Johannesburg, Oct 06: Celebrated African author Ngugi wa Thiong'o says a truth and reconciliation process in Kenya can help to heal a nation scarred by human rights abuses and grand theft but must not become a tool for revenge.
Ngugi, a Kenyan in exile for 20 years until a new government swept to power in landmark polls in December, said any probe into past abuses should focus on the immediate former government of Daniel Arap Moi.
"Obviously it should go back as far as possible, although I think it should concentrate more on the Moi regime because that's when terror was unleashed against Kenyans by a Kenyan government," Ngugi told Reuters in South Africa.

"My personal feeling is that we do as much investigation as possible. But we should be careful we don't pursue vengeance. The best vengeance we can have is to make sure Kenyan institutions work," he said.
President Mwai Kibaki's new government set up a task force in May to help decide whether to create a South African-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission to deal with the country's history of corruption, torture and human rights abuses.

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Hailed as a world-class writer, he is now the director of the International Center for Writing and Translation at the University of California at Irvine.
Kenya's task force on truth and reconciliation is badly split and some analysts say the issue of how to deal with the past could wreck the fragile ruling National Rainbow Coalition. Some of the task force members are implicated in controversial events that took place while they were working in Moi governments.
A bone of contention is how far back the investigations should go and how to deal with the perpetrators of abuses - to seek justice or give amnesty.

Some of the country's most infamous episodes happened during Moi's 24-year rule - political killings that remain unsolved, financial scandals and land grabbing.
Bureau Report