By Gwada Ogot

   Gwada Ogot
Josiah Mwangi Kariuki (JM) is arguably Kenya’s most conscientious political leader ever. He was murdered on 2nd March 1975 by suspected government agents. His legacy remains strong in Kenya and a memorial service in his honor has been commemorated annually since his death. His hallowed vision for Kenya is captured in the following words he wrote: “It takes more than a national anthem, however stirring and a national court of arms, however distinctive, a national flag, however appropriate and a national flower, however beautiful, to make a nation.”

The statement is a search for a missing component of leadership, the quality of being humane.

His demands for social justice cost him his life. This is a factual prospect that faces any leader who attempts to rock the pirate ship of the status quo in Kenya, but one worth every drop of effort and every spot of risk. The call to national duty is not optional.

Great nation’s rise by great innovations and Innovation elevates quality ensuring comprehensive national profit. Great leaders too fire national consciousness enhancing the prisms through which the citizenry views itself and others in tandem. No sane nation pegs its resurrection on feigned salvation or neither the import of its false promises nor compromises on its own logic of posterity.

In Kenya, colonial military and psychological warfare facilitated the plunder of our minds, culture and natural resources. The redemptive acts against these foreign buccaneers were locally mediated by justified blood and iron which forced round table negotiations.

Neo-Colonial leadership maintains the pillage insuring itself via strategic ethnic profiling. The net result being that poor leadership stimulates national anger and frustration. It also cultivates mistrust and suspicion amongst the population. In the process, they facilitate continued domination and insulate their bounty by keeping the masses in conflict. The nation is caught in the rebellious grip of false prophets of change and reform mercenaries who thrive on crisis and confusion. It is essential to infuse integrity and order into the reform effort devoid of low brinkmanship, cheap propaganda and vested political interests. Freedom from national malignance is imperative. With liberty a clear obligation, how and when the citizenry intervenes, on behalf of the nation will be determined by the measured actions of its new leaders. Matters of food security, economic liberation, land reform, policy overhaul and institutionalization of patriotism must take precedence over the needless brouhaha of political bickering.

The short distance we have so far covered as a nation is directly proportional to the short-sightedness of our leadership. The scoundrels in power have taken us as far as they possibly visualize and can therefore see no further. The nation must look beyond them towards the alluring future to which they do not belong. Crafting your future is not a charade or a convenience, neither is it an act or simulation, nor is it a test or experiment and it definitely is not, a contest between popularity and principle. It is a new order that reconstitutes conservative beliefs, restructures society, restores national prestige and power and renews national sense of responsibility and responsibility.

It goes beyond impulsive press conferences, quick city marches and other forms of showy national protests, a national movement is requisite. Despite popular use of all these dramatic techniques, nothing has changed or changes. These are surface appliances which attract surface responses. The activists act in expected manner and the police respond in routine fashion. So corruption, in its every conceivable shade continues with unabated impunity as the people watch the brotherhood in a feast of fury.

“It is an amazing fact but one amply attested that some human beings have an infinite capacity to endure injustice without retaliation and apparently without resentment against their oppressors. Instances of this phenomenon are numerous and they come from every part of the world where one group dominates another. Militant leaders of protest movements have been driven to despair by the apathy they have encountered among those they would lead to freedom; Members of dominant groups have often commented on the cheerfulness and loyalty they observe among those who would seem to have no reason for such sentiments.”

The above passage drawn from Harry M Johnson’s book, Introduction to Sociology, aptly describes a puzzling trend in need of an appropriate social prescription. A serious national introspection that may help explain why we are where we are today and in addition help project where we want to be as a nation tomorrow. The desire of the people to move on is strong but conditional and must be without the current crop of leaders. More so, for a people who completely surrender national common sense to the same known political pirates at every election, such examination is inevitably urgent.

Back at the yard, the malignance of ethnic slush is as always prominent, influencing trade, rental occupation of buildings, access to private and public services and determines a considerable part of national relations. Even critical policy decisions that govern institutions of higher learning, research, planning and implementation suffers such biased degradations. These actions cement the path for illicit personal aggrandizement; vital cogs in the corruption wheel of fortune. As a result, honest effort is repudiated and national growth ultimately stunts. Civility in the mean time was long deleted from the national memory disk.

The darkness of our imperial rape cannot however dim the light of future national prospects. There is no doubt that beyond our national social degeneration lies untapped a well of moral prosperity. Every Kenyan is consciously aware, that somewhere within our national hearts, someplace, wherever within our national quarters, there lives a flowing fountain of peace not perfect but gratifying, a warm acceptance for each other, based on a true feeling that we so often ignore, and a spirit so strong, it tolerates the worst of our national character. Feelings of patriotism ring not only from exploits over others but also in victory paeans over a self inflicted leadership plague.

How have we, if at all, combated poverty, unemployment, landlessness, insecurity, a lack of patriotism, social irresponsibility, ethnicity, natural and artificial vagaries, scarcity of clean water and all the myriad challenges daily facing our nation? At what point do Kenyans stop the nightmare which we all actively simulate? Or do we have to wait until that moment when we have milked all parastatal dry, raped all our women sore, killed all the able men, retold our lofty reform tales, cut the last of juicy deals and consumed every available national confidence and resource? Then onto ourselves we will turn, each one of us coldly aware of our very dark capacities.

Patriotism shows gratitude to ones nation, a union of its nationals, their personal aspirations and national understanding irrespective of what may have been spoken of each other, thought of one another, or inflicted one upon the other. In matters of conscience such as these, the people have no choice.

The entire Kenyan public is today reduced to a gleeful voyeur as elected leadership plunders the country in ways coarser than those of the colonial buccaneer, raids national coffers, steals stores constitutionally entrusted upon it, speculates with national lands, incites civil strife, and sells the national soul for silver and gold. Indeed it is the Kenyans people who stand accused of being moribund and ineffective and not its expired leadership. A people who vote in buccaneers for leaders then go on to actively complain about it have nothing to mitigate on their behalf. What is the expected state of a nation that habitually elects criminals, canonizes murderers, and honors infidels?

In central province, the peasant Kikuyu farmer forever lives helpless at the mercy of bloody gangs and conniving middlemen, the artificial poverty of Nyanza decays a whole people yet pays dividends to the leaders, the unjustifiable waste of North Eastern province, her hunger, thirst and pain, the seismic conflicts of the rift valley and their latency for recurrence, the freewheeling spiral of Nairobi into modern Sodom and Gomorrah, unfair land allocations at the coast all point to a nation gone awry. Yet we all look the other way as the clouds darken above us. Former American President, George Kennedy gave the prophetic warning that, “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”

Punishment, within its legal context, is an integral part of any social reform process. It is the only way for those who obtain public confidence by false pretenses and who commit indecent assault on society. Prosecution of leaders who have exhibited exhaustive mastery of every perversion from opulence, insolence, prostitution, devil worship, drug dealing, perjury, murder and theft is fair path for any country seeking renaissance.? Only by jumping over the soaring stile of justice can Kenya embrace the new and beckoning beginning. In this regard, there are no short cuts.

Author Colin Wilson in his masterpiece, the Criminal history of Mankind, writes of British revenge against a decade of swaggering Roman brutality, “they hung up naked the most noble and distinguished women and they cut off their breasts and sewed them into their mouths in order to make the victims appear to be eating them; afterwards they impaled the women on sharp skewers run lengthwise through their bodies. ‘These atrocities probably had a ritual element-not unlike the Mau Mau in modern times. The men were treated with similar ferocity.” Atrocious acts such as these are also today regular features of Kenyan society including be-headings and skinning of victims. To make matters worse, they are on an upsurge and threaten the entire fabric of our national existence as a nation. The choices for Kenyans is starkly clear- either embrace these hideous forms of vengeance or revert to the due process of law which punishes crime indiscriminately.

For a nation deficient in unity of purpose and without a common national vision, our national psyche as a people remains hostage to the political ping pong of unscrupulous leaders who profit from induced national morass. In the process, patriotism is ridiculed as a domain for the realistically weak and ethnically infirm. Tribal bigotry and malevolent innuendo are ironically proffered as suitable substitutes, lairs for the strong tribes’ people in a 21st century nation.

Greater national cohesion, a dream so long held by Kenyans and it’s still hoped for fulfillment, likewise hurts at the will of rudimentary forces preaching tribal domination and economic strangulation within its very borders. The polarizing credos of the political elite, cooked for self sustenance fuels national socio-economic decay at the peoples dear expense. Yet we will overcome for the ailment has been nationally diagnosed and the antidote of a new leadership prescribed to save our country Kenya.

This illuminating light shines at the end of the tunnel for our nation. Even though we acknowledge that our leaders may have thrown out the bath water with the baby and soap, the Kenyan people retain in their hands the basin of togetherness, an integral ingredient that defines our shared senses. So strong are the bonds of a people’s common experiences, a people’s joy and tears together, a people’s hopes and desires as one, and an overwhelming wish for peace and reliable progress together. To harness the potency of a people’s power, the injection of a new leadership is requisite.

The world around us is changing and we must compel ourselves to change with it. The country is up to its neck in the behavioral sink besieged by crippling official corruption, confirmed lack of leadership, foresight and habitual impunity. These are the humiliating hallmarks of the trap we today call our national government. Kenya can sink no further for there is no where left to sink. From the nadir we currently find ourselves in, the country can only arise.

To the elders who possess the lessons of yesterday, to the middle aged whose responsibility is today and to the youth in whom potential lies, for inspirational direction I share with you the words of tribute paid to Republican senator George Norris of Nebraska in September 1932 by Democratic presidential nominee Al Smith as written in Profiles of courage, a book by John F Kennedy,”History asks,” Did the man have integrity? Did the man have unselfishness? Did the man have courage? Did the man have consistency?

To JM Kariuki all four questions are robustly answered in the affirmative. What will your answers look like at the inevitable trial of conscience?

To you all these questions will ultimately be directed by your conscience, by your children and children’s children in regard to what you did when Kenya was rotting and what you did to help resuscitate Kenya and pray what you do today aids correct answers.

The early bird catches the worm — the Kenyan public has for far too long played worm for manipulative political leaders. Are you the early bird that catches the worm or are you the early worm caught by the bird?” Information communication is the answer. Information is power.

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   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.

Kenya: Killing of Activists Needs Independent Inquiry

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.

Kenya: End Police Use of Excessive Force

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.

Further readings: — http://oscarfound.org/

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

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By GITAU WARIGI

It is totally pointless to reshuffle a Cabinet and fail to make heads roll for the starvation millions in the country are facing.

Chiding ministers for speaking out of turn and making them write apology letters when the persons responsible for this food emergency remain seated in that same Cabinet does not make the problem go away.

YOUR WORRY SHOULD NOT BE THAT ministers are making all manner of accusations. Your main concern, rather, should be what illegality some have been engaging in behind your back.

The obvious message communicated from the Thursday Cabinet meeting is that the government’s priority concern is to keep Cabinet disagreements under wraps so that the dirty linen does not get exposed.

Dealing with those behind the scandalous wheeler-dealing in maize and other things can wait.

I have a very angry problem with the reasoning that to manage the Grand Coalition in such a way that it doesn’t blow up requires turning a blind eye to criminality of the worst sort.

Some people scam the maize from our strategic reserve. The country now faces starvation. But since we don’t want to rock the boat, we gloss over the thievery and move on. Too bad some people will die of hunger. It’s called collateral damage.

I BURST OUT LAUGHING WHEN I heard the President and his Cabinet went begging before foreign ambassadors for food aid. The comedy was not about the expensive motorcades the press got hysterical about.

The comedy was about the President apologetically admitting there were rogues in his government as he pleaded for alms.

And the top ones were sitting right there with him.

Only he cannot see the irony of begging when the thieves responsible for the situation remain well ensconced in the system.

How can you honestly expect somebody to help you when you are still hosting in your house the thief who stole your food?

If I was in the donors’ position, why should I listen when you show no inclination or competence for executive house-cleaning?

On Wednesday, the Internal Security minister told the nation that the culprits ? who he admitted included MPs ? would appear in court this week.

I HAVE NOT SEEN ANY SO ARRAIGNED and I am not in the slightest bit surprised. The President is blissfully glum, as is his habit. He shows no care in the world except for the tit-tat between ministers which annoys him so much.

If he knows there are rogues within, only God knows why he doesn’t act against them as the country begins to starve. And we are expected to endure four more years of this aimless, crisis-to-crisis drift?

Last week in Parliament, the minister for Agriculture tabled with some fanfare a list of 3,000 entities who bought maize from the National Cereals and Produce Board in the recent past.

The list is undergoing scrutiny and the results of this are to be known on Wednesday. Before that is done, no one can say with certainty whether these buyers are legitimate, or if they are even millers.

Any street huckster knows the first thing to do is to register a dummy company whenever he or she wants to carry out some shady business deal with a parastatal.

UNLESS HE IS INCURABLY DAFT, HIS name doesn’t have to appear anywhere in the registration document.

Normally, NCPB releases maize only to millers. The question Parliament must ask as it verifies the particulars of the 3,000 buyers is what milling capacity each and every one of them has compared to the size of the maize quota they were allocated.

Their capacity in distribution should also be taken into account. In other words, if you operate just a small posho mill in Endebess and you go seeking for 50,000 bags of maize from NCPB, then there is excellent reason for people to smell a rat.

THE USUAL CIVIL SOCIETY “WATCHDOGS” have been strangely silent as what is a largely man-made famine unravels.

Where matters stand, it is totally unacceptable to rationalise the inertia in sacking culprits on the grounds that no one partner in the grand coalition has the power to act unilaterally against the other side.

If the two sides cannot agree on the simple matter of who should take responsibility for the food emergency, then it is surely time to say enough to this hypocritical and parasitic coalition.

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Writes: Kap Kirwok

It’s only tyrants who live in mortal fear of people power

Every time I see images of brutality by a government — any — against its people, I am reminded of this quote.

Fear is a little word whose power and consequences is right up there with gravity and love. Like gravity and love, fear is indispensable for survival. And I don’t just mean human survival — I include specifically the survival of oppressive governments.

Oppressive governments live in mortal fear of fearless citizens. Consequently, they will try to instil maximum fear into the people. They do this through threats of deprivation or violence, and occasionally, use of deadly force. When such tactics fail, governments are thrown into panic. They then resort to increasingly desperate measures.

But if fearless citizens give oppressive governments sleepless nights, it is when such citizens unite and acquire arms that terrify them. Fearless, united and armed citizens are the stuff which political nightmares are made of. It is why governments will go to great lengths, in the name of law and order, to deny citizens the right to freely organise or own guns.

I do not think Kenya has reached the level of tension and paranoia that is the norm in repressive regimes. We are still a relatively free society. But there are times when it appears we are determined to tempt fate. There are those who say that, after our dalliance with chaos and death early this year, we are unlikely to go there again. We walked to the gates of hell, saw the horror of it, and turned back — in fear. We learned our lesson. Or did we, really?

Part of the reason it was easy to mobilise communities against each other during last year’s season of infamy was that the perceived ‘enemy camp‘ was easily identifiable — those seen, rightly or wrongly, as monopolising power and resources. In a coalition arrangement such as we now have, where almost every community is represented in Government, the ‘enemy camp‘ is not another tribe.

In the absence of discernible ideological fault-lines between the coalition partners, and the lack of a true opposition, the obvious differentiator becomes the glaring socio-economic dichotomy: the haves and have-nots; the rich and the poor; the privileged and the marginalised; the smooth fat cats versus the scrawny, skinny rats. It is a fault line just as dangerous as ethnic rivalry and enmity.

   The death toll in the disturbances in Kenya (December 2007) — numbered
   in the thousands    | More Pictures |

To reiterate: the thing that terrifies governments is the deadly combination of fearlessness, unity and arms in the hands of oppressed citizens. It is what puts many oppressive governments out of business.

Territorial supremacy

But what should really scare the daylights out of any oppressive government is something else: geography.

Consider just two places, Waziristan, Pakistan and Juarez, Mexico.

Waziristan is part of what is called the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or Fata. Since Pakistan’s independence, Fata has virtually operated outside the control of Islamabad’s central authority. Fata has become a euphemism for the lost territories. Here, tribal warlords, Al Qaeda and the Taliban call the shots despite a sustained campaign by more than 80,000 regular and paramilitary forces of the Pakistani army. And yet this is an area of just 11,585 square kilometres ? seven times smaller than Kenya’s coast province. The reason: fearless, united and armed fighters aided by a friendly geography ? a rugged terrain with a porous border (with Afghanistan) through which arms freely flow.

The case of Juarez is even more interesting. This is a bustling Mexican city across the border from the Unites States city of El Paso, Texas. By some accounts, it is one of the most dangerous cities in the world, animated by a lucrative cross-border drug trade. Despite waves of massive crackdowns, often coordinated with US authorities, and sophisticated border surveillance, drug trafficking, murders and kidnappings continue unabated.

The Kenyan Election Violence (Dec. 2007) in Video

Juarez and Waziristan may appear remote from Kenya but their geographical situations are not. Kenya has long, porous borders with lawless Somalia and an insecure border with Ethiopia, on account of the Oromo Liberation Front and other bandits. The unpatrolled border with Uganda and Sudan means weapons can easily be smuggled into the country.

Geography.

It is the reason the so-called Sabaot Land Defence Force continues to defy extinction despite serious blows inflicted on it by the Kenya Army. Geography is the reason Mugabe’s regime has been lucky so far: no rugged borders with unstable countries where arms could easily flow in.

Beware of geography. Happy New Year!.

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About The Author: Kap Kirwok — Mr. Kirwok is based in the USA.
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The change was evident immediately after the man whose roots are in the village became the leader of the world’s most powerful nation, the United States of America.

   Kenya Power and Lighting Company workers connect the village of Kogelo to the mains on Thursday

   The President-Elects First Press Conference, Friday

Talking to Mr Barack Obama, according to his brother and family spokesperson, Mr Malik Abong’o was an ordinary affair before Thursday.

Everyone’s lips

‘We spoke last night, he told us he was doing great. He was happy that we are fine. We congratulated him and wished him well in the new challenges that come with the presidency,’ said the first born son of the Obama family.

Although grandmother Sarah Onyango Obama did not speak to the media on Thursday, all she could say to visitors who had come to congratulate her was ‘Nyasaye duong‘ (God is great).

And despite the rainy day and the muddy paths, the once sleepy village hosted thousands of visitors on Thursday, driven by a curiosity to see the roots of the man whose name is on everyone’s lips.

The world spotlight is firmly on the hitherto sleepy village because President-elect Obama’s late father, Mr Barack Obama Snr, was born here.

According to Luo customs, a child belongs to the father, hence the strong bonds of kinship to the American president-elect in Western Kenya.

A second bull and several goats and sheep were slaughtered on Thursday as celebrations entered the third night.

Bearing gifts

And one of Prime Minister Raila Odinga aides, Mr Samuel Aduol delivered five bulls from his boss with a congratulatory message that he (the PM) would be visiting soon.

Busloads of students and curious visitors from as far as Tanzania and Uganda drove to the village, with some bearing gifts for the family.

American nationals in Kenya also thronged the home in what they described as an encounter with the roots of the man who now holds the world’s destiny in his hands.

Although the Obama family said on Thursday that they would not like to be treated differently, the signs point to the fact that they are no longer simple villagers.

‘We can no longer account for who is who in the home — people danced the night away and today’s holiday gave many an opportunity to come to the home,’ said Mr Abong’o.

Before Wednesday, the road leading to the homestead was a bumpy path that was a driver’s nightmare whenever it rained. But by Thursday, it had miraculously been cleared and levelled.

Fresh coat of paint

Kenya Power and Lighting Company was expected to have connected electricity by Thursday night. This is a complete contrast to the situation when Mr Obama visited three years ago.

Then, Mama Sarah lived in a semi-permanent house which has since been rebuilt and is sparkling from a fresh coat of paint.

The compound, which was surrounded with indigenous shrubs, has since been fenced and boasts a police post manned 24 hours a day by eight officers.

The police were deployed to the home after thieves tried to steal the family’s solar panel.

Siaya District Commissioner Boaz Cherutich on Thursday said that security had been beefed up to cope with the influx of visitors.

The main road passing through the village to Bondo town, which was until last week no more than a dusty and bumpy path, has undergone major repairs in what Mr Abong’o last week said was just but a sign of things to come.

Not shed light

The family draws water from a well at the corner of the homestead but in the new scheme of things, this is likely to be a thing of the past.

The nearby Nyang’mo Kogelo secondary school acquired the name Senator Obama Secondary School soon after Mr Obama was elected to the US senate.

School officials could not shed light on whether the name would be changing to President Barack Obama High School.

The village has suddenly become the most well known in the Western Kenya region, if not in the world, as visitors come from near and far to see the home and the people from whose lineage came the first African-American president.

References:

1. Take a Bow, America — We still have two wars to deal with and a severe economic crisis. But we should not lose sight of the profound significance of this week.