Africa Union out to push for return of International Criminal Court cases back home

By Martin Mutua

NAIROBI, KENYA: African Union leaders will today rally behind Kenya’s push to stop two cases at the International Criminal Court, just a day after Western nations opposed it.

They plan to pass a resolution backing a request to have ICC charges facing President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto referred back to a local court. The gesture of political support comes at a gathering in Ethiopia at which Uhuru comes face to face with the United States’ top diplomat, Secretary of State John Kerry, for the first time since his election. Before Uhuru’s victory at the ballot box on March 4, a senior US diplomat threatened unspecified “consequences” if he and his running mate William Ruto won the election.

Uhuru and Ruto separately face trial at the ICC, accused of masterminding ethnic bloodshed in post-election violence five years ago.

Both deny the charges.

Their effort to secure the United Nations Security Council’s support in having the ICC cases referred back to Kenya hit a snag on Friday with the US and European Union rejecting a request to urge the ICC to “terminate” the cases. “There was a very firm response from ICC Member States and the US that they must take their case to (The Hague-based) court,” said one Western diplomat, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity.

The matter takes centre stage today when most of the 54 Heads of State and Government from the continent converge for a general assembly of the Africa Union in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa. The assembly will be followed by celebrations to mark 50 years since the formation of the union, previously known as the Organisation of African Unity (O AU).

Deliberation

The leaders are set to deliberate on the cases at ICC and pass a resolution that sets a major precedent in international justice. Africa and the West appear to be on a political collision course over the way the court works.

The draft reads: “(The Assembly) supports and endorses the Eastern Africa region’s request for a referral of the ICC investigations and prosecutions.”

On Friday, Foreign Affairs ministers form the AU’s Council of Ministers met well into the evening to draft the agenda and resolutions to be adopted by the Heads of State when the assembly meets today. Foreign Secretary Amina Mohammed represented Kenya at the session. The ministers are reportedly agreed on a resolution to have the Kenya cases at the ICC referred back to a “local mechanism” in the country. A nine-point draft decision seen by The Standard On Saturday shows African Governments are unhappy that decisions to defer Uhuru and Ruto’s cases, as well as those facing Sudan President Hassan Omar Al Bashir, had not been acted upon by the UN Security Council.

The resolutions further affirm the AU decisions previously undertaken in 2009, 2011 and last year expressing strong conviction that “justice should be pursued in a way that does not impede or jeopardise efforts at promoting lasting peace”.

The leaders also reiterate the AU’s concern about the “misuse of indictments” against African leaders by prosecutors at the ICC.

In earlier meetings, there were calls for limits to powers wielded by the court’s prosecutors, with criticism targeted primarily at the first Chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo. The resolutions, which are said to have the support of all African countries except one, state that the Kenya cases are a threat to peace and security in Africa.

The Heads of State will back a national mechanism (read court) to “undertake investigations and prosecutions of the cases under a reformed judiciary as provided in the new constitution”. This, the foreign ministers’ draft says, will be the only way to prevent a resumption of conflict and violence in the country.

They will also mandate the AU, in collaboration with the African Court of Human and People’s Rights and the AU Commission on International Law, to organize a discussion on international criminal justice system, peace and reconciliation as well as the impact/actions of the ICC in Africa.

This, they argue, will not only inform the ICCprocess but also seek ways of strengthening African mechanisms to deal with African challenges and problems.

President Uhuru has already travelled to Addis Ababa to attend the AU fete, having left the country on Thursday afternoon.

US representative to attend

President Barack Obama’s top representative, Secretary of State John Kerry, was scheduled to arrive in the Ethiopian capital last evening.

Diplomatic sources say the diplomat has a message from Obama for the continent and is likely to hold informal sessions with several African Heads of State on the sidelines.

It is not clear whether he has scheduled a one-on-one meeting with Uhuru. The President was recently invited to London for a conference on Somalia and met British PM David Cameron privately. It is also not clear whether Kerry will address the AU position on the ICC.