GACHOKA TRIES TO LINK RAILA TO CHAOS
The ICC has until Thursday this week to respond to a request by political activist Tony Gachoka to present fresh evidence which implicates Prime Minister Raila Odinga in the post election violence. If the ICC fails to give him a hearing, Gachoka has said he will instruct his lawyer, Paul Muite to apply to the High Court to have the evidence presented locally.
Gachoka, who served as chief of protocol in the Office of the Prime Minister between 2008 and 2009, claims he has a “comprehensive dossier of 11 documents of more than 3000 pages" which places the PM at the centre of the violence. Yesterday, Gachoka advertised in the newspapers the August 1 letter he wrote to ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda making known his intention to adduce evidence on behalf of hundreds of post election violence victims.
“I have evidence to show that violence was premeditated, coordinated, planned, commissioned and executed by the order of the PM,” Gachoka said in a phone interview. He said that he will show that prior to the 2007 election, the ODM pursued a policy of “42 against 1.” He said the Pentagon—the summit of the party's leadership—was formed in furtherance to this policy which targeted the Kikuyu community.
The pentagon comprised of Raila, Eldoret North MP William Ruto, former Tourism minister Najib Balala, Water minister Charity Ngilu, deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi and Co-operative minister Joseph Nyagah. Gachoka now claims the inclusion of Nyagah in the pentagon was an attempt to cover up the “42 against 1” policy. “There was no Kikuyu in the Pentagon despite our efforts to bring them on board. This is because there was a deliberate policy against them. Nyagah, who comes from Eastern was appointed as an attempt to cover up of this fact,” he said.
He said the election results in which Raila won in most of the provinces mirrored the pentagon's strategy. Gachoka accused the government of the Netherlands and the ICC's Chief Prosecutor had already made up their minds about the Kenya cases on the basis of half of the evidence available and which he was offering to the ICC.
He said he felt frustrated in his attempt to give out the truth on Raila's role in the poll violence. Gachoka claims that Raila had been cited in the original report of the report On the Brink of the Precipice: A Human Rights Account of Kenya's Post 2007 Election Violence which was prepared by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights.
He alleges that Raila's name was 'edited' out in the final report which formed part of the material that the ICC received from Justice Philip Waki who chaired the international commission of inquiry into the post election violence. Yesterday, Gachoka said he had tape recordings capturing the then KNCHR commissioner Hassan Omar Hassan discussing this with Raila.
According to the letter to Bensouda, Gachoka said he had withheld this information because he had thought the investigators would unearth it. He said since the investigators appear to have failed to do so, he had decided to come out and offer it to them. “Now, with great trepidation but spurred by the desire to deliver justice to the victims and help heal my homeland, I am willing to step forward and disclose all that I know,” he said in the letter to Bensouda.
Recently, Raila's former advisor on coalition and constitutional affairs Miguna Miguna claimed he had evidence which linked his former boss to the post election violence. Yesterday, Gachoka denied he was anybody's 'hireling' and dismissed suggestions that he was acting at the behest of one or more the ICC suspects. "Post election violence victims like Nancy Wanjiru whose moving story was splashed in yesterday's Sunday Nation have pushed me to act," he said.
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