“Life here is terrible. Our children are dying from the extreme cold. We are refugees in our own country,” says a resident of the Ya Mumbi Internally Displaced Person’s (IDP’s) camp in Kenya’s Northern Rift valley region. But many believe that the trial of Congolese rebel leader Bemba at the ICC is the light at the end of the tunnel.

By Caasi Sagalai

Grace Wakio is one of the IDPs who lost their homes and displaced during the violence following a disputed Kenyan presidential election in 2007. Since then, they have been demanding punishment for perpetrators of the violence, adequate compensation for their losses and resettlement from the camps. But nothing much has come from the government.

"We don’t exist. The government makes empty promises to resettle us, we are an eyesore that they want to wish away but we will remain here until something is done.” Grace is a broken woman.

Hope
The camp lies in the middle of a patch of government land separated from the rest of the population. Compromised hygienic standards and perennial diseases form part of the extreme living conditions in the camp. It is the place nearly 700 people call home, as they await justice.

However, the start of the trial against former Congolese rebel leader Jean Pierre Bemba at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has given a new sense of hope to the IDPs. Bemba’s trial marks the case of the most high profile figure yet to be tried since the court began its work in 2002.

The IDPs view this as a good indication that the Kenyan case will take a similar path with perpetrators of violence being tried at the court.

Justice
ICC’s chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo is expected to go on December 15 before judges to start the trial of Kenya’s post-election violence suspects.

"Let all those who were involved in planning the violence that put people like me in this camp be taken to the ICC and be tried," says Patrick Muchiri, chairman of the Ya Mumbi IDP camp. "We don’t trust local establishments to serve justice, let them face the court to prove their innocence. Pierre Bemba’s trial is a sign of things to come."

Ocampo got a nod to start investigations in the case after the Kenyan parliament failed to vote for the establishment of a local tribunal. Ocampo says he will present two cases against up to six key suspects.

Earlier, a suspended Kenyan cabinet minister had travelled to the ICC to seek the audience of the prosecutor after being named as having had a role in the violence.

"What we know is that he (the suspended cabinet minister) didn’t meet the Chief prosecutor. Like Bemba, let these perpetrators face the full trial," says Muchiri.

Time will serve as the only determinant whether indeed the ICC will run a successful case and the IDP’s will finally see justice delivered.