ICC Fails to Bring Uhuru Kenyatta to Trial in The Hague: The Story Continues….

http://United Nations.org

 

On Wednesday December 3^rd, 2014 amidst public grumblings that the International Criminal Court (ICC) would lift the indictment against the current President of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta, ICC Prosecutor, Ms. Fatou Bensouda did just that. On Friday, December 5th she withdrew all five counts of “Crimes against Humanity” against the newly- elected President of Kenya. Kenyatta had been previously indicted under the tenure of former ICC Prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo for funding and orchestrating the violent actions of a secret sect known as Mungiki and inciting its members to perform crimes of rape, arson, and murder within Kibera, the largest slum in East Africa, the city of Kisumu, and the municipalities of Nakuru and Naivasha during the 2007 Presidential elections. An estimated 1,300 people were killed as a result of this organized brutality while an additional 600,000 lost their homes or property and were moved by the government into displacement camps. It was determined that Kenyatta’s primary objective in inciting this violence among the tribes was to ensure the election of then incumbent President Mwai Kibaki, a close political friend and fellow member of the Kikuyu tribe. Mr. Raila Odinga, member of the Luo tribe and opposition leader from the Lake Victoria Region had been steadily gaining in popularity and Kenyatta was eventually accused by the court of creating and maintaining this civil unrest during 2007/2008 to ensure that Mr. Kibaki, not Mr. Odinga won the election. Mr. Odinga stated publically immediately after the 2007 election that he had been “cheated of victory” claiming that the voting “had been rigged.” Supporters of Mr. Odinga continued to riot well into 2008 causing President Kibaki to create a new position for Mr. Odinga appointing him Kenya’s Prime Minster in order to help stem the violence. Ms. Bensouda cited “lack of evidence” as the reason for her withdrawal but warned Kenyan officials that she reserved the right to re-file these charges if and when “substantial evidence” emerged to support the indictment.

Mr. Fergal Gaynor, the ICC- appointed lawyer for the victims of the 2007-2008 presidential election violence informed a host of foreign news agencies that the Kenyan government did not cooperate and “did everything it could to withhold information as well important documents such as bank statements and telephone records” that would have shown Kenyatta’s specific role in planning the bloodshed. He claimed that witnesses in this case had either been bribed to change their statements or threatened with death if they testified against Kenyatta and his associates at their trials. He went on to say that government officials “had systematically undermined the court’s ability to conduct a full and just investigation of this matter.” According to Gaynor, Kenyan politicians shielded their president from prosecution by “conducting a well- organized and united effort, planned to undermine the judicial process”. Ms. Bensouda supported Gaynor’s claims also accusing the Kenyan government of “failing to cooperate” and admitting that their actions had had a “severe impact on the court’s ability to carry out a complete investigation.”

Kenyatta, son of the first President and Liberator of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta had voluntarily appeared before the court on April 8, 2011 to attend the Information of Charges hearing at The Hague in order to learn about the five counts brought against him. With the indictment against him withdrawn he will no longer have to suffer through a long drawn-out trial in Belgium and spend many months away from his office in Kenya. He took the news graciously at first then admonished the members of the court for displaying what he believed was a clear example of “political persecution”. He pointed out that the ICC prosecutor had incurred “a certain loss of respect” as a result of conducting what he deemed was “a very hurried and disorganized investigation”. And he wasn’t alone in feeling victimized just for being African. In September 2013, Kenya’s National Assembly passed a resolution to withdraw from the ICC in protest over the indictment of both their President and Deputy President. And in October of the same year the African Union organized a special summit to consider the current actions of the ICC. A motion was made that “every country in the Union immediately withdraw from the ICC” but was not acted upon. Yet the African Union did make their position on this matter perfectly clear in all subsequent communiques to the ICC stating that “standing heads of state in all African countries must not be placed on trial” and by November, 2013 the ICC had promised to consider the African Union’s request. Unfortunately, this was not the first time African nations had called for a mass exodus from the ICC. In June 2003, the countries of Comoros, Djibouti, and Senegal called for all African countries to withdraw from the ICC in protest over the fact that only residents of African nations “had been indicted, brought to trial, or convicted of Crimes Against Humanity” and were especially outraged over the indictment of Sudanese President Omar al- Bashir.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) was created in July of 1998 after the ratification of the Roman Statute the treaty which established the global mission of this court. The statue delineates the court’s goals, structure, and jurisdiction. It began its official judicial operations in The Hague, Belgium as of 2002 by establishing definitions for the four international crimes used in identifying and prosecuting all cases. The specific crimes have been listed as: 1.) Genocide, 2.) Crimes against Humanity, 3.) War Crimes, and 4.) Crimes of Aggression; although the court cannot prosecute anyone for Crimes of Aggression. None of these crimes are subjected to any Statue of Limitations and defendants can be tried freely at any time well into the future. This international tribunal is only permitted to investigate and prosecute individuals who have engaged in the first three crimes in countries who are unable or unwilling to do so themselves. The ICC may also be directed to investigate specific allegations of any one or all of these three crimes by the United Nations Security Council. By 2014 the ICC had a global membership of 122 countries, 34 of which are located on the continent of Africa. Since its inception it has publically indicted 36 individuals and convicted two. Thomas Lubanga Dyllo was tried and sentenced to 14 years in prison while Germaine Katanga was tried and sentenced to 12 for crimes committed during the two wars in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Had Kenyatta’s indictment not been dropped he would have been the second standing President to be charged by the court. Muammar Gaddafi was indicted for Crimes against Humanity as well in June of 2011 but was killed on October 20, 2011. Omar al- Bashir, President of the Republic of the Sudan was the first. Mr. Bashir was declared a fugitive by the court for not responding to his indictment or summons in 2009. He is still President of this country and lives openly in Sudan even traveling to other sympathetic countries in Africa when he chooses. The ICC has no standing army or police force of its own to enforce arrest warrants so must rely on the United Nations and/or host countries’ troops to locate and arrest indicted fugitives.

So why wasn’t the ICC’s indictment of Kenyatta able to stand on its own merit? Well, according to David Kaye, a specialist in international affairs it had little to do with Ms. Bensouda’s actions and everything to do with those of the previous ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo. In his 2011 article published in the Journal of Foreign Affairs entitled, “Whose Afraid of the ICC?” Mr. Kaye goes on to explain Moreno-Ocampo’s “poor management and decision-making style that alienated subordinates as well as court officials”. He describes Moreno-Ocampo’s “ petty battles over turf and resources”; “erratic decision-making; brash behavior; and charges of politicization,” all undermining his success as the ICC Prosecutor. He believed that “Moreno- Ocampo’s recurring judicial setbacks have cast doubt on his role as Prosecutor.” And Mr. Kaye was not the only one who’d demanded Mr. Moreno- Ocampo’s resignation.

In November 2009, Human Rights Watch sent a public letter to the ICC expressing their deep concerns about Moreno- Ocampo’s role as the ICC Prosecutor. They criticized his performance accusing him of “grandstanding and holding press conferences rather than collecting the evidence needed to support each indictment”. They added that in the case of Darfur he had not “adequately protected his witnesses from the Sudanese government.” Luis Moreno- Ocampo, an Argentinean lawyer started his position as first Prosecutor elected by the governing body of the ICC in June, 2003. His term ended in June of 2012 when he left to head the new FIFA’s ethics committee. There is only a Prosecutor serving the court at one time at the ICC. He/she serves for nine consecutive years and cannot be re-elected to this position.

On June 11, 2011, according to ICC court records Moreno – Ocampo was admonished by court officials for missing the deadline that would have ensured that all 59 victims of the Kenyan election violence who had applied to appear before the ICC were given the opportunity to testify in court. This was after he arrived in Nairobi swearing to the media that he would not quit until he saw that justice had been done on behalf of these victims.

And that was not his only blunder. In 2008 he tried to fire a subordinate in his office after the man accused Moreno-Ocampo of sexual misconduct. Moreno-Ocampo was eventually cleared of this charge but then had the man fired for unprofessional conduct. The staff member appealed to the internal disciplinary board at the ICC and won his case. The court found that Moreno had served on the committee that had fired the man and that had been a definite conflict of interest on Moreno- Ocampo’s part. The media spokesman was reinstated to his former position plus received a monetary settlement from the court of $181,362 (US).

Then unexpectedly on January 22, 2014 during an interview with Radio Netherlands Worldwide (RNW) Mr. Moreno-Ocampo completely changed his story stating that” the Kenyan indictments brought by him in the name of the ICC were trumped -up charges engineered by Western diplomats who asked him to bring these indictments against Kenyatta, and Ruto to keep them from running in the 2013 Presidential elections. And as a result of this admission Ocampo revealed for the first time that despite statements to the contrary, he’d never intended to seek justice for the victims of the 2007 election violence after all but was just one more puppet working for the west that’d freely allowed the USA and Great Britain to pull his strings.

What a movie this story would make! Are Kenyatta and Ruto really guilty? We may never know. But what we do know as fact makes a certain sense when you view it as a mystery novel. Kenyan Justice Philip Waki is appointed Chair of the Commission of Inquiry into the Post- Election Violence of 2007. No one expects too much from the man or his committee. They will take their lead from President Kibaki and will not uncover any more or any less than he wishes them to discover. Eventually the commission releases a public report stating for the record that it found there was not enough evidence to support any legal indictments in this matter at this time but if more information is discovered at a later date the commission will re-convene to consider it. And it seems like the issue has finally been “put to bed” like the good citizens of Kenya had expected it would. But then something unusual happens Justice Waki surprises everyone by personally handing a sealed envelope to Kofi Annan, former United Nations Secretary General in October 2008 during one of Amman’s visits to Nairobi. Inside this envelope rested a paper on which six names have been written- the names of the men who were behind the 2007/2008 Presidential election violence: Uhuru Kenyatta, William Ruto, General Mohammed Hussein Ali, Francis Muthaura, Henry Kosgey, and Joshua Sang.

By July 2009 Annan hands the contents of this envelope, the names of those six men over to Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo. Ocampo declares that he will right this injustice by making an example of these six Kenyans and by December 2010 he releases the names to the media and prepares to serve each man with an indictment. After he leaves his position as prosecutor in 2012, Ms. Bensouda takes over the individual cases and all of the evidence supposedly gathered by Moreno- Ocampo. Ms. Bensouda forges ahead with her investigations and actually serves the indictments.

Then five years later Ocampo goes public once again -only this time he tells a much different story. In this second version he was never a superhero after all, and that despite all his bragging and bravado he was merely a pawn pushed around by diplomats from the USA and the UK whose only objective was to frame Kenyatta and Ruto for crimes they did not commit in order to keep them from running in the 2013 election so Raila Odinga would win. So why this change of heart- you ask? Didn’t Annan personally hand him those six names? He could claim the envelope never existed but too many people working at the ICC and living around Nairobi at that time knew that it did- including Kofi Annan. And what leverage could those diplomats possibly have had over him to make him do their bidding- he’s a citizen of Argentina? And why would an ICC prosecutor bend to their demands so easily? But I’m sure you can write the ending to this particular story. Who stands to gain the most now that Mr. Moreno- Ocampo has conveniently changed his mind? And what could he possibly stand to lose or gain by doing so? And how does Mr. Moreno-Ocampo currently spend his time?

And what about the six names on that list? Did Justice Waki make them up? I think not. I think he risked his life and those of his family when he gave those names to Annan knowing full well that his role in this matter would eventually come to light. So why did he do it?

Well, I’m praying he’s the true hero in this story, not the narcissistic Mr. Moreno-Ocampo who already admitted he was more than willing to bring false charges against innocent men. Just maybe Judge Waki is a man of real integrity who had no choice but to see that justice prevailed and that one day, no matter how far into the future, those six men would be held accountable for their criminal actions- but maybe not…..

As of January 2015 the ICC has withdrawn the indictment against Uhuru Kenyatta. The charges against Henry Kosgey and Mohammed Hussein Ali had already been dismissed in 2012 but the trials of Joshua Sang, a journalist and William Ruto, Deputy President of Kenya did begin as expected on September 9^th, 2013 and continue.

And one more setback! Omar al- Bashir, President of the Republic of the Sudan proudly claimed victory over the ICC after Prosecutor Bensouda revealed in December 2014 that she was “shelving the investigation into his crimes in Darfur because of a lack of support from the United Nation Security Council.” Omar al- Bashir had been previously indicted by the court on five counts of Crimes against Humanity, three counts of Genocide, and two counts of War Crimes as a direct result of his actions in Darfur. This region of the Republic of Sudan has been decimated by violence beginning in February, 2003 when over 300,000 residents were systematically killed and another 2 million displaced from their homes then forced into refugee camps. The Republic of Sudan, especially al- Bashir, have been continuously supported by China who occupies a permanent seat on the UN’s Security Council and has blocked all attempts to bring al- Bashir to justice.

According to al- Bashir, “The Sudanese people have defeated the ICC by refusing to hand over any Sudanese to the colonial courts.”

Because of withdrawals such as these the ICC’s reputation has suffered greatly among the people of Africa who question the real motive behind its formation. Is The International Criminal Court truly a global forum where victims of a cruel world can come to be heard and evil men punished for their inhumane actions or is it merely a ruse, a kangaroo court invented by the first and second world in order to placate the third?

The story continues….

 

Kat Nickerson                           Kingston, Rhode Island

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Massacre in Mpeketoni: “Pwani Si Kenya”, Political Retribution, or Terrorism?

Mombasa

On the night of June 15, 2014- less than two weeks ago, witnesses observed several vans filled with men enter the town of Mpeketoni and stop at the local police station. Subsequent reports now claim that these same policemen had been notified of a possible attack upon the residents living in the area earlier in the day making what eventually occurred a most tragic event indeed. After the masked gunmen who carried AK-47’s and spoke Swahili secured the station they divided their original group of 50 into smaller units then headed off to terrorize the nearby neighborhoods of Mpeketoni and Kibaon in search of infidels; shooting those who declared they were Christians and sparing those who could recite verses from the Qur`an accurately. While some of these brigands engaged in cold- blooded murder others set fire to local hotels, restaurants, and an assortment of administrative buildings creating orphans and widows in their wake. Two nights later a group of similarly armed, masked men appeared in the villages of Majembeni and Poromoko intent on looking for Christians while setting the homes of many longtime residents ablaze. By the time this killing spree had ended 58 people lay dead and another 30 had been declared “missing persons”.

Then in the aftermath of this slaughter things became doubly confusing. At first local media attributed these horrific events to the Islamic terrorist organization al- Shabaab claiming that the Somalia extremist group had assumed credit for these attacks claiming they were in retaliation for the presence of Kenyan military in Somalia and for the wanton slaughter of fellow Muslims there. But then Uhuru Kenyatta appeared on national television to give a much different explanation of the massacres. He declared that the attacks were the work of disgruntled politicians and opposition parties living in Lamu Province instead. Men who had sought to do some ethnic cleansing of their own in retaliation for past grievances over property rights and illegal land transfers. Not only that, Kenyatta claimed that these attacks were purposely directed at the descendants of some 30,000 Kikuyus now living along the coast who had been brought there by his father in the 1970’s as part of the Lake Kenyatta Settlement Scheme. In order to house his Kikuyus, the first President of Kenya took ancestral lands away from the Oromos and the local Muslims living in the area at that time who had laid claim to this territory for centuries. According to Uhuru Kenyatta, these were revenge killings carried out by fellow Kenyans who wanted the Kikuyu off their land and out of their villages. The Kikuyu tribe is one of the largest tribes in Kenya today whose ancestral home is located in central Kenya at the base of Mount Kenya. And to prove this, by the following week Wednesday, June 25, 2014 the Lamu County Governor himself- one Issa Timamy was arrested on charges relating to these heinous attacks.

And things became stranger still as Kenyatta and other members of his cabinet hinted that somehow former Prime Minister, Raila Odinga was linked to these attacks. Cabinet Secretary of the Interior & Coordination of the National Government, Joseph Ole Lenku went as far as to blame the current opposition party, The Coalition for Reforms & Democracy (CORD) for the attacks knowing full well that Mr. Odinga is the current leader of this party. On Friday, June 13, 2014 Odinga held the first in a series of rallies planned throughout Kenya to force Kenyatta’s government to address three of the most critical issues facing the country as of 2014: the rising cost of living, the escalation of terrorism within the country, and the reform of Kenya’s present electoral body.

Odinga, a member of the Luo tribe from the Lake Victoria region, had failed at his third bid for the Presidency of Kenya during the March 2013 elections while Uhuru Kenyatta, son of the country’s first President Jomo Kenyatta, a Kikuyu himself, had won the election. But with only a 50.5% margin of victory; he had not won this election by a considerable landslide leading many to believe that he was not the “people’s choice” as he’d previously described himself in campaign speeches.

In the 2007 Presidential election after running and losing to the incumbent President, Mwai Kibaki, also a member of the Kikuyu tribe, Odinga refused to accept the electoral commission’s decision and riots soon erupted on the streets of many major cities pitting Kikuyus against Luos and Kalengins. Finally in order to restore peace to the country President Kibaki resurrected the position of Prime Minister for Odinga making him the second Prime Minister in the country’s history since its independence from Britain. But in all fairness, Odinga’s claims of political wrongdoings during the 2007 elections were proven to be valid. Uhuru Kenyatta, even though he is a standing President, has since been indicted by the International Criminal Court and is expected to stand trial for crimes committed during the 2007 elections where over 1,000 people died and thousands more lost their homes and were forced to relocate to refugee camps.

So who is really behind the senseless slaughter of local residents in coastal Kenya? Many Kenyans would tell you that the new and improved Mombasa Republican Council (MRC) has had a hand in this brutal violence. This separatist organization was first established in 2008 as a platform for Muslims and Christians living along the coast especially in and around Mombasa to express their unhappiness with the substandard economic and social conditions they feel have been caused by the Kenyan government and their desire to secede from Kenya in order to create their own independent state. There is a catch-phrase in Kiswahili often bantered around the streets of Mombasa, “Pwani Si Kenya,” which means, “The coast is not Kenya.” Many residents there are convinced that the creation of a new country along the coastline would give the local tribesmen possession of their ancestral lands once again – those same lands that had been stolen away from them by any number of conquerors from the British and Persians to the Portuguese and Arabs.

The MRC is currently based in Mombasa, the second largest city in Kenya and the oldest with a history steeped in warfare and violence. Recently the MRC reshaped itself aligning themselves to Islamic interests which has caused many residents of Mombasa to wonder if it’s also connected itself to Islamic terrorist organizations such as al- Shabaab or Kenya’s own al- Hijra as well? It’s common knowledge around the city that the current leadership of the MRC is being funded by wealthy and influential Arabs living in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. It’s also no surprise that Yeman’s considered one of the foremost training centers for al- Qaeda-connected terrorists, Results of a current survey conducted by the researcher, Paul Goldsmith on the influence of the MRC found that the organization had almost “universal” support among the people living along the coast.

In July 2012, the current Chairman of the MRC, Omar Mwamnwadzi, made this dire prediction concerning the future of Kenya’s coastal belt. “There will be no peace, this I cannot hide from you. The coast will have no peace at all.” Although he was referring to the 2013 elections which did take place in Mombasa without considerable violence his warning has never appeared more true than in the year 2014. Mwamnwadzi also stated that the people of the coast have a perfect right to secede from Kenya now because Kenya no longer has any title to this 11.8 mile strip of land. He bases his claim on a June, 1963 accord document supposedly signed by then Prime Minster Jomo Kenyatta and Mohamed Shante, Sultan of Oman granting the newly independent country of Kenya a 50 year lease on the 19 km strip of coastline known as Zanj of which Mombasa is a central part. He also stated that the MRC is in possession of physical documents and signatures that prove his claim. According to Mwamnwadzi, Kenya’s lease expired in June of 2013 meaning that Kenya has no legal right to Zanj anymore.

Government officials have taken a different view of the situation especially their interpretation of the supposed lease. In their version the 1963 Lancaster Negotiations as they were called at the time, recommended that this same strip of land be made a permanent part of Kenya and that the Sultan of Oman was compensated with money and other favors for the transfer of his land at that time once all of the documents relating to the negotiations had been signed. But members of the MRC have remained firm on their intention to create a separate state in order to right the wrongs done to them over the past centuries. Their goal- to take back the land belonging to the indigenous peoples of the coastline from those who currently control it- namely people from “up country” ( inland Kenya) the bulk of whom are Members of Parliament and government officials living in Nairobi. They remind everyone that until recently only the President of Kenya could approve of the sale of beach property along Kenya’s 300 mile coastline and that Jomo Kenyatta appropriated large parcels of land along the coastline for himself as soon as he became President of Kenya. This same property continues to be owned by his descendants. And members of the MRC are correct in claiming that most of Kenya’s shoreline belongs to the political elite of Kenya rather than the people who’ve lived there for centuries.

There is a strong Islamic influence throughout this island city and the mainland coast evident in its architecture and daily routines. Although Muslims make up only 11 % of the total population of Kenya, 60% of them live along the coast. And so, delicate, white minarets dot the winding landscape while muezzins use loud speakers to call the faithful to prayer, (adhan) five times a day. According to historical records Mombasa is an ancient settlement founded by Shehe Mvita, a Muslim of great learning, in 900AD. Eventually his descendants transformed the city into what it is today. There are still direct descendants of Shehe Mvita living in Mombasa enough so, that they actually have been given a name- “ Thenashaw Taifa” or The Twelve Nations.. Control of Mombasa alternated between the Sultan of Oman and the Portuguese from1593 until 1824 then the British took over in 1826. The Sultan of Oman returned again from 1826 – 1887 and the East African Protectorate (Britain) from1887 until Kenya’s independence in 1963. For many years Mombasa served as the capital of the East African Protectorate until the British finally made their capital city Nairobi in 1906.

I visited Mombasa with friends during the summer of 2007, lived in a white, stucco villa located on Shelly Beach and can still recall how the sensual odor of fresh jasmine mingled with the scent of the Indian Ocean as I made my way through the small shops located around Fort Jesus. In my mind there is no finer city in the world and I can understand why its residents would give their lives to keep it that way. Which is why it bothers me greatly to think that Mombasa may never experience a peaceful day again- not until the government of Kenya really starts listening to its Muslim constituency?

Mombasa has been called, “Kisiwa Cha Mvita” in Kiswahili meaning “island of war”. This is an apt description lately whether because of riots between Christians and Muslims or violent retaliations by Kenyan police. Mombasa has been on the verge of revolution for a full decade now and it seems that the current violence has pushed it far closer to the “edge of no return” than ever before. In my previous blog post I discussed the formation of Kenya’s terrorist organization- al- Hijra and the reasons young Muslim boys are attracted to terrorist organizations in the first place. Kenyan Muslims have claimed for five decades now that they have been systematically swindled out of land and businesses by inland Kenyans especially politicians who own large shares in the many resort hotels lining the coast plus they see little monies from a most profitable tourist industry which fills only the government’s coffers. And although Mombasa is the major shipping port supplying all of East and Central Africa with goods, the port itself is controlled not by locals but by a government which excludes Muslims from its employ.

I think that if history has taught us anything it’s that happy people make poor terrorists. People who are respected by the community, have good jobs, earn enough money to make personal plans and fulfill their dreams don’t go around causing trouble. But them that have no hope of building a better future for themselves and no means of improving their lot in life- they’re the ones capable of carrying AK-47’s in the streets and hiding bombs inside matatus. Until the Kenyan government understands this nothing in Mombasa will change- in fact it will only get worse.

Give these boys good- paying jobs where they can master skills that expand their horizons and watch their attitudes change. Respect their choice of religion and culture by seeing to it that tourists staying in the many resorts clothe themselves decently when walking through the streets or visiting the local marketplaces. See to it that alcohol and drugs are kept away from children and adolescents- not sold out on the streets as so much candy like they are now. Help plan a peaceful future for these young men or they will plan a much more violent one for themselves. And intolerance will only exasperate the situation no matter your belief in the effectiveness of a heavy hand. People who have no reason to hope  are a dangerous breed indeed – undeniably prone to anarchy. In the words of the conscience of 60’s, poet/ songwriter Bob Dylan “When you got nothing- you got nothing to lose.”

So who’s responsible for the massacre around Mpeketoni? What does it matter when the outcome’s sure to be the same? Whether or not the current killings are the work of opposition parties, Somali terrorists, or a disenfranchised Muslim population in the end more violence in response to these actions by the Kenyan government will only divide coastal loyalties further and push people into using more violence. The MRC claims that it has not yet joined forces with terrorist organizations but as more and more young men return to Mombasa from the training centers in Somalia thoroughly skilled in the art of terrorism and join the MRC what then?

On Tuesday, June 10, 2014 Sheikh Mohamed Idris chairman of Kenya’ Council of Imam and Preachers was shot to death by armed men driving by on motorcycles as he left his house to attend morning prayers. Idris had been threatened by members of al- Hijra and al- Shabaab for urging Muslim youth not to join with terrorist groups. He had been run out of the mosque he had served for the past 35 years by young men armed with knives because of his stand against violence and the fourth cleric to be assassinated in Mombasa in the past two years. Out of a total population of 1.2 million people now living in Mombasa, over 300,000 or 37% are Muslims. Their high numbers alone ensure that they can provide an unlimited amount of warriors willing to participate in open rebellion. Young Muslim men have demonstrated that they have become a force to be reckoned with and whether it’s due to their lack of education, meaningful employment, or zealous beliefs they will be the ones leading the revolution as Mombasa erupts and it surely will.

 

Kat Nickerson                                                     Kingston, RI