Kenyans stare at consequences if President Uhuru Kenyatta snubs ICC

Kenyans are debating on possible consequences should President Uhuru skip his trial at The Hague which begins in February.

The world too is watching as Uhuru seeks to extricate himself from the dubious distinction as the first serving president to be in The Hague’s dock, through the African Union’s petition to the United Nations Security Council.


The question many Kenyans are mulling over is whether the President can decide to skip his trial hearings for serious crimes against humanity, beginning with the latest push to have the trials delayed. On this, he appears to have it easy because the ICC moved the trials to February after the prosecution agreed to an application by Uhuru. The President has been under intense pressure from political leaders urging him not to ‘lower himself’ by standing in the dock of ‘a foreign court’. The AU has also asked Uhuru not to appear at the trial and instead wait for the Security Council to defer the cases.

The hard stance taken by AU, Jubilee politicians and some religious leaders on one hand, and International Criminal Court backed by some NGOs and opposition leaders on the other, has raised the stakes.

This has put Uhuru at a crossroad where he is being forced to either honour the trial or heed his peers’ advice and stay away from The Hague.

Should he take the latter path, Uhuru would most likely be slapped with a warrant of arrest like that hanging on the neck of Sudanese leader Omar Al-Bashir. This would then require that States signatory to the Rome Statute help arrest him when he travels out. However, it is unlikely Uhuru would be at risk of being arrested by AU member states given the support they have given him so far.

This justifies the fears by some who feel it is just a matter of time before the ICC finds a reason to issue a warrant against Uhuru and Deputy President William Ruto. To them the two leaders have been pushed against the wall because the ICC ‘has rejected most of the applications the defence made’.

Jubilee Senator Liz Chelule (nominated) who recently travelled to The Hague to show solidarity with the deputy president said there is all likelihood for the court to issue a warrant of arrest if the President fails to honour the November 12 date.

Real danger
She said the ICC cases would eventually hurt the Kenyan economy. The senator compared the ICC troubles for Kenya to the days former President Moi’s government was coming under pressure from western powers.
“If the West messed up former president Moi’s economy and he wasn’t not an ICC suspect, they can be worse this time,” the senator said.

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