UNITED
NATIONS, May
23 -- It took
Kenya two
letters
to get the
meeting, but
on a rainy
Thursday
afternoon in
New York
Kenyan
Permanent
Representative
Kamau Macharia
addressed the
15 members of
the UN
Security
Council.
He
told them the
International
Criminal Court
cases against
Kenyan
leaders
including
president
Uhuru Kenyatta
should be
dropped, in
their
entirety. As several
sources told
Inner City
Press during
the
closed door
meeting, he
did NOT ask
for the one
year Article
16 deferral.
Afterward
by
the North Lawn
building
stairs, Kamau
Macharia told
Inner City
Press he asked
for "the whole
thing" -- the
dropping of
the
cases. Inner
City Press
asked him
about moves to
ask African
Union
members to
tell the ICC
to drop the
cases, and
South Sudan
president
Salva Kiir's
statement
condemning the
cases and the
ICC.
Kamau
Macharia said
if a "beacon
of democracy"
like Kenya is
being
prosecuted,
countries with
graver
problems would
not want to
join the ICC.
Rwanda
asked why,
with all the
bloody
conflicts on
the agenda of
the
Security
Council, they
spent Thursday
afternoon
speaking about
Kenya.
(One might
compare, as
Inner City
Press does,
the 40,000
civilians
killed in Sri
Lanka in 2009
with what
happened in
Kenya).
The
recent
Kenyan
elections were
called a
referendum on
the ICC. The
"usual
suspects"
were said to
have argued
that the ICC
is not
political.
More and more
people don't
believe that.
But how will
the
ICC respond?
Watch this
site.
Footnote:
just
before the 3
pm start-time
for the
Security
Council
informal
interactive
meeting, Inner
City Press was
working at the
table in
front of the
current
Security
Council
chamber. (It
is
just such a
table that the
UN and its
partners are
trying to ban
from the front
of the
renovated
Security
Council after
May 31.)
Kamau
Macharia
arrived and
asked Inner
City Press if
the meeting
wasn't in
the chamber,
or in the room
next door. No,
Inner City
Press replied,
like other
unpublicized
such meetings,
it would be in
the North Lawn
building,
Conference
Room 7.
There,
also, Inner
City Press set
up a
table and
spoke with
attendees. No
one was
bothered. It
works, but
some in the UN
and their
partners want
to ban it. The
Free UN
Coalition for
Access is
opposing it.
Watch this
site.
, 
