PETITION TO THE MEMBERS OF UN SECURITY ON KENYA ICC CASES

TO THE PERMANENT MISSIONS OF:

Austria
Bosnia
Brazil
China
Gabon
France
Japan
Lebanon
Mexico
Nigeria
Russian Federation
Turkey
Uganda
United Kingdom
United States

PETITION TO THE MEMBERS OF UN SECURITY COUNCIL REGARDING THE KENYAN CASES AT THE ICC


Background:


The Permanent Mission of the Republic of Kenya presented to the United Nations and to all the Permanent and Observer Missions to the United Nations an Aide Memoire titled “Kenya’s Reform Agenda and Engagement with International Criminal Court (ICC)”.


Kenya’s Vice-President, H.E. Kalonzo Musyoka is scheduled to meet the UN Secretary General on February 28, 2011 to discuss the Aide Memoire, alongside the Communiqué of the 17th Extra-Ordinary Session of the IGAD Assembly of Heads of State and Government on Sudan, Somalia and Kenya, and the African Union Decision on the Implementation of the Decisions on the International Criminal Court on the deferral/referral of the Kenyan Cases at the ICC.


It is important for the UN Members, the Security Council and Secretary-General to have a complete view of the situation in Kenya before making any conclusion on the Aide Memoire. This petition presents a set of incontrovertible facts which will help interested parties to understand why the Kenyan Cases at the ICC should neither be deferred nor referred. These facts justify the ICC process.


Fifteen Reasons Why the Kenyan Cases at the ICC must neither be Deferred nor Referred:


• The prosecution of the Kenyan Cases at the ICC does not pose any threat to international peace and security. To the contrary, failure to bring to justice the perpetrators of post-election violence poses grave danger to Kenya’s internal peace and security.


• The ICC process was unanimously approved by the two parties under the Annan-brokered National Accord, and the instruments that paved the way for the process were signed by both the President and the Prime Minister for and on behalf of their respective political parties.


• The great majority of Kenyans support the ICC process as the most credible method to fighting entrenched impunity in their society. Surveys by leading institutions in the country confirm this position.


• Local trials will be exposed to:


- political manipulation by leaders pleading the ethnic card;
- threats to witnesses, their families and friends. Indeed, many witnesses have been hunted and killed by State security agents; and
- undue delays engineered by frivolous and vexatious applications.

• Local trials are not possible at the moment as there is no local mechanism in place to handle the cases. Any such local mechanism must meet the ICC standards for such trials. Kenya’s judiciary does not meet such standards.

. The judicial reforms contemplated under the New Constitution have not been implemented. The judges have not been vetted. The Prosecution Service has not been reformed.

•Local trials will be used to shield the suspects from justice. This was recently demonstrated by the nominations of Mr. Githu Muigai and Mr. Kioko Kilukumi to the positions of Attorney-General and Director of Public Prosecutions respectively, while they are on record as lawyers for two ICC suspects. In addition, an ICC suspect chaired the Panel that identified and nominated Justice Visram to the position of new Chief Justice.

• Since 1992, each general election has been characterized by state sponsored and people-to-people violence leading to deaths, evictions, rapes, arson, etc. While there have been official judicial inquiries on these mass murders, rapes, arson and evictions, no prosecutions have been conducted.

•Extra-judicial killings have increased significantly since 2003. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights has investigated and made his findings (Prof. Alston). No prosecutions have been conducted.

• Kenya’s Parliament has on two occasions rejected Bills for the establishment of a local tribunal for the cases, and instead declared that the trials should be held at the Hague.

• Unless the cases are prosecuted to the end, the 2012 general elections will not be different and the violence may be unprecedented.

• Given the limited time between now and the next general elections in August 2012, local trials will take the country’s attention from critical and still pending reforms in the electoral system, police and judiciary.

•The request for deferral/referral has been made by one side of the Coalition Government. It is not a joint request of the Coalition Government. As such there is no national unanimity on the issue.

•The request for deferral/referral is intended, if granted, to provide enough lead time for snap general election in which it is planned that two of the ICC suspects will run and win on a joint ticket as President and Vice-President. Election to such high office, it is hoped, will protect the suspects from accountability at the ICC or at any other forum. Because such a ticket must win at all costs, the consequences to Kenya’s peace and security will be grave.

• Unless perpetrators of post-election violence are held to account, the idea of free and fair elections will lose meaning to Kenyans. Their faith in democracy will be irreparable eroded.

We therefore appeal to you to allow the Kenyan Cases at the ICC to proceed without any delays. Let there be justice for the suspects as well as for the victims.


Network for Global Justice
Nairobi, February 25, 2011

Kibaki: I have only one wife

President Kibaki of Kenya, among claims from the media and the public that he has another wife and daughter, calls a rare Press conference to declare that he has only one wife. The wife, Lucy Kibaki was also in the press conference.

March 03, 2009


And this are some of the Comments on this YouTube Video
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Nonsense ..!
mwachere 3 weeks ago
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I THINK THE matter of number of wives is private to him. He is an African and i feel there is no obligation for him to explain what our ancestors did before hi. For me the shame is in him explaining himself.

Lucy get a hobby, your hubby is the president and if he has more that one wife, so be it. Take a cruise or something or start join a welfare group or start one!
ngumsz 1 month ago
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I THINK THE matter of number of wives is private to him. He is an African and i feel there is no obligation for him to explain what our ancetors did before hi. For me the shame is in him explaining himself.

Lucy get a hobby, your hubby is the president and if he has more that one wife, so be it. Take a cruise or something or start join a welfare group or start one!
ngumsz 1 month ago
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Complete lack of class. I am ashamed to be Kenyan, but we will reclaim our country back soon.
OneWholeKenya 1 month ago
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@karuitha - I see you have become an internet hero in this clip.
muumamdu 1 month ago
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Lord, have mercy on the poor fellow! He looks shaken and faced-out!
gazawire 1 month ago
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he may not have a wife, but we all know he has a kaa side dish. so yes he has only ONE wife, but he does have a CONCUBINE
jehoboath 2 months ago
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OHH my God, what is this. Did this man get a fine beating from Lucy the day before this breafing. Is this man a president, or a villager. The wife looks like the boss of everyone, she's now calling the shots. Hii ni cinema. No wonder he din't win election, but stole just like they are doing in Ivory cost. Shame on Kenya.
viboko 2 months ago
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omg...........she wears the pants.no wonder moi stayed single till he left office.now we also know who the real prez is.....LUCY KIBAKI
wesmonite 2 months ago
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Those crazy two...have better things to talk about in public than spouses!
mcsantojatelo 2 months ago
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journalist  keep us informed we need to know those with small house plz
tisvingo 9 months ago

So, is this all Kenya's president has to say about his government? I mean, keep talking about personal issues, giving importance to the media? Oh dear....Kenya in my opinion is much more than that. It's a serious country in Africa IMO....anyway, funniest press conference I've ever seen from a country's president. Serious things going on and they come to public to make such bar statements.....my goodness....greetings from Brazil!
IndyCarDriver 9 months ago
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I don't see why Kibaki needs a body guard, they could just keep the business, and dollars in the family by giving her the position of watching over him. her tummy shook like that of a summo wrsetler each time she breathed, and spoke. And that bling, bling belt....dear Lord. Tutaona mengi Kenya. I might be taken to court if I don't watch my language now.......
moranih 9 months ago
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My God, its my first to see that woman they call the first lady talk. Men, she is quite something. The posture she has is threatening even before she speaks, you know fire is brewing.
moranih 9 months ago
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@izee008 no on the veranda Good feast 4 mosquitos dats y he was ready 2 do nthing !!!!!
mwendapolee 9 months ago
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i honestly don have words.
gasheribabz 10 months ago
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woi woi karucy is breathing fire
laquishaish 10 months ago
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the poor guy with scrambled brains was held by his balls and forced by the wife to say it loud and clear...(read "roud and kria") Lol
MrJadala 10 months ago
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Who cares..............Everybody else knows states funds are used to provide security for another one...........Hakunaaaa ,Hapanaaa
rotaclara1 10 months ago
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Who cares who is whose wife? Hiyo ni mambo yenu. Can we concentrate on serious matters, like getting people jobs and improving kenyan's standard of living. Why is this lady too much in politics. Even Michelle Obama who is married to the most powerful man is rarely in the spotlight. How did this happen? How did Kenyans elect these illiterate people. This is why Africa is so behind.
damesupuu 10 months ago

Bull's Eye: What's in the KKK tag?

What's in the abbreviation KKK? To the apolitical nothing. But to the politically inclined it's a word , a political time bomb. Its no wonder that the creators of the word which unfortunately has no self destruct mechanism are struggling to shake it off and as Emmanuel Juma reports on bull's-eye, it was a week of words and the words defer and refer proved the most divisive.

President Kibakil advisor and Head of Public Service in Kenya is a man in trouble - Watch the tape saga

Head of public service Francis Muthaura is a man in agony after a tape recording containing a detailed discussion on the alleged role of the government in the 2008 post election violence was released to the media.

In the conversation, a man purported to be ambassador Francis Muthaura bears it all out; justifying the police shootings as necessary and defending the powerful national security advisory committee over decisions taken. Ambassador Muthaura had addressed the media hours before the tape was released. At the rare press conference, he claimed the recording was manufactured by quote; people who wanted to take advantage of my situation.

Download Muthaura tape Ringtone download
You can download it straight to your mobile. On your mobile device go to get.madringtones.org and enter ID 689019.

Kenya’s astonishing internet growth: Six key trends to watch

For many years, Kenya was known as fertile ground for agriculture, but increasingly it’s becoming known as a place where technology companies can grow and flourish. Many new technology players from across Africa have chosen Kenya as a base to serve their East African interests, to expand and launch new products and services into this dynamic regional economy.

1. Online classifieds
MIH Internet Africa and the Bid or Buy group are both set to go head-to-head for the classifieds market in Kenya, and in other emerging African markets across the continent.

After the launch of its mobile directory business, Mocality, MIH has been putting resources towards Dealfish, hiring and building the team to run its operations in Kenya, having made its ambitions for the classifieds market clear.

The online classifieds market is huge in South Africa, and with more players in the market, the prospect of success for the rest of Africa is an opportunity worth noting and capitalising on.

For now, it has been mainly AdWords and targeted Facebook advertising, but the stage is set for the two to go head-to-head for this market as the new year approaches against local and international players including Uzanunua, Craigslist Kenya, Pigia.me, Sambazasoko, Dudubaya, PataUza among others. After what has been seen from mobile business directory Mocality, MIH might have the benefit of an established crowd-sourcing scaling model for Dealfish. This same model in Mocality’s case saw the company make a radical jump from 15 000 Nairobi businesses to more than 60 000. Mocality have recently expanded the model to the coastal city of Mombasa.

2. MXit
Meanwhile South African instant messaging network MXit has been on the ground in Kenya setting up its presence and exploring partnerships. The company has been evangelising to developers since it recently created its API and marketing the product. Locally, it faces competition from Nimbuzz, South Africa-based 2Go and Mig33. MXit’s active approach has seen it activate the product on the ground and provide incentives to the local market by seeding the product through guerilla marketing.

3. GroupOn
The GroupOn model in Kenya is gaining traction with the stakes getting higher as the first players explore the group buying model. Players include SokoPal, Rupu, and Twangoo-affiliated Zetu. The market is rapidly heating up as it will be the player that efficiently adapts the right model for the Kenyan market that has the best shot at success.

Google has also raised the stakes with the launch of its question and answer platform Baraza. This follows on from its SMS-powered classifieds marketplace Google Trader (in Uganda) which also launched a week ago in Ghana. While initially testing Baraza in a handful of countries, the platform is adapted from Ejabat, Google’s Arabic question and answer service.

It’s obvious to see Google is also raising its profile and has made clear its intentions to dominate more than just search by launching products to make the local internet relevant for the African market. Baraza goes head-to-head with existing Kenyan Q&A start-up Majibu.com. In another interesting development, Kenya and Ghana are some of the only countries in the world where Google advertises on Facebook to find the local market. Google serves Facebook ads to advertise Gmail, Google Chrome and Google Baraza as well as its Google Free SMS feature to the 1 000 000 Kenyans on Facebook.

4. Investment
The web start-up sector has been attracting international attention to Kenya, and to Nairobi in particular. Mozilla’s own Global Community Manager, William Quiviger, made a case for why Nairobi deserves to be crowned Africa’s ICT Innovation hub. Foreign investment is certainly taking notice of Nairobi and becoming readily available to the market.

Nairobi recently hosted IPO48, a start-up bootcamp geared around turning ideas into businesses in 48 hours with Ksh. 1 000 000 (US$12 500) in investment for the top start-ups; modeled on Garage48, an Estonian-borne concept in in partnership with HumanIPO.com which connects European investors with African start-ups and founders. IPO48 brought together over 20 start-ups in a race to prototype and pitch their ideas.

The winner, M-Farm, a mobile web & SMS-based app for farmers was put together by all-girl coder group AkiraChix. The runners up included geo-location cab service app TaxiMatch, Groupon-alike MyShillings and school note sharing/selling platform HizoNotes.

Over the past few months, the launch of platforms such as HumanIPO, AfricaPace and the relaunched VC4Africa.biz all reiterate that there are those who see investment opportunities for financing. Access to capital has continued to be a challenge for those in the Kenyan market and the gap in angel investing and other fundraising avenues is a huge gap in this market.

Silicon Valley is certainly taking note of Kenya and investors have been visiting and doing research about entering as well as partnering and supporting existing players in the market. I/O ventures makes a trip to Nairobi on the 14th and 15th of December being one such example.

This December, Nokia concluded its first Open Innovation Africa Summit held in Kenya, which brought 200 leading thinkers from across the globe into Kenya to analyse and derive the best way forward for open innovation for the continent and promote sustainable solutions for education, healthcare, mobile and ecosystems for innovation.

The Summit’s outcomes took local ideas from an ideation competition online to Naivasha, where the conference took place to act on these ideas in the context of the continent.

5. Mobile Money
Mobile money is another key battlefied in the East African tech scene. The race between players continues to pick up pace as telecommunications provider Orange Kenya launched Orange Money in partnership with Equity Bank, the same bank that works on Safaricom’s M-Kesho mobile banking product powered by M-Pesa and Essar Telecom’s yuCash mobile money product.

Orange has chosen to differentiate its offering by targeting a different market segment and offering a debit card to accompany the mobile banking and mobile money transfer product. Safaricom’s M-Pesa numbers continue to grow steadily as they recently crossed the 13.5- million mark, which accounts for over 80% of Safaricom’s 17-million subscribers.

6. iHub
The nexus for all things innovation in Kenya and Africa at the moment has to be the iHub. It’s hard not to point to Kenya right now and not see how this open space is at the forefront of innovation within the technology space. From hosting events with leading thought leaders from across the world to hosting their first set of Green Members — 100 of Nairobi’s most promising developers, creatives and business technologists. And from February next year, the launch of the Mobile Apps Lab will further diversify the iHub’s range after it successfully won the bid to host the infoDev-funded regional mobile applications lab.

The Kenyan market continues to grow and projections look set for Kenya to leapfrog other established economies across Africa and become a centre of African-driven innovation.

This year has been eventful, but next year is gearing up to be a tipping point for technology, mobile and innovation in Kenya.

Hold on to your hats, ladies and gentlemen.

By: Mark Kaigwa Read More

What Kenyans do online - Digital Life study

60% of Kenya's online users access the internet on their mobile phones. This is according to Digital Life, an online activities and behaviour study that was released on Thursday, 2 December 2010 in Nairobi by TNS Research International. The study was conducted in several Kenya cities; Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu. Eight hundred people were interviewed; 400 online and 400 face-to-face.

The study also revealed that 62% of Kenya's users access the internet on a personal computer - 29% from home and 33% at work respectively, and 41% of users access the internet from a cyber cafe. The Digital Life study also showed that although email access remains the top online activity in Kenya and the sub-Saharan region, usage of the internet for social media and knowledge and education access is growing steadily.

According to the study, the online development path in Kenya is radically different from many other markets as Kenya has higher mobile compared to developed markets. In the last two years, internet usage in Kenya went from 9.5% in 2009 to 20% in 2010. According to TNS Research International, while digital media investments in developed markets will yield strong return on investment, emerging markets require cross-media strategies to complement digital media.

"This shows high potential for growth in the mobile internet business platform in Kenya. However, this growth has to be spurred by seamless cross-media strategies to ensure maximum return on investment for any digital media investment in the country," said Melissa Baker, TNS Research International CEO East Africa.

For business people or people planning to invest in Kenya, digital is an emerging media.

"Prepare for an explosion of activity as quality access opens up latent demand, it will become more representative of the population, and is being driven by mobile access. Ensure mobile part of your digital engagement strategy. Go mobile first!" advices Baker.

Engaging consumers in the digital arena is not the same as traditional marketing and broadcast media. "It is much more complex. Understand different segments using the internet and engage with them according to their needs," she says.

What are Kenyans doing online?


•Connecting and sharing with others online, uploading pictures to a photo sharing site or internet dating

•Keeping up to date with current affairs, sports, culture and the weather

•Browsing for things to buy online or offline; eg. consumer reviews, websites, search engines

•Email - personal email account. Checking inbox, writing and composing email messages

•Watching video, listening to music or radio streaming or watching on-demand TV programs

•Sourcing general information and learning online; 'googling' online encyclopaedias and self-educating online

Frome the various activities of users, email, social, multimedia, news, knowledge and personal interest are the ways to engage consumers via mobile. The study also reveals that brands are a subject of conversation in social networks; expect the numbers of inactive consumers to drop as quality of access improves.

In Kenya, social networkers (91%) are actively talking about brands in social media. Kenyans engaging with brands are looking for information about them meaning for Kenyan online users, brand building is not just about having a website.

Popular sites in Kenya

Email - Google, Yahoo, Facebook, MSN, Daily Nation, YouTube, Safaricom, Standardmedia.co.ke, Skype, My African Career

Social networking - Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Twitter, Skype, Wikipedia, Nation Media, Daily Nation, Tagged

Knowledge & Education - Google, Wikipedia, Yahoo, Daily Nation, Nation Media, Standardmedia.co.ke, Facebook, YouTube, eHow, Career Point Kenya

News/sport/weather - Google, BBC Online, Standardmedia.co.ke, Daily Nation, Nation Media, Yahoo, CNN Interactive, Skysports, ESPN, MSN

Multimedia entertainment - YouTube, Google, Capital FM, Facebook, Yahoo, Kenyanlyrics, Myspace, Wikipedia, Daily Nation, Nation Media

Personal interest - Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Wikipedia, YouTube, Capital FM, BrighterMonday, BBC Online, Amazon, Twitter


Digital lifestyles

The study categorised the lifestyles of online Kenyan users into six segments:

Influencers - The internet is an integral part of their life. They are young and big mobile internet users accessing it everywhere, all of the time. They blog and are passionate social networkers who want to make sure as many people as possible hear their online voice.

Knowledge-seekers - Use the internet to gain knowledge, information and to educate themselves about the world. They are not big users of social networks; like to hear from like-minded people especially to help them in making purchase decisions. They are very interested in the latest trends.

Communicators - They love talking and expressing themselves; face-to-face, on a fixed line, mobile or on social networking sites, instant messaging or just emailing people. They tend to be smartphone users and connect online from their mobile, at home, at work or at college.

Networkers - The internet is important for them to establish and maintain relationships. They have a busy life (professional and personal), they use things like social networking to keep in touch with people they wouldn't have time to otherwise. They are big home internet user and very open to talking to brands and looking for promotions.

Aspirers - They look to create a personal space online. They are very new to the internet and access via mobile and internet cafes but somewhat from home. They are not doing a great deal at the moment online but are desperate to do more of everything, especially from a mobile device.

Functionals - To them, the internet is a functional tool. They don't want to express themselves online. They like emailing, checking the news, sport and weather and online shopping. They are mostly not interested in running their social life online and are worried about data privacy and security. They are older and have been using the internet for a long time.

According to TNS, most internet users in sub-Saharan Africa are aspirers and communicators.

By: Carole Kimutai

Facebook group aims to tackle fake medicines in Kenya

Kenya's pharmacy and poisons board has set up a Facebook account for people to report pharmacists who give them fake drugs. Kenyans can use the social networking site to report adverse reactions to drugs as well as suspected counterfeit drugs and unregistered pharmacies.

The initiative was launched early last week by Medical Services permanent secretary Prof James Ole Kiyiapi in a bid to regulate the industry and protect the public. Prof Kiyiapi said the move would help bring a change in attitude especially amongst consumers.

The Kenyan government appears to be embracing the use of new media. Two weeks ago during the Pan Africa Media Conference, President Mwai Kibaki proposed using new media to fight corruption and nepotism and address environmental challenges.