Then… drama

Headed to the Hague: The names that will not miss on Ocampo’s list

Luis Moreno Ocampo: The nightmare for impunity in Kenya that will not go away.

What an eventful day for mother Kenya. Wow!!! As I write this I am still trying to absorb it all.

The following news items have really gripped me over the last few hours.

1. ICC special prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo got the nod to proceed with prosecutions against those most responsible for Kenya’s post-election violence. Read this CNN report.

2. All signs in parliament today were that we are headed to yet another divisive referendum where the Kenyan people will get incited once again to vote on either side. Kenyans will remember this was one of the main triggers that finally led to the 2007 election violence.

3. TJRC chairman Bethuel Kiplagat displaying a total lack of understanding of the situation dug in his heels and moved quickly to replace the vacant Vice chair position. He told reporters “many people have also asked me not to resign…” as if this is a mere political battle of wits.

I don’t intend to bore you good people with a news summary of events but my point here is that there is a link between the three separate events. Ocampo and Kenyan’s victory is most welcome and it is the biggest blow against impunity in the history of Kenya. The biggest!!! By far!!!

The second event took place where the perpetrators of impunity against the Kenyan people have been gathering and plotting for years. For some reason the circus going on in the house reminded me of a trapped snake wriggling and pretending that it can still escape when it is so obvious that the end is nigh.

The last event was classic. It was impunity in person still pretending that he is boss. Bethuel Kiplagat has said mupende musipende he MUST serve you as the TJRC chair.

Kenya’s future is now beginning to get fairly clear. The announcement from the Hague has set in motion a chain of events that promise to be extremely dramatic, but don’t bring out the Champaign yet, in fact this is the time to take cover. The political class and those being investigated will fight this thing with all they have, and more. Some witnesses will grew fabulously rich overnight at about the time that they will start displaying a terrible bout of amnesia especially over events that occurred around December 2007 and January 2008. Others will disappear from the face of the earth. I wonder if we will be told that some poor guy with gun shot wounds broke his leg, battered himself silly, shot themselves in the head and then carefully doused themselves with petrol and set themselves on fire etc. etc. Remember the amazing theories on the Ouko murder?

Meanwhile every trick in the book will be used (I don’t want to believe that Ocampo suspects will call political meetings to tell their supporters that they are being finished, but I am afraid that is quite likely to happen.)

Everybody is curious about who is on the Waki list which is what Ocampo relied on heavily to get his consent to prosecute. Interestingly Ocampo has already detailed how he is going to go ahead with the prosecution.

Firstly he will deal with the ODM perpetrators of the violence who started the whole thing after the elections were stolen. And then he will take on the PNU supporters who retaliated to the initial ODM attacks. Don’t you love the way the guy has simplified it all? And as I have said it here before, that is exactly what happened.

What this means is that you will not fail to see William Ruto and Elizabeth Ongoro from ODM and Uhuru Kenyatta and Kabando wa Kabando from the PNU wing indicted for the Hague.

High drama ahead folks, high drama indeed.

To end this post let me reveal something that I sense. This is also based on what I hear Kenyans on the ground saying. All indications are that we are headed to the referendum with the politicians badly divided. But there is a high possibility that the Kenyan people (at least the majority) will turn deaf ears to their politicians and vote YES on the draft constitution thus pulling out the rug from under the feet of the political class. That my dear friends will be magical…


P.S. For those Kenyans getting a little weary over this revisiting of post elections violence and who believe that we should move on, please read this very sick page from the Waki report (published in Kumekucha some time back) and then tell me with a straight face that we should forgive and forget. And that Ocampo did bad.

Too young to die?

A fascinating and yet gruesome crime took place about 12 days ago in a Nairobi high rise building.

A cleaning woman, 25 year old Rachel Aoko Okello who worked at the NSSF building in the community area was sent to the ATM to withdraw cash for one of her bosses. That was the last time she was seen alive. Initially her colleagues were puzzled because the money she was sent for was not the kind of amount that would tempt anybody to do “G4S disappearing act.” Their faith in their colleague was confirmed 9 long days later when her decomposing body was found in the registry of the same NSSF building.

What is puzzling police even more is that initial indications are that some kind of chemical was used to muffle the smell of the decomposing body. The obvious idea seems to have been to delay the discovery of the body. Rachel was raped before she was murdered. Even more baffling in this case is that police have evidence obtained from the scene of the crime that suggests the victims’ assailant revisited the corpse several times in the 9 days before it was discovered.

About two months ago the body of yet another young woman was found dumped on a footpath next to a house that most neighbors believed hosted regular sex orgies for the rich and powerful of Nairobi.

The chances of these two crimes ever being solved are slim. And the sad thing is that there are many more young lives being snuffed out in Kenya (and especially in Nairobi) these days which never attract the attention of the press and thus go unreported. Dozens have been brought to my attention.

The truth of the matter is that even as we retain leaders and people in decision-making positions from another very different age who still believe in old solutions for new problems, crime has escalated to a very high level in Kenya. It is probably being fueled by plenty of serious drugs easily available and desperation amongst many young people, we can also not rule out the influx of all kinds of DVD movies very cheaply available at 50 bob a pop that promote all kinds of cultures as well as giving all kinds of sick ideas to minds hungry for those sick ideas.

The result is that our police force is already terribly overwhelmed.

It is fairly easy to criticize the Kenya police for their crime-solving methods but admittedly the lack a lot of the tools required for modern-day crime-fighting is one major impediment.

A few years back I talked to a source very close to the CID department who assured me that despite their bad reputation the truth is that the CID always got their man and a very high percentage of the crimes that came to their attention were always solved. He quickly added that I should not ask for details on the methods they employed. Although I thought I had a pretty good idea of the methods he was talking about I prodded him to tell me more and what he revealed almost made me pass out in shock. He told me that the CID did not just torture suspects carelessly; he said that they regularly consulted some top notch witchdoctor and were thus able to very accurately recreate exactly how a crime was committed. I tried unsuccessfully not to burst out laughing loudly.

I don’t think that a state-of-the-art forensic laboratory is enough to change the crime-fighting ways of our cops. The archaic laws of our country will not accommodate scientific evidence too well. After all audio tape recordings are still not admissible in our courts as evidence. These are some of the things our COEs would have had time to look at in an ordinary sane country, but alas, we have been too busy dealing with the powers of the executive and devolved government to spare any thought to creating a new constitution where fighting the rapidly increasing crime rate will be easier. And so as badly as our cops are doing, I guess they are on their own.

This week’s kumekucha classified ads: Property listings and a laptop for 3,500 among other interesting ads.