NAIROBI, Kenya, MAR. 27, 2001 (Zenit.org).- The Catholic Church in Kenya has asked the government to publish the results of an investigation into the tribal clashes that preceded the general elections in the period 1992-1997.
The clashes, over land claims, resulted in the death of hundreds of people, and the homelessness and exile of several thousand. The results of the investigation, carried out by the Judicial Inquiry Commission, were given to the attorney general in 1999 but never made public.
According to The Nation newspaper, Bishop John Njue, president of the Kenyan bishops´ conference, said he had sent a letter to the attorney general. «The report contains the only path to reconciliation,» the bishop wrote. «It is stupid that a report such as this one is not made public.»
Other Church leaders reported that their «numerous letters» to the attorney general have not been answered. The Nation quoted Archbishop John Njenga of Mombasa saying that the Church asked all the bishops to write to the attorney general.
U.S. Mill Hill Missionary Father John Kaiser, one of the Church´s witnesses to the clashes over land possession, was found dead last year.
A March 18 editorial in The Nation said that «in the interest of justice and national reconciliation, the truth about ethnic clashes, which take place periodically in Kenya, must be made public. … Publish the report.»
