Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Ruto for the Hague

William Ruto on Tuesday supported the coalition government's decision to try suspected post-election violence at The Hague.

However, the Eldoret North Member of Parliament says Kenyans must find a homegrown solution that will see the end of recurrent violence associated with general elections.

Ruto made the remarks at his Kilimo house office a day after President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga appeared to wash their hands off the prospects of putting in place a local tribunal to try the suspects.

Impunity

The government has opted to accord priority to reconciliation while leaving the door open for the suspects bearing the greatest responsibility over the post-election violence to be tried by the International Criminal Court.

Kibaki and Raila told Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan during a meeting on Monday that the Coalition Government was accelerating the reform of the Judiciary to be better placed to handle the bulk of the cases.

They further expressed their commitment to ending impunity.

Annan who is also the chairman of the Panel of Eminent African Personalities that brokered a power-sharing agreement last year, has asked the government to speed up reforms under the Agenda four reforms.

Parliament has already rejected the setting up of a tribunal, opting for the International Criminal Court at The Hague to take over the cases.

More than 1,000 people are believed to have been killed in an orgy of murder that lasted several weeks preceding the general election.

Another 650,000 persons were displaced in the pandemonium, some of who still languish in camps for internally displaced persons.

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