Rape: child of a militia gang rape safe- Why do you persecute Kenyans for their views?
Why do you for example, persecute John Korir the President of Bunge La Mwananchi (one of its chapters)? Why? For Korir is entitled just like all Kenyans who have different views to peace and justice. He is entitled to time with his family and nation just like the President of Kenya is.
Maurice Odhiambo of Bunge La Mwananchi is also under threat for a long time now. The list is longer. There are many who live on the edge wondering what next. But all they did was to
Nightbird was on a lonely journey that found out Korir was having sleepless nights. And he is not alone. John Korir was attacked by some people who claimed that he is a witness at the ICC. Who are these people who go round intimidating others for this reason?
We know of others who have reported similar incidences? Why and how come nobody speaks out for them.
Why are there hordes of people who go about listing some as supporters of the ICC and reaching out to them and their families for harm? So young people who discuss useful ideas in this Bunge belong to the group of Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) who are deeply intimidated. Silenced almost. And yet everything they know if shouted from the top of the Kenyatta International Conference is everything all the people know about, the very things they whisper perhaps in matatus and in their homes. What is it? We are refusing to learn from our people who were deeply harmed by the violence we are talking about.
The Government of Kenya, The County Senators and all its Bunge needs to speak out clearly on this intimidation and to see to it that anybody disturbing others and therefore depriving them of their constitutional rights is in the wrong. The Constitution of Kenya 2010 is strong in the defence of Human Rights. And the people are crying and trying to heal their wounds. Look.
A child of militia gang rape is breastfed and loved by a father who watched his wife being raped as he lay on what he thought was his own deathbed.
A militia meets gentleness in the worst of circumstances for their child is not aborted. The couple have chosen life having seen their own at a time of utter futility. Moments that saw a nation lose sanity. Moments that became hours of history written in blood.
It was during the hearing of the Status Conference on the ICC case that I heard this. Is this child a sign or icon of possibility? How can I call this one a sign of justice if that way he landed into this world? How?
Will poetry not err if I say that maybe this is the kind of icon that can heal a country that is still badly injured by the violence we experienced? For there was a couple. The man was left for dead and his wife raped as he watched before he was clobbered senseless. This was by a militia gang.
I did not know that she conceived and chose to keep the child. I was completely speechless when I heard of the couple's tough decision. For they knew she was raped by a militia gang. This is so moving. Violence. I believe they saw their own lives almost end and therefore, decided to save this child.
And now they say, they would like justice, only justice because then they can forgive and live. Will they get justice? Why can't violence engender justice or how could it? Can it? One is torn apart upon hearing all this. They are not stories anymore. But the judge said in Kiswahili.
Haki huinua taifa.
Justice makes a nation. Where is it? Where is justice?
Circumcision
We have to stop seeing some ethnic groups as people set apart, marked physically for good or for evil. This is a first point of all leadership. That we are all equal and so much so before the law.
That circumcision is a topic of politics reveals that we are acting on a herd mentality and this does not work for humans. It works for swarms of bees and cattle. People were forcibly cut in the violence of 2007/2008. That was the saddest thing Nightbird was reminded last week by proceedings at the ICC.
Circumcision of men who do not belong to a particular ethnic group. Humiliation of the highest order. It was tough to hear that description again. That people who came from an ethnic group that does not circumcise men were cut and laid out in rows, mutilated parts up.
I remember Sam Ouma a photographer with a Kenyan newspaper breaking into tears at the memory. He was being interviewed on the violence that gripped Kenya in 2007/2008 after the election.
I also remember a very long call from Ida Odinga. I received it when I was talking to a friend on Kijabe Avenue. She was so torn I thought she was breaking down. Ida Odinga was speaking about her visits to where people were wounded like this. About what she saw as the face of violence in Kenya, its irrational ways.
She spoke about the rape of women in other parts of the country. She wept. She wondered why some leaders had forgotten to keep talking about this. She was caught up in loneliness on searching for answers. She was blunt. She was sick of it all and longed for justice.
Yes, the politics of circumcision is so crude but it went to these levels. Why? Who can stop such thinking if churches over more than 100 years have not? Why did Kenyans forget so many ties that bind us in such a short time? What was really at work then?
How do we forgive and heal a nation? There are other nations to learn from.
But violence has given birth to much more violence than ever before. The nation is challenged by low morale. I read about Gava militia with consternation. A fourteen year-old- girl robs an adult man at gang point. These are children of such deep violence hidden in the rotting womb of our nation. Children at school learning how to be in gangs.
It is only that I know for each one of these there are thousands in many good organisations:
Writers' groups
Democracy organisations such as Bunge La Mwananchi
Scouts
Dancing groups
Music groups
Festival groups
Individuals trying to make a mark
Young Farmers
Prayer groups
Village youth groups and so many others.
Only one question. Why does the police spend so much time investigating those who gather to dialogue on democracy for example at Jeevanjee Park in Nairobi? Bunge la Mwananchi? Their President is on the run right now. His life is in danger.
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