Kenya's Ambassador Bethuel Kiplagat, a career diplomat and well-known peace negotiator was on Wednesday appointed the chairman of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission to serve for two years.Parliament approved the setting up of the TJRC last year with a wide mandate: to probe gross violations and abuses of human rights.
The cases to be investigated include abductions, disappearances, detentions, torture, sexual violations, extrajudicial killings, murder, ill-treatment and loss of property suffered by any person between independence and end of last years post-election violence.
Mr Kiplagats deputy will be Ms Betty Murungi, a Harvard-trained lawyer and international human rights law expert who has experience in similar processes in Sierra Leone and elsewhere in the world.
The other Kenyan commissioners are Margaret Shava, Tom Ojienda, Ahmed Sheikh Farah and Tecla Namachanja.
The foreign appointees are Judge Getrude Chawatama from Zambia, Mr Berhanu Dinka from Ethiopia and Prof Ronald Slye from the US.
The TJRC Act says that the vice-chairman is to be appointed by the commissioners.
On Wednesday, Mr Kiplagat described the job as enormous but expressed confidence that his team would deliver.
We will cover events of the past, since 1963 which will include historical injustices, corruption and ethnic clashes, he said.
Independence Kenya has a long story of assassinations, state-sponsored ethnic violence, police executions and disrespect for human rights.
Killings such as those of former MP JM Kariuki and Foreign minister Robert Ouko remain unresolved despite decades of police and parliamentary investigations and lots of public speculation.
Investigating the plunder of public resources by successive regimes is a major task in its own right, given the pervasive theft by generations of the political elite and top civil servants.
Mr Kiplagat, along with nine other commissioners, was appointed by President Kibaki, to serve for two years. Mr Kiplagat is a former permanent secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
He also served as the special envoy to the Somalia Peace Talks. He has been Kenyas envoy in France and the UK and was deputy General Secretary of the National Council of Churches in Kenya.
His selection according to the parliamentary departmental committee on administration of justice and legal affairs was due to his vast knowledge in conflict management.
Rights abused
The TJRC team will identify people whose rights were abused and decide how they are to be compensated. It will also investigate economic crimes and provide redress in respect of crimes of a sexual nature against female victims.
The commission will recommend prosecution of persons responsible for or involved in human rights and economic rights violations and abuses.
Mr Kiplagat has an international profile and is respected for his work in both the Sudan and Somalia peace processes.
On the Sudan situation, Mr Kiplagat participated in the Sudan Peace Process by promoting dialogue among the various groups in Southern Sudan and in the process leading up to the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in January 2005.
In 1987, he was involved in negotiating a cease-fire in the 10-year civil war in Mozambique, between the government and Renamo rebels who had gained control of large parts of the country.
In his new assignment, he will lead a team of nine commissioners who will investigate abuses committed between December 12, 1963 and February 28, 2008.
The appointments came amid a raging debate over whether those guilty of crimes against humanity during the post-election violence should be tried or be taken before the TJRC.
Daily Nation