ICC cases could spoil reconciliation process, say scholars

hursday, November 7, 2013

Deputy President William Ruto sits in the courtroom of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. PHOTO/AFP 

In Summary

• Mr Kenyatta, Mr Ruto and Mr Sang are facing charges related to their alleged participation in the 2008 post-election violence in which 1, 113 died and 650,000 others displaced.

By AGGREY MUTAMBO
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The ICC cases facing President Uhuru Kenyatta, his Deputy William Ruto and journalist Joshua Arap Sang could spoil reconciliation efforts in the country.

At a conference on transitional justice in Nairobi on Thursday, intellectuals argued that the current political situation in Kenya and the fact that those who carried out the actual killings during the 2008 violence are walking free means people will continue to harbour feelings of revenge.

“It has to be a balancing act between peace and justice. In the case of Kenya, I think each one of us has an opinion, but I feel the situation is too polarised,” said Dr Emmanuel Kisiang’ani, a lecturer at Kenyatta University.

“Justice Processes need to be credible and so the question maybe, is the ICC credible? My view is that if we have to go to The Hague, then we have to also send Bush and Blair there.”

Mr Kenyatta, Mr Ruto and Mr Sang are facing charges related to their alleged participation in the 2008 post-election violence in which 1, 113 died and 650,000 others displaced. And although the case for Mr Ruto and Mr Sang is currently underway at The Hague, Dr Kisiang’ani who presented a paper titled Transitional Justice in Africa: the Debate between Restorative or Retributive Justice, argued that the prosecution of the three will not necessarily bring reconciliation to those who fought then.

The academics who were meeting at Laico Regency to ponder over whether Kenya should prosecute those suspected of past injustices or whether we should forget and move on argued that the ICC has turned a spoiler for reconciliation.

“ICC has its place in international justice, but in Kenya it is doing more harm than good, in the longterm,” argued Prof Peter Kagwanja, the Chief Executive of local think-tank, Africa Policy Institute.

“As an intellectual, I conceived it as an act of opening old wounds. Even though the two communities (Kikuyu and Kalenjin) have reconciled, I would dare say that if pushed to its logical conclusion, the scenarios that might emerge from the ICC might actually disrupt that process which reconcilers and others have been trying to stitch together so carefully,” he said.

The conference at Laico Regency organised by the African Policy Institute also attracted former Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) chairman who argued that Kenya’s society is “sick” because people have never recovered from past violence.

Mr Bethuel Kiplagat, a former Kenyan ambassador to France, chaired the troubled TJRC whose commissioners initially rejected him. And when the Commission released its report in May this year, his name was included as one of those to be investigated for past injustices.

Yet he told the conference that going to court was not a guarantee for peace in future.

“There is sickness in the land, people have been hurting; whether it was done by the government, whether it was done by the individual or whether it was done by a relative, it really doesn’t matter,” he said.

“I am not saying don’t go to Court, am saying if you do go, it will not remove the pain that people are carrying in their souls,” he added.