We will help Ocampo in trials: Raila

Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Sunday welcomed Mr Luis Moreno-Ocampo’s planned visit to Kenya. The PM said he and President Kibaki were ready to cooperate with the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor to ensure those behind the 2008 post-election violence were brought to book.

Mr Odinga said they would have preferred a local special tribunal to try perpetrators of the violence but were left with no option when Parliament rejected a Bill to establish such a court.

Fully committed

“We had wished that the trial of masterminds of last election’s violence here would be the best way but our members of Parliament rejected that,” he told a church fund- raising ceremony in Kiambaa, Kiambu.

Mr Odinga said he and the President were fully committed to working closely with Mr Moreno-Ocampo. “We have no option. I, together with the President, are ready to help Ocampo in carrying out the prosecution.”

Mr Odinga blamed the slow pace of reforms on lack of trust among politicians in the Grand Coalition Government. “Our country went through a bad time, where blood was shed, and to bring together people is not easy,” he said and explained that this was due to their different political affiliations.

Mr Odinga urged leaders to unite and shun ethnicity, saying it was the major cause of the violence that rocked the country. Medical Services minister Anyang’ Nyong’o, who accompanied the PM, said ethnicity must be shunned because it stifled development.

Kiambaa MP Stanley Githunguri urged all Kenyans to unite to avoid a repeat of the violence in future. And speaking in his Ugenya constituency, Lands minister James Orengo welcomed the ICC chief prosecutor’s intended visit to Kenya, saying it would help hasten reforms.

Mr Orengo said the visit was aimed at settling on the three-tier approach where The Hague, a local tribunal and the truth commission would be recommended to complement each other in handling suspects.