"Make no mistake, the cry of PEV victims for justice is real and persistent. If the only way they can feel a sense of justice is through The Hague, so be it. Those who imagine the PEV victims don’t support the ICC process have lost touch with reality. Let them wait and see when the actual trials begin. Don’t get derailed by the meaningless chatter about reconciliation. I have travelled several times to what we used to call the Rift Valley (where the worst violence was perpetrated) and seen nothing of this reconciliation. All there is are fake and interminable “peace meetings” by church groups and donor-funded civil society busybodies. But believe you me, the underlying hatreds remain raw and intact precisely because the PEV perpetrators are still unrepentant. Those whose properties were destroyed have their own way of communicating what they feel. I have seen many business premises that were burnt down and vandalised and whose owners have deliberately refused to rebuild them.I am told they are meant to serve as permanent memorials of shame for the violence mongers. Since the election, the Jubilee coalition has been spinning a positive but false narrative of how the antagonistic communities in the Rift Valley have patched things up.These are fairy tales. Once the graphic witness testimony starts spilling out from The Hague on the manner atrocities were committed, the Jubilee coalition itself will come under severe strain. I won’t be surprised if it snaps under the trauma." [email protected]
Posted on: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 04:17:31 +0000
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