Tag: GreatLakesNews

{{Maria Mabinty Kamara, the International Criminal Court outreach coordinator for Kenya, has defended the ICC as an imperial post-colonial tool against Africans.}}

Kamara said Kenya believed in the ideals, missions and visions of the Rome Statue when it ratified it on June 1, 2005.

She told The Standard on Sunday that three out of the seven African cases being heard at The Hague were initiated upon referrals by host countries. Kamara said the ICC does not have the mandate to initiate in a non-state parties, unless it is referred to it by the United Nations Security Council as was the case with Libya and Sudan.

“But Ugandan authorities signed the declaration inviting ICC to initiate investigations into the Lord’s Resistance Army conflict in northern Uganda, the same to DR Congo and the Central African Republic governments in the context of armed conflict in 2004,” she explained.

Kamara, however, noted that the Prosecutor was at liberty to initiate investigations within partner states on his own as was with Kenya.

She said Ivory Coast’s government, once a non-state party to the Rome Statute, equally signed the treaty, willingly inviting investigations.

“The ICC operates on the principle of complementarity and only steps if its statutes have been violated by party states,” she disclosed.

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{{A web site that supports Al-Shabaab, the radical Islamist group in Somalia, claimed twin blasts that devastated The Village, a restaurant-cum-cafeteria, in Mogadishu on Saturday morning.}}

In a written statement by Al-Shabaab’s Information Directorate , the fanatical Islamists stated that suicide missions targeted The Village in Hamarweyne district in the city centre.

“The jihadists (holy warriors) targeted a favourite place of the local and international spy elements,” stated the Al-Shabaab statement. It added, “The targeted cafeteria is owned by people with close relations with the western spy agencies who are causing hardship in Mogadishu.”

The incident killed 15 and wounded scores of people, most of them being customers and youngsters in and near the popular eating place.

Al-Shabaab had warned the public to stay away from the place, the statement said. It did not mention the method used in the attack, but people in the area believe that the assaults consisted of a suicide car and a person wearing a suicide belt.

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud condemned the blasts, blaming Al-Shabaab.

“I call the Somali people to fight the group (Al-Shabaab) that has no other agenda except the annihilation of innocent civilians,” said President Mohamoud in a statement released later on Saturday.

It is the third time The Village; a business owned by a Diaspora Somali Ahmed Jama who returned from UK to invest in the country, is attacked by suicide bombers and claimed by Al-Shabaab.

The first assault occurred in September last year.

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{{The approaching trials of Kenya’s president and his deputy in The Hague are worrying the upland communities that were rent apart by a post-election bloodbath more than five years ago, violence the two men are accused of orchestrating.}}

When Deputy President William Ruto enters the dock at the International Criminal Court on Tuesday, to be followed by President Uhuru Kenyatta in November, members of their two ethnic groups fear the course of justice could open old wounds.

Their victory in this year’s peaceful election under the Jubilee Alliance has done little to heal rifts on the ground between Kenyatta’s Kikuyu and Ruto’s Kalenjin clans, which clashed after a disputed 2007 poll, when the two backed rival campaigns.

It leaves on tenterhooks east Africa’s biggest economy, where tribal loyalties have long driven politics or fuelled violence. It also worries the West, which sees a stable Kenya as vital to regional security and the fight against militant Islam.

For the ICC, the first trial involving a sitting president is its biggest test to date as the institution set up in 1993 faces mounting opposition in Africa, where it is seen as biased for having only charged Africans.

“The alliance between Kenyatta and Ruto bought us time,” said 34-year-old Regina Muthoni, who lives near the western city of Eldoret, close to where her mother and about 30 other Kikuyus were burned to death in a church torched by a Kalenjin gang.

“We don’t know whether their union will survive the trials,” she said, calming a wailing infant strapped to her back.

Adding to the uncertainty, a parliamentary vote last week demanding Kenya withdraw from The Hague court’s jurisdiction has raised some concerns Nairobi is building political cover for the two men to halt their participation in the trial, though diplomats see such a move by men who have attended pre-trial hearings as unlikely.

Kenyatta, 51, and Ruto, 46, have long insisted they would continue to cooperate to clear their names of charges of crimes against humanity. In addition, a Kenyan move to quit the court will take a year to implement and won’t halt existing trials.

“The two believe they can win at trial,” said Macharia Munene, a university lecturer in Nairobi. “The court also has a poor record of convictions,” he said, referring to its sole conviction to date of Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga.

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{{A car bomb and suspected suicide bomber struck a popular restaurant in the Somali capital on Saturday, killing at least 15 people, Ahmed Nur, a senior police officer at the scene, told media.}}

The blast underscored the ongoing security threats in Mogadishu, despite the withdrawal by Islamist militant group al Shabaab from the city in 2011 under military pressure.

It was not immediately clear who carried out the attack on the Village Restaurant, owned by well-known Somali businessman Ahmed Jama, who returned to his home country from London to set up business against the advice of friends.

In September last year two suicide bombers hit the same restaurant, killing at least 15 people.

Mohamed Yusuf, spokesman for the Mogadishu authorities, said that after the car bomb went off, a suicide bomber immediately blew himself up in the restaurant.

“First a car bomb exploded at the entrance of the restaurant, and when people converged inside a suicide bomber blew up himself,” he said.

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{{East African Community member states are looking to mutually recognise tertiary education qualifications to enhance free movement of labour.}}

The Inter-University Council of East Africa executive secretary Mayunga Nkunya said Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda have have already entered similar agreements for basic education.

Article 11 of the EAC Common Market Protocol provides for harmonisation and reciprocal recognition of academic and professional qualifications.

Speaking during the annual inter-university debate on regional integration in Dar es Salaam, Mr Nkunya said the move would help address youth unemployment, estimated at 70 per cent in Kenya, according to the Economic Survey 2013.

Mr Nkunya said a mismatch between skills and market needs had locked thousands of youths out of job opportunities.

In its report on Global Youth Employment Trends 2013, the International Labour Organisation states that gaps between education and industry jobs aggravate youth unemployment.

During the debate at the JB Belmont Hotel in Dar es Salaam earlier in the week, different education systems also emerged as a major impediment to integration.

Disparities in economic development among member states led to concerns that larger economies like Kenya would benefit from integration at the expense of smaller ones.

Mr Nkunya however warned against standardisation — replication of one education system across the region — saying it would water down quality and relevance because countries have different needs.

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{{Kenya and Nigeria have signed agreements aimed at strengthening areas of agriculture, fisheries and livestock.}}

The agreements were signed in Nairobi after Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria met in Nairobi Friday.

According to a joint communiqué, the two governments signed a memorandum of understanding in the area of immigration that will see visa exception, trans-national crime, drug abuse and improving trade between the two countries.

The two leaders agreed to increase trade and investments by creating a better environment for cultural and tourism exchange between their countries.

“Kenya and Nigeria have agreed to improve their cooperation in increasing trade with Nigeria on West Coast of Indian Ocean and Kenya on the East Cost of India Ocean and we can achieve a lot,” said President Kenyatta.

“We want to see Africa going beyond being the primary source of material that service foreign companies but a continent that can add value to its products and export to other countries,” said President Jonathan.

He said that the trade level between members of the European Union is at 70% and between Asian nations at 50% but Africa countries was still at 11%, which he said was not healthy.

{{Following the approval of a Motion by Parliament for Kenya to withdraw from the Rome Statute, the US government is calling for the fulfilment of promises made to victims of the 2008 post election violence.}}

According to the US State Department, there is need for the government to support the rule of law and work to ensure accountability for crimes against humanity.

“We urge the government of Kenya to fulfil its commitments to seek justice for the victims of the 2007-2008 post-election violence. In that regard, we note President Kenyatta’s recent statements affirming his commitment to ensure that Kenya meets its international obligations as a party to the Rome Statute,” a statement from the department said.

The move by Members of Parliament has drawn criticism from various human rights organisations.

Amnesty International pointed out that the vote would deny justice to those who were affected by the post election violence.

In a statement, the organisation’s African Director Netsanet Belay said that the move set a dangerous precedent for the future of justice in Africa.

“The vote is a disturbing attempt to deny justice to the hundreds of thousands of people who were driven from their homes or killed in the post election violence in 2007-8,” he said.

He described it as unacceptable to try and protect those facing prosecution for alleged crimes against humanity and allow them to evade justice.

Human Rights Watch on the other hand pointed out that the motion to withdraw from the ICC can’t stop the current cases facing the President and his Deputy.

“The Trial of Kenya’s deputy President William Ruto begins next Tuesday in The Hague. Every time the ICC process inches forward to deliver a justice denied Kenyans by their own government, the country’s political establishment scrambles furiously to block the way,” the organization said in a statement.

“A motion by lawmakers calling for Kenya to withdraw from the ICC can’t stop these cases. Kenya’s obligations to cooperate with the ICC in the cases before it remain intact.”

There was a charged debate in Parliament on Thursday as MPs approved the Motion that sets the stage for Kenya’s withdrawal from the International Criminal Court.

The Motion came barely five days before Deputy President William Ruto begins his trial for crimes against humanity at Hague.

The Leader of Majority Adan Duale introduced the Motion but it was later amended by nominated MP Johnson Sakaja and seeks to introduce a Bill within the next 30 days to repeal the International Crimes Act (No 16 of 2008) and that the Government urgently undertakes measures to immediately withdraw from the Rome Statute of the ICC adopted by the UN Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries on July 17, 1998.