KENYA: Human Rights Watch accuses Kenyan government of accepting extra-judicial killings and election violence

Record ID: 362592

  • Title: KENYA: Human Rights Watch accuses Kenyan government of accepting extra-judicial killings and election violence
  • Date: 26th March 2009
  • Summary: NAIROBI, KENYA (MARCH 25, 2009) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) KENNETH ROTH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH SAYING: "Establishing a special tribunal here in Kenya, is the key to the credibility of the unity government. Primary responsibility for ensuring some accountability for the electoral violence lies with the Kenyan government and the Kenyan people not wi
  • Embargoed: 10th April 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Kenya
  • Country: Kenya
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA8D5QEDZSLFHDVICSJ4M9DWG51
  • Story Text: Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Kenya's president on Wednesday (March 25) of tacitly endorsing extra-judicial violence by keeping silent over a U.N. report accusing security forces of committing hundreds of murders.
    HRW executive director Kenneth Roth urged President Mwai Kibaki to take steps over the report by a U.N. special investigator which implicated security forces in the illegal killings and disappearances of hundreds of young people.
    "We are also concerned by the failure of either the police commissioner or the attorney general to resign, as has been appropriately called for and we are also concerned that President Kibaki himself remains disturbingly silent about the ongoing problem of official violence. His silence has been painfully conspicuous and we fear amounts to tacit endorsements unless he takes steps to separate himself from the very serious problem that exists," Roth told a news conference in Nairobi.
    Roth also chided Kibaki for not commenting on the murder earlier this month of two human rights campaigners. Kamau Kingara and Paul Oulo were shot by unidentified gunmen in a Nairobi street hours after a government spokesman accused their organisation of being a front for Mungiki, a brutal gang.
    Kibaki, 77, likes to stay above the fray of day-to-day politics.
    Supporters say that is a statesmanlike attitude, while critics accuse him of being out-of-touch.
    Last week, Kenyan churches called him "moribund", while media lampooned him for holding a rare news conference not to address national problems, but to deny reports he had a second wife.
    Roth also expressed fears that a repeat of the violence that rocked East Africa's biggest economy could be seen again in the next election if past injustices went un-punished
    "We see a special tribunal as being quicker than some of the alternatives and able to be established quickly and bring people to justice now, so that the cycle of violence can be broken in particular before the run-up to the 2012 election because we are very fearful that the ingredients that led to violence a little over a year ago remain in place and if un-addressed, and if this culture of impunity is allowed to linger and grow we fear that the violence we break out yet again with further bloodshed and suffering for the kenyan people," reiterated Roth.
    Kibaki and his Prime Minister Raila Odinga were also criticised by Roth for failing to push through parliament legislation that would have created a local tribunal to prosecute those suspected of involvement in deadly post-election violence last year,
    "Establishing a special tribunal here in Kenya, is the key to the credibility of the unity government. Primary responsibility for ensuring some accountability for the electoral violence lies with the Kenyan government and the Kenyan people not with some distant tribunal in the Hague," added Roth The bills rejected by parliament were poorly drafted, giving politicians "cheap" excuses not to pass them, he said. Roth appealed for the re-introduction of the contentious bill to parliament and urged the two principals to fire any government minister opposed to it.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2013. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register