Uhuru and Ruto fallout imminent as ICC beckons

By Juma KwayeraHaving, so far, spoken in one voice since the disclosure last December of identities of the six people the International Criminal Court (ICC) accuses of stoking and financing post-election violence, a major falling out looms between two of the politicians implicated in the mayhem.
This follows revelations that the evidence deposited at the ICC by Party of National Unity (PNU) on its new ally Eldoret North MP William Ruto is damning.
The Higher Education Minister will also have to contend with Information in possession of ICC provided by a minister. The evidence described by those who have seen it as ‘highly incriminating’ is said to have been filed before Ocampo made public the names of the six suspects last December.
Ruto will also have to contend with information in possession of ICC courtesy of a PNU minister from Rift Valley.
The minister could not be reached for comment, nor did he respond to questions sent on his cell-phone. However, a friend of his accused senior officials in the ministry of turning over the former higher education minister to ICC.
It was immediately clear how the MPs got access to the evidence with ICC. However, lawyers versed with international law say the six suspects have a right to know the evidence the court will use if the charges against them will be confirmed.
The minister is said to have admitted in private to friends to providing ICC with records of Ruto’s text messages and telephone conversations on orders of the spy agency, the National Security Intelligence Service.
Consequently, a major rift between PNU and Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) renegades is in the offing as they prepare to travel to The Hague on April 7 and 8 for confirmation of their charges.
Regional Development Minister Fred Gumo and Nominated MP Musa Sirma alluded to the fact that Ruto and Uhuru are headed for a clash during a tour of St Patrick’s Iten High School with Prime Minister Raila Odinga. Gumo told Ruto he had gone to bed with the enemy, and he knows it. The minister spoke at a time there was talk the bulk of the evidence Moreno-Ocampo has, was collected before the National Accord that was signed on February 28, 2008.
However, it is ODM Jakoyo Midiwo who provided The Standard on Sunday with details of how PNU ministers fixed Ruto.
"I know very well Ruto was turned in by PNU ministers. It irritates me that, although he knows how he was fixed, he still wants to blame ODM for his political troubles," says Midiwo. He says majority of PNU ministers now dining with Ruto were the architects of his date with ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo.
The plot to fix Ruto was first alluded to by former Minister for Justice Martha Karua in February 2009, when she refuted claims by the Eldoret North MP that she had been invited to partnership talks ahead of next year’s presidential poll.
Karua, under whose docket the evidence was collected, described her Cabinet colleague as a post-election violence suspect with "a lot of baggage."
She said, "Why would a Minister of Justice use night meetings to sort out issues with suspects, when she has the whole justice system at her disposal… Why would I bother to get on board with somebody like him? He is a major political baggage?"
The evidence, described by those who have seen it as ‘highly incriminating’ was filed before Ocampo made public the names of the six suspects last December.
Imenti Central MP, Gitobu Imanyara, told The Standard on Sunday the hardening feelings against Ruto was the culmination of a two-year strategy to ‘grab’ him from the PM, and in the process weaken ODM.
Imanyara, who is versed with international court procedures, says he is aware the evidence filed by PNU is sure to be a source of discomfort between Uhuru and Ruto when it is made public.
Sources in PNU and ODM privy to the evidence mailed to ICC say April 7, when the court is to confirm or reject the charges, will be a defining moment in inter- and intra-party politics, with Uhuru and Ruto as chief protagonists.
The imminent rift is underlain by strategic distancing by President Kibaki from the Ruto faction in ODM, which has seen the President twice decline to meet Ruto and Dujis MP Adan Duale (at Office of the President) on no-appointment grounds.
The frosty phase in relationships between the two is a dramatic shift from the cosy interaction the two enjoyed barely two months ago, when the President attended rallies in Rift Valley to cement their newfound solidarity against ICC and the Prime Minister.
A senior official close to the President who declined to be named said the April 7-8 ICC date will see a retraction of confrontational language that have dominated political discourse between the two parties since the six names were published.
"Ruto is in PNU at the mercy of First Lady Lucy Kibaki, not the old man himself. However, certain developments indicate that falling out between Uhuru and Ruto is also imminent as The Hague process takes off," said the source.
The evidence, part of documents deposited at the International Criminal Court and seen by top lawyers and politicians in PNU and ODM, promise a bruising contest between Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru and Ruto. The point of departure in the newfound alliance between Uhuru and Ruto are the serious allegations the former is said to have levelled against the Eldoret MP, which implicates him in the Kiambaa church murders, among other crimes against humanity.
Minister for Nairobi Metropolitan Development Njeru Githae concedes PNU filed counter-evidence of crimes against humanity against ODM leaders, "but the ICC chief prosecutor only accepted what ODM supplied against PNU."
Githae, who avoided commenting on what Uhuru has up his sleeves against Ruto, says, "Uhuru is preparing his defence and has not implicated anybody. I have seen videos of his defence that show him distributing food victims of post-election near Limuru. One clip shows him prevailing on crowd not to attack rivals."
The minister says PNU’s report, although rejected by ICC, implicates the ODM top decision-making organ, the Pentagon, before Ruto parted ways with the Prime Minister.