Our picture shows bodies from Naivasha burnt beyond recognition
In early January 2008 shortly after Mwai Kibaki had been declared winner of the presidential elections by about 200,000 votes, I had fairly good contacts on the ground and the information was streaming in. One of the first bits of information I got that was difficult to explain was reports that heavily armed security personnel were surrounding the City Mortuary. We made jokes out of it. Had they gone mad and now decided to guard the dead? The Kumekucha blog was barely 3 years old then and yet to gain the experience that would have recognized that this was nothing to joke about and a very vital clue behind which was a very big story.
After that events unfolded pretty quickly and that curious little incident was forgotten. Yet it was extremely important. It is the most compelling evidence that the Mwai Kibaki administration expected and prepared for a blood bath. The mortuary was being guarded to ensure that the true death toll would never be known to the world and no nosy journalists would enter to take photographs or do a body count. Indeed to this day the official figure of those who died countrywide from the unprecedented post election violence is still under 1,000. A very sick joke because half that number were killed in just one scene in Kisumu. Don't even go to the Rift Valley.
But why would a government want to butcher its' own people and then desperately hide the true death toll? What would possibly be the motive for such a macabre and sick action?
Clues that will give us the answer must start with a curious remark by President Kibaki a few days to the polls and which were published in The East African Standard newspaper. On being asked by a Foreign journalist whether he would concede defeat in those elections, he replied in Kiswahili; "Wacha kuniuliza swali ya upumbavu." (stop asking me a stupid question). And that was it. His answer to a very important question.
(excerpts from Kumekucha's latest book; Let The Blood Flow. To get details on how you can obtain a copy email umissedthis at gmail dot com.)
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