From: Ouko joachim omolo
Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News
 

BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
TUESDAY, MARCH 20, 2012

When evangelical churches say they have the rights to pray for the International Criminal Court (ICC) suspects, Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and Eldoret North MP William Ruto, the main issue is not in fact a prayer but use prayer meetings to demonstrate to Kenyans that the bad man to fight is Prime Minister Raila Odinga because he is seen as someone trying to spoil for Uhuru Kenyatta.

The fact that Evangelical church leaders are predominantly from Mt Kenya region explains why the fight. Only if we are not careful and look at Kenya beyond tribal and regional then it might turn to be like Rwanda where some church leaders incited people on tribal line.

A catholic priest, Rev Fr Athnase Seromba for example, was not only accused of incitement but also of ordering the slaughter of over 2000 people who had sought refuge in Nyange church, Diocese of Nyundo during the Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.

Father Seromba appeared before the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania, in September 2004 charged with complicity in genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide and crimes against humanity related to the100-day slaughter (from April to July 1994) orchestrated by the extremist Hutu government then in power and carried out by the Interahamwe militia supported by a section of the armed forces. Abour 800,000 people were inhumanly slaughtered.

Other priests accused along with Seromba included Father Hormisdas Nsengimana, the former Rector of Nyanza Christ Roi College, and Father Emmanuel Rukundo. So far two priests had been sentenced to death: Jean Francois Kayiranga and Edouard Nkurikiye.

Catholic Bishop Augustine Misago of Gikongoro Diocese was accused of actively collaborating with Hutu “Interahamwe” militias in the massacre. The bishop was further accused of attending high-level political meetings that organized the 1994 genocide. More than 20 nuns and priests were among top church officials accused along with him. Most of the victims including 30 school children were hacked to death in Catholic churches, where they had sought refuge.

Sister Gertrude, mother superior of the Benedictine convent at Sovu, in Butare Diocese, was accused of ejecting refugees from the building, knowing very well they were being sent to their deaths. She was being tried under her full civil name of Consolata Mukangango.

Sister Maria Kizito was tried as Julienne Mukabutera and was charged with causing deaths by supplying petrol to a mob that burnt the garage at the convent’s health clinic in which some 600 Tutsis were sheltering. These two nuns were found guilty and jailed.

Like Rwanda where genocide survivors, IDPs and human rights groups had bitterly criticized the church for its contribution into the killings and a lack of remorse afterward, in Kenya the evangelical church leaders have been accused of neglecting IDPs and post election violence victims. They have also been accused of allowing their churches to be used by the very politicians prayed for to talk ill against other ethnic communities.

Former Baringo Central MP Gideon Moi is among politicians who have not only called for speedy resettlement of internally displaced persons (IDPs) but also dismissed prayer meetings held by a section of leaders under the G7

Alliance as useless unless they press for compensation and resettlement of IDPs.

Gideon says it was worrying that thousands of children and their parents were languishing in deplorable conditions in camps, almost five years after they lost property in the post-election chaos. The best thing he says we can do is to ensure the IDPs are returned to their homes and compensated for the property they lost.

Ruto and Uhuru have been using such prayer meetings to accuse Prime Minister Raila Odinga for being behind their trials at The Hague, accusations which are likely to incite Kenyans ahead of the general election.

Speaking after attending a church service at the St Mathews ACK Church in Eldoret recently, Ruto said Raila became the PM not because he had won the December 27, 2007 elections but because of the poll violence and thus “the PM should not be the one pointing accusing fingers at others”.

He said Raila “should have been the first to be put in jail long ago” because of the poll violence, adding that the PM had been involved in “a consistent pattern of schemes to fix his political rivals”. “It’s unfortunate that he thinks he will gain anything by scheming against others”.
Yatta MP Charles Kilonzo links Raila to an alleged British plot to have President Kibaki indicted at the ICC. This is very serious allegation indeed and can easily result into serious violence worse than we saw in 2008 post election violence.

This allegation fixes Raila, his Luo ethnic communities and his followers as the target of the “so-called UK government document”. For Kikuyu and Ruto followers this would send a signal that is a bad man because he is trying to ensure that Kibaki goes to The Hague after his term ends.

Even though the British High Commission and the NSIS have dismissed the documents as forgeries, while it is a good step for the Parliamentary Committee on Defence and Foreign relations to take over investigation to determine whether the dossier is forged, the fact that majority of those sitting on this committee are affiliated to G7 complicates the matter.

Yatta MP Charles Kilonzo, the composition of the committee appears to have doctored the dossier is also a member of this committee. Other members, majority of whom have been accused of forging the dossier include Hon. Benedict Fondo Gunda, Hon. Wilson Mwotivu Litole, Hon. Edick O. Anyanga, Hon. Ali Hassan Joho, Hon. Joshua Kutuny, Hon. Adan Keynan, Hon. Kiema Kilonzo, Hon. Jeremiah Kioni, Hon. Eugene Wamalwa, and Hon. George Nyamwaye.

Experience has shown that such committees with no political good will have wrong motives, whose results are violence oriented. Take Ndungu Commission of land inquiry for example,  the fact that institutions which could have been used to resolve land disputes have not been impartial has encouraged individuals to take matters into their own hands and to use violence to resolve them.

Politicians use youths in such violence because the majority of them are unemployed. Some of them have grown up on the streets and are inured to violence, so nothing they loose. This is because the combination of being rootless, having survived amidst violence, plus their need for an identity and a livelihood makes them ready recruits for violent gangs.

It is against the background that in the past many politicians have used these violent gangs to decimate their opponents, to protect themselves from a dictatorial state. This is why this has itself given gangs such as Mungiki, the Taliban, Chinkororo and others a life and the ability to operate without fear of being caught because they are well protected.

People for Peace in Africa (PPA) ?P O Box 14877?Nairobi?00800, Westlands?Kenya
Tel +254-7350-14559/+254-722-623- 578
E-mail- ppa@africaonline.co.ke
omolo.ouko@gmail.com
Website: www.peopleforpeaceafrica.org
WHY CHURCHES IN KENYA ARE SPIRITUALLY AND MORALLY LOSING DIRECTION