THE DAY OF RECKONING

The jobs of at least six ministers, five MPs and two top civil servants may have been put on the line on Friday.

Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan received a sealed envelope listing their names as among those who had helped to plan the post-election violence, which left 1,133 people dead and hundreds of thousands homeless.

It emerged that as soon as a tribunal is formed to try those accused of aiding the violence, and the magical envelope is opened, the named suspects face immediate arrest.

Like murder suspects, they are likely to be thrown into jail and released only if they are cleared.

The Nation has been told that those likely to end up in the dock include what is believed to be a Who’s Who of Kenya’s political elite; most of them household names.

The list is also thought to include seven former MPs plus prominent businessmen from Rift Valley and Central provinces.

The list was prepared by the Commission of Inquiry into Post-Election Violence chaired by Mr Justice Philip Waki and given first to President Kibaki on Wednesday.

Mr Annan received the list as questions arose over a State House meeting said by the Waki report to have been held to plan the funding of attacks by Mungiki.

The report suggests some meetings were held in the run up to the General Election and others following raids on Kikuyu households in the Rift Valley.

Government spokesman Alfred Mutua maintained that no such meeting took place. Dr Mutua said that at no time did President Kibaki meet Mungiki in State House or anywhere else.

“We are puzzled by these allegations. The Naivasha attacks were, to our understanding, retaliatory attacks. How can meetings purported in the report to have occurred before the General Election have planned for revenge of violence that had not yet occurred?” he asked.

The Waki report refers to two separate meetings, one in State House and another in Nairobi Safari Club.

The Waki commission ruled that the Naivasha attacks between January 27 and 30 were planned and executed by Mungiki members supported by political and business leaders.

“The Commission has evidence that Government and political leaders in Nairobi, including key office holders at the highest level of government, may have directly participated in the preparation of the attacks,” states the Waki report.

“Central to that planning were two meetings held in State House and Nairobi Safari Club in the run up to the election with the involvement of senior members of the Government and other prominent Kikuyu personalities,” it says.

The Waki Commission’s findings confirmed a BBC report earlier this year, which claimed that a meeting held in State House did sanction some of the attacks.

Key officer holders

The report claimed senior Government officials held the meeting with members of Mungiki.

“The aim was to hire them as a defence force in the Rift Valley to protect the President’s Kikuyu community,” said the BBC report, which Dr Mutua vehemently refuted. “No such meetings took place at State House or any Government office,” Dr Mutua told the BBC, adding: “There is no way the President or any Government official would meet openly or even in darkness with the Mungiki.”

Meetings at State House can only be sanctioned by top Government officials.

Also set to face the scrutiny of the tribunal will be people in the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) wing of the coalition Government, some of whom are serving as ministers in the Kibaki-Raila administration.

Both the President and Prime Minister Odinga are believed to have been exonerated of any involvement in the violence, but they now face the prospect of losing some of their closest and most trusted professional and political colleagues .

The Waki Commission reported that the post election violence was mainly organised.

The patterns of violence showed planning and organisation by politicians, businessmen and others who had enlisted criminal gangs “to execute the violence,” they said.

In Naivasha, Nakuru and the slums of Nairobi, “Kikuyu gangs were mobilised and used to unleash violence against Luos, Luhyas and Kalenjins and to expel them from their rented residences”.

Similarly, the report said, “Organised Kalenjin youth particularly in the North Rift attacked and drove out Kikuyus living there. Evidence that the attacks were organised includes pointers such as warnings issued to victims before the attacks happened.

In some cases, petrol and weapons were used in various places to carry out the attacks and destruction, which “required arrangements as regards acquisition, concealment and transport”.

“Sometimes the attacks specifically targeted only members of given ethnic groups to the exclusion of others,” said the report. The names of those suspected of masterminding the violence were withdrawn from the official report presented to President Kibaki and instead stuffed in an envelope to prevent those named from tampering with any evidence before the tribunal team is named. 

According to the report, politicians who contested last year’s General Election are accused of casting the Majimbo (federalism) debate in ethnically divisive manner and failed to create confidence among voters around the electoral process and institutions.

One of the leaders is accused of sponsoring youths belonging to an outlawed militia to attack some leaders who were on the campaign trail, and eventually secured their freedom once they were arrested.

One senior politician was among business people who held secret meetings to raise funds for revenge attacks against the Luo, Luhya and Kalenjin.

Others who helped him included two former MPs and a prominent Nakuru businessman. Also linked to the Nakuru and Naivasha attacks were a former Nairobi MP who has since died and another from Kiambu.

One Cabinet minister is accused of calling for the removal of outsiders whom he referred to as madoa madoa, a phrase meant to mean people who were considered “outsiders”.

Was blocked

One minister was accused of holding a private meeting at his house, promising “to go on with the violence” after which “the road to Eldoret Town was blocked and the violence went on”.

An MP from Rift Valley is accused of ferrying “militias in lorries owned by another local politician to attack the Kiambaa church near Eldoret.

A National Security Intelligence Service report for January 8, said four senior Kalenjin personalities were funding ODM activists during the violence.

In Nakuru, a former MP is accused of organising Mungiki members to attack non-Kikuyu people living in the  town, according to the NSIS report.

In addition, the agency was informed that on January 25 2008, about 200 Kalenjin youths from the greater Kericho District arrived in Nakuru where they were regrouped at a former MP’s house.

Three ODM MPs are accused of inciting people on the Kenya-Tanzania and Kenya-Uganda borders to close the roads so that Tanzania and Uganda would complain of a lack of fuel supplied through Kenya thus bringing pressure to bear on President Kibaki to resign.

The spy agency said in Kiswahili, that one of the MPs told the Kipsigis to continue with the fighting.

Some Central province MPs are accused of holding several planning meetings to recruit fighters, to coordinate communal violence and to organise funding.

The report said some church leaders used the pulpit to convey messages amounting to hate speech against non-Kikuyus in Central province.

According to the Waki report, the violence was in part a spontaneous reaction to the perceived rigging of elections.

“In areas like the Rift Valley and the Coast, it targeted members of the Kikuyu and Kisii communities perceived to be associated with the PNU party and with President Kibaki considered to be the beneficiaries of the “robbed” election, “it said.

But in Nyanza and Western, violence was mostly directed towards Government facilities and took the form of looting and destruction.