Threats against witnesses to Kenya’s election violence derail attempts at justice, group says

Threats after Kenya’s vote violence derail justice

NAIROBI, Kenya — Threats against Kenyan human rights activists and victims of violence could undermine the quest for justice from Kenya’s 2007-2008 postelection violence, a state-funded human rights group said Friday.

Human rights activists are being exposed to threats by government security agencies who are sometimes entrusted with protecting them, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights said.

The group said threats against witnesses and victims of postelection violence have been on the rise since International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo began investigating Kenyan violence. More than 1,000 people were killed in the weeks following the country’s December 2007 presidential election.

“If you threaten a human rights defender, then you’re equally threatening justice,” said Hassan Omar Hassan, the commission’s vice chairman during an event to mark the anniversary of the death of two Kenyan human rights activists. Last year the two provided evidence of police death squads to a U.N. investigator on extra-judicial executions. The two were then killed on March 5. Fellow activists blamed the killings on the police.

Moreno Ocampo this week said he believes top officials from Kenya’s two major political parties were responsible for crimes against humanity. He gave a list of 20 suspects to ICC judges, who must decide whether Moreno Ocampo may open a formal investigation.

Moreno Ocampo said both parties organized, financed or spurred the violence against civilians because of their political or tribal allegiance.

More than 1,000 people were killed and 600,000 forced from their homes after President Mwai Kibaki was declared winner of the December 2007 poll. Raila Odinga’s opposition party claimed the vote was rigged, leading to two months of upheavals. Many protesters who clashed with police were killed, but the violence also erupted along tribal lines.

Odinga was later made prime minister under a power sharing deal that ended the violence.

Moreno Ocampo said senior leaders of both parties “utilized their personal, government, business and tribal networks to commit the crimes.”