KENYA-HUMAN RIGHTS: Much Room for Improvement, Amnesty Says

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Sep 10 1997 (IPS) - Stability in Kenya is threatened by problems similar to those that have plagued other regional countries like Somalia, Rwanda, Sudan, Burundi and the former Zaire, according to human rights observers.

“Unless urgent steps are taken, Kenya would lose its position as a stable environment for investment and development in the region,” warned Hilary Fisher of the London-based human rights organisation Amnesty International.

Speaking here on Wednesday at the launch of a new campaign against rights abuses in Kenya, Fisher urged the international community, businesses and donors to redouble their efforts to obtain improvements in the area of human rights in the country as the government’s record worsens in the runup to elections — due later this year.

“The human rights situation for ordinary Kenyans is becoming worse on a daily basis, as the clamour for long-overdue reforms gets louder,” Amnesty International said in a statement. “Recent violence and killings on the coast point towards the pressure reaching boiling point.”

The statement said that during a June 1997 visit to Kenya, an Amnesty delegation had called for legal reforms to prevent further bloodshed. A few weeks later, the government’s intransigence led to 13 deaths as police violently dispersed peaceful demonstrations led by local clergymen.

In August, political violence in the Coastal region led to around 47 deaths. The August events mirrored similar violence in 1992-1993 in which the government was implicated, according to Amnesty, which has highlighted the abuses in the East African nation in a 30-page report titled ‘Kenya: Violations of Human Rights’.

The report mentions the case of Solomon Muruli, a student leader at the University of Nairobi, who was killed in February 1997 in suspicious circumstances. Muruli had been accused of being linked to an opposition political party.

Earlier victims include Rosemary Nyambura, who died in a police station on May 10, 1992, the same day she was detained. Although an inquest was held and on Jul. 20, 1995, the magistrate ruled that four police officers involved in the death should be charged for murder, to date no one has been arrested.

Then there was Geoffrey Ndugu Gichuki, who was arrested in December 1994, tied to a tree and severely beaten. After he was denied medical treatment for six days, his arm developed gangrene and had to be amputated.

“The real fear is that these victims will not be the last unless the government is pressured to improve the human rights situation,” Fisher said. “The international community has it within its power to bring about real change in Kenya — change which will benefit the Kenyan people as well as investors, to ensure that Kenya remains a stable base for governments and international organisations.”

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) suspended a loan of more than 200 million dollars to Kenya last month, demanding that the government of President Daniel arap Moi combat corruption.

Everist Mbuya, chair of Amnesty International’s Tanzania section, said the London-based human rights organisation was launching a campaign in Dar es Salaam on Wednesday to urge Tanzania’s government to advise its Kenyan counterpart to improve its human rights performance.

He urged the Kenyan government to do more to improve its record. “What happens in Kenya affects all of us in this region,” he told the press conference. “We have an influx of refugees from Rwanda and Burundi in Tanzania. We don’t want more from Kenya.”

But Kenya’s Vice President George Saitoti Wednesday rejected any comparison between Kenya and its troubled neighbours, such as the former Zaire, where rebels toppled the regime of late President Mobutu Sese Seko in May.

“The system in Zaire had collapsed. There was no mechanism for collecting taxes. Civil servants were not paid. And there was no co-ordination between the centre and the regions.

“But in Kenya we have mechanism for collecting revenue, we pay our civil servants regularly. So we can’t be compared with the former Zaire,” he told the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Africa Service.