How ICC and security influenced foreign policy

On December 5, the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecution withdrew charges against President Uhuru Kenyatta.

This will go down in history as the most significant date in Kenya’s foreign policy this year.

But this landmark decision has not had a seismic impact on Kenya’s resolutely Africa-centred and assertive foreign policy ideologically undergirded by a strong nationalist and pan-African orientation.

The December 5 decision was long coming. And after his acquittal, he vowed to fight for his Deputy William Ruto and radio presenter Joshua Sang’, who are still facing charges.

“As they say, one case down, two more to go,” said Mr Kenyatta on Twitter.

Regionally, Uhuru’s message was echoed by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who criticised the ICC for continuing with Ruto’s case despite an African Union (AU) resolution that no sitting African Head of State or deputy should be tried at the court.

THAWING RELATIONS

“I will bring a motion to the African Union’s next session… I want all of us to get out of that court of the West. Let them [Westerners] stay with their court,” said the Ugandan leader.

With this, the ICC is poised to continue being a critical pivot of Kenya’s foreign policy into 2015 and beyond.

The dropping of the case also marks the end of the ‘wait-and-see’ diplomacy that major Western powers adopted after the 2013 election.

But the thawing of the frosty relations between Kenyan and major Western powers started months before the ICC case collapsed.

On August 4-5, Uhuru was one of the guests of President Barack Obama in Washington where he attended the US-Africa Leadership Summit. He and Obama met for the second time on September 25, 2014 on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

The Kenya-United Nations relations also improved dramatically. Between October 29 and November 1, Uhuru hosted the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, at State House, Nairobi.

Earlier on, Nairobi had accused the UN Security Council of not taking Africa seriously enough and humiliating the continent after the world’s most powerful body turned down Kenya’s request for the deferral of the ICC cases in 2011 and in November 2013, voted down an African Union resolution calling for the termination of the cases.

The Westgate Mall attack on September 22-24, 2013, which claimed 67 lives, highlighted the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Shabaab group in Somalia as a mortal threat to Kenya and turned counter-terrorism and de-radicalisation into core foreign policy issues.

However, Al-Shabaab has benefited greatly from elite polarisation in Kenya, which has prevented the emergence of a common approach to counter terrorism.

Further, although Kenya has always been perceived by the West as a partner in the war on terror, major Western powers have not been fully comfortable with the incursion of the Kenyan Defence Forces (KDF) into Somalia in October 2011 and its continued presence in the country as part of the African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom).

From early 2014, Western powers seemingly gave a tacit nod to a high-pitched opposition “security campaign” which has reinforced internal elite political polarisation and emboldened Al-Shabaab allies and cells in Kenya.

The opposition’s campaign has mounted pressure on the government to pull out KDF troops from Somalia, blaming its presence to escalating terrorist attacks on the Kenyan soil.

Raila insists that the decision to extend “Operation Linda Nchi” to the capture of Kismayo, the Somali coastal town then under the control of Al-Shabaab, was not part of the initial plans; neither was the decision to incorporate the Kenyan military into the Africa Union Mission in Somalia.

Al-Shabaab sympathisers have played on the growing insecurity relating to terrorist attacks to force the government to kowtow to a softer approach.

DIPLOMATIC ROW

Sadly, travel advisories issued by Western countries have helped to highlight and ‘internationalise’ Kenya’s insecurity, opening a new area of diplomatic dispute.

A new diplomatic row with the West over the new Security Laws (Amendment) Act 2014 is now shifting the pivot of foreign policy from security to human rights.

On December 23, the US issued a statement expressing “disappointed by the very limited time allowed for debate and consultation on the Bill. Frosty relation with the West has given China a firm toehold in Kenya, bolstering the country’s “Look-East” policy.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and his wife Cheng Hong made a high-profile visit to Kenya on May 9 after President Kenyatta’s State visit to China.

Kenya has signed deals worth billions of shillings with China.

It is also our second-largest trade partner, with bilateral trade reaching Sh3.3 billion.

China threw its weight behind termination of cases at the IVCC. But China is yet to replace the West as Kenya’s main export market and security partner.

Professor Peter Kagwanja is the Chief Executive of the Africa Policy Institute and former Government Adviser. [email protected]