From Kenya Imagine:
1. Deputy PM and Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta
2. suspended Minister of Education William Ruto
3. Minister for Industrialisation Henry Kosgey
4. Secretary to the cabinet Francis Kirimi Muthaura
5. Former police chief Major General Mohammed Hussein Ali
6. Kass FM radio executive Joshua Arap Sang
Here is the story from Jeffrey Gettleman and Marlise Simons in the NY Times.
This strikes me as a classic “bait and switch” from the Kenyan political establishment to the international community.
Kenya’s Justice Minister says at this late date that because Kenya will be reforming its judicial and police systems under the newly passed Constitution, the ICC is no longer needed and should “keep off” as Kenya can now prosecute the post-election violence itself. I cannot imagine who would be expected to take this argument seriously. Certainly no one that has been paying any attention to Kenya for the past few years.
Presumably the real argument is that “because we have allowed Kenyans to pass this wonderful new Constitution–that you, international powers wanted more than we did–you owe us a pass on the post-election violence–just like you gave us a pass on the election fraud because we agreed to a “government of national unity”.
As with the election fraud, there is a real question here for the United States: how much do we want to know and when do we want to know it? The ICC is at best only going to try a tiny handful of suspects–most killers and their sponsors will not be directly touched. The ICC’s ability to gain convictions is not a foregone conclusion. Trials, however, would be public and would let the Kenyan public–and the international public–hear details of what happened. The United States has claimed to have quite a bit of information about the post-election violence. Presumably this is the case with the British and the other European players. To date, we have supported the ICC process lukewarmly as a substitute for the local tribunals that we preferred but the Kenyan leadership refused to approve. Where are we on this now?
From the Saturday Nation, “Mutula to Ocampo: Quit Kenya Probe”:
A Cabinet Minister has launched a controversial campaign to stop the International Criminal Court from investigating and prosecuting post-election violence suspects.
Lawyer Mutula Kilonzo, who holds the Justice portfolio, claims that trial sought by the ICC chief prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo after he completes investigations in the next few weeks will be unnecessary when Kenya establishes a new judiciary, appoints an inspector-general of police, and installs a new director of public prosecution under the new Constitution.
The minister, whose docket is crucial to obtaining justice for the victims of the violence that broke out after the 2007 General Election, argued: “When these (appointments) are in place, we can say that Kenyan judges meet the best international standards. After that, I can even tell them not to admit the ICC case. Why on earth should a Kenyan go to The Hague?”
Perhaps this is the first major turning point toward reducing impunity for political figures in Kenya. Obviously the Kenyan Government itself needed to have taken action long ago, and the timing means this will be coinciding with these early phases of the 2012 election campaign–nonetheless, I am very pleased to see this happen as I know so many Kenyans are as well. Congratulations to all those who have worked very hard to see this day.
For the first time, I have an occasion to post about something taking place right here “on the ground” in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Last night my daughter and I attended a screening of the film “The Reckoning”, the documentary story of “the battle for the International Criminal Court”, at our town’s arts and culture center. We both found it inspiring and greatly enjoyed getting to meet and talk with Director Pamela Yates who was accompanying the film on a “Southern Series”.
The film website has been on my links to the right since about the time I started this blog and I would highly recommend it. It gives background for the Court concept dating back to the Nuremberg trials and has lots of coverage of the development of the cases in Northern Uganda and Eastern Congo, as well as Darfur. Good insight on Ocampo and the prosecutors working with him. Ms. Yates is deeply engaged and knowledgeable–and she and her colleagues are following the proceedings before the Court in Kenya.
Her previous film, “State of Fear” involved the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission in Peru.
For more information on the ICC–including news from the Kenya inquiry–and citizen activism to support it, go to IJCentral:
Skylight Pictures and the International Center for Transitional Justice Productions (ICTJP) are producing a 3-year campaign to build a global grassroots movement to support an effective international justice system, with IJCentral at its core. By joining the IJCentral global community, you will be kept informed about developments with the ICC and other international justice cases, and your voice will be heard by our leaders and policy makers, letting them know that we want perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide to be held to account.
Daily Nation: Kenya chaos: Ocampo gives list of 20 to ICC
The Standard: Ocampa tables 20 names for prosecution
As noted, it appears that Ocampo has broader ambitions than the number of 4-6 top suspects mooted previously in public discussions by others.
Approaching Jamhuri Day, a year after the protests and arrests over the Media Bill at the 2008 celebration, the “Government of National Unity” has now expended 40 percent of the potential time remaining before the end of the second Kibaki term and the next election.
I always agreed with those who felt that a stop-gap coalition government was only appropriate as an interim measure, rather than for a full five year term as insisted on by the US government at the time, and I have remained skeptical about how much of substance can be agreed on by this sort of coalition that goes beyond things that are merely of common interest to all members of the current political class.
To start with, it took a full year to fire the old ECK. In return for severance and impunity–and impunity of the worst kind in that there was no attempt to actually investigate the conduct of the commission and all were treated equally regardless of whether they tried in good faith to do their jobs or not. They even managed to get away with declining to turn over key records to the Kreigler Commission.
Another year later, it certainly appears that the alleged legislative agreement to “implement” the Waki Report is no deeper than a press release. While Annan has stayed engaged and Ocampo has stepped up, the reality remains that almost two years after the election what we have legally are only preliminary steps that might lead to a full investigation that might later lead to legal charges that might later lead to actual trials–and only for the limited category of “crimes against humanity” as opposed to murder, rape, mayhem, bribery, extortion and all the other things that account for what happened with the election and its aftermath. At this point, I am skeptical that the ICC process is all that likely to run its course before the 2012 campaign begins in earnest.
We have seen a successful rebellion against the president’s reappointment of the KACC head, but we haven’t seen new investigations keeping up with the new scandals, much less starting to work on the backlog.
On the positive front, we have the promulgation of the draft proposed constitution and the seizure of a very large cache of weapons. We’ve seen draft constitutions in years past–maybe this will go better, and if so, it has the potential to direct some of the competition in 2012 in slightly different directions than what we have seen in other recent elections, which might be good. Maybe we will have follow up investigations, arrests and prosecutions from the weapons seizure and there will be some accountability for the people involved–if not, at least we will have clarified how badly Kenya is in trouble in regard to the flow of weapons.
On balance, it seems to me that as we enter 2010 people who care about Kenya while remaining committed to democracy in the international community need some fresh thinking beyond the occasional jawboning and visa bans. You can sometimes pressure people into doing specific things that you want them to do–you can’t pressure people into transforming their character and priorities. And surely the US isn’t relying primarily on the ICC since we decline to join.
UPDATE–Some good news of sorts: http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/820330/-/item/1/-/lmlu84/-/index.html“>The Daily Nation reports:
They said they are investigating the theory that a senior security officer and a foreign military base were connected to the illegal military equipment.
One of the leads being followed is that the officer, based at the AP Training College, facilitated the smuggling of bullets out of the institution.
Detectives said they suspected that the bulk of the bullets came from the AP armoury and the foreign military base in Northern Kenya.
Of course, we have a classic example of Kenyan reporting in an era of a partially free press: important news, but “the foreign military base in Northern Kenya” . . . . hmm, which one?
