ON September 10, Deputy President William
Ruto's case at the International Criminal Court starts. In November,
President Kenyatta's is due to kick off as well.
All this is pretty unprecedented globally. To have a sitting head of state and his deputy at the Hague as defendants before the successor to Nuremberg Court that tried the Nazis who engineered the Second World War and holocaust is massive in ways we haven't fully appreciated. It has and will further shake up Kenya. It is doing the same to the ICC too, which in the Kenyan cases, is facing some of the severest tests in its relatively brief history. History is being made.
The ICC has redefined Kenya's foreign policy totally and turned domestic politics inside out. Immediately after the post-election violence in 2008, Kenyans were clamouring for the ICC to intervene given the horrors that had just taken place.
Accountability, justice, impunity, reconciliation and other such words were the primary fodder of political discourse as we headed into the referendum on the constitution in 2010. Indeed, it can be argued that even among those most strongly opposed to the new constitutional dispensation, the dark looming cloud of the ICC and all its implications, especially the public mood that accompanied it through 2008 into 2010, all served to soften them up to demonstrate their pro-change, reformist credentials at a time when the country's leadership and the messy albeit negotiated coalition arrangement was particularly unsatisfactory to the population.
If it hadn't been for the ICC, perhaps more of the so-called 'watermelons' who pretended to support the new constitution while secretly being opposed to it, would have come out into the open with their true position.
As the US and its allies prepare to strike Syria on behalf of a world where the use of weapons of mass destruction constitutes an intolerable escalation, one is reminded of how narratives can flip; how a new memory is reconstructed by elites from the strands of old more powerful narratives.
Note that the Syrian war has lent the ICC added relevance and urgency in the architecture of global accountability and standards of human rights and good governance. Some experts warn that the necessity of these military strikes may also serve to galvanise Arab public opinion against the West in powerful ways despite the unmitigated horror of a leader dropping chemical weapons on his own people - if it is convincingly proved that Bashar Assad pushed the button.
There shall be some 'reasonable people' in the Arab world for whom US interference in the affairs of the Middle East will prove harder to swallow than the hideousness of a chemical attack on fellow Arab civilians. Thus is the world. Parts of the Kenyan population are in just such a trap: caught between our preaching about and, yes, belief in, good governance and accountability; and its realities when brought to bear in our tribalised, politicised and fragmented political economy. Grimly put - 'it hurts like hell when it is my tribesman who is being held accountable'. It hurts so much it leads to some of the most gibbering rationalisations of absurdity possible.
As we walk around these days we know part of the new contrived reality that is being spun with such professionalism and determination means we have to con ourselves. I went through our airport the other day and felt proud to be Kenyan. The place had almost burnt down some weeks ago but in 48 hours it was up and running again. It took me a while before the reminder came: what were we doing letting the place burn down; how come the systems meant to prevent this failed? One cynical Kenyan whispered to me: "It all looks very good but can you imagine the contracts that have been eaten and will be eaten?"
FROM SUSPECTS TO VICTIMS
One of the most brilliant political manipulations we have ever seen took place in the run up to the last polls. It was the transformation of Uhuru and Ruto - who emerged as the primary ICC suspects - into tribal Kingpins on an unprecedented scale on the back of the emotions of victimhood thrown up around the ICC cases. Combined with the carefully cultivated narrative of the 'tyranny of numbers' that lulled the voting population and media into accepting what may have been pre-arranged electoral outcomes that were being feverishly cooked up behind the scenes, the scene was set for the most virulently divisive election in Kenyan history in tribal terms at least.
The transformation of UhuRuto from suspects to victims was partly achieved by the fact that Raila Odinga, who had contested the 2007 election with Ruto as his turbo charged key ethnic sidekick, was not on the initial list of ICC suspects. The unspoken narrative too - and far more compelling than all the academic reasoning - was that in the post-election violence Uhuru generally was a political 'first responder' as the Gikuyu, as it were, faced hordes of tribal opponents across Kenya but especially in the Rift Valley. These opponents were ostensibly led by Mr Ruto who had found common cause with Mr Odinga in ODM at the time. Thus is today's alliance between the two previous political 'foes' on whose behalf blood has flowed, rationalised. It is deeply frustrating for some that this argument can't be taken to the ICC, which represents a process into which we walked into with our eyes closed and mouths wide open.
A host of sub-narratives had to be manufactured to complete the transformation of suspects into victims and the victims into candidates and the candidates into an administration that 'won' an election and is now running a government. All required large doses of selective amnesia on the part of large sections of the population, which is part of the reason we Kenyans currently continue to mystify ourselves at our ability to apparently believe our own nonsense. The most potent of these narratives were that the ICC was an imperialist anti-African tool in the hands of the West intent to continued subjugation of Africans. A concerted and well-articulated campaign along these lines has gathered a genuine head of steam at the African Union. It was conveniently forgotten that the ICC was the best friend of millions in 2008 and 2009. When Judge Philip Waki handed over his 'envelope' to Kofi Annan, the country was gripped by the kind of excitement that overcomes people watching a cliff hanger at the end of a Mexican soap. The other narrative, though, was that the ICC cases were false anyway: manufactured by 'NGOs' who had coached individuals to bear false witness together with other derisively dismissed 'civil societies'. Again it was forgotten that in the worst days during and after the PEV, it was these 'civil societies' who were out in the IDP camps with victims; rolling out massive peace-building and reconciliation programmes etc.
These new narratives are being disseminated most vehemently by those who bristled with venom and anger immediately after the post-election violence, against those they now defend so vigorously. There are those too, mainly in the business community both local and international, for whom all this 'talk about good governance, accountability, rights and "hulabaloo" about impunity is simply bad for business and doesn't take into sufficient account 'African realities'. Then there are those who argue that the current situation is preordained - God's work - and therefore beyond comprehension of mere mortals.
OPS! ICC HAS ARRIVED
Yet, a few weeks ago as I travelled I found myself confronted by Kenyans who seemed sincerely surprised that the ICC cases 'have arrived' as it were. The implicit argument here which has been spread with clever language in multiple media spaces - once the elections ended peacefully, Kenyans came together and then need for the ICC process effectively ended - period. But this alchemy is hard for even the remotely honest to countenance. And so a more nuanced argument is being put forth that is more compelling in a realpolitik reading of matters: that the ICC, at the current time, given current circumstances (that are being massaged feverishly to fit immediate political ends), will be fundamentally destabilising to Kenya. This reminds me of a story a wise man told me recently:
There was once a mouse that found a mouse trap in the farmer's house. The mouse rushed out and shouted to the pig, "There's a mouse trap in the house!" The pig responded, "Well, you have a problem". The mouse rushed to the cow and raised the same alarm, "There is a mouse trap in the house!" The cow responded as the pig had - "Your problem not mine". That afternoon a viper's tail was caught in the mouse trap. The snake lay there writhing with rage not dead but unable to escape. The farmer's wife came along and the viper bit her. The farmer came home and found his wife deeply ill from the bite. He called the local witchdoctor who told him, "feed her some pork and she'll recover". So the farmer slaughtered the pig, cooked the pork and fed it to his ailing wife. She died anyway. A huge funeral took place. To feed the multitude the farmer slaughtered the cow and cooked its meat for mourners.
We seem to find ourselves in the same position as that cow. We could face a constitutional crisis with the possibility of the head of state and his deputy out of the country at the same time. These constitutional logistics could turn into a problem for us. Kenya will undoubtedly be brought low by having both its head of state and his deputy endure a global judicial process of such as the ICC. This will be attenuated by the challenges our own judiciary has been facing at home with splits, in-fighting, allegations of corruption and generally a poor state of affairs. The Hague process will be tighter and remind us of what we don't have here.
The Eagle has landed-Kenya and the ICC by John Githongo
All this is pretty unprecedented globally. To have a sitting head of state and his deputy at the Hague as defendants before the successor to Nuremberg Court that tried the Nazis who engineered the Second World War and holocaust is massive in ways we haven't fully appreciated. It has and will further shake up Kenya. It is doing the same to the ICC too, which in the Kenyan cases, is facing some of the severest tests in its relatively brief history. History is being made.
The ICC has redefined Kenya's foreign policy totally and turned domestic politics inside out. Immediately after the post-election violence in 2008, Kenyans were clamouring for the ICC to intervene given the horrors that had just taken place.
Accountability, justice, impunity, reconciliation and other such words were the primary fodder of political discourse as we headed into the referendum on the constitution in 2010. Indeed, it can be argued that even among those most strongly opposed to the new constitutional dispensation, the dark looming cloud of the ICC and all its implications, especially the public mood that accompanied it through 2008 into 2010, all served to soften them up to demonstrate their pro-change, reformist credentials at a time when the country's leadership and the messy albeit negotiated coalition arrangement was particularly unsatisfactory to the population.
If it hadn't been for the ICC, perhaps more of the so-called 'watermelons' who pretended to support the new constitution while secretly being opposed to it, would have come out into the open with their true position.
As the US and its allies prepare to strike Syria on behalf of a world where the use of weapons of mass destruction constitutes an intolerable escalation, one is reminded of how narratives can flip; how a new memory is reconstructed by elites from the strands of old more powerful narratives.
Note that the Syrian war has lent the ICC added relevance and urgency in the architecture of global accountability and standards of human rights and good governance. Some experts warn that the necessity of these military strikes may also serve to galvanise Arab public opinion against the West in powerful ways despite the unmitigated horror of a leader dropping chemical weapons on his own people - if it is convincingly proved that Bashar Assad pushed the button.
There shall be some 'reasonable people' in the Arab world for whom US interference in the affairs of the Middle East will prove harder to swallow than the hideousness of a chemical attack on fellow Arab civilians. Thus is the world. Parts of the Kenyan population are in just such a trap: caught between our preaching about and, yes, belief in, good governance and accountability; and its realities when brought to bear in our tribalised, politicised and fragmented political economy. Grimly put - 'it hurts like hell when it is my tribesman who is being held accountable'. It hurts so much it leads to some of the most gibbering rationalisations of absurdity possible.
As we walk around these days we know part of the new contrived reality that is being spun with such professionalism and determination means we have to con ourselves. I went through our airport the other day and felt proud to be Kenyan. The place had almost burnt down some weeks ago but in 48 hours it was up and running again. It took me a while before the reminder came: what were we doing letting the place burn down; how come the systems meant to prevent this failed? One cynical Kenyan whispered to me: "It all looks very good but can you imagine the contracts that have been eaten and will be eaten?"
FROM SUSPECTS TO VICTIMS
One of the most brilliant political manipulations we have ever seen took place in the run up to the last polls. It was the transformation of Uhuru and Ruto - who emerged as the primary ICC suspects - into tribal Kingpins on an unprecedented scale on the back of the emotions of victimhood thrown up around the ICC cases. Combined with the carefully cultivated narrative of the 'tyranny of numbers' that lulled the voting population and media into accepting what may have been pre-arranged electoral outcomes that were being feverishly cooked up behind the scenes, the scene was set for the most virulently divisive election in Kenyan history in tribal terms at least.
The transformation of UhuRuto from suspects to victims was partly achieved by the fact that Raila Odinga, who had contested the 2007 election with Ruto as his turbo charged key ethnic sidekick, was not on the initial list of ICC suspects. The unspoken narrative too - and far more compelling than all the academic reasoning - was that in the post-election violence Uhuru generally was a political 'first responder' as the Gikuyu, as it were, faced hordes of tribal opponents across Kenya but especially in the Rift Valley. These opponents were ostensibly led by Mr Ruto who had found common cause with Mr Odinga in ODM at the time. Thus is today's alliance between the two previous political 'foes' on whose behalf blood has flowed, rationalised. It is deeply frustrating for some that this argument can't be taken to the ICC, which represents a process into which we walked into with our eyes closed and mouths wide open.
A host of sub-narratives had to be manufactured to complete the transformation of suspects into victims and the victims into candidates and the candidates into an administration that 'won' an election and is now running a government. All required large doses of selective amnesia on the part of large sections of the population, which is part of the reason we Kenyans currently continue to mystify ourselves at our ability to apparently believe our own nonsense. The most potent of these narratives were that the ICC was an imperialist anti-African tool in the hands of the West intent to continued subjugation of Africans. A concerted and well-articulated campaign along these lines has gathered a genuine head of steam at the African Union. It was conveniently forgotten that the ICC was the best friend of millions in 2008 and 2009. When Judge Philip Waki handed over his 'envelope' to Kofi Annan, the country was gripped by the kind of excitement that overcomes people watching a cliff hanger at the end of a Mexican soap. The other narrative, though, was that the ICC cases were false anyway: manufactured by 'NGOs' who had coached individuals to bear false witness together with other derisively dismissed 'civil societies'. Again it was forgotten that in the worst days during and after the PEV, it was these 'civil societies' who were out in the IDP camps with victims; rolling out massive peace-building and reconciliation programmes etc.
These new narratives are being disseminated most vehemently by those who bristled with venom and anger immediately after the post-election violence, against those they now defend so vigorously. There are those too, mainly in the business community both local and international, for whom all this 'talk about good governance, accountability, rights and "hulabaloo" about impunity is simply bad for business and doesn't take into sufficient account 'African realities'. Then there are those who argue that the current situation is preordained - God's work - and therefore beyond comprehension of mere mortals.
OPS! ICC HAS ARRIVED
Yet, a few weeks ago as I travelled I found myself confronted by Kenyans who seemed sincerely surprised that the ICC cases 'have arrived' as it were. The implicit argument here which has been spread with clever language in multiple media spaces - once the elections ended peacefully, Kenyans came together and then need for the ICC process effectively ended - period. But this alchemy is hard for even the remotely honest to countenance. And so a more nuanced argument is being put forth that is more compelling in a realpolitik reading of matters: that the ICC, at the current time, given current circumstances (that are being massaged feverishly to fit immediate political ends), will be fundamentally destabilising to Kenya. This reminds me of a story a wise man told me recently:
There was once a mouse that found a mouse trap in the farmer's house. The mouse rushed out and shouted to the pig, "There's a mouse trap in the house!" The pig responded, "Well, you have a problem". The mouse rushed to the cow and raised the same alarm, "There is a mouse trap in the house!" The cow responded as the pig had - "Your problem not mine". That afternoon a viper's tail was caught in the mouse trap. The snake lay there writhing with rage not dead but unable to escape. The farmer's wife came along and the viper bit her. The farmer came home and found his wife deeply ill from the bite. He called the local witchdoctor who told him, "feed her some pork and she'll recover". So the farmer slaughtered the pig, cooked the pork and fed it to his ailing wife. She died anyway. A huge funeral took place. To feed the multitude the farmer slaughtered the cow and cooked its meat for mourners.
We seem to find ourselves in the same position as that cow. We could face a constitutional crisis with the possibility of the head of state and his deputy out of the country at the same time. These constitutional logistics could turn into a problem for us. Kenya will undoubtedly be brought low by having both its head of state and his deputy endure a global judicial process of such as the ICC. This will be attenuated by the challenges our own judiciary has been facing at home with splits, in-fighting, allegations of corruption and generally a poor state of affairs. The Hague process will be tighter and remind us of what we don't have here.
The Eagle has landed-Kenya and the ICC by John Githongo
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