Kenya moves to leave international court

Kenya’s parliament on Thursday passed a motion to withdraw from the International Criminal Court just before the country’s president and deputy president face trial at The Hague for allegedly orchestrating post-election violence more than five years ago.

Citing the fact that the United States and other world powers are not members, the majority leader of Kenya’s parliament on Thursday argued that Kenya should withdraw from the statute that created the ICC. …

The Kenyan debate is a reaction to the start next week of the trial at The Hague of Deputy President William Ruto. Ruto and President Uhuru Kenyatta face charges of crimes against humanity for allegedly helping to orchestrate post-election violence in 2007-08 in which more than 1,000 people were killed. …

As a Kenyan I am of two minds about this. I do believe that the whole ICC process was largely political, in essence targeted at ensuring a certain individual (Raila Odinga) had a clear path to the presidency in the elections concluded a few months ago. There was a lot of pressure for Kenyans to vote a certain way, including certain members of the Obama government claiming that 'elections have consequences' and even threatening non-cooperation with a Kenyatta (read non-Odinga) government. Unfortunately for the West, Kenyatta used such statements to win election by over a million votes. Odinga did claim he was rigged out - as he had claimed in the last election that led to violence - but it was obvious he had been legitimately defeated and this was even confirmed by the US.

Thus, I am quite cognizant that the ICC process can/has been used as a political tool. In this case Kenyatta, Odinga's only viable rival, was expected to not run, and Odinga would have become president.

At the same time the ICC does have its role. Many African leaders are idiots, and the sword of damocles brought into play by the threat of going to the Hague does create a mechanism for making their silly little minds not to seriously consider genocide. For instance, without the ICC Raila Odinga would most probably have caused for 'mass action,' as he did the last time, and there would have been violence. Thus maybe Kenya dodged a bullet.

Thus it is a convoluted situation.

As an aside, if things were up to me Raila Odinga would be facing the ICC as well. In many ways 2007 stemmed from his call for mass action and careless statements.

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