Samuel M. Makinda

Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto are currently facing crimes against humanity charges at the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC). The charges result from the post-election violence in early 2008 where over 1300 Kenyans died and 600,000 were injured or displaced. Yet the pair have done everything to politicise these charges in Kenya and at the African Union. Ruto, an ethnic Kalenjin, has been accused of planning and organising crimes against members of the Kikuyu community - Kenya’s largest ethnic group. A judicial investigation into the violence, the 2009 Waki Commission report stated that: …the incident which captured the attention of both Kenyans and the world was the deliberate burning alive of mostly Kikuyu women and children huddled together in a church. It is claimed that Ruto was involved in the incident, which took place in January 2008.

The Somali-based Islamic militant group Al-Shabaab’s weekend attack on the upscale Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi - which has left at least 60 people dead - poses a significant security threat not just to Kenya and its neighbours, but to the whole world. Only a few weeks ago, Al-Shabaab, which emerged out of the Union of Islamic Courts in 2007, was considered a spent force. In the past few years, the group has been defeated and driven out of several strategic locations, including the Somali capital of Mogadishu and the seaport of Kismayo. This has enabled the legitimate - albeit weak - Somali government, which was established in September 2012, to take control of some parts of the country.