Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohammed. She has travelled to
Prague for talks with delegates from the five permanent members of UN
Security Council, as part of the push to defer ICC against President
Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto. PHOTO/FILE
NATION
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed has travelled to
Prague for talks with delegates from the five permanent members of UN
Security Council, as part of the push to defer ICC against President
Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto.
The delegates
from the US, the UK, France, Russia and China are meeting in the capital
of the Czech Republic, and sources said Ms Mohamed was tasked to
persuade them to positively receive the application for the Kenya cases
to be put on hold.
Kenya sent its application to the
UN headquarters in New York in line with a resolution reached by African
Union member states in Addis Ababa at the weekend.
The
five countries have veto powers and wield considerable influence, which
can determine the decision to be taken by the UN Security Council.
One
of Ms Mohamed’s main tasks on the sidelines of the Prague talks is to
meet the French delegation in the wake of the strong statement issued by
President Francois Hollande that any problems that the AU may have
should be resolved within the rules and procedures of the ICC.
Sources
revealed that President Kenyatta requested his South African
counterpart Jacob Zuma to throw in a good word during his meetings with
the French President, who visited Johannesburg earlier this week.
From
the Czech Republic, Ms Mohamed will hop over to London to meet Foreign
Secretary William Hague. So far, government sources have indicated
Britain is playing hard ball— keeping away from meeting with government
officials over the deferral bid by Kenya.
Before she
flew to Prague, Ms Mohamed met US Ambassador Robert Godec to seek the
assistance of Washington in securing the deferral of the cases.
It
is understood Ms Mohamed played the terrorist card, especially in the
face of the attack on the Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi, arguing
that the Jubilee leaders can only fight terrorism if they were spared
the yoke of ICC cases.
President Kenyatta is also to
dispatch Mining Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala to China and Russia to
seek their support in the deferral of the two cases.
It is instructive that Mr Balala accompanied the President to attend the AU meeting in Addis at the weekend.
The
meeting, which failed to declare the mass withdrawal from the ICC due
to assistance from French-speaking AU members, was unanimous that
President Kenyatta should not attend his trial scheduled to begin on
November 12. They also declared that the ICC should keep its hands off
serving presidents.
The Special Summit, chaired by AU
chairman Hailemariam Dessalegn, agreed to send a delegation of five
presidents to the UN Security Council to push for the deferral of the
cases.
Following the AU resolutions, which hauled the
ICC over live coal, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said legal advisers of
the world body’s boss Ban Ki-Moon were studying the union’s position.
Lobbying
for and against the deferral of the cases is expected to heighten in
the next days after the submission of the letter to the UN.
However,
the Coalition for the ICC— a New York-based lobby group — urged the UN
Security Council to reject the deferral as it accused the AU of voting
to stand with impunity.
In a statement yesterday, the
group said the decision by the “poorly attended” AU extraordinary
meeting was a step backwards in the continent’s fight against impunity.
“The
summit was extraordinary mostly in its failure and disappointments,”
stated William Pace, convenor of the Coalition for the ICC.
He
accused African presidents of conspiring to shield each other from the
atrocities they have meted to their citizens by trying to block the work
of the ICC.
“For the last five years, anti-ICC
African summit declarations have focused on trying to protect sitting
presidents from being prosecuted for crimes against humanity committed
in armed conflicts on their territories, while ignoring the AU Charter
and the millions of victims, mostly women and children,” he said.
Mr
Kenyatta, Mr Ruto and Mr Joshua arap Sang are facing charges of crimes
against humanity arising from the 2007/8 post election violence in which
1,133 people were killed and another 650,000 displaced.