INTRODUCTION

The above passage is drawn from Harry. M. Johnson’s, book, Sociology; a Systematic Introduction and its contents must sound vividly familiar to anyone versed in the gymnastic elasticity characteristic of Kenyan politics. All the defense phrases quoted within it abdicate one integral dynamic-responsibility. Kenyan political leaders never take responsibility for anything and to take responsibility for nothing is to be utterly irresponsible.

To evade responsibility, the Kenyan politician has adopted the split personality disposition of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Message content is determined by audience rather than positional conviction and the end will always justify the means.

Uses of such defense slogans have been volubly heard from politicians in Kenya as investigations into the electoral violence of 2007-8 intensify. This circumstance has no doubt helped beam interrogative light on the personal and institutional conduct of Kenya’s political elite for the first time ever in the country.

Kenya’s political elite has perpetually lived way above the law and their very foreboding today in the face of likely prosecution by the International Court of Justice (ICC) for crimes against humanity is not only a sight to behold but literally a humbling and humanizing experience.

A Commission of enquiry headed by Justice Waki and created to investigate the election violence largely forms the basis of prosecution of the suspects. However, other unrecorded personal testimonies through eye witness accounts, prime news television footage(s) and survivor accounts will doubtless be introduced at the proceedings.

INSTITUTIONAL CULPRITS IN THE 2007 VIOLENCE

POLITICAL PARTIES

The conduct of key institutions in the 2007 Election pogrom requires critical investigation. These are the Orange Democratic movement (ODM), the Party of National Unity (PNU), the general public and the role of government security agencies.

Political parties represented two hostile points of elite interests in the run up to the 2007 general elections, the gullible public implemented their reprehensible designs and with the subsequent break down of law and order, the police joined in with calamitous results.

In fact, to prove their level of culpability, both political parties presented notarized memoranda to the investigative commissions of Justice Kreigler and Justice Waki, each accusing the other of masterminding the 2007 electoral conflict. As a result, the two clubs, in a bid to incriminate one another, unintentionally directed and limited the scope of suspicion and investigation to themselves exclusively. Accusations leveled against each other by the two blocks have borne a tragi-comical element. Both are defective and reflect moral lessons learnt from the story of the kettle calling the pot black.

Moreno Ocampo, the International Criminal Court prosecutor has publicly indicated that he will use the dossier presented by the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and the Party of National Unity (PNU) each detailing the others culpability in the 2007 Election violence outbreak to help determine the ICC case against the suspects.

Ironically, it is the evidence presented by the two institutions against each other that will facilitate conclusion of the case against their own party members expected to stand trial.

The political party in Kenya is a cross between a socio-political insurance agency and a stock brokerage dealing with human shares. It not only provides unmitigated access to the nation’s financial vault but also secures the raiders from possible prosecution.

Parties are conveniently used as requisite electoral vehicles but post elections transform into a concrete liberty insurance cover against any form of official scrutiny upon the leaders. Political parties as they are in Kenya today are nothing but modern day manifestations of the colonial mentality of dominate and exploit.

Neo-colonialist leaders in Kenya have ably and sometimes justifiably played this fear of domination and the threat of poverty to mobilize base ethnic support. The fears are unfortunately sometimes starkly real. So far, communities from which Kenya’s Presidents have emerged are a brazen illustration of just how quick the magic wand of power can selectively open the doors of the proverbial sesame.

As a public enterprise the political party thus carries with it the allure of a glamorous ethnic destination, a tribal Canaan of sorts. In Kenya, the political party applies pressure and pulls strings on the public/ private sector to secure incredible business deals for its leadership. In other words, to realize political power in Kenya is to secure the nations penultimate business deal. From the myopia of Kenya’s political leadership, this is a prize worth killing for.

As such a political party in Kenya is summarily a low capital investment with a potentially high dividend yield, human cost notwithstanding. In summary, political parties in Kenya primarily engage in the politics of business and the business of politics.

In orientation, the top five political parties in Kenya, the Orange Democratic Movement-Kenya (ODM-K), Kenya African National Union (KANU), the country’s independence party, the Party of National Unity, Orange Democratic Movement and National Alliance Rainbow Coalition of Kenya (NARC-K) are in substance and practice pale carbon copies of each other. The only distinction is the measure of political rhetoric and the personal character of the party leader. Currently all are in government which is proof of not only their similarities but also of their symbiotic relationship.

Expectedly, none proclaims any known ideology and each variously adopts doctrines considered momentarily convenient. Historically, every thing therefore is fluid from the lenses of Kenyan political parties and can be ’sorted out’ including inordinate loss of human life.

The reality of this murky arrangement prejudiced the spirit of the 2007 general election. Everything was wrong, the history of the nation, the leaders and their inciting rhetoric, the ethnic political parties, and an angrily betrayed public. Couple this with the harsh economic conditions prevalent in the country and you have a social mine field.

From this perilous assortment of explosive canon fodder, the competing political institutions had a large menu from which to prowl and prowl they certainly did.

THE KENYA POLICE FORCE

The third institution in the violence was the dreaded Kenya police force which left an unprecedented trail of public blood in its wake. The Kenya police are a chronically ill institution. Over the years, it has habitually failed to neither investigate nor regulate its own excesses.

In the violence outbreak of 2007 it was clearly overrun by the public, a scary situation as the public now appear acutely aware of their breaking point ahead of the 2012 elections.

At one point it was actually difficult to differentiate between the police and the rioting hoodlums as each side exhibited similar conduct in regard to looting, murder, arson and propaganda. The Police force took a biased side and in the process lost officers to shootings in Kibera and the Rift Valley, shot dead by suspected criminals camouflaged within protesting mobs.

So gross was the police intent, that in Kisumu Town, a police officer was caught on tape shooting an unarmed protestor to death for merely making teasing faces at him.

Kenya Election Violence (Dec. 2007 into 2008)

The role of the police force is one that requires deeper diagnosis as it is plausible to suggest that the cops have customarily been used as pawns by the ODM elite wing to attract local and international media sympathy and as a repressive counter force by the PNU. This logic is scientifically provable by studying incidences of police versus political party combat during past political events including elections and by elections from 1982 to date.

THE KENYAN PUBLIC

The Kenyan public is as guilty as their leaders and too bears a sense of responsibility over the outbreak. A majority participated by not participating in stopping the violence. Others took sides with their rabid leaders and provided material and moral support to their ethnic militia to attack powerless neighbors. Lies were blatantly told to fuel the chaos in so far as it hurt the “other side” and favored their own polarized party interests. The gender victim machine gun for once fell silent as women leaders, according to the Justice Waki report, were also found to have played a decisive role in mobilizing, organizing and executing the violence.

It is indeed the political goodwill provided by the public that allowed political parties to murder or evict their opponents with such impunity.

INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE 2007 VIOLENCE

Responsible institutions always take full responsibility for the conduct of both its corporate and individual members. Likewise responsible leaders take full responsibility for failures within institutions they head just as much as they would gladly receive credit on its behalf. Common sense also dictates that institutions can only be as responsible as its leader.

Both the Justice Waki and Kenya National Human Rights Organization reports on electoral human rights violations notably fail to appropriate any form of institutional responsibility for the 2007 electoral violence to the two political institutions that brutally fought each other for political power.

Instead, both reports superficially apportion personal blame on the extensive brutality explosions upon individual politicians. This is in spite of the colossal magnitude of the 2007 electoral violence, its massive resource outlay and intricate organization which definitely bore corporate proportions. By dint of its sheer magnitude alone, the violence required well established networks with a clear command chain to effect.

Two typical examples come to mind. One is that of the select crew of kikuyu’ who allegedly met at State House to plot retaliatory attacks in the Rift Valley as narrated in the Waki document. They met not as members of the kikuyu tribe, but principally as members of the Party of National Unity with a specific agenda. The Party of National Unity is a legally registered political entity, with a patented list of office bearers and structures.

The product of their handiwork was supposedly the execution of the macabre massacres in Naivasha and Limuru-Tigoni. The Party of National Unity is led by President Kibaki and enjoys strong support in the stated affected areas.

It is here that hirelings suspected to be from the Kikuyu ethnic group of President Kibaki murdered and raped Luo and Luhyia people then looted their property before finally torching their homes. In one instance in Naivasha, a man of Luo origin lost eleven family members in a single arson attack after raiders locked his house and burnt his entire family to ashes.

Likewise, the Orange Democratic Movement allegedly unleashed attempts to cripple the country’s communication networks, uprooting railways, barricading and digging up roads, crippling bridges and well choreographed highway attacks on goods and passenger transport. Its leader is Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

The forms of violence were nationally generic for both parties and the uniformity of execution clearly rose beyond the realms of uncoordinated individual efforts. ODM perfected its craft in mainly urban locations while the PNU strand thrived in specific peri-urban settings. Each execution pattern bore signature applications. Sample another example.

Most horrifying was the apparent predilection for burning down churches by ODM brigade members. A church filled with fleeing Kikuyu women and helpless children was sealed then set ablaze by people suspected to be members of a Kalenjin vigilante group in Eldoret town of Kenya’s Rift Valley province. Children who attempted to escape the furious inferno were thrown back into the raging fire. There is also the tragic account of an elderly physically challenged lady of Kikuyu origin who disappeared during the violence only for her wheel chair to be recovered from the debris of the fateful church. She too had been burnt to ashes.

In Kisumu city too, a church were burnt down while others were vandalized then razed in Kibera area within Langata constituency of Prime Minister Raila Odinga. All the churches burnt were in strongholds of the Orange Democratic Movement.

In the initial stages of the violence, the pattern was as ethno-political as the parties but later acquired class overtones with the poorer masses indiscriminately targeting richer neighborhoods. The marauding gangs were homogeneously ethnic but the targets roughly common by social status.

In fact, to get to the root of the matter, a thorough interrogation of the histories of Hon. Mwai Kibaki, President of Kenya and Hon. Raila, Prime Minister of Kenya, their political utterances and engagements is vital to providing a clear indicator of the origin of political violence in Kenya.

At a glance, one would ask the ODM leader what he did to mobilize the violence and the President what he didn’t do as constitutionally mandated to stop the violence. To the Prime Minister, a probable charge with crimes of commission is feasible and to the President, a probable charge with crimes of omission is possible — both are crimes nonetheless and they the leaders..

A HISTORICAL COMPARISON

The Eldoret church incident bears striking similarities with another slaughter, carried out nearly 65 years ago in the French village of Oradour-Sur-Glane in June 1944 by Hitler’s SS. Erich Kahler in his study in modern totalitarianism, “The Tower and the Abyss,” writes in his book and I quote, “In reprisal for Resistance activity in the area, the Germans rounded up all the inhabitants and made them go to the market place. The women and children were herded into the village church. No one was alarmed at this stage-the Germans were laughing and playing with the babies.

Then, at a signal from the captain, the soldiers in the square opened fire on the men and massacred them all. The church was set on fire and the women and children burned alive. The children who managed to stumble out were thrown back into the fire.” End of quote.

So similar were the two cases, however apart by time and situation that one is compelled to ask “Had the Nazi historical occurrence of 1944 returned to replay itself in Eldoret, Kenya in 2008? If this trend of reasoning is to be followed, who was the Kenyan version of the Fuehrer?

PRECEDENTS OF INSTITUTIONAL LIABILITY

At the end of the World War II in 1945, the Nazi Party of Germany was proscribed and its top leaders charged with crimes against peace and humanity. Years later in Kenya, the Kenya People’s Union Party (KPU) was also banned in 1969 following skirmishes between its supporters and the Presidential security guard in Kisumu Town. Its leader, former Vice-President Oginga Odinga was placed under house arrest for engaging in subversive activities.

Likewise in Spain, the Batasuna Party was in 2002 dissolved after it was found to have contravened article 11 of the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Article 9 of the same Convention establishes that a party will be declared illegal when its grave and continuous activity makes democratic principles vulnerable.

Beyond political parties, other institutions in Kenya have also endured similar punishment. In 2009, sentence of dissolution of the Electoral Commission was noted to have been meted out not only to the institution but to its leader, Samuel Kivuitu as well.

In addition, the 1982 story of the then Kenya Air Force together with its leader suffered a similar outcome after the failed coup attempt of that year. The force was disbanded and its leader Major General Peter Karuiki jailed for four and half years. A new “82′ Air force” was formed after a fresh recruitment exercise. Major General Peter Karuiki was not punished for direct involvement in the coup, but because he failed to use the powerful instruments available to him as institutional head to stop it.

The postulation of institutional responsibility is a prerequisite measure to dismantling militia gangs in Kenya. Militia gangs operate as a political appendage for insurance against the law. Institutional responsibility widens the scope of accountability from a highly personalized perspective and places it upon an entrenched public establishment, the political party. By so doing, it spreads liability to all members of the institution as well for causes and effects for without the general approval of the party membership, however unofficial, such levels of transgression would have been impossible to accomplish by their leaders.

However, institutional responsibility in no way immunizes any culprits from prosecution, be they planners, financiers or implementers but carries with it the onerous task of tearing down the vessel(s) used to incubate and legitimize the heinous actions of the charged individuals. The Kenyan public actively participated and abetted the criminal violence against one another and they too must bear a responsibility and pay a penalty for their actions. Banning of the two major political institutions that took part in the 2009 electoral slaughter is indeed a necessity.

To date, all proposals and counter proposals between the two antagonistic institutions have been presented as corporate accounts by the Orange Democratic Party and the Party of National Unity. This fact practically stops the buck at the doorsteps of the two parties, first as institutions and secondly on their respective leaderships and thirdly on their members.

Those therefore charged in regard to the violence from the two parties should face the law as leaders and members of political institutions and not merely as individual political players.

In whose interest did the electoral assaults take place? Andrew Ombwayo, an advocate of the High court of Kenya based in Nairobi, correctly stresses that criminal liability is ultimately borne by the individual irrespective of whether the crime may have been committed in conformance to institutional edicts. While the Ombwayo argument is correct, his diagnosis remains incomplete because precedents have clearly been set otherwise.

Yet, in spite of self fingering over the 2007 violence, both the leaderships of the ODM and PNU parties today carry on as if the 2007 election massacres were a creation of the police force, the electoral commission and the media. In fact, every other peripheral institution appears guilty of the violence outbreaks except the political parties and leaders who stoked it all.

The heads of the political institutions of PNU and ODM must take full responsibility for what happened in 2007 and after and in this there may eventually be no escape.

Currently, the Attorney General, Amos Wako and the Chief Justice, Evan Gicheru have both been served with notice of intention by parliamentarians in regard to the poor performance of the institutions they lead. Both will ultimately suffer the burden of responsibility on behalf of their institutions. Another example is that of Former Police Commissioner, Brigadier Ali, he is today compelled to bear responsibility over the institutional excesses of the police in regard to the electoral debacle of 2007.Why not the two leaders and their two parties?

CURRENT OVERVIEW

As things stand today, it matters little who provoked the other or who retaliated in regard to the 2007 violence. The issue is now fait accompli, as focus is now directed towards judiciously sanitizing the consequent catastrophe.

The crimes committed fall squarely within the jurisdiction of human rights abuses. Even the Kreigler Commissions Report refuses to legitimize each sides claim to winning the fateful 2007 elections which denies both the accused any sound platforms upon which to lead the country.

One option gaining currency as the nation grinds to a halt is that the two leaders should call it a day and resign. Taking full responsibility is a way open only to statesmen and virtuous nationalists who would spare no act, or personal sacrifice to redeem their beloved nation from endemic hemorrhage.

Kenyans died for the two leaders and because of the two leaders, of that there is absolutely no doubt. The furtive desperation of the ruling elite is real as they ultimately have nowhere to run. In the event of an outbreak of chaos, for whatever reason, it is they who stand to lose the most, having stolen the most.

Practically, an exiled political leader is highly vulnerable, ask former Liberian President Charles Taylor, which makes exile only a compulsory alternative. Exile would make them easy pickings for international security agencies hot on their heels today. Only a peaceful Kenya provides sanctuary for criminals to live secure from prosecution, a factor which obliterates the threats of violence they so often issue.

Indeed, if an outbreak of chaos is the outcome the Kenyan leaders project as the result for their prosecution, then it may be a foul alternative but one definitely worth considering.

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