MONTHS LATER, after courts declared as ‘unconstitutional’ the compensation panel which was set up by President Ruto and Rt. Hon. Raila Odinga to compensate the victims of the 2013-2023 state violence, nothing has happened.
In opposing the compensation panel, they argued that the panel usurped the mandate of KNCHR; where is KNCHR compensation plan?
They claimed only KNCHR can compensate, where is their plan?
In reality, what they were opposed to was not the panel, but the compensation.
This explains their silence now, with no demands to KNCHR to undertake the exercise.
They were opposed to compensation because the majority of victims in the protests were Raila supporters (Luos/Luhyas mostly) and the manner in which anti-compensation crusaders thwarted the attempts to compensate them reeked of deeply engrained TRIBALISM.
Just as we read elsewhere that ROADS being constructed in some parts of the country add no economic value, and, is wastage of resources; the compensation of 2013-2023 victims of state violence was thwarted on same terms.
The irony is that people whose kins/kiths benefitted immensely from 2007 PEV compensation where even FAKE IDPs and FAKE VICTIMS got multiple compensation, running into billions, were the most opposed to the compensation of the 2013-2023 victims.
When historical beneficiaries of compensation gang up with ‘evil society’ types and their ‘judiciary appendages’ to oppose compensation outside the courts, it is not because they’re pursuing strengthening of the rule of law.
It is because the would-be beneficiaries are not supposed to get any restorative justice. It is also because they want to whitewash history and pass their past brutalizing regimes as having been “mweupe kama pamba”.
Compensation cannot happen within Kenya’s judicial system. Not even colonial era infractions were compensated through the court systems.
We were here when PM Raila Odinga brokered an out-of-court settlement with Britain for Maumau victims. Nobody insisted on the rigid legal processes. After years of never ending court proceedings, Githu wa Kahengeri opted to use the Raila negotiated channel which led to Britain compensating the victims as well as erecting a monument at Freedom Square. I attended the unveiling.
The judicial system in Kenya, borrowed heavily from Britain, was designed to cover up state repression.
Nothing has come out of investigations in the murder of Chris Msando and Caroline Ngumbu, neither has Baby Pendo’s inquest delivered any justice to the family, with police officers who broke into people’s homes in Kisumu and maimed, raped, and brutalized residents, killing a toddler strapped by the mother’s arm, still at large.
They claim there must be ‘justice’ first before compensation, how come in 2007 they never made such demands?
In fact, in 2007, the communities which never got any compensation were those who had been brutalized by Mungiki, aided by GEMA police killer thugs.
It will be many years, even forever, for these people to be compensated.
May the children of those who participated in the collapse of compensation of the victims, fail CBC…may their adult daughters meet the Russian man, and may power evade them FOREVER, ooh Obong’o Nyakalaga, reswa.
