NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 23- Detectives in Kenya are set to revisit the country’s darkest moments of 2007-2008 Post Election Violence (PEV), which claimed 1,200 lives and left 600,000 others internally displaced, following a disputed presidential election.
Former President Mwai Kibaki had been declared the winner of an election marred with malpractices but former Prime Minister Raila Odinga – whose victory he claimed had been stolen, rejected the outcome.
The renewed clamor to deliver justice to the thousands of survivors follows new threats according to Director of Criminal Investigations George Kinoti, but a section of politicians across the country are wondering, why now?
A similar trend like it happened then, the DCI said, is slowly but surely taking shape, with members of a certain community being referred to as “watu wengine (other people).”
Rift Valley is largely cosmopolitan and largely representing the face of Kenya’s 42 tribes.
Some 13 years ago, the same group that paid the highest price in the violence is on the ‘wanted’ list.
Then, in 2007, the said community, the DCI said, was profiled as “Kwekwe, sangari and madoadoa.”
“Soon, you will see the outcome of today’s actions,” DCI boss said on Monday, a day that saw more than 100 victims of 2007-2008 violence record statements.
The recorded statements include 70 cases of homicide.
“Never again” the DCI assured, will security agencies turn a blind eye to what is seemingly a mere threat, but with a potential of causing chaos and bloodshed.
“We are going to be proactive and not reactionary. I will not seat here to only dispatch my officers to go collect bodies,” he asserted.
But why now?
A cross-section of Kenyans have welcomed the move, but others say it amounts to opening healing wounds.
Others have accused DCI Kinoti of being used by “the deep state” to manipulate Kenyans.
But the DCI, without divulging much details, said he had received complaints on September 15, over possible incitement to violence ahead of 2022 General elections.
It is after analyzing the intelligence gathered that the DCI invited victims to record statements, in a ‘bold’ move that might see them get justice, 13 years after the atrocities that befell them.
An attempt by International Criminal Justice (ICC) to deliver justice to those that they felt had played the biggest responsibility failed over “witnesses tampering.”
Six Kenyans among them President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto faced various offenses against humanity; the cases were dropped.
“One would honestly sympathize with DCI Kinoti. The political circus and shenanigans he’s taken through by these political brokers and conmen, from Fight against Corruption to now an attempt to drive ethnic animosity in the Rift to rescue BBI?
Come on! A little intelligence,” vocal pro-Deputy President legislator Kimani Ichung’wa said in a tweet.
Nakuru Senator Susan Kihika, also in a Tweet said, “When U see their Hatchet Man @DCI_Kenya trying to raise tensions and incite communities against each other U know they R desperate! Hope they don’t KILL people, BURN houses to justify Kinoti’s statements Kenyans ‘d resist temptation to engage in VIOLENCE and continue living in PEACE.”
Nakuru was one of the hard-hit regions in the country and interestingly, majority of those who recorded statements on Monday hails from there.
Kericho Senator Aaron Cheruiyot accused the DCI of trying to “weave his unending political tales using victims of 2007 PEV. He cannot claim to have the capacity to do a better job than KNHRC and Waki. GOK should activate those reports if they are genuine. Otherwise, this is the usual kieleweke desperation.”
In the coming days, the DCI has promised “action” and it remains to be seen what approach he will take and if justice will finally be delivered.
“I just want my land back,” one of the Post-Election Violence survivors told Shahidi News.
Like many others, they remain in rental houses within shopping centers years later, while their land, they said, is occupied by their aggressors.
“We are coming for you,” the DCI warned.
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