Kenya: Call for Accountability

b. Rape and sexual violence

1. Individual and gang rapes, sometimes using objects, were committed in front of families. Men as well as women were targeted based on their ethnicity and political affiliation. Genital mutilation, including castration and forced male circumcision, were rampant.
2. The police told the commission that there were no incidents reported of sexual or gender-based violence. General Service Unit, regular and administration police were however found to have taken part in the rapes (including gang rape) and obstructed reporting and investigations.

c. Official response

1. The Government did nothing to ease the tensions before the elections. It posted 1,600 Administration Police officers to Nyanza because, in the testimony of the Head of the Public Service to the Commission, it was hostile territory.
2. The Commissioner of Police ordered the release of Chinkororo and SunguSungu gangs involved in violence before the elections. Police officers were posted to receive and relay election results in orders clearly outside their call of duty.
3. The National Security Intelligence Service acted suspiciously outside its mandate by seeking 50 accreditations for election observers and conducting opinion polls in order to provide information to the Head of Public Service.
4. The police in North Rift and the provincial administration were unprepared for the violence, raising questions about their coordination with intelligence services. Although the commission noted individual acts of personal courage among police officers in saving lives, the police in North Rift participated in the violence, or were just divided and overwhelmed.
5. The Cabinet security committee never met throughout the election period and after, and there were no joint preparations for what would possibly arise. There were no formal meetings at the national level, raising questions about who was in charge and who was in control of the security apparatus. Variations of this misnomer would be apparent at the provincial level.
6. The police ban on assembly and the ban on live broadcasting worsened the security situation in the country. Further investigations into police use of force and rape as well as records on the use of ammunition and supplies require independent investigators.

d Impunity

The Attorney General is culpable for promoting impunity. He has been in charge of prosecutions for the entire time that the parliamentary select committee chaired by Kennedy Kiliku and the Judicial Commission of Inquiry chaired by Justice Akilano Akiwumi made recommendations about further investigations and prosecutions for ethnic-based violence. The AG's role in failing to follow up on the Kiliku and Akiwumi reports is stark. For their part, the police claimed they had not even read the reports.

The recommendations

The political class is distorting the Waki Report to appear as if it only recommends their own punishment. Fortunately, it does more than that. Kenya is much bigger than the 10 or so people on the list of perpetrators that the commission has handed to the Panel of Eminent African Personalities. Given a choice between the 10 suspects and the 38 million Kenyans, our choice is obvious.

Let us review the recommendations of the Waki team again ...

1. The police have been severely indicted in this report. To quote, the criminal involvement of the police ranged from "murder to gang rape and looting". A GSU officer hacked off a man's hand. They stole and extorted bribes to protect people. The commission recommends that the administration police should be abolished and its officers integrated into the Kenya police Service. These changes are long overdue. From the mediation agreement, Kenya should have an independent police commission by January 2009, the AP review should be complete by now, and the legal and policy reforms to establish an independent complaints and civilian oversight authority should be in place already.

It is unbelievable that the leadership of the police force has not been overhauled in view of these findings. Pending actions include: * Review of the Police Act and police standing orders; * Establishing a representative police service commission; * Launching a modern code of conduct;
* Setting up a statutory Directorate of Criminal Investigations * Creating civilian oversight on the police.

2. Sexual and gender based violence were pervasive, yet there were no institutions to deal with it at police stations and public hospitals. The commission recommends that a Rapporteur on Sexual Violence (with appropriate powers and staff, reporting to staff) should be appointed to monitor the work of the Gender Commission and gender units in various ministries, and to provide an annual report to Parliament.

3. The partisan involvement of the Head of the Public Service and the provincial administration in the elections and the violence that followed it call for radical institutional reform that goes beyond changing faces.

4. The Attorney General told the commission that he was waiting for evidence to prosecute perpetrators of the violence. He is too closely linked to the culture of impunity and should be relieved of his duties. The commission recommends the creation of a special tribunal to go round the culture of impunity and the AG. The tribunal will try people first and offer them an opportunity to defend themselves. The constitutional amendment Bill has been withdrawn to insert provisions that accommodate the IREC recommendations. This is also the time to include the recommendations on the Special Tribunal.

5. The President and the Prime Minister must provide leadership with respect to speed and efficiency in implementation of commission reports, just as they did with regard to the rapid implementation of the National Accord Bill.

Parliament must not shirk its responsibility to pass the following laws as recommended: a. Special Tribunal b. International Crimes Bill, 2008 c. Witness Protection Act to be operationalised (can government maintain safety of witnesses) d. Freedom of Information Bill

6. The Government has the following policy tasks ahead: a. National Security Policy b. Conflict and disaster early warning and response systems c. Joint operations preparedness arrangements d. Broader participation in the National Security Advisory Council

Our conclusions

1. We are witnessing a situation where the politicians in government are satisfied that they are now sharing power and that it is business as usual. It is disturbing that they prefer to push all issues that contributed to the crisis under the carpet in order to turn such issues into an instrument to access power in 2012.
2. We as Kenyan civil society are certain that the crisis we witnessed is not over. These same politicians will certainly break this country if they go unpunished.
3. We demand the full implementation of the Waki recommendations and immediate disbandment of the ECK. A small team of no more than three people can be appointed by Kenyans to run ECK pending establishment of rules to compose another body.
4. We as civil society are calling on International Community to immediately begin the process of taking perpetrators to the International Criminal Court.
5. We request the International Community not to be complacent or to call this a Kenyan problem requiring a Kenyan solution. These are politicians punishing the rest of the society and refusing to implement these recommendations is not a Kenyan solution.
6. Civil society will soon be contacting the ICC to discuss how to have the perpetrators of violence brought to book.

Signed- * Africa Centre for Open Governance (AfriCOG) * Awaaz * Bunge la Mwananchi * Centre for the Development of Marginalised Communities (CEDMAC) * Centre for Law and Research International (CLARION) * Centre for Multiparty Democracy (CMD) * Centre for Rights, Education and Awareness for Women (CREAW) * Coalition on Violence Against Women (COVAW) * The Cradle-the Childrens Foundation * Constitution and Reform Education Consortium (CRECO) * East African Law Society (EALS) * Fahamu * Foster National Cohesion (FONACON) * Gay And Lesbian Coalition of Kenya (GALCK) * Haki Focus * Hema la Katiba * Independent Medico-Legal Unit (IMLU) * Innovative Lawyering * Institute for Education in Democracy (IED) * International Commission of Jurists (ICJ-Kenya) * International Centre for Policy and Conflict * Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) * Kenya Leadership Institute (KLI) * Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) * Kituo cha Sheria * Mazingira Institute * Muslim Human Rights Forum * The National Civil Society Congress * National Convention Executive Council (NCEC) * RECESSPA * Release Political Prisoners Trust * Sankara Centre * Society for International Development (SID) * The 4 Cs * Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF) * Urgent Action Fund (UAF)-Africa And concerned citizens: Shailja Patel Mary Onyango Philo Ikonya

Kenyan Catholic Bishop's Statement on the Waki and Kriegler Reports

Pathways to peace

"Your word is a lamp for my steps, and a light for my path" - Psalm 118:1

Catholic Information Service for Africa
http://www.cisanewsafrica.org

We, the Catholic Bishops of Kenya, meeting at the Tabor Hill Spiritual Centre, Nyahururu address this message to our Kenyan Catholic faithful and all people of good will.

Our country has undergone a difficult time during 2008. Gradually we are recovering and beginning again to find our way. We gladly acknowledge the commitment and efforts of many people to improve the situation. However, there is still a long way to go. There are warning signs again flashing in our country. After the widely acclaimed breakthrough in forming the Grand Coalition government and the hopes that sprang from this achievement, negative thoughts and factors have begun to take hold of the minds of the people. The roots of the problems that preceded the December 2007 election are still there. The non-implementation of so many reports, prior to these elections, had already made people sceptical. The voter education programme for the December 2007 elections had not prepared the people to accept that, in a democracy, there must be a winner and a loser.

The performance of the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) was less than satisfactory. Kenyans felt betrayed. And since then, tensions have been deliberately created by people with vested interests. The innocence, unemployment (joblessness) and insecurity of youth have been cynically utilised, while land ownership remains at the heart of many of our problems. To this day, we know that many people are not resettled (Internally Displaced Persons, Returnees and those who have not been compensated).

The Kriegler and Waki Reports, just released, have simply brought home to us the gravity of our situation. Kenya is at a crossroads. We can take the opportunity that these reports provide to confront the "culture of impunity" or degenerate into further crises, ineptitude and moral stagnation. Consequently, we support the implementation of these reports.

In implementing their findings, however, we have to carefully distinguish between the sins and crimes of an individual and those of a group (or groups) of people. To our Catholic faithful, we say that as believers in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we have first to recognise our mistakes, failures and sins. We know that the word "reconciliation" is much used. But often the word is misused. For us, believers in Jesus Christ, the first step in the process of reconciliation is with God and then, with our neighbours.

This first step is that the person recognises that his/her sin is personal. It is not a consequence of rules fixed by law or recommendations of a report. It has to be the sinner's conviction that he/she was responsible for an action that was not in accordance with the will of God. Then, in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, on acceptance of the failure by the sinner, the love of God is expressed through forgiveness, the giving of a penance and the carrying out of reparation. Part of this reparation - which is the second step - will be the seeking of forgiveness from the person one has wronged and redressing all aspects of the evil committed.

Finally, the process of reconciliation will require that the one who was wronged will be ready and prepared to forgive - a courageous and generous expression of what we pray each day in the "Our Father": "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us".

We appeal in a special way to Christians and even more so to Catholics who hold positions of responsibility - from those holding political leadership positions, those in administrative positions in government, those with responsibilities entrusted to them by the communities - to recognise in conscience the ills of this country and to move resolutely and confidently towards reconciliation.

To other Christians and people of good will, we say that everyone needs to recognise his/her failures in building the new society. What is wrong has to be denounced. Each person has to face his/her responsibilities before God and neighbour. The promotion of the good of all, and particularly those who are poor and seemingly without a future, has to be at the centre of a just, compassionate and progressive Kenya. All of us - together - can work to speedily remedy the unacceptable situation of the IDPs, the returnees and the non-compensated.

Together, we can work at conflict management, counselling, trauma healing, and encourage efforts at grassroots level to rebuild relationships on the personal level and across ethnic divides. On all these aspects, we can reinforce the already commendable efforts underway in various parts of the country - clear signs of hope for all of us.

Finally, our beloved country Kenya stands to gain by "taking its medicine" now, regaining its strength, developing the image of peace, becoming a beacon of light and ambassadors of peace throughout the entire region.

Jesus said: "Behold, I am with you always; yes, until the end of time." - Matthew 28:20

Signed by:
His Eminence John Cardinal Njue, Chairman Kenya Episcopal Conference, Archbishop of Nairobi & Apostolic Administrator of Muranga.

Thursday, November 6th, 2008

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