News story (Standard editorial team) - Kriegler’s team just but the beginning

Ref: http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143983298&cid=16

Published on March 15, 2008, 12:00 am

Kenya has made tremendous progress in the painstaking process of unmasking the truth in the disputed presidential election. The President, in line with the programme of action agreed to by the parties to the Annan deal, has gazetted the Independent Review Committee. Its broad mandate is "to investigate all aspects of the 2007 election’’.

As part of the truth, justice and reconciliation, the non-judicial commission will conduct a forensic audit of the votes cast as well as assess the integrity of the results declared by the Electoral Commission of Kenya.

The commission, which has three eminent personalities from outside the country, and led by retired South African judge Johann Kriegler, will hold public hearings in which even ECK officials will stand on the witness box.

The boldness with which the disputing parties led by President Kibaki and Prime minister-designate Mr Raila Odinga gave the nod to the process charms the nation. It is an expression of willingness to face the truth however bitter, to heal the nation.

Modelled around the Goldenberg Judicial Commission, Kriegler’s team will give Kenyans the chance to answer the question of what really happened. The cost of the dispute has been enormous, monstrous and scandalous, given the string of deaths, displacements and destruction. The price the nation has paid for what could have been the crime of a few is both chilling and unimaginable.

The mediating groups were well aware — and said as much — that the truth must be confronted. Apart from isolating the problems that led to the bloodbath, the team will also recommend ways through which future elections will be free, flawless and rich in integrity. For the current malleable team of ECK, which hopefully will be exposed for what it is, took the nation to the precipice of civil war and ruin.

The team has to submit its final report to be submitted to the President and the negotiators, and which will be made public, in less than six months.

Parallel to Kriegler’s team, and hopefully coming after the 50-50 power sharing in a Grand Ruling Coalition will be up and running, are other equally important commissions. First is the Commission of Inquiry into Post-election Violence, which will be stewarded by three "impartial, experienced, and internationally respected judges or experts’’. It will operate for 3-4 months, and start work within 30 days of its appointment.

There is also the proposed Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission to be created through an Act of Parliament. Its members will be named not more than eights weeks after Parliaments creates the Act. It must complete its work and submit the final report within two years.

It is important to reflect on what is in the country’s pending tray, and which demand from the nation the highest level of good faith, nationalism and capacity to confront and live with its consequences. The temptation to see the power-sharing deal as the end of the problems Kenya waded through in the last two months beckons.

But as the mediators found out, and for which the nation is in agreement, our problems run deeper. To survive as a nation and avoid a similar catastrophe, we must be ready to dig deeper. Above all we must be ready to learn and heal, cry but forgive.

The flipside is that there is still a lot more to be done. That is where the national attention should be fixated. The appointment of Kriegler’s team is just the beginning. There is a lot more to be accomplished, and its success is anchored onto our resilience and sense of nationhood. We failed once, we must never stumble again.