Commentary (by Daniel Ngugi) - Swift justice needed on all post-election crimes

Ref: http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143983170&cid=15

Published on March 12, 2008, 12:00 am

By Daniel Ngugi

Following the recent power-sharing agreement, a number of Rift Valley Members of Parliament met to pray and "celebrate" the deal.

During the meeting, attended by American Ambassador Mr Michael Ranneberger, the MPs called for the release of those arrested for taking part in post-election violence, an end to investigations of related crimes, and a handover of the results of any police findings to the proposed Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

This call is misguided for a number of reasons.

First, the extent and gravity of the post-election crimes calls for speedy investigation, prosecution and delivery of justice. About a thousand people have been killed, many more injured and up to 350,000 displaced. Would any Kenyan of goodwill have the victims of crime and their families hold their peace and wait for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission?

To suggest that we should postpone investigations is to trivialise a matter so grave that the future of our nation may depend on it.

The success of police investigations into any crime depends on the quality and the rapidness of the police response. When it comes to murder, the importance of a speedy investigations rises to a whole new level.

American homicide investigation experts argue that if a murder is not solved within 48 hours of occurrence, the chances of ever bringing the culprits to justice diminish by at least half.

The reasons are obvious: As time passes, culprits have are able to cover their tracks, relocate or fabricate alibis. Environmental and physical factors begin to fundamentally alter the evidence. Witnesses also begin to relocate and memories begin to fade.

There are few if any reports of the perpetrators of the Kenyan murders being charged, two months after first post-election murder was reported. Moreover, crimes committed in 1992 and 1997 have never been investigated. Interfering with police work by postponing the investigations that are already running way behind expectations and logical practice is certainly not the way to go.

Simply because our leaders signed a deal to share power doesn’t mean the nation is out of the woods yet. The implementation of the agreement, resolution of issues surrounding the post-election violence — including the punishing perpetrators and resettling the displaced Kenyans — will determine the success of this agreement, and the future of the nation.

Before the agreement was signed, media reports were rife on militias being armed and trained in various parts of the country, just in case. In the absence of swift investigations and delivery of justice, disillusionment, resentment and impatience could easily kick in and conflicts could flare up again. People would take the law into their hands, and our nation would soon be back in the murky waters of violence we are trying so hard to swim out of.

Indications are that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission could be in place soon. Nevertheless, historically, the reports of most commissions in Kenya (including the Akiwumi Commission on similar violence in the 1990s) have never amounted to much. It would be wise to give the proposed commission the benefit of the doubt, but foolhardy to put all our eggs in such an unpromising basket.

Moreover, such a commission will likely take a life of its own, so that one cannot accurately predict how long their work will take, when it will be completed or whether it will be independent enough of political manipulation to bring anyone to justice.

The commission should carry out any investigations independent, concurrently and in support of police work — not as a replacement of the constitutional mandate of the police to investigate crime.

Denying the Kenya police the mandate to investigate these crimes, and to do so fast, runs counter to the system of governance Kenya is trying to adopt.

Politicians must not interfere with police investigations. Instead, they must do whatever it takes to support swift investigations into these heinous crimes, because justice delayed is justice denied. As some of the Rift Valley MPs have cried out in the recent past, there can be no peace without justice — certainly not in the long term.

The writer is an economist analyst based in Georgia, USA