Rank: Veteran Joined: 5/31/2008 Posts: 1,076
|
Quote:Hague fault line a big dilemma for Kenya’s post-poll democracy
By Prof Peter Kagwanja
“The problem of the twentieth century,” declared the indomitable pan-Africanist, W.E.B. Dubois, “is the colour line.” Certainly, the problem of the 21st century Kenya is The Hague fault line.
As the clock ticks to the March 4 election — and to Kenya’s fourth presidency and the second half century of its existence — the on-going trial of Kenyans at The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) is, inexorably, Kenya’s crucible of the century.
But the possibility of Kenyans electing a president indicted by the ICC is a diplomatic headache to the country’s Western allies. This dilemma is deepened by opinion polls showing a tight race between Prime Minister Raila Odinga and his deputy Uhuru Kenyatta, who is facing trial at the ICC together with his running mate in the Jubilee Coalition, Mr William Ruto.
Never before in recent history has the future of an African country hanged so perilously on the democratic choice of its voters over such an emotive issue.
Kenya’s trouble with The Hague started when its badly fragmented power elite bickered and tragically dithered on setting up a local judicial mechanism to tackle impunity for the 2008 post-election violence.
On March 23, 2012, a high-profile forum of the ‘Gema Nation’ christened Limuru II declared that the ICC “will require a political solution”. The bloc anointed Mr Kenyatta as its presidential standard-bearer, warning that it would be dangerous for the country to go for elections without him on the ballot.
In tandem with Gema, on April 3, 2012, Kamatusa (an acronym for Kalenjin, Maasai, Turkana and Samburu communities) crowned Mr Ruto its leader, calling for the postponement of the ICC trials until elections are held or put off altogether until the trials are over.
The campaign paid off: ICC set the date for the start of the trials on April 10, 2013, thus clearing the way for Kenyatta and Ruto to be on the ballot.
This caused concern, particularly in the West that Kenya might go the way of some countries in North Africa and the Middle East where popular vote has given power to leaders they would not wish to do business with.
Apparently, the West mooted a two-track strategy to insulate Kenya’s March election from the emotive issue of the ICC trials and to steer clear of the question of how they would interpret the choice Kenyans make on March 4.
The first is a pre-election “preventive strategy” to nip the risk of political violence by supporting free and fair elections whose results are seen as legitimate in the eyes of the Kenyan public.
The second is a post-election “redemptive strategy” to consolidate democracy, the rule of law and the war on impunity, including the ICC trials after the electoral dust has settled.
It soon dawned on America that the two strategies cannot operate in silos, and are destined to clash. When President Barack Obama issued a video message on February 5, he seemingly sought to set the “preventive strategy” in motion.
He urged Kenya to hold free and fair elections, to resolve any post-election disputes “in the courts, not in the streets,” emphasising that “the choice of who will lead Kenya is up to the Kenyan people”.
Unexpectedly, jubilant Jubilee leaders, bloggers and commentators on social media interpreted President Obama’s message as an endorsement of their presidential candidate, thrusting Washington into an “awkward situation”.
This jolted Obama’s top diplomat on Africa, Mr Johnnie Carson, to declare that “choices matter and they have consequences”. However, Mr Carson’s highly coded message did not tell Kenyans the precise consequences awaiting them if they voted in Kenyatta and Ruto.
Nevertheless, Mr Carson’s statement emboldened Nairobi-based Western envoys. The head of the EU delegation, Mr Lodevijk Briet, warned that it would not be “business as usual” if Kenyans elected leaders indicted by the ICC.
The British High Commissioner, Dr Christian Turner, and his French counterpart, Etienne de Poncins, endorsed Mr Carson’s statement, further unveiling that if Kenyans voted in candidates indicted by the ICC, the 27-member European Union bloc will have limited contact with Kenya “unless it is essential”.
These statements kicked off a heavy storm with the Kenya Government and its foreign policy establishment.
The Head of Public Service, Mr Francis Kimemia, comically contrasted President Obama’s “very balanced” and “superior” statement and Mr Carson’s “contradictory” remarks, calling on the Foreign Affairs ministry to establish “what that is all about”.
A visibly angry Foreign Affairs minister, Prof Sam Ongeri, accused European envoys of meddling in local affairs and attempting to influence the way Kenyans conduct the forthcoming elections.
Although the EU has denied these charges, the stand-off has ushered in an autumn of strained relations with the West.
Jubilee stalwarts wrote to the ministry of Foreign Affairs demanding that Kenya’s ambassador to the US, Mr Elkanah Odembo, be recalled, cynically accusing the diplomat of influencing Washington’s position on Kenya’s election and of working for the interest of Cord. Foreign Affairs Permanent Secretary Thuita Mwangi exonerated the envoy.
But the saga has signalled an intense politicisation of Kenya’s diplomatic space, turning it into an arena of power tussles between rival coalitions jostling for President Kibaki’s mantle.
Internally, a candid discussion on the ICC issue is missing in the manifestos of coalitions. Jubilee’s electoral blueprint, launched on February 3, 2013, is utterly mute on the ICC issue.
Arguably, Jubilee’s ‘political solution’ to ICC — a key doctrinal pillar of its foreign policy — has the indelible streak of the ‘Samson Option’ (“We go down, everyone goes”).
As the Brussels-based think-tank International Crisis Group has aptly pointed out in its latest report titled Kenya’s 2013 Elections (January 2013), Jubilee leaders are morally bound to provide Kenyans and the world with an explicit, detailed account of how exactly they plan to govern while also conducting their defences before the ICC, taking into consideration the time required and the demands of appearing in person in court and shuttling between two continents and two cities 6,645 kilometres apart.
Since the ICC struck in December 2010, Jubilee’s pundits have cast The Hague trials as a Western ploy to clear the Cord leader’s path to State House. In response, Cord’s strategists advised Mr Odinga to “go slow” on the ICC issue hoping to maintain the support of the Kalenjin bloc and to make significant inroads into the Gema communities.
Mr Odinga, however, broke the silence during presidential debate, throwing a salvo at Jubilee that it is not possible for a president to run the country from The Hague “through Skype”.
Mr Musalia Mudavadi’s Amani coalition has hewed a more moderate foreign policy from its strategy of using The Hague fault line to chart a middle path between Jubilee and Cord. Its presidential candidate has maintained that Kenya is not “an island”, cautioning that strained relations between the country and the West may cost it all the gains made since independence.
Analysts predict that if the West isolates a Jubilee-led Kenya, it might push Nairobi into the arms of China. But it is not clear how far the West is ready to go in unravelling long-standing diplomatic, military and economic ties with Kenya, a pivotal state in the US-led war on terror.
Without doubt, a Jubilee Kenya will provide international relations with yet-to-be-named new category, a mongrel between a “rogue democracy” (Tunisia, Egypt or the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip) and a “pariah state” (Sudan, Iran or North Korea). Kenyan voters must take a patriotic stand on March 4 to secure the country’s future.
Prof Peter Kagwanja is the President and CEO of the Africa Policy Institute.
Dunia ni msongamano..
|