Kenya was swept by a wave of ethnic violence triggered by a disputed presidential election in December 2007. While ethnic clashes have accompanied Kenyan elections in the past, the scale of violence in the early months of 2008 was far worse, prompting Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary General, and part of the mediation efforts in Kenya, to report seeing "gross and systematic human rights abuses of fellow citizens". UN estimates after three months of violence stood at around 1000 people killed and some 260,000 displaced. The severity of the crisis led Bernard Kouchner, French Foreign and European Affairs minister in January 2009 to appeal to the Security Council to react before Kenya plunged into a deadly ethnic conflict, "in the name of the responsibility to protect". 

The reaction by the international community to reach a political solution entailed significant pressure and involvement by international and regional bodies and foreign governments in opposition to the violence and violations of human rights. The AU-mandated efforts included a mediation team of eminent Africans led by Kofi Annan, which was able to help bring about a power-sharing solution to the crisis, supported by the UN, the EU, and foreign governments. The rapid and coordinated reaction by the international community has been praised as ‘a model of diplomatic action under the Responsibility to Protect’.

 

In contrast to the crises in Rwanda in 1994 and Darfur in 2003, Desmond Tutu, an Anglican archbishop emeritus of Cape Town and chairman of The Elders said that "[they saw] in Kenya the formation of an international consensus that it is unacceptable to ignore violence of the kind that has occurred (…) or to consider the crisis as purely an internal matter of the state". He explained that the international community has moved far faster in addressing this conflict and mediating with Kenyan leadership than it has in similar situations elsewhere. While much remains to be done, not only to resolve the political deadlock but also to ensure the security of civilians, Desmond Tutu assures that "what we are seeing in Kenya is action on a fundamental principle - the Responsibility to Protect". Click here for Desmond Tutu on Kenya and RtoP.

 

Gareth Evans, author of The Responsibility to Protect Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and For All, has described the violence in Kenya as a “classic R2P” situation. The situation was only labeled an RtoP situation retrospectively, and Don Steinberg, Deputy President of the International Crisis Group has suggested in his Op-ed, Responsibility to Protect in the Real World: From Rwanda to Darfur to Kenya, that at the time, “given the backsliding and buyer’s remorse in the international community regarding the R2P norm, it is perhaps fortunate that no one labeled this as an R2P situation”. However, both Gareth Evans and Don Steinberg point out that the political will of the international community to quell the violence. The early response and the outcomes demonstrated how timely preventive and reactive measures under the RtoP toolbox can be implemented to react to crimes reaching the RtoP threshold.  

 

On 31 March 2010 the Pre-Trial Chamber in the International Criminal Court approved by majority Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo’s request to investigate the alleged crimes against humanity that took place in Kenya starting in June 2005 (Kenya’s ratification of the Rome Statute). According to a press release from the ICC, the information provided the Chamber with a reasonable basis to believe that crimes against humanity were committed. 

 

According to the Prosecutor who hosted a press conference on 1 April 2010, he plans to complete the majority of the investigation during 2010. There are twenty suspects, who are political and business leaders associated with or belonging to the Party of National Unity and the Orange Democratic Movement, but these are not binding. The Prosecutor has released plans to travel to Kenya in May to begin interviewing witnesses and visiting crime scenes.   

Since the end of the crisis, others have pointed to the responsibility of the international community to maintain pressure and commitment in the rebuilding phase to prevent any re-occurrence of violence. Human Rights Watch in its March 2008 report Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya's Crisis of Governance, called on the duty of foreign governments, neighbor government and institutions, to “keep all diplomatic mechanisms on the table and to provide all necessary assistance in order to ensure that the agreement to share power works and delivers on promises to address long-running human rights violations”. This report underlined actions for the international community to take, including provide financial support for compensation funds and technical support to police forces, and to any and all bodies set up during and after the mediation, including the Independent Review Committee on the elections, the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission, and the Commission of Inquiry into the violence.

 

The international community must assume its full responsibility to protect by assessing and addressing the root causes of the violence in 2007. According to ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, "We must proceed promptly to contribute to the prevention of such crimes during the next election cycle", which is scheduled for 2012. While the RtoP norm calls for rapid responses to a crisis involving imminent or actual mass atrocities through a wide range of measures, RtoP emphasizes the need for states and the international community to actively prevent these crimes from ever occurring. The international community should be commended for its mediation efforts, but should continue to support Kenya during the post-crisis period.

 

More Information on the Crisis in Kenya:

 

UN Responses to the Crisis: 

United Nations briefing note on Kenya (7 February 2008)

UN News -- UN Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide urges end to violence in Kenya, sends staffer there(28 January 2008)

Kofi Annan--Opening Remarks to the Opening Plenary Session--Kenya National Dialogue: One Year Later (March 2009)

Additional Responses to the Crisis:

AMANI FORUM- Regional Parliamentarians Fact-Finding Mission to Kenya on the Post-Election Violence (1 January 2008)

International Crisis Group Report: "Kenya in Crisis" (26 February 2008) 

Friends Committee on National Legislation-- Kenya: Temporary Cease-Fire or Lasting Peace? (Policy Brief 2009)

International Peace Institute: A Choice for Peace? The Story of Forty-One days of Mediation in Kenya (August 2009) 

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