It is only natural that when you are under attack, you’ve got to defend yourself at all costs. This is instinctive and commonsense. You would then understand why President Uhuru and his deputy William Ruto have given the bid to stop The Hague charges their all.

The strategy they have adopted is multi-pronged, the most obvious now being the battle by lawyers against the charges.

You can also then understand why Ruto has hired lawyers with inside knowledge of the workings of International Criminal Court having been former employees. Among them is Karim Khan, who tore to pieces the case against former Head of Civil Service Francis Muthaura.

Uhuru and Ruto are practical politicians and know that the battle also has to be waged outside the courtroom and on the international arena. What better strategy then than to lobby Africa, whip up anti-West sentiment even through stoking the memories of colonialisation, and eventually getting the black continent to bear pressure on the United Nations to ask ICC to change strategy on Kenya’s case?

What started as ‘shuttle diplomacy’ by former Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka, then perfected by Ruto through his Sh18.5 million hired jet whistle-stop tour of several African countries, has now refocused world attention on the ICC trials.

I hope you didn’t miss the point that the two States that moved the resolution for Africa to withdraw from ICC were Uganda and South Sudan. To put it another way, it was the bullish political dinosaur and former rebel Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and Mr Salva Kiir Mayardit.

Both are considered close to Uhuru and Ruto, and are also perceived to be some of the most conservative, iron-fisted and most impatient regional kingpins with that ‘monster’ they dislike called democracy, human rights and civil liberties.

Don’t mind that as Museveni’s military shut down a Kenyan-owned media house in Uganda and he seemingly forgot he invited ICC to pursue that vampire, Joseph Kony, he was busy haranguing ICC.

Political hirelings

Again in Kiir’s infant state, the government owns and controls most media platforms. His country is at the stage where Kenya was when government peddled its ‘friendly’ news through Kenya Times (now deceased) and struggling and broke Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (then called VoK or Voice of Kenya).

Now let us be clear on three issues. First, there is nothing personal here, but apart from leading countries endowed with oil, we should be proud of these two leaders for the way they fought the black imperialists and won freedom for their people. Secondly, no one has said here Uhuru and Ruto are guilty of the crimes against humanity charges levelled against them.

From where I sit, I have a strong feeling some witnesses were political hirelings and concocted stories on how they took part in post-election violence. They were being used to settle political scores and at that time, Uhuru and Ruto were protagonists. You have it on Joshua Sang’s authority that the witnesses against him were Party of National Unity (PNU) or pro-Kibaki and pro-Uhuru foot soldiers.  

As for me, when Luis Moreno-Ocampo said there was something called Kalenjin network and alleged it was given 3,000 guns by Ruto, I laughed. Why? Because it turned out the network as claimed by Ocampo was EMO, then led by a man whose differences with Ruto were legendary, and who for those who know would never allow it to play a such a role. In fact EMO was and remains a religious and economic movement.

I also asked myself how the Kibaki government’s highly ethnicised Intelligence and security network failed to arrest Ruto, who was then on the other side, if indeed there were such a thing.

I wouldn’t want to violate The Hague’s own sub judice rules but I believe as a free citizen, I am entitled to my views about this trial. But there is one last thing on this front; in 2007 elections Kibaki’s PNU slyly came up with a fake document purporting to be genuine minutes of Raila Odinga’s (then still with Ruto) Orange Democratic Movement, claiming some of us were party to planning of violence before elections.

I never sat in a meeting on such a thing, never met Raila or Ruto and in no way contributed to the chaos.

But somehow the same charges in the document are what ended up on the ICC charge sheet. You may disagree with me, but I still believe the charges are propped up by questionable evidence, same way a giant would stand on mosquito feet.

The last issue then is; who were behind post-election violence and whence will justice come for the 1,300 killed, and thousands uprooted from their homes and dispossessed?

Sired and delivered

This is the question that should bother Uhuru and Ruto more than anyone, and the hope of some of us that now they are at the top, other than fighting to extricate themselves from the ICC charges, they would also deploy the same zeal and energy to get to the bottom of these crimes.

The process starts with settling the Internally Displaced Persons, some of who have since sired and delivered children in torn tents, set up in dirty and often flooded camps.

This is important for Uhuru and Ruto, because even if they succeed in stopping the ICC, the perception set up by Ocampo would follow them to their graves.

It is in the interest of Kenya and these two leaders to not only fight for their own justice but also that of the victims of the violence. We owe it to them as a country. 

 

The writer is Managing Editor, The County Weekly at The Standard.

ktanui@standardmedia.co.ke