Exposed Kenyan leaders must resign.

Moreno-Ocampo has threatened to expose the names in the Waki envelop. If and when he does so the named people must resign from public office and give the ICC time to investigate them further before prosecuting them. But William Ruto is trying to politicize the ICC. He is playing an extremely dangerous game which is likely to boomerang badly and knock him out of the political scene in Kenya all together.

He claims Kenyan pending cases against suspects of post election violence instigators should be preceded by prosecutions of those who stole the elections and caused the violence. To anyone who understands Kenyan politics, Ruto’s is trying to get the sympathy of the Kalenjin people and make them revolt if and when he is arrested to face the law at the international court. Ruto is behaving as if he believes his name is in Waki’s envelop.

The manner in which Ruto repeatedly keeps on referring to the ICC means he has done a lot of research about the court and he must know that the court was established to try international crimes such as those committed in Kenya soon after the 2007 elections. Failing to conduct a free and fair election is not among the “crimes against humanity” which the court is supposed to try. Mass killing, for whatever reason, is an international crime. Claiming that the mass killers of the post election victims should not be tried before the organizers of the sham elections which caused the conflict is deliberately failing to see the reasons for the creation of the ICC.

Ruto has been appearing in public meetings dressed up as a Kalenjin warrior complete with a spear and a shield. The symbolism of this is clear – that the Kalenjin people are being victimized by the ICC. The intention is also absolutely clear – that if ever he is taken to The Hague, then the whole Kalenjin community will be on trial and they should therefore rise up in arms and defend their rights. That similar incitement is what led to the post 2007 election bloodbath. If ever Ruto ends up at The Hague, his current behaviour can always be used as further evidence against him. This will be the most terrible boomerang of attempts to politicize of the ICC.

According to Ruto there should have been another envelop with the names of those who, in his opinion, stole the election. He calls the fictitious envelop the “Kriegler envelope”. Judge Johann Kriegler was mandated to probe the 2007 elections but he never favoured anyone as the winner of the said elections. He however accepted that something serious went wrong during the counting and tallying of votes. It could have even been the cause of the problems.

According to Judge Kriegler the Counting and tallying during the period 27-30 December 2007 and the announcement of individual results were so confused – and so confusing – that many Kenyans lost whatever confidence they might have had in the results as announced. He went on to elaborate that rumours of rigging and fraud during the counting and tallying process spread like wildfire, and the consequences were tragic. This however did not constitute an international crime and Ruto will have a very hard time to convince the ICC to accept his theory.

So far the result of the Ruto outcry has been to fan the fires of tribal animosity which have succeeded in scaring the witnesses who could have helped the ICC. If any of the witnesses who are said to be running away from Kenya at the moment, end up giving evidence at The Hague they may not have anything good to say about William Ruto’s behaviour now. Kriegler went further to discuss what he called “the integrity of the counting, tallying and result announcement system”. He said this referred to systemic safeguards, which aim at reducing the need for personal integrity. It might even be argued, he said, that systemic integrity is what separates acceptable management, and therefore safety, from disaster.

He went on to explain that while integrity is necessary at all stages of the electoral process, nowhere is it more important than in counting and tallying. To maintain integrity, vote counting must produce results that are, and are seen to be, valid and accurate, and therefore acceptable to all stakeholders. That is about all that the Judge said about “stealing” election. He never talked of any international crime being committed by anyone while “stealing” the election. Neither did he talk of any possible secret envelop containing the names of those who stole the election. To him stealing of an election was a matter of integrity and not international crime.

The subject of who won the election was so controversial that Kriegler avoided it all together in his report. If the announcement of Kibaki as the winner angered some voters then their rage would have manifested itself in different type of protest against the authorities rather than an attack against an entire community in the Rift Valley. The attack looked like the result of a well planned assault which was organized by some very evil people. The ICC will come out with the truth which will satisfy all Kenyans particularly the victims of the criminal attacks.

The ICC is not an election court. When Kenya was stuck into the political quagmire caused by the election dispute between Kibaki and Raila only an international intervention could solve the problem. They sent Kofi Annan to do so. Among the first steps he too to bring about peace in Kenya was the establishment of the Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation (KNDR) of which Ruto played a very important role.

Among its goals was to resolve the political crisis arising from the disputed presidential electoral results as well as ensuring peace returned to Kenya. At that time, which was early February 2008, the concern was to save Kenya from total collapse. Annan helped us form the coalition Government and then other steps of examining what went wrong and what should be done to remedy the situation were taken . Judge Kriegler was asked to examine what went wrong and Justice Waki was asked to recommend what should be done about it.

It is Waki who discovered very serious crimes were committed in Kenya. He identified the suspected criminals and recommended trials through ICC when everything else to arrive at justice in Kenya fails. He behaved as if he knew Kenya could not try the post election violence instigators in a just manner. He also knew nothing could succeed in establishing local tribunals. He also knew the corruption in the Kenyan Judiciary. In his knowledge was the fact that Kenyan Judges cannot conduct fair trials independently. Hence his recommendation for the usage of the ICC. If Ruto really wants to help on this matter he should go to the ICC and do so.