Uhuru was in the UK to attend the Somalia Conference in London at the historic Lancaster House, venue of the Kenyan negotiations forthe Independence Constitution more than 50 years ago.
His entourage included Attorney
General Githu Muigai, Chief of the General Staff of the Kenya Defence Forces
General Julius Karangi and Foreign Affairs Permanent Secretary Mwangi Thuita.
However, UK’s first visit to the UK as President, as his fan base fondly referred to iton social media, will not form the happiest chapter of his memoirs in the fullness oftime.
The tour was fraught with a bad
press and subtle diplomatic snubs, not the least of which was the denial by
Prime Minister David Cameron, his host, of a photo op.
Throughout his three days in London, Monday May 6 to Wednesday 8 , PresidentKenyatta and his entourage were constantly reminded of his status as an InternationalCriminal Court indictee of crimes against humanity by the UK media and theinternational media based in London.
RELENTLESS REFERENCES TO ICC
The references were relentless. Every report of the President’s visit, before, during andafter, in the multimedia North American, British and mainland European press wasprefaced by mention of the President’s ICC status. TV news network Sky even went asfar as headlining news of the visit on its website with the epithet 'Criminal President' in reference to Kenyatta.
And on his last day in London,
the office of ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda itself announced that it was
adding gunfire killings to the charges against President Kenyatta in the matter
of the post-election mayhem in Naivasha in early 2008.
And then the Associated Press
said this of President Kenyatta’s visit: “Britain, like therest of the European Union and other Western powers, has a policy of only ‘essentialcontact’ with anyone charged by the ICC. A British government source said theinvitation of Kenyatta to the Somalia conference was an example of essential contact.”
It was British High Commissioner to Kenya, Dr Christian Turner, who inserted thenarrative that Britain does not deal with ICC indictees except when it is absolutelyessential among the thinly veiled warnings to Kenyans against electing the UhuruKenyatta/William Ruto ticket. This week, Dr Turner travelled with President Kenyattato London.
OF PHOTO OPS AND PROTOCOL SNUBS
When President Kenyatta finally met Prime Minister Cameron, it was on the sidelinesof the Somalia Conference at Lancaster House, not Number 10 Downing Street.
As of Thursday morning, many Kenyans on social media were still wondering whetherthe meeting had indeed taken place, where and why there were no photos of it to befound anywhere online.
Cameron was, for instance, photographed shaking President Museveni’s hand warmlyin an image posted online within minutes of the hand clasping(http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www1.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Yoweri%2BMuseveni)). No such imageof the Kenyan President and the British PM was to be found on the Net, not even fromKenya’s Presidential Press Service (PPS).
The only reference of the warmth of Cameron’s welcome for Kenyatta was in thefollowing definitely backhanded remark by British author and political analyst RichardDowden from his May 8 article headlined, “Kenyatta, Ruto and the ICC: majordiplomatic earthquake in the offing”, which is bound to become instantly and hugelycontroversial: “But instead of slipping on the handcuffs this week, Mr Camerongrasped Mr Kenyatta warmly by the hand and welcomed him to London”.
Dowden, the Executive Director of the Royal African Society, is the author of Africa:Altered States, Ordinary Miracles (2008), with a foreword by Chinua Achebe.
The only still picture of President Kenyatta the British authorities released widely tothe media was the one of his being welcomed to Lancaster House by the UK AfricaMinister Phillip Hammond.
All other pictures of Kenyatta at the Conference showed clear evidence of beingcarefully cropped to edit out the faces of British and other officials anywhere in hisvicinity, except members of his own entourage or nondescript foreign figures.
President Kenyatta must have endured not a few bizarre moments in London. He issurely aware that, at the height of the Cold War, Soviet and Chinese totalitarianleaders Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong’s handlers routinely ordered that perceivedenemies be airbrushed out of photographs, as if they had ceased to exist. PremierCameron’s handlers went one better than the dictators of the mid-20th Century – anentire episode of the Somalia Conference was simply digitally censored, as if it neverhappened, and, as in the case of the totalitarians, there was no official explanationforthcoming.
The conference was co-hosted by the governments of the UK and Somalia on May 7and attended by at least 50 diverse national delegations. Ethiopian Prime MinisterHailemariam Desalegn was among the invitees.
The conference was called to extend international support for the government ofSomalia, the first modern state to collapse completely, in rebuilding their country afterdecades of anarchic conflict.
Prime Minister Cameron and Foreign Secretary William Hague also met a number ofthe heads of the other delegations at Lancaster House rather than at Number 10Downing Street or the Foreign Office. In protocol terms all the heads of governmentand, or state visits were designated “official”, just like Uhuru’s, as distinct from “Statevisit”.
On a full-blown State visit, a foreign head of State is received at Victoria Station by theQueen and Prince Philip and rides to Buckingham Palace in a splendid horse-drawncarriage, where he or she salutes their own national anthem and Britain’s God Save theQueen before inspecting a guard of honour and continuing with other elaborate rituals,including a call on Number 10.
However, Somalia President
Hassan Sheikh Mohamud met Prime Minister Cameron at No. 10 Downing Street and
also took the photo op outside the iconic front door. He was also photographed
arriving at Lancaster House with Cameron.
‘UK PROSPERITY & SECURITY + 2 OTHERS’
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, whose motto, incorporated in the masthead ofall its communications to do with the developing countries, both print and online, isthe eye-catching, fairly candid and intriguing “Strengthening UK relationships in Asia,Latin America and Africa to support UK prosperity and security + 2 others”, wasamong President Kenyatta’s most unbending tormentors when he was a presidentialcandidate. However, as Dowden wrote on May 8, “When Britain and 121 othercountries ratified the Rome statute establishing the ICC (a further 31 signed but havenot yet ratified), it was assumed that states would cooperate with the Court. No oneenvisaged a situation in which someone indicted for crimes against humanity would beelected president”.
‘MIDDLE CLASS WILL LIE DOWN ON AIRPORT ROAD’
Dowden, who routinely refers to President Kenyatta as a "warlord", also wrote that itis "unthinkable” that Uhuru and Ruto will indeed cooperate with the ICC all the wayto full-blown trials.
He asserted, “Even if they agreed to go, Kenyans – including the middle classes – willlie down on the road to the airport to prevent them going. Never mind that Kenya wasgiven the choice to hold them to account in the Kenyan courts but failed to do so.
Never mind that Kenya’s international treaty obligations oblige the country to deliverthem to The Hague. Never mind that both should already have been arrested by theKenyan police and put on a plane, delivered to the court and locked up. They are notgoing to go”.
This is the kind of outburst
that seriously gets the goat of UhuRuto’s fan base and which saw them vote like
they have never voted before at the March 4 General Election. On the very same
day that Dowden posted these views, the government of Kenya announced it was
appealing to the United Nations Security Council for a discontinuation of the
cases.
The last time this happened was
during President Kibaki’s watch in a frenetic shuttle diplomacy mission
undertaken by former longtime Foreign Affairs minister and then Vice President
Kalonzo Musyoka when it was by no means clear that Uhuru and Ruto would go for
nothing but the ultimate political prize – the Presidency.
Indeed, Kalonzo this week had
occasion to recall his intercontinental shuttling that also included
petitioning the UN in New York. Speaking at the Requiem Mass for Senator Mutula
Kilonzo on Wednesday, in front of both Deputy President Ruto and retired
President Mwai Kibaki, Kalonzo reported that Kilonzo had opposed him
strenuously regarding what the former VP told the congregation was “the famous,
or was it infamous?” shuttle diplomacy effort. Both the Deputy President and
Kibaki’s handlers thought that Kalonzo’s was a very cheap shot indeed.
Ruto and Kibaki, who had their
own fond memories of Kilonzo (including an advocate-client relationship in
Ruto’s case) and shared them with the congregation, let Kalonzo’s barb ride.
There will be hell to pay for the protocol treatment meted out to President Kenyatta inLondon, particularly given Kenya’s famed hospitality credentials and avoidance ofembarrassing or humiliating a guest at whatever level of engagement – high, low or“essential”. No British official has ever been treated in Nairobi the way Uhuru wastreated in London.
The UhuRuto establishment will no doubt want to point out that Kenya has beenlargely responsible for restoring a semblance of peace and a genuinely new beginningto Somalia, that the President and Deputy President have so far cooperated with theICC and that protocol bad manners at the very top, whatever the circumstances, areconsidered to be the pits in African, particularly Kenyan, tradition.
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