Send them to the Hague – now!

Kofi Annan has come and gone. His message was clear: Enough of commissions and task forces and ongoing processes. The reforms must now move to completion. Failing which, Armageddon — a situation neither Kenyans, nor the region, nor the rest of the international community want to contemplate.

The question is whether or not the reforms taken up will address the central concern they were meant to — accountability. Accountability of individuals occupying public office. Accountability of public institutions.

Capacity building alone is not enough.

The police, for example, obviously must be better equipped to handle the forms of crime and insecurity now experienced in Kenya.

But better equipment, without a change in the culture of policing, will only increase their capacity to commit human-rights violations.

Individual police officers gone wrong must be held to account.

As must the institution of the police itself for such wrongdoing. Ditto the judiciary.

Which is why ending impunity decisively is important.

And this is also why achieving accountability for the violence that followed the announcement of the presidential poll results is so important.

The Principals and the parties to the Grand Coalition Government are prevaricating — putting their own short-term economic and political interests ahead of the interests of the survivors. But their prevarication is placing the whole country at risk, particularly those in the tense and volatile Rift Valley.

The lesson from Rwanda is clear.

The genocide of 1994 was not its only defining moment.

There were preceding moments of ethnic cleansing from 1959 onwards, each moment worse in intensity and scale.

And while we cannot term what happened in Kenya genocide, certainly the politically instigated clashes of the 1990s had an ethnic dimension to them.

Again, while the forms of violence last year were diverse, they also had ethnic dimensions to them, including violence by state security agencies.

And regardless of the form of violence, the intensity, scale and spread of all forms of violence were all worse than that of the 1990s.

We cannot afford to wait and see whether the trajectory will hold true next time.

We must do everything we can to clearly signal now that no violence will be accepted ever again.

And, in this sense, the struggle for accountability is about not just justice for the survivors, but about deterrence for us all.

What are we to do?

It is important to make an example of those believed to hold command responsibility for the three main forms of violence.

Since both parliament and the Cabinet have refused to move forward on establishing a hybrid tribunal to do so here, this is best done by the International Criminal Court.

Its prosecutor will be here in early November.

Kenyans must insist that the Principals refer the Kenyan situation to the ICC at that time.

We do not want more vague commitments or promises to refer.

We want the actual referral. Failing which, we must do everything we can to ensure the prosecutor takes up the Kenyan situation of his own volition, which he is entitled to do, pending approval of the pre-trial chamber of the ICC.

It will then be important to revisit the option of establishing a hybrid tribunal here, for all other levels of suspected perpetrators.

Finally, we need real dialogue and real action on the dialogue’s outcomes on the ground in all the areas affected by the violence.

Real possibilities for the victims to resume their livelihoods — in small-scale farming, small and medium size businesses and even the professions. Going far beyond the nominal compensation so far distributed.

The Principals must lead. And the first thing they can do to show their leadership is to refer the Kenyan situation to the ICC when its prosecutor is here.

L. Muthoni Wanyeki is executive director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission