Kenya admits ICC warrant for Bashir forced IGAD venue change

November 13, 2010 (WASHINGTON) – The Kenyan government for the first time acknowledged that it was forced to change the location of the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD) special summit on Sudan to avoid the controversy over the attendance of president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir.

The meeting was originally scheduled to take place in Nairobi on October 30th but in light of international and domestic pressure was moved to Addis Ababa. Later it was announced that it was postponed indefinitely for unknown reasons.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Bashir in 2009 for war crimes in Darfur and added genocide to the indictment this year. Bashir rejects the charges saying they are part of a Western conspiracy to topple his regime.

Kenya is a full member of the ICC and is therefore theoretically obligated to apprehend the Sudanese leader should he set foot on its territory. However, the East African nation chose not to do so when Bashir attended the promulgation of the new Constitution last August drawing fierce criticism at home and abroad.

Ethiopia on the other hand is not signatory to the treaty that founded the Hague based tribunal.

On Wednesday the Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki invited Bashir to the IGAD summit though it was not specified at the time where it would take place and when. The invitation was delivered by the acting Foreign Affairs minister George Saitoti who travelled to Khartoum for that purpose.

A Kenyan official today confirmed that the summit will take place in Addis Ababa to prevent Bashir’s presence from overshadowing the meeting.

“We don’t want to take our eyes off the ball. This is a very crucial meeting and we want to extract a commitment from the main actors in Juba and Khartoum that they will respect the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and that they will play their role in ensuring the referendum goes ahead peacefully,” acting Foreign affairs Permanent Secretary Patrick Wamoto was quoted as saying by the ‘Daily Nation’ newspaper.

Wamoto said that invitations for the summit in Addis Ababa went out in President Kibaki’s name because Kenya chairs the subcommittee on Sudan in the IGAD.

He further said Kenya would have preferred that the meeting be held in Naivasha where the North-South peace agreement was signed but the risk that Bashir’s presence would provide the main focus of international attention during the meeting forced a rethink.

Wamoto’s remarks stroke a different tome from the former Kenyan FM Moses Wetangula who denied that ICC warrant had anything to do with relocating the summit.

“We are trying to see if we can have it in Addis, which is the seat of the AU (African Union), so that the twin bodies of IGAD and the AU itself can deal with the issues, in preparation for the January 9 referendum,” Wetangula told Reuters by phone.

“We have not and we will not divert any meetings out of Nairobi because of ICC. ICC does not have a hold on Kenya, we are a signatory to a treaty establishing it so we cannot live under fear over a treaty that we are just a party to,” he said.

Kenyan officials have argued that they are committed to an African Union (AU) decision stating that no country in the continent shall cooperate with ICC in apprehending Bashir. But several countries such as South Africa, Uganda and Botswana said they will not abide by these resolutions.

The ICC judges asked Nairobi last month to arrest Bashir if he attends the IGAD meeting or in the alternative to inform them of “any problem which would impede or prevent” his apprehension. The Kenyan government responded by saying that the Sudanese president is not expected to visit.

Kenyan officials have argued that they are committed to an African Union (AU) decision stating that no country in the continent shall cooperate with ICC in apprehending Bashir. But several countries such as South Africa, Uganda and Botswana said they will not abide by these resolutions.

(ST)