KENYA/FILE: Kenya's Deputy President William Ruto is to appear at the International Criminal Court (ICC), where he faces three counts of crimes against humanity for orchestrating post-election violence five years ago in which 1,200 people died

Record ID: 362704

  • Title: KENYA/FILE: Kenya's Deputy President William Ruto is to appear at the International Criminal Court (ICC), where he faces three counts of crimes against humanity for orchestrating post-election violence five years ago in which 1,200 people died
  • Date: 9th September 2013
  • Summary: THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS (FILE) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF KENYA'S DEPUTY PRESIDENT, WILLIAM RUTO, ARRIVING AT THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT (ICC)
  • Embargoed: 24th September 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Netherlands
  • Country: Netherlands
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVABH004ADYQMKV2B7RPMO4OPNAQ
  • Story Text: Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto heads to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague on Monday (September 9) to face charges for crimes against humanity.
    Ruto, along with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, is accused of helping to orchestrate post-election violence five years ago in which 1,200 people died.
    The affected communities are still suffering from the consequences of the violence.
    The 112 families currently residing in Kirathimo camp for the Internally Displaced People (IDP's) in Gilgil are facing conditions that were unimaginable to them in 2007 when they lived on lush farmlands in Kenya's fertile Rift Valley.
    Life at the camp is harsh. With dilapidated tents and the lack of running water, most people here rely on the government and aid agencies for food handouts that do not always come on time.
    The inhabitants are members of the Kikuyu tribe who were forcibly displaced by members of the Kalenjin tribe during the country's fierce 2007-2008 post-election violence that followed a hotly disputed election.
    Lucy Wanjiku, a mother of five, was a small-scale trader before she was evicted from her home in Koibatek district. During eviction, the 55-year-old woman saw one of her sons killed before she lost all her property to a Kalenjin gang.

    "I was very hurt because everything I had, I had many goats, was taken from me, I was left with nothing. Now I have nothing, it is how I am. I feel so bad because I took nothing of theirs, I did not cause them any problems," said Wanjiku.
    Kenya's sitting president, Uhuru Kenyatta - a Kikuyu, his deputy William Ruto and radio journalist Joshua Sang - both Kalenjins, are accused of orchestrating the violence after the 2007 polls. About 1,200 people were killed in ethnic bloodletting that plunged east Africa's biggest economy into crisis.
    Ruto, Sang and Kenyatta all deny the charges and have said they would honour summonses to appear at the ICC at the Hague for their trials.
    The trials of Ruto and Sang, each charged with three counts of crimes against humanity, are scheduled to start on Tuesday (September 10), while Kenyatta's starts on November 12.
    The trials are unprecedented and the proceedings will be closely followed, said an ICC monitor.

    "So this will be the first time that, for instance, the Deputy President will be in court saying, I understand the charges and I plead not guilty, for instance. And for Kenya that will be a huge moment because it will be the first time that a senior government official at that level will be in court taking a plea in a criminal case. Never happened before," said Tom Maliti from the ICC monitor Kenya.
    In a move termed by critics as the latest effort in a long campaign to counter the court's processes to indict the Kenyan suspects, Kenya's parliament voted last Thursday (September 5) to quit the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.
    The ICC's first trial of a sitting president is viewed as the biggest test to date for an institution that has faced mounting criticism in Kenya and across Africa, where it is accused of bias as all the suspects to date have been Africans.
    Support for the process, which once had broad backing in Kenya, has been eroded since the peaceful vote in March this year that elected Kenyatta, the son of the country's founding leader.
    Parliament, dominated by the alliance that brought him to power, voted in favour of telling the government to withdraw from the ICC.
    Since Kenyatta and Ruto's election the government has called to have the trials dropped or brought closer to home and sought to drum up opposition among fellow Africans.
    The ICC has refused to move the trials, but the African Union lent its support to shifting them to Kenya.
    According to Alfredo Tjiurimo Hengari, an analyst at the South African Institute of International Affairs in Johannesburg, many Africans feel that the continent is targeted by the ICC, making the court deeply unpopular across Africa.

    "To a certain degree there is some truth in that type of statement or view coming from Africa, because to date many of the indicted leaders have been from the African continent, and in some instances, African leaders have felt that the EU has ignored some of the positions of the AU with regard to the specific leaders that have been indicted. I think Kenya was a turning point for the African Union with the chair person of the AU Hailemariam Desalegn, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, clearly highlighting that they don't believe in the fairness of the ICC," he said.
    Kenyan public backing for the ICC has waned. An Ipsos-Synovate poll in July showed, only 39 percent still wanted the trials to proceed. It had been 55 percent in April 2012.
    Back at the Kirathimo camp, Wanjiku said she was unsure if Ruto was involved in stoking the violence as she never encountered him while living in Rift Valley.

    "When I was there I did not see Ruto, I saw my neighbours so I can't say that he should or should not go. It's God who has the final say because if he did what they are saying, if he incited the attacks, only God knows, I can't say anything because I didn't see him," she said.
    The ICC rejected Ruto's request to participate in the trial by video link, saying he must be present for the opening and closing statements of all parties and participants, and when victims present their views and concerns in person. He must also attend the delivery of the judgement and, if applicable, the sentencing.
    Ruto and Kenyatta's victory in this year's peaceful election under the Jubilee Alliance has done little to heal rifts on the ground between the Kikuyu and Kalenjin clans, 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.
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