Hiiraan Online

by Gabriel Dolan
Saturday, June 04, 2011

The moving testimony of victims and survivors of that brutal event was recently complemented by the evidence of Northern Kenya Development Minister Mohamed Elmi, who tearfully recalled how as a young nurse he tried to rescue and treat hundreds of victims.  

He combed bushes and manyattas looking for the injured together with one Anna Lena Tonelli, a Catholic volunteer from Italy.

Ms Tonelli was a lawyer by profession but spent 35 years working with the Somali community as a medic. An extraordinary Christian who dressed and lived like local Somali women, she had a particular devotion to treatment of TB patients. 

She was the first to document evidence of the atrocity and claimed there was a government plot “to commit genocide against the Degodia community”. Her writings tell how Degodia men were rounded up, stripped naked, shot dead and chemicals poured on their corpses.

Ms Tonelli estimated that over 1,000 people were eliminated in the Wagalla atrocity.

For her efforts to assist the injured and to expose the genocide, she was deported a year later by the Moi Government. No human rights group, however, investigated the atrocity.  

Anna Lena relocated to Borama in Somalia in late 1985 where she established a TB Hospital. But she predicted that “no evil ever remains hidden, and no truths remain unrevealed  ... one day goodness will shine forth”. If there is a season for everything, then this must be the right time to address the slaughter.  

The TJRC has listed a number of senior government people summoned to testify. Most opted not to appear in Wajir, but are expected to testify in Nairobi this week.

Chief among them is Bethuel Kiplagat, whose only role in the TJRC henceforth will be as a witness and not as its chairperson. He has been negatively mentioned by former Australian ambassador Zakayo Kamenchu, who claimed that Mr Kiplagat attended a security meeting in Wajir prior to the massacre and later briefed diplomatic staff on damage control after revelations of the slaughter became known.

The TJRC will almost certainly be calling more witnesses to shed light on this dark incident. The TJRC Act of 2008 Article 6(e) states that their mandate includes “to investigate and determine whether the violations and abuses were deliberately planned and executed by the state’” Sooner or later, then, the commission will have to consider summoning Mr Moi to give his version of events.  
Article 7 of the Act states that anyone can be summoned and even compelled to attend a session. However, if Mr Moi were to voluntarily come forward and tell us the truth, that magnanimous gesture would go a long way towards acknowledgment, closure and reconciliation with the Somali community.  

Anna Lena Tonelli cannot appear as she was brutally assassinated at her hospital in Borama on October 5, 2003 but she would rejoice in heaven to see justice for her beloved people.