Institute of Peace Studies and International Relations
Hekima College
“Organized Political Violence, Impunity and the Violation of Human Rights: The Case of Kenya’s Post-Election Violence of 2007-2008”
By
Moses Owade Were
In a situation replete with the mass violations of human rights where a nation is killing its own people, does the international community have a responsibility to intervene? In 1994, the international community largely reacted with cynicism and indifference to the then unfolding Rwandan genocide in which close to one million Rwandans were killed. Underlying the indifference and cynicism was the starkest possible interpretation of the Westphalian principles that posited that what happens within state borders is nobody else’s business. In the light of the evolution of the international human rights law beginning with the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human rights, the various covenants dealing with social, political and economic rights, the Genocide convention and the Rome statutes that set up the International Criminal Court (I.C.C.) have expunged this limited interpretation of sovereignty from the discourse of international human rights law. The sovereign rights of governments to what they will within their border have today been displaced by the rights of all human beings to be free of repression, ill treatment and genocide. Sovereign rights have largely ceded ground to human rights.
Today a new principle that acknowledges the need to defend people from atrocities has attracted international acceptance from the international community since mid 2000’s. The principle of “Responsibility to Protect” was unanimously endorsed, at the summit level, by the United Nations General Assembly in 2005. At the heart of this principle is the consensus that a state should retain the primary responsibility of protecting its own people from mass atrocities. In circumstances where a state has manifestly failed to do this either as a result of limited resources or ill will, then it becomes the collective responsibility of the international community to take decisive and appropriate action. In these kinds of situations, sovereignty would not provide immunity and the international community will then have a right and obligation to intervene even when the sovereignty of the state in question is violated.
The international community’s response to the post-election explosion ethnic violence in Kenya is an excellent example of the practical application of the principle of the ‘responsibility to protect’. At the height of the post-election violence, well over 1300 people had been brutally killed as nearly half a million people were driven from their homes and forced to live in camps for the internally displaced persons scattered across the country. There were long trails of old men, women and children fleeing from their attackers having left behind farms and homes that had been looted and burned to the ground. The response of the international community to the unfolding humanitarian crises in Kenya at the beginning of 2008, was in stark contrast with the cynicism and indifference with which the same international community greeted the genocide in Rwanda. The swift intervention by the African Union, backed by the United Nations, the European Union and the United States of America largely contributed to negotiated settlement that was eventually agreed upon by the two groups that were in conflict.
In this paper, I am going to examine the role of organized political violence and impunity in Kenya’s post-election violence of 2007-2008 in the context of the evolving field of international human rights law. I will first briefly outline the evolution of international human rights law before turning my attention to history of organized political violence in Kenya and how it has been used as the means of ascending to power. I will then consider the role of organized political violence and impunity as contributing factors of the post-election violence and the consequent violations of human rights. Finally, I will conclude by examining the possible roles that the international human rights law will continue to play as Kenya seeks to exorcise the ghosts of impunity by bringing to justice all those who are suspected to have been the forces behind the heinous violations of human rights.
Human rights have become ideologically hegemonic in the international community with only a small minority of nations still disputing the relevance of the Universal Declarations of Human rights to their specific situations. The idea of human rights has proved to be attractive to the vast majority of nations and cultures across the world today as a means of dealing with public authority and the larger society. Prior to the 17th Century, no culture, civilization or society, including the traditional western one, had evolved a generally accepted vision of equal and inalienable individual human rights. The human rights discourse did not emerge from any deep western cultural roots but rather arose as a response to the social, economic, and political transformations occasioned by the process of modernization. Therefore, as modernization took root, a growing range of dispossessed persons began advancing ‘claims for relief from injustice and disabilities’ and in the process claims of equal and inalienable rights became progressively central.
Beginning roughly with the 1648 treaty of Westphalia through to 1945, human rights were generally assumed to be within the competence of the nation state. This was however radically changed in both legal theory and diplomatic practice with the creation of the United Nations in 1945. The signatories of the UN Charter were required to “reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of both men and women and of nations large and small”. Article 55 of the Charter asserts that the UN will “promote universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinctions as to race, sex, language, or religion.”
The significance of the UN Charter 1945 is that it was a broad based stepping stone that informed a series of decisions which cumulatively resulted in the internationalization of human rights. Thus after the Charter was ratified, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was passed followed by the creation of United Nations Human Rights Commission amongst other regional human rights bodies. Between 1967 and 1970, the covenants on political and civil rights on the one hand and the economic, social and cultural rights, on the other came into force. By 1970, therefore, human rights had been internationalized on the world stage. States had by this time appended their signatures to all sorts of treaties, voted for all kinds of resolutions and declarations and engaged in various modes of diplomatic practice which resulted in the internationalization of the subject of human rights. The effect of all these developments was that sovereign states have progressively found it extremely difficult to argue that human rights are purely and exclusively within the realm of its domestic affairs. Before delving into the human rights violations that were visited on the people of Kenya in the course of the post-election violence, I will first attempt to situate this violence in the context of the country’s recent history.
A lot of ink was spilled at the beginning of the 2008 by correspondents of the international media as they sought to make sense of the violence that had engulfed Kenya. They found it difficult to reconcile the popular perception of Kenya as an ‘island of peace and stability’ with the horrific scenes of violence that were playing out before their eyes. However, a brief foray into Kenya’s recent history would have been enough to disabuse the foreign journalists of this fallacious assumption and given them some insights on Kenya’s ‘love-hate’ relationship with organized political violence.
The 1990’s marked the period in which organized violence was institutionalized as a defining and necessary factor element of parliamentary and presidential elections. The path to the multiparty elections in 1992, 1997, 2002 and 2007 was littered with organized political violence. The first time that ethnic violence was experienced was on the 29th October 1991. By November 1993, over 1500 people had been killed and another 300,000 had been forced out of their farms, homes, and places of residence. This orgy of ‘ethnic cleansing’ that swept through parts of rural Kenya from late 1991 was largely to blame for the flawed elections in 1992. As early as 1991, human rights organizations had already identified organized political violence as the most potent threat to democracy and the rule of law. This organized political violence was variously described in terms such as ‘ethnic clashes’, ‘land clashes’, ‘border disputes’, and ‘cattle rustling’.
The emergence of organized political violence unfolded against the background of mounting pressure on the regime of president Moi to legalize pluralism. The regime caved in to pressure and Kenya reverted to being a multiparty democracy in 1991. The Moi government nonetheless remained recalcitrant and continued to subvert the process of democratization. Violence escalated and engulfed the multi-ethnic provinces of Rift Valley, Nyanza and Western.
In its careful and exhaustive study of the violence, Human Rights Watch submitted that the government had presided over the organized violence for political gains. The vigilante groups or militias were evidently sponsored by the state to act as response to the challenge posed by the proponents of multi-party democracy and in this way perpetuate the hegemonic elite of the single party era in power. The government security forces were at times known to have provided the training, protection and even worked in concert with the militia groups during the attacks. These attacks exclusively targeted ethnic groups associated with the proponents of the pro-democracy movement.
The violence enabled Moi to rig the 1992 elections in advance by the violent displacement and the consequent disenfranchisement of communities associated with the opposition. Land, illegally acquired from the displaced communities, was used to buy support from the various ethnic constituencies. The use of militia groups or ethnic warriors made it easier for the Moi government to violate the human rights of his critics and at the same time shield itself from international censure for the gross violations of human rights. This violence that rocked Kenya in 1991 produced the first wave of Kenya’s disinherited internally displaced persons (IDP’s). This violence continued relentlessly in the post-election period till 1995. Since President Moi won the elections in 1992, the general assumption was that his government would launch a massive resettlement program of the displaced persons back to their homes. Instead, the Moi regime encouraged vigilante groups, regular police and members of the provincial administration to violently disperse the internally displaced persons from the camps in which they had sought refuge. Thus in 1993, over 2000 IDP's in the Endebess camp in Trans Nzoia were forcibly dispersed.
The most atrocious and heinous dispersal was the dispersal of the Maela Camp in Naivasha in 1994. This camp was home to over 10,000 IDP’s who had been displaced from Enoosupukia in Narok in October 1994. The government defined 200 of this number as genuine victims of displacement and resettled them not in their former farms but in government owned lands. The rest of the displaced persons were forcibly loaded into government trucks and literally dumped in Central province, the homeland to the Kikuyu. These IDP’s were therefore victims of double displacement, first by the marauding gangs of warriors and later by the agents of the state.
The organized violence that characterized the pre and post election period in 1997 was a continuation of the wave of violence that had rocked parts of rural Kenya between 1991 and 1993. Prior to 1997, the organized violence was confined to the rural areas along the borders of Nyanza, Rift Valley and Western provinces. With only one month to go before the 1997 elections, Kenya was boiling over with all manner and forms of communal violence. This renewed wave of violence climaxed in August 13, 1997 as ethnic clashes erupted in various places along the Coast province leaving over 100 people dead and another 100,000 people displaced from their homes. The militia groups around the Coast province were unleashed to displace and disenfranchise people perceived to be sympathetic to the opposition parties and to deter against the possibility of an alliance between the upcountry opposition groups and the coastal communities. The warriors and militias who carried out these attacks in the various provinces were known to include junior military and police officers and ex-servicemen and it is alleged that some of them were trained in camps in Marigat Forest and in the Kerio Valley. According to the National Christian Council of Kenya (NCCK) report on the violence, upwards of 60,000 warriors had been trained at the height of the violence in 1997. The warriors were said to have been paid Shs 2000 ($ 25) each for killing a person and Shs 10,000 ($125) for each permanent house burnt. Systematic attacks were executed by ‘warriors’ who killed people from the targeted groups, burned down houses, crops, stole livestock, raped their women, and forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes for safety. These attacks generated one of the worst humanitarian crises in independent Kenya as over 200, 000 were displaced in pre-election violence.
Since 1991, therefore, organized violence has largely been adopted as a means of securing political power and winning elections in Kenya. Elections related violence was thus witnessed in the 1992, 1997, 2002 and 2007. In spite of the death and destruction that characterized these cases of organized violence and the reports from NGOs such as Human Rights Watch, Kenya Human Rights Commission, and two government instituted inquiries (the Kiliku parliamentary Committee and the Akiwumi Commission), not a single person was ever punished for these wanton killings and destruction even though the names of the perpetrators to be investigated and those ‘adversely mentioned’ were contained in the reports of the government instituted commissions of enquiry. These reports consistently alleged that high ranking political figures, civil servants and persons close to the heart of the government organized and used violent groups to kill other Kenyans, destroy their property, and intimidate those perceived to be sympathetic to the opposition. This was done for the sole aim of securing political power. The strategy was to stop, by any means necessary, the opposition supporters from voting. The means employed involved the hiring of gangs of warriors in Rift Valley and elsewhere to kill the opposition supporters and to displace them from their homes and farms. The displacements of hundreds of thousands of people resulted in the KAMATUSA securing a majority of the parliamentary seats in the Rift Valley and also ensured that they could easily gunner at least 25% of the total votes cast in at least five provinces across the country. The culture of impunity has thus as a result been entrenched over the years as individuals who killed and maimed others in order to acquire political power were never and have never been brought to justice. This impunity has transformed Kenya’s political landscape in as far the conduct of general elections is concerned. Militia groups and gangs for hire such as the Mungiki, Taliban, Chinkororo, Kamjesh, Baghdad Boys, and others flourished within a political culture of impunity that not only used but also tolerated organized political violence. Gangs and militias continued to multiply in many parts of the country thereby increasing the presence of institutionalized extra legal violence that was repeatedly unleashed both before and after the elections. This is the same pattern that obtained in the run-up to the 2007 elections. As recently as the 2007, Mungiki and other political gangs continued to sell their services of violence on the basis of a willing buyer and willing seller. The foregoing provides the context and background against which Kenya’s post-election violence of 2007-2008 needs to be evaluated. The country’s recent history has been characterized by a legacy of organized political violence, impunity and the wanton violations the most basic rights of the Kenyan people. The deliberate and well thought out use of violence by politicians in order to obtain power since the early 1990’s and the conscious decision not to punish the perpetrators of human rights violations has led to the emergence of the culture of impunity and the escalation of organized violence.
We shall now briefly turn our attention to the violations of human rights that occurred in the period between the 27th of December 2007 and 28th February 2008. The bungling of the December 2007 presidential elections by the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) was the trigger for Kenya’s post-election violence. The most damaging acts of electoral fraud was committed in the final stages of the tallying of the presidential poll when the (ECK) was evidently involved in a desperate last minute attempt to tilt the results in favor of the incumbent, president Mwai Kibaki. The discredited election was an abuse of the democratic rights of the Kenyan people as the principle of conducting a free and fair election is expressly provided for in the Kenyan constitution and in various other acts of parliament. Further, Kenya is signatory to and has ratified international and regional treaties relating to human rights. Some of these treaties include the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights and these outline standards on the conduct of democratic elections. The widely discredited elections thus served as the trigger that set the nation ablaze with ethnic violence.
The inter-ethnic violence that engulfed the country in the aftermath of the December 2007 polls began in the Rift Valley. The epicenter of the first wave of violence in Rift Valley concentrated in and around Eldoret Town, some 125km from the Ugandan border. In many of the places in Rift Valley, the violence erupted the moment that the incumbent Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner of the presidential poll. Within a space of one week, many areas in Rift Valley had been largely emptied of the Kikuyu. Hundreds lay dead, many rotting in the fields of the scattered hillside farms while thousands of homes had been burned to the ground. A Kalenjin man recounted to Human Rights Watch his role in a mob that killed several Kikuyu men in Eldoret town on the evening following the announcement of the elections results. The man stated that If we met a Kikuyu, we just beat him. I saw five people die that day. They attacked using all kinds of weapon such as arrows, machete and any crude weapon. It was mob justice. The first killing they approached the Kikuyu man politely and asked him to produce his identity card. The one who was given the identity card announced the name very loudly-it was a Kikuyu name. And the mob just attacked him. Those who produced identity cards with Kalenjin, or Luo names were left alone. One of the most publicized and horrifying scenes of post-election bloodshed took place in Kiambaa, settlement scheme south of Eldoret town in the North Rift. On the 1st January 2008, a group of Kalenjin attackers set ablaze a church where terrified Kikuyu resident had sought refuge. The attackers first soaked mattresses with petrol and then stacked them against the church building before setting them ablaze. At least 30 people were burned alive inside the church. As the displaced people fled from Eldoret, the epicenter of the violence in Rift Valley, they brought brutal stories of murders, rapes, looting and burnings to the residents of Naivasha, Nakuru and towns across central province. The Kikuyu elite reacted by organizing to contribute money to finance ‘self defense forces’. Between the 23rd and 30th of January, Kikuyu militias in Nakuru, Naivasha, and Central province led pogroms targeting Luo, Luhya, Kelenjin and other groups allied with the opposition Orange Democratic Movement. In the course of this one week, there were numerous beheadings of people from targeted communities, the burning of people to death and the displacement thousands were displaced from their places of residence. It is alleged that these killings in Naivasha were planned at State House, the official residence of the Kenyan president and involved leading Kikuyu businessmen, political leaders and top government officials. According to witnesses, these attacks were directed by local business people. The youth were paid Shs 7000 ($100) for taking part in the violence and killings and Shs 15,000 for every Luo man that they beheaded. The official number of those killed in Naivasha was forty one. Twenty three of these were burned alive and amongst these were thirteen children including two infants who were under two years old. It is in the midst of these killings, atrocities and displacements of hundreds of thousands that the international community, under the leadership of the African Union and with the support of the United Nations, the European Union and the United States, swiftly and decisively intervened. Under the chairmanship of Koffi Annan, the former UN secretary general, the team of eminent African personalities was able to broker a peace deal that involved a power sharing agreement that was to be structured under a grand coalition government. Initially, there was a sustained resistance from the government against such intervention arguing that such intervention by the international community would be tantamount to interference in the domestic or internal affairs of Kenya and a violation of her sovereignty. The argument that was then pushed was that the crisis that Kenya found herself in was a Kenyan problem which needed a Kenyan solution and that the international community was simply meddling in affairs that did not concern it. Similar sentiments continued to be repeatedly expressed in the negotiations leading to the signing of the peace deal. The common refrain then was that the international community was interfering in Kenya’s domestic matters. However, the evolution international law starting with the adoption of the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the covenants on political, social and economic rights and the creation of the International Criminal Courts have rendered this line of argument irrelevant. In the second half of the twentieth century, the international law through treaties and customs have progressively diluted and finally eliminated the principle that sovereign states and people who run them can exterminate its own people without being held accountable for its actions by the international community. Consequently, guided by the international law, the international community has an obligation to intervene in situations of mass human rights violations, as was the case in Kenya at the beginning of the year 2008. As part of the national accord that was signed between the conflicting parties, it was agreed that a commission to inquire into the post-election violence (CIPEV) ought to be set up to inquire into among other things the circumstances of the post-election violence. This commission was chaired by a Kenyan assisted by a commissioner from Democratic Republic of Congo and another one from New Zealand. In its final report, the commission recommended the setting up of a Kenyan tribunal to investigate further and where necessary try the suspected architects of the organized violence. Failure to set up this tribunal within sixty days, the report continues, would result in the names of the suspected organizers being handed over to the International Criminal Court at The Hague. In the aftermath of the release of this report, there are national politicians who have called for amnesty for the suspected organizers of the violence arguing that justice ought to ‘be tempered with forgiveness’. However, under international law, it is generally agreed that no government in the world can issue a legally binding amnesty to persons guilty of perpetrating crimes against humanity. There are other politicians who have resorted to the argument of sovereignty that Kenya as a sovereign state has institutions that will be able to deal with the suspected perpetrators and as such these suspects should not be hounded to The Hague. There are others who argue against the full implementation of the report on the post election violence on the grounds that this would plunge Kenya into turmoil and even lead to the break up of the grand coalition government. For the peace and reconciliation, it is argued, the report should be set aside and Kenya should forge ahead and forget the past. The problem with this argument is that it glosses over some of the underlying factors that contributed to the eruption violence in the first place. The culture of impunity that has today become part and parcel of the Kenyan society was one the major factors that has nurtured the organized violence in our political landscape. Since 1991, serious crimes against humanity have repeatedly visited on the Kenyan people and not a single individual has been brought to justice. This has made the ‘warlords’ and architects of organized violence progressively brazen over the years. Whereas the violence in 1991 was concentrated in the rural areas, by 1997 organized violence was experienced both in the rural and in the urban areas in most regions of the country. The post-election of 2007-2008 was the most destructive and vicious and was felt both within the rural areas and in the urban centers and eventually adversely affected neighboring states like Uganda, South Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi and Democratic Republic of Congo. Those calling for the report to be set aside would only succeed in further entrenching the culture of impunity that will most certainly lead to much more destructive levels of organized violence in the future.
Today, Kenya has the chance of making a break with her past by putting an end to the cycle of impunity by establishing a tribunal to further investigate, and if need be, try the suspected architects of the organized violence. The process of holding the perpetrators of the post-election violence to account for the crimes against humanity that they perpetrated against fellow citizens is the only way in which Kenya, as a nation, can make a new beginning in dealing with the pervasive culture of impunity: a culture that today cuts across all facets of the nation’s society. For Kenya to be reconciled to herself, she needs to confront the truth about organized violence since it is the healing power of the truth that will set her towards the path of reconciliation. Forgiveness can only come after the perpetrators have acknowledged and are ready to take responsibility for their actions by making a change and addressing the grievances of the victims.
Acknowledgement, on the other hand, would only be possible in a situation where all the warring communities are ready to come to terms with the truth about the harms and crimes committed by one group of Kenyans against other Kenyans. The healing power of the Truth about the organized violence that nearly tore Kenya apart is what will secure her future. The consequences for not dealing decisively with the culture and cycle of impunity are too horrific to begin to imagine. As has been previously remarked, the next wave of organized violence will make what happened in between December 2007 and January 2008 ‘look like an afternoon tea party’.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Donnelly, Jack. “The Relative Universality of Human Rights” in Human Rights Quarterly (2007)
Evans, Gareth. “When Nations Kill their Own” in The Christian Monitor (October, 2008).
Forsythe, David P. The Internationalization of Human Rights (Toronto: Lexington Books, 1991).
Human Rights Watch. Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya’s Crisis of Governance (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2008)
Kenya National Commission of Human Rights. Killing the Vote: The State Sponsored Violence and Flawed Elections in Kenya (Nairobi: Kenya National Commission of Human Rights, 1998)
Nester, William. International Relations: Politics and Economics in the 21st Century (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Group, 2001).
Rutten, Marcel et al., eds. Out For the Count : The 1997 Elections and Prospects for
Democracy in Kenya (Kampala: Fountain Publishers, 2001)
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
THE ROLE OF THE STATE AS AN INTERNATIONAL ACTOR IN THE EVOLVING INTERANTIONAL SYSTEM
Institute of Peace Studies and International Relations
Hekima College
“Critically Evaluate the View that the State’s Position as a Dominant International Actor has been Irrevocably Eroded in the Recent Past”
Moses Owade Were
The proponents of the view that the state’s position as the dominant international actor in has been eroded in the recent past are right to some given extent. However, in as much as attempts are made to stretch the case espoused by this school of thought by stating that the state’s position in the international system has been irrevocably eroded is debatable and remains a contested terrain international relations today. I would concede that there may have indeed been certain erosion the roles, relevance and significance of the state in the recent past. This however does not in any way negate the fact that the state still remains the primary focus of identity for an overwhelming majority of people in the world today. Granted that the autonomy and function of the state has been eroded by transnational trends, the world has no seen the emergence of an adequate substitute to replace it as the primary unit in responding to challenges and changes on the global level.
In the aftermath of the end of the era of the Cold War, the increasing dominance of the market economy in the context of globalization economic regime and the internationalization of human rights have led to a continued demand for a review of the Westphallian structure of the international system. Specifically, the irruption of internal violence in a number of states and consequent violations of human rights on a grand scale that in some cases have been encouraged by and even executed by certain governments have led to serious questions on whether the sovereignty of the state in inviolable?
The notion of sovereignty whereby the state is free from foreign interference is enshrined in International law. On the other hand, the concept of human rights has been accorded universal legal validity by the United Nations Charter of Human Rights, the Universal Declaration of Human rights and a series of other international treaties. What recourse would one have in situations where these two principles, rooted in international law, are conflict? An international debate on precisely this kind of clash between the notions of sovereignty and human rights violation was provoked on October 16th 1998. On this day, the then Home Secretary for Great Britain ordered the arrest of Augustino Pinochet, formerly Chilean president, who was then seeking medical treatment in London. The arrest was ordered to allow the serving of an extradition warrant issued by the Spanish National Court and submitted by the International Police. The charges that had been preferred against Pinochet were set out as “crimes against humanity”. The arrest of Pinochet raised many questions amongst this was whether Spain would have jurisdiction over crimes that were alleged to have been committed in Chile? Further, the Chilean senate had granted amnesty to Pinochet and granted him immunity from prosecution by making him honorary senator for life.
The principle of sovereign immunity that was at one point a universally accepted legal principle has been progressively eroded in the recent times. Thus in the second half of the twentieth century, this principle has relentlessly been diluted and eventually eliminated through various treaties and customs in international law. Today sovereign states and the people who run them cannot perpetrate crimes against humanity like genocide without being held accountable for their actions by the international community. No government can issue a legally binding amnesty to person accused of committing crimes against humanity. The question that is evoked by this reality is on what takes precedent, between the sovereign rights of governments to do what they will within their borders or the rights of all human beings to be free from oppression, ill treatment and genocide. What obligation does the international community have in face of the violation of human rights by a member? Are the transcendent principles of human rights more fundamental and important than state sovereignty?
This debate is centered on the assertion of the humanitarian vital interests, the notion that “the rights of individuals and groups have precedence over and above the rights of the state”. The notion of sovereignty has been repeatedly used and abused by despotic leaders as a shield against ‘foreign interference’ while at the same time perpetrating untold abuses and crimes against their own citizens. By harping on the notion of the sovereignty such demented leaders were in effect granted sufficient room rule at they willed even if this meant the wanton killing, maiming and repression of their own people. Therefore in situations of gross abuses of individual or group rights then the international community has a right and obligation to intervene even when the sovereignty of the state is violated in the process. This principle of humanitarian vital interests and what Koffi Annan, the former Secretary General of the United Nations, devolved under the heading of “Responsibility to Protect” informed the interventions by the international community in Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia and in the post gulf war Iraq in regard to the Kurdish community. In the recent past therefore, the sovereign rights of the states are increasingly ceding ground to the demands of human rights.
The global economic order that is characterized by an ever increasing level of interdependence, interconnectedness and growing influence of the market economic model constitutes the other source of the erosion of the dominant position of the state in the recent past. Globalization has largely been driven by the demand for deregulation, privatization and the opening the markets to be regulated only by the forces of demand and supply. Advances in technological developments and the increasing power and influence of the Multinational Corporations in the economies of the third world countries has generally led to situation where the state’s jurisdiction in increasingly becoming more and more irrelevant in regulating economic behavior. The financial might of some of the multinational corporations in terms of either their annual profits or their capital outlays are many time more than the national budgets of a number of some of the third world economies. Many of the third world economies have been in this regard been described as ‘penetrated economies’ in the sense that they are largely acted upon and are not actors of any significance or influence in the global economy. Further the growth of regional integration schemes have led to a dilution of decision structures of the individual states.
In the aftermath of the Cold War, ‘the iron curtain’ that divided the Eastern block from the Western hemisphere has been replaced by a ‘curtain of poverty’ that divides the affluent nations in the Europe and North America from the severe poverty that characterizes many nations in the third world nations. The global economy is largely driven by the interests of the most powerful nations in the world at the expense of the majority poor states in the in international community. As an illustration of the place that many third world countries occupy in the global economy in terms of trade, the entire African continent contributes less than 5% of the world trade. Another example that dramatizes this point is the fact that the state of New York has more phone line connections than the entire African continent combined.
Nonetheless, despite and in spite of the various assaults on the state’s position as the dominant international actor, I believe that we have not yet and will not in the foreseeable future see the demise of the state. For well over three hundred years, the state has remained the most dominant political actor in world politics. No other political institution wields greater authority over people than the state as it maintains the ultimate political claims on human beings. The state is the only unit which commands loyalty from a large number of people. The state possesses citizens who define their existence in relation to it. Given that the state owns territory, it follows that it remains a dominant international actor since all the other units occupy territory that is owned by the state at the pleasure of the state.
Far from irrevocably eroding the position of the state as a dominant international actor, the internationalization of human rights can only be realized on the basis of the existence of strong national structures and therefore states. That is, the demand of human rights are espoused in international law can only be implemented and enforced by the various states. Further in enforcing and implementing the same, the states will need to be sensitive to the unique situations and ethos of the various nations. International law therefore assumes the existence robust states capable of implementing international law. Secondly, the demands of international law behooves states to be at the fore front of not only upholding but also enforcing since failure to do this means that the states would have to account for its actions in cases where have been violations and abuse of rights of its own people.
The other charge leveled against the continued relevance of the state has to do with the prosperity that accrues from the unregulated free market economy and in the absence of any form of regulation from the state. The financial crisis that hit south East Asia in 1997/1998 and the current economic turmoil across North America, Europe and Asia have effectively and with finality disabused us of the assumption of the wholesale deregulation of the financial markets. The financial crisis in South East Asia in 1998 and the current financial crises are a confirmation that deregulation is disastrous to the economic life of any society. The Malaysian government in defiance of conventional wisdom, as advanced by the proponents of deregulation, intervened in the market to avert a total collapse. Today, the United States government is intervening in the market and has bailed out the failing institutions while a number of European governments have taken over some of the failing financial institutions. This financial crisis that today to continues to drive down financial markets in the America, Europe and Asia and pushing their various economies towards the path of recession has exposed the follies of the gospel of deregulation according to scriptures of globalization. The role of the state in responding to this unfolding financial crisis cannot be overemphasized. In the face of the eminent collapse of the market, the state had to step to shore it up.
The state, the political organization responsible for maintaining and sustaining community life, is as old as the human civilization itself. States have proved to be highly resistant to attempts and movements that have sought to relegate it to obsolescence. There is no doubt that the evolving structure and form of the international system has resulted in some level of erosion to the traditional understanding of the state. In the light of rapid changes that have taken place there is therefore need to rework reinterpret the concept of the state since this unit of the international system is not going anywhere anytime soon. The state’s position as the dominant international actor has not been irrevocably eroded in the recent past. The state continues to be the dominant international actor the only change being that greater levels of vigilance and accountability is demanded of it not only in the domestic front but also in the international arena from its ‘peers’ in the international community.
Hekima College
“Critically Evaluate the View that the State’s Position as a Dominant International Actor has been Irrevocably Eroded in the Recent Past”
Moses Owade Were
The proponents of the view that the state’s position as the dominant international actor in has been eroded in the recent past are right to some given extent. However, in as much as attempts are made to stretch the case espoused by this school of thought by stating that the state’s position in the international system has been irrevocably eroded is debatable and remains a contested terrain international relations today. I would concede that there may have indeed been certain erosion the roles, relevance and significance of the state in the recent past. This however does not in any way negate the fact that the state still remains the primary focus of identity for an overwhelming majority of people in the world today. Granted that the autonomy and function of the state has been eroded by transnational trends, the world has no seen the emergence of an adequate substitute to replace it as the primary unit in responding to challenges and changes on the global level.
In the aftermath of the end of the era of the Cold War, the increasing dominance of the market economy in the context of globalization economic regime and the internationalization of human rights have led to a continued demand for a review of the Westphallian structure of the international system. Specifically, the irruption of internal violence in a number of states and consequent violations of human rights on a grand scale that in some cases have been encouraged by and even executed by certain governments have led to serious questions on whether the sovereignty of the state in inviolable?
The notion of sovereignty whereby the state is free from foreign interference is enshrined in International law. On the other hand, the concept of human rights has been accorded universal legal validity by the United Nations Charter of Human Rights, the Universal Declaration of Human rights and a series of other international treaties. What recourse would one have in situations where these two principles, rooted in international law, are conflict? An international debate on precisely this kind of clash between the notions of sovereignty and human rights violation was provoked on October 16th 1998. On this day, the then Home Secretary for Great Britain ordered the arrest of Augustino Pinochet, formerly Chilean president, who was then seeking medical treatment in London. The arrest was ordered to allow the serving of an extradition warrant issued by the Spanish National Court and submitted by the International Police. The charges that had been preferred against Pinochet were set out as “crimes against humanity”. The arrest of Pinochet raised many questions amongst this was whether Spain would have jurisdiction over crimes that were alleged to have been committed in Chile? Further, the Chilean senate had granted amnesty to Pinochet and granted him immunity from prosecution by making him honorary senator for life.
The principle of sovereign immunity that was at one point a universally accepted legal principle has been progressively eroded in the recent times. Thus in the second half of the twentieth century, this principle has relentlessly been diluted and eventually eliminated through various treaties and customs in international law. Today sovereign states and the people who run them cannot perpetrate crimes against humanity like genocide without being held accountable for their actions by the international community. No government can issue a legally binding amnesty to person accused of committing crimes against humanity. The question that is evoked by this reality is on what takes precedent, between the sovereign rights of governments to do what they will within their borders or the rights of all human beings to be free from oppression, ill treatment and genocide. What obligation does the international community have in face of the violation of human rights by a member? Are the transcendent principles of human rights more fundamental and important than state sovereignty?
This debate is centered on the assertion of the humanitarian vital interests, the notion that “the rights of individuals and groups have precedence over and above the rights of the state”. The notion of sovereignty has been repeatedly used and abused by despotic leaders as a shield against ‘foreign interference’ while at the same time perpetrating untold abuses and crimes against their own citizens. By harping on the notion of the sovereignty such demented leaders were in effect granted sufficient room rule at they willed even if this meant the wanton killing, maiming and repression of their own people. Therefore in situations of gross abuses of individual or group rights then the international community has a right and obligation to intervene even when the sovereignty of the state is violated in the process. This principle of humanitarian vital interests and what Koffi Annan, the former Secretary General of the United Nations, devolved under the heading of “Responsibility to Protect” informed the interventions by the international community in Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia and in the post gulf war Iraq in regard to the Kurdish community. In the recent past therefore, the sovereign rights of the states are increasingly ceding ground to the demands of human rights.
The global economic order that is characterized by an ever increasing level of interdependence, interconnectedness and growing influence of the market economic model constitutes the other source of the erosion of the dominant position of the state in the recent past. Globalization has largely been driven by the demand for deregulation, privatization and the opening the markets to be regulated only by the forces of demand and supply. Advances in technological developments and the increasing power and influence of the Multinational Corporations in the economies of the third world countries has generally led to situation where the state’s jurisdiction in increasingly becoming more and more irrelevant in regulating economic behavior. The financial might of some of the multinational corporations in terms of either their annual profits or their capital outlays are many time more than the national budgets of a number of some of the third world economies. Many of the third world economies have been in this regard been described as ‘penetrated economies’ in the sense that they are largely acted upon and are not actors of any significance or influence in the global economy. Further the growth of regional integration schemes have led to a dilution of decision structures of the individual states.
In the aftermath of the Cold War, ‘the iron curtain’ that divided the Eastern block from the Western hemisphere has been replaced by a ‘curtain of poverty’ that divides the affluent nations in the Europe and North America from the severe poverty that characterizes many nations in the third world nations. The global economy is largely driven by the interests of the most powerful nations in the world at the expense of the majority poor states in the in international community. As an illustration of the place that many third world countries occupy in the global economy in terms of trade, the entire African continent contributes less than 5% of the world trade. Another example that dramatizes this point is the fact that the state of New York has more phone line connections than the entire African continent combined.
Nonetheless, despite and in spite of the various assaults on the state’s position as the dominant international actor, I believe that we have not yet and will not in the foreseeable future see the demise of the state. For well over three hundred years, the state has remained the most dominant political actor in world politics. No other political institution wields greater authority over people than the state as it maintains the ultimate political claims on human beings. The state is the only unit which commands loyalty from a large number of people. The state possesses citizens who define their existence in relation to it. Given that the state owns territory, it follows that it remains a dominant international actor since all the other units occupy territory that is owned by the state at the pleasure of the state.
Far from irrevocably eroding the position of the state as a dominant international actor, the internationalization of human rights can only be realized on the basis of the existence of strong national structures and therefore states. That is, the demand of human rights are espoused in international law can only be implemented and enforced by the various states. Further in enforcing and implementing the same, the states will need to be sensitive to the unique situations and ethos of the various nations. International law therefore assumes the existence robust states capable of implementing international law. Secondly, the demands of international law behooves states to be at the fore front of not only upholding but also enforcing since failure to do this means that the states would have to account for its actions in cases where have been violations and abuse of rights of its own people.
The other charge leveled against the continued relevance of the state has to do with the prosperity that accrues from the unregulated free market economy and in the absence of any form of regulation from the state. The financial crisis that hit south East Asia in 1997/1998 and the current economic turmoil across North America, Europe and Asia have effectively and with finality disabused us of the assumption of the wholesale deregulation of the financial markets. The financial crisis in South East Asia in 1998 and the current financial crises are a confirmation that deregulation is disastrous to the economic life of any society. The Malaysian government in defiance of conventional wisdom, as advanced by the proponents of deregulation, intervened in the market to avert a total collapse. Today, the United States government is intervening in the market and has bailed out the failing institutions while a number of European governments have taken over some of the failing financial institutions. This financial crisis that today to continues to drive down financial markets in the America, Europe and Asia and pushing their various economies towards the path of recession has exposed the follies of the gospel of deregulation according to scriptures of globalization. The role of the state in responding to this unfolding financial crisis cannot be overemphasized. In the face of the eminent collapse of the market, the state had to step to shore it up.
The state, the political organization responsible for maintaining and sustaining community life, is as old as the human civilization itself. States have proved to be highly resistant to attempts and movements that have sought to relegate it to obsolescence. There is no doubt that the evolving structure and form of the international system has resulted in some level of erosion to the traditional understanding of the state. In the light of rapid changes that have taken place there is therefore need to rework reinterpret the concept of the state since this unit of the international system is not going anywhere anytime soon. The state’s position as the dominant international actor has not been irrevocably eroded in the recent past. The state continues to be the dominant international actor the only change being that greater levels of vigilance and accountability is demanded of it not only in the domestic front but also in the international arena from its ‘peers’ in the international community.
INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS AND THE KENYAN CONFLICT
Institute of Peace Studies and International Relations
Hekima College
A Constituent College of
The Catholic University of Eastern Africa
International Human Rights Organizations and Kenya’s Post Election Crisis of
2007-2008
Moses Owade Were
International human rights organizations have today become increasingly potent in pursuing their interests across the world. The growing influence of the activities of these organisations has played a major role in shaping the landscape of international relations in contemporary times. The horrors and frequency of the human rights abuses that are highlighted by the International human rights organization keep penetrating the international consciousness and disconcerting the global conscience. The ‘mobilization of shame’ in the face mass violation of the internationally recognized human rights is thus a defining feature of these organizations, their raison d’etre. By lobbying and disseminating information, organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Africa Watch, Asia Watch, Freedom House and other similar bodies have been instrumental in alleviating human rights abuses in many countries across the globe.
In this paper, I am going to examine the role played by the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, in resolving Kenya’s election crisis of 2007-2008. I will begin with tracing the historical evolution of the process of the internationalization of human rights and its impact on the field of contemporary international relations. I will then embark on a brief historical foray into Kenya’s recent history and the extent to which international human rights organizations have shaped that history. I will then delve into the role that Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, played in influencing the resolution of Kenya’s worst political crisis since independence.
The subject human right is a novel idea in terms of its emergence as an increasingly influential component of international relations. Since the 1648 peace of Westphalia through to 1945, human rights were largely regarded to be within the competence of the nation-state. With the formation of the United Nations in 1945, this was however profoundly changed both in terms of diplomatic practice and in terms of legal theory. The United Nations Charter and its various provisions mandated all the member states “to promote the observance of fundamental human rights without distinction to race, sex, language or religion.”(Article 55 United Nations Charter)
The United Nations has been at the core of the global human rights efforts and initiatives anchored on the Charter addressing human rights. The significance of the UN Charter is that it ‘represented a broad foundational stepping stone’ that set in motion a series of decisions that cumulatively resulted in the internationalization of human rights. That is, after the Charter was ratified by member states, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was passed and this was followed by the creation of the United Nations Human Rights Commission which in turn led to the creation of various regional human rights bodies.
The UN Commission on Human rights was a body set up to monitor the progress of states in fulfilling their pledges vis-a-vie the promotion of human rights. The commissions’ only power is to publicise human rights abuses with the hope that such adverse publicity would compel the relevant states to curtail on their violations of human rights. Finally, the covenant on civil and political rights on the one hand and economic, cultural and social rights on the other came into force between 1967 and 1970 and included many of the global bill of rights that were set out under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Consequently, by 1970, human rights had been internationalized at the global level.
International Relations experienced a major shift between 1945 and 1970 as human rights ceased to be generally perceive as a matter fully under the armpit of the sovereign state. By 1970, various nations had appended their signatures to all kinds of treaties, voted for various resolutions and declarations, and engaged in all kinds of diplomatic practices with the net result of all these being the internationalization of the subject of human rights. The World Conference on Human Rights (1993) that was sponsored by the United Nations declared that “all human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated.” At the same time, the conference urged that due cognition must be given to “the significance of national and regional particularities and the various historical, cultural and religious when outlining rights and speaking against abuses.
Therefore, by the 1990’s, it was no longer defensible for any dictatorship to argue that the human rights are exclusively the domestic affairs of their sovereign states. Trans-national organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have irrevocably eroded the traditional claim that whatever states do within their own borders is their own business. The emergence and continual expansion of the human rights ideals have definitely shifted the traditional standards of international legitimacy. Regimes and leaders that are given to persistently disregarding the emerging global norms couched in the language of human rights and commit atrocities against their own people will find themselves increasingly shunned as pariahs and hence weakened in a world that is increasingly interdependent.
In independent Kenya, the International human rights organisations have consistently played a significant role in shaping the country’s recent political history. In the 1990’s, Amnesty International was at the forefront in calling for not only the respect of human rights but also exposing the human rights violations by the despotic regime of Daniel Arap Moi, Kenya’s second president. In the same period and under Moi’s watch, organised political violence was institutionalized as a defining factor of the country’s general elections even as the seeds of impunity were being sowed and nurtured.
The emergence of organized political violence unfolded against the backdrop of the mounting pressure on the regime of the then president Moi to legalize pluralism. The annual reports of international human organizations like Amnesty International, Africa Watch/Human Rights Watch were instrumental in shaping the opinion of the international community by exposing human rights abuses and in consequently mobilizing the international community and Kenya’s development partners in particular in demanding for change in Kenya. The regime eventually caved in to pressure from both the domestic and international fronts and Kenya reverted to being a multi party democracy in 1991. The Moi government nonetheless remained recalcitrant and continued to subvert the process of democratization as violence erupted and engulfed the multi-ethnic provinces of Rift Valley, Western and Nyanza.
Consequently the paths leading to the multi-party elections since 1992 have been littered with varying levels and degrees of organized political violence that engulfed the country in recurrent orgies of ethnic killings and mass displacements of people. Kenya’s first wave of organised political violence erupted on the 29th October 1991 and came to an end in November 1993 with over 1500 people dead while another 300, 000 had been forcibly driven from their homes. This orgy of ‘ethnic cleansing’ that swept through parts of rural Kenya from late 1991 was largely to blame for the flawed elections in 1992.
In its careful and exhaustive study of this violence, Human Rights Watch, an international human rights organisation, submitted that the Moi government had presided over the organized violence for political gains. The vigilante groups or militias were evidently sponsored by the state to act as a response to the challenge posed by the proponents of multi-party democracy and therefore as a means of perpetuating the hegemonic elite of the ‘one party era’ in power. The government securities forces were at times known to have provided the training, protection and even worked in concert with the militia groups during the attacks. These attacks exclusively targeted ethnic groups associated with the proponents of the multi-party democracy movement.
Prior to 1997, organized political violence was confined to the rural areas of Nyanza, Western and Rift Valley provinces. Four weeks before the 1997 elections, Kenya was boiling over with all manner and forms of communal violence. This violence climaxed on the 13th August 1997 as ethnic clashes erupted in the Coast province leaving over 100 people dead and another 100, 000 displaced from their homes. The militia groups and warriors who carried out the attacks were known to include junior officers from the police, the military and ex-servicemen.
In spite of the mass violations of human rights that resulted from these violence and the reports from the international human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch, not a single person was ever brought to justice. These reports consistently alleged that high ranking political figures, civil servants and persons close to the heart of the government organized and used violent groups to kill other Kenyans, destroy their property, and intimidate those perceived to be sympathetic to the opposition. Organized violence was used solely for the purpose of securing political power.
Having outlined the evolution of the process of the internationalization of human rights and briefly considered the role of international human rights organization in the face of mass human rights violations in Kenya’s recent history, I now turn my attention to international human rights organizations and Kenya’s post election crisis of 2007-2008.
International human rights organizations is a sub-group within the larger international non-governmental organisations (INGO’s) that today number upwards of 26,000 across the world. These organizations lobby the powerful in order to advance their interests and rally for support through the mass media by gathering and disseminating information promoting their cause. International human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have been instrumental in pushing the human rights questions to the top of the agenda of the international community by spreading awareness about human rights abuses in the various countries. Their primary goal is the advancement of the internationally recognized human rights since they derive their raison d’etre from the universal bill of rights.
These organizations help to keep the attention of the international community on human rights through their annual country by country reports on abuses. Careful research and the organizations’ considerable skills in public relations ensure that these reports are influential documents whose findings are widely reported by the global media. As a result of such exposure of human rights abuses by the global media, the international community would be rallied to act. The promotion of human rights across the globe by the United States, the world’s most powerful state, have also contributed immensely to the growing prominence of the discourse on human rights in the international community.
It is almost always impossible to precisely analyse the influence of an international human rights organization or a coalition of such organizations on a given situation. Scientifically, it would be a challenge to factor out the precise contribution of such organisations through general analysis. Nonetheless, it is possible on some given cases to identify some fairly precise influence of international human rights organizations on public policy. With this in mind we turn our attention to the role of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in relation to the Kenyan post-election crisis.
Human Rights Watch is an international human rights monitoring and advocacy organization known for rigorous, objective, accurate,impartial and reliable human rights reporting in over 70 countries. Each year Human Rights Watch produces over100 reports and human rights briefings that are extensively covered in both the local and international media. With the leverage that such coverage entails, Human Rights Watch is able to with governments, United Nations, regional groupings like African Union, European Union, financial institutions and corporations and is thus able to lobby for changes in policies and practices that promote human rights and justice in across the globe. All this is in keeping with the organizations' is dedication to the protection of human rights of people around the world.
Human Rights Watch is renowned for innovative high profile campaigns and has been successful in affecting the policy of the government of the United States and other influential governments towards regimes, groups and individuals engaged in human rights abuses. Human Rights Watch is known to use statistical research, sett elite photography amongst other new methodologies in addition to on-the-ground-fact-finding hence allowing the organization to remain at the cutting edge of innovative advocacy. The organization not only investigates but also exposes human rights violations and at the same time holds the abusers accountable for their actions. Human Rights Watch challenges governments and those wielding power to end abusive practices and respect the international human rights law. It seeks to enlist the public and the international community to support the cause of human rights for all peoples across the globe.
On the 29th January 2008, in the midst of the raging post election violence in Kenya, Human Rights Watch wrote a letter to H.E. Alpha Konare, the then head of the African Union Peace and Security Council, on the situation in Kenya. In this letter, Human Rights Watch called on the African Union to condemn the violence on both sides of the political divide and issue immediate calls for the cessation of hostilities. Further, the African Union was asked to call for an independent and international audit of the December elections besides emphasizing the need for electoral, legislative and administrative reforms. The letter pointed out that any political settlement to the crisis that obtained in Kenya then had to address its underlying causes.
In this letter, Human Rights Watch spelt out its intention of urging the other international actors especially the European Union and the United States to co-ordinate with the initiatives of the African Union on the same. Moreover, Human Rights Watch stated its intention of lobbying the United States and the European Union to suspend any further direct government assistance and to consider further sanctions that would only be lifted when specific human rights benchmarks are attained.
In addition to the letter to the African Union, Human Rights Watch was, on the 7th of February 2008, invited to participate on the hearing of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, the Subcommittee on African Affairs. On this hearing, Human Rights Watch, represented by Chris Albin Lackey made a presentation on “the immediate and underlying causes and consequences of flawed democracy in Kenya”. In this presentation, Human Rights Watch insisted that the United States and the entire international community has a crucial role play in seeing to it that any political settlement that is arrived at lays the foundation for lasting peace and ensures accountability for the crimes that have destroyed so many lives. Further, it urged that such a political settlement has to be grounded in an unequivocal respect for human rights and the principles of democratic governance.
Human Right Watch recommended that the government of the United States, along with the African Union and Kenya’s other international partners to be at the forefront in applying pressure on Kenya’s political leadership to negotiate a solution to the crisis. The international community was urged by Human Rights Watch to communicate to both parties to the Kenyan conflict that a negotiated solution must include at a minimum an independent and public investigation into the allegations of fraud in the disputed and widely discredited presidential election of December 2007. In addition, it was recommended that the negotiated solution ought to outline a framework for constitutional and electoral reform aimed at addressing the underlying causes of the post-election violence. The government of the United States and Kenya’s development partners were impressed upon to publicly commit that sanctions would be imposed on and against any political leader on either side of the divide who obstructs or subverts a negotiated settlement. Finally, the international community was asked to consider supporting the international component to investigate the post election violence.
The activities of Human Rights Watch in relation to the Kenyan crisis were supplemented by the initiatives of other international human rights organization such as Amnesty International. Amnesty International is a worldwide movement of people campaigning for internationally recognized human rights for all. This organization believes that human rights violations anywhere ought to be the concern of people everywhere. Consequently, outraged by human rights abuses but inspired by the hope for a better kinder world, Amnesty International strives to improve people’s lives through campaigns and international solidarity. The organization conducts research and generates action to end grave abuses of human rights and demands for justice for those whose rights have been violated. The members and supporters of Amnesty International exert influence on governments, political bodies and intergovernmental bodies by mobilizing public pressure through mass demonstrations, direct lobbying as well as on-line and off-line campaigning.
On the 15th of February 2008, Amnesty International issued a press release calling on the government of Kenya and the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights to prioritize an investigation into human rights violations and abuses perpetrated in the course of the post-election violence and to ensure that the suspected perpetrators are held responsible through trials that satisfy the international standards. While addressing the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights on the same concerns, Erwin van der Borght, the director of Amnesty International’s Africa programmes urged that
“a human rights agenda must be central to any resolution of the political crisis-which means that those responsible for the violence must be brought to justice, and the victims receive reparations. Impunity for human rights violations will only store up problems for Kenya’s future, and we hope that the African Commission will play its role in ensuring that this does not happen.”
On the 27th of March 2008, Amnesty International delivered 10,000 petitions to the representatives of the Kenyan leadership, President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga. These petitions represented the people who had on the 27th of February 2008 signed up for the Kenya Action Day that was organized by Amnesty International. The petitions called for an end to post-election violence and for the perpetrators of the violence to be brought to justice in fair trials. In addition, over 6000 people signed up on the ‘Reach Out For Kenya’ face book group besides the public actions and demonstrations also organized by Amnesty International in over 12 countries. Thus the activities and the reports of Amnesty International on the unfolding political crisis that was then manifest in Kenya played a crucial role of shaping the perception and informing the actions of the international community.
The process of mediation and negotiation of the Kenyan conflict and the resultant political settlement largely mirrored the recommendations that Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International amongst other organizations spelt out to the Kenyan government, the African Union and the international community at large. In the heat of the negotiations, hardliners on both sides of the political divide were threatened with sanctions and travel bans in the event that they derail the talks. As part of the national accord that was signed by the parties in conflict, both parties agreed to the formation of a commission to independently review the discredited presidential elections. The parties also agreed to the formation of a commission to investigate the circumstances of the post-election violence and the human rights violations that were perpetrated therein. As part of the Agenda 4 of the political settlement, the parties to the conflict committed themselves to the delivery of a new constitution within one year, comprehensive land reforms and the setting up of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission to deal with the historical injustices that the Kenyan people have suffered since independence in 1963.
The world today continues to witness ever increasing levels of interactions between states and peoples in almost all areas of endeavour. As these interactions grow, so does the need for regularized behaviour and for the rules to regulate that behaviour. As the ancient roman adage posits that where there is a community, then law necessarily emerges. All the signs in the world today thus point to an increasing respect for international law and greater emphasis on the adherence to certain minimum standards of morality. Consequently, violations of international standards of human rights are today more likely to attract the wrath of the international community. The agenda of internationally recognized human rights will continue to have an increasing impact on the actions of states as the dominant international actors and Kenya is no exception to this damning reality.
There are two key human rights issues that still remain unresolved by the international community. The international community has to contend with the lack of reliable enforcement regime for human rights as an evolving international norm. Secondly, there is the ongoing debate on whether there indeed exists a single universally applicable standard of human rights in the global arena.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Amnesty International. http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/02/07/kenya 18012 html.(accessed October 7, 2008)
Commission of Inquiry Investigating the Post Election Violence Report. (Waki Report, 2008)
Forsythe, David P. The Internationalization of Human Rights (Toronto: Lexington Books, 1991)
Human Rights Watch. http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/02/07/kenya 18012 html.(accessed October 7, 2008)
Kenya Human Rights Commission. Killing the Vote: The State Sponsored Violence and Flawed Elections in Kenya (Nairobi: Kenya Human Rights Commission, 1998)
Nester, William. International Relations: Politics and Economics in the 21st Century (Belmont CA: Wadsworth Group, 2001)
Rourke, John T., and Mark, A. Boyer. International Politics on the World Stage (New York: McGraw Hill, 2004)
Rutten, Marcel., Alamin, Mazrui., and Francios, Grignon., eds. Out For the Count: The 1997 Elections and Prospects for Democracy in Kenya (Kampala: Fountain Publishers, 2001)
Snow, Donald M., and Eugene Brown. International Relations: The Changing Contours of Power (New York: Wesley Longman Inc., 2000)
Hekima College
A Constituent College of
The Catholic University of Eastern Africa
International Human Rights Organizations and Kenya’s Post Election Crisis of
2007-2008
Moses Owade Were
International human rights organizations have today become increasingly potent in pursuing their interests across the world. The growing influence of the activities of these organisations has played a major role in shaping the landscape of international relations in contemporary times. The horrors and frequency of the human rights abuses that are highlighted by the International human rights organization keep penetrating the international consciousness and disconcerting the global conscience. The ‘mobilization of shame’ in the face mass violation of the internationally recognized human rights is thus a defining feature of these organizations, their raison d’etre. By lobbying and disseminating information, organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Africa Watch, Asia Watch, Freedom House and other similar bodies have been instrumental in alleviating human rights abuses in many countries across the globe.
In this paper, I am going to examine the role played by the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, in resolving Kenya’s election crisis of 2007-2008. I will begin with tracing the historical evolution of the process of the internationalization of human rights and its impact on the field of contemporary international relations. I will then embark on a brief historical foray into Kenya’s recent history and the extent to which international human rights organizations have shaped that history. I will then delve into the role that Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, played in influencing the resolution of Kenya’s worst political crisis since independence.
The subject human right is a novel idea in terms of its emergence as an increasingly influential component of international relations. Since the 1648 peace of Westphalia through to 1945, human rights were largely regarded to be within the competence of the nation-state. With the formation of the United Nations in 1945, this was however profoundly changed both in terms of diplomatic practice and in terms of legal theory. The United Nations Charter and its various provisions mandated all the member states “to promote the observance of fundamental human rights without distinction to race, sex, language or religion.”(Article 55 United Nations Charter)
The United Nations has been at the core of the global human rights efforts and initiatives anchored on the Charter addressing human rights. The significance of the UN Charter is that it ‘represented a broad foundational stepping stone’ that set in motion a series of decisions that cumulatively resulted in the internationalization of human rights. That is, after the Charter was ratified by member states, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was passed and this was followed by the creation of the United Nations Human Rights Commission which in turn led to the creation of various regional human rights bodies.
The UN Commission on Human rights was a body set up to monitor the progress of states in fulfilling their pledges vis-a-vie the promotion of human rights. The commissions’ only power is to publicise human rights abuses with the hope that such adverse publicity would compel the relevant states to curtail on their violations of human rights. Finally, the covenant on civil and political rights on the one hand and economic, cultural and social rights on the other came into force between 1967 and 1970 and included many of the global bill of rights that were set out under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Consequently, by 1970, human rights had been internationalized at the global level.
International Relations experienced a major shift between 1945 and 1970 as human rights ceased to be generally perceive as a matter fully under the armpit of the sovereign state. By 1970, various nations had appended their signatures to all kinds of treaties, voted for various resolutions and declarations, and engaged in all kinds of diplomatic practices with the net result of all these being the internationalization of the subject of human rights. The World Conference on Human Rights (1993) that was sponsored by the United Nations declared that “all human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated.” At the same time, the conference urged that due cognition must be given to “the significance of national and regional particularities and the various historical, cultural and religious when outlining rights and speaking against abuses.
Therefore, by the 1990’s, it was no longer defensible for any dictatorship to argue that the human rights are exclusively the domestic affairs of their sovereign states. Trans-national organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have irrevocably eroded the traditional claim that whatever states do within their own borders is their own business. The emergence and continual expansion of the human rights ideals have definitely shifted the traditional standards of international legitimacy. Regimes and leaders that are given to persistently disregarding the emerging global norms couched in the language of human rights and commit atrocities against their own people will find themselves increasingly shunned as pariahs and hence weakened in a world that is increasingly interdependent.
In independent Kenya, the International human rights organisations have consistently played a significant role in shaping the country’s recent political history. In the 1990’s, Amnesty International was at the forefront in calling for not only the respect of human rights but also exposing the human rights violations by the despotic regime of Daniel Arap Moi, Kenya’s second president. In the same period and under Moi’s watch, organised political violence was institutionalized as a defining factor of the country’s general elections even as the seeds of impunity were being sowed and nurtured.
The emergence of organized political violence unfolded against the backdrop of the mounting pressure on the regime of the then president Moi to legalize pluralism. The annual reports of international human organizations like Amnesty International, Africa Watch/Human Rights Watch were instrumental in shaping the opinion of the international community by exposing human rights abuses and in consequently mobilizing the international community and Kenya’s development partners in particular in demanding for change in Kenya. The regime eventually caved in to pressure from both the domestic and international fronts and Kenya reverted to being a multi party democracy in 1991. The Moi government nonetheless remained recalcitrant and continued to subvert the process of democratization as violence erupted and engulfed the multi-ethnic provinces of Rift Valley, Western and Nyanza.
Consequently the paths leading to the multi-party elections since 1992 have been littered with varying levels and degrees of organized political violence that engulfed the country in recurrent orgies of ethnic killings and mass displacements of people. Kenya’s first wave of organised political violence erupted on the 29th October 1991 and came to an end in November 1993 with over 1500 people dead while another 300, 000 had been forcibly driven from their homes. This orgy of ‘ethnic cleansing’ that swept through parts of rural Kenya from late 1991 was largely to blame for the flawed elections in 1992.
In its careful and exhaustive study of this violence, Human Rights Watch, an international human rights organisation, submitted that the Moi government had presided over the organized violence for political gains. The vigilante groups or militias were evidently sponsored by the state to act as a response to the challenge posed by the proponents of multi-party democracy and therefore as a means of perpetuating the hegemonic elite of the ‘one party era’ in power. The government securities forces were at times known to have provided the training, protection and even worked in concert with the militia groups during the attacks. These attacks exclusively targeted ethnic groups associated with the proponents of the multi-party democracy movement.
Prior to 1997, organized political violence was confined to the rural areas of Nyanza, Western and Rift Valley provinces. Four weeks before the 1997 elections, Kenya was boiling over with all manner and forms of communal violence. This violence climaxed on the 13th August 1997 as ethnic clashes erupted in the Coast province leaving over 100 people dead and another 100, 000 displaced from their homes. The militia groups and warriors who carried out the attacks were known to include junior officers from the police, the military and ex-servicemen.
In spite of the mass violations of human rights that resulted from these violence and the reports from the international human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch, not a single person was ever brought to justice. These reports consistently alleged that high ranking political figures, civil servants and persons close to the heart of the government organized and used violent groups to kill other Kenyans, destroy their property, and intimidate those perceived to be sympathetic to the opposition. Organized violence was used solely for the purpose of securing political power.
Having outlined the evolution of the process of the internationalization of human rights and briefly considered the role of international human rights organization in the face of mass human rights violations in Kenya’s recent history, I now turn my attention to international human rights organizations and Kenya’s post election crisis of 2007-2008.
International human rights organizations is a sub-group within the larger international non-governmental organisations (INGO’s) that today number upwards of 26,000 across the world. These organizations lobby the powerful in order to advance their interests and rally for support through the mass media by gathering and disseminating information promoting their cause. International human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have been instrumental in pushing the human rights questions to the top of the agenda of the international community by spreading awareness about human rights abuses in the various countries. Their primary goal is the advancement of the internationally recognized human rights since they derive their raison d’etre from the universal bill of rights.
These organizations help to keep the attention of the international community on human rights through their annual country by country reports on abuses. Careful research and the organizations’ considerable skills in public relations ensure that these reports are influential documents whose findings are widely reported by the global media. As a result of such exposure of human rights abuses by the global media, the international community would be rallied to act. The promotion of human rights across the globe by the United States, the world’s most powerful state, have also contributed immensely to the growing prominence of the discourse on human rights in the international community.
It is almost always impossible to precisely analyse the influence of an international human rights organization or a coalition of such organizations on a given situation. Scientifically, it would be a challenge to factor out the precise contribution of such organisations through general analysis. Nonetheless, it is possible on some given cases to identify some fairly precise influence of international human rights organizations on public policy. With this in mind we turn our attention to the role of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in relation to the Kenyan post-election crisis.
Human Rights Watch is an international human rights monitoring and advocacy organization known for rigorous, objective, accurate,impartial and reliable human rights reporting in over 70 countries. Each year Human Rights Watch produces over100 reports and human rights briefings that are extensively covered in both the local and international media. With the leverage that such coverage entails, Human Rights Watch is able to with governments, United Nations, regional groupings like African Union, European Union, financial institutions and corporations and is thus able to lobby for changes in policies and practices that promote human rights and justice in across the globe. All this is in keeping with the organizations' is dedication to the protection of human rights of people around the world.
Human Rights Watch is renowned for innovative high profile campaigns and has been successful in affecting the policy of the government of the United States and other influential governments towards regimes, groups and individuals engaged in human rights abuses. Human Rights Watch is known to use statistical research, sett elite photography amongst other new methodologies in addition to on-the-ground-fact-finding hence allowing the organization to remain at the cutting edge of innovative advocacy. The organization not only investigates but also exposes human rights violations and at the same time holds the abusers accountable for their actions. Human Rights Watch challenges governments and those wielding power to end abusive practices and respect the international human rights law. It seeks to enlist the public and the international community to support the cause of human rights for all peoples across the globe.
On the 29th January 2008, in the midst of the raging post election violence in Kenya, Human Rights Watch wrote a letter to H.E. Alpha Konare, the then head of the African Union Peace and Security Council, on the situation in Kenya. In this letter, Human Rights Watch called on the African Union to condemn the violence on both sides of the political divide and issue immediate calls for the cessation of hostilities. Further, the African Union was asked to call for an independent and international audit of the December elections besides emphasizing the need for electoral, legislative and administrative reforms. The letter pointed out that any political settlement to the crisis that obtained in Kenya then had to address its underlying causes.
In this letter, Human Rights Watch spelt out its intention of urging the other international actors especially the European Union and the United States to co-ordinate with the initiatives of the African Union on the same. Moreover, Human Rights Watch stated its intention of lobbying the United States and the European Union to suspend any further direct government assistance and to consider further sanctions that would only be lifted when specific human rights benchmarks are attained.
In addition to the letter to the African Union, Human Rights Watch was, on the 7th of February 2008, invited to participate on the hearing of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, the Subcommittee on African Affairs. On this hearing, Human Rights Watch, represented by Chris Albin Lackey made a presentation on “the immediate and underlying causes and consequences of flawed democracy in Kenya”. In this presentation, Human Rights Watch insisted that the United States and the entire international community has a crucial role play in seeing to it that any political settlement that is arrived at lays the foundation for lasting peace and ensures accountability for the crimes that have destroyed so many lives. Further, it urged that such a political settlement has to be grounded in an unequivocal respect for human rights and the principles of democratic governance.
Human Right Watch recommended that the government of the United States, along with the African Union and Kenya’s other international partners to be at the forefront in applying pressure on Kenya’s political leadership to negotiate a solution to the crisis. The international community was urged by Human Rights Watch to communicate to both parties to the Kenyan conflict that a negotiated solution must include at a minimum an independent and public investigation into the allegations of fraud in the disputed and widely discredited presidential election of December 2007. In addition, it was recommended that the negotiated solution ought to outline a framework for constitutional and electoral reform aimed at addressing the underlying causes of the post-election violence. The government of the United States and Kenya’s development partners were impressed upon to publicly commit that sanctions would be imposed on and against any political leader on either side of the divide who obstructs or subverts a negotiated settlement. Finally, the international community was asked to consider supporting the international component to investigate the post election violence.
The activities of Human Rights Watch in relation to the Kenyan crisis were supplemented by the initiatives of other international human rights organization such as Amnesty International. Amnesty International is a worldwide movement of people campaigning for internationally recognized human rights for all. This organization believes that human rights violations anywhere ought to be the concern of people everywhere. Consequently, outraged by human rights abuses but inspired by the hope for a better kinder world, Amnesty International strives to improve people’s lives through campaigns and international solidarity. The organization conducts research and generates action to end grave abuses of human rights and demands for justice for those whose rights have been violated. The members and supporters of Amnesty International exert influence on governments, political bodies and intergovernmental bodies by mobilizing public pressure through mass demonstrations, direct lobbying as well as on-line and off-line campaigning.
On the 15th of February 2008, Amnesty International issued a press release calling on the government of Kenya and the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights to prioritize an investigation into human rights violations and abuses perpetrated in the course of the post-election violence and to ensure that the suspected perpetrators are held responsible through trials that satisfy the international standards. While addressing the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights on the same concerns, Erwin van der Borght, the director of Amnesty International’s Africa programmes urged that
“a human rights agenda must be central to any resolution of the political crisis-which means that those responsible for the violence must be brought to justice, and the victims receive reparations. Impunity for human rights violations will only store up problems for Kenya’s future, and we hope that the African Commission will play its role in ensuring that this does not happen.”
On the 27th of March 2008, Amnesty International delivered 10,000 petitions to the representatives of the Kenyan leadership, President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga. These petitions represented the people who had on the 27th of February 2008 signed up for the Kenya Action Day that was organized by Amnesty International. The petitions called for an end to post-election violence and for the perpetrators of the violence to be brought to justice in fair trials. In addition, over 6000 people signed up on the ‘Reach Out For Kenya’ face book group besides the public actions and demonstrations also organized by Amnesty International in over 12 countries. Thus the activities and the reports of Amnesty International on the unfolding political crisis that was then manifest in Kenya played a crucial role of shaping the perception and informing the actions of the international community.
The process of mediation and negotiation of the Kenyan conflict and the resultant political settlement largely mirrored the recommendations that Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International amongst other organizations spelt out to the Kenyan government, the African Union and the international community at large. In the heat of the negotiations, hardliners on both sides of the political divide were threatened with sanctions and travel bans in the event that they derail the talks. As part of the national accord that was signed by the parties in conflict, both parties agreed to the formation of a commission to independently review the discredited presidential elections. The parties also agreed to the formation of a commission to investigate the circumstances of the post-election violence and the human rights violations that were perpetrated therein. As part of the Agenda 4 of the political settlement, the parties to the conflict committed themselves to the delivery of a new constitution within one year, comprehensive land reforms and the setting up of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission to deal with the historical injustices that the Kenyan people have suffered since independence in 1963.
The world today continues to witness ever increasing levels of interactions between states and peoples in almost all areas of endeavour. As these interactions grow, so does the need for regularized behaviour and for the rules to regulate that behaviour. As the ancient roman adage posits that where there is a community, then law necessarily emerges. All the signs in the world today thus point to an increasing respect for international law and greater emphasis on the adherence to certain minimum standards of morality. Consequently, violations of international standards of human rights are today more likely to attract the wrath of the international community. The agenda of internationally recognized human rights will continue to have an increasing impact on the actions of states as the dominant international actors and Kenya is no exception to this damning reality.
There are two key human rights issues that still remain unresolved by the international community. The international community has to contend with the lack of reliable enforcement regime for human rights as an evolving international norm. Secondly, there is the ongoing debate on whether there indeed exists a single universally applicable standard of human rights in the global arena.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Amnesty International. http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/02/07/kenya 18012 html.(accessed October 7, 2008)
Commission of Inquiry Investigating the Post Election Violence Report. (Waki Report, 2008)
Forsythe, David P. The Internationalization of Human Rights (Toronto: Lexington Books, 1991)
Human Rights Watch. http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/02/07/kenya 18012 html.(accessed October 7, 2008)
Kenya Human Rights Commission. Killing the Vote: The State Sponsored Violence and Flawed Elections in Kenya (Nairobi: Kenya Human Rights Commission, 1998)
Nester, William. International Relations: Politics and Economics in the 21st Century (Belmont CA: Wadsworth Group, 2001)
Rourke, John T., and Mark, A. Boyer. International Politics on the World Stage (New York: McGraw Hill, 2004)
Rutten, Marcel., Alamin, Mazrui., and Francios, Grignon., eds. Out For the Count: The 1997 Elections and Prospects for Democracy in Kenya (Kampala: Fountain Publishers, 2001)
Snow, Donald M., and Eugene Brown. International Relations: The Changing Contours of Power (New York: Wesley Longman Inc., 2000)
RECONCILIATION AS AN EFFECTIVE APPROACH IN DEALING WITH KENYA'S POST-CONLICT REALITY
Institute of Peace Studies and International Relations
Hekima College
A Constituent College of
The Catholic University Eastern Africa
In the light of Kenya’s post-election violence, has Operation Rudi Nyumbani been an effective approach in reconciling the nation and in providing a mechanism that will prevent the recurrence of electoral violence and the consequent displacement of people?
Thesis
Reconciliation can be used as an effective approach for dealing with our post-conflict reality in Kenya and also provide a mechanism that would prevent the recurrence of electoral violence.
By
Moses Owade Were
Nairobi, August 2008
As a Kenyan citizen, I embark into an inquiry of Justice, Peace and Reconciliation with the raw experiences of the post election violence and the deep ethnic divisions that characterized its latter stages. At the height of the violence, close to 500, 000 people had been forced from their homes, another 1500 people had been killed, and a significant proportion of the population had been traumatized by these tragic events. How did we, as a nation, find ourselves starring at the very gates of hell? What was it that led neighbor to rise up against neighbor? What changed people, who only a few days earlier, would have gladly shared a meal into in merciless killers? Would it be possible to fashion out a new Kenya, a Kenya at once at peace and reconciled with itself? These are some of the questions and concerns that I am grappling with as I embark on this inquiry.
The focus of this paper will be on the process of the resettlement of the internally displaced persons and the role, if any, that reconciliation ought to play in the entire exercise. The general orientation of my presentation is that reconciliation can be used in Kenya not only as an effective approach in dealing with our post-conflict reality but also as a mechanism that would prevent the recurrence of such crises in the future.
On the 8th of May 2008, the government of Kenya launched what has been described as a “voluntary” resettlement program officially referred to as Operation Rudi Nyumbani. . The resettlement program targeted the over 100, 000 internally displaced persons who were still living in the camps for the internally displaced persons (IDPs) across the country. Three days later, the government, through the Provincial Commissioner for the Rift Valley province , made an announcement to the effect that all the camps for the internally displaced persons in the vast province would be shut down by the end of May 2008. The government envisioned resettling the displaced persons in two phases, starting with moving them from main camps to transitional camps or satellite camps closer to their homes. However, little or no efforts towards dialogue are being made to complement this exercise. Secondly, how, we may be tempted to ask with Georgette Gagnon, a country director at Human Rights Watch, is it possible to have a “voluntary” return home with a deadline?
The United Nations Guiding principles on IDPs states that displaced persons have a right to be protected against any form of forceful resettlement in any area where their life, freedom and property would be subjected to great risk. Displaced persons have a right to return to their homes voluntarily and when they feel safe enough and not when such a return suits the government of the day. Despite this, there are documented cases of how armed police officers forcefully emptied camps in places like Kitale town. This account was replicated in a number of other camps in which the displaced persons were driven out of the camps without food or water. It behooves the government not to be seen to be forcing back the displaced or using force to resettle them. Many of the IDPs were apprehensive that their home areas were still unsafe and that very little reconciliation had taken place between the various communities that were in conflict. Resettling people in an unsafe area and contested area in a hurry can only at best result in an illusion of peace and may actually end up entrenching the divisions between the communities in conflict which may in turn result in another wave of violence in the near future.
An incident involving the minister for Special Programs, under whose docket the resettlement program falls, and a group of displaced people dramatizes the enormous challenges that Operation Rudi Nyumbani has to contend with. The displaced people booed the minister when she had gone to launch the resettlement program in Kitale, Rift Valley province. The displaced persons told the minister, to her face, that they did not believe what she was telling them. The minister indeed suffered the indignity of cutting short her speech and was forced to endure a lecture from a representative of the displaced on what the people needed: They told the minister that they had expected the government to first bring the victims and their tormentors together to first talk peace before any attempt was made at resettlement. Once this was done, the displaced persons asserted, they could then move back to their homes accompanied by their former neighbors and tormentors.
The use of force as an approach to handle conflict would more often than not end up suppressing the issues that are the root causes of the conflict. The result is that such conflict end up recurring and at times with frightening intensity and destructiveness. In the Kenyan context, the recurrence of violence after every five years since 1991 and the consequent the displacements of people can be traced to the failure by the successive regimes to resolve the underlying causes or root causes of displacement. Some of the deep seated causes of conflicts between communities in Kenya include disputes over land ownership and allocation, inequality in the distribution of resources, an exclusionist winner take it all electoral process, a constitutional order anchored on the Imperial Presidency , endemic corruption and poverty. The use of force by Moi regime in the years 1991-1993 and again 1997-1998 only served to suppress the issues that were at the core of the conflict right across the country. Therefore, the intensity and destructiveness of the 2007-2008 is to be understood in the light of the failure by the Moi regime to address the root causes of the earlier conflicts that had rocked the nation.
I submit that reconciliation, if handled well, “is a mechanism that can address the root causes of conflict as well as mend deep emotional wounds and thereby produce more durable solutions and sustainable peace.” Indeed as John Paul Lederach contends, reconciliation is aimed at building relationships between the antagonistic groups in conflict. The relational dimension, he continues, seeks to address the emotional and psychological implications of the conflict that demands for recognition of past hurts and an exploration of future interdependence. Thus conceived, reconciliation becomes at once an effective approach for dealing with post-conflict situations and also a mechanism for the prevention of the recurrence of similar crisis in the future. My position in this paper is that reconciliation can be used not only as an effective approach for dealing with our post-conflict situation here in Kenya but also as a mechanism for the prevention against the recurrence of pre-or post-election violence and the attendant displacement of people.
We shall begin with a brief foray into the history of the pre and post election violence in Kenya and the consequent displacement of people. We shall next undertake a general evaluation of the Operation Rudi Nyumbani before presenting reconciliation as an approach for dealing with post-conflict situation. We shall then consider the counter arguments before concluding by re-asserting our position on the resettlement program of the internally displaced persons.
In 1991, the autocratic and despotic regime of former president Daniel Arap Moi gave in to local and international pressure paving the way for the legalization of the introduction of multi-party politics in Kenya. In the wake of the legalization of competitive politics, an orgy of ‘ethnic’ violence erupted in the multi-ethnic Rift Valley and Western provinces. The violence left over 1500 people dead and more than 300,000 people forced to flee their homes for safety. The violence in 1991-1992 produced the first wave of Kenya’s disinherited internally displaced persons. This violence continued relentlessly in the post-election period till 1995.
As the December 1997 elections drew near, the country was again engulfed by all manner of violence. Militias groups proliferated as violence rocked both the urban as well as the countryside. The renewed wave of violence climaxed in August 13 1997 as ethnic clashes erupted in various places along the Coast province. This violence at the Coast left over 100 people dead and more than 100,000 people displaced. The same pattern of violence and displacements was witnessed again in 2002 but not in the scale and intensity of 1992 and 1997.
Since former President Moi and his KANU party won the elections in 1992, the general assumption was that his government would launch a massive resettlement program of the displaced persons back to their former homes. Instead, the Moi regime encouraged vigilante groups, regular police and members of the provincial administration to violently disperse IDPs from the camps that they had sought refuge. The forcible dispersal of the over 2000 internally displaced persons in the Endebess camp in Trans Nzoia on the 3rd of June 1993 illustrated this government policy.
The most atrocious and heinous dispersal was the one that was carried out at the Maela Camp near Naivasha in 1994. The camp was home to over 10,000 who had been displaced from Enoosupukia in Narok in October of 1993. The government defined 200 out of the total number as genuine victims of displacement whom it resettled not in their former farms in Enoopusukia but to a government owned land. The rest were forcibly loaded into government trucks and literally dumped in Central province, the perceived ‘homeland’ to the Kikuyu. The IDPs were therefore victims of double displacement first by the marauding warriors and later by the agents of the government. The pre and post-electoral violence that swept through Kenya can only be comprehensively analyzed within the context of the violence and the consequent displacement of people that has come to characterized the nations’ electoral process since 1991.
Having set the historical background against which Kenya’s pre and post election violence took place, we shall now embark on a general evaluation of resettlement program as it is presently constituted. A scrutiny of Operation Rudi Nyumbani reveals that it is replete with enormous challenges at various levels and that it is indeed founded on a very sandy ground that rapidly gives way upon a closer examination of its raison d’etre in relation to the socio-political reality on the ground.
At the political level, divergent voices from the political leadership on both sides of the political divide in relation to the resettlement program have dealt a major blow to the entire process of reconciliation and healing. The coalition partners in the Grand Coalition government have not been forthright on the question of justice for dead, displaced and the long-term solution to the recurrent conflict. The political class has hardly been engaged in any deliberate effort aimed at reconciling their constituents at the local level. Instead, their pronouncements have been anything but reconciling. Further, in relation to Operation Rudi Nyumbani, no public statement has been made on the envisaged timetable for resettlement. There has been no word on the key persons in the various stages of implementation. Besides, it is not clear who the lead agency is, where the command and co-ordination center is and who the key players involved. Further it is not clear who would be held responsible should anything go wrong or should questions arise.
At the level of the laws of the country, the resettlement exercise has to contend with another set of challenges. The underlying assumption in resettling the displaced persons is that they have a right not only to own property but also to live anywhere in Kenya as is enshrined and protected by the constitution. Therefore, it logically follows that the displaced ought to be resettled back in their farms as they are the rightful owners with valid titles. This line of reasoning runs in direct opposition to the thinking of the ‘host communities’ in Rift valley who generally presuppose the traditional notions of territorial or communal ownership of land as the basis of any dialogue on the question of land. They thus perceive Rift Valley as ‘their land’ and the rest as outsiders.
In order to ensure the safe return of the displaced to their homes, the government embarked on the building of an additional 32 new police stations and several new Administrative police posts across Rift Valley province, a province that was hardest hit by the violence. Further, the resettlement programme also set out, as a matter of justice, to compensate the IDPs for the losses that they incurred. Indeed the government has committed itself to the rebuilding of over 40,000 houses that had been destroyed in the course of the violence. In addition there is the general demand by the PNU wing of government that the law ought to be allowed to take its course as far as the suspected perpetrators of the violence.
At societal and cultural level, the resettlement process is again beset by another set of challenges. The so called ‘host community’ in the Rift Valley generally feel that for there to be real peace and reconciliation, the suspected perpetrators of the post-election violence ought to be set free. There is also the widespread perception that the government is extending some “favors” to certain communities at the expense of others. The process of compensating the victims of post election violence has been characterized by some level of abuse both by government officials and by persons claiming to be victims of displacement.
There is no police force anywhere in the world that can be able to compel two communities that distrust each other to live side by side in peaceful harmony. The police cannot solve the IDP problem. Ordering the police to escort the IDP back to their homes is a poor choice of strategy that amounts to reconciliation through the barrel of the gun, reconciliation by force. People have to reconcile first by getting the elders from both sides, political leaders, church leaders and civil society involved in the efforts aimed at reconciling the communities in conflict. Operation Rudi Nyumbani largely ignored the crucial need for consensus building that needs to be established from the grassroots level before moving to higher levels of society. The building of consensus takes time and normally requires some effort and as such cannot and must not be hurried. The process would involve convening meetings of the religious, cultural and civic leaders at the district level develop consensus and coalition building. The government needed to address the short term concerns of security and assistance by engaging the IDPs in a discussion about their resettlement process.
The resettlement of the IDPs ought to be analogous to the building of a new bigger home in which all the parties in the conflict will feel protected and their futures secured. In the same way the resettlement program ought to be established on a firm foundation that is anchored on consensus building between the communities in conflict which will in turn ensure reconciliation, forgiveness, justice and a peace that is sustainable. Operation Rudi Nyumbani as it is presently constituted is mired in enormous challenges at various levels and in the various stages of its implementation. I submit that in its present form, Operation Rudi Nyumbani is incapable not only of reconciling the country but also deals ineffectively with Kenya’s post-conflict reality. The resettlement of IDPs is a complex matter demanding a broader examination and response.
Reconciliation for our purposes will be considered to be ‘a process of restoring relationships between parties that have been deeply alienated from each other due to hurtful and destructive conflict’. This process of restoring such relationships aims at not only dealing with past but also securing the future relationships of the parties in conflict. This approach envisages that the civil societies would play a critical role as the facilitators of the process.
Reconciliation ought to be sought across a broad spectrum ranging from in the interpersonal level to the inter-societal level. Given that reconciliation is always not very easy to achieve at the interpersonal level, it would seem to follow that collective reconciliation involving the forgiveness and acceptance of an ethnic group by another would be even more daunting. The enormity of this challenge is further compounded by the fact that the process of reconciliation must be moved forward in spite of the mutual suspicions, biases and convictions that the ‘other’ is the perpetrator. Implied in this understanding of reconciliation is the acknowledgement that reconciliation is a long tern process as opposed to an ‘operation’ which by definition would tend to be a shot-term exercise. The process would involve the gradual process of changing peoples’, attitudes, perceptions and biased beliefs through consensus building workshops and giving opportunity and space for direct victims to tell their stories thus giving the local community the opportunity a forum to reflect on these stories and take up appropriate transformational roles.
Reconciliation is capable of not only addressing the root causes of the conflict but also of mending deep emotional wounds and thus producing a peace that is sustainable. This would demand that the parties to the conflict come to terms with the truth about the situation that would include the acknowledgement of harm done by either party to the other. Therefore, it behooves the parties in conflict to avoid a rigid definition of ‘offender’ and ‘victim’ but the emphasis ought to be mutual acknowledgment as the basis of discourse between the parties in conflict. Mutual acknowledgement would tend to facilitate the process of reconciliation between the various groups in conflict.
Reconciliation ought to be characterized by a genuine engagement where the past wrongs are named for what they are. It ought to be an exercise in sincere soul searching coupled with a genuine desire to take responsibility, to make a change, and to address the grievances of the victims. The rational here is that without truth honestly and freely exposed there can be very little hope for healing and reconciliation. The healing power of the truth would go a long ways in reconciling the various communities in Kenya.
All the efforts aimed at reconciliation the various groups and communities ought to be pervaded by justice. In a post-conflict situation such as the one that obtains in Kenya, justice ought to be taken to mean the restoration of the victim in as much as it is possible. The pursuit of revenge in the name of seeking for administrative justice would only succeed in fueling hatred and violence. On the other hand, persons known to have committed crimes against humanity must face the full force of the law.
Reconciliation must combine justice as well as forgiveness by dealing with the past and therefore enabling the victims to minimize their fears and bitterness. Focus ought to be put on the need to help the parties’ attitudes of anger and bitterness and suspicion turn toward collaboration and ultimately trust. In addition, reconciliation ought to deal with the future including the exploration of new possibilities for mutually rewarding relationships between the various ethnic groups. Thus as part of the Agenda Four of the National Peace Accord, the coalition government in Kenya has committed itself to ensure the enactment of a new constitution that would ensure all communities are equally covered by the cloth of government.
Civil society plays the crucial role of balancer to deter against the extremes of an emphasis on punishment on the one hand and concern for forgiveness on the other. We do however concede that civil society tends to be a mirror of society reflecting all the divisions and fault lines in society since the civil society actors are not devoid of biases and loyalties. Therefore, it would be imperative for the civil society’s actors to be reconciled with each other before taking up their roles of facilitating the process of reconciliation.
A number of societies have been experimenting with adopting the traditional conflict handling mechanism in order to bring about reconciliation among communities at the local level. In northern Uganda the traditional Acholi ritual known as Mato oput had been incorporated in the process of the reintegration and reconciliation of the returning displaced persons. The ceremony allows for communal reconciliation in a process whereby the “perpetrators accept responsibility, express contrition and remorse for the actions, ask the community for forgiveness, and offer to compensate for the damage they have caused. It is symbolized in the act of ‘drinking the bitter root,’ or mato oput.
In 1992, the National Christian Council of Kenya (NCCK), the umbrella organization of Kenya’s Protestant’s churches, launched a Peace and Reconciliation project in the wake of the ethnic violence that had engulfed Western Kenya. In 1996, the Peace and Reconciliation project was instrumental in the setting up of the village peace and reconciliation committees and Area peace and reconciliation committees that in turn organized ‘good neighborliness seminars’. These were open to elders, politicians, community workers and other peace stakeholders. The seminars allowed the participants to discuss the causes and effects of local and regional strife and to devise strategies to pre-empt them.
A key lesson that was learned in this initiative was leaning to work with local wisdom. The initiative managed to tap into the institution of ‘elderhood’ where elders who may have been involved in instigating or supporting violence are steered into playing more positive roles in their communities. The elders are strategically placed to closely monitor and evaluate the events on the ground and can also be instrumental in the creation of local and regional peace committees. The elders from the various communities in conflict can thus play an influential role in moving forward the process of reconciliation at the regional level and eventually at the national level.
Our challenge in Kenya today is to explore the various ways in which traditional ceremonies and rituals aimed communal reconciliation in the various communities in conflict could be incorporated in the overall national, regional and local efforts aimed at reconciling our various communities. It would be imperative that such ceremonies of communal reconciliation involve an acknowledgement and the taking of responsibility by the offender, a genuine expression of remorse, the asking for or granting of pardon and some form of compensation.
We shall now consider a counter argument that has been variously used against the position that we hold in this paper. The generally held view is that the returning Internally displaced persons always need to maintain a delicate balance between the demand for justice and need for peace in the postconlict environment. There are thus those who will insist on importance of peace as the overriding concern that will enable them the possibility of rebuilding their lives. On the other hand, there are those who will call for justice for this will ensure that the culture of impunity is expunged from the community. Our general position is that peace and justice can be pursued simultaneously and not one at the exclusion of the other. Nonetheless even holding this position, I believe that the input of the victim will always remain crucial in the discourse that pits justice against peace. In the final analysis, the voice of the victim ought to hold sway in situations where one is forced by the prevailing local circumstances to choice either peace or justice.
Given our post conflict reality in Kenya today, I submit that reconciliation can be used both as an effective approach for dealing with the challenges that confront us as a nation but also as a mechanism to prevent the recurrence of electoral violence the consequent displacement of people. Justice ought to be at the very core of our efforts towards the process of reconciliation such that the victims are restored in as much as is possible. This process of reconciliation ought to be also to be accompanied by a sense of forgiveness that is anchored on the healing power of the truth. The process of reconciliation therefore, cannot and must not, be hurried precisely because it ought to be a long term endeavor. This process ought to be aimed towards the restoration of relationships between communities that have been deeply alienated from each other while at the same time securing the future by engaging in an exploration of new possibilities for mutually rewarding relationships.
Hekima College
A Constituent College of
The Catholic University Eastern Africa
In the light of Kenya’s post-election violence, has Operation Rudi Nyumbani been an effective approach in reconciling the nation and in providing a mechanism that will prevent the recurrence of electoral violence and the consequent displacement of people?
Thesis
Reconciliation can be used as an effective approach for dealing with our post-conflict reality in Kenya and also provide a mechanism that would prevent the recurrence of electoral violence.
By
Moses Owade Were
Nairobi, August 2008
As a Kenyan citizen, I embark into an inquiry of Justice, Peace and Reconciliation with the raw experiences of the post election violence and the deep ethnic divisions that characterized its latter stages. At the height of the violence, close to 500, 000 people had been forced from their homes, another 1500 people had been killed, and a significant proportion of the population had been traumatized by these tragic events. How did we, as a nation, find ourselves starring at the very gates of hell? What was it that led neighbor to rise up against neighbor? What changed people, who only a few days earlier, would have gladly shared a meal into in merciless killers? Would it be possible to fashion out a new Kenya, a Kenya at once at peace and reconciled with itself? These are some of the questions and concerns that I am grappling with as I embark on this inquiry.
The focus of this paper will be on the process of the resettlement of the internally displaced persons and the role, if any, that reconciliation ought to play in the entire exercise. The general orientation of my presentation is that reconciliation can be used in Kenya not only as an effective approach in dealing with our post-conflict reality but also as a mechanism that would prevent the recurrence of such crises in the future.
On the 8th of May 2008, the government of Kenya launched what has been described as a “voluntary” resettlement program officially referred to as Operation Rudi Nyumbani. . The resettlement program targeted the over 100, 000 internally displaced persons who were still living in the camps for the internally displaced persons (IDPs) across the country. Three days later, the government, through the Provincial Commissioner for the Rift Valley province , made an announcement to the effect that all the camps for the internally displaced persons in the vast province would be shut down by the end of May 2008. The government envisioned resettling the displaced persons in two phases, starting with moving them from main camps to transitional camps or satellite camps closer to their homes. However, little or no efforts towards dialogue are being made to complement this exercise. Secondly, how, we may be tempted to ask with Georgette Gagnon, a country director at Human Rights Watch, is it possible to have a “voluntary” return home with a deadline?
The United Nations Guiding principles on IDPs states that displaced persons have a right to be protected against any form of forceful resettlement in any area where their life, freedom and property would be subjected to great risk. Displaced persons have a right to return to their homes voluntarily and when they feel safe enough and not when such a return suits the government of the day. Despite this, there are documented cases of how armed police officers forcefully emptied camps in places like Kitale town. This account was replicated in a number of other camps in which the displaced persons were driven out of the camps without food or water. It behooves the government not to be seen to be forcing back the displaced or using force to resettle them. Many of the IDPs were apprehensive that their home areas were still unsafe and that very little reconciliation had taken place between the various communities that were in conflict. Resettling people in an unsafe area and contested area in a hurry can only at best result in an illusion of peace and may actually end up entrenching the divisions between the communities in conflict which may in turn result in another wave of violence in the near future.
An incident involving the minister for Special Programs, under whose docket the resettlement program falls, and a group of displaced people dramatizes the enormous challenges that Operation Rudi Nyumbani has to contend with. The displaced people booed the minister when she had gone to launch the resettlement program in Kitale, Rift Valley province. The displaced persons told the minister, to her face, that they did not believe what she was telling them. The minister indeed suffered the indignity of cutting short her speech and was forced to endure a lecture from a representative of the displaced on what the people needed: They told the minister that they had expected the government to first bring the victims and their tormentors together to first talk peace before any attempt was made at resettlement. Once this was done, the displaced persons asserted, they could then move back to their homes accompanied by their former neighbors and tormentors.
The use of force as an approach to handle conflict would more often than not end up suppressing the issues that are the root causes of the conflict. The result is that such conflict end up recurring and at times with frightening intensity and destructiveness. In the Kenyan context, the recurrence of violence after every five years since 1991 and the consequent the displacements of people can be traced to the failure by the successive regimes to resolve the underlying causes or root causes of displacement. Some of the deep seated causes of conflicts between communities in Kenya include disputes over land ownership and allocation, inequality in the distribution of resources, an exclusionist winner take it all electoral process, a constitutional order anchored on the Imperial Presidency , endemic corruption and poverty. The use of force by Moi regime in the years 1991-1993 and again 1997-1998 only served to suppress the issues that were at the core of the conflict right across the country. Therefore, the intensity and destructiveness of the 2007-2008 is to be understood in the light of the failure by the Moi regime to address the root causes of the earlier conflicts that had rocked the nation.
I submit that reconciliation, if handled well, “is a mechanism that can address the root causes of conflict as well as mend deep emotional wounds and thereby produce more durable solutions and sustainable peace.” Indeed as John Paul Lederach contends, reconciliation is aimed at building relationships between the antagonistic groups in conflict. The relational dimension, he continues, seeks to address the emotional and psychological implications of the conflict that demands for recognition of past hurts and an exploration of future interdependence. Thus conceived, reconciliation becomes at once an effective approach for dealing with post-conflict situations and also a mechanism for the prevention of the recurrence of similar crisis in the future. My position in this paper is that reconciliation can be used not only as an effective approach for dealing with our post-conflict situation here in Kenya but also as a mechanism for the prevention against the recurrence of pre-or post-election violence and the attendant displacement of people.
We shall begin with a brief foray into the history of the pre and post election violence in Kenya and the consequent displacement of people. We shall next undertake a general evaluation of the Operation Rudi Nyumbani before presenting reconciliation as an approach for dealing with post-conflict situation. We shall then consider the counter arguments before concluding by re-asserting our position on the resettlement program of the internally displaced persons.
In 1991, the autocratic and despotic regime of former president Daniel Arap Moi gave in to local and international pressure paving the way for the legalization of the introduction of multi-party politics in Kenya. In the wake of the legalization of competitive politics, an orgy of ‘ethnic’ violence erupted in the multi-ethnic Rift Valley and Western provinces. The violence left over 1500 people dead and more than 300,000 people forced to flee their homes for safety. The violence in 1991-1992 produced the first wave of Kenya’s disinherited internally displaced persons. This violence continued relentlessly in the post-election period till 1995.
As the December 1997 elections drew near, the country was again engulfed by all manner of violence. Militias groups proliferated as violence rocked both the urban as well as the countryside. The renewed wave of violence climaxed in August 13 1997 as ethnic clashes erupted in various places along the Coast province. This violence at the Coast left over 100 people dead and more than 100,000 people displaced. The same pattern of violence and displacements was witnessed again in 2002 but not in the scale and intensity of 1992 and 1997.
Since former President Moi and his KANU party won the elections in 1992, the general assumption was that his government would launch a massive resettlement program of the displaced persons back to their former homes. Instead, the Moi regime encouraged vigilante groups, regular police and members of the provincial administration to violently disperse IDPs from the camps that they had sought refuge. The forcible dispersal of the over 2000 internally displaced persons in the Endebess camp in Trans Nzoia on the 3rd of June 1993 illustrated this government policy.
The most atrocious and heinous dispersal was the one that was carried out at the Maela Camp near Naivasha in 1994. The camp was home to over 10,000 who had been displaced from Enoosupukia in Narok in October of 1993. The government defined 200 out of the total number as genuine victims of displacement whom it resettled not in their former farms in Enoopusukia but to a government owned land. The rest were forcibly loaded into government trucks and literally dumped in Central province, the perceived ‘homeland’ to the Kikuyu. The IDPs were therefore victims of double displacement first by the marauding warriors and later by the agents of the government. The pre and post-electoral violence that swept through Kenya can only be comprehensively analyzed within the context of the violence and the consequent displacement of people that has come to characterized the nations’ electoral process since 1991.
Having set the historical background against which Kenya’s pre and post election violence took place, we shall now embark on a general evaluation of resettlement program as it is presently constituted. A scrutiny of Operation Rudi Nyumbani reveals that it is replete with enormous challenges at various levels and that it is indeed founded on a very sandy ground that rapidly gives way upon a closer examination of its raison d’etre in relation to the socio-political reality on the ground.
At the political level, divergent voices from the political leadership on both sides of the political divide in relation to the resettlement program have dealt a major blow to the entire process of reconciliation and healing. The coalition partners in the Grand Coalition government have not been forthright on the question of justice for dead, displaced and the long-term solution to the recurrent conflict. The political class has hardly been engaged in any deliberate effort aimed at reconciling their constituents at the local level. Instead, their pronouncements have been anything but reconciling. Further, in relation to Operation Rudi Nyumbani, no public statement has been made on the envisaged timetable for resettlement. There has been no word on the key persons in the various stages of implementation. Besides, it is not clear who the lead agency is, where the command and co-ordination center is and who the key players involved. Further it is not clear who would be held responsible should anything go wrong or should questions arise.
At the level of the laws of the country, the resettlement exercise has to contend with another set of challenges. The underlying assumption in resettling the displaced persons is that they have a right not only to own property but also to live anywhere in Kenya as is enshrined and protected by the constitution. Therefore, it logically follows that the displaced ought to be resettled back in their farms as they are the rightful owners with valid titles. This line of reasoning runs in direct opposition to the thinking of the ‘host communities’ in Rift valley who generally presuppose the traditional notions of territorial or communal ownership of land as the basis of any dialogue on the question of land. They thus perceive Rift Valley as ‘their land’ and the rest as outsiders.
In order to ensure the safe return of the displaced to their homes, the government embarked on the building of an additional 32 new police stations and several new Administrative police posts across Rift Valley province, a province that was hardest hit by the violence. Further, the resettlement programme also set out, as a matter of justice, to compensate the IDPs for the losses that they incurred. Indeed the government has committed itself to the rebuilding of over 40,000 houses that had been destroyed in the course of the violence. In addition there is the general demand by the PNU wing of government that the law ought to be allowed to take its course as far as the suspected perpetrators of the violence.
At societal and cultural level, the resettlement process is again beset by another set of challenges. The so called ‘host community’ in the Rift Valley generally feel that for there to be real peace and reconciliation, the suspected perpetrators of the post-election violence ought to be set free. There is also the widespread perception that the government is extending some “favors” to certain communities at the expense of others. The process of compensating the victims of post election violence has been characterized by some level of abuse both by government officials and by persons claiming to be victims of displacement.
There is no police force anywhere in the world that can be able to compel two communities that distrust each other to live side by side in peaceful harmony. The police cannot solve the IDP problem. Ordering the police to escort the IDP back to their homes is a poor choice of strategy that amounts to reconciliation through the barrel of the gun, reconciliation by force. People have to reconcile first by getting the elders from both sides, political leaders, church leaders and civil society involved in the efforts aimed at reconciling the communities in conflict. Operation Rudi Nyumbani largely ignored the crucial need for consensus building that needs to be established from the grassroots level before moving to higher levels of society. The building of consensus takes time and normally requires some effort and as such cannot and must not be hurried. The process would involve convening meetings of the religious, cultural and civic leaders at the district level develop consensus and coalition building. The government needed to address the short term concerns of security and assistance by engaging the IDPs in a discussion about their resettlement process.
The resettlement of the IDPs ought to be analogous to the building of a new bigger home in which all the parties in the conflict will feel protected and their futures secured. In the same way the resettlement program ought to be established on a firm foundation that is anchored on consensus building between the communities in conflict which will in turn ensure reconciliation, forgiveness, justice and a peace that is sustainable. Operation Rudi Nyumbani as it is presently constituted is mired in enormous challenges at various levels and in the various stages of its implementation. I submit that in its present form, Operation Rudi Nyumbani is incapable not only of reconciling the country but also deals ineffectively with Kenya’s post-conflict reality. The resettlement of IDPs is a complex matter demanding a broader examination and response.
Reconciliation for our purposes will be considered to be ‘a process of restoring relationships between parties that have been deeply alienated from each other due to hurtful and destructive conflict’. This process of restoring such relationships aims at not only dealing with past but also securing the future relationships of the parties in conflict. This approach envisages that the civil societies would play a critical role as the facilitators of the process.
Reconciliation ought to be sought across a broad spectrum ranging from in the interpersonal level to the inter-societal level. Given that reconciliation is always not very easy to achieve at the interpersonal level, it would seem to follow that collective reconciliation involving the forgiveness and acceptance of an ethnic group by another would be even more daunting. The enormity of this challenge is further compounded by the fact that the process of reconciliation must be moved forward in spite of the mutual suspicions, biases and convictions that the ‘other’ is the perpetrator. Implied in this understanding of reconciliation is the acknowledgement that reconciliation is a long tern process as opposed to an ‘operation’ which by definition would tend to be a shot-term exercise. The process would involve the gradual process of changing peoples’, attitudes, perceptions and biased beliefs through consensus building workshops and giving opportunity and space for direct victims to tell their stories thus giving the local community the opportunity a forum to reflect on these stories and take up appropriate transformational roles.
Reconciliation is capable of not only addressing the root causes of the conflict but also of mending deep emotional wounds and thus producing a peace that is sustainable. This would demand that the parties to the conflict come to terms with the truth about the situation that would include the acknowledgement of harm done by either party to the other. Therefore, it behooves the parties in conflict to avoid a rigid definition of ‘offender’ and ‘victim’ but the emphasis ought to be mutual acknowledgment as the basis of discourse between the parties in conflict. Mutual acknowledgement would tend to facilitate the process of reconciliation between the various groups in conflict.
Reconciliation ought to be characterized by a genuine engagement where the past wrongs are named for what they are. It ought to be an exercise in sincere soul searching coupled with a genuine desire to take responsibility, to make a change, and to address the grievances of the victims. The rational here is that without truth honestly and freely exposed there can be very little hope for healing and reconciliation. The healing power of the truth would go a long ways in reconciling the various communities in Kenya.
All the efforts aimed at reconciliation the various groups and communities ought to be pervaded by justice. In a post-conflict situation such as the one that obtains in Kenya, justice ought to be taken to mean the restoration of the victim in as much as it is possible. The pursuit of revenge in the name of seeking for administrative justice would only succeed in fueling hatred and violence. On the other hand, persons known to have committed crimes against humanity must face the full force of the law.
Reconciliation must combine justice as well as forgiveness by dealing with the past and therefore enabling the victims to minimize their fears and bitterness. Focus ought to be put on the need to help the parties’ attitudes of anger and bitterness and suspicion turn toward collaboration and ultimately trust. In addition, reconciliation ought to deal with the future including the exploration of new possibilities for mutually rewarding relationships between the various ethnic groups. Thus as part of the Agenda Four of the National Peace Accord, the coalition government in Kenya has committed itself to ensure the enactment of a new constitution that would ensure all communities are equally covered by the cloth of government.
Civil society plays the crucial role of balancer to deter against the extremes of an emphasis on punishment on the one hand and concern for forgiveness on the other. We do however concede that civil society tends to be a mirror of society reflecting all the divisions and fault lines in society since the civil society actors are not devoid of biases and loyalties. Therefore, it would be imperative for the civil society’s actors to be reconciled with each other before taking up their roles of facilitating the process of reconciliation.
A number of societies have been experimenting with adopting the traditional conflict handling mechanism in order to bring about reconciliation among communities at the local level. In northern Uganda the traditional Acholi ritual known as Mato oput had been incorporated in the process of the reintegration and reconciliation of the returning displaced persons. The ceremony allows for communal reconciliation in a process whereby the “perpetrators accept responsibility, express contrition and remorse for the actions, ask the community for forgiveness, and offer to compensate for the damage they have caused. It is symbolized in the act of ‘drinking the bitter root,’ or mato oput.
In 1992, the National Christian Council of Kenya (NCCK), the umbrella organization of Kenya’s Protestant’s churches, launched a Peace and Reconciliation project in the wake of the ethnic violence that had engulfed Western Kenya. In 1996, the Peace and Reconciliation project was instrumental in the setting up of the village peace and reconciliation committees and Area peace and reconciliation committees that in turn organized ‘good neighborliness seminars’. These were open to elders, politicians, community workers and other peace stakeholders. The seminars allowed the participants to discuss the causes and effects of local and regional strife and to devise strategies to pre-empt them.
A key lesson that was learned in this initiative was leaning to work with local wisdom. The initiative managed to tap into the institution of ‘elderhood’ where elders who may have been involved in instigating or supporting violence are steered into playing more positive roles in their communities. The elders are strategically placed to closely monitor and evaluate the events on the ground and can also be instrumental in the creation of local and regional peace committees. The elders from the various communities in conflict can thus play an influential role in moving forward the process of reconciliation at the regional level and eventually at the national level.
Our challenge in Kenya today is to explore the various ways in which traditional ceremonies and rituals aimed communal reconciliation in the various communities in conflict could be incorporated in the overall national, regional and local efforts aimed at reconciling our various communities. It would be imperative that such ceremonies of communal reconciliation involve an acknowledgement and the taking of responsibility by the offender, a genuine expression of remorse, the asking for or granting of pardon and some form of compensation.
We shall now consider a counter argument that has been variously used against the position that we hold in this paper. The generally held view is that the returning Internally displaced persons always need to maintain a delicate balance between the demand for justice and need for peace in the postconlict environment. There are thus those who will insist on importance of peace as the overriding concern that will enable them the possibility of rebuilding their lives. On the other hand, there are those who will call for justice for this will ensure that the culture of impunity is expunged from the community. Our general position is that peace and justice can be pursued simultaneously and not one at the exclusion of the other. Nonetheless even holding this position, I believe that the input of the victim will always remain crucial in the discourse that pits justice against peace. In the final analysis, the voice of the victim ought to hold sway in situations where one is forced by the prevailing local circumstances to choice either peace or justice.
Given our post conflict reality in Kenya today, I submit that reconciliation can be used both as an effective approach for dealing with the challenges that confront us as a nation but also as a mechanism to prevent the recurrence of electoral violence the consequent displacement of people. Justice ought to be at the very core of our efforts towards the process of reconciliation such that the victims are restored in as much as is possible. This process of reconciliation ought to be also to be accompanied by a sense of forgiveness that is anchored on the healing power of the truth. The process of reconciliation therefore, cannot and must not, be hurried precisely because it ought to be a long term endeavor. This process ought to be aimed towards the restoration of relationships between communities that have been deeply alienated from each other while at the same time securing the future by engaging in an exploration of new possibilities for mutually rewarding relationships.
conflict is inherently part and parcel of any society and is indeed at the very basis of a societies very existence. Conflict thus largely defines not only people but entire communities and nations. This conflict forum seeks to provide a safe plafform from which various perceptions and orientations in conflict studies can be evaluated and debated with the requisite rigour.
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