From: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2013
When Archbishop David Gitari gave testimony during the Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) sitting in Nyeri he wished he could not die before the government of Kenya answered him the following questions:
1. Who killed Nyandarua politician JM Kariuki in 1975 and why? Gitari told the commission he went to the media to protest against President Kenyatta’s government as it was obvious some of Kenyatta’s cronies had a hand in the murder.
2. What happened with commission of inquiry parliament appointed to investigate the circumstances leading to the murder? He told the commission some people were mentioned as having played a role in Kariuki’s murder but nothing was done, “where is justice?” Gitari posed.
3. Why did the government of Daniel Moi kill Robert Ouko in 1990 and why? And like Kenyatta, what happened with the inquiry to Ouko’s death? “There must be people in government who know how Ouko was killed,” said Gitari.
He said the many commissions formed by the government whose findings have never been made public concerned him. “The government forms commissions to hoodwink people,” said the retired archbishop adding that he hoped the TJTC would not be like the other previous commissions.
4. In 1988 when the government of Moi tried to silence everyone and as a result, outspoken MPs, the media and trade unions were muted and only a few church leaders like him, Bishop Henry Okullu and Bishop Kipsang Muge could not be silenced, Gitari wondered, where was other church leaders?
Gitari told TJRC that he witnessed first hand the injustices of the mlolongo system when he visited a few polling stations and could see smaller queues winning and the longer ones losing.
He summed it: “According to Kanu’s mathematics, five was bigger than 5, 000!”
Gitari urged the TJRC to go to the National Archives, retrieve a report commissioned on his house raid and hand him and his family members copies.
Another injustice Gitari raised was committed when 3, 000 Kanu delegates meeting at Kasarani passed 12 resolutions in 12 minutes. Among them that NCCK should be abolished. He says the government used the delegates as a rubber stamp to pass the resolutions.
Other issues Gitari demanded an answer to no avail included:
1. In early 1975 when the first bombs exploded prior to the death of JM Kariuki in February where there were two blasts in central Nairobi, inside the Starlight night club and in a travel bureau near the Hilton hotel, what was the motive?
2. The day after the second explosion, J.M Kariuki revealed in Parliament that his car had been hit ‘by what seemed to be bullets’. There were rumours of a botched attempt on his life. They were followed by a more serious blast in a Nairobi bus on 1 March, which killed 30 people.
Despite a massive public outcry and a police manhunt, no arrests were made. For several days thereafter, the city lived in fear, destablised by numerous telephone bomb hoaxes. Did someone try to create a climate of fear and if so why?
3. On 2 March 1975, the day after the bus blast, security officials including GSU commander Ben Gethi Publicly accosted J. M. Kariuki outside the Hilton hotel, followed by the police throughout the day, including European police reservist Patrick Shaw, what was the motive?
4. Why did Gethi ask Kariuki to accompany the Security officials into a convoy of cars and took him to an unknown destination?
5. The next day, Maasai herdsmen discovered his tortured and mutilated corpse in the Ngong hills near Nairobi. His fingers had been cut off his eyes gouged out before he was shot dead, why did the police send the corpse to the mortuary as an unknown victim.
6. After Kariuki’s disappearance, there was a lull of five days while friends and family tried to discover his whereabouts, there were rumours that he had been detained. Finally, on 7th March, Assistant Minister Justus Ole Tipis admitted to the Assembly that Kariuki was missing and appealed for anyone knowing his whereabouts to cooperate with police.
The same day Kenyatta, returning to Nairobi from a month-long stay in Nakuru, made a veiled speech that appealed for order, and warned ‘the government would have no mercy on any individual or group that attempted to disrupt peace and harmony in Kenya, what did Kenyatta mean? Did he know what was to come out of it?
7, When on Saturday 8 March, the Daily Nation reported Kariuki was in Zambia, although the news desk already had sworn statements that the corpse in the mortuary was his; editor-in-chief George Githii ordered a reluctant news desk to print this misinformation, who instructed Githii to do so and why?
8. On 11 March, nine days after his abduction, Kariuki’s wife identified his body in the mortuary, after which armed GSU sealed off the building. At the same time Moi was making a statement, reporting that Kariuki’s whereabouts were still unknown, could Moi be asked who told him to tell lies and why?
9. On 12 March, police commissioner Bernard Hinga finally confirmed that Kariuki was dead, killed by two bullet wounds. He claimed that the ‘partial decomposition’ of the body made identification impossible, why did it take time to declare JM had died?
10. On 14March, parliament appointed a Select Committee to investigate the killings. Its chair was backbencher Elijah Mwangale from Bungoma, and it included Martin Shikuku, Seroney and other friends of Kariuki, why is result of the committee not made public?
Since then several inquiries gave been formed and their findings have not been made public. They include Justice Akilano Akiwumi commission to find those who initiated the ethnic clashes under Moi.
Emeritus Archbishop John Njenga of Mombasa who was the chairman of the Catholic Church’s Justice and Peace Commission had written twice to Attorney General Amos Wako, asking him to make the finding public to no avail.
The archbishop wrote to Wako first on August 3, 1999. The Attorney General did not respond. The archbishop wrote again on February 23, 2000 and has not received a response to date.
Similarly, in January 2000 the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK) issued a statement asking the government to release the Akiwumi findings as a way of healing the wounds, to date the finding has never been made public.
Long before Akiwumi Commission was set up, a parliamentary select committee had investigated the 1991-1993 land clashes in the Rift Valley. The committee, headed by Changamwe MP Kennedy Kiliku, linked several Kanu MPs and government ministers to the violence that preceded the 1992 General Election. Kanu and a few opposition MPs ganged up against the Kiliku report and threw it out of parliament.
Throwing the findings out when it touches the government is not something new to Kenyans. The parliamentary Anti-Corruption Select Committee, the List of Shame that detailed corrupt government leaders, the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Cult of Devil Worship in Kenya, chaired by Nyeri Catholic Archbishop Nicodemus Kirima, presented its report to the president in June 1995. To date the government has not released the report to the public.
In August 1999, the Commission of Inquiry into the Education System of Kenya, headed by Dr. Davy Koech, presented its report to President Moi. Kenyans are still waiting for the report.
President Uhuru Kenyatta wants to form another inquiry to find out how Westage Mall was attacked. Kenyans will not be amused that the findings will never be made in public. This brings us yet to another question as to why waste tax payers money to inquiries that have never been?
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
Tel +254 7350 14559/+254 722 623 578
E-mail omolo.ouko@gmail.com
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Real change must come from ordinary people who refuse to be taken hostage by the weapons of politicians in the face of inequality, racism and oppression, but march together towards a clear and unambiguous goal.
-Anne Montgomery, RSCJ
UN Disarmament
Conference, 2002