Great African leaders have dreams. The rest have nightmares.
I
do not need to tell your Excellencies about the nightmare my country in
particular, and myself and my Deputy as individuals, have had to endure
in making this realisation. Western
powers are the key drivers of the ICC process. They have used
prosecutions as ruses and bait to pressure Kenyan leadership into
adopting, or renouncing various positions… The threat of prosecution
usually suffices to have pliant countries execute policies favourable to
these countries. Through it, regime-changes sleights of hand have been
attempted in Africa. A number of them have succeeded. Only a fortnight
ago, the Prosecutor proposed undemocratic and unconstitutional
adjustments to the Kenyan Presidency. These interventions go beyond
interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign State. They
constitute a fetid insult to Kenya and Africa. African sovereignty means nothing to the ICC and its patrons.
Life
is sometimes a conundrum, a riddle. Kenyatta got his dream job of
President of Kenya (his father Jomo was the first President of Kenya)
this past March when he was elected by a razor thin margin of 50.7
percent of the vote. He now lives in a nightmare haunted by ghosts of
crimes past and “race hunters” present. Kenyatta said, “People have
termed this situation [his ICC prosecution] ‘race-hunting’. I find
great difficulty adjudging them wrong.” Psychologists say the most
common nightmare among people with an overwrought imagination is being
chased either by a demon, monster, warlock or madman. In Kenyatta’s
nightmare, horned and saw-toothed International Criminal Court (ICC)
prosecutors and judges are chasing him right into a cold sweat.
Just
last month, Kenyatta loudly proclaimed his innocence at a graduation
ceremony at Moi University Eldoret: “Who does not know that myself,
William Ruto and Joshua Sang are innocent? Almost everyone in Kenya at
least knows who like fighting and causing chaos in this country and can
bear us witness that indeed we did not plan to kill people during the
2008 PEV [post-election violence] .” Kenyatta has also proudly and
repeatedly proclaimed, “From the beginning of the cases, I have fully
cooperated with the Court in the earnest expectation that it afforded
the best opportunity for me to clear my name… After my election, we have
continued to fully cooperate… For 5 years I have strained to cooperate
fully…”
Now
Kenyatta says, he will not cooperate. He will have nothing to do with
the ICC. As far as he (and his cabal on the AU executive council) is
concerned, the ICC can go to…. He has strongly intimated he will be a
no show for his trial in The Hague scheduled to begin on November 12.
What happened?! The man who so tenaciously professes his innocence today
and has been bragging about his full cooperation with the ICC for the
past five years is trembling in cold sweat and having cold feet unable
to stand tall and fight for his name, reputation and dignity against
vile accusations! Kenyatta “doth protest too much, methinks”, to
paraphrase Shakespeare.
Whose court is the ICC anyway?
Kenyatta,
Hailemariam, Bashir and Co., would like us to believe the ICC is some
vindictive and racist “white court” which gets “70 percent of its funds
from the European Union”. Hailemariam made the bizarre accusation that
the ICC is “race hunting” in Africa because “99%” of those it targeted
for prosecution are Africans. (In 2010, Hailemariam’s party in Ethiopia
won the parliamentary election by 99.6 per cent.) The facts speak
otherwise. 34 of the 122 states (28 percent) that signed the Rome
Statute, including Kenya, are Africans. Five of the Court’s 18 judges
(28 percent) are African. The Court’s vice president, Sanji Mmasenono
Monageng of Botswana, and the chief ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda of
Gambia, are distinguished African women who have achieved recognition
for their expertise in international law.
Archbishop
Desmond Tutu of South Africa unreservedly supports the ICC: “I have
seen great gains made that protect the weak from the strong and give us
all hope. The ICC is one of these beacons of hope.” Former U.N.
Secretary General Kofi Anan of Ghana rejects the scurrilous accusations
against the ICC: “I don’t share the view that the ICC is anti-African.
The ICC is not putting Africa on trial. The ICC is fighting impunity and
individuals who are accused of crimes.” The European Union may provide a
large part of the ICC funding, but it is undeniable that a large part
of the ICC is “owned” by Africans!
Appearance and reality: Is there sufficient evidence to bring Kenyatta and Co., to trial?
African
leaders are masters of distraction and lords of deception. They are
adept at using red herrings to deflect criticism and evade legitimate
demands for accountability and transparency. They play our emotions like
a cheap fiddle. They have little regard for our capacity to think and
reason. They appeal to our sense of historical grievances by
resurrecting ghosts of colonialists and imperialists past. They pander
to our fears of neocolonial and neoliberal conspiracies. They try to
sear our consciences with fabricated racial indignities invoking images
of the “Great White Race Hunter” prowling in Africa. They exploit our
natural sense of pity and compassion by depicting themselves as helpless
victims and those they have victimized and the defenders of those they
have victimized as wicked villains. They try to convince us that the ICC
is coming after every African on the continent. In short, they treat us
as though we collectively have the intelligence of an amoeba.
Emotional
appeals may work on those who have not had the opportunity or interest
to carefully examine the charges against Kenyatta. The record, however,
must be set that the ICC charges against Kenyatta are neither frivolous
nor trumped up!
Kenyatta is charged in an indictment filled with shocking testimonial evidence of criminal wrongdoing.
Much of the testimonial evidence is independently corroborated and
documented. The corroborated allegations are quite specific. For
instance, the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber (the body that confirms charges upon
which the Prosecutor intends to seek trial against the person charged)
determined “there are substantial grounds to believe that on 3 January
2008 at the Nairobi Club… Mr. Kenyatta met with Mungiki members
[sometimes referred to as the “Kenyan mafia”] and directed them to
commit the crimes charged.” The testimonial evidence shows Kenyatta and
others “agreed to pursue an organizational policy to keep the PNU
[former president Kibaki’s Party of National Unity] in power through
every means necessary, including orchestrating a police failure to
prevent the commission of crimes”. The evidence shows Kenyatta and Co.,
“devised a common plan to commit widespread and systematic attacks
against perceived ODM supporters by: (i) penalizing them through
retaliatory attacks; and (ii) deliberately failing to take action to
prevent or stop the retaliatory attacks”.
The
evidence shows Kenyatta “taking the role of mediator between the PNU
and the Mungiki criminal organization, facilitated a series of meetings
from November 2007” in which “senior PNU government officials,
politicians, businessmen and Mungiki leaders solicit[ed] the assistance
of the Mungiki in supporting the government in the December 2007
elections”. In the post-election period, the evidence shows Kenyatta and
others “facilitated the meetings with the Mungiki with a view to
organizing retaliatory attacks against perceived ODM [Orange Democratic
Movement] supporters in the Rift Valley [and] strengthen the PNU’s
hold on power after the swearing in of the President". The evidence
shows Kenyatta and others “contributed to the implementation of the
common plan, by securing the non-intervention of the Kenya Police and by
failing to punish the main perpetrators of the attacks.”
Sleepless in Africa
It
is not only Kenyatta but many other African “leaders” who are going
sleepless every night afraid of having nightmares of Lady Justice and
her posse in hot pursuit. Sundry African “leaders” are afflicted by “ICC
nightmareitus” (a term I have coined to describe the nightmare
experiences of African leaders who wake up at night in cold sweat
biting their nails, scratching their heads and looking under their
mattresses for the ICC prosecutor). Hailemariam Desalegn, the titular
prime minister in Ethiopia, for the past year has been telling us that
he is following the “vision” of his deceased “visionary leader”. Now we
find out that his “vision” is actually a nightmare of a “Great White
Hunter” “race hunting” him. Paul Kagame of Rwanda has nightmares of
“imperialists” and “colonialists” returning to Africa disguised as
judges and prosecutors to catch African leaders and put them in a chain
gang. Omar Bashir of the Sudan is holed up in his palace having
nightmares of prowling ICC boogeymen. Thabo Mbeki of South Africa is
calling on African intellectuals to join him in warding off creeping
“contemptuous” Western knaves and rascals skulking in the African night.
Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, who in 2003 wholeheartedly referred the
infamous Joseph Kony for International Criminal Court (ICC)
prosecution, in 2013 is having nightmares about a “shallow” and
“arrogant” ICC tracking down his fellow African leaders. Many other
African leaders in quiet desperation face their own nightmares of an ICC
grim reaper on horseback over the horizon; they are fearful they too
may one day be held to account for their wanton crimes against humanity.
After
more than 60 years of independence, African leaders should be talking
about their dreams for Africa like Nelson Mandela: “I dream of an Africa
which is in peace with itself.” It is painful to see them running
scared from the nightmares of crimes they committed with impunity. But
the real nightmare -- the living nightmare -- is unleashed on the
African people. Beginning in 2003, Bashir in the Sudan relentlessly
pursued a policy of genocide in the Darfur region which by U.N. estimate
claimed over one-half million lives and displaced over 2.5 million
people. In 2005, an official inquiry commission in Ethiopia determined
that 193 unarmed protesters were massacred in post-election violence in
May of that year and 763 suffered severe gunshot wounds (that was only a
partial accounting). The previous year over 400 villagers were
massacred in the Gambella region; and in 2008 thousands in the Ogaden
region were maimed, killed and displaced by military action and
indiscriminate bombings.
In
2007-2008, the U.N. estimated some 1,200 people died in Kenya in weeks
of unrest between December 2007 and February 2008, and 600,000 people
were forcibly displaced. Kenyatta says he is innocent of any criminal
culpability in that violence; and he is innocent until the ICC
prosecutor proves beyond a reasonable doubt that he did commit the
alleged crimes against humanity.
In
2010, Cote d’Ivoire’s Laurent Gbagbo refused to leave office after his
opponent was declared the winner in a runoff vote. Today Gbagbo is at
The Hague awaiting his day in court. (When former president Gbagbo was
bagged and tagged for the long trip to the Hague, the AU suddenly turned
stone deaf-mute.) The U.N. estimated that 3,000 people were killed in
Cote d’Ivoire’s postelection violence.
In
2011, Gadhafi ordered and organized the arrest, imprisonment, and
killing of hundreds of civilians opposed to his regime in the initial
days of the Libyan uprising. In 2012, separatist rebels and militias
who took over northern Mali committed unspeakable war crimes and crimes
against humanity. In 2013, in battles between the Rwandan-supported M23
rebel group and DR Congo troops, thousands of civilians were maimed,
displaced and massacred in the eastern part of DR Congo. Such is the tip
of the iceberg of the African nightmare!
African “leaders” want to end their nightmare by putting the ICC on trial in the court of world public opinion
The
AU leadership has undertaken a clever strategy of ending their
nightmare by putting the ICC on trial in the court of world public
opinion. Imagine the criminals trying to prosecute the prosecutor and
the judge! Have the inmates taken over the asylum in Africa?!
The
AU’s public relations strategy is to depict the ICC as the judicial
equivalent of America’s “Seal Team 6” or Britain’s “Special Air Service”
– special forces that surreptitiously go into hostile countries to
neutralize specific targets. That’s what Kenyatta meant when he said,
“Western powers are the key drivers of the ICC process. They have used
prosecutions as ruses and bait to pressure Kenyan leadership into
adopting, or renouncing various positions.”
The
charge of “dark forces” manipulating the ICC in Kenya makes absolutely
no sense. Kenya is the darling of the West and the linchpin to its
security structure in Africa be it against the threat of radical
Islamist fundamentalist terrorism or piracy on the Indian Ocean.
According to a 2013 study prepared for the U.S. Congress, “ U.S. foreign
assistance to Kenya has reached almost $1 billion annually in recent
years, and the country routinely ranks among the top ten U.S. aid
recipients globally. U.S. assistance was estimated at over $900 million
in FY2011, including over $200 million in food and other humanitarian
aid. Kenya received more than $700 million in U.S. aid in FY2012—over
$500 million in bilateral aid, including almost $8 million in Overseas
Contingency Operations funds, and roughly $200 million in humanitarian
aid, in addition to U.S. support for AMISOM troop contributors. The
State Department has requested $564 million in non-emergency aid for
FY2014; this figure does not include food aid or certain types of
security assistance.”
Kenya
is arguably the largest recipient of U.S. State Department
Anti-Terrorism Assistance and has benefitted from millions of dollars in
counterterrorism training, military equipment, and surveillance
technology. The U.S. and Kenya have partnered in counterterrorism
operations and intelligence sharing. Truth be told, the criticism has
been that the U.S. by providing counterterrorism aid to Kenya has turned
a blind eye, deaf ears and muted lips to human rights abuses in Kenya.
The
European Commission has provided millions of dollars in aid to Kenya to
improve democratic governance focusing on activities related to
“anti-corruption, access to justice, elections and civic education,
local governance and policy and legal reform, promotion and protection
of human rights, public sector reform and institution and
capacity-building.” Nairobi is the nerve center of much of the
international community in Africa and hosts a variety of regional and
international organizations. After New York and Geneva, the United
Nations Office in Nairobi’s Gigiri district is said to be the largest UN
regional center in the world.
How
can Kenyatta say with a straight face that “Western powers have used
prosecutions as ruses and bait to pressure Kenyan leadership into
adopting, or renouncing various positions.” Let’s be honest! Could
Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda…. survive without alms from the West? Loans and
credits from the wicked “neo-liberal” World Bank and International
Monetary Fund? The great American “working man’s philosopher” Eric
Hoffer said, “People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the
boot that kicks them.”
Nightmares everywhere!
Of
course, no one at the AU summit talked about the living nightmares of
the helpless, powerless and defenseless villagers in Darfur who to this
day are chased by the “Janjawid” (“devils on horseback”) militia. No one
at the AU talked about the nightmares of the survivors of war crimes
in the Ogaden and Gambella regions in Ethiopia. No one talked about the
crimes against humanity that are taking place in the DR Congo today. No
one presented a status report on the effort to capture and bring to
justice the notorious Joseph Kony in Uganda. Those who re-live daily the
nightmare of murder, torture, mutilation, rape, pillage and plunder
were not even mentioned in passing by Africa’s “leaders” at their
Summit.
Truth
be told, nightmares are not a monopoly of African “leaders”, victims
and survivors. Those of us fortunate enough not to witness or experience
the ghastly nightmares have nightmares about those nightmares. We have
nightmares because we cannot bring ourselves to believe African
political and rebel leaders are capable of such bottomless depravity and
wanton cruelty. We find ourselves trapped in our own nightmare of
indifference, the kind Elie Weisel, the holocaust survivor, wrote about
in his book, “Night”: “Not far from us flames were leaping up from a
ditch, gigantic flames...Babies! Yes, I saw it with my own eyes...I
pinched my face. Was I still alive? Was I awake? I could not believe it.
How could it be possible for them to burn people, children, and the
world to keep silent? No, none of this could be true. It was a
nightmare...”
Elise Weisel taught us that “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”
That's why we must speak up, and loud; protest, cry out and
demonstrate. We must never, never back down from demanding justice for
victims of injustice!
Deferral of ICC trial will not end the nightmare, it will prolong and make it stronger
Kenyatta
does not want to face the music in the ICC. He wants to “defer” the
court proceedings so that he and his deputy president Ruto can “fulfill
their duties of running the country.” The AU and Kenyatta’s lawyers
seek the dispensation of the U.N. Security Council and implore the
Council to exercise its authority under Article 16 of the Rome Statute
and grant a 12 month “deferral” with the possibility of additional
deferrals. “Deferral” is another word for delay; and delay is the oldest
trick in the book of defense lawyers. Passage of time favors the
accused. Delay often wins criminal cases! Criminal defense lawyers live
by the Code of the Three “D’s”: deny, delay, and defend. If a case is
delayed, a lot of things can happen: witnesses relocate or die or are
suborned to recant or give perjured testimony; witnesses’ memories fade
and are unable to recall details; in high profile cases, public opinion
can be manipulated and sympathy generated for the accused by
mischaracterizing the charges as politically and racially motivated; a
tough prosecutor could be replaced by a more lenient one, more inclined
to settle the case or reduce or dismiss some charges.
It
is supremely ironic that Kenyatta, the man who vociferously proclaims
his innocence and takes pride in cooperating with the ICC, does not want
a speedy trial; he wants a delayed trial, a deferred trial. I believe
justice delayed is not only justice denied but also injustice prolonged.
But I also know for some in the defense bar justice delayed is justice
evaded, dodged!
To escape the nightmare of injustice, dream about justice
It
will not be possible to end the nightmares of Kenyatta, Ruto and Bashir
without simultaneously ending the nightmares of their victims. Their
victims can only daydream about ending their nightmares in an open court
of law where the facts and the truth about the post-2007 election are
brought to light. Their nightmares will vanish when the light of truth
shines on those who perpetrated atrocious crimes against them.
President Kenyatta: Your reputation, Sir! What about your reputation?!
President Kenyatta is alleged to be criminally responsible as an indirect co-perpetrator pursuant
to article 25(3)(a) of the Rome Statute for the crimes of (1) murder
(article 7(l)(a)); (2) deportation or forcible transfer (article
7(l)(d)); (3) rape (article 7(l)(g)); (4) persecution (articles
7(l)(h)); and (5) other inhumane acts (article 7(l)(k)). These are
heinous accusation which must be swiftly confronted and laid to rest.
President
Kenyatta proudly declared, “From the beginning of the cases, I have
fully cooperated with the Court in the earnest expectation that it
afforded the best opportunity for me to clear my name.” Now, President
Kenyatta should heed young Cassio’s words in Shakespeare’s Othello, the
tragic tale of an African general, smitten not only by love but also by
racism in the Venetian Army. Cassio, a good, loyal and learned soldier,
following a personal indiscretion frets about his good name.
“Perplexed in the extreme” Cassio questions whether a man, without his
reputation and his good name, is merely a beast: “Reputation,
reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the
immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation,
Iago, my reputation!”
Mr.
Kenyatta, what does it profit a man to be president when his
reputation, his name -- nay! the immortal part of himself, his soul --
becomes the namesake for mass murder, mass deportation, mass rape and
mass persecution? What remains of such a man, Mr. President?
Humanity before sovereignty!
Saturday afternoon demonstrated Ethiopians against the abuse of dissidents in the country. Photo: Eirik Hagesæter
October 27, 2013, Norway (BA) – We demonstrate in order to put pressure on the Norwegian government and the international community, so they can put pressure on the regime in Ethiopia , says EBSS Tesema to BA.
He explains that many of them are asylum seekers from the region of Oromia in Ethiopia , where the systematic injustice taking place.
WHIPPED AND HUNG
Opposition politicians , journalists and regime critics are subjected to systematic torture at a police station in Addis Ababa , according to a Human Rights Watch report that was presented last week.
The police station is located in the heart of the capital Addis Abbeba in Oromia region .
Torture methods used include blow to the body with hard objects and flogging . Prisoners are also hung from the ceiling in very painful positions, writes Aftenposten.
Merciless
Ethiopia’s ruling party , Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front ( EPRDF ) , has ruled the country for over 20 years. Following the disputed elections in 2005 , the authorities have turned down hard on the opposition.
Anti -terror laws since 2009 have been used to imprison both journalists and dissidents .
It is these conditions Ethiopians in Bergen will have an end.
With banners with slogans like ” Stop the torture of Oromo ” and ” Stop lavishing “, and the use of megaphones , spread the message to people in the downtown streets.
-BA
