Kenya furious at Security Council resolution

Kenya has reacted furiously to the Friday resolution by the United Nations Security Council not to postpone the Hague trials of President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto.

Other African countries deplored the Council’s decision while emphasising that the Kenyan Government’s position on the issue is shared by all African leaders. The delegates warned that rejection of the deferral request harms relations between Africa and the Council.

“Kenya will not forget,” vowed Kenya’s ambassador to the UN Macharia Kamau following the vote. “Africa will not forget.”

In Nairobi, the Foreign Affairs ministry said in a statement that it regrets the failure of important members of the Security Council to have due consideration of Kenya’s critical role in stabilising the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes regions, and their “reckless abdication of global leadership.”

“This result was not unexpected considering that consistently some of the members of the Security Council, who hold veto powers, had shown contempt for the African position,” said the ministry in an unsigned statement.

“The same members and five others chose to abstain, showing clear cowardice in the face of a critical African matter, and a lack of appreciation of peace and security issues they purport to advocate,” the statement read.

The government thanked “China and Azerbaijan who, during their stewardship of the Security Council, have been professional and sensitive to the African Union agenda.”

“Kenya wishes to thank the seven members of the Security Council who voted for a deferral and is particularly grateful to Rwanda, Togo and Morocco – the three African members on the Security Council – for their exemplary leadership”.

The African ambassadors charged that the Security Council is treating the continent disrespectfully and on the basis of inequality.

Ambassador Kamau and a few of his African colleagues used language not typical of diplomats in denouncing the refusal of eight of the council’s 15 members to support the resolution.

The council’s unwillingness to support deferral as a means of upholding international peace and security is “sad, absurd and confounding,” Ambassador Kamau declared in the crowded council chamber following the vote.

“Reason and the law have been thrown out the window,” he asserted. “Fear and distrust have been allowed to prevail.”

He added that Kenya’s effort to engage the council “has been met by some with derision, suspicion, impatience and irritation.”

The Kenyan envoy’s remarks were greeted with applause by some delegates and spectators.

Rwandan Ambassador Eugene-Richard Gasana, who led the effort within the council to gain a deferral, said it is “a shame” that the body rejected a resolution supported by the African Union.

“Let it be recorded today that the Security Council failed Kenya and Africa,” Ambassador Gasana said.

But Friday’s decision did not mark a defeat for Africa, Ethiopian Ambassador Tekeda Alemu told reporters following the vote. “It is a moral victory,” he said.

AFRICAN SOLIDARITY

Ambassador Kamau offered a similar perspective, saying the unity displayed by African states was “a watershed event for African solidarity.”
“We have completely changed our terms of engagement with the international community henceforth,” he added.

But the claim that Western powers had orchestrated an expression of disrespect for Africa was undermined by the stand taken on the deferral resolution by two Latin American countries: Guatemala and Argentina.

They joined South Korea as well as the United States, Britain, France, Australia and Luxembourg in abstaining on the Rwanda-sponsored resolution – a move that caused the proposal to fall short of the nine affirmative votes needed for approval.

“It has been insinuated that not joining the vote that favours the resolution is somehow an expression of ill-will towards the African Union,” Guatemalan Ambassador Gert Rosenthal told the council. “My delegation most categorically rejects such a suggestion. We find this view frankly offensive.”

The vote split almost entirely along the lines of nations that have signed the ICC treaty and those that have not. None of the seven countries voting in support of the resolution – China, Russia, Togo, Rwanda, Morocco, Azerbaijan and Pakistan – are parties to the Rome Statute. All the abstainers are signatories of that treaty – with the exception of the United States, which is not a state party to the Rome Statute.

US Ambassador Samantha Power said her country had abstained rather than voting no in part “because of our respect for Kenya and the AU.” The US position also reflected its view that next week’s Hague meeting of the 122 ICC treaty-signing countries is “the right venue” for considering Kenya’s arguments.

“The families of the victims of the 2008 post-election violence in Kenya have already waited more than five years for a judicial weighing of the evidence to commence,” Ambassador Power added. “We believe that justice for the victims of that violence is critical to the country’s long-term peace and security.”

United Kingdom Ambassador Lyall Grant revealed after the vote that some council members had earlier offered as a compromise to issue a statement, saying member states had listened carefully to Kenya and acknowledged the important role the country plays on security concerns in East Africa.

The statement would have added that in the absence of a consensus on the Africa-backed resolution, the council encourages Kenya and its supporters to take their case to the Assembly of State Parties meeting in The Hague next week.

That attempt at a compromise was rejected by Rwanda and other council members that supported the deferral resolution, Ambassador Grant said.

A few of the abstaining countries voiced their dismay that the resolution had been brought to a vote despite the knowledge that it would fail. Proceeding in that fashion had unnecessarily exacerbated divisions within the Security Council, these countries argued.

At the same time, some of the member states that did not vote for the resolution were at pains to portray relations between the council and Africa as positive.

UK envoy Grant told reporters that the AU-Security Council relationship is “better than at any point” in the four years he has served as his country’s UN ambassador.

Ethiopia’s representative also struck a conciliatory note in his comments outside the council chamber.

“We are not suggesting that cooperation between the African Union and Security Council has come to an end,” Ambassador Alemu said. “That is unrealistic.”

Human rights activists meanwhile hailed the Security Council’s action.

Additional reporting by CARLOS  MUREITHI