How Kenya won AU support on ICC

By Standard on Sunday Reporter

Details of an orchestrated plot outlining the risks of leaving the ICC to go on with cases of six Kenyans accused of masterminding post-election violence that won hearts of African Heads of State have emerged.

A DVD played at the African Union in Addis Ababa last week shows the gory scenes that followed the announcement of the disputed 2007 presidential election results.

Women and children are crying; cars and houses are consumed in raging flames, and crowds of protesters menacingly wielding machetes.

In a style rivalled only by presentations by cities bidding to host the Olympics and the World Cup, a DVD in possession of The Standard On Sunday shows how the Kenya delegation led by President Kibaki, top Government mandarins, and PNU stalwarts channelled the blame to the Orange Democratic Movement and its leader Raila Odinga, now the Prime Minister.

The PNU show then zeroes-in on the International Criminal Court, and its Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo for equal bashing.

So gripping was the video clip that a 10-minute break was called after the presentation, our source confirms.

"The hall was at a standstill," said one of those who attended the session. The show was tailored to market to African leaders Kenya’s plot to defer ICC cases against prominent politicians close to power.

NGO activists

Outside, a group of NGO activists from Kenya opposed to the ICC route picketed to accentuate the pressure on the leaders to "buy the Kenya story".

One of the picketers is a well-known human rights activist, who has had run-ins with the police.

The video was the production of officers from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Office of the President, sources confirm.

The Government went out of its way to hire experts in conflict resolution to put across its case in the DVD entitled, Restorative or Retributive Justice: When Fighting Impunity Becomes Endorsement of Impunity.

The causes of the violence that ensued in the wake of the disputed presidential results are squarely blamed on ODM and its followers.

‘No Raila no peace’

Raila’s supporters are shown chanting: "No Raila, No Peace in Kenya!" against the backdrop of burning houses and cars. But the show is silent on passengers being dragged out of cars and public service vehicles and hacked to death, in some of the notorious scenes of post-election violence. Neither does the DVD refer to innocent people being burnt in houses, like in Naivasha, where one man lost eight members of his family.

"Raila did not believe they had lost the election fairly and their reaction was deadly," says an inlay card.

ODM called for mass action to protest manipulation of presidential election results, and subsequent declaration of Mr Kibaki as the winner.

There is also a segment of the DVD showing Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta pleading with a crowd of displaced people in Burnt Forest to "give the Government a chance" to address their concerns.

"Two wrongs can never ever make a right," Uhuru tells the crowd. Uhuru is one of six on the Moreno-Ocampo list of suspects.

The former negotiator for Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army David Matsanga and an American, Prof David Hoile, led the onslaught that sought to prove the ICC causes more problems than it solves.

The ICC is depicted as a hindrance and a bully to peace and justice in Africa with Prof Hoile equating it to a cancer. He claims its investigators concocted evidence at a Nairobi hotel.

Rogue Prosecutor

Serious crimes in which 1,200 were killed and about 650,000 displaced were committed during the violence. Most of the deaths, as Government commissioned investigations showed, resulted from police bullet wounds.

They dismiss Moreno-Ocampo’s investigation as having been gleaned from the Justice Philip Waki, Commission on Investigations into Post-Election Violence, and Kenya National Commission on Human Rights’ inconclusive reports.

Matsanga, a conflict resolution expert, accuses Moreno-Ocampo of politicising the process and describes the Argentine as a "rogue prosecutor bent on portraying Africa as the ‘dark continent’ incapable of dealing with its own problems".

Also sucked into the ICC affair was former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan. But the most withering attack was spared for US Ambassador Michael Rannenberger. Matsanga claims the envoy is a ‘prefect’ breathing down on the necks of Kibaki and Raila.

The Government of Kenya bolsters its case for deferment with the promulgation of the new Constitution, and the recent nominations to the Judiciary. It cites this as reason to believe there will be fair trial in a locally constituted tribunal.

Before May, the DVD says, Kenya will have a reinvigorated justice system with the holders of the keys "nominated through a rigorous nomination process". Kenya is presented as a fragile society in danger of breaking if the cases go on considering the slow pace of trials at the ICC.

"A slow trial of Kenya’s case will endanger the fragile new political order and will drag Kenya back towards civil strife."

National dignity

"It will boost our efforts (for) peace, justice and reconciliation as well as uphold our national dignity and sovereignty; and prevent the resumption of conflict and violence," Kibaki told the AU summit.

Uhuru, given coverage in the video as a ‘peacemaker’, is possible PNU presidential flag bearer in the General Election, due next year. He is also the Minister for Finance and one of two Deputy Prime Ministers.

"We cannot allow the only country in our region that has enjoyed stability to be destabilised on the grounds of a technicality," Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told a meeting of East African leaders, the African Union, and the United Nations officials.

—Additional reporting by agencies