African presidents on Sunday supported
a petition calling on the International Criminal Court to drop crimes against
humanity charges facing President Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto.
The leaders want the trials sent back
to the national courts.
However, an international human rights
NGO was on Sunday pushing back, asking the African leaders to reject what they
saw as an attempt to shield Kenyan leaders from justice. The motion for the petition
was brought by Uganda and was said to have the support of 53 presidents.
Formal communiqué
Only the President of Botswana opposed
it, arguing that the ICC should be allowed to handle the case in accordance
with its mandate.
President Kenyatta and Mr Ruto are
charged at the ICC in connection with the 2007 post-election violence in which
more than 1,000 died and 600,000 others displaced.
African leaders are attending the 21st
ordinary session of the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which also
marks 50 years of the Organisation of African Unity, later renamed the African
Union.
At the time of going to press, the
presidents had not issued a formal communiqué which, together with the details
of the vote and resolution, is expected on Monday.
Speaking in Addis Ababa, the President
of the African Court on Human and People’s Rights, Ms Sophia Akuffo, said there
are ongoing processes to expand the jurisdiction of the court to include
certain types of international crimes.
She said the court does not have the
instruments to handle such cases.
“Kenya has not applied for the
transfer and even if it does, there are absolutely no procedures in place on
how to make that possible currently,” she said.
The African Union membership roster contains
54 states.
Amnesty International opposed the
Ugandan petition and asked the AU to throw out the resolution calling for the
ICC cases to be referred for trial in Kenya.
“The African Union must reject Kenya’s
attempts to shield its leaders from being held to account for the human rights
violations that took place in Kenya in 2007-2008,” said Netsanet Belay, Amnesty
International’s Africa Programme Director, in a press statement.
Earlier, Uganda’s Foreign Minister Sam
Kuteesa, who pushed the motion to have the resolution adopted by the Heads of
State, pushed for an end to the cases.
Have raised concern
“We are asking the ICC to stop the
prosecution... if not, then they should re-investigate the cases because there
are a lot of falsehoods that led to the prosecution of these individuals.”
The AU might also want an assurance
that President Kenyatta will not be humiliated when he goes to The Hague for
the opening of his trial scheduled for July 9, a matter which is said to have
raised concern among Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (Igad) member
states.
Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni is
said to have told Heads of State from East and Horn of Africa meeting under the
umbrella of Igad on Friday night that the ICC was not sincere on the Kenyan case.
“ICC should tell us if they plan to
detain [Mr] Kenyatta. They should give us an explanation if he is going to come
back to Kenya because the information we are receiving is different,” Mr
Museveni was quoted as saying.
During the talks, Zambian President
Michael Sata told Kenyans to deal with their problems locally.
“Where was the Hague when Africa was
fighting for independence? If you find a Kenyan or Zambian President at fault,
let the Kenyan or Zambian people deal with him, not the Hague,” he said.
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