Kenya’s president & PM in disagreement over ICC deferral ahead of UNSC meeting
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March 13, 2011 (WASHINGTON) – The United Nations Security Council
(UNSC) is scheduled to hold an consultative session next week devoted
to discussions on Kenya’s request for halting prosecutions by the
International Criminal Court (ICC) against six individuals including
senior government officials.
JPEG - 35 kb
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki (L) looks at Kenya’s PM Raila Odinga (AFP)
Prominent among the six suspects are finance minister and deputy prime
minister Uhuru Kenyatta, son of Kenya’s founding father Jomo Kenyatta,
and William Ruto, the higher education minister who has been suspended
to fight a corruption case.
The rest are cabinet secretary Francis Muthaura, former
industrialization minister Henry Kosgey, who quit the cabinet to fight
separate corruption charges in court, former police chief Mohammed
Hussein Ali and radio executive Joshua arap Sang.
The ICC Pre-Trial Chambers ruled that they have cases to answer and
should appear before the court at the Hague on April 7th. All six
pledged to honor the summons.
The case relates to the post-election violence that broke out in
2007-2008 that reportedly left 3,500 people injured and up to 600,000
forcibly displaced.
Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan brokered a power-sharing deal
between the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) headed by Raila Odinga
and Party National Unity (PNU) led by Mwai Kibaki.
Furthermore, they agreed that perpetrators of the violence would face
justice. A commission of inquiry was formed to investigate the
violence and recommended those behind it should be tried in Kenya or
The Hague.
The ICC intervened after the Kenyan parliament shot down several
attempts to establish a local tribunal and many MP’s at the time said
they wanted the cases investigated at the Hague. Kibaki and Odinga
gave the ICC prosecutor the green light to initiate prosecutions in
late 2009 without making an explicit referral.
However, once the ICC prosecutor named the suspects he wants the
judges to charge, the Kenyan government announced its intention to
request a deferral pursuant to Article 16 of the Rome Statute which
allows the UNSC to suspend the court’s process in a specific case for
12 months that can be renewed indefinitely.
Nairobi initially said the move was needed to allow time for setting
up local tribunals to try the six suspects instead of seeing them
hauled to the Hague. The African Union (AU) adopted a resolution last
January backing Kenya’s request for a deferral from the UNSC.
But in a letter by Kenya to the UNSC sent this month it argued that
the ICC process represents a threat to the stability of the country
ahead of 2012 elections and risks stoking ethnic tensions.
This week, the UNSC pushed by South Africa agreed to discuss the
request by Kenya at an informal consultation session next Wednesday.
The Pan-African news agency (PANA) said that Kibaki has been invited
to join the deliberations at the UN headquarters but this was denied
by his spokesperson.
Diplomats on the council, however, said Kenya had little support for a
move to halt the ICC process.
"We’re happy to meet with the Kenyans and discuss it with them," a
Western diplomat told Reuters. "But I don’t know of a single council
member who actively supports the idea of a deferral."
The United States, Britain, France — all permanent veto-wielding
council members — are among those that oppose deferring the
proceedings, envoys said.
Furthermore, Odinga’s ODM sent a letter to the UNSC saying they don’t
approve of the deferral request.
"This petition presents a set of incontrovertible facts which will
assist The Security Council and other interested parties to understand
why the Kenyan cases at the ICC should neither be deferred nor
referred."
"The involvement of the ICC was necessitated by Kenya’s rejection to
establish a national judicial mechanism to deal with the crimes
committed. In fact, the Government of Kenya repeatedly made verbal and
written commitments to cooperate with the ICC and indicated that if it
was unable to prosecute the perpetrators of the 2007/08 post election
violence by September 2009, the ICC should do so. Those written and
public commitments were made by the Government to the ICC Prosecutor
both at The Hague and during his official visits to Nairobi,".
The AU requested a deferral for Sudanese president also charged by the
ICC but this found little appetite at the council particularly from
Western members.
(ST)
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