How Museveni, Kagame tried to stop Ruto going to Hague
Monday, 07 October 2013 15:28
East African leaders against ICC
Somalilandsun - Now African states in aggressive diplomatic efforts to
halt ICC trials of three Kenyans
Emerging details reveal the desperate manoeuvres by the EA leaders to
get President Uhuru Kenyatta to prevent his deputy from attending the
ICC sittings ahead of his own trial on charges of crimes against
humanity. Photos/FILE Nation Media Group
By DANIEL K. KALINAKI The EastAfrican
In Summary
• The EastAfrican has learnt that President Kenyatta insisted on his
deputy attending court, arguing that failure to appear before the ICC
could trigger a warrant of arrest and "the argument of whether they
are innocent would be lost."
• After failing to stop Mr Ruto's brief appearance in the ICC dock
last week, African states, led by the African Union and masterminded
by Uganda, are now pursuing an aggressive diplomatic effort to halt
the trials.
• In addition, President Museveni has successfully sought an
extraordinary summit of the African Union, whose sole agenda will be
Africa's relationship with the ICC. The meeting is to be held in
October, ahead of the start of President Kenyatta's trial.
Uganda and Rwanda asked President Uhuru Kenyatta to stop Deputy
President William Ruto from flying to The Hague as his trial on
charges of crimes against humanity kicked off last week, highly placed
sources have told The EastAfrican.
The request was tabled when President Kenyatta met Uganda's Foreign
Affairs Minister Sam Kutesa and Rwanda's Louise Mushikiwabo in Nairobi
on September 8, two days before Mr Ruto flew out to the International
Criminal Court.
The EastAfrican has learnt that President Kenyatta insisted on his
deputy attending court, arguing that failure to appear before the ICC
could trigger a warrant of arrest and "the argument of whether they
are innocent would be lost."
The request was part of the behind-the-scenes efforts by the African
Union to stop the prosecution of President Kenyatta and his deputy on
charges of crimes against humanity at the ICC in The Hague.
Mr Ruto and journalist Joshua Sang entered a "not guilty" plea to
charges of murder, deportation or forcible transfer of population and
persecution over the 2007/8 post-election violence that left 1,133
people dead and displaced 650,000 others. President Kenyatta, whose
trial is set to begin on November 12, is charged with murder,
deportation or forcible transfer of population, rape, persecution and
other inhumane acts.
READ: Kenya pulls out all the stops to have ICC cases dropped
After failing to stop Mr Ruto's brief appearance in the ICC dock last
week, African states, led by the African Union and masterminded by
Uganda, are now pursuing an aggressive diplomatic effort to halt the
trials. The strategy involves mobilising support across the continent
"to turn a trial of two Kenyan politicians, into a trial of the
African people."
Kenya's Foreign Minister Amina Mohammed last week led a delegation of
regional diplomats to Addis Ababa to lobby Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, the
chairperson of the African Union Commission, to have the AU spearhead
the lobbying against the ICC.
Following the meeting, and teleconferences between the foreign
ministers of Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Uganda between September 8
and 9 at which a strategy was developed to drum up pressure against
the ICC, Ethiopia's Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn wrote to the
ICC on September 10, urging it to respond to a request to transfer the
cases against the two politicians and the journalist to local courts
in Kenya.
"Until the request of the AU is considered and clearly responded to,
the case should not proceed," Mr Desalegn wrote, in his capacity as
current chairperson of the 54-member African Union.
In addition, President Museveni has successfully sought an
extraordinary summit of the African Union, whose sole agenda will be
Africa's relationship with the ICC. The meeting is to be held in
October, ahead of the start of President Kenyatta's trial.
According to diplomatic sources, the summit is expected to arrive at a
resolution on the ICC that would force the UN to negotiate a deal to
halt the trials.
Efforts to fight the cases started as soon as Kenyatta and Ruto were
sworn in, with the Kenyan leaders seeking the support of President
Museveni to mobilise support against the ICC. This culminated in
Uganda sponsoring a motion at the AU Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,
in May, at which a resolution was passed urging the ICC to refer the
cases back to Kenya.
"African leaders have come to a consensus that the [ICC] process that
has been conducted in Africa has a flaw," Mr Desalegn told reporters
at the end of the May summit, which also marked the 50th anniversary
of the AU. "The intention was to avoid any kind of impunity... but now
the process has degenerated into some kind of race-hunting."
The ICC, however, brushed off the resolution as a political instrument
that had no bearing on a judicial process. Undeterred, African
diplomats have continued to rally support against the process in The
Hague using a two-pronged strategy.
Internally, the Kenyan government has been fast-tracking efforts to
close camps for internally displaced people and ameliorate their
conditions before the trial kicks off.
In addition, it was agreed that while the two principals would
continue to publicly express their confidence and co-operation with
the ICC, pressure would continue to be raised by rallying domestic
constituencies. Thus while parliament and Senate turned up the
pressure by voting to withdraw Kenya from the ICC, the executive,
which would be required to initiate a Bill to turn the threat into a
piece of legislation, continued to express confidence in the process
in The Hague.
Those efforts gained a sense of urgency last week after Mr Ruto
appeared in the dock, followed by Mr Sang. The reality of a sitting
African leader appearing before judges at the ICC appears to have
rankled many heads of state and government across the continent and
has given momentum to the renewed effort to either kill the
prosecution in The Hague, or hand it over to local courts in Kenya or
Africa.
A senior Kenyan official told The EastAfrican that Mr Ruto, who flew
back to Kenya after a short adjournment in the trial, would return to
The Hague as scheduled next week.
Asked if President Kenyatta would honour his date with the Hague court
on November 12, the official said: "He is prepared to go but Africans
are not keen to see him go.... the extraordinary summit of the African
Union has been scheduled in October, ahead of November 12. It could
change the game plan."
The EastAfrican has learnt that African states plan to take the matter
to the UN General Assembly in New York later this month if the ICC
does not accede to their request to drop the trial or move it to
Kenya.
The African states are expected to make five points to press their
case: That the trial of Kenya's top two executives will undermine
their ability to govern the country; that a lot of work has already
been done to resettle the people displaced by the post-election
violence in 2008; that the trial will reopen old wounds; that Kenya
has a new Constitution that can be used to create local courts to try
the cases; and that the AU request to have the case moved to Kenya has
been ignored by the ICC.
"If they ignore us, we will need to find alternatives because the ICC
has become a theatre of a witch-hunt of Africans," a senior African
diplomat told The EastAfrican, adding, "We haven't heard of any
prosecutions of people from Syria, from Burma, from Iraq; we want them
to be fair and for the court to work for all people."
African countries now want the charges dropped, the officials to be
tried in absentia, or for the trials to move to a local court in
Kenya.
The plan is to use the Security Council to bring pressure to bear on
the ICC, a regional diplomat said. Rwanda, which is not a signatory to
the Rome Statute that established the ICC in 2002, but which holds a
temporary seat on the Security Council, has already expressed its
support for the AU resolution on the matter.
ALSO READ: ICC: Kenya's is a lose-lose strategy even if the AU has its way
It is understood that AU chairperson Mr Hailemariam wrote to UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon informing him that African states would
reconsider their participation in international activities, such as
the Somalia Conference, if the trials hinder Kenya's ability to
participate in them.
The EastAfrican has been told that if the African states fail to
negotiate concessions now or at the UN General Assembly later this
month, at the extraordinary AU Heads of State summit in Addis in
October, they will consider withdrawing from the ICC en masse.
While this puts pressure on the ICC, the move by the AU member states
will also raise questions about their commitment to ending the
injustice and impunity that the ICC was set up to address.
Some 34 African countries have ratified the ICC Treaty and four out of
the eight cases currently before the court were referred to it by
African states.
Uganda was the first country to use the new court when it referred
Joseph Kony and other leaders of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army to
the court in 2002. Permanent Secretary in the Foreign Affairs Ministry
James Mugume defended the country against charges of double standards.
"Now Uganda has domesticated the Rome Statute and opened a special
court to try war crimes, meaning Kony can be tried here. That is in
line with the principles of the Rome Statute; of delivering justice
for impunity but also fostering peace and reconciliation," Mr Mugume
told The EastAfrican.
"If Kony were tried by the ICC and imprisoned in The Hague, it would
make some Western and a few other countries happy, but would that
deliver justice to the people in Acholi who were victims of LRA
atrocities?"
He added: "For some of us who participated in formulation of the Rome
Statute, there were two key principles: Justice and impunity on the
one hand and peace and reconciliation on the other. It seems some
people have forgotten this. The West says it was Kenyans who in the
first place took the case to ICC; yes, Kenya took the case there
because they did not have structures [to try suspects and deliver
justice at home]. But now they have. So why can't they be allowed to
handle the case at home?"
Civil society organisations representing the victims of the
post-election violence say Kenya failed to establish a local mechanism
to try the perpetrators and that the current efforts to undermine the
ICC trials will perpetuate impunity and undermine justice and
reconciliation.
Additional reporting by Tabu Butagira in Kampala
http://somalilandsun.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3931:how-museveni-kagame-tried-to-stop-ruto-going-to-hague&catid=25:international
--
SIBOMANA Jean Bosco
Google+: https://plus.google.com/110493390983174363421/posts
YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9B4024D0AE764F3D
http://www.youtube.com/user/sibomanaxyz999
Online Time: 7H30-20H00, heure de Montréal.
Fuseau horaire domestique: heure normale de la côte Est des
Etats-Unis&Canada (TU-05:00)
Monday, 07 October 2013 15:28
East African leaders against ICC
Somalilandsun - Now African states in aggressive diplomatic efforts to
halt ICC trials of three Kenyans
Emerging details reveal the desperate manoeuvres by the EA leaders to
get President Uhuru Kenyatta to prevent his deputy from attending the
ICC sittings ahead of his own trial on charges of crimes against
humanity. Photos/FILE Nation Media Group
By DANIEL K. KALINAKI The EastAfrican
In Summary
• The EastAfrican has learnt that President Kenyatta insisted on his
deputy attending court, arguing that failure to appear before the ICC
could trigger a warrant of arrest and "the argument of whether they
are innocent would be lost."
• After failing to stop Mr Ruto's brief appearance in the ICC dock
last week, African states, led by the African Union and masterminded
by Uganda, are now pursuing an aggressive diplomatic effort to halt
the trials.
• In addition, President Museveni has successfully sought an
extraordinary summit of the African Union, whose sole agenda will be
Africa's relationship with the ICC. The meeting is to be held in
October, ahead of the start of President Kenyatta's trial.
Uganda and Rwanda asked President Uhuru Kenyatta to stop Deputy
President William Ruto from flying to The Hague as his trial on
charges of crimes against humanity kicked off last week, highly placed
sources have told The EastAfrican.
The request was tabled when President Kenyatta met Uganda's Foreign
Affairs Minister Sam Kutesa and Rwanda's Louise Mushikiwabo in Nairobi
on September 8, two days before Mr Ruto flew out to the International
Criminal Court.
The EastAfrican has learnt that President Kenyatta insisted on his
deputy attending court, arguing that failure to appear before the ICC
could trigger a warrant of arrest and "the argument of whether they
are innocent would be lost."
The request was part of the behind-the-scenes efforts by the African
Union to stop the prosecution of President Kenyatta and his deputy on
charges of crimes against humanity at the ICC in The Hague.
Mr Ruto and journalist Joshua Sang entered a "not guilty" plea to
charges of murder, deportation or forcible transfer of population and
persecution over the 2007/8 post-election violence that left 1,133
people dead and displaced 650,000 others. President Kenyatta, whose
trial is set to begin on November 12, is charged with murder,
deportation or forcible transfer of population, rape, persecution and
other inhumane acts.
READ: Kenya pulls out all the stops to have ICC cases dropped
After failing to stop Mr Ruto's brief appearance in the ICC dock last
week, African states, led by the African Union and masterminded by
Uganda, are now pursuing an aggressive diplomatic effort to halt the
trials. The strategy involves mobilising support across the continent
"to turn a trial of two Kenyan politicians, into a trial of the
African people."
Kenya's Foreign Minister Amina Mohammed last week led a delegation of
regional diplomats to Addis Ababa to lobby Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, the
chairperson of the African Union Commission, to have the AU spearhead
the lobbying against the ICC.
Following the meeting, and teleconferences between the foreign
ministers of Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Uganda between September 8
and 9 at which a strategy was developed to drum up pressure against
the ICC, Ethiopia's Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn wrote to the
ICC on September 10, urging it to respond to a request to transfer the
cases against the two politicians and the journalist to local courts
in Kenya.
"Until the request of the AU is considered and clearly responded to,
the case should not proceed," Mr Desalegn wrote, in his capacity as
current chairperson of the 54-member African Union.
In addition, President Museveni has successfully sought an
extraordinary summit of the African Union, whose sole agenda will be
Africa's relationship with the ICC. The meeting is to be held in
October, ahead of the start of President Kenyatta's trial.
According to diplomatic sources, the summit is expected to arrive at a
resolution on the ICC that would force the UN to negotiate a deal to
halt the trials.
Efforts to fight the cases started as soon as Kenyatta and Ruto were
sworn in, with the Kenyan leaders seeking the support of President
Museveni to mobilise support against the ICC. This culminated in
Uganda sponsoring a motion at the AU Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,
in May, at which a resolution was passed urging the ICC to refer the
cases back to Kenya.
"African leaders have come to a consensus that the [ICC] process that
has been conducted in Africa has a flaw," Mr Desalegn told reporters
at the end of the May summit, which also marked the 50th anniversary
of the AU. "The intention was to avoid any kind of impunity... but now
the process has degenerated into some kind of race-hunting."
The ICC, however, brushed off the resolution as a political instrument
that had no bearing on a judicial process. Undeterred, African
diplomats have continued to rally support against the process in The
Hague using a two-pronged strategy.
Internally, the Kenyan government has been fast-tracking efforts to
close camps for internally displaced people and ameliorate their
conditions before the trial kicks off.
In addition, it was agreed that while the two principals would
continue to publicly express their confidence and co-operation with
the ICC, pressure would continue to be raised by rallying domestic
constituencies. Thus while parliament and Senate turned up the
pressure by voting to withdraw Kenya from the ICC, the executive,
which would be required to initiate a Bill to turn the threat into a
piece of legislation, continued to express confidence in the process
in The Hague.
Those efforts gained a sense of urgency last week after Mr Ruto
appeared in the dock, followed by Mr Sang. The reality of a sitting
African leader appearing before judges at the ICC appears to have
rankled many heads of state and government across the continent and
has given momentum to the renewed effort to either kill the
prosecution in The Hague, or hand it over to local courts in Kenya or
Africa.
A senior Kenyan official told The EastAfrican that Mr Ruto, who flew
back to Kenya after a short adjournment in the trial, would return to
The Hague as scheduled next week.
Asked if President Kenyatta would honour his date with the Hague court
on November 12, the official said: "He is prepared to go but Africans
are not keen to see him go.... the extraordinary summit of the African
Union has been scheduled in October, ahead of November 12. It could
change the game plan."
The EastAfrican has learnt that African states plan to take the matter
to the UN General Assembly in New York later this month if the ICC
does not accede to their request to drop the trial or move it to
Kenya.
The African states are expected to make five points to press their
case: That the trial of Kenya's top two executives will undermine
their ability to govern the country; that a lot of work has already
been done to resettle the people displaced by the post-election
violence in 2008; that the trial will reopen old wounds; that Kenya
has a new Constitution that can be used to create local courts to try
the cases; and that the AU request to have the case moved to Kenya has
been ignored by the ICC.
"If they ignore us, we will need to find alternatives because the ICC
has become a theatre of a witch-hunt of Africans," a senior African
diplomat told The EastAfrican, adding, "We haven't heard of any
prosecutions of people from Syria, from Burma, from Iraq; we want them
to be fair and for the court to work for all people."
African countries now want the charges dropped, the officials to be
tried in absentia, or for the trials to move to a local court in
Kenya.
The plan is to use the Security Council to bring pressure to bear on
the ICC, a regional diplomat said. Rwanda, which is not a signatory to
the Rome Statute that established the ICC in 2002, but which holds a
temporary seat on the Security Council, has already expressed its
support for the AU resolution on the matter.
ALSO READ: ICC: Kenya's is a lose-lose strategy even if the AU has its way
It is understood that AU chairperson Mr Hailemariam wrote to UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon informing him that African states would
reconsider their participation in international activities, such as
the Somalia Conference, if the trials hinder Kenya's ability to
participate in them.
The EastAfrican has been told that if the African states fail to
negotiate concessions now or at the UN General Assembly later this
month, at the extraordinary AU Heads of State summit in Addis in
October, they will consider withdrawing from the ICC en masse.
While this puts pressure on the ICC, the move by the AU member states
will also raise questions about their commitment to ending the
injustice and impunity that the ICC was set up to address.
Some 34 African countries have ratified the ICC Treaty and four out of
the eight cases currently before the court were referred to it by
African states.
Uganda was the first country to use the new court when it referred
Joseph Kony and other leaders of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army to
the court in 2002. Permanent Secretary in the Foreign Affairs Ministry
James Mugume defended the country against charges of double standards.
"Now Uganda has domesticated the Rome Statute and opened a special
court to try war crimes, meaning Kony can be tried here. That is in
line with the principles of the Rome Statute; of delivering justice
for impunity but also fostering peace and reconciliation," Mr Mugume
told The EastAfrican.
"If Kony were tried by the ICC and imprisoned in The Hague, it would
make some Western and a few other countries happy, but would that
deliver justice to the people in Acholi who were victims of LRA
atrocities?"
He added: "For some of us who participated in formulation of the Rome
Statute, there were two key principles: Justice and impunity on the
one hand and peace and reconciliation on the other. It seems some
people have forgotten this. The West says it was Kenyans who in the
first place took the case to ICC; yes, Kenya took the case there
because they did not have structures [to try suspects and deliver
justice at home]. But now they have. So why can't they be allowed to
handle the case at home?"
Civil society organisations representing the victims of the
post-election violence say Kenya failed to establish a local mechanism
to try the perpetrators and that the current efforts to undermine the
ICC trials will perpetuate impunity and undermine justice and
reconciliation.
Additional reporting by Tabu Butagira in Kampala
http://somalilandsun.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3931:how-museveni-kagame-tried-to-stop-ruto-going-to-hague&catid=25:international
--
SIBOMANA Jean Bosco
Google+: https://plus.google.com/110493390983174363421/posts
YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9B4024D0AE764F3D
http://www.youtube.com/user/sibomanaxyz999
Online Time: 7H30-20H00, heure de Montréal.
Fuseau horaire domestique: heure normale de la côte Est des
Etats-Unis&Canada (TU-05:00)
__._,_.___
| Re |
No comments:
Post a Comment