Nipate
Forum => Kenya Discussion => Topic started by: Kim Jong-Un's Pajama Pants on November 17, 2014, 07:22:55 PM
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A fellow like him is why I refuse to judge an entire tribe on the basis of an opportunist. If I were like some people, I would be claiming that all Kikuyus are scum-bags because of someone like Ngujiri Wambugu.
If I understood him correctly, he thinks the ICC should stop going after the butchers because the government has compensated the victims. His logic would seem to be that one can put a monetary value of about Ksh 25,000($278) on the life a loved one.
One of the prevailing perceptions today is that the government has completely forgotten the victims. In fact, whenever anyone challenges the continued existence of the Kenyan ICC cases the response, usually made with a lot of confidence especially by a certain select group of self-righteous NGOs, is ‘What about the victims? The Kenyan government forgot them! These cases, as imperfect as they are, are the only solution these victims will ever have!'
This argument has been repeated so many times that it has become ‘truth’ in many quarters, locally and abroad. Well, apparently it is a big lie!
This last week I got schooled on the 2007 PEV situation by Mr. Ronald ‘Ronnie’ Osumba, last year’s Deputy Presidential candidate on the Kenya National Congress ticket. Ronnie has a social platform called 'Onward!' that advocates for change through action and information on issues important to Kenyan citizens. Over the last couple of weeks they have conducted a candid audit of the status of the 2007 Post Election Violence victims as part of the conversation of where Kenya is; 7 years since the PEV.
What I learnt from him is simply astonishing.
Most of us know that the 2007-08 post-election violence was one of the worst incidences of civil violence the country has ever experienced since independence. We also know that in its wake it left an estimated 1,300 lives lost, 663,921 people displaced and 80,000 houses destroyed, countrywide. A total of 350,000 of the displaced people sought refuge in 118 camps, while another 313,921 were integrated within communities across the country. A further 1,653 IDPs crossed over to Uganda, where they were received as refugees.
However most of us do not know that amongst the 2007 PEV victims close to 100,000 individuals; or slightly above 37,000 families, received Sh25,000 for house reconstruction from the Kenyan government. We do not know that over 170,000 house-holds; or over 440,000 individuals; received Sh10,000. We also do not know that close to 900 house-holds received Sh400,000, and that more than 8,000 families were resettled in government land. I personally did not know that over 122,000 trauma victims received psycho-social counseling; or that there have been numerous convictions for gender-based violence cases!
After speaking with the ‘Onward!’ team I have now also learnt that over 21,000 families received farm inputs; including 350 fishing gear units and 50 grade cows given to fishermen and farmers in Homa Bay. I also know that 5 boreholes were dug and a full health centre constructed; 167 schools were constructed, and a housing project for over 2,500 families was put up in Turkana, while another over 4,500 families benefitted from house construction on government land elsewhere. I have also learnt that the ‘Rudi Nyumbani’ project, which some are now using to crucify the Nyeri County MP, benefitted over 74,000 families. I also must sincerely admit ignorance of the fact that the Kenyan government has spent close to Sh15 billion on PEV victims since 2008!
Of course it is not all rosy. For example though all the 118 recognized IDP camps have been closed, there are additional camps that were not officially recognized that are yet to be acted on. There was also a problem with registration of especially integrated IDPs, including a challenge that some of these integrated IDPs stayed with friends and family for a year or two then were no longer welcome where they had sought refuge; then went back to the camps only to find that registration had ended. Then there are still those IDPs who are refugees in neighboring countries.
It is therefore not the perfect picture; but it is also not the perfect failure that has been sold to us locally and internationally by some, as a justification of the narrative of how the Kenyan government has failed its citizens. I therefore greatly commend ‘Onward!’ for this initiative and hope that they will get public platforms to share their findings.
I also challenge those who have been deliberately crafting the false narrative that Kenya is not in control of the aftermath of the PEV. Ignorance might be bliss, but truth will always ‘out’, at some point.
I have been following this debate about Nyeri County MP Priscilla Nyokabi having ‘fixed’ Uhuru at the ICC with a lot of interest. She strenuously refutes each allegation; and I believe her. What I cannot understand is the motivation driving those behind these allegations.
Let us assume for a minute that they are right, and she was/is an ICC witness. What they are doing would then amount to witness intimidation, which becomes evidence for claims the ICC Prosecutor has previously made but failed to prove; that her witnesses are being intimidated by people associated with the President. So how does this help Uhuru Kenyatta’s case?
These attacks on Nyokabi are terribly shortsighted; and unbelievably stupid; unless someone want the case to continue, for their own reasons.
- See more at: http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/state-has-tried-help-pev-victims#sthash.tdcuWyOp.dpuf (http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/state-has-tried-help-pev-victims#sthash.tdcuWyOp.dpuf)
http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/state-has-tried-help-pev-victims (http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/state-has-tried-help-pev-victims)
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He is a young dad/husband and parenting is not for sissies. So don't blame the negro too hard
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Amazing, but it is what some people want to hear, and it will get lapped up. And of course, these are figures being put out by GoK. The leading national media has always taken the position that it will promptly report on (with "appropriate" spin) anything on GoK's fight with the ICC and that is favourable to the perps in their legal battles at the ICC, but rarely will the Daily Nation, the Standard, leading TV, ... report on the updates by the ICC's legal representatives---nothing on what victims say and what their real status is. On the contrary, these two papers have gone as far as devoting reams of paper to "prove" that Uhuru's case is similar to that of his father and how the latter ended up in Kapenguria. I expect that we'll be seeing more of that.
One way in which the figures are misleading is that they do not show that many victims who are not from "certain regions" did not even get the even peanuts that is supposed to compensate for the total wrecking of physical bodies, mental health, and livelihood. In this regard, there is a particularly outrageous figure: "122,000 have received counselling". This seems to count 5-minute "how-are-you?" chats with the inadequate number of medical professionals who had any dealing with those in IDP camps.
A particularly galling statement is this one:
"or that there have been numerous convictions for gender-based violence cases!"
He does conveniently does not say how many is "numerous" or when such convictions occurred: how many and did the crimes occur during the PEV? The fact is that of the numerous crimes that were committed during the PEV, by mid-2014 there had been no more than 20 or so convictions, and then mostly for minor crimes. Anyone who is serious about commenting on such matters should first look at the real information provided by GoK itself: in 2011, while fighting an ICC admissibility challenge, gave the ICC information on over 4,000 cases it said it would start prosecuting by Sep 2011. Last year, GoK stated that there was not enough evidence to prosecute any of those cases!
There have been a few cases of rape that, ironically, occurred within the IDP camps. And some of the men there have beaten up some of the women (=gender-based violence). It appears that some of these were ended up in court; but they were not numerous, and I am not sure that they all ended in convictions.
The fellow obviously prefers that his ugali be accompanied with a nice piece of lamb, rather than sukuma-wiki, and the easiest way to ensure that in Kenya has always been a simple five-step process: (i) find the "right" person(s) and "cause"; (ii) of said person, suck vigorously at the front; (iii) proceed to the backside, and cover that too with spittle;(iv) bank the cheque; (v) repeat as necessary.