1

Peaceful or Violent?

Online hate speech during Kenya’s general elections 2013

Freyja Oddsdóttir

Paper presented at ‘Perspectives on Conflict’ conference June 6th 2014, Glasgow

Comments welcome at

freyjaodds@gmail.com or freyja@gsdrc.org

Table of Contents

1. Executive Summary ......................................................................................................................... 2

2. A brief historical overview ............................................................................................................... 2

3. Methodology ................................................................................................................................... 4

4. History of violent conflict in Kenya.................................................................................................. 4

5. Failure to channel conflict through peaceful means ....................................................................... 5

6. Addressing violent conflict in Kenya ............................................................................................... 8

6.1 Monitoring and reacting to hate speech ................................................................................. 9

6.2 Security forces and conflict prevention ................................................................................ 10

6.3 Reconciliation ........................................................................................................................ 11

7. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 12

8. References ..................................................................................................................................... 14

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1. Executive Summary

This paper explores the dynamics of electoral violence in Kenya through a comparative study of the

2007 and 2013 election periods. While the most recent general elections in March 2013 have been

widely regarded as peaceful in comparison to the 2007/8 post-election violence, this article will draw

on data from interviews with civil society actors in arguing that the 2013 elections cannot be

considered peaceful, but that the previously physical violence took on the form of online hate

speech.

In building this argument, this paper analyses online hate speech, self-censorship of the Kenyan

media during the election period from 2012 to 2013, as well as the weaknesses of the reconciliation

processes put in place after the 2008 post-election violence. It finds that online hate speech has been

prominent during the campaign period of the 2013 elections, and that while a truth commission has

been established, its members and work remain highly controversial. Long-standing grievances due

to unequal access to public goods, political power and uneven government expenditure have not

been dealt with adequately. Structural violence is still present, manifested in competition for political

power, ethnic tensions and vulnerability to violent conflict. Security forces have repeatedly failed to

act upon receiving early warning signs of conflict in the past, and a gap remains between intelligence

on potential outbreak of conflict and action of security forces.

The paper concludes that without outlets that allow for discussion on contentious issues, online hate

speech and threats of violence will continue to thrive in online forums. Coupled with controversial

reconciliation processes and continued structural violence, online hate speech in Kenya provides

insight into an unresolved conflict and continued grievances, indicating continued vulnerability to

violent conflict.

The case of Kenya indicates that while online hate speech cannot be relied on solely to predict

physical violence, it can provide insight into the conversations the public may be having offline. Such

information is likely to be valuable for conflict early warning and response mechanisms, as well as

conflict mapping. This also raises questions on how to engage with online forums in conflict-sensitive

environment. While Kenyan authorities have chosen to outlaw hate speech and prosecute those who

participate in spreading dangerous speech online, the challenge ahead lies in treading the fine line

between censoring vs. allowing hate speech, and how to allow for public debates on contentious

issues without fearing that violence will be triggered.

2. A brief historical overview

After becoming independent from British rule in 1963, politicians have relied on patronage to build

support. In the ruling period of Jomo Kenyatta from the Kikuyu ethnic group, this included access to

land, jobs in the public sector and a higher proportion of government expenditure in certain

geographic areas, and created elites along ethnic lines (Mueller, 2008; CIPEV, 2008, Stewart, 2010;

Sundet et al., 2009).

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After Kenyatta’s death in 1978, second president Daniel arap Moi had no more handouts to give out.

Facing a Kikuyu elite that wanted him out, as well as drop in the price of coffee, the main export

product, Moi had to build his support by taking away before he was able to give. He utilised

detention, torture and killings to keep his critics at bay, allowing him to create an ethnic elite of the

Kalenjin (Mueller, 2008; CIPEV, 2008).

The aforementioned practices are amongst the factors that have created a legacy of Kenya’s political

system of patronage (Mueller, 2008) as well as forming political elites of the Kikuyu and Kalenjin

tribes, resulting in society dividing along ethnic lines due to unequal distribution of government

expenditure (Stewart, 2010; Wamwere, 2008).

Historically, Kenya is not a stranger to outbursts of violence. Since the introduction of multiparty

politics in 1992, political violence has been used to intimidate voters, often targeted because of their

ethnicity. Over 1500 people were killed and 300.000 displaced in the run-up to the elections in 1992,

and the 1997 elections saw casualties in the hundreds and displaced people over 100.000 (Sundet et

al., 2009). While the elections in 2002 saw a peaceful end to the 24 years rule of president Daniel

arap Moi, the contested results of the 2007 general elections and the violence that followed took

many by surprise (Branch and Cheeseman, 2008; Sundet et al., 2009). Over 1500 people were killed

and at least 350,000 were displaced. The violence was spontaneous in some areas and planned in

others (Sundet et al., 2009) and aside from the violence committed by illegal armed groups and

civilians, a Human Rights Watch Report (2011) claims that national security forces were found to be

responsible for at least 400 deaths.

The Commission of Inquiry into Post-Election Violence (CIPEV)1 was formed to conduct preliminary

investigations after the post-election violence in 2008. The commission recommended establishing a

special tribunal with a mandate to try the persons alleged to be responsible for organizing the

violence and in December 2008, President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga signed an

agreement to establish the tribunal (Human Rights Watch, 2011). However in the following year, the

parliament and cabinet rejected several proposals of establishing a local tribunal, resulting in the

International Criminal Court opening investigations in the year 2010. Six high profile politicians and

officials were charged with crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court (International

Criminal Court, 2010), but three cases were dropped. The prosecutor said charges had been dropped

against Francis Muthaura, former head of civil service, as several people who may have provided

important evidence had died, while others were too afraid to testify for the prosecution (BBC,

2013c). The trials have been postponed a number of times for various reasons, and are now due to

open in September 2013 for William Ruto and Joshua Sang, and November 2013 for Uhuru Kenyatta

(International Criminal Court, 2010).

In late 2012, Kenyatta and Ruto formed an alliance to run for the presidency and were elected as

president and vice president in March 2012. Their opponent, Raila Odinga challenged the results in

court, but the Supreme Court upheld the results and Kenyatta was sworn in as president in April

2013 (BBC, 2013d).

A local initiative to investigate past violent conflict and human rights violations from 12th December

1963 and 28th February 2008, the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) was

1 Also known as Waki Commission.

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established by an Act of Parliament (Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission Act no. 6 of 2008)

(TJRC, 2013). The Commission‘s final report was published in early 2013, and will be discussed further

in chapter 6.3 on Reconciliation.

3. Methodology

The research for this study was carried out using qualitative methods, building on interviews with 11

civil society actors in Nairobi, Kenya during the months of July and August in 2013. The analysis relies

on findings from interviews as well as reports from CSOs, which are supported by other sources such

as news articles or reports from other organisations to verify the data where possible.

Respondents include people from long standing and well established CSOs, new initiatives

established around the 2013 elections, as well as civil society activists and CSO representatives from

different socio-economic backgrounds. The different profiles of respondents were intended to

increase the diversity responses, including both local community initiatives as well as higher profile

civil society activists who operate on the national scene.

4. History of violent conflict in Kenya

An analysis of Kenya’s political economy suggests that elections are the ignition for historical

trajectories of the incentive systems driving the state, violence, institutions, and the nature of

political parties, among others (Mueller, 2008). A quick look at Kenya’s history of violent conflict

confirms the trend of violent conflict happening around elections (BBC, 2013). The same consensus

emerged during interviews with civil society actors a few months after the 2013 elections, as all

agreed that the main triggers for violent conflict in Kenya are political events due to political and

socio-economic exclusion.

Elections are an important event in Kenya as they determine an ethnic group’s share in political

power as well as distribution of government expenditure (Mueller, 2008; Stewart, 2010; Wamwere,

2008). Severe political HIs can provide an incentive for political leaders to mobilise people based on

ethnic identity, which arguably was what happened in Kenya in the 2007/8 post-election violence.

The people who can be mobilised are however more affected by socio-economic HIs which they

experience on a daily basis, and where these HIs are sharp, people are more likely to respond to

efforts of mobilisation (2007/8) (Stewart, 2010b).

Before the 2013 general elections in Kenya, various human rights actors and media outlets had

warned that there was a high risk that violence would follow the elections (CNN, 2013; BBC, 2013b;

Human Rights Watch, 2013). Isolated incidents of violence left around 15 people dead, and the

elections were referred to as largely peaceful by most (CNN, 2013; International Crisis Group, 2013).

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When asked what factors they thought contributed to the lack of violence in the 2013 elections, the

civil society actors interviewed for this study concluded that peace campaigns, civic education and

advocacy for peace, carried out by civil society and other actors, had an impact2. However, a number

of the respondents expressed their concern that there were too many peace campaigns and that

people became weary of hearing the message that they should be peaceful3. They said that while the

campaigns may be a short-term solution, they felt that the assumption behind the peace campaigns

was that people fight merely for the sake of fighting, failing to address the causes of the conflict or

the reasons that violence was triggered.

Most respondents were unwilling to speculate on attributing the non-violent outcome to specific

initiatives, mentioning a number of factors that may have contributed. This included peace

campaigns, reformed institutions or trauma from the 2007/8 post-election violence. Another concern

voiced by a member of the tech enterprise Ushahidi was that while peacebuilding campaigns

encouraged people to use other means of solving conflict than violence, in practice this translated

into not asking hard questions and not voicing critical opinions, to ensure that the country did not

descend into violent conflict again. Peace may thus have come at the price of critical thinking.

A description of the national conflict prevention and response strategy ‘Uwiano Platform for Peace’

may support the concern that many peace campaigns emphasised the importance of being peaceful

without addressing what causes the conflict. It describes numerous ways that this multi-actor

initiative spread “peace messages” along with election monitoring and early conflict warning and

response mechanisms. The strategy was initiated before the constitutional referendum in 2010 and

includes influential actors such as the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC),

National Steering Committee on Peacebuilding and Conflict Management (NSC), the Independent

Election and Boundaries Commission, PeaceNet and UN Women (UNDP, 2013).

This gave the impression that Kenyans needed to be bombarded with peace messages so that “they

don’t attack their neighbours” (Muriithi & Page, 2013). Various sources have commented that there

was little space in public discourse for disagreement, criticism or ‘rocking the boat’ (Muriithi & Page,

2013; Were, 20134) in order not to destroy public confidence in the election, fearing that the friction

might trigger another wave of violence. The path that now lies ahead was described by a civil society

activist as a pendulum: in 2007, it went too far in the direction of conflict, this time it swung too far

to the side of self-censorship. He expressed his hope that in the 2017 elections, Kenyans would feel

more confident about rocking the boat without it tipping over5.

5. Failure to channel conflict through peaceful means

2 Interviews with respondents 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9 and 10.

3 Interviews with respondents 5, 7 and 11.

4 Interview with respondent 5.

5 Interview with respondent 5.

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Mainstream Kenyan media has earned a reputation for being vibrant and assertive in its role as the

fourth pillar of democracy (Muriithi & Page, 2013), but effective democratic institutions are

considered to play a significant role in channelling conflict into peaceful ways of decision making

(Boutros-Ghali, 1996), and media plays an important role in solving conflict with dialogue as opposed

to arms. It played a significant role when the multi-party political system was introduced in 1992, as

well as when president Moi passed on the presidential role to Kibaki in 2002. It also played a part in

exposing corruption, it acted as a platform for public debate, as well as being the guardian of public

interest against state power.

However, media can play both a constructive and a destructive role. After the violence that followed

the 2007 elections, media was accused of having incited violence. However, while this critique may

have applied to specific media channels such as local language radio stations (Abdi & Deane, 2008),

rather than the media channels that had previously played the role of the watchdog of public

interest, this affected the role that the media sector took on during the 2013 elections. Various

sources confirm that the media self-censored when it came to sensitive topics and topics that might

incite violence, such as land issues, or probing the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission

(IEBC) during a lengthy vote tallying and transmission process during and after the elections (O‘Hare

& Moss , 2014; International Crisis Group, 2013, BBC Media Action, 2013).

Various sources have argued that during the campaigning period for the 2013 general elections, the

Kenyan media censored itself to a certain degree, to avoid inciting or triggering conflict (O‘Hare &

Moss, 2014; International Crisis Group, 2013; Muriithi & Page, 2013). This may partly be due to

previous critique, but about a month before the elections, David Kimaiyo, the first Inspector General

of the Kenya Police issued a directive that sensitive topics should be avoided during the campaigning

for the 2013 elections. "Land should not be one of the issues on the campaign trail because it is so

emotive and can trigger violence. All politicians should be self-respecting and should, forthwith stop

dwelling on issues that will cause tensions and animosities." (The Star, 2013).

While directed at political candidates, the media seemed to share the sentiment that controversial

topics should be avoided, indicating that media staff members felt responsible for playing their role

in ensuring a peaceful outcome of the elections (O‘Hare & Moss , 2014). Mainstream media had

faced harsh criticism from civil society and government after the 2007-8 post-election violence, but

while it was mostly smaller local language that were guilty of inciting violence, mainstream media

staff felt equally strongly that their performance had collectively failed to defend the public interest

and help prevent the outbreak of violence (Abdi & Deane, 2008). Hence, the 2013 elections saw a

conflict in media responsibilities between promoting peace due to top-down pressure from

authorities and media sector on one hand, and facing bottom-up pressure from the public to act as a

watchdog and to hold candidates accountable (Muriithi & Page, 2013).

Interviews with a nationally representative sample of 3006 Kenyans revealed that “while nine in ten

Kenyans (91%) agreed that the media set the agenda for peaceful elections, fewer than six in ten

(59%) agreed that the media exposed wrongdoings and failings during the election process. The

majority (81%) also agreed that the media avoided sensitive issues to avoid inciting controversy or

violence” (Muriithi & Page, 2013: 19), which along other polls indicated that the public felt that

media hadn’t asserted itself in the way that they wished for.

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Whether the media self-censorship played a role in the relatively peaceful outcome of the elections

will not be explored in this paper. However, it has been argued that the self-censorship reveals a

society that is frightened by its own capacity for violence (Wrong, 2013: Gathara, 2013). While

mainstream media stayed silent on contentious issues, online hate speech reached new heights. Civil

society actors operating in the slums of Kibera and Mathare in Nairobi expressed the opinion that the

elections could not be referred to as peaceful, but rather that the conflict took another form6. This is

supported by other sources, namely the renowned Kenyan cartoonist Gado (2013) whose depiction

of the election period can be seen below, as well as various well-known local commentators (Daily

Nation, 2013a; Daily Nation, 2013b).

(Gado, 2013)

Although social media has evolved and become more popular since 2007, online hate speech wasn’t

new when it came to the 2013 elections. Mashada, a popular online community had to shut down its

forum in January 2008 in the midst of the 2007/8 post-election violence, giving the reason that they

couldn’t keep up with moderating the “heinous messages coming in”, as they received about 5,000

comments a day. The volume of posts was beyond their capacity to monitor, and the site manager

explained that there had been a change since November 2007 when the electoral period started.

Before that, ethnicity had never been a problem in the forum. He suggested that someone might

have planned to bombard the site with messages encouraging violence (The Observers, 2008).

Along with the digital violent messages, the conflict took a physically violent form after the 2007

elections. In the 2013 elections, while mostly free from physical violence, online hate speech

characterised the campaign period as well as the elections’ aftermath. Among others, there were

large numbers of online communities against entire ethnic groups as the example below

demonstrates.

6 Interviews with respondents 1 & 7.

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(Facebook, 2013)

People were targeted on the basis of their last names, which are an indication of ethnicity, and this

was used as a basis to assume which political party the person supported7. The founder of an ICT-

based NGO operating in Mathare slum described the situation as being so severe that some of the

companies that partnered with his NGO cancelled the partnership, due to him being from a different

tribe than the owners of the company8. Kenyan authorities and citizens expressed their increasing

concern that the violence would spill over from the internet into the physical world (Daily Nation,

2013a; Daily Nation, 2013b; Maweu, 2013; The Christian Science Monitor, 2013), and that it needed

to be acted upon.

(Daily Nation, 2013a; Daily Nation, 2013b).

6. Addressing violent conflict in Kenya

Amongst the civil society actors interviewed during the field work, the two most common conflict

prevention initiatives highlighted were aimed at building social cohesion and delivering civic

education. Additionally, some respondents mentioned carrying out monitoring in their communities

by utilising technology, watchdog groups and by having weekly group meetings to discuss problems

observed in the communities9. They also mentioned issues with, or were involved with activities

related to reconciliation.

7 Interviews with respondents 1 and 7.

8 Interview with respondent 1.

9 Interviews with respondents 3, 5, 7 and 9.

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6.1 Monitoring and reacting to hate speech

As previously noted, digital hate speech was not a new phenomenon in the 2013 elections, but was

also documented around the 2007/8 post-election violence although social media had not become

quite as popular back then. This prompted reaction from various actors, including government and

civil society.

The National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) was created by the government in 2008 to

facilitate national healing (Maweu, 2013), and is charged with facilitating and promoting peaceful co-

existence. Under Article 13 of the National Cohesion and Integration Act of 2008, it is illegal to use

threatening, abusive or insulting words, acts or materials liable to stir up ethnic hatred. Section 62

outlaws speech intended to incite feelings of contempt, hatred, hostility, violence or discrimination

against any person, group or community on the basis of ethnicity or race. Under the law, offenders

can be given a three-year prison term, a fine of up to one million Kenyan shillings ($10,000 USD), or

both (Maweu, 2013). After the creation of NCIC, it formed a project with civil society actors to

monitor social media for dangerous speech, which is defined as a subset of hate speech with highest

potential to catalyse violence (Benesch, 2012).

The Umati team recorded 5,683 multi-lingual posts containing hate speech during the election period

between October 2012 and May 2013. A quarter of these posts included calls to kill, beat or

forcefully evict members of various ethnic groups (Institute for War and Peace Reporting, 2013). The

National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) has launched six formal investigations under a

law criminalising hate speech which resulted in charges. This included two leading online

commentators, Robert Alai and Dennis Itumbo, for failing to curb provocative remarks on their

websites (Institute for War and Peace Reporting, 2013; The Christian Science Monitor, 2013). The

NCIC has been criticised for targeting mainly well-known bloggers and social media activists (Institute

for War and Peace Reporting, 2013).

The NCIC Vice Chairperson, Milly Lwanga, observed that “hate speech on social media had actually

subsided to a great extent in the period before the General Election. But then we noted that just

immediately after the elections, when the results started coming in, particularly with the delayed

tallying of the presidential results, hate was rising to levels that were becoming uncontrollable.”

(Capital News, 2013).

The Umati project ran for the election period from September 2012, culminating in May 2013, two

months after the elections. Its final report concludes that the occurrence of online hate speech

cannot be relied on solely as a prediction to violence on the ground. It may however offer a peak into

the conversations that Kenyans are involved with offline, and can therefore provide insight into

issues that that need to be addressed (Umati, 2013). Monitoring speech and taking legal measures

against it can border closely on censorship and autocracy, and the Umati project faced the challenge

of reconciling this with free and fair elections (Hopkins 2013), which allow citizens to freely express

their opinions.

While CSOs operating in slums utilised watchdog groups to look out for early warning signs of

conflict, the technology enterprise Ushahidi carried out a crowd-sourced election monitoring project

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called Uchaguzi10. The project collected data on voting arrangements, security issues, tensions and

fears of violence from as many citizens as possible, and then verified and published the information

on an interactive map. Its purpose was to facilitate collaboration between citizens, election

observers, humanitarian response agencies, civil society, law enforcement agencies etc. to monitor

the elections in near-real time (Uchaguzi, 2013)11. Similar projects carried out by Ushahidi have

proven effective in preventing violence before, notably during the 2010 national referendum when

the monitoring team received a report about an armed group rushing to a polling station. After

utilising their sources on the ground to verify the report, the local police was notified which arrested

the men before any trouble had arisen (Reuters, 2013).

While an evaluation report was available on the completion of Umati and Uchaguzi, they were more

focused on successes and challenges of the project deployment rather than numbers of reports

generated, and how many were reported to the police and acted upon. The report notes that out of

35 people interviewed, most of them confirmed that they noticed a change after they sent in their

report, usually meaning that they saw security personnel on the ground after the report. However

without further research, evidence on the impact of the initiative remains mostly anecdotal.

A similar programme was ran by the previously mentioned Uwiano Platform for Peace during the

2010 constitutional referendum, which according to UNDP saw the most coordinated collaboration

between civil society and government in Kenya to date. The platform received 20,000 reports and

prevented 122 potentially violent incidents (UNDP, 2013b), and may therefore have played an

influential role in keeping the referendum violence-free (United Nations, 2010).

6.2 Security forces and conflict prevention

Regina, a programme director from CRECO (Constitution & Reform Education Consortium) alleged

that there is a problem with law enforcement and security forces responding to early conflict

warnings, naming several examples of outbreaks of violent conflict in the coastal region, North

Eastern Province and Western Province which had been predicted by CRECO (2012) in a report that

mapped conflict in 47 counties. The report issued a warning for high risk of violence for 24 counties,

and three months later violence had been reported in four of them: Garissa, Mombasa, Tana River

and Mandera (CRECO, 2012b). A map of inter-communal conflict by UNOCHA (2013) confirms the

aforementioned four counties as affected by conflict in the year 201212 and additionally reports

violence in the counties of Wajir, Turkana, Moyale, Isiolo, Kisumu, Bungoma which were identified as

high risk counties, as well as the counties of Nandi and Samburu which were identified as moderate

risk. In summary, 10 out of 24 high risk counties experienced violence in the 7 months after the

warning was issued. It should be noted that the report identified over 50% of the counties as high

risk of violence and another 40% as moderate risk, which may make it difficult for security forces to

determine where they should focus their efforts on responding to high risks of conflict, especially in

10

Uchaguzi means elections in Swahili. 11

Interview with respondent 5. 12

It should be noted that UNOCHA map is dated from January 2012, whereas the warning report from CRECO is released in May 2012. While violence should arguably not be measured in deaths only, it is defined here as 4 or more deaths due to the data available.

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remote parts of the country where capacity of the police may be weak (Babaud and Ndung’u, 2012).

However, various sources support the claim that security forces have repeatedly failed to act upon

receiving early warning signs of conflict, including the post-election violence in 2007/8 (CIPEV, 2008;

BBC, 2008) and clashes in Tana River in 2012 (Human Rights Watch, 2012).

6.3 Reconciliation

For several states that have experienced political violence and conflict, it has become common

practice to establish an account of the events that happened, which are regarded as a truth. This is

done as part of a reconciliation phase in the peacebuilding process13. Such truth-establishing

missions have taken place in various post-conflict contexts such as in Rwanda after the 1994

genocide, and in South Africa post-apartheid (Hamber and Kibble, 1999). Establishing the truth is a

vital phase of the reconciliation process, as without truth, conflict will not be resolved (Lederach,

1997). This is however not a simple task. Lederach (1999) suggests that there is only one truth, and

transparency, honesty and clarity are essential for establishing truth. The truth can however be

experienced in many different ways, and it comes forward only when each person shares with others

what they regard as the truth and each respects the others’ account. Sustainable peace can only

follow in the footsteps of truth, mercy and justice (Lederach, 1999).

When it comes to establishing an account of what caused previous outbreaks of violence in Kenya

and what happened during those phases of conflict, the research data indicates that an account of

events has not yet been agreed upon. Additionally, a number of civil society actors have expressed

grave concerns regarding the legitimacy of the process.

The Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) in Kenya was established in order to

compile a complete and accurate report of historical injustices and violations of human rights over

the past 45 years and the final report was published earlier in 2013 (TJRC, 2013). Data collected from

interviews with civil society actors in Kenya, supported by a number of reports and opinion pieces

from CSOs and human rights actors (ICPC, 2013; CRECO, 2013; Al Jazeera, 2013), points to

dissatisfaction with the truth-establishing process for the post-election violence in 2007-8. Without

being prompted, three of the respondents talked about how they did not find the report satisfactory,

and that in its current state, it could not be the base for reconciliation14.

At least two reports have been published by Kenyan CSOs to point out flaws in the process of

establishing truth and justice, creating pressure on the government to ensure the independence of

the process. The report by the International Center for Policy and Conflict argues that the TJRC was

set up to fail from the beginning because president Kibaki appointed the commissioners without

allowing for public scrutiny of the nominated persons. By doing that, ICPC asserts that the president

turned the Commission into a state-run exercise, manipulated by the government (ICPC, 2013:9).

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Various states transitioning to democracy in recent decades have seen new governments faced with the challenge of how to deal with human rights violations committed by previous. Governments' responses have ranged from profound unwillingness to deal with the past, to purges, prosecutions of human rights violators, and the setting up of processes which can broadly be referred to as truth commissions. Such commissions serve the purpose of a mechanism for revealing history and addressing human rights violations. There have been at least 15 truth commissions since 1971 (Hamber and Kibble, 1999). 14

Interviews with respondents 6, 7 and 11.

12

Even the Commission itself recognised that it “lost a significant amount of time and credibility at the

beginning of its term due to the controversy that surrounded the suitability of its Chairperson” (TJRC,

2011), Bethuel Kiplagat, for numerous reasons such as allegedly having committed human rights

violations (ICPC, 2012), bias and misconduct (Capital News, 2010). The second report by CRECO

identified various flaws in the statement collection process and the public hearings, and condemned

the previously mentioned appointment of the TJRC chairperson (CRECO, 2013), along with ten

eminent past members of African truth commission which urged Kiplagat to resign (Capital News,

2010). Additionally, the TJRC has been criticised by International Centre for Transitional Justice for

allegations that the president’s office interfered with and altered the TJRC report (Al Jazeera, 2013).

Thus, there seem to be ample concerns that Kenyans as a nation cannot begin to heal and move on

as a result of the work of the TJRC and its pursuit for truth and justice. This also indicates that civil

society has played a role in conflict analysis and is attempting to keep the state accountable in the

peacebuilding process by publishing what they consider to be the truth of what happened. As Jessica,

a staff member of Africa Youth Trust described it: “People felt like the TJRC report did not fully

address everything that is going on in this country, and truth was not told in all instances, politicians

paid and had the truth hidden.” Drawing on Lederach’s framework for reconciliation, it seems that

for some, the search for truth has not been genuine and authentic, but rather a partial counting

intended to protect some of those responsible for organising and committing violence. Justice cannot

be fulfilled if people have used truth for their own purpose, and therefore peace cannot follow

(Lederach, 1999). Lederach’s sentiments were shared with Jane, the founder of Kibera Women for

Peace and Fairness: “If they doctor the TJRC report, then I don‘t think we are healing, we are still

covering the wounds and they are rotting... So will we heal, I don‘t know.”

7. Conclusion

The 2013 general elections have by many been considered a milestone for Kenya and its path to

peace and democracy. While it is an important landmark, this study has found various indicators that

the grievances that led to previous violent conflicts have not sufficiently been directed into a

peaceful conflict resolution mechanism. These indicators include:

Self-censorship of the media, which suggests doubt and fear about Kenyan society to

constructively debate contentious issues

Widespread online hate speech and threats of violence to specific ethnic groups on social

media

Controversy and dissatisfaction regarding the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission

(TJRC) and its final report on historical injustices and violence from Kenya’s independence

Gap between intelligence and early warnings of conflict on one hand, and reaction from

security forces on the other, especially in remote parts of the country

Official outlets for debate and dissatisfaction on contentious issues, such as land ownership,

perceived exclusion from public goods and dissatisfaction with reconciliation processes are lacking.

Unless diverted into a constructive discourse and without action from authorities, grievances

expressed in online forums indicate Kenya is still at risk of violent conflict.

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The case of Kenya indicates that while online hate speech cannot be relied on solely to predict

physical violence, it can provide insight into the conversations the public may be having offline. Such

information is likely to be valuable for conflict early warning and response mechanisms, as well as

conflict mapping.

This also raises questions on how to engage with online forums in conflict-sensitive environment.

While Kenyan authorities have chosen to outlaw hate speech and prosecute those who participate in

spreading dangerous speech online, the challenge ahead lies in treading the fine line between

censoring vs. allowing hate speech, and how to allow for public debates without fearing that violence

will be triggered.

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8. References

Abdi, Jamal and Deane, James (2008). The Kenyan 2007 Elections and their Aftermath - The role of

Media and Communication. Policy Briefing No. 1, BBC World Service Trust. Available at

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