Last week the International Criminal Court in The Hague (ICC) decided not to prosecute the president of Kenya for inciting ethnic violence that killed 1200 men, women, and children, and displaced 600,000.
War crimes prosecutors dropped charges against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Friday…
Judges at the Hague-based court had on Wednesday given the prosecution a week to decide whether to proceed with their case against Kenyatta, who was accused of fomenting ethnic violence after the 2007 election, or to withdraw the charges…
Prosecutors have said Kenyatta, who had been accused of orchestrating a wave of deadly violence after Kenya’s 2007 elections, used his political power to obstruct their investigation, especially since becoming president last year.
(Reuters, December 5, 2014)
Interestingly enough, this news came less than 48 hours after news broke that a grand jury in New York had decided not to prosecute a White cop for killing a Black man. After all, the whole world seems not only aware of the grand jury’s decision, but outraged by it. Whereas you’d be hard-pressed to find a non-Kenyan who is even aware of the ICC’s decision, let alone outraged by it. This, of course, is ironic given the clarion shouts of “Black lives matter!” among those protesting the grand jury’s decision.
Frankly, prevailing ignorance about (or disinterest in) the ICC’s decision betrays Martin Luther King’s Jr.’s famous admonition that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Especially considering that ethnic/religious violence in Africa makes police shootings in America look like misdemeanors on the global spectrum of injustice.
Not to mention prevailing ignorance among traffic-stopping, business-disrupting protesters even about the nature and incidence of police shootings in America. This was brought into embarrassing relief on the December 3 edition of The O’Rielly Factor, when no less a person than prominent talk-show host and Black activist Tavis Smiley appeared to speak on their behalf:
SMILEY: There is no respect for the humanity and the dignity for Black life in this country…
O’REILLY: Do you know how many Blacks were killed by police by gunfire last year?
SMILEY: Off the top of my head, I don’t.
O’REILLY: The number is 123. Do you know how many whites were killed? 326.
Granted, police shootings are systematically underreported (with respect to Black and White victims). Still, given these protests, you’d think Smiley would be at least familiar with the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports.
Mind you, even when a little awareness filters into this prevailing ignorance, it manifests as little more than hashtag activism — as was the case with #Bringbackourgirls and #Kony2012 viral tweets. Remember those? But I digress….
As my headline indicates, I was not surprised by the ICC’s decision not to prosecute Kenyatta. I’ve written a series of commentaries foreshadowing it and delineating why the ICC is such a hopelessly discredited institution.
In fact, this case was as much about the ICC’s credibility as it was about Kenyatta’s guilt. Therefore, I shall suffice to share excerpts from a few of those commentaries, which explain not only why this case failed, but also why the ICC should be abolished.
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- From “Alas, the ICC Charging Bashir of Sudan with Genocide Means Nothing!” July 15, 2008:
It is critical to note that neither the United States nor Sudan has ratified this treaty. Which means that the only country that would even dare to arrest Bashir on these charges does not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction.
- From “ICC Double Standards…” June 29, 2011:
It is hardly surprising that, far from being cowered by ICC arrest warrants, al-Bashir and Gaddafi have reacted to them with unbridled contempt. But there’s no gainsaying their complaint that the ICC amounts to little more than a tool Europeans use to prosecute leaders of African countries.
- From “Uhuru Kenyatta, Son of Kenya’s Founding Father, Indicted on War Crimes,” January 24, 2012:
I wonder what evidence the ICC possesses that ties Uhuru and the three other prominent Kenyans it indicted to the rapes and murders that were committed. And am I the only one who finds it a little too convenient that, of the four indicted, two of them supported [President] Kibaki (namely, Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and Cabinet Secretary Francis Muthaura) and two supported [presidential candidate] Odinga (namely, former Education Minister William Ruto and radio presenter Joshua arap Sang)?
Frankly, this seems a contrived attempt by the ICC to forestall more score-settling and communal violence by saying, in effect, a pox on both your houses.
What’s more, I doubt any of these men had any hands-on involvement in any of the violence at issue. And if the charges stem just from inciting and organizing what the BBC described as ‘a bloody round of score-settling and communal violence,’ then surely no two people are more responsible than Kibaki and Odinga themselves. Which makes this rather like blaming Hitler’s generals but not Hitler himself, no?
From “Liberian President Charles Taylor Convicted in The Hague,” April 27, 2012:
If Taylor of Liberia can be hauled to The Hague and tried for aiding and abetting atrocities that were committed in Sierra Leone, why shouldn’t Putin of Russia face the same fate for aiding and abetting similar atrocities now being committed in Syria?
- From “No Equitable Justice in ICC Prosecuting Kenya’s Kenyatta,” March 25, 2013:
It now seems my suspicions about the ICC’s evidence were wholly warranted. Because on March 11, 2013, the ICC dropped all charges against Uhuru’s co-defendant, Francis Mathaura, citing the lack of credibility of its star witness.
More important, though, given that the ICC based its indictment against Uhuru primarily on this same witness’s testimony, it can only be a matter of time before prosecutors swallow their pride and drop all charges against him too…
Prosecutors insist they have other witnesses who can testify to hearing Uhuru order Kibaki supporters to attack Odinga supporters. But this still begs the question: If the witness intimidation that forced the ICC to dismiss charges against Muthaura ‘is ongoing [and] will get more serious,’ isn’t it more likely than not that such intimidation will succeed in compromising the testimony of any witness against Uhuru? After all, he is not only the richest man in Kenya but now the most powerful one too, having been elected as its new president earlier this month.
I am willing to bet my life savings that President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta will never … serve a day in jail.
From “International Criminal Court Lost All Credibility,” June 5, 2013:
My commentaries are replete with condemnation of the kleptomaniacal and genocidal thugs who have lorded, for far too long, over far too many countries in post-colonial Africa. But there’s no denying that thugs of a different sort have lorded, for far too long, over far too many countries on every other continent as well…
I am heartened that Africa now has a new crop of reputable and respected leaders who are echoing my condemnation of both African despots and ICC prosecutors…
I urge you to bear in mind that nobody called for the racist fiends who ruled the United States from slavery to Jim Crow to be hauled before any international criminal court for the systematic crimes against humanity they committed (or orchestrated).
Therefore, I submit that, just as America has done since its founding, African countries should be left alone to figure out how to prosecute and imprison (if called for) any leader who commits an impeachable offense. And remember, it took a bloody civil war the likes of which the world had never seen for American leaders to just begin abiding by their constitutional principles of democracy and freedom.
- And from “African Leaders Defy ICC to Defend Kenya’s Kenyatta,” October 15, 2013:
It’s one thing for the ICC to prosecute a diamonds/drugs warlord turned president like Charles Taylor of Liberia; it’s quite another to prosecute Kenyatta. After all, he’s not only the son of a man who is arguably even more revered throughout Africa than Nelson Mandela, he’s now the sitting, legitimately elected president of Kenya.
This is why it came as no surprise when the African Union convened an extraordinary session last weekend to decide whether member states should withdraw en masse from the ICC’s jurisdiction…
The AU … resolved that …no African head of state shall appear before any international court.
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That said, I fully expect the ICC to decide not to prosecute Kenyatta’s other co-defendant, Deputy President William Ruto, for the same reasons it decided not to prosecute Mathaura and Kenyatta. Not least because it would say far more about the ICC’s lack of credibility than Ruto’s guilt if it proceeds in the circumstances.
On the other hand, prominent political commentators like Natznet Tesfay, head of Africa analysis at IHS Country Risk, are predicting that, with no fear of ICC prosecution, a congenital need for ethnic supremacy will plunge Kenyatta’s Kikuyus and Ruto’s Kalenjins back into the kind of violence that gave rise to ICC charges in the first place.
But I’m convinced they both recognize and appreciate that they have too much to gain by continuing their coalition government. Not to mention their need to focus on the existential threat their common enemy, al-Qaeda affiliate al-Shabaab, poses.
Finally, apropos of my reference above to “Putin of Russia,” the ongoing civil war in Ukraine compels me to double down on the glaring double standard in the ICC not indicting Vladimir Putin – no matter its snowball’s chance in hell of actually prosecuting him.
After all, like “Taylor of Liberia,” Putin has fomented (and is still fomenting) ethnic violence there to the same degree between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian nationalists. Not to mention how the ICC stood by as Putin’s annexed Crimea to become a part of his Novorossiya….
I rest my case.
Related commentaries:
Ferguson wrong, NY right…
ICC Kenyatta…
ICC Gaddafi…
ICC Bashir…
African leaders defy ICC to defend Kenyatta
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