Kenya’s freedom scion in the dock
Uhuru Kenyatta, son of Kenya’s founding president, once carried his country’s aspirations in his name but has since come to symbolise many of its woes and now faces trial over election violence.
The International Criminal Court on Jan 23 ruled that Kenyatta should be tried on charges of crimes against humanity over the violence that erupted over disputed 2007 polls and left more than 1,100 people dead.
Kenyatta, 50, had been seen as a leading candidate to succeed President Mwai Kibaki in the next election -- due by March 2013 at the latest -- but his chances look dim now and on Jan.26 he resigned as finance minister.
Kenyatta kept his post a deputy prime minister however and has vowed to prove his innocence, denying claims that he financed and organised a brutal tribal militia during the poll violence that quickly shifted from political to ethnic.
Born in 1961, two years before the nation’s independence from Britain, his first name -- which means “freedom” in Swahili -- bore the hopes of his father Jomo Kenyatta, who later became the country’s first president.
Fifty years on, Kenyatta is one of Kenya’s richest and most powerful men.
Educated in the US at the elite Amherst College, where he studied political science and economics, he is considered the top political leader of the Kikuyu, Kenya’s
largest tribe.
A leaked US diplomatic cable from 2009 posted on the WikiLeaks website described Kenyatta as “bright and charming, even charismatic” but also noted he “drinks too much and is not a hard worker”.
In the early 1990s, he ganged up with the sons of other independence heroes to call for reform but gradually drew closer to autocratic former president Daniel arap Moi.
He threw his weight behind the incumbent Kibaki in the December 2007 election, despite backing his challenger Raila Odinga in a constitutional referendum two years earlier.
Delays in the vote count saw violence erupt over suspicion that Kibaki was stealing the election from Odinga, and killings mainly targeting Kikuyus spread across the country.
In a report by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights he is accused of attending meetings in early 2008 to plan for retaliatory violence by his Kikuyu
community.
The ICC prosecution found he had mobilised the Mungiki -- a sect-like Kikuyu criminal organisation known for skinning and beheading its victims -- to attack opposition supporters.
Kenyatta, listed by Forbes magazine as the 26th richest person in Africa, faces five counts including orchestrating murder, rape, forcible transfer and persecution in the polls’ aftermath.
The Kikuyu launched reprisal attacks in which homes were torched and people hacked to death in the worst outbreak of violence since independence.
“My conscience is clear... I have cooperated with the ICC throughout the process, and will continue to do so because I believe in the rule of law,” Kenyatta said following the ICC’s confirmation of charges.
He is among four Kenyans due to face trial at the ICC, along with former higher education minister and presidential hopeful William Ruto, radio host Joshua arap Sang and former public service chief Francis Muthaura.
To many Kenyans, Kenyatta now symbolises the country’s corrupt political elite and the forces of tribalism that brought what was once considered a beacon of regional stability to the brink of civil conflict.
Here are short profiles of the other indicted.
William Samoei Ruto
William Ruto, 45, is an MP for Eldoret North and was a top leader with the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) of Prime Minister Raila Odinga when the disputed
2007 election ignited the violence.
The ICC describes him as a “principal planner and organiser of crimes” against supporters of President Mwai Kibaki’s Party of National Unity (PNU).
The young and ambitious politician, who has since fallen out with Odinga and was suspended from government in 2010, is considered the top political leader of the Kalenjin tribe.
He is accused in several reports of inciting, planning and financing the violence and is notably alleged to have said that non-Kalenjin residents in his area should be uprooted and burnt.
One of the most vociferous politicians on the Kenyan scene, the father of six comes from a humble background and once sold peanuts on the roadside to supplement his family’s income.
He is a declared candidate for the upcoming presidential election, due to be held by March 2013 at the latest. He dismisses the allegations against him insists he is still a contender in the upcoming election.
Francis Kirimi Muthaura
Francis Muthaura, 65, was and still is the head of Kenya’s public service, secretary to the cabinet and chairman of the national security advisory committee.
He is considered an eminence grise of Kibaki’s PNU and held several ambassadorial posts under former president Daniel arap Moi.
Muthaura is believed to have been included on the ICC list as a result of reported meetings which took place at State House. Kenyatta attended the same meetings, according to ICC documents.
According to findings by the Commission of Inquiry into Post-Election Violence known as the Waki Report, the meetings were used to plan revenge attacks by Kikuyus around the towns of Naivasha and Nakuru.
Joshua Arap Sang
Joshua arap Sang, 36, is a presenter with the vernacular radio Kass FM and the only one of the six suspects who is not a public official.
The young radio host presents a popular breakfast show called Lenee Emet, “What’s Happening in the Nation,” in his local Kalenjin language.
The KNCHR report accused him of using his show to mobilise and plan for violence and of inciting violence by branding those “who did not vote with the rest of the Kalenjin community traitors.”
He vowed to challenge the ICC’s ruling that there was sufficient evidence against him to go to trial.
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written by Michael Kors, February 17, 2012
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