Survivors of Naivasha killing fields deserve justice

Bernard Orinda Ndege has to be one of the most strong-willed men alive. The 59-year-old man suffers from vitiligo, a condition that leaves white patches on the skin and whose victims are often prone to depression and isolation.

As if that is not enough of life’s tribulations for one man to bear, Mr Ndege has in the past eight years had to live with unimaginable trauma. He lost 11 members of his family, including two wives and children, in the post-election violence of 2007 and 2008 – all of them burnt alive in their house in Naivasha by a blood-thirsty mob linked to the Mungiki gang.

Lately, Mr Ndege has had to endure accusations by supporters of the ruling Jubilee coalition that he is a fake victim passing off his vitiligo patches as burns to win sympathy. The resurgent attacks on Mr Ndege’s personality peaked on social media last weekend after he attended a public meeting organised by the opposition Cord coalition in Nairobi.

The Kibera meeting took place the same Saturday President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto were at Afraha Stadium in Nakuru for a thanksgiving ceremony following the collapse of the Kenyan cases at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

So how did a humble former fisherman living with a stigmatising skin condition who paid the price of the post-election violence with his whole family become a hate figure among a section of Kenyans on the day they were supposed to be celebrating? How did attention shift from the cruel death of children and women in a burning house to Ndege’s skin?

DISCRIMINATED AGAINST

Well, the hate campaign against Mr Ndege is consistent with a wider revisionist narrative of Naivasha that either seeks to play down the magnitude of atrocities committed there, justify them or even deny them.

Back in 2010 a popular broadcast journalist did a chilling series of reports on a local television station portraying the Mungiki as somewhat heroes of the post-election violence who in overrunning Naivasha stopped the advance of some warriors.

A majority of the Naivasha victims also fall in category of those labelled internally displaced persons and discriminated against in the State resettlement and compensation programme.

The revisionist narrative distorts the facts contained in the report of the Waki Commission that inquired into the post-election violence.

The commission found the Naivasha killings were in retaliation to the attacks on members of the Kikuyu community elsewhere in the Rift Valley.

The victims were mostly Luos and Luhyas, believed to have been sympathetic to Raila Odinga’s ODM party, which had disputed the swearing-in of President Mwai Kibaki of PNU.

Notably, Naivasha was also at the heart of the collapsed case at ICC involving President Kenyatta, former police commissioner Hussein Ali and Francis Muthaura, the former head of public service. Although the case was dropped for lack of evidence, the court acknowledged that Naivasha happened.

Survivors of the Naivasha killing fields like Mr Ndege deserve justice, not ridicule.

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