The International Center for Transitional Justice wants the Building Bridges initiative to call for full implementation of the Truth Justice and Reconciliation report.
Speaking on Friday during the launch of a documentary titled
Bulla Karatasi in Garissa, the head of ICTJ Kenya, Chris Gitari, said the government should establish a Sh10 billion restorative justice fund. He said it was promised in 2015.
Gitari said the Building Bridges task force will meet victims of forced disappearance, extra-judicial killing, sexual violence and communities whose rights were violated in previous regimes. Then it will tour the county.
“TJRC report gave recommendations on how to deal with some of the historical injustices and the Building Bridges task force must bite the bullet and address human right violations,” Gitari said.
Victims recalled the 1980 Garissa massacre where hundreds of residents from Bulla Karatasi were rounded up by the military and held at Garissa Primary School for three days without food and water.
Men were tortured, women raped and houses torched on the pretext of flushing out a local gangster, Abdi Madobe.
It is alleged that 3,000 people died.
“We urge the government to look into current violations because we must always abide by the Constitution and the rule of law,” Gitari said.
ICTJ director Ben Carranza said, “Marginalisation and historical injustice leads to collective punishment, human right violations. We want to give focus to communities that have been neglected so they are not forgotten in transitional justice processes,” Gitari
said.
Survivors said the state has not acknowledged the atrocity meted on them by its own security agencies, saying the public apology from President Uhuru was ‘too little to late’.