Transitional Justice in Kenya

Analyzing Responses to Post-Election Violence in 2007-2008

In our early research it became evident that ethnic violence in Kenya was not new. Ethnic conflict in Kenya between the Kikyu and Kalenjin people has been at the center of nearly 40 years of election violence, taking the lives of 800 people and displacing 300,000 others in the 1990s (UN Refugee Agency, 1999). Following the most recent incidents of election violence in 2007 and in response to the loss of over 1,000 lives and numerous crimes such as rape, arson, and assault, the International Criminal Court and an internal Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission attempted to address the human rights violations (Human Rights Watch, 2011).

Image from Nairobi National Park

1. To what extent do Kenyans welcome the ICC’s involvement in investigating Kenya’s post-election violence?

2. How have the objectives of the Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission impacted Kenya’s legal system?

3. To what extent have the commission’s efforts to educate the public on the history of election violence been successful?

Methodology

To answer our research question we conducted a series of interviews in Nairobi and Eldoret with NGO employees, community organizers, and government officials. Because we did not feel equipped to talk to survivors of the 2007-2008 election violence, we limited our interviews to these three groups. We used snowball sampling to get interviewers to forward us to other interviewers. We acknowledge our positionality as Americans entering a country we have never been to before, so we approached our interviews with an open mind by avoiding assumptions and not too narrowly focusing our questions, allowing those who worked in the community to guide the conversation.

Key Takeaways

Personal Impact

Karura Forest

The project had a large impact on us because it gave us important experience with interviewing people and learning through hands-on interaction. One thing that we found in interviewing people is that people’s relationships to international and domestic legal institutions is both complicated and personal in ways that is not apparent from simply reading academic articles. For example, we saw how the ICC proceedings continued to impact people’s lives in Kenya as some of our interviewees expressed fear about having their identities revealed or being disappeared if they spoke out against key government figures. The experience we gained planning and implementing a project on our own has caused us to think about ways that we can continue to learn by talking to people across the globe and helps give us the confidence to embark on international trips and projects in the future. 

Next Steps and Further Implications

Uhuru Kenyatta - Presdient of Kenya

William Ruto - Deputy President of Kenya

Potential next steps include but are not limited to, raising awareness for the election in Kenya and denouncing any violence that may occur, encouraging governments across the world to more heavily invest in election safeguards and monitoring in the lead-up to the 2022 election, encouraging revision of the International Criminal Court to not only focus on Africa/to think more intentionally about how to effectively intervene in Africa, and encouraging western NGOs to allow for Kenyans to mainly craft efforts for truth, justice, and reconciliation.

Image from Nairobi National Park

Karura Forest

Uhuru Kenyatta - Presdient of Kenya

William Ruto - Deputy President of Kenya