If the twin towers forever changed the perception of security in the world, and made the United States, an alternate exporter of war and democracy, feel infinitely more vulnerable at home, the 2007-2008 post-election violence in Kenya constituted a watershed for the country's conception of a 'peaceful nation' since its independence.

Until then (and still today, in the remotest regions of this country almost three times the size of Italy) feuds, killings, village burnings and other mass human amenities were limited to tribal or territorial disputes over herding.
At the end of December 2007, tribalism was disguised as politics and for the first time united ethnic groups that had always been rivals, but (the power of those who thought to solve the problem with multi-partyism) united in two camps. This unleashed at the national level what had always happened in village and community circles.

The result was tragic: more than 1000 dead (900 according to the Kenyan government, 1500 according to human rights associations), devastation in Nairobi and throughout the Rift Valley.
Two months of civil war without an army, or rather with the police pouring petrol on the fire, even killing at random, in an attempt to put an end to the raids.

Without an army, but with political masterminds, who would have profited from the chaos, having tried to rig the elections for each other.
The two hidden instigators, according to the International Criminal Court, were the two vice-presidential candidates of the time, the two best-known names on the Kenyan political scene of the past two decades: Uhuru Kenyatta, who became president four years later and until two years ago, and William Ruto, then the dauphin of opponent Raila Odinga and now president and his sworn enemy.

The public prosecution brought them before several prosecutors (those who left office, those who were replaced, those who resigned before they even started), with the very serious charge of crimes against humanity.
Well, after 16 years, we can say that nothing happened in 2007.
At least, what happened was part of the natural process of things, of instinct, of an astral conjunction, a degenerate frustration. This is because the ICC announced the conclusion of investigations against 6 of the 8 defendants in the post-election violence trial.
Thus, no further proceedings will be brought against Ruto and Kenyatta, as well as then Minister Henry Kosgey, former Inspector General Mohammed Hussein Ali, former Head of Public Service Francis Muthaura and radio host and publisher Joshua Arap Sang. Two extras remain under investigation, although it is not clear on what charges.

All were acquitted, and it will never be known whether, as in Alberto Sordi's film, 'for having committed the act'.
The great accused are probably above suspicion and the situation, as former UN Secretary General Koffi Annan, who was the great peacemaker, said at the time, 'got out of hand', but there was certainly no premeditation.
The deputy prosecutor of the Cpi, Nazhat Shameem, said yesterday that she had taken this decision after evaluating the information at her disposal, following yet another self-exclusion of a chief prosecutor, Karim Ahmad Khan, who had dropped the case.
They are finally relieved of any future anxieties, the 'Ocampo Six'. This is what the Kenyan public calls Ruto and the others, using the name of the most convinced and passionate accuser, Luis Moreno Ocampo, who retired in 2009 after spending ten years trying to indict dictators, generals and various thugs in charge in several African countries. One of them all, the Sudanese Al Bashir.

Who is going to tell the families of the children inside the houses, the women on the balconies, the worshippers in the churches, the students in the streets that the police shot them without anyone giving them an order? That one faction rather than the other armed themselves by taking up a collection?
That everything was simply a misunderstanding, a black hole in history?
Unfortunately, or fortunately, Africa for these events always has an answer. Perhaps also because of this, it is often the questions that are lacking.