Kenya’s National Council of Churches (NCCK) sticks up for EU envoys; TJRC slammed; and an optimistic view for March 4

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The Star: “NCCK Warns Uhuru, Ruto over the Hague”:

“It will not be easy running a government while away as compared to from State House, but we ask Kenyans to exercise their discretion and vote as they want,” said NCCK Secretary General Rev Canon Peter Karanja yesterday after a two-day meeting at the Jumuia Conference and Retreat Centre in Limuru.

The High Court is due to rule tomorrow if Uhuru and Ruto are eligible to contest the presidency on grounds of integrity. “We ask for the law to be followed as we await the court ruling on Friday,” he said.

The press conference was attended by the NCCK chairperson Rev Canon Rosemary Mbogoh, deputy secretary Oliver Kisaka and Zion Harvest Mission Bishop Nicolas Oloo.

The council condemned the recent criticism of diplomats who stated last week that there will be “consequences” if Kenyans elect Uhuru and Ruto as president and deputy president.

“NCCK appreciates the interests of the foreign missions, European Union and African Union, because they helped us when the country went haywire and it is not fair to ridicule them,” he said.

The NCCK statement warned against tribal balkanization, called for more voter education by the IEBC, urged politicians to focus on issues, and asked President Kibaki to gazette the new National Land Commission.

CapitalFM: “KNHCR slams Truth Commission as Sham”.  The official Kenya National Human Rights Commission denounced the failure of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission established as part of the settlement following 2008’s post-election violence to produce and release a report ahead of the March 4 election.  The report was due by 2011.

Wycliffe Muga’s column in The Star this week, “Why There Will be No Violence,” explains his optimism:

. . . .

Actually, I am pretty sure that it won’t happen again. This election is going to be totally different from the 2007 one in three crucial respects:

First, we have an electoral body which only came into being through a process involving a broad consensus. Thus the IEBC, despite all its organisational weaknesses, is thus totally unlike the old ECK which President Kibaki openly stuffed with his cronies just before the election.

Then we have a new judiciary, the members of which have been subjected to public vetting, often of a very humiliating kind. And although there are those among us who still regard the Chief Justice Willy Mutunga as an ear-stud-wearing poseur, who has yet to prove his mettle, nonetheless no loser in any election can convincingly argue that “there is no point” in seeking justice from this judiciary.

Finally, we now have the ICC entrenched in our national life in a way which was inconceivable before the post-election violence came upon us. Those of us who knew anything of the ICC prior to this, tended to think that it was set up to try Serb militia chiefs; Congolese and Liberian warlords; and the likes of Joseph Kony.

Now we know better. And, more significantly, our top politicians know better. They know that the moment they send out any street gangs or private militias to do their dirty work, they have effectively supplied the ICC with the witnesses who will one day – from the safety of Europe – turn up in fine suits to offer evidence against them.

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