News

Compensate crime victims, ICC delegates urge

June 3, 2010

By Patrick Mathangani

Attention shifted to crime victims’ rights with delegates calling for urgent compensation to help them rebuild their lives.

Delegates at the first Rome Statue Review Conference said the victims, including Kenya’s 350,000 displaced persons, must be helped to heal.

Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai said there was still no action towards psychological healing for the Kenyan victims.

The delegates want member countries to increase financial contributions to the International Criminal Court’s trust fund for victims.

They also called for effective measures to seize property of convicted suspects.

Such property would then be sold and proceeds added to the victims’ kitty, they proposed.

Prof Maathai said although there are efforts to counsel the victims, it was not enough as the Government lacked a specific project to address the issue.

She said in the Rift Valley, the effects were devastating, since some victims had suffered up to four times since the 1992 General Election.

"If you live you in a community like Kiambaa and saw your people dying, you wish you were there to die with them," she told The Standard on the sidelines of the conference.

Kenyan lawyer Betty Murungi, who was elected a member of the fund’s board, last year, chaired the session on victims’ rights.

She said trauma in Kenya had become inter-generational, with children undergoing similar violence as their parents.

Ms Murungi said some residents of Central Province had been displaced as early as the 1950s during the colonial era.

"In some cases, it is their grandchildren who are now being traumatised. How are those children dealing with it?" she asked.

The fund is already helping victims in the DRC and Northern Uganda, but is yet to benefit Kenyans.

Restore self-esteem

An ICC official Carta Ferstman said the fund was an important aspect of the reparative work of the court.

"It is important for states to have strength to trace assets of perpetrators. Then, the funds can be given to the Victims Trust Fund," she said.

Group Project for Holocaust Survivors Director Yael Danieli said victims need action to restore equality and self-esteem.

"This can be achieved through restitution, rehabilitation and commemoration. There should also be efforts to relieve victimisation," she said.

Ms Oby Nwankwo of the Civil Resource Development and Documentation Centre, however, said in some instances, trials should be suspended for the sake of pursuing peace.

"Several researches show that ignoring atrocities in the interest of peace reinforces impunity and fails to bring the desired objective of peace," she said.

See this article in its original context on The Standard website.