From the outset, the most exciting creation of the new Constitution was the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC). Years later and a couple hundred million shillings expended, man-hours clocked, town-hall-style meetings convened, Press briefings and breakfast meetings logged, their much-awaited final report is yet to see the light of day.
Granted the commissioners cite Section 40 of the TJRC Act that requires that TJRC first hand their report to the President at the end of its operations complete with their recommendations, there is a kind of fatigue setting in.
The commission website lists its key objectives as “Promoting Peace, Justice, National Unity, Dignity, Healing and Reconciliation Among The People of Kenya”. Their mandate was to inquire into gross human rights violations and other historical injustices in Kenya between 12 December 1963 and 28 February 2008. Word is that their final effort is condensed into four volumes with detailed information gathered from statements, memoranda, individual and countrywide thematic hearings.
We have also learnt that it is in sections or chapters detailing key violations with respect to land acquisitions, allocations, adjudication and evictions, alleged massacres, torture, economic crimes, economic marginalisation and tribal violence.
The findings are meant to start a national conversation that will culminate in entrenching lasting peace, national unity, planting the seed of dignity, reconciliation and heal rifts that have resulted from these alleged injustices as well as lay the basis for frank discussions about real and imagined conflicts of interest among the people of Kenya.
The Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission has had its fair share of failings, falling out within its own ranks, delays in meeting its deadlines and even differences about the tone and detail of its final report. These are a mirror of the very differences the TJRC was mandated to interrogate and recommend a way forward.
However, the lethargy that has characterised its operations will always work against it as the public and civil society will read mischief, even where there is none.
It was a good call not to release the TJRC findings ahead of the last general election in March as it would have been clearly have been inopportune as Kenyans remained openly polarised and entrenched in their ethnic cocoons. However, the polls are over and with a new government and resolve to embrace all of the country’s ethnic, religious, racial, cultural and topographical diversity for the benefit of all, it behoves the TJRC to hand the report to President Kenyatta, now.
It is also in the interest of his administration to start off with a clean slate and not add the yoke of injustices and prejudices that are, no doubt, detailed by the TJRC on its young shoulders. Get the report, make it’s findings public and let the law take its course. Do not inherit the baggage of past regimes if the focus is Kenya on the pedestal of Vision 2030 and beyond.
