Was justice ever my shield and defender

So the big topic that has been most contentious on our weekly radio show The Truthsayer talk show has been what to do with the perpetrators of the so called post election violence. And here I am not talking about the big pins that are allegedly already on the scope of the international criminal court; No…. I am talking about the foot soldiers.

These have been the weapons used year in and year out by our politicians. Yes in my opinion as long as you have enough foot soldiers to maraud, kill, burn and pillage at a moment notice, it does not matter how many top leaders you take to The Hague, this event will keep on happening just as soon as we get another leader willing to spill some blood for power.

Let me reference the two current atrocities that have been committed in the recent years. The Bosnia and Herzegovina war in the early 90s where the Slobodan Milosevic Government deliberately targeted Muslim Serbs and Croats and the Rwanda genocide.

Most of the top leaders involved in the war crimes during the Bosnia war were indicted by the international criminal court including the two former presidents, Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic. Remember its purported that the Serbian Police, Soldiers, paramilitary groups and even some Serbian villagers started carrying out war crimes with the occupation of Bosnian territories. After the war was done and over, I know that most of the top echelons were held to account. The good news is, justice has never slowed down, Former soldiers involved in the crimes are being pursues as a far as Phoenix Arizona. Yes even the foot soldiers were not let to go scot free. I recently read that some Croats soldiers are facing criminal charges for executing 7 Serbian soldiers who were had been imprisoned by the Croatia military as recently as July 2009. Even in Bosnia foot soldiers are being tried for various crimes they committed during the 3 year war

In Africa the Rwanda genocide clearly taught us the power of foot soldiers where in approximately a hundred days more than 20% of the country was decimated. Estimates of around 500,000 to 1000,000 people killed. Thousands of militias belonging to Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi were organized to start systematic killings of the minority Tutsis. Most of us know the horrors that befell that small eastern African country. And as much the major blamed fell to the organizers and financiers of the genocide, more than 120,000 foot soldiers were arrested for their participation in the genocide. Some people quote the famous Gacaca court system to illustrate that the foot soldiers were let to go free, but in reality the Gacaca court system vision was to promote community healing by making the punishment of perpetrators faster and less expensive for the state. Yes People were still prosecuted and punished. Wikipedia has a good article on how the court system worked.

You notice I went straight to the big cases where foot soldiers have been used to commit crime, but in those instances even the foot soldiers have been held accountable or there has been an attempt to bring them to justice.

Going back to our country Kenya, marauding gangs in the North Rift and Naivasha and other towns were involved in the killings of hundreds of people. Not forgetting the police who used live bullets on civilians. The reality is up to know very few people have been prosecuted. We all had our hopes on Ocampo the ICC prosecutor, but we are tending to forget the foot soldiers are also as dangerous if not held to account. They are the never ending wood that will always keep the fire of impunity burning. An endless supply I tell you. The leaders are but the matchstick and accelerant.

Let me illustrate my point using a hypothetical foot soldier. Picture an 18 year old young man who was involved in the 1992 ethnic clashes. Chances are he was never prosecuted, and all that he had to endure was the Kiliku report… In 1997 more emboldened and having tasted battle and carnage five years before, he most likely become a more effective foot soldier causing great harm as a 23 year old. Again the results of that carnage and murder resulted with us having another commission set up “the Akiwumi report”. Very few people were ever prosecuted for the 1997 ethnic clashes despite hundreds of deaths and destruction of property.

In the 2002 elections he did not see much action, as the whole country turned against the Moi government. I am sure he missed killing a couple of people and burning a couple of houses.

By 2008 our now 33 year old hypothetical foot soldier was even now more emboldened, determined and experienced. Chances are he was no longer just a mare foot soldier but has climbed up in rank among his peers to say platoon leader. As Kenya burned for two months, beyond the rhetoric and incitements from political leaders, beyond the financing of the violence or the logistic, at its foundation lay a perfect killing machine, a foot soldier who knew very well that he may never been held to account for what he does. And killing and destroy he did. From burning a church in Kiamba to burning a whole family of 19 people in Naivasha.

There were many people who were shocked by the ferocity of the attacks. They totally forgot that while they had been burying the heads in the sand, there was emerging a group of foot soldiers that had neither remorse nor boundaries. Cold killing machines just waiting to be activated every election year, confident on the fact that justice was but an illusion in a country whose anthem proudly declares “Justice be our shield and defender”.

Now it has been close to two years since the post election violence, and chances are our hypothetical foot soldier is still roaming free waiting for 2012. By the he will be a 38 year old leader with close to 20 years of experience in killing, pillaging and rape. This time around its rumored machetes and clubs are no longer the weapons of choice. The foot soldiers are now slowly acquiring all sorts of firearms as they re-arm in the inticiption of the blood bath of 2012.

On the surface the Kenyan parliament, is playing hide and seek in regard to the imanyara bill. More so the Kenyan government and our toothless ineffective AG are still continuing to hoodwink Kenyans, willing us to forget the past and look to the future. On one hand announcing how willing there are in prosecuting the people involved in the post election violence to the full extent of the law, and on the other hand declaring that we should forgive and forget and move on. Secretly politicians are busy planning which ethnic tribe will need to be removed from their constituency to ensure another victory; better still hoping Ocampo will come and cart away his political enemies.

On the other hand our foot soldier is waiting, he may be a Mungiki, a Chinkororo, Kalenjin warrior, the Taliban gang or maybe the Sabaot Land Defense, but he is waiting, waiting for the next chance to prove that 1300 lives lost two years ago were just but child play, just but the beginning. I pray that we wake up my fellow countrymen and remember the words, Justice be our shield and defender