why ambassador bethuel kiplagat should quit for kenya to attain ...

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S. Abdi Sheikh
On 11 January 1985, the Principal State Counsel, M. Ole Keiwua, wrote on behalf
of the Attorney General to Ibrahim Khamis Adan and Alinoor Yussuf Mohamed
Hussein through their lawyers, Munikah and Company Advocates, asking them,
in accordance with the rules of civil procedures, to supply specific information
about the death of their fathers. The information requested included the particular
dates and times when the deceased persons were killed; whether they were killed
by the Kenya Army Personnel, the Kenya Police or 1982 Airforce personnel; and
the names of the specific officers responsible for the deaths of the deceased.
Khamis Adan Mumin, Ibrahim’s father, worked for Wajir County Council until
his death; Yussuf Mohamed Hussein was a civil servant in the Ministry of Health.
The two were among 55 or so employees of various government agencies who
disappeared from work in early February 1984, never to be seen again. Their
employers reported them as having deserted their duties and their families could
not access their terminal benefits.
The question of who killed these two men and more than three thousand others
was raised in parliament by the former Member of Parliament for Wajir West, the
late Ahmed Khalif Mohamed, on 21 March 1984. During a debate on then-
President Moi’s speech at the opening of that parliamentary session, Khalif
accused the security forces of killing hundreds in Wajir District. The government
forces, he said, had placed more than 4000 people in a concentration camp, over
300 had been immediately executed, and over 600 were confirmed missing.
Khalif directly accused the PC for North Eastern Province, Benson Kaaria, and
the Somalia government of collusion in the murder. Kaaria had claimed, as
reported by the Standard on November 9, 1980, that he would eliminate all
Somali-speaking people in the country unless they exposed shifta who had killed
a District Officer. Khalif’s accusations were met with utmost hostility by the
entire parliament. Mwai Kibaki, Keneth Matiba, A. Y. Boru and Samuel Ng’eny
demanded substantiation. Charles Muthura accused Khalif of irrelevance in his
contribution to the presidential speech while Parmenas Munyasia jestingly
demanded to know the names of those who threatened to wipe out the Somalis.
Khalif was cornered into dropping the Somalia claim but stood his ground on the
mass killings of Somalis in Wajir. In a bid to substantiate his claim the late MP
tabled the lists of massacre victims and their photographs in parliament on 28
March 1984; many on the list were civil servants, including Noor Haji, the former
Senator from Wajir, who had been killed in the military operation.
The question of just what happened at Wagalla Airstrip between 10 and 14
February 1984 was partially answered by the late Justus Ole Tipis in a ministerial
statement about the military operation, read on the floor of parliament on the night
of 12 April 1984, and reported in the Nation of April 13 1985. Ole Tipis revealed
that the security situation in Wajir was politically motivated, and that leaders were
involved in divisive strategies planned along ethnic considerations. He claimed
that the government decided to carry out its operations against the Degodia
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