We are all for ‘Truth’, we all want ‘Justice’, and ‘Reconciliation’ is desirable even if it is difficult to achieve, so good luck to the TJRC in its work says the Forum but we want to put one simple point to you all to see if it’s not just the team here that are out of step.

The TJRC Act says that ‘a commissioner’ must be of ‘good integrity, not in any way involved, implicated, linked or associated with human rights violations of any kind or in any matter which is to be investigated under the Act’.

Considering as the TJRC is expected to launch a probe into the murder of former Minster for Foreign Affairs, Dr. Robert Ouko, how can Bethuel Kiplagat be a commissioner, let alone the Chair of the TJRC?

Witness in Robert Ouko murder, Bethuel Kiplagat, to be appointed Chair of TJRC

The TJRC is supposed to bring us answers, clarity, a clean slate from which we can refashion our national narrative.

Is it going to investigate the Wagalla massacre? What about the murder of Dr Robert Ouko? In either case Kiplagat could be, would be surely, called as a witness. Kiplagat was the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs when Robert Ouko was murdered and he gave evidence in the investigation conducted at the time, by Britain’s Scotland Yard. He has also, near-constantly, been linked with the harrowing events that transpired on the Wagalla airstrip in Northern Kenya in 1984.

Can the TJRC accomplish its any of its aims if its chairperson is a witness in some of the more high-profile cases it will be expected to re-evaluate?