The cover of the book that Catholic priest Fr Anthony Kaiser wrote before his death
Story by JOSEPH NGUNJIRI Sunday Nation 5 August 2007
Catholic priest Father Anthony Kaiser had a premonition of his death. The American-born cleric wrote a book in which he expressed fears that he could be killed.
In the book, If I Die, published three years after his death in August 2000, he wrote: “Since I have been threatened before by the Rift Valley Provincial Commissioner, 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.”
The bush and hyenas are metaphors for the hostile environment he was working in and the many enemies he had made as a result of his crusade for the rights of the victims of land clashes in the Rift Valley.
And the Wednesday ruling by Naivasha Chief Magistrate Maureen Odero that the priest was killed seems to fortify this statement.
An inquest into Fr Kaiser’s death pointed to a possible murder conspiracy as opposed to the theory advanced by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that the American-born priest died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds.
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.
And it appears that Fr Kaiser had seen it coming.
The priest had written the book outlining the hostility he encountered in his efforts to have the people who had been displaced in ethnic clashes in parts of the Rift Valley resettled.
In the book published by Cana Publishers, now WordAlive Publishers, Fr Kaiser accused the American and British governments of complicity in the 1992 clashes that resulted in the deaths of many non-Maasai people settled in Enoosupukia and Trans-Mara areas, and the displacement of many more.
Claiming that the Kanu government was behind the evictions, he wrote that the policy went “unchallenged for long by the donor community, especially Britain and the USA, because it fits into the overall policy for Africa, which is to reduce the human population.”
“Kenya is also of great strategic importance to Britain and America,” he added, “in their quest to control the oil flow from the Persian Gulf area.”
If I Die contains a statement by the Kenya Episcopal Conference of the Catholic Secretariat that casts doubt on the FBI self-inflicted death theory.
Magistrate Odero concurs. In her ruling she said the suicide theory was “replete with loopholes and missing links and raised more questions than answers.”
In the book’s foreword, former Apostolic Nuncio to Kenya Archbishop Giovanni Tonucci talks of peoples’ hopes being raised when the FBI was asked by the Kenya Government to intervene in the matter, only to see them shattered.
“Sadly,” he writes, “ours was a manifestation of naivety; when the sentence was revealed, in the famous – or infamous – FBI report, we realised that Fr Kaiser had been murdered a second time, this time in his credibility.”
In If I Die, Fr Kaiser indicated that his problems – at some point the Government had declared him a prohibited immigrant – and possible death were somehow connected with his fight against the perpetrators of the ethnic cleansing in Narok and Trans-Mara.
Exhibiting extensive knowledge of the subject, Fr Kaiser gave the background to the clashes as well as his opinion of the people behind them. He took a dim view of the alleged environmental reasons advanced to justify the evictions in order to protect a water catchment area.
He wondered: “Where is the river that is formed from the Enoosupukia area which flows into what fresh water lake?”
He also pours cold water on the long-held belief that the evictions were a result of a popular Maasai uprising against foreigners in the area.
“The Maasai elders who attended our monthly Maela camp meetings and who pleaded with the Government to resettle the farmers refuted this lie,” the priest wrote. Because the evicted families were part of his flock, Fr Kaiser was heavily involved in ensuring that they got justice, which at times cost him heavily.
Sample this: “Before long, a heavy blow landed on me, sending me reeling to the ground. I was handcuffed and bundled into the back of the waiting Land-Rover.”
If I Die does not hold back in naming the people the author believed were behind the clashes. It also discusses the official lies and subsequent cover-up of the whole mess.
Fr Kaiser’s narrative makes no mention of former Internal Security Minister Julius Sunkuli, and the magistrate said there was no evidence linking him to the priest’s death.