Civil & Political Rights

Electoral processes in post-independence Kenya have been marked by some of the most aberrant forms ofelectoral malfeasance and human rights violation, with the 2007 general elections producing the greatest measure of electoral and human rights violations ever experienced in the country's history.

This report is a joint project of the Kenya HumanRights Commission (KHRC) and the Kenyan Section of the International Commission of Jurists(ICJ Kenya) to review the current status of the victims of the 2007/2008 Post Election Violence (PEV) in Kenya. The research project was informed by theconcern that whereas there have been attempts by multiple groups in Kenya to assist in the identifi cation,processing and registration of the victims, the effortshave not been comprehensive and holistic. This report is based on data collected through interviews withindividual victims, representatives of victims groupsand key informants at more than 200 sites across Kenya during the months of July—September2011. More than 800 respondents participated in the research. In brief, field research with victims revealed that the Government of Kenya has failed to meet its obligations to victims of 2007—2008 violence in substantial ways. Our research mirrors the findings of other documentation efforts carried out by Kenyan and international human rights organizations.

Kenya experienced political and inter-ethnic violence following disputed national elections inDecember 2007. At least 1,300 people died in a cycle of ethnic unrest, revenge killings andpolice raids across the country as rival PNU and ODM presidential candidates clashed over theoutcome of the 2007 presidential poll. While the 2007—2008 post election violence was neither unique nor new in Kenya’s political landscape, its magnitude and geographical spread was unprecedented.

Since the re-introduction of multiparty politics in Kenya in the early 1990s, other general election periods have had their share of election-related violence. Indeed, many regions in the country, especially the Rift Valley, Western and Coast regions have experienced intermittentor recurrent violence at every election period since the re-introduction of multipartyism in Kenya.

Concerned with various indications and responding to information that communities were armingthemselves in readiness for self-defence (read violence), particularly during the upcoming general elections scheduled to take place in 2012, the Kenya Human Rights Commission dispatched a team of researchers and investigators on a fact-finding mission to interrogate these claims.

The report, titled Lest We Forget: The Faces of Impunity in Kenya, is based on a the KHRC’s Review of the Official Reports Project that has compiled a list of individuals recommended for further investigation or criminal proceedings in official reports on gross and systemic human rights violations as well as grand corruption.

This project is meant to address the following gaps in truth and justice seeking:

• First, the inadequate understanding and appreciation of the level of the truth already existing in the current official and other reports;
• Second,the inadequate review, harmonization and presentation of the findings of the official and other reports over historical injustices in Kenya;
• Third,the inadequate analysis and presentation of both the patterns and perpetrators of impunity across the different regimes, reports and categories of injustices in Kenya;
• Finally are the inadequate interventions to ensure that the cross cutting findings and recommendations are applied to expose, lustrate and hold to account, the purveyors of impunity.

This is a joint report between the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) and the National Network for the Internally Displaced Persons in Kenya (IDPs Network). It analyzes the extent to which the state and non-state actors have complied with their obligations to protect, promote and respect the IDPs rights’ to land, food, shelter, health/sanitation, water, education, security, justice,