From: ouko joachim omolo
Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News
BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
TUESDAY, JANUARY 24, 2012
As International Criminal Court (ICC) Judge Ekaterina Trendafilova ruled that the deputy prime minister, Uhuru Kenyatta, the former education minister, William Ruto, Francis Muthaura, and Joshua arap Sang, a radio presenter are accused of crimes against humanity, including murder and persecution, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI ruled that the Bishop of Toowoomba, Bill Morris was dismissed.
In May last year Bishop Bill Morris, was involuntarily removed from his office by Pope Benedict XVI on the grounds of “defective pastoral leadership”. He had used in his diocese the Third Rite of Reconciliation, which offers participants general absolution but whose use had become limited following John Paul II’s 2002 apostolic letter, Misericordia Dei.
The Diocese of Toowoomba is vast; priests are few and ageing; there are 66,000 Catholics; 36 parishes are served by 28 active priests. In the circumstances, pastoral visitation and celebration of the sacraments are rare in many places. The bishop explained that in these conditions, some flexibility was needed if the sacraments were to be available.
Despite his dismissal, Bishop Morris affectionately regarded for his pastoral style, he was loved by his flocks. They regarded him as a true shepherd and indeed they are going to miss him greatly.
The allegation could be legally challenged if the Canon Law was in favour of the ordinary Christians. In Roman Catholic Church powers are vested on high church authorities whose decision are final and can never be challenged. This is the only different from the ICC and other civil laws. In other words, unlike ICC the ruling of the Pope is final and cannot be the subject of legal review.
Such decisions which can never be challenged can be compared to the vocal Islamist group whose leader has been appointed to represent an al-Qaida-linked Somali militia aimed at attacking Kenya for its decision to send troops to Somalia in October last year.
The leader, Ahmad Iman Ali who was elevation to become the supreme Amiir of Kenya for al Shabaab is a Kenyan who has been based in Somalia since 2009 and commands a force of 200 to 500 fighters, according to the July U.N. report.
The report said that “he now intends to conduct large-scale attacks in Kenya, and possibly elsewhere in East Africa.” He is fighting against the kuffar, an alternative spelling of kafir, an Arabic word meaning “unbeliever.”
Muslims at the Coast have always complained that they have been marginalized and therefore would like to have the Coastal Kenya be a country of its own separate from Kenya.
Ali warned in a statement rife with spelling errors: “The Muslim lands will once again rule with Shari’ah and your kufr democracy will be dumped in the seewage.” The Muslim Youth Center is the best-known of the Kenyan jihadi groups.
Since its troops entered Somalia, Kenya has suffered more than a dozen grenade attacks. Four explosive devices targeting police have been planted in a northern refugee camp housing Somalis, and gunmen have also shot residents in northern Kenya towns. Somali fighters also raided a Kenyan police camp earlier this month, killing six people and kidnapping at least four.
It could explain why despite the call by Pope Benedict XVI on Pakistan to repeal its blasphemy laws, which can carry a death sentence for insulting the Prophet Muhammad has not been listened to. The Pope wants the law repealed because it served as a pretext for acts of injustice and violence against religious minorities.
The Pope who was quoted by press as referring to Pakistani governor Salman Taseer, whose assassination recently was blamed on his support for changes to the blasphemy laws made his remarks during a New Year address to diplomats accredited to the Vatican. A bodyguard of Mr Taseer confessed in court to his killing.
On Wednesday just as the Pope had addressed the Diplomats, a reporter for the Voice of America, Mukarram Khan was shot repeatedly by the Pakistan Taliban in the northwest Pakistan as he prayed at Mosque. The Taliban have warned that American journalists would be targets in the future.
The killing underscored Pakistan’s reputation as the world’s most dangerous beat for reporters, and it raised fresh questions about the future of American-financed journalism in the region. Taliban consider their reporting propaganda against them.
In Egypt there is already fear that Muslim Brotherhood who won the majority of votes in recent general elections will enforce sharia law on non-Muslims. The brotherhood is known in history for assassinations.
On December 28, 1948 they were accused of assassinating Egypt’s prime. In 1952 they were accused of taking part in arson that destroyed some “750 buildings” in downtown Cairo — mainly night clubs, theatres, hotels, and restaurants frequented by British and other foreigners.
In 30 April 2011 when the group launched a new party called the Freedom and Justice Party, which reportedly planned to “contest up to half the seats” in the Egyptian parliamentary election in September 2011, the party “rejects the candidacy of women or Copts for Egypt’s presidency” but not for cabinet positions.
In Nigeria the Muslims are persecuting Christians because militant Islamist group Boko Haram wants the country to be ruled by a Muslim who will enforce sharia law. At least 15 people were killed on December 25 when a bomb exploded outside a church in Madala, a satellite town of the Nigerian capital, Abuja.
In Syria it risks plunging deeper into violence and even civil war because according to Muslim militias President Bashar al-Assad listens to nobody inside or outside the country. The group has called for change according to Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt.
The rise of Islamist political forces in North Africa following last year’s revolutions in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia has also raised concern in the Vatican over the future of Christian minorities in the region.
The world however waits to see whether in Ivory Coast the ICC will bring into justice when ex-president Laurent Gbagbo who on November 30, 2011 became the first former head of state to be transferred to the ICC will be convicted.
Gbagbo is facing four counts of crimes against humanity, including murder, rape and inhuman acts, over post-election violence from December 2010 to April 2011, which the UN said cost about 3,000 lives. Gbagbo had refused to concede defeat in November polls.
The same court also issued the warrant of arrest since June 27, 2011 to Seif al-Islam Kadhafi, the son of Libya’s slain despot Moamer Kadhafi. He was eventually arrested on November 19 and the ICC has given Libya extra time to mull whether he should be handed over to be tried for crimes against humanity committed during the rebellion which took place from February 15-October 23. Seif was arrested after the ICC announced it was formally dropping the case against his father after seeing his death certificate.
Others who are wanted by ICC include Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in the western region of Darfur, a war that since 2003 has claimed some 300,000 lives according to UN figures.
The ICC also at the end of its first trial in August, 2011 issued the warrant of arrest against former militia chief Thomas Lubanga, accused of war crimes for enrolling child soldiers in 2002-03. He is awaiting a verdict.
Others who are already before the court for an attack on a village in 2003 include Congolese militia leaders Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Senior Rwandan rebel leader Callixte Mbarushimana, suspected of crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Kivu provinces in the eastern DRC, was released on parole in France in December, 2011 after the ICC dropped charges against him.
Former Congolese vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba has been in detention in The Hague since 2008, suspected of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by his Movement for the Liberation of the Congo (MLC) rebels in the neighbouring Central African Republic between October 2002 and March 2003. Bemba’s troops supported CAR President Ange-Felix Patasse against a rebellion led by Francois Bozize, now the country’s president.
The ICC in 2005 issued arrest warrants against Joseph Kony and other top commanders of the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) for crimes against humanity and war crimes including the enlisting of child soldiers and sexual slavery, committed between 2002 and 2004.
But even when Muslims are fighting to control Africa through sharia law, some violence in the continent is caused due to the increased cost of living, which has become a big test to African governments’ capacity to manage their own affairs.
In the recent past, tens of thousands of people across Burkina Faso have marched in protest against the high cost of living. Uganda has witnessed bloody skirmishes in a civil society-organized ‘walk to work’ protest.
Even Kenya is not left out. In a Synovate survey released in Kenya recently, majority of Kenyans identified the high cost of living as the main problem facing the country. In a system where the majority of citizens are excluded is why people take street protests for the ruling elites to discover that their system has flopped.
Uganda’s Walk to Work Campaign was launched on Apr. 11 by a group drawn from various opposition parties and calling itself Activists for Change. The violence led to eight deaths, including a two-year-old child, and at least 250 injured as security forces have used teargas, rubber bullets and live ammunition to turn protesters back on each day of action.
In Burkina Faso as IPS reports, members of the presidential guard caused chaos in Ouagadougou on Apr. 14, 2011, demonstrating for an increase in their housing allowances and a daily food subsidy.
They set fire to a building in the presidential compound, freed several comrades being held on rape charges, and targeted shop-owners in a rampage through the city, carrying off goods and destroying kiosks.
In Kenya, the outspoken opposition MP for Gichugu and presidential candidate, Martha Karua, says corruption and inefficiency by regulators were key parts of the crisis. Her call, for example on government “to clean up the National Oil Corporation, the Kenya Power and Lighting Company and the Energy Regulatory Commission to protect the common man from these surging prices” seems to be working but not yet to the full expectations.
Even though the official unemployment rate in Kenya is currently 40 percent, those with jobs are hardly better off. It explains why when Labour Minister John Munyes announced a 12.5 percent increase in the minimum wage at a May Day rally, raising the recommended minimum salary in Kenya’s major urban centres to roughly 90 dollars a month: workers did not even wait to hear the end of his brief address.
People for Peace in Africa (PPA)
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