'It's too late to stop Ocampo'
The Eldoret showground camp where scores of post-election violence victims sought refuge last year. Prime Minister Raila Odinga has criticised Parliament's move to withdraw from ICC. File Photo
Prime Minister Raila Odinga has criticised MPs pushing Kenya to withdraw from the International Criminal Court.
He said that chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo’s decision to name six suspects linked to the post-election violence was irreversible.
He also said the motion passed in Parliament last week urging the government to write a withdrawal letter to the UN secretary-general was inconsequential to the fate of the suspects.
“Luis Moreno-Ocampo is dreaded, yet the MPs told off the government not to be vague, it is Hague,” he said.
He accused MPs calling for withdrawal of Kenya from the Rome Statute of double standards after they twice thwarted government efforts to set up a local tribunal to try perpetrators of post-election violence in which 1,133 people were killed and 650,000 displaced from their homes.
The PM also hit at politicians claiming he had influenced the Ocampo Six list, saying, the Justice Philip Waki Commission of Inquiry into Post Election Violence identified suspects and handed over the names to Mr Kofi Annan.
“The names of Ocampo were not handed over to Raila Odinga, and Raila Odinga himself did not investigate or recommend who to be prosecuted,” he said.
Mr Odinga also said at St Peter’s ACK Church in Nyamira, Bondo constituency, that the ODM would clinch victory in the 2012 General Election. He added that he would be in the presidential race, and urged party members to start preparing for the elections.
The Prime Minister dismissed the KKK alliance, calling it an alliance “between tribes to clinch power”.
“Such arrangements will be in vain because Kenyans are no longer keen of such outfits,” he said.
Mr Odinga said the country could only move ahead if those who were maimed, raped or lost relatives and property during the chaos are mollified through justice and reconciliation.
He cited the Naivasha fisherman Bernard Orinda Ndege, who lost 11 family members when a mob set their house on fire.
The PM was accompanied by his wife, Ida, Bondo MP Oburu Oginga and Gem politician Julius Okinda.
