A civil society wants a monument to be built at Jomo Kenyatta Sports Ground, Kisumu, in memory of those who died in the 2017 post-election violence.
Pamoja Trust and Transform Empowerment for Action initiative (TEAM) said the monument will be a permanent symbol of shame and social justice.
Pamoja Trust executive director Steve Ouma said it will also be a place of repentance.
“This shall be a permanent invitation for us to return to our humanness and quest for accountability,“ Ouma said in Kisumu.
He said the structure should be part of the Building Bridges Initiative for the Lake Region Economic Bloc.
He agreed with the initiative’s nine-point agenda covering ethnic antagonism and competition, lack of national ethos, inclusivity, devolution, divisive elections, safety and security.
Its other focus areas are corruption, shared prosperity and responsibilities and rights.
“For the lake region, BBI should be about three things; we must stop the politics of patronage, each region of this country must be able to develop and realise national intervention irrespective of the language they speak or political parties they belong to.”
Ouma added: “It’s a shame that what we see is largely a quest by most politicians to use this otherwise useful initiative to develop and further political patronage. Kenyans do not belong to politicians, they belong to themselves!”
The initiative, according to him, cannot replace or erase historical land injustice.
“We [the civil society] shall commission a process of dialogue with the victims of 2017 post-election violence to agree on the best mechanism for reparation for the loss that they incurred.
“We insist that we cannot succeed unless we put the question of justice forward as our shield and defender. Most importantly, the BBI must ultimately assure us that there shall be no repetition of the kind of violence that occurred in 2017 and 2007,” Ouma added.
TEAM executive director George Collins said they will remain steadfast in the fight for reparation for the victims of post-election violence.
In 2016, the victims of the 2007-08 post election violence filed an application before the International Criminal Court to compel the government to compensate them. The government expressed commitment in addressing their plight.