From The Hague to Kisumu, this has been a week of sunsets
What you need to know:
- The sun has set in Nairobi on John Joseph “JJ” Kamotho, a family man who lived a rather turbulent political life.
- The ICC prosecutor’s sunset should pave the way for future sunrises, where cases are started and managed on appropriately gathered evidence, devoid of political opinions and social considerations.
- In October 2012, the Taliban shot Malala Yousafzai in the head for pushing girls’ right to education. She was fourteen, and she almost died.
Death is the only absolute certainty in life. Every one of us will face it sooner or later. It’s just a matter of time.
“Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once,” said William Shakespeare in Julius Caesar.
Corazon Aquino, the late former president of the Philippines, pointed out, “I would rather die a meaningful death than to live a meaningless life”.
In 2005, Steve Jobs gave an amazingly insightful commencement speech at Stanford University. He said:
No one wants to die. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Jobs died on October 5, 2011 and left room for the "new". While the sun sets here on some people and some places, it always rises elsewhere. This week has been a week of sunsets and sunrises.
The sun has set in Nairobi on John Joseph “JJ” Kamotho, a family man who lived a rather turbulent political life. His death brings back memories of the Kanu days.
Kamotho had some sort of magic that kept him in politics in spite of losing numerous elections. He would be killed politically, then rise like a phoenix.
The sun also set in Kakamega on Elizabeth Ambani, a true Kenyan woman, a teacher and a mother of twelve children.
Elizabeth lived a simple life, but her death was like those of the rich. Elizabeth’s burial was puzzling. There was joy, singing, celebration; a life well lived.
DEATH OF A COURT CASE
She left behind the greatest richness a mother can leave: her legacy of love and dedication.
Little-known Elizabeth lived in an also little-known village in Kakamega County. She and her husband (now deceased) raised their children to become outstanding citizens of Kenya. One of them, quite close to me, is a remarkable upcoming legal scholar in the country.
A third sunset was witnessed at the ICC with the death of a court case. On December 5, 2014, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Besouda withdrew the charges against President Kenyatta.
This historical event brings to an end a case that was badly started, badly managed and politically manipulated.
Ms Bensouda’s last desperate move was to seek an unjustified adjournment, but the court would have none of it. In a wise move, the judges decided to pass the ball back to her.
She had been given seven days to prove that the body of evidence in her possession had improved. She had to make up her mind whether or not charges should be dropped.
On December 3, 2014 the Trial Chamber had decided to reject the further adjournment request by the prosecution and the second termination request by the defence.
The chamber also directed the prosecution to file a notice within one week to withdraw the charges or prove that the evidence had improved to a degree that would justify proceeding to trial.
Ms Bensouda found herself between a rock and a hard place. She had tried to continue the construction of a body of evidence that Ocampo had built on quicksand. Any move or no move sunk it deeper. The death of the case was just a matter of time, the question was just how much.
The ICC prosecutor’s sunset should pave the way for future sunrises, where cases are started and managed on appropriately gathered evidence, devoid of political opinions and social considerations. This is perhaps the greatest responsibility of an international prosecutor, to know when to walk away or push ahead.
'A BOOK AND A PEN'
As the sun set on Elizabeth, JJ Kamotho and Uhuru’s case, it has joyfully risen in Oslo. Two days ago the Oslo City Hall witnessed a beautiful sunrise on two remarkable people, Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyathi, who represent different generations and cultures.
In October 2012, the Taliban shot Malala in the head for pushing girls’ right to education. She was 14, and she almost died. Now, at 17, she is the youngest ever Nobel laureate.
She shared the prize with 60-year-old Satyathi, an Indian campaigner.
In her speech at the City Hall in Oslo, Malala tickled and entertained the audience by defining herself as the “first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize who still fights with her younger brothers”.
And she added: “You might not know but there are so many girls who cannot go to school, there are so many boys who cannot go to school. They have never dreamed of any iPad, any PlayStation, any Xbox.…the only thing that they dream of is a school, a book and a pen."
Education is the common thread that brings these stories together. From Elizabeth, the simple teacher and mother of twelve to the clever and astute politician Kamotho, who excelled at Syracuse University in the USA, Birmingham in the UK and Moscow in Russia, from the lessons international criminal justice has taught prosecutors about professionalism and objectivity in their work, to Malala’s push for the education of the girl child, everything hangs on education.
As I pondered this week’s happenings, I was looking over Lake Victoria from a malfunctioning window at Kisumu’s Sunset Hotel. Once a jewel and the pride of Kisumu, Sunset is now in a sad state of disrepair, just like our public education system. Unless urgent repairs are undertaken, we may be slowly witnessing their sunset.
