We put Minister Biwott and Minister Ouko in the same vehicle and they were travelling together. They used to make jokes, they were people who had worked together for a long time, joked with each other all the time, at times when I am travelling with them”
With the death of former Ambassador Denis Daudi Afande we sadly mark the passing of a good and honest man, and a great servant to his country during an illustrious career as a consummate diplomat.
It was in Washington DC in 1990 that as Kenya’s ambassador Afande was involved with the events surrounding the ‘Washington trip’ in late January, early February 1990, some two weeks before the murder of Kenya’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr Robert Ouko.
I had the privilege and pleasure of meeting Denis Afande on several occasions whilst researching the TV documentary series, Murder at Got Alila – Who Killed Dr Robert Ouko, and Why? in which he appeared.
On Saturday, January 27, 1990, President Moi flew from Nairobi to attend what was called a “Prayer breakfast” in Washington DC hosted by US President George Bush Snr. With Moi was a delegation of 83 ministers and civil servants, including Dr Robert Ouko.
President Bush duly met with President Moi and the three other African presidents in an anteroom at the Hilton Hotel on the morning of February 1, before Bush and later Moi addressed the assembled delegates.
On February 2, Dr Ouko gave a press conference just before the entire Kenyan delegation, seen off at the airport by Ambassador Afande, departed. They arrived in Nairobi on the afternoon of Sunday, February 4th.
Ten days later Dr Robert Ouko’s body was found by 2.8 kilometres from his Koru farmhouse.
President Moi asked the British authorities to send a team of detectives to investigate Ouko’s murder. They were headed by Detective Superintendent John Troon.
Troon came up with a theory - that ‘something happened’, ‘some form of dispute’, during President Moi’s trip to Washington, perhaps involving Nicholas Biwott (then Kenya’s Minister for Energy who was on the Washington trip), which might have provided a motive for the minister’s murder, although he accepted that the ‘evidence’ for this was ‘tenuous’ and ‘circumstantial’.
Troon named the sources for the Washington trip allegation: ‘The allegations are hearsay and have come mainly from Barrack Mbajah [Dr Robert Ouko’s brother] and Mrs Randiak [Ouko’s sister]’.
But neither Barrack Mbajah nor Dorothy Randiak was on the Washington trip. Their testimony was indeed entirely hearsay.
The story grew and kept changing. Ouko had secretly met with President Bush, Mbajah claimed. There had been a row with Biwott, or perhaps with Moi. Or was it with the Americans?
There was no evidence for Troon’s theory, all the ‘evidence’ was against it, and the testimony that gave rise to it was not only ‘tenuous’ and ‘circumstantial’ and based on ‘hearsay’, some of it was downright untrue, as Ambassador Dennis Afande knew full well.
Previously confidential telexes between the US Embassy in Nairobi and the State Department in Washington record that US officials thought Moi’s visit went well, that President Moi himself was pleased with the trip, and that it had gone off with no ‘glitches’.
Another telex attests that US diplomats in Nairobi had ‘flatly refuted’ that there had been a meeting between President Bush and Dr Robert Ouko.
President Bush’s official diary also proves that at the time Mbajah alleged Bush met Ouko, the President of the United States was not even in Washington DC.
Not one member of the Kenyan delegation that was interviewed by Troon (he did not interview any US officials), or later by the Kenyan police, said they knew of any disagreement at all involving Dr Robert Ouko during the Washington trip.
In 2011 Kenya’s Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission concluded: ‘The Washington Trip theory revolves around a private meeting with President Bush and Ouko that never actually occurred’.
I have found no record of the British police interviewing Denis Afande but he was questioned by the Kenyan police, he did write a lengthy statement in October 1998, and he cooperated fully with the making of the documentary.
Had he witnessed any friction between President Moi and Dr Robert Ouko during the Washington meetings? He was asked in an interview for the documentary.
“I would be present in those meetings, most of them”, Afande said “And I would see the kind of reaction from President Moi, his appreciation where he would tell Robert Ouko, “Jatelo, move on, Jatelo. Get on with your work, it is very good. Thank you!” Jatelo I think means the chairman. And I knew when he calls him Jatelo, I knew he is very happy with him and I used to hear that Jatelo many times”.
Was there any meeting between President Bush and Dr Robert Ouko during the Washington trip?
“They didn’t meet at that time at all. Of course I knew they had known each other, they met a number of times… But at that time there was no meeting between Minister Ouko and President Bush”.
Did he witness any friction between Nicholas Biwott and Dr Robert Ouko?
Not at all said Afande. “We put Minister Biwott and Minister Ouko in the same vehicle and they were travelling together. They used to make jokes, they were people who had worked together for a long time, joked with each other all the time, at times when I am travelling with them”.
Disgracefully however, all too often Afande’s evidence was ignored and even dismissed, because his testimony did not accord with the fictitious stories that too many people wanted to pedal.
At the Parliamentary Select Committee hearings (2003-05) chaired by Gor Sungu, Afande’s testimony was unceremoniously and disgracefully rejected.
“What happened is this”, Afande said in a filmed interview, “I explained to him what really happened. I don’t know where you got that information, but I was there in Washington and am telling you what I saw what I heard because I was there. And he [Sungu] would then call me a hostile witness”.
Ambassador Denis Afande should be lauded for his life-long service to his country, and it is high time that the testimony of this transparently decent man should be written into the history books.
