Letters to the UN and the Hague are hypocritical and a national disgrace

The letter from Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s ODM to the UN Security Council on the so-called Ocampo Six is not surprising.

Now the Security Council and the International Criminal Court have rival pleas from rival wings of the same government.

The Odinga letter is basically intended to counter a plea from President Kibaki’s PNU wing of government that they are both sworn to serve.

Apart from taking Kenya’s infantile political infighting to the highest global organs, the letters also serve to expose the crass hypocrisy of our ruling classes where nobody stands for anything other than the narrow, selfish and short-sighted political gain.

Let us start with the ODM letter since it is but the latest episode in this live farce.

Mr Odinga has always publicly denied accusations that he is proponent-in-chief of trials at The Hague.

Indeed, in Parliament and elsewhere, he has vigorously defended the position that he was the one pushing for a local tribunal while those who eventually ended up in the crosshairs of ICC prosecutor were chanting the “Don’t be vague, ask for Hague” chorus.

Mr Odinga was also present at a number of meetings with President Kibaki from whence came official communiqué that the coalition principals concurred on diplomatic initiatives aimed at securing deferral of the ICC action on Mr Uhuru Kenyatta, Mr William Ruto, Mr Henry Kosgey, Mr Francis Muthaura, Mr Hussein Ali and Mr Joshua Sang.

But no sooner had the ink dried on the statements, than Mr Odinga’s minions were busy disowning the statements put forth.

Perhaps that is why Mr Odinga’s public protestations have never quite been taken seriously, for he sometimes seems to speak from both sides of the mouth.

Anyway, with the gloves now off on both sides of the coalition government divide, it has become clear that the Prime Minister sheds no tears for those targeted by Mr Ocampo. Maybe for him, as fly the accusations, it is good riddance.

Try as I might, however, I fail to see any political advantage he gains when political rivals are sidelined in such a poisonously polarised atmosphere.

Despite everything, accusations that Mr Odinga has conspired with Mr Ocampo to lock up his potential 2012 presidential election rivals are as ridiculous as can be.

Maybe it serves Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto well to shore up their political bases by blaming their tribulations on Mr Odinga, but ultimately they must defend themselves with legal argument at the ICC trial chamber, not incendiary soapbox politics.

And that is why, whatever shifting positions Mr Odinga has displayed on the issue, the Kibaki camp’s letters to UN Security Council and the ICC president are completely indefensible.

It is inciting, if not downright criminal, to state that trying the Ocampo Six at The Hague will provoke a recurrence of violence and bloodshed in Kenya.

Such naked threats, for that is what they are, have no place when we are trying to get away from the politics of murder and ethnic cleansing.

The Moi-era dictatorship’s self-fulfilling prophecies of ethnic clashes if the campaign for multipartyism was not halted, are still too close in memory.

The incendiary threats now penned on behalf of the Kibaki wing of the coalition government remind us that the unreconstructed orphans of the Moi tyranny have rebounded in full swing and are falling back to their accustomed methods.

The Kanu kleptocracy of the day was kept alive by unrestrained terror. Nyayo House torture chambers, murder and mass jailing of dissidents, and the so-called ethnic clashes centered in the Rift Valley at the beginning of the 1990s, remain the most dubious legacies of the one-party dictatorship.

It beggars belief that a government that was supposed to herald a bright new era of freedom and liberty can fall back on crass threats of large-scale murder and violence just to secure the power and privileges of a handful of politicians.

President Kibaki would do himself a world of good if he disowned those disgraceful letters and looked for more decent methods to fight for his allies.

After all, it is he who has a legacy to protect, not those looking to secure their positions after his exit.

mgaitho@ke.nationmedia.com