Emeka-Mayaka Gekara
20 June 2009
Nairobi — A week before he hosts a Kenyan team at the Hague, the man who would open the secret Waki envelope delivered a strong message in an exclusive interview with the Saturday Nation: Justice will be done.
Mr Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the International Criminal Court prosecutor, vowed to investigate and indict the prime suspects in the post-election violence within only one year – perhaps in response to the widely-repeated view in Kenya that the Hague option would be a soft landing.
“No one is immune from prosecution before the ICC; politicians, businessmen or security officers may all be brought to account in accordance with their criminal responsibility,” he declared.
Mr Moreno-Ocampo’s comments will likely pile pressure on Kenya to speed up the formation of a local tribunal to try the suspects at home, the first of two options recommended by the Waki Commission on Post-Election Violence.
Only nine days ago, the chief mediator in the post-election stalemate, Mr Kofi Annan, protested at the delay in setting up the local tribunal. He said Kenya had until August to do so or else he would resort to the second option by handing over the envelope containing names of the prime suspects to Mr Moreno-Ocampo.
The chief prosecutor will host a government delegation on July 1 led by Justice and Constitutional Affairs minister Mutula Kilonzo.
Earlier this week, Mr Kilonzo threw his weight behind a local court by saying that he would “never accept (the option of) a Kenyan to be tried in a foreign court.”
But then he appeared to pull back by observing that “if the cost of the tribunal was to break up Kenya”, he would not push it forward.
“As we fight impunity and safeguarding the rule of law, we should ensure that the country sticks together.”
Mr Kilonzo will be accompanied by Lands minister James Orengo, attorney-general Amos Wako, Mr Abdikadir Mohammed, the chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Law Review, Justice assistant minister William Cheptumo and permanent secretary Amina Mohammed.
Kenya’s permanent representative to the UN, Mr Zachary Muburi Muita is also scheduled to join them.
Though packaged as a fact-finding visit, the tour is seen by some as a strategy by the Government to buy time and ease pressure from The Hague as well as the international community.
But Mr Kilonzo denies any attempts to slow down The Hague process.
The newly-issued audit report of the coalition’s progress on reforms commissioned by the Kofi Annan-led Panel of Eminent Persons indicates that 53 per of those interviewed favour trial at the International Criminal Court.
According to the audit by South Consulting, 33 per cent favour a local tribunal. Most of the respondents believe that a local tribunal will be corrupted, and that the suspects will be accorded fair judgment in The Hague.
Nine per cent of those interviewed between January and April this year, are of the view that the suspects should not be tried.
Perhaps more important, the report captures the dilemma and fears rising out of the drive to try perpetrators of the 2008 chaos.
On the fight against impunity, Kenya is caught between a rock and a hard place: If it does not set a special tribunal, the ICC will swing into action.
If the tribunal is established, it can trigger new violence. Prosecutions are likely to be seen as revenge against one community causing the other to retaliate, the survey data show.
The audit report will be the main agenda of a June 30 meeting by the Serena team before Mr Kilonzo and his delegation fly out to Geneva where he also hopes to meet Dr Annan.
According to the survey, 18 per cent of Kenyans interviewed say members of their community will attack other groups if a senior politician from their community is arrested in connection with the violence.
A further 14 per cent would threaten their neighbours, 26 per cent will demonstrate against the move but 33 per cent will support prosecution of senior members of their community.
Fear of revenge
There is also fear that witnesses may be unwilling to testify for fear of revenge.
Ironically, 59 per cent of Kenyans believe that prosecution of the poll violence suspects will prevent a repeat of fighting after the next election.
Parliament rejected a Bill to establish the special tribunal but Mr Kilonzo plans to return it to Parliament next month.
But the minister says he is not bound by the Annan deadline.
“The deadline has never been discussed anywhere by the Kenya Dialogue and Reconciliation that meets at Serena. I don’t know where it comes from,” he said in an interview on Thursday.
Mr Kilonzo says his team will explain the Kenyan situation to the prosecutor and discuss issues revolving around it.
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