PROBE MOI, BIWOTT OVER OUKO DEATH, SAYS TJRC

Wednesday, May 22, 2013 - 00:00 -- BY NZAU MUSAU AND PETER NGETICH

TRUTH, Justice and Reconciliation Commission has recommended the questioning of former President Moi over the1990 murder of former Foreign Affairs minister Robert Ouko.
In their final report handed to the President yesterday, TJRC said former minister Nicholas Biwott and TJRC chair Bethuel Kiplagat should also be questioned on the death.

“In addition to Biwott, former President Daniel arap Moi is a person of interest, and should be specifically questioned regarding the Molasses Project, as well as his inexplicable willingness to adopt and propagate the Ouko suicide theory. While there is no credible evidence that the Commission has seen that Moi was directly involved in Ouko’s murder, he must take partial if not full responsibility for the failure of all of the inquiries conducted during his Presidency,” the report says.
The report says many of Biwott's actions appear to have impeded a serious investigation in Ouko’s death. On Kiplagat, the report says he should be further questioned, given his role in the Washington Trip theory as well as his more recent involvement with the Sunguh Committee and the allegation that he provided them with misinformation.
The commission calls on President Uhuru Kenyatta to publicly and unconditionally apologize to Kenyans over a litany of human rights violations by past governments. They include political assassinations, massacres, torture and other historical injustices.
The report was handed in to President Uhuru Kenyatta at State House yesterday, a fortnight after the statutory deadline of May 3.
Also named in the report for atrocities committed by the state during the Shifta war between 1963 to 1967 are former army bosses Major Wilfred Ndolo and General Jackson Mulinge. The report says the atrocities arose out of orders emanating from their offices.
“The Commission finds that Brigadier Joseph Ndolo and Brigadier Jackson Mulinge (as they were then) bear command responsibility for the atrocities committed against civilians by the Kenyan Army during the Shifta War,” it says.
On the controversial land question, the commission has recommended that the Ndung’u land commission report- which implicated most senior political figures in the country, be implemented by the National Lands Commission.
Among the officials implicated include Moi, deputy President William Ruto, founding President Jomo Kenyatta, Inspector General of Police David Kimaiyo, judges, senators, MP’s and other senior officials.
“The commission also recommended that all public officials, especially those in the department of settlement, who facilitated illegal allocations of land in settlement schemes should be investigated and prosecuted where offences were committed by them in the process of such allocations.
These recommendations should be implemented in the light of Chapter Six of the Constitution which renders such officers unfit for public service,” the report says.
The report acknowledges that the three former presidents of Kenya presided over governments which were responsible for numerous gross violations of human rights.
Due to their role numerous atrocities, the report calls on security agencies-the Kenya Police, Kenya Defence Forces, and the National Intelligence Service to apologize for gross violations of human rights committed by their predecessor agencies.
It recommends that government considers negotiating with the British government with a view to seeking compensation for victims of atrocities and injustices committed during the colonial period by agents of the colonial administration.
It says that all of the individuals identified in the Report as responsible for the planning, implementation, and cover up of the Bulla Karatasi and Wagalla massacres should be barred from public office or any other position of public authority.
Chaired by Kiplagat, the other commissioner were Tecla Namachanja (Vice chair), Ahmed Farah, Margaret Shava, Prof Tom Ojienda, Gertrude Chawatama (Zambia), Prof Ron Slye (United States) and Berhanu Dinka (Ethiopia).
The TJRC report should have been handed over to President Uhuru Kenyatta on May 3 but the Office of the President delayed in fitting the commissioners into the President's schedule.
The commissioners wanted to present the report to President Kibaki in November last year but there were fears that it would have been used as a campaign tool.
The TJRC Act mandated the commission to establish an historical record of abuses by the State between December 12, 1963 and February 28, 2008.
Yesterday, Uhuru said his government will take the recommendations of the report seriously and that its contents would be made public.
Kiplagat said the report forms a fertile ground on which forgiveness, healing and reconciliation will be planted.
Kiplagat appealed to Kenyans to forget the past, forgive one another and move forward as a united nation.
In attendance were Head of Public Service and Secretary to the Cabinet Francis Kimemia, Attorney General Prof. Githu Muigai and Chief Justice Dr. Willy Mutunga among other senior Government officials.