15 October 2008
Nairobi — The Commission into Post-Election Violence (Cipev) has recommended the setting up of an international tribunal to try post-election violence offenders.
In a report handed to President Kibaki on Wednesday at Harambee house by commission chairman Justice Philip Waki, Cipev implicates top politicians and the police in the violence.
President Kibaki has ordered the report to be released immediately.
Cipev was mandated to investigate the facts and circumstances related to the post-election violence and the actions or omissions of State security agencies and make recommendations.
The commission is said to have received shocking evidence of police brutality and indiscriminate shooting of ordinary Kenyans, sexual attacks and refusal to investigate crimes that were committed during the post-election mayhem.
It recommends major reform of the security agencies
No amnesty
The report also recommends there be no amnesty for people accused of serious crimes during the post-election violence. Instead, it proposes that a special international tribunal to prosecute suspects should formed within six months.
However, the report says it may be necessary to consider an offer of amnesty to some minor offenders in exchange for truthful confessions and assistance in the arrest and prosecution of the planners, organisers, funders and, in the case of security agencies, the perpetrators of the violence.
The report says immunity from possible prosecution and lack of accountability were responsible for the chaos and hat the language of "forgive and forget" will only help to breed more chaos in future.
It traces the history of election-linked violence since the advent of pluralism in 1991 and says the criminal gangs and their sponsors commit crimes in the knowledge that nothing will happen to them.
It says, for example, that the Kiliku and Akiwumi reports on the violence in the 1990s were trashed by the Moi Government thus emboldening the warriors in and around the Rift Valley and others that had sprung up elsewhere in the country.
Consequently, the Waki report says it is imperative to guard against further encouragement of the culture of impunity which would happen if blanket amnesty were granted to all and sundry.
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In order for the rule of law to upheld in Kenya, prosecution of post election violence perpetrators are necessary. I don't think that an international tribunal would be justified though.
If we are going to give the International Criminal Court (ICC) any credibility, then we should rather investigate whether they will have the jurisdiction to try cases of post election violence in Kenya.
In order to give the ICC jurisdiction to try cases stemming from Kenya's post election violence, it will have to be established that the crimes committed in this region falls within the definition of crimes that can… [Read Full Text]