Government Policy (Kenya)

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Eric Joyce (Falkirk) (Ind)]

It is difficult to overstate the importance of Kenya to the United Kingdom and, indeed, the wider international community. Perhaps first and foremost, Kenya is at the centre of international efforts to ensure the security of our own citizens. Citizens of Kenya have played a high price for that role and for their pivotal location in the world in recent years, from the US embassy bombing in 1998 through to the al-Shabaab attacks of last year, yet that is rarely reflected in public discourse here in the UK.

It is not necessary to go into detail about the way in which Kenya has co-operated magnificently with her allies, because a good deal of that information is public. However, much of it, by necessity, is unknown by those who are not directly involved. What is a matter of considerable public knowledge is Kenya’s leadership role in stabilising its northern neighbour, Somalia. Authorities, from the UN Secretary-General to the leaders of all the major states involved, have officially recognised that Somalia is where it is today—fragile but, I hope, on the road to recovery—because of the efforts of Kenya’s servicemen and women in defeating al-Shabaab and securing Mogadishu. What is more, Kenya has done that while showing restraint and ensuring the appropriate UN and African Union mandates are complied with, such as by re-hatting Kenyan troops as African Union Mission in Somalia—AMISOM—troops.

Kenya’s role extends well beyond military action, too. Virtually all humanitarian efforts in Somalia are mounted from Kenya, and they have saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of Somalis. Experts are in universal agreement that Kenya has deployed only appropriate force to assure its territorial integrity and that it has gone far above and beyond the call of national duty to help developed nations, such as the UK, to secure the safety of their citizens—here in the UK and abroad.

Anyone who has served in the British Army knows, like many others, how important Kenya has always been to our military capacity. The unrivalled training facilities that Kenya has always provided so freely have been a fundamental component of the UK’s capacity to launch military operations, including, for example, in our defence of the Falkland Islands just over 30 years ago. Many British servicemen regarded Kenya as the reason why we were able to mount that operation, given the personal and unit training capacity. Anyone who goes on the British Army’s website will read about the UK’s continuing reliance on, and gratitude for, Kenyan facilities, notably in respect of Operation Herrick in Afghanistan, but also in respect of British Army operations around the world.

Beyond military and security considerations, I have recently spoken to private equity investors who are interested in projects in Mogadishu, which is testimony to how astonishingly quickly Governments and investors can act together to build much needed infrastructure and services, following even the direst of civil collapses. That has been made possible by Kenya, first and foremost. It will be some time before we can be sure that Somalia is unstoppably on the road to proper reconstruction, but when it is, we will have Kenya to thank for that.

Communications in Kenya are also fundamental to investment throughout the region. I have visited Africa many times over the past dozen years, and virtually every time, I have travelled through Nairobi. It is a simple fact that Kenya is Africa’s pre-eminent junction for flows of trade and investment, people and, inevitably, information. From a trade and investment perspective, Kenya has many buoyant businesses, and it is the world leader in mobile payment systems. The Minister will be well aware of the UK’s early role in facilitating M-PESA. Off the top of my head, I believe that the former Commonwealth Development Corporation—now the CDC—was involved in seedcorning that project in Kenya.

M-PESA is a payment system that utilises the Safaricom network and harnesses microfinancing principles to deliver a superfast and highly effective means of bill payment. It has been so successful that conventional banking institutions have made significant efforts to become involved, through the Government, in the regulation of such systems. That is because mobile platform providers such as Safaricom enjoy confidence among local consumers at a higher level than that for the banks. Although Kenya, unlike many African states, has a relatively mature local banking system, I understand that almost 20 million Kenyans—it has population of just over 41 million—have M-PESA accounts. That enables them to make payments and transfer cash. It involves trading in what we would view as relatively small amounts, but those amounts fit the size of the domestic markets that small traders are accessing.

M-PESA has also been successfully extended into Tanzania. One of the critical aspects of the system is that in Kenya, and across Africa, the mobile infrastructure is developed, but fixed-line infrastructure is undeveloped, so services are jumping ahead. In the UK, we are looking at 4G and considering how we might be able to access new services through mobile platforms, but people in Africa really have no choice. The sophistication of mobile platforms such as M-PESA is remarkable, and in that way Kenya leads the world.

About 15 or 16 months ago, I attended the Internet Governance Forum in Nairobi, at which many of us were privileged to meet a number of senior Kenyan Government Ministers. It is clear that Kenya takes its role in internet governance very seriously, because it makes an enormous investment in new media technologies.

I said that Kenya is a junction for people and information within Africa. I know people who arrange to meet African colleagues and potential clients from across the continent in Kenya. I know people who go on holiday there, and I also know people who, a few days ago, helped to secure the release of 25 mariners from the Somali pirates who were holding them hostage. Of course, the UK Government are wary of that detail, but I will say a word or two about it, because it is pertinent to Kenya. The whole business of security in relation to piracy off Somalia involves significant reliance on Kenya, and such security is another area of activity that has saved the lives of many people.

Kenya suffers the consequences of—if I can call it this—non-terrorism related piracy. I know that we might call all Somali piracy terrorism, but there is a clear distinction in my mind, because while it is all done for money, some people are highly motivated by simply the commercial gains, whereas others, such as al-Shabaab, are motivated by what they can spend the money on. Nevertheless, piracy continues, and Kenya helps to do everything that it can to help to fix the problem at the macro level and, more significantly, in very practical ways that, for good reason, are rarely discussed.

I should say, perhaps as a side note, that while it is in vogue for some non-governmental organisations to say that they do not negotiate with hostage takers, responsible employers ensure that their employees are properly insured in case they are taken captive, particularly in dangerous areas of the world. That insurance is almost invariably taken out on the London markets, and the unsung people who get on with negotiating and sorting immediate crises are almost invariably British. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of people and companies involved in ship security for anti-piracy work off Somalia are British. Britain has an enormously important role to play, and Kenya sits at the core of things, because during an arrest operation, pirates are often taken to Kenya and then the Kenyan justice system endeavours to deal with the situation, which is clearly a contentious issue in itself. The Kenyan Government have handled things responsibly, and there is clearly a close relationship between the various navies of the developed nations and the Kenyan Government, because invariably such people could end up—and in some cases do end up—on trial in Mombasa.

Having stressed some aspects of our crucial mutual relationship with Kenya, I would like to move on to recent events regarding the Kenyan presidential election and the International Criminal Court. Media reports are still reporting the result of the Kenyan presidential election as “razor-thin”. In fact, President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta won by almost seven points on an 86% turnout in an election that was regarded by observers as fair and free, and was, thank God, peaceful. Prime Minister Raila Odinga, the losing candidate, has observed the law and rules, and lodged a court appeal, which will be considered in due course.

Going into the election, there was a perception in Kenya that the UK and US Governments, as well as some others, were not wholly impartial. It was said that UK diplomats had sought to encourage an Odinga win and that they had made comments during the tallying process that had seemed to work towards enabling a second-round run-off, which might have disbenefited Kenyatta, the first-round winner. I have scoured all the sources I can—as you know, Mr Bone, our resources in this place are very good for scouring the international media—and I also have many contacts and friends in the media across the world and in theatre in Kenya, but I can find no source whatsoever that serves as reasonable evidence of such a public bias. I could find no example whatever of a public comment by a UK diplomat or Minister anywhere. We can draw, in this place at least, our own conclusions about that.

There is a well-known quote by a senior US official that is now said everywhere in Kenya. I do not know the exact context in which he said it—it might have been in a speech—but that comment is “choices have consequences”. It is certain that the comment was made, although I would not wish to put it in the wrong context, and whether it is accurate or not, it did, in itself, have consequences. As I think the Minister will know, the quote was taken by some in Kenya as an implied threat that if Kenya did not vote for the developed world’s preferred candidate, there might be a price to pay in one way or another.

As you will be well aware, Mr Bone, I am not an academic expert. I was not present on the ground during the election period on this occasion, and of course I do not claim the expert knowledge of our diplomats and Ministers. However, I think that it is fair to say that there was a strong perception in Kenya that powerful nations were threatening Kenyans against voting for Kenyatta, who is now the President-elect, but that made them more likely to do just that—why would it not?

Going into the election, analysts were suggesting that Prime Minister Odinga perhaps had a two or three-point lead. I was never particularly convinced of that, and such a lead would be more or less within the margin of error in any case, but the vote was clearly very tight. However, I believe that a significant element of Mr Kenyatta’s margin of victory came in the form of a statement by Kenyans that if they were required to choose between sovereign self-determination and the patronage of foreign powers, they would always choose the former. It seems to me that it would be best if Kenyans did not feel—whether there is any foundation to this or not—that they needed to make that choice ever again.

The situation is ongoing, however, owing to the still-live International Criminal Court indictments of Mr Kenyatta and Deputy President-elect Ruto. I know that the Minister will wish to be measured and careful with his words on that subject, as he is with all his words. Although it is essential that we respect the processes of the ICC—Kenya is doing precisely that at the moment, as are the President-elect and Deputy President-elect—it is important to understand the political nature of the ICC. I am aware that the UK and other international Governments are seized of the situation’s trickiness, to say the least, but it is important to put these matters on record.

Two years ago, I had the privilege of spending several hours discussing the nature and processes of the ICC with its then chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo. He was incredibly generous with his time, and I left his office with a far greater understanding of, and much more good will towards, the ICC than I had had when I entered it. My concern was that although the role of the ICC is of great importance and its writ runs across the world—a country does not need to have signed up to and ratified the ICC, in the admittedly unlikely event that it is referred to it by a full member of the UN Security Council—everyone who had been indicted was African. All 30 people who have been indicted to date are African. At the time, the number was a little less than that—perhaps 15 or 20. However, the fact remains that all 31—I shall come to the one shortly—who have been indicted by the ICC are African.

When I went to see Luis Moreno Ocampo, I was unsure of the sense of indicting a Head of State, in the form of President Bashir of Sudan, and I had doubt about the case of Jean-Pierre Bemba of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who was indicted over allegations regarding incidents in the Central African Republic. However, I was struck by the fact that to the untrained eye, to put it mildly, the ICC was keeping away from countries that might have implications for powerful nations such as China, Russia, the United States and ourselves, and focusing all its efforts on less powerful African states. As Mr Ocampo convinced me, two wrongs do not make a right. There is, of course, evidence that major abuses have taken place in Africa, and the ICC should of course be able to investigate those cases and, if necessary, indict people. Nevertheless, the fact that all 31 indictments to date have been against Africans conveys the clear impression that the likelihood of an ICC indictment depends on a country’s strategic importance.

To cut to the chase, I have no idea—I am not a lawyer, and I am certainly not an international lawyer—about the merits of these cases. I do not even endeavour to look at the legal processes in the ICC. I am not an expert, so I would not wish to argue the merits or otherwise of the indictments in respect of Deputy President-elect Ruto and President-elect Kenyatta. The violence after the 2007 Kenyan election was of course serious, yet none of us can have any doubt that far more serious events have taken place in other parts of the world.

More to the point, there is strong face-value evidence that the ICC acts when it thinks that it can have a benevolent effect—I mean that in the broadest sense. For example, although the cases of Liberia and Sierra Leone were not ICC ones, it is clear that the violence there came to an end, and people were brought to account, because of the combined effect of careful and decisive military intervention followed by a due process of international justice. Indeed, that is the purpose of the ICC, although I stress that the Sierra Leone case and the Liberia case, involving Charles Taylor, were not under the ICC. The principle is very clear. It does follow, however, that sometimes it is more sensible and effective for the ICC to allow other mechanisms to take priority.

In theory, or in practice, the ICC is quasi-independent or quasi-autonomous—call it what you will. Ultimately it can be answerable to the UN Security Council, but its judicial and investigative processes are entirely independent. I am sure, Mr Bone, that you love quasi-autonomous bodies in the UK, and non-departmental bodies in theory act independently—and often, one might say, unaccountably—of Government. The processes of the ICC are robust and must be independent, but in the end it is a political organisation. I believe that the oversight is political, and that political oversight needs some kind of expression.

This week, the ICC has been considering the cases of Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto. Although those cases are technically separate, Mr Kenyatta’s co-accused has now been discharged, and many experts say that much of the evidence that there apparently is against Mr Kenyatta comes from a compromised source. Although, of course, the Minister cannot comment on the legal processes of the ICC, I simply flag up to him that it would be unconscionable if, for a considerable period, a cloud or a pall hung over the President of Kenya and the Government of Kenya, and indeed our relationship with Kenya, which is of such fundamental importance. This is not something that we can simply leave to technicalist and—I mean this in the nicest possible way—bureaucratic processes in The Hague that, even if they are legal, are disconnected from a wider political process.

You will be pleased to hear, Mr Bone, that I am drawing my remarks to a conclusion. At the weekend, another alleged war criminal who has been indicted, Bosco Ntaganda, who has been on the run for some time from the eastern Congo, surrendered himself to the Rwandan Government. I do not know the merits of the case against Bosco Ntaganda, although I do know the case quite well. It seems to me that the ICC exists precisely to deal with the fear that is created in places such as the eastern Congo by rampaging bandits and the rape and murder that frequently accompany them, rather than to deal with what are essentially matters of state. However we have arrived at this situation, this really cannot be up to the ICC and its processes. Governments cannot stand by and say, “It’s a process that has nothing to do with us,” when it comes to something as fundamental as our relationship with Kenya.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is important to distinguish between the ICC process, which he has outlined at length, and what we hope will be the long-term strategic stability of the Kenyan nation in Africa, and its connection and relevance to the UK in terms of our investment and assistance in aiming to ensure that a peaceful, prosperous and corruption-free Kenya is the legacy for the future?

[Eric Joyce]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We all agree with the international rule of law and we see that the ICC has a role, but we also understand that there is an even larger public benefit at play across the world. It is for politicians to fix this. We benefit enormously as a nation from our relationship with Kenya, so this is not entirely altruistic, but those of us who care about African states, as all of us do, and particularly the importance and pivotal significance of Kenya, need to get the balance right. The hon. Gentleman will be aware of particular cases when we have to say, “This is an overall objective.” It is about peace and strong relationships, and ensuring economic growth and development, and the protection and security of our citizens. We somehow have to make international justice work where it can.

There is a degree of symbolism in the ICC. The US and China have not signed up to it and Russia has not ratified the treaty. In each case, I understand why that has happened. I remember vividly our debate in the House 10 or 11 years ago when we passed the Act that implemented the treaty. There was genuine concern on both sides of the House that the ICC could be misused. Those three major states and India stayed out of it because they were concerned that it would not dovetail well with how they saw the world, which I can appreciate—that, in itself, is an indication of the political aspect of the ICC. That is not to be cynical, but apportioning strategic importance to countries, and thereby excluding them from the ambit of the ICC—in effect, that is done by indicting only Africans—is a significant issue. If we choose to do that, we need to recognise that Kenya is far too important to be treated as if it were a minor and strategically unimportant state, although of course the UK Government would not treat anyone as if they were unimportant.

It might be strange if I were to make a speech about President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta without referring to what some might call our post-colonial legacy, although I will not bang on about it—I do not have a PhD in post-colonialism. His father was president of Kenya at an important time. People feel strongly attached to his father’s legacy for the nation of Kenya now. I am of course talking about President Jomo Kenyatta. Britain has played with an entirely straight bat. To be honest, I think that there has been a little bit of hubris because one American diplomat made one unfortunate comment, although it might have gone beyond that—I really do not know.

When it comes to African states, it is always possible that internal politics reflect the possibility of external post-colonial influence by a misguided British Government, and that be can be reflected in the conduct of internal politics, as to some degree has been the case. The current and previous Governments dealt with that well. Frankly, however, President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta saw an opportunity, as any proper politician would, to jump all over it, thinking, “This is an opportunity to establish my own credentials as a defender of the nation and our national integrity.” He is, of course, also his father’s son, which helped enormously. He was already a strong candidate, but that all helped his campaign. Any politician would have done the same in that situation.

The risk for the UK is that it is seen as trying to impose “white man’s justice” by going to Africa to tell those nice black folk how to get on and run their countries. Countries across Africa will rebel immediately against that, and that will become part of their internal politics. We can see it in Zimbabwe. There is a tiny risk in Zimbabwe that we sometimes look as though we are on one side, when we need to be very careful to be right down the middle. That is not to say that we should have the same international detachment to international justice as the Russians and Chinese—I understand why they do it; they have very different political systems. The risk for the UK is that we look as though we are reflecting past traditions, as I am certain that Ministers and officials know.

Britain needs to play the whole Kenyan situation with a straight bat—I am a Scotsman, so I have no idea of the rules of cricket; I just use the metaphor—and to be seen as doing so by the Kenyans. We should do whatever we can from now on to facilitate an absolute normalisation of our relationship with Kenya.