"It's now an internationally acknowledged fact that transitional justice is an inescapable imperative for countries emerging from decades of gross misrule," Kenyan Justice and Constitutional Minister Kiraitu Murungi said.
"Kenya must be recreated as a state and the government must develop an agenda for transitional justice in which public corruption is ended and human rights abuses prevented," Murungi said in his opening address.
"To do so, we must confront the mistakes and atrocities of the past," Murungi said.
Murungi said the government had to make difficult decisions if democracy, the rule of law, economic renewal and respect for human rights had to be achieved.
"We must confront the past fairly and without engaging in a witch-hunt.
We must also understand and accept the fact that no one is above the law, that there are no sacred cows, whether in the government or outside of it," he said.
In an inaugural address to delegates on the eve of the conference, Nobel Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, warned that "a regime that is not examined is like an evil that haunts until confession is done".
"When a transition occurs from a depressive regime, where power has been abused, we have to come face to face with all the traumatic experiences and deal with the problem," declared Tutu, who left for South Africa early yesterday. – Sapa-AFP.
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