By JULIUS SIGEI

Saturday Nation reveals details of how these top officials’ retirement will further burden the taxpayer, already reeling from the high cost of living amid one of the most devastating famines in the country’s history.

Four messengers

President Kibaki can expect a life of luxury in retirement with 38 servants paid for by the public at his beck and call.

These include two personal assistants, four drivers, four messengers, four secretaries, two cooks, two housekeepers, two gardeners, two laundry persons, and four house cleaners.

Six security officers will be provided for his personal safety and six others to guard his homes.

In his bank account will be deposited a Sh17 million (183,486.24 USD) goodbye token.

This is calculated as the sum equal to his annual salary for the two terms he served as President as stipulated in the Presidential Retirements Benefits Act of 2003.

He will receive at least Sh950,000(10,253.64 USD) pension each month — calculated as 80 per cent of the salary of the next president.

He will be entitled to a housing allowance of Sh300,000 a month; Sh300,000 a month for electricity, water and telephone and a further Sh200,000 for entertainment.

Overseas treatment

He will also be entitled to two four-wheel drive vehicles with an engine capacity of 3,400cc and two others of his choice with an engine capacity of at least 3,000cc. To fuel the cars, he will get a Sh200,000 monthly allowance.

He and his wife are also entitled to full medical and hospital cover for local and overseas treatment from a reputable insurance company.

The taxpayer will also pay for a fully furnished “suitable” office for the retired president.

Chapter 11 of the 2003 Presidential Retirements Benefit Act says “a retired President shall, during his lifetime, be entitled to a lump sum payment on retirement, calculated as a sum equal to one year’s salary for each term served as President.”

Section 3, however, includes the caveat that the National Assembly may withhold the benefits if the retired president engages in politics or other misconduct.

His predecessor, Daniel arap Moi is enjoying benefits which easily put him among the best paid public servants in Kenya.

Treasury documents show that Mr Moi, who has largely kept to non-official duties and political campaigns, pocketed Sh58.4 million in allowances last year, reflecting a major increase in his retirement package from an average of Sh12 million since 2006. Treasury officials were tight-lipped on the sudden rise.

Mr Moi’s package was first included in the 2006/07 estimates. In terms of personal allowances, he took home more money than President Kibaki, who earns Sh16.1 million in personal allowances annually.

President Kibaki constitutionally vacates office in 2012/13 and his successor will inherit the same payments, according to the recurrent estimates.

Details of Mr Moi and his successors’ pay are contained in the recurrent expenditure estimates under the Consolidated Funds Services, the account from which constitutional office holders and debt services are paid.

Observers say the lavish perks were first mooted towards the end of the Moi administration to entice him to leave office quietly after what critics say were years of economic mismanagement, graft and repression.

Yet retiring presidents are really not some of the neediest citizens.

Reported to own seven impressive homes across the country and associated with 30 major companies, Mr Moi’s personal wealth has often been compared to that of Zaire’s late dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko.

   RETIRING IN STYLE: From left, Retired former President Daniel Moi, Retired Kacc boss Aaron Ringera
   and Retired Chief Justice Evan Gicheru.

While the Saturday Nation could not establish retired Chief Justice Gicheru’s retirement package, sources at the Treasury say Mr Gicheru will continue drawing his salary for the years left for him to clock his retirement age of 74.

Given that he is only 66, he will have earned in excess of Sh120 million by the time he retires in eight years’ time.

He has also retained two new cars — a Mercedes and a 4WD as well as a home in Karen.

Mr Gicheru was earning Sh916,500 per month and Sh400,000 in allowances and other benefits totalling Sh1.3 million per month.

Attorney General Wako’s retirement package is being worked out by the Solicitor General and will soon be handed over to Deputy Prime Minister and Finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta.

Given the longevity of his service and the fact that he has not taken leave for a long time he is expected to go home with even more than the former.

Judges are also expected to go home with hefty retirement packages.

It is believed many would be opting to leave rather than face a potentially crushing interview and they would be leaving with huge perks, given their current earnings.

Justice Minister Mutula Kilonzo has in the past been quoted saying judges and magistrates who opt to retire would be assured of their perks.

Figures from the Judiciary showed that the basic salary of the highest paid judge is Sh481,000.

The basic entry salary for a High Court judge is Sh232,000 while that of a Court of Appeal judge is Sh292,000.

The Judiciary has 44 High Court judges and 11 in the Court of Appeal.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka can also expect to be paid hefty retirement perks if Parliament passes new laws on MPs’ salaries.

If they decide to quit politics, Mr Odinga will be entitled to Sh1 million a month while Mr Musyoka will take home Sh800,000.

The handsome packages are contained in reports by a tribunal set up to review MPs’ pay and the Parliamentary Service Commission headed by retired judge Akilano Akiwumi.

Legislators are, however, yet to debate the draft Bills.

The report proposes the enactment of The Retirement Benefits (Prime Minister, Vice-President and Speaker of the National Assembly) Bill 2010 to provide for a raft of benefits these officials will be entitled to.

The Bill, which was to be tabled in the House by Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyattta a year ago, proposes that the retired PM and VP each receive a monthly pension equal to 80 per cent of the last monthly salary earned while in office.

The report also recommended that the PM takes home a basic monthly salary of Sh1.3 million and the VP Sh1 million.

In addition, the Bill grants a retired PM and VP a Sh200,000 monthly housing allowance and gratuity, paid at the end of every two years and calculated at the rate of 20 per cent of their last monthly salaries while in office.

But Parliament, through a two thirds majority, may vote to deny them the benefits if they cease to hold office for violating the Constitution, gross misconduct or, since retirement, been convicted and sentenced to three or more years’ in jail or actively engaged in politics.

The bill has, however, not come before the House, with MPs in the know saying they decided to leave the Salaries and Remuneration Commission to do the job.

Both the PM and VP will receive a 3,000cc car, a new four-wheel drive car (not exceeding 3,000cc) and a Sh50,000 fuel allowance.

The taxpayer will also maintain the vehicles and replace them every four years.

There is also full medical cover for the PM (for life), the spouse (for as long as the spouse lives) and all children under 18 years.

The retired VP and PM will have a personal assistant, secretary, cook, butler, gardener, cleaner, two drivers and two security officers, courtesy of the taxpayer.

Former Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission boss Aaron Ringera enjoys the same perks he used to have while heading the anti-graft unit.

These include chauffeur-driven limousines and bodyguards for the next 10 years.

The contract was signed between him and the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission Advisory Board.

The document, which the Saturday Nation was reliably told cannot be revised without breaching the contract, entitles Mr Ringera to continue using the vehicles he used as Kacc director.

Also at his service are a driver, a bodyguard and a security officer at his home.

Maintenance of the vehicles, including fuelling, is also paid for by the taxpayer.

Work tickets in our possession show three GK vehicles — two Mercedes Benz and a Prado — as having been used by Mr Ringera as late as last week.

The documents bear the Kacc stamp with Mr Ringera signing for each journey as the authorising officer.

An official familiar with the contract said it was signed by the previous Kacc Advisory Board chaired by Mr Allan Ngugi and does not allow for revision by the current one headed by former Law Society of Kenya chairman Okong’o Omogeni.

Mr Ringera resigned after days of relentless pressure from the body’s advisory board, civil society, politicians and Kenyans.

While current office holder PLO Lumumba may not go away with exactly the same perks as his predecessor because of the manner the latter left office, the perks may not be any different given his high pay of Sh2.5 million a month.

The Akiwumi Commission gives the Speaker of the National Assembly Sh240,000 per month as pension, one year non-taxable salary amounting to Sh3.6 million per term subject to a maximum of two terms amounting to Sh7.2 million.

The new Constitution, however, requires all public officers to pay taxes.

He will also get a house allowance of Sh200,000 a month, two armed guards on request, a car — a Mercedes Benz E240 or a vehicle of equivalent value maintained by the State, which shall be valued after every three years.

The Speaker will get fuel allowance of Sh25,000 a month and a driver to be paid by the State.

Enquiries by the Saturday Nation revealed that former Speaker Francis Ole Kaparo takes home an accumulated amount of Sh354,000, which the Cockar Commission gave him.

The National Assembly and Remuneration Act, says an MP gets a winding up allowance at the end of five years, irrespective of whether he or she is re-elected or not.

This is now Sh300,000 per year, which translates to Sh1.5 million for the five years and is paid as a lump sum.

Given that there are 222 MPs, taxpayers will part with more than Sh300 million.

This figure is expected to rise exponentially with the increase in constituencies and incoming senators in the next Parliament.

The Exchequer this year began paying millions of shillings in lump sum and monthly payments that will see some former MPs earn more than Sh400,000 each month for the rest of their lives after the Treasury invoked the Parliamentary Pensions Act Cap. 196, which governs payment of MPs’ pensions and gratuities.

The law stipulates that an MP who served only one term will be paid pension refund but members who served more than one term will be paid a lump sum on application for the pension, which will thereafter be followed by monthly payments.

Top among the beneficiaries of the retirement law passed in June 2002 are MPs who have served for five terms, and these include former Keiyo South legislator Nicholas Biwott and former Speaker Mr Ole Kaparo.

The former speaker qualifies for a lump sum payment of Sh6.4 million besides a monthly payment of Sh405,000 for the rest of his life.

Five-term MPs will retire with a lump some package of Sh4.6 million and earn a monthly pension of Sh290,000 for the rest of their lives.

Economists warn that the real import of the pensions law is likely to be felt in the next 15 years when more than 300 MPs expected to have been sent packing by their electors qualify.

The strain will be felt in the Consolidated Fund, which will finance the pensions burden given the high rate of turnover in Parliament.

During the last General Election alone, only 71 members out of the 210 MPs who served in the Ninth Parliament made it to the 10th.

This means that the 139 MPs who were kicked out must be paid their lump sum pensions beginning this financial year.

MPs have a contributory scheme to which they pay 12.6 per cent of their earnings, with the government contributing an additional 25.4 per cent.

Each MP’s pensionable emolument is calculated from the total salary, perks for responsibility, constituency and house.

The annual pensionable emolument of an ordinary MP stands at Sh3.8 million while that of ministers and assistant ministers amounts to Sh4.2 million and Sh3.9 million, respectively.

Early this year, the Finance ministry’s pensions department issued a notice to all the former MPs asking them to file claims for payments of gratuity, pensions and other benefits.

“The Pensions Department will process benefits for MPs who were not re-elected to the 10th Parliament,” said the notice.

For example a former MP who served only one term will take home Sh4.4 million in pension refund.

But if the MP was a minister, he or she would take away Sh5.5 million. A one-term MP who was an assistant minister would earn Sh5.2 million.

Twenty ministers were voted out of Parliament while 25 assistant ministers did not make it to the 10th Parliament.

From this group alone, five ministers were first time MPs meaning that Treasury will part with Sh30 million.

Fifteen of the assistant ministers who did not see the inside of the current Parliament were first time MPs and will take home a cumulative Sh75 million.

The ministers and assistant ministers who were felled but had served more than one term in Parliament will take home about Sh200,000 more than the ones who served one term.

A minister who served more than two terms is entitled to a lump sum pension payment of Sh1.5 million besides a monthly payment of Sh95,000 for the rest of his or her life.

For an ordinary MP who served two terms, a Sh1.4 million cheque would be drawn on his name and he will be lining up at the pensions department at the end of every month for a Sh90,000 payment.

The MPs who served three terms and more would earn Sh142,000 every month in pension.

In rough estimates, taking into account that 142 MPs — who include seven nominated ones — did not make it to the 10th Parliament, the government will spend about Sh12.7 billion in monthly pension payments on them, assuming that all of them were two time legislators.

The Consolidated Fund Service was allocated Sh129.1 billion in the 2007/2008 budget. It is from this kitty that MPs draw their salaries and the same that will fund pensions for retired MPs.

Former MPs who spoke to the Saturday Nation admitted that they were already drawing the pensions from the Exchequer.

According to the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Dr Boni Khalwale, retirement benefits are a huge burden on the taxpayer, especially taking into consideration that younger people are getting appointed into top posts, most of which have two fixed terms and hefty severance terms.

“Even as we put everything on the shoulders of the Salaries and Remunerations Commission, we must remember that allowances and benefits must be seen to be in tandem with current economic realities,” said Dr Khalwale.

He said giving civil servants retirement benefits was the best practice all over the world but patriotism and honour for serving in such hallowed positions should be primary.

Dr Khalwale added that it was worrying that some leaders who were enjoying a cosy retirement at the expense of the taxpayer were actively engaging in politics, contrary to the law that granted them the benefits.

“Is it fair for example, to have a retired politician driving the same vehicle he was given to political rallies which further their interests?” asked Dr Khalwale.

By LUCAS BARASA, NationMedia Newspapers

Prime Minister Raila Odinga last Sunday ordered the arrest of gay couples. Addressing a rally at Kamukunji grounds in his Langata Constituency, the PM said their behaviour was unnatural. “If found the homosexuals should be arrested and taken to relevant authorities,” Mr Odinga said.

   Prime Minister Raila Odinga addresses a rally in Kamukunji, Nairobi on November 28, 2010.

The PM thrilled the crowd when he asserted that the recent census showed there were more women than men and there was no need for same sex relationships.

He said it was madness for a man to fall in love with another man while there were plenty of women and added that there was no need for women to engage in lesbianism yet they can bear children.

Mr Odinga’s statement is likely to rub activists the wrong way since they recently went public to campaign against homophobia.

The remarks also come months after Special Programmes Minister Esther Murugi attracted the wrath of Kenyans for calling for recognition and acceptance of gays.

On Sunday, Mr Odinga accused the ‘No’ team of misleading Kenyans during the campaigns that the new constitution recognises same sex relationships.

He said the group opposed to the new constitution was wrong when they implied that that the document would promote abortion.

Mr Odinga said the new Constitution is the most progressive in the world and took issue with Suspended Higher Education Minister William Ruto for going round the country thanking people for voting ‘No’ yet “the constitution passed long time ago.”

The Eldoret North MP was the defacto leader of group opposed to new constitution.

Mr Odinga said the balls is now in leaders and government court to implement the new constitution so that Kenyans could enjoy its benefits.

He said the government is capable of resolving rows that have threatened to delay or hinder the implementation of new constitution.

The PM also refuted the inclusion of Kamukunji as an outlawed group.

“Kamukunji is a lawful organisation. As the Prime Minister of Kenya I have said Kamukunji is is a lawful organisation,” Mr Odinga said.

Nominated MP Millie Odhiambo who concurred with the PM said the law on organised crime must comply with the constitution.

She said the Kamukunji group, whose members contribute Sh20 every Sunday, was free to meet and that police should stop unlawful harassment.

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Reference: Missionaries of Hate: Right-Wing Terrorism in Africa; American (Republican) Evangelicals Promote Homophobic HATE in Uganda
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Eat da poo poo! (Remix)

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Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said waiting any longer to carry out reforms that would guarantee equal wealth, check negative ethnicity, guarantee fairness in land ownership and utilization, would create a bad environment.

He says in the first of a series of special reports on this week’s Geneva conference to review progress in Kenya: “This is 2009 and some people are already campaigning such that by 2011, the environment will not be good for reforms. You have about 15 months for Parliament to push through reforms before the campaigns.” — [ READ MORE ]

Meanwhile Coalition “Bonding” Talks Collapsed This Weekend:

Sharp political differences, suspicion and grandstanding and vested interests Saturday led to the collapse of a meeting of political bigwigs called to discuss the management of the Grand Coalition Government.

   Prime Minister Raila Odinga (Left), President Mwai Kibaki(Center) and V.P. Kalonzo Musyoka Meet
   At Kilaguni Lodge

The coalition management team chaired by President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga was unable to agree on the agenda of a meeting whose purpose was to agree on a timeline for reforms to be carried out in the second year of the political marriage.

So sharp were the differences that the President and the Prime Minister addressed separate and divergent news conferences in Kilaguni and Nairobi at the end of what was supposed to have been a bonding retreat to promote cohesion in government and Kenya.

“We did not storm out of the meeting; it simply did not take off,” Mr Odinga told reporters in Nairobi. “Unfortunately we were unable to agree on anything and, therefore, the meeting collapsed.” He said ODM party members would be consulted to determine a course of action.

The meeting rekindled the bitter rivalry between ODM and PNU reminiscent of the time prior to the signing of the National Accord in February 2008 that ended two months of post-election violence. — [ READ MORE ]

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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

   [ ENLARGE ]

Prof Chinua Achebe wrote his world famous novel, Things Fall Apart, when he was only a 22-year-old youth. He sent his only copy of the handwritten manuscript to a London based typist, who misplaced it for some time. Eventually, in the late 1950s, the original script found its way to William Heinemann, then famed for literary publishing.

While Alan Hill, the editor, thought that this was the best manuscript he had read since the end of the Second World War in 1945, he was not so sure that he should publish it. For, who would read a story from Africa, about Africa, by an African? But courage and hope took precedence. Some 2,000 copies were published in 1958. Things Fall Apart has since been translated into close to 50 languages. The English edition alone has sold millions of copies worldwide.

In an interview with John Pepper Clark in the collection African Writers Talking, Prof Achebe said: ‘I was quite certain that I was going to try my hand at writing.’ And in Hopes and Impediments, he says, ‘At the university, I read some appalling novels about Africa (including Joyce Cary’s much praised Mr Johnson) and decided that the story we had to tell could not be told for us by anyone else, no matter how gifted or well intentioned. Although I did not set about it consciously in that solemn way, I now know that my first book, Things Fall Apart, was an act of atonement with my past.’

For a 22-year-old African youth to hope that he could publish a novel in colonial Africa was to be truly audacious. For him to believe that he could in fact do a better job than a European writer was to go beyond the audacity of hope. Yet it was Achebe who wrote in Things Fall Apart, ‘But the Ibo people have a saying that when a man says “Yes (I can)” his chi (guardian angel, or personal God) says “Yes” also.’ Achebe dared hope. And in our times, we are witnesses to what the audacity of hope can do, with the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th American President.

Tragically, that is just about how far we can go. We can only look at others as they do great things. In another book, The Trouble with Nigeria, Prof Achebe talks of Africa’s cargo cult mentality. This is our belief that one day, and without any effort on our part, a fairy ship loaded with goods will dock at our harbour of hope and that we will live happily for ever thereafter. Nothing demonstrates this cultic mentality than our untamed expectations of the Obama presidency.

Fanny Crosby, President Kibaki, Prime Minister Raila Odinga, Chinua Achebe — ‘Yes we can’,

Everywhere on the continent, and especially in Kenya, we have gone wild. In the words of Fanny Crosby, we are ‘watching and waiting, looking above‘ for manna from America. Even African heads of State and Government give a start each time the phone rings. Their hands tremble as they lift the receiver. They hope it is a call from the White House. The day they get their first call from President Obama, they will call the Press to announce to the world that the big man has spoken to them. It is hard to believe that a people could sink so low, complete with what are called their leaders.

When the children sing lavishly about the father of some other house, you don’t join them. For, it is your own fatherhood that is in question. It ought to worry you when they claim kinship with the other gentleman. If you were father enough, you would do something to restore your reputation, lest another man should pitch his tent in the little chamber in which your fatherhood counts most. Why, pray, should those in whom a people have invested its leadership shamelessly peddle their inferiority in the chilly streets of foreign capital cities?

After the fanfare, the razzmatazz, and VIP idling in Washington dance halls, Kenya requires a reality check. Obama is the US President and we do well to wish him well. But he will not fix our problems. If President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga and their train cannot fix our problems, then we must all sink with them. Meanwhile we must pity our youth. Where is the audacity of your hope? Even our best youth waste away in night clubs, drowning themselves in alcohol, wallowing in tobacco and dead meats. They watch and cheer as their age mates do wonders on TV. Where decent young men used to dance with ladies, ours swing on the floor with bottles of alcohol. They don’t read, they don’t hold quality debate, they don’t dream, they don’t hope. At election time they jump on to the tribal bandwagon.

No, President Obama, you owe us nothing. You must not worry yourself over our cargo cult mentality. Prof Achebe taught us how to say ‘Yes we can‘ even before you were born. And he was only 22. But we love free things. We therefore do nothing for ourselves. Don’t let us bother you. It is up to Africans to liberate themselves from greed and laziness and from the thieves and dictators they call leaders. It is up to them to fix their countries. Meanwhile here is wishing you well. God bless you. God bless Africa.

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About The Author: Barrack Muluka is a publishing editor and a media consultant with Mvule Africa Publishers. Hidden Email Address
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