By Ted Townsend
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa
NAIROBI, Kenya – Researchers for the international organization Human Rights Watch (“HRW”) claim in a new report that the ethnic violence that tormented Kenya following December’s disputed presidential elections was organized by local leaders. The report says that the planning of the violence was done at the local level, but that the role of national leaders must be investigated further. “What we found, far from being spontaneous was that it (the violence) was organized as elders and youth met,” said HRW spokesman Ben Rawlence.
The eighty-eight page report, entitled “Ballots to Bullets: Organised Political Violence and Kenya’s Crisis of Governance,” documents serious abuses of power in the worst affected areas of Nairobi, Nyanza, Rift Valley and western provinces of Kenya. It focuses on the use of excessive force by police, vividly describing unlawful killings in response to demonstrations and the organization of the violent acts. For example, a fifteen year old boy described how he was shot in the leg, as he was running from a police car. The report also detailed many instances of officers opening fire on unarmed demonstrators. The most serious cases of extrajudicial police violence occurred in Kisumu, a stronghold of opposition presidential candidate Raila Odinga. The report credits police for the deaths of eighty-one people, mostly from opposition strongholds. The police deny any wrongdoing, but have agreed to look into any alleged wrongdoing by officers.
The report uses eyewitness testimony to show that local leaders organized the violence. In the town of Eldoret, located in the Rift Valley attacks on Kikuyu homes were planned in advance of the election results. The elders in the town “said that if there is any sign that Kibaki is winning, then the war should break… they were coaching the young people how to go on the war.” Reprisal attacks against non-Kikuyus were also organized by local leaders. In Naivasha and Nakuru, the violence allegedly followed meetings with local businessmen and politicians, which mobilized youths in their attacks.
Further investigations are required to determine the extent to which the national leadership had a hand in planning the violence and mobilizing the local leaders.
HRW also suggests that Kenya faces a repeat of this violence if the government and international community fail to punish those responsible. The report alleges that western powers looked on, while successive governments in Kenya “failed to tackle the land and poverty issues at the root of the trouble, exploited by politicians to incite violence, without fear of real punishment.” HRW ultimately calls for the new coalition government to prosecute those responsible, a move it claims is necessary to stabilize the country. Georgette Gagnon, African director at Human Rights Watch said “Inciting violence along ethnic lines almost destroyed Kenya. The new government now has a chance to repair those fractures.”
More than one thousand died, and over six hundred thousand were displaced in riots and attacks following the disputed December 2007 election. The bloodshed saw militias burn civilians alive, forcibly circumcise foes and hack victims with machetes, is “Kenya’s darkest moment since independence from Britain in 1963.”
For more information, please see:
BBC News – Kenya poll violence ‘was planned’ – 17 March 2008
Human Rights Watch – Kenya: Justice Vital to Stability – 17 March 2008
Voice of America – Rights Group Describes Planned Post-Election Violence in Kenya – 17 March 2008
allAfrica.com – Human Rights Watch Urges Inquiry Into Post-Election Violence – 17 March 2008
AfricaNews – HRW: Election violence Kenya was planned – 17 March 2008
Reuters – Kenya faces repeat of violence if impunity stays – 17 March 2008
