Truth team fights for survival

After spending the first half of its term battling a credibility crisis and internal squabbles, the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) appears to have settled down to some work.

The commission recently announced that it had hired statement takers to soon be dispatched to different parts of the country. “We are behind schedule. We came into being in 2009 but we started late. We now have statement takers on board  and we will have hearings from February to August.

“The commission will be very key on the cases that we select. The richness of the work of the commission is the statement that you collect,” said Patricia Nyaundi, the chief executive officer of TJRC.

“We will collect statements for five months and this will form the bulk and there are already reports from previous commissions. We are looking at Akiwumi , Ndung’u and other reports. By November 2011, when we are meant to hand over a report, I’m confident that we will have finished.”

The renewed confidence at the TJRC comes against the backdrop of a public relations coup it has apparently successfully staged against its most vociferous civil society critics.

Increased visibility

Regular appearances by commissioners like Tom Ojienda, the former Law Society of Kenya chairman, on TV talk shows and at public forums have given the commission increased visibility.

Even its beleaguered chairman, Bethuel Kiplagat, has lately resurfaced from a self-imposed hibernation to appear at press conferences. Dr Kiplagat has been the target of a campaign by civil society organisations to force him to resign.

The lobby groups claim the TJRC chairman is implicated in past human rights abuses committed during his time in public service. They also argue that Dr Kiplagat could be required to appear before the same commission as a witness at a later stage over the assassination of then Foreign Affairs minister Dr Robert Ouko in 1990, the 1984 Wagalla Massacre and an illegal land allocation.

Early this year, two fellow commissioners, including then deputy Betty Murungi, demanded Dr Kiplagat’s resignation in an article in the Sunday Nation. Ms Murungi resigned her post in March and eventually quit the commission altogether.

Dr Kiplagat has meanwhile not only to pleaded his innocence and sought to stay put but also led the fight for the TJRC by taking the battle to its critics and making unlikely friends along the way.

Last month, the commission controversially hired some 100 torture victims to its staff. TJRC officials have sought to justify the decision as a gesture of appreciation for the victims’ struggles.

For their part, the victims, through the National Network for Victims and Survivors, say they accepted the jobs following an MoU they signed with the TJRC to hire them as part of a reparations programme.

Former student leader Wafula Buke, one of the beneficiaries of TJRC employment who spoke for the victims at an August 12 press conference, said their engagement with the commission was motivated by the desire to foster reconciliation and truth-seeking.

New round of protests

But the move has elicited another round of protests by lobby groups who see it as part of the effort to confer legitimacy on a commission they insist is not properly constituted.

A letter inviting civil society organisations to a TJRC function last month was received with suspicion among some activists because it was emailed by a Federation of Women Lawyers (Fida-Kenya) official. Ms Nyaundi is the immediate former executive director of Fida-Kenya.

In the email exchange between August 17 and 20 seen by the Sunday Nation, Njonjo Mue of the International Centre of Transitional Justice wondered if “Fida was offering secretarial services to the commission”.

Ndung’u Wainaina of the International Centre for Policy and Conflict asked: “How can a credible and legitimate TJRC, as it purports to be, be engaging in clandestine activities of applying divide and co-opt?”

But on Saturday Fida-Kenya’s executive director sought to clarify the organisation’s engagement with TJRC as being based on an interim position awaiting the decision of its members’ meeting before the end of this month.

“Since the ministry of Justice has not disbanded the commission, and the chairman has not resigned, we have chosen to monitor its work to see what it has for women.

We would want to know if it will give women a voice. We have attended some meetings with them (TJRC) and there are a lot of things we don’t agree with,” Ms Maingi said in a telephone interview.

So far, TJRC has remained calm under pressure. But it appears the storm isn’t over yet. The civil society organisations that want its scalp are planning to set up a parallel truth body.

The People’s Truth-Seeking Tribunal is modelled on the People’s Commission of Kenya formed by the Ufungamano Initiative in 1999 to challenge the legitimacy of the constitution review process fronted by Kanu.

Among the names that have so far been floated as possible commissioners are Bishop Cornelius Korir of the Eldoret Catholic Diocese, retired Anglican Archbishop David Gitari and Prof Yash Pal Ghai, the law scholar who chaired the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission in 2005.

Still, President Kibaki might have unwittingly thrown a spanner in the works for the TJRC on Wednesday after he refused to assent to the Indemnity (Repeal) Act.

The Act sought to change the 1970 law which restricts claims for compensation or indemnity in court or tribunal arising from acts committed by public officials or members of the armed forces in North Eastern Province, Marsabit, Isiolo, Tana River and Lamu during the 1963-67 Shifta war.

Nominated MP Mohamed Affey, who brought the Bill to Parliament, argued that the law would make it difficult for residents of these areas to appear before TJRC.