Kiplagat digs in for battle in and out of TJRC

You would expect that the blessings that life showered upon Bethuel Kiplagat should make him the embodiment of peace and contentment.

They are rich and numerous. Education at Alliance High School, Makerere University, and the Sorbonne in Paris, that citadel of high learning and culture founded in the 11th century.

Ambassadorial appointments to the Court of St James and Paris. Peace emissary to troubled waters in Somalia, Mozambique, and Sudan. Family man whose elegant wife is a role model for young girls. Grandfather of a healthy brood.

You would expect him to be taking a lingering look at the beautiful rolling hills of Kapsabet in the Rift Valley, where he was born and raised, and intone to the high heaven: “It has been good.” Life bestows such blessings only to so few.

Yet, when you meet the chairman of Kenya’s Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC), it is not these blessings that come through his persona. It is life’s afflictions.

Far from the peace that you would expect of somebody reaping the bounty of such career achievements, you have a man ravaged by a war fought on too many fronts.

Front one: He is in court fighting tooth and nail to clear his name of claims of any wrong doing during his service with the Moi government. Loss on this front alone is enough to remove him from the chairmanship of the TJRC.

Rotten media

Front two: The “rotten media.” He says: “I am using that word, ‘rotten’. It is corrupt, with no ethics and no principles.” 

Front three: Sections of civil society. They have hounded him almost every day of his waking life since he was announced TJRC chairman and “spread falsehoods” about him. They have also plotted to disrupt his public meetings, he says.

The overwhelming sentiment when you listen to him rail against his multiplicity of tormentors to a point that he says he feels as if he would cry, is: “How can a man so endowed be so unhappy? Is all this necessary?”

He seems to ooze hurt from every pore. It is utter melancholy when he says: “There was that series of cartoons in the Nation by Gado, three, I think. The worst of them was when he drew me naked, stripped! You don’t do that, not even to a person you don’t like.”

This was but one of his travails with the media. “I don’t know about you,” he said with pained intensity.

“I am very disappointed with journalists. They have no ethics and no principles. Some time ago, a journalist asked me for more than 400,000 shillings, purportedly to clean up my public image. Yet he had come to me originally to write my story. I have his name and the e-mail correspondence.”

Why hasn’t he filed a complaint with the relevant authorities? “More dirt will come out of the ensuing publicity,” he laments. “It’s all mafia-like.”

Kiplagat’s high academic and professional achievements are a salutary lesson on what a humble country boy from the hills can accomplish, given the right mix of intelligence and determination, proper upbringing, and good luck.

He can shape the policy of nations and influence the course of world events. He is proof that you do not have to be born with a silver spoon in your mouth to dine in the most ornate palaces.

Yet in this character and this success also lies a streak of self righteousness and obstinacy that is impervious to opposing views.

“In a dialogue, the opinion he hears the most is his own,” says an exasperated colleague at the commission’s Delta House head office. 

Now he has intertwined the fate of the most important commission ever formed in Kenya’s nearly five decades of independence with his personal fate.

“He is so consumed with himself,” adds the colleague, “that should this commission fail over his personal issues, so be it. It wouldn’t bother him at all.”

Should the Chief Justice accede to a request to form a tribunal to try him, it is a cinch that in the brutal legal arguments that will follow, no quarter will be asked and none will be given.  It will be a gripping showdown.

And it is quite probable that Kiplagat could emerge victorious and retake his place at the head of the commission, never mind that this is a process that could leave its esteem smashed like shards of glass.

Kiplagat seems completely oblivious to such a terrible outcome and appears to confirm his colleague’s opinion of him. Doubtless, he is consumed with his legal rights.

“Nobody,” he says, “has come forward and asked me for documentary proof to back their allegations against me. You are the first journalist to ask for it and I appreciate that. Here is the proof.”

He proceeds to fish out copies of letters and other documents showing that he bought the houses and lands that he is alleged to have been illegally allocated. “You can have them,” he offers.

“The Ndung’u Commission was very unfair to me. Not once did they invite me to appear before them. I was not aware that they were going to mention my name adversely in their final report. I am sure this must be the case with so many other people mentioned in a similar manner. That alone defeats the principles of natural justice and that dictate that you shall not condemn anybody without first hearing their side of the story. If I went to court, I would win against the Ndung’u Commission on those grounds alone.”

This interview is taking place in a quiet, plush hotel room with only two or three guests scattered in the corners. In addition to a briefcase full of documents, Kiplagat has brought several thick box files and when he cannot find a document, he calls his driver on the phone and asks him to go to the office and fetch it. And he calls the office instructing that the document be kept ready for the driver.

All the while, he is thankful that, finally, he has this chance to factually prove his innocence.  It is surreal. Time to give this subject a break.

“What makes you happy, what makes you sad? What do you enjoy for breakfast? I mean, you are somebody’s husband, somebody’s father, somebody’s uncle. Let’s talk about Bethuel Kiplagat the human being, not the ambassador, not the peacemaker. What is dear to you as a person?”

Notwithstanding a prior notification that this request would be made, he still appears to have been caught off-guard. It is also apparent that he is ill at ease. He does not have an immediate answer.

But at further prodding, he says:  “I stand for integrity. I stand for justice. I stand for peace. I stand for equality. I stand for courage.”

The answer is so formal and so stiff that you feel he is holding back something — or something is holding him back.

“You are a Christian...?” “Yes,” he responds and clearly does not relish the direction the conversation has taken. “But I was raised in a Muslim family and later became a Christian. I came from a Muslim background. Some members of my family were Muslim, others weren’t. I became a Christian when I joined Alliance High School.” After this, it seems to become too much for him and he pleads: “Let’s not talk about my personal life. Let’s talk about the TJRC.”

All right. Wagalla. Did he visit Wajir before that fateful day when hundreds, possibly thousands, were massacred by the Kenya Army?

“As permanent secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” he begins, “I was a member of the National Security Committee (NSC). This committee was chaired by the Vice-President of the Republic. We met at a national level for the purpose of exchanging information. My role was to inform the committee on what was going on in the Horn of Africa — in Somalia, Ethiopia etc.

“When it comes to operations, there are other committees that handle them. We went to North Eastern Province. This is about 30 years ago but on a fact-finding and familiarisation tour. I had just returned from London in January. In February, we went to Garissa, Mandera, and Marsabit. Anywhere else I am going to confirm. As a committee we were not involved in operations. This was left to the provincial and district committees. There was no meeting in Wajir of the NSC.”

His voice is heavy and the look on his face is grave.

The lines on his forehead appear to gather more pronouncement as he expresses disappointment that yet another media interview is not dwelling on the successes of the TJRC so far but is turning out to be yet another look into his own past.

Nobody would fail to be moved by the calvary of the old man as he explains himself again and again amid the mound of documents he has brought to buttress his case. More still is the disappointment that he has allowed all this to become necessary.

Clear conscience

But the most profound tragedy is that we are talking about him — and not the will of the people of Kenya.

Someone inside his own commission told us that some people in Wajir have expressed the wish that he should not accompany his colleagues if and when the team goes there. It would be, they said, too much for them.  What does his conscience say to him about this?

“My conscience is very, very clear,” he responds forcefully. “I bear no responsibility whatsoever for that event.”

And what would he say to relatives of people mowed down by machine guns or dropped to their deaths from helicopters?

He pauses and then, deliberately, his voice falling, “I would say to them that I am very sorry. What happened there was terrible. I would want to know the truth. Who did it? Is that person still alive? If so, we shall recommend, according to the TJRC Act, that that person goes to court. That is what the Act says.”

Kiplagat insists that he has the full support of his commissioners and staff.

“We are working as a team,” he says.

When we requested this interview, he had insisted that he would want it done with the other commissioners. We preferred that he be alone but he was insistent that they all be there to speak with one voice. We accepted. But when he confirmed the appointment, he showed up alone. It is possible that he changed his mind and granted us our wish.

But it is also possible that the same people who started the legal proceedings to free themselves of his personal travails and get on with their mandate may have wished to exclude themselves from his wars.

Healthy distraction

Some people, like Boni Khalwale, the MP for Ikolomani, who chairs the Parliamentary Accounts Committee and is keeping a keen eye on the financial goings on at the commission, say that some politicians are terrified of a successful TJRC on account of their past.

An effective TJRC, he believes, would doubtless derail their ambitions for high office. For these people, says Khalwale, the shenanigans brought on by Kiplagat’s stance are a healthy distraction.

Kiplagat is mighty upset at these suggestions.

“I am not representing anybody. I am not representing any group. I am going to be faithful to the Act. Besides, there will be 300 statement takers across the country. The forums will be open and the media will be there. It is impossible for one single commissioner to influence the proceedings for personal gain.”

Because of his previous experiences with the media, Kiplagat shows extraordinary concern about how this interview has gone and what will come out of it.

The surreality of it all is haunting. Generations of Kenyans look up to the instrument he leads to free them from the burdens of the past and help them turn a new page.

Some are long gone and speak from their graves through their anguished loved ones. This is the instrument charged with the superhuman task of interrogating our conduct as human beings who only incidentally happen to be Kenyans. There is an unmistakable impression that all this is lost on him.

Tribulations

And so the whole process now lies hostage to the personal fortunes of chairman Bethuel Kiplagat. Could the people of Kenya, who doubtless harbour no rancour towards the long serving public servant, find a more delicate, more respectful, and more heartfelt voice than that of two commissioners who have served Mr Kiplagat?

Betty Murungi, his former vice chair, and Prof Ronald Slye, the American commissioner, wrote once in the Nation: “It is our hope that Mr Kiplagat will find it in his heart to honour the commitment we know he has to Kenya and its people. We ask that he allow the commission to continue with its important work while he pursues his own legal rights and interests vigorously in a forum of his choice.”

This seems unlikely. The paradox of blessings so generously given and sorrow so much in visible abundance is likely play out before the people of Kenya for quite some time to come.

Roy Gachuhi is Director, East Africa School of Journalism. [email protected]