Murungi says TJRC team equal to task

By Gakuu Mathenge

Over the past few weeks, questions have been raised about the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) mandate and the suitability of some of its members.

There have even been calls for some members to resign but the commission’s Vice-Chair Betty Murungi is not about to.

"I am a prayerful person and I hear a small voice telling me to stay put. I applied for this job because I believed in the mandate of the TJRC Act. I consulted among my human rights community and I was convinced it was a legitimate process," she says.

Murungi was responding to questions by The Standard on Sunday on criticisms about her membership of the commission. While acknowledging the right of Kenyans to question and scrutinise public appointments and institutions, she says: "I resent patronising notions that I have no ideas of my own and I’m likely to be overshadowed or eaten up in a den of thieves. I am one individual in a group of nine men and women with solid professional backgrounds and public careers of their own. The notion that either Bethwel Kiplagat (Chairman) or Murungi make or break TJRC is wrong," she says.

Questioned legitimacy

Human rights lobbies have opposed appointment of veteran diplomat, Kiplagat, as TJRC chair. They argue he was a key plank in former regimes. Murungi’s former co-director at the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) board, Makau Mutua, has urged her to resign to deny the TJRC legitimacy.

But she says Prof Makau’s view has puzzled her: "The recruitment process has been in the public domain since March when the positions were advertised. The interview panel was multi-disciplinary, including KHRC. The names were tabled before Parliament and a shortlist was sent to the President for appointment," she explains.

Among organisations represented at the interview panel were Law Society of Kenya, KHRC, Kenya Private Sector Alliance and Professional Societies of East Africa.

Could the pessimism dent the credibility of the process?

"Kenyans should be free to express themselves, a TJRC process is not a meeting of friends but victims and their tormentors. There is no reconciliation without victims and tormentors meeting. Perpetrators are critical to explain why atrocities were committed," she notes.

Grant amnesty

About apprehension that the Official Secrets Act, lack of a Freedom of Information Act and the Indemnity Act crafted by President Jomo Kenyatta’s Government to grant amnesty against accountability for atrocities committed in northern Kenya during the Shifta war in the 1960s could block the search for truth, Murungi says: "When they signed the National Accord, President Kibaki and PM Raila Odinga committed themselves to facilitate passing of International Crimes Act and Freedom of Information Act. They have passed the first one but the second is still pending. I hope it will be enacted before we start conducting the hearings."

The Shifta war (1963 to 1967) remains one of the darkest corners of the country’s history. Little about the period has been discussed in public or taught in history books. The Indemnity Act, Chapter 44 (1970), says in part: "Act of Parliament to restrict the taking of legal proceedings in respect of certain acts and matters done in certain areas between the December 25, 1963 and December 1, 1967. No proceedings or claim to compensation or injury shall be instituted or entertained by any court or by any authority or tribunal established by or under any law for or on account of or in respect of Act, matter or thing done within or in respect of the prescribed area, after the December 25, 1963 and before December 1, 1967. If it was done in good faith or done in execution of duty in the public interest by a public officer or member of the armed forces."

Section 2 of the Act defines the prescribed areas to mean North Eastern Province, Isiolo, Marsabit, Tana River and Lamu districts.

Human rights lobbyists from the region are crying foul that the Kenyatta Government granted itself amnesty, and the TJRC process may not mean much to victims of the Shifta war.

However, Murungi says the TJRC Act grants the commission a wide mandate to summon any public official and visit any place to gather evidence. "The enactment of the International Crimes Act means no one can hide behind local legal clauses to escape accountability for criminal activities," she says.