Relax Mr Ruto, it’s only the easy part of a violence movie

By OTIENO OTIENO
Posted  Saturday, April 9 2011 at 20:07

So William Ruto thinks the allegations against him at the International Criminal Court sound like scenes from a movie.

Of course the whole post-election violence story makes for a great movie, especially for an audience brought up watching the make-believe Kenya, the Island of Peace in a Sea of Turmoil.

But the latest episode in which Mr Ruto and five others are starring as crimes against humanity suspects marks the beginning of about the only enjoyable part of this movie.

Whichever way the cases go, there is already a sense that justice might be served to the victims and the suspects at the end of this court drama.

The pre-trial choreography and the choice of extras have been inspired. About 40 MPs flown to The Hague did a perfect job of singing a patriotic line from Kenya Nchi Yetu — albeit out of tune — in the background and holding a banner reading, “Who Is Your Mother”.

We were all touched somewhere by that spectacular picture of Uhuru Kenyatta on his knees, being comforted by his mother ahead of his appointment with the judges at their Gatundu home.

Yet anybody who watched the horror of 2007 and 2008 will think even this belongs to the category of soaps and other such soft stuff.

Flash back to Komokomo slum in Naivasha in January 2008 at the height of the post-election violence. A picture taken by a Reuters photographer from there has another woman and her son.

But the 15-months-old boy is screaming inside their family’s humble rented room with nobody to comfort him.

Next to him, his mother is lying dead in a pool of blood. No editor had the stomach to publish it in Kenya. Reports in the international media then indicated that the woman was killed by a bullet fired by a police officer trying to scare away murderous gangs that reigned terror on “enemy communities” in Naivasha.

In Kenyan mediaspeak, she was from “a certain community in western Kenya” while her husband was from “a certain community in central Kenya”.

That was about the last time anything was heard of the man, the woman and the boy in public — their identities having been conveniently lost in the statistics about 1,133 dead and nearly 600,000 displaced.

More recently, some politicians have even appeared to jump on the graves of the dead and to mock the displaced as “imposters” in their rhetoric at prayer meetings and in Parliament.

If like me you find scenes like these disturbing, sit back, relax and enjoy The Hague court drama.

jkotieno@ke.nationmedia.com