Filed under: africa | Tags: fertility, fertility rate in Kenya, Moreno-Ocampo
Chief prosecutor of the ICC – Moreno-Ocampo – jets into Kenya on Thursday in his efforts to bring to justice those who planned and financed the murder of over 1300 Kenyans in last year’s post-election violence. It is not clear exactly what Ocampo will demand of the president and his premier. Both men have close associates in the cabinet implicated in the murder of Kenyans. It is highly doubtful that the ICC will get anything out of the current Kenyan government – I can’t imagine the Kenyan police arresting any of the powerful ethnic chiefs in the cabinet. Wanjiku may have to wait a little longer for justice to be served.
And in other news, Kenya’s demographic transition is here!! I have nothing against babies. But I was delighted to learn that Kenyan women are having less children – a drop of .3 children per woman – and that 9 out 10 consulted a health officer at some point during their pregnancy. The survey that generated these results is done every five years and included over 10,000 Kenyan households. Other positives include the fact that vaccination rates had gone up and that up to 90% of rural women received some form of ante-natal care while pregnant (urban figure was 96%).
This sort of demographic transition has positives in many ways. Women having less children means that they are freed to do more to increase the GDP bottom line. It also means that GDP growth will not be gobbled up by an increase in population size.And perhaps most importantly, it means that women are becoming more and more empowered – the fact that they are able to control their fertility is an indicator of this (kudos to women from Central Kenya, 67% of them are in charge of their own fertility).
Filed under: africa | Tags: Kenya, Hague, Corruption, Moreno-Ocampo, ICC, Aaron Ringera, KACC, Annan, Kofi, Moreno
I just watched a clip on the Nation’s website showing the press conference at which outgoing director of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission, retired judge Ringera announced his departure from Integrity Centre. I don’t understand exactly why it took him so long to see the sense in doing this.The clip also hinted at rumors that Ringera may get a job in the judiciary. I hope not. He was ineffectual at KACC. He earned 2 million shillings a month and delivered nothing for Wanjiku. Public service, and the emoluments that come with it, is not the right of a select group of Kenyans. We should not keep recycling the same names. And this is not restricted to just the high profile national offices. We transfer ineffectual DCs, PPOs, directors and chiefs all the time. No wonder the more we try to implement change the more things stay the same.
As Ringera left he made some very useful suggestions on how parliament can strengthen the KACC. May be we should award his courage in resigning by implementing some of these ideas.
And on a sort of related topic, I wish Annan and Ocampo would stop issuing threats. Just give us the names. Let us know who is suspected of having done what in last year’s post poll violence. These leaders need to be named and shamed instead of being given more time to continue mis-shaping Kenya’s destiny.
Filed under: africa | Tags: Kenya, Moreno-Ocampo, Muthoni Wanyeki, Mwai Kibaki, ODM, PNU, post-election violence in Kenya, Raila Odinga, The East African, the Hague
Muthoni Wanyeki is my favorite weekly columnist with the East African, a regional weekly. This week she wrote a piece on the Kenyan government’s reluctance to prosecute perpetrators of the post-election violence of early 2008.
Filed under: africa | Tags: Eldoret, Hague, Kenya, Kenyan elections 2007, Kiambaa Church burning, Moreno-Ocampo, Mwai Kibaki, Naivasha, Nakuru, ODM, PNU, Raila Odinga, Rift Valley, special tribunal
The Kenyan cabinet yesterday decided not to set up a local tribunal to try those who organized the targeted killings of people who spoke certain languages (but lived in the “wrong” places) after the bungled general elections of late 2007. Instead, in an effort to assuage the fears of a hostile parliament, the president and his cabinet decided to clean up the police force and the judiciary and have these organs try the said suspects. Yeah right.
My doubts of the cabinet’s intentions are premised on the fact that reforming the police force and the judiciary will not take a few months. The police force is the most corrupt institution in this country. Reforming it will take years. Same with the judiciary. If we are to wait for the police and judges to stop taking bribes and begin respecting the rule of law before we initiate the prosecution process then we might as well forget about the whole thing.
I remain deeply skeptical of President Kibaki’s commitment to making sure that those who organized the killing of more than 1300 Kenyans be brought to book. If he really means what he said yesterday then he should begin by firing Attorney General Amos Wako. This is a man who has been in that position through the tortures of the Moi era, the killings that preceded the 1997 general elections, and a myriad corruption scandals (including the mother of all, Goldenberg) without ever bringing any prominent player to book. Mr. Wako has been as effective as a parachute that deploys on the second bounce and should be shown the door, no questions asked.
It was always going to be difficult to bring the oafish ethnic chiefs masquerading as patriots to book. Yesterday was a stark reminder to all Kenyans that justice is political and that if change doesn’t come soon the powerful will continue doing what they want and leave the weak to suffer what they must.
Filed under: africa | Tags: Kibaki, Raila, kenyan cabinet, Nakuru, Eldoret, Hague, Moreno-Ocampo, Mutula Kilonzo, post-election violence in Kenya
For the second straight week the Kenyan cabinet remains deadlocked on the way forward in the effort to bring to book those who planned the post-election violence that killed over 1300 people early last year. Several cabinet ministers are opposed to the creation of a local tribunal – which is the official position of the government – and want the suspects be investigated and tried by the ICC’s chief prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo at the Hague. Their position, they argue, is informed by the sorry state of Kenya’s judiciary which for all practical purposes is usually in the pocket of whoever occupies state house.
It is widely believed that a number of cabinet ministers were significantly involved in the planning of violence after the disputed election. Indeed the government funded Kenya Human Rights Commission last week released a list of suspects that was populated by cabinet ministers and members of parliament. Ministers and MPs from both sides of the political divide criticised the move and vowed to take the human rights body to court for defamation.
My two cents on this is that those that plotted the violence at the very top should go to the Hague. The middle level and small fry should be tried by a special court within Kenyan law. And as this goes on we should have a truth and reconciliation process. That way, the people at the top will know that Kenyan lives are not the expendable commodities they imagine them to be and thugs who killed innocent women and children will be punished. And above all, the truth and reconciliation process will start the process of healing among Kenyans.
Filed under: Corruption, Crises, East Africa, africa, sudan | Tags: darfur, ICC, Moreno-Ocampo, Omar, Omar al-Bashir, sudan
Omar al-Bashir is a war criminal, no doutbt about that. Because of his genocidal tendencies hundreds of thousands of Sudanese in the East, West and South of the vast African country have lost their lives. Almost two million have been displaced from their homes and live lives not worth living. He deserves nothing but to be locked up in a tiny cell for the rest of his life.
Omar al-Bashir is also still the president of Sudan. He still has access to the security apparatus of Sudan. He can revoke aid licenses. He can bomb villages. He can jail aid workers. He has been doing a few of these things since his arrest warrant was issued by Moreno-Ocampo. He expelled aid workers in Darfur whom he accused of colluding with the ICC in gathering evidence against him. As the aid workers leave or downsize their involvement in Darfur hundreds of thousands of IDPs will be left without hope – the same people that institutions like the ICC are supposed to protect.
Justice is political. It is not some abstraction. It depends on realities on the ground. And for now the situation in Darfur is not conducive to the idea of arresting the commander in chief of the Sudanese Army. Omar al-Bashir is as guilty as charged. But it might do the Sudanese more good to engage him constructively than to demand for his immediate arrest.
Filed under: Chad, Crises, africa, sudan | Tags: crimes against humanity, darfur, Genocide, ICC, Moreno-Ocampo, Omar al-Bashir, sudan, war crimes
The International Criminal Court on Wednesday issued an arrest warrant for Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir. It is the first time that such a warrant has been issued for the arrest of a sitting head of state. The ICC is accusing Bashir of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his involvement in the genocide in Darfur.
This particular warrant will be a real test. Being a sitting president, it is hard to see how he can be arrest since the warrant itself will be delivered to the government of Sudan. Furthermore, al-Bashir now has every incentive to remain president and to clamp down on the opposition. Some members of the Sudanese civil society have criticized the idea of attempting to arrest al-Bashir, arguing that it will only make him dig in and reverse any progress that they have made in terms of being granted civil liberties and political space.
The government of Sudan is yet to officially respond to the arrest warrant although the BBC quotes a government official as terming the warrant as “neo-colonialist.”
