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
[email protected] or [email protected]
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.
8
(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.
11
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).
13
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.
13
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.
14
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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