Who's is on supper with Milosevic?

Another one from the archives. A piece I wrote in March of 2006 on Milosevic's death. The piece won me a fresh follower- now turned my zealot-

in one John Muchangi. They said it was a good piece...

By Nzau wa Musau

SLOBODAN Milosevic is at supper now. Not where he eats but where he is eaten.

A certain convocation of politic worms are even at him this very moment.

This is what becomes of all men when they have shuffled this “mortal coil” they so jealously protect from harm all their life.

In the end, our fate is sealed with the same old blanket of death regardless of our variables in terms of nobility or pauperism.

A pauper may fish with the worm that has just eaten a king and another one may eat the fish that has just eaten that worm. The fat king and the lean beggar are but variables of the same fate--two dishes but one table. That is as far as human bodies are concerned.

The angel of death came to the rescue of the Milosevic in his prison cell last week and in his wake leaving a lot of protest and relief among those who hoped he would be pinned to the ground and made to account for atrocities attributed to him.

To say the least, Milosevic died away unloved, unmourned and unwanted. Rather than invite tears of sorrow, his death evoked tears of relief. A good riddance, they said.

A famous poet once wrote: “Within the hollow crown that rounds the mortal temples of a king, keeps death his court, and there the antic sits, scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp, allowing him a little breath, a little scene- to monarchise, be feared and kill with looks, infusing him with vain conceit, as if this flesh which walls about our life, were brass impregnable.”

This is the folly of these “little gods” who seize the plight of their nations with their twitching palms forgetting the “antic” is watching them and advancing. He scorns at their folly, the angel of death, and mocks at their vanity.

In their time, they ride rough in their nations, lighting unnecessary fires and in their wake leaving a trail of destruction, burning, looting, rape, plunder and death behind them.

When they grin, beggars roll into the gutter. When they smile, innocent children are blown off their minds with automatic weapons. When they cry, the whole nation is soaked in blood.

These are beasts without a heart who think themselves constant as the northern star. They strut and fret their hour on stage foolishly believing the scene will last the drama out but are knocked off their senses when the curtain finally falls on them.

Rather than expand their royal fortune, they seek to merge it and scorn the appointing gods who erected them on their pedestals. They plunder their own fortune and dig their own graves in the sands of time.

Then the day finally comes--when the keepers of the house tremble and the strong men bow, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the widows are darkened.

Solomon in his Ecclesiastes describes the day as the one when the doors are shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he rises up at the voice of the birds (angels?) and all the daughters of music (voice?) are brought low.

“O ever the silver chord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher broken at the fountain or the wheel broken at the cistern”.

With all his glories, triumphs and loses, the despot returns to dust. Death steals them away from jaws of earthly justice seeking to settle the scores.

But even when they are pushing up the daisies, the hate persists and rather than cease, grows stronger. The feeling is that the angel of death has flown them to regions unknown where it might never be known if they were ever punished at all.

Some Christians hope that despots will burn a week longer than the rest of the sinners owing to their grave ills but this does not make sense considering the fact that the hell fire is supposed to last forever and for every sinner alike.

Some Hindus wish they are reincarnated as a frog to always change colour or better as snakes which have no legs of their own but writhe in moving.

Those that believe in rebirth hope that despots are born again strewn naked of all attachments of royalty--as paupers. They will be hated, tormented and eventually killed for no apparent reason. Essentially, wish them some misfortune in their afterlife.

Whatever fate awaits the soul of Milosevic, it is not a sweet one. His own karma has sealed it and there is no escape to it. He had the fortune of becoming a leader of a great country but like a mindless swine that has a pearl attached to its snout, he moved on.

His demise, the form and fashion, is a great lesson for those in power and in whose “high heads”, the fate of millions below them rest.

Pope Benedict XVI: Winding back the clock?

A piece I wrote on July 17th, 2007 in the now defunct Kenya Times. I fished it down from the archives today as a response to those who say the Pope brought changes in his brief stint as the leader of the Catholic Church

By Nzau wa Musau


THE drama of life gets interesting with every turn of the script leaf. The lead actors, forced by time, are constantly reinventing their roles to fit well into the unfolding drama. This is very interesting especially to a detached observer.

Take the case of Pope Benedict XVI who has now reasserted the Catholic Church’s primacy under the sun and declared other Christian splinter denominations as wounded and not full churches of Christ.

Now that was very interesting for a number of reasons. First it came from the absolute head of the 1.1 billion member global church with deep-rooted history of involvement in human affairs.

Secondly, it comes from a seasoned, time-tested and venerated theological scholar, indeed a professor, who understands the implications of both his utterances, actions and moves in the drama of life as being played under the sun.

Thirdly and most interesting is that the reassertion of the Church’s primacy negates the spirit of the 1962-1965 Vatican II council that led to the church shedding that arrogance which hitherto had placed it on cross swords with other denominations and faiths.

The three-year old Council, opened by Pope John XXIII in October 11, 1962 and closed by his successor Pope Paul VI on December 8,1965 is again, historic for more than one reasons.

It not only substituted Latin for the native languages but also modernized the church to go with the times. It made peace, and this is very important, with the Jews, previously regarded as outcasts for slaying Jesus.

Also, Vatican II council, regarded as the 21st Ecumenical Council in the Church’s history softened its hard-line stance on Protestants, Muslims and other non-Christians by setting up a strategic ecumenical framework.

Previously, all these were regarded as “heretics”, those whom in those dark middle ages were consumed in “splendid autos-da-fes”.

The Council came against this background of the Church losing favor with an evolving humanity for its arrogance and plain terms.

In Brothers Karamazov, Russian novelist Fydor Dostoyevsky insinuates that the Church had so much entrenched itself as world authority that its leadership would object to the second coming of its subject Jesus Christ, ostensibly to continue enjoying authority.

He makes mention of Jesus landing in a Seville neighborhood where a “heretic witch” as they went, is being burnt and is confronted by a stiff-necked Cardinal, whom Fyodor calls “the grand inquisitor”.

“Why have you come to meddle with us? And why are you looking at me silently and so penetratingly with your gentle eyes?”, he tells the son of man.
He goes on to tell off the gentle smiling Jesus for rejecting the only “absolute banner” which would have seen all men worship him alone and “incontestably” as offered by Satan during the epic temptation in the wilderness.

“So we have corrected your great work and have based it on miracle, mystery and authority, and men rejoiced that they were once more led like sheep”, he adds.
Besides this dark past, the church loss of modernity track had reached proportionate heights hence the conceiving of the idea of the Council during the feast of conversion of St. Paul in January 25, 1959 before a college of cardinals.

Thereafter followed what Pope John termed as “three years of celestial grace” during which the church profoundly soul-searched and examined itself as regards modern conditions of faith, religious practice and the whole issue of Catholic vitality.

Incidentally, Pope Benedict XVI himself played a central role in forcing the reforms that revolutionized the church, as it were, coming in as a Peritus in Roman terms or a theological consultant in our own terms.

Then a 35 year old and only known as “Father Joseph Ratzinger”, the future Pope was viewed as a reformist alongside radical modernist theologians like Hans Kung and Edward Schllebeckx.

Besides him, three other people who would take a central place in the church by wearing the papal vestments included a cardinal who went by the name Battista Giovani, later to become Pope Paul VI (who closed the Council), Bishop Albino Luciani, later to become Pope John Paul I and Bishop Karol Wojtyla, later Pope John Paul II who preceded Pope Benedict XVI.

During the Council and as expressed in Pope John XXIII’s opening speech, the church attested to more than nineteen-century history “characterized by clouds of sorrow and trials. Quoting ancient Simeon’s announcement to Mary mother of Jesus that her child’s sign shall be “contradicted”, the Pope admitted the competition the church was facing was sanctioned from above.

The truth of the Lord remains forever even as ages succeed each other and opinions of men exclude each other. And part of that Godly truth as told by Simeon in Luke 2:34 was that Jesus would be opposed.

Other than concentrate on condemnation and branding of non-Catholics, the Pope said it was the church’s duty “as a loving mother of all, benigh, patient, full of mercy and goodness towards brethren separated from her” to actively pursue unity.

The unity, he proposed, would be pursued through what he described as “triple ray of beneficient supernal light”, which basically is the unity of all Catholics, unity with rebellious offshoots and unity in esteem and respect for non-Catholics.

In essence, Pope John set the pace for the three-year old Council in which participants like Pope Benedict XVI would shed their arrogance and pursue world unity. It is therefore with confidence that Pope Paul VI while closing the Council would have the courage to pronounce:

“From this Catholic center of Rome, no one, in principle, is unreachable.No one is a stranger. No one is excluded. No one is far away”.

Fast forward four decades later, and the man who helped in that important shift is or appears to be negating the very spirit of the venerated Council by not only rubbing non-Catholics the wrong way but also strongly reasserting the traditional Catholic identity.

“He thinks the world is his classroom”, Fr Tom Reese, a US Jesuit author and senior fellow at Woodstock Theological Centre at Georgetown University was recently quoted saying of the former Professor.

Without necessary agreeing with this critic, it evidently appears that either Pope Benedict XVI is deliberately and strongly turning back the Catholic clock or he gets himself into trouble unnecessary.
Only time will tell.

Confirmation Review: How witnesses messed up Ocampo 4 and helped confirm the cases

By NZAU MUSAU

WITNESSES relied on by ICC suspects at the confirmation of charges hearings last year proved counterproductive to their interests as judges either dismissed their evidence or used it to confirm prosecution claims.

The devastation caused by witnesses cut both-ways in the case against Uhuru Kenyatta and Francis Muthuara as well as the other against William Ruto and Joshua arap Sang. It was however more devastating in the Uhuru and Muthaura case.

President Mwai Kibaki and Comptroller of State House Hyslop Ipu's witness statements denying Mungiki link in the State-House meeting succeeded in proving a meeting with some “youth” did take place.

A list of visitors to State House on November 26th, 2007 provided by Ipu on behalf of Muthaura was found to be of “no assistance to the chamber in the determination of the matter” because two other youthful witnesses of Uhuru attested that it was not conclusive.

Ipu himself admitted that the list was not exhaustive leaving a room that other visitors of Mungiki affiliation as alleged by the prosecution could have been at State House on that day.

Ambassador Yvonne Khamati account that she met the president and Muthaura at a State House boardroom at around 10.00am of that day for about an hour did not help. Another Uhuru witness also claimed to have met the president together with others at around the same time.

“The Chamber is of the view that no conclusion could be drawn from these witnesses’ statements as to the unreliability of the evidence provided by Witness OTP‐4, since they seem to refer to a meeting other than that with the Mungiki mentioned by Witness OTP‐4,” the judges concluded.

More damaging was statement from another Uhuru witness who was a coordinator of “operation Kibaki again” who confirmed that he attended the State House meeting with others among them Maina Kang'ethe aka Diambo but as representative of “operation Kibaki Again”.

The judges said they had noted that the same individuals mentioned by this particular witness as members of “Operation Kibaki Again” were the same individuals whom Ocampo's witnesses “place in attendance of the meeting as representatives of the Mungiki.”

Moreover, the judges said different sources indicated that this lobby- Operation Kibaki Again, appears to have operated as a cover group for Mungiki activities during the election campaign. Yet another defence witness only labelled D12‐37 confirms his participation in the meeting.

“This witness also confirms that the same people mentioned by Witness OTP‐4 attended the meeting at
State House as well as the fact that Maina Kangethe Diambo was a member of the Mungiki at the relevant time,” the judges said.

Phone records of conversations tabled by two Muthaura witnesses to dispute that he called police commissioner Hussein Ali were doubted on the basis that Muthaura could have used another number since the number whose records they tabled was not registered under Muthaura.

“The Chamber does not find persuasive the statement of Beatrice Muriithi (D12‐42) that “Mr. Muthaura has only one mobile telephone”since it does not exclude the possibility of Mr. Muthaura using another phone number without the witness being aware of this and given the powerful position of
Mr. Muthaura vis‐à‐vis the witness,” the judges said.

Muriithi statement to the effect that Muthaura being a Meru could not have spoken Kikuyu or identify himself with Kikuyu community could not be believed as according to the court, evidence tabled before it had shown that Kikuyu and Kimeru are “mutually intelligible.”

Moreover Muriithi said she had never heard Muthaura speak Kikuyu. The judges said the fact that she has never heard him speak Kikuyu does not mean he is not able to speak Kikuyu.

Muthaura's witnesses from Nairobi club- one of the alleged venues of the planning meetings- did not help him. The staff would not provide the names of the people who had breakfast there because of their hotel policy on non-disclosure.

Government spokesman Dr. Alfred Mutua's testimony to Muthaura's alibi that he did not attend the Nairobi Club meeting was deemed “selective and speculative”. And so was the evidence by Muthaura's drivers and security.

“Indeed, the Chamber cannot accept the proposition that the two of them would always know Mr. Muthaura’s movements and activities,” the judges said. Two other witnesses who disputed that Muthaura made a call to former police boss also lost out.

Michael Kagika, an administrative officer in State House disputed there was no such a meeting at State House because no tents were erected for that purpose as claimed by the witnesses. He however told the judges that he arrived at State House in the afternoon of that day.

“Considering this and also the fact that the witness was not a high‐ranking officer, and thus it cannot be assumed to have been privy to everything which occurred at State House, especially in his absence, the Chamber considers that the statement of Michael Kagika (D12‐8) cannot have decisive force in the determination of the matter at issue,” the judges said.

The testimony of another Uhuru witness that the deputy PM was at a PNU affiliates meeting at KICC in the morning of 26th and later lunched with him at Intercontinental was dismissed because the individual did not “give clear indication of the source of his knowledge.”

Another of Uhuru's witnesses mixed up the date of Kibaki's swearing in ceremony between December 30 and 31, 2007 but the chamber excused him. It nevertheless said the witness was extremely vague on the timing of Mr. Kenyatta’s movements.

Turning on to the Ruto case, the oral and written testimony of former presidential escort commandant Samson Cheramboss and evangelist Reverend Kosgei was accorded a low probative value by the judges owing to their alleged prominent role in the planning of the violence.

Both when they appeared at the confirmation of charges denied ever attending any planning meetings with Cheramboss making a categorical statement that he had never met Ruto nor been at his house.

“Given the circumstances surrounding Mr. Cheramboss, in terms of his alleged involvement in the planning of the attack during the different meetings as one or more of the Prosecutor's witnesses testified, the Chamber considers that the probative value to be attached to his testimony is lowered,” the judges said in their Monday ruling.

They said the different witnesses had described in detail the active role played by Cheramboss during the various meetings within the alleged network.

With regard to Reverend Kosgei, the judges said the circumstances surrounding his alleged involvement in the chaos implies an interest in denying his presence in the meetings and therefore his evidence could be relied upon a lot.

“Moreover, Reverend Kosgei is reported to have made a derogatory speech during a planning meeting, passages of which are quoted in detail by Witness 8,” the judges said.

Consequently, the judges went on to believe the witnesses that the said preparatory meetings including the one held on April 15, 2007 and in which macabre oaths of slaughtered dogs were administered could have taken place.

Kosgey had told the court last year that Kalenjins fear oaths and that dogs are considered abominable animals are therefore not involved in Kalenjin ceremonies. Instead, he said rams were used in traditional sacrifices by the community.

Even this explanation would not convince them that the meeting did not take place: “The Chamber has already explained in paragraph 118 its position on the testimony given by this particular witness in the specific circumstances outlined above.

Accordingly, the Chamber does not consider that the asserted discrepancy between the references to dogs as the animals used during the 15 April 2007 meeting and the testimony of Reverend Kosgei in that regard is of such a nature as to invalidate the credibility of the testimony of Witness 8 in relation to the 15 April 2007 meeting,” they said.

Kosgey's derogatory meeting alleged delivered at a speech he made in September 2, 2007 and given as testimony by witness 8 was considered too “precise and detailed” to be denied by the clergyman whose evidence was already doubted.

Cheramboss is cited by several witnesses as having played a significant role in the planning meetings including hosting one of the meetings.

Ends........./.

No immunity for presidents in international law, ICC rules

BY Nzau Musau

THERE is no immunity for sitting presidents in the international law as far as international crimes are concerned , ICC ruled earlier this week in a quiet but historic decision which also trashed African Union resolutions on the matter.

The ruling given in respect of Malawi over failure to arrest Sudan President Omar Bashir when he visited the country recently flies in the face of Attorney General Githu Muigai's statement that the Rome Statute itself recognizes this immunity.

It also flies in the face of AU which has been using Article 98 (1) of Rome Statute to urge its membership not to honor requests to arrest Bashir. Using AU's arguments, Kenya refused to arrest Bashir last year when he visited the country.

The article says that “the court may not proceed with a request for surrender or assistance which would require the requested State to act inconsistently with its obligations under international law with respect to the State or diplomatic immunity of a person or property of a third State, unless the Court can first obtain the cooperation of that third State for the waiver of the immunity.”

This is in sharp contrast to Article 21 (2) which says that “Immunities or special procedural rules which may attach to the official capacity of a person, whether under national or international law, shall not bar the Court from exercising its jurisdiction over such a person.”

But in their ruling, Judges Sanji Monageng, Sylvia Steiner and Cuno Tarfusser said acceptance of article 27(2) of the Statute implies waiver of immunities for the purposes of article 98(1).

Moreover and according to them, there is no immunity for international crimes for anyone. They stretched their arguments on this back to March 1919 in the aftermath of the first World War when the Commission on the Responsibility of the Authors of the War and on Enforcement of Penalties rejected such an idea.

“There is no reason why rank, however exalted, should in any circumstances protect the holder of it from responsibility when that responsibility has been established before a properly constituted tribunal. This extends even to the case of heads of States,” the judges quoted the commission as recommending.

The commission also stated that the privilege of immunity for presidents is one of “practical expedience in municipal law” and is not fundamental. It said although applicable in home countries, it means nothing internationally.

The judges also quoted the precedents of the Tokyo and Nuremberg tribunals constituted after second world war and which both rejected the idea of immunity saying authors of international crimes could not be allowed to “shelter themselves behind their official positions” in order to escape punishment.

To arguments of diplomatic immunity, the judges reminded AU that the international military tribunal sitting in Tokyo in 1946 convicted defendant Hiroshi Oshima, the Japanese ambassador in Berlin despite his assertion that he was protected by this diplomatic immunity.

“Diplomatic privilege does not import immunity from legal liability, but only exemption from trial by the Courts of the State to which an Ambassador is accredited, in any event this immunity has no relation to crimes against international law charged before a tribunal having jurisdiction,” the 1946 judgment read.

The judges quoted the principles of international law recognized in the charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and in the judgment of the tribunal as saying that the fact that a person who commits a crime against international law is a president “does not relieve him from responsibility.” The principles were adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1950 and are the basis for Rome Statute.

Further the judges quoted recent international tribunals and international practices as rejecting the idea of presidential immunity. They quoted Article 7(2) of the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia as saying that presidents are not exempt from criminal responsibility.

They said on several occasions especially after the transfer of Slobodan Milosevic, the ICTY stated that this provision (article 7(2) ) was assertive of customary international law. They said the same principle had been adopted by the International Law Commission in drafting a code of crimes against peace and security of mankind.

In their lengthy ruling, the judges also cited the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which held that although customary international law provided for immunity of certain officials, such immunities mean nothing in an international court arena.

“Therefore, the chamber finds that the principle in international law is that immunity of either former or sitting Heads of State can not be invoked to oppose a prosecution by an international court,” the judges said.

They said this applies even to former or sitting heads of states which are not party to the statute as Sudan. In any case, the judges observed, trying heads of state has gained 'widespread recognition as accepted practice” in the last ten years.

“Even some states which have not joined the court have twice allowed for situations to be referred to the court by UN Security Council Resolutions, undoubtedly in the knowledge that these referrals might involve prosecution of heads of state who might ordinarily have immunity from domestic prosecution,” they said.

The judges said membership of the statute had hit a critical mass of 120 states, all of whom had accepted having any immunity they had under international law stripped from their top officials.

The ruling was provoked by an explanation by Malawi that it failed to arrest Bashir because he is a sitting head of state who enjoys certain privileges and immunities under the principles of public international law, because Sudan is not a member of ICC and because the AU had opposed such a move in the first place.

Malawi had also cited its domestic law granting the immunity but this was considered irrelevant by the court.

The judges said Malawi failed in its duty as ICC member by deciding on the law instead of letting the court do its work, refusing to respond to court's request to arrest Bashir and more substantially, in refusing to arrest him.

Inside Courtroom 600 where Nazi's leadership was tried

By NZAU MUSAU

That four great nations , flushed with victory and stung with injury stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that power has ever paid to reason. US chief Prosecutor at Nuremberg Robert H. Jackson.

THE flapping flags of these victorious nations still fly outside the Nuremberg Palace of Justice 66 years after they capitulated Germany, overthrew the Nazi's and committed their defiant leaders to a historic trial. Two statues of human figures looking to the opposites stand over and above the entrance to this expansive building. One of them - seemingly a woman - is looking up holding onto her shoulders and has a dove perched on her right hand. The other - most likely a man - is looking down holding on to his own chains.

You are entering Courtroom 600 where for the first time in the history of modern civilisations, high status men were hauled before the world to answer to charges of grave crimes committed against fellow human beings. Jackson, the former US Attorney General and associate justice of US Supreme Court before he was appointed US chief prosecutor at the trial, could not have been more right on the effect of the trial which took place inside these doors.

Yet, the philosophy behind committing the Nazi leaders to international trial right in their own yard instead of hanging them on capture has never been fully appreciated for years until recently with the formation of International Criminal Court. Whether the trial was fair or not is a debate for another day. For now, however, it is fact that the very idea of constituting an international trial, as Jackson said, remains undoubtedly one of the most significant tributes that power has ever paid to reason.

Besides the ICC, the “Memorium Nuremberg Trials” exhibition which opened in 2010, exactly 65 years after Courtroom 600 opened its doors to the Nazi leaders and collaborators, is perhaps another testimony to this underestimation of the significance of the trials. Germany society, just like the rest of the world, had over the years seen the trials and the resultant justice as victors trials and justice. In a big way, as the curator at the exhibition Henrike Zentgiar told us as she led us into Courtroom 600, this was actually true.

'In August of 1945 and a few months after the allied forces liberalised Nuremberg, the US took over this building which remained largely undamaged and refurbished it for the trial. Courtroom 600 was remodelled and American furniture and objects replaced German's,” she said. Walking into the exquisitely paneled Courtroom 600 armed with the consciousness that this is where some of the history's evil men - men who plotted and executed gross evil using the state - were stood to account for their deeds conjures up very sad feelings.

The courtroom is largely as it was during the period of trial with very little adjustments effected in 1961 when it was handed back to Germans and the Bavarian judiciary took the initiative to remove all American alterations. “The defense stack has however remained as it was in 1945,” Zentgiar says while pointing to the defence side where lawyers of the suspects sat.

Behind them sat top Nazi leadership of Herman Goring, Rudolf Heb, Joachim von Ribbetrop, Wilhem Keietel, Ernst kaltenbrunner, Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank, Wilhem Frick, Julius Streicher, Wather Funk, Hjalmar Schacht, Karl Donitz, Erich Raeder, Baldur von Schirach and Fritz Sauckel.

Others were Alfred Jodl, Franz von Papen, Arthur Seb-Inquart, Albert Speer, Kostantin von Neurath and Hans Fritzsche. Others who never made it to the courtroom but were nevertheless indicted included Robert Ley (committed suicide before trial), Gustav Krupp von Bohlen (due to ill health) and Martin Bormann (who was missing).

Behind them is the panelled wall and a door through which they entered the courtroom from an adjacent prison. Above the door is a decorative sculpture depicting two men holding daggers and posing vengeance. The only symbol of hope and redemption for the Nazi leaders here is a crucifix which, however, as the curator tells us, is a latest addition. It poignantly hangs over the front wall and above the bench were the judges sat.

If only it hang on in there in those grueling eleven months of trial, it would have served the convicts a great deal in instilling hope for the afterlife which if Jackson's opening speech is anything to go by, was obviously beckoning. Up the court now runs the exhibition which details the road travelled from Nuremberg to the Hague where a permanent international criminal court now sits. The exhibition starts with the history of international tribunal noting that Nuremberg was not the first.

“Contrary to what people think, this was not the first time the world thought of international tribunals. Twelve people had actually been tried of world war one,”Zentgiar says as she leads us through the history of the international criminal law leading to the Rome Statute.The Nuremberg trials, as Zentgiar explains, were largely seen in Germany as “Anglo-American victors justice” and as a result there is very little research that has been done on the role of the Soviets and the defence in the delivery of the justice.

The role of media in the trials is also captured in the exhibition. German media was more or less banned although many Germany journalists who had been exiled were part of the team that covered the trials. Of the 240 slots available to the media, only seven were given to Germany-based journalists but only after thorough de-nazification. The rest of the journalists came from outside Germany although like stated above, some of them were actually Germans.

One such journalist and whose press entry to Nuremberg is displayed at the exhibition is Willy Brandt who would later become a chancellor of Germany in 1969. Brandt, originally Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm had escaped Nazi's Germany and was then a correspondent for Labour Party Press in Norway and Sweden.

The video recordings of the trial can be played at the exhibition including the final sentencing in which 10 of the suspects were sentenced to hang while seven got long terms in prison.“Their bodies were taken to Munich, burnt and ash thrown into a river. As we were to later learn as a country, the idea of throwing their ash into a river was a good idea,” Zentgiar explains while recounting a story of one of the prisoners who hanged himself in prison in 1987.

The mistake made is that the prisoner was buried in a known location and over the years, his grave has turned into a pilgrimage of sorts with neo-Nazi's coming to pay their tributes every other year.

Subsequently, other trials took place in Nuremberg to try other Nazi collaborators because as Zentgiar says “almost everybody was involved at their own levels.” The trials continued until late 1950s when Americans seeking to appease Germans away from communist influence replaced the word “punishment” with “rehabilitation.”

The exhibition has displayed time-lines of key events on development of international criminal law starting with Nuremberg trial in 1945, the definition of Nuremberg principles in 1950, International tribunal for former Yugoslavia of 1993, Rwanda tribunal of 1994 and Rome statute of 1998. “It took 40 years for Nuremberg trial to be accepted in Germany. This goes to show how painful and difficult it is for people to deal with such a past,” Zentgiar concludes while pointing to a world map conflict spots and the years the conflicts erupted.

Kenya is featured in this shameful list and the year “2010” attached to it. This is the year the ICC got involved in the post-election violence issue. According to Germany ambassador to Kenya Margit Hell-wig Boette, Kenyans can learn a lot from Nuremberg, the first lesson being that there is nothing like collective responsibility.

“Crimes are committed by individuals and not by communities. We had a long discussion on this as German people and we figured out that collective guilty is only important in prevention of crimes. The concept of collective responsibility does not however exists in law,” Hellwig-Boette says. She said Germans saw individuals hurled before Nuremberg for their involvement in horrendous crimes and this was and still is an invaluable lesson that can be exported to Kenya: “When I look at the ICC involvement in Kenya, I see the same thing. These are individuals, not communities.”

Jackson the US prosecutor had restated this in his closing remarks in explaining the philosophy behind the trial as a “great effort to make peace more secure” and constituting a “juridical action of a kind” to ensure that those who commit grave crimes against humanity will pay for it personally.

Rome Statute is modern history's greatest tribute to this philosophy because, to paraphrase Jackson's famous opening speech at Nuremberg, the crimes that ICC seeks to punish have been so calculated, so malignant and so devastating, that civilisation cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot survive their being repeated.This is why every senior Kenyan leader, business executive, youthful student and all who visit Germany must make a pilgrimage to Nuremberg's Courtroom 600 and see how far the world of international justice has come.

Former Nazi Congress Hall; the shame of Adolf Hitler's Germany explored

By NZAU MUSAU

The purpose of Nazi architecture and technology should be to create ruins that would last a thousand years and thereby overcome the transience of the market - Adolf Hitler


TOWERING, forbidding and quaint are perhaps the best adjectives to describe the oval shell of the unfinished 1930’s former Nazi Congress Hall which still stands at Nuremberg city in Germany.

Behind this sensory description however is an underlying significance of the building’s sordid testimony to the megalomania of the National Socialist regime which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945 when it was routed during the 2nd World War.
The enormity and roughness of this 1935 monumental edifice is not appreciated from outside where a facade of granite panels conceals the clinker which makes the most of the building.

Not until one goes through the entrance to “Fascination and Terror”exhibition on one of the two head-buildings closing the U shaped hall and walks up through to a suspended platform at the very end that one gets a dramatic view.
Perhaps this is why our guide Vanessa Lattich of International Nuremberg Principles Academy founding office ensured that this would be our last stop of the exhibition before a scheduled lecture upstairs by historian Eckart Dietzfelbinger. “As you can see, it was never finished and it now stands as the largest remaining monumental Nazi building in Germany. It was modelled along the fashion of ancient Coliseum of Rome and was meant to host a maximum of 50,000 people,” Lattich told us from the platform.

Designs of the edifice now stored at the centre shows that a vast roof with no underpinning was to stretch over the interior of the court. The hall was to reach a height of 70 metres and a diameter of 250 metres. It only reached 39 metres.

And yet this congress, as Lattich told us, was just one of the ten such public structures straddling an 11 square kilometres area dubbed Nazi Party Rally Grounds commissioned by the self-appointed “Supreme Master Builder” of Germany himself, Adolf Hitler.
These, besides the congress hall, were the 150,000 people capacity Lutpold Arena, the 100,000 capacity Zeppelin Field, the municipal stadium (now easyCredit stadion), the 2 km long and 60 metres wide Great Road and the 400,000 capacity Germany stadium which never took off.
It also included the March Field complex where 11 of planned 24 towers had been erected, SS barracks, KdF town of folklore and funfair and the infamous Camp Zone which started off as housing camp for rally organizers but became a prison for prisoners of war from 1939.

“This is where the Nazi movement celebrated itself in an almost obscene fashion, presenting an appealing but false picture of their regime to the world. As they openly geared people to war, they sowed the seed that would yield a hideous harvest in the above-named sites,” Nuremberg Museums writes of the Nazi Party Rally Grounds complex.

The area has since been reduced to about four square kilometres with majority of them destroyed during the second world war by the allied powers (US, UK, France, Russia and China).

Information available at the Documentation Centre now open to the public shows that the buildings were fashioned to project Hitler’s socialist power both to the world and to the Germans. The gigantic dimensions of the structures were meant to both impress and intimidate a rally attendant. “Every year and for one week during the third riech (Hitler’s state), more than 500,000 participants attended these rallies which the Fuhrer (Hitler) himself opened and addressed,” Lattich told us. Hitler had in 1933 upon coming to power declared Nuremberg the “city of the Nazi Party Rallies.”

Nuremberg was the city of traditions in Germany boasting a rich imperial history, splendid scenery, enough space and good infrastructure. The super fast and well-connected rail system in the city is as good now as it was in Fuhrer’s reign.

Moreover, the Nazi’s were well established in this part of Germany with a strong regional leader in Julius Streitcher, also the publisher of Der Sturmer newspaper famed for its strong anti-semitic stance and who would later be hanged after the Nuremberg trials of 1945/46.
The exhibition “fascination and terror” which is located in the north wing of the Congress Hall tells it all; the causes, the context and consequences of the national socialist reign of terror; all in sequential manner.

At the first stop on the rise of the NSDAP, a huge picture which bespeaks of fanatical support for the party welcomes you. Together with a larger one juxtaposed with it of military men loading canons with volleys, they sound the drum beats of war.

The next stop is “seizing of power” where all aspects of Hitler’s attempted coup together with the photos are displayed. Among them is a photo showing Hitler and his co-conspirators storming Berlin on the night of the ill-fated coup in 1923 during which a number of Nazis were killed and Hitler arrested.

Hitler used his trial and subsequent imprisonment to his own advantage. Because every word he said was reported in the media, he used this opportunity to raise the prominence of Nazism and spread its ideals. Although sentenced five years, he ended up serving less than a year.
Whiling his time in prison, Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, the anti-semitic book which also outlined his political theory embedded in hatred for communism and Judaism and rooted in his desire to conquer more land for Germany.

The third stop at the exhibition is “the beginnings of dictatorship” which details Hitler’s early days in power which started with the famous “Reich stag fire” which burned down German parliament in Berlin on February 1933 and a few weeks after Hitler had been sworn in as a chancellor. “The arson attack was used to mount a major crackdown on opponents of Hitler and essentially the installation of a totalitarian regime led by Hitler,” Lattich said. Some historians have considered the arson a Nazi sanctioned operation.

Thereafter followed deliberate moves to persecute Jews whom the system blamed for everything starting with boycott of Jewish businesses and culminating in the “Nuremberg Racial Laws” of 1935 which formally reduced the Jews to second class citizens.
The next two stops at the exhibitions are dedicated to the two myths of the time and which Hitler’s propped and his propaganda machinery advanced; the Fuhrer myth and the Volksgmeinschaft (social solidarity) myth.

The various aspects of idolization of Hitler are displayed here from adulatory head-figures of his likeness, triumphal pictures and self-embossed medals which were hung all over. A series of pictures that struck me is one that captured Hitler arriving in Nuremberg for the Nazi rallies taking from both the skyline and another on the ground.

Going side by side this adulation of Hitler as savior and super-human was the elevation of the German race and its separation from other lesser races, especially the Jews.

Yet other sections deal with the building of the Nazi Party Rallies by war prisoners, rituals conducted at the rallies, organization of the rallies, racism and antisemitism, path to war, war of annihilation against the Soviet Union, Germany resistance and finally and most inevitably, the Nuremberg trials.

The most moving aspect for me at the exhibition was the ascending/descending walkway exhibition of little paper cuttings bearing names of holocaust victims ranked according to the concentration camps where the met their fate.

Coming down from the suspended platform atop the building and looking at the victims’ names enclosed in glass lit up by parallel running streams of light, one feels like he’s descending down to hell. This is the purest testimony to the wickedness of man.
Auschwitz, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka- coming down in that order, read like hell-stations with all the background information I had on them in mind.“It can repeat itself in any place even now, if structures within a state are not controlled properly by those entities which are supposed to play that role in a democracy or any other system,” Dietzfelbinger told us with benefit of history on its side.

By the time we were done with the tour and the lectures, all of us were tired having flown from Netherlands via Hamburg and to Nuremberg earlier in the day but there was no way I was going to leave the centre. I slipped away into the dimly lit halls alone and engrossed myself into watching Nazi rally videos and speeches of the Fuhrer.

I was studying the Nazi rally grounds design maps when the bell for closing up the exhibition rang and I realized I was all alone. It took me quite a while to find the exit route and when I did, I found my grumpy colleagues waiting downstairs.
As we walked out of the centre, I recalled ethnic profiling happening in our country and the lamentations of Jesus in Luke 19: 41-43 came to mind. “And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.”

I wished, if only our leadership and all those who significantly shape the course of our country’s history would visit the ‘Fascination and Terror’ exhibition and know of the things that cause strife and war.

Mutunga should keep his stud even if it means losing the CJ job

By NZAU MUSAU

I have two ancestors; a man and a woman. They both had earrings and in 2003 as I prayed to them they instructed me to wear one so that they can protect me, Dr. Willy Mutunga.

IN his book Bantu Philosophy which is credited with triggering the debate on the nature of African philosophy, Belgian Catholic priest Placide Tempels made a very interesting observation about Africans.
While ministering among the Luba people of Congo DRC, Tempels noticed that even the most accomplished of African Christian converts retreated to their traditions whenever overtaken by moral lassitude, dangers or suffering.
They did so in spite of the great promise Christianity offered them leading Tempels to seek the basis upon which they did this.
Tempels arrived at the conclusion that the Luba people reverted to their traditional way of life “because their forefathers and ancestors had left them with practical solutions of the great problems of humanity; the problem of life and death, of salvation or destruction.”
“Behavior can neither be universal or permanent unless it is based upon a concatenation of ideas, a logical system of thought, a complete positive philosophy of the universe, of man and of things which surround him, of existence, of life, death and life beyond,” Tempels wrote.
This philosophy of Africans, Tempels found, lay in the bodywork of beliefs and customs held fundamentally dear to not just Lubanms but all Africans- so much so that even a fully westernized and learned person like Dr. Willy Mutunga would relate with his ancestors and make no apology of it.
Upon further examination, Tempels found out that the African behavior and practices centred on the single value of vital force and the relation with forces starting with the highest, God. The forces descend in hierarchical structure from God, to ancestors, to living beings, to animals, to plants and to the inorganic matter.
To an African mind, these forces are interdependent, reinforcing and corresponding in reverence. Ancestors are very important to Africans because according to our philosophy, they can strengthen or enfeeble us. And so are animals, plants and fellow beings.
The most important part of this philosophy is its place in developing the moral and legal rules we so hold dear as well as an objective jurisprudence. Using the relation of the hierarchical forces, what is “good” and “right” is clearly set apart and corresponding consequences apparent.
Any African who comprehends this can only do what is good. True knowledge or wisdom in this context is therefore the knowledge and appreciation of the various forces, their hierarchical ordering, interaction and resultant effects.
In African thought, Dr. Mutunga must necessarily be a wise man because he appears to appreciate the forces and more particularly the place of ancestors in his life, his western education and conditioning notwithstanding.
In endorsing him, Prof. Yash Ghai had this to say: “He has a particular commitment to developing modes of analysis which are deeply rooted in African realities. He has humanistic politics and social justice but without rancor and with modesty.”
Many other people attest to his impeccable values which I here submit is embedded in African philosophy and only polished by his Western intellectual conditioning. If it is honesty, Dr. Mutunga is honest because it is in his best interests and the interests of other “forces” around him to be honest.
It is not to please some cultural apostates- as Okot p’Bitek called them- like William Ruto, who play culturally convenient when it suits them. One time they are seated on three-legged stools being “blessed” by elders and another time they are ridiculing African “spirits” in Christian crusades.
And if Dr. Mutunga is wrong to relate with spirits of his dead ancestors, why is Ruto and other Christians right to relate with spirits of Jesus of Nazareth who died more than 2000 years ago in Calvary?
But Mutunga is not about to budge. He is ready to honor his ancestors with the ear stud and lose the CJ- which is an offer for service anyway. This is because he knows where proper value lies between cowing to cultural apostates and honoring his ancestors. He is wise!
But ancestor’s honor aside, Dr. Mutunga’s ear stud is even more important for another reason. In an era of seemingly still-born African renaissance, culturally-blended minds assuming leadership roles is very crucial.
Like argued before, most Africans still hold certain values very dear in spite of Western influence. These are the very people African leaders- political, spiritual or otherwise are supposed to lead. The success of their leadership is much dependent on how they appreciate their ways and relate to them.
This is on top of the reality of a modern nation-state modeled in Western form. Dr. Mutunga is therefore fine, unapologetic blend and antithesis for apostates who seek to lose us in the ensuing confusion of our own identities.
If it eventually boils down to between choosing between the CJ job and keeping his earring, Mutunga should choose the latter else he will be punished severely by the very ancestors who bid him spot it.