Posted on Monday 20 July 2009 - 16:25
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AfricaNews Monitoring desk
Kenya's cabinet put off a decision on how to deal with perpetrators of post-election violence in 2008 for another week, with ministers split between using a local tribunal or the ICC. Pressure has been mounting on Kenyan authorities to punish those behind the worst violence in the history of that country.
kibaki
The post election violence in that country killed at least 1,300 people and displaced 300,000.

Crisis mediator and former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan handed over an envelope containing the names of 10 suspects to ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo earlier this month.

"After making considerable and substantial progress the cabinet adjourned to next week to enable a team headed by the minister for justice ... to refine the proposals discussed," said a statement from the president's office, according to Reuters.

Analysts said the delay was a sign that rifts in the cabinet were growing, and the fact that some ministers were probably suspects was no doubt complicating matters.

"If they had made considerable progress, then they would have been pumped full of consensus and agreement. So that seems to me that the cabinet probably has so many varied view points they don't know what to do," said Robert Shaw, an economist and political commentator in Nairobi.

Annan's move has heightened pressure on the shaky coalition government, led by President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, to establish a local court quickly or face international justice.

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