Reports Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City
THE former UN Secretary General Dr.Kofi Annan ha added his weight to the on-going controversy surrounding the visit to Nairobi by the Sudan President Omar Al Bashir in total defiance of the ICC warrant of arrest.
Dr Annan who together with other African Emminent Personb brokered peace in the country in 208 following the disputed presidential election,which plundered the country into chaos that killed close to 1300 persons and displaced over 300,000 asked Kenya government to clarify of Sudan President visit to Nairobi last Friday and reaffirm its commitment to the ICC.
The International Criminal Court has expressed its displeasure with the presence of Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir in Kenya and has indicated it will report Kenya to the UN Security Council.
The information flowed as Kenyan MPs reacted swiftly and angrily against the government for allowing al Bashir to attend the promulgation of the new constitution and said Kenya has suffered irreparable damage internationally.
Sources at The Hague said the International Criminal Court (ICC) was planning to report Kenya to the UN Security Council amid revelations that.
President Mwai Kibaki offered guarantees not to arrest Bashir before the Sudanese leader accepted to come..
But Foreign Affairs minister Moses Wetangula defended Bashir’s presence disclosing that President Kibaki invited the indicted war crimes.
suspect and declared Kenya will not allow “anyone to make friends and enemies” for it.
As angry MPs demanded answers from the president and his government Wetangula declared that Kenya is unwilling to enforce international arrest warrants against Bashir he claimed will “destabilize Sudan” and its Comprehensive Peace Agreement CPA or which are in conflict with two African Union resolutions urging African nations not to arrest the Sudanese despot.
“All heads of state are invited by their peer and their peer is His Excellency the president,” said Wetangula as he disclosed that Kibaki personally invited Bashir and added that “we invited our neighbours and Sudan is our neighbour.”
Deputy Defence minister David Musila who belongs to the Parliamentarians for Global Action-Kenya Chapter (PGA) said “Kenya has suffered irreparable damage internationally” and declared that it was incomprehensible for Kenya which he said was emerging from impunity with a new constitution “to allow Bashir to attend our ceremony.”
PGA is a body that oversees the implementation of the Rome Statute, which Kenya domesticated by passing the International Crimes Act in December 2008.
Musila said by inviting and protecting an indicted war crimes suspect the Kenya government was telling the world that it does not care about the rule of law and international opinion.
Musila said a clique in government kept Bashir’s invitation secret until this morning when he emerged on the dais at Uhuru Park in Nairobi. He said PGA received information from its headquarters in New York on the eve of the promulgation of the intended visit but PGA was not aware as the list availed to the group did not have Bashir’s name.
“After receiving the information from our headquarters in New York, we made efforts to know whether it was true, but we were told the first Vice President Salva Kiir will represent the country,” said Musila.
PGA Chairman and nominated MP Musa Sirma said: “It was an ambush to us that a person of the nature of al-Bashir comes to Kenya for a function of democracy and human rights,” said Sirma..
The MPs who included Isiolo South MP Abdul Bahari and Matungu MP, David Were, said they are not taking the matter lightly and will on Tuesday next week seek a ministerial statement from the government on the circumstances that led to al-Bashir’s invitation and why he was not arrested..
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