D-day for Uhuru and African leaders on ICC

African leaders are Saturday expected to endorse a resolution to withdraw en masse from the International Criminal Court in protest at the trial of President Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto.

This follows a vote of ministers Friday, in which 53 out of 54 African Union (AU) member states passed the resolution. Only Botswana opposed it.

The ministers also discussed other options of curtailing ICC’s powers, with members saying the AU should lobby the UN Security Council as a bloc to defer the on-going trials.

The maximum deferral that the council can give is one year and previous attempts by Kenya to get the UN to delay the cases have failed.

This is the second time in four months the African heads of state will be making the case on behalf of Kenya. In May, the continental bloc threatened to gang up against the international court if the trials were not stopped, but the ICC and the Security Council did not budge.

Yesterday, a delegate who could not be named as he is not authorised to speak to the Media, said the African ministers rejected a proposal by Kenya to reform the ICC, saying the court was not the continent’s business.

AU Commission Chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma and the union’s chair of the Executive Council Tedros Adhanom gave the strongest indication that the bloc was willing to walk out of the ICC.

“During this session, we should seriously consider how we should ensure that our (AU’s) collective voice is heard to receive a fair treatment to our concerns. We should not allow the ICC to continue to treat Africa and Africans in a condescending manner. That is the reason we are gathered here,” said Dr Adhanom, also Ethiopia’s Foreign Affairs minister, during the 15th extra-ordinary session at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa.

Dr Dlamini Zuma said the AU Council has debated the fate of the ICC for long and time had come for its members to act.

“These issues have been on the agenda of this council for long. The fact that you continue to deal with them is a clear testimony of your commitment to peace, justice, stability and development,” she said.

Went ahead to agree

With Kenya’s Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed and Attorney-General Githu Muigai in attendance, the council went ahead to agree on a raft of resolutions that are expected to be adopted today by the heads of state.

“The fears that we want to move out of the ICC have been laid to rest. There is no time we have said that we want to move out of the ICC,” Ms Mohamed said after the session.

The Special AU Summit comes exactly a month to the start of the trial of President Kenyatta at the ICC. Mr Ruto has been attending his trial, which began on September 10, at The Hague.

The two, alongside former broadcaster Joshua Sang, face charges of crimes against humanity arising from the 2007/8 post-election violence in which 1,133 people were killed and another 650,000 uprooted from their homes.

President Kenyatta, who will attend the Special AU Summit, is sure to come under pressure from regional leaders, among them President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, to skip the trial proceedings.

Thursday, the ministers said the decision by the ICC requiring Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto to attend the trial proceedings in full was distracting them from their core government duties.

“Our request to the court to allow the President of Kenya and his deputy to choose the sessions they wish to attend in accordance with their constitutional obligations and duties has not received a positive response. However, the recent terrorist attack in Nairobi has further reinforced our request, thereby underscoring the need for Kenyan leaders to be front and centre in the fight against terrorism and not be distracted in any way by the court,” said Dr Adhanom.

The ministers warned that the trials could destabilise the region if not stopped.

“Over and above that, there is no doubt this issue has wider ramifications for Kenya and Africa as a whole. Kenya has been and is a symbol of stability in our region. We do not want this simplistic suspect/victim approach to destabilise Kenya and our region,” Dr Adhanom said.

While President Kenyatta and Mr Ruto have cooperated with the ICC, the Ethiopian minister questioned the failure by the court to listen to their pleas, including their request either for the deferral of the Kenya cases, or holding them here.

He accused the UN Security Council, the UN and the ICC of paying lip-service to the pleas of the continent’s leaders. This includes the request to the UN Security Council to defer proceedings initiated against Sudan President Omar Al-Bashir.