The scathing speech by Uhuru Kenyatta on ICC during AU Summit in Ethiopia

Chair of the African Union, Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn, Chair of the Commission of the African Union, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Colleagues Head of State and Government, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, It gives me special pleasure to join your Excellencies at this Special Summit, where we have assembled to reflect on very significant matters relating to the welfare and destiny of our nations and peoples.

I thank you for the honour of addressing you today, because as it happens, I crave my brother and sister Excellencies' views on some issues. We are privileged to lead the nations of a continent on the rise.

Africa rests at the centre of global focus as the continent of the future. Although we have been relentlessly exploited in the past, we remain with sufficient resources to invest in a prosperous future.

Whilst we have been divided and incited against one another before, we are now united and more peaceful.

Even as we grapple with a few regional conflicts, as Africans, we are taking proactive measures to ensure that all our people move together in the journey to prosperity in a peaceful home.

Even though we were dominated and controlled by imperialists and colonial interests in years gone by, we are now proud, independent and sovereign nations and people. We are looking to the future with hope, marching towards the horizon with confidence and working in unity.

This is the self evident promise that Africa holds for its people today. As leaders, we are the heirs of freedom fighters, and our founding fathers. These liberation heroes founded the Organisation of African Unity, which was dedicated to the eradication of ALL FORMS OF COLONIALSM.

Towards this end, the OAU defended the interests of independent nations and helped the cause of those that were still colonised. It sought to prevent member states from being controlled once again by outsider powers.

The founding fathers of African Unity were conscious that structural colonialism takes many forms, some blatant and extreme, like apartheid, while others are subtler and deceptively innocuous, like some forms of development assistance.

It has been necessary, therefore, for African leaders to constantly watch out against threats to our peoples' sovereignty and unity.

In our generation, we have honoured our fathers' legacies by guaranteeing that through the African Union, our countries and our people shall achieve greater unity, and that the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of our States shall not be trifled with.

More than ever, our destiny is in our hands. Yet at the same time, more than ever, it is imperative for us to be vigilant against the persistent machinations of outsiders who desire to control that destiny. We know what this does to our nations and people: subjugation and suffering.

Your Excellencies, The philosophies, ideologies, structures and institutions that visited misery upon millions for centuries ultimately harm their perpetrators. Thus the imperial exploiter crashes into the pits of penury. The arrogant world police is crippled by shambolic domestic dysfunction.

These are the spectacles of Western decline we are witnessing today. At the same time, other nations and continents rise and prosper. Africa and Asia continue to thrive, with their promise growing every passing day.

As our strength multiplies, and our unity gets deeper, those who want to control and exploit us become more desperate. Therefore, they abuse whatever power remains in their control.

The Swahili people say that one ascending a ladder cannot hold hands with one descending. The force of gravity will be compounded and the one going up only loses.

The International Criminal Court was mandated to accomplish these objectives by bringing to justice those criminal perpetrators who bear greatest responsibility for crimes.

Looking at the world in the past, at that time and even now, it was clear that there have always been instances of unconscionable impunity and atrocity that demand a concerted international response, and that there are vulnerable, helpless victims of these crimes who require justice as a matter of right.

This is the understanding, and the expectation of most signatories to the Rome Statute. The most active global powers of the time declined to ratify the Treaty, or withdrew somewhere along the way, citing several compelling grounds.

The British foreign secretary Robin Cook said at the time, that the International Criminal Court was not set up to bring to book Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom or Presidents of the United States. Had someone other than a Western leader said those fateful words, the word 'impunity' would have been thrown at them with an emphatic alacrity.

An American senator serving on the foreign relations committee echoed the British sentiments and said, "Our concern is that this is a court that is irreparably flawed, that is created with an independent prosecutor, with no checks and balances on his power, answerable to no state institution, and that this court is going to be used for politicized prosecutions."

The understanding of the States which subscribed to the Treaty in good faith was two-fold. First, that world powers were hesitant to a process that might make them accountable for such spectacularly criminal international adventures as the wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and other places, and such hideous enterprises as renditions and torture.

Such states did not, therefore, consider such warnings as applicable to pacific and friendly parties. Secondly, it was the understanding of good-faith subscribers that the ICC would administer and secure justice in a fair, impartial and independent manner and, as an international court, bring accountability to situations and perpetrators everywhere in the world. As well, it was hoped that the ICC would set the highest standards of justice and judicial processes.

Your Excellencies, As has been demonstrated quite thoroughly over the past decade, the good-faith subscribers had fallen prey to their high-mindedness and idealism. I do not need to tell your Excellencies about the nightmare my country in particular, and myself and my Deputy as individuals, have had to endure in making this realisation.

Western powers are the key drivers of the ICC process. They have used prosecutions as ruses and bait to pressure Kenyan leadership into adopting, or renouncing various positions. Close to 70 per cent of the Court's annual budget is funded by the European Union.

The threat of prosecution usually suffices to have pliant countries execute policies favourable to these countries.

Through it, regime-change sleights of hand have been attempted in Africa. A number of them have succeeded.

The Office of the Prosecutor made certain categorical pronouncements regarding eligibility for leadership of candidates in Kenya's last general election. Only a fortnight ago, the Prosecutor proposed undemocratic and unconstitutional adjustments to the Kenyan Presidency.

These interventions go beyond interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign State. They constitute a fetid insult to Kenya and Africa. African sovereignty means nothing to the ICC and its patrons. They also dovetail altogether too conveniently with the warnings given to Kenyans just before the last elections: choices have consequences.

This chorus was led by the USA, Britain, EU, and certain eminent persons in global affairs. It was a threat made to Kenyans against electing my Government. My Government's decisive election must be seen as a categorical rebuke by the people of Kenya of those who wished to interfere with our internal affairs and infringe our sovereignty.

Now Kenya has undergone numerous problems since its birth as a Republic 50 years ago. Yet over the same period, Kenya has also made tremendous progress. It is the same in all countries of Africa. At our Golden Jubilee, we look forward to a rebirth characterising the next 50 years, not a ceaseless harkening to our history.

I must make the point that we do not intend to forget, or discount the value of our history. Rather, we do want to learn from it, not live in it. As Kenya's President, it gives me a feeling of deep and lasting pride to know that I can count on the African Union to listen and help in trying times. Africa has always stood by our side.

When we faced violent disagreements over the 2007 election result, my distinguished predecessor, Mwai Kibaki came to you with a request for help, and you did not stint. You instituted a high-level team of Eminent Persons who came to our assistance.

Because of that, we were able to summon the confidence to speak to each other and agree. As a result, we put in place a 4-point plan, which not only put Kenya back on track, but formed the basis of the most rapid political, legal and social reform ever witnessed in our country.

Through it, we successfully mediated the dispute surrounding the 2007 election and pacified the country. A power-sharing coalition was formed with a mandate to undertake far-reaching measures to prevent future violent disputes, entrench the rule of law, prevent abuses of legal power and entrench equity in our body politic while also securing justice for the victims of the post-election violence.

We enacted a new, progressive constitution which instituted Devolution of power and resources, strengthened the protection of fundamental rights, and enhanced institutional and political checks and balances. It also provided the legal foundation for the national economic transformation roadmap, Vision 2030.

The project of national transformation presently underway in Kenya was given tremendous impetus by your Excellencies' needful intervention. On the basis of this constitution we have instituted legislation and established institutions to realise the people's basic rights, ensure transparency and accountability and protect the popular sovereignty of Kenyans.

A new Judiciary and electoral commission have ensured that we have credible elections and dispute resolution.

Your Excellencies, The people of Ethiopia warn against the deplorable presumption of chopping up meat for a lion; I cannot teach you your work, nor force you to accept my position.

Please institute a mechanism to empirically verify what I have told you. My part is to thank you on behalf of the people of Kenya for your help.

After the successful mediation of the post-election controversy in 2008, there was disagreement over the best way to bring the perpetrators of post-election violence to account and secure justice for the victims.

One proposal was to set up a local tribunal to try the cases, while another was to refer the matter to the ICC. The Mediator who had been appointed by your Excellencies referred the matter to the ICC when the disagreement persisted.

On the basis of this referral, the Prosecutor stated that he had launched investigations which, he claimed, established that 6 persons had committed crimes against humanity. According to the Prosecutor, your Excellencies, I fall among those men.

Your Excellencies,
From the beginning of the cases, I have fully cooperated with the Court in the earnest expectation that it afforded the best opportunity for me to clear my name. I have attended court whenever required and complied with every requirement made of me in connection with my case.

Other Kenyans charged before that court have similarly cooperated fully. The Government has cooperated to the maximum; the Court itself found that Kenya's Government has fully complied in 33 out of 37 instances, and was only prevented from cooperating 100 per cent by legal and constitutional constraints.

After my election, we have continued to fully cooperate. As earlier stated, we see it as the only means to achieve personal vindication, but also to protect our country from prejudice. As I address your Excellencies, my deputy is sitting - in person - in that Court.

Proceedings continue revealing the evidence against us to be reckless figments and fabrications every passing day. I cannot narrate quite accurately the calculated humiliation and stigma the prosecution has inflicted on us at every turn, within and outside the proceedings.

It is all consistent with a political agenda, rather than a quest for justice. For 5 years I have strained to cooperate fully, and have consistently beseeched the Court to expedite the cases.

Yet the gratuitous libel and prejudice I have encountered at the instance of the Prosecution seeks to present me as a fugitive from justice who is guilty as charged. All I have requested as President is to be allowed to execute my constitutional obligations as the forensic side of things is handled by my lawyers.

Even as we maintain our innocence, it has always been my position, shared by my deputy, that the events of 2007 represented the worst embarrassment to us as a nation, and a shock to our self-belief.

We almost commenced the rapid descent down the precipitous slope of destruction and anarchy. Its aftermath was similarly an unbearable shame.

We are a people who properly take pride in our achievements and our journey as a nation. The fact that over that time we had lost direction, however briefly, was traumatising.

That is the genesis of our rebirth. Until our ascension to the Presidency of Kenya, thousands of internally-displaced persons remained in camps.

It is generally difficult to resettle many people owing to scarcity of land and sensitivity to their preference. But we have undertaken to ensure that no Kenyan will be left behind in our journey to progress.

Resettling the IDP therefore was a particularly urgent assignment for us. Within 6 months of assuming office, we resettled all of them, and closed the displacement camps for good. Our efforts at pacifying the main protagonists in the PEV have similarly borne fruit.

So much so, that the reconciliation efforts gave birth to a successful political movement which won the last general election. This not only speaks to the success of reconciliation, but also testifies to its popular endorsement by the majority of the people of Kenya.

We certainly do not bear responsibility at any level for the post-election violence of 2007, but as leaders, we felt it incumbent upon us to bear responsibility for reconciliation and leadership of peace.

Our Government wants to lead Kenya to prosperity founded on national stability and security. Peace is indispensable to this aspiration. Reconciliation, therefore was not merely good politics; it is key to everything we want to achieve as a Government.

Your Excellencies,
America and Britain do not have to worry about accountability for international crimes. Although certain norms of international law are deemed peremptory, this only applies to non-Western states. Otherwise, they are inert. It is this double standard and the overt politicisation of the ICC that should be of concern to us here today.

It is the fact that this court performs on the cue of European and American governments against the sovereignty of African States and peoples that should outrage us. People have termed this situation "race-hunting". I find great difficulty adjudging them wrong.

What is the fate of International Justice? I daresay that it has lost support owing to the subversive machinations of its key proponents. Cynicism has no place in justice. Yet it takes no mean amount of selfish and malevolent calculation to mutate a quest for accountability on the basis of truth, into a hunger for dramatic sacrifices to advance
geopolitical ends.

The ICC has been reduced into a painfully farcical pantomime, a travesty that adds insult to the injury of victims. It stopped being the home of justice the day it became the toy of declining
imperial powers.

This is the circumstance which today compels us to agree with the reasons US, China, Israel, India and other non-signatory States hold for abstaining from the Rome Treaty.

In particular, the very accurate observations of John R Bolton who said, "For numerous reasons, the United States decided that the ICC had unacceptable consequences for our national sovereignty. Specifically, the ICC is an organization that runs contrary to fundamental American precepts and basic constitutional principles of popular sovereignty, checks and balances and national independence."

Our mandate as AU, and as individual African States is to protect our own and each other's independence and sovereignty. The USA and other nations abstained out of fear. Our misgivings are born of bitter experience.

Africa is not a third-rate territory of second-class peoples. We are not a project, or experiment of outsiders. It was always impossible for us to uncritically internalise notions of justice implanted through that most unjust of institutions: colonialism.

The West sees no irony in preaching justice to a people they have disenfranchised, exploited, taxed and brutalised.

Our history serves us well: we must distrust the blandishments of those who have drunk out of the poisoned fountain of imperialism.

The spirit of African pride and sovereignty has withstood centuries of severe tribulation. I invoke that spirit of freedom and unity today before you. It is a spirit with a voice that rings through all generations of human history. It is the eternal voice of a majestic spirit which will never die.

Kenya is striving mightily, and wants to work with its neighbours and friends everywhere to attain a better home, region and world. Kenya seeks to be treated with dignity as a proud member of the community of nations which has contributed immensely, with limited resources, to the achievement of peace, security and multilateralism.

Kenya looks to her friends in time of need. We come to you to vindicate our independence and sovereignty. Our unity is not a lie. The African Union is not an illusion.

The philosophy of divide-and rule, which worked against us all those years before, cannot shackle us to the ground in our Season of Renaissance. Our individual and collective sovereignty requires us to take charge of our destiny, and fashion African solutions to African problems.

It will be disingenuous, Excellencies, to pretend that there is no concern, if not outrage, over the manner in which ICC has handled not just the Kenyan, but all cases before it. All the cases currently before it arise from Africa.

Yet Africa is not the only continent where international crimes are being committed. Out of over 30 cases before the court, NONE relates to a situation outside Africa. All the people indicted before that court, ever since its founding have been Africans.

Every plea we have made to be heard before that court has landed upon deaf ears. When Your Excellencies’ resolution was communicated to the Court through a letter to its president, it was dismissed as not being properly before the Court and therefore ineligible for consideration.

When a civil society organisation wrote a letter bearing sensational and prejudicial fabrications, the Court took urgent and substantial decisions based on it. Before the ICC, African sovereign nations’ resolutions are NOTHING compared with the opinions of civil society activists.

The AU is the bastion of African sovereignty, and the vanguard of our unity. Yet the ICC deems it altogether unworthy of the minutest consideration. Presidents Kikwete, Museveni, Jonathan and Zuma have pronounced themselves on the court’s insensitivity, arrogance and disrespect.

Leaders in my country have escalated their anxiety to the national Parliament, where a legislative process to withdraw altogether from the Rome Treaty is under consideration. As I said, it would not be right to ignore the fact that concern over the conduct of the ICC is strong and widespread.

There is very little that remains for me to say about the slights that the ICC continue to visit upon the nations and people of Africa. We want to believe in due process before the ICC, but where is it being demonstrated?

We want to see the ICC as fair and even-handed throughout the world, but what can we do when everyone but Africa is exempt from accountability? We would love nothing more than to have an international forum for justice and accountability, but what choice do we have when we get only bias and race-hunting at the ICC? Isn’t respect part of justice?

Aren’t our sovereign institutions worthy of deference within the framework of international law? If so, what justice can be rendered by a court which disregards our views?

Our mandate is clear: sovereignty and unity. This is the forum for us to unite and categorically vindicate our overeignty.

Excellencies, I turn to you trusting that we will be faithful to our charge, to each other, and to our people.

I have utmost confidence that this Assembly’s voice will be clear to the entire world. Like other African countries, Kenya did not achieve its independence with ease. Blood was shed for it.

Your Excellencies,

I thank you. God Bless you. God Bless Africa.

#PartyNominationsKE: The Lessons to Be Learnt

The Nominations for party bearers in various political positions in Kenya have been, to say the least, disappointing.

Places like Siaya have witnessed some semblance of unrest witnessed 5 years ago, which the country is trying hard to ensure it happens not again.

But it seems we forget fast, and we mourn later.

Mutuma Mathiu has his own views expressed on the disturbing scenario presented by the party nominations in Kenya.

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The political party nominations are a complete, utter fiasco, and they tell us a great deal about Kenya’s political culture.

First, and this is what puts the lives of all us in danger, is that politicians are a law unto themselves.

They will take whatever reckless risk they want so long as it advances their political agenda.

The big coalitions – Cord, Jubilee and Amani – put off their nominations yesterday (Thursday).

Their calculations is that by doing so, it would deny their members an opportunity to defect should they lose in the primaries.

So, they all went out, in the manner of sleep-walkers, to conduct a massive undertaking, almost in the same shape as a general election, allowing themselves only a couple of hours to do the polling, the counting, the tabulation of results, the processing of results, the appeals, adjudication and re-runs and dispute resolution.

All within 24 hours.

It takes our usually incompetent electoral commission months, if not years, of preparation and billions of shillings to mount a similar undertaking, often with disastrous results.

The parties believed their own delusions of adequacy and thought that they had the mechanisms to carry out a nationwide election and have a credible result in a couple of hours.

The fundamental problem is that everything is subordinated to the base wishes of politicians. We wrote a constitution and laws which addressed exactly this kind of embarrassing chaos.

The Political Parties Act was written, I believe, by reasonably smart people, to strengthen parties and free them from being taken hostage by candidates at election time.

It required that one be a member of a party for at least six months before one is offered a ticket to run for office.

Therefore, they needed to have been party members in October 2012 for them to be nominated to run in this election.

In their own wisdom, and because they have no discipline, class or sense of proportion, MPs started messing around with those provisions to make life easier for themselves.

At first, they reduced the period to three months, perhaps because they were worried that if they declared that they were members of parties other than those that sent them to Parliament, they would lose their jobs.

They messed with the law until that safety period was completely removed, thus allowing political parties to attempt to carry out nominations for the senate, MP, governor, and women’s representative in a single day only hours to the close of the official nomination period by the Independent Electoral Commission.

Meanwhile, the IEBC, which has independence boldly displayed on its name and nowhere else, as well as the Registrar of Political Parties, have been sitting on their hands and trying to disappear into the chairs in the hope that no one notices them and takes offence.

Those two institutions appear to be run by nancy boys and inoffensive little ladies who can’t understand why people don’t seem to get along – people to whom the position, the prestige and the money is more important than the imperative need to exercise control over a political system long gone rogue for the sake of our country.

We can’t move ahead unless we get organised. The nominations would suggest we are far from getting it.

What were they thinking, these sadistic #MPigs?

Following public outrage President Kibaki has rightly denounced the ridiculous Sh9.3 million sendoff package sought by outgoing MPs.

The President directed the Attorney-General to redraft the Bill to ensure it complies with the Constitution.

This is good news to taxpayers who, on Thursday night, felt betrayed by the lawmakers.

What really infuriates many citizens is why the public should accord a state funeral to the current crop of legislators, many of them on their first term, and who, in any case, will be voted out by their constituents on March 4.

Why should public funds be spent on providing ex-MPs with armed bodyguards for the rest of their lives while armed gangs terrorise Tana Delta and city slums with abandon?

The attempt to raid public coffers in total disregard of the state of the economy was simply selfish and out of step with the kind of leadership Kenyans yearn for.

What the MPs sought in retirement benefits does not make sense for our struggling economy.

In fact, the whole Bill reeked of impunity and was in bad faith.

The move was a bald-faced attempt to legally steal from what the public worked tirelessly to produce.

Where are all the good men? @bikozulu Version

 There are no good men out there. That is according to ladies. Because the current crop of men are not living out to their standards. Or perhaps the ladies have themselves to blame for not finding the Mr Right.

Jackson Biko, alias @bikozulu, thinks otherwise. Have a read:


Take a lady. A professional lady. Age: 32, well schooled and with a decent enough job, probably works as a logistics manager at one of those NGOs that dig boreholes in Turkana and helps goat farmers in Mwingi market their milk better. She swears she loves her job.

She drives a VW Polo – silver – a car that also doubles as a shoe rack given the number of shoes on the floor at the back. She lives in a clichéd neighbourhood with the rest of the middle-class types and goes to church diligently because she was raised in a staunch catholic home.

Her value system is solid. Oh, and she’s a single mother of one. A boy. Or girl. Doesn’t matter. But it would be nice, for the sake of this story if she had a girl because visually you’d see her matching her little girl’s attire with her own shoes. And purse.

You might have guessed by now that this girl is single. She doesn’t talk about the “baby daddy” as they are now called. But when she does, he’s referred to using colourful adjectives like “useless”, “pathetic” and other words that my editor won’t allow to be printed here. But she isn’t bitter, oh God forbid no, as she says of him: “He isn’t worth my emotion and time.”

You shouldn’t be surprised that the sum total of her experiences has made her exceedingly cynical of men. But to her credit, this stand isn’t too unrealistic because apparently the dating game is marred by men who are virtually undatable. I wouldn’t know, men aren’t my type.

This woman will tell you a story about her driving to work one morning, and how at a junction, while waiting to join a road, she saw this gentleman in a swanky BMW X5.

“He was young, hot, neat and looked very well put together,” she’ll gush. And you will picture that guy too, I mean we see them in traffic; those pretty boys who have the windows of their juggernauts all rolled up in traffic because the smell of their success might come out of the car and suffocate the underserving masses.

So yes we know what she is talking about. Then she will finish this story by posing a bemoaned question, “ where do you find a decent man like that in this town? Unbeknownst to her, with this question she joins a chorus of women, wondering what happened to good single men to date.

Her routine is depressing: she goes to work until 6, goes home early to “bond” with the child, dinner (only salad remember she’s searching and she got to keep her waistline from forming a restless coalition with her bum), then curl in bed with a chapter of a book like Shades of Grey (which doesn’t help her sense of reality much) then black out. Repeat this the next day. And the next.

Once in a while, she will attend a random cocktail. Saturdays she works half day, then heads home to check on baby, then perhaps later she attends a chama with her girls. Or a random play at the theatre. Sunday is church then lunch and afternoon with her baby. Repeat this every week. Every month. Every year.

So in essence the only time she sees a man she almost likes, is in traffic which limits her pool to men in traffic (with their windows rolled up) and traffic cops. Tough life.

But it’s not that she isn’t hit on. She is hit on all the damned time: by married men. And losers. The married crowd you can understand, but losers? That she has to define. “ Oh,” she explains, “There are men who have no future; jokers who just want to drink and have a random shag. Boys!”

Her narrative goes back to her question: where are the good men like the hot chap in the BMW.

What she doesn’t know is that there is a good likelihood that the “hot” chap in the BMW is married. Women know how to clean up a man. So yes, Mr Hot-shot BMW could be spoken for. Or he could be gay.

Let’s be honest, the gay guys scrub up well. The guy could even be a mess – serial womaniser, control freak, childhood issues, druggie, commitment-phobic - and he masks his weaknesses with the car and the clothes. All that glitters…

What this woman might not know is that to meet a man she might like she has to change her routine, open herself up for interactions. So take a different route home; join a gym or drink in a different bar (and for goodness’ sake, drink less!) and most importantly be open minded to interact with men who isn’t “her type”.

Self-help books are also to blame. They have made women rigid in their tunnel-visioned quest to “go for what you want, what you deserve.”

In the process they miss out on good things because they have ridiculous pre-conceived notion of what they deserve. The result? They continue staring at men in traffic.