On an August morning 18 years ago, along the Nakuru Naivasha highway, two brothers stumbled on the corpse of a large white male, 6-foot-2-inches and 90 Kgs.
It was the body of John Anthony Kaiser, an American priest who had first come to Kenya 36 years earlier after graduation from Saint Louis University.
He died on 24 August 2000, five months after he was awarded the Law Society of Kenya annual Human Rights Award for being “a study in courage, determination and sacrifice on behalf of the weak, oppressed and downtrodden.”
In 1999, Kaiser had given a public testimony before the Akiwumi Commission on Tribal Clashes in the run up to the 1997 general elections and when he died he was carrying documents he intended to present to the Akiwumi Commission.He was also set to testify against the government before the International Criminal Court in the Hague in three weeks.
Less than a week after Kaiser’s death, Florence Mpayei, who Kaiser had been helping to pursue justice against a politician who had raped her, dropped the rape case.
Fr Kaiser had always been a thorn in the flesh of the government which had tried to deport him in November, 1999 claiming that his work permit had expired. Kaiser briefly hid in Kisii before he was granted a new work permit after the intervention by the US Ambassador Johnnie
Carson and Bishop Colin Davis of Ngong. After eight months of investigations, he FBI and Kenya Police released a 81-page document titled The Final Report into the Death of Father John Kaiser which gave a devastating glimpse into his “deteriorating” mental state, focused on the final 96 hours of his life in Nairobi.
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It said colleagues described him as “out of sorts,” “tense,” “scared,” “exceptionally nervous” and “haunted.” He was seen crying at Mass and spent nights awake with a shotgun by his side, and when he did sleep, “Father Kaiser could be heard calling out the names of prominent Kenyan politicians.”
The report continued: “He confides that he thinks he is being followed.” He told his bishop that “death was near.”“The manner of the death of Father John Anthony Kaiser is more consistent with a suicide than a homicide. This suicide resulted from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.”
The last page of the report read. According to a media interview with Fr Kaiser’s nephew Mary Mahoney Weaver there was no way Kaiser could have committed suicide.
“They said he was mentally unstable because he cried during Mass. He cried many times when he was very moved. Shortly before he died, he wrote in an open letter to his family and friends: “I want all to know that if I disappear from the scene, because the bush is vast and hyenas many, that I am not planning any accident, nor, God forbid, any self-destruction,” said Mary.
Kaiser knew of the dangers of speaking out in Kenya, and of a fate which had befallen many others. In a book about his experiences at the Maela camp, he wrote a warning.
“I want all to know that if I disappear from the scene, because the bush is vast and hyenas many, that I am not planning any accident, nor, God forbid, any self-destruction. Instead, I trust in a good guardian angel and in the action of grace (If I die).”
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Before Kaiser was Anglican bishop Alexander Kipsang Muge, a thorn in the flesh of the government at the height of clamour for introduction of multiparty democracy, a marked man.
Bishop Muge was at the forefront pushing for reforms alongside Rev Dr Timothy Njoya, David Gitari and Bishop Henry Okullu.
Three days before Bishop Muge’s death, Peter Okondo, a vocal staunch supporter on the one party system had said at a rally that the bishop “might not leave alive’’ if he visited Okondo’s constituency, Busia.
But Bishop Muge dismissed the threats and on August 14, 1990 went to Busia for a crusade but died in a mysterious road accident on his way back.
Okondo resigned under a cloud two weeks later. Bishop Muge’s death was attributed to an ordinary accident. The driver of the “killer vehicle” was jailed for dangerous driving but died after serving five of his seven-year sentence.
