Kenya: Official Apology for Past Wrongs

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESSMARCH 27, 2015

President Uhuru Kenyatta apologized on Thursday to the Kenyan people for past wrongs committed by his government and previous ones. In his state of the nation address, Mr. Kenyatta said the time had come for closure with respect to the country’s painful past. He mentioned postelection violence in 2007-8, the 1984 massacre of hundreds of Kenyan-Somalis, and unsolved murders, among other historical injustices. He asked the Finance Ministry to set up a $110 million fund to help repair the harm of government actions. Kenya’s Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission had urged Mr. Kenyatta to apologize to the public in 2013. Its report names him as being among those suspected of planning and financing the postelection violence in which more than 1,000 people died. The International Criminal Court recently dropped charges against Mr. Kenyatta, citing a lack of evidence, which it attributed to witness intimidation and lack of cooperation by Kenya’s government.