Ethiopian Review

Nairobi — There seems to be no let up in the debate of whether the perpetrators of the post 2007 election violence should be tried at the International Criminal Court at the Hague or locally.

The quest for justice for the victims of post election violence was re-energized with the handing of the envelope containing names of suspected perpetrators to the International Criminal Court.

The Catholic Church joined the fray Sunday with John Cardinal Njue saying the choice of whether to try the perpetrators in The Hague or through a local tribunal is irrelevant as long as the end result is justice for Kenyans.

Cardinal Njue said justice must be not only be done but seem to be done if the country is to realise healing and reconciliation after the post election violence.

Speaking at Saint Mulumba Catholic Church in Thika, the Cardinal urged the two principals, President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga to forge a united front to ensure stability in the country.

However some members of parliament have reiterated that they would shoot down any attempts to set up a local tribunal by the government, saying that the ICC was a more credible institution to carry out the investigations and subsequent prosecutions.

ODM members of parliament led by Agriculture minister William Ruto lauded Koffi Annan’s move to hand over the secret envelop to the International Criminal Court prosecutor Moreno Ocampo.

Ruto said the country must now entrust the quest for justice for post election victims to the ICC and focus on development issues and the quest for a new constitution.

Gender, Children Affairs and Social Development minister Esther Murugi on her part says the suspects whose names are contained in the envelope should be tried by the ICC while other suspects are tried locally.

Murugi said IDPs who are victims of the post election violence were still languishing in camps and it was only through the prosecution of the principal suspects at The Hague that the would feel justice has been done.

“They were the masterminds. Let them be tried at the Hague while those others can be dealt with locally,” the minister said.

Kenya’s credibility

However Agriculture Assistant minister Gideon Ndambuki says the decision by former UN secretary General Koffi Annan to hand over the envelope containing names of the 2007 post election violence suspects to the ICC casts doubts Kenya’s credibility in the international community.

Ndambuki said Annan’s action was a clear evidence that the international community had lost confidence in Kenya because it has consistently given mixed signals on its ability to be trusted.

He said that Annan may have decided to hand over the envelope after a Kenyan delegation bypassed him and went to negotiate with the ICC Chief Prosecutor Moreno Ocampo instead of addressing the issues he had raised.

“What may have annoyed the Chief Mediator is bypassing him to negotiate with the prosecutor. Anyone would do what Annan did because seeing someone else showed they had no confidence in him”, said Ndambuki.

- By Irene Wangui/Rose Kamau | KBC