Kenya—a DukeEngage destination—made international headlines last week when its parliament voted to withdraw the country from the International Criminal Court.
The country’s unprecedented withdrawal comes at a time when both the country’s President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto face charges from the Court. Kenyatta and Ruto are accused of orchestrating the bloodshed that followed the 2007 presidential election of Mwai Kibaki, which resulted in more than 1,000 dead and displaced over 600,000 people.
The ICC alleges that the two helped orchestrate the tribes’ massacre in order to gain political power. On Sept. 6, Kenya’s parliament voted to stop assisting the Court.
Sherryl Broverman, associate professor of the practice of biology, said that she was not worried about the effect that the withdrawal might have on student safety.
“What the government of a country does often has little impact on how visitors are treated,” Broverman—who is the president of Women in Secondary Education and Research International, the group that works in collaboration with DukeEngage in Kenya—wrote in an email Wednesday.
In 2013, Kenyatta and Ruto joined forces and were elected in a peaceful process. Although the move will not affect the prosecution of Kenyatta and Ruto, it could mean the end of international prosecutions in Kenya.
Senior Andrew Rotolo, who has made three trips to Kenya to study Kenyan political science, said he does not believe Duke students will be affected by the withdrawal. He added that violence is uncommon in the country except during times of political change.
“Kenya is moving toward a better spot politically,” he said. “It is still relatively safe to be there.”
Broverman noted that the violence that is reported in African countries by the media is often overstated.
“The last election was very peaceful, which you wouldn’t know at all from the recent press coverage,” she said.
Davis Muthoka, a sophomore who was born and raised in Kenya, saw firsthand the effects of the bloodshed following the 2007 Kenyan election cycle.
“I went to an international school, and we had students from all of the tribes in Kenya. Some of the students could not make it to school, and some of them lost relatives,” Muthoka said.
Although there has always been tension in the country, the massacre was not happening all over Kenya, Muthoka said. Some regions of the country—which is roughly twice the land area of Nevada—were completely unaffected.
“I don’t think much is going to change,” Muthoka said when asked whether Kenya’s withdrawal will affect student safety.
Rotolo saw the country’s move to withdraw as political, despite the leaders’ protests that the ICC has acted unfairly toward African leaders.
“They are probably pulling out because they don’t want allegations against them,” he said. “Maybe there is some bit of truth to what they’re saying, but I doubt it.”
No matter the reason for the withdrawal, Broverman believes that the political action of the country will not affect the University’s ability to send students to Kenya.
“Bottom line, right now this is an issue for Kenyan citizens to be concerned about, but not Duke students except as a teachable moment in understanding post-colonial politics,” she wrote.
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