Kenya’s VP Ruto pleads innocent at crimes against humanity trial at the ICC
Special to USAfricaonline.com, CLASSmagazine and USAfrica multimedia networks, Houston. Follow Twitter.com/Chido247, Facebook.com/MandelaAchebeChido, Facebook.com/USAfricaChido , Facebook.com/USAfrica247
Kenya Vice President William Ruto’s crimes against humanity trial began at the International Criminal Court on Tuesday, the most senior official ever judged by the under-fire tribunal.
Ruto, 46, flew in to The Hague from Nairobi on Monday to face charges of masterminding deadly post-election violence in the east African nation five years ago.
The trial comes just days after lawmakers in Kenya became the first in the world to approve moves to withdraw recognition of the court’s jurisdiction.
Any move by Kenya to leave the ICC’s Rome Statute will have no effect on the current trials, but observers fear it may spark an exodus of court member states in Africa, where all the ICC’s current cases are based.
Ruto and his co-accused, radio boss Joshua arap Sang, 38, each face three counts of murder, deportation and persecution after a wave of violence swept Kenya in 2007-08, leaving at least 1,100 dead and more than 600,000 homeless. Both will plead not guilty.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, a one-time political foe of Ruto’s turned ally, goes on trial at the ICC on November 12. He also says he is innocent.
Dozens of Kenyan MPs have promised to show their support for the accused by flying to the Netherlands for the start of the trial.
Violence in 2007-2008 laid bare simmering ethnic tensions. The violence was mainly directed at members of Kenya’s largest Kikuyu tribe, who were perceived as supporters of then president Mwai Kibaki’s Party of National Unity (PNU).
Pre-trial judges said evidence suggested that Ruto held a number of meetings to plan the ethnic killings as far back as December 2006.
Initial attacks quickly led to reprisals, with homes torched and more people hacked to death, bringing some parts of the country to the brink of civil war.
The ICC, the world’s only independent, permanent tribunal for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity, took charge of the cases after Nairobi failed to set up a tribunal of its own in line with agreements brokered by former UN secretary general Kofi Annan.
Despite vowing cooperation with the court, Kenyatta said over the weekend that he would not allow both leaders to be out of the country at the same time.
Presiding Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji said that he also would prefer for the two cases to be staggered, possibly with each case heard for four weeks at a time.
The cases have been mired in accusations of witness intimidation, allegations dismissed by the defence.
But several witnesses already having pulled out of the trial and ICC chief prosecutor
Fatou Bensouda and rights groups have frequently raised the issue.
Amnesty International said the start of the trial was “an important opportunity to end impunity for the serious crimes committed in 2007/2008.
“The government’s recent efforts to politicise the ICC trials are deplorable, and must not be allowed to affect the commencement and future proceedings of this landmark trial,” Amnesty’s Netsanet Belay said in a statement.
But there is concern in Kenya that the trials could reopen old wounds and undo reconciliation efforts by communities who once fought each other in deadly battles. AFP
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Eight lessons of the 1994 Rwanda Genocide. By Chido Nwangwu, Publisher of USAfrica multimedia networks, Houston. https://usafricaonline.com/2009/11/01/chido-8lessons-rwanda-genocide/
Forthcoming 2013 BOOK: In this engaging, uniquely insightful and first person reportage book, MANDELA & ACHEBE: Footprints of Greatness, about two global icons and towering persons of African descent whose exemplary lives
and friendship hold lessons for humanity and Africans, USAfrica Founder Chido Nwangwu takes a measure of their works and consequence to write that Mandela and Achebe have left “footprints of greatness.”
He chronicles, movingly, his 1998 reporting from the Robben Island jail room in South Africa where Mandela was held for decades through his 20 years of being close to Achebe. He moderated the 2012 Achebe Colloquium at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.
“I’ll forever remember having walked inside and peeped through that historic Mandela jail cell (where he was held for most of his 27 years in unjust imprisonment) at the dreaded Robben Island, on March 27, 1998, alongside then Editor-in-chief of TIME magazine and later news chief executive of the CNN, Walter Isaacson (and others) when President Bill Clinton made his first official trip to South Africa and came to Robben Island. Come to this island of scourge and you will understand, in part, the simple greatness and towering grace of Nelson Mandela”, notes Chido Nwangwu, award-winning writer, multimedia specialist and founder of USAfricaonline.com, the first African-owned U.S-based newspaper published on the internet, in his first book; he writes movingly from his 1998 reporting from South Africa on Mandela. http://www.mandelaachebechido.com/
Margaret Thatcher, Mandela and Africa. By Chido Nwangwu, Founder & Publisher of USAfrica, and the first African-owned, U.S-based newspaper published on the internet USAfricaonline.com. Click for newscast video of London-based SkyNEWS, the global, 24-hour British international tv network’s interview with USAfrica’s Publisher Chido Nwangwu on April 11, 2013 regarding this latest commentary http://youtu.be/G0fJXq_pi1c )
There’s a compelling political trinity to Nelson Mandela: the man, the messiah and the mystique. https://usafricaonline.com/2013/07/18/mandela-95-hearty-cheers-to-his-footprints-of-greatness-by-chido-nwangwu/
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VIDEO of the CNN International broadcast/profile of USAfrica and CLASSmagazine Publisher Chido Nwangwu. http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/international/2010/07/29/mpa.african.media.bk.a.cnn
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- Margaret Thatcher, Mandela and Africa. By Chido Nwangwu, Founder & Publisher of USAfrica, and the first African-owned, U.S-based newspaper published on the internet USAfricaonline.com. Click for newscast video of London-based SkyNEWS, the global, 24-hour British international tv network’s interview with USAfrica’s Publisher Chido Nwangwu on April 11, 2013 regarding this latest commentary http://youtu.be/G0fJXq_pi1c )
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‘POPE FRANCIS, champion for the poor and evangelistic dedication’ by Chido Nwangwu
Long Live, CHINUA ACHEBE! The Eagle on the iroko.
FULL text of this tribute-commentary at USAfricaonline.com click link https://usafricaonline.com/2013/03/22/long-live-chinua-achebe-by-chido-nwangwu/
