Three months after President Uhuru Kenyatta unilaterally committed the country to donate a sum of $1 million (Sh93 million) to the African Union for the establishment of the African Court of Justice, mystery surrounds status of the pledge.
Answers on the matter from officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and African Union’s (AU) Nairobi offices did not come through, when contacted by The Standard On Sunday.
Similarly, State House Spokesman Manoah Esipisu declined to comment on the matter, instead referring The Standard on Sunday to Foreign Affairs ministry officials.
Except for the pledge by President Kenyatta on February 1 during the 24th African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, The Standard On Sunday has independently established that no other country on the continent has made pledge or chipped in cash towards the African Justice Court notion. Noting that no other country has joined Kenya in pledging financial support for the project, international relations’ expert Philip Nying’uro says the development is a pointer to disinterest or lack of goodwill on the part of African leaders. “As a people, we are used to rhetoric and populist pronouncements from our leaders. At continental level, such pledges are meant to secure one’s position as a pan-Africanist while at national level they are intended to win favour with the electorate. In reality, though, they mean nothing and that is why nobody is challenging the President with a follow-up,” argues Prof Nying’uro, who teaches at the University of Nairobi.
The financial contribution towards establishment of the court is in line with Kenya’s support of the Malabo Protocol which seeks to establish an alternative court to the International Criminal Court (ICC). President Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto have appeared before the court for allegedly fanning the 2007/2008 post-election violence in Kenya. Charges against Uhuru have since been dropped.
Pundits argue that the President’s pledge of the sum of Sh93 million equivalent was designed as a protest statement against the ICC process. Efforts to get comments on the status of the cash in question from Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohammed and PS Karanja Kibichu were fruitless. They neither picked our calls nor responded to text messages. Similarly, chairman of Parliament’s Defence and Foreign Relations House Committee Ndung’u Gethenji, who promised to revert to us, had not done so by the time of going to the press.
Illegal move?
But CORD co-principal Moses Wetang'ula terms the move by the President thus: “It is an illegality because he has no money to spend on our behalf unless such proposed expenditure is okayed by Parliament”.
Wetang'ula, who previously served as Foreign Affairs minister, explains that the African Court of Justice as envisaged in 2003, was meant to handle inter-states disputes. Wetang'ula says the court was to be part of the AU organs “funded by AU and not an independent unit financed at the pleasure of separate manipulative Presidents”.
“The gimmicks that Uhuru was playing recently in Addis Ababa were geared at undermining the ICC, which is a global outfit endorsed by the United Nations. He thought he would fool other African heads into embracing the new baby, but he ended up embarrassing Kenya and himself after his colleagues abandoned him,” says Wetang'ula, who is the Senate Minority Leader.
Despite the initial spirited campaign by African leaders for Africa to pull out of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the fire has gradually died down. Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and Salva Mayrdit Kiir of South Sudan have been the most vocal proponents of the move. It is particularly curious that Museveni, who even urged his Kenyan counterpart to skip the hearings at The Hague, has neither formally supported the establishment of the African Judicial Court nor pledged funding for the same. “Isn’t it strange that even Museveni, who has been coming to Kenya and making all manner of inciting statements about the ICC at public functions, has not signed up to the protocol? On the contrary, he is busy co-operating with ICC having forwarded cases of Joseph Kony and Dominic Ong'wen to The Hague,” adds Wetang'ula. Nying’uro offers that Museveni may have been fuelling the situation for personal political gain: “And he has gone mute after failing to alienate Kenya and Uhuru from the international community.”
The international relations expert says the trend speaks of a culture of personal rule on the continent where Presidents never consult while committing their respective countries to international agreements. Nying’uro blames this trend on African leaders who take advantage of the general population’s disinterest in international and external affairs. Citizens, observes the expert, are ordinarily more concerned with issues of bread and butter. Back home, Nying’uro observes the President may no longer be interested in following up the Malabo Protocol after being let off the hook. Meanwhile, Prof Macharia Munene, who teaches History and International Relations at USIU-Africa, attributes the non-compliance to financial challenges.
Noting that many regional bodies still depend on external forces, Munene regrets that most countries cannot act independently. Even within East Africa, he observes, some countries have problems paying up their dues. According to Amina, nine states including Kenya, had signed the protocol. We established that out of the 53 African states, only Kenya, Benin, Guinea Bissau, Mauritania and Tanzania have to date appended their signatures to the protocol.
