Local Tribunal best for Kenya, Annan tells MPs

Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan (right) and Kenyan legislators inside the old parliament chambers in Nairobi in February 2008. Mr Annan on Thursday asked the MPs to support the government in its bid to have Parliament accept the establishment of a local tribunal. Photo/FILE

Former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has rejected a model proposed by a group of MPs to try suspects of Kenya’s worst post-election violence.

Mr Annan, the chief mediator in the agreement that set up the coalition government, maintained that a local tribunal was better suited for Kenya.

The group of MPs proposed that a model similar to the Special Court for Sierra Leone be set up to try the suspects. The conditions under which the Special Court was established in Sierra Leone were “very’’ different from those prevailing in Kenya, Mr Annan, who was UN’s secretary-general in 2000 when the tribunal was set-up, said in response to the MPs.

“The proposal to establish a Special Tribunal (in Kenya) was made by the Waki Commission after careful consideration and with the benefit of a thorough examination of the events that took place after the 2007 elections,’’ Mr Annan said in a letter to Imenti Central MP Gitobu Imanyara.

He asked the MPs to instead support the government in its bid to have Parliament accept the establishment of a local tribunal, arguing that pursuing “other avenues may be counterproductive.’’

Efforts to try the suspects at home collapsed in February after MPs voted to reject the Bill that sought to establish the Special Tribunal in the Constitution.

After Parliament rejected the Bill, the group of MPs, led by Mr Imanyara wrote to Mr Annan asking him to request a resolution of the UN Security Council on the possibility of setting up a Special Tribunal, revised to accommodate special circumstances in Kenya.

Mr Annan told the MPs in his letter: “The Panel remains of the firm conviction that a Kenya-owned and led process would be most beneficial to the people of Kenya.’’

And in reaction on Thursday, Mr Imanyara questioned why Mr Annan had declined to accept the verdict of Parliament, accusing him of echoing the views “that have routinely been espoused by the American and British envoys in Kenya and a number of local NGOs funded by the Americans and British.’’

He accused Mr Annan of partisanship and asked him to “let the envelope go to the ICC”.