By David Ochami
Sunday, June 27, 2010
The decision by Kenya to agree to host a court to prosecute Somali pirates has been hailed especially by the UN and other foreign governments.
On Thursday, the Government in collaboration with the international community opened a special court at Shimo La Tewa to prosecute piracy cases.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the European Union, Australia and Canada are funding the court.
But locally, the accolades are few and especially from the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) on Defence and Foreign Relations that sees the deal as suicidal for the country.
Censure motion
Now, the Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetangula is a man in a spot, again.
According to a report by the PSC, Wetangula lied when he testified that the six agreements signed to prosecute foreign pirates was a Government decision.
The conclusion is derived from testimonies of other senior Government officials, including the Attorney General Amos Wako and Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka.
In the report expected to be debated in Parliament this week or early next month, the committee chaired by Wajir West MP Aden Keynan recommends Wetangula’s censure under Standing Order 97 for disorderly conduct leading to temporary suspension from Parliament. It is sometimes applied together with Standing Order 98 and 99 that allows longer periods of suspension from Parliament.
Last week, Prime Minister Raila Odinga accused PSCs of staging faulty and ill-motivated probes. This could be an indication the Executive or front bench will rally to the minister’s defence.
But going by recent trends when the Keynan committee tabled a report on the status of the country’s foreign mission in the United Kingdom, Wetangula will require an enormous amount of lobbying to parry adoption of the report tabled on Wednesday.
The minister responded vigorously to a previous committee’s report alleging he misled it over the conduct of former Kenyan High Commissioner to the UK, Joseph Muchemi, but Parliament adopted it.
Wetangula views the claims as a vendetta against him and has written to House Speaker Kenneth Marende urging him to stop what he considers as political witch-hunt.
In a letter dated May 25, to the House Speaker after a ‘bare it all’ press conference between him and Keynan, Wetangula says: " I humbly write to you Mr Speaker to seek your intervention, action and guidance on this obvious overstepping of the mandate of the committee by the chairman, an action(s) that certainly doesn’t cast the image and repute of Parliament in good standing."
About two months earlier, Wetangula himself opened a ‘war front’ with the committee when he wrote a letter to the Speaker and the Keynan committee to investigate the Deputy Speaker Farah Maalim Mohamed’s conduct while on a tour of Somaliland.
Farah accused the minister of breaking House rules because a departmental committee cannot investigate a deputy speaker.
Marende has written to all sides ordering an end to the ‘war’ without success.
It is not clear where the back and forth between Wetangula and the committee will go or if backbench MPs may attempt to have him suspended and a section of his budget withheld. But it is clear there is a looming battle on the floor of the House.
The Keynan committee has accused the minister of exposing the country to terrorism and want him sacked for ‘diplomatic ridicule’ and unnecessary expenditure by unilaterally signing anti-piracy deals with foreign governments.’
The committee has demanded the revocation of the treaties but Wetangula has defended them by saying that Kenya has an obligation and duty under international law and UN resolutions to fight sea piracy in its national security and economic interest.
The committee says the AG and other key officials, including those from the Ministry of Defence, said the minister acted alone, disregarding their fears and proposals. It now wants Parliament to be involved in future in any treaties the country enters into.
Under the agreements Kenya will receive, prosecute and jail foreign pirates captured by navies off the Somalia coast and Gulf of Aden.
The committee argues the treaties ‘entered unilaterally by the minister for Foreign Affairs…’ expose the country to foreign terrorists including al Qaeda besides posing the risk of radicalising inmates jailed with the foreign pirates.
The committee has accused the minister of misleading Parliament in his evidence over the matter.
It also accuses Wetangula of turning the country into a ‘dumping ground for criminals’; a gesture they say has not been compensated by the international community as promised.
The committee further alleges that certain provisions of the agreement "undermine the sovereignty of the country and independence of…constitutional offices, including the Judiciary besides jeopardising national security."
Source: Standard