What is MUNGIKI?: Mungiki is a politico-religious group and a banned criminal organization in Kenya. Specifics of their origin and doctrines are unclear. What is clear is that they favor a return to indigenous African traditions and practices such as forced female genital cutting. Read in between the lines and you will notice striking similarities (backwardness) between MUNGIKI and right-wing Republicans. [ READ MORE ]
Sean HannityLIES ABOUT Obama’s Poll Ratings; Jonah Goldberg: Dems say opposing Obama is racism, Krugman “bangs his spoon on his high chair every week about this“
US President Barack Obama spoke at a news conference at the end of the G8 Summit in L’Aquila, Italy, June 10, 2009. After two days of talks focused on the economic crisis, trade and global warming, the final day of the G8 gathering in Italy looked at the problems facing the poorest nations. Meanwhile, Dr. Annan has handed over the secret list of election violence perpetrators to ICC prosecutor, Mr Luis Moreno-Ocampo
By Oliver Mathenge and Bernard Namunane [ Daily Nation, Nairobi ]
United States President Barack Obama has again used the Kenyan example to impress upon the African leadership on the need for policy change.
The US president is reported to have used a personal story about his Kenyan family saying that poor governance is responsible for their poor existence.
A top White House aide, Deputy National Security Adviser Michael Froman, told journalists that Mr Obama said; “My cousin in Kenya can’t find a job without paying a bribe, and that’s not the fault of the G8.”
This was during a meeting with leaders of Egypt, Algeria, Senegal, Nigeria, Libya and Ethiopia at the close of the Group of Eight summit at the l’Aquila town of Italy on Friday.
This was the second time he was making reference to Kenya to urge good governance in Africa.
African leaders
The US president also acknowledged the discussions with the African leaders during a press conference after the meeting.
“The point I was making was that my father travelled to the United States a mere 50 years ago yet now I have family members who live in villages, they themselves are not going hungry but they live in villages where hunger is real. And so this is something that I understand in very personal terms.
“And if you talk to people on the ground in Africa, certainly in Kenya, they will say that part of the issue here is the institutions aren’t working for ordinary people and so governance is a vital concern that has to be addressed.”
The comments came as the world’s most powerful leader headed for Ghana where he is expected to outline his administration’s policy for Africa. Mr Obama will make an address in Accra Saturday after arriving in the West African nation on Friday evening.
The US president is said to have shared that when his father, Barack Obama Sr., left Kenya, the country’s GDP was higher than that of Korea. He added that South Korea is now industrialised and relatively wealthy while Kenya, as well as much of Africa, is still struggling economically.
Skip Kenya
Mr Obama, who has skipped Kenya in his first trip in black Africa told the African leaders that it was important that development programs are implemented so they reach people who really need them. He said that any assistance granted should actually get to the farmers who should benefit from it.
Leaders at Friday’s G8 meetings committed themselves to a $20 billion initiative to help farmers in poor countries boost production. The investment, which is $5bn more than had been expected, will fund a three-year initiative to help poor nations develop their own agriculture.
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President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga during the signing of the National Peace Accord on February 28, last year.
Mr Annan has handed over the secret list to ICC prosecutor, Mr Luis Moreno-Ocampo.
Kenya’s attempts to delay punishment of top suspects accused of crimes against humanity on Thursday backfired after chief mediator Kofi Annan abruptly handed over the secret list to the International Criminal Court.
What started as recommendations for the formation of a commission of inquiry into the violence following the presidential election in 2007 is now formally an international judicial matter and Kenya’s options have all but ended.
Irritated by the deadlines set by the Panel of Eminent African Personalities, which brokered a deal to end the violence last year, the government sent a delegation to Mr Annan and later to negotiate directly with the prosecutor at the ICC, Mr Luis Moreno-Ocampo.
The reception in Europe was far from warm. Mr Annan thought Kenyan lacked the political will to punish the perpetrators of the violence.
His advice was for the leaders to speak to Mr Moreno-Ocampo first and then he would communicate his decision.
He summoned the other members of the panel of Eminent African Personalities, Mr Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania and Ms Graça Machel of South Africa and they decided to hand over the list of suspects to the International Criminal Court.
His “communication” on Thursday caught everyone by surprise and threw the government into a panic.
Both the Party of National Unity and the Orange Democratic Movement have paid lip service to the need to end impunity without real commitment to punishment for crimes against humanity.
ODM, according to a party apparatchik, is “focusing on… the officials who were in charge when innocent people were killed by police.”
The feeling in ODM is that more of PNU people stand to be prosecuted than its own.
The dossier it sent to the International Criminal Court in January last year consisted of evidence of murder by the State, including postmortem reports showing that victims had been shot.
On the other hand, PNU appears to believe that the bloody crackdown on protesters was a law and order issue, which is necessary to preserve the state, and that the Mungiki slaughter in Naivasha and elsewhere was “spontaneous” retaliation for killings and mass evictions reported in the Rift Valley and elsewhere. In other words, ODM started it.
In both parties, those responsible for the slaughter believe that they could threaten new violence to deter prosecutions.
Some have argued that what is needed is “healing” and “reconciliation” rather than prosecution.
This explains the fashionable idea of referring even the worst criminals to the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission.
Justice minister Mutula Kilonzo is on record as having said that a special tribunal would only be formed if it did not threaten stability, an indication that there has been no single-minded pursuit of justice.
All these are moot arguments now: According to the agreement entered into with the International Criminal Court, Kenya must establish a court or tribunal to try the suspects, offer proof that it was protecting witnesses and preserving evidence ? all by September.
The court or tribunal must not only be accepted by Parliament ? a near impossibility given MPs’ hostility to a local tribunal ? but must also have the broad support of many sectors of the society, according to Mr Annan’s letter.
To build consensus and get MPs to pass the necessary laws in three months would require the kind of commitment to ending impunity that Kenya is yet to demonstrate.
On Thursday, Mr Annan separately called President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga to inform them of his decision, sparking a flurry of meetings at Harambee House, the President’s office, attended by both the President and the PM.
The two, it appears, did not expect Mr Annan to hand over the envelope to Mr Moreno-Ocampo, especially after last week’s visit to Geneva and The Hague by the government delegation.
“Mr Kofi Annan today (Thursday) informed President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga that the Panel had transmitted to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court the sealed envelope and supporting materials entrusted to him by the Waki Commission on 17 October 2008,” Mr Annan’s statement said.
To underline the importance of his calls, Mr Annan also wrote separately to the President and the PM to inform them of the decision taken by the panel.
He said the decision was reached after the government delegation of Cabinet ministers Mutula Kilonzo, James Orengo and Attorney General Amos Wako met Mr Moreno-Ocampo.
The prosecutor gave the government until end of September to show proof that it was prosecuting the prominent people behind the violence in which more than 1,133 Kenyans were killed.
Sealed envelope
Mr Moreno-Ocampo’s office confirmed receiving the sealed enveloped and materials bearing evidence of the killings from Mr Annan.
The ICC chief prosecutor, who is Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on a visit to several Africa countries, has stressed no one will be spared if the government fails to meet its side of the bargain.
Sources said the meeting between President Kibaki, Mr Wako, Mr Kilonzo and Mr Orengo did not agree on the kind of judicial mechanism that they would put in place.
ODM had expressed fears that a special division of the High Court may not meet international standards.
Mr Wako, Mr Kilonzo and Mr Orengo were tasked to quickly work out a judicial mechanism that would be acceptable to MPs, The Hague and the public.
Although Mr Annan had welcomed the government’s efforts to either establish a local tribunal or a judicial mechanism to try the suspects, he declared that it must meet international standards and be agreed on by all Kenyans.
The slow pace
However, he hit at the slow pace of putting in place a mechanism and warned that impunity must be tackled for Kenya to embark on a fresh chapter.
He reminded the government that the public was becoming restless with the delay in implementing reforms under Agenda Four of the National Accord.
“Justice delayed is justice denied. The people of Kenya want to see concrete progress on impunity. Without such progress, the reconciliation between ethnic groups and the long-term stability of Kenya is in jeopardy,” he warned.
A draft Cabinet paper on the establishment of the special court has been submitted to the President and the PM, although it appears that it will meet strong opposition in Parliament.
The proposal seeks to set up a special division of the High Court that will be composed of foreign and local judges. The prosecutor and the investigator will be non-Kenyans.
Martin Plaut, BBC News: For Ghanaians, there is little doubt that they deserve to be Mr Obama’s first real African destination since assuming office. Nigeria was not really suitable, given the question marks over the way in which President Umaru Yar’Adua was elected. Kenya, home of Mr Obama’s father, experienced post-election violence. Ethiopia has jailed the leader of the opposition, and South Africa’s Jacob Zuma is new in the post and something of an unknown quantity. Not only is Ghana clearly democratic, but it has some of the African oil on which the US increasingly depends, and there is the symbolic link with slavery, from which so many African-Americans trace their heritage. So Ghana ticks Mr Obama’s boxes – a suitable stage on which to launch the president’s Africa policy on the continent itself.
By calling the subjugated nations of the Luos, Somalis, and Oromos of Kenya merely “local populations”, by minimizing the importance and the dramatic nature of the events that take place in Eastern Africa, and by shifting the focus on secluded spots – called “exotic resorts” -, the Western mass media perpetrate a heinous act and a voluntary genocide against the subjugated nations of Kenya who struggle for national independence, cultural integrity, sociopolitical freedom, and economic self-determination. — Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis [ Enlarge ] The recent riots (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7935470.stm) in the Kenyan capital only highlight the impossibility of the artificial colonial state to continue existing.
Of course, had Somalia been a Christian state, Kenya would have never been created.
The colonial state of Kenya represents only the anti-Islamic need of criminal, heinous, racist and perfidious England to divide the Muslims of the Eastern Africa coast, and to segregate them in various fictional realms like Kenya and Tanzania whereby the Eastern African Muslims would miraculously be transformed into “minorities“.
In fact, Kenya cannot and will not exist as a unitary state in the same way Abyssinia, the world’s most criminal state, is doomed to collapse and get decomposed into many independent, national states.
The aforementioned does not necessarily imply that various Eastern African nations could not have formed diverse confederations whereby many different nations and peoples would coexist in peace and harmony; this could have been the case, had the various indigenous nations agreed in terms of parity, equity, and justice. However, this did not happen.
In the case of the infamous colonial fossil ‘Abyssinia’ (fallaciously re-baptized “Ethiopia”), there was a series of military invasions that always ended up in national and/or spiritual genocides (for the subdued Oromos, Afars, Sidamas, Ogadenis, Shekachos, Kaffas, Kambaatas, Hadiyas, Gedeos, Anuak, Nuer, Agaw, Shinasha, Berta and Gumuz).
In the case of the colonial territories of Kenya and Tanzania, the colonizers were Europeans (Portuguese, English and Germans); the colonial agreements between the English racist administration and selected tribal leaders, who – corrupt, bribed and besotted – accepted to play the shameful role of the local tyrant who is at the same time the shameful puppet of the colonial masters, helped establish tyrannical regimes that constitute a real hell for the outright majority of the subjugated nations.
By calling the subjugated nations of the Luos, Somalis, and Oromos of Kenya merely “local populations”, by minimizing the importance and the dramatic nature of the events that take place in Eastern Africa, and by shifting the focus on secluded spots – called “exotic resorts” -, the Western mass media perpetrate a heinous act and a voluntary genocide against the subjugated nations of Kenya who struggle for national independence, cultural integrity, sociopolitical freedom, and economic self-determination.
At the same time, the Western mass media bear witness to the Anti-Christian character of their endeavours, as they resonate lies, criminal falsehood, and deceit – only to serve the purposes of the Apostate Freemasonic Lodge that truly controls the Western establishments.
Only to be proven mendacious by the following reports of the leading humanitarian organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) that I republish here integrally.
There is only one sentence all the people of the world have to know about Kenya:
The will of the outright majority of the subjugated nations that have been entrapped in the Prison “Kenya” passionately desire to see the Kenyan state as soon as possible broken down to many pieces so that every indigenous nation be able to form their own nationhood. Democracy, freedom, and development will only then become feasible.
Lethal Force Against Students Protesting the Killing Underscores Need for Police Reform March 6
“When police enter a university campus with guns blazing, the need for urgent police reform and accountability is obvious”.
Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch
(New York) – The Kenyan government should immediately establish an independent investigation into the killings on March 5, 2009, of two prominent Kenyan human rights activists, Human Rights Watch said today. The police’s use of unnecessary lethal force against students protesting the killings, resulting in one student’s death, also highlights the need for the government to carry out promptly United Nations recommendations on police reform, Human Rights Watch said.
On the evening of March 5 near the University of Nairobi, unidentified gunmen blocked the car of Oscar Kamau Kingara and John Paul Oulu of the Oscar Foundation Free Legal Aid Clinic and shot them dead. The Oscar Foundation has frequently and publicly criticized the police for their participation in extrajudicial killings and other serious abuses, most recently before parliament in February 2009.
“The murder of two activists long critical of police abuses demands an inquiry that is not under the control of the police,” said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “An independent inquiry is the only way to reach the truth and ensure justice for this horrible crime.”
Following the killings, several hundred University of Nairobi students held a demonstration protesting the killings that evening. Demonstrators told Human Rights Watch that they believed the government was responsible for the attack. Students took the bullet-riddled car and the body of Kingara onto campus, refusing to surrender his body to police. A standoff ensued between a large contingent of police who demanded that the body be handed over and the angry, but largely peaceful, demonstrators.
After negotiations broke down, Human Rights Watch witnessed scores of police officers storming the campus using tear gas and firing live ammunition. Students retaliated by throwing stones at the police. As the police pursued students carrying Kingara’s body across the campus, gunfire became more and more frequent.
Human Rights Watch observed some officers firing into the air, but one student was shot dead by the police. The police confirmed the student’s death in a statement today concluding that the use of lethal force was “unprofessional and uncalled for,” and noting that three officers who used live ammunition at the protest are “under investigation.”
In policing demonstrations, the Kenyan police should abide by the United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, Human Rights Watch said. The principles call upon law enforcement officials to apply nonviolent means before resorting to the use of force, to use force only in proportion to the seriousness of the offense, and to use lethal force only when strictly unavoidable to protect life.
Human Rights Watch called on the Kenyan government to implement immediately the recommendations for police reform proposed by Kenyan Justice Philip Nyamu Waki, head of an independent commission that investigated post-election violence in 2008, and those by Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extra-judicial killings.
Those recommendations include a public acknowledgement by President Mwai Kibaki of the problem of extrajudicial killings, the need for sweeping reform of the police, the setting-up of an independent police oversight board, the replacement of both the police commissioner and the attorney general, and the establishment of a special tribunal to prosecute those responsible for post-election violence, including victims of police lethal force.
“When police enter a university campus with guns blazing, the need for urgent police reform and accountability is obvious,” said Gagnon. “Kenyans need a police force that protects their rights, not one that abuses them.”
Background
In 2007 the Oscar Foundation published a report on extrajudicial killings by the Kenyan police, “License to kill: Extrajudicial execution and police brutality in Kenya.” The Oscar Foundation activists had also testified to Parliament in early 2009 on extrajudicial killings.
The killings of Kingara and Oulu came on a day of heightened tensions over the February 2009 report of UN Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial killings Philip Alston into extra-judicial killings in Kenya. Alston’s report concluded that, “the Kenyan police are a law unto themselves and they kill often and with impunity.”
Weeks before, Alston had met with Kingara and Oulu, among others, to collect evidence of police killings of alleged members of the Mungiki sect, a religious group that has turned into a criminal organization. Members and sympathizers of the Mungiki had held demonstrations across Nairobi and the town of Naivasha earlier on in the day when Kingara and Oulu were killed.
Prime Minister Raila Odinga responded to the killings of Kingara and Oulu with a statement today saying that the police are suspects in these killings and asserting the need for an independent agency to carry out an investigation.
Lift Ban on Public Rallies, Media Broadcasts January 12, 2008
The Kenyan government should urgently and publicly order the police to stop using excessive, lethal force against public rallies, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch urged political leaders on all sides to call on supporters to demonstrate peacefully.
Opposition leaders have called for rallies next week in defiance of the government’s broad ban on public gatherings, prompting concerns that new clashes could result in further deaths and injuries. Human Rights Watch is also concerned by ongoing violence in the Rift Valley, where hundreds of people have died and hundreds of thousands have been displaced.
“Kenyan security forces have a duty to rein in criminal violence and should protect people, but they shouldn’t turn their weapons on peaceful protestors,” said Georgette Gagnon, acting Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should make it very clear that police will be held to account for using lethal force against people for simply expressing political views.”
Since the disputed December 27, 2007 presidential elections, Kenyan police in several cities have used live ammunition to disperse protesters and disperse looters, killing and wounding dozens. Some observers and even police have described the police response as an unofficial “shoot to kill” policy. For example, Human Rights Watch received credible reports that in Kisumu dozens of people were shot dead by police while demonstrating against the election result announced on December 31.
Even people who did not attend rallies have been affected. Human Rights Watch spoke to eyewitnesses in Nairobi who saw unarmed individuals hit by police gunfire on the fringes of protests in the Kibera and Mathare slums. One woman was hit by stray bullets that penetrated the wall of her home. Another unarmed man was shot in the leg. A boy watching a protest from the door of his house was shot in the chest. Kenyan human rights organizations reported deaths and injuries involving police in the cities of Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, and Eldoret.
A source within the police, who was unwilling to be identified, told Human Rights Watch that “many of us are unhappy with what we are being asked to do. This ‘shoot to kill’ policy is illegal, and it is not right. We have brothers and sisters, sons and daughters out there.”
In policing demonstrations, the Kenyan police should abide by the United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, Human Rights Watch said. The principles call upon law enforcement officials to apply nonviolent means before resorting to the use of force only in proportion to the seriousness of the offense, and to use lethal force only when strictly unavoidable to protect life.
Kenyan and international law prohibits a general ban on demonstrations. Under Kenyan law, those wishing to demonstrate must notify the police and the police can reject the request on the grounds of public order, but no law permits the authorities to impose a blanket ban on public assembly. Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Kenya ratified in 1976, a state may only impose restrictions on the right to peaceful assembly that are strictly necessary to maintain public order.
“The government should defuse tension by immediately lifting the ban on public assembly and allowing the planned demonstrations to go ahead,” said Gagnon. “The right to peaceful assembly is a cornerstone of a healthy democracy.”
The government has also banned live political broadcasting. Human Rights Watch again urged the Kenyan authorities to immediately lift unnecessary restrictions on media freedom.
Human Rights Watch also called on the government to immediately investigate the deaths that have already occurred during protests and in the Rift Valley. Prosecutions should be carried out where there is evidence of wrongdoing and the victims should be provided an adequate remedy, including compensation.
Background
Kenyans voted peacefully and in record numbers in parliamentary and presidential elections on December 27. In the parliamentary elections, 99 of the 210 seats were won by the opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM). Vice-President Moody Awori and 14 of President Mwai Kibaki’s top ministers lost their seats.
The presidential election pitted Kibaki against the ODM’s Raila Odinga, and the presidential vote count appeared to be tampered with. The chairman of the Electoral Commission of Kenya said that he did “not know whether Mr. Kibaki won the elections.” The European Union Electoral Mission also expressed grave doubts about the legitimacy of the presidential results.
Talks between the opposition and the Kibaki government have not yet occurred and the opposition is planning for further mass action across the country on January 16, 2008. Further violence is expected as the government has indicated it will attempt to prevent the demonstrations from occurring.
Violence has spread throughout the Rift Valley and the west of the country as angry citizens have burnt and looted factories, shops and homes and chased away those perceived to be supporters of Kibaki (mostly, but not exclusively, members of his Kikuyu tribe). Kikuyu homes in the Rift Valley have been selectively burned and Kikuyu residents killed. Thirty people were burned to death in a church near Eldoret. According to media reports, the mortuary in Eldoret contains 290 bodies killed as a result of the violence, and Kisumu has 91. Nationwide, government figures put the death toll at 486 but independent estimates range as high as 600.
Note: A customary scenery in the streets of Kenya that does not usually find its way to the leading circulation newspapers in Europe, England and America, probably because Kenyan slums are not considered as ….. Kenya by the colonial establishmnets. From: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/17/2141084.htm
Chang’aa is an illicit alcoholic drink which is popular in Kenya. Distilled from grains like maize(corn) and sorghum, it is very potent. Its production and distribution is controlled in many cases by criminal gangs like the Mungiki. Many deaths have been caused by changaa contaminated by methanol.
Chang’aa is not unlike vodka, but is deadly when topped up with methanol, and in some cases formaldehyde.
Brewing changaa is illegal in Kenya, but a corrupt police force and hopeless government do very little to curb this menace.
Kisumu is a port city in western Kenya at 1131m, with a population of 355,024 (1999 census). It is the third largest city in Kenya, the principal city of western Kenya, the capital of Nyanza Province and the headquarters of Kisumu District. It is the largest city in Nyanza Province and second most Important city after Kampala in the greater Lake Victoria basin.
Kisumu has “Friendship” status with Cheltenham, UK and “Sister City” status with Roanoke, Virginia, USA…..[MORE >>]
