Did Ligale really screw up?

By NZAU MUSAU

WAS it a case of gerrymandering on the part of Interim Independent Boundaries Review Commission, a case of a warped law, a case of misunderstanding or a case of greed on the part of our leaders?

These are big question which are emerging since last Tuesday when the commission published the list of 290 constituencies including 80 new ones as provided for in the new constitution.
On the day the list was issued and slotted for gazettement, a businessman moved to court and a section of MPs rose up in protest. Before that, a section of commissioners had walked on the final deliberations citing “surprise” decisions from the chairman Andrew Ligale.
Given the history of boundary review exercises in this country (Read separate story) and the new constitution notwithstanding, many Kenyans expected gerrymandering in the process of drawing up new boundaries hence the initial uproar.
The choice of the chair- Andrew Ligale, himself a former Vihiga MP affiliated to the ODM party did not help matters with the same parliament which endorsed him now crying foul that the new boundaries were calculated in favor of his former party.
Ligale would easily pass for an ODM hireling if the provisions of the original IIBRC mandate and those of the new constitution were not considered. His work would equally be invalidated if there were serious discrepancies in the manner of allotting the new constituencies.
A careful reading of Section 89 of the new constitution reveals that population is set out as the main determinant of the new boundaries but with deviations to cater for geographical features, urban centres, community of interest, historical, economic and cultural ties and means of communication.
The latter aspects must however fit in to the population aspect with deviations of margins greater or lesser by not more than 40 per cent for cities and sparsely populated areas and 30 per cent for other areas.
This would probably explain why an expansive area like Marsabit County which comprises of Moyale, North Horr, Saku and Laisami constituencies with a population total of 291,166 and total area of 70,961 Sq KMs did not get an additional constituency.
So expansive is the area that North Horr alone, which has 75,196 people, is larger than the area of Nyanza, Western, Central and Nairobi provinces combined yet it was not split up.
The constituency is 39,248 square kilometers. The whole of Nyanza is 12,612 Sq KMs, Western 8,309 Sq KMs, Central 13,163 Sq KMs and Nairobi 695 Sq KMs respectively. But it did not get an additional constituency because the law betrayed it.
According to the law, the county which is a sparsely populated area when you consider its population and the area size is subjected to the 40 per cent less the population quota which is 53,255 less the standard 133,138 population quota.
This means that an ideal constituency in Marsabit County should have 79,883 people. When u divide the 291,166 population of this county by 79,883, the number of constituencies you get is 3.6 which rounds up to four constituencies.
“You would have expected North Horr to receive a special consideration and as long as there is no explanation coming from the commission on this and other areas, there will be speculation,” assistant minister Cecily Mbarire told Siasa.
North Horr MP Chachu Ganya however cries foul but falls short of admitting the law sold the people of North Horr out when he said it (law) seems to give emphasis to the population in place of other aspects as geography and the rest.
“It talks of population. However, it also says the other factors have to be considered. What is painful to us is that this team seems to have neglected these other consideration to deliberately marginalize us,” Chachu mourned and added:
“We are being punished for lack of population by the same government that has refused to develop our area. The high mortality and poverty rates in my area should tell you why we have no population. How do you expect this population to grow?”
He compares the case of Marsabit with Vihiga County comprising of Emuhaya, Sabatia, Vihiga and Hamisi constituencies. The county has a total population of 554,622 and area size of 530 Sq KMs and it got an additional constituency in the name of Luanda.
If the same yardstick is used and the population divided by the population quota of 133,138, it comes to 4.1 constituencies and therefore no additional constituency was required.
But if you subject Vihiga County to the deviation of 30 per cent less the population quota, it comes to 5.9 constituencies which rounds up to 6 constituencies and therefore it required 2 additional ones. If you put the deviation of 30 per cent more, it comes to 3.2 which rounds to three constituencies.
Whatever the case, you cannot explain how Vihiga got an additional constituency because whichever deviation is used; 30 percent plus, 30 per cent less and the standard population quota, the county would have gotten 3, 6 and 4 respectively.
Another county with similar issue like Marsabit is Tana River County comprising of Garsen, Galole and Bura whose total area size of 38,436 nears that of North Horr constituency. The county has a population of 240,075 people and a density of 6, 2 points higher than Marsabits.
Again, when subjected to the 40 per cent less than the population quota which is their due owing to sparse population, the area gets only the three constituencies and might only need redrawing of the boundaries so that each constituency has about 79,000 people.
In contrast, Samburu County with a population of 223,947 and an area size of 21,022 Sq KMs – both aspects lesser than Tana Rivers, got an additional constituency of Samburu North. The reason for this is because going by this calculation, the region which had two constituencies before deserved one more.
In almost all the counties Siasa sampled, the population quota of 133,138 was used and the number of additional constituencies is justified but the problem is that this formula adds up to 284 constituencies and not 290.
How the commission distributed the remaining 6 constituencies remains a mystery and our attempts to get the commission to explain this did not bear fruit. Perhaps this explains the unique case of Vihiga and Migori Counties.
In Migori’s case, the county has a population of 917,170 with original 5 constituencies of Rongo, Migori, Uriri, Nyatike and Kuria. Using the population quota which appears to have been used allover, the county deserved a total 6.8 constituencies which rounds up to 7.
The County however got 3 additional constituencies to total up to 8. Just like Vihiga, this cannot be explained even if it was assumed the county has unique features (read geography, means of communication, community of interest, historical, economic and cultural ties) which would have attracted the use of the deviation percentages.
This is because if the 30 per cent deviation less the population quota is used, the county would have required actually 10 constituencies and not 8 and if the deviation of 30 per cent more was applied, it would have needed only 5 constituencies.
Similarly, Homabay would have 7 constituencies if the standard population quota alone is used yet it somehow managed to get an additional constituency of Homabay Town to make the counties constituencies total 8. If either of the two deviations is used, they yield either 6 or 10 constituencies.
Again, there is no way the additional constituency can be explained under the law and there are good grounds for challenging the constitutionality of such constituencies.
And then there is the issue of the cancelled results of sections of North Eastern and Rift Valley provinces. Although the government cancelled the results of Eight districts- Lagdera, Wajir East, Mandera Central, Mandera East and Mandera West, Turkana Central, Turkana North and Turkana South, the IIBRC used the “cancelled” results in these areas to work out the boundaries.

Following the cancellation over what Planning minister Wycliffe Oparanya said were “glaring inconsistencies”, sections of area leaders moved to court and their case which was due to be heard on the day the new list was issued (Tuesday) was adjourned to early next year.
The use of the population figures which are in doubt is evident, for example, in Mandera County where the commission appears to have used the 30 per cent greater than the population quota in deciding the 6 constituencies.
The county which originally had 3 constituencies has a population of 1,025,756 according to the cancelled 2009 census results. If this population is divided with the population quota of 133,138, the place needed 8 constituencies.
If the 40 per cent less the population quota was used (assuming Mandera is a sparsely populated area), it would have required 13 constituencies, 11 constituencies if 30 per cent less was used and finally 6 constituencies if 30 per cent plus formulae was used.
The dilemma in this is that while one would not expect IIBRC to deny these “disputed areas” new boundaries, it would also not be fair to use disputed figures whose truth or untruth is yet to be known.
This is because the boundaries would significantly change, for instance if it was confirmed that indeed Mandera Central constituency is not the fourth largest constituency in Kenya in population terms as the census results showed.
Then again there is the other issue of cities where although the recent census classified Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu as cities, only Nairobi was considered as a city in the delimitation exercise and was therefore subjected to the 40 per cent plus the population quota for cities criterion.
The effect this had is that Nairobi appears to have been discriminated against by being subjected to the maximum deviation of +40 per cent thus limiting the number of constituencies it could get. If Kisumu was subjected to this arrangement, it would have 5 constituencies instead of the 7 it got.
If the same was applied for Mombasa, it would have gotten 5 constituencies instead of the 6 it got. If Nairobi was exempted from this arrangement, it would have gotten a whopping 23 constituencies and not the 17 it got.
“A number of Commissioners – for largely vested political reasons – have insisted on a legalistic definition of city as referring only to Nairobi (“the only City in the country”), and excluding Mombasa and Kisumu, thus in effect not only ignoring the CBS classification but also the operational demographic definition of what is a city,” argued Com. John Nkinyagi last week.
Finally, there is the problem of boundaries which the commission did not give; so that although it is known an ideal constituency in Nairobi would have about 184,000 people, it cannot be known for now what areas would entail that population.
“This is why we really need to see the boundaries first. This is critical for all of us!” Mbarire added.
When everything is added up, it emerges that largely- the commission followed the law in drawing up the list of new constituencies but gerrymandered in a number of cases, some of which have been analyzed above.
Majority of the disputed cases are as a result of lack of education on the law guiding the exercise, lack of boundaries, over-expectation by the people and their leaders and lack of clear understanding of the formulae used.
Ends……………./.

Why only the intellectually trained should be allowed to rule!

By NZAU MUSAU


According to Plato, only the intellectually trained should rule in his republic. He roots for not only training but also excellence in the training where the very best emerge from the training/educational system. Those are the ones who should rule in the republic, he avers. His explanation is anchored in the following arguments that I will proceed to make.

Intellectual training, according to Plato, leads to development of high and refined qualities which are essential for leadership. In the just society that Plato envisages in the republic, the right people must be doing the right thing for justice to flow. Justice is essential in Plato’s republic as it gives way to all other virtues. Only through training which separates the different classes and therefore affords justice. The training system is designed in a way that qualities of bravery, wisdom and courage are developed. The most essential quality here being wisdom which would not be attained otherwise but through continuous and persistent education and opening up of the soul.
Intellectual training is essential for leadership in the sense that the trainee is censored to particular ways and is conditioned to live a virtuous life which is necessary for a just leadership. It conditions one to a suitable moral tone which is internalized so much so that it becomes part and parcel of the person. Again, the just republic envisaged by Plato demands of a well groomed person at the top, one who aspires to, knows and delivers only the good. People who do not excel in training would not make good rulers and are therefore discouraged from leadership by Plato. They nevertheless, like water, find their own level in the republic. They guard the republic or support the republic in production terms. They find their own level in accordance to qualities they develop in the course of their training. Corruption, Plato avers, is the product of irrational appetites, egoistic passions and false believes can only be prevalent in the lower echelons of the republic. The rationality which is obtained through intellectual training has not place for such base appetites and desires as corruption is made of. True philosophers cannot therefore be corrupt and accordingly, they are the best of rules.
The fact that intellectual training takes time is of fundamental value to Plato’s assertion that only the intellectually trained should rule. The system envisaged by Plato takes so much time so that at about 50 years of age, one can qualify to become a philosopher. The many years of intellectual conditioning through study and pursuance of essences make the trainers wiser and devoted to the republic. Not only are they wiser but the wisdom attained grants them humility to serve the republic. The rulers of this kind will therefore not pursue leadership for their own sake or self service but for the sake of the republic. By this age, the trainees do not have much regard for the sensual and material things which are the bane of bad rulers. Their greatest happiness lies in the pursuit of the immaterial and this would provide a good ground for the growth of the republic under their rule.
Intellectual training develops reasoning as opposed to the spirit and desire of the soldiers and the masses respectively. Strong reasoning abilities are essential in a ruler according to Plato. With good reasoning ability, the ruler is able to make just rulings of good to the nation but which the producers (masses) and soldiers might not appreciate or comprehend but which in the very end work to the good of the republic. This is only possible if the intellect is exercised to seek out the essences and realities. Through reasoning, trainees attain true knowledge of these realities; the forms. A trainee is therefore able to know the fullness of certain things and therefore grow their shadows as closer as possible to the real things. For instance, through his meditations and knowledge of forms, an intellectually trained ruler knows what a just city looks like. He therefore pursues this just city in his rule because he knows it. According to Plato, when one knows good in the true sense of it, he can only do good. A ruler who knows a just city can only pursue a just city and nothing else. This knowledge cannot be attained otherwise other than sustained intellectual exercise and revelation.
Like Plato demonstrates in his allegory of the cave, only a philosopher (an intellectually trained) is liberated from shackles of physical senses. Only he is freed from this dark cave to the dazzling radiance of the mind. Only a freed person can therefore rescue the shackled. It is only him who can go back to the cave and liberate the prisoners. In the republic, the prisoners are the auxiliaries and the artisans. They are fettered by fear, desire and the senses. It will be tragic if any of these is allowed to rule over a republic. It would be a great contradiction to orderly and just flow of the republic. The intellectually trained rulers will rise above these fears and deliver justice and therefore liberation to the public. This is because through intellectual training, the rulers have escaped into the regions unknown, they have an experience which is not ordinary and their mind is not given unto what ties the rest down. They are free spirits.
The idea of good is very essential in a republic. It is an idea which need be pursued and understood appropriately. Like stated earlier, only a person who knows good can do good. Consequently people do not do good because they do not know what is good. Through study of subjects dealing with abstractions like arithmetic and geometry among others, one is led into appreciating and knowing good. All these have a practical application but their real and true value lies on the power to lead the soul out of darkness of the changing world of senses to unchanging world of the mind. Fortified by these exercises in abstract thought and through the study of dialectics, the soul learns to comprehend the very idea of the good. The producers and auxiliaries cannot know what is good because of their limited training which focuses on the physical and not the intellectual. They cannot therefore deliver the good; the can only be coerced to do good and even then, they do not appreciate good. The level and nature of their training delivers only qualities which suit them- production, protection and support. If they are allowed to rule, they will not therefore deliver good. They will actually destroy the republic.
In conclusion, the education system envisaged by Plato is meant to separate the people to fit in their various categories. Only through this can we develop the various categories and know who fits where. People must be in their right places for the republic to obtain justice. In this case and as Plato asserts, the rulers (kings) need necessarily be the intellectually trained (philosophers. This can be obtained by making philosophers the kings or making kings philosophers.

Military man’s confessions

By NZAU MUSAU

Seated in a dusty chair in the backroom of an obscure hotel, John* takes a deep breath as he leans back to begin what he calls a dangerous venture of revealing military secrets.

His hidden but sparkling eyes appear to me as holding tormenting secrets, ones which he has preserved for 26 good years even as they gnawed him from inside.

He’s decided to speak, he tells amid a circumspect stare of military order, in the interest of pursuit of truth and justice; and in the interest of thousands of victims of killed, maimed, orphaned or wounded in Wagalla massacre of 1984.

“I was then a young corporal in the 7th Kenya Rifle based in the Wajir military camp which was then commanded by Wilson Mdogo,” he begins the narration of his sad role in the operation that saw all the men of Degodia clan rounded up.

Nothing extraordinary had been happening in the days before, he recalls, besides an ongoing Shifta operation which largely entailed pursuing after bandits deep into the bushy plains of Wajir.

With a lot of ease, he recalls that on February 9th, 1984, he was guarding the main gate of the camp which he says always had about 12 soldiers manning it at any particular time.

“At 11am, I was called up by the second in command a Capt. Mugo who instructed me that at exactly 3am, I should wake up all the soldiers. I went on to do that and all were paraded and given 30 minutes to drink tea.” He remembers.

After that, all but three soldiers were ordered into trucks and driven towards Wajir town. Near the town, they stopped and were herded together to listen to the command of what appeared to be a major operation of sorts.

Here, the commander explained that they were to move cordoning off sections of manyatta villages where the Degodia clan of Somali tribe were known to live.

“We were instructed to arrest everyman waking up in those villages and drive them to Wagalla. We were to leave the women behind,” he says.

According to John, all government cars from the entire district be they trucks from public works, military ones or those from ministry of works had been availed for the grand operation.

On a single trip, ten trucks would ferry the men to Wagalla and go back for more as police guarded those delivered at the air strip, he says.

“In most instances apart from where there was resistance, not many knew what we were up to. Most people including soldiers thought it was a major public baraza; the reality however started to dawn on everybody around 2pm on that day.” He adds.

Only the district security committee members comprising of the DC, PC, OCPD, DCIO and DO1 were in picture, he says as he wipes a cold sweat running down his face.

At around 4pm, the officer recalls, the men who had by now begun to smell of some foul plot were given the only water they would get in the four days they stayed there.

It became dark and the military left the air strip for the camp leaving police to guard the men through out the night. The following morning, the military went about Wajir town collecting more Degodia men.

By the afternoon of that day, inquisitive people had begun pushing for an explanation and they were told they had guns and to be set free they had to deliver them.

“One man rose his hand up and explained that he worked with ministry of water. He wondered how the government he worked for would accuse him of such a crime,” he recalls.

An argument ensued whose end was an order for all men to remove all their clothes and lie facing down.

A conference was held besides the naked-dying men under a large shade of a tree which has since dried up. They- the district security committee members were taking sodas, he remembers.

Thereafter, beatings started until some confessed of owning guns. These extracted confessions emboldened the security men as they sought for more.

“I remember one man who tried to save himself by confessing to owning a gun which he said was hidden in a well. He basically wanted some water and after drinking himself full in the well, he emerged to say he couldn’t find it, he was shot and thrown to die in the same well,” he recalls.

On the third day, John remembers, another security meeting was convened at the DC’s office in Wajir town in which the then area MP and late cabinet minister Ahmed Khalif tried to storm in but was repelled.

Himself a Degodia and representing the Wajir West constituency, Khalif had gone together with his Wajir East counterpart to demand an explanation on what was going on in the area.

“Thereafter, security men were deployed to all roads leading out of Wajir with clear instructions to arrest the two. Somehow they managed to escape to Isiolo,” he remembers.

When it was known they had reached Isiolo town, further roadblocks were ordered to nab the two from leaving the town but the two were quite ahead; they left their car outside a hotel and rode on a taxi to Nairobi where Khalif gave an interview to BBC detailing the massacre.

John remembers that by that time, about 400 people had died in the air strip and the rest of the men were dying. Some were doused with petrol and lit up to die. Others were drinking each other’s urine.

“Immediately the BBC aired the story, the government was instantly embarrassed. It was decided that the shame should not be allowed to spread. Accordingly were instructed to clear the air strip of all the men- both the dead and the alive,” he recalls.

The trucks which delivered them alive began to drive away, each loaded up with both the dead and the alive. They drove away to different directions depositing the men in far away lonesome bushes where they could not crawl for help.

At this point, John poses and sips the soda he has not had a chance to since we began the interview. Shaking his head while tapping my recorder, he continues:

“I have never seen anything like it and the experience still haunts me today. How could the government kill its own workers, including ex-soldiers? Even the first senator and respectable elder of the area then Aden Noor died in that air strip,” he recalls.

He says the justification that the operation targeted shiftas is misplaced because no shiftas could be found in the streets and outlying villages. Shiftas were hidden deep in the bushes and that is where the fight belonged.

Like the victims and survivors, John hopes that justice will eventually come to the victims and survivors of Wagalla. How, when and in what terms are the questions he has no answers for.

John*, not his real names not only witnessed the massacre but also played a significant role in the massacre and which he detailed to The Star. For purposes of his own security however, we could not publish details of his involvement.


TJRC to investigate Wagalla

The massacre at Wajir falls within the mandate of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission which is investigating all gross human rights violations in Kenya since 1963.

Commission CEO Patricia Nyaundi told The Star that the shame of Wagalla is such a dark spot in Kenya’s history that neither the commission nor the country can afford to ignore.

“It speaks to all of us; those of us that pursue justice in our lives. And certainly it speaks to the commission under whose mandate all gross human rights violations committed in this land since independence fall in,” she says.

Incidentally, the commission is facing credibility issues over the alleged role of chair Bethuel Kiplagat in the massacre.

Civil society activists have tabled evidence to show that Kiplagat visited Wajir on the eve of the massacre. Kiplagat has since denied the claims.

“The current TJRC under chairmanship of Kiplagat is a charade, it is a smokescreen for rewarding impunity and mediocrity. It seriously undermines the golden opportunity for people of Wagalla to obtain justice,” International Centre for Policy and Conflict’s Ndung’u Wainaina says.

Sections of victims of Wagalla also expressed strong dissatisfaction with the chairmanship of Kiplagat when we talked to them. Besides, they have also argued against healing and reconciliation through a truth commission.

Mohammed Khamis who lost his father and other family members says truth and healing will come when the perpetrators lead the way in owning up to the shame of Wagalla. He says the TJRC should count out the people of Wagalla if Kiplagat does not come out clean.

“Let him come out and say the truth and we will participate. If indeed he took part, we will not have to punish him. All we need is the commission to lead the way,” he says.

Besides a truth commission, Kenya can order an independent judicial examination into the massacre and undertake trials using international law. It can also seek UN avenues in form of special tribunal.

Also, a dispute can be taken to the World Court by an independent state accusing Kenya of gross human rights violations in Wagalla. A crime against humanity suit can also be filed in any country which allows such suits among them Belgium.

Ends………/.

Wagalla: The airstrip of death

By NZAU MUSAU

THE heat here is unrelenting, the breeze of the unending plains overly dry and the vibrations about the place metal-heavy; Wagalla air strip smells of death.

Tucked deep in the bushes about 15 kilometers from Wajir town, the now ghostly air strip bears a permanent shame, an eye sore to the surrounding community whose men were butchered there 26 years ago.

The drive to the air strip was a silent-meditative one apart from the coughs and sneezes of Abdissack Noor, a survivor of the Wagalla massacre who as he told a police officer manning the road-block near the facility was “going to visit our grave.”

“It’s good to visit your grave once in a while, you know,” he sarcastically added as the near-stubborn cop attempted to comprehend the surprise visit.

“Welcome to Wagalla, the place of our affliction,” he announced as the car took a left turn and sped through a grassy unkempt path leading to the airstrip.

We appeared into the main of the air strip just as a caravan of camels was passing by the supposed runway of the now used as short-cut from far-away watering holes.

“We filled up this entire area,” he says while pointing to a squared of about hundred by a hundred meters, the supposed parking area where in his estimation, about 5000 men were held incommunicado for about four days.

He points to a collapsing double roomed house and a row of unutilized latrines on the right: “These ones were not there; they were put up around 1998 as part of the wider corruption of sinking monies into ghost projects.”

On that fateful morning of February 10, 1984, Noor then aged 19 woke up a little late at 9 in the morning to see trucks ferrying men into the air strip. It didn’t strike him that something strange was on until he was told to head there.

He would later regret this move as he was welcomed into the air strip with kicks and blows and just in time as all the men were being stripped naked and made to lie facing the burning gravel beneath.

“On 13th, people started dying. We either would push the dead aside or would sleep on them to get some cold. Dying of thirst, people began to drink urine and the commotion began,” he recounts.

When push came to shove, some brave men broke off the dragnet and started running towards one of the fences which was razor sharp and which had soldiers manning from strategic points.

“As the most the men ran towards that side with bullets hailing after them, I took the opportunity to run in the opposite direction and hid beneath the many military trucks parked there,” he said pointing to a corner near the entrance.

He later slipped through the fence and while staggering in the bush, crossed a straying goat: “I grabbed hold of it, stabbed it hard with a stick in the stomach and drank of its water. I later slithered into my burning village where I was fed and restored to life.”

By this time, the shame of Wagalla had spread and on 14th the following day, a military plane was seen hovering above the air strip after which trucks started ferrying the dead and the dying men in different directions.

“This is where they burned away all the clothes,” he points to a dark-soiled spot with evident signs of a huge bonfire:

“And this is the blood on the runway, one which has failed to fade despite the denial and lapse of time,” he says pointing to dark pebbles of murram which are distinct from the rest.

“Our blood has refused to dry and not the time, not the elements and certainly not the denials will wash it away until our dignity as a people is restored and acknowledged,” he says.

Many of his friends, he avers, died on this very spot. In his own estimation, out of the around 5000 detained here, only about 2000 may have survived. And many of these 2000 are still dying of after-effects, he says.

He says that for about 18 years until 2002, the mention of Wagalla was bound to land one in jail. The Narc administration however lifted this unofficial ban of Wagalla talk and Noor alongside other survivors drafted a petition against the government.

“The then justice minister Kiraitu Murungi acknowledged Wagalla’s shame but beyond that, he did nothing on our petition…. Nothing!” he says.

Holding his arms akimbo and dimming his eyes away from the sweltering sun, Noor shakes his head and in a silent withdrawn voice mourns; “It’s painful to be back here after all that I saw happen.”

He says although there is no way the people who suffered and died in their air strip can be given their human dignity and lives back, they can be compensated to a reasonable measure.

“I would want to see a monument with all the names of victims and survivors put in place here. I would want this air strip reclaimed and used for the benefit of the people of Wagalla,” he says.

For Mohammed Khamis who lost both his dad and hordes of relatives in the air strip, nothing short of government’s own acknowledgement of the shame, publicization of this shame and holding into account the perpetrators will hold.

So bitter is Khamis that for some unexplained reasons which he tells me “is a long story,” left the police force and opted to live in his village.

“It is a situation where you either commit suicide or revenge and we opted as a people to keep our sorrow to ourselves knowing somehow someday, justice will come to us,” he says.

He cannot understand why no one has been held to account for the Wagalla shame when most of those who authorized the massacre are still alive and enjoying the benevolence of the state.

He says he has a special message to the rest of Kenyans who held their silence as the people of Wagalla were butchered: “Today is me, tomorrow is you. All of us must learn to defend and seek justice.”

Sidebar: An orphan’s anger, Mohammed Khamis

“I remember the events as though it was yesterday. I was in class one at the moment and on this particular day- Friday 10th, February 1984, I was preparing to go to school.

The military men landed in our compound and I saw them butt-stabbing my dad; they took him away alongside all the men of this village. That was the last time I saw him, dead or alive.

Our entire village was razed down and many women raped; we all moved to another place called Qorai where we lived as refugees for some time until we re-built our homes once again.

We never got back our dead although we know they were killed. The disappearance of the bodies has stalled our lives because according to our customs, we need to bury them honorably to move on.

Without a descent burial for my dad, there have been no formulae to proceed with in life and that is why up to this day, even as an ex-police officer, I have no sense of ownership in this place.

Our society was disorganized in the one fell swoop and the vacuum left is unmistakable. For instance look at this plot, it has been here for the last 35 years and look at its state… no development!

These are the effects of disintegrating a community which was new to the world of education by exterminating its bread winners, the pillars of the society.

Ours has been a situation where you either have to commit suicide or revenge. We have chosen to keep it to ourselves knowing that justice must come in the end of it all.

In the mean time, we have resorted to giving out the truth to those who care. I expect attempts to silence me in this venture because the people who killed our fathers and raped our sisters are alive.

The entire line of command and its structure is intact; these people are known and they know nothing will happen to them. That is why can afford to talk quite honorably in megaphones about this and that.

My feeling is that we will speak about this until we die and even then, the next generation will take over. We do not care much if we are giving this information to our enemies or friends because it is the truth.

I want to tell Kenyans to be brave enough to seek and defend justice through out their borders. Kenyans were there when this happened to us. They know what happened to us and they have a duty to pursue our justice.

We also have a question for the people of Kenya; we demonstrated right here in Wajir when Uganda attempted to take over Migingo, why haven’t you ever demonstrated in our cause?

We do not expect an answer but we want to say this; today it’s us, tomorrow it’s you!”


Ends……………../.

The weepin widows of Wagalla

By NZAU MUSAU Photos by JEPTUM CHESIYNA

Ah, could my anguish be measured and my calamity laid with it in the scales, they would now outweigh the sands of the sea. Because of this, I speak without restraint- Job 6: 1-4.

CLUTCHING a waste kindling, Saharah Abdi stares into the patchy roof of her lonesome manyatta as her mind loads up the details of the painful event am seeking to unearth.

Looking me through sunken eyes, falling eye bags, wrinkled face and shriveled fingers, she cuts the image of a troubled soul, one that has for 26 years now wept over immense sorrows brought upon her by a state that forcefully incorporated her community into the nation.

As she begins to speak, it dawns to me that for her, Wagalla- the infamous massacre of February 1984 happened yesterday. The three aspects of time- past, present and future are bound up in one- the present:

“Wagalla found me right here,” she says as she taps the sandy floor of her manyatta where we are all seated cross-legged: “It found me right here, right inside this house,” she adds authoritatively.

On the eve of 10th February 1984, she recalls she slept pretty well with her family. Nothing had seemed unusual in the past few days until that early morning when she woke up to sound of heavy boots pounding her compound.

They were littered allover this place, she says, the military men. Before she could fully apprehend the going’s on, they had already stormed inside her compound and pounced on her husband, his two brothers and their old man.

“They hurled all the men in this yard inside their truck. As if that was not enough, they pounced back on me and started to rape me. I tried to resist but one of them stabbed my breast with his gun; I fell unconscious,” she narrates with a tinge of bitterness.

Bitterness knows no shame for if it did Saharah would have hesitated to show me the bayonet stab-scars in her thighs and boot imprints in her back.

Her husband had been a civil servant working for the ministry of water but that day, there was no regard for anyone as long as he was Degodia, the Somali clan that was the target of the government operation allegedly seeking illegal guns.

“He did not make it far as I later learnt when I woke up to a dead village. He’d tried to resist saving me but they bayoneted him fatally. They threw him on the way to Wagalla and he bled his way to death,” she says.

That was the last day she ever saw the four for they never came back. Those who survived the orgy of beatings were driven to Wagalla air strip twelve miles away and herded alongside hundreds of others collected from allover Wajir.

There, they were made to strip naked and to sleep belly-face in the graveled strip. The four day ordeal of torture, rescue attempts by the women and a fatal break-away began in earnest.

“We tried to go see them but we were repulsed on the way and many of us badly assaulted. They suffered a lot from what we have heard from survivors- burning, beatings, poison- name it all,” she says.

Her story is corroborated by Raha Garat, another victim neighbor of her and whose husband lived to tell the story. Raha had come visiting when she found us engaged in deep conversation and immediately started weeping.

According to Raha, God saved her husband Garat Sanae but left him with permanent injuries which have confined him to bed ever since.

“He was coming back from the mosque when they descended on our manyatta hounding everyone, beating everyone up, stabbing me as they attempted to rape me and burning up the manyatta,” she tearfully recounts.

She, like many others was collected unconscious by an Italian Catholic volunteer Annalena Tonelli who was then working in the area and taken to hospital.

For her, Wagalla is an everyday problem since 1984 as she tends to her husband ever since. We took a stroll to their manyatta a few metres away and found the old man lying on a spread mattress.

It was a morning like no other, he tells me, as he peeps directly at me through his thick glass lens. I later learned that one of his eyes turned blind from the beatings of that day.

“They raped my daughter right in my own eyes and dragged me along into the truck where I found all the men from my village. We were taken to Wagalla and made to lie upside down in the scorching February heat,” he recounts.

Then Wagalla air strip had just been constructed and had a fresh wire mesh around it. Heavily armed military men surrounded it and worked in shifts throughout the four days the men were held there, he says.

By the first day on Friday, some rebellious men were already dead- shot or beaten dead by the officers. By Sunday morning, others had started to die of heat and thirst. On Tuesday, the dead were collected to be thrown away in the bushes and that was the escape for Garat.

“I was collected alongside the corpses and cast away as a dead. We were about 80 ‘corpses’ in the truck and we were driven about 50 kilometers away into the bush and dumped; hyenas feasted on that day,” he says as he attempts a tear.

For him, his life is dedicated to the Catholic volunteer Annalena who went about trailing military trucks in search of the injured: “She took 15 of us alive but many of that number died in her hospital. Many more were eaten by hyenas by the time she found us.”

At this point, Garat pulled down his shirt to reveal a huge scar between his chests: “These are effects of being gritted against hot murram by soldier’s boots.”

But it was the huge protruding growth beneath in his loins which shocked me: “It expands and contracts a time; now it has contracted. This is a result of the beatings and stabbing I went through in the hands of my own government.” He says.

Bitter and lost for more words, the old man struggled to wake up and staggered his way to lunchtime prayers as his sons and grandchildren took over detailing to me the pain of growing up as Wagalla victims.

They took me round the village showing me the vacant plots of Wagalla victims. Here, they told me, women are more than men because most of the men were killed in the massacre.

For Abdi Bellow my guide, the many drug addicts, mad-people walking round Wajir town and troubled orphans abound in the village are living testimonies to the injustice suffered.

“My father died in the massacre. My mum is now insane probably due to what she went through. Her mother was burned alive as she watched. It’s not only my mom who is insane but also her two sisters… my aunties,” he recounts to me.

In one of the manyatta’s, we found a lonesome badly-thatched hut where one mentally disturbed young man spends his entire day in. “He used to ask about Wagalla everyday before he went quiet. He does not talk much any more ever since,” he sister Halima Hussein said.

For Mohammed Khamis, an ex-police officer in his thirties, only the victims of Wagalla can appreciate their sorry states and no much telling it out will help.

“It was a complete disruption and destruction of a society in terms of wealth, lives, social structure and organization. We feel it everyday, we see it, we live it and no justice has been forthcoming so far,” he speaks in his refined English.

For Sahara, Wagalla is a walking shame: “Up to this moment, I cannot hold my urine and the stench around me tells it all. Only God knows about us… only God,” she says as she breaks into tearful and infectious soliloquy:

“Look at us, what is left of us? only God my son, only God… its not even good to be left alone when all our people have died, not any good…”

For a mother who has been jailed five times for speaking about Wagalla massacre, life cannot get any more painful and that is why she is vowing to die fighting for justice of the victims.

She however throws a caution my way: “I fear for you. Anybody who talks about Wagalla is endangered by the very act of speaking… every person who tries. That is why most people are quiet about it.”

As she leads me out through the village, she points out at a spot where some of the dead where thrown and poses the immortal question: “Did a government which exists for the people have to kill them sue gruesomely?”

What Wagalla entailed: The story of the massacre.

According to a sworn affidavit filed in the High Court on 24th February 2005 by Salah Abdi Sheikh, about 5000 men of Degodia clan of Somali community were rounded in the security operation.

The operation sanctioned by the provincial security committee was directed, controlled and commanded by the then North Eastern Provincial Commissioner Benson Kaaria who also served as chair of the provincial security committee, the affidavit says.

It says the men were surrounded by officers from the military, regular police and the administration police on the ground and Kenya Aiforce personnel in military helicopters from above.

“In this horrific, cruel, inhuman and most degrading operation women member of the clan were humiliated through beatings, assaults, torture and rape in presence of their children, relatives,” Salah says in his sworn affidavit.

At the airport, the men stripped naked and made to lie on their bellies in the hot murram under the scorching sun. “Soldiers whipped men until they were a mess of blood,” the affidavit reads,

For days, they underwent torture until about 3000 attempted to break off and scale the high razor fence that enmeshed them: “Only a few made it to the nearby bushes. Bullets felled the rest.”

A massive cover up was then ordered with the dead and the injured being ferried and scattered in the bushes of north eastern districts. Some bodies are said to have been collected as far away as the Ethiopian border.

Others were found in Habaswen and Ewaso Nyiro riverbed. Mass graves have since been discovered in Wagalla, Elnoor, Samatar, Griftu and even in Wajir town at the Wajir TB Manyatta.

Over the years, Salah and Truth Be Told Network comprising of orphans, survivors and victims of the massacre have collected names and identified at least 400 men who died in the operation.

Justus ole Tipis, a minister in the Kanu government in the 80’s told parliament only 57 people died in the massacre when the matter was brought up by area MP Ahmed Khalif. Fifty two of these were civil servants.

No one has ever been charged in court or reprimanded in any way for even these 57 deaths. Informal apologies have however been made to Degodia clan elders by some of those who ordered the operation.

Ends……………/.

Why disbanding the truth commission is not an option

By NZAU MUSAU

STANDING on the edge of a valley overlooking Mathare slums, Nancy Wanjiru takes a deep breath as she surveys the canopy of the noisy shanties beneath.

Barely in her forties, her eyes have sunken and the face is already forming wrinkles out of pain she says she has undergone over the past two years owing to a tumultuous election outcome in early 2008.

On the fateful morning of January 3rd, 2008, Wanjiru was attacked, gang-raped, her husband badly cut up with machetes and her house dismantled by rioters protesting the controversial election of Mwai Kibaki as president.

“They took turns on me as others dragged my husband down the river cutting him up with pangas. Badly hurt, I staggered to his rescue and we took him to Kenyatta hospital. I walked back only to find my house had been brought down. I became an Internally Displaced Person,” she narrates.

She struggles to hold back her tears as she explains the ordeal that turned her life upside down: “I was smelly and felt unworthy of living after all that happened that day. To add salt to the injury, I found out that I had been infected with HIV and there the agony began.”

Her quest for justice ever since has been a torturous one and has not borne fruit. Her violators still taunt her, her life took a turn and she has never been compensated for the loss of her dignity. Particularly striking to her is that no judicial mechanism has nailed her violators.

“I see them every other day. They are still my neighbours. They taunt me that nothing will ever happen to them. I am very bitter with everything,” she exclaims as she rubs her hands together as though submitting to her sorry fate.

And now adding to her bitterness is the current talk of disbanding the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission, the only national mechanism that has been set to deal with all human rights violations that occurred in the country from 1963 to February 2008.

Attempts to set up a local special tribunal have thrice failed. The International Criminal Court has been slow in coming and the local courts have not helped the situation either.

They want to throw it away because they did not suffer a thing, she says. “They want us to forget everything and move forward. But how will I do that when I do not have an opportunity to say what happened to me and when I see my aggressors, the people who raped me every day?” she poses.

Wanjiru’s case is no different from Wafula Buke’s, a former student leader at the university of Nairobi in 1980’s and who was arrested, tortured and imprisoned for five years for allegedly spying on the former President Daniel arap Moi’s government.

We caught with Wafula in town while he was running some errand with her 12 years daughter. Like Wanjiru, Wafula has no love lost with those seeking to disband the barely a year old commission because of a credibility crisis occasioned by the chair Bethuel Kiplagat’s adamant refusal to quit.

Kiplagat’s credibility questions have sucked in the entire commission and elicited one resignation of a commissioner. In addition to leadership crisis, the commission has lean funding, no staff and lacks the critical support of civil society and donor community.

“The chair is holding the commission at ransom and creating the circumstance for its disbandment. No one in the coalition government top hierarchy has told him to resign. Instead, they are loud on disbandment, why?” Buke says.

Instead of giving up on the commission because of its problems, Wafula says people should try to get the best they can out of the commission as is.

Kenyans had better be “pragmatic enough” to seize the opportunity as is and get the best out of this situation: “We used Kibaki in 2002 to dismantle the Kanu apparatus despite his known weakness as a conservative. We can do the same with Kiplagat and get what we can for now instead of losing it all.”

But Justice and Constitutional Affairs minister Mutula Kilonzo is very resolute that the commission is irredeemable and must necessarily be disbanded. Such disbandment will work in the interest of Kenyans, the minister claimed.

‘The government cannot interfere with the truth commission but will be pushing for the disbanding of the commission through parliament as the organ recognized by law,” Mutula said.

The minister however concedes that allegations levelled against the chair of the commission Bethuel Kiplagat on involvement in past human rights violations are indeed worrying but he says he’s washed his hands off the matter.

But if the minister is only daring, one MP has already done it. Ababu Namwamba, a member of the parliamentary committee on administration of justice and legal affairs has pulled a fast one on the commission:

“Unknown to the country, on 3rd March, 2010, I filed notice of a motion seeking the disbandment and reconstitution of the TJRC through amendment of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Act, 2008.”

Ababu’s has been lying before the House Business Committee for two months now due, partly to the heavy legislative agenda in the last session which included conclusion of the constitution review process, and partly due to what he calls “sharp divisions and uncertainty within corridors of power on how to handle the TJRC fiasco.”

He explains that his motion is premised on one central factor: that the very character of the TJRC as an institution has been so badly damaged that even the mere removal of the chairman alone will not cure the damage nor revive public confidence in the commission.

“To execute its mandate effectively and achieve its noble goal of leading this nation towards truth, justice and reconciliation, the TJRC, like Ceasar's wife of Imperial Rome, must not only be blemish less, but must indeed exist beyond reproach,” he says.

According to the youthful MP, such disbandment will be in national interest and that is why he cannot wait for parliament to reconvene in June to pursue that root.

For Davider Lamba, a member of the 2003 taskforce on truth commission chaired by Prof. Makau Mutua, a disbandment of the commission it’s reconstitution notwithstanding would create a gap by abolishing an avenue to deal with the country’s “murky” past.

Despite its ills of lean resources, time, leadership crisis and all against the background of a broad mandate and huge expectations, the commission must stay on, Lamba says while drawing experience from the 2003-2007 failure by President Kibaki’s first regime to set up the commission.

“We cannot rely on politician’s words from the 2003 experience. The current commission is a creature of the National Accord and cannot be disbanded at whim, it must stay on!”Lamba said.

According to the commission’s CEO Patricia Nyaundi, the situation facing the commission is like the one that faces a father who buys a table and painstakingly transports it to his rural home only to realise one of its legs is shorter.

“The question here is do you transport it back all the way to the city to fix it or do you find a local solution. A wise father would find something to leverage it and the table would still serve its purpose,” Nyaundi says.

The commission has leadership and other institutional problems which should not be the basis for its disbandment; Nyaundi says and adds that Kenyans must pull all the stops to get the best out of the current arrangement.

She says disbandment would not only be expensive in terms of termination of contracts but will also drag the transitional justice agenda and spill it over into the “usually vicious campaigns” associated with our electoral cycles.

“Assuming the government is rich enough to pay us all, when is the earliest that a disbandment can occur? Parliament will be back in June and will busy itself with budget up until September.

There will be a referendum and so issues to do with us may not be a priority,” she argues.
But the minister insists that a new TJRC which has confident of all would not be affected by the campaigns:

“There should be no worries of the coming referendum and 2012 election campaigns; they will not interfere with the commission at all”

The way forward for Nyaundi is that the civil society ought to close ranks with the commission to advance the transitional justice agenda and the Chief Justice expediting the process of appointing a tribunal to investigate the allegations against the chair.

The dilemma facing the country is captured by the ambivalent stand taken by the Kenya Human Rights Commission, the country’s premier human rights body and which single-handedly led the quest for a TJRC.

“We are still deliberating on the way forward but as for now, our approach is that of non cooperation with the commission. We are however working with the victims on documentation of their accounts,” acting deputy executive director of Kenya Human Rights Commission Tom Kagwe said.

Kagwe’s personal opinion however is that a disbandment might sound a sure death knell to the commission which his organization has pressed for many years and whose chair (Mutua) chaired the task force of 2003.

He does not even like the media harping on disbandment option because it gives the impression that it’s doable.

“We should be talking about salvaging the commission because disbandment might play into the hands of some people who do not wish to have a truth commission. The fact that Kiplagat has refused to listen to everyone including Desmond Tutu should make you suspicious,” Kagwe says.

According to him, a way should be found to resolve the leadership issue probably through replacing all commissioners but retaining the secretariat and taking advantage of the possible momentum if new constitution passes through to jolt the process forward.

The truth commission was agreed on during the Serena hotel national dialogue and reconciliation talks of 2008 which gave birth to the National Accord. It took a year or so to develop the TJRC Act and half a year to recruit and appoint the commissioners.

Its mandate includes probing human rights violations in the form of massacres, sexual violations, murder and extrajudicial killings, grand corruption, irregular acquisition of public land, causes of ethnic tensions and state repression including torture and cruelty.

The violation cases themselves run into thousands and thousands of cases but the commission has indicated it will work on a framework of establishing broad patterns of the violations without necessarily handling all cases.

For now however, the commission is in a limbo and suspicion abounds between the two sides as the nation awaits the verdict of CJ Evans Gicheru on truth commissioner’s application for a tribunal to be formed.

The trouble with the tribunal however is that Section 17 of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Act of 2008 does not give a timeline on how such an inquiry might last. A similar tribunal set up in 2004 to investigate judges accused of corruption has just cleared its work.

According to a 2006 United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights publications, “Rule of law tools for post-conflict states: Truth commissions, successful truth commissions must have the three critical elements of political will, support of victims and cessation of conflict.

It must have operational independence, enjoy legitimacy and people’s confidence as well as receive considerable international support in terms of funding.

Majority of these are lacking in the Kenyan case begging the question: Is it by design or by chance that the truth commission is failing before its task begins?

Ends...................../.

Proving the existence of God: St. Thomas Aquinas five ways

By NZAU MUSAU

Writing in Summa Theologiae (handbook of theology), St. Thomas Aquinas demonstrates that God exists by analyzing five phenomena which indicate to the necessity of his existence. He does this by drawing attention to a certain phenomena’s (five of them) whose relative, dependent and caused character is evidenced. In all five, he demonstrates that the actual reality of the original causer of these phenomena cannot be explained by invoking the explanation of an infinite series of contingent causes. The long and short of it, is that, God can only be the person or entity behind these phenomenon.

1. The first way: Cosmological argument for God’s existence

St. Aquinas argues that this is the most apparent as the phenomenon of change/movement which is considered here as perceptible through the senses. The universe and the objects within it contain change. Girls become women, seeds become trees, leaves wither and young men become old.

Each such a phenomenon however points out to something else besides the particular change. This is to say it points to a certain origin of the change or potency. Change must necessarily have an origin as it cannot cause itself. Another phenomenon is necessary in order to cause this change, St. Aquinas implies.

When it is agreed that the every action/move has a cause/mover, a series of causes/ movers is established which St Augustine says cannot go infinitely. There must be the first mover and anything else is unthinkable. This first mover/cause is itself unmoved/uncaused and is the origin of all change and motion. St. Aquinas says that this is what people call God.

This way of proving God’s existence has however been challenged in a number of ways among them being that change does not necessarily have to be instigated by something else (cannot things change on their own?) and that change does not necessarily have to have a starting point (cannot the universe be infinite in the sense that it does not have a starting point?). Also, critics have postulated that the first cause/mover need not necessarily be God as claimed by St. Aquinas (cannot this first cause/mover be anything else apart from the Christian God?).

2. The second way: Causal argument for God’s existence

Largely corresponding to the cosmological argument, this causal argument for God’s existence however builds on the connection between cause and effect. Every effect of a cause points back to the cause which points to another cause and so on.

The fundamental phenomenon here is that of efficient causality which is subordinated by other causes. There is no known case (neither is it possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself. St. Aquinas proceeds to argue for a foundation in a principal efficient cause of itself which would otherwise be before itself and therefore absurd.

With this argument, St. Aquinas disapproves as absurd the principle of progression to infinity. He says any attempted explanation of this principle will only create a colossal edifice of inadequate causes. In such a case, there would be no first efficient cause nor there ultimate effect or any intermediate efficient causes. Moreover, to take away the cause is to take away the effect. His conclusion is that there necessarily is a first efficient cause which is God.

3. The third way: Argument for God’s existence based on necessity

St. Aquinas third argument is based on the two concepts of possibility and necessity. It is found that in nature, things are possible to be or not to be. Since there were once not, it is impossible that they will always be for that which was not at one time is not.

If therefore all things came to be according to St. Aquinas, it means at one point there was nothing in existence. This he says would be absurd since all things begin to exist at the instigation of something else already existing. Also if this (that at some point in time there was nothing in existence) were to hold true, there would be nothing in existence to this date. This is not true since things already exist.

His argument here is that there must be one thing, one being whose existence is necessary. This thing would be opposed to the things already in existence whose necessity is caused by other things and as already proved above, this (the chain of necessitation) cannot go on to eternity. We cannot therefore help but admit the existence of some being having of itself own necessity which is independent of any other and which is the origin of all necessitation. This is what is known to men as God.

4. The fourth way: Argument for God’s existence based on the idea of a highest degree of perfection and of being

St. Aquinas bases this on the gradation which is found in things. We see all that exists is more or less perfect and has more or less being. This more or less, St. Aquinas argues, is predicted according to the extent to which they resemble in some way to something which is the maximum.

For instance, someone is said to be noble inasmuch as he nearly resembles that which is noblest. So that in every true thing, there is the truest, every noble the noblest and every great the greatest.

This reasoning point’s beyond the earthly towards something that is perfect and that is absolute being- and this is what is called God. This is the thing which is to all being the cause of their being. It is also the paragon of perfection, the chief embodiment of the good.

5. The fifth way: Teleological argument for God’s existence

This final argument is taken from the governance of the world as observed by St. Aquinas. He postulates that a critical look into the things in existence, order will be observed or even experienced. The universe appears to be well ordered or structured. Even things that lack knowledge appear to act for an end and to the best result.

They achieve their end not by chance but by design. The design aspect is deduced from the fact they always appear to act always or nearly always, in the same way so as to obtain the best result. For example, the earth which has no known knowledge of its own is constantly spinning in its own orbit and does not deviate or move closer to the sun.

This way, it sustains life which is most likely its purpose as designed. St. Aquinas argues that whatever lacks knowledge (as the earth does) cannot move towards an end, unless it is directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence. An arrow cannot direct itself unless an archer does so.

This order in the world and its many subtle connections point to a fundamentally rational and good design. And since this design is not obviously the work of man who himself is amazed by it and in fact seeks to understand it, it can only be the work of a greater rational spirit which not only designs but also actualizes it in the universe. This, according to St. Aquinas, is what we call God.


Bibliography

1. Ten great works of philosophy, Robert Paul Wolf, Signet Classic Printing Press, March 2002.

2. A history of western thought, Gunnar Skirpekk and Nils Gilje, Scandinavian University Press, 2000.

3. A history of medieval philosophy, Battista Mondin, Theological Publications in India, 1998.