Friday, March 5 is the one year anniversary of the murders of Kenyan rights activists Oscar Kingara and G.P.O. Oulu of the Oscar Foundation. They were killed in what can be described as a “gangland style hit” not long after they were verbally attacked by the Government Spokesman. The previous week Kingara had met with United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Philip Alston, and the Oscar Foundation for which the two were working was providing evidence to the UN on extrajudicial killings by Kenyan Police.
The Kenyan National Human Right Commission plans a memorial event and civil society activists are organizing.
Reportedly, the Government is awaiting the release of O.J. Simpson so that he can assist in the ongoing investigation.
Alston’s report on extrajudicial killings may have contributed eventually to the transfer of the head of Kenya’s police at the time, Hussein Ali, to the position of Postmaster under international donor pressure, but to date, no major shake-ups of the internal security apparatus or major prosecutions so far as I am aware.