The International Criminal Court chief prosecutor today told Kenya’s leaders that he will proceed with trials against suspected perpetrators of postelection violence that left more than 1,000 dead. “I explained to them that I consider that the crimes committed in Kenya were crimes against humanity,” Luis Moreno-Ocampo said after meeting with President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga. “I consider that the gravity is there and therefore I will proceed … I hope that the investigations of the International Criminal Court, if the judges decide to do it, will help Kenya overcome its problems.”The fighting, which flared after the December 2007 elections, displaced hundreds of thousands of Kenyans. It started after the main opposition candidate disputed the results, sparking some of the worst violence in the nation’s history. The botched election and its aftermath also tainted the country’s image as an island of stability in the region. Kibaki and Odinga are the leaders of the shaky coalition government formed in the wake of the violence. They issued a joint statement following their “candid and frank” discussions with the chief prosecutor on Thursday: “The government remains fully committed to discharge its primary responsibility in accordance with the Rome Statute to establish a local judicial mechanism to deal with the perpetrators of the postelection violence,” the joint statement said. “In addition, the government remains committed to cooperate with ICC within the framework of the Rome Statute and the International Crimes Act.” The coalition government missed its own September deadline for setting up a tribunal to try suspects involved in orchestrating the postelection chaos. After the government missed the deadline, the International Criminal Court said it would step in to address impunity in the country. “Kenya will be a world example on managing violence,” Moreno-Ocampo said. The issue of prosecuting postelection culprits has sparked publicized wrangling among members of the coalition government. Analysts say the administration has been reluctant to pursue the prosecutions because the chief suspects are senior government officials. Former U.N. chief Kofi Annan, who negotiated the deal that led to the coalition government, has repeatedly warned that the International Criminal Court would intervene if a tribunal to try the suspects was not established. Annan handed a list of suspects to the ICC in July, a sign that he was losing patience with the delay in the formation of a tribunal. In a visit to the east African nation last month, Annan said that proceedings against culprits need to occur before campaigning starts in Kenya’s next election in 2012. Russian military intelligence believes Georgia might again attack South Ossetia, the pro-Moscow region over which the two countries fought a war last year, a powerful spy chief stated today. Alexander Shlyakhturov, who in April took over command of the military’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), said the situation was strained and accused NATO countries of continuing to supply arms to Georgia. “The situation with Georgia remains tense because the current Georgian authorities do not just refuse to recognize the sovereignty of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but are trying in every way to return these countries…to their jurisdiction,” he said in a rare interview with state news agency ITAR-TASS. “You have to add to this the unpredictability of attempts by the Georgian leadership, headed by (President Mikheil) Saakashvili, which may give in to temptation to use force to tame these obstinate republics as they did last year,” he said.“We do not rule out such a development,” said Shlyakhturov, who controls Russia’s biggest spy agency with agents across the globe and thousands of special forces troops inside Russia. South Ossetia and Abkhazia broke away from Georgian government control in the early 1990s. Russia recognized both as independent states after last year’s five-day war, when its forces repelled a Georgian attack on South Ossetia. But only two other countries, Nicaragua and Venezuela, have followed Russia’s lead, and the rest of the world regards the two regions as part of Georgia. Saakashvili has said he is committed to a unified Georgia but has no pretensions to retake the breakaway areas by force. Manuel Zelaya, the ousted Honduran president, is asking the Obama administration to explain why, after pressing for his reinstatement, United States officials say they will recognize Honduran elections on Nov. 29 even if he is not returned to power first. In a letter sent Wednesday, he asked Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton “to clarify to the Honduran people if the position condemning the coup d’état has been changed or modified.” His request came after Washington’s top envoy to Latin America, Thomas A. Shannon Jr., told CNN en Español that the United States would recognize the elections even if the Honduran Congress decided against returning Mr. Zelaya to power.