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"speaker_name": "Prof. Maathai",
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"legal_name": "Wangari Muta Maathai",
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"content": "Thank you very much, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for the opportunity to support this Bill. I commend the Attorney-General for bringing it before this House. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, this Bill reminds me of a situation that sometimes only becomes serious when the poor and marginalised people become involved. There has been a lot of corruption in this country. Corruption should be seen as organised crime. This is because it is perpetrated by people who are in positions where they can use their influence to literally rob citizens of their wealth. In the past, we have had people rob this country of its wealth and then launder that money somewhere. It is a shame that when such crimes are committed by the ruling elite and the rich, we admire their ability to do it. We do not see it as organised crime. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, partly because of that corruption and the mismanagement of co-operatives, especially the ones of farmers' co-operatives in this country, a lot of people became extremely poor. They were not even able to send their children to school. As a result, many children lost an opportunity to go to school because their parents were robbed by organised criminals who just happened to be among the more influential members of our society and so they went untouched. It is mostly those children who were denied the opportunity to go to school and, therefore, who could not find employment, who eventually organised themselves into organised criminal groups that the Attorney-General mentioned in his presentation. These are the so-called Mungiki, Taliban and so on. When you look at the composition of these groups, you will find that young people form their core, many of whom actually grew up in the streets and completely ignored by our society. This has especially taken place in the last ten to 15 years of our nationhood. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I find it very unfortunate and almost unacceptable that after we, as a nation, went through a stage where we allowed so much corruption, poor governance, mismanagement of co-operatives which lead to so many farmers to be impoverished, so that they could not educate their children, that when these children are now adults, they organise themselves into criminal gangs, we have found it necessary to shoot them to death. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to appeal to the Attorney-General that while we must deal with our children who have now turned themselves into gangsters and who are ready to kill, and I am not defending their actions, we must, surely, either arrest them, take them to court and charge them. We should give them an opportunity to defend themselves. However, for goodness sake, let us not shoot them to death because they too have a right to life. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we know that it is virtually impossible to shoot people to death, without sometimes shooting innocent people. We cannot justify even one death if we are going to be a country which respects the rule of law and human rights. I am not trying to say that anybody has a right to kill or steal. We know of a lot of people in this country who have been taken to fora where they have been accused of stealing millions of shillings. They have been arraigned in front of magistrates and judges, but they have not been shot to death even though we suspected them. They were not shot because they were famous, rich and, therefore, protected. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to say that if we want to be a society that will be respected internationally, we must also be seen to respect the rule of law and the rights of our people and not to shoot them to death because they cannot defend themselves. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I think it is very important for us to differentiate 3628 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES August 30, 2007 causes from symptoms. In my opinion, what we see, especially with Mungiki sect is almost a symptom rather than a cause. I think we need to remember that some of these children or youngsters come from communities whose cultural and traditional values and structures have been completely destroyed. They have very little guidance. Sometimes in their desperation, they may find ways of restoring self confidence and identity. So, instead of shooting them, we ought to find ways of rehabilitating them. Perhaps, we should form organisations to rehabilitate them. The State can create programmes, for example, like building roads, rehabilitating degraded areas by planting trees where these youngsters can work instead of shooting or taking them to jail and, consequently, overcrowding our jails and exposing them to hard-core criminals and activities like homosexuality which we understand are very common there. We also expose them to diseases. We can create programmes where these youngsters can be rehabilitated in the course of their working there. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it reminds of a time when countries like Russia, when it was in the middle of its communism era, those people who were anti-communism were not shot dead. Many of them were taken to programmes in the far north of Russia like Siberia where it is very cold. These people could be sent there and spend a lot of time working instead of being shot. I have never seen the reason for sentencing our own children to death just because we suspect that they are about to steal or they are organised criminals. I am 100 per cent sure that, occasionally, a mistake is made, and an innocent person is killed. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, therefore, I want to support this Bill, but I also want to, strongly, appeal to the Attorney-General that we stop this killing of suspected Mungiki members, or any other organised criminal gang members, because they have the right to defend themselves before a court of law. That way, we shall uphold the rule of law and respect human rights. The Attorney-General can then advise the Government to come up with programmes through which we can rehabilitate these youngsters, instead of putting them into jail or killing them. With those few words, I beg to support."
}