square his years of rivalry with the West using his position as the AU Chairman? Or does he have individual and business interests in Kenya? For many years, the black Africans have suffered and died from rampant corruption, political murders, and politically instigated chaos. There are no signs of the AU solving the problems in Africa, therefore nations of the world are coming in. Unless Africans themselves, regardless of the AU, and their corrupt leaders save themselves, they are doomed. The greatest danger is in the AU declaring war on the ICC. The ICC is not an enemy of Africa. The AU should divert its energy and resources to Somalia, Congo and Sudan, where millions of black Africans continue to die. No one understands what President Gaddafi is up to in Kenya; other than, his purchase of the controversial Grand Regency Hotel in Nairobi Kenya, at a throwaway price two years ago. His opposition to the ICC is an outright indication that he has a hidden agenda. The perpetrators of both the 1991 killings and the 2008 post-election violence committed crimes against humanity, but the most dreadful crime is the shielding and protecting them. In 1999 at a meeting in Algiers, the Organization of African Unity (OAU), now AU, resolved not to recognize undemocratic power grabs, and military coups in Africa. This was a blessing to African dictators, who saw it as assurance of political dominance. The OAU resolution of 1999 tended to protect African leaders, instead of the millions of the suffering masses. There is no meaning of having an AU, which only serves the interest of the African leaders and cares less about the masses. The leaders in Kenya are suspects in the post-election violence, and President Bashir of Sudan, has been accused of crimes against humanity. In 1991 more than 800 Kenyans were killed in less than one week. Then, 1,200 Kenyans were killed in similar circumstances in less than one week in 2008 after millions of arrows were intercepted at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.. The possibility of the killings recurring in 2012 cannot be ruled out, if action is not taken on the perpetrators of the post-election violence, whom President Gaddafi and the AU want to shield and defend. Members of Parliament have twice rejected a tribunal in favor of the ICC. The AU is surviving on taxes from the millions of the African people, whom it doesn’t want to protect and defend. What if these same people refuse to fund the organization? Certainly the more than one billion Africans will not support the idea of protecting those who killed others in Sudan and in Kenya. Africans all over Africa are unhappy with the protests by the the Libyan President and the AU. In good faith, I warn President Gaddafi of Libya that he risks paying heavily for any deaths of Kenyans, in the event that there is a recurrence of chaos in 2012. Africa should support Kenyans in their quest to have the perpetrators of the post-election violence prosecuted by the ICC. There will never be peace in Kenya, if the perpetrators of the killings are not prosecuted.
Isaac Newton Kinity is a former Secretary General of Kenya Civil Servants Union. He is the Chairman of Kikimo Foundation for Corruption and Poverty Eradication. He is also the executive director of the Kenyans Eyes from the Diaspora. Reach him at + 1 203 675 9354 or Nkinity@eafricainfocus.com
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