Sword of justice must cut both ways

By Kipkoech Tanui

"As soon as men know that they can kill without fear of punishment or blame, they kill; or at least they encourage killers with approving smiles." — Simone Weil, French philosopher

Had I dared to drive through Naivasha and Nakuru in the season political vampires — buoyed by State machinery and trappings of incumbency — clung to power, I would probably be dead.

We saw gory images of men from the ‘wrong’ tribes plucked from matatus and hacked to death. Others were burned up by youths inside a home.

The same ugly scenes, with villains and victims changing roles, were replayed elsewhere. Near my rural home, a Catholic priest, whose only ‘sin’ was his tribe, was plucked out of his car and killed. In Eldoret, women and children were burned up in a church by local youths.

The flip side is, the same fate as would befall me in Naivasha, was guaranteed for the members of the ‘other’ community in my rural home. It is a game of Russian roulette in which no one is safe. It is also one in which the political class may just scrape through the fires of justice, but their foot soldiers, would be left to hang. The politician can, after all, use us as the trump card. They can threaten political sanctions, using us the voters, as the exchange currency for reprieve.

I used the word ‘clung’ deliberately, because those out to uproot them called in their youths to stage ‘mass action’, and do whatever they could to smoke them out. It takes two to tango, and so must the sword of justice cut both ways to heal Kenya.

Full intervention

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The Waki Commission, whose recommendations on the post-election violence we are fighting over along familiar political fault-lines, reported State House was where the Naivasha highway killings were planned. Predictably, State House denied this.

From the military, police and Administration Police command posts, orders for live bullets and ‘full intervention’ came, alongside barricading of KICC by State agents, Electoral Commission chairman Samuel Kivuitu’s forced ride in a minister’s car to State House to give President Kibaki the thumbs-up sign and the order to stop live coverage.

State agents went to work, ostensibly to restore order, and in the end more than 400 youths died under the hail of bullets. Today, no one is talking about the givers of the orders, even as they skim hefty salaries and belch on revolving chairs in their offices.

Then, in came the ‘legalese’ language and the lawyer’s question of burden of proof. Focus shifted to ‘field’ politicians, not those imbued with State power.

In all likelihood, though as I have said before I will never oppose the pursuit of the perpetrators, we could have these other lords of war off the radar. We could then end up scouring wounds that are yet to heal and sowing seeds of ethnic hate that would haunt us forever.

Threats

Five things stick out: First, true to Kenya’s collective amnesia political rivals embraced each other with lightening speed when confronted by shared fate, out of political exigency. Next, some of the propagators and so-called custodians of justice today have their footprints firmly in the road Kenya took as it slid to violence.

They threatened their opponents with fire and brimstone, fomenting fear of State ‘retaliation’, ‘alienation’, job and economic blockades, against communities they perceived to be opposed to their continued stay in power, even as they watered the tree of tribalism. This scoured feelings of unresolved historical injustices. Even as the other side recoiled in fear, the mess that was the presidential election, the clouds of tear-gas everywhere, the hurried swearing-in ceremony, were but the push-button.

Third, as in a military coup, which is illegal only if the plotters are stopped, politicians have made the ‘murder’ of innocents look trivial. The hapless and the innocent, those killed, dispossessed and displaced, have become the pawns on the bloodied chessboard they play on.

Their neglect, amplified by the way we have reduced their suffering and loss to political nuances, dictum and convenience, was captured by poet WH Auden: "Murder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures, so that society has to take the victim’s place and, on his behalf, demand atonement or grant forgiveness; It is the one crime in which society has a direct interest."

Lastly, post-Kibaki campaigns started in earnest the day he controversially began his second term. Even those snarling at the Waki Report claim it was cleverly authored to knock some of them off the 2012 train to State House. We have a long to go way pursuing this animal called justice, which to many has many names, shades and camouflages.