Kenya's diplomatic Rubicon

In the furore about the invitation of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to the promulgation of Kenya’s new Constitution, the “official” position — or at least the position of those responsible for the invitation, since various arms of the government were still by the week’s end distancing themselves from it — began to emerge in the shape of the following argument:

Kenya is torn between handling its regional political commitments in a practical way and listening to the blandishments of an international community that has in effect merely been looking on as Somalia and Sudan struggle with their problems.

Moreover, Southern Sudan as an immediate neighbour that looks to Kenya and to some extent Uganda for nearly everything from skilled manpower to health, education and investment.

Furthermore, when Sudan or Somalia sink into chaos, it is Kenya that has to bear the brunt in the form of refugees and the proliferation of small arms.

Pouncing on US President Barack Obama’s statement, the “official” side says the United States should be the last to criticise Kenya because the self-same US sent representatives to the swearing-in of President Bashir.

The argument was that they wanted to continue engaging the two partners to entrench democracy and ensure the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

Now, of course, they continue, nobody is keener to see the full implementation of  the CPA than Kenya. The Sudanese peace process was initiated, negotiated and signed in Kenya.

However, the international community has failed to honour its pledges to Sudan. One major factor that is still causing instability in the South is that donors who pledged to help transform the SPLA from a guerrilla outfit into a conventional army have not done so.

It has been left to Kenya to support the training of Sudanese soldiers, police and civil service.

In this context, they say, the visit was a diplomatic success since, in talks with President Kibaki, Khartoum, which had hitherto been trying to ensure that the 2011 referendum does not take place, committed itself to the CPA timetable of January 9, 2011.

The two sides also agreed to speed up the North-South boundary demarcation and also agreed on the leadership of the Referendum Commission.

End of argument.

All this is well and good, but as the critics of this view point out — some of them in the pages of this newspaper — it is disingenuous to argue that only through a public embrace of Bashir, and therefore a public spiting of the International Criminal Court and by extension international law — no matter the merits of the ICC warrant against the Sudanese leader — can these legitimate regional security objectives be obtained. There is such a thing as quiet diplomacy.

As events unfold, it should become clearer whether Kenya pulled off a diplomatic coup or a monumental diplomatic gaffe.