From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Wed Jul 15 2009 - 23:05:32 EDT
Memo From Nairobi
Kenya’s Bill for Bloodshed Nears Payment
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
NAIROBI, Kenya — The envelope, please — those are the words on many
Kenyans’ lips.
Ever since last year’s eruption of post-election violence, which killed
more than 1,000 people and threatened to drive this once promising country
off a cliff, Kenyans have been waiting to hear who masterminded the
bloodshed and who will pay the price.
A Kenyan commission investigated the violence in October and came up with a
list of several top suspects, widely believed to include some of the
nation’s most powerful men. The names were sealed in a square brown paper
envelope (incongruously wrapped with a white ribbon) and handed over to
Kofi Annan, the former secretary general of the United Nations who took on
the role of peacemaker.
Kenyan politicians had promised Mr. Annan that they would form a special
tribunal to try the suspects here, ending a longstanding culture of
impunity that feeds the ethnic-political bloodshed that convulses Kenya
nearly every election.
But so far, nothing. Kenya’s leaders, paralyzed by competing agendas and
the prospect of prosecuting their own, have refused to set up a tribunal.
So last week, Mr. Annan upped the ante. He sent the envelope with the names
to the International Criminal Court at The Hague, which has now indicated
that it will step in if Kenya fails to act.
“Kenya Cornered,” and “Annan Ambushed Us” blared the Daily Nation,
Kenya’s biggest newspaper.
On Tuesday, the bloated Kenyan cabinet (which has more than 60 ministers
and assistant ministers) called an emergency meeting to decide what to do,
but once again, deadlock. The Kenyan government has essentially three
options: coax a rebellious Parliament into approving a special tribunal;
refer the case to the International Criminal Court, which has already been
criticized for picking on Africa; or do an end run around Parliament and
set up a special branch of Kenya’s judiciary, whose credibility is
“below sea level,” according to one human rights official.
Human rights advocates are urging their government to do something, fast.
“If we don’t deal with the impunity from this last election, the next
one will be horrible,” said Maina Kiai, a former government human rights
official.
Mr. Kiai says that ethnic gangs are rearming themselves across the country,
this time with guns, not machetes. He contends that unless the culprits are
punished for the killings last year, which included hacking up old men and
burning toddlers to death, the next time there is a disputed election,
which he thinks there surely will be, people will be emboldened to wreak
havoc again.
“It’s not peace,” he said, of the semblance of normality that has
returned to Kenya since the election. “It’s a cease-fire.”
Kenya is still wrangling with problems that go back decades, and the
tribunal crisis is wrapped up in a call for sweeping change, including land
reform, electoral reform and constitutional reform. The so-called grand
coalition government, cobbled together after the disputed election, was
supposed to tackle these issues. So far, none of those boxes have been
checked either.
Nothing, though, appears more sensitive than the tribunal. In February,
Parliament shot down a bill to set up a special Kenyan court for
perpetrators of the post-election violence, and in recent days, lawmakers
have indicated that the votes are still not there. Human rights officials
are not surprised.
“If we leave it to Parliament, and I say this as an individual and not on
behalf of my organization, Parliament will not pass a tribunal unless they
are sure the tribunal will be dysfunctional,” said Victor Kamau, a lawyer
at the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights.
Why?
“Because many of the murderers are in the government,” he said.
The names in the envelope have not been made public. But Kenyans have their
suspicions. Several Western diplomats and human rights officials have said
that Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, the son of Kenya’s founding
president, and Agriculture Minister William Ruto are on the list, suspected
of organizing death squads. The two men are from different ethnic groups
and opposite political camps, with Mr. Kenyatta, a Kikuyu, in the
president’s party, and Mr. Ruto, a Kalenjin who quickly scaled the rungs
of the leading opposition movement. One reason for the paralysis over the
tribunal may be that both sides, for once, have the same vested interest:
continuing the impunity.
But all the talk of organizers, masterminds and planners of the
post-election violence raises a big question: how organized was it?
In the days following the election, in December 2007, in which the
incumbent president, Mwai Kibaki, was declared the winner over Raila
Odinga, the opposition leader who is now prime minister, rival gangs
rampaged across Kenya’s slums, in the hillsides and throughout many
towns. Initially, a lot of violence appeared to be spontaneous outrage,
vented along ethnic lines, though upon closer inspection, some of it seemed
to have been organized, at least by local leaders and village elders. But
what remains murky, many political analysts here say, is the extent to
which top politicians were directly involved.
“I think a very large part of the violence was spontaneous,” said
Abdalla Bujra, a Kenyan sociologist. “When it started, it was
spontaneous. Later, there was some level of organization.”
But, Mr. Bujra argued, “none of the top leaders expected this to have
erupted on a massive scale.”
Further bloodshed is another serious fear. Some people worry that if
Kenya’s big men are hauled off to court, they will tell their followers
to kill again.
“We have a history of politicians mobilizing their ethnic constituencies
when they feel threatened personally,” said George Wachira, a peace
advocate in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital.
“But that’s a risk we have to take,” he said. “At some point, we
have to take a stand, and re-establish the rule of law.”
Or, as many other Kenyans might say, establish the rule of law in the first
place.