President’s mockery of ICC was an insult to victims of violence

What you need to know:

  • The gathered dignitaries, along with President Kenyatta, went on to rollick in laughter as he made light of an event that evokes the same emotions in Kenya as do some of the world’s most traumatic events, including the genocide in Rwanda circa 1994.
  • Lost in President Kenyatta’s misplaced comparison between the 2007/2008 post-election violence in Kenya that landed both he and his deputy, Mr William Ruto, at The Hague and the 2016 protests in Portland, Los Angeles, New York, and other major cities in the US following Donald Trump’s victory was the glaring fact that approximately 1,200 Kenyans lost their lives in Kenya’s post-election violence.

Even by President Uhuru Kenyatta’s usual displays of flippancy and bonhomie, this latest attempt at being “real” was pretty insensitive and in poor taste.

Released video footage showed Mr Kenyatta, a former crimes-against-humanity suspect, poking fun at Gambian barrister Fatou Bensouda’s failed attempt to successfully charge him at The Hague. By so doing, the President re-opened the wounds of Kenya’s period of infamy and epitomised utter lack of sensitivity and absolute hubris.

Mr Kenyatta’s utterances also revisited charges first raised during the run-up to the “thanksgiving” rally planned in Nakuru in mid-April to celebrate Ms Bensouda’s dropping of the cases against the President and his deputy — that the two were “dancing on the graves of the victims of Kenya’s post-election violence of 2007/2008”.

Referring to the protests that followed Donald J. Trump’s victory over Hillary R. Clinton in the just-concluded US presidential election, Mr Kenyatta told the audience: “Recently, you saw what happened in the United States. Despite the fact that there were violent demonstrations... in fact, I was tempted to look for Fatou Bensouda to put a case against post-election violence in the United States...”

The gathered dignitaries, along with President Kenyatta, went on to rollick in laughter as he made light of an event that evokes the same emotions in Kenya as do some of the world’s most traumatic events, including the genocide in Rwanda circa 1994.

Lost in President Kenyatta’s misplaced comparison between the 2007/2008 post-election violence in Kenya that landed both he and his deputy, Mr William Ruto, at The Hague and the 2016 protests in Portland, Los Angeles, New York, and other major cities in the US following Donald Trump’s victory was the glaring fact that approximately 1,200 Kenyans lost their lives in Kenya’s post-election violence.

Also lost in President Kenyatta’s callous remarks was the fact that over 500,000 Kenyans were displaced in their own country. The man who once gloated about “eating meat” even as those in the opposition “salivate” seemed oblivious, if not outright indifferent, to the negative impact of Kenya’s post-election violence on personal property and the Kenyan economy.

Mr Kenyatta also conveniently overlooked the fact that the US is not a signatory to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Contrastingly, there have been no reports of deaths during more than two weeks of demonstrations in the US. The protests have disrupted lives and resulted in damage to property. However, that no lives have been lost in the wake of Mr Trump’s Electoral College victory is even more impressive, given the overwhelming advantage Ms Clinton has in the popular vote — more than two million at last count.

Finally, lost in Mr Kenyatta’s tasteless attempt at humour was the premise upon which his “joke” was fashioned: The failure of the International Criminal Court to sustain charges against him.

Alongside other unsavoury machinations, the President and his team successfully foisted hyperbolic and damaging charges of hypocrisy on the world court, leading to its failure (to charge him), thus all but assuring a sad but predictable outcome: That almost a decade later, no one has been held accountable for the post-election violence that wreaked havoc in Kenya.

Mr Kenyatta joked about the court’s failure to prosecute him despite the incontrovertible evidence that lives were lost and others permanently changed by the violence that also caused property damage worth billions.

Yes, America is just as divided as Kenya. The two countries are divided along ethnic/racial, economic, and class fault lines. However, the key difference that President Kenyatta’s joke overlooked is the existence of relatively strong and independent institutions (law enforcement, judiciary, legislature, executive) in America.

These institutions, as flawed and demonstrably biased as they are, have managed the protests and disputed election outcomes with nary the level of violence and destruction of property that Kenya witnessed in 2007/2008.

Mr Kenyatta, reportedly a student of history, should know better. He owes Kenyans an apology. At a minimum, he should apologise to the families and friends of those permanently scarred by the country’s post-election violence of 2007/2008 for his insensitive and flippant remarks.

Mr Osiro is a medical device manufacturing executive and author. [email protected]