Friday, July 9, 2010

Leaflets, warnings and intimidation mar law campaigns

As campaigns for the referendum shift into full gear with just 25 days to go to the vote, tension is said to have gripped areas that were identified as hotspots in the post-election violence.

Indeed, a new report by South Consulting, a firm that monitors activities in the Grand Coalition Government, indicates that intimidation in parts of Rift Valley, Nyanza and Western provinces has triggered the pre-emptive displacement of people from those areas.

Rift Valley, especially, has a history of violence targeted at communities associated with rival political opinions. Political friends are defined as people who are indigenous while political foes are migrants or those who came to settle in the area.

Verbal threats, intimidating leaflets and messages carved into the bark of tree trunks, the South Consulting report says, are causing trepidation in the province.

Such happenings are akin to what happened in the 2005 referendum, which former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, who led negotiations in 2008 to end violence in Kenya, said were a preamble to the chaos following disputed 2007 elections.

According to the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, these same areas witnessed similar threats and tension prior to the 2007 election.

Although the National Cohesion and Integration Commission has warned politicians against hate language which heightened the tension, there is need for cooperation with the police force to deter violence.

The Kenya national dialogue and reconciliation monitoring project on the implementation of Agenda items 1-4 and progress towards a new Constitution review report states that the quest for peaceful co-existence in multi-ethnic parts of the Rift Valley posed a threat to democracy.

In Agenda One, there was need for immediate action to stop violence and restore fundamental rights and liberties while Agenda Two involved taking immediate steps to address the humanitarian crisis and promote healing and reconciliation.

In Agenda Three, the negotiation team was tasked to overcome the political crisis and Agenda Four, which deals with largely what has not been done, involves long-term issues including constitutional and institutional reforms, land reforms, poverty and inequalities, youth unemployment, national cohesion, and transparency and accountability.

According to the report released on Wednesday, people wishing to avoid violence and displacement are contemplating giving up their democratic right to vote or changing their political decisions to please members of the dominant community.

The level of intolerance for dissenting opinions is on the rise, a trend that might undermine democracy and debate on issues of national importance, says the report.

Leaders from the area interviewed by the Saturday Nation following the revelations had mixed reactions, with some denying that there were signs of tension in the Rift Valley because of the high profile campaigns.

Some flatly refused to associate their areas with the discourse on which residents were “indigenous” or “migrants” which is tied to the history of land ownership and occupation in affected areas.

However, independent investigations by the Saturday Nation corroborated the South Consulting report findings.

The report says fear of violence was causing anxiety in the said parts, including Molo and Kuresoi, resulting in people leaving their homes.
“In other parts of the country, notably Mt Elgon, Trans Nzoia and West. Pokot, leaflets warning people to leave by August 4, 2010 have been circulated,” says the report.

Some people are moving out of West Pokot, the report further says, although some are said to be waiting to see how the situation evolves.

“Some people prefer not to vote, or to vote as directed by the indigenous community: In parts of Uasin Gishu and, in particular, areas around Eldoret, IDPs have ostensibly decided to ‘buy peace’ by giving up their democratic right to vote,” the South Consulting Group reported.

People in the affected areas said it is better not to vote than to do so and live in danger afterwards.

“If all they want is for us to vote as they want, why should we not obey if it means living in peace,” a resident in one of the areas is reported to have said in the survey.

In Nyanza, and especially Kisumu, the community has collectively decided to vote in favour of the proposed constitution and those opposed to it will likely not be tolerated.

Indeed, inter-personal brawls have been reported in bars and other social places, indicating a recession in democratic engagement at the community level.

“People are afraid to voice their opinion openly because they will be beaten. Is this democracy?” said a respondent.

Only Molo MP Joseph Kiuna admitted that people in his area had started leaving away for the fear of the referendum vote.

He said people campaigning for the rejection of the proposed constitution in his constituency were intimidating other communities to either vote against it or be thrown out.

“They have warned some of my constituents that if the new constitution is passed, there will be chaos in the area,” said Mr Kiuna.

The MP said people in Molo have suffered since 1992 as they are always intimidated every time there is a vote.

However, other Rift Valley MPs disagreed with the report, saying it was alarmist.

Eldoret South MP Peris Chepchumba Simam described the findings as “allegations from the media” which did not have any relation to what was happening on the ground.

“I am in touch with my constituency. I was there at the weekend and there is nothing like that. People live in harmony and have agreed to forge ahead without being reminded of the past,” she said.

Hate campaign

Burnt Forest, Cheptiret and Eldoret are some of the country’s hotspots and are located in Eldoret South constituency.

Ms Simam said communities in the constituency had invested a lot in peace building.

Konoin MP, Dr Julius Kones said the report was alarmist and was meant to convince donors to continue funding South Consulting.

“To me this is part of a hate campaign, otherwise how do you describe a situation where the report tries to imagine its findings?” asked Dr Kones.

Mt Elgon MP Fred Kapondi said claims that some people were being ordered to leave the district was not true.

“If that is the situation, why don’t the police make arrests? What are they waiting for? Thsee are lies and should be treated as such by any seriously minded person, said Mr Kapondi.

Cherangany MP Joshua Kutuny, who is among those arrested and taken to court over allegations of hate speech, said his cosmopolitan constituency was at peace and warned that reports like this would raise unnecessary tension.

“I don’t know where the organisation got its information from as the constituency and entire district, the larger Trans Nzoia, is calm,” said Mr Kutuny.

The Cherangany MP, who was arrested and interrogated at the CID headquarters and incarcerated for one night, has been accused of circulating leaflets warning some people to leave his constituency.

And in a telephone interview, Mr Elijah Chege, the chairman of the Yamumbi IDP camp in Eldoret, agreed with the report’s findings, saying that some displaced people had confided in him that they may not vote to avoid confrontation.

The report said some IDPs in parts of Uasin Gishu prefer not to vote, or to vote as they are instructed by the indigenous community.

The failure to prosecute post-election violence perpetrators is blamed for entrenching a ‘business as usual’ attitude.

The South Consulting report states that a culture of impunity has continued to crystallise — it is ‘business as usual’ in many respects, including political and economic corruption.

Police officer

The only hope for Kenyans now lies with the International Criminal Court.

“There is slack commitment to efforts to promote accountability. Many cases related to the post-election violence have not been successfully concluded. To date, some of those accused have been acquitted for lack of sufficient evidence,” states the report.

A recent instance where a police officer filmed on video allegedly shooting two demonstrators dead in Kisumu was set free on a technicality does not make matters any better, according to the report.

The court established that the serial number of the firearm produced as the murder weapon differed from that of the firearm the police officer had been assigned.

“Because of such deficiencies in criminal investigations, over half of Kenyans polled believe that local mechanisms are not likely to provide justice,” says the report.

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