Mombasa Senator Hassan Omar. FILE PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP
Last week The Star newspaper put out a headline that Hassan Omar
and I had “saved Raila from the ICC” attributing the statement to Mr
Uhuru Kenyatta’s British lawyers.
The article that
followed was careful not to directly mention Hassan or me, stating
instead that we worked at the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights
at the time, which the lawyers had adversely mentioned.
I
have read the submissions responding to the ICC’s publication of the
redacted evidence that the Prosecution has on Mr Kenyatta. Nowhere do
those submissions mention Hassan Omar or me. This is not acceptable, and
in the current political environment, is very dangerous. But no, I will
not report the paper to the Media Council, nor do I want it to be
banned as some seem to want.
What The Star did was take
what has been whispered and gossiped within the circles around Mr
Kenyatta, Mr William Ruto and by some haters in the blogosphere. The
gist is that by producing human rights reports, the KNCHR and NGOs
contrived to put some people in trouble and that had there been no
report, there would have been no cases in the first place.
HOGWASH
That
is hogwash, of course. Human rights people are not in the business of
“fixing” people. In fact, human rights people often focus too much on
the rights of suspects at the expense of victims.
But
let’s be clear: Violence happened. People were killed in Eldoret,
Kisumu, Naivasha, Nakuru, Nairobi and Mombasa. People were raped. And
hundreds of thousands internally displaced. Thousands of those displaced
and now living in Kisii, Kisumu, Siaya and Kakamega have been forgotten
and ignored. With or without human rights reports, these facts remain.
But
for the record, the KNCHR and NGOs documented reports of violations
from their research and investigations. The facts were verified and
counter-checked. But human rights groups do not produce evidence for
trials. They document and then use those facts to call for thorough and
deeper investigations that can be held up in court.
The
documentation had various purposes. First, to ensure there was a record
of the events and their horrible impacts; second, to spur action by
authorities to investigate more; and third, to enhance lobbying and
advocacy efforts for accountability.
BALANCED AND DIVERSE
Now,
the KNCHR decided to document the violations as they happened in mid to
late January 2008. I was involved in setting up the teams to do the
documentation, aware that with the ethnic and political divisions, the
teams needed to be balanced and diverse in order to ensure the
information received was not manipulated to suit particular agendas.
Once
the teams were set, and trained, I opted out of the process because I
was due to retire in July 2008 and it was unlikely the project would be
completed by then. At no time after that did I sit in any meetings to
review the information received. And at no time did I engage with the
process. In fact I was more out of than in Kenya that year after
receiving serious threats on my life.
I know Mr
Kenyatta and Mr Ruto know these facts. And I know that they know I know.
For as I found out after leaving the KNHCR, they had help within the
Commission. After the Commission’s report, the Waki Commission did more
thorough and public investigations, which were handed over to the ICC
after politicians refused to set up a Special Tribunal.
It
is they who took the duo to The Hague, not Waki, KNCHR or NGOs. The
fact is that Mr Ruto’s team blames the PNU side that included Mr
Kenyatta. And the pro-Kenyatta whispering brigade blames ODM, which
included Mr Ruto.
These accusations against human
rights people arise because our politicians believe that everyone is
like them: Utterly selfish and sycophantic and unable to be loyal to
principles and values. But truth is, many Kenyans are different.
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