World will be watching Kenyans this election time

International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatuo Bensouda addresses a press briefing on December 23, 2013 in Nairobi. As events unfolded at The Hague, it became quite clear that the investigative arm of the prosecutor’s office had done a shoddy job. PHOTO | REBECCA NDUKU | DPPS

What you need to know:

  • My position about this matter of the involvement of the ICC has been and will always remain that it was necessary.
  • Any politician or anybody else who thinks they can plan to kill fellow Kenyans because of elections will have to think again.

Some time last week, a lawyer mentioned the International Criminal Court, apparently saying something to the effect that they may have to revisit the Kenyan cases that had been dismissed.

The whole ICC saga left a bitter taste in the mouths of a lot of Kenyans.

As events unfolded at The Hague, it became quite clear that the investigative arm of the prosecutor’s office had done a shoddy job and so it became impossible to pin anyone down.

THOUSANDS KILLED
That is, of course, not to say that crimes against Kenyans had not happened in 2007/2008.

Many people were killed, others maimed and yet others displaced and forced to flee from their homes and property.

There was even a whole group of Kenyans who were burnt to death in a church. Crimes did, indeed, happen.

Then the ICC got involved in the matter.

DISPLACED PEOPLE

As I say, there were mixed feelings about such involvement but what we now know is that a thorough job was not done.

My position about this matter of the involvement of the ICC has been and will always remain that it was necessary.

In the 1992 and 1997 elections, Kenyans were killed and others forced to become internally displaced people in their own country.

POLITICIANS WARNED

Up to the time we came to the tragic events of early 2008, not a single individual had ever been prosecuted for those atrocities.

It was necessary to involve the ICC because, apparently, our level of impunity is such that we kill one another and nothing happens.

There might as well be someone out there who can take action.

After the involvement of the ICC, any politician or anybody else who thinks they can plan to kill, maim or displace fellow Kenyans because of elections will have to think again. The eyes of the world are watching.

VIOLENCE
We might do well to accept the fact that the violence that Kenyans unleash on others during elections does not just happen spontaneously as we are sometimes made to believe.

This is more often than not a reaction to pictures that have been painted in their minds through rhetoric and discourses that have been constructed by politicians.

DIVISIVE STATEMENTS

That is why I feel very uneasy at this moment when I hear all this talk about “who talked to which printing house” or “the weaknesses of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission”.

A narrative is slowly being advanced that may leave some Kenyans thinking that election results that will be announced will not be valid.

We have only one Kenya for all of us.

Writer is Dean of Students at the University of Nairobi [email protected]