George Orido is wrong.

The truth, justice and reconciliation process, for all the billions it has consumed, is a wash. When George Orido, writing in TongueInCheek calls for the forgiveness for the architects of the post-elections violence (Time to forgive architects of PEV, The Standard on Saturday, April 7, 2012), he demonstrates that impunity has a long way to go before it is vanquished. 

Thousands died, hundreds of thousands more were killed and maimed, and billions of shillings of private property went up in flames and yet the men and women at the heart of the violence walk among us free. It is painful to the victims to listen to homilies on the forgiving nature of the Christian heart when that very same heart has had nothing but disdain for their plight. Even the Christ was not averse to demonstrating that fidelity to the law was a given. Did he not ask his people to render unto Caesar what was his? Did he not take a whip and drive the money-lenders from the temple?

This is not South Africa in the aftermath of the apartheid era. For truth, justice and reconciliation to work, men and women who killed, maimed, raped and pillaged must come forward an admit that they sinned against their fellowman and they must face the full force of the law. If their victims choose to forgive them after a full accounting of their sins, then so be it. But such forgiveness can only be the gift of the victim, not of the punditocracy. 

If Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto were to admit that indeed the accusations levelled against them are true, they must ask for forgiveness from the peoples they wronged and it is their victims alone who can call forgive them. Simply leading tribal delegations on missions of diplomacy between the peoples of Central Kenya and the North Rift is not enough. They must repent and pray that their victims indeed are Christian and charitable enough to let bygones be bygones.

The government is tom-tomming the closing of the last IDP camp believing that the crimes of the past have been swept away by the resettlement of Kenyans in new homes. Meanwhile, the properties that they lost have been occupied by interlopers in the name of tribal pride. No compensation has been or ever will be paid. The dead are being accorded the indignity of having their lives forgotten in the mists of time. And the men and women responsible for this refuse to admit that what they have done is not just a sin against the Almighty Himself but against humanity. 

Like cockroaches, they scurry from the light of truth and gather together in dark places to plot their own survival. They deserve not mercy but hostility to their dying days. We must never forget that they are responsible for not just the death of thousands but for shattering the illusion that all Kenyans are equal before the law of the land and God Himself.