Canada honours African human rights activist

Njoya fights for democracy in Kenya

KELLY HENSCHEL
CW Staff Writer
— Winnipeg —

Despite an unbending government and personal hardship, Kenyan human rights activist Timothy Njoya says he will continue to uphold the cause of democracy in his country.

Njoya, 59, is not a large man. He smiles often, and there is passion in his voice as he speaks about his native Kenya. A large silver cross hangs around his neck, evidence of his faith and his vocation as a Presbyterian minister in Nairobi.

But Njoya is not is in the good books with his native government. From his pulpit to the streets, he has demanded political freedom from the dictatorship of the Kenyan government for more than 20 years. Thousands of like-minded Kenyans have joined him in peaceful demonstrations, which often lead to violence at the hands of the authorities.

It is this work that has earned Njoya, who also served as a scholar-in-residence at Knox College in Toronto in 1998, the John Humphrey Freedom Award from the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development. The award was presented in Montreal December 10. Njoya and Leah, his wife of 32 years, have since been travelling cross-country, calling on Canadian support for the democratization of Kenya.

Upheaval has been constant in the country, perhaps more so since president Daniel Arap Moi came to power in 1978. Njoya has personally faced imprisonment and severe beatings, including an incident in 1999 that left him in a temporary coma. Even now, he travels with police escorts.

Call for accountability

“I started seeing the transfer of power to Africans was to serve dominance,” says Njoya, who became actively involved in human rights issues in 1976. “It was done to serve the foreign governments. It was not done for democratization. It was done is such a way that it will never allow democracy to exist.”

Currently there is a stalemate of sorts in Kenya. The government “agrees with reform, but says the reform must be done by the government, not the people. They say the government is there to lead the people,” says Njoya.

Government accountability is crucial, he says. “All of the laws of Africa are written in such a way that they cannot involve human rights because they give the state absolute power,” he says. “There is no accountability at all. When there is no accountability, corruption becomes a necessary consequence of the law.”

Kenya has a population of about 29 million and is ranked ninth in the world for corruption by Transparency International.

Njoya may bear the scars on his body, but his inner spirit fights on. Some may wonder how he can keep going when such obstacles stand in the way. But for Njoya, the response is simple—he is fighting for the very essence of being.

God gave man free will, he says, and the government cannot take that away. “It’s a whole sense of being. You don’t exist being because somebody says you do not.”

For more information about the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development and Kenya, the website is www.ichrdd.ca.