Fr. John Kaiser

Book review: 'You Will See Fire' by Christopher Goffard

2011-12-04T16:51:00.000-06:00

Book review: 'You Will See Fire' by Christopher Goffard

Andrew Hausmann: Following in his father's footsteps

2011-05-30T11:52:00.004-05:00

'Give more of yourself' is among advice 35W bridge collapse victim gave Harvard-bound son

brianmurphy@pioneerpress.com
Updated: 05/30/2011 10:45:26 AM CDT

Deciding whether to void his commitment to Cornell for Harvard would have been enviable if it weren't so agonizing for Rosemount prodigy Andrew Hausmann. Choosing the country's most prestigious university meant ditching another Ivy League heavyweight, and football, for the all-state running back.

As tough as this was, it wasn't much, relatively speaking, for an 18-year-old who has been shaped but not defined by a national tragedy that hit home.

Strive for excellence. Gain from experience. Give more of yourself. Enduring lessons imparted by his father, Peter, a former missionary and software engineer who drowned trying to save other victims of the Interstate 35W bridge collapse, that strengthen Hausmann as one of Minnesota's hugely talented high school students embarks on his life's journey.

"I can't help but think about my father when I think about giving everything you have," Hausmann said over dinner this month. "Never accept anything less than your best. At the point where you failed, you've peaked. The most taxing times of your life are where you have the most opportunity to grow."

Harvard, here comes one gifted athlete, scholar, performer and survivor.

"Andrew reminds us so much about what it means to be the best person you can be," gushed Steve Albaugh, choir director at Rosemount High School.

Athletics director Mike Manning added: "For Andrew to do what he's done athletically, academically, in band and choir, has been an incredible example to other students at our school."

HIS FATHER'S GUIDANCE

Such proclamations would be easy to write off as hyperbole until one examines Hausmann's resume, which flows with achievements from stage, classroom and field: all-state in football and track; excellence rating as a trumpet player; 3.86 grade-point average; Olympic-style weightlifting champion; best-in-site singer and superior rating as a soloist.

He is training to compete in the long jump and 400 meters for the Crimson. After perfect scores in mathematics on the ACT and SAT exams, Hausmann has narrowed his undeclared major to that and four other fields - chemical engineering, economics, philosophy or mechanical engineering.

Hausmann also plans to fulfill pre-med requirements.

"I really want to do pre-law, too, but I can't," he said longingly, as if worried about being branded a slacker.

The ambitious curriculum feeds an insatiable appetite for knowledge rooted in his relationship with his father and God - a deep faith Peter Hausmann cultivated for his family while building schools and churches and working to stop the spread of AIDS in the late 1980s as a Catholic missionary in Kenya, where he met his wife, Helen.

The couple married in 1990 and moved from east Africa to the Twin Cities to raise a family. Andrew's siblings include his older sister, Justina, a sophomore at the University of St. Thomas, and David and Theresa, who are in seventh and fifth grades, respectively.

Peter Hausmann grew up on a South Dakota ranch and considered becoming a priest like his older brother, Leo. Computer science was not as high a calling, but it was the vocation that suited Peter's intellect. It allowed him to work abroad before settling into a job as a security specialist at Assurity River Group in St. Paul.

On summer drives to South Dakota to visit family, Peter would engage his grade-school-age son on numerous subjects.

"My dad fed me information when I was little and I would just listen to what he had to say because he had been everywhere," Andrew recalled. "He talked about when he had lived in Israel, when he was in Scandinavia doing programming on this ATM-like machine.

"I remember distinctly just sitting in the back of the car and just thinking. I would ask questions and he wouldn't be like, 'Oh, you'll learn about that next year. Oh, you'll talk about this in high school or oh, I hated that stuff.' He would show me," Andrew continued.

"Last year in chemistry, we were talking about electrons and structures and I remembered my dad showing me that three years earlier and was, like, 'Ah, now I know what you were talking about.' "

'ARMS OUTSTRETCHED'

For each member of the Hausmann family, there is a clear demarcation - the life they knew before Aug. 1, 2007, and the lives they live today.

Andrew was 14 and a week shy of his first high school football practices when his father died.

Peter was stuck in traffic and talking to Helen on his cellphone about picking up groceries when the call abruptly dropped.

His empty van was pulled from the Mississippi River four days after the bridge plunged into the water, a disaster that killed 13 people and injured more than 100. His body was not recovered until Aug. 9.

Peter survived the initial collapse, escaped his van and the twisted wreckage and scrambled to shore, according to police. An autopsy revealed he suffered a broken shoulder and fractured rib, likely from falling debris.

Witness accounts relayed by a police chaplain to the Hausmanns said Peter swam through the turbulent waters attempting to rescue a child strapped in a car seat in another submerged vehicle.

"He had his arms outstretched when he died. That's how they found him," Andrew said.

Most likely, Peter was trying to rescue Sadiya Sahal of St. Paul and her 22-month-old daughter, Hanah. Their remains were discovered near Peter's body.

"Can you think of a better way to die?" Andrew asked. "You can say he didn't actually save her, but what did he do as a result? If you look at how many people have looked at his death as a catalyst for their own lives, it's not just me or my family. It's co-workers, people just reading his story and how he was an inspiration.

"I'm just like, 'Wow.... Wow.' "

Dave Bierly, a freshman football coach and counselor at Rosemount High, recalls hearing Andrew eulogize his father at the funeral with the command and poise of a senator.

"I turned to the other coaches who were sitting there watching this kid speak so eloquently and thought there's no way he's 14," Bierly said.

HIS DRIVE INTENSIFIES

Andrew said his church and the Rosemount community rallied to support his mother and siblings. Donations helped her pay down the mortgage and buy groceries and school supplies. But the mourners and charity receded, leaving Helen, a homemaker who has no driver's license, to rely on Social Security benefits to raise three kids.

Eventually, the I-35W Victims Compensation Fund relieved their economic crisis, but the loss of the patriarch shifted more responsibility to Justina and Andrew, including:

"Things as small as waking up and having clean dishes, groceries and taking out the trash. Entertaining the younger ones. Helping us with homework, putting us to bed, punishing us," Andrew said. "My sister needs clay for a school project at 10:30 at night. I have homework myself and want to go to bed. I am the one who goes and gets it."

Andrew grieved but he did not isolate himself, or become embittered about how his father died and let his grades suffer. Rather, his drive intensified, Bierly said.

"Even though he dealt with it better than you can ask any kid to deal with it, it was still a very difficult time," his counselor said. "I think he's a very thoughtful, rational thinker who's thought it through and determined that anger would not do anything positive. He determined he was going to make his dad proud, and I think he knows his dad is proud."

Helen said her husband instilled a work ethic and selflessness in all of their children but believes Peter's spirit is strongest in her oldest son.

During the summer of 2008, Helen and the children visited her family in Kenya for the first time without Peter. Typhoid was ravaging the village, and Andrew's grandparents were lamenting the scarcity of clean drinking water.

"They said they needed a well, and Andrew got up and said, 'I'm bored. Where do you want it, Grandpa?' " Helen recalled. "I remember laughing my head off. Well, within two weeks I saw water, and he said, 'I did it.' People are now drinking good water, and nobody from my family has had typhoid.

"That's when I saw Peter's spirit in Andrew."

HARVARD HIS CALLING

In conversation, Andrew reveals an intensity that is both intriguing and intimidating. He rarely cracks a smile, and his gaze cuts through pretense like a laser. But he is willing, between bites of a prime rib sandwich and sweet-potato fries, to engage on topics ranging from the NBA draft to African history, the Minnesota Orchestra to the human genome.

He was accepted into Harvard, Cornell and Brown and initially committed to Cornell, which offered him a chance to continue playing football.

"I thought my decision was made," he said.

But during a final recruiting visit to Cambridge, Mass., in January, Andrew was seduced by Harvard's tradition and its proximity to Boston, broad social network, unmatched academics and the chance to help rebuild a declining track program.

By spring, he made up his mind. He wanted Harvard as much as it wanted him, and there was no turning back.

While track builds bonds among teammates and provides opportunities to flourish individually, the tradeoff means no more opportunities for Andrew to experience the collective triumphs and failures of a football team after Rosemount finished runner-up to Wayzata in last year's Class AAAAA Prep Bowl.

"That's going to be a tough one for me," said Andrew, who led an Irish rushing attack that gained more than 2,700 yards in 2010. "Right now, I'm in the process of accepting it. I know I'm not going to miss out with track. But I'm going to have times where I'm like, 'Gosh, I really want to go out there and hit somebody and score some touchdowns.' "

Andrew holds the Rosemount record in the triple jump at 44 feet 10 inches. Though the 400-meter individual and relay are his marquee events, he won the 200-meter individual at last week's South Suburban Conference meet and is expected to compete in several individual and team events at the state championships in June.

"The leadership he's brought to both football and track --- he's not driven by ego at all," Manning said. "He's the first one to practice and the last one there. The person who works hardest in the weight room. The kid who comes up to somebody who's struggling and puts an arm on his shoulder and says something positive. He's a wonderful role model."

'GIVE EVERYTHING'

In March, Andrew was named one of four winners of the Minnesota State High School League's Triple "A" Award for excellence in academics, athletics and arts.

He has played in band for four years but only recently studied music literature and sharpened his voice for concert performances and solo competition.

Last month, he earned the first perfect score from a judge who has appraised singers for 20 years, according to Albaugh.

"He sang for the judge, and the judge cried," Albaugh said.

After four years of grieving and preparing for college, Andrew is eager for new challenges and embraces the uncertainty of his future. He knows harder work and more sleepless nights await, and he often thinks about the path his father chose as a young man.

Peter Hausmann was 26 in 1985 when he followed his calling to Kenya to help refugees displaced by disease and a corrupt government. His friend, the Rev. John Kaiser, was shot to death in 2000 under suspicious circumstances. The week of the bridge collapse, Peter had just learned the Kenyan government had ordered a new investigation into the shooting.

"Lives on the line, stories on the edge of death, he brought that to our family. That outlook on life that you give everything you can, and you take what you can, too," Andrew said. "Gain what you can from experience and, if nothing else, give everything."

Kenyans can no longer tolerate impunity

2010-09-03T11:31:00.001-05:00

Kenyans can no longer tolerate impunity

By GABRIEL DOLAN

Posted Friday, September 3 2010 at 17:09

We have just celebrated the tenth anniversary of the death of Fr John Kaiser. Six months after his passing on, the FBI released a fraudulent report suggesting suicide as the cause of death.

That judgment was clearly more influenced by politics than truth. It took seven years before chief magistrate Maureen Odera ruled in a public inquest that the priest had been murdered. Yet his killers walk free.

The American Government has just lectured Kenya on impunity. Their European colleagues have joined in the chorus. Every time I hear American leaders instruct Kenya on international justice, I think of John Kaiser’s betrayal by his own government’s agencies.

Besides, it is preposterous that the USA speaks of Kenyan obligations to the ICC yet Washington itself has resisted all pressure to become a signatory to the Rome statute.

Kenya does, however, have international obligations as a member of the ICC, and these cannot be overruled by African Union resolutions irrespective of what the Vice-President thinks.

However, it matters little what the international community think of Mr al-Bashir’s visit, but it matters a great deal what the six million Kenyans who approved the new Constitution feel about its violation on the very day of its promulgation.

Impunity must be confronted. What do religious leaders have to say about sharing a dais with a man responsible for the slaughter of 300,000 of his own people?

They also shared cocktails with Kenyans who may be indicted by the ICC before the year is out. What message and leadership will they give when indictments are released?

We are constantly told that the enforcement of justice is threatening peace in Sudan and Uganda and that Kenyan indictments will lead to a resumption of violence in the Rift Valley.

I don’t buy this argument as it reminds me of the Charles Taylor campaign slogan of the mid-’90s: “He killed my ma, he killed my pa, I will vote for him.” Such misguided notions create tyrants.

Many are already predicting a peaceful 2012 general election based on the successful referendum. We should be hopeful but cautious. The General Election of 2002 and the recent referendum were peaceful events mainly because the outcome was predictable and conclusive, while the elections of 1992, 1997 and 2007 were close affairs marked by violence.

It would appear that the 2012 vote will be very close and may even require a run-off. Consequently, the chances of violence are considerably higher. Prosecution of the principal perpetrators from the 2007 violence offers the best way forward to a peaceful 2012 vote.

The two principals have constantly thwarted all efforts to establish local tribunals so we have had to turn to the ICC as a court of last resort. The ICC has a staff of 586 and a budget of $100 million, but in seven years it has failed to convict a single individual.

Yet its imminent indictments can send a clear warning that we can no longer tolerate impunity. A new AG, Chief Justice and fresh faces at the KACC could also send strong signals that the new Constitution is primarily the means to tackle impunity in every sphere.

John Kaiser did not die in vain.

gdolan54@gmail.com

Another video

2010-08-24T16:16:00.001-05:00

Archbishop: Reopen investigation into Father Kaiser's murder

2010-08-24T07:29:00.000-05:00

Archbishop: Reopen investigation into Father Kaiser’s murder
August 24, 2010

Ten years after the murder of Father John Kaiser, the Church in Kenya is calling upon authorities to reopen their investigation into the American missionary’s murder.

“As we converge here today to mark the tenth anniversary of the late Father Kaiser, we pray hard that one day, the truth will be told as to who killed our beloved brother,” said Archbishop Zacchaeus Okoth of Kisumu.

“On behalf of those who continue to seek justice for Father Kaiser, I call upon the government of Kenya to do all in its power to find, try, and punish those responsible for Father Kaiser’s murder,” added Father Liam Cummins, superior general of the Mill Hill Missionaries, of which Father Kaiser was a member. “To this end, I strongly urge the government of the United States of America to ensure that the FBI cooperate fully in these new investigations.”

Stones left unturned on Kaiser killers

2010-08-23T21:36:00.002-05:00

Stones left unturned on Kaiser killers

STEPHEN MUDIARI | NATION Ms Mary Gakui from Lolgorian in Trans Mara carries a portrait of Fr John Kaiser during a peaceful demonstration to mark the 10th commemoration of his death last week. A special Mass was held last Friday.

By Giuseppe Liguori giuseppeliguori@libero.it
Posted Monday, August 23 2010 at 21:00

On August 24, 2000, the body of Fr John Anthony Kaiser was found at 6am near two acacia trees on the Naivasha-Nakuru highway.
Somebody had put a bullet in the head of the American Mill Hill priest.

Fr Kaiser was born in Perham, Minnesota, USA, on November 29, 1932. In 1960 he came to Mill Hill to study theology and on July 11, 1964, he was ordained a priest at St. Louis.

After his ordination Fr Kaiser was appointed to Kisii Diocese; in 1993 he was transferred to Ngong Diocese, where he remained until his death.

During the last years of his life, he lived surrounded by controversy, clashing with high-level government figures over his fight for the poor. In 1998, he testified before the Akiwumi Commission and accused the government of atrocities against the population.

In February 2009, in a series of articles in the Los Angeles Times, Christopher Goffard shed new light on the murder of Fr Kaiser.

This is how he described the American missionary:

“The dead man was an American citizen and a leading dissident — a former US Army paratrooper who lived without electricity in one of Kenya’s poorest corners, survived on game meat and had come to regard himself, after 36 years on the continent, as an African. He had not only denounced (then President Daniel) Moi but had fought to bring rape charges against one of his top ministers...

“In life, Fr Kaiser had been a troublemaker, an obstinate and single-minded man who railed against church passivity and clashed with his bishops, his missionary bosses, his fellow priests. Now, it was possible to ignore the rough edges and complicated history. Now, Catholic leaders were declaring him a martyr to the faith, a man whose crusade against his adopted country’s dictatorial regime had ended in his assassination”.

According to Goffard, Mr. Johnnie Carson, at that time the US ambassador to Kenya, had a prominent role in the aftermath of Fr Kaiser’s death.

On August 24, the day that his body was found, Mr Carson went to the office of the Attorney General and asked that the FBI should be allowed to investigate.

The FBI had forensic expertise, he argued, and its presence would show that the Kenyan regime had nothing to hide. The AG said he would need to consult. Of course, the President would have to approve. In less than 24 hours, President Moi gave his go-ahead.

Four FBI agents fanned out across the country, accompanied by plain clothes men from the Kenyan police. It was to be a joint investigation. The Kenyans would translate the words of Kiswahili-speaking witnesses.

They would provide helicopters to reach remote villages. They would sit close during interviews. This presented an obvious problem.

Who would risk telling the Americans anything in the presence of Kenyan policemen, for decades an integral part of Moi’s apparatus of fear?

Back in the US, in September and October 2000 both houses of Congress passed resolutions condemning Fr Kaiser’s “assassination.”

Two independent pathologists — one enlisted by the church, the other by a human rights group. Their conclusion: the shot that obliterated the back of Kaiser’s head had entered behind his right ear from a distance of at least six inches and as much as three feet.

Since it seemed impossible for Fr Kaiser to have pointed the long-barrelled gun at himself from such a range, murder was the only explanation.

However, on April 19, 2001, FBI agents stood at a news conference at the US Embassy in Nairobi alongside Mr Carson, Kenyan police and the country’s AG.

The Americans praised the Kenyans for their cooperation and gave their verdict: an emotionally troubled Kaiser had killed himself.

Reopened the case

This conclusion was clearly against the ballistics evidence and also against the character of a strong man who wrote: “I want all to know that if I disappear from the scene, because the bush is vast and hyenas many that I am not planning any accident, nor, God forbid, any self-destruction”.

Fr Kaiser liked to quote from G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy, a defence of classic Catholicism in which the author assesses suicide as “the ultimate and absolute evil.”

When Mwai Kibaki won the election in December 2002, a new government was in place and, at the request of the Kenyan Episcopal Conference, this new government reopened the case.

A lawyer, Mbuthi Gathenji, was enlisted by the family and the Catholic Church. As Mr Gathenji saw it, something crucial was missing from the scene where Fr Kaiser’s body was discovered: the pellets and wadding that his shotgun would have discharged when he was killed.

They weren’t found in the remains of his cranium or, despite searches over a wide radius, in the surrounding dirt and shrubs.

The inquest begun in 2003 and many witnesses were heard: one of them was Mr Julius Sunkuli, a minister who was accused of raping two girls, Florence Mpayei and Anne Sawoyo.

At the end of the inquest, presiding magistrate, Maureen Odero, concluded that Fr Kaiser was murdered, ruling that the “Suicide Theory” was based on a pre-conceived notion, but stated that “she could not — on the basis of evidence tabled before her in the inquest — point out with certainty who the priest’s killers were”.

But she cleared Mr Sunkuli.

“If Sunkuli wanted to eliminate a person because of these allegations, then in the court’s view, he would have targeted the girls themselves or his named political detractors and not Fr Kaiser who was not the source of the allegations.

“It is probably true that Sunkuli may have been unhappy that Fr Kaiser supported these girls but then many other people offered support to the two girls including the officials at FIDA who filed cases on behalf of the girls. Why would he target Fr Kaiser whose role in the whole thing was peripheral?” the court wondered.

Dr Giuseppe Liguori works for the Consolata missionaries in Nairobi as director of the Consolata Project Office.

Catholics mark priest's death

2010-08-23T21:19:00.000-05:00

Catholics mark priest’s death
By NATION correspondent
Posted Sunday, August 22 2010 at 22:14

Worshippers thronged the St Xavier Catholic Church in Naivasha Town to commemorate the death of Father John Kaiser.

The faithful sang and danced during the special Mass dedicated to the priest.

During a sermon, Father James Kinuthia of the Nairobi Diocese urged Christians to learn from the past and strive to do justice.

“There is no fear in doing what is right and just,” he told the congregation.

He further said that Father Kaiser was being remembered because of his good deeds and selflessness.

“He strove to do what is just and was a selfless person,” said Father Kinuthia.

The country, he noted, could only move forward by embracing positive changes and rectifying the past misdeeds.

On August 24, Father Kaiser’s body was found in a ditch by the roadside on the Naivasha-Nakuru highway, with his shotgun by his side.

Challenges facing young people in 21st century

2010-08-23T21:17:00.000-05:00

Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News

CHALLENGES FACING YOUNG PEOPLE IN 21ST CENTURY

BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ

NAKURU-KENYA

FRIDAY, AUGUST 20, 2010
TAKE-2

John Paul II evangelizing parish team workshop entered it second day in Nakuru with special mass dedicated to the slain human rights activist Fr John Anthony Kaiser. JP2 Spiritual Director, Fr Richard Quinn ruled out that Kaiser killed himself.

Fr Quinn explains to the congregation in Nakuru St Mary’s pastoral centre’s chapel how Fr Kaiser was a dedicated human rights activist and servant of God-PHOTO/ Fr Omolo, AJ

Fr Quinn who was the main celebrant said he worked with Kaiser in Kisii and the way he knew him he would have not killed himself. Father Quinn was refuting the FBI’s report in 2001 that referred several times to circumstantial evidence indicating Kaiser, a member of the Mill Hill Missionaries, had suffered from manic depression, thus leading to his suicidal act.

The workshop began exactly at 9 am on varieties of topics and themes which included going through the resolutions of the second Africa n synod, the just passed Kenya constitution and reports from parish teams.

In the afternoon Fr Quinn took the participants through challenges of young people today in the world of secularism and humanism, especially in schools and institutions of higher learning. Among the participants include Kenyatta University students who also shared their experiences on such challenges.

Rebecca Kemunto (left) and Catherine Kimani (right) explain to the participants how secularism is slowly deeply entering young people in Kenya, especially in schools and institutions of higher learning- PHOTO/ Fr Omolo, AJ

Secularism as best understood is process slowly gathering momentum, not only in the West but other continents as well. It is the world where the scientific method looks at the universe to see what can be measured and quantified and brought under the control of man-The world in which God is kept out of the picture.

The world in which there is a conviction that dogmas, ideologies and traditions, whether religious, political or social, must be weighed and tested by each individual and not simply accepted on faith.

It is the world committed to the use of critical reason, factual evidence, and scientific methods of inquiry, rather than faith and mysticism, in seeking solutions to human problems and answers to important human questions.

A conviction that with reason, an open marketplace of ideas, good will, and tolerance, progress can be made in building a better world for ourselves and our children without depending on God’s mercy and divine providence.

Thus, secular humanists do not rely upon gods or other supernatural forces to solve their problems or provide guidance for their conduct. Instead they rely upon the application of reason, the lessons of history, and personal experience to form an ethical/moral foundation and to create meaning in life.

The world in which secular humanists look to the methodology of science as the most reliable source of information about what is factual or true about the universe and new discoveries.

According to the latest "Barna Report" issued in October 2007 a disturbing trend is noted among American youth between the ages of 16 and 29. The report says that this group is less inclined to see Christianity as a viable and attractive religion. Some of the reasons stated are that Christianity is old fashioned, hypocritical, too judgmental and overly involved in politics.

It explains why in America today the call for personal responsibility has nearly been replaced by a demand for personal "rights" rather than communion-everyone wants to be alone.

Father Quinn also expressed how this trend has affected the value of marriage. Many young people today do not want to stay in marriage or do not want get involved. That is why there have been a lot of divorce cases, especially in USA and Europe .

People for Peace in Africa (PPA)
P O Box 14877
Nairobi
00800 , Westlands
Kenya

E-Mail news@ppa.or.ke
Tel 254-20-4441372
Website : www.peopleforpeaceafrica.org

Catholics call for renewed investigation of priest's murder

2010-08-23T21:09:00.000-05:00

Catholics call for renewed investigation of priest's murder
Friday, August 20, 2010
By Spero News

The Catholic Church in Kenya has made fresh calls ensure the re-investigation of Fr. Anthony John Kaiser murder case, with aims to bring his alleged killers to book.

This was said as the Church, the family and friends of the late converged for the 10th anniversary of his death on August 19

The late Catholic priest, who had worked among the Kenyan people for 35 years, was found dead on the eve of August 24, 2000 along the busy Nairobi-Nakuru highway, about 90 kilometres from the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

Presiding over the memorial Mass to mark the occasion at Nairobi's Holy Family Minor Basilica, Archbishop Zachaeus Okoth of Kisumu Archdiocese and current Chair for the Bishops' Commission for justice and peace, observed that it was depressing to note that ten years down the line, we are yet to know who killed the priest,”"As we converge here today to mark the tenth anniversary on the late Fr. Kaiser, we pray hard that one day, the truth will be told as to who killed our beloved brother," Okoth said

The memorial service, whose theme was: Kenyans appeal to end impunity, was attended by bishops, clergy, religious men and women, the laity, family members of Fr. Kaiser's family as well as friends.

Archbishop Okoth further observed that although one of the Kenya Courts wound up the inquest on the late Fr. Kaiser in August 1, 2007 had recommended for immediate institution of fresh investigation by police in order to fill the blanks and to plug all the loopholes by the court in order to determine conclusively the identity of those who killed Fr. Kaiser, no substantial action had been taken in regards to these findings and recommendations.”

In a statement, read to the congregation by the regional superior of Mill Hill Missionary congregation in Kenya, Fr Liam Cummins, Superior General of the Mill Hill congregation worldwide, Fr Anthony Chantry said it was distressing and disturbing to see that for the last three years, there has been no evident progress in bringing to justice those responsible for Fr. Kaiser's murder.

"On behalf of those who continue to seek justice for Fr. Kaiser, I call upon the Government of Kenya to do all in its power to find, try and punish those responsible for Fr. Kaiser’s murder. To this end, I strongly urge the Government of the United States of America to ensure that FBI co-operate fully in these new investigations," he stressed.

Kaiser's family member, Christopher thanked both the Church, the Mill Hill missionaries, where the late Fr. Kaiser was a member and Kenyan catholic bishops for their commitment on the issue.

He hoped that one day, the truth will come out as to who killed the late Fr. Kaiser.

Mr. Christopher is a nephew to the late Fr. Kaiser. He was accompanied by Kaiser's niece, Susan.

The late Fr Kaiser was vocal about the ethnic evictions in the Rift Valley that finally cost him his life. He was a critic of former President Daniel Moi's regime and came into the national limelight in the 90s when he vigorously resisted the eviction of the internally displaced people who camped at Maela in Narok, following their eviction from Enoosupukia in the country’s spacious Rift Valley region.

The church rejected the findings of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) that the missionary had committed suicide. More than 80 witnesses had testified and at least 240 exhibits examined at the judicial inquest into his death that was opened on August 15, 2003 and wound up in August 1, 2007.

Source: CISA

Mill Hill statement

2010-08-23T21:07:00.002-05:00

Statement of the General Superior of the Mill Hill Missionaries
delivered at the Celebration of the Eucharist
marking the Tenth Anniversary of Father John Kaiser’s death,
Holy Family Minor Basilica, Nairobi, 19th August 2010

Ten years ago, on 23rd August 2000, the body of a faithful priest, dedicated missionary and courageous prophet was found lying in the dust face up near his pickup some 50 miles northwest of Nairobi. His shotgun lay nearby.

Following a lengthy investigation, conducted by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States of America (FBI), their report concluded that the manner of Fr John Kaiser’s death was “most consistent with suicide and that no other substantive evidence reviewed supported any other conclusion” (Press Release, USA Embassy Nairobi, 19-4-2001).

To those who knew him, admired him, and loved him this conclusion was not just an insult to his integrity but a clear travesty of justice. With the support of numerous people of goodwill and various civil society organisations, the Episcopal Conference of Kenya, the Mill Hill Missionaries and Fr. Kaiser’s family insisted upon a reopening of the case and a reconsideration of the verdict of suicide.

Their demands for justice were eventually answered and an official enquiry was opened. On 1st August 2007 the Chief Magistrate, the Honourable Mrs Maureen Odero, concluded that Fr Kaiser met his death as a result of culpable homicide, and recommended that fresh and comprehensive investigations be instituted immediately by the police in order to identify those responsible.

The court rejected the original findings of the FBI report and directed the Attorney General, the Honourable Amos Wako, to initiate a homicide investigation.
However, it is distressing and disturbing to see that for the last three years there has been no evident progress in bringing to justice those responsible for Fr. Kaiser’s murder.

On 17th August last year, the Attorney General wrote to “The competent judicial authority of the United States of America” with a request for a series of enquiries to be made and assistance to be given in order to enable the investigations by the Kenya Police Officers to be carried out. To the best of our knowledge, there has been no response to these requests and no substantive co-operation offered by the United States of America Police Authorities.

On behalf of all those who continue to seek justice for Fr Kaiser, I call upon the Government of Kenya to do all in its power to find, try and punish those responsible for Fr Kaiser’s murder. To this end, I strongly urge the Government of the United States of America to ensure that the FBI co-operate fully in these new investigations.

This is not only about justice for one good and holy man who stood in solidarity with those who were victims of injustice. It is ultimately about protecting and defending all those in our world who dare to speak the truth to those in power, the thousands of men and women who have answered God’s call to champion the rights of those who are oppressed, downtrodden and marginalised by those in authority who, for their own ends, will use any means to silence their critics.

Fr Kaiser stands tall in the ranks of all those who seek God’s justice in this world. The best way we can honour the memory of this fine priest and great missionary is to continue to press for justice to be done and indeed be seen to be done.

We will not rest in this world until justice and righteousness have found a home in this country and in our world. May God’s Kingdom come!

Rev. Anthony Chantry
General Superior
Mill Hill Missionaries

Kenyans, family gather to remember US Mill Hill priest killed in 2000

2010-08-23T21:05:00.002-05:00

Kenyans, family gather to remember US Mill Hill priest killed in 2000

By Francis Njuguna
Catholic News Service

NAIROBI, Kenya (CNS) -- Kenyan church leaders and friends and family of a U.S. missionary slain 10 years ago gathered at a Mass to remember him and to pray that the priest's killer is brought to justice.

Father Kaiser (CNS file)

Although a 2007 inquest into the death of U.S. Mill Hill Father John Kaiser recommended a fresh investigation into his death, "no substantive action has been taken in regard to these findings and recommendations," said Archbishop Zacchaeus Okoth of Kisumu, chairman of the Kenyan bishops' justice and peace commission.

"It's depressing to note that 10 years down the line, we are yet to be told as to who killed our brother" along the busy Nairobi-Naivasha highway Aug. 24, 2000, said Archbishop Okoth.

"We pray hard that one day, the truth will be told as to who killed our beloved brother," he told those in attendance Aug. 19 at Holy Family Minor Basilica.

Father Anthony Chantry, international superior general of the Mill Hill Fathers, said in a statement that it was disturbing to see the lack of progress in finding Father Kaiser's killers.

"On behalf of those who continue to seek justice for Father Kaiser, I call upon the government of Kenya to do all in its power to find, try and punish those responsible for Father Kaiser's murder. To this end, I strongly urge the government of the United States of America to ensure that the FBI cooperate fully in these new investigations," said his statement, read by Father Liam Cummins, regional superior.

Because Father Kaiser was an American, the FBI was called in to investigate his death and theorized that the priest had committed suicide. The 2007 inquest discounted that theory and said the 67-year-old priest was murdered by a third party.

The priest's nephew, Christopher Kaiser, who attended the Mass, told Catholic News Service, "We as family members are not looking to be compensated ... but simply to see that justice is done on the issue."

"Our prayer and hope is that one day, the culprits will be brought to book," he added.

Throughout his 36-year stay in Kenya, Father Kaiser, a native of Perham, Minn., was an outspoken champion of the rights of the poor and dispossessed. He criticized government officials and ministers on several occasions, most notably when giving evidence to a commission of inquiry into politically motivated tribal clashes in the Rift Valley province.

Fr. John Kaiser 10 years later

2010-08-23T21:05:00.001-05:00

Remembering Father Kaiser

2010-08-23T21:04:00.000-05:00

Kaiser stood firm for the weak

2010-08-23T20:54:00.001-05:00

Kenya: Kaiser Stood Firm for the Weak

Noah Cheploen

18 August 2010

Nairobi — Tears well in her eyes when she speaks about the life and times of Fr John Kaiser. Ms Jane Wanjiru Njenga was a cook at the Enoosupukia Catholic Church where Fr Kaiser preached for a couple of years and has nothing but fond memories of the priest who was assassinated 10 years ago.

The priest was found dead a few metres from the Nairobi-Nakuru road on August 24, 2000, with his shot gun beside his body. Grand celebrations to mark the 10th anniversary of his death are slated for Thursday at Nairobi's Holy Family Minor Basilica.

"He identified himself with the poor and those in distress and was determined to uplift their lives," Ms Njenga says, sadness written all over her face. "He defended us with his life. Even when he was battered in the night he soldiered on," says Ms Njenga.

Strong-minded, determined, kind-hearted, prayerful and charitable is how she describes Fr Kaiser -- an outspoken critic of the Moi regime. "He was tall and very strong. They needed many police to handcuff him. Fr Kaiser was well built," Mr John Njenga who was once an internally displaced person at Maela camp interjects.

One day, Mr Njenga recalls the local chief summoning the priest into his office and demanding to know from him why he had allowed evictees from Enoosupukia to stay in the church. "But as was characteristic of him Fr Kaiser publicly dismissed the chief," he explains.

A teary Ms Njenga, who cooked for the priest, takes up the story. "Fr Kaiser told the chief that just as he was in charge of the location, he too was in control of the church compound and what happens there."

According to her, Fr Kaiser uttered these words as he defiantly walked away from the administrator. The administrator did not take the action by the priest kindly and in the night police from the chief's camp stormed the church and beat him senseless.

"We are pained by his grisly murder especially considering that we are yet to be settled fully. We have so many problems and I wish he was still alive," says Ms Njenga.

IDPs still crying for justice

The former IDPs are crying for justice 10 years after the death of Fr Kaiser. They were allocated land at Moi-Ndabi settlement scheme but many of them are living in poverty because of the harsh weather conditions there. "When I remember the fertile lands in Enoosupukia I feel bad because this place is rocky and you cannot get anything out of it," says Mr Njenga.

Meanwhile, Nakuru Diocese Bishop Maurice Makumba Muhatia believes that those responsible for Fr Kaiser's death will one day be punished for their actions. An inquest dismissed the suicide theory peddled by the government saying the American priest had been murdered.

On Wednesday, Bishop Muhatia said the Church was still living the dream of Fr Kaiser through a silent but effective method. It had intensified its fight against social injustices by defending the poor. "It is only the methodology which has changed," he said.

He said the church had shifted from active public advocacy by empowering and enlightening the people at the grassroots. "We're still promoting Fr Kaiser's cause but at the level of institutions such as schools and health," he added. "We are well aware that nothing much is going on but the spirit and the desire is being carried out at levels of the church," he said.

Did the US and Moi cut a deal over Fr Kaiser's death?

2010-08-23T20:48:00.002-05:00

Did the US and Moi cut a deal over Fr Kaiser’s death?

NOAH CHEPLOEN | NATION

A Civic Education and Human Rights project officer at the Nakuru Catholic Diocese, Ms Mary Oyath (left), Mrs Jane Wanjiru Njenga who was a cook at the Enoosupukia church where Fr John Kaiser served, and human rights activists stand at the spot where the body of the priest was found on August 24, 2000. The Catholic Church plans to build a chapel at the site in memory of the American priest.

By NOAH CHEPLOEN ncheploen@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Saturday, August 14 2010 at 21:00

If he had been alive today, Fr John Anthony Kaiser would probably be one of the happiest men in Kenya.

It was this towering, aggressive and compassionate American missionary who brought world attention to the problem of ethnically instigated mass displacements in the Rift Valley.

His determined campaign to highlight what he saw as the government’s role in uprooting members of specific ethnic groups, mainly Kikuyus and Kisiis from their homes to serve political ends, thrust the quiet American into the headlines.

His crusade finally cost him his life. Ten years after he died of gunshot wounds on August 24, 2000, a new constitution will be promulgated three days after the anniversary of his death.

The constitution is designed to help tackle the land problem in the country and make a recurrence of politically instigated violence less likely.

That was the life mission of Fr Kaiser. The circumstances of his death remain shrouded in mystery.

He had left a career in the US military to throw himself into decades of mission work in Kenya. He arrived in Kenya in 1964 after a two-month sea voyage, excited by the prospect of helping to build the young nation.

His first assignment was in Kisii. According to a profile published by the American newspaper, Riverfront Times, Fr Kaiser quickly became well known by the locals for his passion in missionary work.

Father Kaiser built a congregation from nothing, said one of his colleagues and former classmates Father Bill Vos.

His passion and energy was apparent.

“Once a group of men was trying to raise a huge log for the centre post of a church,” his niece, Mary Mahoney Weaver, recalls, “John was determined to get the thing done. But it got late and everyone went home. When they came back the next morning, the post was up. He never said how he did it. They considered him superhuman.”

Kaiser had many happy moments hunting with the locals and sharing in their daily rituals.

He had no intention of meddling in politics. In his book titled If I Die, he says that he first encountered the grave injustices perpetrated against the poor villagers whose livelihood depended on small-scale farming when he was based in Kisii.

In October 1986, the priest was travelling from his base to Nairobi. At the intersection to Kipkelion on the Kericho-Nakuru road, he saw men, women and children camped by the roadside. This would leave an indelible mark in his life.

“I saw dozens of trucks and hundreds of people by the roadside with all their worldly possessions – chickens and goats, bed-spreads, pots and pans closely tethered and piled up beside them,” he says in his book which was published shortly after his death.

It was 10 p.m. Families with their young children were huddled in small groups on a chilly evening while the heavens threatened to open up. They had been driven out of their land by government forces.

“Little did I know that this would mark the beginning of a long struggle against the perpetrators of such acts of injustice,” he says in the 120-page book.

Fr Kaiser became a vocal critic of the waves of evictions which were clearly government-backed. He came into national limelight in the early 1990s when he vigorously resisted the eviction of the internally displaced people who had camped at Maela in Narok, following their eviction from Enoosupukia.

At the time, the Kikuyu and Kisii were seen as not supportive of the Moi government. The evictions were viewed as punishment for their failure to back the ruling party.

Fr Kaiser worked hard to ensure that the government resettled the displaced on the land that they had previously been evicted from in the Rift Valley so that they could continue with their livs.

When this did not work, he sought other forums to express the grievances of the displaced families. He wrote letters, some which put him on a collision course with the government. He was banned from entering Maela camp by the authorities.

According to Fr Kaiser’s estimates, there were about 80,000 people who had been forced to Maela camp by the ethnic violence.

“The problem of the displaced people in Kenya is enormous and is a major factor in the slowing down of the economy,” he wrote.

According to him, the number of people displaced by ethnic violence in the region between 1986-1995 was about one million. Fr Kaiser’s activities attracted the attention of the international media.

The displacements in Rift Valley became a source of embarrassment to the Moi government, which was already under pressure to open up political space to keep Western aid flowing.

With pressure mounting, the government was compelled to establish a commission of inquiry into ethnic killings – the Judicial Commission of Inquiry on Land Clashes, chaired by retired judge Akilano Akiwumi.

For Fr Kaiser, an opportunity to name and shame the big people in government who he believed had a hand in the killings and displacements had presented itself.

In February 1999, he testified before the commission and submitted what was then seen as incriminating evidence against government bigwigs.

This was to be the final nail in his coffin. Several months later, his work permit expired and the government attempted to deport him declaring that he was a prohibited immigrant.

However, the intervention of the Catholic Church and the US embassy in Nairobi saved him the agony of being ejected out of the country. Threats on his life increased after he gave his testimony.

And, the Latin saying Res Clamat Domino (a thing having been stolen cries out until it is returned to its rightful owner) was his personal motivation.

“When I think of the fertile highlands of the Trans Mara and the many other areas of high rainfall on the Maasai reserve, I hear these lands crying to God for the return of their rightful owners,” said Fr Kaiser.

This was seen by those in government as incitement and explains why the 64-year-old was subjected to State harassment.

Fr Kaiser knew the dangers of speaking out in a country where the iron fist of the Moi regime had left church leadership, the press and even the civil society cowed.

Priest threatened

After he had delivered his evidence before the Akiwumi commission, Sister Nuala Brangan prevailed upon him not to go back to Lolgorien, his base. He maintained that he would overcome the threats on his life.

“Don’t worry, I am a good shot … I’ll shoot a few bullets in the air, and they’ll go running,” he is quoted as saying. Fr Kaiser was licensed to carry a shotgun which he always did.

“Since I have been threatened before, I want all to know that if I disappear from the scene, because the bush is vast and the hyenas are many, that I am not planning any accident, nor, God forbid, any self-destruction,” he said in one of the many letters he wrote to people close to him after he received a chain of threats.

Fr Kaiser knew that many people had been killed in circumstances which were passed off as an accident.

On August 24, Fr Kaiser joined this list of martyrs. He was found in a ditch by the roadside on the Naivasha-Nakuru highway, with his shotgun by his side.

The police immediately said he had been shot, a version which the government later changed to claim that it was suicide. That verdict was later overturned by an official inquest.

But his killers remain at large although the endorsement of a new constitution might at last give the departed priest cause for relief from beyond the grave.

An American Martyr for Kenya

2010-08-05T09:24:00.002-05:00

An American Martyr for Kenya

Father John Kaiser's Witness for Human Rights and an African Constitutional Vote

BY JOHANNA DASTEEL

I write this column with mixed emotions. With the vote yesterday on a new constitution that would decriminalize child-killing and enshrine bigotry, the beautiful and faith-filled people of Kenya face yet another deadly blow from their government and ours. My first emotion is one of dread.

My cousin, Father John Kaiser, was assassinated by the Kenyan government in 2000 for supporting the rights of Kenya’s marginalized poor. He loved the Kenyan people and was martyred while trying to protect them and advocate on their behalf in the face of a violent, corrupt and greedy government. This impending pro-abortion constitution would have grieved him greatly.

Until now Kenya’s laws, despite the corruption of the government, have respected the right to life of every human person. Pre-born human beings have always been protected as equal persons.

But now, my government and my president are spending $23 million to lobby the starving Kenyan people, tempting them with promises of aid and food, in an effort to impose our way of life, our disdain for pre-born children on a culture that historically welcomes children and family as an unmitigated gift.

The pro-abortion Obama administration knows money talks with politicians and it is happy to keep Kenyans in the dark about the horror this will bring. Decriminalized homicide has devastated first-world countries.

Cultural commentators have long spoken of the rise of the Western world’s “walking wounded” – those millions negatively impacted by materialism and the sexual revolution. Father John saw this on his visits back to the United States. He couldn’t wait to get back to Kenya.

Are we so eager to visit our fate on the Kenyans? Americans have witnessed the collapse of the family, the skyrocketing divorce rate, exploding teen suicide and pregnancy rates and sexually transmitted diseases that are ever more prevalent. Here, heartbreak is the norm.

America is once again engaged in the enslavement of Africans, denying their personhood and putting a price on their heads.

This constitution didn’t come out of the abyss. I was hardly surprised when I first heard about it many months ago. I have heard of the plight of the Kenyan people my whole life.

Father John, the man who brought my mother home to the Church, simply by loving her and handing her a book by G.K. Chesterton, was a Mill Hill missionary priest there for 36 years.

When he came home every few years to renew his visa and visit family, I would get to see the man behind the letters. Always writing of his people, the Kiisi, then the Kikuyu at Maela refugee camp and, later, the Massai, Father John grew his own love for these people in us.

He publicly advocated for them in the face of the tyrannical Kenyan government. Specifically he testified against President Daniel arap Moi and a member of his inner circle, Julius Sunkuli. Father John said that Moi and his wife were behind the government instigation of tribal warfare, devastating the tribes to whom Father Kaiser was a missionary. He also testified in court accusing Sunkuli of raping and impregnating young girls in Father John’s parish.

In representing his parishioners, Father John fought for the rights of all people, apolitically. He lived the life of a missionary priest, not succumbing to the oft held misnomer that “poverty” refers only to monetarily impoverished people. He seamlessly ministered to all people who cannot speak for themselves whether they are marginalized Kenyans or marginalized pre-born children.

While home, Father John would speak to his sister of his shame that it was America that was bankrolling the imposition of the culture of death in Kenya. This outsourcing of contraception and abortion on this burgeoning Christian culture scandalized him and threatened his flock.

During those brief visits in the U.S., Father Kaiser would also speak around the country on behalf of Father Paul Marx and Human Life International — an international pro-life missionary organization. His life witness spoke to the truth of the Catholic faith: that advocating for the personhood of all, especially the innocent pre-born, is intrinsically tied up in the call for social justice.

In the 1990s his trips home were more tasking as he witnessed Americans increasingly seduced by materialism and the contraceptive mentality. From Africa his letters grew more worrisome, telling us of the dangers he was facing in retribution for his outspoken advocacy for the rights of the abused and oppressed.

In August of 2000, when he was months away from testifying in front of the World Court, Father John was executed with a shotgun to the back of his head, his body left on the side of a rural road in Naivasha.

I opened this article saying that I have mixed emotions when it comes to the vote on the new Kenyan constitution. I began with dread, but on thinking about Father John, his great faith and his rare ability to love to the point of martyrdom, I know that Kenyans have a great advocate in heaven. Not only is he powerful for the Kenyan people as a symbol of justice and strength, giving voice to their oppression, he is a martyr. His prayers are powerful. His agony in facing death, which Christopher Goffard detailed in his award-winning L.A. Times series on Father John, is truly a reflection of Christ’s Agony in the Garden and submission to the Father’s holy will in death. Father John was criticized for wanting to be a martyr, but it is clear he knew that his was the way of the cross, leading to Calvary.

Now, in the location where Moi and Sunkuli had hoped this upset for human rights would end, Kenyans gather to take a stand against tyranny, injustice and crimes against human rights.

Please, join me in praying for Father John’s intercession on behalf of his beloved Kenya. Father John would not have stayed silent. Let us storm heaven with our prayers that all human beings may be protected as persons everywhere – most especially at this time in Kenya.

Johanna Dasteel is American Life League’s senior congressional liaison. She travels the country working for the recognition of all human beings as persons under the law.

http://johnkaiser.blogspot.com/2009/02/la-times-part-3-of-3.html

http://www.hli.org/index.php/component/acajoom/?act=mailing&task=view&listid=2&mailingid=721

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/08/world/fg-kaiser8

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/09/world/fg-kaiser9

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/10/world/fg-kaiser10

Copyright © 2007 Circle Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

St. Cloud Visitor article

2010-08-04T11:49:00.002-05:00

‘The Collar and the Gun’ recounts life of Father Kaiser
Tuesday, 13 July 2010 13:25 | |
10th anniversary of death sparks new book, commemorations

By Nikki Rajala
The Visitor
7/16/10

Dean Urdahl didn’t plan to write a book about Father John Kaiser, the Mill Hill Missioner with roots in central Minnesota who was killed in Kenya 10 years ago. But once he’d read a series of articles in the St. Paul Pioneer Press in 2001, he was hooked. His book, “The Collar and The Gun,” was published recently.

A history teacher at New London-Spicer Middle School for 35 years, Urdahl had been working on a book of essays about courageous Minnesotans for a wide audience. People of all ages need heroes, to learn from those displaying courage, he said.

Urdahl soon realized, however, that an essay about the priest wouldn’t be enough.

“After reading about Father Kaiser, I wanted to do his story in more detail. He was a courageous leader of human rights of the people in Kenya.” (See related article: “Who was Father John Kaiser?”)

Father Kaiser’s story stayed with Urdahl — while serving the Minnesota State House of Representatives since 2002 and while teaching, until retirement in 2006.

Urdahl wanted to tell about this “man of God, standing up against injustice. It was always in my mind. I thought about it for years, even while writing other books.”

He consulted with Father Bill Vos, a long-time friend of Father Kaiser, retired priest of the St. Cloud Diocese and former missionary in the Musoma Diocese in Tanzania. Father Vos had provided information for Urdahl’s essay in 2002 and encouraged him to write the full story.
Urdahl wrote “The Collar and the Gun” as historical fiction, using dialogue. His first book, “Uprising,” had been called a “history lesson disguised as a novel,” he said, and Father Kaiser’s story was done similarly. “The Collar and the Gun” tells the riveting story centered in Kenya through Father Kaiser’s eyes. At the end, Urdahl lists his interviews and resources.

“A textbook wouldn’t get the same reaction and interest,” Urdahl said. “ ‘The Collar and the Gun’ is strong on history, based on the facts of how things happened, to the best of my knowledge. The very last chapter, a summary, is all true.

“I like to tell a story through dialogue,” he said. “Obviously I wasn’t there, so most of the dialogue is conjecture, though some is actual. The end of the book is my conjecture on what happened — it’s fiction.” Urdahl changed people’s names to steer clear of possible legal repercussions.
Father Vos, who edited “The Collar and the Gun” for Urdahl, said it was well done regarding historical events.

“The heart of the story for me — the issues John dealt with as priest and pastor in Kenya — was accurate,” Father Vos said. “I appreciate the amount of in-depth information Urdahl provided, interviewing key players who dealt with Father Kaiser. The way he started each chapter with a different person was a clever approach.”

Gathering information
To complete the book, Urdahl and his wife Karen traveled to Kenya in 2009. Father Gregory Ombok, a Kenyan priest serving then in Bowlus, made arrangements with Father Christopher Wasonga to host the Urdahls.

“Father Wasonga was invaluable as a guide,” Urdahl said. “We stayed in his home and he provided transportation to Father Kaiser’s home parishes.

“I had many casual conversations with people who’d known Father Kaiser and shared times when they’d met him. I taped the in-depth interviews — most people had their own conjecture [about what happened].”

Urdahl also read newspaper accounts of Father Kaiser’s testimony at a government hearing in Kenya sent to him by Bishop Colin Davies, Father Kaiser’s bishop. Official records from the hearing had been expunged.

Urdahl was aided by Bishop Davies, priests and church members, and, he said, by Sister Nuala Brangan, who was with John Kaiser at the Maela refugee camp and who offered important suggestions.

A real hero
Father Vos, a classmate of Father Kaiser at St. John’s University, said, “John was very influential in sparking my own interest in working in Africa. We were neighbors there, separated only by the Tanzania-Kenya border, so it was easy for us to get together — we vacationed several times and frequently fished and hunted.”

Father Vos remembered his friend as “an ordinary person who did extraordinary things, with tremendous loyalty to the Gospel and the church. He stayed the course and accepted what came his way, leaving the rest in the hands of the Lord. None of us feel we are heroes, but he was a real one.”

Urdahl would agree.

“Father John Kaiser provides inspiration to people of all faiths, not just Catholics,” said Urdahl, a member of Zion Lutheran in Litchfield, Minn. “Researching to write this book changed my outlook and my wife’s.”

The Collar and the Gun

2010-08-04T11:44:00.002-05:00

July 31, 2010

Book explores mysterious death of St. Cloud priest in Africa

By Frank Lee
fclee@stcloudtimes.com

It’s a real-life mystery involving the Catholic Church, exotic locations and intrigue, but if you think you know the whole story about the Rev. John Kaiser’s death, here comes another chapter.

A new book by Minnesota Rep. Dean Urdahl was recently released that coincides with the 10-year anniversary of Kaiser’s death in Kenya; Kaiser was a member of the St. Cloud diocese.

“It all started nine years ago. My wife and I were going on vacation to Florida, and I got on the airplane, looked down and saw on my seat a St. Paul newspaper, and staring up at me was the story on John Kaiser,” said Urdahl, a Republican from the Grove City area.

“The Collar and the Gun,” a 234-page softcover book from North Star Press of St. Cloud, was the result of that random sighting. The retired teacher based his book on Kaiser, who was found dead along a busy highway between Naivasha and Nairobi with a gunshot wound to the head.

“He was a Minnesotan who had gone to Africa, devoted 36 years of his life to missionary work and — in those last years — had run up against what he felt was injustice and corruption in the government — fought it — and the questions about how his life ended intrigued me,” Urdahl said.

Mysterious death

Kaiser received Kenya’s highest human rights honor in 2006 from the very same government the Perham native fought against — and some say died at the hands of. The 67-year-old’s death was ruled a suicide by the FBI and the Kenyan Criminal Investigation Division.

“Then they had an inquest into the killing, and the Odero Commission basically reversed the original inquest findings that Kaiser’s death was a suicide. They also listed persons of interest that they thought should be investigated ... but none of that has happened,” he said.

Before his death, Kaiser was an outspoken critic of the ethnic cleansing and distribution of Kenyan land in the East African country under the regime of former President Daniel arap Moi.

“I think that they would just assume it went away,” Urdahl said of the aftermath following the death of Kaiser, who shares the Milele (Lifetime) Achievement Award with Professor Wangari Maathai of Kenya, an environmentalist, activist and winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize.

Kaiser was helping teenage girls who accused a Kenyan Cabinet member of sexual assault, but Kaiser died within a week of the scheduled court hearings.

“In fact, many of the most likely suspects of being directly involved (in Kaiser’s death) mysteriously died within a few years of John Kaiser,” said Urdahl, a graduate of St. Cloud State University.

Research

The FBI’s report in 2001 referred several times to circumstantial evidence indicating Kaiser, a member of the Mill Hill Missionaries, had suffered from manic depression.

“I never met him. The only way I have come to know him is through my research, through my travels and through talking to people. I asked questions about what his voice sounded like or if he had any particular inflections or things that he said,” said Urdahl, a former coach.

There will be a Sept. 19 commemoration of Kaiser at the Cathedral of St. Mary in downtown St. Cloud. Guests will include Philip Anyolo of the Diocese of Homa Bay, Kenya, with a brief presentation on Kaiser.

“I had a priest say — when I asked how Kaiser walked — that Kaiser walked like a soldier, his shoulders back, striding forward. He was our John Wayne,” Urdahl said.

Urdahl and his wife, Karen, a St. Cloud native, went to Kenya in 2009 to do more research on his book, which can be described as a work of historical fiction because it includes dialogue that was conjecture, even though he tried to get the story as accurate as he could, he said.

“It was difficult, obviously, because I was writing about not only a man who I didn’t know and a country that I didn’t know. And, heck, I’m a Norwegian Lutheran,” said Urdahl, who is a member of the House Agriculture, Rural Economies and Veterans Affairs.

“Writing this book has made me more aware — in a more real sense — of the injustices in the world.”

Published book

The theory that Kaiser, a Roman Catholic priest, would have committed suicide is incomprehensible to those who knew him, such as his longtime friend, the Rev. William Vos, who arranged many of the interviews between Urdahl and key sources in Kenya.

“There are four or five possibilities as to how he died, and I chose one that I thought did the story that I was putting together the best, and also one that certainly many believe,” Urdahl said.

Vos, former director of the St. Cloud Mission Office of the Diocese of St. Cloud, approved of the book, according to Urdahl.

“I agreed to do sort of an edit, pre-publication, and then when the final result came out, I was very pleased with it. I think Dean captured the heart of the issues surrounding John’s life in Kenya. It did bring back some very vivid memories,” Vos said.

“I’m happy to see that annually on the anniversary of his death folks in Kenya gather ... for a priest from the United States who literally laid his life on the line ... and therefore we (Kenyans) should rise to the occasion as well in dealing with the ongoing corruption.”

Additional Facts
About John Kaiser
» Graduated in 1951 from St. John’s Preparatory School in Collegeville.
» Attended St. John’s University for two years before enlisting in the Army in 1954.
» Graduated from St. Louis University in St. Louis with a bachelor’s degree in English literature.
» From 1960-64, attended St. Joseph’s Seminary for philosophy and theology in Mill Hill, England.
» Ordained in 1964 in St. Louis.
» Built churches, a maternity hospital and clinic, and a secondary school for girls as a parish priest for the Diocese of Kisii in Kenya after 1969.
» Assigned to the Masai tribe in Lolgorian, Kenya, in the 1990s, until his death Aug. 24, 2000.

About Kenya
The International Monetary Fund, which had resumed loans in 2000 to help Kenya through a drought, again halted lending in 2001 when the government failed to institute several anticorruption measures.

Daniel arap Moi’s 24-year-old reign ended with the Dec. 27, 2002, elections, and a new opposition government took on the formidable economic problems facing the nation.
» Location: Eastern Africa, bordering the Indian Ocean, between Somalia and Tanzania.
» Size: Slightly more than twice the size of Nevada.

» Capital: Nairobi.
» Population: 40 million.
» Life expectancy: 59 years.
» Death rate: 9.26 deaths/1,000 population.
» Religions: Protestant, Roman Catholic, Muslim, other.
Source: CIA World Factbook

Los Angeles Times Editorial Awards

2010-05-25T21:51:00.004-05:00

Christopher Goffard, a reporter with the LA Times, recently was awarded an editorial award for his featured writing on Fr. John Kaiser. The three-part series (linked here, here, and here) ran in 2009.

Congratulations, Christopher!

Readers' Representative Journal
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Winners of Times' Editorial Awards
May 25, 2010 | 6:50 pm

The Times' Editorial Awards for 2009 honor, in the words of Editor Russ Stanton, "the work of a newsroom whose ambition has been unbowed by the seismic forces affecting change upon our industry."

Pacific Time podcast host Michelle Maltais interviewed Stanton about this year's winners. Listen here:

Russ Stanton on the awards
The winners:

Beat Reporting: Joel Rubin, for his coverage of the LAPD. Judges singled out his articles about a "john school," an officer whose home was raided by SWAT officers from his own department, and the search for a new chief.

Mj Breaking News: “Michael Jackson,” Harriet Ryan, Andrew Blankstein, Geoff Boucher, Chris Lee and Ann Powers. "When Michael Jackson succumbed to a fatal dose of a powerful anesthetic, The Times was prepared like no one else. Web surfers around the world turned to The Times for the most credible, definitive reports on what was happening."

Investigations: “Failure Gets a Pass,” Jason Song and Jason Felch. The series "helped set the agenda for a national debate over teacher tenure." Locally, the reporters' work "began spurring serious efforts at reform even before the stories were published."

Explanatory Reporting: “Innocents Betrayed,” Garrett Therolf, Kim Christensen and Hector Becerra. Judges said this series showed that "the deaths of children who have been under the county’s watch involve hard cases that defy easy solution. And yet, these deaths are not inevitable -- almost always, they involve failures by public officials to do their jobs properly."

Opinion: TV critic Mary McNamara. Judges called her "wickedly acerbic and insightful," whether she is calling Hugh Jackman’s dance number opening the 2008 Oscars a “chorus boy spaz-out” or fondly remembering the early TV image of Kate Gosselin when “her eyebrows were still natural and her belly pooched a bit over her pants.”

Feature Writing: Christopher Goffard, whose three-part series "brought Father John Kaiser and his beloved Kenya to life in all their messy humanity." (Part 2, Part 3)

Sports Reporting: Diane Pucin, who in covering four beats followed the Tiger Woods scandal as well as Lance Armstrong’s return from retirement. For the two-week U.S. Open in tennis, she produced 53 web-only stories -- often done instantly as matches ended -- along with hundreds of tweets and blog posts.

News Blog: Company Town, Dawn Chmielewski, Claudia Eller, Ben Fritz, Meg James, Alex Pham, Richard Verrier, lead blogger and tweeter Joe Flint, and Company Town editor John Lippman. Company Town, judges said, "has established itself as a comprehensive destination for entertainment coverage."

Features Blog: Jacket Copy, Carolyn Kellogg, whom judges credited with "expanding the idea of what a blog can do, filling Jacket Copy with opinion, interviews, criticism and news. ... She has helped create a presence for The Times as a leader in the online conversation about books."

Fire News Photography: Wally Skalij, who "captured the iconic moment (right) when the Station Fire’s wind-blasted embers became the lethal firestorm that killed two firefighters, destroyed 90 homes and laid waste to 250 square miles of land." He also "artfully captured the mood of a city in shock following the death of the King of Pop and documented the Lakers’ prowess that led them to another NBA title."

Feature Photography: Barbara Davidson, who chronicled the residents of the "Bennett Freeze" zone in Arizona. Judges said her images captured the residents' hardscrabble existence and noted that she "was as determined to tell their story as their environment was bent on swallowing them up."

Multimedia: “Promise and Peril in South L.A.,” reporter Scott Gold; photographer Michael Robinson Chavez; interactive special projects team: Stephanie Ferrell, Sean Connelley, Alan Hagman, Thomas Suh Lauder, Katy Newton and Ben Welsh; photo editor Mary Cooney; multimedia producer Albert Lee; data analysis: Doug Smith and Sandra Poindexter. This series, published online in both English and Spanish, "chronicled a neighborhood long besieged by gang-related crime but that now seems to have a real chance of a revival."

Freeze News Design: Gerard Babb, who judges said is best known around the newsroom for performing the thankless job of booking the space for each news section -- that is, making sure that the balance of photographs, stories and illustrations works each day for the allotted space and that the end result are pages in keeping with our outstanding design tradition. He also has been instrumental in teaching new editing systems.

Features Design: Reuben Muñoz, whose designs are called bold, eye-catching, varied and effective in pulling the reader into the story and into the newspaper. Judges were struck by the descriptions of how Muñoz worked his designs from the inception, for instance, the way he art-directed a photo shoot on dirt. "He made dirt actually look interesting."

Graphics: Raoul Rañoa, who, judges said, has been a leader in pursuing interactive graphics for the website, as well as producing an impressive portfolio for print. Among his contributions in 2009 were his spectacular rendering of the new Las Vegas City Center, the graphics for the nurses project and his interactive look at U2’s concert stage.

Online Presentation: “Mapping L.A.,” Robert Browning, Stephanie Ferrell, Megan Garvey, Thomas Suh Lauder, Maloy Moore, Sandra Poindexter, Doug Smith and Ben Welsh. Judges called Mapping L.A. more than just an exercise in definition; it is "the foundation stone of an ambitious effort to give us the ability to produce truly localized news and information."

Promise Copy Editing: Amy Hubbard of the morning copy desk. Her work is primarily for latimes.com, where, judges noted, "all requests are urgent; fast is the only speed; and 'right now' is the deadline."

Headline Writing: Laura Dominick of the foreign copy desk. Judges said her headlines were probably instantly recognizable to fans: For a story about a law to legalize brothels in Reno and Las Vegas, she wrote "Nevada is checking under the mattress for cash." For a feature about an Irish village with links to Barack Obama: "O'Malley, O’Mara … O’Bama?" And for a feature on the “funemployed” -- young people who have opted out of the workforce: "Nice work if you can avoid it."

Assignment Editing: (two winners) Projects editor Julie Marquis, who judges said has an invaluable combination of editing skills – the ability to keep reporters on track through projects that often take months, combined with skill at turning often-difficult subjects into compelling prose. And health editor Tami Dennis, who judges noted has guided coverage that has appeared on A1, in Column One, in National and Metro as well as the weekly Health section. She also established a blog that provides fresh material five or six times a day and to which she contributes and breaks news.

Special Citation, presented by the publisher and editor: “Redesign of LATimes.com,” Stephanie Ferrell and Paul Olund. The redesigned site, customized for L.A. from colors to fonts, debuted in August and was hailed by readers as “clean, professional, easy to read,” “elegant,” “absolutely gorgeous.” It “works like a website, looks like a traditional newspaper. The perfect mix.”

Editor’s Prize: Borzou Daragahi, whose coverage of the protests surrounding the Iran election demonstrated his passion and commitment to outstanding journalism despite the danger of the assignment. "The challenges he faced were daunting: covering a story characterized by live fire and beatings, with intimidation that carried the threat of imprisonment in a jail notorious for human rights abuses." In addition, he filed for the Web, blogged at a high tempo, seemed to never turn down a radio or TV interview, and was prolific on Twitter and Facebook.

Publisher’s Prize: "Toyota: Road to Recall," Ken Bensinger and Ralph Vartabedian. "It began with a tragic accident near San Diego. An off-duty California Highway Patrol officer, was driving his family in a borrowed Lexus when the car accelerated out of control, leading to a crash that killed all four in the vehicle. The Aug. 28 crash, in which the driver's frantic efforts to stop the vehicle were recorded in a 911 emergency call, led to the biggest recall in Toyota history. Toyota blamed the problem on floor mats entrapping the gas pedal. Ken and Ralph were skeptical, asking a series of questions that weren’t being addressed by the automaker or federal highway safety investigators. In the weeks following the recall, Ken and Ralph wrote 14 stories dealing with sudden acceleration in Toyota vehicles, including six that ran on Page One. Throughout their reporting, Ken and Ralph faced resistance and hostility from both Toyota and federal regulators. NHTSA staff refused to consent to interviews, and Toyota disparaged their reporting on the company website. But as events unfolded, Ken and Ralph’s reporting has proven on target."

Photos:

"Michael Jackson": Jesus Lopez, 17, of Hawaiian Gardens signs a memorial banner at Staples Center. Credit: Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times

"Station Fire": U.S. Forest Service firefighters let the fire burn along Angeles Crest Highway in the early morning hours in La Canada Flintridge. Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times

"Bennett Freeze": Tlaashchii Gordy, 6, a Navajo, plays in the foreground with sister Nizhoonii. Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times
"Promise and Peril in South L.A": A graffiti-marred wall in South Los Angeles. Credit: Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times

Barbara Kaiser

2010-03-22T17:13:00.001-05:00

Barbara Sue Kaiser
December 18, 1931 - March 18, 2010
Santa Rosa, California

Visitation: 11:00 A.M. to 8:00 P.M. March 25, 2010 at LAFFERTY & SMITH COLONIAL CHAPEL
Mass of Christian Burial: 10:00 A.M. March 26, 2010 at Cathedral of St. Eugenes
Vigil Service: 7:00 P.M. March 25, 2010 at LAFFERTY & SMITH COLONIAL CHAPEL
KAISER, BARBARA SUE – Entered into rest, March 18, 2010 in Santa Rosa, CA. Dearly beloved mother of Jennifer C. Milligan of Vancouver, WA, Susan M. Pinto, Annette J. (Troy Joseph) Santarini, Christopher P. Kaiser, Michael D. (Debbie Wilsey) Kaiser and Peter A. Kaiser, all of Santa Rosa, CA. Adored Grandmother of ten. Cherished Great Grandmother of three. Loving sister-in-law of Carolita Mahoney and Joseph Kaiser, both of Minnesota. Also survived by numerous cousins, extended family and loving friends. A native of Williston, ND, age 78 years. Barbara is preceded in death by her beloved husband of fifty-four years, Francis Paul Kaiser, her parents; Leon and Kay Telkamp, her son-in-law; Christopher Pinto and her brother-in-law; Fr. John Kaiser. Barbara was an active member of the Cathedral of St. Eugene’s, the Merry-Go-Rounder’s, Catholic Daughters of America and the Knights of Columbus Ladies Auxillary. She was proud to be a "Breast Cancer Survivor".

Family and friends are invited to meet and attend a Funeral Mass at 10:00 A.M. on Friday, March 26, 2010 at the Cathedral of St. Eugene’s (Corner of Farmer’s Lane and Montgomery Drive, Santa Rosa, CA, 95405). Private interment. LAFFERTY & SMITH COLONIAL CHAPEL (4321 Sonoma Highway, Santa Rosa, CA, 95409) will provide visitation hours from 11:00 A.M. to 8:00 P.M. on Thursday, March 25, 2010, where at 7:00 P.M. a Vigil Service will commence in the Main Chapel. As an expression of sympathy, memorial contributions in Barbara’s memory are preferred to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul (610 Wilson Street, Santa Rosa, CA, 95401). Arrangements entrusted to: LAFFERTY & SMITH COLONIAL CHAPEL, Directors (707)539.2921

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Priest's murder still unexplained

2009-12-23T21:26:00.000-06:00

Kenya: Priest's murder still unexplained

By Martyn Drakard
December 23, 2009

Fr. Jeremiah Roche, an Irish priest, was stripped naked and brutally murdered in Kenya. His death joins unexplained murders of others like Fr. John Kaiser of the US. Kaiser, whose death was considered a suicide, left a letter that raises serious doubt.

The hundreds of miles of Kericho’s tea plantations in the Kenyan Highlands, 190 miles west of Nairobi, evoke peace and beauty. In the 2008 post-election violence, however, this multi-ethnic area saw some of the worst violence, and the violence and tension is not over yet. Leaflets have recently been distributed in Kericho town telling people from outsider ethnic groups to get out or else. On the night of December 10th, in the priest’s house of Keongo parish, Fr. Jeremiah Roche, a Kiltegan missionary from West Limerick, Ireland, who was living alone, was brutally murdered.

Fr. Roche was 68, and had been in Kenya for over 40 years. His heart was for the poor, and whenever he went to Ireland he came back with funds raised for schools and churches. He was popular and had made the Kenya Highlands, where for many years the Kiltegan fathers have done good work in schools and parishes, his new home.

But people are saying this was not a simple robbery, but a “well-planned execution”. The thieves took a CD player, or laptop, and one or two mobile phones, according to different reports, land documents and his blood-stained clothes, which they dumped a few yards from the murder scene. In the usual Kenyan robbery-with-violence, the murderers summarily shoot the victim and take away all valuables. Father Roche was stripped naked and tied to a chair, hit on the head and his throat slit, and left to die. Money and other valuables, there for the taking –since Fr. Roche suspected no-one and didn’t even have a guard-were left untouched.

At the Requiem Mass in Kericho’s Sacred Heart cathedral, one eye-witness pointed out, the politicians who spoke asked for forgiveness for the culprits; no-one disagrees with that. But none asked for justice and proper investigations.

Kenya’s poor have long memories, and now that the police say they have found the weapons used for breaking in and have three suspects, they want action. They, Catholics especially, have not forgotten the murder of the US missionary, Fr. John Kaiser, in August, 2000.

Fr. Kaiser belongs to Kenya’s growing list of unexplained political murders. The official explanation issued at the time of his death was that he had driven to a lonely spot, got out of the car and shot himself in the back of the head. An FBI expert from Texas was called in and, without examining the body, concluded that it was suicide; arguments were then floated that the priest had been of unsound mind for some time, a fact denied by both his family, and the Apostolic Nuncio, who had been with him some hours before he was murdered.

In 1998 he had given damning evidence in the Akiwumi Commission inquiry, accusing government ministers of fomenting violence as part of a land-grabbing strategy. The following year the Kenya government refused to renew his work permit, but US ambassador, Johnnie Carson, intervened. Fr. Kaiser also helped two schoolgirls who said they had been raped by a government minister close to the then-President Moi.

Under the new government of President Kibaki a proper investigation took place, with 111 witnesses, and the presiding magistrate, Maureen Odero, ruled out suicide, saying the missionary had been murdered, but she couldn’t say who had done it. In his autobiography, “If I Die”, published in 2003, Fr. Kaiser stated very clearly that he had no intention of taking his own life. “The bush is big, “he wrote, “and the hyenas many….!”

Kenyans fear cover-ups, especially those murders left unexplained by the previous regimes: Tom Mboya, J M Kariuki, Robert Ouko…. Fr Roche’s murder –and clearly it was murder, and not suicide- may have been a straightforward “hit-and-run”, but the “hit” was unusually bloody and cruel.

Nothing points to an assassination. However, the murderers did take away land documents. Fr. Kaiser had vital documents in his possession when he was murdered. Kenyans just want to be sure that Fr. Roche’s was a case of murder that turned foul, and nothing more.

Martyn Drakard is a writer based in Kenya and Uganda.

Why I Don't Want to Go to Heaven

2009-09-28T07:10:00.001-05:00

Why I Don’t Want to Go to Heaven

New America Media, Commentary, Edwin Okong'o, Posted: Sep 28, 2009 Review it on NewsTrust

When I was a child, I wanted to go to heaven. But today, after nearly 15 years in the United States, I’m absolutely sure that heaven is not for me. Before I explain my decision, let me tell you a little bit about my upbringing.

In our village of Makairo, Christian believers – and who wasn’t a believer – described the Promised Land as an Eden of milk and honey, fruits and sweets. But that seemed a perfectly reasonable description of the world I had been born into.

At first, I couldn’t imagine a place more beautiful than my ancestral home in the Gusii highlands of southwestern Kenya. The sun never failed to rise, even in the rainiest of the seasons. Everything grew big: bananas, avocados, passion fruits, sweet potatoes, corn, flowers. Unending plenty. There was a creek to swim in every mile or two.

Oh, but as in any Eden, there was a snake. My father cracked the whip in ways that made Kunte Kinte’s whippings in the movie “Roots” look like a joke. Corporal punishment was routine in my world, including in school, but not with my father’s punishing intensity. Could there be a place, I used to wonder, without such suffering?

Sokoro, my grandfather, had no doubt.

God is GloryHe was a man of great religious influence in the village. Sokoro was a holy man, the first one (so it was said) to bring a white man – a missionary, of course – to Makairo. Like most families in the highlands, we belonged to the Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA). Sokoro read the Bible everyday. Ask my grandfather about Adventists and he'll spin you a yarn so captivating you'd think he used to walk to school holding hands with Ellen G. White, the American founder of the Adventist movement.

My grandfather repeatedly told us during Bible study that, like the founder of the Adventist movement, Americans were extremely religious. In my imagination, America was gateway to heaven, a place people went for orientation to life in the Promised Land.

But as children we dreaded Sokoro praying during family Bible study meetings. His prayers lasted an eternity and we had to be on our knees. We used to joke that Grandpa prayed for everyone, including God.

The old man was said to be a successful businessman. He lived in Kapenguria, a town 200 kilometers from Makairo. Grandpa spent a few weeks every year in Makairo, where my grandmother and her children still lived.

There was no mistaking my grandfather when he walked up the path that led to our homestead from the main road. The walkway was the widest in Makairo. He had designed it wide enough so his children could drive their cars home when they were done with college and had good jobs. When he walked home, he always wore a suit and a newsboy cap. He carried a brown leather briefcase containing only a Bible. He needed no clothes. He had a closet in his house in Makairo. He walked with a cane, slightly hunched, but fast. To us, his grandchildren, he was a blessing, for his visits brought the only candy we would have in the year. I, especially, celebrated his presence because my father never hit me when grandfather was around.

As I grew older and began to wonder why my father was so abusive, I ran into an unfortunate irony: My grandfather, my role model and the man who brought joy to my life, was the reason. He had abandoned his children for another family. With him he took the key to the bank. His wife and children toiled on the tea field he owned, he came home a few times a year and took all the money supposedly to repay a loan he had taken to buy land for his sons. In a culture where a father ranks slightly below the Holy Trinity and is believed to have the power to condemn a son to eternal misery, my father and his siblings did not challenge him.

My father, who had been admitted to one of the best high schools in the region, dropped out after one year. In an era when Kenya was newly independent and high education paid immediately, some of my father’s classmates went to universities and became leaders of the new Kenya. Having missed out, he vowed to live that life through me, his firstborn. Unlike his father, he was going to give me everything to make it possible for me to succeed. When I didn’t live up to his high expectations he turned violent. “If 90 percent is the highest, why would they have 100?” he would ask.

Thanks to men like my grandfather, by the time I was born in the early 1970s, Gusii was an Adventist stronghold. But by the time I was six years old, Adventists had begun to lose numbers to the Catholic Church. One of the people responsible for the growth of the Catholic Church was an American priest named Fr. John Anthony Kaiser. He was the first white man I ever met. Fr. Kaiser lived in the Catholic mission in Kebirigo, a small town near Makairo. Because the Catholic faith was new in the area and lacked qualified priests, Fr. Kaiser presided over mass in several churches, including one two miles from Makairo.

Threatened by the rise of the Catholic faith, Adventists, who used to preach love and kindness, added a new line to their sermons: Saturday, the Sabbath, was the true seventh day – the day God chose to rest after six days of hard labor creating the world.

In private, small-group conversations, Adventist pastors and their flock became more forceful and explicitly. They called Catholics witches. I began to hear more about Armageddon from people besides my grandfather. The rise of the Catholic Church was a sign that the war that would test our faith had begun, they would say. It would be between the Catholics and us. They don't respect our Sabbath. They worship idols hung around their necks. They go to church only for an hour.

"Can you believe they smoke cigarettes and drink booze after church?" one good Adventist would whisper, upon sighting a Catholic.

"In fact, they are already drunk when they leave church," another would correct.

According to the prophecy, they say, the Catholics are going to lose the war and go straight to hell. In the beginning it might seem that they are winning. They will unleash terror on us and try to convert us. But if you stand firm and protect the Sabbath, God will intervene because he loves Adventists.

My mother rarely went to church and my father was a heathen in denial. He only listened to sermons if he was at funerals, which in our customs are held in the yard of the deceased. But my parents considered themselves Adventists. My father also believed that heaven belonged to children, and he had Matthew 19:14 to support his belief. “Let the little children come to me … for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them," he would say over and over when he was drunk. He commanded that my siblings and I go to church every Saturday.

As I grew older, I began to stray from the Adventist movement. The hateful gossip; the parents telling their kids to pinch us and make our lives miserable so we can stop coming to church in “rags;” the constant staring to see if the poor kids were going to offer God a penny or a quarter; I was tired of it all.

Meeting Fr. Kaiser was also instrumental in my journey to leave the church. At the mission where he worked, the Catholic Church ran a clinic that served all people, regardless of their religious affiliation. I remember being taken to the clinics during one of the many stomachaches I had invented to avoid my father’s whip. Fr. Kaiser had been very gentle, unlike the government clinics where they yelled at the sick. While my Adventists were waiting for heaven to ease our pain, this good priest was doing it here on earth. (Fr. Kaiser defended Kenya’s poor to his death in 2000, when someone murdered him).

I became a teenager and went to a boarding high school in Tabaka, in the same Gusii highlands. There I got to see Tabaka Mission Hospital, which I had heard was the best in the region. It was then that I realized that while my Adventists were busy hating and condemning sinners, Catholics were building schools and hospitals.

Four years at my high school also taught me that all Adventists did was hijack public schools and label them SDA. Mine was TABAKA S.D.A. HIGH SCHOOL, but all the Adventists contributed was the pressure they put on the teachers to force students to hold prayers for two hours on Friday night and church services for six hours on Saturdays. They had Pathfinders, Adventist student officials, who caned you and made your life hell if you did not obey.Makairo Church

Unable to comprehend why my church was so dysfunctional, I concluded that it must have been because we it lacked white men like Fr. Kaiser. During my high school years I attempted to defect by attending a few Catholic services, but my father caught word and threatened to kill me. That would have to wait until I went to America. Ironically, it was learning more about the good Christian white men I admired as a child that strengthened my faith in the decision to leave the church altogether.

But that came later. In Kenya, I was still thinking of America as the gateway to the Promised Land. That belief was strengthened when one of my uncles gained admission in 1980 to a U.S. university, and began to send money home shortly thereafter.

When my uncle visited from America briefly in 1986 my kinsmen sat under omotembe, a sacred tree in front of my grandmother’s house, to listen as he told us about this magical place he lived in. They were not interested in how people in America earned money. They knew it was easy because my uncle returned with a lot of it and fed them for nearly a week. They wanted to hear about how amazing America was: the technology, the automobiles, the paved highways, the malls. My uncle described a box where you insert coins; the machine gives you food and beverages.

Later I came to know that as a vending machine. But in our oral communication tradition my uncle’s story developed into one about a machine that delivers food to people as they work in their offices. Everyone in America was rich and no one wanted to wait tables, my kinsmen said. Even my father, a teacher, often told that version of the story. And my grandfather explained that Americans were wealthy because all of them believed in God.

I finally made it to America and learned very quickly that my people hadn’t prepared me well for this heaven on earth. America wasn’t a place where you “wash cars for a day and make enough money to take the rest of the week off.” Nor was it a country where you buy clothes, wear them once and discard them. And, more surprisingly, it wasn’t that gateway to heaven where people praised God, night and day.

The more I lived with Americans, the more I found out that they weren’t as religious as I had thought. They were not out there using their God-given powers to heal. In fact, many of them were propagating hate. I learned of white supremacists and Christian extremists, who – like the Adventists of my childhood – invoke God’s name as they spread hatred. But unlike my Adventists, these Americans are armed with enough machine guns to start Armageddon.

In 2005, I was shocked to hear Pat Robertson – that grandpa whose show “The 700 Club” I loved to watch on television in Nairobi – call for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Most recently in June, the Rev. Wiley Drake of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif., said he was praying for President Barack Obama's death. And in August, another man of God, Pastor Steven Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Ariz., told his congregation that he, too, was praying for the president’s death.

"I'm not going to pray for his good. I'm going to pray he dies and goes to hell,” Anderson told his congregation in a sermon titled, “Why I Hate Barack Obama.”

These are not the men I imagined I would find in heaven.

The Hague is the place for suspects

2009-02-13T14:20:00.000-06:00

The Hague is the place for the suspects

By GABRIEL DOLAN

Daily Nation

Posted Friday, February 13 2009 at 17:43

This week 10 years ago, John Kaiser, an American Catholic priest, testified at the Akiwumi commission hearings in Nakuru, and his submissions caused quite a stir. On the first day, he produced evidence linking three Cabinet ministers to the planning, funding and implementation of the 1992-7 tribal clashes.

But on the second day he really set the cat among the pigeons when he accused President Moi of doing nothing to prevent or stop the clashes. Mr Justice Akiwumi abruptly stopped the proceedings, dismissing Fr Kaiser as a “busybody” and ordering all references to the president deleted from the records. He went further and ordered that the Press immediately stop publishing details of the priest’s allegations.

When it was finally released in October 2002, the Akiwumi commission report did not contain a single reference to the priest’s testimony.

But Fr Kaiser was not a man to be deterred by criticism. In March 2000, he was honoured by the Law Society of Kenya and, in his acceptance speech, he insisted that President Moi be handed over to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

I recalled these events recently as I followed the debate on the tribunal to investigate the principal suspects named in the Waki report. Fr Kaiser’s doubt about our shallow judicial system was confirmed when Attorney-General Amos Wako failed to take to court a single suspect of the 189 people adversely mentioned in the Akiwumi report.

The absence of witness protection was evident when Fr Kaiser was murdered and his body dumped on the roadside near Naivasha Town in August 2000.

An inquest concluded that it was murder, and the inquest forwarded to Mr Wako a list of names that needed further investigation. That was in August 2007, but until today, the AG has not charged in court anybody named in the report.

Things have changed little in the 10 years, and so The Hague is still the only realistic option to try the principal suspects of the post-election violence.

The ICC has several weaknesses. It is slow, limited in scope, poorly funded and far away. The proposed Kenyan tribunal is a hybrid form of court, with both local and international inputs. And I know investigations carried out by the Kenya police cannot meet international standards.

Worse still, so long as the organisers of the violence remain at home they can unleash their militias on the public at any time. Put another way, the one aspect of the violence that has been completely ignored by every state organ is demilitarisation. The Waki team did not make a single recommendation as to how demilitarising the militias should take place.

MOREOVER, POLICE HAVE GIVEN de facto amnesty to the perpetrators of the violence by not investigating and prosecuting named and known suspects.

Do we expect the militias to disappear or go away? Do we imagine that they have beaten their swords into ploughshares or that their commanders are now born again? Are we not aware that the origin of the marauding gangs in 2007 is the informal militias established by Kanu at the advent of political pluralism in 1991?

By 1992 those in power had discovered that their militias could carry out crimes that they could never have ordered police to do even in a one-party state. So while the violence of last year was horrific, it was not unprecedented as Kenya is now a militarised society.

Last year, both PNU and ODM had close links with the original violence and the military leaders of the post-election violence had learned their trade in the 1990s.

While the politicians may direct the violence, it is not fully state-controlled. Urban gangs emerging from the poverty of the ‘90s are now “gangs for hire” and, as a result, militia groups have become firmly embedded in the state itself.

Recently, the Friends Church ran an advertisement in the local dailies to say that there was “credible evidence” that there were plans for a new round of violence in Turbo, Uasin Gishu. The advert claimed that training was going on and that local political leaders were involved. I, too, have heard of threatening leaflets circulating in the South Rift.

Why do we take these warnings so lightly? One of the people said to have benefited from the current maize scandal is a businessman and politician suspected of having been involved in the violence.

My deepest concern is that such easy money will fund another round of violence should the local tribunal be established. Besides, the unholy and unhealthy alliance emerging between Central and Rift Valley politicians is surely a conspiracy to protect the violence suspects.

This brings me back to my point that it is only the ICC option that will sever the link between the violence orchestrators and perpetrators. A local tribunal would bring the country to a standstill and perhaps usher in another round of ethnic mayhem. It’s better to watch the proceedings at The Hague from a distance and break the link between the militias and their grand masters.

Out of sight out of mind: these crooks would surely lose their status and significance if they lacked the opportunity and the means to dish out millions to their village militias.

Fr Kaiser, the priest and prophet, will surely rejoice in heaven to see the suspects pack their bags for the long trip to The Hague.

LA Times, part 3 of 3

2009-02-09T17:51:00.002-06:00

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-kaiser10-2009feb10,0,3103290.story

From the Los Angeles Times

A Kenyan lawyer takes on a coldly familiar case

Mbuthi Gathenji focuses on the pieces that don't fit in the case of Father John Kaiser's violent death.

By Christopher Goffard
Last Of Three Parts

February 10, 2009

Reporting from Nairobi, Kenya — The deeper the lawyer probed, the more the case resembled a hall of mirrors, a maze of ambiguous characters and unknowable motives. There were hints of conspiracies, trap doors, scaffoldings of fact that vaporized into fiction. The trail was nearly three years old by the spring of 2003, when the lawyer's investigator headed deep into the countryside, working at night for protection, searching for witnesses.

The goal: to upend what had become the official narrative of Father John Kaiser's death. Embraced by the FBI and the Kenyan government, the story held that the 67-year-old American missionary had turned his long-barreled shotgun on himself along a dark road 50 miles from Nairobi.

The lawyer, Mbuthi Gathenji, had been enlisted by Kaiser's family and the Catholic Church to reexamine the case. He was in his early 50s, with graying hair and an air of wary circumspection informed by decades on the wrong side of a police state.

Poring over the FBI report, he saw what he considered a patchwork of bad inferences and tunnel-vision analysis, an eagerness to distort the meaning of Kaiser's behavior to fit its conclusion. As the agency portrayed it, Kaiser's conduct in his last days -- bouts of tears, erratic movements, displays of anxiety and fear -- reflected a mental unraveling.

To Gathenji, it seemed the behavior of a man who believed with good reason that killers were hunting him. One of the country's loudest dissidents, Kaiser had called for President Daniel Arap Moi to be tried at The Hague for inciting ethnic carnage and had accused a top minister of rape. He had ignored his church's pleas to leave the country and had received repeated death threats.

Despite his history of manic-depression, nothing in his final letters suggested derangement. He had never been known to attempt suicide. He left no note.

As Gathenji saw it, something crucial was missing from the scene where Kaiser's body was discovered: the pellets and wadding that his shotgun would have discharged when he was killed. They weren't found in the remains of his cranium or, despite searches over a wide radius, in the surrounding dirt and shrubs.

To many Kenyans, the case had a coldly familiar feel. It looked like a classic state-sanctioned hit, with a venerable foreign law enforcement agency called in to lend legitimacy to the investigation. It brought to mind Robert Ouko, the Kenyan foreign minister who attacked high-level corruption and turned up in a ravine in 1990, a gun beside his charred, mutilated body. Police called it suicide. To quell public clamor, Moi invited New Scotland Yard to investigate, then curtailed the probe when it pointed to members of his inner circle.

The case felt familiar to Gathenji in another, more personal way. His father had been the victim of an unpunished, politically charged slaying in September 1969, dragged from his home by fellow Kikuyus for refusing to swear an oath of tribal loyalty. Gathenji, 20 at the time, believed the attack was sanctioned by elements of the Kikuyu-dominated government of Kenya's first president, Jomo Kenyatta.

"We knew that nothing would be done," Gathenji said. "That is exactly why I wanted to be a lawyer. I wanted to do something to find out the truth."

He represented Kenyans swept up in mass arrests and championed refugees uprooted in ethnic violence. Police once raided Gathenji's house and imprisoned him for five days. For years, he had watched his rearview mirror for the white cars of the secret police.

His legal battles and pro-democracy work had brought him into contact with Kaiser. He remembered the priest dropping by his office, always on a crusade, always in dusty shoes.

Now, studying photographs of the crime scene, Gathenji noticed how carefully a set of bedding had been arranged on the ground near Kaiser's body, as if the priest had been planning to sleep there. The neatness of the bedding seemed to reflect a Kenyan's conception of a punctilious Englishman. It didn't look like the handiwork of the priest he knew as "essentially a cowboy."

"It was arranged by someone with very foreign ideas about Father Kaiser," he said.

Preparing for the long-delayed inquest in the death, he unearthed a piece of evidence that never made the FBI's report. It was a firearms registry kept by rangers at the Masai Mara Game Reserve, an hour's drive from Kaiser's parish in the country's remote southwest corner.

The registry showed that a warden had checked out a big-game rifle on Aug. 15, 2000 -- eight days before the priest's death -- that was never returned. The warden, an illiterate Masai with two wives, was an in-law and fellow tribesman of Julius Sunkuli, the Cabinet minister the priest had accused of rape and corruption.

A source too frightened to go on the record told Gathenji's investigator that on the morning of Aug. 21, when Kaiser left his parish for his final drive to Nairobi, he had narrowly missed an ambush laid by three park wardens.

d

In the summer of 2003, as the inquest began in a courthouse outside Nairobi, the priest's older brother left his home in Santa Rosa, Calif., and boarded a flight to Kenya. Francis Kaiser, 72, would be among the first to testify.

The brothers had grown up on a dirt farm in Ottertail County, Minn., wandering the woods together and sleeping in the same bed. Francis remembered his brother as a "totally fearless" boy who did not hesitate to climb a windmill or plunge into a frozen pond to retrieve ducks they'd shot.

In a way, each brother had led the life the other had imagined for himself. John was the priest Francis thought he might be. Francis had the "good wife and cabinful of kids" John once spoke of wanting.

Francis thought of his brother as the John Wayne of priests, a cowboy of the cloth who possessed a certainty of the afterlife: "He didn't have the fear of death that the normal person has."

From the witness box, Francis insisted that suicide made little sense. His brother's shotgun had two barrels, but when it was found near his body, only the left one contained a spent shell. That was the barrel activated by squeezing the rear trigger. The right barrel, with the easier-to-reach front trigger, was empty, even though the priest had a live 12-gauge shell in the breast pocket of his jacket.

He knew his brother's habits with firearms. If he had two shells, Francis reasoned, he would have loaded both barrels, so he had a chance to fire twice. And if by some chance he had time to load just one, the shell would go in the right. Why load only the left?

"This was abnormal not only for John, but for anybody using the shotgun," he told the court.

Francis had brought the last letter he received from his brother. It was dated Aug. 17, 2000, six days before his death, and did not seem to reflect suicidal despair.

"I'm sitting on a veranda watching the world turn green again," the priest had written. "We have had a rather severe drought and the grass gone brown and short and cattle hungry. Then a great blessing and two inches of rain in the past two days so the birds are singing and lots of cows were dancing in the rain."

The letter reflected an aging man soberly confronting his mortality, wondering which of his family members "will be the first to finish it up here below." He wrote, "But at least I hope we can all meet again and have a fishing trip up in the border waters of Northern Minnesota, canoe country."

d

Nothing embodied the case's shifting, indecipherable quality more than a gaunt, soft- spoken young Masai named Francis Kantai. He had been Kaiser's close companion, a live-in catechist who served as a cultural bridge to the nomadic cattle herders of Masailand.

To puzzle out his ultimate loyalties, however, was to enter a mare's-nest. Over and over, people told Kaiser that Kantai could not be trusted. They suspected that he was a spy for Sunkuli. Those suspicions were stoked when, according to the parish housekeeper, Kantai let Sunkuli's men into the parish house, where the priest kept his papers.

Fanning suspicions further was Kantai's admission that he had led Sunkuli's men to a safe house where two women who had accused Sunkuli of rape were hiding. Kantai insisted that the men had held him at gunpoint, and that among them was a secret police agent named Ebu who had hounded him for years over Kaiser's activities.

Why did Kaiser, who was so wary of his enemies, keep Kantai so close? Did he fear pushing a man with intimate knowledge of his habits deeper into Sunkuli's arms? There was a further complication in their relationship: One of Kaiser's cousins had fallen for Kantai during an extended visit to the parish in 2000. They were married, and Kantai was soon to travel to Nebraska to live with her. They had a baby son named after the priest.

After Kaiser's death, Kantai told investigators that Sunkuli had once urged him to poison the priest. But at the inquest, he said, "I wish to confess to court that I lied." He had been angry with Sunkuli, he explained. Believing him responsible for Kaiser's death, he made up the story.

And he offered another story, one he claimed he had forgotten in previous interviews. Not long before Kaiser's death, he said, he came upon Kaiser watching a video of a priest shooting himself. Kaiser seemed fixated by the spectacle, replaying it over and over.

Kantai did not know the video's title, and it could not be found. Gathenji believed it a fabrication.

Gathenji confronted Kantai with an informant's allegation: that he had tried to lure the priest into an ambush in the Masai Mara reserve. To the lawyer, Kantai looked like a man in anguish, about to surrender to tears.

No, Kantai said. He loved the priest. "He was like a father. I had not thought of life without him. I felt as if some part of me had left me."

d

Zeroing in on what had happened in the Masai Mara, Gathenji summoned Anne Sawoyo, one of the two women who had accused Sunkuli of rape. She said that in July 2000, a month before his death, Kaiser tracked her down at an isolated lodge at the game reserve after learning that Sunkuli's men were holding her captive there.

The priest hoped to smuggle her out in his truck, but she was too afraid, and he left without her. Later that day, she said, she overheard Samuel Kortom, the senior warden who had checked out the rifle that went missing, discuss the priest's visit with another warden, saying, "He is lucky -- today would have been his day."

It was "an open secret" at the lodge, she said, that rangers planned to kill Kaiser and plant a dead animal beside him so it would appear that he had met his death as a poacher. Douglas Sikawa, a senior warden, confirmed that there were rumors afloat in the Mara that three rangers loyal to Sunkuli were plotting an ambush.

How did it add up? Kaiser's body was found more than 100 miles east of that area. To Gathenji, the evidence suggested that multiple murder plots had been in play.

Gathenji tried to find Florence Mpayei, Sunkuli's other accuser. A women's rights activist said Mpayei had called her from Sunkuli's house in Nairobi, not long before the priest's death, to relay that Sunkuli's men were talking about Kaiser and seemed to be planning something. That made Mpayei a potentially explosive witness, perhaps the key to the whole case, but Gathenji and his investigator could not find her.

One by one, the rangers walked to the witness box and denied everything. Finally, Sunkuli entered, his stout frame filling out a sharp suit. He denied that he had any motive for killing the priest. He did not even have a grudge against him. Yes, he had recently lost his parliamentary seat, but he could always run again. Still, Sunkuli acknowledged that he had been worried enough about the priest's role in the rape charges to complain to Kaiser's bishop about it.

Gathenji asked when he had learned of Kaiser's death. Sunkuli said it was at 10 that morning, about the time everyone else did.

Gathenji responded, "You knew of the death at 6 a.m. because you were involved in the arrangement."

"That is ridiculous," Sunkuli said.

d

More than three years had passed since the inquest began, and in early 2007 Gathenji wanted to put the FBI on the stand. He would ask the agents about the leads they had failed to pursue or had dismissed as irrelevant, the ones that led to the secret police, to the Mara rangers, to Kantai and Sunkuli.

He would ask them to acknowledge a conflict between their avowed aim to discover the truth and their wish to stay on friendly terms with the Kenyan government. Even as agents collaborated with Kenyan police on this case, after all, the FBI was depending on its Kenyan counterparts to prosecute what it regarded as its most important case: the 1998 terrorist bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi.

He would ask why they ignored an unexplained thumbprint of Kaiser's blood on the door of his truck. He would ask how they had concluded that he died at the spot where his body was found.

In a letter, the U.S. Embassy said the government "fully supports" the FBI's presence at the inquest, promising that agents would be available in Nairobi on March 5. The FBI missed the date, citing the difficulty of getting agents who were scattered on different assignments to Kenya at the same time.

Later, FBI agent Bill Corbett offered another explanation, one the court said it never received. He said the FBI planned to attend until it became clear that Kaiser's family would not release his psychiatric records. Without them, Corbett said, the FBI "would be handcuffed and not be able to tell the whole story."

A new date was set; the FBI did not appear. And another; still the FBI did not show.

d

In Gathenji's mind, there were two plausible theories of how Kaiser met his death. Someone might have lured him to that dark road for an ambush. Perhaps he'd received a call -- someone pleading for help, playing on his gallantry -- that drew him from the safety of his bishop's house near Nairobi, where he had planned to sleep that night. But he'd told no one about it.

Or what if the priest had been captured or killed at the bishop's house? That would mean the security guard who reported seeing him leave in his truck -- supposedly one of the last people to have seen Kaiser alive -- was lying. The guard could not be found to question: He had vanished after Kaiser's death.

By this theory, Kaiser had never visited the remote homestead where villagers said they saw him standing on a knoll shortly before his death. Nor was it Kaiser who appeared that same night at a gas station in Naivasha, near where his body was found. Had that man been a double, a plant meant to conceal the fact that Kaiser had already been killed elsewhere?

One of the witnesses who placed Kaiser at the gas station was a warden at the local prison, but a pump attendant who knew him insisted that the warden had not been there that night.

"Someone was desperate to make sure Kaiser was put in Naivasha," Gathenji said. "That shows a very elaborate plan."

The warden could not be questioned either. He was dead, reportedly of a heart attack. So was an eminent Kenyan pathologist, killed in a car wreck before he could testify on his finding that Kaiser's gunshot wound pointed to murder. Dead, too, under vague circumstances, was Ebu, the special police agent said to have been following Kaiser.

d

Seven years to the month after the priest's death, on Aug. 1, 2007, Gathenji sat in the crowded courtroom to hear Magistrate Maureen Odero read her findings. She was adamant: It was murder.

Pointing to the absence of shotgun pellets or gunpowder residue on his hands, she determined that Kaiser had been killed elsewhere and placed beside the dark road. If he had died there, she reasoned, there would have been more blood at the scene, and the recovered brain matter should have been embedded with more dirt, grass and twigs.

Given that Kaiser's shotgun was 3 feet long, she found it a "physical impossibility" that an arthritic 67-year-old man could have reached the trigger with the muzzle placed behind his ear. It struck her as more plausible that he was forced to his knees and shot from behind.

As for the FBI report, she declared it "superficial" and "seriously flawed." Noting that the agency had failed to appear for the inquest, she said, "This court can only conclude the FBI did not consider their report one worth defending."

Neither the FBI nor the Kenyan police had supplied a ballistics report, which she described as "a crucial missing link." Without it, there was no proof that the priest's shotgun had killed him, nor even the "pretense at any serious or meaningful investigations."

She said there was no evidence implicating Sunkuli in the killing. But she was troubled by the "evasive and contradictory" testimony of Kantai, and she called for deeper investigation of him and of the Mara rangers.

That Kaiser was murdered, she concluded, was not a mystery. "The only mystery is why the police failed to investigate this matter with the seriousness and diligence that it deserved."

Back at his office, Gathenji fired an e-mail to Francis Kaiser: We won.

d

The reinvestigation demanded by Odero has been underway for more than a year, but there have been no arrests, and many who championed the inquest don't anticipate any.

"I expect the actual killers are probably dead," said Kaiser's sister, Carolita Mahoney.

Nor did it seem likely that Moi would be called to account, either for Kaiser's death or for the carnage that attended his 24 years in power. In 2002, voters swept his party from power, and he retired to his vast estates as one of Africa's richest men.

For the Kaiser family, the removal of the suicide verdict might have to be enough. Said Mary Mahoney Weaver, the priest's niece: "We feel vindicated. John's name is no longer marred."

The ruling did nothing, however, to budge the FBI agents who handled the case. Corbett called the magistrate's reasoning "fanciful" and maintained that untreated manic-depression, not an assassin, was the culprit.

"Ultimately, he died of a disease," the FBI agent said. "It's not something that everyone is comfortable talking about."

The inquest did little to untangle the psychological mysteries at the heart of the case.

"I always got the sense that John Kaiser was looking for martyrdom at a deep unconscious level," said Father Tom Keane, who lived with him in the year before he died. "John Kaiser kind of wanted to go with a bang."

Paul Boyle, one of the last priests to see Kaiser alive, at first thought suicide a real possibility. Looking into Kaiser's eyes, he had seen the despair of a man hunted and tormented beyond endurance. With the magistrate's ruling, Boyle had to reconsider. But there were riddles that taunted, such as: In an ambush, why didn't Kaiser, the former paratrooper, use his shotgun to defend himself?

Boyle recalled a night long ago in the Masai Mara when Kaiser leaned out the door of his moving truck and shot an impala in the distant bush. He thought about his final moments. He considered the scenarios.

"He's faced with the murderers, and he's got a choice. Kaiser has the gun. No one can shoot like Kaiser."

But ending the life of another man -- or several of them -- might have broken him. "Did he say, 'They've come to do what they've come to do?' Is that suicide? I don't know. It could be martyrdom."

He could see him handing over his shotgun and sinking to his knees in the darkness.

d

Even to those he baptized, to those who understood the nature of his vows, there remained something bewildering about the life he chose. Big families were a given, childlessness a calamity in the remote parishes he had served over 36 years in Kenya, and here was a man who would leave no offspring, no link to the earth walking upright when he left it. His legacy would be measured in other ways.

Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and a pioneer of Kenya's pro-democracy movement, said Kaiser represented "the people's voice in an era when ordinary people did not have a voice."

His importance grew after his death, she said, when he became a byword for the Moi regime's ruthlessness. The ditch where Kaiser's body was found became not just a memorial site but a place where the opposition mobilized. In the long campaign to oust Moi's government, she said, "he became a very powerful symbol."

His battle on behalf of Sunkuli's accusers was another element of his legacy. In a country where rape went widely unpunished and the rights of poor women were scant, the fact that a powerful minister was summoned to court to answer the charges represented a crack in a culture of impunity, even if Sunkuli ultimately avoided prosecution.

There were other measures, and one could be found in a story Francis Kaiser told.

When he and his wife went to Kenya in September 2003 for the inquest, they attended a Mass in his brother's honor in Nyangusu, a western town where the priest had spent many years. Francis was asked to stand and bless the crowd.

Afterward, a family brought their baby for him to hold, and the child was named John Kaiser. Francis learned that the church was full of young boys -- infants and toddlers and kids already running -- who had been named after his brother.

It was the same, he found, in village after village. There were hundreds across the countryside, maybe more.

His brother had disappeared into the red soil, perhaps along with the truth about his death, but you could travel anywhere now and find John Kaiser.

christopher.goffard@latimes.com

LA Times article, Part 2 of 3

2009-02-08T15:30:00.002-06:00

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-kaiser9-2009feb09,0,1770768.story

From the Los Angeles Times

The demons of a troubled priest

John Kaiser was an obstinate man who clashed with his missionary bosses and stood up to Kenya's government. An FBI investigation of his death also turned up more personal problems.

By Christopher Goffard

February 9, 2009

REPORTING FROM NAIROBI, KENYA — Within the vaulted basilica where he lay in a glass-lid coffin, the transformation was already underway.

In life, Father John Kaiser had been a troublemaker, an obstinate and single-minded man who railed against church passivity and clashed with his bishops, his missionary bosses, his fellow priests. Now, it was possible to ignore the rough edges and complicated history. Now, Catholic leaders were declaring him a martyr to the faith, a man whose crusade against his adopted country's dictatorial regime had ended in his assassination.

Outside the basilica, thousands crammed the streets of Nairobi in mourning and in rage that day in August 2000. Among masses of Kenyans, Kaiser had become an instant byword for the cruelty of President Daniel Arap Moi's police state.

After 22 years of Moi's misrule, Kenyans were ready for such a symbol. The president's face stared from every shilling note in their pockets and the wall of every shop they entered, and they had no trouble envisioning his hand steering the American priest to his grave. On everyone's lips was a litany of political murders, unexplained car wrecks, implausible suicides.

After the funeral Mass, a church van carried Kaiser's body onto the bad roads that led through the grasslands and into the remote western parishes he had served for decades. Villagers streamed forth from their farms and mud-walled huts, waving verdant branches -- a sign of peace -- as they ran alongside the procession.

Finally, the coffin traveled to the priest's last home, to the hilly green country near the Serengeti Plain called Lolgorien, where Masai warriors in bright red wrappings leaned against their spears and watched as the hole was shoveled out, 12 feet deep to deter the beasts of the veldt. Children of the parish who used to swarm around the priest now climbed into a big ficus tree overhanging his grave, squeezing side by side until it seemed impossible that the branches could support so many of them, to see him sent into the clay.

***

For Johnnie Carson, U.S. ambassador to Kenya, the priest's death was a tinderbox. As he told his staff, it might "change the normal orbit of U.S. and Kenyan bilateral relations."

Carson prided himself on his patience and discretion. Though some in Kenya's pro- democracy crowd considered him unduly cozy with Moi, Carson believed that his approach gave him access to the top when he needed it.

Now was such a time. The dead man was an American citizen and a leading dissident -- a former U.S. Army paratrooper who lived without electricity in one of Kenya's poorest corners, survived on game meat and had come to regard himself, after 36 years on the continent, as an African. He had not only denounced Moi but had fought to bring rape charges against one of his top ministers, Julius Sunkuli.

And so late on the afternoon of Aug. 24, 2000, the day Kaiser's body was found, Carson marched into the stately Nairobi offices of Kenya's attorney general.

Let the FBI help investigate, Carson urged. The FBI had forensic expertise, he argued, and its presence would show that the Kenyan regime had nothing to hide.

The FBI's agent in Kenya, a former Marine pilot named Bill Corbett, was in the room that day and recalled Carson's words: "The bureau has to be able to follow the facts wherever they go."

The attorney general said he would need to consult. Of course, His Excellency the President would have to approve.

Soon, just as the ambassador was boarding a plane for Washington, Corbett received a letter on official Kenyan letterhead inviting the FBI's assistance. He chased the ambassador to the airport, onto the tarmac and onto the plane to hand him the envelope.

Carson was pleased. Whatever the truth proved to be, the FBI's involvement would allay suspicions of a coverup, he reasoned. In this, he was mistaken.

***

Three FBI agents joined Corbett in Nairobi and fanned out across the country, accompanied by plainclothesmen from the Kenyan police. It was to be a joint investigation. The Kenyans would translate the words of Swahili-speaking witnesses. They would provide helicopters to reach remote villages. They would sit close during interviews.

This presented an obvious problem. Who would risk telling the Americans anything in the presence of Kenyan cops, for decades an integral part of Moi's apparatus of fear? As Kenya's minister of internal security, Sunkuli himself oversaw the very police charged with investigating the case, including the rape allegations against him.

Back in the United States, in September and October 2000, both houses of Congress passed resolutions condemning Kaiser's "assassination." Paul Wellstone, the senator from Kaiser's home state of Minnesota, cited the slayings of five other Catholic clerics and human rights workers in Kenya.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright promised Congress that she would monitor the investigation. "Clearly, there are questions that we have about various aspects of how Kenya operates, but it is a country with which we deal," she said.

Her remark encapsulated the U.S. government's attitude toward Kenya. It was impossible to ignore Moi's reliance on brutality. And yet the country was the commercial hub of East Africa and was perceived as a key partner in the battle against Islamist terrorism. This point had assumed greater urgency after an Al Qaeda cell bombed the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi in August 1998, killing more than 200 people, including 12 Americans.

The accused bombers were to stand trial in federal court in New York in a few months. An internal FBI memo described the Kenyan police as "vital partners in our aspirations to succeed with what the U.S. attorney general refers to as the most important DOJ [Department of Justice] prosecution of 2001."

***

At the nexus of the two cases stood Corbett, who had forged tight professional friendships with Kenyan police during the bombing investigation and was now central to the Kaiser probe.

A Catholic, Corbett admired the priest's willingness to give up a safe, soft life in the U.S. to ease the suffering of a troubled country. He had closely followed accounts of Kaiser's duel with the regime. Still, Corbett would say, his job was to remain at arm's length, dispassionate, guided only by the evidence.

It was crucial, first, to reconstruct Kaiser's last days -- the circuit that led the 67-year-old priest from his parish house in the bush to a ditch about 50 miles northwest of Nairobi, where he was found with the back of his head blown off.

In interviews with church associates, villagers and others, the jagged outlines of the story came into view.

On Aug. 19, 2000, Kaiser had been summoned to Nairobi to meet Giovanni Tonucci, the pope's representative in Kenya, on an unspecified but important matter. The priest, who had ignored repeated church pleas to leave the country for his safety, feared he would be ordered out of Kenya. He wept at Mass and asked for prayers.

On Aug. 21, he made the long drive from his parish house in Lolgorien to his bishop's compound just outside Nairobi. To some fellow churchmen, he seemed unhinged and fearful. He spoke of being followed. He said he hadn't slept in three days. He read in the newspaper that one of the women who had accused Sunkuli of rape -- a case Kaiser had been pushing for months -- was withdrawing her complaint.

On Aug. 22, over breakfast, Kaiser said he hadn't slept again. "Why do I feel so paranoid?" he asked. As a missionary brother drove him to his appointment with the papal nuncio, Kaiser slumped low in the back seat, his jacket covering his face. He told the brother he felt "close to a breakdown."

At their meeting, the nuncio asked for Kaiser's views on a successor to a retiring bishop. Contrary to his fears, Kaiser was not being exiled.

Relieved, he went to his missionary order's walled compound in Nairobi and socialized with friends and colleagues. He played a cheerful game of croquet. That night, a nun saw him in the chapel, bent on one knee, his head in his heads.

On Aug. 23, he dropped off a thin envelope with the nuncio -- its contents would never be made public -- and declined an offer to stay and chat. He left a note at a priest's quarters nearby, thanking him for teaching him Swahili six years earlier.

Over lunch at the missionary compound, he wept silently. A worried missionary brother, wanting to keep him close, took him to visit a church construction site. Kaiser buoyantly greeted every worker he saw. Later that day, Kaiser approached an old friend, Father Paul Boyle, and shook his hand, saying, "I don't know if I will be alive tomorrow."

Though he was expected to spend the night at the missionary compound, he left without explanation and drove to the bishop's house, arriving about 6 p.m. He was brusque. He asked for a room. He needed rest.

Another priest watched Kaiser head upstairs to a second-floor room, and, after a while, heard footsteps descend the stairs and Kaiser's truck rumble away into the darkness. He found Kaiser's room empty and the bedding stripped.

Retracing Kaiser's trail from there became increasingly tricky. Kaiser supposedly had been spotted at a remote homestead north of Nairobi. When the FBI and Kenyan investigators arrived with their notepads, villagers told a strange story.

It happened about 8:30 that night, they said. It was suppertime and solid dark. They heard a truck pull up and went out to look. They saw a white priest remove "a long gun" from the truck and carry it up a knoll, where he stared into the night. A villager asked whether there was any trouble. Hakuna shida, said the priest. No problem.

Then came the oddest part. As a village elder approached, the priest offered him the shotgun. Like a gift.

When the elder refused, the priest apologized in Swahili. Pole sana. He carried the gun back to his truck, pitched the vehicle into reverse, and backed past the house so hurriedly that he scraped a downspout and struck a hedge. Then he sped off "like he was trying to escape something."

What was Kaiser doing there? Why would he attempt to give away his gun? Did he sense himself spiraling into despair and worry that he would use it on himself? Or, Corbett wondered, did a delirious, sleep-deprived Kaiser think he was surrendering his gun to a pursuing assassin? "Maybe he's tired of running and thinks, 'They're here,' " he said.

Other witnesses added glimpses of Kaiser's last night. About 11:30, employees at a gas station in the Rift Valley town of Naivasha reported seeing him pull up in his pickup and hack off a loose mud guard with an ax.

At a pecan farm nearby, a few hundred yards from where Kaiser's body was found, a guard recalled hearing the rattling, thumping sound of a passing vehicle. The guard, fearing attack from one of the area's armed gangs, became hyper-vigilant. The vehicle passed again, and again. Then he heard a bang.

As Corbett recalled, the story had "the flavor" of truth.

The crucial part was what was missing. There had been no sound of a struggle. No voices. No cars in pursuit.

If assassins had targeted Kaiser, how would they have followed his erratic, hours-long route from Nairobi to Naivasha -- what Corbett called a "bumblebee trail" -- without being spotted?

"The real world doesn't work like that," Corbett said. "There wasn't a lot to suggest this was predator and prey. What there was to go on was his behavior."

In that behavior, FBI profilers discerned a "manic cycling from high to low," as Corbett put it, a mind unmoored. His fear that he'd be kicked out of Kenya had been a "life stressor," and the collapse of the rape charges against Sunkuli had been "a significant disappointment," according to the FBI's report on the case. His body was failing too -- prostate cancer, arthritis, bone spurs in his neck.

Agents saw an uncommonly tough man whose fortitude had nevertheless raveled out over too many hard years.

Interviewing those closest to Kaiser, they uncovered a side of him that few had known.

In 1969, the priest had been committed for psychiatric evaluation during a brief stint at the Albany, N.Y., quarters of his missionary society. As told by Kaiser's sister in Minnesota, Carolita Mahoney, he had argued with an older priest, who complained that Kaiser was mentally impaired and possessed a gun.

A Minnesota priest named Bill Vos told the FBI about a later episode. Kaiser was staying with Vos in St. Cloud in the early 1970s when he fell into a serious depression. At the dining table, Vos recalled, Kaiser sat with his head down, tears filling his eyes. Vos arranged for him to see a psychiatrist, and he was hospitalized again.

In the early 1980s, there was a third hospitalization, this time after a confrontation with his brother Joe during a visit to Minnesota. A doctor at St. Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul treated him with lithium.

Kaiser suffered from manic-depression, his sister told the FBI. The episodes began with sleeplessness, followed by a state of extreme agitation. He said he did not need his lithium in Africa.

Examining Kaiser's years in the U.S. Army, the agents learned that he had been demoted from sergeant in the 1950s. The military could not find the records to supply the details. As his brother Francis told it, Kaiser had refused to back down from racist townsfolk in Ft. Bragg, N.C., who had objected when black soldiers were assigned to guard a barracks housing white nurses.

Given Kaiser's refusal to duck confrontations, the scene where his body was found presented a riddle. If attacked, wouldn't the priest -- a former paratrooper and expert shot -- have put up a fight? Yet there were no signs of struggle. Sheets had been spread out on the ground, as if for a bed, and left undisturbed.

Two independent pathologists -- one enlisted by the church, the other by a human rights group -- studied the entry wound close-up. Their conclusion: The shot that obliterated the back of Kaiser's head had entered behind his right ear from a distance of at least 6 inches and as much as 3 feet. Since it seemed impossible for Kaiser to have pointed the long-barreled gun at himself from such a range, murder was the only explanation.

The FBI enlisted its own independent expert, Vincent DiMaio, based in Texas. He was an authority on gunshot wounds. Studying blurry photographs and an autopsy report, he found that the barrel could have been touching Kaiser's head when the shot was fired. DiMaio noted that there was blood spatter on the priest's knee and lower leg, but none on his lap. In his view, this suggested Kaiser had placed the shotgun butt on the ground, with the barrel angled behind his right ear, and had folded his body forward to reach the trigger, thereby shielding his lap when blood sprayed onto his legs.

In weighing the evidence, Corbett recalled what a prosecutor once told him about the nature of proof. Picture yourself at the edge of a precipice, with a 10-foot gap separating you from the other side. To get there, you need a plank at least 10 feet and 1 inch long. Two 5-foot planks won't do, nor will five 2-foot planks.

Murder theories abounded, but did the assembled evidence bridge the chasm? Maybe a simpler explanation would.

And so on April 19, 2001, FBI agents stood at a news conference at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi alongside Ambassador Carson, Kenyan police and the country's attorney general. The Americans praised the Kenyans for their cooperation and gave their verdict: An emotionally troubled Kaiser had killed himself.

The Kenyan government wasted no time declaring itself exonerated. A front-page story in the Kenya Times, the state mouthpiece, announced that the FBI's verdict "drove the final nail" into the coffin of "a sick man."

***

Whatever else people said about Kaiser, there was one point of consensus: His Catholicism was the "terribly old-fashioned" kind. Heaven and hell were not metaphors, but actual locations, and certain sins were inexpiable.

Kaiser liked to quote from G.K. Chesterton's "Orthodoxy," a defense of classic Catholicism in which the author assesses suicide as "the ultimate and absolute evil."

"The man who kills a man, kills a man. The man who kills himself, kills all men; as far as he is concerned he wipes out the world," Chesterton wrote. "There is not a tiny creature in the cosmos at whom his death is not a sneer."

By that logic, Kaiser had tumbled from martyr to suicide, from heaven to hell, at the stroke of the FBI's pen.

Few who knew him could bear the verdict. David Durenberger, a former Minnesota senator who went to high school with him, was in disbelief. "There's something about 'The FBI says,' 'The FBI declares' -- it's pretty hard to overcome that one," he said. "You can't change the gravestone once you've carved it."

The only apparent remedy lay in a vestige of British colonial law, which provided for an inquest -- an inquisitorial proceeding in open court -- in the case of mysterious deaths. To the church and Kaiser's family, it represented the best hope of casting light on evidence the FBI might have missed or ignored. But Moi's attorney general refused to grant one. Neither the Kenyan nor U.S. governments wanted the matter reopened.

As the 2002 Kenyan elections approached, there was fear that Moi would again use violence to preserve his rule. Then a shocking thing happened. After Kenyans jeered the aging president and trounced his party, he surrendered power peacefully.

Armed with more than 100,000 petition signatures, Catholic bishops met with the new president to urge an inquest into Kaiser's death. In April 2003, after two years of limbo, Kaiser's family and supporters received word: The inquest could proceed.

They had four months to prepare.

christopher.goffard@latimes.com

Los Angeles Times article, part 1 of 3

2009-02-08T13:49:00.005-06:00

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-kaiser8-2009feb08,0,984334.story

From the Los Angeles Times

Priest's mission in Kenya went beyond church

John Kaiser was warned by other priests that his style in confronting the Moi government was too reckless. Kaiser knew he was in danger but kept speaking out -- until he could no longer do so.

By Christopher Goffard
First Of Three Parts

February 8, 2009

Reporting from Lolgorien, Kenya — Wherever he went, the man of God carried his shotgun. Like its owner, the double-barreled 12-gauge was old and broken in places, dusty from miles of hard African road. He kept the splintered stock bound together with a length of black rubber, and he believed it might be his only protection, save for the good Lord and his American name, in a country that had never felt more dangerous.

By day he ventured deep into the savanna to visit the scattered churches of his vast parish. The shotgun rested on the seat of his Toyota pickup, beside his rosary beads and Mass kit. His faithful arrived from the hills, bright in their tribal wrappings, to hear him speak in Swahili of the risen Savior, to receive a wafer on the tongue.

His red-brick parish house sat at the edge of an immense valley rolling away toward the Serengeti Plain, and at night the shotgun stayed with him as he double-checked the locks and walked down the hallway toward his bare room. Stayed with him as he climbed into his narrow metal-frame bed and slept fitfully, hyenas cackling and whooping in the dark outside his window.

Stayed with him that morning in February 1999 when he fixed his Roman collar, climbed into his truck and drove for hours on bad roads that played havoc with his arthritic neck. Finally, he arrived at a plain-looking government building called Nakuru County Hall.

This was the setting for the Akiwumi Commission, a tribunal created to probe the causes of tribal clashes that had cost more than 1,000 lives across Kenya in recent years. Its real purpose, many suspected, was to conceal the government's central role in the violence.

He entered the crowded room, a broad-shouldered, long-limbed man with work-worn hands and thinning white hair. Three judges loomed from the bench in powdered wigs, a vestige of British colonial justice. He took a seat before a microphone at a scuffed table.

As he began to talk, his voice steady and composed, it was impossible to tell that he had been living in a state of terror for weeks, afraid that he'd never be allowed to speak, afraid that once he started, he'd never live to finish.

Nor would anyone have predicted that this obscure, deeply eccentric American churchman would become a national hero to Kenyans, his name a rallying cry.

Apart from his church and the tribes he had served during 35 years in a green, malarial patch of East Africa, few had heard of John Kaiser, a missionary and former U.S. Army paratrooper from Minnesota. He had not yet been delivered from his aching body and messy humanity to abstraction, a clean and perfect symbol.

*****

He arrived in Kenya in December 1964, stepping off a boat into the harsh equatorial sunlight with an Army duffel bag under his arm. His missionary society, the London-based Mill Hill order, needed priests in Africa. He was 32 and just ordained.

Assigned to the fertile highlands of western Kenya, he built churches across the countryside, quick, crude structures of red earth and river-bottom sand. A stout 6-foot-2, the priest went up ladders with pockets stuffed with bricks and pulled roof beams after him by rope.

He learned to carry a bar of brown soap to patch cracks in his truck's engine, and he sat on a crate when the front seat fell apart. He learned to carry holy water in a Coke bottle, and when he forgot the communion wafers, he used a chapati, a doughy flatbread, to transform into the Savior's body.

He baptized and buried, heard confession in the shade of eucalyptus trees, watched AIDS and malaria carry away thousands. He chopped firewood for widows, built rough-hewn schools, waded swollen streams to reach the faithful. He administered the sacraments to a dying 18-year-old girl, who received them serenely, and he wrote, "At such times, I would not trade being a priest for any position."

He hauled bodies to ancestral burial plots deep in the brush, and prayed them into the earth.

The country, with its fierce light and impenetrable dark, its jumbo maize rows and seasons of starvation, was big enough to contain his clashing selves: the priest and the paratrooper, the healer and the hunter, the collar and the gun, the man of obedience who chafed at authority.

There had always been two John Kaisers, at times coexisting uneasily. Growing up on a Minnesota dirt farm, he lavished as much attention on the rifle sights in his war drawings as on the sheep's wool in a schoolhouse nativity scene.

During a peacetime stint with the 82nd Airborne at Ft. Bragg, N.C., he was the gung-ho soldier who mastered bayonet thrusts, leapt into the skies from a Flying Boxcar and knelt in the chapel wondering if he could take a life.

He was the jocular bush missionary who pumped every hand he could find and who retreated for hours to the solitude of the savanna.

He broke bones in motorcycle spills, survived typhoid and hepatitis and a roof beam crashing on his neck. A crack shot, he would vanish into the elephant grass with his shotgun, stalking wildebeests and impalas, wart hogs and zebras. He hacked up the meat with his ax and distributed it among the schools.

He whittled the stocks of his guns and made his own bullets. He shook in half-rounds to conserve gunpowder and to mute the noise when he hunted, in case a game warden was within earshot. Poaching had been outlawed since the late 1970s, but that was one of man's laws and therefore negotiable.

*****

Kaiser chronicled his life in letters to friends and family, tallying the animals he had killed, writing home for a crossbow, describing close brushes with lions. The letters also recorded his disenchantment with President Daniel Arap Moi, a man he had once regarded as a "great Christian prince."

Moi took power in 1978, succeeding independence hero Jomo Kenyatta, a Kikuyu, the country's largest ethnic group. Moi came from the smaller, weaker Kalenjin tribe and had none of Kenyatta's magnetism.

Yet he would become one of the continent's longest-reigning dictators. Moi gutted judicial independence, outlawed opposition parties and held enemies in torture chambers, naked in fetid water.

Tribal territories had been scrambled under the British and later Kenyatta, and Moi exploited the long-simmering resentments. He made a practice of wholesale land-stealing, rewarding allies and dispossessing rival groups.

In the late 1980s, Kaiser, then working in the Kisii diocese in western Kenya, watched thousands of peasant farmers streaming through the countryside with their belongings. Political bosses had unleashed Masai warriors to oust them from their land, he wrote, burning their homes and destroying their schools.

Kaiser brought the news to his bishop, Tiberius Mugendi, an aging Kenyan whom he regarded as a spiritual father. Impossible, Mugendi said. The involvement of government forces would mean the sanction of Moi, and Moi was the country's father.

"Like Pontius Pilate I washed my hands on the grounds that I had plenty of other work in a busy parish," Kaiser wrote. "In so doing I stored up more fuel for a long hot purgatory."

Then came the collapse of the Soviet Union and an end to reflexive Western support for Moi, who had cast himself as a bulwark against Marxism. Donor nations insisted on free elections.

Moi grudgingly approved multiparty politics in late 1991, but the months that followed seemed to bear out his warning -- or, as many saw it, his threat -- that in a country of divided ethnic loyalties, democracy would lead to bloodshed. To ensure his party's supremacy, Moi launched militias into war against opposition strongholds.

As villages erupted in a pandemonium of flame, arrows and machetes, Kaiser spoke up in church meetings, questioning Mugendi's refusal to speak out forcefully. He also attacked the bishop's judgment in running the diocese, his choice of a school headmistress, his method of questioning catechists. Kaiser's conduct breached a deep-dyed cultural prohibition: An African bishop, like a president, was a father figure not to be challenged.

"My conscience is clear and I will not apologize for any of my statements or opinions. I can always admit & lament the fact that I am an undiplomatic clod, but for me that is not the point," Kaiser wrote a friend in June 1992.

Other priests warned Kaiser that his style was "too American," too confrontational. Undeterred, he put his complaints in a letter and distributed it around the church. The bishop sent word to Kaiser's missionary society: Remove this priest from my diocese.

Kaiser, who had spent decades with the Kisii people, was devastated. He would not leave without Mugendi's direct order. For hours he waited outside the bishop's house in Kisii, demanding to see him. Mugendi emerged and climbed into his car. He refused to acknowledge the priest.

"I want your blessing," Kaiser said, planting himself on his knees before the car. He stayed that way until the bishop relented, dismissing him with a quick wave, his hand tracing a cross in the air.

*****

That was how, exiled from Kisii, he found himself appointed chaplain of a starving hillside tent city 100 miles to the east. It was July 1994. He was 61. The place was called Maela, and Kaiser said he learned more about the Moi regime's cruelty in his six months there than in the preceding three decades.

Of Maela, people remembered the dust. They tasted it in their teeth and coughed it into their hands and slept with it in their blankets. It enveloped the polyethylene hovels where families huddled against the cold. It coated the wattle-and-daub shack where Kaiser lay at night, unable to sleep for the wailing that reached him.

Ghastly accidents were common in the cramped tents. Children jostled cooking pots and were scalded by boiling water. Infants were asphyxiated by charcoal smoke. Disease flourished. "This terrible place," he called it. "A wasteland."

The refugees, mostly from the Kikuyu tribe, a bastion of the opposition, had been chased from their farms by rangers, police officers and Masai warriors. When word of the conditions reached the international press, Moi decided to erase the camp. As government men razed it on Dec. 23, 1994, police restrained Kaiser. He watched as the tents blazed and refugees were beaten and herded onto trucks to be scattered unsheltered across the countryside.

Four days later, police officers came for Kaiser and several hundred people he was protecting in a church. He announced that he would not go peacefully. They overpowered him, cuffed his wrists behind his back and carried him to their Land Rover. The truck lurched through the night, police boots crushing Kaiser's limbs and head against the metal floor. Then they dumped him outside a church.

"A great grief," Kaiser called his removal from the refugees. Later, he would brag about how it took a pack of police to get an old man into their truck. The newspapers reported his arrest. He had become a spectacle, albeit still a minor one.

*****

That is what brought him, finally, to a far-flung brick house in the heart of Masailand. His new bishop had sent him all the way to the country's southwestern edge, to a lonely township called Lolgorien. "No doubt to protect me," Kaiser wrote.

It was a place where Masai herdsmen used thorned acacia branches to shield their mud-hut villages from lions at night. Even in his 60s, Kaiser was quick enough to kill a rabbit with a stone or a dik-dik with a thrown ax. Enlisting villagers, he built a plain red-brick church topped with corrugated metal, like many he'd thrown up across the countryside.

Maela haunted him. At his parish house, he wrote a short manuscript about his experiences there and sent it to everyone he could think of: friends, church leaders, his missionary society. He wrote to Paul Muite, an opposition politician who had befriended him, and asked for help getting it published. People warned him it could get him deported or killed.

"I want all to know that if I disappear from the scene, because the bush is vast and the hyenas many, that I am not planning any accident, nor, God forbid, any self-destruction," Kaiser wrote.

Crisscrossing the countryside, he amassed the ingredients of an indictment. He gathered land deeds from dispossessed farmers. He documented government calls for the purge of non-Masai from the Great Rift Valley. As villagers told him their sins, the ritual of confession became a window on the country's subterranean history, its narrative of land and blood.

His body was breaking down. He flew to the United States to undergo treatment for prostate cancer. He wore a neck brace to relieve the agony of crushed vertebrae and bone spurs. Against an osteopath's advice, he roamed the hills on his motorbike to reach the Masai, and spent nights in their dung-and-ash huts, returning home crawling with lice and fleas.

As elections loomed in December 1997, ethnic carnage again racked the country. Moi held on to power through fraud and mass evictions. At church meetings, Kaiser railed against the church's passivity, what he called "the scandal of our lack of leadership." Among his targets was his new bishop, an Englishman named Colin Davies, who would tell Kaiser, "Look, don't provoke too much."

By now, Kaiser was accustomed to making his colleagues uncomfortable. Sensible clergymen knew how vulnerable a parish house could be, how speaking up too loudly endangered not just yourself but those around you. To do the work of tending to people's souls, the thinking went, the church depended on the government's goodwill.

Kaiser's logic was different. Wasn't the church's role to alleviate suffering, and wasn't the country's "paramount evil," its fratricidal violence, the handiwork of the regime? "Why then do we so easily accept the admonition of government ministers that we who are religious should 'keep off politics'?" Kaiser wrote. "Is the exaggerated adulation given to President Moi by so many leaders, even religious leaders, given out of true respect or fear?"

*****

It was a truism in Kenya that when Moi needed a delaying tactic, a distraction, a smoke screen, he convened a commission. The stated aim of the panel launched in July 1998 under Justice Akilano Akiwumi was to look into the tribal clashes that had claimed more than 1,000 lives in the last seven years.

Kaiser saw an opportunity, a public platform. He knew church leaders regarded his eagerness to speak as pointless, foolhardy or both. Bishop Davies considered the tribunal "a waste of time" -- did Kaiser expect to change Moi's mind? -- but did not stand in his way.

The priest planned to name names. He asked for prayers. He felt "very out on a limb." Still, he told a Kenyan friend, carpenter Melchizedek Ondieki: "I have America to defend me. I have the church to defend me."

To keep Kaiser company as he prepared, the bishop sent another priest from the Mill Hill order, a companionable Irishman named Tom Keane, to live with him in Lolgorien.

Keane quickly sensed the depth of Kaiser's fear. He heard him wake screaming from nightmares. He watched him carry his shotgun to Mass, in his truck, on his motorcycle. Kaiser slept beside it on his mattress, Keane said, "like having a woman."

Keane watched Kaiser swing from heights of energy, aflame with purpose, to depths of despondency. Kaiser played solitaire on his bed. He read Ecclesiastes. He made bullets.

At night, Keane invited him to sit on the veranda of the parish house that looked out past a sausage tree toward the rolling savanna. After the day's pastoral duties, Keane liked to relax with a beer and listen to the hyenas. "It's a beautiful evening, John," he would say.

Kaiser refused to join him. The darkness ran deep and unbroken. He would not make himself a target for enemies who might be hiding in it.

*****

"I have been working in this country for 35 years as a missionary but I should feel like a guest," Kaiser began his testimony on Feb. 2, 1999. "There are things which a guest does not normally do when he is in his host's house or country. One of those things. . . . is to criticize the government of that country."

But that, he made clear, was what he planned to do. He detailed the horrors of Maela. He described farmers fleeing police violence by the thousands. He aimed his attack at Julius Sunkuli, a Masai lawyer and a fast-rising member of Moi's inner circle. He called Sunkuli's reelection to parliament fraudulent and accused him of orchestrating land seizures in the days before the December 1997 voting.

He named more names. He declared it "general knowledge" that Cabinet ministers William Ole Ntimama and Nicholas Biwott had organized the training of thugs to terrorize farmers.

Biwott's lawyer rose to denounce Kaiser, calling his allegations "absolutely worthless."

To reimburse the dispossessed, Kaiser continued, government officials should sell their own property. There should be prayers, he said, "for their confession, conviction, repentance, and for the restitution of the landless people."

The next day, the country's big dailies ran lengthy accounts of his testimony. Sunkuli responded with fury, threatening to deport Kaiser. "Christianity will be better off without him in this district," Sunkuli was quoted as saying.

As he prepared for his second day of testimony, Kaiser wrote to his sister that he hoped she could make it to his funeral, should he die. "I hope your passport is up to date," he wrote.

He returned on Feb. 11, 1999. Lawyers took turns grilling him. Sunkuli's lawyer called him a liar.

It went on for hours. Then Kaiser said something that electrified the room. He named Moi himself as the man responsible for so much of the country's pain, the man who had the power to stop the tribal clashes but had not.

The proceedings were halted. Justice Akiwumi purged the record of the Moi remark and ordered the press not to publish it. He declared Kaiser a "busybody" and said, "You seem to be very interested in other things than spiritual matters."

Kaiser left the courtroom exhausted. He believed that he had held his ground. He wrote that he had seen fear in the faces of the government lawyers. The press had been there, and Kaiser's account -- a good part of it, at least -- was now public record. He believed that would provide a measure of safety.

Sister Nuala Brangan told him it was not safe to return to Lolgorien.

"Don't worry, I'm a good shot," the priest replied. "I'll shoot a few bullets in the air, and they'll go running."

A month after his testimony, Kaiser and Keane found themselves pursued by a white car on a dusty road a few miles from the parish house. Kaiser sped to a bridge, wide enough for just one vehicle, and hit the brakes, blocking the way. "Get out," he told Keane.

Kaiser carried his shotgun. Keane carried an ax. They scrambled up a wooded bank into the trees, watching and waiting. It was common knowledge that Kaiser was armed, a crack shot. The pursuers, roaring up, must have sensed their disadvantage. They soon vanished.

*****

That summer, two young women in his parish approached Kaiser for help. They said Sunkuli had raped and impregnated them when they were in their teens.

Kaiser appealed to the Federation of Women Lawyers to protect the women and pursue a criminal case. Sunkuli's loyalists tracked down the women at a Nairobi safe house and hauled them to a police station. The message was chilling: We can find you anywhere.

Still, Kaiser urged the women on, and one of them filed a private prosecution that generated a front-page headline: "Sunkuli Accused of Sex Attack." A Nairobi magistrate ordered Sunkuli to appear in court to face the charge.

"It's a just war," Kaiser wrote, "and I am on the right side."

Sunkuli, now a minister of state and a rumored successor to the president, accused Kaiser of orchestrating "a sex scandal," and called the allegations "all politics."

In late October, the government ordered Kaiser deported, on the pretext that his visa had expired. The U.S. Embassy intervened. Kaiser hid in a convent loft, shimmying down an iron pipe to the back alley when police arrived. The order was rescinded.

In its heavy-handedness, the regime was turning the priest into a symbol. In March 2000, the Law Society of Kenya, a spearhead of the pro-democracy movement, gave him a human rights award. At the banquet, a speaker compared him to the prophet Elijah. Lawyers and foreign diplomats lined up to shake his hand. He wore a Roman collar and a pair of $10 pants.

Before the crowd, Kaiser declared that Moi should be tried at The Hague for crimes against humanity.

After the banquet, walking through Nairobi with a visiting Minnesotan named Don Beumer, Kaiser pointed to a burly man across the street. "That's one of those thugs," Kaiser said. He told his friend not to be surprised if he was killed. "They'll say I committed suicide."

Worried priests remonstrated with Kaiser. To call for Moi's prosecution was to invite retribution. They could kill us, the priests said. Can't you ease off, John? More than once, church superiors urged him to go back to the United States to rest. He said his work was in Kenya.

In Lolgorien, he went through the parish house, making sure the windows were closed and draped. He wrote: "They have tried to deport me & failed & have made death threats but what is that to a 67 year old has been."

*****

The threats kept coming.

As Kaiser would tell friends, a game warden brought him a message: There is a plan to shoot you and plant a dead animal beside you, so it appears you were gunned down as a poacher.

A rock flew through Kaiser's window. An anonymous letter arrived in his box. He opened it. The threat was in Swahili.

Utaona moto.

You will see fire.

Then came a hand-delivered letter, on Saturday, Aug. 19, 2000, from a surprising source: Giovanni Tonucci, the pope's appointed spokesman in Kenya, known as the papal nuncio. He wanted to see Kaiser urgently in Nairobi.

Kaiser knew the nuncio did not send a summons casually, and believed he would now be ordered out of the country, exiled for good. He wept during Monday morning Mass.

That night, Aug. 21, he arrived by truck at his bishop's house outside Nairobi. He seemed unhinged, fearful. He spoke of being followed. He complained of not sleeping in three days.

His behavior over the next two days would later be scrutinized and dissected. Even after Kaiser met the nuncio and learned that he was not being thrown out of Kenya, his mood swung sharply. He played a friendly game of croquet. He pumped hands at a church construction site. He wept at lunch. He told one Mill Hill brother he felt "close to a breakdown."

On Aug. 23, he approached a fellow missionary, Paul Boyle, to announce that he didn't think he'd live through the next day.

Sometime after 6 that night, Kaiser's truck was heard leaving the bishop's gated compound. His room was left empty, the bedding stripped. He told no one where he was going.

The next morning, workmen noticed Kaiser's pickup aslant in a ditch on the shoulder of a road about 50 miles northwest of Nairobi. In the dirt lay Kaiser's body, faceup. The back of his head was gone. Nearby lay his shotgun.

christopher.goffard@latimes.com

With trepidation...

2008-10-24T16:37:00.002-05:00

I publish this simply because I try to report any information I have. I will keep my personal opinions to myself on this issue.

I am innocent, says Kaiser’s kin

Published on 15/10/2008

By Lucianne Limo

He is the man who allegedly saw Father John Anthony Kaiser, the late priest at Lolgorian Church in Ngong, watching a movie of a priest who shot himself dead.

He was a close friend to the Mill Hill priest, who the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) said committed suicide by shooting himself dead.

But despite his close ties with the priest, an inquest into the death of the Catholic priest ruled that this man needed to be further investigated in connection with the death.

Now the former catechist, who was adversely mentioned during the inquiry into the father’s death, has come out to clear his name.

Francis Kiisikirr Kantai, who served with the Mill Hill priest at Lolgorian Church, Ngong wants fresh investigations carried out to deal with the culprits once and for all.

Kantai says he has been restless since a court recommended that he be investigated further for any possible role in the killing.

Bothering questions

The allegations, which he vehemently denies, have made him a very bitter man, considering that besides having worked as Kaiser’s aide, he is also married to the priest’s cousin, Camille.

"Why would I kill the priest?" is the question that he has repeatedly asked.

"I had very good relations with him. He was my friend, my mentor and pastor and in the last few months to his death I was like a son to him," Kantai says.

Kantai now resides in the Unites States where he moved to in 2003.

Kaiser’s body was found along the Nakuru-Nairobi highway in Naivasha on August 24, 2000. He had a gunshot wound to the back of his head.

An inquest into his death presided by Nairobi magistrate, Maureen Odero, was concluded last year.

Though the court didn’t establish the killers, the magistrate singled out Kantai together with Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) game rangers Samuel Kortom, Joseph Kupasar and Daniel Suya as people who needed to be investigated further.

The magistrate ruled that Kantai knew more on the matter than he had testified. She said he needed to be further interrogated.

His conduct just before Kaiser’s death raised many questions, the court ruled.

His evidence was, in the court’s view, "unreliable, evasive and contradictory" besides his admission that he lied to the Federal Bureau of Investigations.

He disappeared after Kaiser’s death and never attended his funeral, as would be expected of a friend.

Attorney General Amos Wako directed the Commissioner of Police to reopen the investigations.

"I cannot rest until my name has been cleared. The police should start investigating so that the people who murdered the priest can be brought to book," Kantai told CCI by telephone from Nebraska, USA.

He expresses concern that the Mill Hill Catholic Church was no longer interested in pursuing the truth on the matter.

"Why has the church gone quiet? They were very vocal before the inquest," he says.

Kantai says he is ready to come to Kenya to clear his name. He says police have not yet contacted him adding that he is not on the run.

"Police have not contacted me so far although I am not sure there is anything I didn’t tell them. What new questions could they have for me now?" he wonders.

"Although I highly welcome any investigations, I feel like I am being sacrificed, abandoned, and betrayed by my country and my church. Those people who testified at the inquest were selected to implicate me," he adds.

Church’s betrayal

He says the church further betrayed him by refusing to solemnise their marriage with Camille.

Kantai and Camille have four children, Georgina 12, who is still residing in Kenya, Nakuyo 4, Lepiro 2, and Nyamalo two months.

Kantai says as his relationship with Father (as he fondly called Kaiser) grew, the priest started allocating him responsibilities like going to pay school fees for the students he was sponsoring or cash to discharge people from hospital.

"He would also send me to represent him at school board meetings, something other priests did not like," he adds.

Kantai says he first worked for Kaiser as a catechist.

"Later, he asked me to recommend another catechist to work for him so that I could assist him full time in his quest for justice and peace in Kenya," he says.

He lived with Kaiser since he was posted to Lolgorian.

Kantai recalled his last moments with Kaiser.

He says he had gone to meet him at Mill Hill House and found him watching a movie of a priest who shot himself.

"I sat behind him and watched him rewind this clip three times. The fourth time I thought he was doing this while waiting for me, so I made my presence known by calling his name. Father then stood up and said Twende," he recalls.

He says the priest ejected the videotape out of the machine.

Kantai described Kaiser as his rock and he did everything to please him.

"He was my whole world and I knew without him, I couldn’t survive. My work and everything I knew was in him. I remember that when Father went home, the priest who came to take care while he was away sent me home. I loved my job and could not have done anything that would jeopardise that," he says.

"I met this girl who was Kaiser’s relative and he was the only link I had to her," he explains of how he met Camille.

"When I was testifying, the Catholic Church lawyer Mbuthi Gathenji accused me of conspiring with the then Internal Security Minister Julius Sunkuli to kill Kaiser. Now that Sunkuli has been cleared who then could have hired me?" he ponders.

Kantai says he migrated to the US in October 2003 to be with his wife and not to escape justice.

"My wife returned to the US for medical reasons and I was unable to obtain a visa until after our first child was born," he adds.

He says the last time he was in Kenya was in August 2006 when he attended Kaiser’s memorial mass in Lolgorian.

Francis Kaiser

2008-08-29T20:42:00.002-05:00

It is with a heavy heart that I share the news that my uncle, Francis Kaiser, died this evening, August 29, 2008.

Fran was surrounded by his family during his final hours and has joyfully joined his brother, Fr. John Kaiser, his parents, Arnold and Mary Catherine Kaiser, in heaven.

Missouri Knights of Columbus resolution

2008-06-07T19:08:00.001-05:00

WHEREAS, John Anthony Kaiser, MHM, of the St. Joseph's Missionary Society, also known as the Mill Hill, was a priest for 36 years; AND

WHEREAS, having attended and received a degree from Saint Louis University, Fr. Kaiser received his First Degree at Bishop John N. Wurn Council, formerly Clayton Harty University City Council, in 1973 while parochial vicar at All Souls parish in Overland, and remained a member of the Missouri Knights of Columbus for 27 years, AND

WHEREAS, Fr. Kaiser, while serving since his ordination as a Missionary in Kenya, fought tirelessly for the human rights of his parishioners and for all Kenyans, including bringing the attention of the world to the mistreatment of internally displaced Kenyans in a camp at Maela through his testimony before the Akiwumi Commission; and in another incident, finding assistance for a number of young girls in his parish who were alleged victims of sexual abuse, which allowed at least one of them to keep her baby and avoid an abortion; AND

WHEREAS, Fr. Kaiser was the recipient of numerous awards for his human rights work, including the Human Rights Award from the Law Society of Kenya, an award subsequently renamed in Fr. Kaiser's honor; and the Milele Lifetime Achievement Award, received posthumously, from the Kenyan National Human Rights Commission; AND

WHEREAS, Fr. Kaiser was found dead on August 23, 2000; and on August 1, 2007, a Kenyan court found that Fr. Kaiser had been murdered by unknown assailants; AND

WHEREAS, the Most Rev. Giovanni Tonnucci, former Apostolic Nuncio to the Republic of Kenya called Fr. Kaiser's death "a religious assassination," and Fr. Kaiser himself "a martyr;" and the United States Congress agreed by adopting a resolution in its 106th session, twice referring to Fr. Kaiser's death as an "assassination;"

RESOLVED, THAT the Missouri State Council continue to use its resources to tell the story of Fr. Kaiser's dedication to human rights and heroic service to his parishioners, and of his murder; AND

RESOLVED, THAT the Missouri State Council of the Knights of Columbus encourage all of its members to annually set aside August 23 as a remembrance to our deceased brother Knight and priest; AND

RESOLVED, THAT copies of this resolution be forwarded by the State Secretary to Mrs. Carolita Mahoney, Fr. Kaiser's sister and next of kin; to Fr. Hans Boerakker, archivist for the St. Joseph's Missionary Society; to Bro. Eugene Hippe, State Deputy of Minnesota, Fr. Kaiser's home state; and to the Supreme Council for their consideration.

Kenya elections

2008-06-04T20:35:00.001-05:00

ODM alleges plot to rig polls

Story by NATION TEAM

Publication Date: 6/4/2008

ODM Tuesday claimed that an elaborate scheme had been hatched to rig the Kilgoris by-election in favour of the PNU candidate.

According to the party headquarters, the rigging scheme involves the use of incitement, tampering with the by-election result forms and deliberate delay of the voting process to ensure only a few voters took part, especially in Kirindon, Lolgorien and Pirrar divisions.

The latter, said ODM secretary general Anyang’ Nyong’o, was meant to frustrate voters and provoke them to violence.

“Police will then move in and poll officials will leave the venue pretending to be under threat,” claimed the ODM official.

ECK, however, dismissed the claims as baseless.

Chairman Samuel Kivuitu said it was untrue that ECK was training officers to falsify results in the June 11 by-election.

The presiding officers, their deputies and polling/counting clerks, the chairman said, were recruited on merit “and not on basis of party or ethnic affiliation.”

“The 344 POs and DPOs have been trained at Maranatha Catholic Church Hall in Kilgoris Town while the 688 polling/counting clerks will be trained at three venues; Fr Kaiser Hall in Lolgorian, Abosi Catholic Church Hall and Maranatha,” Mr Kivuitu said in a statement released in Nairobi last evening.

Prof Nyong’o told the press at Orange House that the party’s intelligence team found that the returning officer and election coordinator had drawn a special list of about 20 presiding officers and their deputies from communities perceived to be friendly to PNU, to aid rigging.

He claimed the presiding officers had been undergoing secret training at Shade Hotel in Ngong, where they are being lectured on how to facilitate rigging. The lecturers are allegedly being led by three ECK commissioners.

Some of the polling centres said to be targeted include Angata Barigoi, Kapsasian, Ololmasani, Emurwa Dikkir, Ilkerin, Njibiship, Mogondo, Chemamit, Kapueria, Murkan, Chebulu and Kapolecho.

Mr Kivuitu, who has been highly criticised in some quarters over ECK’s handling of last year’s General Election, said two commissioners from Kilgoris were in the area to monitor the polls. ECK would also accredit local and international observers and journalists for the elections, he said.

Campaign team

And the Party of National Unity was Tuesday asked to form a team to pitch tent in Embakasi and campaign for their candidate, Mr Ferdinard Waititu.

“ODM has already started their campaign and so we also need a campaign team from our party,” Mr Waititu told Justice, National Cohesion and Constitutional Affairs minister Martha Karua.

He asked Ms Karua to lead the team.

PNU is yet to form a campaign team to drum up support for its candidates in the five parliamentary by-elections.

By-elections are being held in Embakasi, Emuhaya, Ainamoi, Wajir North and Kilgoris as well as in 52 civic wards.

Reported by Caroline Wafula, Muchemi Wachira and Lucas Barasa

Stay strong, stay tough

2007-11-04T08:12:00.000-06:00

Helen and Peter fell for each other in Africa and built their life in Minnesota. Since his death in the bridge collapse, she relies on that love each day.

By Pam Louwagie, Star Tribune

Last update: November 03, 2007 – 10:42 PM
They gathered in the foyer before sunrise, the widow and her children singing to the man missing from their lives.

The older two -- Justina and Andrew -- stood at the door, backpacks at their feet. The younger two -- Theresa and David -- stood on either side of their mom, still in pajamas. They sang lustily, eyes filled with tears.

It is tradition in Peter and Helen Hausmann's family to sing on birthday mornings. They've done it on every birthday since the kids were little.

So on this dark October morning they sang to their father, who died when the Interstate 35W bridge collapsed.

Ready? Helen started and the kids joined in. Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Daddy ...

Often, Peter had to encourage his children to belt it out. Louder, you hooligans! But this morning, they sang out without prompting.

Helen held back her sobs. She was staying strong for her four kids.

• • •
Even as a younger man, Peter Hausmann reached out to others. He'd see the sad stories of Third World children on TV commercials and couldn't help but send money. A farm kid from South Dakota, he landed a high-paying computer job in the Twin Cities that took him around the world. It was a life he'd worked hard to get, but it wasn't making him happy.

Finally, his brother Leo, who would become a Catholic priest, suggested that Peter do mission work. In 1987, Peter arrived at a boarding school in a remote Kenyan town to teach science.Helen Ongaki, a slight woman who wore her hair in braids, worked at the school, watching him from afar for about a year. He looked like a girl, she thought, with his scrawny build and flowing brown hair.

In the mud-soaked town during rainy season, with lousy roads and poverty all around, he was always smiling, kind and happier than anyone she knew.

One day, as children playfully quizzed Peter on their names, Helen spoke to him for the first time.

What about me? Do you know my name?

He did.

Do you know my name? he asked back.

You are Mr. Peter Joseph Hausmann.

He looked at her, wide-eyed. How do you know my middle name?

She grinned.

That's my secret.

***
Their courtship included hikes down a muddy road, him getting to know her family and winning their love. It was an improbable union and grew more so when Helen and Peter married and, after his visa expired, moved to South Dakota.

Peter got another computer job, and they moved to the Twin Cities. So much was new to Helen, but she was determined to adapt. Her first time on an escalator, she stepped on as if she'd done it her whole life, totally assured that Peter wouldn't lead her into danger.

And there was the 1991 Halloween blizzard. She tried opening the front door and couldn't because of the snowdrifts that had piled up. Watching Helen's expression, Peter doubled over with laughter.

She wondered what kind of frozen hell he'd brought her to.

When do we go home? she asked.

Any time you want to, he replied.

But they stayed. They had four children and built a family life in Rosemount, getting to know neighbors and becoming involved in the Church of St. Joseph, where Peter taught confirmation classes and the children went to grade school.

On most summer evenings, Peter built a bonfire in the back-yard fire pit, and sat near it until somebody joined him. They often had deep spiritual conversations. But he was never serious for long, keeping the mood light around the house, never using real names. Helen was "Mrs. Wiggins," or "Flossy" for her love of dental flossing.

For their 17th anniversary this year, Peter gave Helen a card listing the "Top 10 great things about being married as long as us."

Peter added six more. "We are there to help each other," he wrote. "We play ridiculous games together... We are furnaces for each other... We love each other a lot. Really a lot."

In late July, Peter and Justina talked around the fire about an accident in the news. A man had died and his family was left behind. Justina asked why bad things happen to good people.Justina remembers what he told her: I can guarantee you, in 100 percent of those cases, those people are always ready to go.

***
The phone rang just before 6 p.m. on Aug. 1. He was stuck in traffic, he told Helen, and was on his way to pick up their friend -- a priest from Kenya -- to bring him to dinner. The phone went dead and it went right to voice mail when Helen called back.

At first, she didn't worry.

But 10 minutes turned into 20 and when Theresa turned on the TV at 6:30 to watch "Wheel of Fortune," they saw news of the bridge collapse.

Right away, Helen knew.

She got a ride from a family friend into the city that night. They checked a hospital. They went to the Holiday Inn where families were gathering, gave them Peter's description and waited for word.

Peter's brothers and sister came from out of town, and every day they drove from Rosemount to the Holiday Inn near the bridge. The children stayed home, comforted by neighbors and church friends.

On the fourth day, divers found Peter's van. He wasn't in it, which gave the family some hope. Did he swim to safety? Maybe he had hit his head and was wandering the streets, unsure of who he was?

* * *
It wasn't like Peter, 47, to be away. He avoided overnight business trips. Sometimes he worked from home. On days when his son had a football game, he started his day early to be there. He cooked on weekends sometimes. He kept track of paying the bills. He fixed the rattling refrigerator.

When Andrew wanted to go out for football, Peter convinced a nervous Helen that it would be OK. When the girls wanted to wear nail polish, he persuaded her to give in.

Helen doesn't drive, so Peter shuttled the family everywhere, making sure the kids got to religion classes, doctor appointments and school activities.

On Saturday nights, after the little kids were in bed and the older ones could watch them, Peter and Helen did the grocery shopping together.

* * *
While Helen and Peter's siblings waited for news with other families, they spoke with the relatives of Sadiya Sahal and her 22-month-old daughter, Hana, who were also missing. Their family had immigrated from Somalia. They talked about beliefs and faiths, Christian and Muslim.

On the ninth day, Helen was at home when the phone call came. Peter's body had been found.It's done, she thought. No more torture.

Helen said she was told by authorities that Peter's body was half in and half out of another car, and it looked like he was trying to rescue a little child -- possibly Hana.

"That makes it OK," Justina said later, through tears. "Because, you know, he probably would have struggled with depression and all that if he had gone away not helping."

* * *
Helen doesn't sleep much. She sits in bed, her little children sleeping beside her, and opens a book of word-search puzzles Peter once bought her. She focuses intently on each word, each puzzle, trying to stop worry from creeping into her thoughts. Life is a struggle to keep grief at bay.

Sometimes, worry wins. That's when she feels like she's drowning, too.

In her eyes, Peter rescued her from Kenya and brought her to the United States for a better life for their children.

She wonders who will rescue her from this?

"I don't know who will be my hero anymore," she said. There's no one left to turn to."

"Not the way I turned to him."

During the day, Helen draws strength from her children.

Justina, an A student who wants to be a pediatrician, has band performances. Andrew, 14, has football games. The younger children rush through the front door in their school uniforms. David, with Peter's mannerisms and energy, jumps around constantly, asking to play outside. Theresa brings home giggly friends.

Helen tries to laugh when she can. "Your dad would say, 'Come on, you hooligans!'" she tells them, trying to herd the family to the dinner table.

But now, when Justina, 17, asks to drive someplace after dark, or when the other children try to bargain about playtime, Helen is left to decide alone.

Peter's advice echoes through her head.

Stay strong, stay tough, she hears him. Say 'no' even if you know it's going to break somebody's heart.

Helen's brother, sister and niece, who came in from Kenya for the funeral, are staying as long as they can to help. Peter's siblings make frequent trips to town. Friends take Helen to Andrew's games.

She spends two mornings a week battling with the bills Peter used to handle. On the phone, arguing about discrepancies on a late bill, she refrains from telling what has happened.

"I don't want that 'poor lady excuse,'" she said.

But later, when the children have gone to bed and the house is still, the gravity sets in.

"I am afraid of sinking," she says. "If I stand still, I'm afraid I might go into the thought mode. ... I'm the one holding up the whole family."

* * *
On Peter's birthday, Oct. 12, Helen sent Justina to get eggs while she finished some paperwork. Then she opened a box of chocolate cake mix and started measuring. She slid the pan into the oven, kids licking the beaters, and made sure Justina knew her job was to take it out.

A family friend drove Helen to Andrew's football game. A ninth-grader, he was playing on the Rosemount varsity for the first time. His opening kick sailed under the bright lights. Helen could imagine Peter there with her.

Way to go, young man, she could hear him saying. A-bear, you did good!

At halftime, Justina danced in step with the marching band. After the game, Peter's relatives arrived. Helen took out a single white candle and set it in the middle of the chocolate cake. She lit the wick. She called everyone into the dining room.

They ended the day the way they began: Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you...

Pam Louwagie • 612-673-7102

Pam Louwagie • plouwagie@startribune.com

City Pages

2007-10-24T21:05:00.000-05:00

A few months ago, I was interviewed by a young lady who works with an "entertainment" type newspaper; in Minneapolis-St. Paul, it is the City Pages. In St. Louis, where she was from, it's the Riverfront Times. Several people were interviewed and my mother suggested some others. One of them refused to be interviewed, citing the paper as a "rag." Personally, I was of the opinion that any information was good information, no matter what angle they took.

And, I'm pleased to report, they took the high road. This article is the cover story on the City Pages, and I would imagine on similar papers in other cities. Thank you, Aimee. You did a very nice job.

- - - - - - - - -

Was it a Kenyan assassin who killed the Minnesota-reared missionary—or was it madness? Seven years later, the verdict is in.

The Death of Father Kaiser

By Aimee Levitt

Just before dawn on an August morning seven years ago, John and Henry Kanbo drove toward the market town of Naivasha to buy cattle. The Naivasha-Nakuru Highway is usually one of the busiest roads in southwest Kenya's Rift Valley, but at 6:00 a.m. it was deserted, except for the battered white Toyota pickup perched on the edge of a ditch near a grove of acacia trees. The brothers pulled over and noticed a string of pink rosary beads hanging from a switch on the dashboard and a body lying in a brick drainage culvert.

In the dim morning light the Kanbos made out the corpse of a large white male, 6-foot-2-inches and 200 pounds. He lay on his back, his black leather jacket and gray trousers splattered with mud. There was a pile of blankets and sheets at his side, and a double-barreled shotgun at his feet. Blood oozed from where the back of his head should have been.

When police arrived, they had little trouble identifying the body. The man's name was John Anthony Kaiser, a man much loved by the people of Kenya for the work he did on behalf of the poor and dispossessed. He was an American priest who had first come to Africa 36 years earlier as a missionary, fresh from his ordination in St. Louis, where he attended Saint Louis University and began studying for the priesthood.

At first the Kenyans knew him as Father Seven Oxen because of his physical strength. Later they called him the Rhino because he was tough and stubborn, not a man to be crossed. In the few years before his death, he'd become the Key, or the Voice of the People, unafraid to speak out against the corruption that permeated the Kenyan government.

Father Kaiser was 67 years old when he died that early morning of August 24, 2000. Naivasha police told the Kenyan newspaper The Nation that he'd been shot in a "gangland style execution."

Kaiser was not the first outspoken Catholic priest in Kenya to perish under mysterious circumstances. "You'd be surprised at how much went on in western Kenya in the 1990s," says Dave Durenberger, a former U.S. Senator from Minnesota and a high school classmate of Kaiser. "A lot of priests spoke out against the government, and the government tried to scare them off and keep them in their place."

Sometimes they went even further, says Father Cornelius Schilders, the current bishop of Ngong, Kaiser's old diocese. "Many people who spoke out against the oppression and corruption disappeared," he explains in a recent email.

In public forums and in the Kenyan and international press, Kaiser accused Kenya's president, Daniel arap Moi, of staging bloody tribal wars in order to drive people from their land and seize it for the government. Throughout the 1990s, Kaiser had been followed, harassed, and even beaten and placed under house arrest by Kenyan police and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

"I reckon they tried to frighten him so he would leave Kenya," Schilders writes. "But then they really did not know him! Nothing would make him do that, only death."

"John always knew he was going to die in Africa," says his niece, Mary Mahoney Weaver. "It was his home."

Before his journey to Kenya, Kaiser's home was his parents' dairy farm near the town of Perham, in northern Minnesota. Although the family struggled financially, they were resourceful. The four Kaiser children grew their own vegetables and played with homemade toys. As a young boy Kaiser learned how to hunt and fish, good preparation for the rugged life of a missionary. "John never had comfort," recalls Kaiser's cousin, Michaela Dasteel. "He did not want comfort."

At 13, Kaiser left the farm for St. John's Preparatory School, a Catholic boys' boarding school in Collegeville, Minnesota, 200 miles away. His parents strongly believed in giving their children a Catholic education, regardless of the considerable sacrifices.

His old St. John's classmate Durenberger remembers Kaiser as "a big, gangly farm boy who wasn't afraid of anything." He was captain of the football and track teams, set the school's pole-vaulting record, and was a talented artist and star student.

"He was a normal kid with exceptional talents," remembers Kaiser's sister, Carolita Mahoney. "Wherever he went, people wanted to be around him. But he was a loner. He would just as soon have been out hunting in the woods."

Kaiser entered Collegeville's St. John's University in 1951 with the intention of studying English literature and becoming a teacher. But even then he suspected he might be facing a different sort of future. "God calls you to become a priest," explains Mahoney. A devout Catholic like Kaiser could not ignore God. But, she adds, "He put off answering the calls."

"It was a real sacrifice for him to become a priest," says Dasteel. "He loved women."

Kaiser left college in 1954 and enlisted in the peacetime Army, where he spent three years as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division. He jumped out of airplanes, slept in the woods, and developed a taste for adventure that he didn't think he could satisfy as a parish priest.

"John had a real fear of being a diocesan priest and being sent to a big city," Mahoney says. As Dasteel puts it: "He was a country guy; the problems of middle-class Americans would have gotten him down."

Soon after Kaiser's return to St. John's in 1957, a Dutch priest from the St. Joseph's Missionary Society paid a recruiting visit to the college. More commonly known as Mill Hill after its headquarters in England, it is the largest of the missionary orders. "The recruiter talked about the wildlife of Africa," remembers Father Bill Vos, a St. John's classmate who later worked with Kaiser in Kenya. "That got John."

Mill Hill sent Kaiser to St. Louis to begin his seminary training at SLU. He graduated in 1960 and went on to England to finish his studies, but he insisted on returning to St. Louis for his ordination in 1964. He'd made friends with several local families and the bishop. It felt like home.

That autumn he boarded a freighter for the two-month voyage to Kenya.

On the afternoon of April 18, 2001, two FBI agents arrived at Carolita Mahoney's home in Underwood, Minnesota. It was not the first time they had visited. Immediately after Father John Kaiser's death, the U.S. ambassador to Kenya, Johnnie Carson, had arranged for the FBI to join the Kenyan police and the CID in the investigation. Carson was afraid that the Kenyans would try to protect President Moi and paint Kaiser's killing as something other than a political assassination.

Mahoney cooperated with the agents, telling them everything she knew about her brother's life. She wanted justice—and resolution. After eight months of investigating, they brought her an 81-page document titled "The Final Report into the Death of Father John Kaiser." She grabbed the report and turned to the final summary page. She noticed the agents did not linger to see her reaction. "They were out the door so quickly it was like they knew I was not going to be happy," she recalls.

"The manner of the death of Father John Anthony Kaiser is more consistent with a suicide than a homicide," she read. "This suicide resulted from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head."
The FBI report, a devastating glimpse into Kaiser's "deteriorating" mental state, focused on the final 96 hours of his life in Nairobi. It said colleagues described him as "out of sorts," "tense," "scared," "exceptionally nervous" and "haunted." He was seen crying at Mass and spent nights awake with a shotgun by his side, and when he did sleep, "Father Kaiser could be heard calling out the names of prominent Kenyan politicians." The report continued: "He confides that he thinks he is being followed." He told his bishop that "death was near."

Mahoney stood in the doorway, shocked and angry. Devout Catholics did not commit suicide, especially not Catholic priests. "Anyone who knew John would know that report was ridiculous."
Says niece Mary Mahoney Weaver: "They said he was mentally unstable because he cried during Mass. He cried many times when he was very moved."

Kaiser himself had suspected that he might be murdered and that someone would try to cover it up; he'd seen it before, when other priests' deaths were attributed to unfortunate car accidents. Shortly before he died, he wrote in an open letter to his family and friends: "I want all to know that if I disappear from the scene, because the bush is vast and hyenas many, that I am not planning any accident, nor, God forbid, any self-destruction."

Kaiser's family immediately grasped the implication of the FBI's conclusion. Suicide was a mortal sin, a violation of everything Kaiser stood for as a Catholic priest. "It was a smudge on his name," says Weaver.

"John loved Africa from the minute he got there," Michaela Dasteel says. Kenya won its independence from Great Britain in 1962, two years before Kaiser arrived, and he was excited to help build the new nation. After several years of training, he took up his first parish among the Kisii people, in the high plains of the Rift Valley.

Father Kaiser had to build a congregation from nothing, Father Vos recalls. In the beginning, there wasn't even a church. Kaiser led Mass under a tree. "It was grassroots evangelism," says Vos. As his flock grew, Kaiser began to build churches and schools and proved himself an effective, economical contractor. "He would use the local materials," Vos remembers. "He was very clever. He'd cut down trees and get the people to haul stones."

His physical strength amazed the Kisii. "Once a group of men was trying to raise a huge tree for the center post of a church," Weaver recalls. "John was determined to get the thing done. But it got late and everyone went home. When they came back the next morning, the post was up. He never said how he did it. They considered him superhuman."

Kaiser's happiest times were on hunting trips with the tribe. "The Kisii were traditional hunters," Vos says. "They were proud to have a priest who connected with them on that level."
"He lived very simply," Vos adds, "like African people do." Aside from his motorcycle, all of his possessions could fit in a sack. His family would send him underwear, socks, and deodorant, but he'd give it all away. "He didn't need it," says Weaver.

"You rarely saw him down," says Weaver. "He could find joy in the simplest things." On visits home, he would devour bowls of ice cream, quote lines from the movie Fargo in a Minnesota accent, and sing his favorite song, Glen Campbell's "Rhinestone Cowboy." A week before his death, Kaiser wrote home to say he hoped he and his family could "all meet again and have a fishing trip up in the border waters of northern Minnesota, canoe country. The best time would be late August or September..."

But there were at least two periods in Kaiser's life, according to the FBI report, when his natural exuberance deserted him.

In 1969, Mill Hill reassigned Kaiser to its mission near Albany, New York, where he served as a rector, guiding other young men who hoped to join the order. His superior was an older priest who had served the parish for many years. Soon after Kaiser arrived, he noticed that money appeared to be missing from the parish's coffers. He announced that he would ask a friend, a CPA, to check the books.

"Soon thereafter," the April 2001 FBI report read, "Father Kaiser traveled to New York City. While there, Father Kaiser was taken into custody by the New York Police Department and taken to Bellevue Hospital for psychiatric evaluation. Father Kaiser had resisted the NYPD officers because he believed there was nothing wrong with him. He subsequently learned that [the other priest] had filed a report stating that he (Father Kaiser) was mentally impaired, possessed a gun, and had gone to New York City." Mahoney went to Bellevue to visit him and found him under heavy medication.

Kaiser agreed to voluntary commitment so his insurance would pay for treatment, the report continued, "and stated it would be a good opportunity to rest."

The real problem, Mahoney maintains, was not Kaiser's mental condition, but widespread corruption within the Albany parish. "There were things amiss in that place," she says. "There were problems—not with John, but with someone in so-called authority."

Mahoney arranged for Kaiser's release from the hospital, and Mill Hill sent him back to Africa. He had no further mental-health issues until 1980, when, on a visit home, he began to feel agitated and had trouble sleeping. His family took him to see a psychiatrist, who diagnosed him with bipolar disorder and prescribed lithium. Kaiser took the medicine until he returned to Kenya later in the summer of 1980 and no longer felt he needed it.

Weaver believes Kaiser was suffering from culture shock. "He came back here," she says, "and everything was so different. He never had a problem in Africa."

"There was a lot of misinterpretation of his behavior in the FBI's analysis," Mahoney adds.

Kaiser's life as an ordinary missionary priest came to an end one night early in 1993. He'd recently been transferred to a new parish in the central Kenyan highlands, just east of the Rift Valley. Driving along a mountain road, he saw a group of Kikuyu tribespeople trudging through the chilly rain. Kaiser stopped to ask them where they were going. To a refugee camp in Maela, halfway up the mountain, they told him. The government had just confiscated their land in the valley and they had nowhere else to go.

Like nearly everywhere else in Kenya in the early 1990s, the Rift Valley had been the battleground of a bloody tribal war. In the past, the Kikuyu people had leased farmland from their Maasai neighbors. The arrangement benefited both tribes, and they lived together in relative peace. But in 1992, just before Kenya's first two-party election, some of the Maasai began stealing cattle from their Kikuyu tenants and attacking Kikuyu farmers for violating the terms of their leases. The Kikuyu fought back. War broke out, and some entire villages were decimated. The government intervened and seized the Kikuyu's land.

Kaiser volunteered to serve as chaplain in Maela. After several months in the camp, he began to realize that the tribal war was not the dustup over cattle rustling and land leases that it first appeared.

Daniel arap Moi had been the president of Kenya since 1978. He was a popular leader at first, but as time went on he began to resort to more menacing measures to maintain political power. By the early '90s, says Durenberger, "the Moi government was rotten to the core."

"Moi was a dictator," says Dasteel. "He had any opposition tortured or murdered. Ballot boxes were stolen. Anyone who tried to run against Moi got killed." One of Moi's favorite methods of eliminating his rivals was to stage car "accidents" in remote locations.

The 1992 election was particularly crucial for Moi. For the first time since becoming president, he was facing a real political challenge. In 1991, in order to continue to receive Western aid, he reluctantly agreed to allow multi-party elections, even though he believed multiple parties would lead to increased tribal warfare.

The parties were indeed split along tribal lines. The Kikuyu did not support Moi. In order to prevent them from voting, Moi staged a tribal war, hiring thugs to pose as Maasai and attack the Kikuyu. By 1993, when Kaiser became chaplain of the Maela camp, Moi had been re-elected president, and 30,000 Kikuyu had lost their homes and were living in squalor.

"The people were in shock," says Carolita Mahoney. "They had to live in plastic huts. The U.N. provided rations, but they were starvation rations. John would secretly load up his truck with powdered milk and maize and soybeans so they would have something to eat. He got in big trouble."

Kaiser appealed to the U.N. to improve the conditions at Maela, but nothing changed. Kaiser believed it was because the U.N. was afraid to antagonize Moi. Looking to shame the relief organization into changing its mind, he took the case to the press. Soon the missionary priest became a national figure—and a target of the Moi government.

"He didn't welcome the attention," Mahoney says. "He was happy being a pastor. He didn't recognize the danger. The Kisii were not having the same problems as the Kikuyu. But he felt he should have spoken up sooner. The most important thing he remembered from seminary was the time a priest had asked his class what was the most important virtue a priest should have. The students said things like humility and kindness. The priest slammed down his hand on the desk and said, 'No! It's courage! If you don't have courage, you will never be a good priest.' John lived it."

It was because of John Kaiser that stories about the harsh conditions at Maela began to appear in American papers. Facing international embarrassment and, more important, the loss of foreign aid, Moi decided to close the camp and disperse the Kikuyu refugees. Government soldiers arrived in Maela on Christmas Eve in 1993.

They came in trucks to haul the human cargo away to empty stadiums and open fields. Kaiser refused to leave. He herded the women and children into the church and stood guard at the door to protect them. For his efforts, he was beaten and dumped out in the bush to die. Somehow he survived. But that was only the beginning.

For the rest of his life, Kaiser was harassed by agents of the Kenyan government. They tailed his car at night and threw rocks through the windows of his house. Once, says Vos, the Kenyan police caught him in the bush and held a gun to his head. Kaiser told them, "Shoot me and my troubles are over, but yours are just beginning." They let him go.

The church began to worry about Kaiser's safety. Bishop Colin Davies reassigned him to Lolgorien, a remote parish in the green, hilly Maasai territory near the Tanzania border, and warned him to "go easy." But easy wasn't Kaiser's style. Though he had great respect for Pope John Paul II, he was impatient with the church bureaucracy and believed his first loyalty was to his parishioners.

"John could be quite stubborn when he wanted to be," says Mary Mahoney Weaver. "He was disappointed that people could be so absolutely cruel and disrespectful of life."

So in 1998, when Moi organized a tribunal called the Akiwumi Commission to look into the causes of ethnic violence, Kaiser was determined to testify. He assembled documents and traveled to Nairobi, where he spent several weeks sitting outside the courtroom waiting to be called. When he finally did take the stand in February 1999, his testimony caused a sensation. He claimed the government had instigated the tribal clashes, and he named names: Minister of Defense Julius Sunkuli, Cabinet member Nicholas Diwott, and President Moi himself.

"In the constitution of Kenya, it's written that you cannot defame the president," Vos explains. "John publicly said Moi should be indicted in the world court at The Hague for crimes against humanity, and he volunteered to testify. It was not the best way to ensure his future."

Kaiser knew what he was getting into, says Bishop Cornelius Schilders, who was then the regional superior of Mill Hill. "He said, 'They may well kill me for this, but I am prepared to die for the truth, because God's people are being trampled on and we have to speak,'" Schilders writes in an email. "He was particular in mentioning names, including the president's. He did so because if one remains general, nobody will take it to heart and nothing will change."

The Akiwumi Commission struck Kaiser's testimony from the record—not that it mattered. The commission never bothered to release a report. Meanwhile, Kaiser had found another crusade. Two girls in his parish claimed they had been raped and impregnated by Sunkuli. Kaiser encouraged them to take legal action against the minister, the second most powerful man in Kenya.

By now, Kaiser knew his life was in real danger. A sympathetic government security agent warned him that plans had been made for his assassination. "He was more and more stressed," Vos says. "He was on guard more and he kept his gun with him when he slept."

In the autumn of 1999, the Kenyan government found a perfect excuse to expel Kaiser from the country: He had neglected to renew his work visa. But Kaiser went into hiding, moving from place to place—including a convent, where Vos says the nuns lied to protect him. The church and the U.S. State Department intervened, and the Kenyan government issued Kaiser another visa.
But why didn't he take the opportunity to leave Kenya while he still could and save his own life? "He was afraid to come home," Dasteel says. "He was afraid he wouldn't be able to get back into the country." Besides, he had spent more than half his life in Kenya; he was more African now than American. "He was happiest in Kenya," says Weaver.

Dasteel believes that Kaiser martyred himself to save Kenya. Although the two girls succumbed to government pressure and dropped the rape charges against Sunkuli, the case damaged Sunkuli's reputation enough that he lost the 2002 presidential election.

"If Johnny hadn't done what he did," Dasteel says, "Sunkuli would have succeeded Moi and the corruption would still be going on. He didn't want to die. He loved life. But I think he thought that maybe he could make a difference."

Three days before he died, Father Kaiser traveled to Nairobi at the summons of the papal nuncio, or representative of the pope. Kaiser was afraid that the church was about to order him to leave Kenya, and he wept as he recited his last Mass in Lolgorien. To the other priests who saw him in Nairobi, Kaiser appeared to be on edge. His moods changed abruptly and he wasn't sleeping.

"They said he was paranoid," says Weaver. "Well, he was beaten and attacked and his house was ransacked. They said he wasn't sleeping. Well, yeah. He had rocks thrown through his window. Of course he was paranoid. He knew he was skating on thin ice. In that report, there was not one comment or statement by anyone who remotely knew him."

Mahoney says Kaiser's mood swings could be easily explained: "John thought the nuncio was going to send him home because he was going to get himself killed. Instead the nuncio asked him for advice about who should be the next bishop in the Ngong diocese. He wanted advice from someone the people respected. John was delighted."

Kaiser left Nairobi for Lolgorien the evening of August 23, 2000. Only a few hours of daylight remained. The Nakuru police commander Andrew Kimetto described Kaiser's final hours to The Nation, based on crime-scene evidence. Kaiser's truck was hijacked and driven off the main road into the forest. He was pulled from the truck and forced to kneel and say his final prayers. An assassin then shot him in the back of the head. The killers drove the truck back to the Naivasha-Nakuru Highway, dumped his body in the ditch, and disappeared.

A month after Kaiser's death, FBI agents traveled to Kenya to interview the Naivasha police and the coroner who performed the autopsy. Their final report relied most heavily on the opinion of Dr. Vincent Di Maio, a gunshot expert in Texas. Di Maio, though, did not examine the body, and, of the many photographs available, none showed a clear view of the head wound. Also, the FBI's "behavioral analysis unit," which deemed Kaiser suicidal, had never met him and only reviewed his medical history, which they conceded was incomplete.

"I'm not severely critical of the FBI," Mahoney says, "but I wouldn't recommend those investigators for anything."

Kaiser's family and friends are convinced the investigation was a sham. "Someone else was calling the shots," Durenberger says. That someone else, he believes, was the U.S. State Department.

In early 2001, the U.S. was preparing for the possibility of war with Iran. On the Indian Ocean, the Kenyan harbor of Mombassa would be a strategic location to hold ships and aircraft carriers. "I am convinced that a deal was made between the U.S. government and the Kenyan government," Bishop Cornelius Schilders writes. "The price for the use of the harbor was John Kaiser and the explanation of his suicide."

Durenberger used his connections to get in touch with Carson. "I asked what the State Department was going to do. He said, 'Nothing.' He wasn't going to rock the boat. It ticked me off. Till the day I die, I am going to believe that my Department of State and my Department of Justice played a role in the decision to cover up for the people responsible for John's death."
Father Tony Chantry, the general superior of Mill Hill, offers a more blunt assessment: "The FBI colluded with corrupt members of the Kenyan government."

The Catholic Church and then-Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone both condemned the report and began pressuring the governments of Kenya and the United States to launch an inquest into Kaiser's death. The Kenyan courts finally began the inquest in 2003, after Moi had been swept from power. It dragged on for more than four years, with frequent recesses and a change in the magistrate halfway through. Some 112 witnesses gave testimony. The magistrate called the FBI agents to the stand three times, but they never appeared or gave an explanation for their absence.

Mahoney believes Kenya's inquest probe was far more complete than the "official" one by the FBI. "So many people who should have been interviewed came forward at the inquest," she says.

On August 1, 2007, the inquest finally came to an end. Kenyan Magistrate Maureen Odero ruled that John Kaiser did not commit suicide, thus rejecting earlier findings by Kenyan authorities and the FBI that he shot himself in the back of the head with a shotgun. Kaiser was murdered.
Kevin Foust, the FBI agent who led the investigation, offered but two words last week when asked to square his determination of suicide with the findings of the inquest: "No comment."

"The wonderful thing about this whole thing is that there are thousands—thousands—of Kenyans who absolutely knew John was murdered," Fran Kaiser, the priest's brother, told the St. Paul Pioneer Press. "He had been their greatest advocate for years. Their hope for any justice was bashed, but now it is resurrected again."

Mahoney, though, is not optimistic about the Kenyan government's chances of ever finding her brother's killer. "It's a cold case," she says. "Whoever pulled the trigger is probably dead themselves."

Four thousand people attended Father John Kaiser's funeral on August 31, 2000. They packed the basilica in Nairobi and stood in the street outside. Pigeons circled the rafters of the cathedral—"like the Holy Spirit," Mahoney says—as the crowd sang the missionary anthem, "Here I Am, Lord." As Kaiser himself had requested, his body was laid to rest under a fig tree in Lolgorien. His family covered the grave with a protective layer of cement.

In Kenya today, the American missionary remains a national hero. Children are named after him. "Every August 24 is celebrated like Martin Luther King Day here," says Father Vos. "He's a focal point for anyone working for peace and justice in that country."

A sad time

2007-08-04T09:11:00.000-05:00

For families of missing, waiting hurts most

BY LAURA YUEN and MARA H. GOTTFRIED
Pioneer Press
TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press
Article Last Updated:08/03/2007 11:41:32 PM CDT

The waiting started with something as mundane as a dropped call. But since Peter Hausmann's cell phone connection went fuzzy at 6:05 p.m. Wednesday, his wife and children have been in agony.

"You don't want to hear any bad news, but you wish you had news," said Hausmann's 14-year-old son, Andrew.

Heading into the third day after the Interstate 35W bridge collapse, though, some families have conceded that the only news left about the missing must be bad.

The waiting hurts the most.

Do they begin to grieve, or do they hold out hope?

What Hausmann's daughter Justina, 16, longed for: "Answers. Why this happened. To see him."

"Some people are hopeful, but I think the hope is, they will have information," said Scott Palmer, a psychologist and volunteer counselor at the American Red Cross family support center at the Holiday Inn Metrodome in Minneapolis.

At least seven people were unaccounted for Friday in the wake of the catastrophe.
Among the missing:

Sadiya Sahal, a Minneapolis nursing student who is five months pregnant;

Hana Sahal, her 20-month-old daughter;

Greg "Jolly" Jolstad, 45, of Kanabec County, a construction worker whose compact loader plunged into the Mississippi River;

Peter Hausmann, 47, of Rosemount, a former missionary who met his wife of 17 years in Kenya;

Christine Sacorafas, 45, of White Bear Lake, an active member of St. Mary's Greek Orthodox Church in Minneapolis.

Hausmann was on his way to St. Louis Park to pick up a friend for dinner when he called his wife, Helen. He complained about the molasses-slow gridlock that had cars creeping along at 5 mph.

Then the line went dead. Hausmann's family tried calling him back several times. He never answered.

His Rosemount home has drawn neighbors, family and friends helping run the house and take the family's minds off of the catastrophe. Four friends who happen to be priests held Mass on Thursday evening in Hausmann's honor.

It should have been a joyous week: Hausmann had just learned the government of Kenya had ordered a new investigation into the 2000 shooting death of his friend, the Rev. John Kaiser.
The Mass was tough, Justina Hausmann said.

"People talked about him in the past tense, and I wasn't ready to hear that," she said.

At the Red Cross station, the mood from Thursday to Friday changed from hope to distress, said Alan Brankline, a disaster and mental-health social worker. Families and friends have been wrestling with a range of emotions, he said.

"There's some anger," Brankline said. "They're angry because they're looking at their life in a whole new different way."

But that anger doesn't appear to be directed toward the bridge's troubled history, said Palmer, the psychologist.

"I think people think it's a horrible, freak accident," he said. "They want to find out eventually what happened."

By Friday afternoon, Dorothy Svendsen had no word about her son, Jolstad, a Mora native and construction worker for Progressive Contractors Inc. Many people, including Svendsen, presumed her son couldn't have survived the wreckage.

The waiting "isn't easy," said Svendsen, of Hinckley. "We're coping."

Sahal, 23, was driving her young daughter in a white Toyota Highlander on Wednesday evening on her way to visit her nephew, a family member said. She moved from Somalia to the United States in 2000 and graduated from Washburn High School in Minneapolis.

Sahal's husband, upset about her disappearance, went without sleep the first two nights. He hasn't been able to bring himself to speak about his wife.

His despair grows as the hours pass with no answers.

"It's a race against time," said Omar Jamal, a spokesman for the family.

Sacorafas, the White Bear Lake woman, was heading to her church near Lake Calhoun to teach children Greek folk dancing. She called another parishioner shortly before 6 p.m. to say she was stuck in traffic on I-35W, said the church's pastor, the Rev. Paul Paris.

The San Diego native moved to Minnesota one or two years ago, Paris said. At a service Friday night in preparation for the Dormition of the Theotokos - or the passing of the Virgin Mary - parishioners prayed for an intervention.

"A miracle is not looking very good right now," the pastor said before the service. "We're all trying to hold onto hope that she'll be all right."

Rick Alonzo contributed to this report.

Video coverage

2007-08-01T17:27:00.000-05:00

Check out this video.

Kaiser was murdered

2007-08-01T16:53:00.000-05:00

Kaiser was murdered

By Lucianne Limo
East African Standard

It is now official that Fr John Anthony Kaiser was murdered. This became obvious after a Nairobi court tore into shreds, a theory propagated by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) that the Catholic priest committed suicide.

"The suicide theory is replete with loopholes and missing links. The theory raises more questions than answers. On the whole this court finds the FBI report to be seriously flawed, superficial and lopsided," Nairobi Magistrate Mrs Maureen Doer said on Wednesday.

And the court ordered fresh investigations to establish conclusively the identity of Fr Kaisers killers, concluding that there exists sufficient evidence to show a third party involvement in Kaiser’s death.

The court also ordered the police to investigate Mr Francis Kantai, a catechist at Lolgorian Church known to be Fr Kaiser’s close friend at the parish.

Court wants three game rangers to be investigated

The magistrate ruled that Kantai knows more than he testified in court and needs to be interrogated further to establish what role, if any, he may have played in the death of the priest.
The court also wants three game rangers in Mara Serena, Mr Samuel Kortom, Mr Joseph Kupasar and Mr Daniel Suya to be investigated.

Odero said both Kupasar and Suya admitted that rangers are routinely issued with rifles as powerful as the one that killed Kaiser.

The court faulted the FBI saying they approached the investigation casually as evidenced by their failure to consider any alternative theory to explain Kaiser’s death.

Psychiatrist faulted over mental illness theory

The court also gave the Former Internal Security minister, Mr Julius Sunkuli, a lifeline when it trashed evidence linking him to Kaiser’s death.

The court further rubbished evidence that Kaiser killed himself using his own gun noting that the police and FBI made no Ballistic report available.

The magistrate also faulted psychiatrist, Dr Frank Njenga, for concluding that Kaiser suffered from mental illness without having treated him Kaiser, a Mill Hill Missionary was found dead on the night of August 24, 2000, at Morendant junction on the Nakuru-Naivasha highway.

It was murder

2007-08-01T16:42:00.000-05:00

It was murder, Kaiser probe rules

Story by MARK AGUTU
Publication Date: 8/2/2007
Daily Nation

Catholic priest Antony John Kaiser [sic] was murdered, contrary to claims by the world-renowned American Federal Bureau of Investigations and Kenyan police that he killed himself.

An inquest into the priest’s death trashed FBI’s report advancing the “Suicide Theory” saying it was based on a preconceived notion that the priest killed himself and not any concrete evidence.
It also ruled out possibilities of the priest having been mentally unstable saying no tangible evidence was tabled in court to back the claim.

But Chief Magistrate Maureen Odero said she could not — on the basis of evidence tabled before her in the inquest — point out with certainty who the priest’s killers were.

Consequently, Mrs Odero recommended that police carry out a fresh round of investigations to ascertain those behind the priest’s grisly death seven years ago.

She zeroed in on a number of people who should be investigated to determine whether or not they played any role at all in the death of Fr Kaiser.

Fr Kaiser met his death on the night of August 23-24, 2000 and his body was found at the Morendant Junction along the Naivasha-Nakuru High way. The cause of death was massive head injury due to a gun shot to the head.

According to the court, those who should face investigations are a Catholic Church Catechist Francis Kantai, who was serving under Fr Kaiser at the Lolgorian Parish within Ngong diocese at the time. Though it was stated that Mr Kantai was close to Fr Kaiser, his behaviour in the period leading to the priest’s death raised many questions.

His evidence was in the court’s view “unreliable, evasive and contradictory” besides a personal admission that he lied to the FBI. He also disappeared after Fr Kaiser’s death and never attended his funeral, as expected of a friend.

Others to be investigated are Kenya Wildlife Service game rangers at the Mara game park Samuel Kortom, Joseph Kupasar and Daniel Suya.

Their involvement in the disappearance of a rifle and a magazine from Mara Serena armoury around this time, raised many questions that beg for answers.

Loss of firearm

“It is not lost to the court that the rifle is a high powered firearm similar to the type used to kill Fr Kaiser. It is highly suspicious that close to the time Fr Kaiser meets his death a mystery still exists as to the loss of a firearm and a magazine from the Mara,” Mrs Odero observed.

But the inquest cleared former Cabinet minister Julius Sunkuli who it had been claimed in the inquest was unhappy with the priest’s involvement with two girls — Ann Suwayo and Florence Mpayei — who had lodged rape complaints against the Kilgoris MP.

“If Sunkuli wanted to eliminate a person because of these allegations, then in the court’s view, he would have targeted the girls themselves or his named political detractors and not Fr Kaiser who was not the source of the allegations.

“It is probably true that Sunkuli may have been unhappy that Fr Kaiser supported these girls but then many other people offered support to the two girls including the officials at FIDA who filed cases on behalf of the girls. Why would he target Fr Kaiser whose role in the whole thing was peripheral?” the court posed.

While trashing the suicide theory, Mrs Odero gave the FBI a tongue lashing, dismissing their report as “replete with loopholes and missing links and raised more questions than answers.”
Despite the priest being an American citizen, the FBI took a very casual approach to this investigation as evidenced by their failure to consider any alternative theory to explain Fr Kaiser’s death and their ignoring very blatant anomalies, Mr Odero said.

“On the whole this court finds the FBI report to be seriously flawed, superficial and lopsided.
She said her decision was based on evidence at the scene such as the state of the priest’s pick-up which bore signs of a knock with another vehicle and the body posture. Key police witnesses also testified that the scene looked interfered with.

Following the decision which is likely to pave way for fresh investigations, the court granted a request by Catholic’s lawyer Mbuthi Gathenji that the exhibits tabled before the inquest be preserved.

Exonerated!!

2007-08-01T09:53:00.000-05:00

We don't have a great deal of information, but the Kenyan magistrate overseeing the inquest has ruled that John's death was unequivocably murder and is ordering new investigations to determine who the involved person(s) were.

Amen! The truth at last!

While this was something all of us already believed, the validation and governmental admission is a wonderful bonus!

FBI agents fail to attend inquest of murdered priest

2007-03-06T22:09:00.000-06:00

By Francis Njuguna
Independent Catholic News, published March 6, 2007

The inquest into the death of Fr John Kaiser, which was scheduled to re-open yesterday in Nairobi, did not take place, as three witnesses from the American FBI failed to appear.
The three senior FBI officers are: Tom Neer, a specialist in behavioral analysis; Dr Vincent Di Maio, a forensics specialist; and Bill Corbett, who has worked in counter terrorism.

When the inquest resumed briefly, Kenyan senior state counsel, Mungai Warui said the three officers had communicated early last month that they would be in Nairobi on 5 March, to testify at the inquest. But last week the FBI, sent a note saying that the would not be available to attend, due to "other unforeseeable assignments" the senior state counsel, explained to the principal magistrate, Maureen Odero. He said they would only be available in "mid March"".

Ms Odero said: "Mid March is a bit vague. We cannot keep on waiting for them as they keep putting up new dates. They need to be concrete as to when they can avail themselves for us, for we are running short of time and we cannot wait for ever".

She ordered the senior state counsel to communicate with the FBI and request the officers to appear on 19 March, when the inquest would resume.

Defence lawyer for the Catholic Church, the Mill Hill Order and the family of the late Kaiser, Mbuthi Gathenji, complained that the FBI seemed to be continually putting off coming to Nairobi to testify.

He said: "I'm not happy with the way, the FBI keeps on giving us new dates. They have failed to honour this court. We might be forced to seek for diplomatic powers of intervention to have them in Nairobi."

Mr Gathenji said the inquest would close immediately the FBI testifies.

Father Kaiser, a 67-year-old priest, worked in Kenya for 36 years. His advocacy for human rights led to his expulsion from the country in 1999, but the government revoked its decision after an outcry in the Kenyan media and appeals from the country's bishops.

On 23 August, 2000, Fr Kaiser was found shot dead at Morendat, 85 kilometers northwest of Nairobi. Newpaper reports said he had angered some members of the Moi government after testifying against two Cabinet ministers in an inquiry on tribal clashes.

The first police officers on the scene thought he had been murdered, but in 2001 the FBI ruled his death a suicide, and the Kenyan government agreed.

The Kenyan Bishops' Conference almost immediately dismissed the FBI results and questioned why it considered the information of only the government pathologist, not the three additional doctors it had sent to the scene to collect evidence. They said that, based on ballistics reports, suicide was a physical impossibility as the bullets had been fired from some distance behind him.
The bishops said that if Father Kaiser committed suicide he "involved himself in rather difficult contortions while in the process."

They said that, although a doctor's report said Father Kaiser had bloody finger marks inside his pants pockets, the FBI failed to explain how he got his hands into the pockets after allegedly blowing off his head. They also said no reasons were given as to why photographs taken from the crime scene were blurred, and no explanation was given as to why fingerprints were found on the priest's vehicle but not on the gun.

Moi lost the presidential election in December 2002, after 24 years in office. Several months later the Kenyan government ordered the inquest.

FBI risks being shut out of Kaiser inquest

2007-03-06T22:07:00.000-06:00

Lucianne Limo

Nairobi

East African Standard, published March 5, 2007

An inquest into the death of Mill Hill Missionary Fr John Anthony Kaiser may close without the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) detectives giving evidence.

A Nairobi court has given the detectives from the United States spy agency until March 19 to appear before it and testify or risk being shut out.

The detectives were expected to take to the witness stand on Monday to defend their theory suggesting that the Catholic cleric committed suicide.

"An inquest, like all litigations, must come to a close. The court cannot wait indefinitely for these witnesses to come," Senior Principal Magistrate, Mrs Maureen Odero, warned.

The FBI agents expected to testify include the investigating officer, Mr William Corbett, behavioural analyst, Mr Thomas Neer and the chief medical examiner, Dr Vincent Di Maio.
State counsel, Mr James Mungai, told the magistrate that the detectives failed to attend the court due to another engagement elsewhere.

Lawyer Mbuthi Gathenji, for the Catholic Church, pleaded with the magistrate not to close the case until the FBI agents render their evidence.

Fr Kaiser was found dead at the Morendat junction on the Nakuru-Naivasha road on August 24, 2000.

Consequently, the FBI and CID were detailed to investigate the matter.

The Catholic Church has since rejected the FBI theory insisting that the missionary was killed.

Kaiser inquiry: Sunkuli laments

2007-03-06T22:03:00.000-06:00

Kaiser inquiry: Sunkuli laments
Story by FRANCIS THOYA
Publication Date: 2/22/2007
Daily Nation

Former minister of State Julius Sunkuli took the dock yesterday denying killing Mill Hill missionary John Kaiser, seven years ago.

Testifying in an inquest, the former minister said allegations that he had a motive to kill Father Kaiser were untrue, adding that such a story was mooted with a sole purpose of damaging his reputation and ruining him politically.

“Although we had differences with Fr Kaiser, I had no reason to kill him,” Mr Sunkuli told principal magistrate Maureen Odero.

In a private prosecution, the Catholic Church has insisted that Mr Sunkuli plotted to kill Fr Kaiser. The church says the differences related to the minister’s acts of sexual molestation against school girls in Kilgoris and his involvement in the tribal clashes in Trans Mara.

Sexual scandal

Yesterday, Mr Sunkuli said the Fr Kaiser and the Federation of Women Lawyers’ (FIDA) push to implicate him with sexual scandal was aimed at extorting money.

“I believe the sexual abuse allegations were heaped up on me by Fr Kaiser and Fida with a view to extort me,” Mr Sunkuli said.

Mr Sunkuli made the remark in an inquest in which the court is inquiring into the circumstance leading to the death of the missionary.

The missionary’s remains were discovered at the Morindet junction in Naivasha on August 23, 2000.

Mr Mbuthi Gathenji, representing the church, said Fr Kaiser was killed at the height of growing differences over Mr Sunkuli’s involvement in sexual molestation allegations that involved two girls.

The former minister for State said the sexual molestation that faced him in 1999 and 2000 were a scheme of his political opponents, who were ought to ruin his chance of being appointed the vice-president then.

“There was a lot of information that President Moi wanted to appoint me to the position of the vice-president then. I think my political opponents wanted to use the allegations to tarnish my name and ruin my chance,” Mr Sunkuli claimed.

Financial support

Education minister George Saitoti and his Immigration colleague Gideon Konchella and Narok North MP William ole Ntimama are alleged to have offered financial support to a women’s group in Trans Mara to demonstrate in Nairobi against the former minister.

Mr Sunkili said he complained to Ngong Bishop Collin David over Fr Kaiser’s activities that were affecting him but the prelate informed him that the priest was a difficult man to deal with. The hearing continues.

FBI Betraying Fr. Kaiser ... Again

2007-02-06T09:04:00.000-06:00

By Stefan Lovgren

On the morning of August 24, 2000, an American Catholic priest, John Kaiser, was found dead at a Kenyan roadside, killed by a gunshot wound to the back of the head. Suspicion quickly fell on the Kenyan government. During the 36 years he spent in the East African nation, Father Kaiser, a Minnesota native and former U.S. Army paratrooper, had earned a reputation as a tireless champion of the poor and a bold critic of corruption among the country's power elite. He had recently accused the powerful minister for internal security, Julius Sunkuli, of systematically raping young schoolgirls over several years.

A U.S. congressional resolution called Kaiser's death an "assassination." To appear transparent in its handling of the case, the Kenyan government enlisted the help of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was the first time the FBI had been dispatched abroad to investigate the death of a single U.S. citizen. After a seven-month-long probe, in which 145 witnesses were interviewed, the FBI concluded in an 80-page final report that Kaiser had killed himself.

The church was outraged, dismissing the investigation as a mere cover-up. (It's also worth nothing that, according to Catholic doctrine, committing suicide constitutes the gravest of sins.) The Kenyan public, well-aware of its government's sordid history of covering up political murders -- even of clergy members -- was similarly incensed. Early whispers of suicide from top officials had been dismissed by Kenyans remembering the unresolved 1990 murder of Robert Ouko, the Kenyan foreign minister and corruption whistle-blower. Initial police reports then absurdly suggested suicide, even though Ouko's body had been tortured and shot twice before being dropped from a helicopter and set on fire.

Detectives from Scotland Yard were brought in to investigate Ouko's death, but their efforts were blocked at every turn and the inquiry did not even produce a final report. With the Kaiser investigation, there is reason to believe that the Kenyan police led the FBI down a path toward suicide. Witnesses were coached by Kenyan police before being interviewed by U.S. agents. FBI investigators were encouraged to focus on leads highlighting Kaiser's erratic behavior in the 96 hours prior to his death, while ignoring forensic evidence and expert opinions rendering suicide impossible. In the end, it appears from its report that the FBI built its forensic case solely around the testimony of a Texas medical examiner who reached his conclusion of suicide by looking at three dozen blurry photographs, some of which had been taken at a crime scene that had been severely compromised.

Did the world's pre-eminent law enforcement agency kowtow to the will of the Kenyan government? If so, why? The explanation may be floating in the murky waters of geopolitics. Kenya is considered a haven of stability in a part of the world that includes basket cases like Sudan and Somalia. It has been an important U.S. ally in the fight against terrorism. The FBI cultivated a strong relationship with Kenyan police during the investigation of the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi. The late Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone, who championed the Kaiser case, said he had evidence there was pressure from the U.S. State Department on the FBI to go easy on the Kenyans. Kaiser may have been sacrificed to keep diplomatic relations smooth.

But in 2002, Kenya's ruling KANU party lost the national election. The new government soon announced a public inquest into the death of Father Kaiser. This inquest began more than three years ago and is still continuing in a Nairobi court. Witnesses once afraid to share information have stepped forward. Their testimony has helped piece together a different picture of what may have happened to Kaiser that fateful night. A security guard says he saw two men following Kaiser and pulling him out of his car before killing him.

Yet one witness has been conspicuously absent at the inquest: the FBI. The bureau has so far ignored requests by the court to testify. It considers the conclusion of its final report just that -- final. But only the FBI can shed light on some key evidence in the case. It still has in its possession crucial exhibits. No ballistics information has been made available. Experts who reportedly carried out such analysis have not been identified, nor have their statements been taken. The FBI should also be able to explain why some key witness testimonies given to its agents never made it into the official file.

It is troubling that Father Kaiser's killers may never be brought to justice -- indeed who killed him may never be known -- but the tragedy is compounded by the arrogance shown by the FBI in ignoring requests to appear at the ongoing inquest. The findings in itsreport may never change, but the FBI has a responsibility to at least explain how it arrived at its conclusion. Father Kaiser's legacy of truth and justice deserves no less.

Government transfers magistrates in surprise shake up

2007-01-15T19:27:00.000-06:00

Government transfers magistrates in surprise shake-up

From the East African Standard

January 16, 2007

By Judy Ogutu

The Government has transferred several magistrates.

Seven among them were serving in various courts in Nairobi.

Sources at the Judiciary told The Standard that those moved include Senior Principal Magistrate, Mrs Julie Oseko, who was in the limelight last month for sentencing to death three robbers.

The three, Mr Richard Kayago Maeta, Mr Elias Sikuku and Mr Peter Wafula Mulati had attacked Prof Ngugi wa Thiong’o and his wife Njeeri three years ago at Norfolk apartments in Nairobi.

Sources said Oseko had been moved to Molo.

Senior Principal Magistrate, Mrs Margaret Wachira, who is handling the abuse of office case involving suspended Central Bank of Kenya governor, Dr Andrew Mulei, is also said to have been transferred.

Sources said Wachira was moved to Makadara Law Courts.

Mrs Maureen Odero, who is presiding over the inquest into the death of Catholic priest, Fr John Kaiser, is reported to have moved to the Milimani Commercial Courts. She sat at the Nairobi Children’s Court.

But speaking to The Standard on phone, Judiciary spokesman, Mr Dola Indidis, could not confirm the transfers. Others reportedly moved were Makadara acting chief magistrate, Mrs Grace Nzioka, Kibera Senior Principal Magistrate, Mrs Catherine Mwangi, Nyeri Chief Magistrate, Mrs Reuben Nyakundi, among others.

Daily Nation: Kaiser inquest resumes

2007-01-07T18:27:00.000-06:00

Fr. Kaiser death inquest resumes after break

Story by Francis Thoya
Publication date: 1/8/07

An inquest into the death of Mill Hill missionary Fr John Anthony Kaiser resumes in Nairobi today. The court is this week expected to inquire into a theory that the cleric committed suicide.

Detectives from the Federal Bureau of Investigations, who are behind the suicide theory, are expected to take the witness stand to defend their findings. The Catholic Church has rejected the FBI stand, insisting the missionary was killed.

The Nation has established that the court has issued witness summons for the FBI detectives to appear.

Lawyer Mbuthi Gathenji, who is representing the Catholic Church, said summons had already been sent to the US embassy through the Attorney-General’s Office.

“It is our hope that the FBI detective will appear before the inquiry to shed light to the circumstances leading to the death of Fr Kaiser. The evidence is crucial to the inquest,” the advocate said.

Fr Kaiser was found dead near Naivasha Town on August 24, 2000. His body was found under acacia trees, near his pick-up truck.

Following protests by the Catholic Church and human rights groups, the Government ordered a detailed investigation, which was conducted by FBI and the Criminal Investigations Department.

Special agent

However, in 2001, the FBI concluded their investigation, indicating that Fr Kaiser committed suicide.

At a news conference on April 19, 2001, the assistant special agent, who led the investigation, Mr Thomas Carey, said: “During the course of this investigation, no indications of crime developed.”

FBI claims it will testify

2006-12-27T10:44:00.000-06:00

Our recent pleas to have the FBI testify at the inquest in Kenya are starting to pay off. This is the most recent article regarding the inquest:

Kenya: Ministers Named in Kaiser Inquiry

The Nation (Nairobi)
December 5, 2006
Posted to the web December 5, 2006
Francis Thoya
Nairobi

Names of two Cabinet ministers and an MP yesterday featured prominently in the ongoing inquest into the death of Mill Hill missionary John Anthony Kaiser.

Education minister George Saitoti and his Immigration colleague Gedion Konchella and Narok North MP William ole Ntimama are alleged to have offered financial support to a women's group in Trans Mara to demonstrate in Nairobi against former minister Julius Sunkuli accused of abusing schoolgirls in his constituency.

Sexual abuse

As the women were staging the demonstration, Fr Kaiser is claimed to have been investigating Mr Sunkuli over allegations of sexual abuse.

The three politicians are said to have supported the group after the Government failed to take action on Mr Sunkuli.

An inquest presided over by senior principal magistrate Maureen Odero yesterday heard that the priest died before he concluded his investigations.

His remains were discovered at the Morindet junction in Naivasha on August 23, 2000.
Catholic Women Association secretary Anne Kiruti told the court that in August 2000, women in Trans Mara angered by Mr Sunkuli's act, resolved to hold a demonstration against Mr Sunkuli over the claims.

"Since President Moi, among other key institutions, had failed to act on a petition presented to him regarding his minister (Mr Sunkuli), we resolved to hold a demonstration in Nairobi," Mrs Kiruti said.

And because they lacked money with which to organise the protest, the said they sought financial assistance from Prof Saitoti, Mr Konchella and Mr Ntimama. They were then Mr Sunkuli's political rivals.

Sixty women took part in the city demonstrations that started at the Federation of Women Lawyers offices and ended at the Holy Family Basilica.

Mrs Kiruti recounted that they travelled to the city in three matatus on August 15, 2000 at 2am, after they received information that the bus they were set to use, would be burnt.

Moved to Narok

She further told the inquiry that before meeting his death, Fr Kaiser had informed her that he had received complaints of molestation from 16 schoolgirls in Trans Mara.

"I recall Fr Kaiser agreed to support us after we informed him that we had received two complaints of sexual abuse against Mr Sunkuli," the witness said.

Yesterday, Mrs Kiruti claimed she moved from Kilgoris to Narok for fear of her life after Mr Sunkuli threatened her.

Mr Sunkuli turned up before the inquest following summons but he was stood down to allow Mrs Kiruti testify.

The court was yesterday informed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officers will take the witness stand next year to shed light on the circumstances cleading to the the priest's death.

Urgent appeal to FBI

2006-12-04T20:07:00.000-06:00

URGENT APPEAL TO THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

from

THE GENERAL SUPERIOR AND THE GENERAL COUNCIL OF THE MILL HILL MISSIONARIES (MHM)

December 1, 2006

Since August 2003, a Public Inquest has been taking place in a Nairobi Court into the violent death of the American-born Fr. John Anthony Kaiser MHM. Father Kaiser was a tireless worker for peace and justice who had spent 35 years in Kenya. On 24th August 2000, his body was found in the Naivasha area, about 40 miles west of Nairobi. On October 24th, 2000, the United States Congress adopted Resolution 146, requesting “independent and thorough investigations” into the death of this great and courageous Mill Hill Missionary. On the 26th August 2000, FBI teams became involved in the investigations, resulting in the 80 page Final Report, dated 19th April 2001, from the FBI Washington Field Office. After the release of the FBI Report, the late Senator Wellstone from Minnesota, together with the Kaiser family, the Kenyan Episcopal Conference, the Mill Hill Missionaries and the Kenyan people demanded a Public Inquest into the death of the late priest. We are aware that the FBI has been requested by the Kenyan Government to testify, but so far without result.

As the General Council of the Mill Hill Missionaries, we want justice to be seen to be done, and the whole truth of Father Kaiser’s death to be told. On behalf of all the Mill Hill Missionaries in the world, we therefore fully support the recent public appeal of the family members of Father Kaiser, urging the Federal Bureau of Investigation to return immediately the remaining exhibits, and to ensure as soon as possible that all the FBI officers who investigated the late Father Kaiser’s death and Dr. Di Maio, the Chief Medical Examiner of Bexar County (San Antonio, Texas), come to testify in the Inquest currently being held in a Nairobi Court before the Senior Principal Magistrate, Mrs. Maureen Odero.

We deeply regret the fact that the FBI at this stage is still retaining exhibits, thus depriving the Court of crucial evidence. Witnesses have testified that they gave statements and exhibits to FBI Agents, but some of these statements and exhibits are not in the official file given to the Counsels as the Police Inquiry File. Under the Kenyan Evidence Act, documents cannot be introduced in court, unless those who have written them are present and can be cross-examined by the interested parties. It is therefore of paramount importance that the FBI officers appear in Court to give evidence, produce their report and elaborate on their findings.

In the interests of justice, we strongly urge you to ensure that the FBI cooperate fully in the Public Inquest as the inquiry reaches its final stage. Lack of full cooperation by the FBI can only fuel the theory of involvement by the FBI in a cover up.

Finding the real cause of death of Father Kaiser is a matter of urgency, not only to his family and his fellow Mill Hill Missionaries, but to the whole Kenyan people, and to the people of the United States as well.

Yours sincerely,

Rev. Anthony Chantry MHM
General Superior

Rev. Brendan Mulhall MHM
Vicar General

Rev. Michael Corcoran MHM
General Councillor

Br. Jos Boerkamp MHM
General Councillor

Justice should be done to the victims of ethnic clashes

2006-09-19T19:12:00.000-05:00

Letter to the Editor, Daily Nation
9/19/2006

As we mark the 6th anniversary of the death of Catholic priest John Kaiser this year, it is time once again to reflect on what he stood for in the fight for the respect of the rights of the internally displaced and the poor in Kenya.

The Refugee Consortium of Kenya (RCK) joined other human rights organisations in remembering a man many people have praised for being outspoken in human rights advocacy. The life and times of Fr John Anthony Kaiser is a study in courage, determination and sacrifice on behalf of the weak, the oppressed and the down-trodden.

He did not consider himself a civil rights activist or champion. His achievements have, however, emboldened and inspired many to love the truth, cherish liberty and fight for human rights. Fr Kaiser said he was just a simple parish priest. We agree and honour him.

Kenya's transition from single-party dictatorship to multi-partyism in the 1990s was accompanied by violent conflicts dubbed the "land" and "ethnic" clashes. These conflicts affected parts of the Coast, Western, Rift Valley and Eastern provinces.

The consequence of these conflicts was destruction of property and means of livelihood, fear and insecurity in society and massive internal population displacement. The victims of the clashes sought refuge in schools and church compounds where they camped and received assistance from the church and well-wishers.

And many of these are still there today, fearing to return to their homes. Others fled to shopping centres or to live with relatives in other parts of the country.

The coming to power of the Narc Government in after the 2002 elections, that ended Kanu's four-decade rule, gave hope to many of these internally displaced people that they would eventually be compensated or allowed to return to their farms. However, to date the Government has not lived up to this expectation. Instead, it has continued to downplay the scope and significance of the serious problem of internal displacement.

There is a lack of political goodwill which is, perhaps, because of the realisation and fear that the issue of land ownership remains very controversial in Kenya.

The RCK's interest in advocating for internally displaced people arises from the Government's failure to find a lasting solution to the problem for year. Our objective is to encourage a positive Government action on IDP issues and to create benchmarks on management of internal displacement in East Africa.

One important effort in this direction is through the government making a conscious effort at enacting the draft IDP law.

The blood of Fr Kaiser, who diligently suffered his congregation for years, should not go in vain. Like the blood of other Kenyan heroes before him, it should keep the flame of the war against injustice burning and ensure the protection of the voiceless.

There is no more important tribute to pay to Fr Kaiser than to fulfil his most cherished vision, that of "Standing up on behalf of the weak, the oppressed and the down-trodden."

SIMON KONZOLO
Assistant Advocacy Officer
Refugee Consortium of Kenya
Nairobi

Bishop warned over remark

2006-09-03T12:20:00.000-05:00

The Daily Nation

Published September 2, 2006

Nairobi

A clergyman has been warned against commenting on on the death of Catholic priest John Antony Kaiser, which is the subject of an inquiry.

Senior principal magistrate Maureen Odero, who is presiding over the team investigating the death, said Kenya Episcopal Conference chairman Archbishop John Njue had "no right to use the pulpit to make populist and unsubstantiated claims about the subject of the inquiry".

"While he is entitled to his own opinion and views, he is treading on a very thin line," said Ms Odero.

She said if he had any information relevant to the proceedings, he should share it with the inquiry.

She said the court did not wish to engage in sideshows and "warns Archbishop Njue and like-minded individuals to immediately desist from making any comments touching on the subject of the inquiry".

The magistrate said the court should be allowed to make its own conclusions based on evidence adduced.

She was making a ruling on an application made by a lawyer representing former Cabinet minister Julius Sunkuli, who wanted the cleric charged for contempt of court.

Archbishop Njue was speaking at a Mass to mark Fr Kaiser's anniversary. He said Fr Kaiser fought for the rights of the needy, including land clashes victims.

Other clerics who spoke at the function said they would not rest until the killers of the Mill Hill missionary were arrested.

Yesterday, a DNA specialist, Dr Solomon Mboke, told the inquiry that he carried out tests on a piece of bone believed to have been part of the late priest's skull.

The bone was found by Naivasha Catholic parish workers on September 19, 2000, as they cleared the Morendant junction site on the Nakuru-Naivasha highway for the priest's first memorial service.

The witness said from the tests, there was a likelihood that it belonged to the priest.

Fr Kaiser's body was found on August 24, 2000, near the junction on the Nakuru-Naivasha highway, with his head blown off and a shotgun by his side.

The inquiry will resume on November 1.

Bring Kaiser's killers to book, clerics demand

2006-08-28T10:23:00.000-05:00

Story by NYABONYI KAZUNGU
Publication Date: 8/28/2006

Catholic Church leaders have said they will not rest until the killers of Father John Kaiser are brought to book.

Archbishop Njue

The church also asked those with information on why the priest was killed to volunteer it and testify at the ongoing commission of inquiry.

In his sermon at Mass to mark the sixth anniversary of Fr Kaiser's death, the Kenya Episcopal Conference chairman, Archbishop John Njue yesterday said: "Even though we were told by the FBI that he committed suicide, we categorically rejected that verdict. It was as a result of that rejection that we instituted an inquiry, which is still on course. The inquiry is a candid indication that we are still asking who killed Fr Kaiser and why."

The archbishop said Fr Kaiser was a source of inspiration and hope to the needy and his memory is still alive.

"We all remember the mistreatment he received in camps (for land clashes victims). But he did not shy away... He protected human dignity, he never gave up and defended the oppressed to the end," the archbishop said.

The Mass was preceded by a procession from St Joseph Cathedral in Ngong to Mary Mother of God Church in Embulbul, about 10 kilometres away.

Among those at the memorial were Environment and Natural Resources minister Kivutha Kibwana and Mr Maina Kiai of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights.

The Mass was led by four other bishops: Cornelius Schilder, Colin Davis, Peter Kairo of Nakuru and Peter Kihara of Murang'a.

Fr Fins Eppink and Sister Nuala Ibuum from the International Justice and Peace Commission represented Fr Kaiser's Mill Hill Missionaries.

Fr Eppink said: "We will not rest until the circumstances of Fr Kaiser's death are fully clarified and the findings of the commission of inquiry are acted upon."

Bishop Kairo read the message from the Pope's representative in Kenya, Archbishop Paul Lebeaupin, in which he described Fr Kaiser as "a humble man who lived his life for the service of the less fortunate in society".

Fr Kaiser was a recipient of this year's Milele (Lifetime Achievement) Award. The posthumous award was presented by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights on August 6 in recognition of Fr Kaiser's dedication to the pursuit of human rights and justice for Kenyans.

A statement from the Catholic Church last week said that during his 36 years in Kenya, Fr Kaiser campaigned against land grabbing and corruption.

"An outspoken critic of the Moi regime, he worked tirelessly for the rights of the poor and marginalised in society," said the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission.

Fr Kaiser died under mysterious circumstances at the Morendat junction on the Nakuru-Naivasha road. The Government set up an inquest into his death in 2004 but it is yet to submit its findings.

In 1998, the priest had told a judicial inquiry that two Cabinet ministers had trained people to rid Rift Valley Province of opposition supporters.

The Government tried to deport him, but revoked the order after protests by interest groups and the international community. He went into hiding when he started receiving death threats and complained of being followed by strangers. He was later found dead.

Rights Agency Gives Kaiser Milele Award

2006-08-25T18:34:00.000-05:00

August 25, 2006

Published in the Daily Nation

Father John Kaiser is this year's recipient of the Milele (Lifetime Achievement) Award.

The posthumous award will be presented by the Kenya Human Rights Commission during the Catholic priest's memorial ceremony tomorrow.

According to the commission, the award was in recognition of Fr Kaiser's dedication to the pursuit of human rights and justice for Kenyans.

A statement from the Catholic Church said during his 36 years in Kenya, Fr Kaiser advocated against land grabbing and corruption.

"An outspoken critic of the Moi regime, he worked tirelessly for the rights of the poor and marginalised in society," said the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission.

The cleric was killed six years ago in mysterious circumstances at Morendat junction on the Nakuru-Naivasha road.

After his death, the Government set up an inquest into his murder in 2004 but it is yet to submit its findings.

There will be a procession in Ngong Town to mark the event before Mass to be presided over by Nakuru Catholic bishop Peter Kairo at Mary Mother of God Embulbul Church on Saturday.

Bishop Cornelius Schilder of Ngong Diocese and Fr Kaiser's predecessor, retired Bishop Colin Davis, are also expected to attend the Mass.

Church to hold memorial for slain missionary

2006-08-22T16:47:00.000-05:00

From the Catholic Information Service for Africa

August 22, 2006

The Catholic Church has organized a memorial mass for American-born missionary priest Fr John Anthony Kaiser who died in unclear circumstances six years ago.

The mass will be held on Saturday beginning 10.30 am at Mary Mother of God Embulbul Catholic Church, Ngong near Nairobi. There will be a procession from St Joseph Cathedral starting 8.30 am.

The theme of the memorial is: 'Promote and uphold human rights and dignity.'

A judicial inquest into the death of the Mill Hill missionary on August 24, 2000, is going on in Nairobi. The inquest adjourned to August 28 and will continue through September.

The Kenya National Human Rights Commission conferred the 2006 Milele (Lifetime Achievement) award on Fr Kaiser "for dedicating his life to the pursuit of human rights and justice for the Kenyan people."

Man offered cash to kill Fr. Kaiser

2006-04-25T19:56:00.000-05:00

Story by NATION Reporter
Publication Date: 04/26/2006

A church official had allegedly been hired in 1999 to kill Catholic priest John Anthony Kaiser, a court heard.

But Mr Francis Kantai, of the Catholic Justice and Peace commission, revealed the alleged plot to the priest and informed him that he was to be given Sh100,000 to poison him.

A witness, Mr Stephen ole Naiguta, told the court in Nairobi yesterday that Fr Kaiser informed him of the murder plot after he heard about it from Mr Kantai.

Mr Naiguta said the priest wanted to know whether Mr Kantai could be trusted or whether he could carry on with the plan if he was given the money.

Big Fish

Fr Kaiser claimed that a "Big Fish" was after his life but he did not give any names, the witness told senior principal magistrate Maureen Odero.

The body of the Mill Hill missionary, who headed the Lolgorian parish of Ngong diocese, was found at the Morendat junction, on the Nakuru-Naivasha road, on August 24, 2000.

A team from the US Federal Bureau of Investigations, which joined their Kenyan counterparts on August 25, concluded that Fr Kaiser committed suicide. But church leaders and human rights lobbyists rejected the report, and demanded an inquest.

Yesterday Mr Naiguta, who is also a JPC official in Trans Mara District, told the court that the priest had insisted that his life was in danger. The hearing continues.

Letter to the Editor

2006-03-04T20:01:00.000-06:00

Letter to the Editor
St. Cloud Times
March 4, 2006

Thanks for the Feb. 27 report on the Rev. John Kaiser. He certainly is a hero who we need to learn from. ...

We live with so much corruption in our world today. Kaiser took it on with courage.

The Kenyan government honors him. It is wonderful to see that a foreign government and its citizenry today, like Kenya, would honor one of our citizens. Kaiser's niece, Mary Weaver, put it very well: "We know that he was a wonderful man. But to see the People of Kenya know this and mourn his passing, it was a powerful experience for my parents."

If the people of Kenya could see his great virtue, and remember him, I am sure we can, too.

Anthony Kroll, Holdingford

Kaiser honored by Kenyan government

2006-03-01T16:43:00.000-06:00

By Brandon Stahl

Published March 1, 2006
Fergus Falls Daily Journal

An Underwood native was given a lifetime achievement award by a Kenyan rights group for his work in the African country - work that, ironically, may have led to his death at the hands of the Kenyan government.

Father John Anthony Kaiser, a member of the St. Cloud Diocese who spent 36 years as a missionary to Kenya, was found dead in August 2004 from a shotgun wound.

The FBI and the Kenyan Criminal Investigation Division ruled Kaiser's death a suicide, but his family has long believed that he was murdered for speaking out against what he believed was then a corrupt and cruel Kenyan government.

During his time in Kenya, Kaiser was instrumental in helping to build schools, churches, hospitals and orphanages. But, his niece, Mary Weaver of Fergus Falls, said Kaiser also spoke out against the Kenya government's ethnic cleansing by forcing its citizens into concentration camps during a period of land grabs.

“He had death threats, was beaten and left out in the bush, was threatened with deportation,” said Weaver, who lives near where Kaiser grew up. “Three weeks after he died, he was supposed to testify before the Hague, the world criminal court, about the government.”

The group that honored Kaiser, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, created by a new Kenyan regime, recognized Kaiser's dedication to helping the poor in the country, but also singled out his work fighting against the Kenyan government.

“Father Kaiser stood firm in the face of intimidation and death threats,” they wrote in their posthumous nomination. “He never compromised or changed his position in the face of external pressure, but continued his struggle to protect and promote human rights in Kenya ‘til the end of his days.”

“It's almost like a public apology on behalf of the Kenyan government because of what their predecessors did,” Weaver said.

While an official government inquest into Kaiser's death has been off and on since 2002, Weaver and other members of Kaiser's family are hoping to learn the truth for themselves. Weaver believes the FBI sought to ease relations with the Kenyan government and purposefully hid information from their forensic pathologist who studied the case.

Kaiser's death was featured on numerous national news shows, including 60 Minutes. His case was also taken by the late Sen. Paul Wellstone.

Progress in her family's investigation has been slow, Weaver said, however, she may have found an independent pathologist to study Kaiser's death.

“All we want is an independent investigation,” she said. “If they come back with the same conclusions, so be it.”

Kaiser receives Kenyan honor

2006-03-01T16:42:00.000-06:00

By Frank Lee

Published February 27. 2006
St. Cloud Times

The Rev. John Kaiser recently received Kenya's highest human rights honor from the very same government he fought against — and some say died at the hands of.

"It's ironic that he did receive this award from a government-sanctioned body," said his niece, Mary Weaver of Fergus Falls.

Kaiser, a member of the Diocese of St. Cloud, was found dead five years ago along a busy highway between Naivasha and Nairobi with a gunshot wound to the head.

The 67-year-old's death was ruled a suicide by the FBI and the Kenyan Criminal Investigation Division, but there is an ongoing judicial inquiry in Nairobi into his death.

The Perham native was an outspoken critic of the ethnic cleansing and distribution of land in the East African country under the regime of former President Daniel arap Moi.

"Many people told John to cool it. He knew that his life was in jeopardy," said the Rev. William Vos, former director of the St. Cloud Mission Office of the Diocese of St. Cloud.

-Humanitarian-

Kaiser shares the Milele (Lifetime) Achievement Award with professor Wangari Maathai of Kenya, an environmentalist, activist and winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize.

"John was a very strong person in every way — a paratrooper, a good college athlete — and also ethically," said Vos, a St. John's University classmate of Kaiser's.

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights handed out the award at a Feb. 18 ceremony attended by Bishop Cornelius Schilder of the Diocese of Ngong, where Kaiser worked.

"John just had a real clear view on what's right, and that's what ultimately led to his conflict with the Kenyan government," Vos said of Kaiser's work, which spanned three decades.

Kaiser was helping teen-age girls who accused a Kenyan Cabinet member of sexual assault, but Kaiser died within a week of the scheduled court hearings.

The FBI's report in 2001 referred several times to circumstantial evidence indicating Kaiser, a member of the Mill Hill Missionaries, had suffered from manic depression.

But in a book that was published after his death, Kaiser had written "I am not planning any accident, nor, God forbid, any self-destruction."

"The whole investigation into his death was botched," said Vos, who attended Kaiser's funeral amid thousands of mourners.

The theory that Kaiser, a Roman Catholic priest, would have committed suicide is incomprehensible to Weaver and many others.

"No way — not in my opinion — based on his faith, in which suicide is a big no-no," Weaver said.

-Life and death-

The Diocese of St. Cloud has a relationship today with the Diocese of Homa Bay in Kenya.

"One of the things that is very important to my family is that there's still an inquest happening in Kenya into my uncle's death," Weaver said.

"We've struggled to find a pathologist to do an independent review of the forensic evidence because it means going against the FBI's hired expert."

The 42-year-old is a staff writer for the Dairy Star, a semimonthly newspaper in Sauk Centre, and assistant editor of Lake and Home Magazine, a bimonthly in Fergus Falls.

"We're methodically going through every piece of evidence, and sometimes that's not always available to the attorneys representing our family without a fight," Weaver said.

Weaver would see her uncle for a couple of months whenever he returned to the United States to raise funds for various projects.

The CBS News program "60 Minutes" examined the death of the Minnesotan and featured an interview with the late U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone in May 2001.

"My uncle often played the devil's advocate just to get a rise out of somebody, but was extremely giving, passionate about everything — what he was reading, religion, what he was doing, politics," Weaver said.

Kaiser's work with the International Federation of Women Lawyers-Kenya during the investigation of the rape of Kenyan teens was cited when he received the Milele award.

"We know that he was wonderful man. But to see the people of Kenya know this and mourn his passing, it was a powerful experience for my parents," Weaver said.

About Kenya:

The International Monetary Fund, which had resumed loans in 2000 to help Kenya through a drought, again halted lending in 2001 when the government failed to institute several anticorruption measures.

Daniel arap Moi’s 24-year-old reign ended with the Dec. 27, 2002, elections, and a new opposition government took on the formidable economic problems facing the nation.

» Location: Eastern Africa, bordering the Indian Ocean, between Somalia and Tanzania.
» Size: Slightly more than twice the size of Nevada.
» Capital: Nairobi.
» Population: 33.83 million (2005 estimate).
» Life expectancy: 48 years (2005 estimate).
» Death rate: 14.65 deaths/1,000 population (2005 estimate).
» Religions: Protestant, Roman Catholic, Muslim, other.

Source: CIA World Factbook.

Making progress

2006-02-23T10:00:00.000-06:00

Recently I have been trying different avenues in order to obtain a forensic pathologist to review the evidence in John's murder. No sooner do I think I have someone when they disappear (not literally) off the face of the earth, never returning emails or phone calls. It's been quite frustrating.

But I have an excellent lead which I'm quite excited about. I will not provide more details until I know it's a done deal, though. I write this simply to have prayers said that it will work out in the manner we need and we're able to get an independent review.

Human Rights Citation

2006-02-22T08:39:00.000-06:00

KENYA NATIONAL COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS

Citation for 2006 Milele (Lifetime Achievement) Award to Fr. John Anthony Kaiser

The Awards Committee for the Third Annual Human Rights and Democracy Awards confers the Milele (Lifetime Achievement) Award posthumously on Father John Anthony Kaiser for dedicating his life to the pursuit of human rights and justice for the Kenyan people.

During his thirty-six years in Kenya, Father Kaiser challenged the Government on corruption and advocated against land grabbing and excess by local politicians. An outspoken critic of the Moi regime, he worked tirelessly for the rights of the poor and marginalized in society. Father Kaiser devoted himself to working with the internally displaced following ethnic clashes in the Rift Valley in 1992. In 1998 he told a judicial inquiry that two cabinet ministers had trained people to rid the area of opposition supporters. Following these accusations, he was told to leave the country and went into hiding, but due to protests from the Kenyan people and successful lobbying from the U.S Government, the decision to deport him was revoked.

Father Kaiser was a firm supporter of women’s rights in every aspest of his work; he courageously protected and supported two girls who were alleged to have been raped by a cabinet minister. He helped furnish the evidence that the Federation of Women Lawyers in Kenya (FIDA- Kenya) relied on to institute a private prosecution against Julius Sunkuli, previously a minister of State in the Office of the president.

Father Kaiser stood firm in the face of intimidation and death threats. He never compromised or changed his position in the face of external pressure, but continued his struggle to protect and promote human rights in Kenya till the end of his days. We honour his lifetime achievement and hope that the mystery surrounding the death of this committed individual will one day be unraveled.

Human Rights Crusader Wins Award

2006-02-21T19:27:00.000-06:00

A Catholic missionary priest whose death five years ago still remains a puzzle has been awarded the country's highest human rights honour.

Fr John Anthony Kaiser shared the Milele (Lifetime) Achievement Award with noted environmentalist and human rights crusader, Prof Wangari Maathai, winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize for Peace.

The award was given by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) during a ceremony attended by among other guests, Bishop Cornelius Schilder of Ngong Diocese, where Fr Kaiser worked.

The national human rights group said Fr Kaiser dedicated his life to the pursuit of human rights and social justice for the Kenyan people during his 36 years in the country.

"An outspoken critic of the [former President Daniel] Moi regime, he worked tirelessly for the rights of the poor and marginalized in society. Fr Kaiser devoted himself to working with the internally displaced people following the State-engineered ethnic clashes of 1992."

Fr Kaiser was found dead in mysterious circumstances on August 24, 2000. A judicial inquiry into the death continues in Nairobi.

In 1998, he told a judicial inquiry that two cabinet ministers had trained people to eliminate opposition supporters where he worked. As a result, he was told to leave the country and went into hiding.

"Fr Kaiser was a firm supporter of human rights in every aspect of his work," the Commission said. "He courageously protected and supported two women who are alleged to have been raped by a Cabinet minister, who also happened to be the Minister for Internal Security."

He worked with the federation of Women Lawyers (Fida-Kenya), which sued Julius Sunkuli, then a Cabinet Minister, in connection with the allegations.

He stood firm in the face of intimidation. He never compromised or changed his position in the face of great pressure, but continued the struggle to protect and promote human rights till the end of his life.

"We honour his lifetime achievement and hope that the issues surrounding the death of this committed individual will one day be unravelled," the Commission said.

Court looking into priest's death to visit church house

2006-02-20T21:27:00.000-06:00

Court looking into priest's death to visit church house

Story by NATION Reporter
Publication Date: 2/21/2006

A court inquiring into the death of Catholic priest John Anthony Kaiser will visit a church house where he spent his last evening.

It will then hear more evidence from a witness who interacted with the priest before his death in 2000.

The Mill Hill missionary was last seen at the house of the Ngong diocese bishop on August 23, 2000, only hours before he died.

His body was found at Morendat junction on the Nakuru-Naivasha road with part of the head blown off.

Suicide verdict

A team from the US Federal Bureau of Investigations, which joined the Kenyan detectives on August 25, concluded that Fr Kaiser, who headed the Lolgorian Catholic parish in Ngong, committed suicide.

But church leaders and human rights lobbyists rejected the report and pressed for an inquest.

The priest was at the Ngong diocese on the evening of August 23, 2000, looking anxious, tired and in fear of something, the diocese's vicar-general, Fr Francis Mwangi, told the inquest.

Fr Mwangi, the caretaker of the bishop's house, said Fr Kaiser told him that he wanted to rest and was directed to a guest room.

Took away blankets

But Fr Kaiser was in the room for less than an hour and drove out. He took away blankets, bed-sheets and a pillow, which were later found near his body the following morning.

The only other place where he is said to have been spotted that night was in Limuru, Kiambu, where he drove into a home and left after a short while.

Yesterday, former Nakuru CID boss Mary Kipchumba Ruara told the court that she first suspected the priest had been killed.

She said the investigations were then taken over by other officers. The inquest continues this afternoon.

Moi was involved

2006-02-15T18:24:00.000-06:00

Priest tells Kaiser probe of Moi link in evictions

Story by MARK AGUTU
Publication Date: 02/16/2006

President Daniel arap Moi sanctioned the eviction of displaced families who were taking refuge at Maela following tribal clashes over decade ago, an inquest heard yesterday.

A priest, Fr Francis Mwangi, said the Head of State visited the victims camping at Maela along the Nakuru-Narok border in November 1994 and promised them "a Christmas gift".

However, come Christmas eve, all the displaced families at the trading centre were kicked out, contrary to their expectations, the priest said.

"It dawned on us that the eviction was the Christmas gift the president had promised," Fr Mwangi told magistrate Maureen Odero at the inquest into the death of Father John Antony Kaiser.

The two priests were at the time stationed at Maela, helping the families which had ran away from their homes in the wake of tribal clashes.

"When the President made the promise, we were happy that something good was finally going to happen. But Fr Kaiser cautioned us to wait and see instead of celebrating," Fr Mwangi said.

The two priests were themselves bundled out of Maela by policemen on December 27 at 10pm on "orders from above".

Fr Mwangi, questioned by Mr Mbuthi Gathenji, for the Catholic Church, said the evictions later drew international attention and led to visits by high-profile figures, including an American envoy, who was blocked from reaching the displaced families.

Later, Fr Kaiser compiled a report of human rights violations and presented it to the a judicial commission of inquiry into the disturbances. But testimony on the alleged approval of the clashes by President Moi was expunged from the inquiry records, Fr Mwangi said.

The hearing continues.

Kaiser was murdered

2006-02-07T21:30:00.000-06:00

'Brother': Kaiser was murdered

Story by NATION Correspondent
Publication Date: 2/7/2006

A missionary brother yesterday claimed that there were some people behind the death of Catholic priest Anthony Kaiser.

Brother Alfonse Borgmam told a Nairobi court that Fr Kaiser did not commit suicide. However, he did not name those he believes were involved in the murder.

The missionary brother said his conclusion was based on what he had seen before and Fr Kaiser expressed fear for his life.

Brother Borgmam also told the court that he knew Fr Kaiser as a strong man who had a strong conviction.

He was testifying during an inquiry into the death of Fr Kaiser.

Fr Kaiser, a Mill Hill missionary who headed the Lolgorian Catholic Parish in Ngong, Kajiado District, was found dead at Morendant junction on the Nakuru-Naivasha road. His head had been blown off and his shotgun lay nearby.

Committed suicide

A team from the US Federal Bureau of Investigations, which joined Kenyan detectives on August 25 to investigate the death, concluded that Fr Kaiser committed suicide. But church leaders and human rights lobbyists rejected the report and pressed for an inquest.

The missionary brother said he knew the priest since 1960 when they first met in London.

Brother Borgmam, who has been in the country since 1974, said he shared a table with the Catholic priest a day before his death.

Fr Kaiser, he said, travelled from Lolgorian and came to Nairobi on August 21, 2000.

"The arrival of Fr Kaiser coincided with my birthday party,' he said, adding that he had invited the priest to the birthday party but he failed to attend.

According to brother Borgmam, the priest had an appointment with the Pope's representative in Kenya the following day. He said he drove the priest to the place where he was to meet with the Pope's representative.

He said on their way to the Nuncio's place, he noticed that Fr Kaiser was in a very low mood but didn't ask why.

The priest, he noted, appeared unsettled.

The hearing continues.

I didn't seize women, probe told

2006-01-25T21:31:00.000-06:00

I didn't seize women, police chief tells Kaiser probe

Story by NATION Reporter
Publication Date: 01/25/2006

An assistant commissioner of police yesterday denied forcibly removing two young women from the custody of a lobby group which had given them refuge from alleged sexual harassment.

The women, Ann Sowayo and Florence Mpayei, willingly left the premises owned by the Federation of Women Lawyers Kenya (Fida) after being persuaded by their mothers, Mr Skewer Mbogo told the inquest into the death of Catholic priest John Antony Kaiser.

They were later returned to their Trans Mara home, Mr Mbogo said of the September 5, 1999, incident.

Earlier that day, he said, the mothers of the two women went to his office at Kilimani police station in the company of a councillor and informed him that the women were being held by Fida against their will after leaving home two months earlier.

"They requested me to rescue their daughters from the place where they were being held against their will," Mr Mbogo told inquest magistrate Maureen Odero.

However, when the team arrived at the Fida staff house in Ngumo estate, they found the young women comfortable and there were no signs that they were prevented from leaving, Mr Mbogo said. The two took on their parents demanding to know why they had reported the matter to the police.

This confirmed to him that the parents and the civic leader had given him misleading reports.

Mr Mbogo, who was being questioned by State counsel James Mungai and the lawyer for the Catholic Church, Mr Mbuthi Gathenji, denied that he was under orders to remove the two young women from Fida custody.

Fr Kaiser was found dead at the Morendant junction on the Nakuru-Naivasha highway on the morning of August 24, 2000. His head had been blown off and a shotgun lay nearby.

The hearing continues this afternoon.

CID talks

2006-01-25T21:16:00.000-06:00

I can account for my trip, CID man tells Kaiser probe
Story by MARK AGUTU
Publication Date: 01/26/2006

A senior CID officer yesterday pledged to account for his movements weeks before Catholic priest John Kaiser was found dead.

Assistant commissioner of police Francis Njiru said he would table before an inquest into the priest's death details about his travel to Rift Valley Province. The priest was found dead near Naivasha Town.

Answering questions from State counsel James Mungai and later Catholic Church lawyer Mbuthi Gathenji, the officer denied any involvement in the death of Fr Kaiser.

"That is a total lie," he said in response to a question by Mr Mungai, who informed him that a witness had linked him to the murder.

He told Nairobi magistrate Maureen Odero: "I didn't, repeat, didn't kill him. I never knew him until his death was reported in the daily newspapers."

He promised to bring work tickets and imprest forms to show exactly when a crack unit he had led to Rumuruti in Laikipia reported back to their base in Nairobi in early August.

His team of between eight and 10 officers had travelled to Rumuruti on the instructions of CID boss Francis Sang to combat carjackers in the area.

And after the operation, in which a few people were arrested, the team passed through Nakuru Town where they reported to the provincial police headquarters before returning to Nairobi.

But asked whether he had records showing when the team came back, Mr Njiru said he could produce work tickets and imprests which bear details of payments to confirm the day of return.

The priest was found dead near the Morendat junction on the Naivasha-Nakuru road on the morning of August 24, 2000, with is head blown off and a shotgun lying nearby.

The hearing continues tomorrow afternoon.

Police chief speaks

2006-01-24T19:17:00.000-06:00

I didn't seize women, police chief tells Kaiser probe

Story by NATION Reporter
Publication Date: 01/25/2006

An assistant commissioner of police yesterday denied forcibly removing two young women from the custody of a lobby group which had given them refuge from alleged sexual harassment.

They were later returned to their Trans Mara home, Mr Mbogo said of the September 5, 1999, incident.

"They requested me to rescue their daughters from the place where they were being held against their will," Mr Mbogo told inquest magistrate Maureen Odero.

This confirmed to him that the parents and the civic leader had given him misleading reports.

Fr Kaiser was found dead at the Morendant junction on the Nakuru-Naivasha highway on the morning of August 24, 2000. His head had been blown off and a shotgun lay nearby.

The hearing continues this afternoon.

"I had no role"

2006-01-23T20:19:00.000-06:00

I Had No Role in Kaiser's Death, Says CID Officer

The Nation (Nairobi)

January 24, 2006

Nairobi -- A senior CID officer yesterday denied having a role in the disappearance and death of Catholic priest John Anthony Kaiser.

Acting superintendent of police Julius Kikwai ole Sunkuli expressed shock at the allegation that witnesses had linked him to the killing.

"I am really shocked to hear that," said Mr Kikwai, a cousin of former Cabinet minister Julius ole Sunkuli.

"It's a lie; I have never been associated with the matter at all."

The officer said he was in his house at Langata estate in Nairobi with his family on the night of August 23/24, 2000 when the priest was found dead near Naivasha.

Fr Kaiser's body was found at the Morendant junction, on the Nakuru-Naivasha road, with his head blown off.

His firearm lay by the body.

At the time of his death, he was the priest in charge of the Lolgorian parish of the Ngong Catholic diocese.

Mr Kikwai was at that time the deputy CID boss of Embakasi, Nairobi.

He has since been transferred to Trans-Nzoia District to take charge of a division.

The officer was answering questions from state counsel James Mungai and lawyer Mbuthi Gathenji, for the Catholic church, during the hearing of the death inquest by Nairobi magistrate Maureen Odero.

Mr Gathenji told the officer that a witness had linked him to a plot to murder the priest.

But Mr Kikwai said he was nowhere near Ngong where the priest was based, or Naivasha where his body was found.

He also denied knowledge of the involvement of police, especially the flying squad, in the plot as claimed by Mr Gathenji.

The CID officer said he had also recorded a statement with American agents, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, who had joined Kenyan police in investigating the killing.

He was not aware that he had been implicated in the priest's death, he said.

Who is safe?

2006-01-13T15:33:00.000-06:00

With all these killings, who is safe today?

Story by STEPHEN MUIRURI CRIME EDITOR
Publication Date: 1/14/2006

A string of high-profile murders remains unsolved – some stretching back for more than 30 years; some as recent as New Year's Eve – making people fear for their safety as never before.

Many husbands, wives, businessmen and women believe they are at risk from hired hit squads in the streets and in the sanctity of their own homes.

Some fear even to answer a knock at their own front door.

For bloodthirsty killers have shattered the lives of families across the nation – yet the police appear powerless to track them down and force them to face justice in court.

All the unsolved murders have one thing in common ... they were apparently executions carried out in cold blood by gangland hit squads – killers for hire.

Some of these killings took place more than 30 years ago yet remain unsolved. Others are as recent as December 31, when Mombasa Port police chief Hassan Ahmed Abdillahi was shot dead outside his own home.

Other recent unsolved murders include the killing of the lecturer and Bomas delegate Prof. Crispin Mbai – shot dead in front of his own hearth – while unsolved high profile murders from yesteryear include the assassination of politician Tom Mboya in 1969, MP J. M. Kariuki in 1975, and former Foreign minister Robert Ouko in 1990.

Even the police themselves do not know exactly how many unsolved murders are on their books, although they admit they run into the hundreds.

CID director Joseph Kamau said yesterday that the number of unsolved murders was "worrying", but added he was "pleased" with the way his officers were carrying out their investigations.

And he revealed: "We have formed a Homicide Unit based at CID headquarters and their job is to specialise in murder investigations."

Mr Kamau added: "We have been sending the officers to every corner of the country to help local officers to track down killers. We are a bit overwhelmed but more officers will be deployed to the Homicide Unit."

He said the unit had highly-trained investigators, most of whom were young and had just completed their intensive training.

Mr Kamau continued: "The CID is capable of handling the murder cases. We are going to pump more resources into the Homicide Unit."

Police could only know the motive for each murder after investigations were complete.

The hit squad killings were "isolated incidents which should not be linked to each other," he said.

Apart from new murders, the Homicide Unit had also taken up old cases which have remained unresolved.

His comments came as statistics released by police commissioner Mohamed Hussein Ali showed the number of murder cases nationwide had actually declined slightly in the past two years.

Police records showed 1,320 people were killed in 2004 compared to 1,153 between January and November last year.

A number of murder and other capital offence trials were thrown out by the courts last year after magistrates and judges accused the police of conducting shoddy investigations.

For their part, police think they had done their job well and blame corrupt judicial officers for wrecking their cases.

The killing of Mombasa Port CID chief Hassan Ahmed Abdillahi was just the latest in a string of hit squad murders at the Coast.

At least five tycoons had been killed earlier by what police believe were hired killers.

All the unresolved murders have a common pattern – the victim was attacked by gunmen who shot either at the head or the chest, then they were left to die as their attackers fled without stealing anything.

Those killed in puzzling circumstances included a real estate tycoon, Mr Visram Mulji Patel (killed in December), another real estate expert Mr Sammy Kithikii (killed mid-May last year), 28-year old businessman Timothy Karanja Wainaina (killed last May 3), Mr Pankaj Shah (killed on February 5, ) and 33-year-old businessman Abdurahman Sheikh Mohammed Noor (killed on March 12, 2005).

The rate of killings is stretching police resources to breaking point.

A new murder is being committed almost every day in a different part of the country before the police can solve the one they were investigating.

Even though Mr Kamau sent two high-powered teams from Nairobi to the Coast to help investigate Mr Abdillahi's killers, the hitmen are still at large.

The team from Nairobi was made up of officers from the Special Crimes Prevention Unit and the Homicide Unit attached to CID headquarters. They have teamed up with their Mombasa counterparts.

Mr Kamau was quoted saying he suspected the Mombasa Port CID chief was killed because of investigations at the port into a containers theft racket and drugs smuggling.

At the time he was killed on December 31, he had intensified a crackdown on the theft of containers at the port in which many people – including police officers, clearing and forwarding agents and Kenya Ports Authority workers – were arrested and charged.

Although his killers used the car the port CID chief was driving to escape from the scene, they did not take his loaded gun and cash

At least nine suspects, including four brothers of Juja MP William Kabogo, are being held by police investigating the murder.

Detectives say people hire hitmen for various reasons. Police spokesman Jasper Ombati said the motive for executions was usually revenge, infidelity, business rivalry or other family disputes.

Investigating hit squad murders was complicated by the fact that killers and their financiers often left no clues.

People more likely to hire hitmen were business rivals, siblings fighting for family properly, jilted lovers or spouses who want to get rid of their partners because of infidelity or property disputes, political rivals and those who have been swindled and want revenge.

Detectives who spoke to the Nation said hit squad murders were usually arranged by somebody close to the victim.

In most cases, the motive was purely to kill and nothing was stolen.

But the cases became complicated when the killers stage-managed the attack to make it look like a robbery.

Other executions were plotted by close family members.

Killings which have remained unsolved for years include the murder of one of Kenya's leading criminal lawyers, Mr S.K. Ndungi, and a top military intelligence officer, Lt Col Augustine Kunyiha.

Human rights organisations say Mr Ndungi was shot dead by the police on April 22, 1997, on Moi Avenue, Nairobi, because of his work on the case of an armed robbery at Standard Chartered Bank.

He was representing some of the suspects in court and he accused Flying Squad detectives of having kept for themselves part of the money they recovered from the gang.

Lt Col Kunyiha was shot dead in broad daylight in the heart of the capital – on Kimathi Street opposite Nation Centre – on December 30, 1994.

The gunman were said to be been trailing the soldier's car and they demanded a parcel which was in his vehicle before they shot him.

The killers of both Mr Ndungi and Lt Col Kunyiha are still at large.

The killing of CID Superintendent Bernard Kahumbi, which had political undertones, also remains unresolved 11 years since he was executed by what was believed to be a police hit squad.

He was shot dead in May 1995 after he led a highly publicised but unsuccessful police search for Mr Njehu Gatabaki, the editor of Finance magazine and a former MP for Githunguri.

The day Mr Gatabaki surrendered to police Mr Kahumbi was found dead with a gun shot wound near a Nairobi slum.

The then Opposition MPs – who are now serving in the Kibaki administration – claimed the detective was killed by the state because he had failed to arrest Mr Gatabaki.

Government officials denied the charge, linking the murder to the Opposition. Two men were arrested and charged with Mr Kahumbi's murder but nothing was published about their trials.

Another unresolved murder which had political links was that of former Githurai ward councillor Charles Maina Wanjuguna.

A gang burst into his home on the night of June 10-11, 2000 and hammered a nail into his head before they slit his throat, in full view of his wife and children.

Mr Wanjuguna was killed at the height of a campaign for the Ruiru mayoral seat. He had expressed fears for his life.

During the trial of no fewer than 13 people who were arrested over the murder, witnesses told the court how a hit squad was hired by Mr Wanjuguna's political rivals because he was the frontrunner in the campaign.

Murky underworld of hired killers

2006-01-13T15:32:00.000-06:00

Murky underworld of professional killers for hire

Story by FRED MUKINDA and MBURU MWANGI
Publication Date: 1/14/2006

Police believe it's easy for anyone with a motive to have another
killed.

Most people know the criminals among them; and the criminals are often the first contacts for neighbours desperate to settle scores.

"They are the links between ordinary citizens and the complicated underworld of professional killers," CID public relations officer Gideon Kibunjah told the Nation on telephone yesterday.

Usually for a small fee, they introduce a person to a hit man, who in turn depends on the village criminal to determine if the "customer" can be trusted. Informers often pose as clients to help police reach deeper into the world of crime. They are spared prosecution or have their punishment lessened on condition that they remain informers and keep away from crime.

They are a big worry for hit men, who now avoid contact with any potential client unless recommended by intermediaries.

But once the link is established, they demand a down payment. Usually they prove themselves capable of carrying out the task by showing the "customer" a gun. They then ask for details of the target, including economic status, prominence and vulnerability. These help criminals to understand the risk, and to fix their charges.

At this stage, the hit man can still reject or take up the assignment.

Finally, both parties agree on how the execution is to be carried out so that it masks the motive.

Crime experts agree that some criminals make a living by executing others. Most work for anybody, so long as the money is good, and chances of being caught slim.

Those hiring hit men are always cautious not to be double-crossed. They demand proof of the killing before making full payment.

After getting a down-payment and details of the target and where they are commonly found, the hit men then work on the plan of trailing and trapping the target.

Detectives are generally agreed that a murder without a motive is the most difficult to crack. They are convinced that putting a finger on the motive – the reason or excuse that leads one to do evil – is the key to resolving the puzzle.

Knowing the motive opens the doors wide, not only to the killers' hideouts, but also to their prison cells, because a conviction is almost assured.

But professional killers are known to cover their tracks and those of their paymasters by masking their link through creating many motives, including robbery, carjackings or business rivalry.

A former police investigator told of a case which everybody believed was suicide until a postmortem examination revealed otherwise. The man had been strangled.

He said he also handled cases that at a glance are believed to be road accidents until further investigations reveal something different.

Pursuing the wrong motive is frustrating for detectives. If the wrong suspects are pursued, the detectives waste time gathering evidence, assembling witnesses and seeking conviction. By the time they realise they are on the wrong track, most evidence will have been wiped out.

In the case of Nairobi University lecturer and delegate to the Constitutional Conference at Bomas, Dr Crispin Mbai, the pressure mounting on the detectives was to investigate the political motive.

However, a detective based at the Kilimani police station said that motive led nowhere. Later, they concentrated on robbery as the main motive.

"Although there was no conviction, the case flopped on a technicality, and I'm convinced the former lecturer was killed in a bungled robbery," he said.

Controversy still surrounds the August 2000 death of Catholic priest John Anthony Kaiser. The widely-held belief was that Fr Kaiser's was an assassination due to his political bent. On investigations, the police – assisted by America's Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) – deduced the priest had committed suicide. The political motive was far more appealing to the public who could not believe it could have been suicide. An inquest is still in progress.

Another police investigator based in Eldoret said an obvious hint that hit men are involved is when nothing is stolen from the victim, or when they undergo prolonged questioning or torture. In other cases, the hint comes through an ominous phone call, letter or emissary.

"If a gun is used, most victims are shot at point-blank range. This and the evidence of non-resistance lead police to classify such a killing as an execution," he added. Again, the brute force used, like pumping many bullets into victims or slashing them many times may point to an execution.

"It is like they want to tell the world: 'We were not only out to kill this man, we were out to teach him a good lesson and let the world know it all'," said a top detective.

These are the kind of hit men who, whether they use a gun or other weapons, show their fury by performing gory, bizarre and spine-chilling things on the body like dismembering it, gouging out the eyes, slicing out the ears or beheading. Others extract toes and fingernails or drive in nails into the head of their victim to inflict maximum pain before death.

Police say confessions by some hit men reveal either elaborate plans and bungled ones. Their pay depends on their professionalism and the targets involved. "We have heard of cases where some hit men get only Sh10,000 while others are paid millions to accomplish a mission," said the policeman.

The daring ones are those seemingly shielded from the law. These, however, are not just mere hit men, but accomplished assassins. In this league are the killers of politicians Tom Mboya in 1969, J.M. Kariuki in 1975 and Robert Ouko in 1990. In these cases, top officials in government and the police are, more often than not, involved.

Some hit men do not seem to worry about the setting, especially if the message is meant to echo loud to the victim's friends and neighbours. In fact, most seem to relish the publicity they get, and will smoke out their victim even from the most public place.

A case in point is that of top military intelligence officer, Lt Col Augustine Kunyiha, who was shot dead by four hit men opposite Nation Centre on December 30, 1994, as he waited for a friend at about 6pm.

They engaged him in an argument before grabbing his gun and shooting him four times in the head and chest. As they shot him, they shouted at him: "Toa hiyo kitu (bring that thing)". They are said to have retrieved a package from his car and fled in theirs as the crowd watched. The case never went anywhere.

A few metres from the spot, Nairobi councillor S.M. Maina was shot by a gang that was out to get his life. He died a year later in London where he was taken for specialised treatment. The motive was widely linked to his anti-corruption crusade at City Hall, but no suspect was ever arrested.

Still in the city centre, a lawyer representing suspects in a Sh96 million heist from the Standard Charted Bank, Moi Avenue, Mr Samuel Ndungi, was shot dead as he came out of a cafe on Moi Avenue opposite Jeevanjee Gardens on April 22, 1997.

He had claimed he had been summoned by a top police officer who, he said, told him in no uncertain terms that he was not amused by his role.

Other cases of gangland style executions include that of a Ngong lawyer and human rights activist Elijah Marima Sempeta, who was sprayed with bullets as he parked his vehicle in his compound in March, last year. The motive was suspected to be his role in some controversial ranches. More recently, senior roads engineer Francis Moindi Nyaega was killed in the same area.

Former Kilome MP Tony Ndilinge too, is believed to have been executed, although no suspect has ever been convicted. Mr Ndilinge was found murdered in Githurai, Nairobi, in August 2001.

In February last year, a suspected hit squad shot Mr Pankaj Shah dead in Mombasa as he drove into town centre for dinner with his wife.

Being pushy works

2006-01-11T19:49:00.000-06:00

After corresponding with my Senators, providing them with the written documentation they required, I had to bug them again regarding requesting the FBI to testify in the Kenyan inquest.

Apparently, if you bug people enough, they start to listen. John knew that and paid the ultimate price for it. While I don't have the same threat, the powers that be are starting to listen to my squeaky wheel.

And that's what it takes: making noise. Writing congresspeople, calling them, emailing them. They don't listen at first (usually) but if you make enough noise, they will. They are our public servants, put into their positions by us. They have to answer to us.

So make them earn their money by responding to your requests to act on the behalf of a man who always put others first. Start calling. Start writing. Start emailing. And don't stop until you get the response you deserve.

I know I won't.

Another priest murdered

2005-12-27T10:10:00.000-06:00

From the East Standard, Dec. 26, 2005:

The Catholic Church has condemned the murder of Father Philip Valayam, who was shot dead shortly after celebrating Christmas Mass with orphans in Nairobi.

The Chairman of the Episcopal Conference, Bishop Cornelius Korir, accused the Government of laxity on the issue of security in the country.

Father Philip Valayam, a priest at Nairobi‚s Don Bosco Church, was murdered some 200 metres away from the Don Bosco Youth Educational Service on Dagoretti Market Road in Karen, where he resided. He had just returned from Uhuru Camp, Mbagathi, where he celebrated Mass with orphaned children.

Korir, who is also the Eldoret Diocese Bishop, said too many guns in the country were in the wrong hands. He said it was unfortunate that a missionary who had given his entire life for the benefit of Kenyans had been killed.

The Bishop said the church was saddened by the increased killing of missionaries in the country and asked the Government to intensify security.

The Episcopal Conference, which is the umbrella body of 28 Catholic diocese, also sent a message of condolence to the Don Bosco community.

Father Philip joins a list of missionaries who have been violently killed by gunmen in the country. The Catholic clerics who have been killed in the recent past include Bishop Luigi Locati of Isiolo, the Mill Hill priest, Fr John Kaiser and Father John Hannon.

Doctor taken to task

2005-12-15T17:25:00.000-06:00

From the Daily Nation, December 16, 2005:

A top psychiatrist was yesterday taken to task at an inquest over a medical report he made five years ago on the mental health of Catholic priest John Anthony Kaiser.

Lawyer Mbuthi Gathenji accused Dr Frank Njenga of flouting an American Psychiatric Association (APA) rule which prohibited doctors from making such judgement without examining the patient.

Dr Njenga had confirmed, while testifying at an inquiry into Fr Kaiser's death, that he is a member of the association and adhered to its rules.

The psychiatrist said he prepared the report in November 2000 after being requested by then Rift Valley CID boss Joseph Naragwi. He presented it to the inquest in October.

In the 17-page report, Dr Njenga says he received evidence leading to his conclusion that the priest suffered severe mental illness and may have committed suicide.

But he pointed out that it could only be 78 per cent reliable, as he did not receive vital information on Fr Kaiser's childhood and early adult life, or the family history and forensic evidence gathered after the death.

"Mental illness by itself is not protective of the actions of murder," the psychiatrist concluded. "He could have had a mental illness and have been killed. The severity of the mental illness, however, makes suicide a real possibility."

Fr Kaiser, a Mill Hill missionary who headed the Lolgorian Catholic Parish in Ngong, was found dead at Morendant junction on the Nakuru-Naivasha road. His head had been blown off and his shotgun lay nearby.

A team from US Federal Bureau of Investigation, who joined the Kenyan detectives on August 25, concluded that Fr Kaiser committed suicide. But church leaders and human rights lobbyists rejected the report and pressed for an inquest.

Touching lives

2005-11-01T22:12:00.000-06:00

Anyone who ever met John remembers him. Even people who hadn't met him remember him. That was just who he was.

It's so hard to grasp the ridiculousness of the FBI's report, which determined John died by his own hand. If the FBI had talked to people who knew him, people he worked with, people who respected him, they would understand the foolishness behind the report.

Instead, they went to Kenya with an agenda. An agenda made to maintain useful military outposts. An agenda designed to continue "cooperation" in the investigation into the Nairobi embassy bombings. An agenda to once again cover up the dirty doings of a corrupt government.

After all, the Moi regime had annihilated thousands of its own countrymen. It had its enemies conveniently commit "suicide" before: by breaking their own legs, shooting themselves several times and then lighting themselves on fire. Hmmm... interesting methods of suicide in that country.

A lot of attention is being given to the AIDS epidemic in Africa. The US and other countries pour millions upon millions of dollars into treatments and medications to help. But little to none of it reaches its intended purpose. Instead, the supplies are diverted to the elite within the government's safety net.

And after all these atrocities against their fellow man, we are just supposed to swallow that John killed himself? When he was ready to go before the Hague International Crime Court to disclose all this damning information?

The Kenyan government may have thought we'd just roll over, and the FBI too. But we didn't. And we won't.

So our fight continues ....

An appeal

2005-10-29T19:30:00.000-05:00

I have finally received the information I needed to have my local Senators put the pressure on the FBI. Both Senators had requested details on what, how, and why the FBI was necessary to the inquest in Africa.

If anyone else has need of this information, please let me know and I will forward it to you. I cannot stress how important it is to the inquest to have the FBI detail the thought process, the investigative questions, what happened to evidence, etc.

The FBI "made" this a suicide; we need them to undo the damage now.

Slowly starting to reach Congress

2005-09-28T16:08:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago, I encouraged everyone to write to their Representative and Senators regarding the FBI's decision to not participate in the Kenyan inquest.

I did my part, writing to my congressmen. One answered me last week, requesting a letter detailing the how, when and why. Today I heard from the other two -- interestingly enough the two who have never responded to my requests in the past. One has already sent a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller asking him to reconsider their decision; another requested a privacy release to conduct business on my behalf (it's in the mail).

People, you can make a difference through your elected officials! Many have easy-to-use websites sending them a message immediately. All of them have some form of online communication process. Addresses are available and I am more than willing to help draft letters on your behalf.

The key is to make that connection. Let them know you care about this issue and it needs their attention. The FBI is paid with our tax dollars and, therefore, we CAN have a say in where they go and what they do. It's through our congresspeople. By letting them know we are paying attention.

Please, contact your elected officials and urge them to have the FBI testify in John's inquest.

Contact your Senators and Representative!

2005-09-17T12:54:00.000-05:00

For the past two years, the Kenyan government has been conducting an inquest into John's death. Recently, the attorneys representing the church and our family submitted a formal request to the FBI to testify at the inquest. Last week, the FBI responded by stating they did not feel it necessary to testify as they had been involved in the investigation.

I urge you to get your Senators and Representative to contact the Justice Department regarding this matter. The inquest is an official government investigation and our government is now not cooperating with the death of a United States citizen!

The FBI has information on lost evidence, witness lists, etc., that is vital to the inquest -- whether it proves the FBI's conclusion of suicide or not. As a family, we are simply hoping to have the truth be told ... and the FBI is extremely important to seeing that accomplished.

Please write, call, email your congress people as soon as possible. The more we make noise, the more we will get the truth told.

Clergy calls for truth

2005-08-28T17:21:00.000-05:00

Clergy Calls for Truth Body

The Nation (Nairobi)
August 28, 2005
Posted to the web August 28, 2005

Nyabonyi Kazungu
Nairobi

The Government should set up a truth and reconciliation commission to probe unresolved murders and individuals accused of looting public coffers, the Catholic Church said yesterday.

The Church also called for the release of the Akiwumi report on ethnic clashes.

Bishop Peter Kairo, the Chairman of the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission, made the demands at Ngong's Embul Bul Parish where faithful and human rights activists marked Fr John Anthony Kaiser's fifth anniversary. The late priest testified before the Akiwumi Commission but his testimony was allegedly expunged from the report.

Bishop Kairo of Nakuru Diocese and retired Bishop Davies Collins of Ngong Diocese led yesterday's celebrations. The occasion was also attended by priests, nuns and faithful from different dioceses across the country.

Pope Benedict XVI, in a message sent through his representative, the Apostolic Nuncio Alain Paul Lebeaupin, described the late Fr Kaiser as a priest who lived his priesthood with a spirit of self-denial up to the end.

"He was very compassionate to his parishioners in all their suffering, and in a special way, the homeless, the hungry and the weak," the Pope said.

Bishop Kairo said Fr Kaiser's death had taught the Church a lot. The priest's heroic acts, said the bishop, showed how a country should defend people's rights.

He urged the Government to defend the rights of the homeless and victims of sexual violence.

"Let us pray for all those who have fought for the truth and died for that course," he said in his homily.

The Church was worried by the fact that the Inquest into Fr Kaiser's death five years ago had taken too long.

"I know the case is in court but the question I ask, did he really commit suicide? Those who went there and found him lying and left side of the head blown up, did he really kill himself? Even if it takes us three or four years from now, we will continue being anxious to know the truth," he said.

A speech I once gave

2005-08-24T15:57:00.000-05:00

In July of 2001, I was asked to speak on behalf of our family at a symposium, sponsored by Kenyans living in Minnesota, for John. Sen. Paul Wellstone, who was a strong advocate for our family in seeing the truth be told regarding John's death, also appeared.

Following is the speech I gave at this occasion:

Good afternoon. I am the niece of Fr. John Kaiser.

I thank you for inviting me to speak today. I consider it an honor and a privilege to talk about John, a man who touched thousands of lives in ways I'll never fully know. But I hope I can explain to those of you who may not be familiar with him exactly why we are all so devoted to our fight for justice -- both in John's death and in his life.

John was a Mill Hill missionary.

What is a missionary? He is a person who loves God and consequently his fellow man so much that he will leave his country, his home, his family to do the work of the Lord where the need is greatest.

That is what my uncle, Fr. John Kaiser, was.

He worked among the Kenyans of East Africa for 36 years -- nearly my entire life -- and for 26 years with the Kisii, celebrating the sacramental life of the church, preaching and teaching.

A missionary is a practical person. With his own hands John built churches, schools, maternity hospitals, cisterns and wells. He was a farmer who taught better agricultural practices. A hunter who kept his people fed.

Trouble was brewing in the early 90s as a corrupt and cruel government was displacing the Kikuu tribe and grabbing their fertile land. John volunteered to be their chaplain at the Maela refugee camp.

The conditions were horrible and John spoke out against three cabinet members who were responsible for the land grabbing.

Twice he was arrested, beaten and released.

The third time after being arrested and beaten, he was taken far into the bush and was left to be the food of lions and jackals. He walked to safety with only a heavy stick and a strong guardian angel.

John had spoken out against the corrupt and powerful and his days were numbered.

To protect him, the Bishop sent him to Llolgorien, a far outpost overlooking the Serengeti and Rift Valley to work among the Masaii.

Unfortunately, peace was short lived.

Government troops pillaged and murdered and blamed it on tribal clashes.

Again John spoke out. He received death threats. He was pursued and hounded. His house would be surrounded at night, his windows broken with rocks.

On August 24, 2000, he was killed. A Mill Hill missionary was now a martyr. In the Daily Nation, a Kenyan newspaper, it was reported that Andrew Kimetto, a police commander, stated that John was told to kneel, say his last prayers and was shot in the back of the head. When questioned how he knew this, he said he had ways of getting this information.

And yet, the FBI reports that John's death was consistent with a suicide. To anyone who knew John, that is a totally unacceptable answer.

As a family, we constantly receive reports from people saying they know who was responsible for John's death, but cannot tell for fear of their own lives. Without their help, we are struggling to convince the Attorney General and the Secretary of State to reject the FBI report and clear John's character and bring about true justice.

Many of the Kenyans here today know the struggles John faced in his fight for human rights. Some of you may be familiar with the award he received from the Kenyan Law Society a few months before his murder.

The award, for the distinguished service in the promotion of human rights, was a rare departure from tradition in that John was the only recipient.

The award, which I show you, stated John's unshakable commitment to truth and justice was both his gift and his burden. To quote from the statement in support of the award, "The life and times of Fr. John Anthony Kaiser stand out as a study in courage, determination and sacrifice on behalf of the weak, the oppressed and down-trodden. He does not consider himself a civil rights worker. He would not call himself a human rights activist let alone its champion. He would not admit to all his achievements which have emboldened and inspired many to love truth, cherish liberty and fight for human rights. Father Kaiser says he is just a simple parish priest. We agree. And we honor him."

We love you and miss you, John. Watch over us as we continue what you so wonderfully started.

Thank you.

Five years ago ... right now

2005-08-23T21:32:00.000-05:00

It was exactly five years ago, almost to the minute, that Fr. John Kaiser was murdered in Kenya. My mother, John's sister, called me a few minutes ago, noting the time. Kenya is about eight hours ahead, and it is believed he was murdered around 4:30 a.m.

It's been five years of torment, five years of struggle, five years of hope that the truth would finally be told.

Following, I have printed a sermon by John's bishop, Bishop Cornelius, presented at the fourth anniversary service.

My dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Today I speak to you as one who has lived through experiences best forgotten but long remembered. In the old prayers on "The Way of the Cross" are the Words ' The Crowds have left the heights of Calvary and none remain except the holy women and beloved disciple'.

These words echo through my mind today as we pray for John Kaiser and look at his fears and dreams.

The grass now covers his final Resting place and the Ravages of time have obliterated the roadside scars of his deathsite. They say age causes the sharpness of the mind to be dulled but they do not know that our minds will remain focused on that terrible event of August four years until we can say 'Now John you are dismissed. Take your Rest.'

My dear people of God, the life and death of John Kaiser had its effect on all of us.

Some remember his kindness, his care, his faith, his simplicity. Some remember his stubborn manner, his relentless pursuit of the truth, his dedication to the voiceless oppressed.

Some remember him with exasperation as somebody who refused to lie down, stay silent or deviate from his God given mission to serve the poor on whom have been imposed hell in this life.

Some are afraid of the truth and watch their steps during the day and the shadows at night. Some want to forget the injustices they were responsible for and wish they had never heard of Fr. John Kaiser.

And some are inspired by his life and work when no light appears at the end of the tunnel of life.

His death has touched us like the other martyrs of old.

Jesus Christ came to change the world - to speak for the poor, the down trodden and oppressed. It would be senseless person who would say that John Kaiser did not follow his example. So, let us not tire but continue to be inspired by his life.

If John Kaiser was alive today. I wonder what he would say.

To the leaders of the Church he would say - Do not tire, Do not be afraid. The gates of Hell will never prevail against us. Lead by example and take heart.

To the civil leaders of all political persuasions he would say; I hardly see the promised Justice. Those who were victims of the clashes still live in almost hopeless conditions. I still hear of dubious deals. I still see the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. I still hear false and empty words. Why do many of our own Kenyan people live as refugees in their own country. Why have the land Report and Akiwumi report on the clashes not been published?

Why must politicians say one thing and do another? Fr. Kaiser would say; Do not let us drift back to the olden days of police harassment at the investigation of absent leaders. Fr. Kaiser would say let your leaders speak with the crystal clear language of the naked truth. He would say let my people, your brothers and sisters have their land back.

To those who are searching for the truth, he would say Justice delayed is justice denied. So let the inquest proceed with all exhibits, all photographs available to it. Let those especially our Attorney General take the matter seriously and quickly help so that justice can be done.

To the Christian family, Fr. Kaiser would say 'Never lose hope, what is hidden in secret will be proclaimed from the housetops. Love one another. No tribalism. You are all children of God and, so he would say be an example, let your light shine before all people.

Finally Fr. Kaiser would be concerned about the fate of women where cases of rape, attempted rape and domestic violence increase, as each day passes. He would say enough is enough. Let the law take its course and deal with the matter. He would say let the victim not be the culprit.

Finally as one who also witnessed the awful tragedy of the clashes. I appeal to the government not to stand idly by while injustice continues. Now is the time for action.

We remember Fr. Kaiser. As Church leaders we have never accepted that he committed suicide. Why drive 100 Kms in the dead of night to kill yourself on a lonely road. Let the truth be known and this truth will set us free.

Fr. Kaiser would say 'Let my people free, free from the slavery of poverty, free from oppression, free from exploitation and free from double speak.

Fr. Kaiser lived and died a Christian. One who loves God and his neighbour. He lived this truth even unto death. He has given us an example.

LET FR. KAISER NOT HAVE DIED IN VAIN.

Some background ....

2005-08-21T18:49:00.000-05:00

News
Saturday, October 30, 1999

Catholic priest ordered out of Kenya as church raises concern over clash victims

By NATION Correspondent

As a Catholic priest received marching orders out of Kenya yesterday, the Church expressed reservations about government plans to relocate victims of ethnic clashes rather than encourage them to go back to their old homes.

This, the Church's Justice and Peace Commission said, is a way of legitimising the ethnic clashes that rocked Kenya in the early 90s.

The unfortunate priest, who named two Cabinet Ministers while giving evidence before a Commission of Inquiry into the infamous land clashes, has been in the country for 35 years. He was ordered to leave immediately or face prosecution for staying in the country illegally.

Fr John Kaiser, 67, is currently the priest in charge of Lolgorian parish in Trans Mara District. He has served in various parts of the country.

Senior clerics say they believe Fr Kaiser has been kicked out since he is perceived as having played a central role in unearthing a sex scandal involving a senior politician who is also a Cabinet Minister.

The US embassy in Nairobi has taken up the matter, sources said.

The Catholic Justice and Peace Commission of the Nakuru Diocese says that founding new settlement areas for the clash victims instead of helping them resettle and interact with those they fought with is an outright way of legitimising ethnic violence and promoting majimboism.

The commission's executive secretary, Mr Ernest Murimi, has criticised is reported by Update, a National Council of Churches of Kenya newsletter, criticising the government for relocating over 1,000 families displaced from Lare to Bararget Forest.

But asked about the resettlement program through which the church has helped resettle clash victims from Narok and Burnt Forest, Mr Murimi said, "We are very clear with our program. It is short-lived and aimed at only assisting those targeted to reorganise their lives. We allocate each family one and half acre to facilitate the re-organisation. We expect those assisted to return to their farms when the situation normalises," he said.

The official said relocating the clash victims can be appropriate when it is temporary and specifically aimed at cooling down the situation but can never be a lasting solution because it is detrimental to peace and reconciliation.

Mr Murimi further said relocation of clash victims to separate sites only creates division and intensifies hatred among those affected by the violence.

He lashed out at the government for recently relocating the Bararget clash victims, saying it would hamper possible reconciliation with the people they clashed with in Njoro and Lare Divisions of Nakuru district.

"The government should have done all in its means to resettle the clash victims instead of pushing them away from their neighbours," Mr Murimi said.