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.