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"speaker_name": "Sen. Orengo",
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"content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, thank you very much. I commend the Mover for moving this very important Motion. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I want to begin by quoting the words of a Kenyan heroine, Lupita Nyong’o, when she was accepting the Oscar for the best supporting actress, during the award ceremony in Hollywood. She said that her joy came out of the pain of a little girl known as Patsy, who had lived 150 years ago. Today, we are here in this august Chamber of the Senate, but I must emphasize that our privilege and joy of being here as Senators is out of the pain of the struggles of the so many Kenyans, beginning with Harry Thuku, who over the years were tortured and detained. The tragedy in Kenya is that we only remember our heroes appropriately during their funeral. I was very ashamed, although at that time I was also in the Government, that the whole Government in Kenya went for the burial of Bildad Kaggia. The things that were being said about him, as a dead man, are things that we could not say when he was living. This is a trend that you see all the time. That should really stop, so that we remember our heroes when they are alive. Mr. Speaker, Sir, if you read the Kenyan Constitution, at the preamble, it is appropriately honouring those who heroically struggled to bring about freedom and justice to our land. In recognition of their struggles and pains, in the preamble, the people of Kenya have said that we aspire towards the creation of a Government based on essential or fundamental values of human rights, equality, freedom, democracy, social justice and the rule of law. This same Constitution has gone beyond what was in the old Constitution. In Articles 2, 5 and 6, it says that the general rules of international law shall form part of the Kenyan law and any treaty or convention ratified by Kenya will form part of the Kenyan law. Further, in Article 10, on national values, again the Constitution talks in very exalted terms on the principles and values of governance, which include human dignity, equality and human rights. In the Bill of Rights, we have said that the fundamental rights and freedoms as enumerated in the Constitution are an integral part of the Kenyan democratic State. These are very good ideals and we hope and pray that, as people to whom trust has been bestowed by the people of Kenya, to have a Government that would be established or has been established on the basis of this Constitution. But our conduct will not just be based on what is happening today or tomorrow, but it will be based on our history. That history, if we forget it, we will not move ahead and make sure that Kenya becomes the State that we endeavour it to become. Mr. Speaker, Sir, this is a matter on which I could speak for a very long time, but I have only 10 minutes. But on the brunt of detention, when you hear the stories of people like Kenneth Matiba and others, the conditions in which they were kept were inhumane. These heroic Kenyans were not criminals. If you read the stories about their experiences, that somebody was put in a water logged cell for 24 hours. If you are able to go out of the cell, it was for 10 or 20 minutes for sunshine. I had that experience at Naivasha. Only then do you begin to understand the condition of Kenneth Matiba today. I knew Kenneth Matiba when I was a school boy at Alliance High School. We had never known a person with such a disciplined way of life. As a school, we visited his home in Tigoni. He was a The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}