IJCentral: International Justice Central

NAIROBI, Kenya — After months of political wrangling, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said Thursday that he would initiate an inquiry into what he termed crimes against humanity during the post-election bloodletting that gripped Kenya in 2008.

The investigator, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, met with President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga before he made the announcement to reporters. “I explained to them that I consider the crimes committed in Kenya were crimes against humanity, therefore the gravity is there. So therefore I should proceed,” Mr. Moreno-Ocampo said.

In the post-election clashes more than 1,000 people were killed, hundreds of thousands were displaced, and Kenya’s image as one of Africa’s most stable and promising countries was seriously damaged. But since then, politicians of various stripes have been reluctant to investigate what really happened.Mr. Kibaki and Mr. Odinga, who have both been accused by critics of stalling any meaningful investigation, said they remained committed to working with the International Criminal Court. “We don’t want see a repeat of what we saw last year,” Mr. Odinga said.

Several senior government ministers have been accused by human rights groups of being the ringleaders of the bloodshed that followed the election in December 2007. On Thursday, Kenyan human rights activists seemed jubilant about the pending investigation.

“I have been a strong and consistent supporter of the International Criminal Court involvement in Kenya at the top levels and then a Special Court for lower levels,” said Maina Kiai, a former government human rights official.

“I am elated! And I hope he follows the evidence and gets the big fish in a balanced way,” he added, referring to Mr. Moreno-Ocampo.

The inquiry followed growing expectations among Kenyans, who have been waiting to hear who masterminded the bloodshed and who would pay the price.

A Kenyan commission investigated the violence in October 2008 and came up with a list of several top suspects, widely believed to include some of the nation’s most powerful men. The names were sealed in a square brown paper envelope and handed over to Kofi Annan, the former secretary general of the United Nations who took on the role of peacemaker.

Kenyan politicians had promised Mr. Annan that they would form a special tribunal to try the suspects here, ending a longstanding culture of impunity that feeds the ethnic-political bloodshed that convulses Kenya nearly every election.

But Kenya’s leaders, paralyzed by competing agendas and the prospect of prosecuting their own, have refused to set up a tribunal. So, earlier this year, Mr. Annan upped the ante. He sent the envelope with the names to the International Criminal Court at The Hague, which indicated that it would step in if Kenya failed to act.

Mr. Moreno-Ocampo said he told Mr. Kibaki and Mr. Odinga that he would seek permission from court officials to start the inquiry.

“So I informed them, in December I would request to the judges of the International Criminal Court to open an investigation, and that is the process established by the Rome Treaty,” Mr. Moreno-Ocampo said. He was referring to a treaty in 2002 that set up the International Criminal Court as the first permanent tribunal with the power to try individuals on charges including war crimes, genocide and major violations of human rights.

The issue of responsibility for the post-election bloodletting evokes profound political sensitivities.

In February, Parliament shot down a bill to set up a special Kenyan court for perpetrators, and lawmakers indicated there was little appetite for the proposal.“If we leave it to Parliament, and I say this as an individual and not on behalf of my organization, Parliament will not pass a tribunal unless they are sure the tribunal will be dysfunctional,” Victor Kamau, a lawyer at the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, said at the time.

The names in the envelope have not been made public. But Kenyans have their suspicions. Several Western diplomats and human rights officials have said that Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, the son of Kenya’s founding president, and Agriculture Minister William Ruto are on the list, suspected of organizing death squads.

The two men are from different ethnic groups and opposite political camps, with Mr. Kenyatta, a Kikuyu, in the president’s party, and Mr. Ruto, a Kalenjin who quickly scaled the rungs of the leading opposition movement. One reason for the paralysis over the tribunal may be that both sides, for once, have the same vested interest: continuing the impunity.

The violence erupted after election organizers proclaimed Mr. Kibaki, the incumbent, to be the victor, drawing protests from Mr. Odinga. After the violence, Mr. Kibaki and Mr. Odinga agreed to set up a national unity government, which took power in April 2008.

Neither leader apparently wished to initiate the proceedings at the international court for fear of provoking a political crisis among former allies who might find themselves among the accused. The Standard, a newspaper in Nairobi, said Wednesday that both men agreed to let Mr. Moreno-Ocampo take the lead to forestall a backlash, Reuters reported.

Jeffrey Gettleman reported from Nairobi, and Alan Cowell from Paris.
originally posted at The New York Times