allAfrica.com: Kenya: Difficult Task Ahead for Truth Commission (Page 1 of 2)

Kenya is about to undertake a crucial exercise towards national rebirth.

A Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC), which is in the process of being established after a similar attempt in 2003 became stillborn, is being regarded by researchers and civil society groups as a grand opportunity for the much needed renaissance of the nation torn apart by injustices.

The latest vicious manifestation of drawn-out discord among Kenyans was the bloodshed and destruction of property occasioned by the disputed presidential results of the December 2007 General Election. More than 1,000 people were killed and 300,000-plus displaced in the post-election violence. Many of the displaced people are still living in camps, either unable to go back home or afraid to do so because of trauma.

Now a draft Bill towards final legislation of a TJRC to look into such violations and other past ills is in place for further discussion.

The formation of the TJRC was recommended by the National Dialogue and Reconciliation Committee set up to sort out the political mess that sparked the bloodletting in January.

The tone of the advice that analysts are beginning to bring to the table concerning the TJRC is that the opportunity should not be squandered. There have been one too many commissions whose recommendations have never been taken seriously by the State.

The Ndung'u Land Commission and the Goldenberg Commission are two major examples.

For the next two years that the TJRC is scheduled to run, Kenyans will be involved in a process that may be the only opportunity for an eventual resolution of outstanding disharmony that has existed in the country since independence.

The commission, which is being mandated to look into and offer remedy for historical injustices, economic crimes such as grand corruption and irregular acquisition of land, politically motivated violence, and displacement of communities, among other vices, is quite crucial. Failure of the process would lead to an immense disappointment that could see the country slip deeper into the abyss of disharmony.

That is why recent research by scholars George Wachira and Prisca Kamungi, involving a microscopic assessment of tested truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs) in other parts of Africa, such as Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia and South Africa, comes in handy.

Their findings could provide vital lessons for Kenya in the form of challenges, expectations, and the perceptions that may need to be considered before the TJRC begins to operate.

Wachira, who is a peace advocate and a research and policy adviser, together with Kamungi, a researcher and political scientist, are seeking to contribute towards informed preparedness for Kenya's TJRC's work. Their research provides a template that seeks to avoid mistakes made in similar commissions elsewhere.

In a research paper for Nairobi Peace Initiative Africa (NPI-Africa) titled Truth and Reconciliation Commissions and Transitional Justice in Africa: Lessons and Implications for Kenya, Wachira and Kamungi point out that while truth commissions generally present good objectives and provide a forum for discussing "a denied and painful past", many are times when they fail to meet the expectations of the victims of violations.

Vehicles of impunity

The paper criticises TRCs in the studied countries for failing to fully implement victim-friendly recommendations. Instead, they are often quick to offer amnesty to perpetrators, creating perceptions of TRCs as "vehicles of impunity".

"Given the poor follow-up on recommendations, particularly those pertaining to reparations to victims in the context of great material need as in the case of South Africa, Sierra Leone and Ghana, TRCs are viewed as largely facilitating the very impunity they set out to reverse as perpetrators get away without accountability, while the victims' needs are not met," state Wachira and Kamungi in their report.

In South Africa, for example, the TRC, headed by Nobel Peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, contributed immensely towards a harmonious transition from the apartheid era to a democracy. It is widely hailed as the main factor that midwifed South Africa's smooth socio-political change over.

However, according to Wachira and Kamungi, the South African TRC model only provided space for public hearings of victims' stories, and like several others, failed to ensure accountability by perpetrators.

Because of that, inter-community acrimony is still rife in South Africa. The injustices brought about by apartheid haunt and sideline the South African black community to date in the form of limited employment opportunities, for example, because the apartheid system had deprived them of useful education in the first place.

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