Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission Stumbling Blocks

By Francis Mureithi
Since the appointed of Bethuel Kiplagat to chair the Kenya Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission, the talk has focused on suitability of the former diplomat to head such a crucial body.
Various reasons have been fronted on why Kiplagat and some of his commissioners are not suitable for the job.
But the truth is that Kenyans would have still made noise irrespective of who President Kibaki would have named to chair TJRC.
It is for this reason that there is need to shift focus from the suitability (or lack of it) of the commissioners and focus more on real issues that are likely going to undermine the work of the commission regardless of who chairs it.
The South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has cites as the benchmark for the Kenya’s commission.
Established in December 1995, the South Africa’s TRC with its seventeen commissioners appointed by former president Nelson Mandela swept the country for 244 days and, much to its own surprise, received over 21,000 victim statements and more than 7,000 applications for amnesty.
The question now is if our own TJRC will be such successful. My thinking is that things will not be that easy for our TJRC. It is important to note that apartheid regime in South Africa was a complex, indeed byzantine system.
It rested ultimately on a very simple premise-that white people are inherently superior to blacks-which is to say that it rested on a very simple lie.
Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past, it falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. This is exactly what happened with the apartheid regime in South Africa.
And when such a political system crumbles, the establishment of a truth commission immediately attains certain significance and it has an easy task of bringing the truth to the fore.
However, the Kenyan situation is much complex compared to South Africa. To start with, those in Kenya’s leadership today were still holding powerful positions in government when the various atrocities were committed right from independence.
Persons who ordinarily should provide useful information to TJRC are either still in government or their family members are in government harboring political ambitions. If their family members are not in government, their cronies and personal friends are the power brokers today.
Telling the truth on the previous atrocities may be too injurious to political careers of such people reconciliation not withstanding. This remains one of the major stumbling blocks to the success of TJRC.
Cases in point include the killing of JM Kariuki, Tom Mboya and Pio Gama Pinto all under first President Kenyatta.
Those committed during the former President Moi rule include that of Dr Robert Ouko, the infamous Nyayo House torture chambers and the tribal clashes.
Other historical injustices touch on complex issues like land allocations or alleged grabbing where those in power are classified as perpetrators.
Such individuals cannot be expected to be freely tell the truth before TJRC simply because they have economic interests that need to be protected.
Further, the current political setup in Kenya is totally different from that of South Africa. South Africa’s political environment was ideal for truth and reconciliation.
In South Africa, the whites had everything to lose if reconciliation was not to be achieved. On the other hand, the blacks were united under the Africa National Congress (ANC) and they had one common enemy-the whites.
All the whites read from the same script while all the blacks on the other hand also jointly read from their script. In simple terms, there were only two camps seeking truth, justice and reconciliation.
Kenya’s scenario is far much complex with different tribes still suspicious of each other. It would be a tall order for the Kiplagat commission to reconcile people who still view each other in terms of “your political party and your tribe.”
With 2012 election fever already catching Kenyans, every move by TJRC is likely going to be interpreted with succession politics in mind. These are scenarios which were not there in South Africa.
Again, within one tribe, there are also huge gaps of the powerful and the powerless coupled with the have and the have notes which TJRC must attempt also to bridge if true reconciliation is to be achieved.
To complicate the matters, TJRC’s work has coincided with yet another controversial issue-the constitution review process.
The constitution review process has done more harm to Kenya than good since it started close to two decades ago. The process has continued to divide rather than unite Kenyans.
While TJRC will be trying to reconcile and unite Kenyans, the review process on the other hand may be poking holes to the same unity and reconciliation.
TJRC’s work is also coinciding with the work of the boundaries review commission, which again may divide Kenyans if it fails to handle its mandate cautiously.
Instead of fighting those names as commissioners in TJRC, Kenyans should focus more on the blocks that may derail the commission’s work in an attempt of providing solutions. The country needs healing and reconciliation now than ever before.
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