Saturday, December 18, 2010

Lords of impunity put on notice as Ocampo strikes

By GAKUU MATHENGE
The naming of six key post-election chaos suspects by the International Criminal Court (ICC) has put Kenya on an unstoppable plane to end impunity.
On Wednesday, ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo named six prominent Kenyans he said should be held accountable for post-election violence that killed 1,300 people and displaced over 650,000 in a span of three weeks in 2008.
Attention now turns to the ICC Pre-trial Chamber judges, who are expected to assess and approve proceeding to full trials for some or all the suspects.
If approval is granted, Kenyans will for the first time hear from Moreno-Ocampo and his witnesses how the violence was conceived, plotted, and executed. They will also perhaps hear what it was hoped to achieve.
On the list are Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, Head of the Civil Service Francis Muthaura, Industrialisation Minister and ODM chairman Henry Kosgey, Eldoret North MP William Ruto, former Police Commissioner Maj-Gen (Rtd) Hussein Ali and FM radio presenter Joshua arap Sang.
Human rights advocates say Wednesday was a turning point in the fight against impunity.
It was the first time local political actors and security agencies were called to account for their acts of commission and omission.
And while politicians resorted to trickery to subvert, stall and discredit the ICC process, Kenya Human Rights Commission Executive Director Lyn Muthoni Wanyeki says Kenyans should count themselves lucky that the ICC took up the case so fast, and is being executed so soon after 2008 post-election violence.
Ignore propaganda
"Kenyans should realise they are lucky. Other countries and victims have had to wait for many years, and many more and equally deserving situations are still waiting to be addressed. Palestinians are still waiting for the ICC to look into the atrocities inflicted by the Israel Army. Many other situations are also pending and victims hurting," Ms Wanyeki says.
Safina leader and former Kikuyu MP Paul Muite urges Kenyans to ignore propaganda being waged against the ICC.
"This is propaganda to discredit ICC and make political capital out of it. There is no evidence that ICC targets African leaders. To the contrary, it is African leaders who invite ICC investigators to their countries to help investigate situations they felt were overwhelming to the national police," Mr Muite says.
Uhuru is son of founding President Jomo Kenyatta and as DPM and Finance Minister, is the highest-ranking politician in the list. Uhuru is also the most influential politician in President Kibaki’s Party of National Unity (PNU) and central Kenya.
His name and that of Muthaura seem to have placed the highest responsibility for the violence at President Kibaki’s door.
President Kibaki was Head of State and Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces during the mayhem and the highest duty of securing lives and property vested in his office. The violence caused economic ruin estimated at Sh70 billion for thousands of families.
Centre for Multi-Party Democracy Executive Director Njeri Kabeberi says ICC has granted Kenya an opportunity to break the culture of impunity. "In 1990s, politically instigated ethnic violence and subversion of elections became the norm. By 2007, barons of impunity had learnt they could get away with anything," Ms Kabeberi says.
The ICC intervention now puts Kenya on the dubious list of nations that could not handle investigations and prosecutions of situations inside their boundaries.
The ICC intervention became inevitable after Parliament failed to establish a local tribunal to try post-election violence suspects as recommended by the Justice Philip Waki-led commission.
Waki recommended a special tribunal to try suspects and quantify compensation for victims.

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