Ref: http://politics.nationmedia.com/inner.asp?pcat=NEWS&cat=TOP&sid=1559
By SATURDAY NATION Team
Last updated: 29 Feb 2008 22:47 PM (EAT)
Details of the dramatic events leading to the signing of a peace deal that ended two months of Kenya’s political turmoil emerged on Friday as the country sprung back to life.
The deal, which took two days of intense diplomacy by chief mediator Kofi Annan and Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, was struck after the two protagonists — President Kibaki and ODM leader Raila Odinga — ignored the views of hard-liners in their camps to give Kenyans a coalition agreement that would see the Opposition share power with the government.
At an exclusive meeting in Harambee House, both leaders ceded ground to arrive at a power-sharing agreement that created the position of a prime minister who will exercise some authority on government.
Sources said that Mr Annan decided to deal directly with President Kibaki and Mr Odinga after realising that the two may not have been getting accurate briefs on the progress of the negotiations from their teams.
It is not yet clear what may have prompted President Kibaki’s change of heart over his earlier stated stand on the creation of a PM’s post which he had emphasised only hours before the deal was sealed on Thursday.
However, a source close to the President said on Friday: “A time comes when a leader must take the hard decisions on his own and what happened yesterday (Thursday) was one such moment. The President rose above party interests to make a decision for Kenya.”
The revelations came as the peace talks resumed at the Serena Hotel on Friday, but without Justice and Constitutional Affairs minister Martha Karua, who leads the PNU four-member team to the talks.
Her colleague at the talks, Foreign Affairs minister Moses Wetangula said the minister was engaged in another assignment. Other members of the PNU team are Education minister Sam Ongeri and Mbooni MP Mutula Kilonzo.
The ODM team at the talks aimed at resolving the dispute over the December presidential election results is led by the party’s deputy leader Musalia Mudavadi, and MPs William Ruto, Dr Sally Kosgei and James Orengo.
Mr Annan resumed the talks to start work on what is commonly known as Agenda Four on long-term resolutions which includes comprehensive constitutional review within a year.
The Saturday Nation tried to reconstruct the events that led to the peace agreement and established that there may have been outside forces behind the success.
Sources say that last Sunday, two days after suspending the talks, Mr Annan was set to travel to Kampala to meet with Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni. It is not yet known what he was to discuss with him, but he seems to have decided not to make the trip at the last minute.
It would seem he got a signal that the days ahead would produce a deal. Two days later, President Museveni addressed the East African Legislative Assembly in Arusha, where he said: “In the pre-colonial Uganda there was a joke about one of the clans whose members built a hut but did not leave space for the doorway only to discover the mistake when the house was complete. The recent problems in Kenya, tragic as they were, nevertheless, illustrated this point of short-sighted political architecture.”
Wiggle room
Perhaps he was suggesting that Kenyan politicians, without specifying which ones, were digging themselves into a position in the talks which was leaving them no wiggle room, and that was short sighted.
He then said that Kenya’s crisis, which had caused shortages in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Southern Sudan, DRC Congo and some parts of northern Tanzania had shown that the region was interdependent: “Kenya and the concomitant difficulties throughout the whole region have shown that the head cannot be independent of the neck; the neck cannot be independent of the chest; the chest cannot be independent of the abdomen; the abdomen cannot be independent of the limbs; and vice versa. Of course, you can have amputees and cripples. They, however, do not lead a full life. Their potential is diminished to the extent of the loss of parts of their bodies.”
Later the same day, President Kikwete flew to Nairobi to join the Annan mediation effort. When President Kikwete arrived, he assured Kenyans that there would be a deal.
The next morning, President Museveni was addressing an investors’ meeting in Kampala, and confidently told the meeting that President Kikwete was in Nairobi, and the Kenya crisis was going to resolve.
Both President Kikwete and President Museveni seem to have known that a deal was possible, and the Tanzanian leader seems to have brought a message that dramatically broke the deadlock once he met President Kibaki and Mr Odinga. What that message was, remains a mystery.
What is clear though is that the whole process was greatly helped by Mr Annan’s diplomacy of meeting the two principals separately.
Add this to President Kikwete’s persuasion that the PM’s post will not take away the executive powers that President Kibaki enjoys in the Constitution.
Indeed it took the tact of the diplomat of many years, Mr Annan, to move faster than the eight men and women he had been given from PNU and ODM to negotiate to move the talks a notch higher — to Harambee House.
Away from the lieutenants, Mr Kibaki, Mr Odinga, Mr Kikwete, Mr Annan and former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa engaged themselves in what is being described as “frank, candid and soul-searching” discussion of the Kenyan political crisis.
It is understood that President Kibaki was initially apprehensive about the creation of the job that would necessitate an amendment to the Constitution, and thereby erode the executive powers he wields under Section 23.
President Kikwete’s role at the highest level of the talks was threefold: First, as the Africa Union chairman his presence was the voice of the continental body that is backed by the European Union, Britain and the US.
Second, Mr Annan needed a president of a country that has a premier, to explain to another president whose country has lived with none for 45 years to understand that it can work.
Feuding principals
Thirdly, as a former Foreign minister of his country he had what it requires in diplomacy to deal with feuding principals and communicate in a language that should not offend either side.
It is understood that President Kikwete brought out the relevant sections in the Tanzanian constitution and showed his counterpart explaining that whatever the ODM was asking for was less powerful than his PM.
What the ODM wanted was for the premier and his two deputies to be recognised under Section 17 of the Constitution which spells out who constitutes the Cabinet so that it includes the new positions.
Then, ODM wanted the powers of the PM to be specified in the Constitution which President Kibaki accepted.
Friday, 29 February 2008
Commentary (by Kipkoech Tanui) - We’ve begun the journey, but dangers lurk ahead
Ref: http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143982533&cid=190
Published on February 29, 2008, 12:00 am
By Kipkoech Tanui
Finally, the power sharing deal is out. It is not, of course, the ‘Kenyan solution’ President and his team, led by Justice and Constitutional Affairs minister, Ms Martha Karua, would have wished for. It is a bitter tablet from a pharmacy chain in the outer world.
Conceiving the deal may have been difficult, but as with the conception of a baby, the hardest task will be nurturing it. Like marital vows, courting and finally signing the dotted line is the easiest of tasks compared to the challenge of operating within its orbit and raft of lifelong demands.
The mediators said it — the signatures are valueless if any of the two parties to the electoral dispute, now ruling partners in the making, put bulwarks in the road to normalcy. It would be tragic of the Orange Democratic Movement’s and Party of National Unity’s traditional rivalry to play out ahead of the crucial sitting of Parliament on Thursday.
Today as a nation at a crossroads, a vehicle stuck in the mud or a windsock at the mercy of the winds of ethnic passions, we must all struggle to get out of the cesspool.
It is needless to recount the harrowing tales of deaths, destruction and displacement. It is unnecessary to regurgitate the horror stories of machetes, arrows and fires. For we have seen it all, including the burning of women and children in churches and homes that were safe havens until the angels of death violated them.
The economic doldrums, the political turmoil, as well as the siege mentality that gripped us, and the picture of a pariah nation that was forming, will change only if the parties stick to the agreement.
The African Union Chairman Mr Jakaya Kikwete put it thus: Each party gave in a little and much as each side would have wanted to get the most, that was the best in the circumstances.
But even as we navigate the more tricky road, the hard chemistry lesson of mixing oil and water hoping the conconction will run the engine of Government, we must draw lessons from the mess that a few made of the elections.
We must confront the bitter truth that the some injustice was done against the nation. It will, however, not be the moment to settle scores, but to use them as a signpost showing the way to the pit where ruinous regimes lie in disgrace.
It is also the moment, even as we pursue justice for the dead, displaced and the impoverished, to recall how easily a nation can go up in smoke due to bad leadership. It is from here that we can, with trepidation of heart, and going by the reflexive sigh of relief that swept across the nation, pick up the pieces and once again embrace the ‘historical accident’ that brought us together as a nation.
Ceding grounds
Several times some of us argued that there surely must be more to the Presidency. That even as we slid to the precipice, there was still moment for the President to seize the hand of Mr Raila Odinga and shake off the grip of those in his team who were urging him to hold fast and ride out the storm.
We argued that Raila too should cede ground, and among the most notable steps he took was to stop calling on President Kibaki to admit he stole the elections and resign.
We harangued the President side arguing it was pointless to hide under the cover of being a ‘duly elected president’ when the nation was bleeding. There was also the argument that Kenya deserved better and it would be foolhardy for the President to take Kenya to civil war in exchange for a second term.
Kenyans and the world piled pressure on Kibaki and Raila to not only preach but work for peace. To PNU and ODM Kenyans warned the situation was so delicate no hardliner on which ever side would carry the day.
Today, and just a few hours after Kibaki and Raila signed a power sharing deal, we can still ask the legitimate question: Did we have to sink this low? We could also ask if we indeed needed prodding, elbowing and cajoling by the African Union, European Union, the United States and the United Nations, in the face of imminent national catastrophe, to walk to the negotiating table to work out a political settlement?
But even as we recover our footsteps, and even as we ask ourselves where and when did the rains start beating us, we must never forget the cardinal rule to any reconciliation and healing process — good faith and forgiveness.
There is also the harder part of accommodating yesterday’s foe as today’s friend in the heart. Then there is the coming reality that, if we need a working government, we must soon collapse the walls of ODM and PNU. They will remain legal entities but for operation purposes we must all strive to have one nation, on people.
On this score again the nation’s eyes will remain nailed on Kibaki and Raila.
The job is just half done!
-The writer (sktanui@eastandard.net) is The Standard’s Managing Editor, Weekend Edition
Published on February 29, 2008, 12:00 am
By Kipkoech Tanui
Finally, the power sharing deal is out. It is not, of course, the ‘Kenyan solution’ President and his team, led by Justice and Constitutional Affairs minister, Ms Martha Karua, would have wished for. It is a bitter tablet from a pharmacy chain in the outer world.
Conceiving the deal may have been difficult, but as with the conception of a baby, the hardest task will be nurturing it. Like marital vows, courting and finally signing the dotted line is the easiest of tasks compared to the challenge of operating within its orbit and raft of lifelong demands.
The mediators said it — the signatures are valueless if any of the two parties to the electoral dispute, now ruling partners in the making, put bulwarks in the road to normalcy. It would be tragic of the Orange Democratic Movement’s and Party of National Unity’s traditional rivalry to play out ahead of the crucial sitting of Parliament on Thursday.
Today as a nation at a crossroads, a vehicle stuck in the mud or a windsock at the mercy of the winds of ethnic passions, we must all struggle to get out of the cesspool.
It is needless to recount the harrowing tales of deaths, destruction and displacement. It is unnecessary to regurgitate the horror stories of machetes, arrows and fires. For we have seen it all, including the burning of women and children in churches and homes that were safe havens until the angels of death violated them.
The economic doldrums, the political turmoil, as well as the siege mentality that gripped us, and the picture of a pariah nation that was forming, will change only if the parties stick to the agreement.
The African Union Chairman Mr Jakaya Kikwete put it thus: Each party gave in a little and much as each side would have wanted to get the most, that was the best in the circumstances.
But even as we navigate the more tricky road, the hard chemistry lesson of mixing oil and water hoping the conconction will run the engine of Government, we must draw lessons from the mess that a few made of the elections.
We must confront the bitter truth that the some injustice was done against the nation. It will, however, not be the moment to settle scores, but to use them as a signpost showing the way to the pit where ruinous regimes lie in disgrace.
It is also the moment, even as we pursue justice for the dead, displaced and the impoverished, to recall how easily a nation can go up in smoke due to bad leadership. It is from here that we can, with trepidation of heart, and going by the reflexive sigh of relief that swept across the nation, pick up the pieces and once again embrace the ‘historical accident’ that brought us together as a nation.
Ceding grounds
Several times some of us argued that there surely must be more to the Presidency. That even as we slid to the precipice, there was still moment for the President to seize the hand of Mr Raila Odinga and shake off the grip of those in his team who were urging him to hold fast and ride out the storm.
We argued that Raila too should cede ground, and among the most notable steps he took was to stop calling on President Kibaki to admit he stole the elections and resign.
We harangued the President side arguing it was pointless to hide under the cover of being a ‘duly elected president’ when the nation was bleeding. There was also the argument that Kenya deserved better and it would be foolhardy for the President to take Kenya to civil war in exchange for a second term.
Kenyans and the world piled pressure on Kibaki and Raila to not only preach but work for peace. To PNU and ODM Kenyans warned the situation was so delicate no hardliner on which ever side would carry the day.
Today, and just a few hours after Kibaki and Raila signed a power sharing deal, we can still ask the legitimate question: Did we have to sink this low? We could also ask if we indeed needed prodding, elbowing and cajoling by the African Union, European Union, the United States and the United Nations, in the face of imminent national catastrophe, to walk to the negotiating table to work out a political settlement?
But even as we recover our footsteps, and even as we ask ourselves where and when did the rains start beating us, we must never forget the cardinal rule to any reconciliation and healing process — good faith and forgiveness.
There is also the harder part of accommodating yesterday’s foe as today’s friend in the heart. Then there is the coming reality that, if we need a working government, we must soon collapse the walls of ODM and PNU. They will remain legal entities but for operation purposes we must all strive to have one nation, on people.
On this score again the nation’s eyes will remain nailed on Kibaki and Raila.
The job is just half done!
-The writer (sktanui@eastandard.net) is The Standard’s Managing Editor, Weekend Edition
Commentary (by Linda Ochiel) - Sovereignty protests not helpful in fixing crisis
Ref: http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143982532&cid=15
Published on February 29, 2008, 12:00 am
By Linda Ochiel
Wise people say there are certain moral limits no one can cross without forfeiting one’s honour and human dignity. Just listening to call-in sessions on FM radio stations across the country will tell you that Kenyans have reached that limit.
People are desperate to have the crisis caused by the December 27 electoral travesty resolved. It is worrying that politicians seem insensitive to the security situation and, more specifically, the plight of Kenyans being terrorised by militia and criminal groups. Massive human rights violations are taking place in contravention of the Constitution and the Government's obligation to protect the right to life, guarantee security of persons and safeguard private property.
Do the negotiators participating in the Annan-led talks have children? Do they have wives, mothers, sisters and brothers? Have their tender children ever slept in the cold even for one night or gone without one meal? Do they understand the pain of losing one’s home, family and entire livelihood? Or have we sunk so low as to be impervious to our fellow Kenyans’ suffering?
Politicians should desist from making statements that trespass on the dialogue and reconciliation agenda and undermine the prospects of successful mediation of the post-election crisis. Hypocritical and snide pronouncements about Kenya’s sovereignty and the patriotism of notorious political characters is fast losing colour.
Our leaders continue to restrict themselves to cheap and uncalled-for criticisms and rhetoric evocative of pre-teen years, casting doubt on their ability to offer credible and moral leadership. One would have to be extremely insensitive to the mood and psyche of the nation to continue whining about international partners interfering with Kenya’s sovereignty.
For the record, communities are arming themselves, preparing for conflict. They say, they have lost confidence in the Government’s ability to protect them should mediation efforts fail. The international media says the well-intentioned Dr Kofi Annan is fast getting worn out by the back and forthing between Party of National Unity (PNU) and the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) representatives.
Kenyans want the Government and ODM to drop hardline stances and give peace a chance. We want the Government to prioritise the security of its citizens and their property as its key factor in defining itself as a functioning State, as the absence of security as we have seen in the recent past connotes anarchy.
However much we would like to bury our heads in the sand, the economy is headed for the dogs, Kenya’s image as island of stability in Africa is long gone, investors have fled, and looting and arson have destroyed countless farms in the Rift Valley, one of the country’s most productive regions. As we speak, we are teetering on the brink of food insecurity. Children are out of school and the entire nation is traumatised.
How do we intend to correct this if we lack the political will to address the impasse that brought us to where we are now? ‘Wanjiku’ has prayed, fasted and done all that is within her power to cope with the situation. Newspapers, TV and FM stations have outdone themselves pleading with politicians to heed the voice of reason. Why are our politicians hearts so hardened amidst the fears and despair of 30 million people?
Handle talks seriously
The only way the Government can garner the political will needed to halt the escalating insecurity and claim legitimacy is through the mediation process. Now, more than ever, it is imperative that both parties seek a compromise for sake of the nation.
Dialogue on the crisis should be handled with the seriousness it deserves. When insecurity is on rampage, the poor, women and children are most at risk. Provision of security is a fundamental human right issue and its realisation is necessary for the enjoyment of practically every other right in the country. Politicians must be aware of the likelihood that if this impasse is not resolved soon, there will be no electorates to represent in Parliament, and no country to rebuild.
I recall with dismay a recent statement by the Minister for Finance, Mr Amos Kimunya, giving the economy a clean bill of health when mainstream media reporting seems to contradict this.
Rumours doing the rounds about politicians funding vigilante and tribal militia groups, and SMS threats to journalists and human rights defenders are wearing the country down. It is very difficult to focus on productive engagements with threats being made every time you comment on an issue.
Why is the State unable to rein in militia groups causing havoc across the country? It is not enough to arrest the lowly gang members. The Government must aim for the planners and financiers of these militia criminal gangs across the board. This is the only way to restore confidence in its ability to arrest the precarious security situation.
History bears witness that characters like Josef Stalin intentionally used terror as a weapon by starving, imprisoning and deporting social and ethnic groups in order to control them and the rest of society by fear. Similarly, the intentional use of terror by militia groups as a means and strategy to instill fear in the society and control political dissent clearly deserves the label terrorism. The Government should thus move fast to curb activities of these terrorist groups taking an advantage of the post-election crisis to settle their scores.
The crisis presents us with an opportunity to address historical injustices and push for the long overdue electoral and constitutional reforms. Instead of macabre dances around issue of sovereignty, politicians should be pushing for comprehensive constitutional reform through a constitutional amendment. They should give priority to electoral reform, transitional government arrangements, top-level public service reforms, judicial reform and police reform.
Finally, the international community should ensure they are held accountable to the people and to the principles of truth with justice.
-The writer is the Principal Human Rights Officer, Kenya National Commission on Human Rights
Published on February 29, 2008, 12:00 am
By Linda Ochiel
Wise people say there are certain moral limits no one can cross without forfeiting one’s honour and human dignity. Just listening to call-in sessions on FM radio stations across the country will tell you that Kenyans have reached that limit.
People are desperate to have the crisis caused by the December 27 electoral travesty resolved. It is worrying that politicians seem insensitive to the security situation and, more specifically, the plight of Kenyans being terrorised by militia and criminal groups. Massive human rights violations are taking place in contravention of the Constitution and the Government's obligation to protect the right to life, guarantee security of persons and safeguard private property.
Do the negotiators participating in the Annan-led talks have children? Do they have wives, mothers, sisters and brothers? Have their tender children ever slept in the cold even for one night or gone without one meal? Do they understand the pain of losing one’s home, family and entire livelihood? Or have we sunk so low as to be impervious to our fellow Kenyans’ suffering?
Politicians should desist from making statements that trespass on the dialogue and reconciliation agenda and undermine the prospects of successful mediation of the post-election crisis. Hypocritical and snide pronouncements about Kenya’s sovereignty and the patriotism of notorious political characters is fast losing colour.
Our leaders continue to restrict themselves to cheap and uncalled-for criticisms and rhetoric evocative of pre-teen years, casting doubt on their ability to offer credible and moral leadership. One would have to be extremely insensitive to the mood and psyche of the nation to continue whining about international partners interfering with Kenya’s sovereignty.
For the record, communities are arming themselves, preparing for conflict. They say, they have lost confidence in the Government’s ability to protect them should mediation efforts fail. The international media says the well-intentioned Dr Kofi Annan is fast getting worn out by the back and forthing between Party of National Unity (PNU) and the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) representatives.
Kenyans want the Government and ODM to drop hardline stances and give peace a chance. We want the Government to prioritise the security of its citizens and their property as its key factor in defining itself as a functioning State, as the absence of security as we have seen in the recent past connotes anarchy.
However much we would like to bury our heads in the sand, the economy is headed for the dogs, Kenya’s image as island of stability in Africa is long gone, investors have fled, and looting and arson have destroyed countless farms in the Rift Valley, one of the country’s most productive regions. As we speak, we are teetering on the brink of food insecurity. Children are out of school and the entire nation is traumatised.
How do we intend to correct this if we lack the political will to address the impasse that brought us to where we are now? ‘Wanjiku’ has prayed, fasted and done all that is within her power to cope with the situation. Newspapers, TV and FM stations have outdone themselves pleading with politicians to heed the voice of reason. Why are our politicians hearts so hardened amidst the fears and despair of 30 million people?
Handle talks seriously
The only way the Government can garner the political will needed to halt the escalating insecurity and claim legitimacy is through the mediation process. Now, more than ever, it is imperative that both parties seek a compromise for sake of the nation.
Dialogue on the crisis should be handled with the seriousness it deserves. When insecurity is on rampage, the poor, women and children are most at risk. Provision of security is a fundamental human right issue and its realisation is necessary for the enjoyment of practically every other right in the country. Politicians must be aware of the likelihood that if this impasse is not resolved soon, there will be no electorates to represent in Parliament, and no country to rebuild.
I recall with dismay a recent statement by the Minister for Finance, Mr Amos Kimunya, giving the economy a clean bill of health when mainstream media reporting seems to contradict this.
Rumours doing the rounds about politicians funding vigilante and tribal militia groups, and SMS threats to journalists and human rights defenders are wearing the country down. It is very difficult to focus on productive engagements with threats being made every time you comment on an issue.
Why is the State unable to rein in militia groups causing havoc across the country? It is not enough to arrest the lowly gang members. The Government must aim for the planners and financiers of these militia criminal gangs across the board. This is the only way to restore confidence in its ability to arrest the precarious security situation.
History bears witness that characters like Josef Stalin intentionally used terror as a weapon by starving, imprisoning and deporting social and ethnic groups in order to control them and the rest of society by fear. Similarly, the intentional use of terror by militia groups as a means and strategy to instill fear in the society and control political dissent clearly deserves the label terrorism. The Government should thus move fast to curb activities of these terrorist groups taking an advantage of the post-election crisis to settle their scores.
The crisis presents us with an opportunity to address historical injustices and push for the long overdue electoral and constitutional reforms. Instead of macabre dances around issue of sovereignty, politicians should be pushing for comprehensive constitutional reform through a constitutional amendment. They should give priority to electoral reform, transitional government arrangements, top-level public service reforms, judicial reform and police reform.
Finally, the international community should ensure they are held accountable to the people and to the principles of truth with justice.
-The writer is the Principal Human Rights Officer, Kenya National Commission on Human Rights
Thursday, 28 February 2008
Commentary (by Charles Onyango-Obbo) - WHAT OTHERS SAY - The dead woman of Naivasha and her crying baby
Ref: http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=25&newsid=117815
Story by CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO
Publication Date: 2/28/2008
AT THE HEIGHT OF THE post-election violence, a photograph that has become the symbol of the crisis facing Kenya was shot by a Reuters photographer in Naivasha.
It was published by newspapers in Uganda, Tanzania and many newspapers in the world. It then did the rounds on the Internet so much so that I was getting a copy of it in my in-box every hour from all sorts of people.
It showed a woman lying dead in a humble living room, with a screaming baby sitting next to her in a chair. Even if you have a heart of stone, you can’t help but be horrified by the photograph.
The photo was published nearly everywhere, except the mainstream press in Kenya. Editors argued that, among other things, it was likely to inflame passions and fuel the violence, and also further traumatise a nation that was already in shock at the genocidal brutality that had beset it.
It’s a month later, and one hardly hears any more reference to that photograph. But there are certain moments in a nation’s history that should never be brushed aside quickly, and there are victims of national tragedies who should never be forgotten.
That dead woman, and the child are among them.
The real story of the photo is very poignant, and the circumstances of the woman’s death more complicated than most people first thought.
“A woman lies dead during ethnic clashes in Kenya” was how Reuters captioned the photograph. In the Naivasha Hospital mortuary, her body was labelled number 33.
It was among 36 victims of the violence whose corpses were still in white zip-up bags piled four high on the concrete floor. The Observer reporter says she first recognised her as the woman in the Reuters photograph from her skirt.
The woman in the photograph was 19-year-old Grace Mungai. She didn’t have much, but everyone, reported the paper, says she was happy and doted on her 15-month-old first-born baby, Brian Shfutu Mungai.
For the past four months, she had lived in a rented room in the Komokomo slum.
Her husband, Jeremiah Mungai, adored her. A “true” African man, Jeremiah had another wife elsewhere in Naivasha, but he was a kind man, according to friends and neighbours.
Grace, to use the politically correct but disembowelled language of the day, was from “a certain community in Western Kenya”. And Jeremiah, is from “a certain community in Central Kenya”.
Grace was killed on January 28, not by a gang thirsty for tribal retribution as many people who viewed the photograph might have thought, but by a police officer’s bullet that was fired into the house.
THE OFFICERS WERE FIRING TO scare away looting and murderous mobs, but Jeremiah thinks it was deliberate. The bullet struck Grace behind the ear.
The offending officer offered some kind of apology, but Jeremiah is in no forgiving mood. As The Observer put it; “Jeremiah will just have to live with the injustice of Grace’s death, a young woman who never had a camera pointed at her when she was alive”.
Jeremiah (who is pictured with Brian) took his son and his extended family to his mother’s home, 30 kilometres from Naivasha and returned to work in the town. He can only hope that Naivasha, and the village where he took Brian will not be swept by violence again if, as pessimists now fear, the Kofi Annan-mediated talks between the Government and ODM end in deadlock.
One of the most thoughtful reflections in the international press on the fate of Kenyans like Grace and others who have been “ethnic cleansed”, came via Andia Visa, writing in The Guardian about the Kenya of many years ago when, as a child, she and her family travelled from Mombasa once a year to western Kenya to visit her grandparents, and how much the violence has overturned most of the old certainties:
“The idea of Kenya belonging to all Kenyans and Kenyans having the right to live where they like is dead in the water. For some of the victims of the violence in the Rift Valley, this is the second or third time they have lost everything. Many have vowed never to come back. The message being telegraphed by the violence is that the only really safe place to put down any roots is among your own kind?
“Will any ‘outsiders’ ever again stake their livelihoods and buy land outside their districts of origin? Will we all retreat to the safety of our homogenous ethnic enclaves?
‘‘Will we ever again be able to look each other in the eyes, to suppress the knowledge of the things we have done and are capable of doing to each other?”
A colleague provided an answer of sorts about the Kenya of the future. Looking at the chaotic and charged scenes at the election of various mayors in the country, particularly Nairobi, he remarked:
“It’s a tragedy. It seems we have become a country where we can’t even elect the chairman of a village cattle dip without controversy”.
Story by CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO
Publication Date: 2/28/2008
AT THE HEIGHT OF THE post-election violence, a photograph that has become the symbol of the crisis facing Kenya was shot by a Reuters photographer in Naivasha.
It was published by newspapers in Uganda, Tanzania and many newspapers in the world. It then did the rounds on the Internet so much so that I was getting a copy of it in my in-box every hour from all sorts of people.
It showed a woman lying dead in a humble living room, with a screaming baby sitting next to her in a chair. Even if you have a heart of stone, you can’t help but be horrified by the photograph.
The photo was published nearly everywhere, except the mainstream press in Kenya. Editors argued that, among other things, it was likely to inflame passions and fuel the violence, and also further traumatise a nation that was already in shock at the genocidal brutality that had beset it.
It’s a month later, and one hardly hears any more reference to that photograph. But there are certain moments in a nation’s history that should never be brushed aside quickly, and there are victims of national tragedies who should never be forgotten.
That dead woman, and the child are among them.
The real story of the photo is very poignant, and the circumstances of the woman’s death more complicated than most people first thought.
“A woman lies dead during ethnic clashes in Kenya” was how Reuters captioned the photograph. In the Naivasha Hospital mortuary, her body was labelled number 33.
It was among 36 victims of the violence whose corpses were still in white zip-up bags piled four high on the concrete floor. The Observer reporter says she first recognised her as the woman in the Reuters photograph from her skirt.
The woman in the photograph was 19-year-old Grace Mungai. She didn’t have much, but everyone, reported the paper, says she was happy and doted on her 15-month-old first-born baby, Brian Shfutu Mungai.
For the past four months, she had lived in a rented room in the Komokomo slum.
Her husband, Jeremiah Mungai, adored her. A “true” African man, Jeremiah had another wife elsewhere in Naivasha, but he was a kind man, according to friends and neighbours.
Grace, to use the politically correct but disembowelled language of the day, was from “a certain community in Western Kenya”. And Jeremiah, is from “a certain community in Central Kenya”.
Grace was killed on January 28, not by a gang thirsty for tribal retribution as many people who viewed the photograph might have thought, but by a police officer’s bullet that was fired into the house.
THE OFFICERS WERE FIRING TO scare away looting and murderous mobs, but Jeremiah thinks it was deliberate. The bullet struck Grace behind the ear.
The offending officer offered some kind of apology, but Jeremiah is in no forgiving mood. As The Observer put it; “Jeremiah will just have to live with the injustice of Grace’s death, a young woman who never had a camera pointed at her when she was alive”.
Jeremiah (who is pictured with Brian) took his son and his extended family to his mother’s home, 30 kilometres from Naivasha and returned to work in the town. He can only hope that Naivasha, and the village where he took Brian will not be swept by violence again if, as pessimists now fear, the Kofi Annan-mediated talks between the Government and ODM end in deadlock.
One of the most thoughtful reflections in the international press on the fate of Kenyans like Grace and others who have been “ethnic cleansed”, came via Andia Visa, writing in The Guardian about the Kenya of many years ago when, as a child, she and her family travelled from Mombasa once a year to western Kenya to visit her grandparents, and how much the violence has overturned most of the old certainties:
“The idea of Kenya belonging to all Kenyans and Kenyans having the right to live where they like is dead in the water. For some of the victims of the violence in the Rift Valley, this is the second or third time they have lost everything. Many have vowed never to come back. The message being telegraphed by the violence is that the only really safe place to put down any roots is among your own kind?
“Will any ‘outsiders’ ever again stake their livelihoods and buy land outside their districts of origin? Will we all retreat to the safety of our homogenous ethnic enclaves?
‘‘Will we ever again be able to look each other in the eyes, to suppress the knowledge of the things we have done and are capable of doing to each other?”
A colleague provided an answer of sorts about the Kenya of the future. Looking at the chaotic and charged scenes at the election of various mayors in the country, particularly Nairobi, he remarked:
“It’s a tragedy. It seems we have become a country where we can’t even elect the chairman of a village cattle dip without controversy”.
Commentary (by Nation Team) - City councillors have done Kenya proud
Ref: http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=24&newsid=117813
Publication Date: 2/28/2008
Nairobi’s mayoral election had threatened to degenerate into chaos after a stand-off occasioned by a tie between the two contenders. But a last-minute power-sharing deal saved the council, the city and the country at large the misfortune of another long-raging power struggle.
Indeed, for the first time in a long while, civic authorities disapproved critics. Contrary to the long-held views, councillors can reason together and amicably resolve their conflicts. They showed the nation that where there is a will, there is a way.
They agreed to share ‘‘power’’ equally, with ODM taking the mayoral seat while the deputy’s went to PNU. The same formula was applied to all the other elections positions – chairpersons and deputies of the various committees.
When the councillors finally gave in to reason and concluded the elections, they gave the city residents hope that here is a council that has resolved to break the imaginary barriers brought about through party affiliations.
And with that, the residents expect that the councillors will work harmoniously to deliver the services the city badly needs.
Coming at a time when the country is so battered, traumatised and exasperated with the long-dragging mediation talks to end the political stalemate over the disputed presidential election, what the councillors did gave a fresh breath of hope to Kenyans.
The message is that this country needs people who can step back, look straight at the challenge before them, and make a sober decision that heals and unites.
This is the example that we want to put before the protagonists in the presidential poll impasse. They have failed to conceptualise the magnitude of the problem that their procrastination is causing this nation, the region and the international community.
They have failed to consult their conscience, and to give reason a chance. Instead, they have let their egos and false sense of self-worth and power blind their views.
As a result, they are leading the country towards the edge of a precipice.
If councillors, long regarded as rouble-rousers, could sit down and reason together to resolve what was a potentially explosive dispute, why can’t the Government and ODM negotiators, who have the advantage of sitting before Eminent Africans led by Mr Kofi Annan, do the same?
Publication Date: 2/28/2008
Nairobi’s mayoral election had threatened to degenerate into chaos after a stand-off occasioned by a tie between the two contenders. But a last-minute power-sharing deal saved the council, the city and the country at large the misfortune of another long-raging power struggle.
Indeed, for the first time in a long while, civic authorities disapproved critics. Contrary to the long-held views, councillors can reason together and amicably resolve their conflicts. They showed the nation that where there is a will, there is a way.
They agreed to share ‘‘power’’ equally, with ODM taking the mayoral seat while the deputy’s went to PNU. The same formula was applied to all the other elections positions – chairpersons and deputies of the various committees.
When the councillors finally gave in to reason and concluded the elections, they gave the city residents hope that here is a council that has resolved to break the imaginary barriers brought about through party affiliations.
And with that, the residents expect that the councillors will work harmoniously to deliver the services the city badly needs.
Coming at a time when the country is so battered, traumatised and exasperated with the long-dragging mediation talks to end the political stalemate over the disputed presidential election, what the councillors did gave a fresh breath of hope to Kenyans.
The message is that this country needs people who can step back, look straight at the challenge before them, and make a sober decision that heals and unites.
This is the example that we want to put before the protagonists in the presidential poll impasse. They have failed to conceptualise the magnitude of the problem that their procrastination is causing this nation, the region and the international community.
They have failed to consult their conscience, and to give reason a chance. Instead, they have let their egos and false sense of self-worth and power blind their views.
As a result, they are leading the country towards the edge of a precipice.
If councillors, long regarded as rouble-rousers, could sit down and reason together to resolve what was a potentially explosive dispute, why can’t the Government and ODM negotiators, who have the advantage of sitting before Eminent Africans led by Mr Kofi Annan, do the same?
Commentary (by Standard Team) - Annan talks shift to Raila and Kibaki
Ref:http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143982516&cid=4
Published on February 28, 2008, 12:00 am
By Standard Team
Lead mediator Dr Kofi Annan made good his promise to directly engage President Kibaki and Mr Raila Odinga.
It was a day of intense shuttle diplomacy and building international pressure.
This appeared borne out of concerns that the stalled talks, a seeming belligerence of the protagonists in the disputed and discredited presidential election —Party of National Unity (PNU) and Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) — and an uncertain future could touch off another round of bloodletting.
African Union (AU) chairman and Tanzanian President, Mr Jakaya Kikwete, who arrived on Tuesday for a two-day visit, extended his stay in Nairobi, underlining the urgency to restart the stalled talks.
But in announcements made after separate meetings with Annan, who chairs the Panel of Eminent African Persons facilitating the talks, Kibaki and Raila showed gestures that demonstrated some commitment to resolve the impasse.
ODM called off mass action and President Kibaki announced through a Presidential Press Service (PPS), that he was ready to create the post of prime minister and two deputies.
The PPS dispatch suggested that an accord would be reached under what it described as a "Coalition Agreement", an arrangement, which ODM dismissed as possibly leading to another MoU without a legal backing.
However, the positions on the contentious issues that bogged down the talks, forcing a suspension on Tuesday, continued to linger.
ODM wants what it calls a "real power-sharing deal". However, PNU has only agreed to "sharing of responsibilities" in Government, which is not the same as "power sharing" and has stuck to doing everything within the confines of the Constitution.
On Wednesday, 27 member States of the European Union (EU) issued a statement as international pressure on Kibaki and Raila piled, saying: "A power sharing settlement is a must."
Pressure from the EU and US could nudge the leaders to shift ground as the EU echoed another statement issued a day earlier by US Secretary of State, Ms Condoleeza Rice, warning that the US was exploring "a wide range of options" on Kenya and that leaders seen as blocking the process to peaceful settlement would face dire consequences.
"We reiterate the position of many in the international community that attempts to undermine or obstruct such an agreement will not be viewed lightly and those identified as involved will have to face the consequences of their actions," the statement signed by 24 European missions in Nairobi and headed by France, which holds the local EU presidency, said.
Saboteurs to be punished
On its part, Germany said political leaders who will boycott or derail the mediation talks aimed at solving the political impasse would be dealt with.
German envoy to Kenya, Mr Walter Lindner, issued a warning in Nairobi saying: "We support the Annan-led talks and whoever boycotts or derails the mediation talks will have to face the consequences. This has been our position and we hope a solution will soon be found."
Earlier, deep apprehension over the suspended talks was expressed by Britain, which suggested that the army be called in for fear that the stalled search for a political settlement could trigger fresh bloodletting.
Mr Mark Malloch-Brown, British Foreign minister for Africa, Asia and the UN, said the Kenya Army was "by far the best option" to any violence.
"We’re going to have to stop the violence," Malloch-Brown said. "The Kenyan military is by far the best option. The question is: Can the army be brought in a non-divisive way?"
Talking to the UK’s Guardian newspaper, he argued that the army was respected by the public as a genuinely national and multi-ethnic institution.
It was instructive that Kibaki’s meeting with the security chiefs came after this statement by the UK minister.
The President met the Chief of the General Staff Jeremiah Kianga, Police Commissioner, Maj Gen Hussein Ali, NSIS Director-General, Mr Michael Gichangi, Internal Security minister, Prof George Saitoti, and Defence minister, Mr Yusuf Haji.
Details of the meeting were not available, but the timing was read as a check on the level of preparedness of the security apparatus.
In his meetings with Kibaki and Raila, Annan is understood to have told the two that "the differences are bridgeable".
But in his meeting with Annan, Kibaki dug in on a position earlier spelt out by his mediation team on Tuesday, saying he was ready to share power but within the Constitution.
"President Kibaki noted that the pending issues were not insurmountable and should be adequately addressed under the current Constitution, the Coalition Agreement and the upcoming comprehensive constitutional review," the PPS dispatch read.
PPS quoted Kibaki telling Annan that the office of Prime Minister and two deputies would be created under the Constitution, even as the country prepared for a comprehensive review within 12 months.
President Kibaki asked that the terms of a Coalition Agreement being discussed be finalised.
"The President said the Coalition Agreement should be used to address the appointment and security of the offices of members of the coalition partners in Government," reported PPS.
Non-binding deal
But Raila, who met Annan and former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa at Pentagon House, said ODM would not accept a deal that was not legally binding.
"We are not interested in entering a transitional government that will not carry out comprehensive, legal, institutional and constitutional reforms to avoid a repeat of the crisis that we have seen in the last two months," Raila said.
He added: "We want power-sharing that is reform-based, through a transitional government that will be a means to an end, not an end in itself."
Pentagon members, Mr Musalia Mudavadi, Mrs Charity Ngilu and Mr Najib Balala, accompanied the Lang’ata MP. ODM liaison person in the mediation talks, Mr Caroli Omondi, was also present.
The party called off mass action indefinitely and Raila asked supporters to allow for peaceful negotiations. The party had earlier called for mass action countrywide citing the slow pace of the mediation.
Speaking at Pentagon House after meeting Raila and his team, Annan remained upbeat: "We held constructive discussions with Government and ODM teams and with President Kikwete. The differences are bridgeable."
On Tuesday, Annan sent out a passionate appeal to Kibaki and Raila to show goodwill in the talks and resolve the political crisis triggered by the disputed presidential elections, which has left at least 1,000 dead, 300,000 displaced and the economy rattled.
"We all know the fear, trauma of violence and displacement, and the desire for return to steadiness and to restore Kenya’s peace. Kenyans have lost jobs and leaders must think of the people," Annan said.
When he met Kikwete, Raila stated that the position of prime minister and two deputies be made through appropriate constitutional provisions.
The prime minister, he insisted, shall be accountable to the Cabinet and Parliament and the premier may only be removed from office through a vote of no confidence by the House.
Raila said the PM’s office, if created, should supervise and co-ordinate ministries and the affairs of Government.
He insisted that key provisions of the mediation agreement be entrenched in the constitution.
Last night, a lawyer who sought anonymity cautioned ODM against the proposed Coalition Agreement, saying it amounted to MoU similar to the one that was dishonoured under Narc regime.
Published on February 28, 2008, 12:00 am
By Standard Team
Lead mediator Dr Kofi Annan made good his promise to directly engage President Kibaki and Mr Raila Odinga.
It was a day of intense shuttle diplomacy and building international pressure.
This appeared borne out of concerns that the stalled talks, a seeming belligerence of the protagonists in the disputed and discredited presidential election —Party of National Unity (PNU) and Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) — and an uncertain future could touch off another round of bloodletting.
African Union (AU) chairman and Tanzanian President, Mr Jakaya Kikwete, who arrived on Tuesday for a two-day visit, extended his stay in Nairobi, underlining the urgency to restart the stalled talks.
But in announcements made after separate meetings with Annan, who chairs the Panel of Eminent African Persons facilitating the talks, Kibaki and Raila showed gestures that demonstrated some commitment to resolve the impasse.
ODM called off mass action and President Kibaki announced through a Presidential Press Service (PPS), that he was ready to create the post of prime minister and two deputies.
The PPS dispatch suggested that an accord would be reached under what it described as a "Coalition Agreement", an arrangement, which ODM dismissed as possibly leading to another MoU without a legal backing.
However, the positions on the contentious issues that bogged down the talks, forcing a suspension on Tuesday, continued to linger.
ODM wants what it calls a "real power-sharing deal". However, PNU has only agreed to "sharing of responsibilities" in Government, which is not the same as "power sharing" and has stuck to doing everything within the confines of the Constitution.
On Wednesday, 27 member States of the European Union (EU) issued a statement as international pressure on Kibaki and Raila piled, saying: "A power sharing settlement is a must."
Pressure from the EU and US could nudge the leaders to shift ground as the EU echoed another statement issued a day earlier by US Secretary of State, Ms Condoleeza Rice, warning that the US was exploring "a wide range of options" on Kenya and that leaders seen as blocking the process to peaceful settlement would face dire consequences.
"We reiterate the position of many in the international community that attempts to undermine or obstruct such an agreement will not be viewed lightly and those identified as involved will have to face the consequences of their actions," the statement signed by 24 European missions in Nairobi and headed by France, which holds the local EU presidency, said.
Saboteurs to be punished
On its part, Germany said political leaders who will boycott or derail the mediation talks aimed at solving the political impasse would be dealt with.
German envoy to Kenya, Mr Walter Lindner, issued a warning in Nairobi saying: "We support the Annan-led talks and whoever boycotts or derails the mediation talks will have to face the consequences. This has been our position and we hope a solution will soon be found."
Earlier, deep apprehension over the suspended talks was expressed by Britain, which suggested that the army be called in for fear that the stalled search for a political settlement could trigger fresh bloodletting.
Mr Mark Malloch-Brown, British Foreign minister for Africa, Asia and the UN, said the Kenya Army was "by far the best option" to any violence.
"We’re going to have to stop the violence," Malloch-Brown said. "The Kenyan military is by far the best option. The question is: Can the army be brought in a non-divisive way?"
Talking to the UK’s Guardian newspaper, he argued that the army was respected by the public as a genuinely national and multi-ethnic institution.
It was instructive that Kibaki’s meeting with the security chiefs came after this statement by the UK minister.
The President met the Chief of the General Staff Jeremiah Kianga, Police Commissioner, Maj Gen Hussein Ali, NSIS Director-General, Mr Michael Gichangi, Internal Security minister, Prof George Saitoti, and Defence minister, Mr Yusuf Haji.
Details of the meeting were not available, but the timing was read as a check on the level of preparedness of the security apparatus.
In his meetings with Kibaki and Raila, Annan is understood to have told the two that "the differences are bridgeable".
But in his meeting with Annan, Kibaki dug in on a position earlier spelt out by his mediation team on Tuesday, saying he was ready to share power but within the Constitution.
"President Kibaki noted that the pending issues were not insurmountable and should be adequately addressed under the current Constitution, the Coalition Agreement and the upcoming comprehensive constitutional review," the PPS dispatch read.
PPS quoted Kibaki telling Annan that the office of Prime Minister and two deputies would be created under the Constitution, even as the country prepared for a comprehensive review within 12 months.
President Kibaki asked that the terms of a Coalition Agreement being discussed be finalised.
"The President said the Coalition Agreement should be used to address the appointment and security of the offices of members of the coalition partners in Government," reported PPS.
Non-binding deal
But Raila, who met Annan and former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa at Pentagon House, said ODM would not accept a deal that was not legally binding.
"We are not interested in entering a transitional government that will not carry out comprehensive, legal, institutional and constitutional reforms to avoid a repeat of the crisis that we have seen in the last two months," Raila said.
He added: "We want power-sharing that is reform-based, through a transitional government that will be a means to an end, not an end in itself."
Pentagon members, Mr Musalia Mudavadi, Mrs Charity Ngilu and Mr Najib Balala, accompanied the Lang’ata MP. ODM liaison person in the mediation talks, Mr Caroli Omondi, was also present.
The party called off mass action indefinitely and Raila asked supporters to allow for peaceful negotiations. The party had earlier called for mass action countrywide citing the slow pace of the mediation.
Speaking at Pentagon House after meeting Raila and his team, Annan remained upbeat: "We held constructive discussions with Government and ODM teams and with President Kikwete. The differences are bridgeable."
On Tuesday, Annan sent out a passionate appeal to Kibaki and Raila to show goodwill in the talks and resolve the political crisis triggered by the disputed presidential elections, which has left at least 1,000 dead, 300,000 displaced and the economy rattled.
"We all know the fear, trauma of violence and displacement, and the desire for return to steadiness and to restore Kenya’s peace. Kenyans have lost jobs and leaders must think of the people," Annan said.
When he met Kikwete, Raila stated that the position of prime minister and two deputies be made through appropriate constitutional provisions.
The prime minister, he insisted, shall be accountable to the Cabinet and Parliament and the premier may only be removed from office through a vote of no confidence by the House.
Raila said the PM’s office, if created, should supervise and co-ordinate ministries and the affairs of Government.
He insisted that key provisions of the mediation agreement be entrenched in the constitution.
Last night, a lawyer who sought anonymity cautioned ODM against the proposed Coalition Agreement, saying it amounted to MoU similar to the one that was dishonoured under Narc regime.
Wednesday, 27 February 2008
Commentary (by Muthoni Thang'wa) - Discontent is bred of half-truths, social stratification
Ref:http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143982433&cid=15
Published on February 27, 2008, 12:00 am
By Muthoni Thang’wa
Kenya, by any definition, comprises of many nations — often referred to as communities — that make one nation state.
However, it also comprises of two types of people, who see their world from one angle, regardless of community, political affiliation, religious inclination or economic status. These are defined as those who are looking into the 21st century and others who will not get out of the 18th century.
People in the latter group have a mental attitude that remains in the colonial era, when an African was expected to give up their culture, religion and way of life for what they thought was the ‘promised land’. They were able to get jobs, medical attention, some semblance of education and the joy of attending the white man’s church. In other words, life was based on a carrot-and-stick system: You do as you are told and you get a reward.
On attaining independence, the political elite did not make it clear that much as Kenya was adopting the colonialists way of life — such as the Constitution, the concept of urban environment, education system and so on, independence means taking responsibility for the self, the family, the wider community and our nation.
Since Kenya adopted its rules from colonial masters, we have no choice but to play by those rules, even if the reward is not guaranteed.
The idea of law and order is very elusive. For example, hawkers refuse to leave the city centre, claiming that the Government does not care about their needs and woes. Once the Government build a market for them, some expect it to charge no fees for its use while others believe that customers can only be found on the street.
In other words, they understand enterprise and that one has to work for a living, but completely refuse to understand that this cannot be at the inconvenience of others who run their businesses from the city centre, or walk the pavements as they go about town.
Crying wolf all the time
Also in this group are the non-governmental organisation-types who are best at using the donor-provided catch-phrases of the season and cannot think beyond the current trends in donor funding.
They seem to think that being progressive constitutes permanently criticising the Government of the day. Admittedly there are many things to critique in any government, but when these types get an opportunity to make changes from within, they spend all their time crying wolf, wolf. In the end they often leave public service with much acrimony and without any substantial changes that can be credited to their time is service.
A distinct difference can be seen in other less loud Kenyans who occupy Government offices and parastatals and draw up and implement policy changes whose benefits will be enjoyed by Kenyans for a decade or so.
The former comprises the political elite who spend all their time convincing stuck-in-18th-century Kenyans that there is a reward system that can only come to a community by through the presidency. Never mind that post-independence Kenyan presidents only perfected that art of rewarding those few individuals — of various communities — strongly affiliated to them.
The biggest problem is that these Kenyans are easily convinced that communities are beneficiary of a presidency, making their struggle self defeatist given that majority members of any community are struggling Kenyans, just like themselves.
The middle class is another perfect example of this category. They work hard, play by the rules and accumulate enough wealth to give them comfort. At that point they disconnect from other Kenyans.
Woe unto such a Kenyan should they work for a foreign mission or an international body because they do a better job representing the imperial thoughts of their employers better than ambassadors do. To their credit, they understand current global political and economic trends, but seem completely unable to apply this knowledge in the local environment.
The roses are always in bloom out there which may be a fact, but which is supplemented by the fact that there are nationals of that rosy country that sacrificed much and identified with local problems in order to find lasting solutions.
It seems that Kenya may have a difficult time moving forward as long as these two groups remain with such a wide gap in between. Kenyans shall continue to seek solutions in national reconciliation, constitutional review, a strong opposition and change of the system of government or even change in the government itself.
Real success will only be sustained if the 21st century Kenyans can slow down, the 18th century hasten their steps or the two groups find common ground form which to build nationhood. The vacuum between the two is what is being filled with hatred, untruths and discontent on the state of nationhood.
The writer is a curator at the Karen Blixen Museum
Published on February 27, 2008, 12:00 am
By Muthoni Thang’wa
Kenya, by any definition, comprises of many nations — often referred to as communities — that make one nation state.
However, it also comprises of two types of people, who see their world from one angle, regardless of community, political affiliation, religious inclination or economic status. These are defined as those who are looking into the 21st century and others who will not get out of the 18th century.
People in the latter group have a mental attitude that remains in the colonial era, when an African was expected to give up their culture, religion and way of life for what they thought was the ‘promised land’. They were able to get jobs, medical attention, some semblance of education and the joy of attending the white man’s church. In other words, life was based on a carrot-and-stick system: You do as you are told and you get a reward.
On attaining independence, the political elite did not make it clear that much as Kenya was adopting the colonialists way of life — such as the Constitution, the concept of urban environment, education system and so on, independence means taking responsibility for the self, the family, the wider community and our nation.
Since Kenya adopted its rules from colonial masters, we have no choice but to play by those rules, even if the reward is not guaranteed.
The idea of law and order is very elusive. For example, hawkers refuse to leave the city centre, claiming that the Government does not care about their needs and woes. Once the Government build a market for them, some expect it to charge no fees for its use while others believe that customers can only be found on the street.
In other words, they understand enterprise and that one has to work for a living, but completely refuse to understand that this cannot be at the inconvenience of others who run their businesses from the city centre, or walk the pavements as they go about town.
Crying wolf all the time
Also in this group are the non-governmental organisation-types who are best at using the donor-provided catch-phrases of the season and cannot think beyond the current trends in donor funding.
They seem to think that being progressive constitutes permanently criticising the Government of the day. Admittedly there are many things to critique in any government, but when these types get an opportunity to make changes from within, they spend all their time crying wolf, wolf. In the end they often leave public service with much acrimony and without any substantial changes that can be credited to their time is service.
A distinct difference can be seen in other less loud Kenyans who occupy Government offices and parastatals and draw up and implement policy changes whose benefits will be enjoyed by Kenyans for a decade or so.
The former comprises the political elite who spend all their time convincing stuck-in-18th-century Kenyans that there is a reward system that can only come to a community by through the presidency. Never mind that post-independence Kenyan presidents only perfected that art of rewarding those few individuals — of various communities — strongly affiliated to them.
The biggest problem is that these Kenyans are easily convinced that communities are beneficiary of a presidency, making their struggle self defeatist given that majority members of any community are struggling Kenyans, just like themselves.
The middle class is another perfect example of this category. They work hard, play by the rules and accumulate enough wealth to give them comfort. At that point they disconnect from other Kenyans.
Woe unto such a Kenyan should they work for a foreign mission or an international body because they do a better job representing the imperial thoughts of their employers better than ambassadors do. To their credit, they understand current global political and economic trends, but seem completely unable to apply this knowledge in the local environment.
The roses are always in bloom out there which may be a fact, but which is supplemented by the fact that there are nationals of that rosy country that sacrificed much and identified with local problems in order to find lasting solutions.
It seems that Kenya may have a difficult time moving forward as long as these two groups remain with such a wide gap in between. Kenyans shall continue to seek solutions in national reconciliation, constitutional review, a strong opposition and change of the system of government or even change in the government itself.
Real success will only be sustained if the 21st century Kenyans can slow down, the 18th century hasten their steps or the two groups find common ground form which to build nationhood. The vacuum between the two is what is being filled with hatred, untruths and discontent on the state of nationhood.
The writer is a curator at the Karen Blixen Museum
Commentary (Nation editorial) - Blood of innocents will be on your hands
Ref: http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=24&newsid=117785
Publication Date: 2/27/2008
Tuesday’s suspension of the talks to end the two-month political crisis in Kenya marks another dark moment in the history of his country. As the chairman of the mediation team, Dr Kofi Annan, spoke it was clear he was a frustrated man. His colleague, retired Tanzania President Benjamin Mkapa, put it more plainly: the search for a political settlement seemed to be going around in circles.
Dr Annan has now chosen to hold personal discussions with President Kibaki and Mr Raila Odinga in order to unlock the stalemate and save Kenya from an unavoidable outbreak of violence, which, this time round, could lead to the disintegration of a once united and prosperous country.
The mediators did not point any fingers, but it is clear to all Kenyans that this country stands on the edge of the precipice. And the latest impasse arises from the unyielding position taken by President Kibaki’s team in the negotiations.
On Monday, the PNU side came up with a totally different agenda items from what had been agreed the previous week. Progress had previously been made on the creation of the post of prime minister, who would be the leader of the party with majority MPs in Parliament and who would exercise reasonable power, including supervising ministries.
Consistency in matters agreed upon during a negotiation is not only a sign of good faith, but is the clearest testament to a desire for a speedy resolution.
The to-ing and fro-ing by PNU, which has openly exasperated the Annan team, leads many Kenyans to ask whether Mr Kibaki truly wants the best for this country — whether he cares for the thousands of displaced Kenyans languishing in refugee camps, the numerous others who paid with their lives for electoral ineptitude, whether he worries about an economy limping to a slump and if he is alive to the threat of civil war which hangs darkly over Kenya’s deeply divided population.
We reject the fundamental objection of the PNU to the power-sharing proposal which had been fleshed out. We would like to state, yet again, that any new structure of government brokered by Dr Annan must be supported by a Constitutional amendment.
For one, any changes to the presidency as it exists today is itself an alteration of the Constitutional clause which created it, therefore the changes must go back to Parliament for a Constitutional amendment. They must be defined and sanctified with the same legal weight as the document it seeks to alter.
Secondly, the leaders of ODM and Mr Kibaki’s side have a history of political betrayal. Surely, one can understand the insistence on a watertight agreement from a group of politicians who have yet to recover from the trashing by the President of the memorandum of Understanding they had reached in the previous election.
Thirdly, these changes are strictly not just about Mr Kibaki and Mr Raila. This is a golden opportunity for Kenya as a nation to tackle, in various phases, some of the lopsided political arrangements and economic injustices widely acknowledged to have caused the crisis we find ourselves in.
We would add our voice to the timely warning issued last night by the US Secretary of State, Dr Condoleezza Rice, to any of the parties responsible for undermining the mediation talks. For us the consequences of failure are far more frightening. If violence breaks out and drives this country into civil war as a result of failure at the Serena Hotel, then the blood of its victims will be in the hands of politicians who made it impossible for Dr Annan to reunite Kenya.
There is still a chance for the President and Mr Odinga to save this country. Would it be too much to ask the two gentlemen to cast aside their importance and join the teams discussing our destiny at the Serena Hotel? Would Kenyans be unrealistic in demanding a greater inclination to compromise from the party of National Unity in the mediation talks?
Publication Date: 2/27/2008
Tuesday’s suspension of the talks to end the two-month political crisis in Kenya marks another dark moment in the history of his country. As the chairman of the mediation team, Dr Kofi Annan, spoke it was clear he was a frustrated man. His colleague, retired Tanzania President Benjamin Mkapa, put it more plainly: the search for a political settlement seemed to be going around in circles.
Dr Annan has now chosen to hold personal discussions with President Kibaki and Mr Raila Odinga in order to unlock the stalemate and save Kenya from an unavoidable outbreak of violence, which, this time round, could lead to the disintegration of a once united and prosperous country.
The mediators did not point any fingers, but it is clear to all Kenyans that this country stands on the edge of the precipice. And the latest impasse arises from the unyielding position taken by President Kibaki’s team in the negotiations.
On Monday, the PNU side came up with a totally different agenda items from what had been agreed the previous week. Progress had previously been made on the creation of the post of prime minister, who would be the leader of the party with majority MPs in Parliament and who would exercise reasonable power, including supervising ministries.
Consistency in matters agreed upon during a negotiation is not only a sign of good faith, but is the clearest testament to a desire for a speedy resolution.
The to-ing and fro-ing by PNU, which has openly exasperated the Annan team, leads many Kenyans to ask whether Mr Kibaki truly wants the best for this country — whether he cares for the thousands of displaced Kenyans languishing in refugee camps, the numerous others who paid with their lives for electoral ineptitude, whether he worries about an economy limping to a slump and if he is alive to the threat of civil war which hangs darkly over Kenya’s deeply divided population.
We reject the fundamental objection of the PNU to the power-sharing proposal which had been fleshed out. We would like to state, yet again, that any new structure of government brokered by Dr Annan must be supported by a Constitutional amendment.
For one, any changes to the presidency as it exists today is itself an alteration of the Constitutional clause which created it, therefore the changes must go back to Parliament for a Constitutional amendment. They must be defined and sanctified with the same legal weight as the document it seeks to alter.
Secondly, the leaders of ODM and Mr Kibaki’s side have a history of political betrayal. Surely, one can understand the insistence on a watertight agreement from a group of politicians who have yet to recover from the trashing by the President of the memorandum of Understanding they had reached in the previous election.
Thirdly, these changes are strictly not just about Mr Kibaki and Mr Raila. This is a golden opportunity for Kenya as a nation to tackle, in various phases, some of the lopsided political arrangements and economic injustices widely acknowledged to have caused the crisis we find ourselves in.
We would add our voice to the timely warning issued last night by the US Secretary of State, Dr Condoleezza Rice, to any of the parties responsible for undermining the mediation talks. For us the consequences of failure are far more frightening. If violence breaks out and drives this country into civil war as a result of failure at the Serena Hotel, then the blood of its victims will be in the hands of politicians who made it impossible for Dr Annan to reunite Kenya.
There is still a chance for the President and Mr Odinga to save this country. Would it be too much to ask the two gentlemen to cast aside their importance and join the teams discussing our destiny at the Serena Hotel? Would Kenyans be unrealistic in demanding a greater inclination to compromise from the party of National Unity in the mediation talks?
Commentary (by Jaindi Kisero) - This economy cannot survive political turmoil any longer
Ref: http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=25&newsid=117771
Story by JAINDI KISERO
Publication Date: 2/27/2008
THIS ECONOMY BADLY Requires a new dose of optimism. Right now, the biggest barrier to a return to economic stability is the atmosphere of uncertainty hanging over the mediation process presided over by former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan.
Already, the effect of the climate of uncertainty that has engulfed the country can be seen on the sluggish stock market, a volatile exchange rate, and inflation that stubbornly remains at double-digit levels.
If Dr Annan fails, this country could plunge into a round of macro-economic instability, the magnitude of which was only witnessed in the early 1990s.
Optimism, although intangible, is a very powerful economic factor. No investor can risk putting his money into a new project in an environment of high political risk, and where he is unable to predict the future movement of prices and interests rates.
This economy will not regain the growth momentum it has been enjoying in the last three years if the climate of uncertainty lingers too long.
If you look at the Economic Survey, you will realise that the main sources of economic recovery in the last four years have been the following:
Top of the list is the agriculture sector, dominated by horticulture and cereals, the transport and communications sector, and the wholesale and retail sectors. Tourism and the Manufacturing sectors have also consistently recorded impressive growth rates.
In terms of expenditures, much of the growth is attributed to domestic consumption. Investment on roads, free primary education, and the revival of trouble-ridden parastatals also increased.
Trade, reflected in the volumes of exports of goods and services, has also performed well, growing at an average 15 per cent.
Still, the intangible factor behind all this growth has been optimism within the private sector. The business community believed that the growth pick-up was real and sustainable.
This is why firms were ploughing back profits rather than depositing the money in bank accounts abroad, while businesses were positioning themselves to produce for an integrated East Africa and for expanded markets with the Comesa trading bloc.
Instead of optimism, what we have now is an atmosphere of doom and gloom. Tourism is in the doldrums, while regional trade, the transport sector and agriculture have been adversely affected by the post-election violence.
Sooner or later, we will have a glimpse of the toll these negative conditions in the economy have had on the Government’s finances — revenues, external assistance and borrowing — when the Finance minister presents the supplementary budget in Parliament next month.
WE ARE LIKELY TO SEE MAJOR deviations between the original budget and the supplementary one. The predictions right now are that the recurrent budget will overshoot the printed estimates significantly, reflecting expenditures which were not budgeted for in the June budget — including the “free’’ secondary school education programme, and additional expenditure in providing security to quell the post-election violence.
And if Dr Annan leaves town without a deal and “donors” — especially the influential ones like the European Union — follow by freezing grants and loans, Mr Amos Kimunya will have even more problems trying to juggle with the allocations in the development budget.
Compared to Tanzania and Uganda, Kenya does not absorb that much budget support, namely quick-disbursing cash not tied to any project. But in terms of project loans and grants, we still depend a great deal on donors.
In the current circumstances, a freeze will badly affect the infrastructure investment programme, especially the roads, health and energy sectors where the European Union and a number of “bilaterals” have committed billions of shillings in the current financial year.
Opinion is unanimous today that physical infrastructure (especially roads) is the biggest impediment to private investment and expansion.
Indeed, poorly maintained roads, and expensive and unreliable electricity supply have combined to hamper productivity and stifle the competitiveness of our exports within the Comesa region.
A recent study found that while it costs Sh5,400 to ferry cargo from Shanghai to Mombasa — a distance of 5,000 kilometres — transporting the same cargo between Mombasa and Nairobi, 500 kilometres distant, would cost Sh3,000.
Can we, really, afford any delays in the infrastructure investment programme? Yet this will be the inevitable consequence of donors freezing aid.
The donor factor aside, this year’s budget is also set to experience pressure from shortfalls from privatisation proceeds.
The budget which Mr Kimunya presented to Parliament in June had assumed that the Government would, within the financial year, receive Sh36 billion in the second quarter of the financial year, especially from the planned initial public offer of Safaricom shares.
Although the Government realised the same amount from the sale of Telkom Kenya alone, it still calculated on receiving proceeds from Safaricom before the end of last year. It hasn’t happened yet.
Dr Annan must save this country.
Story by JAINDI KISERO
Publication Date: 2/27/2008
THIS ECONOMY BADLY Requires a new dose of optimism. Right now, the biggest barrier to a return to economic stability is the atmosphere of uncertainty hanging over the mediation process presided over by former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan.
Already, the effect of the climate of uncertainty that has engulfed the country can be seen on the sluggish stock market, a volatile exchange rate, and inflation that stubbornly remains at double-digit levels.
If Dr Annan fails, this country could plunge into a round of macro-economic instability, the magnitude of which was only witnessed in the early 1990s.
Optimism, although intangible, is a very powerful economic factor. No investor can risk putting his money into a new project in an environment of high political risk, and where he is unable to predict the future movement of prices and interests rates.
This economy will not regain the growth momentum it has been enjoying in the last three years if the climate of uncertainty lingers too long.
If you look at the Economic Survey, you will realise that the main sources of economic recovery in the last four years have been the following:
Top of the list is the agriculture sector, dominated by horticulture and cereals, the transport and communications sector, and the wholesale and retail sectors. Tourism and the Manufacturing sectors have also consistently recorded impressive growth rates.
In terms of expenditures, much of the growth is attributed to domestic consumption. Investment on roads, free primary education, and the revival of trouble-ridden parastatals also increased.
Trade, reflected in the volumes of exports of goods and services, has also performed well, growing at an average 15 per cent.
Still, the intangible factor behind all this growth has been optimism within the private sector. The business community believed that the growth pick-up was real and sustainable.
This is why firms were ploughing back profits rather than depositing the money in bank accounts abroad, while businesses were positioning themselves to produce for an integrated East Africa and for expanded markets with the Comesa trading bloc.
Instead of optimism, what we have now is an atmosphere of doom and gloom. Tourism is in the doldrums, while regional trade, the transport sector and agriculture have been adversely affected by the post-election violence.
Sooner or later, we will have a glimpse of the toll these negative conditions in the economy have had on the Government’s finances — revenues, external assistance and borrowing — when the Finance minister presents the supplementary budget in Parliament next month.
WE ARE LIKELY TO SEE MAJOR deviations between the original budget and the supplementary one. The predictions right now are that the recurrent budget will overshoot the printed estimates significantly, reflecting expenditures which were not budgeted for in the June budget — including the “free’’ secondary school education programme, and additional expenditure in providing security to quell the post-election violence.
And if Dr Annan leaves town without a deal and “donors” — especially the influential ones like the European Union — follow by freezing grants and loans, Mr Amos Kimunya will have even more problems trying to juggle with the allocations in the development budget.
Compared to Tanzania and Uganda, Kenya does not absorb that much budget support, namely quick-disbursing cash not tied to any project. But in terms of project loans and grants, we still depend a great deal on donors.
In the current circumstances, a freeze will badly affect the infrastructure investment programme, especially the roads, health and energy sectors where the European Union and a number of “bilaterals” have committed billions of shillings in the current financial year.
Opinion is unanimous today that physical infrastructure (especially roads) is the biggest impediment to private investment and expansion.
Indeed, poorly maintained roads, and expensive and unreliable electricity supply have combined to hamper productivity and stifle the competitiveness of our exports within the Comesa region.
A recent study found that while it costs Sh5,400 to ferry cargo from Shanghai to Mombasa — a distance of 5,000 kilometres — transporting the same cargo between Mombasa and Nairobi, 500 kilometres distant, would cost Sh3,000.
Can we, really, afford any delays in the infrastructure investment programme? Yet this will be the inevitable consequence of donors freezing aid.
The donor factor aside, this year’s budget is also set to experience pressure from shortfalls from privatisation proceeds.
The budget which Mr Kimunya presented to Parliament in June had assumed that the Government would, within the financial year, receive Sh36 billion in the second quarter of the financial year, especially from the planned initial public offer of Safaricom shares.
Although the Government realised the same amount from the sale of Telkom Kenya alone, it still calculated on receiving proceeds from Safaricom before the end of last year. It hasn’t happened yet.
Dr Annan must save this country.
Tuesday, 26 February 2008
Monday, 25 February 2008
Commentary (by Charles Onyango-Obbo) - STATE OF THE NATION: Kenyan crisis could take different path if fires spread to burn its neighbours
Ref: http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=39&newsid=117612
Story by CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO
Publication Date: 2/25/2008
If Kenya’s crisis persists and starts to impact heavily on neighbours, Uganda, Ethiopia and Somali militants would not stand by and do nothing. They would intervene, and in the process create a total mess that would break up the country, writes CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO
Opposition supporters wave placards during a protest in Nairobi calling for quicker resolution of political crisis. Photo/FILE
If you have a lot of stamina, you are a fast driver, and set out before dawn from Kigali, you can arrive in Nairobi in time for a late dinner the same day.
If you started out from Kampala, you would be in Nairobi in time for a late lunch. Very many East Africans were making these trips, until the post-election violence closed the highways in the western part of Kenya that lead to Uganda and Rwanda.
Hundreds of Uganda-bound trucks were stoned or torched and drivers beaten, some to death. Within a week pump prices in Uganda shot from an average of $1.4 a litre to over $7 – possibly the most expensive in the world!
Kenyans cannot conceive of that, for it would be the equivalent of a litre of petrol moving from the current average of Sh90 to Sh450 overnight. Exports were held up, and factories faced closures as raw material supplies dried up because Mombasa was not functioning.
Mombasa is Uganda’s main lifeline. It is also serves the same purpose for Rwanda, Southern Sudan and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Nairobi is a critical destination and hub for the sub-region, so Ugandans with pressing business continued to come to the city and Mombasa during the worst periods of the violence.
But they didn’t come through Malaba or Busia. They would set out from Kampala, to the western part of the country, into Tanzania, and come into Kenya through the Namanga border point. What was previously an eight-hour journey for Ugandans, turned into a two-day 38-hour ordeal!
Though the countries in the hinterland do get some of their goods through Dar es Salaam, it is a trickle. Both Tanzania and Uganda will have to spend hundreds of millions, possibly billions, of dollars in infrastructure and the port over a long period before they can get 50 per cent of their goods routing through Dar es Salaam.
International community
Most immediately, the region and the international community feared that if the Kenya violence had continued for two or so months, countries like Rwanda and Uganda would have come close to collapsing economically.
That is the more obvious danger of a protracted crisis in Kenya. The less obvious consequences would, in fact, be more catastrophic.
To begin with, nations in the Great Lakes region are very interventionist. Uganda backed the Rwanda Patriotic Army, occupied DR Congo, faced off with Sudan and supported the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Rwanda intervened in and occupied DR Congo, as did Zimbabwe and Angola. Sudan backed the Lords Resistance Army in its fight against the Yoweri Museveni government, and is godfathering the rebels who are fighting the Chad government and might, yet, overthrow the Idriss Deby regime in N’djamena. Even Burundi sent troops into DRC. Tanzania had its fingers in the Burundi pie.
Kenya, hitherto the most neutral and was peace mediator for Sudan and Somalia, finally tasted the forbidden fruit with its co-operation in the Ethiopian-led overthrow of the Islamic Courts Union government in Somalia in late 2006.
One fact that fed these interventions, is that the arbitrary colonial-imposed borders in the region split communities right down the middle.
The Banyamulenge in DRC are the same people as the Rwandese, so when they were being slaughtered in 1996, Rwanda intervened to stop it; and while there destroy the Interahamwe who had carried out the genocide back home, before fleeing across to establish a mini independent state within DRC. That campaign ended in Kinshasa and the overthrow of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997
Southern Sudan
Uganda, historically, has supported the various southern Sudan rebellions against Khartoum, beginning from the 1960s, right through to the rule of Idi Amin, to date.
This is because the southern Sudan splits the Sudanic/Luo people from their Ugandan Luo cousins. Many SPLA fighters in the early days of southern liberation struggles were “Ugandans” who, when they were defeated, would cross back home, stash away their guns, farm their gardens, and wait for another fight when the season was right. This was one of the reasons why the Lords Resistance Army rebellion, the support by Khartoum notwithstanding, lasted 20 years.
The SPLA, staunch ally of the Kampala government that they were, just could not be hard enough on their Ugandan cousins in the LRA, in exchange for the support they were receiving from President Museveni.
The point here then is that because Kenya has the same people mix on all its borders as Rwanda has with the Banyamulenge, if the crisis persisted and began to impact heavily on the neighbours, Uganda, Ethiopia, and the Somali militants would not stand by and do nothing. They would intervene, and in the process create a totally different jolly mess that would finally break up a Kenya where, already, many areas have been cleansed of “enemy” ethnic groups.
That is a cost Africa and the world simply cannot afford to pay.
Even without the recent troubles, knowledgeable source say some South African interests were already lobbying to have the United Nations relocate its Unep offices in Nairobi and its regional operations to at a place of its choosing in the south.
The Midrands, where the African Parliament is located, has been touted as a possible location. And the South Africans are allegedly offering a sweetheart deal – lots of land, infrastructure, and new buildings. All the UN would have to move out of Nairobi, are human beings.
Strategic location
With the massive investments it is making in its airports and other infrastructure for the 2010 World Cup, South Africa will have a lot of capabilities and capacity that it needs someone to take up. Unrest in Kenya plays into their hands, and makes that move inevitable should Nairobi become unliveable.
That would be a big blow for international supports for Somalia and Southern Sudan, because the bulk of the programmes for these countries are run out of Gigiri and other NGO offices in Nairobi. Kenya’s strategic location, and its role as the sanctuary for refugees from throughout the region, and as the anchor for the long-term stabilisation of Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, southern Sudan and Somalia and Burundi however brings with its several mixed blessings.
When US President George Bush visited Africa last week, he spent half his time on the continent (three days), in Tanzania.
Questions are being asked about why he stayed around so long. When he moved on to Rwanda, he naturally had to make parallels between the genocide there in 1994 in which nearly one million people were slaughtered, and the killings in Kenya.
Bush, reechoing the line that President Paul Kagame had taken a few days earlier when he called for the deployment of the Kenyan army to stop the violence, said genocide starts slowly. A few people are killed today, and before you know it, hundreds of thousands are dead a few weeks later.
One of the criticisms of the international mission that was sent to Rwanda during the war, was that it was too small, and it had a useless observer and minimal peacekeeping role. It therefore didn’t have the resources or the mandate, to stop the killings.
Stop killings
Against that history, Mr Bush said if the mediated talks between the PNU government and ODM did not produce a deal that returns Kenya to stability, the international community would not intervene just as “observers”. It would have to do something to more actively stop killings.
US undersecretary for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer had said the same thing, more bluntly, in the early days as the government and ODM were being nudged to begin talks, noting “it would not be business as usual” in US relations with Kenya if the leaders didn’t settle the crisis quickly through negotiations, and that the international community would “impose a solution”.
By the time US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Nairobi last week, the language from the US was more temperate. She didn’t repeat the “imposing” bit, but stuck to the line that if there were no agreement to share power, it “would not be business as usual”.
Mr Bush’s long stay in Tanzania, seemed to vindicate those who suggest that the US has decided to locate its controversial African Command (Africom) along the East African coast. Nearly all African countries have refused to host Africom, fearing that they would get embroiled in America’s “international war on terror” and provoke internal instability. Only Liberia has publicly offered to host it. The matter has become so heated, that the US has announced that it has shelved the idea indefinitely, and Africom would continue to be run out of Germany.
Unfortunately, the real world doesn’t work that way. A look at the world map will tell you that Africom, when it is eventually set up, is most likely to be on the East Coast where the location makes strategic sense. It will probably never be located in a country because, as in the case of Liberia, just because that country has offered to host it.
It can’t be located in North Africa, in part because all the North African countries are Muslim countries that pose a real risk of radicalising the region and the Middle East further.
If Ethiopia, Rwanda or Uganda were not landlocked, Africom would be a done deal by now. Tanzania has few port options, and its capital Dar es Salaam is a coastal city, which means a large population lives there.
Kenya has historically hosted US forces on a short-term basis, and its capital Nairobi is in the hinterland, meaning there are fewer prying eyes at the coast. It also offers Malindi and Lamu. In addition to offering easy access to most of Africa, an Africom base on the East coast would give the US proximity to the volatile Middle East, and a forward position and “line of sight” to the region which offer it its greatest future global rivalry – Asia.
A settled Kenya and a Nairobi government with national legitimacy will almost definitely continue saying “No” to hosting Africom. However a crisis in which the US plays a “saviour role”, which will also destroy the hold of the political elite that is squabbling over power today, creates the conditions for a US base to be welcome.
This question has an intriguing subtext. Several international publications writing on the Kenya crisis have noted the country had gone further than most countries in establishing economic ties with China, and that that had not helped its relations much with the West which had been its “traditional” economic partner in the process.
Finance minister Amos Kimunya, like former Internal security minister Chris Murungaru, likes to repeat the line that the West has tended to support the opposition in Kenya in recent years, including over the current election dispute, because the Kibaki government had reduced its dependence on the west and diversified its economic links toward Asia. In a general sense, that has some truth it.
Specifically, though, Kenya’s growing business ties with Asia, particularly China, challenge the old economic order in a more subtle way. China’s dealings with Africa have mostly been in the extractive industries; oil, timber, diamonds and a range of raw materials. It is the kind of relationship Africa has had with the West over the past 50 years, and its transformative value, as history teaches us, has been limited on the continent.
However Kenya, because it is largely resource poor, has a different relationship based on exchange of services and more ordinary trade goods. Kenya Airways thus became the first main African airline to fly to China. In that sense, the Kenyan case is a more powerful example of the possibilities that China can offer the continent.
We are no longer in the Cold War world, but if the example that Kenya offers in this undermines the model of a western-led world economic model, then the political leaders in Kenya have worked against their own power interests by embroiling the country in an election crisis that requires an international solution.
The only tool available to the leaders in this case to preserve some power for themselves, then, is a quick political deal that removes the possibility of further escalation. For all that, it is the impossibly high political cost that the region would pay that makes the implosion of Kenya unaffordable.
Kenya is the country that has hosted the most refugees from around Eastern Africa. For years it has give sanctuary to Ethiopian, Somali, Sudanese, and Ugandan refugees in their thousands, and harboured Congolese, Burundi and Rwandese too, though in smaller numbers. The first complication is that if Kenya were to come apart, and more of its own citizens become refugees, where will the Somali refugees in Kenya, for example, go?
Bigger nightmare
But the bigger nightmare is where would the Kenyan refugees themselves go. They can’t go to Somalia or southern Sudan. Conditions in southern Ethiopia are also too fragile to allow a large number of refugees.
The two practical options are Uganda and Tanzania. However, because of historical resentment toward Kenyans in Tanzania, a large influx of refugees could create too many complications in the long-term.
Uganda, then, would be the safest refugee haven. Right now, the estimated 6,000 Kenyan refugees in Uganda are hosted in the eastern part of the country. That area of the country has been hard hit by environmental degradation, partly because it is hopelessly overpopulated, which is one reason it suffered the worst effects of the floods last year.
It cannot hold a larger number of refugees than have already entered the country, which is one reason the Kampala government is planning to move them to the western part of the country, to camps that housed Rwandese refugees for more than a generation, but are now empty after most of them returned home after the RPA took power.
Buganda kingdom
Uganda, though, is itself a country that’s sliding toward the kind of land-fuelled crisis that informed the fury of the clashes in the Rift Valley. Tensions are rising in the central part of the country where there are fears that a dispute between the central government and the Buganda kingdom over control of 9,000 square kilometres of “crown land” could turn violent.
A refugee influx could very easily tip the situation in the country. These are fickle times in East Africa. The region and the world therefore least afford a Kenya on fire, because there will be nothing like a Kenyan fire.
The flames will spread all over Eastern Africa, and the region risks suffering its largest collective economic reversal ever. Which is why if the politicians in Nairobi cannot fix the crisis, some other powers and regional forces will be tempted to. Kenya is simply too important for them not to try and impose a solution.
State of the Nation continues Tuesday.
Story by CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO
Publication Date: 2/25/2008
If Kenya’s crisis persists and starts to impact heavily on neighbours, Uganda, Ethiopia and Somali militants would not stand by and do nothing. They would intervene, and in the process create a total mess that would break up the country, writes CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO
Opposition supporters wave placards during a protest in Nairobi calling for quicker resolution of political crisis. Photo/FILE
If you have a lot of stamina, you are a fast driver, and set out before dawn from Kigali, you can arrive in Nairobi in time for a late dinner the same day.
If you started out from Kampala, you would be in Nairobi in time for a late lunch. Very many East Africans were making these trips, until the post-election violence closed the highways in the western part of Kenya that lead to Uganda and Rwanda.
Hundreds of Uganda-bound trucks were stoned or torched and drivers beaten, some to death. Within a week pump prices in Uganda shot from an average of $1.4 a litre to over $7 – possibly the most expensive in the world!
Kenyans cannot conceive of that, for it would be the equivalent of a litre of petrol moving from the current average of Sh90 to Sh450 overnight. Exports were held up, and factories faced closures as raw material supplies dried up because Mombasa was not functioning.
Mombasa is Uganda’s main lifeline. It is also serves the same purpose for Rwanda, Southern Sudan and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Nairobi is a critical destination and hub for the sub-region, so Ugandans with pressing business continued to come to the city and Mombasa during the worst periods of the violence.
But they didn’t come through Malaba or Busia. They would set out from Kampala, to the western part of the country, into Tanzania, and come into Kenya through the Namanga border point. What was previously an eight-hour journey for Ugandans, turned into a two-day 38-hour ordeal!
Though the countries in the hinterland do get some of their goods through Dar es Salaam, it is a trickle. Both Tanzania and Uganda will have to spend hundreds of millions, possibly billions, of dollars in infrastructure and the port over a long period before they can get 50 per cent of their goods routing through Dar es Salaam.
International community
Most immediately, the region and the international community feared that if the Kenya violence had continued for two or so months, countries like Rwanda and Uganda would have come close to collapsing economically.
That is the more obvious danger of a protracted crisis in Kenya. The less obvious consequences would, in fact, be more catastrophic.
To begin with, nations in the Great Lakes region are very interventionist. Uganda backed the Rwanda Patriotic Army, occupied DR Congo, faced off with Sudan and supported the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Rwanda intervened in and occupied DR Congo, as did Zimbabwe and Angola. Sudan backed the Lords Resistance Army in its fight against the Yoweri Museveni government, and is godfathering the rebels who are fighting the Chad government and might, yet, overthrow the Idriss Deby regime in N’djamena. Even Burundi sent troops into DRC. Tanzania had its fingers in the Burundi pie.
Kenya, hitherto the most neutral and was peace mediator for Sudan and Somalia, finally tasted the forbidden fruit with its co-operation in the Ethiopian-led overthrow of the Islamic Courts Union government in Somalia in late 2006.
One fact that fed these interventions, is that the arbitrary colonial-imposed borders in the region split communities right down the middle.
The Banyamulenge in DRC are the same people as the Rwandese, so when they were being slaughtered in 1996, Rwanda intervened to stop it; and while there destroy the Interahamwe who had carried out the genocide back home, before fleeing across to establish a mini independent state within DRC. That campaign ended in Kinshasa and the overthrow of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997
Southern Sudan
Uganda, historically, has supported the various southern Sudan rebellions against Khartoum, beginning from the 1960s, right through to the rule of Idi Amin, to date.
This is because the southern Sudan splits the Sudanic/Luo people from their Ugandan Luo cousins. Many SPLA fighters in the early days of southern liberation struggles were “Ugandans” who, when they were defeated, would cross back home, stash away their guns, farm their gardens, and wait for another fight when the season was right. This was one of the reasons why the Lords Resistance Army rebellion, the support by Khartoum notwithstanding, lasted 20 years.
The SPLA, staunch ally of the Kampala government that they were, just could not be hard enough on their Ugandan cousins in the LRA, in exchange for the support they were receiving from President Museveni.
The point here then is that because Kenya has the same people mix on all its borders as Rwanda has with the Banyamulenge, if the crisis persisted and began to impact heavily on the neighbours, Uganda, Ethiopia, and the Somali militants would not stand by and do nothing. They would intervene, and in the process create a totally different jolly mess that would finally break up a Kenya where, already, many areas have been cleansed of “enemy” ethnic groups.
That is a cost Africa and the world simply cannot afford to pay.
Even without the recent troubles, knowledgeable source say some South African interests were already lobbying to have the United Nations relocate its Unep offices in Nairobi and its regional operations to at a place of its choosing in the south.
The Midrands, where the African Parliament is located, has been touted as a possible location. And the South Africans are allegedly offering a sweetheart deal – lots of land, infrastructure, and new buildings. All the UN would have to move out of Nairobi, are human beings.
Strategic location
With the massive investments it is making in its airports and other infrastructure for the 2010 World Cup, South Africa will have a lot of capabilities and capacity that it needs someone to take up. Unrest in Kenya plays into their hands, and makes that move inevitable should Nairobi become unliveable.
That would be a big blow for international supports for Somalia and Southern Sudan, because the bulk of the programmes for these countries are run out of Gigiri and other NGO offices in Nairobi. Kenya’s strategic location, and its role as the sanctuary for refugees from throughout the region, and as the anchor for the long-term stabilisation of Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, southern Sudan and Somalia and Burundi however brings with its several mixed blessings.
When US President George Bush visited Africa last week, he spent half his time on the continent (three days), in Tanzania.
Questions are being asked about why he stayed around so long. When he moved on to Rwanda, he naturally had to make parallels between the genocide there in 1994 in which nearly one million people were slaughtered, and the killings in Kenya.
Bush, reechoing the line that President Paul Kagame had taken a few days earlier when he called for the deployment of the Kenyan army to stop the violence, said genocide starts slowly. A few people are killed today, and before you know it, hundreds of thousands are dead a few weeks later.
One of the criticisms of the international mission that was sent to Rwanda during the war, was that it was too small, and it had a useless observer and minimal peacekeeping role. It therefore didn’t have the resources or the mandate, to stop the killings.
Stop killings
Against that history, Mr Bush said if the mediated talks between the PNU government and ODM did not produce a deal that returns Kenya to stability, the international community would not intervene just as “observers”. It would have to do something to more actively stop killings.
US undersecretary for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer had said the same thing, more bluntly, in the early days as the government and ODM were being nudged to begin talks, noting “it would not be business as usual” in US relations with Kenya if the leaders didn’t settle the crisis quickly through negotiations, and that the international community would “impose a solution”.
By the time US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Nairobi last week, the language from the US was more temperate. She didn’t repeat the “imposing” bit, but stuck to the line that if there were no agreement to share power, it “would not be business as usual”.
Mr Bush’s long stay in Tanzania, seemed to vindicate those who suggest that the US has decided to locate its controversial African Command (Africom) along the East African coast. Nearly all African countries have refused to host Africom, fearing that they would get embroiled in America’s “international war on terror” and provoke internal instability. Only Liberia has publicly offered to host it. The matter has become so heated, that the US has announced that it has shelved the idea indefinitely, and Africom would continue to be run out of Germany.
Unfortunately, the real world doesn’t work that way. A look at the world map will tell you that Africom, when it is eventually set up, is most likely to be on the East Coast where the location makes strategic sense. It will probably never be located in a country because, as in the case of Liberia, just because that country has offered to host it.
It can’t be located in North Africa, in part because all the North African countries are Muslim countries that pose a real risk of radicalising the region and the Middle East further.
If Ethiopia, Rwanda or Uganda were not landlocked, Africom would be a done deal by now. Tanzania has few port options, and its capital Dar es Salaam is a coastal city, which means a large population lives there.
Kenya has historically hosted US forces on a short-term basis, and its capital Nairobi is in the hinterland, meaning there are fewer prying eyes at the coast. It also offers Malindi and Lamu. In addition to offering easy access to most of Africa, an Africom base on the East coast would give the US proximity to the volatile Middle East, and a forward position and “line of sight” to the region which offer it its greatest future global rivalry – Asia.
A settled Kenya and a Nairobi government with national legitimacy will almost definitely continue saying “No” to hosting Africom. However a crisis in which the US plays a “saviour role”, which will also destroy the hold of the political elite that is squabbling over power today, creates the conditions for a US base to be welcome.
This question has an intriguing subtext. Several international publications writing on the Kenya crisis have noted the country had gone further than most countries in establishing economic ties with China, and that that had not helped its relations much with the West which had been its “traditional” economic partner in the process.
Finance minister Amos Kimunya, like former Internal security minister Chris Murungaru, likes to repeat the line that the West has tended to support the opposition in Kenya in recent years, including over the current election dispute, because the Kibaki government had reduced its dependence on the west and diversified its economic links toward Asia. In a general sense, that has some truth it.
Specifically, though, Kenya’s growing business ties with Asia, particularly China, challenge the old economic order in a more subtle way. China’s dealings with Africa have mostly been in the extractive industries; oil, timber, diamonds and a range of raw materials. It is the kind of relationship Africa has had with the West over the past 50 years, and its transformative value, as history teaches us, has been limited on the continent.
However Kenya, because it is largely resource poor, has a different relationship based on exchange of services and more ordinary trade goods. Kenya Airways thus became the first main African airline to fly to China. In that sense, the Kenyan case is a more powerful example of the possibilities that China can offer the continent.
We are no longer in the Cold War world, but if the example that Kenya offers in this undermines the model of a western-led world economic model, then the political leaders in Kenya have worked against their own power interests by embroiling the country in an election crisis that requires an international solution.
The only tool available to the leaders in this case to preserve some power for themselves, then, is a quick political deal that removes the possibility of further escalation. For all that, it is the impossibly high political cost that the region would pay that makes the implosion of Kenya unaffordable.
Kenya is the country that has hosted the most refugees from around Eastern Africa. For years it has give sanctuary to Ethiopian, Somali, Sudanese, and Ugandan refugees in their thousands, and harboured Congolese, Burundi and Rwandese too, though in smaller numbers. The first complication is that if Kenya were to come apart, and more of its own citizens become refugees, where will the Somali refugees in Kenya, for example, go?
Bigger nightmare
But the bigger nightmare is where would the Kenyan refugees themselves go. They can’t go to Somalia or southern Sudan. Conditions in southern Ethiopia are also too fragile to allow a large number of refugees.
The two practical options are Uganda and Tanzania. However, because of historical resentment toward Kenyans in Tanzania, a large influx of refugees could create too many complications in the long-term.
Uganda, then, would be the safest refugee haven. Right now, the estimated 6,000 Kenyan refugees in Uganda are hosted in the eastern part of the country. That area of the country has been hard hit by environmental degradation, partly because it is hopelessly overpopulated, which is one reason it suffered the worst effects of the floods last year.
It cannot hold a larger number of refugees than have already entered the country, which is one reason the Kampala government is planning to move them to the western part of the country, to camps that housed Rwandese refugees for more than a generation, but are now empty after most of them returned home after the RPA took power.
Buganda kingdom
Uganda, though, is itself a country that’s sliding toward the kind of land-fuelled crisis that informed the fury of the clashes in the Rift Valley. Tensions are rising in the central part of the country where there are fears that a dispute between the central government and the Buganda kingdom over control of 9,000 square kilometres of “crown land” could turn violent.
A refugee influx could very easily tip the situation in the country. These are fickle times in East Africa. The region and the world therefore least afford a Kenya on fire, because there will be nothing like a Kenyan fire.
The flames will spread all over Eastern Africa, and the region risks suffering its largest collective economic reversal ever. Which is why if the politicians in Nairobi cannot fix the crisis, some other powers and regional forces will be tempted to. Kenya is simply too important for them not to try and impose a solution.
State of the Nation continues Tuesday.
Commentary (Rasna Warah) - Love’s indomitable spirit still alive and well in Kenya
Ref: http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=25&newsid=117601
Story by RASNA WARAH
Publication Date: 2/25/2008
ONE OF MY FAVOURITE TV commercials is the one showing the real-life blind Kenyan marathon runner Henry Wanyoike training against a backdrop of Kenya’s most majestic views alongside his childhood friend and training guide, Joseph Kibunja.
The reason this commercial touches my heartstrings is not just because it is beautifully crafted, but because it shows how partnership and self-sacrifice can help achieve success.
The story of Wanyoike and Kibunja should serve as an example to all of us, as it is the story of friendship, perseverance, and above all, humility.
Before Wanyoike began his professional career in athletics, he worked with Kibunja as a cobbler in Central Province. Unfortunately, he lost his sight in 1995 and could no longer continue working as a cobbler, so he decided to venture into athletics. In 1999, he invited his friend Kibunja to be his training guide.
Kibunja had never been a runner, let alone an athlete, but he gladly accepted the challenge. Since then, the two have been training together. They run as a pair, with their hands joined to each others’ with a string.
Kibunja’s job is to act as Wanyoike’s “eyes” – to tell him when they are approaching a bend, when to overtake, when to accelerate the pace of running etc. Like all guides, he is also a time-keeper and regulator.
Thanks to him, Wanyoike today holds the world marathon record for blind athletes.
Yet Kibunja has never once felt resentful that his friend gets all the accolades at races, nor does he harbour any ambitions of becoming a marathon runner himself (even though his training and experience would qualify him to run in any local or international race).
Last year, he told The EastAfrican’s Odindo Ayieko that he only ran with Wanyoike out of loyalty and friendship. When he’s not training with his friend, he’s working at the Henry Wanyoike Foundation, which helps the needy in society.
Given our present circumstances, where all we hear are stories of brutality and hatred, we may find it hard to believe that Kibunja is not alone in his act of heroism. In the last few weeks, I have come across numerous stories that have served to remind me that there are many among us who think of the greater good above personal interests.
One such story is that of William Kimosop, a warden with the Kenya Wildlife Service. At the height of the clashes in the Rift Valley, Kimosop spent several days trying to get 865 people of all ethnic groups to safety.
NOT TRUSTING AUTHORITIES, HE decided to hide the people in a ravine, from where he called for help on his mobile phone. Thanks to the efforts of the Red Cross, Concerned Citizens for Peace, the World Food Programme and the Rotary Club, Kimosop got food, water and blankets for all the people under his care. Last I heard, he had moved out of the ravine into a safer area.
Apparently, Kimosop is not one of a kind – stories like his are being recounted and recorded by various groups, including the Coalition of Concerned Kenyan Writers, a collective formed shortly after the violence erupted all over the country in early January.
The idea behind the collective, of which I am a member, is to present the human face of the tragedy unfolding before us and to allow writing to become a vehicle of peace and understanding in our troubled times.
Since then, dozens of Kenyan writers have produced more than 100 pieces of what a guest editorial in the Nigerian magazine Farafina describes as “technically masterful, emotionally breathtaking work”.
Some of these pieces have already been published in the local and international media; others will form part of a forthcoming anthology that is currently being compiled.
But the story that touched me the most was the one of the street children who, instead of spending money on glue or food, took the initiative to buy a “get-well-soon” flower for a hospitalised friend on Valentine’s Day.
When people in Europe were giving their lovers expensive fresh-cut roses (many of which are grown in and exported from the blood-stained lakeside town of Naivasha), a group of 11-year-old street children in Nairobi decided to raise Sh50 to buy a flower for their friend Michael, who they had carried to the Nairobi Women’s and Children’s Hospital following a brutal sexual attack. Since then, they have been visiting their badly injured and traumatised fellow street child at least three times a day.
Nation columnist Mildred Ngesa, who covered the story, describes the compassion shown by the four street children – Kevin Kariuki, David Kuria, Andrew Mungalla and Wallace Mfoyonga – as “an enduring, undeniable lesson on living and loving”. It is a lesson we could all learn from at this turbulent point in our history.
Ms Warah is an editor with the UN. The views expressed here are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations. (grasp@nbi.ispkenya.com)
Story by RASNA WARAH
Publication Date: 2/25/2008
ONE OF MY FAVOURITE TV commercials is the one showing the real-life blind Kenyan marathon runner Henry Wanyoike training against a backdrop of Kenya’s most majestic views alongside his childhood friend and training guide, Joseph Kibunja.
The reason this commercial touches my heartstrings is not just because it is beautifully crafted, but because it shows how partnership and self-sacrifice can help achieve success.
The story of Wanyoike and Kibunja should serve as an example to all of us, as it is the story of friendship, perseverance, and above all, humility.
Before Wanyoike began his professional career in athletics, he worked with Kibunja as a cobbler in Central Province. Unfortunately, he lost his sight in 1995 and could no longer continue working as a cobbler, so he decided to venture into athletics. In 1999, he invited his friend Kibunja to be his training guide.
Kibunja had never been a runner, let alone an athlete, but he gladly accepted the challenge. Since then, the two have been training together. They run as a pair, with their hands joined to each others’ with a string.
Kibunja’s job is to act as Wanyoike’s “eyes” – to tell him when they are approaching a bend, when to overtake, when to accelerate the pace of running etc. Like all guides, he is also a time-keeper and regulator.
Thanks to him, Wanyoike today holds the world marathon record for blind athletes.
Yet Kibunja has never once felt resentful that his friend gets all the accolades at races, nor does he harbour any ambitions of becoming a marathon runner himself (even though his training and experience would qualify him to run in any local or international race).
Last year, he told The EastAfrican’s Odindo Ayieko that he only ran with Wanyoike out of loyalty and friendship. When he’s not training with his friend, he’s working at the Henry Wanyoike Foundation, which helps the needy in society.
Given our present circumstances, where all we hear are stories of brutality and hatred, we may find it hard to believe that Kibunja is not alone in his act of heroism. In the last few weeks, I have come across numerous stories that have served to remind me that there are many among us who think of the greater good above personal interests.
One such story is that of William Kimosop, a warden with the Kenya Wildlife Service. At the height of the clashes in the Rift Valley, Kimosop spent several days trying to get 865 people of all ethnic groups to safety.
NOT TRUSTING AUTHORITIES, HE decided to hide the people in a ravine, from where he called for help on his mobile phone. Thanks to the efforts of the Red Cross, Concerned Citizens for Peace, the World Food Programme and the Rotary Club, Kimosop got food, water and blankets for all the people under his care. Last I heard, he had moved out of the ravine into a safer area.
Apparently, Kimosop is not one of a kind – stories like his are being recounted and recorded by various groups, including the Coalition of Concerned Kenyan Writers, a collective formed shortly after the violence erupted all over the country in early January.
The idea behind the collective, of which I am a member, is to present the human face of the tragedy unfolding before us and to allow writing to become a vehicle of peace and understanding in our troubled times.
Since then, dozens of Kenyan writers have produced more than 100 pieces of what a guest editorial in the Nigerian magazine Farafina describes as “technically masterful, emotionally breathtaking work”.
Some of these pieces have already been published in the local and international media; others will form part of a forthcoming anthology that is currently being compiled.
But the story that touched me the most was the one of the street children who, instead of spending money on glue or food, took the initiative to buy a “get-well-soon” flower for a hospitalised friend on Valentine’s Day.
When people in Europe were giving their lovers expensive fresh-cut roses (many of which are grown in and exported from the blood-stained lakeside town of Naivasha), a group of 11-year-old street children in Nairobi decided to raise Sh50 to buy a flower for their friend Michael, who they had carried to the Nairobi Women’s and Children’s Hospital following a brutal sexual attack. Since then, they have been visiting their badly injured and traumatised fellow street child at least three times a day.
Nation columnist Mildred Ngesa, who covered the story, describes the compassion shown by the four street children – Kevin Kariuki, David Kuria, Andrew Mungalla and Wallace Mfoyonga – as “an enduring, undeniable lesson on living and loving”. It is a lesson we could all learn from at this turbulent point in our history.
Ms Warah is an editor with the UN. The views expressed here are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations. (grasp@nbi.ispkenya.com)
Sunday, 24 February 2008
Commentary (by Otsieno Namwaya) - Rise and fall of Kenya’s democracy
Ref: http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143982342&cid=4
Published on February 24, 2008, 12:00 am
By Otsieno Namwaya
Regarded as a beacon of hope and democracy, the world is struggling to come to terms with events in Kenya.
Locals and foreigners are dismayed at how quickly the country is sliding back to the dark old days of fear and repression.
Kenyans were rated as most optimistic people in the world following peaceful elections and change of guard at State House in 2002, followed by a burst of political freedom confidence. In one fell swoop, civil society activists are walking in fear due to threats. The media is suddenly confronted with State instigated sanctions, politicians are pleading for protection and claims of political assassinations are high in the air.
Just as the country was battling to forestall civil war, two opposition MPs were felled by the bullet within 36 hours, under inexplicable circumstances. Earlier, some MPs and civil society activists had expressed concern that some selected individuals were being targeted for elimination.
The killings of Embakasi MP, Mugabe Were, and Ainamoi MP, David Kimutai, came just as the media fraternity was threatening court action against the Government’s decision to ban live broadcasts.
The ban came just at the same time as the ban on public gathering and political rallies, freedoms that had become so normal even in Kanu’s last days in power.
The argument that such rights were inalienable had been so internalised by Kenyans that the fact of their withdrawal seemed to highlight an already dark season. "We are witnessing the return of a police State as practised in the 1970s. That is the only way police are suddenly able to wake up one day and declare a ban on public rallies and station officers at Uhuru Park to block people from going there. This is illegal," says Mr Maina Kiai, the Chairman of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights.
Nearly three weeks after the Government said it had lifted the ban on political rallies, police are still sealing off the park from the public. The lifting of the ban on political rallies and restoration of press freedom were among the major requests Mr Kofi Annan placed before the Government to pave way for peace talks between the opposition ODM and PNU.
The little democracy that had been earned just before former President Moi left power is suddenly a distant reality. "The ease with which democracy is being eroded in Kenya has taught me that we were deluding ourselves that we had a democracy when we had not built strong democratic institutions. Our democracy depended on the goodwill of individuals," says Mr Wainaina Ndung’u, a programme manager of the National Convention Executive Council.
A full return to democracy
That democracy is being rolled back in Kenya is best captured by US President George Bush’s recent demand for "a full return to democracy". It may be a while before Kenyans actually witness a full return to democracy.
Justin Mironga, a programme assistant at the National Convention Executive Council, says many people now look over their shoulders before speaking and mobile phones of individuals are being tapped. " We have drifted backwards and even the Moi era that we much used to complain about was better," said Mironga.
Concerns that Kenya may well have slid back to the dark old days — when police used to keep track of government critic’s phone records or spy on them — have been given weight by latest reports that the National Security Intelligence Service (NSIS) is spying on Government critics.
The latest edition of Indian Ocean newsletter says Kiai is being investigated by the NSIS for his activities in the UK and the US, where he addressed a Sub-Committee on Africa and Global Health of the United States House of Representatives on February 6. The story says that the NSIS is trying to establish whether by meeting Mark Malloch-Brown, the UK minister of State in charge of African Affairs, Kiai wants to request for political asylum like Mr John Githongo did.
"The NSIS consequently wants to know who prepared the meeting between Kiai and Lord Malloch-Brown. It also wants to know whether Kiai is likely to become a new John Githongo, the former Kenyan anti-corruption czar who became highly unpopular among the supporters of President Kibaki when he denounced corruption within the Kenyan Government team from his exile in the UK," the story reads in part. It also indicates that some members of the Kenyan Government are also perturbed by the fact that Malloch-Brown’s meeting with Kiai took place just before his meeting with Vice-President Mr Kalonzo Musyoka.
But just what went wrong with Kenya?
"The problem we have is dishonesty. People call for reforms and democracy when they are out of the Government, but change tune when they eventually get to power," says Dr Reginalda Wanyonyi, who contested for the Kimilili Parliamentary seat and lost to Dr David Eseli. Wanyonyi says the solution to Kenya’s political problems lies in a new constitution and respect of the rule of law.
The new constitution, says Auxillia Nyamwoma, a PNU parliamentary candidate in Matungu in the last elections, should be designed from what people say they want and not what the politicians want.
Published on February 24, 2008, 12:00 am
By Otsieno Namwaya
Regarded as a beacon of hope and democracy, the world is struggling to come to terms with events in Kenya.
Locals and foreigners are dismayed at how quickly the country is sliding back to the dark old days of fear and repression.
Kenyans were rated as most optimistic people in the world following peaceful elections and change of guard at State House in 2002, followed by a burst of political freedom confidence. In one fell swoop, civil society activists are walking in fear due to threats. The media is suddenly confronted with State instigated sanctions, politicians are pleading for protection and claims of political assassinations are high in the air.
Just as the country was battling to forestall civil war, two opposition MPs were felled by the bullet within 36 hours, under inexplicable circumstances. Earlier, some MPs and civil society activists had expressed concern that some selected individuals were being targeted for elimination.
The killings of Embakasi MP, Mugabe Were, and Ainamoi MP, David Kimutai, came just as the media fraternity was threatening court action against the Government’s decision to ban live broadcasts.
The ban came just at the same time as the ban on public gathering and political rallies, freedoms that had become so normal even in Kanu’s last days in power.
The argument that such rights were inalienable had been so internalised by Kenyans that the fact of their withdrawal seemed to highlight an already dark season. "We are witnessing the return of a police State as practised in the 1970s. That is the only way police are suddenly able to wake up one day and declare a ban on public rallies and station officers at Uhuru Park to block people from going there. This is illegal," says Mr Maina Kiai, the Chairman of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights.
Nearly three weeks after the Government said it had lifted the ban on political rallies, police are still sealing off the park from the public. The lifting of the ban on political rallies and restoration of press freedom were among the major requests Mr Kofi Annan placed before the Government to pave way for peace talks between the opposition ODM and PNU.
The little democracy that had been earned just before former President Moi left power is suddenly a distant reality. "The ease with which democracy is being eroded in Kenya has taught me that we were deluding ourselves that we had a democracy when we had not built strong democratic institutions. Our democracy depended on the goodwill of individuals," says Mr Wainaina Ndung’u, a programme manager of the National Convention Executive Council.
A full return to democracy
That democracy is being rolled back in Kenya is best captured by US President George Bush’s recent demand for "a full return to democracy". It may be a while before Kenyans actually witness a full return to democracy.
Justin Mironga, a programme assistant at the National Convention Executive Council, says many people now look over their shoulders before speaking and mobile phones of individuals are being tapped. " We have drifted backwards and even the Moi era that we much used to complain about was better," said Mironga.
Concerns that Kenya may well have slid back to the dark old days — when police used to keep track of government critic’s phone records or spy on them — have been given weight by latest reports that the National Security Intelligence Service (NSIS) is spying on Government critics.
The latest edition of Indian Ocean newsletter says Kiai is being investigated by the NSIS for his activities in the UK and the US, where he addressed a Sub-Committee on Africa and Global Health of the United States House of Representatives on February 6. The story says that the NSIS is trying to establish whether by meeting Mark Malloch-Brown, the UK minister of State in charge of African Affairs, Kiai wants to request for political asylum like Mr John Githongo did.
"The NSIS consequently wants to know who prepared the meeting between Kiai and Lord Malloch-Brown. It also wants to know whether Kiai is likely to become a new John Githongo, the former Kenyan anti-corruption czar who became highly unpopular among the supporters of President Kibaki when he denounced corruption within the Kenyan Government team from his exile in the UK," the story reads in part. It also indicates that some members of the Kenyan Government are also perturbed by the fact that Malloch-Brown’s meeting with Kiai took place just before his meeting with Vice-President Mr Kalonzo Musyoka.
But just what went wrong with Kenya?
"The problem we have is dishonesty. People call for reforms and democracy when they are out of the Government, but change tune when they eventually get to power," says Dr Reginalda Wanyonyi, who contested for the Kimilili Parliamentary seat and lost to Dr David Eseli. Wanyonyi says the solution to Kenya’s political problems lies in a new constitution and respect of the rule of law.
The new constitution, says Auxillia Nyamwoma, a PNU parliamentary candidate in Matungu in the last elections, should be designed from what people say they want and not what the politicians want.
Commentary (by Wangari Maathai) - Foreign countries are not meddling, just trying to help
Ref: http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=2&newsid=117559
Story by WANGARI MAATHAI
Publication Date: 2/24/2008
The post-election crisis in Kenya remains unresolved. The damage being done to the country’s economy is severe: tourism, horticulture, and other industries that depend on trade beyond the Kenyan border are reeling. Thousands of livelihoods, along with investments throughout the region, are threatened and collapsing.
As the situation in Kenya escalated – with murders, rapes, burning of property, looting, and the displacement of thousands of people throughout the country - the international community was urged to help. Many countries responded, providing essential humanitarian assistance and logistical support. For this, I and many other Kenyans are very grateful.
The international community has also endeavoured to persuade the two rivals, Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga, to negotiate a political settlement in the wake of the contested presidential election. But a resolution still eludes Kenya, despite the efforts of Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary-general, and his team, which includes the former South African first lady, Graca Machel, and the former president of Tanzania, Benjamin Mkapa.
Over the past weeks a number of other prominent Africans have participated in the mediation efforts, including Ghana’s president and African Union chairman John Kufuor, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. However some Kenyan politicians claim these efforts represent an unwarranted meddling in the country’s affairs. According to them, Kenyans should be left alone to solve their problems.
While this may appear to be patriotic, it is just the opposite. These politicians know how dependent Kenya is on the international community – and the degree to which other nation states in the region depend on Kenya.
Moreover, to be worthy leaders of an independent and sovereign state, Kenya’s politicians should have demonstrated a capacity to manage the crisis. Leaders of the business community, civil society and religious organisations, among others, appealed to politicians to end the violence. But they would not budge, even as the carnage escalated. Today, millions of people are urging intervention in crises in Darfur, Somalia, Chad, and the DR Congo.
In the 21st century, the world should not stand and watch as citizens are incited to kill and maim each other because politicians cannot agree on how to manage the state. The international community has a moral responsibility to intervene when life and human rights are threatened on such a scale.
The focus must now be on and support given to the National Dialogue and Reconciliation team so that a lasting solution is found. I, along with millions of other Kenyans, urge them to find an enduring settlement based on justice, fairness and the common good.
This article appeared in the Guardian on Friday, February 22, 2008.
Story by WANGARI MAATHAI
Publication Date: 2/24/2008
The post-election crisis in Kenya remains unresolved. The damage being done to the country’s economy is severe: tourism, horticulture, and other industries that depend on trade beyond the Kenyan border are reeling. Thousands of livelihoods, along with investments throughout the region, are threatened and collapsing.
As the situation in Kenya escalated – with murders, rapes, burning of property, looting, and the displacement of thousands of people throughout the country - the international community was urged to help. Many countries responded, providing essential humanitarian assistance and logistical support. For this, I and many other Kenyans are very grateful.
The international community has also endeavoured to persuade the two rivals, Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga, to negotiate a political settlement in the wake of the contested presidential election. But a resolution still eludes Kenya, despite the efforts of Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary-general, and his team, which includes the former South African first lady, Graca Machel, and the former president of Tanzania, Benjamin Mkapa.
Over the past weeks a number of other prominent Africans have participated in the mediation efforts, including Ghana’s president and African Union chairman John Kufuor, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. However some Kenyan politicians claim these efforts represent an unwarranted meddling in the country’s affairs. According to them, Kenyans should be left alone to solve their problems.
While this may appear to be patriotic, it is just the opposite. These politicians know how dependent Kenya is on the international community – and the degree to which other nation states in the region depend on Kenya.
Moreover, to be worthy leaders of an independent and sovereign state, Kenya’s politicians should have demonstrated a capacity to manage the crisis. Leaders of the business community, civil society and religious organisations, among others, appealed to politicians to end the violence. But they would not budge, even as the carnage escalated. Today, millions of people are urging intervention in crises in Darfur, Somalia, Chad, and the DR Congo.
In the 21st century, the world should not stand and watch as citizens are incited to kill and maim each other because politicians cannot agree on how to manage the state. The international community has a moral responsibility to intervene when life and human rights are threatened on such a scale.
The focus must now be on and support given to the National Dialogue and Reconciliation team so that a lasting solution is found. I, along with millions of other Kenyans, urge them to find an enduring settlement based on justice, fairness and the common good.
This article appeared in the Guardian on Friday, February 22, 2008.
Commentary (by Buri Edward) - Spread mediation spirit beyond the Serena
Ref: http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=25&newsid=117583
Story by BURI EDWARD
Publication Date: 2/24/2008
Should mediation be a singular event or a philosophy allowed to actively percolate into all layers of our nationhood? This question is important because the status of the current mediation as a singular event held behind closed doors in Nairobi, and recently at a secluded lodge, has left every Kenyan craning his or her neck for glimpse of the small but important team at the Serena. This has relegated everyone else to a passive status.
Kenyans have put so much faith in this team that they have become unaware of both their responsibility and capacity as peacemakers. There is an unspoken expression of delegation of the task to the select team.
This is a dangerous position. It is dangerous because the continuity of peace hinges heavily, if not entirely, on the outcome of the talks as conducted by the select team.
THIS LEAVES A DANGEROUS WINDOW through which, in the event that agreement is not reached, the country could see the return of the distress that, in only four weeks, reversed the significant progress our country had made with so much labour.
For any reasonable person, such a relapse must never be an option. Calls to reinstate the paralysis can only come from blind guides.
There is an urgent need to publicly and actively expand the concept of mediation beyond its restricted meaning of the ongoing negotiations.
Instead, mediation should be disseminated as a spirit of the season, rallying leaders and the citizenry to initiate processes of recreating unity at every level of society.
With a localised appreciation of the mediation spirit, communities that tore into each other during the post-election violence can dare to seize the opportunity to converse with one another.
This possibility of dialogue, say at village level, would deliver its share of positive participation to the national process.
This could accelerate the resettlement agenda since the government would have a clearer picture of whom to resettle and who can directly and safely return to the land from which they were uprooted.
In the same mediation spirit, corporate, religious and social institutions, which by virtue of their composition host a myriad of political perspectives, should hold bridge-gap forums with the purpose of creating an environment suitable for reconciliation.
Such an encouragement of decentralisation would see new mediation leadership emerge at various levels of our society. Even at present, no one has been denied the chance to effect reconciliation in communities, institutions and neighbourhoods.
It is only that such a decentralised view of mediation has not been preached. This approach is credible because the violence at the grassroots, sponsors aside, was perpetrated by local people.
But with the glaring statistics of loss on every side of the conflict, and with a returning conscience that begins to see and perceive the vanity and the evil of the wanton destruction, there is the possibility that local people will be capable of rebuilding their relationships, albeit slowly.
Mediation initiatives at the grassroots level stand a chance of unbundling the “national” elements in the ongoing talks, reducing them to a forum for discussing party relationships, the place of executive power in our government and the settlement of personal differences among national leaders.
If the people on the ground started reconciliation, sponsors of violence can only be greeted by a rude shock when attempting to rally their people for mischievous action.
These sponsors would realise that the people have since solidified a pro-peace stance that empowers them to reject any initiatives that threaten their new-found unity.
GRASSROOTS SOLUTIONS BY LOCALS have the potential to put down firm roots where national formulations by imported negotiators become as brittle as glass.
Unlike the pre-election season where locals waited for instructions from their political sponsors, in this reconciliation season, locals need not wait for word from those same sponsors.
They need not spend one more day without peace if they can make local steps towards it. Any leader who discourages or disarranges such healing would be clearly championing another agenda and not reconciliation.
Together with letting this mediation spirit actively permeate all levels of our society, there is need to support such percolation with peace education.
Inescapable is the reality that the ethnic hatred witnessed before and after the elections was actively and systematically taught, learnt and enacted.
If people and institutions generously invested time, money, personnel and such other resources to teach this hatred, then it would be naïve to sit back and imagine that peace will make a natural return.
There is no easy road home. There must be an informed, strategic and generous investment of resources to help people unlearn hatred by teaching them the way of peace.
And shame on anyone who hastily fabricates a peace education initiative with a money-making motive. Such a person or entity is comparable to one who would display victims of the violence for money. The peace-building initiatives must be drafted and enacted with full respect for the victims – both dead and alive.
In our present circumstances, peace must not only be an end. It must also be a means. A reintroduction of violence in the pursuit of truth is both unwise and also limits the degree of the peace achievable.
As Martin Luther King Jr said, “the end pre-exists in the means.” Going by this wisdom, this season in our country demands that the chief quality of an acceptable leader be authentic teaching of peace, with a believable track record to fit the claim.
And peace being a spiritual attainment on the most part, we expect to see great and urgent leadership from the religious sector. But it is expected, then, that the recently repentant religious fraternity, in the noble excitement of forgiveness, will now wear its mediation boots and use its extensive national network to start clearing the murk at the grassroots.
Buri Edward is a Nairobi theologian and a religious minister.
Story by BURI EDWARD
Publication Date: 2/24/2008
Should mediation be a singular event or a philosophy allowed to actively percolate into all layers of our nationhood? This question is important because the status of the current mediation as a singular event held behind closed doors in Nairobi, and recently at a secluded lodge, has left every Kenyan craning his or her neck for glimpse of the small but important team at the Serena. This has relegated everyone else to a passive status.
Kenyans have put so much faith in this team that they have become unaware of both their responsibility and capacity as peacemakers. There is an unspoken expression of delegation of the task to the select team.
This is a dangerous position. It is dangerous because the continuity of peace hinges heavily, if not entirely, on the outcome of the talks as conducted by the select team.
THIS LEAVES A DANGEROUS WINDOW through which, in the event that agreement is not reached, the country could see the return of the distress that, in only four weeks, reversed the significant progress our country had made with so much labour.
For any reasonable person, such a relapse must never be an option. Calls to reinstate the paralysis can only come from blind guides.
There is an urgent need to publicly and actively expand the concept of mediation beyond its restricted meaning of the ongoing negotiations.
Instead, mediation should be disseminated as a spirit of the season, rallying leaders and the citizenry to initiate processes of recreating unity at every level of society.
With a localised appreciation of the mediation spirit, communities that tore into each other during the post-election violence can dare to seize the opportunity to converse with one another.
This possibility of dialogue, say at village level, would deliver its share of positive participation to the national process.
This could accelerate the resettlement agenda since the government would have a clearer picture of whom to resettle and who can directly and safely return to the land from which they were uprooted.
In the same mediation spirit, corporate, religious and social institutions, which by virtue of their composition host a myriad of political perspectives, should hold bridge-gap forums with the purpose of creating an environment suitable for reconciliation.
Such an encouragement of decentralisation would see new mediation leadership emerge at various levels of our society. Even at present, no one has been denied the chance to effect reconciliation in communities, institutions and neighbourhoods.
It is only that such a decentralised view of mediation has not been preached. This approach is credible because the violence at the grassroots, sponsors aside, was perpetrated by local people.
But with the glaring statistics of loss on every side of the conflict, and with a returning conscience that begins to see and perceive the vanity and the evil of the wanton destruction, there is the possibility that local people will be capable of rebuilding their relationships, albeit slowly.
Mediation initiatives at the grassroots level stand a chance of unbundling the “national” elements in the ongoing talks, reducing them to a forum for discussing party relationships, the place of executive power in our government and the settlement of personal differences among national leaders.
If the people on the ground started reconciliation, sponsors of violence can only be greeted by a rude shock when attempting to rally their people for mischievous action.
These sponsors would realise that the people have since solidified a pro-peace stance that empowers them to reject any initiatives that threaten their new-found unity.
GRASSROOTS SOLUTIONS BY LOCALS have the potential to put down firm roots where national formulations by imported negotiators become as brittle as glass.
Unlike the pre-election season where locals waited for instructions from their political sponsors, in this reconciliation season, locals need not wait for word from those same sponsors.
They need not spend one more day without peace if they can make local steps towards it. Any leader who discourages or disarranges such healing would be clearly championing another agenda and not reconciliation.
Together with letting this mediation spirit actively permeate all levels of our society, there is need to support such percolation with peace education.
Inescapable is the reality that the ethnic hatred witnessed before and after the elections was actively and systematically taught, learnt and enacted.
If people and institutions generously invested time, money, personnel and such other resources to teach this hatred, then it would be naïve to sit back and imagine that peace will make a natural return.
There is no easy road home. There must be an informed, strategic and generous investment of resources to help people unlearn hatred by teaching them the way of peace.
And shame on anyone who hastily fabricates a peace education initiative with a money-making motive. Such a person or entity is comparable to one who would display victims of the violence for money. The peace-building initiatives must be drafted and enacted with full respect for the victims – both dead and alive.
In our present circumstances, peace must not only be an end. It must also be a means. A reintroduction of violence in the pursuit of truth is both unwise and also limits the degree of the peace achievable.
As Martin Luther King Jr said, “the end pre-exists in the means.” Going by this wisdom, this season in our country demands that the chief quality of an acceptable leader be authentic teaching of peace, with a believable track record to fit the claim.
And peace being a spiritual attainment on the most part, we expect to see great and urgent leadership from the religious sector. But it is expected, then, that the recently repentant religious fraternity, in the noble excitement of forgiveness, will now wear its mediation boots and use its extensive national network to start clearing the murk at the grassroots.
Buri Edward is a Nairobi theologian and a religious minister.
Saturday, 23 February 2008
Commentary (by Arno Kopecky) - It wasn't business as usual when Condoleezza hit town
Ref: http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=39&newsid=117456
Story by ARNO KOPECKY
Publication Date: 2/23/2008
She’s brisk, she’s bright, she’s (red, white and) blue — and oh yeah, black too. She’s Condoleezza Rice, “the most powerful woman in the world.” For a few hours on Monday, she was in Nairobi for the highest-profile visit to Kenya since her predecessor, Mr Colin Powell, came to bid President Moi adieu in 2001.
Busy day, huh Condi? After pulling in at Kenyatta International Airport around 10am, she barrelled straight to Serena Hotel in downtown Nairobi for a chat with Mr Kofi Annan (who no doubt wishes his Kenya stay was as short as hers), then onto Harambee House for tea with President Kibaki before heading to the American ambassador’s lush Muthaiga residence to meet the aspiring prime minister.
Conspicuous by their absence around Harambee House, though, were the usually tough-looking police officers.
Phew... no sooner had Mr Raila Odinga left than a delegation from the lobby groups — code for big business — piled into Ranneberger’s palace... er house... to put in their plea for business as usual. By the time all that was over, we journalists were basically an afterthought.
For our part, the press did little but think about Condi all day. Her closing remarks were scheduled for 10 minutes to 5pm, which in Nairobispeak usually means a quarter past six. Not so for team America: they told reporters to show up around noon so the guards would have time for a thorough pat-down.
Tennis rackets
If only we’d brought our tennis rackets! The distractions of the ambassador’s living room were off limits to all but the first handful of photographers to arrive. They were allowed inside for a brief photo-op on the condition that each cameraman was accompanied by a security guard.
Those of us who pulled into Muthaiga drive after 1 o’clock were whisked down an alleyway and shoved through a little black gate at the mansion’s rear end; metal detectors awaited us there, then a short walk past the tennis court to the pool deck, where we waited for the next three hours.
This idle scene resembled a cocktail party, the only real difference being that the fruit juice brought around by white-shirted waiters lacked vodka. Everyone wore their finest but the expats who could hardly be troubled to tuck their shirts in.
We scattered across the pool deck and formed small groups that reflected the allegiances formed amongst the press corps over the last two months of war correspondence.
For the most part, print journalists stayed seated while the television personalities flitted from one clutch of journalists to another.
I joined a table of foreign correspondents — an Alabama girl, a Spaniard, a Frenchman, three Canadians and a Brit. Like everyone else, we filled the time with gossip. “Who are the Republicans more afraid of?” said the Spaniard; “Barack or Hillary? That’s what we should find out.” He seemed to think Hillary was the greater threat, but the rest of us were betting on the Luo.
“A friend of mine works at a five-star hotel in Jerusalem where Condi always stays,” said one of the Canadians. “She always has a treadmill brought up to her room, along with a personal chef.”
“Wouldn’t you? The chef, that is, not the treadmill.”
We all agreed that with Kosovo having just declared independence from Serbia, and Pakistan in the throes of its own electoral drama, America’s top diplomat would have to say something truly outrageous for this Nairobi afternoon to make news outside Kenya.
Shortly before the appointed hour, a press officer went around informing everyone that we would be allowed to ask only two questions at the end of Condi’s briefing. Two in total, that is, not each. A collective groan went up among the 50 or so journalists assembled, each of whose notebooks harboured several questions of mass destruction. Who, we wondered, would be chosen to address the mighty Rice?
At a quarter to 5, we were let out of our holding tank, and streamed through an ivy-decked gate into an impeccably manicured back lawn. Secret service agents you could have spotted a mile away were milling in the bushes.
It isn’t just Hollywood, these guys really do wear brush cuts and dark sunglasses and earpieces; they also communicate with crisp hand gestures which, together with the earpieces, make them appear vaguely deaf.
There followed the most respectful hush I’d yet witnessed in Kenya as we lined up like footballers a safe distance from the podium and waited for her majesty’s appearance. But where was she? Five, 10, 15 minutes went by. Feet shuffled, cameras sighed, and I heard a Reuters man whispering to a friend behind me: “What should I ask?” Lucky devil, he’d won the draw but now had the weight of all our curiosities hanging on his query.
And then out came Condi. Just like that, with no introduction, she strode out from the dark confines of Mr Ranneberger’s house — she was talking before reaching a full-stop in front of the microphone.
“I met with Kofi Annan today,” she began, listing off her day’s encounters without so much as a hello.
You’ve heard the rest of the sound bites: “This is not a matter of dictating to Kenyans? there is an urgent need to share real power... do it yesterday? business as usual?”
Here was a lady who had performed similar functions in places like Baghdad and Kabul, Islamabad and Beirut. What’s a little Nairobi, after all that?
Condi looked relaxed, alert, every inch the businesswoman. You don’t have to agree with her actions — say, helping to orchestrate the Iraq war — to respect her professionalism.
She spoke without pause for all of six or seven minutes; answered the two questions put forward by KTN and Reuters without hesitation, then did the same for two more questions hollered out from the anxious crowd.
One could almost fail to realise she didn’t say anything new.
And that was it — make of it what you will — that was Kenya’s biggest visit in recent history.
We shuffled off to file our stories. As for Condi, she had a plane to catch, a president (her own) to meet in Dar es Salaam, and perhaps a tread mill to jog on before bed time.
Story by ARNO KOPECKY
Publication Date: 2/23/2008
She’s brisk, she’s bright, she’s (red, white and) blue — and oh yeah, black too. She’s Condoleezza Rice, “the most powerful woman in the world.” For a few hours on Monday, she was in Nairobi for the highest-profile visit to Kenya since her predecessor, Mr Colin Powell, came to bid President Moi adieu in 2001.
Busy day, huh Condi? After pulling in at Kenyatta International Airport around 10am, she barrelled straight to Serena Hotel in downtown Nairobi for a chat with Mr Kofi Annan (who no doubt wishes his Kenya stay was as short as hers), then onto Harambee House for tea with President Kibaki before heading to the American ambassador’s lush Muthaiga residence to meet the aspiring prime minister.
Conspicuous by their absence around Harambee House, though, were the usually tough-looking police officers.
Phew... no sooner had Mr Raila Odinga left than a delegation from the lobby groups — code for big business — piled into Ranneberger’s palace... er house... to put in their plea for business as usual. By the time all that was over, we journalists were basically an afterthought.
For our part, the press did little but think about Condi all day. Her closing remarks were scheduled for 10 minutes to 5pm, which in Nairobispeak usually means a quarter past six. Not so for team America: they told reporters to show up around noon so the guards would have time for a thorough pat-down.
Tennis rackets
If only we’d brought our tennis rackets! The distractions of the ambassador’s living room were off limits to all but the first handful of photographers to arrive. They were allowed inside for a brief photo-op on the condition that each cameraman was accompanied by a security guard.
Those of us who pulled into Muthaiga drive after 1 o’clock were whisked down an alleyway and shoved through a little black gate at the mansion’s rear end; metal detectors awaited us there, then a short walk past the tennis court to the pool deck, where we waited for the next three hours.
This idle scene resembled a cocktail party, the only real difference being that the fruit juice brought around by white-shirted waiters lacked vodka. Everyone wore their finest but the expats who could hardly be troubled to tuck their shirts in.
We scattered across the pool deck and formed small groups that reflected the allegiances formed amongst the press corps over the last two months of war correspondence.
For the most part, print journalists stayed seated while the television personalities flitted from one clutch of journalists to another.
I joined a table of foreign correspondents — an Alabama girl, a Spaniard, a Frenchman, three Canadians and a Brit. Like everyone else, we filled the time with gossip. “Who are the Republicans more afraid of?” said the Spaniard; “Barack or Hillary? That’s what we should find out.” He seemed to think Hillary was the greater threat, but the rest of us were betting on the Luo.
“A friend of mine works at a five-star hotel in Jerusalem where Condi always stays,” said one of the Canadians. “She always has a treadmill brought up to her room, along with a personal chef.”
“Wouldn’t you? The chef, that is, not the treadmill.”
We all agreed that with Kosovo having just declared independence from Serbia, and Pakistan in the throes of its own electoral drama, America’s top diplomat would have to say something truly outrageous for this Nairobi afternoon to make news outside Kenya.
Shortly before the appointed hour, a press officer went around informing everyone that we would be allowed to ask only two questions at the end of Condi’s briefing. Two in total, that is, not each. A collective groan went up among the 50 or so journalists assembled, each of whose notebooks harboured several questions of mass destruction. Who, we wondered, would be chosen to address the mighty Rice?
At a quarter to 5, we were let out of our holding tank, and streamed through an ivy-decked gate into an impeccably manicured back lawn. Secret service agents you could have spotted a mile away were milling in the bushes.
It isn’t just Hollywood, these guys really do wear brush cuts and dark sunglasses and earpieces; they also communicate with crisp hand gestures which, together with the earpieces, make them appear vaguely deaf.
There followed the most respectful hush I’d yet witnessed in Kenya as we lined up like footballers a safe distance from the podium and waited for her majesty’s appearance. But where was she? Five, 10, 15 minutes went by. Feet shuffled, cameras sighed, and I heard a Reuters man whispering to a friend behind me: “What should I ask?” Lucky devil, he’d won the draw but now had the weight of all our curiosities hanging on his query.
And then out came Condi. Just like that, with no introduction, she strode out from the dark confines of Mr Ranneberger’s house — she was talking before reaching a full-stop in front of the microphone.
“I met with Kofi Annan today,” she began, listing off her day’s encounters without so much as a hello.
You’ve heard the rest of the sound bites: “This is not a matter of dictating to Kenyans? there is an urgent need to share real power... do it yesterday? business as usual?”
Here was a lady who had performed similar functions in places like Baghdad and Kabul, Islamabad and Beirut. What’s a little Nairobi, after all that?
Condi looked relaxed, alert, every inch the businesswoman. You don’t have to agree with her actions — say, helping to orchestrate the Iraq war — to respect her professionalism.
She spoke without pause for all of six or seven minutes; answered the two questions put forward by KTN and Reuters without hesitation, then did the same for two more questions hollered out from the anxious crowd.
One could almost fail to realise she didn’t say anything new.
And that was it — make of it what you will — that was Kenya’s biggest visit in recent history.
We shuffled off to file our stories. As for Condi, she had a plane to catch, a president (her own) to meet in Dar es Salaam, and perhaps a tread mill to jog on before bed time.
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