Leaders’ take on ICC question and African unity

By MWANIKI MUNUHE

“To the international community I say to you, Kenyans value your friendship and partnership. We value your support. We assure you of our commitment to strengthen mutual respectful and beneficial relationships.

“We will abide by all international treaties to which we are signatories and commit to fulfill related obligations as guided by our Constitution.

“To those who wish us harm, or who by their actions seek to undermine our inalienable right as free human beings in an independent country, we have a simple message: Kenya will sacrifice all and everything in defence of its sovereignty.

“To our regional neighbours, we give our assurance to you that Kenya will do its best to realise common goals within the framework of cooperation treaties that we have signed. We will continue to give our strong support to the goals and objectives of, among others, the East African Community, Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, and the African Union.”

These were the words of President Kenyatta when he was sworn in as Kenya’s fourth President.

 Unified future

The President, on more than one occasion, has vowed to push for African unity. And now, agitation for African unity seems to have hit the zenith with the indictment of the President and his deputy William Ruto at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Refusal by the ICC to treat the two leaders in a special way following their election as President and Deputy President appears to have rubbed many African leaders the wrong way.

The Standard on Saturday sought to establish the opinion of different leaders the role the Kenyan situation at the ICC has played in the revival of Africanism.  Speaker of the Senate Ekwe Ethuro said the treatment of the African Union request at the United Nations Security Council only worked to demonstrate the future of Africa is unified.

“I think for once the Kenyan predicament has brought Africans together. It has reminded them of the need for African unity. The point Africa was making to the United Security Council and to the whole world was that these are leaders of a country who should not be humiliated in a court.,” the Speaker said.

“They have shown co-operation with the court but the court has refused to reciprocate. Countries pushing this case are not even members of the ICC yet they wield more power than member states. The only conclusion Africa should draw from this is that this was a court established to basically bring regime change in African states.”

Self preservation

But Suba MP John Mbadi said the African leaders have taken advantage of the Kenyan situation to push for African unity purely for what he termed as “self preservation”.

“All these African leaders talking about the Kenyan case and African unity are not doing so because they like Kenya or Africa for that matter. They are doing it for self preservation. You know many of them have been involved in activities in their own countries that can potentially expose them to ICC,” he said.

“I think if African Union was genuine, it would have pushed for speedy conclusion of the case. At any rate, the cases were confirmed before the president and his deputy assumed presidency.”

Ndung’u Gethenji, chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Defense said, “Until the Kenyan case came up, many people did not see the need to unite Africa. But now, everybody in the continent has seen that the future of Africa is in African unity. All these Western powers refused top be members of ICC and the reason is simple. They cannot allow any of their citizens to be tried in another country let alone a president. Africa has learnt its lessons, Africa will be more united than never before,” he said.

Third-rate territory

Addressing African Parliament in Cape Town in may this year, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan said, “It is also appropriate that we reflect and decide where our continent should be in the next 50 years. That destination has to be a democratic and united Africa that is at peace with itself and can compete with the rest of the world.”

While addressing an African Union meeting in Addis Ababa, President Kenyatta accused the West of dividing Africa through the ICC.

“The AU is the bastion of African sovereignty, and the vanguard of our unity. Yet the ICC deems it altogether unworthy of the minutest consideration.

“Africa is not a third-rate territory of second-class peoples. We are not a project, or experiment of outsiders. We want to see the ICC as fair and even-handed throughout the world, but what can we do when everyone but Africa is exempt from accountability? We would love nothing more than to have an international forum for justice and accountability, but what choice do we have when we get only bias and race-hunting at the ICC?” the President posed.