Miguna: Uhuru Should Focus On His Defence At The Hague
By: Miguna Miguna
Desperation and fear are dangerous things. They have turned Uhuru Kenyatta into a political rabid dog with infected fangs biting everything, particularly his short curled tail. I don’t blame Uhuru. For a man who was born at and grew up in State House, one can understand how it feels when faced with the most serious criminal charges in the entire world. To be accused by the ICC, following credible investigations, of having committed mass murder, mass rape, mass displacement and some of the worst inhumane and degrading acts against innocent civilians isn’t a laughing matter. If convicted, even only of one charge, Uhuru faces life in jail. So, it is understandable that he is scared, confused and desperate.
However, Uhuru isn’t Jomo Kenyatta. Those comparing his current tribulations with those of the Kapenguria Six aren’t just being unfair to history and Kenyans; they aren’t being fair to Uhuru and his late father. Uhuru grew up in extreme privilege and opulence. He has never lacked anything in life. I have done some research on this son of Jomo and discovered nothing compelling. There isn’t anything remarkable about Uhuru; no achievement worth mentioning. From nursery school to college, the son of Jomo performed below average. As far as I can gather, he was neither good in sports or academics. He wasn’t a gifted speaker or debater either. Nor is he now. In other words, it is fully understandable that faced with the most serious criminal charges in the world, Uhuru is fumbling, flailing and crumbling.
But to try and cast Uhuru as some kind of liberator or freedom fighter who is being persecuted by his political enemies is taking jokes too far. Kenyans aren’t complete idiots. The other day, Uhuru’s cousin Beth Mugo and other PNU/KKK acolytes compared him to the Kapenguria six. Let’s get one thing right: Jomo Kenyatta, Achieng’ Oneko, Kungu Karumba, Bildad Kaggia, Paul Ngei and Fred Kubia were not sent to Kapenguria because they had butchered innocent Kenyan civilians; they were jailed by the British colonialists because they allegedly belonged to the Mau Mau movement, which was fighting for the liberation of Kenya. But Uhuru and his friend William Ruto aren’t in that league. Uhuru and Ruto belong to the league of alleged robber barons and murderers. At least that’s what Luis Moreno-Ocampo’s evidence shows.
Credit is due to Uhuru, however, for excelling in other extra-curriculum activities like smoking and drinking. At Njiiri’s High School in Murang’a where I did my Advanced Levels, I used to punish those who belonged to Uhuru’s league. But Njiiri’s was a public boarding boys’ school, which also happened to have earned the national trophy for discipline throughout the period that I was there. I suspect that the situation was very different at the expensive St. Mary’s private school in Nairobi where Uhuru and other privileged kids were sequestered.
Make no mistake: there was no freedom or liberation Uhuru was fighting for in 2007/8. The Mungiki vigilante group that the ICC Prosecutor has accused him of having used to brutalize and butcher innocent civilians isn’t a liberation movement. Uhuru and his gang of supporters know that the 2007 presidential election was massively rigged. He also knows that there was a dispute over who won the presidential elections. Unless he wants to rewrite history – and we will not allow him – there is no reasonable Kenyan who believes that Mwai Kibaki won and Raila Odinga lost.
But more fundamentally, Uhuru knows that Raila Odinga and the ODM do not work for the ICC in any capacity. Raila Odinga isn’t responsible for investigating any crimes committed in Kenya. Raila isn’t in charge of the Kenya Police, the CID, the ministry of internal security or the State Law Office. Everyone knows that it was PNU and the state security agencies it controls like the NSIS that submitted evidence implicating Ruto and Henry Kosgey to the post-election violence. Moreover, Uhuru must be aware that he is facing charges of crimes against humanity as an individual. The Kikuyu community hasn’t been charged. Nor has the PNU or the KKK.
Beth Mugo claims that as a mother, she holds the view that no Kenyan child should be tried on foreign soil. This is interesting. The last time I checked, Beth Mugo hadn’t stated the same thing with respect to the Kenyans who were abducted and smuggled to Uganda and the United States of America by their own government without due process. There were no charges; no bail hearings; and no extradition proceedings; no habeas corpus. Why hasn’t Beth Mugo demanded the release and return of Al Amin Kimathi who is facing trumped-up charges in Uganda?
On December 16th, 2008, both the President and the PM signed an agreement for the implementation on the recommendations of the Waki Commission. The Government committed itself to the establishment of the Special Tribunal by February 1st, 2009 to try the PEV perpetrators. The Waki Commission report was unanimously adopted by Parliament on January 29th, 2009. However, on 29th February 2009, Uhuru and Ruto ganged up and had the Special Tribunal. Bill rejected by Parliament. They demanded the ICC. They got the ICC.
Why are they crying wolf now? If they are brave as they claim, why are they panicking? If Uhuru and Ruto have credible evidence concerning the crimes against humanity committed in Kenya; why can’t they just submit it to the ICC? To Uhuru and Ruto: go ahead and implicate anybody you want. But please, save us the childish rants and threats.
This piece was written by Miguna Miguna on March 22, 2011, it has been circulating in various list servers- mailing list since Friday 15th Feb 2013, so, it is in the public domain. We have taken precaution to give proper reference and appropriately indicated the date it was published.
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But to try and cast Uhuru as some kind of liberator or freedom fighter who is being persecuted by his political enemies is taking jokes too far. Kenyans aren’t complete idiots. The other day, Uhuru’s cousin Beth Mugo and other PNU/KKK acolytes compared him to the Kapenguria six. Let’s get one thing right: Jomo Kenyatta, Achieng’ Oneko, Kungu Karumba, Bildad Kaggia, Paul Ngei and Fred Kubia were not sent to Kapenguria because they had butchered innocent Kenyan civilians; they were jailed by the British colonialists because they allegedly belonged to the Mau Mau movement, which was fighting for the liberation of Kenya. But Uhuru and his friend William Ruto aren’t in that league. Uhuru and Ruto belong to the league of alleged robber barons and murderers. At least that’s what Luis Moreno-Ocampo’s evidence shows.
Whe she is under severe pain (ile ugonjwa)Beth Mugo claims that as a mother, she holds the view that no Kenyan child should be tried on foreign soil. This is interesting. The last time I checked, Beth Mugo hadn’t stated the same thing with respect to the Kenyans who were abducted and smuggled to Uganda and the United States of America by their own government without due process. There were no charges; no bail hearings; and no extradition proceedings; no habeas corpus. Why hasn’t Beth Mugo demanded the release and return of Al Amin Kimathi who is facing trumped-up charges in Uganda?
UHURUTO are not idiots as such .They might open this country to some of the great enemies of western imperialist countries for them to revenge and for their survival eg: North Korea, Russia, China,Iran Eritrea, Syria,Cuba ,Venezuela Haiti and many other Latin American Countries. etc Sudan ,Libya and any other country against West
It is also known sactions do not and cannot work effectively hence the same countries shouting high will use un-othodox methods to by-pass sactios especially now the world economy is in shambles.
why everybody is just looking for 2 person? Uhuru and ruto were never a president candidate in 2007 election? why when there was 6 person that was involved in 2007 election, we only hear about 2 guys? there is no justice there? everybody that was involved in 2007 should be tried in Icc or in Kenya court..
Analysis: Kenyatta’s bid for Kenya presidency a diplomatic headache
By Richard Lough
NAIROBI | Thu Feb 14, 2013 6:59am EST
NAIROBI (Reuters) – East Africa’s most powerful economy and a key regional ally in the U.S.-led war against militant Islam could next month elect a president accused of crimes against humanity, posing a diplomatic headache for Western capitals.
If Uhuru Kenyatta wins the March 4 poll, Kenya will become the second country after Sudan to have a sitting president facing trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
The son of Kenya’s founder president, Kenyatta is running a close second to Prime Minister Raila Odinga in opinion polls.
Foreign powers face a dilemma over what to do if Kenyatta wins the election. His running mate William Ruto is also indicted by the ICC for grave crimes linked to post-election violence following the last poll in 2007.
Several embassies in Nairobi told Reuters it cannot be business as usual when dealing with an ICC indictee.
But they will be reluctant to unravel long-held diplomatic, trade and military ties with one of Africa’s more stable democracies and an anchor of stability in a volatile area.
When U.S. President Barack Obama said earlieAnkit0r this month his government supported a vote that “reflects the will of the people”, Kenyatta and Ruto trumpeted his words as proof there would be no international blowback should they win.
Washington’s top diplomat to Africa was more blunt.
“Choices have consequences,” Assistant Secretary Johnnie Carson said, hammering home the same point at least five times during a 40-minute conference call.
Carson did not mention names but the message was clear: there would be implications for Kenya’s relations with the world if the Kenyatta-Ruto alliance wins.
“We live in an interconnected world and people should be thoughtful about the impact that their choices have on their nation, on their region, on the economy,” Carson said.
If, as many predict, no candidate secures an absolute majority on March 4 and the vote goes to a second round, Kenyatta is expected to be one of the two contenders.
ESSENTIAL CONTACT
Carson intended to sway voters against the ICC indictees, Kenyatta’s TNA party said. Any effort, TNA said, to influence voters was not only undemocratic, it denied Kenyans their right to choose freely at the ballot box.
Carson’s words lit up the Kenyan social media.
“We don’t give a rat’s behind (who) says what. Kenya has moved on from hanging on each word from the ‘mighty’ West,” read one comment on the website of Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper.
Another replied: “How can you ignore the US or UK. They are the biggest business dealers with Kenya. It’s like saying ignore your wife and she will shut up, but you’re married and you have made commitments and you must compromise with each other.”
After Carson, Britain, the European Union, France and others turned the diplomatic screws. Their position, they said, was no contact with ICC indictees unless essential.
In response, Kenya’s foreign ministry summoned EU envoys, accusing the ambassadors of inflammatory remarks that risked polarizing the country of some 40 million people.
Sources close to the discussion said the meeting was tense. Handshakes were spurned and a joint news conference cancelled.
The vote is the first since President Mwai Kibaki’s disputed re-election in 2007 unleashed weeks of fighting between Kenya’s main tribes that killed more than 1,200 people. Kenyatta and Ruto backed opposing candidates and are accused of masterminding the unrest.
ICC COOPERATION KEY
Barring any delays, the trial of Kenyatta and Ruto is due to start just days after an anticipated, decisive second round in the Kenyan vote, which would probably pit Kenyatta against Odinga and play out as a referendum on the ICC.
Kenyatta and Ruto both say they intend to comply with their summonses to appear before the court in the Hague and answer charges. But if Kenyatta wins the vote, many Kenyans expect him to refuse to appear, like Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who spurned the court when it charged him with war crimes over the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region.
If a newly-elected Kenyatta were to refuse to appear before the ICC, “you don’t need a PhD in international relations to know the options open to us,” a Western diplomat said, predicting serious consequences.
Numerous diplomats declined to detail what concrete actions their governments would take in the event an elected Kenyatta shunned the U.N.-backed tribunal. Some simply don’t know yet.
A second diplomat cited Sudan as “a perfect example of non-compliance”. “(Sudan) gives you an idea of what the maximum response is,” the diplomat said.
After scoffing at the ICC, Sudan’s Bashir has been targeted by an international arrest warrant. Although the charges against him did not lead directly to economic sanctions against Sudan, the EU’s Cotonou agreement governing trade requires compliance with the ICC. Opting out cost Khartoum at least 336 million euros ($452 million) worth of development funds.
Kenya, too, is a signatory of the Cotonou agreement.
Nevertheless, Western countries would be reluctant to punish the Kenyan population. Aid suspensions appear off the agenda.
“We are unlikely to use aid as a political tool,” another Nairobi-based diplomat said.
The World Bank and International Monetary Fund would probably continue funding Kenya if Kenyatta wins. Both institutions separate a country’s broader economic interests from its leaders.
Even if a newly-elected President Kenyatta does turn up for trial in the Hague, the response would be milder but relations would still become “more complicated” the second diplomat said.
Either way, ambassadors and visiting officials would avoid meeting Kenyatta, although they could work through other government channels.
KENYATTA SUPPORTERS SEE PLOY
Supporters of Kenyatta see the ICC process as a Western ploy to clear Odinga’s path to State House.
They say if Kenya’s Western allies isolate Kenya they will push the Nairobi government deeper into the arms of another increasingly important trade partner – China.
“It’s just common sense. The Chinese aren’t attempting to try him in Beijing,” a source close to the Kenyatta camp told Reuters. Reuters made several requests to speak to China’s embassy in Kenya but was unsuccessful.
Economists and political analysts generally doubt Kenya’s traditional partners would seek to impose sanctions aimed at seriously harming the $34 billion economy.
Although a Kenyatta presidency would heighten political uncertainty, it is not seen as a make or break case for foreign investment in Kenya, but there are risks.
Considered the standout economy in east Africa, Kenya has a large private sector that operates relatively independently of government.
“In the next couple of months, investors will be mildly cautious. We would take that as an opportunity to increase positions in Kenya. We’re long term investors, we are not traders,” said David Mcilroy, chief investment officer of Alquity Investment Management, which runs an Africa equity fund.
Any sign of unease in the market would reflect first in the local currency.
“If in doubt people run to safety. And safety is not in Kenyan shillings,” David Cowan, Africa economist at Citi said.
“And in Kenya’s case, if you’re running a big current account, a big fiscal deficit that needs financing, then that becomes very problematic for you.”
A run on the currency would threaten Kenya’s below-target hard currency reserves, which the central bank has already begun reducing in the run-up to the poll to support the under-pressure shilling.
Increased uncertainty under Kenyatta’s helm could also hamper Kenya’s plan to launch a eurobond worth between $750 million and $1 billion in the 2013/14 fiscal year.
“It’s not that it’s impossible to get the eurobond out, but it means that you pay for more it,” one global bank told Reuters, wary of the political sensitivity.
Even so, one economist who declined to be named said the election of an ICC indictee was unlikely to result in a downgrade of Kenya’s B+ rating.
“It would be unfortunate but it is kind of what you expect in the ‘B’ rating category,” the economist said.
($1 = 0.7427 euros)
(Additional reporting by James Macharia and Drazen Jorgic in Nairobi and Carolyn Cohn in London; Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by James Macharia and Peter Graff)