Hundreds of men remain unaccounted for in Kenya: TRIAL refers to the UN

Geneva, 6 July 2011

Impunity still exists in the Mount Elgon district in Western Kenya where hundreds of men were subject to enforced disappearance by the government in the context of a military operation in 2008. For the second time this year, TRIAL (Swiss association against impunity) in partnership with the local NGO Western Kenya Human Rights Watch (WKHRW) seized the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances by submitting twenty individual cases of enforced disappearances attributed to the military in Kenya.

TRIAL presented these cases to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (UNWGEID) during a private meeting with  members of the Working Group, representatives of TRIAL and the Executive Director of Western Kenya Human Rights Watch, which was held today in Geneva to discuss the situation of enforced disappearances in Mt. Elgon and during which TRIAL appealed to the experts once again to transmit these cases to the government of Kenya.

Under the mandate of the Working Group, individuals may report cases of enforced disappearances to the UNWGEID. The Working Group then transmits these cases to the government concerned with a view to ensuring that an investigation is carried out and the fate and whereabouts of the disappeared person are established. In this sense, the Working Group acts as a channel of communication between the families of the victims or their representatives and the governments.

To this day, TRIAL and WKHRW have filed a total of 40 cases to the Working Group. Dozens more have been documented and are under preparation for submission to the Working Group on completion. In addition to the cases already filed, in May of this year TRIAL submitted a general allegation to the Working Group on the legislation concerning enforced disappearances in Kenya and on the background to the situation, pointing out the various obstacles encountered in the respect and implementation of the 1992 Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

Up until May of this year, when TRIAL and WKHRW submitted the first twenty individual cases of enforced disappearances in Mount Elgon, the Working Group had not received a single case of enforced disappearance concerning Kenya, despite this being the appropriate organ within the United Nations to deal with this phenomenon.

Context

At the end of 2006, an armed group, the Sabaot Land Defence Forces (SLDF) emerged in the Mount Elgon district in Western Kenya determined to resist what they considered unfair land-allocation attempts by the government. Over the next few years, the SLDF increased its control over the region, forcibly displacing the unwanted population and committing numerous atrocities in doing so. The response of the government, was initially lacklustre, but was stepped up in March 2008 with a joint police-military operation called Okoa Maisha (“Save Lives” in Swahili). Initially, , the population reacted favourably to this action but became quickly alienated by the government’s strategy which consisted of indiscriminately detaining all men and boys and torturing them, sometimes to death, in order to unmask SLDF members or supporters. Despite numerous reports from NGOs, the government has categorically denied the commission of any human rights violations. More than three years after the operation took place, b.No investigation into these crimes has been initiated and families of the victims are denied their rights to know the truth and to obtain justice and to reparations, whilst continuing to endure a permanent state of anguish, frustration, distress and uncertainty.

For further information

• See the 35-page document general allegation submitted to the UNWGEID
• See HRW “All the Men have Gone, War Crimes in Kenya’s Mt. Elgon conflict”, July 2008