In the Rift Valley, mobilized ODM supporters killed hundreds of Kikuyus, Kisiis, and othersuspected PNU supporters, including Kalenjins. Several hundred thousand people weredriven from their homes. Many attacks were highly organized. 16 In some cases, localpoliticians coordinated and funded Kalenjin militias, and a popular radio show broadcastmessages inciting violence against Kikuyus and naming locations to be attacked. 17PNU supporters mobilized in response to the attacks. One response was allegedly toactivate the Mungiki, a Kikuyu politico-religious militia and criminal gang that the Kenyangovernment banned in 2002, but that some political leaders continued to collaboratewith. 18 Retaliatory attacks against perceived ODM supporters in and around Nakuru andNaivasha towns during the last week of January 2008 allegedly resulted in over 200killings, along with a number of cases of rape, forced displacement, forced circumcision,penile amputation, and other serious crimes. 19All in all, according to the Waki commission, 1,133 persons were killed in the violencebetween December 27, 2007 and the end of February 2008. 20 A total of at least 663,921were internally displaced. 21 The signing of the National Accord and Reconciliation Act byPNU and ODM leaders on February 28, 2008, which created a coalition government withKibaki as president and Odinga as prime minister, brought the violence to an end in muchof the country.Not all election-related violence ceased, however. Waki Commission statistics leave out afurther round of atrocities, those committed by the armed forces in Mt. Elgon district inMarch and April 2008. The SLDF militia, which favored several ODM candidates andintimidated the population to vote for them, had already carried out murder and otheratrocities on a massive scale in lead-up to elections. In March 2008 the Kenyan authoritiesinitiated a joint military-police operation known as Operation Okoa Maisha (“Save Lives”in Swahili) to root out the SLDF. Several thousand suspected SLDF supporters, includingboys as young as 10, were tortured. Several hundred were forcibly disappeared. This16 Human Rights Watch interview with a former member of the Waki Commission, Nairobi, May 3, 2011.17 International Criminal Court, Situation in the Republic of Kenya, Prosecutor v. William Samoei Ruto, Henry Kiprono Kosgeyand Joshua arap Sang, ICC-01/09-01/11, “Document Containing the Charges”; Human Rights Watch interviews with Kalenjinyouth, Rift Valley province, August 2011.18 One historian describes Mungiki as a “criminal gang and private militia … [that] has its roots in a Kikuyu cultural revivalmovement dating back to the 1990s but rose to prominence during the summer of 2007 with a series of grisly beheadings ofcriminal rivals.” Daniel Branch, “At the Polling Station in Kibera,” London Review of Books, vol. 30, no. 2, January 24, 2008.19 International Criminal Court, Situation in the Republic of Kenya, Document Containing the Charges, August 19, 2011, ICC-01/09-02/1-257/AnxA.20 CIPEV, p. 383.21 Republic of Kenya, Office of the President, Ministry of State for Special Programmes, “Progress Report on IDP Resettlementas at 18 th July, 2011,” (Progress Report on IDP Resettlement) on file with Human Rights Watch.13 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | DECEMBER 2011
violent episode is often considered a separate phenomenon from the post-electionviolence, but the political dynamics behind the SLDF’s targeting of civilians, and thegovernment’s disproportionate, abusive response, follow the same pattern as seenelsewhere during Kenya’s post-election violence. 22 As in post-election violence elsewherein the country, only a handful of suspects—and no members of the security forces—havebeen prosecuted for crimes in Mt. Elgon.Ongoing AbusesSeveral incidents that occurred after the post-election violence suggest that in spite ofadditional scrutiny in the wake of the violence, impunity continues to fuel abuses bypoliticians and members of the security forces. The outcry over the violence was notenough to stem abuses in the absence of accountability.Crimes attributed to members of the security agencies that have not resulted ininvestigations or prosecutions include, among others, the October 2008 killing of policewhistleblower Bernard Kiriinya, who had provided the Kenya National Commission onHuman Rights (KNCHR) with information on the activities of police death squads, and theMarch 2009 killings of human rights activists Oscar Kamau King’ara and John Paul Oulu. 23Witnesses, victims’ families, and civil society organizations continue to accuse membersof the Kenyan police of extrajudicial killings, but police are rarely investigated on the basisof such accusations. 24Civil society activists interviewed by Human Rights Watch could not recall a single case inwhich a senior politician had ever been convicted of a serious crime in Kenya, despite anendless stream of allegations of criminal behavior. In the last two years, at least fiveprominent politicians have been forced to step down or “step aside” after being charged inhigh-profile corruption cases, but not one has been convicted. 2522 Human Rights Watch, “Hold Your Heart”, pp. 41-43.23 Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR), “The Testimony of the late Bernard Kiriinya on ExtrajudicialExecutions and Disappearances,” February 24, 2009, http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=65107219576 (accessedNovember 27, 2011); “Kenya: Killing of Activists Needs Independent Inquiry,” Human Rights Watch news release, March 6,2009, http://www.hrw.org/news/2009/03/06/kenya-killing-activists-needs-independent-inquiry; see also “UN urges probeinto Kenya murders,” BBC News Online, March 6, 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7927873.stm (accessedSeptember 1, 2011).24 United Nations General Assembly, Human Rights Council, Seventeenth session, “Report of the Special Rapporteur onextrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns, Addendum, Follow-up county recommendations – Kenya,”April 26, 2011, A/HRC/17/28/Add.4. The report finds, “The rate of investigations and prosecution of police killing remainsunacceptably low.”25 These include: former Minister of Industry Henry Kosgey, who resigned from his ministerial post (but remains in Parliament)in January 2011; former Minister of Foreign Affairs Moses Wetang’ula, and Permanent Secretary Thuita Mwangi, who steppeddown in October 2010; former Nairobi mayor Geoffrey Majiwa; and William Ruto, who was suspended from his position asMinister of Higher Education in October 2010. Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC), “Lest We Forget: The Faces of“TURNING PEBBLES” 14
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I live in Chebilat Manaret town. On
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Some semblance of an internal inves
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justice, they were told either that
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laborer who washed cars for a livin
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Police ReformsKey to improving tran
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Judicial ReformsKenya has made nota
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expertise the Kenyan judicial syste
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heard from the police again—check
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such reparations. Civil society org
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AcknowledgmentsThis report was rese
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Bungoma (One court case researched)
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537/08 Barnabas Tiony Arson Acquitt
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95/08 Wesley Kipsang Korir Robbery
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Naivasha (Four court files research
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182/08 Daniel Moyi Makhopoand Domin
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Appendix II: Letter to Commissioner
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