Shattered lives of young Kenyans jailed for 72 years in Juba

They will not celebrate Christmas. They have not rejoiced in Diwali for two years now. They have not revelled at their sons’ birthdays this year. They cannot and will not celebrate anything until they secure freedom for their beloved. PHOTO: STANDARD

“Can a woman’s tender care cease towards the child she bore?” says the anonymous author of John 21:16.

The Biblical exhortation on mothers’ interminable love for their children is marked out in tormented lives of four women whose children are jailed in South Sudan.

For one and half years, the mothers of Ravi Ramesh Ghaghda, Anthony Mwadime, Anthony Keya and Boniface Muriuki have condensed into distinctive frames of pain.

Their anguish written all-over their faces and in their expressions and demeanour.

They will not celebrate Christmas. They have not rejoiced in Diwali for two years now. They have not revelled at their sons’ birthdays this year. They cannot and will not celebrate anything until they secure freedom for their beloved.

Their sons, employees of Click Technologies, a Juba-based private company that specialises in graphics design and computer supplies, were hurriedly convicted alongside 12 South Sudanese nationals of fraud charges involving the Office of the President of South Sudan, Salva Kiir.

UNRESPONSIVE GOVERNMENTS

Their hopes for their sons’ release have been assailed from all directions by unresponsive governments, conspiratorial justice system, mindless bureaucrats who misread the sense of urgency and a relenting media that won’t sustain their story. It seems only the civil society has been passionate about their cause, but their efforts are not enough.

But their spirit is enduring and undying. All their hopes now lie with President Uhuru Kenyatta, whose freedom from the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague was a product of contrived and sustained offensives at State, regional and continental levels.

“What we have gone through in the last one year is unbearable. It’s like we were imprisoned with him. Our lives stalled the day Ravi was hauled into prison just two days after he arrived in Juba on trumped up charges,” Usha Ramesh, the mother of 28-year old Ravi tells The Standard on Saturday.

Usha is your typical Indian housewife -- spiritual, graceful and embodying the spirit of family virtues. Ever since son was arrested in June 2015, she has maintained a studious silence and watchful eye over her remaining two children and husband.

When we visited her at her 1st Parklands Avenue home in Nairobi, she was in a sombre mood, surrounded by the ambience of crisp clean house adorned with figures of Hindu gods. Her gaze shifted from one side to the other, one moment she looks at the balcony, and the other, at us.

Their home is no longer the same lively and warm abode it was one and half years ago when they would converge for dinner and light up their world with love. These days, their evenings are wrapped up in sorrow as yet another day passes without their beloved Ravi.

With her eldest daughter Tejal by her side, Usha weeps as she narrates how her close-knit family was torn apart by the arrest of their own. Mother and daughter sob incessantly, but the most resilient one, the mother, takes her time to wipe away the tears.

“We are a small family of five. We have never left the country for long periods of time, save for occasional holidays. We were by each other until Ravi made that ill-starred trip to Juba. He is a passionate business development expert,” recalls Tejal.

But their home is not the only one where sorrow reigns.

In Zambia area near Ngong town, Esther Wazome puts her palm over her nose and mouth as a whirlwind hurtles her way. The mother of three, who runs an open clothes stall, is still suspended in the emotional storm of her son’s imprisonment in Juba.

Like Ravi, her son Anthony Mwadime, 31, had gone Juba in search of greener pastures. An astute graphics designer, he had worked in several places in Nairobi before taking on a new and exciting challenge in Juba.

He had no idea he would be caught up in a vicious and intriguing business rivalry that would see their boss John Agou together with his wife and staff, arrested. There would be no proper legal representation, no full observance of human rights and no proper trial.

“We have knocked on every door, we have tried every means, including going on hunger strike to draw the attention of the world to our son’s plight. We continue to pray, but we are stuck,” Wazome says.

With sunken eyes, she suppresses emotions as she narrates how she has had to go back in business to fund the many meetings and travels to and from various offices in an attempt to secure Mwadime’s release.

“We wish we can have him back home for this Christmas. It’s been one and half year of torture and pain. His father is grounded at home and confounded by the whole situation. It’s not easy for a mzee to take in a situation where his son is imprisoned in a foreign land and he is unable to help,” she says.

Mwadime’s elder brother was also working in Juba as a graphics designer, but moved to Kenya after the incident.

Last year, Wazome, alongside the relatives of the other convicts, travelled to Juba to visit her imprisoned son.

“We had only 15 minutes together and we cried them away. He was asking when he would be allowed to come back home. I had no answer but I kept encouraging him,” Wazome says.

Their agony reverberates far and wide.

In Karatina, Nyeri County, the family of Boniface Chuma Muriuki, 34, has undergone sleepless nights as they try to come to terms with the imprisonment of their second son in a foreign land.

Muriuki Gakuhi and his wife Jane Wanjiku are yet to comprehend the circumstances that led to the arrest and incarceration of Chuma, an electronics expert.

Just like the other parents, it has been a torturous and tortuous journey filled with promises, laced with deceit and wrapped in confusion and pledges made by the governments of Kenyan and South Sudanese and other senior State officials.

Wanjiku, an outside caterer in Mathira, vividly recalls the events that turned her live around.

“It was around early afternoon and I was offering catering services at Giakanja near Nyeri town when my daughter-in-law called and said she had received reports that her husband was arrested by South Sudanese police. I nearly collapsed,” Wanjiku says.

TORTUROUS JOURNEY

Ever since, the Gakuhis have gone through a painful journey to try and secure their son’s release. Ruth Muriuki, the family’s last daughter, says their problem can only be solved through a political route since diplomatic and legal avenues have reached a dead end.

“We have not been sleeping, but we dream that one day, justice will prevail and we will receive our brother back, at home,” says a confident Ruth.

Chuma’s wife, Alice Wanjira, who was living in Juba, has since moved back to Kenya with her two children. Their eldest is at Kanjuri Boys High School in Mathira, while the last born is a year old and was born when her father was in jail.

Esther Osanya, the wife of the last of the South Sudan convicts -- Anthony Keya -- is raising a two-year old son alone in the absence of his father. When we caught up with her, she was alternating between two jobs, as a waitress of a hotel on State House Road and as a front officer in a Kitisuru firm.

Between the two firms, she works from 7am to midnight.

“I don’t have much choice, really. I have to make ends meet in the absence of my hubby,” she says as she stares at the pristine skies, which seem oblivious of her suffering.

Osanya has not seen her husband since January 5, 2015 when he left for South Sudan. But she is a little better.

Tejal says when she saw her brother in Juba last year, she looked wasted and worn out. Her father wouldn’t recognise his own son, she testifies.

Osanya’s son is now living with his maternal grandparents. “He thinks my dad is his dad and I am just worried one day he will figure out it’s a lie. I hope his father can come back sooner and end all this anxiety,” she says.

Before she got the present jobs, she had relocated to her rural home after her rent arrears rose to Sh72, 000. She got a job as a supervisor in a restaurant in Uthiru, but was fired over the many “rescue” meetings she would excuse herself to attend.

“The manager just told me point-blank that I have to choose between work and meetings. She fired me before I could even make a choice,” she says.

Ironically, on the day we met her, the hotel she works at was hosting an Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) meeting in which the South Sudan Ambassador to the IGAD was in attendance.

“He’s here. I just serve him and go. But deep inside, I know what they are doing to our people in Juba is not good. Why do they treat us this way when we treat them so well here in Nairobi? If my husband was engaged in fraud as they claim would I be struggling this way?” Osanya poses, her soft voice fading.

So many questions linger in the minds of these families. Had the Kenyan embassy in Juba moved faster, probably things would have turned out better. Is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs committed to resolving the impasse? How could the world condone such flagrant abuse of human rights?

They won’t say it in public but within themselves, they relate their plight to that of the six Kenyans -- including the President -- indicted by the ICC in the aftermath of 2008 post-election violence. They were all left off the hook at different times, with the President vowing that no other Kenyan will be tried in foreign courts.

None of questions have an answer for now. But they are holding on to hope that one bright day, their sons will be back home and continue with their lives.

Additional reporting by Job Weru