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{
    "id": 423315,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/423315/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 105,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Murungi",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 93,
        "legal_name": "Kiraitu Murungi",
        "slug": "kiraitu-murungi"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, also allow me to exonerate the Attorney-General Emeritus, Sen. Amos Wako, from some of the insinuations. This is because I served as a Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs while the emeritus was the Attorney-General. We discussed this matter regarding the torture, inhumane and cruel punishment that had been meted out to the people who were struggling for the second liberation in this country. Both of us agreed that, indeed, those people needed to be compensated. I do recall that he even had some meetings with the then Kenya Human Rights Commission to try and prepare a report which the Government could look at. So, I think we have to give credit to Sen. Amos Wako for recognizing that need. If they were not paid, it is only because of the usual complications in Government. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I do recall Walter Rodney’s book “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa,” and he was saying that whenever he used to walk in New York and he saw the highest skyscrapers there, he always used to sit down and weep when he remembered that so many black people died. How many black people died in the US so that those skyscrapers could be constructed? Mr. Speaker, Sir, I know we, Kenyans, are celebrating the new Constitution. We are enjoying immense benefits of the new Constitution, but little do we remember how many people have died, how many people have been tortured, how many people have been subjected to various forms of degrading and inhuman treatment so that this Constitution can be what it is today. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I had the opportunity to serve as an advocate of the High Court of Kenya for 90 per cent of all the persons detained without trial in this country. I am one of the few people who met them in the detention camps where other people were not allowed to go. Therefore, I am painfully aware of the immense suffering that people were taken through. I am aware of cases of some people who ate their own faeces and drank their own urine. I am also aware of some people in this town who were physically castrated. It is very shameful to talk about them because we cannot even disclose their identities, but they are there. You know, these are people who cannot even have normal relations that other human beings have, all in the name of the struggle for this Constitution. Mr. Speaker, Sir, there are others who died during that struggle. Very many people were economically destroyed; Mr. Kenneth Matiba being one of them. He was one of the richest people in this country, but you can see where he is now. He would not 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."
}