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Enact ethnic crimes law to punish perpetrators of civil strife
By Collins Mbalo
KENYA TIMES
19. April 2007
AS I watched a talk show recently on a local television, it downed on me that perhaps as a nation we are yet to grasp the enormity and seriousness of the situation prevailing in Mt Elgon and Bungoma areas in Western Kenya.
With no official statement as of yet from the Government one cannot preclude complicity. With one stark word I verily state it is “Genocide”- in our own backyard!
According to Article 11 of the 1948 International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, the crime of genocide consists of two elements: the mental element which involves seeking to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnical, racial or religious group and the physical element which includes killing members of a group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of a group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
The Convention further criminalises the act of Genocide, complicity, incitement and attempting to commit Genocide. Unfortunately, both these elements are manifested in the prevailing clashes between warring communities in Mt Elgon area.
While the International community has shown its abhorrence of these kinds of acts, on the other hand serious questions are posed about our resolve as a nation with regards to these sad state of affairs to wit: what has, what will and what can be done to stop and curtail the wanton destruction of property and loss of life that results from such clashes.
As the cinders of burnt houses continue to burn with abject abandon in Bungoma and Mt Elgon area in western Kenya, the genuinely concerned Kenyan must ask: why? What has gone wrong? Is life too cheap? Is the Government responsible and if so to what extent?
Could there be complicity from the local administration, its intelligence and security machinery? Finally, what role should the Government play in curbing the skirmishes and preventing future recurrence of violence especially over land within the country?
While we acknowledge that violent land clashes are not a preserve of Kenya only, the international scene has witnessed during the month of March 2007, violent land clashes in Nandigram area –south of Calcutta in India, Guangdong land clashes in China and Masindi area in Uganda, and North West province of Cameroon.
The reasons for this flares varies. However, a common denominator in these clashes interestingly is-Government policy gone bad!
On this stance I fault the Government, past and present. It defeats reason that a Government would be willing and eager, time and again to send its military forces using the taxpayer’s funds on peacekeeping missions in far away countries but be lethargic and adamant to do so when such conflicts are occurring only a few miles from its own military barracks. In the strongest terms possible we as Kenyan people should condemn such hypocrisy and inaction.
The fact that violent clashes continue to recur with little or insignificant prosecution of perpetrators portends a worrying state.
The country still continues to court a culture of impunity as was evidenced in a prime news item on a local TV station recently when one citizen from the warring factions (Ndorobo community) made an inflammatory statement threatening death and destruction to the Soi community with the comfort of knowing nothing serious will be done.
And our politicians continue to churn inflammatory comments, vigilante organised militia (the likes of Mungiki, Chinkororo, Taliban, Kamjesh, or Msumbiji) continue to exist and extort from hard-working Kenyans often with political backing.
That aside, we watch with terror as part of our country is turned into a war zone with armed and well trained militia engaging in wanton acts of destruction of human life and property.
The military should urgently be deployed to arrest and curtail the situation.
With close to 60,000 people displaced and about 150 lives reportedly lost, it is just not enough to send the local police with the backing of the paramilitary General Service Unit while our adequately trained military forces relax in the Barracks.
Lives are being lost, militants armed with guns, machetes, bows and every kind of crude weapon imaginable. This should send chills to the man restfully sleeping at state house and his cabinet.
Just like Koffi Annan commented on the 10th Anniversary of the 1994 Rwanda Genocide we must acknowledge that: “Such crimes cannot be reversed. Such failures cannot be repaired.
The dead cannot be brought back to life! ”. It is our responsibility to do more and in a timely fashion to prevent the wanton killing, maiming of individuals and destruction of property.
It is sad to see that due to our inaction, our fellow citizens are now refugees in neighbouring Uganda having been forced to abandon their motherland that their forefathers fought for to gain independence while our members of parliament haggle in luxurious hotels and resorts over how to gain power.
True there may be no ready or immediate solutions to land clashes in Kenya but with the benefit of hindsight we certainly realise land clashes were not the preserve of the Moi Government.
It is a social problem that continues to glare its ugly face time and again in this republic.
More must be done than cry wolf! wolf! Urgent long term solutions must be sought which should emanate and incorporate the views of the diverse Kenyan public and this is more important than the clamour for minimum reforms.
After 911 terrorist fiasco in the USA, the Government under international pressure hurriedly proceeded to draft an Anti-terrorism bill which was unjust and unconstitutional, all in an attempt to please our “donor partners”, yet time and again lives of citizens have been lost yet no attempts have been made to legislate and seek long lasting solutions to this problem.
It is in this vein that I propose an Ethnic Crimes Bill should be expeditiously drafted by the attorney General with input from prominent scholars, technical expertise and the legal fraternity to punish, prevent and curb crime driven by ethnic hatred.
A further long lasting attempt to gain a solution would be for the President to appoint a permanent Presidential Commission on land or ethnic clashes with the mandate to: investigate and identify the root causes, derive solutions, implement them and educate Kenyans against perpetuating these ills.
The commission should further contribute to the continuous legislation against this sort of acts. If need be, the commission should become a statutory commission through an Act of Parliament. It must be remembered that a single flare can burn a whole forest.
As we will settle down to sleep tonight, it pains to realise that thousands of fellow Kenyans will not enjoy this luxury. They will not sleep in the comfort of their homes built with toil and sweat. They will sleep in fear and with the knowledge that as a nation we are not doing
enough!
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