Ministering to the poor who live by herding cattle and farming, Kaiser embraced controversies that went to the heart of Kenya's misgovernance. When hundreds died in so-called tribal clashes over land in the 1990s, Kaiser testified that the conflicts were engineered by officials seeking to win reelection by polarizing constituencies. The priest also described Kenyan police and ruling party thugs leveling a refugee camp where he worked in 1994. And when residents were forced off land in the name of conservation, Kaiser called it an oft-repeated ruse by senior officials to take what they liked. For his efforts, police once seized Kaiser and a fellow priest, Francis Mwangi, bound them and carried them into the night in the back of a pickup.
Intimidation is a favorite government tactic to suppress meaningful political activity in Kenya.
Police come and break it up. It means danger. For Kaiser, the most personal conflict involved Julius ole Sunkuli, a government minister and political boss from the Rift Valley. The priest and the politician were frequently at loggerheads over what fellow clergy members described as social and human rights issues. But the flash point was an allegation that Sunkuli committed rape on the floor of his office.