Zuma backs Kenyatta, Ruto in tiff with ICC

SA’s president urges court to consider special circumstances

NEW YORK — President Jacob Zuma has urged prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC) to compromise with Kenyan leaders by sparing them the obligation of sitting through their trials for crimes against humanity.

He said President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy, William Ruto, had a country to run and therefore were in a different category to other defendants.

Mr Zuma’s comments in New York gave extra momentum to African pressure on the court. It has been portrayed as a body that is picking on African leaders in an almost racist fashion.

Yesterday the court — which sits in the Dutch capital, The Hague — upheld the 50-year prison sentence it imposed on former Liberian president Charles Taylor last year. He was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the civil war in the neighbouring West African state of Sierra Leone.

Mr Taylor has spent six years in custody and now that his appeal has failed, he is due to be transferred to a British prison to serve his sentence. The African Union (AU) is arranging a special summit on the continent’s relationship with the ICC, specifically regarding the Kenyan case.

Mr Zuma has not declared his country’s official position, but his remarks to the South African media contingent on Wednesday on the margins of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly were sympathetic to the Kenyatta-Ruto cause. “They (are saying that) we are ready to come at the opening,” he said.

“They are not necessarily witnesses, and so then the case could go on and they will come (back) when there is a verdict. But some people say ‘no, no, no, they must come and sit’ at the court.

“That is what is making people feel uncomfortable, it’s not in keeping with what we would want to happen in Africa.”

Mr Zuma said a feeling that the ICC was being unreasonable had led to the planning of the special summit in Addis Ababa. An Addis-based ambassador said it was now likely to happen on October 12.

Afew African leaders have spoken out against the ICC and the fact that its targets are almost all Africans. Apart from the Kenyans, the other targets include Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who has evaded an international arrest warrant for several years, and Laurent Gbagbo, the former president of Cote d’Ivoire who is in pre-trial custody in The Hague.

UN officials in New York confirmed on Wednesday that Mr Bashir would not be attending the General Assembly, refuting reports that he might safely obtain a visa for the US because his destination was the world body’s headquarters.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, the AU chairman, attacked the ICC in his speech to the annual General Assembly on Wednesday.

“The manner in which the ICC has been operating left a very bad impression in Africa,” he said. “This is totally unacceptable.” Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto, former foes, are charged with crimes against humanity for allegedly abetting post-election violence at the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008 in which about 1,200 people were killed. Despite the charges, they won elections last March on a joint ticket of ethnic reconciliation.

Prior to the election Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto pledged to commute to Europe whenever required to attend their trial and to successfully manage East Africa’s leading nation despite the distraction. But last weekend’s

bloody attack on a Nairobi mall by Islamist militants appears to have changed their situation dramatically, and for the better.

World sympathy for Kenya and its leaders has poured in and also reinforced the country’s strategic importance as a vital rampart against terrorism. On Monday judges adjourned Mr Ruto’s trial, which began this month, for a week to allow him to return home and deal with crisis.

Mr Kenyatta’s trial is due to begin on November 12 but his defence lawyers have asked for him to appear by video link rather than in person. Reuters has quoted ICC spokesman Fadi ElAbdallah as saying the request was being considered.

Mr Zuma said the KenyattaRuto offer to attend the first and final days of their trials seemed to be a fair compromise that would allow them to run Kenya.

Asked why political leaders should receive special treatment, compared with ordinary citizens or executives running companies who had to be at their trials every day, he replied: “Running a company and running a country are two different things.”