INTRODUCTION

The above passage is drawn from Harry. M. Johnson’s, book, Sociology; a Systematic Introduction and its contents must sound vividly familiar to anyone versed in the gymnastic elasticity characteristic of Kenyan politics. All the defense phrases quoted within it abdicate one integral dynamic-responsibility. Kenyan political leaders never take responsibility for anything and to take responsibility for nothing is to be utterly irresponsible.

To evade responsibility, the Kenyan politician has adopted the split personality disposition of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Message content is determined by audience rather than positional conviction and the end will always justify the means.

Uses of such defense slogans have been volubly heard from politicians in Kenya as investigations into the electoral violence of 2007-8 intensify. This circumstance has no doubt helped beam interrogative light on the personal and institutional conduct of Kenya’s political elite for the first time ever in the country.

Kenya’s political elite has perpetually lived way above the law and their very foreboding today in the face of likely prosecution by the International Court of Justice (ICC) for crimes against humanity is not only a sight to behold but literally a humbling and humanizing experience.

A Commission of enquiry headed by Justice Waki and created to investigate the election violence largely forms the basis of prosecution of the suspects. However, other unrecorded personal testimonies through eye witness accounts, prime news television footage(s) and survivor accounts will doubtless be introduced at the proceedings.

INSTITUTIONAL CULPRITS IN THE 2007 VIOLENCE

POLITICAL PARTIES

The conduct of key institutions in the 2007 Election pogrom requires critical investigation. These are the Orange Democratic movement (ODM), the Party of National Unity (PNU), the general public and the role of government security agencies.

Political parties represented two hostile points of elite interests in the run up to the 2007 general elections, the gullible public implemented their reprehensible designs and with the subsequent break down of law and order, the police joined in with calamitous results.

In fact, to prove their level of culpability, both political parties presented notarized memoranda to the investigative commissions of Justice Kreigler and Justice Waki, each accusing the other of masterminding the 2007 electoral conflict. As a result, the two clubs, in a bid to incriminate one another, unintentionally directed and limited the scope of suspicion and investigation to themselves exclusively. Accusations leveled against each other by the two blocks have borne a tragi-comical element. Both are defective and reflect moral lessons learnt from the story of the kettle calling the pot black.

Moreno Ocampo, the International Criminal Court prosecutor has publicly indicated that he will use the dossier presented by the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and the Party of National Unity (PNU) each detailing the others culpability in the 2007 Election violence outbreak to help determine the ICC case against the suspects.

Ironically, it is the evidence presented by the two institutions against each other that will facilitate conclusion of the case against their own party members expected to stand trial.

The political party in Kenya is a cross between a socio-political insurance agency and a stock brokerage dealing with human shares. It not only provides unmitigated access to the nation’s financial vault but also secures the raiders from possible prosecution.

Parties are conveniently used as requisite electoral vehicles but post elections transform into a concrete liberty insurance cover against any form of official scrutiny upon the leaders. Political parties as they are in Kenya today are nothing but modern day manifestations of the colonial mentality of dominate and exploit.

Neo-colonialist leaders in Kenya have ably and sometimes justifiably played this fear of domination and the threat of poverty to mobilize base ethnic support. The fears are unfortunately sometimes starkly real. So far, communities from which Kenya’s Presidents have emerged are a brazen illustration of just how quick the magic wand of power can selectively open the doors of the proverbial sesame.

As a public enterprise the political party thus carries with it the allure of a glamorous ethnic destination, a tribal Canaan of sorts. In Kenya, the political party applies pressure and pulls strings on the public/ private sector to secure incredible business deals for its leadership. In other words, to realize political power in Kenya is to secure the nations penultimate business deal. From the myopia of Kenya’s political leadership, this is a prize worth killing for.

As such a political party in Kenya is summarily a low capital investment with a potentially high dividend yield, human cost notwithstanding. In summary, political parties in Kenya primarily engage in the politics of business and the business of politics.

In orientation, the top five political parties in Kenya, the Orange Democratic Movement-Kenya (ODM-K), Kenya African National Union (KANU), the country’s independence party, the Party of National Unity, Orange Democratic Movement and National Alliance Rainbow Coalition of Kenya (NARC-K) are in substance and practice pale carbon copies of each other. The only distinction is the measure of political rhetoric and the personal character of the party leader. Currently all are in government which is proof of not only their similarities but also of their symbiotic relationship.

Expectedly, none proclaims any known ideology and each variously adopts doctrines considered momentarily convenient. Historically, every thing therefore is fluid from the lenses of Kenyan political parties and can be ’sorted out’ including inordinate loss of human life.

The reality of this murky arrangement prejudiced the spirit of the 2007 general election. Everything was wrong, the history of the nation, the leaders and their inciting rhetoric, the ethnic political parties, and an angrily betrayed public. Couple this with the harsh economic conditions prevalent in the country and you have a social mine field.

From this perilous assortment of explosive canon fodder, the competing political institutions had a large menu from which to prowl and prowl they certainly did.

THE KENYA POLICE FORCE

The third institution in the violence was the dreaded Kenya police force which left an unprecedented trail of public blood in its wake. The Kenya police are a chronically ill institution. Over the years, it has habitually failed to neither investigate nor regulate its own excesses.

In the violence outbreak of 2007 it was clearly overrun by the public, a scary situation as the public now appear acutely aware of their breaking point ahead of the 2012 elections.

At one point it was actually difficult to differentiate between the police and the rioting hoodlums as each side exhibited similar conduct in regard to looting, murder, arson and propaganda. The Police force took a biased side and in the process lost officers to shootings in Kibera and the Rift Valley, shot dead by suspected criminals camouflaged within protesting mobs.

So gross was the police intent, that in Kisumu Town, a police officer was caught on tape shooting an unarmed protestor to death for merely making teasing faces at him.

Kenya Election Violence (Dec. 2007 into 2008)

The role of the police force is one that requires deeper diagnosis as it is plausible to suggest that the cops have customarily been used as pawns by the ODM elite wing to attract local and international media sympathy and as a repressive counter force by the PNU. This logic is scientifically provable by studying incidences of police versus political party combat during past political events including elections and by elections from 1982 to date.

THE KENYAN PUBLIC

The Kenyan public is as guilty as their leaders and too bears a sense of responsibility over the outbreak. A majority participated by not participating in stopping the violence. Others took sides with their rabid leaders and provided material and moral support to their ethnic militia to attack powerless neighbors. Lies were blatantly told to fuel the chaos in so far as it hurt the “other side” and favored their own polarized party interests. The gender victim machine gun for once fell silent as women leaders, according to the Justice Waki report, were also found to have played a decisive role in mobilizing, organizing and executing the violence.

It is indeed the political goodwill provided by the public that allowed political parties to murder or evict their opponents with such impunity.

INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE 2007 VIOLENCE

Responsible institutions always take full responsibility for the conduct of both its corporate and individual members. Likewise responsible leaders take full responsibility for failures within institutions they head just as much as they would gladly receive credit on its behalf. Common sense also dictates that institutions can only be as responsible as its leader.

Both the Justice Waki and Kenya National Human Rights Organization reports on electoral human rights violations notably fail to appropriate any form of institutional responsibility for the 2007 electoral violence to the two political institutions that brutally fought each other for political power.

Instead, both reports superficially apportion personal blame on the extensive brutality explosions upon individual politicians. This is in spite of the colossal magnitude of the 2007 electoral violence, its massive resource outlay and intricate organization which definitely bore corporate proportions. By dint of its sheer magnitude alone, the violence required well established networks with a clear command chain to effect.

Two typical examples come to mind. One is that of the select crew of kikuyu’ who allegedly met at State House to plot retaliatory attacks in the Rift Valley as narrated in the Waki document. They met not as members of the kikuyu tribe, but principally as members of the Party of National Unity with a specific agenda. The Party of National Unity is a legally registered political entity, with a patented list of office bearers and structures.

The product of their handiwork was supposedly the execution of the macabre massacres in Naivasha and Limuru-Tigoni. The Party of National Unity is led by President Kibaki and enjoys strong support in the stated affected areas.

It is here that hirelings suspected to be from the Kikuyu ethnic group of President Kibaki murdered and raped Luo and Luhyia people then looted their property before finally torching their homes. In one instance in Naivasha, a man of Luo origin lost eleven family members in a single arson attack after raiders locked his house and burnt his entire family to ashes.

Likewise, the Orange Democratic Movement allegedly unleashed attempts to cripple the country’s communication networks, uprooting railways, barricading and digging up roads, crippling bridges and well choreographed highway attacks on goods and passenger transport. Its leader is Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

The forms of violence were nationally generic for both parties and the uniformity of execution clearly rose beyond the realms of uncoordinated individual efforts. ODM perfected its craft in mainly urban locations while the PNU strand thrived in specific peri-urban settings. Each execution pattern bore signature applications. Sample another example.

Most horrifying was the apparent predilection for burning down churches by ODM brigade members. A church filled with fleeing Kikuyu women and helpless children was sealed then set ablaze by people suspected to be members of a Kalenjin vigilante group in Eldoret town of Kenya’s Rift Valley province. Children who attempted to escape the furious inferno were thrown back into the raging fire. There is also the tragic account of an elderly physically challenged lady of Kikuyu origin who disappeared during the violence only for her wheel chair to be recovered from the debris of the fateful church. She too had been burnt to ashes.

In Kisumu city too, a church were burnt down while others were vandalized then razed in Kibera area within Langata constituency of Prime Minister Raila Odinga. All the churches burnt were in strongholds of the Orange Democratic Movement.

In the initial stages of the violence, the pattern was as ethno-political as the parties but later acquired class overtones with the poorer masses indiscriminately targeting richer neighborhoods. The marauding gangs were homogeneously ethnic but the targets roughly common by social status.

In fact, to get to the root of the matter, a thorough interrogation of the histories of Hon. Mwai Kibaki, President of Kenya and Hon. Raila, Prime Minister of Kenya, their political utterances and engagements is vital to providing a clear indicator of the origin of political violence in Kenya.

At a glance, one would ask the ODM leader what he did to mobilize the violence and the President what he didn’t do as constitutionally mandated to stop the violence. To the Prime Minister, a probable charge with crimes of commission is feasible and to the President, a probable charge with crimes of omission is possible — both are crimes nonetheless and they the leaders..

A HISTORICAL COMPARISON

The Eldoret church incident bears striking similarities with another slaughter, carried out nearly 65 years ago in the French village of Oradour-Sur-Glane in June 1944 by Hitler’s SS. Erich Kahler in his study in modern totalitarianism, “The Tower and the Abyss,” writes in his book and I quote, “In reprisal for Resistance activity in the area, the Germans rounded up all the inhabitants and made them go to the market place. The women and children were herded into the village church. No one was alarmed at this stage-the Germans were laughing and playing with the babies.

Then, at a signal from the captain, the soldiers in the square opened fire on the men and massacred them all. The church was set on fire and the women and children burned alive. The children who managed to stumble out were thrown back into the fire.” End of quote.

So similar were the two cases, however apart by time and situation that one is compelled to ask “Had the Nazi historical occurrence of 1944 returned to replay itself in Eldoret, Kenya in 2008? If this trend of reasoning is to be followed, who was the Kenyan version of the Fuehrer?

PRECEDENTS OF INSTITUTIONAL LIABILITY

At the end of the World War II in 1945, the Nazi Party of Germany was proscribed and its top leaders charged with crimes against peace and humanity. Years later in Kenya, the Kenya People’s Union Party (KPU) was also banned in 1969 following skirmishes between its supporters and the Presidential security guard in Kisumu Town. Its leader, former Vice-President Oginga Odinga was placed under house arrest for engaging in subversive activities.

Likewise in Spain, the Batasuna Party was in 2002 dissolved after it was found to have contravened article 11 of the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Article 9 of the same Convention establishes that a party will be declared illegal when its grave and continuous activity makes democratic principles vulnerable.

Beyond political parties, other institutions in Kenya have also endured similar punishment. In 2009, sentence of dissolution of the Electoral Commission was noted to have been meted out not only to the institution but to its leader, Samuel Kivuitu as well.

In addition, the 1982 story of the then Kenya Air Force together with its leader suffered a similar outcome after the failed coup attempt of that year. The force was disbanded and its leader Major General Peter Karuiki jailed for four and half years. A new “82′ Air force” was formed after a fresh recruitment exercise. Major General Peter Karuiki was not punished for direct involvement in the coup, but because he failed to use the powerful instruments available to him as institutional head to stop it.

The postulation of institutional responsibility is a prerequisite measure to dismantling militia gangs in Kenya. Militia gangs operate as a political appendage for insurance against the law. Institutional responsibility widens the scope of accountability from a highly personalized perspective and places it upon an entrenched public establishment, the political party. By so doing, it spreads liability to all members of the institution as well for causes and effects for without the general approval of the party membership, however unofficial, such levels of transgression would have been impossible to accomplish by their leaders.

However, institutional responsibility in no way immunizes any culprits from prosecution, be they planners, financiers or implementers but carries with it the onerous task of tearing down the vessel(s) used to incubate and legitimize the heinous actions of the charged individuals. The Kenyan public actively participated and abetted the criminal violence against one another and they too must bear a responsibility and pay a penalty for their actions. Banning of the two major political institutions that took part in the 2009 electoral slaughter is indeed a necessity.

To date, all proposals and counter proposals between the two antagonistic institutions have been presented as corporate accounts by the Orange Democratic Party and the Party of National Unity. This fact practically stops the buck at the doorsteps of the two parties, first as institutions and secondly on their respective leaderships and thirdly on their members.

Those therefore charged in regard to the violence from the two parties should face the law as leaders and members of political institutions and not merely as individual political players.

In whose interest did the electoral assaults take place? Andrew Ombwayo, an advocate of the High court of Kenya based in Nairobi, correctly stresses that criminal liability is ultimately borne by the individual irrespective of whether the crime may have been committed in conformance to institutional edicts. While the Ombwayo argument is correct, his diagnosis remains incomplete because precedents have clearly been set otherwise.

Yet, in spite of self fingering over the 2007 violence, both the leaderships of the ODM and PNU parties today carry on as if the 2007 election massacres were a creation of the police force, the electoral commission and the media. In fact, every other peripheral institution appears guilty of the violence outbreaks except the political parties and leaders who stoked it all.

The heads of the political institutions of PNU and ODM must take full responsibility for what happened in 2007 and after and in this there may eventually be no escape.

Currently, the Attorney General, Amos Wako and the Chief Justice, Evan Gicheru have both been served with notice of intention by parliamentarians in regard to the poor performance of the institutions they lead. Both will ultimately suffer the burden of responsibility on behalf of their institutions. Another example is that of Former Police Commissioner, Brigadier Ali, he is today compelled to bear responsibility over the institutional excesses of the police in regard to the electoral debacle of 2007.Why not the two leaders and their two parties?

CURRENT OVERVIEW

As things stand today, it matters little who provoked the other or who retaliated in regard to the 2007 violence. The issue is now fait accompli, as focus is now directed towards judiciously sanitizing the consequent catastrophe.

The crimes committed fall squarely within the jurisdiction of human rights abuses. Even the Kreigler Commissions Report refuses to legitimize each sides claim to winning the fateful 2007 elections which denies both the accused any sound platforms upon which to lead the country.

One option gaining currency as the nation grinds to a halt is that the two leaders should call it a day and resign. Taking full responsibility is a way open only to statesmen and virtuous nationalists who would spare no act, or personal sacrifice to redeem their beloved nation from endemic hemorrhage.

Kenyans died for the two leaders and because of the two leaders, of that there is absolutely no doubt. The furtive desperation of the ruling elite is real as they ultimately have nowhere to run. In the event of an outbreak of chaos, for whatever reason, it is they who stand to lose the most, having stolen the most.

Practically, an exiled political leader is highly vulnerable, ask former Liberian President Charles Taylor, which makes exile only a compulsory alternative. Exile would make them easy pickings for international security agencies hot on their heels today. Only a peaceful Kenya provides sanctuary for criminals to live secure from prosecution, a factor which obliterates the threats of violence they so often issue.

Indeed, if an outbreak of chaos is the outcome the Kenyan leaders project as the result for their prosecution, then it may be a foul alternative but one definitely worth considering.

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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.

References:

1. Is Obama Africa’s saviour?
2. Koffi Annan: Why I Had To Strike
3. Obama hope amid dark memories

Ghana Welcomes Obama

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   By: Jerry Okungu
I have been forced to respond to the Washington Post story on Kenya that was filed by one Stephanie McCrummen supposedly working for the same paper’s Foreign Service department.

The article appeared in the Washington Post of May 19, 2009 (Memorial Service Boycott Underscores Fragility of Kenya’s Peace)

It is my hope that despite the contents of this rejoinder, the Editor of the Washington Post will still find it professional to give me as a Kenyan, the write of reply on behalf of all Kenyans at home and abroad so that falsehoods, innuendoes and rumors contained in the article are corrected.

I am not here to defend the obvious weaknesses of the present regime nor am I here to take a partisan stand on the events of December 2007 when Kenya erupted in an orgy of violence.

I am here to correct the falsehoods that the Western Press is fond of visiting on Kenya and Africa in general.

McCrummen believes that “ethnic gangs burnt to death 28 people inside a church” in Kenya’s Rift Valley region. Yes, many people perished in a Kiambaa church whose numbers we will never know.

We will never know the true numbers because the figures have been changing from time to time depending on who one actually talks to. Others have put it at 35, 40 or even 50.

More importantly, the cause of the fire, according to eye witnesses is still in contention with others talking of a cigarette smoker inside the church inadvertently starting the fire.

This is the single reason why Kenyans have been demanding for a thorough inquest into the Kiamba fire and other killings in Nairobi, Naivasha and Nyanza in order to deal with conflicting rumors if peace is to be restored in Rift Valley and Kenya in general.

McCrummen needs to be educated on the history of land conflict in Kenya, particularly in the Rift Valley and coastal regions of Kenya before making sweeping statements about the cause of the conflicts.

She needs to know that Kenya is a multi-ethnic society just like the United States of America. The difference is, you call us tribes when you prefer to refer to various American ethnic communities as races or nationalities.

Groups that caused mayhem in Kenya soon after elections were not “thugs” as McCrummen would like to call them. They were normal human beings with grievances that had lasted nearly half a century. They were ordinary people that had become fed up with lies, conmanship and blatant abuse of their rights to exist with dignity.

The 2007 election campaign was a special one in Kenya’s history. For the first time in more than 40 years, Kenyans were ready to elect a truly democratic government purely on the basis of the popular vote in all of the 8 provinces.

When this obvious theft of votes and abuse of the rights of citizens became apparent, the peasantry rose up in arms to claim what they believed to be truly theirs.

Kenya Election Violence (Dec. 2007 into 2008)

Four types of violence erupted.

First was the State organized terrorism by deploying armed police to ensure votes were tampered with in ODM strongholds. These police officers were deployed in their thousands in Rift Valley, Nyanza and Western regions where ODM had the largest number of supporters. However, what the state was not aware of was the counter intelligence network that ODM had put in place that monitored every government’s move.

With each passing day, these officers were spotted, arrested and handed over to the nearest police stations and mysteriously released even though they were “civilians with dangerous weapons.”

These events built tensions all over the country long before the ballot day.

As a Kenyan, I voted 200 miles away from the capital and returned to the city to wait for results.

The whole day had been extremely peaceful and for the next 24 hours, Kenyans already knew which party was winning the elections. The exit poll conducted by the International Republican Institute and paid for by American tax payer’s funds can testify to this.

However, with counting in progress, ODM had won 6 of the 8 provinces by a landslide.

Suddenly the Electoral Commission claimed it could not receive votes from Central and Eastern Kenya where Kibaki had his base support.

With such delays, panic and tension gripped the entire nation. What with careless humor from the Election Commission chairman quipping that some of his returning officers had disappeared with ballot papers from Central Province and were probably still “cooking the results!”

When suddenly the Press Center where the results were to be announced was cleared by armed forces, Kenyans knew something was amiss. When they saw a few minutes later that the results had been announced in Kibaki’s favor with just 43 parliamentary seats against the ODM’s 105 seats, Kenyans went in a rage.

But worse was to come. Within minutes of announcing the results, Kibaki was taking the oath office as the sun was setting at his palace lawn!

That swearing in was the last straw that broke the camel’s back.

Spontaneously, the country erupted in chaos; chaos that even State security could not handle.

If the Kalenjins attacked the Kikuyus in Rift Valley, it was not because they had planned it. They saw them as members of the Kibaki tribe that would do anything to steal their land, votes and even their rights. It was like saying, ” we are tired of being neighbors with people who can stop at nothing to have their way.”

Were they right in doing so? No, I don’t think so because many ordinary innocent Kikuyus suffered for no fault of their own.

But this suffering cannot be analyzed in isolation no matter how self righteous we may want to sound.

We have to see it in terms of the Civil Rights Movement in America in the 1960s, the King riots in Los Angeles in the early 1990s, ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, Rwanda and Hitler’s Germany.

It is natural for a human being to react angrily if injustice is visited upon him. It is called self-preservation instinct. And in most cases, the aggressor is not necessarily right. It is an emotive thing.

This was the second type of violence was seen in Rift Valley, Kiambaa church included.

The Kalenjins found a perfect excuse to reclaim their ancestral lands that were forcibly occupied by the Kikuyu tribe when Jomo Kenyatta was president between 1963 and 1978.

It must also be remembered that the Kikuyus that settled in Rift Valley had lost their ancestral lands in Central Province to the Kenyatta family and his ruling elite to the extent that to date, the Kenyatta family alone owns land equivalent to one province in Kenya.

Another thing; the current killings going on in Mt. Kenya area by Mungiki militias has a direct link to the Kenyatta era’s land grabbing spree. These are descendants of Mau Mau fighters who came from the bush to find their land taken by new leaders. That is why Mungikis are causing mayhem in Central province to destabilize the ruling class.

The third type of violence erupted in Nyanza, Western and Coast provinces.

In their nature, they were a class uprising when the have-nots found an opportunity to rise up against the haves in Kenya. It was an uprising occasioned by years of deprivation, inequality and lack of opportunities for young people to earn a decent living.

To illustrate my point; my car was destroyed by marauding youths right in Kisumu my home town where I grew up. They saw me as a symbol of what had deprived them of a bright future! In other words, they wanted me to explain why I was driving a 4 wheel car when they could not afford a bicycle! And I understood their frustration.

The fourth violence was when prominent politicians and businessmen from Central Province, and their names are with Kofi Annan, actually paid and transported Mungiki militias to go and carry out reprisal killings in Naivasha town, 50 miles from Nairobi. In that town, members of the Luo, Luhya and Kalenjin communities were flashed out of public transport buses and hacked to death in broad day light as other gangs locked families in their shanty dwellings and set them ablaze. In one case of James Ndege, he lost 9 children and 2 wives in one fire!

The last type of violence is related to the first, organized by the State and carried out by its armed police.

It targeted mainly Luos, Luhyas and Kalenjins in Nyanza, Western, and Kibera slums in Nairobi. The police alone shot to death unarmed youths, some as young as 15 years of age on the run. Most of them were shot at the back from close range according to government pathologists.

In this operation, 450 were shot in Kisumu, 119 in Kakamega, 39 in Kibera slums in Nairobi and many more in Nakuru and Eldoret in Rift Valley. A simple Arithmetic would tabulate police killings at 600 known deaths out of the 1500 casualties that McCrummen is quoting. The police therefore accounted for 40% of the deaths we are talking about here.

The reason why the Kiambaa funeral service and its planned monument is causing concern and raising tension is the way it has been planned and organized. Kenyans are asking the wisdom of reconciling Kenya by celebrating the deaths of 28 souls of a single tribe while ignoring the other 1000 plus.

They are seeing preferential treatment being given to a handful of one tribe that happens to belong to President Kibaki when nobody is talking of those 450 police killings in Kisumu or those that perished in a similar fire in Naivasha.

They are seeing the usual hypocrisy when leaders talk of reconciliation yet the wielders of state power still would love to discriminate against other communities as they use state resources to mourn and bury their dead.

They know they are lying to the public and the public know it too. That is why than lone voice looked at Kibaki and the 28 coffins and told Kibaki to his face that among those coffins, he could not see any of Kibaki’s or Raila’s children.

It was a statement that spoke volumes for ordinary Kenyans; Kikuyus, Luos and Kalenjins alike.

There is more to Kenya’s problems than the gossips and rumors in Nairobi’s pubs.

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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By: Okech Kendo

   Okech Kendo
Post-apartheid South Africa’s next president is certain to be an unlikely occupant of the office. And not just because Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, also known by his clan name Msholozi, lacks the stature or polish of Nelson Mandela, or the intellectual deceit and accomplishments of Thabo Mbeki.

Zuma falls much below their moral and intellectual par, yet he is ahead of many. This is probably because of coincidence or too frequently being underestimated because of his dismal formal education. The Zulu Boy – and Zuma is a child of that flamboyant, masculine and military community – counts Shaka, the empire destroyer, among his ancestors, if only through ethnic affinity. Indeed, a Zulu was always coming to be president of independent South Africa, given their numerical strength in the tribe-and-race-defined country.

But few would imagine the inheritor would be Zuma, in an age when the influence of western education is dominant. Zuma often thinks less of himself, almost in a self-deprecatory way, sometimes to spite others who think they are highbred.

While in South Africa early this month, I entered a bookshop at Oliver Tambo Airport in Johannesburg to buy a book I could not find in Nairobi. Michaela Wrong’s John Githongo-inspired It is Our Turn To Eat was priced at 270 Rand (about Sh2,700), so I picked a copy of Jeremy Gordin’s Zuma: A Biography instead.

A woman at the counter was baffled with my selection and my remark I wanted to read about “the next president of South Africa.” It was obvious she and her kind would stop a Zuma presidency if they could.

   Jacob Zuma, Left With Zulu Elders

Even with a history of sexual adventurism, a high profile case of like nature, and other related moral questions about the Zulu Boy, Zuma’s presidential stream is unstoppable. The majority of those who matter in a democracy are with him, so no rich Afrikaan racists can stop him. Not even the wealthy, powerful elite of his mentor Mbeki can stop him.

Minor river

Asked why he was not popular with writers, Zuma told Gordin: “Why should anyone write about me? I’m not an important person. I’m not from a politically famous or royal family. I am not an influential businessman. I’m just an ordinary person.”

Mandela is from a royal Xhosa family. Thabo Mbeki, his successor, is from a political family, son of Govan Mbeki, an ANC founder member. One of Zuma’s possible rivals in future is Cyril Ramaphosa, an ANC insider and successful entrepreneur who might have succeeded Mandela. (Ramaphosa, by the way, is the negotiator PNU rejected last year, claiming he could not assist Dr Kofi Annan because he is close to ODM leader Raila Odinga.)

In Khrushchev: The Man, His Era, William Taubman echoes the Zuma narrative, particularly his relationship with Mbeki.

The story goes: “‘Once upon a time,’ (Nikita) Khrushchev said, ‘there were three men in a prison: A social democrat, an anarchist and a humble little Jew – a half-educated fellow named Pinya. They decided to elect a cell leader to watch over the distribution of food, tea and tobacco.

“The anarchist, a big burly fellow, was against electing authority. To show his contempt for law and order, he proposed that the semi-educated Jew be elected.

“Things went well until they decided to escape. They realised that the first man to go through the tunnel would be shot at by the guard. They all turned to the big brave anarchist. But he was afraid to go.

Suddenly, poor little Pinya drew himself up and said: ‘Comrades, you elected me by a democratic process as your leader. Therefore, I will go first’.”

The moral: However humble a man’s beginning, he achieves the stature of the office to which he is elected. Pinya could be Zuma, the son of a KwaZulu Natal policeman and a maid. He never had formal education. The brutality of his boyhood saw him take up casual labour in Boer homes. His father died before Zuma, barely a baby, understood the cruelty around him. The brutality shaped his boyhood, and would lead him to detention in Robben Island for ten years.

His wedding with the ANC is the subject of legend. He enlisted at age 17. In 1991, when ANC was looking for someone to lead the party in talks with FW De Clerk’s National Party and Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s Inkatha Freedom Party, it was a gesture from ANC president Oliver Tambo that did it. Tired and sick then, Tambo was seen to have pointed his stick at Zuma and no one wanted to contradict him.

When Mbeki picked Zuma as deputy president, he underrated his worth. He figured that Zuma would have no ambition for the highest office. How wrong he was: Zulu Boy is in after he ejected Mbeki from ANC!

Analysis — South Africa Elections

The Splintering Rainbow

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