The TJRC: What’s in a Name

By LAWRENCE CHITERI
Published July 27, 2009

When William Shakespeare noted “What’s in a name?” he must have had the Kenyan political landscape in mind. Mother Kenya is in deep quagmire, yet this great nation does not for a moment deserve the muck and mire thrust upon her by a small clique of people called politicians. Fellow Kenyans, these erstwhile tricksters imagine they monopolize that unit of thought called intellect and the instruments that come with it; as if that is not enough, they have perpetually adulterated and underrated our capacities to reason, and deluded themselves in our perceived helplessness.

There is however only one, albeit bizarre remedy to the anathema from our rulers, – I insist Rulers! – Round them up, confine them in a desolate Island (like Napoleon Bonaparte was confined in the Island of St. Helena), and then cast the key to their cell in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean! Remember they have since 1992 made us clamor for a second, third, and only God knows which liberation, what we need is a REVOLUTION!

There is sufficient reason for the ideal extrapolated above, ask any Kenyan kindergarten toddler, who killed Tom Mboya, J.M Kariuki, Pio Gama Pinto, Robert Ouko, Horace Ongili etcetera, and they will not need as much as a candy to vomit it out. Furthermore, go to Riverbank Primary school in Nairobi and ask a first grader who was behind Goldenberg, who raided Standard Newspaper, and who consorted with mercenaries – the Artur brothers; and they will tell you without as much as demanding a pinch of salt.

Yet over the years, whenever well placed politicians committed crimes, and they were connected enough to cover it up, the establishment aided them by forming commissions of inquiry to cover them up even further. A few favored Kenyans were importuned to sit on commissions, rewarded via hefty public funds in exchange for tailored and delayed reports. In many instances, the commissions were inhibited by law and poor toothless bulldogs, their findings were quashed by the high court! During President Daniel Arap Moi’s era, commissions of inquiry were set up to review the findings of other commissions and the rest is history.

Let someone in our political establishment point out which commission of inquiry since independence served its purpose, if it was to investigate a political murder, financial scam involving politicians, or massive rigging of elections. So now they have established a Justice, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, whatever for? Go to the bus station and ask any tout, and they will tell you they know of a Judge Waki, his list of names, a Mr. Kofi Annan, Luis Moreno-Ocampo and above all, who the people in the envelope are. Kenyans, this will be the naked TRUTH, after all haven’t we seen them shuffle, and yell all over? We know them – all of us know them- the guilty, they say, are always afraid.

Secondly, what about justice? Now that we have names in an envelope, which Ocampo and Annan are privy to, delaying the release of these names is in effect a delay of JUSTICE. Thirdly, the only legal and established way to redress the truth in a felony is RECONCIL IATION of the doers of such felony and the justice system. Many Kenyans must be turning in their graves to imagine our politicians are half as vile, and their blood hangs over the cloud of ambivalence, shrouded in our political system. We have an effective legal and justice system, when it comes to dealing with chicken and other petty thieves, but porous when it comes to the powerful and moneyed.

Therefore proceed with the Justice Truth and Reconciliation business and the result will be, disappearance into oblivion of major witnesses, their kith and kin, the weak, poor, and the helpless “unfortunate victims of cleansing of political sins.” You have seen them, – the political elite of course- dilly dally, dither and circumlocute in the matter of political violence, and I will tell you why. The cabinet is a closet teeming with the skeletons of election violence, and other guilt, all of them have something to tuck from our eyes and ears. They are hell bent on safeguarding their hegemony, and this JTRC thing is the ultimate seal to that safeguard.

Furthermore, there is the obvious jostling for positions as Kenya faces a succession, so padlocks to closets harboring skeletons must be tightened. They are guilty, our politicians in cabinet, and outside, all of them. Yet in the wake of all these, our legal system lacks the spine to withstand political power latching. This is an open secret, so President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga know how much a local tribunal will cushion them. William Ruto and his allies know the Hague was long curtailed by legality and legitimacy in Kenya, and now cheekily ply in the vacuum of doubt to hoodwink culpable Kenyans. Ask me why Ruto and his ilk want to go the TJRC way? George Saitoti is a living example of how political lifeline can be lent by challenging a commission’s finding in the high court.

Our cabinet is a league of despots, political mafia and outright killers! Kenyans can only beg Annan and Ocampo to drop the bombshell, let us confirm the names that we already know, and through this scuttle political ambitions of those aspiring to lead us with hands full of blood. Of course they will tell Annan and Ocampo that Kenya is not a failed state. Ha! Ha! Ha! Yet we needed the said foreigners to help us cobble bungled elections, and we still govern via the dose they left us. One Yoweri Museveni aptly summarized it “Sasa Kenya kwisha pata dawa, hapana kuweka dawa kwa kabat” so we are still not a failed state? Someone who knows please tell me.

Reach Lawrence Chiteri at lchiteri@eafricainfocus.com