{"id":367007,"date":"2011-04-04T06:54:30","date_gmt":"2011-04-04T06:54:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/2011\/04\/04\/off-to-the-hague-now-everything-changes\/"},"modified":"2011-04-04T06:54:30","modified_gmt":"2011-04-04T06:54:30","slug":"off-to-the-hague-now-everything-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/04\/04\/off-to-the-hague-now-everything-changes\/","title":{"rendered":"Off to the Hague – Now Everything Changes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
<\/p>\n
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\nNairobi Star<\/a> (Nairobi)\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Joe Adama<\/p>\n

2 April 2011<\/p>\n

\n

opinion<\/p>\n

The departure of the Ocampo Six for The Hague mid-next week will mark one of those historical points of no return – for better and for worse – that periodically punctuate the history of this and all other nations.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The sheer reality of the beginning of The Hague trials will hit both the accused and the extended political class and elite with double the impact of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo’s initial announcement on December 15 last year of the Six as the suspects who “bear the greatest responsibility” for the post-election violence (PEV) of 2007-08. Their families, friends and large swathes of political supporters are also hard-hit in a variety of ways.<\/p>\n

When Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, Head of the Civil Service and Secretary to the Cabinet Francis Muthaura, suspended Higher Education Minister William Ruto, former Industrialisation Minister Henry Kosgey, Postmaster General Hussein Ali and broadcaster Joshua arap Sang jet out to Amsterdam, they will embark on individual odysseys that will also impact Kenya’s near future in far-reaching, even unprecedented, ways.<\/p>\n

The first major impacts will be the filling of the posts occupied by Uhuru, Muthaura and Ali, who cannot possibly be both crimes-against-humanity prime suspects on trial at The Hague and holders of these high offices of state or indeed any other public office at the same time. The new appointees are most unlikely to accumulate the clout and influence of Uhuru or Muthaura and, given the lateness in the day of the Kibaki Presidency that they have had to be appointed, they will most likely be in acting capacities and unlikely to be retained by Kibaki’s successor next year.<\/p>\n

The next and much more profound impacts will be on the pre-campaign, the campaign proper and then the voting patterns at the 11th General Election next year, a presidential transition poll that also holds out the prospect of regime change.<\/p>\n

After Uhuru and Ruto: power abhors a vacuum<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Before Moreno-Ocampo struck in December, Uhuru and Ruto were both widely expected to mount presidential campaigns of their own, or run as a joint ticket, or deputise other major candidates or lend their support and that of their massive separate ethnic vote blocs, separately or cooperatively, to another ticket. Indeed, in desperately seeking a year’s deferral for their cases at the UN Security Council, President Mwai Kibaki, through Ambassador Macharia Kamau, Kenya’s Permanent Representative to the UN, described both as “frontrunners” in the presidential race for 2012. But the start of the ICC trials will be the beginning of an ordeal that will last years and during whose duration they will almost certainly face, among other sanctions, disbarment from any participation at any level, overt or covert, in both the next campaign and election.<\/p>\n

Being neither candidates nor frontline campaigners, Uhuru and Ruto will soon discover the truth of an old adage – power abhors a vacuum. Even before they leave for The Hague and the fight of their lives, all manner of strategising is already going on concerning how to take over from where they will have to leave off, and these stratagems are not being laid only by adversaries – erstwhile friends are in on the action too, without so much as a by-your-leave. That they will have to cease all overt political activity is not in doubt. In moving to make the Kenya cases an object lesson against impunity in Africa and elsewhere around the globe, Moreno-Ocampo has also emphasised that the prosecutions are important because they will act as deterrents in the first instance to a repeat of the chaos in Kenya itself. It is therefore difficult to picture Uhuru and Ruto, once their trials begin in earnest, attending a campaign rally somewhere in Kenya on the Monday and then shuttling to Amsterdam for a hearing on the Wednesday. Not in Moreno-Ocampo’s court, oh no.<\/p>\n

‘The Perils Of Universal Jurisdiction’<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This forthcoming state of affairs leads straight away to another all-important prospect. Once serviced and properly processed as suspects at trial for some of the most heinous crimes that it is possible to commit on the planet, what political and moral standing will Uhuru, Ruto and Kosgey have to even secretively anoint stand-in and stop-gap leaders in Central Kenya and the Rift Valley, to say nothing, for now, about anywhere else in the country? Although innocent until proven guilty, the stigma of being a crimes-against-humanity suspect on full trial can be a debilitating, indeed diminishing affair. It was former US Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Dr Henry Kissinger who, in a magisterial anti-ICC essay written 10 years ago, entitled ‘The Perils of Universal Jurisdiction’, described the prospect of being accused of crimes against humanity as being akin to being placed in the age-old jurisprudential category of hostes humani generis (enemies of the human race), which until recently was reserved for such unsavoury characters as pirates, hijackers and not dissimilar outlaws. Kissinger noted “the notion that heads of state and senior public officials should have the same standing as outlaws before the bar of justice is quite new.” In a country like Kenya, it is stunningly unprecedented. Both Uhuru and Ruto should not be surprised at how few really substantive political players will come forward to hold the fort for their political interests while they are away fighting for their very lives at The Hague.<\/p>\n

The game changer<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The prosecutions at The Hague are going to be the game changer of the Kibaki succession and the 11th General Election. New political kingpins in Central and Rift who will lead these regions into the realities of post-Kibaki Kenya will have to emerge in quick order. Among these realities could well be a scenario whereby The Hague trials develop in such a manner as to require the attendance in person of both then retired President Mwai Kibaki and then former Prime Minister Raila Odinga as either witnesses (who could quickly run the risk, and to their personal detriment, of being adjudged to be hostile witnesses) or suspects. Given that the bulk of the most serious evidence available to Moreno-Ocampo appears to have been culled from the files of the Kenya Police, particularly those of the National Security Intelligence Service (NSIS), whose Director General, Major General (Rtd) Michael Gichangi, testified before both the post-PEV Kriegler and Waki Commissions that the spy agency had done its job to the fullest extent and advised all the individuals and agencies that it is mandated to report to accordingly, neither of the principals of the grand coalition will ever rest easy.<\/p>\n

Both Gichangi and Ali are former Air Office officers who were highly resented by career Intelligence and Police officers as being interlopers from the military, with the civilian policing agencies and formations therefore entering the 2007 campaign and election in dysfunctional order. But the two rarely saw eye-to-eye and Ali made no secret of his disapproval of Gichangi’s seemingly all-too-enthusiastic cooperation with the PEV commissions of enquiry and of the spymaster’s absolution of the NSIS in the matter of the terrible crisis that had overtaken Kenya during the chaos. All this and more, much more, will come out in the course of the trials at The Hague.<\/p>\n

Ali’s testimony in particular will be of compelling interest, particularly if he decides to take a leaf from Spymaster Gichangi himself, who pointedly asked the commissions of enquiry to go into in camera sessions with him when he was tabling evidence collected by his agents before, during and slightly after the PEV, and table not dissimilarly comprehensive evidence.<\/p>\n

Kosgey’s deep silence of recent weeks could also be indicative of testimony at The Hague that will shake the political scene. The immediate former national chairman of ODM kept his own counsel even when some in the party proposed that it pay his Hague legal fees and provide him with lawyers.<\/p>\n

The subtext of Hague politics<\/strong><\/p>\n

As the Ocampo Six jet out of JKIA to begin the toughest battles of the rest of their lives, opinion polls indicate that The Hague option is losing support among Kenyans. Now that it is a reality, all manner of subtexts are going to wing their way after the Six. The subtext of the spectacle of another Kenyatta being hauled off to another potentially politically polarizing prosecution under ‘mzungu’ jurisdiction is clearly giving some cause to pause and review their support for The Hague in Central Kenya. In the Rift Valley, the subtext of the prosecution of Ruto, Kosgey and Sang is that although most of the violence and evictions took place in the region, “the PEV has its real owners” – and they were the disputants, the main contenders, in the presidential contest.<\/p>\n

As the journey to Amsterdam begins, one thing is for sure: The Hague trials will long outlast the next presidential campaign, election and its outcome and aftermath. Indeed, they will long outlast Moreno-Ocampo’s tenure as Chief Prosecutor. The trials will also suck in many more top officials and their functionaries in coming months and years.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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\nOff to the Hague – Now Everything Changes<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nairobi Star (Nairobi) Joe Adama 2 April 2011 opinion The departure of the Ocampo Six for The Hague mid-next week will mark one of those historical points of no return – for better and for worse – that periodically punctuate the history of this and all other nations. The sheer reality of the beginning of The Hague trials will hit both the accused and the extended political class and elite with double the impact of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo’s initial announcement on December 15 last year of the Six as the suspects who “bear the greatest responsibility” for the post-election violence (PEV) of 2007-08. Their families, friends and large swathes of political supporters are also hard-hit in a variety of ways<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-367007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\nOff to the Hague - Now Everything Changes - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/04\/04\/off-to-the-hague-now-everything-changes\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Off to the Hague - Now Everything Changes - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Nairobi Star (Nairobi) Joe Adama 2 April 2011 opinion The departure of the Ocampo Six for The Hague mid-next week will mark one of those historical points of no return - for better and for worse - that periodically punctuate the history of this and all other nations. The sheer reality of the beginning of The Hague trials will hit both the accused and the extended political class and elite with double the impact of the International Criminal Court's (ICC) Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo's initial announcement on December 15 last year of the Six as the suspects who "bear the greatest responsibility" for the post-election violence (PEV) of 2007-08. 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