Raila Presidential Secretariat Responds to Ruto’s ICC Remarks

6th November 2012

RE: PRESS RELEASE

Our attention has been drawn to a statement by Hon. William Ruto, the MP for Eldoret North and the presumed Presidential candidate of the United Republican Party (URP) in response to remarks made by the Rt. Hon. Raila A. Odinga, Prime Minister of the Republic of Kenya when he met elders drawn from the Kalenjin Community in Eldoret yesterday.

In an ineffectual attempt to dodge the issue at hand, namely their desperate attempts to use pending trials at the International Criminal Court as a justification for balkanizing Kenya into ethnic enclaves, Hon. Ruto resorts to the same old rhetoric that it is the Prime Minister who opposed local process and propagated for the trial of post-election violence suspects at the Hague-based court.

This is not only a manifestation of the disrespect and disdain with which the honourable MP holds the Kenyan people but also a total contradiction of existing records to the same effect; including but not limited to the Hansard. Pursuant to recommendations that suspects of the 2007/8 post-election violence suspects be prosecuted, a debate ensued on whether that could be done locally or internationally through the ICC.

Hon. Ruto was the conductor of the choir whose hit song was “Don’t be vague, go for the Hague.” Hon. Ruto opted for the Hague process and urged people to shun vagueness on the matter. In his thinking at that point in time, proceedings would have started in 2090, which was then in his view way beyond the lifetimes of most of us.

Whereas we in this campaign wish Hon. Ruto and his co-accused an impartial process in regard to this matter, we further re-iterate the Prime Minister’s advice to them that these charges can only be disapproved in court – but not through political rallies or ethnic alliances.



DATED AT NAIROBI THIS TUESDAY THE 6TH DAY OF NOVEMBER 2012

<Signed>


ELIUD OWALO
 
CHIEF CAMPAIGN MANAGER AND HEAD OF THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN SECRETARIAT
RAILA FOR PRESIDENT SECRETARIAT

TEL: 020 2712496/97/98
CELL: 0711 649 066/0733 766 204
EMAIL:eliudowalo@gmail.com