JUSTICE MINISTER SAYS NO TO AMNESTY CALLS

by Benson Mugambi

Kenya justice minister Martha Karua has hit out at the politicians drumming up support for amnesty on perpetrators of the post-election violence saying they feared more for themselves than the suspects.

Reacting to calls from a section of politicians advocating for amnesty, Karua said these leaders feared that the suspects would name them when taken to court.

On friday, Karua was heckled by a large crowd of mourners in Sotik when she stood to address them, after another Minister in the government who addressed the mourners, appeared to incite them against Karua. Karua was booed by mourners at the burial of Assistant Minister Lorna Laboso over her insistence that amnesty would not be granted to the suspects. Speaking in Meru for the first time after the Sotik incident, Karua said she was not shocked by the reaction of the crowd, saying it was the work of those drumming up support for amnesty. At the same meeting, vice president Kalonzo Musyoka said that it was wrong for politicians to try to campaign for the application of "the rule of the jungle" rather than the rule of law.

The debate of amnesty has threatened to tear apart the ruling grand coalition government with both partners publicly declaring differing stands on whether the many people arrested in connection with the post-election violence be pardoned. President Kibaki has himself on several occasions differed with prime minister Raila Odinga on the issue of amnesty, and even as the government continues to resettle thousands of people displaced in the post-election violence, the debate on amnesty is seriously denting the reconciliation efforts -