Will outlandish conspiracy theories define the ICC trials?

It is a case where we must agree to disagree. This blogger has no love for the International Criminal Court, or its Office of the Prosecutor, and is of the opinion that the decision by the member States of the African Union to withdraw from the Rome Statute will be vindicated in the long run, especially if the African Union sets up its own international crimes tribunal. But in the trial of the Deputy President of Kenya and a radio journalist, this blogger is forced to disagree with Senior Counsel Ahmednasir Abdullahi who advances the preposterous argument that the trial has become akin to a trial by "unflattering regimes like military juntas and dodgy and unaccountable tribunals." (Let Ruto, Sang confront accusers in open court, Sunday  Nation, 22/09/13.)

Mr Abdullahi relies on the following planks to advance his argument: that the Court is overly solicitous of the Office of the Prosecutor, granting it its every request; and that the decision of the Court to hear the testimony of the first witness called to the stand by the prosecution in camera is designed to deny the defence, and the public, an opportunity to confront their accuser in public. That, at least, seems to be the sum of the Senior Counsel's gripe with the ICC. And he is wrong.

His blanket statement that "[In] camera trials are a rarity in criminal trials. Such trials are associated with unflattering regimes like military juntas and dodgy and unaccountable tribunals" is true, but not in the way that he frames it. Criminal courts will not hesitate to hide the identities of child witnesses or witnesses who have been victims of sexual offences. In certain circumstances, witnesses who fear for their lives may have their identities hidden, especially if they wish to return to their communities, and do not wish to be spirited away to witness protection programmes. It is at the discretion of the court to determine when to hide the identity of a witness from both the accused and the public. In the Deputy President's case, while charges were filed against him before he became the Deputy President, the change in his circumstances necessarily changes the nature of the relationship between him and his accusers. The fear by the Office of the Prosecutor that the witness may likely be molested after giving her testimony, or if the Deputy President is acquitted, remains strong.

What Mr Abdullahi must consider is that this is not a secret trial; it is a public trial with parts of it that are kept secret. Even when the Office of the Prosecutor was applying to the ICC for permission to file charges against the accused persons in the Kenya cases, the Prosecutor relied on some secret evidence. This evidence was disclosed to the accused; but it was not generally disclosed to the public. Mr Abdullahi has rightly pointed out that the accused is entitled to a fair trial, which would include that it is not held in secret, or by applying secret rules of procedure, or relying on secret evidence and testimony known only to the prosecution and heard by a secret panel of judges who are accountable to no one. This is not the case with the extant trial. While a witness has been allowed to testify in secret, and some of that witnesses testimony has not been disclosed to the public, only the identity of the witness has been kept from the defence and not the substance of her testimony. The defence need not know the identity of the witness in order to challenge the sum and substance of that witnesses testimony. If the accused person did not do what the witness claimed that he did, it is simplicity itself to prove that. On that plank, alone, Mr Abdullahi must reconsider his attack on the trial.

However, Mr Abdullahi's claim that the Trial Chamber V and, indeed, the entire ICC, is led by the nose by the Office of the Prosecutor deserves greater scrutiny. If it is true then the whole process has been charade. It would mean that when the Office of the Prosecutor applied to the Pre-trial Chamber II for permission to investigate the Kenya situation, that the sole judge who refused to go along with the majority was merely play-acting; the Pre-trial Chamber had already decided in favour of granting permission for the investigation. The same would be true too when the Office of the Prosecutor filed the two cases against six Kenyans; the dissenting judge was merely pulling the wool over our eyes for a decision that had already been determined. Even for conspiracy theorists, this seems a bit over the top.

This blogger is of the opinion that trials cannot to be held in the media; the media can report on a trial, the public can benefit from being informed of it, but neither can make a determination on the facts argued before the court. The court cannot render its judgment based on an opinion poll. Indeed this is what those who suggested that the election of the Deputy President was a "referendum" on whether or not he should stand trial and they were manifestly wrong. If that were the case, then all a person accused of heinous crimes need do is to stand for election; if he is elected, he is innocent and if he is not elected, send him straight to jail without even the bother of a trial. The Deputy President and the radio journalist have been accused of heinous crimes. The process of bringing them to trial has been tortuous, but fair. The trial is proceeding apace. The outcome is no longer in the hands of the press or the public, but in the hands of the prosecution, the defence and the court. If they are acquitted, that should be the end of the affair. Many Kenyans, but surely not all of them, have faith in the ICC process more than they do in Kenya's Judiciary. When this trial is over, we may find out if their faith is misplaced or not.

Business at the grassroots is the key.

Taking a hard look at the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution, after a hiatus of three years, is an eye-opener. If the intention of the Committee of Experts was to convert devolution into glorified local government, they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. It is why when one hears of the Big Plans Kenya's forty-seven governors have made one is struck with their chutzpah, their moxie, their balls. The governors' interpretation of the Constitution that they are akin to the president, but at "grassroots" level should be dispelled with quickly, before they do irreparable harm to devolution.

One of the principle reasons why devolution s popular with Kenyans was the inequity in the distribution of national resources. For example, official neglect of the North Eastern Province, parts of the Coast Province and the northern reaches of Eastern Province were demonstrated by the low allocation of development funds by the erstwhile central government. The only relationship that seemed to matter to Nairobi seemed to be the one that treated the residents of these regions as security threats to be manged. This was acutely experienced by these people whenever they applied for national documents of identity, such as the national identity cards every adult is required to carry. Before they were issued with one, a district security committee had to confirm that they were Kenyans, even after they submitted copies of their parents' IDs and birth certificates. This system still prevails today in the shadow of the devolved government and by all means seems to be a permanent situation.

The dream of devolved government survived the attentions of the Tenth Parliament, but only in a bastardised form. While many governors think that what they have is a federated style of government, the truth of the matter is that what they head are little more than glorified local authorities. If they were to take this in good stride, they could go far ion affecting the course of government, even in Nairobi. If they, and their senators in Nairobi, insist in pushing the national government, especially the National Assembly, to grant them more powers and more responsibilities, they may miss the opportunities to positively affect the lives of Kenyans at the grassroots and this is an opportunity they may never get again.

In Nairobi and Mombasa, for example, the biggest challenges revolve around income-generating activities, especially petty vending and small-scale retailing. The majority of residents in the Capital and in Kenya's gateway make their living from either the "informal sector" or peddling wares door-to-door, in markets or as "hawkers" in the central business districts. What they require are systems that guarantee that they are able to earn a decent living, earn a decent profit, and suffer few regulatory penalties. The situation that prevails today makes all small-scale vendors and hawkers petty offenders attracting the attention of over-zealous municipal inspectorates, such as the City Council askaris, and their batons.

While many governors have led their counties in drafting legislation that would expand investment and investment opportunities for "major" investors, they have ignored the small and medium enterprises sector that accounts for a large part of the employment and economic opportunities in their counties. It is time they swiftly turned their attention to this vital sector. They must begin by reviewing the extant by laws; these have been the bane of the SME sector for decades. The aim should be to simplify the process of applying for and obtaining permits. The Single Business Permit regime must be reformed to account for the increased numbers of vendors, and the decreased slots in authorised markets and shopping centres.

Secondly, county governments must invest more in expanding legitimate locations for the carrying out of legitimate business activities. Markets and shopping centres must be modernised and expanded in size to attract more vendors and sellers. If the costs of operations for SMEs can be kept low, and the incentives for investing in the SME secotr made more attractive, one of the pernicious problems of the SME sector (unlicensed hawking) may be eliminated. It will take a concerted and sustained effort by county executives. But given their nascent proclivity towards white-elephant investment, it might be a while before governors see the light in the small sector than in the big ticket investments of foreigners and established conglomerates.

The question remains: Who speaks for the victims?

The Kenyan cases were forced on the Court by America and European countries with a view to determining the political destiny of the country post-Kibaki. ~ Ahmednasir Abdullahi, Sunday Nation (15/09/13)

It is very easy to re-write history; all one must do is to ignore facts on the ground because the human memory is fickle and easily manipulated in an age of twenty-four hour news cycles. The trope that Barack Obama and his surrogates in the European Union engineered the indictments of the President and Deputy President, before they were elected, has gained currency, even among the ranks of those who should know better, including Mr Abdullahi.

When analysing the first day of the trial of the Deputy President, Ahmednasir Abdullahi continues to peddle the notion that had it not been for the interventionist foreign policy intervention of the United States and the EU regarding the political environment once Mwai Kibaki retired, Messrs Kenyatta and Ruto would not be facing charges at the International Criminal Court. This is the principle political plank of the President and Deputy President in their ongoing post-election war with the former Prime Minister. And it is wrong.

In case Mr Abdullahi has forgotten, the sequence of events went something like this: in 2004/05, Kenya acceded to and ratified the Rome Statute. While the treaty was an American brainchild, Kenya did not have a gun figuratively pointed at its head to accede to or ratify the treaty. Next came the ill-fated referendum; Mwai Kibaki and Kiraitu Murungi decided to fiddle with the draft Constitution and submit it to a referendum. Raila Odinga, Uhuru Kenyatta, William Ruto and Kalonzo Muyoka, and a coalition known as Orange, campaigned against and defeated the draft Constitution at the referendum.

In 2007 President Kibaki and Martha Karua, his justice minister, unilaterally appointed members of the Electoral Commission of Kenya to replace others who had retired. They did so knowing full well it would raise questions about the President's dedication to free or fair polls. Uhuru Kenyatta abandoned his second attempt at the presidency and supported Mr Kibaki's tainted candidacy. Mr Ruto, who had supported Uhuru Kenyatta in 2002, was firmly in Mr Odinga's camp and he helped bring the vast vote-basket of the Rift valley to Mr Odinga's side. When the final tally was controversially announced by the late Samuel Kivuitu, Mr Odinga, with Mr Ruto by his side, called for "mass action, peaceful mass action" to challenge the result. At that moment, all bets were off.

By December 29th of that year, the protests, which had started out peacefully enough, were violently suppressed by Mr Kibaki's security forces under the command of the retired Commissioner of Police, Gen Hussein Ali. On January 3rd, the fight-back began and the protests and counter-protests became more than about the results of the election. Violence engulfed the Rift Valley, the Capital and Western Kenya, including Nyanza. By February, the violence had been violently suppressed and Kenya's "development partners" were calling for negotiations to settle the question of what form the Government of Kenya would take. The African Union first sent former Ghanaian President John Kuffuor to mediate. He was rejected by Mwai Kibaki's boys, including Uhuru Kenyatta. Then they sent the former Secretary General of the United Nationa, Kofi Annan and a specially appointed Panel of Eminent African Personalities, including the rightly sainted Graca Machel.

By the end of April 2008, the teams negotiating on behalf of Mwai Kibaki's PNU and Raila Odinga's ODM had agreed to terms. The agreement became the National Accord and Reconciliation Act, 2008, which was entrenched in the former Constitution. It created the position of Prime Minister and Raila Odinga was appointed to the position by Mwai Kibaki. Of the key lieutenants to the principals who benefitted from the Accord, Uhuru Kenyatta was appointed Deputy Prime Minister, but not William Ruto who felt betrayed. 

Under the Accord a Commission of Inquiry was appointed chaired by Philip Waki, a Court of Appeal Judge. It was to inquire into the causes of the violence after the elections and present its findings and recommendations to the President for action. It went beyond its remit. In addition to holding hearings, interviewing witnesses, visiting hotspots and reviewing classified and public documents, it considered Kenya's history of Commissions of Inquiry. In making its recommendations, it invoked Kenya's obligations under the Rome Statute and recommended that a special judicial mechanism be established to deal specifically with the crimes that were committed in Kenya between 27 December 2007 and February 2008. If the government of Mwai Kibaki failed to do so, the Commission had prepared a secret list of persons whom it thought bore the greatest responsibility for the violence, which it handed over to the chief mediator, Kofi Annan, who was to hand it to the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC.

Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga favoured the recommendations of the Commission. They tried, three times, to establish the special mechanism recommended by the Commission. On the face of it, Mr Ruto and Mr Kenyatta were foursquare behind the President and Prime Minister. But Mr Ruto could not forgive Mr Odinga for the betrayal of appointing someone he considered his political subordinate as Deputy Prime Minister in his stead. His support for what came to be known as the local mechanism was in word only. He seemed to direct the cohort from the Rift Valley to reject the Hague option. They, led by the likes of Isaac Ruto, were vocal in their support for the Hague option. Their rallying call was, "Don't be vague, go to The Hague!" Within two years they prevailed; Mr Annan handed over the secret list to the Prosecutor of the ICC, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, and he in turn applied to the International Criminal Court for authority to investigate the Kenya situation.

All along, Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto must have been confident that as the violence was a about the results of the general election, especially the presidential election, the ICC would either not indict anyone, least of all them , or it would indict the two principals, the President and Prime Minister. Mr Moreno-Ocampo made it clear that should he receive authority to investigate the Kenya situation, he would make Kenya an "example" for the world. This has wrongly been presumed to mean that Mr Moreno-Ocampo had already identified Messrs Kenyatta and Ruto as suspects and conducted his investigations, with the help of dodgy NGO outfits, to confirm his preconceived notion. As with many allegations made during this ordeal, no evidence has been advanced to support this assertion. In the end, Mr Moreno-Ocampo filed charges against six men in two cases, and these were confirmed against four. One person had the case against him withdrawn for lack of evidence and recanting by witnesses.

The role that was played by a State agency, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, and the Waki Commission, cannot be gainsaid. The latter's methods and findings were largely accepted by Kenyans; and not until the charges were filed did anyone suggest that the KNCHR had been in cahoots with the US government or the EU. By all reasonable metrics, Kenya willingly and knowingly brought upon itself the uncomfortable spectre of its President and Deputy President standing trial for international crimes at an international court in a foreign country.

This blogger is all for the members of the African Union withdrawing from the Rome Statute, but this should not be done with the aim of protecting African despots and serial abusers of human rights from being held to account. But that seems to be the principle motivator of those calling for the withdrawal of African states from the treaty. Sovereignty, the key buzzword of those calling for withdrawal, is meaningless if it is to be expressed in the slaughter of innocents during political disagreements such as happened in Kenya and none being held to account. Even Mr Abdullahi must admit that thousands of Kenyans were murdered in 2007 and 2008; tens of thousands were maimed, injured and raped; hundreds of thousands were displaced; and many of them lost billions of shillings of their properties. None of the victims has been compensated. The men and women who committed these crimes are yet to face justice in our much-vaunted halls of justice. If there are men and women who plotted the atrocities, they are yet to face justice either. This seems to have slipped the minds of those seeing global political conspiracies in the trials of the President and Deputy Presidents.

Presidential security, statutory contempt and road carnage.

There's a simple explanation for why Kenyans will continue to be slaughtered and maimed on our Chinese-sponsored-and-built "super" highways. It has nothing to do with the Big Idea of a "culture of impunity." It is not linked to which tribe's turn it is to "eat." It is not because only of the incompetence of drivers and law-enforcers alike. It is because of all these and none of these. But at the core of the reasons for the continuing carnage lies a fundamental truth: Kenyans have a deep and abiding contempt for the law and for the rule of law. From the President on down, our respect for the law is measured by how many statutes we bend, manipulate, ignore, side-step, circumvent, suborn, undermine and outright break.

Before this blogger is accused of showing contempt for the institution of the Presidency by linking it to the national malaise of contempt for the law on the road, let us examine a few uncomfortable facts. Is there a Kenyan alive who can identify the piece of legislation that permits the presidential motorcade to flout the Highway Code? Can anyone prove that, by law, the President must at all times travel in a traffic bubble in order to keep his ass from getting fragged on the highway by some asshole with an axe to grind? Where does it state that the Presidential escort must travel in packs, like hyenas, and bully law-abiding road-users from the path of the presidential cavalcade? In other words, what is the law on presidential motorcades, or even presidential security for that matter?

If the President, mini-presidents, speakers, Cabinet Secretaries, Principal Secretaries and sundry movers-and-shakers cannot be bothered to drive within the ambit of the Highway Code - the Traffic Act for those anally retentive, lie yours truly - why should the new owner of a shitty grey import or the high-as-a-kite "pilot" of a PSV bother with even a rudimentary knowledge of that vital set of rules? In Kenya today, and over the past fifteen years, we have elected leaders, not rulers. If we were living in a time when our President ruled us, then it would matter not that he, and his security minders, thought of the Highway Code as a minor inconvenience. But we have leaders today. This is an important distinction. Leaders show us the way; they guide us to our hearts desires, whether they are economic liberty or academic excellence. Therefore, the fact that our leaders choose to publicly and notoriously demonstrate a mighty contempt for the Highway Code is crucial to understanding why Kenyan drivers, generally, will never respect the -road, road users or traffic rules.

We take many things for granted. One of them is that because of the place of the Presidency in the governance of the nation, and the power that the Presidency wields, that it is fit and proper to take reasonable and extraordinary measures to protect the person occupying the office. No one has seen fit to question the statutory justification for the offences committed in the name of presidential security. It is why none has seen fit to question the mass land grab that has taken place in public places by, mainly, public institutions in the name of security.

Take Harambee Avenue, for example. It used to be one could walk from the Treasury to the National Assembly without encountering a single fence, save around the Office of the President. Now even Vigilance House has barricaded itself behind a high fence and proceeded to grab the pavement in from of it to keep out God knows who. Pedestrians must walk on the road (an offence) because the armed policeman in front of Vigilance House might (now) shoot you for walking in front of one of the most militarised address on Harambee Avenue.

Our leaders demonstrate contempt for the law on a daily basis. They encourage us to do the same. When we do so, we suffer tragic consequences. In addition to the leading causes of road traffic accidents, and the deaths and injury they engender, such as drink-driving, speeding, and driving unroadworthy vehicles, the biggest contributor is the false belief amongst road users that rules are meant to be broken. After all that is what our presidential security details demonstrates every time they swat us hoi polloi out of the way in the name of security.

Luis Franceschi is wrong.

Luis Franceschi is wrong. It is that simple. The solution to the slap heard around the country - indeed, the world - is not to talk it out between the slapper and the slapped. The Governor of Nairobi City County committed an offence - Ahmednasir Abdullahi, a member of the Judicial Service Commission called it a strict-liability offence - by striking another person who just happened to be the Woman Representative of Nairobi City County and a woman known for her sharp tongue, sharper elbows and general aggression in a cause dear to her.

In the Friday Nation, Mr Franceschi begins promisingly enough (Slapping the Constitution, 13/09/13). He states, correctly, that slapping a woman is totally out of place, no matter the circumstances. Then he goes all woolly. Instead of demonstrating that he understands the effect of the Governor's assault of the Woman Representative on the millions of women who suffer silently at the assaulting hands of men, he first proceeds to suggest that the Woman Representative contributed to being assaulted, and that rather than have the police investigate, that the two, perpetrator and victim, should sit and talk. Talk about what?! Even if the Governor apologises, this does not wipe away the fact that he committed a crime.

In Kenya, men run everything. The President and Deputy President are men. The forty-seven governors are men. The Speakers of Parliament are men. I believe only one county elected a woman as its speaker. The Cabinet is dominated by men. In only two influential ministries are women in charge: Defence and Foreign Affairs. But neither has much to do with domestic policy, not directly anyway. It is not just in the public sector.

A majority of management positions in faith-based organisations are held by men. The main Christian churches in Kenya - Roman Catholic, Anglican, Pentecostal and Presbyterian - are managed by men. Islam in Kenya is under the direct and exclusive control of men. In business, I think only the DTB bank has a woman CEO. The remaining major banks - Equity, KCB, Barclays, Standard Chartered and CFC Stanbic - are managed by male CEOs. In media, again, it is probably only Inooro FM that has a woman CEO. KBC, the Nation Media Group, the Standard Group, Royal Media Services...you name it, are under the direct control of male CEOs. It is not a stretch to suggest that the place of men in the power dynamics of the institutions that make and mould opinions in Kenya is a primary one. Women, play secondary roles and are to be "managed" by the men in charge.

This is why it is shocking that men who should know better would suggest that it is normal for Mr Kidero, or the Senator of Nairobi, to carry on in their positions for what they did in the past week. Both acted in a manner that confirmed for the world to see that in Kenya, at least, women are to be seen and not be heard. If they were to suffer violence, verbal or otherwise, at the hands of men, they were to deploy their mediation and negotiation skills and "talk it out." They are not to demand satisfaction in the halls of justice. In Mr Kidero's case, Mr Franceschi suggests that if Mr Kidero is punished for his violence, Nairobi will suffer because his managerial hand will otherwise be occupied. If I remember correctly, Mr Kidero was not the only experienced manager contesting the Nairobi City Governor's seat. Mr Jimnah Mbaru, a billionaire investment banker, readily comes to mind. Nairobi City will not miss a step simply because Mr Kidero is cooling his heels in gaol.

Ignorance of the law should not convict a Kenyan.

It is time for the ends of justice in Kenya to dispense with the Ignorance Rule. The rule states that ignorance of the law is no defence. It was created for a jurisdiction and at a time in which its application was easy, straight forward. Its draconian application in Twenty-first Century Kenya frequently defeats the ends of justice. It is manifestly unfair as demonstrated by the hundreds of Kenyans convicted simply because an officious government applies obscure statutes to obscure acts that no reasonable Kenyan could possibly consider to be unlawful.

In the past decade alone, Kenya has enacted close to a hundred statutes. Some are very detailed. All are drafted in English. All may be obtained either on the internet for free, or at the Government Printer for a fee. None is distributed to the "ordinary" Kenyan. None is translated into any of the near forty local dialects. Public education on the enactment of new laws is conspicuous by its absence. How is the "man on the street" to defend himself when he cannot reasonably know what the law is, what it says, and what his obligations are under it.

The Constitution proclaims its supremacy, and declares the sovereignty of the people. But these constitutional principles are meaningless if the application of the laws made under the Constitution fail to account for the peculiar circumstances of the many users of the law. Official government statistics tell us that significant proportions of Kenyans cannot speak, read or write in English. Others cannot read or write. many do not have access to the internet. 60% live in rural areas without access to either electricity or government officials or to both. It is unjust to expect that these people will know the law in order to modify their behaviour in accordance with the law.

Even those who should know the law are not knowledgeable about the law. They may be educated, with access to the internet, and with the facilities to find out what the law is. But their lives do not revolve around their education in what the law is or what it means. Many must earn a living; they may or may not know what the law says regarding the activities they undertake when they go about their business. It is unjust to expect them, too, to know what the law is and to apply it.

In Kenya, there is no reasonable circumstance where Kenyans can honestly be expected to know the law. None. Even with education and access, and the capacity to know what bit of the law applies and which one does not, it is inevitable that large swathes of the Law of Kenya will remain unknown to a majority of Kenyans. Therefore, it is time for the courts to rule that ignorance of the law, even where it cannot be proven, is a defence. If the law is enacted in Parliament, and Kenyans are not educated about it in the broadest way possible, or the law is distributed to the widest number in the language that allows them access, and understanding, there is no reasonable expectation that Kenyans will know what the law is. It is only the State and lawyers who benefit from this rule; Kenyans, on the other hand, continue to be victimised by the law, not protected by it.

In search of political legitimacy?

Managing expectations is harrowing, especially when the expectations you are expected to manage are from men and women incapable of rational, logical discourse within their particular group. The cheerleading squad that accompanied the Deputy President to The Hague is one such group. Individually, each Member of Parliament is capable of erudition when discussing matters of national importance. Collectively, they are a mess. A hot mess.

Nothing demonstrates this as the expectations they have built up regarding the eventual acquittal of the Deputy President of all charges laid against him by the Office of the Prosecutor. Mr Ruto has done nothing to dampen their ardour. Indeed, he has ratchetted up their expectations such that it is near impossible to ask them to consider an alternative outcome. Every word that comes out of the mouths of Mr Ruto's capable team of lawyers is treated as just another element towards his eventual redemption at the International Criminal Court.

And it is not just the politicians we must watch. Even sensible lawyers in public and private practice have built up a nasty habit of ignoring unpalatable truths about the way the trial of the Deputy President is going. Otherwise sensible lawyers have sacrificed their legal intelligence at the altar of Hail Mary Passes. Many of them watched the Opening Statements of the defence counsels and decreed them to be the superior ones when measured against those of Fatou Bensouda, the redoubtable Gambian, and her team. When the Judges of the Trial Chamber V called out Ms Bensouda for not preparing adequately to lead her witnesses, they took this as a sign that the chief Prosecutor's case was much weaker than she has led everyone else to believe. Mr Khan and his team are the Seconed Coming; Ms Bensouda and hers are the witch-hunters in the employ of unnamed foreign powers out to foment evil in Kenya by any means necessary, relentlessly hounding the Deputy President out of some animus that has no foundation.

This blogger readily acknowledges his inexperience in trial advocacy, though he spent enough time acquiring his law degree and Bar certificate. This blogger has spent his entire professional life on the outside looking in, never having had the opportunity to play in the Big Leagues with the Big Boys. But despite this blogger's inexperience, there are certain immutable truths that even the Big Boys cannot elide. Trials are not won or lost on the strength or weakness of an opening statement, but on whether or not the facts support ones case. Ms Bensouda is yet to lay her case before the court in its totality. Mr Khan is yet to challenge the prosecution's case with counter-facts of his own. This trial is set to run its course. Mr Ruto's guilt or innocence will only be known when the facts have been presented and the judges have ruled one way or the other.

At some point the judges will have to decide whether the trial is worth continuing. In Kenya, this would be the stage when the court asks whether or not the accused has a case to answer. That point lies at least several weeks in the future. The fawning entourage of waheshimiwa making asses of themselves at the International Criminal Court viewing gallery must surely realise this. Unless their intent is not to discover the guilt or innocence of their friend-in-need. Perhaps, just as it has always been in Kenya, they are hedging their bets. If they are seen to be robustly foursquare behind the Deputy President, they may benefit politically on the off-chance he is acquitted. Or convicted. To them it might not matter one way or the other. What matters to them is the appearance of political loyalty. The facts, as always, are mere tools in their quest for political legitimacy. It would shock Mr Ruto to know that perhaps all those loyal voices in the gallery are there only to be seen by others at home, and not necessarily in support of his personal challenges.

Go! and be done with you!

Misogyny, apparently, has not been vanquished from our fair land by the Constitution. The exhortation against discrimination on the basis of sex, among other grounds, seems so much ho-hum when measured against the gubernatorial slap or the senatorial verbal assault. If the men at the highest echelons of our government are unable to see that what they did and what they said is wrong, or that they should ask the good people who elected them for a fresh mandate, then Kenya has many miles to travel before it can truly say that women are the equal of men in every respect. Those that would argue that the women at the receiving end of male assault were to blame, whether for finger-wagging or for pseudo-character-assassination, are wrong on the merits and on the facts.

Dr Evans Kidero has attempted to come across as an erudite and civilised kind of politicians. When measured against his erstwhile gubernatorial challenger, Ferdinand Waititu, Mr Kidero is miles ahead of the Embakasi Brawler. That, at least, was the image that he had cultivated in the nation's broadsheets, TV studios and salons of the chatterati. With a misjudged angry reaction to a finger-wagging-in-your-face incident by Nairobi's Woman Representative, Mr Kidero must struggle to rebuild his much-sullied image. Gideon Mbuvi aka Mike Sonko does not suffer from the image of erudition or civilisation. But his diatribe against a famous radio personality, punctuated with references to four-letter-word career progression, demonstrated that when it comes to the competition for the intellectual soul of the nation, Nairobi's Senator has decided to give that particular arena a very wide berth.

What the actions of the Governor of Nairobi City County and his Senator say about the state of woman liberation in Kenya is a cause for pause. It seems not to matter that, even in the pig-in-mud arena of Kenyan politics, women are truly the equal of men. In a twenty-first century Kenya where more and more women are going to school, graduating from university, running businesses and institutions, and keeping home and hearth together, it is incongruous that men elected to high office will not lead by example by treating even the most disagreeable women with respect, and courtesy. 

This blogger is on the record as thinking that Nairobi's Woman Responsible as being no better than her colleagues in the National Assembly. This blogger thinks that the pseudo-intellectual twaddle peddled by the radio presenter on the receiving end of the Nairobi Senator's assault is one more reason why Kenya is surely doomed to mediocrity and flash-in-the-pan plans of no merit. But despite this blogger's despise for the two women, he knows that it is vital for the soul of the nation that they be given a voice in the national commons. If they make intellectual fools of themselves, so be it. But the masculine reaction cannot a muscularly violent one. If we are to remind Kenyans of the vital place of the views of both men and women in the cause of national growth, Mr Kidero and Mr Mbuvi must resign their positions. if they will not do so willingly, their parties and coalitions must call for their resignations. If their parties or coalitions will not do so, it behooves the champions in the civil society industry to take the matter to the High Court and argue that by the elected representatives' public behaviour, they are in violation of the principles enshrined in Article 10 of the Constitution.

We must send a powerful message to all the girls contemplating a career in the public eye that their nation will stand foursquare behind them when they perform their public duties, even when they make fools of themselves. Men have this guarantee and they have abused it for far too long. It is men that gifted Kenya new words in their lexicon such as Goldenberg, Triton, Maize Scam, and Anglo-Leasing. It is men that demonstrate day after day that school-going girls require armed police to protect them from pederasts and molesters of all shades. It is men that have laid this nation low. It is men who are responsible for the very public death of civility and courtesy, and the celebration of mediocrity and political cant. For the sake of our national soul we must tell Mr Kidero and Mr Mbuvi, "Go! and be done with you!"

Fimbo ya mbali...

That day certain Kenyans have been waiting for or dreading, depending on where your heart bleeds, is here. The Deputy President, without much fanfare, was called to deny that he is what the Office of the Prosecutor claims he is in open court at the International Criminal Court. Then he let his lawyer do the talking. In hindsight, Mr Ruto should never have presumed on the enlightened interest of Justice Wakia and his fellow commissioners, nor on the good nature of the first Prosecutor in the case; he should, at a minimum, hired a lawyer when it seemed as if the Waki Commission was coming after him and not Raila Odinga. He should have hired a lawyer when the human rights industry in Kenya trained its sights on him and not on the Prime Minister. He should definitely have hired a lawyer when he was never given adequate opportunity (or so he claims) to rebut allegations made against him, and secret lists were handed over to the mediator and the Office of the Prosecutor.

Mr Ruto's sojourn in The Hague is not our concern today; we are more interested in the legions of vitriolic and anonymous commentators on the web spewing hate for or against the continued trial of the deputy President. This blogger is firm in his belief that unless a court of law convicts you of an offense, even the notoriously shoddy courts of law in our neck of the woods, a man must be permitted his liberty to pursue his interests. This blogger refused to subscribe to the argument advanced by the anti-UhuRuto mob that because Mr Ruto had been indicted by the International Criminal Court, and that he had been adversely mentioned in a human rights report, and that he was embroiled in a dispute with a landowner who'd fled Eldoret in the 1990s, and that he was the accused in a corruption trial involving government land, that he should put on hold his political ambitions until these minor, personal legal challenges were resolved. This blogger robustly defended Mr Ruto's right to pursue his political ambitions like any other Kenyan.

Mr Ruto's supporters - more like fans, really - refused to let things lie with this neat principle. As did those who were adamant that Mr Ruto enjoyed no rights at all when he was an accused person. They went back and forth over the "implications" of an accused person holding high office with the pro-Ruto crowd arguing that it was a declaration of Kenyan sovereignty while the other side argued that it would further entrench the "culture of impunity" if the politician held high public office while undergoing trial for international crimes. This blogger would leave things at that but for the acerbic language employed in defence of either side's positions, and the allegations of tribal loyalty or disloyalty that accompany the arguments advanced for or against the innocence of the Deputy President.

Mr Ruto's supporters have advanced supporting arguments that amount to a questioning of the patriotism of the Kenyans who'd see Mr Ruto drawn-and-quartered by The Hague-based court. They question the nationalist credentials of Kenyans who have done much to advance the cause of human rights in Kenya. Those on the other side do not understand how "civilised" Kenyans could stand idly by as accused perpetrators of gross human rights violations are elected to high office or mastermind their parliamentary colleagues to frustrate the course of justice. They fear that Kenya will be a pariah state if it finds a way of manipulating the system to rescue the Deputy President's hide from the ICC.

Now that the trial is underway, there are few options left. Even the bloviators in the blogosphere know that the extent of their influence is limited to their followers and no further. Mr Ruto may or may not be convicted; that is for the ICC to determine. Whether we win the online argument, Mr Ruto's fate, sadly, is in the hands of a court that sits thousands of miles away from the men and women fulminating online.

It's time for the wolves to go hunting.

They will not admit it, but the footsoldiers in the CORD army surely realise that their generals are way past their political prime. Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka look like an unhappily married couple forced to live in the same house "for the sake of the children." This blogger has previously defended Raila Odinga's right to remain in the political field. But this is not the United States. Politics here is not dependent on a stellar career, in and out of Parliament. It is dependent on proximity to the presidency. Simple as that.

Raila Odinga went as high as he was ever going to go. There have only been two Prime Ministers in the history of Kenya. One was Kenya's First President, the other was Raila Odinga. He is in stellar company. Kalonzo's achievements are no less impressive. He, unlike Raila Odinga, is no silver-spoon baby. Mr Musyoka worked for everything he has. he may have been sharp-elbowed now and then, but that is neither here nor there in the sharp-elbowed world of Kenyan politics. But in the here and now, you get the sense that their time in the sun is at an end, tragically prematurely so for Kalonzo Musyoka. The two have joined the VAT-Act-is-bad bandwagon rather reluctantly. They don't seem to have their hearts in the anti-VAT agitation. They are suffering from serious withdrawal symptoms. For men used to having their egos presidentially massaged, they are in uncharted waters.

It is time that even the intellectual heavyweights of CORD began the short but swift process of disengaging from national leadership. Peter Anyang' Nyong'o, James Orengo,  and Dalmas Otieno need to follow in their generals' footsteps and fall on their own swords too. It is time for the aggression of the new Young Turks to be unleashed. Pit bulls in the form of Agosthino Neto and Ababu Namwamba must be allowed free rein to savage the lunacies of their Jubilee bete noirs in Parliament and elsewhere. The fading lion in Raila Odinga must be confronted with the sad truth: he is over the hill. The diplomat in Kalonzo Musyoka must be confronted with an uncomfrotable truth: peace-makers are a shilling-a-dozen today; what the Minority party needs is a vicious attack dog that does not give two figs for diplomatic tack.

The opportunity to light a fire under Jubilee has arrived. Their No. 1 general is winging his way to The Hague. CORD is familiar with the fimbo-ya-mbali adage. It is time to take off the leash and allow the natural exuberant enthusiasm of Mr Neto, Mr Namwamba and Ms Millie Odhiambo to run riot. While Mr Duale is a capable politician, he is not a general in the mould of the wily Deputy President. With Jakoyo Midiwo harrying him all the way, Messrs Neto and Namwamba, and Ms Odhiambo should give him enough to do that he may not keep his erstwhile disciplined troops in line. Clearly, this strategy does not work if the CORD army is being micromanaged by two over the hill geezers bored in their semi-retirement. When the President eventually makes his way to Den Haag too, CORD must capitalise on the confusion they will have sown during the absence of the Deputy President. If they play it right, the Minority Party's tail will be wagging the Majority Party's dog. But then again, they have demonstrated such a dearth of imagination that they will still look to the former PM and former VP for guidance and fuck up any chance of taking the war to Jubilee in their hour of confusion.

If Raila Odinga wishes to see his and his father's work achieved, he must let go of the Opposition. He gave it three tries. A fourth is not going to gift him the Presidency. Kalonzo Musyoka placed his bets and ended up Aces-and-Eights. Unless he finds some stardust, his apparent reputation for water-melonness and fence-sitting puts paid to a third act. He is done. It is time for the hungry wolves to rise. It is the only thing that works for the Minority party and for the nation.

The fig leaf.

It is not enough to claim that the International Criminal Court is a Western tool of neo-colonialism, even when the men who have been indicted at the Court are all Africans. It is not enough to claim that the imminent trials of the President and Deputy President at the Court are ploys to destabilise the nation, even though their trials may very well do that. It is not enough to claim that the civil society human rights industry is in cahoots with unnamed foreign powers simply because their funds are routed through suspicious bank accounts. It is not enough to claim that the trials of the President and Deputy President could very well take place in Kenya because we have sufficiently reformed the Judiciary that it is able to dispense even-handed justice. It is not enough to do all this because thousands of Kenyans are still dead, tens of thousands of Kenyans have lost their property or had it expropriated without just compensation, and hundreds of thousands of Kenyans bear physical and mental scars that may never heal.

This is the week when it emerges that the government of the people, by the people and for the people is an ideal that favours the few at the expense of the many. The events of the past few months demonstrate as nothing else will that "the people" are only an abstraction, a figment of the popular imagination abroad in the land. The "government" exists for the few; it does the bidding of the few; it is made up of the few. The "few" have always existed in Kenya, taking up various guises, all of them pernicious: settlers, colonists, well-heeled, well-connected tycoons, and the sons and daughters of the favoured few.

The people exist as cannon-fodder for the amusement of the few. They are rallied to causes as diverse as teachers and doctors' strikes, elections, or political arm-twisting contests of no value. A stalwart members of the few, Rachel Shebesh, decides to "side" with the people against the erudite and cerebral symbol of the the same few she belongs to. In her verbal and physical assault on the person of the Governor of Nairobi, and in his physical and verbal assault on her in retaliation, the plight of the people is forgotten. Whether they should retain their jobs or whether they should get better terms is forgotten. It is a war of the egos of one member of the elite against another. The people have served their purpose. They may return to the detritus of their lives. One day soon, they will against be called out to stand in solidarity with the one against the other. That is their purpose in life.

This phenomenon plays itself out on the national stage. Thousands of Kenyans are set upon by their neighbours and erstwhile friends. Many of them are murdered in cold blood. Their homes and fields are set ablaze and their livestock butchered where they stand. Hundreds of thousands of them are driven from their homes and forced into concentration camps, what the civil society human rights industry calls IDP camps. A few days later, people who had nothing to do with these events are targetted by militia armed to the teeth and butchered and maimed in their homes. More and more of them are driven from their homes, which are set ablaze and they too, find themselves in other concentration camps. The peoples' lives have been disrupted. Their sons' and daughters' education has been disrupted. They live, and look, like animals. The "government" spends a considerable chunk of national treasure to find out who was responsible for the cataclysm. Six men are accused of it. The case against three collapses for want of evidence. The case against the remaining three is set to proceed. The people are about to be called out to "protest" the indignity of the trials of the three in a foreign land because "Kenya has the capacity" to do it on its own.

A member of the "few" with a gymnast's ability to twist himself argues that that the "people", by "overwhelmingly" voting for two of the accused have rejected their trials in a foreign court. His boon friend of similar ability argues that it is the civil society human rights industry, sponsored from parts unknown, that should answer for the crimes being tried abroad. Both make passing reference to the fates of the victims, but only in a conflation of the plight of those in concentration camps and the three. The victim and the accused are the same, you see? Soon the intellectuals will read and reread the social compact called the Constitution, and they will argue that its words do not mean what they say. They will argue that it is OK to use it as a fig leaf for the avarice, caprice and heartlessness of the few.

Our appointment in Samarra.

There was a merchant in Bagdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me.  She looked at me and made a threatening gesture,  now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate.  I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me.  The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went.  Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning?  That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise.  I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra. ~ Appointment in Samarra

This blogger keeps returning to this theme for a reason; this blogger believes that the continued conflation of the fates of the President and Deputy President with that of the sovereignty of the nation or the their relationship with the victims of the violence of 2007 and 2008, by the President's and Deputy President's ardent acolytes, is misjudged. When The National Alliance and the United Republican Party were formed, the nominal presidential candidate of the latter, William Ruto, and that of the former, Uhuru Kenyatta, had searched for a formula that would guarantee them victory against the apparently imminent victory of Raila Odinga, the Orange Democratic Movement Party of Kenya's candidate.

The events leading to the rise of the three parties to the top of the political firmament is a classic study of how raw ambition in the pursuit of political power, untrammeled by morality or notions of fair play, can have consequences than just the rise of political heroes or the fall of political villains. In 2007, in the face of an incumbent determined to win at all costs, William Ruto and Raila Odinga formed a formidable team. In 2008, long after the embers of the violence had died down, and Mr Ruto had been betrayed by Prime Minister Odinga, his casting about for a winning strategy would require that the events of the previous 10 months be cast in a light that would rewrite history and cast him as the victim of political perfidy. He could not have known that the decisions he made at that time would re-unite him with Uhuru Kenyatta, whom he had allied with twice before: in 2002 for Mr Kenyatta's ill-fated first presidential campaign, and in 2005, in opposition to Mwai Kibaki's attempt at making a constitution without the consent of the popular Raila Odinga.

It is now well-documented that Kenyans were murdered, raped, maimed and displaced, and their properties unlawfully expropriated or destroyed on a scale not witnessed since the days of the Emergency (1952 - 1959). Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga, President and Prime Minister, agreed to appoint a Commission to Inquire into the violence. The Commission's report has been widely accepted as factual and honest, save by the President and Deputy President, though they only denounced the report when they were ensnared in its consequences, one of which was that if Kenya could not or would not establish a special judicial mechanism to investigate and prosecute offences committed in 2007 and 2008, the whole can of worms would be dumped in the International Criminal Court's lap. Kenya had signed up to the Rome Statute in the early months of Mwai Kibaki's first administration; Mr Kibaki could not have imagined that one of his favourite politicians would be in the cross-hairs of the ICC within a decade of ratifying the treaty. His minions had assured him that the Rome Statute was a valuable weapon in taming the impunity they claimed had become a culture under the twenty-four year reign of Daniel Toroitich arap Moi. They forgot that Mwai Kibaki and Mr Moi went back a very long way; what touched the one would inevitably touch the other. Perhaps this is why President Kibaki did nothing to domesticate the treaty. He would be forced to do so in the aftermath of the 2007 and 2008 crises.

Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto, having rewritten the narrative of how Kenya came to be under investigation by the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, needed to cast "new" light as to how they were the victims of a vast conspiracy. The ICC trials were no longer about assigning responsibility, and blame, on the persons responsible for the violence or the judicial satisfaction of the victims; the trials were alternatively or solely about the sovereignty of the nation; the usurpation of the peoples' will to elect political leaders of their choice; or about the racist tendencies of the ICC against Africa. Intellectuals were deployed in an effective campaign to revise the ICC narrative. One day before the Deputy President travels to The Hague for the start of his trial, the campaign against the ICC and the trials has been an unqualified success.

None of the players in this complex story are clean. Neither the civil society nor the Court itself come to the affair with lean hands. Neither too the accused or their apologists. It is because of the complex motives of each of the actors that the outcome of the trials is in doubt. What seems to have been buried under the plots and counter-plots is the fate of the victims. Their lives were demolished. Few of them are scar-free. Few of them have been made whole again. Few of them are free of the fear and desperation that they faced in 2008. Few of them have moved on. In our posturing and cant, their fates have become more political fodder for the survival or convictions of the accused, depending on where your sympathies lie.

In the anonymous story, the servant ran away to Samarra because he misinterpreted the gesture by Death. In Kenya, we misinterpreted calls for a domestic process and our President and Deputy President ended up in The Hague.

Who will save us from ourselves?

Well, we done gone and lost our damn minds! The motion by Parliament that Kenya must withdraw from the Rome Statute is a case of the lunatics running the asylum. In a fit of spectacular irrationality, Jubilee acolytes has gotten it into their heads that they must prove their unswerving and ardent fealty to the President and Deputy President in acts that not only endanger their benefactors' liberty, but paint Kenya as a jurisdiction in which common sense is neither common nor sense.

Even the lawyers among the members of the Eleventh Parliament admit that the withdrawal from the Rome Statute will not be effective until twelve months after proceedings are initiated, and that withdrawal will not reverse the process underway regarding the trials of the President and Deputy President. Five years after the violence of 2007 and 2008, the scars are yet to heal; many victims have yet to be restored to their properties, the murders of their loved ones are yet to taste the justice they so richly deserve. What the print media referred to as the Post-Election Violence remains unresolved, regardless of what the results of the 2013 general elections indicate.

It is the lack of resolution that raises questions about the wisdom of the Jubilee coalition's moves over the ICC and the trials of their standard-bearers. In the three years since the Office of the Prosecutor opened investigations over the violence, the cases against the President and Deputy President have only weakened. At each stage of the confirmation process, even as the case has advanced, procedural and substantive irregularities have been highlighted. Witness have been recanting their testimonies since the President and Deputy President were sworn in. Indeed, the dismissal of charges against some of the original six co-indictees of the President and deputy President would suggest that the OTP has a much weaker hand than is acknowledged. And given the win/loss record of the former Chief Prosecutor, the two should be sitting pretty instead of, allegedly, marionetting their parliamentary troops into acts of great folly.

This blogger sees no beneficial outcome, wither for the three accused or the nation, from Parliament's desires over the ICC; there is only potential difficulty. It is one thing to pretend that the trial of our top leadership is no big deal, especially when they publicly declare their support for the process. It is something else to attempt to claim co-operation when Parliament has declared war on the ICC. And even in their aggression against the court, Jubilee seems to be listening to the advise of a misguided senator. Kithure Kindiki was part of the original team of defence lawyers that fucked things up for the Deputy President; now he seems to be the intellectual leader of the Jubilee coalition's designs on the ICC. He misapprehended the law then; he is doing so now. (He should look at the Treaty Making and Ratification Act, 2012, if he thinks we are being unfair to him.)

Parliament has complicated the diplomatic field for Kenya by this move. We may be developing a close and intimate relationship with the Russian Bear and the China Dragon, and deepening bonds with pariahs such as Syria and Iran, but when it comes to global finance and investment, the United States, Great Britain, and the European Union remain our true loves. While markets in the BRICS are opening up, there isn't an economist alive who thinks that the United States and European Union will ever diminish in important as target markets for our products, raw or value-added. The Third Sector in Kenya is dominated by international public benefits organisations from the West; show me one with Chinese, Russian or Iranian antecedents. It is the Third Sector that picks up the rather pricey slack when Kenya's public sector cannot in the fields of education, basic healthcare and grassroots development. What are the alternatives when these Western organisations are finally compelled to pack up and depart?

This blogger has a dim view of the Eleventh Parliament. he considers its members capricious, selfish, avaricious, cruel, indolent, mendacious and in serious need of a swift kick up their collective rear. The events of the past six months have only reinforced this dim view. But this blogger is aware of that adage, Those whom the gods wish to punish, they answer their prayers. Our prayers were well and truly answered.

Relax. What could possibly go wrong?

Uhuru Kenyatta was low-key: the ICC indictment was a personal challenge which he would overcome, just as he had overcome all other political setbacks he had suffered in the past. Mr Kenyatta is now President and Commander-in-Chief of the Kenya Defence Forces. William Ruto (and his ardent acolytes, no least of which is Aden Duale) was less sanguine about his fate. He is clear who betrayed him to the ICC, and it is not Philip Waki, he of the Waki Envelope. He is clear on the false testimony procured against him. Witnesses have been recanting their testimonies. He is now the Deputy President and the President's boon-friend.

Their coalition in Parliament, and their friends outside Parliament (such as the lunatic fringe in the form of the National Conservative Forum), are taking steps to ensure that the President and Deputy President do not set foot in The Hague-based International Criminal Court premises. Indeed, those in parliament are set to debate the matter this evening for as long as it takes for a Bring-UhuRuto-Back-Home motion to be secured. Those outside Parliament have decided to trouble the Judges of the High Court, which is the constitutional court, with a petition to prevent, more like block, the President and Deputy President from meeting their personal challenges head on or taking on the false witnesses with compelling counter-testimonies of their own.

Quite understandably, Kenyans have emotionally waded into this debate with wildly differing opinions on the matter. Some are so apoplectic that parliament would even schedule such a debate that they have suffered severe indigestion. Others are so grateful for the good work that the National Assembly's Majority Leader they are seriously considering naming or renaming their their spawn after him. There is a third rather dull and unpatriotic group that does not care what happens. They have listened to the political, religious and tribal rhetoric over the matter and have decided to treat all those involved in the affair with contempt bordering on insolence and vice versa.

Kenya is entering uncharted waters. Kenyan presidents are never ever arraigned in court. Nor are their deputies. Parliament is never apparently impotent. Political rallies were never religious tent revival meetings. Even in the dark days of the Shift Wars, the Wagallah Massacre or the Mwakenya Movement, Kenya was never an object of pity from the likes of Uganda or Tanzania, one a dictatorship in all but name and the other a ho-hum economy with a massive inferiority complex. We have sunk so low that even Western investors are seeking green pastures in Somalia!

But we should take all the hyperbole in stride. We did so during the political campaigns. We did so during the presidential election petition hearings. We will do so tomorrow and when the two spend their days in The Hague. Kenya will not disintegrate (unless William Ruto attempts to usurp Uhuru Kenyatta's power.) They have both assembled legal eagles of no mean repute. Witnesses have been recanting. Parts of the cases against them have been abandoned by the Office of the Prosecutor. What could go wrong that Aden Duale and his fellow-parliamentarians and Jeniffer Shammala and the National Conservative Forum see that we cannot?

The futility of good intentions.

Allow this blogger to wade in once more into the moribund debate on road safety. It is not that, especially, Nairobians do not realise that their lives or limbs are at risk every time they board a matatu flying from one part of the city to another. It is not that they do not care for the welfare of other road users when they bully their way in and out of traffic in a bid to make it to their places of work in the shortest period. It is that despite all these and many more cogent reasons, they simply do not care.

In Kenya, today, the prime motivator is profit at all costs. We no longer frown at the unseemly Mammon idolatry that defines our lives. Indeed, even the institution that once mightily caviled against mammon, the church, has gotten it into its head, and heart, that it is God's will that you die rich. The Prosperity Gospel has done more to liberate people from their morals than the destruction of civic institutions such as political parties or schools or places of high learning.

This attitude is starkly reflected on our roads. The national Executive, whether through the Ministries of Transport or Roads or Internal Security, can produce facts and data detailing why public transport and road safety are in the toilet. They will produce reams of White Papers detailing what must be done to stop the rising death toll on our roads dead in its tracks, pun intended. They know who is to blame. They know what is to blame. They know what must be done, from an administrative point of view, to solve the problem. And they know that what they know is hogwash. Kenyan lives will not be preserved on or off our roads because the Executive has successfully implemented this policy or the other. All the policies, programmes, interventions and whatnot will not reverse the death toll unless a key ingredient is added.

The political will to enforce the rule of law on the roads will have a salutary effect on road safety and public transport. Matatus in Nairobi have always been a law unto themselves. Since the colonial era, matatus have played a game of cat-and-mouse with the forces of law and order. In the over five decades of matatuness, tens of thousands of road users have perished in what our print media love to call horrific accidents. The rise of the matatu culture has mirrored the descent of law enforcement into the pits of sloth and corruption. Policing and matatus are the Siamese twins responsible for the untold suffering (another print-media favourite) of families. The reform of the one must necessarily lead to the reform of the other.

Sadly and tragically, Kenyans are not interested in the proper enforcement of the rule of law. Their intentions for the for forces of law and order are to keep their enemies from interests, legitimate or otherwise, not to prevent them from circumventing the rule of law, every now and then, for their benefit. Kenyans are happy when the rule of law applies to a mysterious Others, not to them as individuals. It is why a motorist will resist, strongly, the suggestion that he must pay for any damage he cause with his motor vehicle. It is always someone else who is responsible. The motorist is encouraged by his political representative, elected or otherwise. 

The political class is no stranger to the concept of cutting corners; few of its members have ever gotten to where they are playing by all the rules, save for those that advance their political careers. When elected to parliament, it is their duty to protect their constituents from harm, which include ensuring that they are alive at each election save when natural causes (a particular favourite of the print media) intervene. The reality, as in most things in Kenya, is truly shocking. The politicians will conspire with their equally culpable constituents and forces of law and order to frustrate the lofty, but misguided, ideals of the Executive. Every time. And every time, the death toll will keep receiving new adjectival phrases from the print media to express the horror.

Syria and hypocrisy.

Chemical weapons are heinous weapons. They are indiscriminate in their choice of victims. Their users are monsters. Their effects are difficult to control once they are used. Their deployment in a theatre of war effectively announces that their users have given up on finding a political solution to their problems. But they are not unique. Nor are they the most heinous weapons ever used or deployed in theatres of war.

Barack Obama and his Secretary of State, John Kerry, would have you believe that because Bashar al Assad has used chemical weapons against his own people he is beyond the pale and that it must fall on the global community to "do something about it." the United States' President and his military command are mulling military action, short of invasion, against President Assad and his regime. They have been building up their case against the Syrian President for months. Their claims have not persuaded the people of the United Kingdom. Nor even a majority of US citizens.

While leaders in Western capitals ponder what to do with the Syrian regime, some matters must be confronted. The United States does not come to this debate with clean hands. The United States is the only country to have ever deployed and used weapons of mass destruction against a civilian population in a theatre of war. The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are a terrible stain on the human conscience. The United States deployed and used chemical weapons during its long and bloody war in Vietnam. It assisted Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq, in his deployment and use of chemical weapons against Iran in the 1980s. It is facile for the United States to speak of international law when it so blithely ignores international law.

The Syrian civil war has been fought for over two years now. It is the product of decades of sectarian differences, military coups and the brutal suppression of any opposition to its power by the Assad family. During this civil war, millions of Syrians have been displaced from their homes; it is claimed that there are more than one million children in refugee or displacement camps in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. Hundreds of thousands have been killed in the civil war. It is only when a few hundreds are allegedly killed with poison gas that the United States is roused to do something about it.

The world is tired of United States-led wars. After a decade in which the the United States has invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, waged undeclared wars against Libya, Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia, and spied on enemies and allies alike, the United States cannot expect the world to trust that when it intervenes in Syria there will be an improvement. What is so special about Syria that is not special about the military coup in Egypt? Is it that Egypt's military junta will not breach its peace treaty with Israel and Syria does not have one?

It is quite clear that on the United Nations Security Council the United States will receive only the support of Great Britain and France. Russia and China, the other permanent members will not lift a finger to help. Indeed, Russia has indicated that it will reject any calls for military action in Syria. It might be because of Russia's military and commercial ties to Syria; but that is the price the world pays for having the veto-wielding members of the Security Council. This is the essence of international law that the United States is tom-tomming for all to hear. It is not for the United States to pick and choose which of the rules of international law it will obey and which ones it will ignore. The last time it did so, it lost men and treasure in the hot sands of Iraq and Afghanistan. And the world was made that much more dangerous.

We are what we decide.

It shall reverse the gains being made by the Jubilee Government on land, national unity, devolution, economy and security. The will of the people must prevail over ICC. Parliament is the custodian of the will and sovereignty of Kenyans. - Kipchumba Murkomen, Sunday Nation

In 2002, Uhuru Kenyatta stood in the general election as a candidate for president on the Kenya African National Union ticket as a "project" of President Moi, or so it was claimed. Besides him were Musalia Mudavadi as his choice for Vice-President, and William Ruto as part of his robust campaign team. Then, as in 2013, Kenyans were told that the elections were Kenya turning the corner on historical injustices.

In 1963, two years after Jomo Kenyatta was allowed back into public life by the colonial government, Kenyans witnessed the lowering of the Union Jack and the hoisting of the Kenyan flag. Prime Minister Kenyatta promised to fight the good fight in eradicating the triple threats of illiteracy, poverty and disease. He also promised to realise the dreams of the freedom fighters whose campaign in the Mount Kenya and Aberdare forests for land and freedom had led to internal self-rule. In 1964, realising the benefits of power, Kenyatta led the country in declaring itself a republic and he became its first president. He would die in office on 1978 without having realised the dreams of freedom fighters and having failed abysmally in dealing with illiteracy, poverty or disease.

In 2007, after a disastrous final year as President, Mwai Kibaki decided to stand in the election to retain his position as President. Uhuru Kenyatta, betraying his party KANU, decided to sit out the contest. Mwai Kibaki was controversially re-elected. The declaration of results was the spark that led to wide-spread violence. Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, this time, were on opposite sides of the contest. Uhuru Kenyatta supported Mwai Kibaki. William Ruto did not. Indeed, William Ruto was at the forefront of declaring the illegitimacy of the Kibaki re-election.

In 2008, Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga announced a truce, brokered by Koffi Annan and a panel of eminent African personalities. Mr Odinga was appointed as Kenya's only second Prime Minister. William Ruto expected to be appointed a Deputy Prime Minister. He was not. But Uhuru Kenyatta was. Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga appointed a commission of inquiry under the chairmanship of Philip Waki, a Judge of the Court of Appeal, to inquire into the violence of 2007 and 2008. The Commission prepared a widely accepted report in which it implicated politicians and businessmen alike for the violence. A secret list of financiers and planners of the violence was prepared, ultimately handed to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court after Kenya repeatedly failed to find a judicial mechanism that would investigate and prosecute the suspected masterminds. Among the indictees were Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto.

Between 2002 and 2008, neither Uhuru Kenyatta nor William Ruto showed any desire to solve the historical problems bedevilling the country. They took no steps, in their positions in the government or their political parties, to address the problems that affected the majority of Kenyans. When they campaigned together in a coalition in 2011 and 2012, they made many promises. Redressing historical injustices was not one of them. Now the government is in their hands while they still face the indictments at the ICC and their trials are imminent.

Between 2008 and 2010, Mwai Kibaki attempted to forestall their trials at The Hague. He failed. The two have since then attempted to conflate their indictments with their election as President and Deputy President. As have the leading intellectual lights of their political parties. Kipchumba Murkomen carries on with that project. He goes further to argue that the original indictments, in the face of the collapse of the cases against other co-accused, has morphed into a vendetta by the Office of the Prosecutor against the President and Deputy President and risks "[reversing] the gains being made by the Jubilee Government on land, national unity, devolution, economy and security."

Mr Murkomen tends to ignore the evidence on the ground. The election was not as unanimous as he makes it out to be. Kenya has a population of forty million. The registered voters, depending on which figures you rely on, are about 12 million. Uhuru Kenyatta barely got a majority of the vote, and the allegation of election voodoo over whether he actually got the bare majority required will linger for the rest of his presidential term.If Mr Kenyatta had gotten over 60% of the vote, we would not be questioning the legitimacy of his election win.

What gains Mr Murkomen is talking about regarding land, national unity, devolution, the econmy or security, only he can see. While Mr Kenyatta carries on with the well-trodden scheme of issuing title deeds (bringing into question the place of the National Land Commission), he has failed to address the circumstances that have all but guaranteed that land administration will continue to poison relations among Kenyans for a long time to come. The results of the general election and the renewed calls to disband the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, are proof that national unity is still a ways away. So too on the question of devolution. Members of his own coalition feel very strongly that the National Government is an impediment to the smooth implementation of devolution. On the economy, while it might be booming for the few who can afford foreign holidays, the bulk of the youthful population is unemployed. When over half the youth cannot find jobs, the economy is very much a work in progress. On security, Kenyans continue to remain unsafe. Mr Murkomen and his colleagues in Parliament enjoy the best security money that we don't have can buy. The majority of urban Kenyans continue to live in fear for their safety and that of their property.

Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto were indicted by the ICC before they were elected. Their election was not a referendum on the legitimacy of their indictments. Indeed, the Tenth Parliament made it explicitly clear that it wanted the indictees to be tried at The Hague. This blogger believes that the ICC is a neo-colonial tool designed to keep the developing world from ever developing. But no one held a gun to Kenya's head to sign and ratify the Rome Statute in 2005, and no one held a gun to Parliament's head to send the indictees to The Hague in 2010. In this case, the ICC did not conspire to destabilise our country. We did that all on our own.