The Sonjo (Watemi)-510 Year Old Kikuyu Enclave In Tanzania.
The Sonjo ( Batemi- Watemi) are a people living in northern Tanzania, 30-40 miles west of Lake Natron, who have lived for centuries as an isolated enclave in Maasai territory. In 2002 the Sonjo population was estimated to number 30,000 (Ethnologue). They are known for their use of a traditional irrigation system in farming, a practice which has led some historians to link them to the hitherto unexplained ruined irrigation systems of Engaruka, 60 miles to the southeast. The term Sonjo is the name given to the people by the Maasai; they call themselves Batemi and their language Ketemi or Gitemi.Wasonjo’ is a misnomer, referring to beans of the Batemi plant.
Getemi Ethnolinguistically, it is a displaced member of Guthrie’s E50 group, most other members of which are found in Central Kenya. Within that group, it is most closely related to Gikuyu.The Watemi are also closely related to the Meru of Kenya and another Enclave of the Ayoo people of Kilimanjaro.
Engaruka : Sometime in the 15th century, an iron age farmer community with a large continuous village area on the footslopes of the Rift Valley escarpment, housing several thousand people developed an intricate irrigation and cultivation system, involving a stone-block canal channeling water from the “Crater Highlands” rift escarpment to stonelined cultivation terraces (Stump, Daryl 2006, Laulumaa, Vesa 2006). Measures were taken to prevent soil erosion and the fertility of the plots was increased by using the manure of stall fed cattle. For an unknown reason Engaruka was abandoned at latest in mid 1800s. The site still poses many questions, including the identity of the founders, how they developed such an ingenious farming system, and why they left (Stump, Daryl 2003). The site has been linked to the Sonjo, a people living some 60 miles to the northwest known for their use of irrigation systems in agriculture and similar terraced village sites (Nurse, Derek & Rottland, Franz 1991). New studies have revealed lot of unknown perspectives of the past of Engaruka, for example the Middle Stone Age and Neolithic Stone Age occupation history of the area (Seitsonen, Oula 2005).
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NB we are working on refining this story.Any more information will be highly appreciated !
American Writers Cash In On Kenyan Stories
14 Cows for America, written by Carmen Agra Deedy with Wilson Kimeli Naiyomah and illustrated by Thomas Gonzalez (Peachtree; 40 pages; $17.95; ages 4-8). To the Maasai the cow is life, and that is the key to this true story about how a remote tribe in Kenya presents a special gift of healing to the United States after the attacks of 9/11. Some assumptions about our relationship with developing countries are challenged as we come to see that foreign aid can be a two-way street.
A brave environmentalist is the subject of Mama Miti: Wangari Maathai and the Trees of Kenya, written by Donna Jo Napoli and illustrated by Kadir Nelson (Simon & Schuster; $16.99; 32 pages; ages 4-8). It seems that many women come to Maathai with their problems – too little food and firewood, dirty water and so on. Her advice is always the same: “Plant a tree.” Patterned prose and traditional artistic elements lend a folkloric feel to this admiring picture biography focused on Maathai’s almost mythic power to change individual lives and restore her deforested land to better health. No wonder she won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for the Green Belt Movement.
Mistrust is overcome in First Come the Zebra, by Lynne Barasch (Lee & Low; 40 pages; $18.95; ages 5-8). Two boys, one Kikuyu and the other Maasai, carry forward a bitter tribal rivalry. It’s the farmers versus herders until impending danger puts them on the same side. Watercolors, dainty and detailed, lighten a story that could have easily turned heavy with facts and heavy-handed with lessons. The boys and their beloved Kenya have ample charm to carry the day and proffer a happy and even hopeful ending
American FPE funds : Ministry of Education Corruption or Empty Coffers at Home
The U.S. has suspended a five-year plan to fund Kenya’s education programs following allegations that more than $1 million in funds went missing at the Education Ministry, its ambassador said Tuesday.The U.S. made the decision based on claims late last year that Education Ministry officials misappropriated 100 million shillings ($1.3 million) of Kenyan government and donor funds to finance the country’s much-lauded free primary school education program, U.S. Ambassador Michael Ranneberger told a luncheon of the American Chamber of Commerce in Kenya.
Meanwhile in Washington just as the News is breaking. -Obama Gets Bad Numbers From Congressional Budget Office.
Jobs and the deficits are going to be big themes of President Obama’s big speech tomorrow — and he got some bad numbers on both topics today from the Congressional Budget Office.
A new report by the Congressional Budget Office says the nation’s $1.4 trillion deficit is more likely to go up than down this year.If Obama keeps President Bush’s tax cuts in place and extends other expiring tax breaks, the 2010 deficit would grow to more than $1.6 trillion, the report says. Over the next decade, the nation would rack up another $12 trillion in deficits, thereby doubling the size of the $12 trillion national debt.
“Daunting” and “bleak” were just some of the adjectives used by CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf on Tuesday to describe the 10-year budget picture. Spending is projected to outpace revenues, and the debt would soon be two-thirds the size of the overall economy. By 2020, interest payments on that debt would be more than $700 billion, about four times the size of the current amount.The report shows the unemployment rate rising slightly above 10% before declining slowly. Not until 2014 would the rate drop back to 5%.”In sum, the outlook for the federal budget is bleak,” Elmendorf said. “U.S. fiscal policy is on an unsustainable path to an extent that cannot be solved by minor tinkering.”
It’s time to have a broad discussion across the U.S. about the hard choices that need to be made to rein in the budget deficit: The latest Congressional Budget Office forecast and the Obama plan to freeze part of the budget highlight the unsustainability of federal spending.
KIRIRO VIDEO
Desperate UK ‘Using Obscure Legal Principle’ To Dismiss Colonial Torture
The Guardian: The British government is invoking an obscure legal principle to dismiss claims of torture and rape by the British colonial administration in Kenya, campaigners claimed.The Foreign Office has said four elderly Kenyans alleging that they suffered serious physical and sexual abuse at the hands of the British during the Kenyan “emergency” of 1952 to 1960 should not be allowed to proceed with their claim because of the law of state succession.
Allegations that the British abused suspected Mau Mau fighters have continued since the Kenyan government lifted a 30-year ban on membership in 2003.The organisation, which came into being to oppose colonial rule in Kenya, remains a sensitive issue because of the violence suffered by Kenyans. The British government recently acknowledged that suffering was experienced “on both sides” during the Mau Mau uprising in what experts said was the first recognition that the UK was also to blame.
A Foreign Office spokesman said the emergency period caused great pain on all sides, and marred progress towards independence But the government is refuting liability for the case, in which the claimants describe allegedly being castrated, sexually assaulted and beaten during their detention by the British and say they are still suffering consequences.The case could open the way for up to 12,000 Kenyans to seek redress. It was filed at the high court last year. Daniel Leader, a lawyer at Leigh Day, representing the claimants, said: “One … was castrated for supplying a cow to the Mau Mau.”
“The nature and scale of this abuse was unparalleled in modern British colonial history. The claimants are among the poorest in Kenyan society, and they still live with injuries from that period.”Historians have been through the public records, and the use of systematic violence was authorised at the highest level in London,” Leaderhe said. “We have the documents to prove that.”But the government decision to have the case struck out on technical grounds of state succession – the principle that countries assume liability for their own affairs after independence – has infuriated human rights campaigners, who accuse the UK of shirking its responsibilities for rights abuses in former colonies.
The Foreign Office is believed to be arguing on a rule derived from a case over licences to fish for Patagonian toothfish in the South Georgia and South Sandwich islands, British overseas territories. “The FO is arguing that responsibility for acts by the colonial government passed to the independent government in 1963,” Muthoni Wanyeki, executive director of Kenya Human Rights Commission, said.
Beyond Expectations
Beyond Expectations
Beyond Expectations: From Charcoal to Gold is as interesting as it is inspiring. It is the story of a freedom fighter and a cultural activist; the story of an astute businessman and a shrewd politician; the story of a generous family man and a philanthropist; the story of an eminent elder and a gifted storyteller. It is the story of Njenga Karume.
Njenga Karume’s phenomenal rise from a charcoal burner to a business magnate has been the subject of myths over the years. Yet, few can authoritatively relate Njenga’s journey from his humble beginnings during the colonial period to his current fascinating financial and political success.
In this autobiography, Njenga traces his early life right from birth in 1929, and takes the reader through the various spheres of his inspiring life characterised by an enviable work ethic, unpretentious patriotism, knowledge of human psychology and extraordinary intelligence. Here is an outgoing personality who was born in poverty, received minimal education and then, through his own initiative, ventured into business during one of the toughest times in Kenya’s colonial history. Yet, he succeeded in business beyond anyone’s wildest dreams and rose to such prominence and popularity that he became a respected politician and Cabinet Minister who interacted intimately with all the first three Presidents of independent Kenya.
Happy MLK Day -Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud)
Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud)
Jitolee-Help Haiti
Demanding 2009 Kenyan Census Results
For the third time in the last few weeks, the Planning Minister Wycliff Oparanya postponed the release of the census results, citing mundane reasons such as the ‘principals’ not being briefed, detailed stats being finalised and lastly, the classification by the new districts taking too long.Oparanya gave the districts issue as the reason for the postponement to until after June, arguing that administrative boundaries for the new districts were being sorted out by Office of the President.
When many residents requested for postponement of the census because of the drought then ravaging arid and semi arid lands, he derisively rejected it. Similarly, Muslims’ appeal for delay until after Ramadhan fell on deaf ears. And now, there is no hurry after all for the outcome. He even rubbished concerns that the Interim Independent Boundaries Commission work would be delayed, saying that ‘they can do other work in their mandate until then’. He could have released the general data, such as the population for the whole country, and by provinces. The districts data could then come much later.
The naivete of the minister was astounding, and the reasons he cited for the delay is spurious and inadmissible. For a start, the so-called new districts, numbering some 254 by July last year, are not binding on him legally. The High Court ruled last year that legally there are only 46 districts. For most, the notice of intention to create them may have been gazetted but the 209 additional districts have yet to be approved by Parliament as required by law.More importantly, when filling the census forms, the majority of Kenyans did not know of the new districts and simply gave names of the greater districts they hailed from, such as Mandera, Nyeri or Mwingi. For instance, how many families from the greater Mwingi districts residing in other parts of the country would know that it has been split into seven districts in the past three years?
And who made the decision to postpone the results? The minister himself, acting in the best interests of the nation, or on advice from the ‘principals’? Would the minister have the guts to postpone the results indefinitely without approval of his bosses? I found his argument that he postponed the December 31 announcement because ‘the principals had not been briefed’ ridiculous. As a Government, one would have thought that the appropriate procedure is for him to table the results before the Cabinet for approval, and thereafter to Parliament. What would the good minister do if the ‘principals’ ‘expressed their reservations’ on the results or failed to agree? It is common knowledge that one principal is a proponent of ‘one man one vote’ but the other has yet to fondly express his love for that maxim. Ethnicity was a requirement in the census forms as the key tribes sought to exercise their muscle in the quest for more political power and resources.
What would happen if the ‘Principals’ found the numbers of their kinsfolk wanting? Many Kenyans not happy with ethnic profiling in the census forms simply stated their ethnic group as ‘Kenyans’. Others have for the first time taken a very keen interest in the census. What would happen, for instance, if Somalis in North Eastern became three million?The demographic data is eagerly awaited by many sectors of the economy whose long-term investment decisions are influenced by the data. For the business community, the population, its characteristics, their economic status, incomes, and age are more essential than the new administrative boundaries in which they now live.For NGOs and other development actors, they are likely to be operating on medium to long-term periods. Hence, data on new district units may not influence their work immediately. For all of them, however, the integrity of data is vital.
For the Government though, the delay would mean that realignments in resource allocations in the budget would not be necessary, at least this year. The impact on development planning and service delivery will also be delayed. The boundaries commission may have to use 1999 figures or wait at the risk of being irrelevant — their term would have expired. Agenda 4 reforms on addressing inequalities will also be deprived of current relevant data, or may even be delayed on the census excuse.The political dimension is also important for the rulers too; power is about perception and persuasion of might. Which region has a higher population, or stronger economic power is vital for their campaigns and resource allocations.The delay will also impact on the planned referendum as the Interim Independent Electoral Commission sets its registration targets on population figures.So, in whose interests is the honourable minister working?
By Billow Kerrow
Final CoE Revised Draft Constitution PDF
Download/Read the Final Draft Constitution handed over to the parliamentary select committee on constitutional affairs. - Final CoE Revised Draft Constitution PDF
Read/Download Other PDF Reports
Harmonized Kenyan Draft Constitution PDF
Kenyan Media Bill 2008 PDF
Kriegler Report PDF
Waki Report PDF
Africa Confidential:KHRC Violence Report -Names
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2010-Dear Readers
We are the Ones,You and I are the inner light in a time of darkness.
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for .We are the generation everyone in Kenya has been waiting for, because we are able to see what is happening with a much greater awareness than our parents,grandparents or our ancestors. We are the ones because ‘We’ were born for such a time as this and it is time someone said it.I will not lie or incite like Mutahi Ngunyi’s generation or pander to longevity like Kibaki’s generation.I will speak the wisdom of my generation.We (the young Kenyans)who have been victimized by their decisions.
We the victims of their failures and deceit can sit like lepers and die at the gate of blame and complaint or we can emerge with a strategy that enables us to say,” I am too valuable to die,too tenacious to wait on anyone’s mercy,and too creative to accept your neglect as my destiny”. Blaming yourself is not positive,but refusing to blame others and deciding to take responsibility for yourself and your situation, empowers you.So I will not blame Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga or complain like Mutahi Ngunyi and Maina Kiai. In 2010, I will begin my match towards the change I expect in 2012 by taking personal responsibility.
Personal responsibility has a role at the very least to walk besides if not infront of social justice.Each one us has a choice to make .We can stand with angry fists raised and perpetually and pathologically blame a system of dysfunction for a legacy of abnormalities and misappropriation of justice,or we can assume responsibility for expediting a cure to a crisis that we did not create but refuse to remain a victim of. This year,I hope you will take responsibility for every area of your life .
Change yourself so that We can change Kenya. We are the ones Kenya has been waiting for! Be the change you expect .We can only cure our nation if we cure ourselves.Let us begin with ourselves in 2010 before we cure Kenya in 2012.
God Bless.
Joe Ndungu – Interim Editor (2010) Muigwithania 2.0
Quiet Confidence 2010
Quiet confidence means…than scold myself for my imperfections,
I accept them and realize my ability to change them.
Accepting my own imperfections also allows me to accept those of others.
Quiet confidence means…
Rather than mentally and emotionally “sleeping” through each day,
I choose to be fully awake…
to be aware of my own thoughts, feelings, attitudes,
and the effects they have on myself and others.
Quiet confidence means…
I am becoming aware of and choose to nurture my own talents and gifts,
both to fulfill my own life and to give something of myself to the world.
Quiet confidence means…
I am willing to acknowledge the deep down pain and fear that keep me “stuck”.
It means that I am willing to take the humble “baby steps”
it often takes to move myself forward.
Quiet confidence means…
Rather than beating myself up,
I will forgive myself when I fall back into my “old” ways
of negative thinking and behaving.
Doing this also allows me to be more compassionate and understanding of others.
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year
Glory to the new born King …Hail the heaven born Prince of Peace . … Glory to the new-born King! Jesus Christ King of Kings. Lion of Judah. Saviour of the world . Immanuel, God with us
Ethnic Distrust Is As Deep As The Machete Scars
Washington Post December 24 th
KIAMBAA, KENYA — Nearly two years after a wave of post-election violence brought this East African nation to the brink of civil war, Joseph Ngaruiya has learned to ride his bike with one leg, the other having never fully healed from machete cuts. He’s learned to tolerate the “sorrys” and small talk of neighbors who he believes hacked him nearly to death and burned a church here, killing 36 people in one the worst days of the ethnic bloodletting.
What he has not managed, he says, is to summon sufficient faith in their apologies or in justice to keep him from buying an AK-47 once he gathers enough money.”To stay the way we were that time, unarmed, we can’t,” said Ngaruiya, 38, who was among hundreds of thousands of ethnic Kikuyus driven from this western farming region by Kalenjin tribal militias after the disputed December 2007 election. “Next time, it will be much worse.”
Despite a power-sharing deal and a reform agenda intended to rescue this nation from collapse, the situation remains dangerously volatile, troubling U.S. officials who are already juggling other worries in the region. With Kenya’s eastern neighbor, Somalia, at war with al-Qaeda-linked rebels and its northwestern neighbor, Sudan, sliding toward civil war, U.S. officials say a stable Kenya is more crucial than ever.But the coalition government of President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader turned prime minister Raila Odinga has remained entrenched in the divisive tribal politics that led to the ethnic violence.The government has moved slowly on reforms, blocking any domestic judicial process for trying the perpetrators of the violence, who are widely believed to include Kenya’s political elites.The International Criminal Court recently announced its own investigation, which is likely to focus on a few top leaders alleged to have orchestrated violence.
“Leaders and people are going into their tribal cocoons, where they feel they are safe,” said Ken Wafula, director of the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, a Kenyan human rights group. “Unless something is done, we are waiting for an explosion that would be very disastrous.”
Perhaps nowhere is the situation more fragile than here in the rolling, green Rift Valley. Some of the worst ethnic violence played out in this western region after Odinga accused Kibaki, who is Kikuyu, of stealing the 2007 presidential election. What followed has been described by investigations as a well-planned bloodbath in which Odinga’s Kalenjin supporters burned houses and farms and otherwise drove Kikuyus out of the Rift Valley with bows, arrows and machetes. Kikuyu gangs soon organized their own ethnically driven retaliation against Odinga supporters. In all, more than 1,000 people were killed.Though the tribal calculus could change this time, depending on political alliances in Nairobi, the capital, people speak with near certainty of a repeat of that violence, only this time with guns.
According to Wafula and others, Kalenjin and Kikuyu self-defense militias are forming, some of them including retired military commanders. And while reports of people buying guns are difficult to verify — and Kenya’s gun laws are strict — Kenyan police earlier this month intercepted a cache of 100,000 bullets, military-grade weapons and uniforms being smuggled with the assistance of local police, which has lent some credence to the claims.Sitting in his mud-walled house, Joseph Ngaruiya said that he knows where to get a gun when he’s ready.”You go near the swamp by the Ugandan border,” said the former shopkeeper, who rescued his wife, daughter and four boys from the burning church. “You can’t miss.”
It was late afternoon, and Ngaruiya ran his fingers absently along the machete scars that divide his face and crease his skull. He was tired from riding his bike to town, where he has tried without luck to find work. Groceries, shops, and bus and truck companies seem interested in hiring only Kalenjin these days, he said, because of the possibility that Kikuyu-dominated businesses will be burned, as they were last time.When he thought about it, he said, the post-election crisis taught him not that tribalism is a destructive tool of political elites but that his tribe is perhaps his only refuge anymore. The Kalenjin, he figured, have decided the same.”We Kikuyus, we are uniting,” Ngaruiya said. “And the Kalenjin, they follow their leaders so strongly. We know that. This thing has made tribalism stronger.”Kiambaa, a mostly Kikuyu community of yellowy fields and shaded red dirt paths, is relatively quiet these days; only about half of its residents have returned from tented displacement camps. Where the church was burned, two rows of low, wooden crosses, already overgrown with weeds, mark the graves of people who died inside, most of whom were women and children.Tensions here remain so high that local Kalenjin leaders objected to building more permanent cement graves or a memorial, saying it would amount to an admission of guilt, or even a curse.
‘It’s taking too long’
One of those objectors is Alfred Kiplamai Bor, an influential Kalenjin elder whose sprawling family farm is just across a barbed wire fence from Kiambaa. He is accused of helping to finance Kalenjin militias, which poured across his farm to attack his neighbors at Kiambaa, a charge he denies. Bor’s sons were recently acquitted in a Kenyan court of charges that they directed the militias and helped burn the church, a trial that many Kikuyu victims said was deeply flawed.
Bor, 88, calls Kikuyu neighbors “thieves” and accuses them of a sordid array of tribal practices that he calls “uncivilized.”"They are not wanted here,” said the elder, sitting at his home on a little hill, where he’s hosted some of Kenya’s top Kalenjin leaders. “To solve this thing, it’s very difficult.”Before the election, the Bors bought sugar and other goods from Kikuyus in Kiambaa. Kikuyus walked to Bor’s farm for milk and corn. With few exceptions, those simple gestures of trust have not resumed.
One of Bor’s sons, Emmanuel, said he does not share his father’s views, though he feels in some way captive to them. When the militias arrived at his farm on New Year’s Day — by his count, more than 1,000 young men smeared with mud to disguise their faces — he said he had little choice but to pretend to join them. Had he declined, he said, he might have been killed. When he arrived at the burning church, he said, his conscience told him to help. He said he yelled at the militias to open the church door before the building collapsed. He was there to rescue his neighbors, he said, not to burn them.
“These are people I’ve grown up with here,” Emmanuel Bor said. “I don’t know why they’ve not come back. This reconciliation is worrying. It’s taking too long.”He walked outside his house then, across his field, under the barbed wire and into Kiambaa. It was getting dark, and the silence of the place was odd.”This place was so full and busy,” Bor said, walking past burned-out houses. “But listen now — only bats. What keeps people away? I really don’t understand.” There are some Kikuyu neighbors who believe the younger Bor’s story and have been branded traitors for it. Others said that even if they wanted to believe him, they cannot.”We don’t know what they are planning,” said Regina Muthoni Nyokobi, whose mother died in her wheelchair in the church fire and who sometimes dreams of revenge. “We don’t know their hearts.”
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 22, 2009; A10
Statement On Mau forest Compensation
On behalf of the Deputy Prime Minister I would like to state as follows:-
Dennis Onyango’s statement on the Mau compensation raises certain issues that need to be addressed as follows:-
1. The Deputy Prime Minister Hon. Uhuru Kenyatta has only publicly discussed the issue of the Mau on two key occasions:-(a) At a fundraising to raise money to settle those displaced by the evictions from the Mau, where he attended in his personal capacity. What he said at the fundraising was that there was no need to add more tents when we are trying to remove others. The purport of his statement was that there was no need to have more displaced persons living in tents as we already were trying to deal with the settlement of the current IDPs. The statement is a matter of public record.(b) When he was responding to a media story that gave the impression that the government intended to pay out large sums of money as compensation to large landholders. He was categorical that no arrangement had been made nor any discussion entered into for any payment by the government. The government has not made any budgetary allocation for the payment of any compensation for landowners of any kind. He made the statement as the public were concerned and he was reassuring them that no arrangement as alleged had been entered into, and that is the position.
2. The Deputy Prime Minister Hon. Uhuru Kenyatta has never attacked any policy of the government on Mau at any time
3. The matter of resettlement of Mau evictees has been discussed by government, on humanitarian grounds, but there has been no discussion on compensation on large landholders, there is no contradiction in this regard.
4. The Deputy Prime Minister Hon. Uhuru Kenyatta has never at any time tried to play politics with the issue of Mau, and the allegation is not only baseless and unsustainable, but is in itself playing politics with Mau.
5. The ministry of Finance has not entered into consultations nor discussions with large land owners nor has he received any communication from any government department for any valuation or intent to pay large land owners. Further we have not factored any such payments into the current budget
In conclusion the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Finance would wish to inform Kenyans that it is committed to maintaining macro-economic stability and implementation of sound financial management principles and policies. In this regard, the Ministry has and will remain focused on committed government programmes of which compensation of large land owners is not one of themThe Prime Minister is a principal in the coalition government and if Dennis Onyango has any reason to doubt a government statement issued in consultation with other government departments, he should not have responded through the media but should have done so through laid down government procedures.
Njee Muturi
Principal Liason Officer
Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Finance
22nd December, 2009
Copenhagen-Obama’s Dirty Tricks Sacrifice Africa
On the ninth day of the Copenhagen climate summit, Africa was sacrificed. The position of the G77 negotiating bloc, including African states, had been clear: a 2C increase in average global temperatures translates into a 3–3.5C increase in Africa. That means, according to the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, “an additional 55 million people could be at risk from hunger”, and “water stress could affect between 350 and 600 million more people”.Archbishop Desmond Tutu puts it like this: “We are facing impending disaster on a monstrous scale … A global goal of about 2C is to condemn Africa to incineration and no modern development.”
And yet that is precisely what Ethiopia’s prime minister, Meles Zenawi, proposed to do when he stopped off in Paris on his way to Copenhagen: standing with President Nicolas Sarkozy, and claiming to speak on behalf of all of Africa (he is the head of the African climate-negotiating group), he unveiled a plan that includes the dreaded 2C increase and offers developing countries just $10bn a year to help pay for everything climate related, from sea walls to malaria treatment to fighting deforestation.It’s hard to believe this is the same man who only three months ago was saying this: “We will use our numbers to delegitimise any agreement that is not consistent with our minimal position … If need be, we are prepared to walk out of any negotiations that threaten to be another rape of our continent … What we are not prepared to live with is global warming above the minimum avoidable level.”And this: “We will participate in the upcoming negotiations not as supplicants pleading for our case but as negotiators defending our views and interests.”
We don’t yet know what Zenawi got in exchange for so radically changing his tune or how, exactly, you go from a position calling for $400bn a year in financing (the Africa group’s position) to a mere $10bn. Similarly, we do not know what happened when secretary of state Hillary Clinton met Philippine president Gloria Arroyo just weeks before the summit and all of a sudden the toughest Filipino negotiators were kicked off their delegation and the country, which had been demanding deep cuts from the rich world, suddenly fell in line.We do know, from witnessing a series of these jarring about-faces, that the G8 powers are willing to do just about anything to get a deal in Copenhagen. The urgency does not flow from a burning desire to avert cataclysmic climate change, since the negotiators know full well that the paltry emissions cuts they are proposing are a guarantee that temperatures will rise a “Dantesque” 3.9C, as Bill McKibben puts it.
Matthew Stilwell of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development – one of the most influential advisers in these talks – says the negotiations are not really about averting climate change but are a pitched battle over a profoundly valuable resource: the right to the sky. There is a limited amount of carbon that can be emitted into the atmosphere. If the rich countries fail to radically cut their emissions, then they are actively gobbling up the already insufficient share available to the south. What is at stake, Stilwell argues, is nothing less than “the importance of sharing the sky”.
Europe, he says, fully understands how much money will be made from carbon trading, since it has been using the mechanism for years. Developing countries, on the other hand, have never dealt with carbon restrictions, so many governments don’t really grasp what they are losing. Contrasting the value of the carbon market – $1.2 trillion a year, according to leading British economist Nicholas Stern – with the paltry $10bn on the table for developing countries for the next three years, Stilwell says that rich countries are trying to exchange “beads and blankets for Manhattan”. He adds: “This is a colonial moment. That’s why no stone has been left unturned in getting heads of state here to sign off on this kind of deal … Then there’s no going back. You’ve carved up the last remaining unowned resource and allocated it to the wealthy.”
For months now NGOs have got behind a message that the goal of Copenhagen is to “seal the deal”. Everywhere we look in the Bella Centre, clocks are ticking. But any old deal isn’t good enough, especially because the only deal on offer won’t solve the climate crisis and might make things much worse, taking current inequalities between north and south and locking them in indefinitely.Augustine Njamnshi of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance puts the 2C proposal in harsh terms: “You cannot say you are proposing a ’solution’ to climate change if your solution will see millions of Africans die and if the poor not the polluters keep paying for climate change.”
Stilwell says that the wrong kind of deal would “lock in the wrong approach all the way to 2020″ – well past the deadline for peak emissions. But he insists that it’s not too late to avert this worst-case scenario. “I’d rather wait six months or a year and get it right because the science is growing, the political will is growing, the understanding of civil society and affected communities is growing, and they’ll be ready to hold their leaders to account to the right kind of a deal.”
At the start of these negotiations the mere notion of delay was environmental heresy. But now many are seeing the value of slowing down and getting it right. Most significant, after describing what 2C would mean for Africa, Archbishop Tutu pronounced that it is “better to have no deal than to have a bad deal”. That may well be the best we can hope for in Copenhagen. It would be a political disaster for some heads of state – but it could be one last chance to avert the real disaster for everyone else.
Copenhagen: To Hell With The Environment! -Western Impunity
So a bunch of self-centred leaders are meeting in the cooler climes of Copenhagen for the common good of humanity. Pardon me for the emphasis on self-centredness. It is no secret that leaders think in terms of their national interest, which, in the capitalist west, also means the interest of Big Business — Big Oil and Big Industry. Global interest or global justice has meaning only when these leaders feel these concepts are useful tools to promote their national interest goals.
The love of power and more power and greed for wealth and more wealth have prevented the developed world from taking corrective measures to avert the coming climate catastrophe.To hell with the environment! The developed world, which comprises the main climate culprits, carries on regardless. They probably feel if they adhere to a binding convention they will have to commit themselves to less emissions. This they can achieve only by finding energy-efficeint alternative technology or by slowing down the pace of their industrialization.
lords of impunity
Until they find this technology, the developed nations are unlikely to put brakes on industrialisation. This was why the United States during the eight-year George W. Bush era rubbished the Kyoto Protocol, which could have acted like a dam to hold back the coming avalanche. The Bush administration’s environment policy ensured the least possible disruption of Big Business.
The election of Barack Obama has not changed much though he was good at stirring hopes. His administration’s decision this week to name carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas — a gas that causes damage to the environment — was cosmetic and cannot be interpreted as evidence that the US is veering away from the Bush environment policies.
Obama the presidential candidate was far more environment friendly than Obama the president. During the campaign for the White House, Obama wooed young voters with words of a crusading climate activist. The energy section of the website Barackobama.com quotes him as saying, “For too long, politicians in Washington have been beholden to special interests, but no longer. Our new, responsible energy policy recognizes the relationship between energy, the environment, and our economy and leverages American ingenuity to put people back to work, fight global warming, increase our energy independence and keep us safe.”
In September, addressing a UN conference on environment, Obama said the “threat from climate change is serious, it is urgent, and it is growing. Our generation’s response to this challenge will be judged by history, for if we fail to meet it — boldly, swiftly and together — we risk consigning future generations to an irreversible catastrophe.”
Hope-stirring words, no doubt. But words are no substitute for action that can bring results. Like Obama, many world leaders do not hesitate to acknowledge the danger, but they lack the political will to respond to the crisis. They drag their feet when they are asked to take concrete measures aimed not at stopping the coming disaster but at delaying it. “Let it happen; when it happens, let us decide how to deal with it.” This appears to be the stance many industrial nations have adopted, while exasperated scientists plead with them to take measures that would keep the average global temperature rise to a minimum 2 degree Celsius in the next decade. The Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) wants the emissions level to come down by 25 to 40 percent if we are to keep the temperature rise within the 2 degree threshold in the next five to ten years, but many developed countries have offered to meet only less that half the required percentage — 10 to 17 percent — and that too from the 1997 level and not from the current emissions level.
If there are any human beings living on Planet Earth in 100 years time, how Copenhagen will be remembered depends not on the decision of the world leaders at the do-or-die climate summit but on the implementation of the decisions. If no implementation, no survival.Given the self-centred behaviour of Western nations, it is doubtful that they would act in the common interest of humanity. Take, for instance, China. Apparently worried that any commitment to drastic emission cuts would retard its economic development, it broke ranks with sinking small states which had pinned much hope on the current summit.
Copenhagen, the purpose of which is to adopt a comprehensive convention that will replace the Kyoto protocol, is likely to suffer the same fate that befell Rio and Kyoto, though everyone attending the summit acknowledges that they have gathered in the Danish capital for a defining moment.Well, we witnessed a similar urgency when the United Nations held its first climate summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 against the backdrop of capitalism’s victory over pseudo-communism in the 40-year Cold War. This summit adopted a couple of conventions on climate change and the 300-page Agenda 21 which sought to achieve sustainable development in the 21st century. Five years later, when they met in the Japanese city of Kyoto, the inadequacy of Rio in making the convention binding and the impotency of the nations in putting the measures into practice were obvious.
So they came up with the Kyoto Protocol and hailed it as the only international instrument to tackle global warming. But major polluters such as the United States showed little interest in adhering to emissions levels prescribed by the protocol, which is set to expire in 2012.We are skating on thin ice which may crack at anytime and swallow us. Time is also not on our side. We must act now. We must be guided by values that uphold social justice and not by the lure of filthy lucre or the greed that makes us to amass wealth at the cost of death, destruction and destitution to the billions who inherit this planet, If we fail this time, we are doomed; and trying to find a solution when the catastrophe finally hits us will be too little too late.
By A.I
Music Video -Wahu and Chege with Running Low
Seasons & The Riika system.
The Agĩkũyũ had four seasons and two harvests in one year.
1. Mbura ya njahĩ [The Season of Big Rain] from March to July,
2. Magetha ma njahĩ [The season of the big harvest] between July and Early October
3. Mbura ya Mwere [Short rain season] from October to January
4. Magetha ma Mwere [the season of harvesting millet]
Further, time was recorded through the initiation. Each initiation group was given special name. According to *Professor Godfrey Mũriũki, The individual initiation sets are then grouped into a regiment every nine calendar years. Before a regiment or army set, there was a period in which no initiation of boys took place. This period lasted a total of four and a half calendar years [nine seasons in Gĩkũyũ land, each season referred to as imera] and is referred to as mũhingo, initiation taking place at the start of the fifth year and going on annually for the next nine calendar years. This was the system adopted in Metumi [Mũrang’a]. The regiment or army sets also get special names, some of which seem to have ended up as popular male names.
In Gaki [Nyeri] the system was inversed with initiation taking place annually for four calendar years, which would be followed by a period of nine calendar years in which no initiation of boys took place [mũhingo]. Girls on the other hand were initiated every year. Several regiments then make up a ruling generation.
It was estimated that Ruling generation last an average of 35 years. The names of the initiation and regiment sets vary within Gĩkũyũ land. The ruling generations are however uniform and provide very important chronological data. On top of that, the initiation sets were a way of documenting events within the Gĩkũyũ nation, so, for example, were the occurrence of small pox and syphilis recorded. Girls’ initiation sets were also accorded special names, although there has been little research in this area. Mũriũki only unearths three sets, whose names are, Rũharo [1894], Kibiri/ Ndũrĩrĩ [1895], Kagica [1896], Ndutu/ Nuthi [1897].
All these names are taken from Metumi [Mũrang’a] and Kabete [Kĩambu]. It is strange that professor Mũriũki didn’t do more research in this area because he states that the girls’ initiation took place annually.
According to Hobley each initiation generation, riika, extended over two years. The ruling generation at the arrival of the Europeans was called Maina. It is said that Maina handed over to Mwangi in 1898. Hobley asserts that the following sets were grouped under Maina – Kĩnũthia, Karanja, Njũgũna, Kĩnyanjui, Gathuru and Ng’ang’a. Professor Mũriũki however puts these sets much earlier, namely Karanja and Kĩnũthia belong to the Ciira ruling generation which ruled from the year 1722 to 1756, give or take 25 years according to Mũriũki. Njũgũna, Kĩnyanjui, Ng’ang’a belong to the Mathathi ruling generation that ruled from 1757 to 1791 give or take 20 years according to Mũriũki.
The ruling generations [riika] according to Mũriũki, which he used to trace the history of the Agĩkũyũ to the year 1500 or there abouts.
1. Manjiri 1512 – 46 ± 55
2. Mamba 1547 – 81 ± 50
3. Tene 1582 – 1616 ± 45
4. Agu 1617 – 51 ± 40
5. Manduti 1652 – 86 ± 40
6. Cuma 1687 – 1721 ± 30
7. Ciira 1722 – 56 ± 25
8. Mathathi 1757 – 1791 ± 20
9. Ndemi 1792 – 1826 ± 15
10. Iregi 1827 – 1861 ± 10
11. Maina 1862 – 97 ± 5
12. Mwangi 1898?
Mathew Njoroge Kabetũs list reads,
Tene, Kĩyĩ, Aagu, Ciĩra, Mathathi, Ndemi, Iregi, Maina [Ngotho], Mwangi
Gakaara wa Wanjaũs list reads
Tene, Nemathĩ, Kariraũ, Aagu, Tiru, Cuma, Ciira, Ndemi, Mathathi, Iregi, Maina, Mwangi, Irũngũ, Mwangi wa Mandũti. The last two generations came after 1900.
One of the earliest recorded lists by Mc Gregor reads (list taken from a history of unchanged)
Manjiri, Mandoti, Chiera, Masai, Mathathi, Ndemi, Iregi, Maina, Mwangi, Muirungu
Professors Mũriũkis list must be given precedence in this area as he conducted extensive research in this area starting 1969, and had the benefit of all earlier literature on the subject as well as doing extensive field work in the areas of Gaki [Nyeri], Metumi [Mũrang’a] and Kabete [Kĩambu]. On top of the ruling generations, he also gives names of the regiments or army sets from 1659 [within a margin of error] and the names of annual initiation sets beginning 1864. The list from Metumi [Mũrang’a] is most complete and differentiated.
Mũriũkis is also the most systematically defined list, so far. Suffice to say that most of the most popular male names in Gĩkũyũ land were names of riikas [initiation sets].
Here is Mũriũkis list of the names of regiment sets in Metumi [Mũrang’a].
These include Kiariĩ [1665 - 1673], Cege [1678 - 1678], Kamau [1704 - 1712], Kĩmani [1717 - 1725], Karanja [1730 - 1738], Kĩnũthia [1743 - 1751], Njũgũna [1756 - 1764], Kĩnyanjui [1769 - 1777] , Ng’ang’a [1781 - 1789], Njoroge [1794 - 1802], Wainaina [1807 - 1815], Kang’ethe [1820 - 1828] Mbugua [1859 – 1867], Njenga or Mbira Itimu [872 – 80], Mutung’u or Mburu [1885 – 1893]
H.E. Lambert who dealt with the riikas extensively has the following list of regiment sets from Gichũgũ and Ndia. It should be remembered that this names were unlike ruling generations not uniform in Gĩkũyũ land. It should also be noted that Ndia and Gachũgũ followed a system where initiation took place every annually for four years and then a period of nine calendar years followed where no initiation of boys took place. This period was referred to as mũhingo.
Karanja [1759 - 1762], Kĩnũthia [1772 - 1775], Ndũrĩrĩ [1785 - 1788], Mũgacho [1798 - 1801] , Njoroge [1811 - 1814], Kang’ethe [1824 - 1827], Gitaũ [ 1837 - 1840], Manyaki [1850 - 1853], Kiambuthi [1863 - 1866], Watuke [1876 - 1879], Ngũgĩ [1889 - 1892], Wakanene [1902 - 1905]
The remarkable thing in this list in comparison to the Metumi one is how some of the same names are used, if a bit off set. Ndia and Gachũgũ are extremely far from Metumi. Gaki on he other hand, as far as my geographical understanding of Gĩkũyũ land is concerned should be much closer to Metumi, yet virtually no names of regiment sets are shared. It should however be noted that Gaki had a strong connection to the Maasai living nearby.
The ruling generation names of Maina and Mwangi are also very popular male Gĩkũyũ names. The theory is also that Waciira is also derived from ciira [case], which is also a very popular name among male Agĩkũyũ. This would call into question, when it was exactly that children started being named after the parents of one parents. Had that system, of naming ones kids after ones parents been there from the beginning, there would be very few male names in circulation. This is however not the case, as there are very many Gĩkũyũ male names. My theory is though that the female names are much less, with the names of the full-nine daughters of Mũmbi being most prevalent.
Gakaara wa Wanjaũ supports this view when he writes in his book, Mĩhĩrĩga ya Aagĩkũyũ page 29.
“Hingo ĩyo ciana cia arũme ciatuagwo marĩĩtwa ma mariika ta Watene, Cuma, Iregi kana Ciira. Nao airĩĩtu magatuuo marĩĩtwa ma mĩhĩrĩga tauria hagwetetwo nah au kabere, o nginya hingo iria maundu maatabariirwo thuuthaini ati ciana ituagwo aciari a mwanake na a muirĩĩtu.”
Freely translated it means“In those days the male children were given the names of the riika [initiation set] like Watene, Cuma, Iregi or Ciira. Girls were on the other hand named after the clans that were named earlier until such a time as it was decided to name the children after the parents of the man and the woman.”From this statement it is not clear whether the girls were named ad-hoc after any clan, no matter what clan the parents belonged to. Naming them after the specific clan that the parents belonged to would have severely restricted naming options.
This would strangely mean that the female names are the oldest in Gĩkũyũ land, further confirming its matrilineal descent. As far as male names are concerned, there is of course the chicken and the egg question, of when a name specifically appeared but some names are tied to events that happened during the initiation. For example Wainaina refers to those who shivered during circumcision. Kũinaina [to shake or to shiver].
There was a very important ceremony known as Ituĩka in which the old guard would hand over the reigns of government to the next generation. This was to avoid dictatorship. Kenyatta relates of how once in the land of the Agĩkũyũ, there ruled a despotic King called Gĩkũyũ, grandson of the elder daughter [Wanjirũ according to Leakey] of the original Gĩkũyũ of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi fame. After he was deposed of, it was decided that the government should be democratic, which is how the Ituĩka came to be. This legend of course calls into question when it was exactly that the matrilineal rule set in. The last Ituĩka ceremony where the riika of Maina handed over power to the Mwangi generation, took place in 1898-9 [Hobley]. The next one was supposed to be held in 1925 – 1928 [Kenyatta] but was thwarted by the colonial imperialist government. And one by one Gĩkũyũ institutions crumbled
*Muriuki, Godfrey 1974. History of the Kikuyu 1500 – 1900. (Oxford U Press)
We Will Not Shield or Protect Officials
Kenya’s prime minister, Raila Odinga, said his government “will not shield or protect” senior officials if they are indicted by the international criminal court for crimes against humanity committed during last year’s post-election violence.In an interview with the Guardian, Odinga voiced support for the Hague-based court whose prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said last week he would pursue a unilateral investigation into the 2008 bloodletting in which at least 1,133 people were killed.
The main suspects include several cabinet ministers, including some from Odinga’s party, who are accused of organising and financing ethnic-based attacks.Odinga’s remarks describing himself as holding “identical” views to Ocampo on the urgent need for justice to prevent future politically-inspired violence put him at odds with powerful ministers on both sides of the coalition, who are desperately seeking to derail the international process.
When parliament reopens they are expected to try to push through a bill creating a special local tribunal, in an attempt to weaken Ocampo’s case when he requests authorisation next month from the ICC’s pre-trial chamber to proceed with investigations. After meeting Ocampo in Nairobi last week, Odinga and Mwai Kibaki, the president, whose widely discredited election win kicked off the violence, released a statement saying they would co-operate with the court. But Odinga has gone further.
“We said that we will not shield or protect people found to have committed crimes against humanity,” he said. “That is what we told Ocampo.”
The ICC’s intervention is a tricky issue for both Kenyan leaders, who want to avoid alienating allies in their respective parties named by the government-funded Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights for allegedly orchestrating the violence. In Odinga’s case, it is ministers from the Rift valley region, who offered crucial election support to his Orange Democratic Movement party, who have the most to fear. The area saw the worst of the violence, as Kalenjin gangs attacked Kikuyu civilians from Kibaki’s party.
Some of the most senior Kalenjin MPs say the Rift valley bloodshed was a spontaneous reaction by Odinga supporters, who thought he had been cheated of victory. But Odinga rejected this, pointing to similar ethnic attacks around elections in the 1990s.”There had been conflict and clashes in some parts of the Rift Valley even before the election. During campaigns, there were fires [attacks] in Molo and Burnt Forest and so on. These were things that had nothing to do with the post-election protests. .. They need to be separated [from genuine protests],” he said. In Kibaki’s party, panic over Ocampo’s move is strongest among some senior MPs from his home region in Central province, who are accused of sponsoring Kikuyu gangs to attack opposition supporters. As part of a peace deal last year, Kibaki and Odinga agreed to establish a local tribunal to try those responsible for the violence. But when they presented a bill to parliament to facilitate this it was rejected.
The legislation was weak, human rights activists say, and Odinga said some MPs – and most Kenyans – had serious concerns that a domestic court would not be independent. But he said politicians involved in the violence had also helped to quash the bill, fearing that a local tribunal would move faster then the ICC.”They thought it would take 50 years before it [the ICC] reached the Kenyan trial. To them the ICC was like a parking place – put it [the case] there and park it there,” he said.Ocampo has said he will seek to bring cases against two to four people, perhaps as soon as next year, in order to prevent further violence during the next election. His decision to move quickly is broadly supported among Kenyans fed up with decades of high-level impunity. Odinga said he shared the concern about further violence in 2012, when he is almost certain to run for president again.
“My position is informed by what we have been through since the introduction of multipartyism … We had these clashes in 1992, then again in 1997 and 2002. This is happening because nothing has been done to stop it. My position is identical to that of Mr Ocampo,” he said.He said the police needed to be held to account for supporting the Kikuyu militias, but refused to be drawn on whether any of his party leaders might eventually be indicted by the ICC.”The mere fact that names have been floated is not sufficient evidence that people are culpable,” he said.
Civil society groups have criticised Odinga and Kibaki for refusing Ocampo’s request to grant him permission to investigate, which would have avoided the prosecutor have to seeking authority from the pre-trial chamber. But Odinga said that granting a referral would have been tantamount to admitting Kenya was a failed state. He insisted that lower-level perpetrators could still face justice domestically.”We told him [Ocampo] that we have not given up on the local process and have embarked on a very major reform of the judiciary and the police to try the bulk of the culprits locally.”
December-The Devil Is A Defeated Foe.
Mau Forest
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Nairobi — It was billed as a simple fundraising event for squatters evicted from the Mau Forest, but the loaded political speeches pointed to a new political grouping united by a common antipathy towards Prime Minister Raila Odinga.Key participants were Agriculture minister William Ruto and the chief guest, Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, reflecting a regrouping of the Kanu leadership brought to the fore ahead of the 2002 elections.Another key Kanu leader of the time, Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka, was expected to put in an appearance but sent his apologies, a donation of Sh100,000 and words of support.The three make up the so-called 3Ks, the mooted Kalenjin-Kikuyu-Kamba alliance seen by its promoters as the best way to stop Mr Odinga in his tracks come 2012.Mr Ruto, an ODM deputy leader, has been openly at odds with his party boss over the Mau evictions and a host of other issues ranging from public service appointments to proposals that key perpetrators of the post-election violence be tried, whether by a local tribunal or the International Criminal Court.
On Wednesday evening, the Eldoret North MP demonstrated his political clout by assembling 10 ministers and more than 50 MPs from across the political divide to launch broadsides at Mr Odinga.The powerful line-up at the Panafric Hotel raised Sh5 million, but the speeches made it apparent that the agenda was not so much the plight of the Mau evictees but the opportunity to hit out at Mr Odinga, who was variously labelled as dictatorial, dishonest and trouble-maker unfit to lead the country.A day before the event, it was rumoured that Mr Odinga had held a meeting with President Kibaki and asked him to prevail on Mr Musyoka and Mr Kenyatta not to attend as this would indicate a divided government. The latter’s entry was greeted by loud cheers.
Perhaps owing to the heat generated by the events of Wednesday night, ODM’s National Executive Council meeting destined for yesterday was called off at the eleventh hour. The timing was bad and it was reportedly feared the Raila-Ruto cracks would have exploded at the meeting, where party functionaries were to discuss the draft constitutionODM’s secretariat later explained move was due to requests by Muslim faithful who wanted to travel to their rural homes to join family during today’s Idd-ul-Hajj celebrations.Most speakers heaped praise on the triple “K” (Kalenjin, Kikuyu and Kamba) political alliance.Hard positions were taken at the function presided over by Uhuru.And as if to confirm he had been subjected to pressure from high office to skip the function touted as a means to painting Government negatively, the DPM reminded his audience that anybody opposed the harambee spirit was insincere and selfish.
Uhuru conceded he had been under pressure to skip the function “because majority of our people (Kikuyu) were uprooted from their homes during post-election violence and are yet to be resettled”.But even as the leaders rooted for the triple ‘K’ alliance, some MPs from Central castigated Uhuru for attending the fundraiser.Mr Mbau claimed Uhuru was attempting to enter into an alliance with the Kalenjin and Kamba without the blessing of Central Kenya people.”Uhuru should know that while Ruto commands the Rift Valley Province and Kalonzo the Kamba, he has no following in Central,” said Mbau.He said Uhuru had failed in uniting his people and yet “he is purporting to be their de facto leader”.
One can only Hope that Uhuru was at the Harambee in his personal capacity and not as the de facto leader of Central Kenya .The people love him but they hate presumption.Not Yet Uhuru!!!
Justin Mwangi
Harmonized Kenyan Draft Constitution PDF
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TAJI – Heaga Hinya
Prof Kibwana On Consitutution
After two decades of constitution-making and three successive constitutional drafts – Constitution of Kenya Review Commission (CKRC) Draft, Bomas Draft and Wako Draft – will the Experts’ Draft finally deliver the phalarope, Kenya’s new National Charter?Since the l980s and especially in the l990s, Kenyans in their corporate struggles have established that their country will henceforth be a land of freedom. No leader or group of political leaders can establish a dictatorship in Kenya.Although the written new constitution has so far not materialised we have however, put behind us personal rule authoritarianism. After 10 years of President Mwai Kibaki’s open society oriented leadership style – what some call ‘laid-back governance,’ no imperial leadership will be possible unless the leader(s) wish to foment civil strife. I believe in any space that is Kenya, Kenyans have appropriated their space.
The year 2010 is significant because this must be the year we legislate our new found freedom through a constitutional framework. We shall then have declared ourselves: Kenya, land of the free and opportunity.In my view, we must overcome the following obstacles, among others, to guarantee an enduring constitutional settlement. The political elite must desist from viewing the generation of a new constitution as a battleground for succession politics or the fulfillment of other partisan interests.The Committee of Experts (CoE) which is charged with the life-giving role of mid-wife for the new Peoples’ Charter must demonstrate it is only supportive of the National Interest and not the narrow interests of any sector.
We need a governance and citizenship framework that will secure Kenya’s nationhood, development, peace and stability. Therefore, if the 30 days’ public debate of the Experts’ Draft does not observe the give and take principle, then the constitution is likely to abort once again. If give and take is embraced in the final negotiations of a new constitution for Kenya, then the Referendum or vote for the new constitution will be an easy ride.
We must thus mobilise Kenya’s latent genius which always helps us to avoid national cataclysms at the last hour. We peacefully achieved regime change after Moi. We overcame full-fledged civil war in 2007/2008. We never went under after Kenyatta’s demise.A new constitutional order therefore must, through a national consensus, replace the independence constitution that during one-partyism was made a One-Party State Constitution through prolific amendments. To become a middle economy, Kenya needs a facilitative constitutional framework. Contentious issues must be negotiated, but ultimately the New Constitution is Non-negotiable.
Prof Kibwana
Obama: Kenya Is Not Ghana….Britain’s Colonial Legacy Has Undermined Its Moral Authority
A success story undone by corruption
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Accompanying the fanfare of President Obama’s visit to Ghana in July was a chorus of well-founded praise for that country’s functioning democracy. The U.S. president pointed to his host country as a shining example, while warning other nations on the continent that “Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.” Political pundits and the media reinforced Obama’s message, holding up Ghana as Africa’s success story.
Not so long ago, Ghana shared the limelight with Kenya, the country of Obama’s paternal past. But the vote-tampering and widespread ethnic violence that marred the 2007 Kenyan elections left observers shaking their heads, wondering how the idyll of East Africa could have gone so wrong, so quickly. A well-functioning, multiparty government buoyed by an impressive 6 percent annual growth rate had made for a potent combination in the post-colonial dream world.
The blurring of fantasy and reality, however, was laid bare in the smoldering rubble of election violence that left some 1,500 Kenyans dead and at least 300,000 internally displaced. Journalist Michela Wrong provides a very important and illuminating account of Kenya’s present-day political and economic morass. On one level, “It’s Our Turn to Eat” reads like a John le Carré novel as it traces the cloak-and-dagger maneuverings of Kenya’s political bosses, and the heroic but futile attempts of John Githongo — the government’s internal, anti-corruption watchdog, and the protagonist of Wrong’s account — to stymie them.
On a deeper and much richer level, the book is an analysis of how and why Kenya descended into political violence more than a year and a half ago. For Wrong, the insidious bedfellows of corruption and tribalism inhabit nearly every sphere of Kenyan existence. At the upper echelons of government, members of parliament connived to defraud the country of some $750 million through the notorious Anglo-Leasing scheme; at the lower levels of society, the ordinary Kenyan doles out on average 16 bribes a month to government agents simply to get by.
These factors, as Wrong points out, have been present in Kenya since the inauguration of the country’s first independent government in 1963, despite the rather rosy and misplaced image that characterized the nation, at least in the Western media, for decades. First, under the leadership of Jomo Kenyatta, the Kikuyu, Kenya’s ethnic majority, benefited disproportionately from the state’s spoils. Kenyatta surrounded himself with a coterie of loyal ethnic supporters who systematically excluded non-Kikuyu from participating in their quest for power and ill-gotten wealth.
Subsequently, when Daniel T. arap Moi took power in 1978, the new president continued with the tribally based corruption. Only this time, Moi, who came from the ethnic-minority Kalenjin of western Kenya, redirected the flow of wealth and power to his tribal base of supporters. For the Kalenjin and other closely related tribes, it was their turn to eat.
It was Githongo — a Western-educated, physically imposing and exceedingly shrewd man — who was to herald the literal and symbolic end to this vicious cycle of corruption and ethnic favoritism. When Mwai Kibaki, a Kikuyu, took presidential power in 2002, he declared his election a mandate for reform and appointed the young Githongo, also a Kikuyu, to root out the old bogies that had undermined Kenya’s progress. It wasn’t long, though, before Githongo’s starry eyes cleared, only to find his revered mentor, Kibaki, knee-deep in the corruption game, with a supporting cast of legislators aiding and abetting theft from the state’s coffers.
With much drama, Githongo eventually fled Kenya, taking with him piles of documents and secretly taped conversations. He landed on the London doorstep of Wrong, an old acquaintance. Given this personal connection, Wrong is notably self-aware of her position as both author and partial subject of her own book. Indeed, her personal involvement scarcely compromises her excellent analysis of Kenya’s twin evils; rather, she deftly points to the fact that corruption and tribalism are not endemic just to Africa, but inhabit the contemporary, worldwide landscape, and that complicity reaches to all corners of the globe as well.
If the old-boy system is not an African artifact, and if undemocratic processes have no boundaries — many a Kenyan will snicker at the mention of a hanging chad — how then does Wrong make sense of the localized events in Kenya? By “probing the roots of a dysfunctional African nation” and its British colonial legacy, as well as Kenya’s more recent entanglements with the likes of the World Bank and Britain’s Department for International Development, Wrong takes a decidedly Paul Wolfowitz-like stand. That is, political systems are at the heart of the problem and must be reformed if there is any hope for the alleviation of poverty — and not just in Kenya.
It’s difficult to argue against Wrong on this point, though the roots and solutions to Kenya’s problems are far more embedded in the country’s past than she suggests. Colonial Kenya — with its white tribe of settlers and administrators, economic monopolies and perpetuation of African tribalism, and a governor who ruled with highly centralized powers and a posse of loyal underlings to support him — bears an uncanny resemblance to the country today. Moreover, while Wrong praises Britain’s former highest-ranking ambassador to Kenya, High Commissioner Edward Clay, and his anti-corruption stance, she fails to mention that, while Clay was making his strongest denunciations of corruption, the full impact of Britain’s colonial violence and coverups was finally being disclosed in Kenya.
Britain’s colonial legacy has undermined its moral authority and continues to influence processes in Kenya, no matter how complicit Africans have been in perpetuating corruption and tribalism. The historical phenomenon of colonialism and its long-term impact vary across the continent, making the trajectory of a former settler colony such as Kenya distinct from that of Ghana, and many other African nations, for that matter. If strongmen are to be eliminated and institutions reformed — as both Obama and Wrong urge — then the historical differences among various African countries, and the ways in which these differences inform and shape present-day governing structures and cultures, must be thoroughly understood.
Caroline Elkins is a professor of history at Harvard University and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya.”
Kikuyu Judendienstordnung-Neo Colonial Home Guards
* Written after reading David Makali’s article in a Kenyan Daily “The kikuyu problem We must Address” and Mutahi Ngunyi’s “Why the House of Mumbi Must Climb Down“
Kikuyus by name only remind me of the Jewish Ghetto Police in Nazi Europe.(Jüdische Ghetto-Polizei-Judendienstordnung), also known as the Jewish Order Service that was also active in most of the Nazi concentration camps. Members of the Judendienstordnung did not have official uniforms often wearing just an identifying armband (Kikuyus by name only).They were used by the Germans primarily for securing the deportation of other Jews to the concentration camps.Germany is greater than being Jewish was their rallying call .
It may be hard to imagine that there were Jewish Police during the Shoah (Holocaust)after all it was often the German and Polish Police who victimized the Jews.
Early in the Reich, there were Jewish supporters of the Reich just as in any other groups. As the Reich grew stronger, and as the Civil Rights Restrictions of 1933-35 were enacted, most Jews were forbidden to hold all public offices,a solution aimed at addressing historical injustices( sound familiar ). One exclusion however was in the camps and ghettos . While the Ghettos such as Warsaw, Lodz, and Krakow were guarded by the Nazis, they often had their own police forces comprised of Jewish officers for ‘peace-building’. This did not guarantee perfect treatment of the people under their care however, but one has to remember that the populations in the ghettos were starving, mostly poor, faced with disease and often brimming over: Warsaw ghetto at one time may have had over 500,000 in the space fit for a tenth of that. The Jewish police there faced the same problems other jews would face in the same circumstances.But they held strong to Germany over Jewish heritage.
Today in Kenya we have our own ‘peace builders’ who chant that being Kenyan is greater than our ethnic identity.(Kikuyus by name only) .Our very own Judendienstrdnung, the Maina Kiai’s, John Githongo, Binyavanga Wainaina, Mutahi Ngunyis.An interesting lot,Supported by Obama bought and paid for by British tax payers.
For starters they only see the wrong their community does and never what others have done.They see stolen elections and attacks in Naivasha but fail to see the pre election violence and demonizing campaigns against their own.They see the Naivasha violence in a context of ethnic tranquility and national harmony reigning ,blind to the Kiambaa violence and mass genocide against their people . Human rights to them only apply to other ethnic groups. They call for democracy by kilometer rather than one man one vote why? because the concept of democracy they claim to fight for really doesnt matter .‘These neo-colonial home guards say “We have to have a Non-Kikuyu leader for Kenya”.Their vast left wing conspiracy says corruption is only corruption when Kamau does it .When others do it ,it is not corruption. Ethnic militias like Mungiki are heaven sent when they worship at the altar of ODM principalities,that their human right are more important than those they have killed in Kirinyaga.
I guess when a new Kenya dawns and all the anti Kikuyus have their way ,the Kiai’s and Githongo’s hope they will be overseeing us behind the barbed wire.They just don’t realize that their fate will only be like ours.
Joe Ndungu
Kalenjin Leaders Must Do More
Where is the Kalenjin Council of Elders
Susan Rice Over Her Head On Sudan. We Are Living In A World of Modern International Relations.
When will The United States Learn the World has changed.We Are Living In A World of Modern International Relations.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton unveiled a “comprehensive” U.S. policy for resolving the conflicts in Sudan, focused on ending human rights abuses and genocide in the Darfur region, fully implementing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and ensuring Sudan does not become a haven for violent extremists.Speaking to reporters at the State Department October 19, Clinton said today’s Sudan, four years after the signing of the CPA, is “at a critical juncture, one that can lead to steady improvements in the lives of the Sudanese people or degenerate into more conflict and violence.”
The people of Darfur still live in “unconscionable and unacceptable conditions,” Clinton said. The U.S. focus, she said, is on “reversing the ongoing dire human consequences of genocide by addressing the daily suffering in the refugee camps, protecting civilians from continuing violence, helping displaced persons return to their homes, ensuring that the militias are disarmed and improving conditions on the ground.”
The situation in Sudan has emerged as one of the largest and most devastating humanitarian crises for the 21st century, the State Department said in an October 19 statement. More than 20 years of fighting between the government and the SPLM has killed more than 2 million people, and key portions of the 2005 CPA remain unfulfilled and will be a flashpoint for future armed conflict unless implemented, Clinton said.
In addition, Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party and government-supported militia launched a genocidal campaign in 2003 against ethnic groups affiliated with a potential rebellion, killing hundreds of thousands, displacing 2.7 million people and creating more than 250,000 refugees, according to the State Department statement. Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for his alleged role in the Darfur genocide.
Instability in Sudan not only jeopardizes the future of the country’s 40 million inhabitants, but can also “be an incubator of violence … in an already volatile region,” Clinton said.
The fate of Sudan’s people is “profoundly important” to U.S. officials, from President Obama on down, Clinton said. The decision to pursue the two goals of improving human rights in Darfur and fully implementing the CPA “simultaneously and in tandem” reflects the Obama administration’s “seriousness, sense of urgency, and collective agreement about how best to address the complex challenges” to both, she said.
“We are realistic about the hurdles to progress,” but “the problems in Sudan cannot be ignored or willed away,” Clinton said, adding that although dialogue will continue with the parties in the conflict, “words alone are not enough” to end the conflict and humanitarian suffering, and the United States is prepared to take measures to encourage progress.
“Assessment of progress and decisions regarding incentives and disincentives will be based on verifiable changes in conditions on the ground. Backsliding by any party will be met with credible pressure in the form of disincentives leveraged by our government and our international partners,” Clinton said.
The secretary said the United States has “a menu of incentives and disincentives” that includes both political and economic measures, but added “we want to be somewhat careful in putting those out” when she was asked to specify potential actions.
In an October 19 statement on the comprehensive strategy, Obama warned that Sudan is “poised to fall further into chaos if swift action is not taken,” and the conscience of both the United States and the international community requires action “with a sense of urgency and purpose.”
The president said he plans to renew U.S. sanctions on the Sudanese government. “If the Government of Sudan acts to improve the situation on the ground and to advance peace, there will be incentives; if it does not, then there will be increased pressure imposed by the United States and the international community,” he said.
At the State Department, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said there will be “no rewards for the status quo, no incentives without concrete and tangible progress,” and “significant consequences for parties that backslide or simply stand still.”
To track progress on the ground, the United States has more sources of information than in the past, including the hybrid United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur (UNAMID), the 10,000 U.N. peacekeepers in the south, and the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. “We’re in contact with all the parties, and I’d have every confidence that our challenge will not be lack of information,” Rice said.
ELECTION, REFERENDUM SCHEDULE ADD TO URGENCY
Retired U.S. Air Force General Scott Gration, who is the Obama administration’s special envoy for Sudan, said there is a strong sense of urgency to improve the situation in the country because Sudan is scheduled to hold national elections in April 2010. And a referendum in southern Sudan on self-determination, which could lead to that region’s independence, is likely to be held before the end of 2011.
“Success requires frank dialogue with all parties in Sudan, with the regional states and international community. We all must work together to get tangible results on the ground, to achieve a lasting peace, a better life for future generations of Sudanese. And we must not stop until our task is complete,” Gration said.
According to the October 19 statement from the State Department, the Obama administration has learned “critical lessons” from previous U.S. efforts to resolve the conflicts in Sudan, including the need to engage both with allies and “with those with whom we disagree,” holding individuals responsible for genocide and humanitarian atrocities, and valuing Sudanese counterterrorism support, but not as “a bargaining chip to evade responsibilities in Darfur or in implementing the CPA.”
The October 19 statement said that rather than viewing process-related accomplishments such as the signing of a memorandum of understanding between two parties as a means of determining progress, U.S. officials instead will base their assessments on “verifiable changes in conditions on the ground.”
“Each quarter, the interagency at senior levels will assess a variety of indicators of progress or of deepening crisis, and that assessment will include calibrated steps to bolster support for positive change and to discourage backsliding. Progress toward achievement of the strategic objectives will trigger steps designed to strengthen the hands of those implementing the changes. Failure to improve conditions will trigger increased pressure on recalcitrant actors,” the statement said.
The statement also said the United States will be working with international partners to provide assistance for the April 2010 elections and the 2011 referendum with the goal of “a peaceful post-2011 Sudan or an orderly transition to two separate and viable states at peace with each other.”
Along with providing assistance for voter registration and education, balloting, election monitoring and other services, the Obama administration will encourage parties in the north and south to enact legal reforms conducive to a more credible electoral process, work for the “timely and transparent demarcation of the north-south border,” and support efforts to develop a post-2011 wealth-sharing agreement between the two
Sudan has so far held out against the United States and the West for almost 10 years.Why would they be interested In the United States’ new offer. So far ignoring what the west wants has worked out well for them. The North /South partition is a given reality with or without the United States. With the African Union and China on their side who needs engagement with the United States that is already hostile.Whats in it for Sudan in this new deal.The west is slowly becoming EVEN MORE irrelevant .
Post Election Nightmares
Those who committed heinous acts during last year’s post-election chaos are probably having endless nightmares.Yesterday, a man stunned a court by demanding life imprisonment, claiming he torched houses when Kenya went to the brink of chaos.The man, who has been charged with being drunk and disorderly, also claimed Mungiki gangs were after him because of his involvement.
Mr Clement Wafula claimed police had refused to lock him up even after presenting himself at two stations.A packed court was thrown into confusion and disbelief as the man sought the heavy sentence despite undergoing two mental tests.He appeared before Kapsabet Senior Resident Magistrate Gerald Mutiso for being drunk and disorderly last December 18.Wafula shocked the court when he said he wanted to be charged with arson in Uasin Gishu District during post-election violence.He claimed he presented himself to Eldoret Police Station, but was chased away. The same happened at Kapsabet Police Station, but he was later arrested for being drunk and disorderly.
No peace of mind
The former tout claimed he would be secure in police custody, having received threats for his role.He said he had moved to Lodwar and Mt Elgon, but could not find safety and wanted to be jailed for life or at least 30 years to be safe from members of the outlawed sect.He claimed some of his friends had allegedly died mysteriously for their heinous acts.The claims prompted the mental assessment at Kapsabet District Hospital, and a second one at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, Eldoret. A report released on January 21 found him fit to plead. Court orderlies said investigators have been dispatched to establish the man’s claims, but they have found no clues.
Yesterday, Mr Mutiso ordered the probation department to investigate the credibility of the accused’s utterances, his home and work place, and report to court on October 21
Luke 4:23-30
23Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself! Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’ “
24“I tell you the truth,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 25I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. 26Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. 27And there were many in Israel with leprosy[a] in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”
28All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff.30But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.
Happy Rosh Hashana -Happy New Year
Rosh Hashanah is the start of the civil year in God’s calendar. It is the new year for people, animals, and legal contracts. Rosh Hashanah also commemorates the creation of man
Ndura Waruingi Interview With Jeff Koinange
Kisima
*Cartoon by Gathara- from Gathara’s world
Response to Deceptive Moralist Defence By Kikuyus 4 Change of Kalenjin Community
Kikuyus for Change have just released a statement. They believe that ethnic stereotypes are harmful.
Having experienced the harm resulting from ethnic stereotypes, they’re, understandably, determined to speak out against misrepresentations of other communities as a whole. In their view, there has been serious misrepresentation of Kalenjin as a community — it’s unclear just what this amounts to, but it seems to be a variation on collective responsibility. If Kikuyus for Change are right, it is widely believed that Kalenjin are perpetrators of (significant portions) the PEV; that they are destroying the Mau; and that they are the source of discontent on coalition governance issues. Against this unfortunate state of affairs, Kikuyus for Change argue that Kalenjin are not as a community perpetrators of PEV; and that they are not as a community Mau forest occupiers. We are given exactly one reason for that: those actions – the PEV; the entrance, destruction of and refusal to leave the Mau – are not the responsibility of Kalenjin because they are the actions of individuals.
This is the sort of empty and deceptive moralism that gives advocacy organisations in Kenya a bad name.
First, though, a word about the argument. The structure should be familiar: members of a group have done some terrible things; the group is then accused of collective responsibility for those acts; it is argued, felt, or feared that the members of the accused group will be victims of bigotry. A defender of the group has three options: accept collective responsibility; deny collective responsibility; or deny that collective responsibility has anything to do with it. If he accepts collective responsibility, then the defender has to show that this group doesn’t bear collective responsibility for this act: maybe they didn’t do it, or they knew not what they did, or whatever. If he doesn’t accept collective responsibility, then it makes no odds what the group did: even if the group performed the act, it can’t be held responsible. Alternatively, the defender of the group could simply say that even if the group were collectively responsible, that wouldn’t justify bigotry against it, because ethnic bigotry is just wrong.
Kikuyus for Change supply a desperately inept version of the first, when they should have gone for the third; their moralism lies in telling untruths for (what they suppose to be) good ends. Remember that they said that the actions for which Kalenjin are held communally liable are the actions of individuals. It is clear, I think, that they aren’t denying collective responsibility; rather, their point is that even if there is collective responsibility, it doesn’t apply in this case: Kalenjin aren’t collectively responsible for, say, the PEV. The problem with that move is simple: that the actions were committed by individuals does nothing whatever to show that there’s no communal liability for them. That follows from a very simple fact: groups acts through individuals, so it is entirely possible for a communal act to be performed by an individual. Think about the President’s assent to a bill. It is an act performed by the individual who happens to hold the office at the time; it is also an act by which the state, and therefore the groups of people who constitute the state, promise to obey a certain rule. Think also about a murder, carried out by a group of three men, who jointly plan and bring it off. Roughly speaking, it’s enough, for there to be collective moral responsibility, for a group to deliberately perform an act. The group of murderers is constituted of individuals; it is their actions which constitute the planning and commission of the murder. What makes them jointly responsible is their joint deliberate participation in the joint enterprise. But that joint deliberate participation is composed of individual acts. So the fact that the actions were performed by individuals is entirely consistent with collective responsibility for them; merely noting that the actions in question are the actions of individuals is a hopeless defence to the charge of collective responsibility.
More to the point, it deliberately overlooks facts which are common knowlege. The PEV in the Rift Valley was carefully-planned, and there was wide communal involvement. (See, for example, the Human Rights Watch report). All sorts of independent evidence suggests that the violence had the consent of a significant proportion of Kalenjin; and the consent, planning and participation of those properly empowered to act in the name of the community (Ashforth, Lynch, Waki). There is pretty good evidence of wide, if not quite universal, Kalenjin approval of the consequences of the violence (Ashforth, Lynch). And, again, there have been well-reported efforts to institutionalise the consequences of the violence: segregated schools, for example. In the example I gave earlier, the consent and particpation of all the members of the group was taken to be sufficient for collective responsibility. So it might be argued that the lack of either rules out collective responsibility in this case. That’s too quick. Collective responsibility can accrue to a group for an action even when not all its members approve or participate. The clearest example is war. It’s often taken to be the case that a duly-elected head of a state or a nation has the power to commit the state or nation to a war, with the collective consequences that that brings. It’s also true that a President, say, need not be elected by the entire nation to gain that power — all that’s necessary is a majority of the vote. Donald Kipkorir’s devotion marks the extent to which the Kalenjin political class is the duly-empowered representative of the Kalenjin nation, It is tolerably clear that the Kalenjin political class arranged the relevant bits of the post-election violence, tolerably clear that they were acting in their capacity as leaders of the Kalenjin nation in doing so, and tolerably clear that there is near-unanimous Kalenjin support for the consequences (if not, perhaps, the means) of PEV. That is why it ought to be conceded that Kalenjin bear collective responsibility for it.
It’s essential at this point to distinguish kinds of collective responsibility. I have in mind the following distinction: there is a kind of collective responsibility in which each member of the community is liable (and may therefore be punished) for the actions of the entire group; and there’s the kind of collective responsibility which does not distribute in this way — where we should say that the community is responsible for the acts, but in which it doesn’t follow that each member of the community can therefore be punished for the communal act. The clearest example of the first is the first example above, the joint-murder case, in which all the deliberately participants agree to kill. The Kalenjin-communal case is of the latter kind, mostly, I think, because while there was a piece of deliberate group activity, it is also clear that this was not unanimous. To recognise collective Kalenjin responsibility is not to call for communal punishment of Kalenjin.
But suppose you don’t agree. You think that there’s no Kalenjin communal responsibility for the PEV. You should still think that the Kikuyus for Change argument is foolish. Think about like this: rape is bad, regardless of the identity of the intended victim. The prohibition against rape isn’t contingent on whether or not the intended victim is, say, a rapist: even rapists ought not to be raped. If you’re looking for reasons not to rape someone, and the best you can come up with is that they’re not a rapist, you need to buy a new moral compass.
The Kikuyus for Change argument against anti-Kalenjin bigotry is of exactly this type: instead of saying the simple and true thing — that ethnic bigotry is bad, independent of the identity of its victims — they say the complex and false thing — that anti-Kalenjin ethnic bigotry is bad because Kalenjin aren’t communally responsible for PEV. They seem unable to see the point that anti-Kalenjin bigotry is bad because it is wrong, not because Kalenjin are right.
By Daniel Weru In response to Kalenjin Bashing-This Emerging Trend Must Be Stopped
Book:The Challenge for Africa
In her new book, Wangari Maathai talks straight and says many things we’d love to say ourselves, but lack either the courage or the fluency to do so. The Nobel Peace laureate lacks neither, and the Challenge for Africa makes a stimulating and refreshing read.Too often, she says, Africa is still presented as a helpless victim of her own making; a land of unparalleled riches, startling beauty,….of strange and at times primitive tribal customs, civil disorder, armed militias; of child labour, child soldiers, mud huts, open sewers, and shanty-towns; of corruption, dictatorship and genocide. These and other perceptions have framed the world’s response to Africa.This has caused a dangerous psychological process that subtly convinces Africans they are unable to chart their own destiny. Whereas, in fact, tens of millions of African women and men go about their lives responsibly, work hard and educate their children, often without means. These are the real African heroes and the world should hear more about them.
Covering a variety of topics: aid and dependency; indebtedness and unfair trade; leadership; culture; the “micro-nations” (wrongly known as “tribes”); the crisis of national identity; land ownership; environment and the family, there is nothing the author doesn’t include.She relates the experience of her own community, the Kikuyu, particularly affected by the colonial experience, and how they have been severely challenged to raise subsequent generations of children, many of whom have drifted onto the streets or are members of the outlawed Mungiki sect. In Kikuyu tradition, the “ituika” (translated as the “severance”) ceremonies served as term limits, and guaranteed to future generations that their time to rule would come.
Each generation of leaders understood they were being closely watched by the next, to ensure that the resources – privately and communally held property and natural resources- were well managed, to hand over to the next generation. The last ituika was due between 1925 and 1928, but was banned by the colonial government, and still remains incomplete.Wangari Maathai’s experience as a university lecturer, politician, political and human rights activist and expert on the environment gives her words weight. Democracy, she writes, isn’t all about “one man, one vote”. It also means protecting minority rights, an independent judiciary, an informed and engaged citizenry, rights to assemble and worship, and freedom to express one’s views peacefully without fear of reprisal or arbitrary arrest.
A challenge for Africa, she concludes, is that the nuclear family is often dysfunctional because the man is so often separated from wife and children -a practice that began under colonial rule-, and so cannot provide emotional and physical security for them. One of the most devastating experiences for any African parent is to see street children or child soldiers, or youth addicted to drugs, engaged in prostitution, afflicted with HIV/AIDS; or young men and women languishing in a state of alienation and torpor. How can such unfortunates create a strong society? A book to make one think, and hope that a better future is possible.
Book: The Challenge for Africa
Author: Wangari Maathai
Publisher: Heinemann, 2009
Traditional Leadership and Institutions( South African Example)
Jewish Sisters Recall Kindness 1939
Survival was foremost in the minds of the Berg family when they arrived in the highlands of Kenya in 1939. They were among hundreds of Jewish families who fled the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, but just a small number of those arrived on the east coast of Africa. The land and culture were strange to the Bergs, but the kindness and help of the Kikuyu people helped them survive and thrive.
“I have a stronger bond with the Kikuyu people than with Germany, and our family lineage there dates back to the early 1700s,” says Jill Berg Paully. “I consider Kenya my homeland.”The story of Inge Berg Katzenstein, 74, and her younger sister Jill Berg Paully, 70, is unusual in the Jewish diaspora. They were small girls, 10 and 6, in 1939, when their family fled to the East African nation.
“Our story is about five families, which later grew to seven, who were able to escape the persecution and raise enough money to buy land in Kenya and survive,” Mrs. Paully says.She says her family’s trek began in 1933, the year she was born, six years before the Bergs fled. Adolf Hitler rose to power as Germany’s chancellor that year, and the situation for Jews became worse day by day from that time on.The Bergs, who were wealthy cattle dealers in Germany, began moving their money out of German banks to Holland (now the Netherlands) in 1935. That bit of ingenuity, fostered by their grandmother, eventually would enable them to secure safe passage to Africa.
Mrs. Katzenstein was supposed to start public school in their hometown of Lechenich, but six months after school began, Jews were barred from attending public schools. She was forced to attend a Jewish school several miles away in Cologne, where her grandmother lived.”I remember walking to the [public school] building, and the Gestapo were there with their German shepherds – I am still afraid of those dogs to this day – and told me I was no longer welcome at the school,” she says.”But it was Kristallnacht (Crystal Night) where our story really begins, as with most Jews of the Holocaust,” Mrs. Paully says.
On Nov. 9 and 10, 1938, hundreds of Jewish homes, synagogues and other properties were burned, shattered and destroyed. The term Crystal Night is a reference to all the broken glass from Jewish homes and stores that littered the streets.Members of the Nazi Party rallied Germans into a destructive frenzy after the assassination of Ernst vom Rath, the secretary of the German Embassy in Paris, by a 17-year-old Polish Jew named Herschel Grynszpan. He was seeking revenge for the expulsion of his parents from their Polish home to a wasteland between Poland and Austria.”It took our family seven months to find a place that would accept Jews. Many Jews during that time had been swindled into trips where they were turned away when they arrived,” Mrs. Paully says.
Along with their parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins, the girls finally would arrive in the grassy highlands of Kenya in June 1939, without an understanding of Swahili or English, the only languages spoken there.Kenya was a colony of Great Britain until 1963, and although the level of persecution against Jews was far less there, “the British were also anti-Semitic and not fond of Jews ,” Mrs. Paully says.
“Anti-Semitism was rampant throughout Europe hundreds of years before Hitler, and the British were no exception,” she adds.The girls endured great hardships not only because of the language barrier, but also from British schoolchildren, who beat and ridiculed them with impunity.”We were compelled to play sports three days a week at school, and often I fought with the girls and they would beat me with their lacrosse sticks. Nothing was done,” Mrs. Paully says.Amazingly, Mrs. Paully says, she and her sister were speaking nearly fluent Swahili within three months and becoming proficient in English as well.
“Two Kikuyu boys taught us as they escorted us to and from school,” Mrs. Katzenstein says.The Kikuyu tribe of Kenya was the native population on the highland where the sisters lived for the next eight years. Mrs. Katzenstein says the Kikuyu were a strong, intelligent people and the only inhabitants of the highlands who treated the Berg family with kindness and respect.At the end of the first three months, though, World War II broke out, and all the Jewish men were taken into custody, considered enemy aliens by the British.
Although the men were returned to their homes soon afterward, it would be several years before most of the world would become aware of the Nazi death camps and the vehement anti-Semitic persecution that enthralled the German populace under Chancellor Hitler and the members of his National Socialist German Workers’ Party.”For the entire eight years we lived there, the British were unaware, or so they said, that the Jews were being persecuted,” Mrs. Paully says.
“Many of our family members, like most others, died, and even we were unaware of the totality of what happened until much later.”In 1947, when Inge was 18 and her sister 14, the family was prepared to move again, this time to America. Shortly after their arrival, they learned of the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya and were shocked. In preparation for efforts to gain freedom from British rule, members of the Kikuyu, Embu, Meru and Kamba tribes in Kenya took oaths of unity and secrecy to overthrow the colonial rulers, beginning the Mau Mau movement.
Although the British greatly inflated the atrocities committed against English settlers, the rebellion was bloody, and many Kenyans who refused to join were killed for fear they would sell out their brethren who were fighting for freedom.”We got along so well with them and they were so kind to us, we had no idea what their relationship was with the British until that happened,” Mrs. Paully says.The family’s journey to America was long and treacherous, Mrs. Katzenstein says.”It took us seven weeks to get there on a cargo boat, and it was so stormy that the boat was tipping at 421/2 degrees. At 45 degrees a boat capsizes,” Mrs. Katzenstein says.A trip that was supposed to port in New York wound up in Boston harbor. Inge was expected to work, but Jill was forced to adjust to a new school with a new culture.
“It was difficult for her to adjust,” Mrs. Katzenstein says.”Our experience in Kenya made us aggressive and tough, and that did not translate well at first,” Mrs. Paully says.The family eventually found its way to Vineland, N.J., “a stronger Orthodox Jewish community than what my father found in New York,” Mrs. Paully says.Mrs. Katzenstein met and married her husband, Werner, and they had three children – two sons and a daughter now living in Boston, Pittsburgh and Highland Park, N.J. Mrs. Paully met and married her husband, Kurt, and they had two children, a son and daughter now living in New York and Florida.
The compelling story of the Berg family and how they were able to barter their escape from Germany is only one story of Jews who fled to Kenya. A film on the subject, “Nowhere in Africa,” was released in 2001. The sisters were intrigued by the parallels the movie had to their lives in Kenya. The two retired real estate brokers who immigrated to Vineland, N.J. in 1947 with their mother and father now live in Silver Spring. Both volunteer at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Mrs. Paully has volunteered at the museum for nearly a decade, and her sister since 1998, when she moved to the region.The siblings will be telling their family’s unique story at the Holocaust Museum downtown, across from the Washington Monument.
“What we want is for people to learn what it is like to live in countries that are not free and what it means to be discriminated against,” Mrs. Paully says. “We want them to understand what they have and what they need to do to preserve it.”"Children are not born knowing hate; it is taught. And born Americans must understand what it is they have overcome and know that it can be quickly taken away, especially in these times,” Mrs. Katzenstein says.Jill Berg Paully (left) and Inge Berg Katzenstein, who as children fled Nazi Germany with their family and found safety in Kenya, pose with the family’s Sefer Torah at Kemp Mill Synagogue in Silver Spring. The Torah was carried from Germany to Kenya and then America and has been donated to the Kemp Mill synagogue.
By: Brian DeBose
Nyakio- Beauty Entrepreneur
Beauty entrepreneur Nyakio Kamoche Grieco has been prepping for the skin-care biz since she was in grade school. “My mom would always make me put shea butter and grapeseed oil on my feet before bed,” she says. Fast forward nearly two decades, and the New York native of Kikuyu descent now heads the African-inspired Nyakio line of bath and body products.
Nyakio, 31, launched the downtown L.A.-based business in 2002 and uses recipes passed down by her mother and grandmother–the latter still living on the family’s coffee farm in Kenya. “I used to watch my mom grind coffee beans in the kitchen and combine them with extracts to use as a skin cream,” Grieco says. “And you should see my mom. She looks 25.”
Nyakio, who grew up in Oklahoma, where her father is a professor of African history at the University of Oklahoma, recently added a perfume oil blending coconut oil, sandalwood, jasmine and other elements. Other offerings include citrus moluccana body wash and a soon-to-launch grape eucalyptus scrub. Nyakio prefers indigenous African ingredients such as shea butter and sweet almond oil. “There’s beauty in simplicity, which is really what my line is about.”
Nyakio Products.
Apothia at Fred Segal,8118 Melrose Ave.,Los Angeles,(877) APOTHIA
Kalologie Skincare, 132 S. Robertson Blvd., Los Angeles, (310) 276-9670.
Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter and Associates
Kenya’s hiring of CLS & Associates, a top Washington public relations firm to improve the country’s image in the US is a positive pointer that the country’s leadership has realized the power of a good image. However, the deal that will reportedly cost the taxpayer a whooping $ 1.7 Million over the next two years begs disturbing questions: why do we have a bad image in the first place? What steps are we taking to correct the cause of the bad image?
Hiring an image firm to sanitize the country when the country can’t feed its people; has wanting governance; can’t protect its citizens against crime; can’t supply electricity; can’t supply water and is selling parcels of land to multinationals is like washing a cup on the outside and leaving its inside dirty.
A western firms for example used to sanitize the late Omar Bongo did not stop the suffering and poverty of black Gabonese villagers .It wont work in kenya.We are living in a world of blogs,live TV and constant media coverage.Hiding the truth is almost impossible.
Kenya ought to improve its PR by being accountable to the electorate; promoting ethnic cohesion; instituting an efficient and credible judicial system; and creating an environment that will spur individual innovation and productivity.
We should shame Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter and Associates for accepting kenyan tax payers money when kenyans are starving.The Kenyan government may have no shame but CLS & Associates…………..???African leaders are known for having no morals.But when people are dying of hunger and insecurity accepting money that could be used to save lives is just evil…CLS & Associates shame on you.
Catalogues Of Failures
Najivunia Kuwa Mkenya Swahili for “I am proud to be a Kenyan” that is conspicuously printed on colourful hand bills circulated by the office of the Government Spokesman, Alfred Mutua. The Spokesman is always reluctant to elaborate to curious Kenyans on what to be proud about in the country whose Golden Jubilee is less than four years away. Like any other citizen, Dr Mutua is too familiar with the habitual chest thumping, self praise while the country mires in catalogues of failures that so far outweigh its successes. Our shortcomings and misplaced priorities are many and countless; but few examples illustrate the gravity of policy weaknesses and laxity in moving this country to another level.
The proud and enduring Kenyan sleeps on an empty stomach because the shameless political class have depleted the strategic grain reserves in a race to a millionaire status. Rains have failed, drought has set in, livestock are dying in numbers as famine looms large with 10 million people threatened with starvation Eighteen months ago even a fool knew there would be famine after post election violence uprooted farming families from crop fields in the bread basket Rift Valley region. No emergency measures were put in place to forestall the looming disaster by those who want Kenyans to believe that everything is okay in the country that often boasts success in the vicinity of imminent failure.
The income per capita of some of the Asian Tigers was lower or compared to Kenya at independence in 1963. Today, we are shameless beggars of famine relief from countries that were no better in economic terms. More than four decades later the country still imports sewing needles, razor blades and other cheap items from China amongst other Asian countries. Amongst third world countries, Kenya is a lucky one that should be the last to be lumped together with failures. It boasts infrastructure, industries and communications network unsurpassed by its contemporaries save for South Africa. Because of its strategic importance, the country hosts the headquarters of two UN specialised agencies whose expertise and resources are at the disposal of the country to push itself to role model level. There are no immediate tangible plans to do away with unplanned settlements in urban areas and in the cities that house the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (HABITAT) Ironically, the country is home to the biggest slum in Africa amongst others that mushroomed in the post-independent period.Another UN agency on environment, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is based here but the country is far off from being an environmental conservation model given the raging debate on water catchments destruction and careless waste disposal. Unfortunately, we have not reciprocated the honour to host these UN bodies.
It is worth noting that the leadership of this country once declared poverty, ignorance and disease as number one national enemies. Today, these enemies are not our best of friends but are incontestable bedfellows of some of who survive on less than a dollar a day and resident in the many unplanned urban settlements.Mr Government Spokesman, do the foregoing scenarios strike you as success stories to be proud of or should we be an object of self pity?. Time to conduct a postmortem on when the rain started beating us is now not tomorrow before reference is made on fifty years of lost and missed opportunities. Some of the countries with success records never chest-thump but do a lot of soul searching on how to put food on the table. It is not a distant dream here though. A constitution should be amended now to allow for a dual citizenship so that Kenyans in the Diaspora can participate in building this economy.
Those who suffer in silence are not amused at the Najivunia campaign posters but make a mockery of the phrase “Navumilia Kama Mkenya”.
By J .Kamotho
Jimmy Kibaki
………..” Simama Kenya “
Kenya: Deliver Justice for Victims of Post-Election Violence
(New York) – The Kenyan government has reneged on commitments to deliver justice for the victims of post-election violence, Human Rights Watch said today. On July 30, 2009, the cabinet announced that, contrary to previous agreements, it would not establish a special tribunal, but would rely instead on a “reformed” national judicial system to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators.An independent domestic court with international participation remains the best option to start establishing accountability and the government should immediately adopt legislation to establish the special tribunal, Human Rights Watch said.”Bringing justice to these victims is the most urgent test of the coalition government’s willingness to resolve Kenya’s crisis,” said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The cabinet just resoundingly failed that test.”
The July 30 announcement is a U-turn from the government’s previous position that the Kenya justice system is deeply flawed and that the regular courts were unlikely ever to bring senior politicians and government officials to face justice. The recommendation of the Waki Commission on Post-Election Violence, which the government accepted and promised to implement in December 2008, was to establish a special tribunal independent of the high court and with international participation to investigate and prosecute the suspects.
“The argument for a special tribunal has always been that the Kenyan judiciary lacks independence, and the necessary root-and-branch reforms of the entire justice system will take years,” Gagnon said. “The idea that the existing judicial system can deal with the senior politicians and government officials who allegedly incited and organized the killing is an insult to the memory of those who lost their lives.”
As recently as July 3, the Kenyan government agreed with the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor in The Hague that by the end of September it would set out clear benchmarks for a “special tribunal or other judicial mechanism adopted by the Kenyan Parliament.” The government had agreed that if there was no parliamentary agreement on such a mechanism, it would refer the case to The Hague.Parliament rejected the draft legislation establishing the special tribunal in February, and since then, there has been no parliamentary debate, let alone agreement on the issue of how to deal with the suspects.
Kofi Annan, the chair of the panel of eminent Africans who negotiated the National Accord that led to the coalition government, repeatedly extended the time for the Kenyan government to take action on a national solution. On July 9, Annan handed over the Waki Commission’s evidence and its sealed list of suspects to the ICC, a step the commission had recommended in the event that a special tribunal was not established.
“After months of delay, the cabinet has finally declared that it is unprepared to carry out the principal task for which the coalition government was formed: to end Kenya’s decades of impunity,” Gagnon said. “The only credible option for the government to gain public confidence is to establish the special tribunal immediately or to refer the cases to the ICC.”On July 27, foreign ministers of the European Union called on Kenya to establish the special tribunal, along with carrying out the broader reform agenda provided for in the National Accord.
“Reforms of the national judicial system are badly needed, but they alone will not bring to account perpetrators of the worst crimes committed during the post-election violence,” Gagnon said. “The US and Kenya’s other international partners should insist in no uncertain terms that, until an independent judicial mechanism is established in Kenya, there can be no ‘business as usual’.”Any judicial mechanism adopted by the Kenyan parliament should conform to the recommendations of the Waki Commission and international standards – principally, that it should be independent of the High Court and the attorney general, that constitutional immunity provisions should be waived, and that suspects charged before it should resign their posts pending prosecution.
The cabinet also announced planned changes to the Truth, Reconciliation and Justice Commission (TRJC) although it did not provide specific details. Human Rights Watch said that changes that strengthen the commission are welcome, but could not be a substitute for credible prosecutions consistent with international fair trial standards.
Commentry by Human Rights Watch
Martha Karua On Mungiki
NSIS.Admits Mungiki Has Infiltrated Government
Mungiki gang members have established themselves in every sector of the Kenyan government, according to the National Security Intelligence Service.
The spy agency made the disclosure while responding to questions from the Parliamentary committee on National Security and Administration.The committee, which sought to establish the number of people killed by organised criminal gangs in Nyeri East and Kirinyaga West districts between April and May, tabled a report of its findings in Parliament on Thursday.
The NSIS told the team that media coverage and propaganda were partly to blame for challenges the government faced in its war against the group and other criminal gangs.
Martha Karua On Mungiki
Harvesting And Destroying Our Crops
Charles was one of the main suppliers of arrows and machetes in the violence that rocked Kenya’s Rift Valley last year. Eighteen months later, he and his Kalenjin tribe have not buried the hatchet.Some of the worst violence that followed the disputed December 27 polls was carried out by the Kalenjin tribe against the country’s dominant Kikuyu tribe and little in the way of reconciliation has taken place since.”We are ready to fight any time the alarm is raised, we have the weapons and we know how to use them,” said Charles, 35, who asked for his real name not to be revealed.A small lamp sheds a feeble light on his emaciated and determined face, as he gazes towards the Kerio valley, a remote part of western Kenya where few roads, no mobile telephone network and few police patrol can reach.
“For the Kalenjins, land is inheritance and you can’t share it with a foreigner,” he said, referring to the Kikuyu tribe of President Mwai Kibaki, who was maintained in his job by an internationally-backed power-sharing agreement despite widespread accusations that he rigged the results.During the post-election chaos, at least 1,500 people were killed nationwide, and the Kalenjins attacked Kikuyus whom they consider to have settled their ancestral lands.”We have decided to give peace a chance, but if the Kikuyus cannot honour their agreement, then we will go another way and anything can happen,” warned Peter Kipkurui, a tribal elder and farmer.
“The Kikuyus came to settle here, they should respect our community.”The deal brokered by former UN chief Kofi Annan last year brought an end to the fighting but its implementation has stalled on several key issues.Many Kalenjins feel they got the rough end of the stick and explain they will only accept the Kikuyus’ continued presence in their heartland under certain conditions.”If the Kikuyus try to vote like the local community wherever they are, it will be better and people here won’t have any more bad feelings towards them,” said Francis Samoei, a 48-year-old local farmer.Francis and many of his local tribesmen flatly deny any responsibility for and sometimes the very existence of what happened in early 2008. “It’s not people from this place who perpetrated that, they came from far,” he said.In a nearby camp for displaced Kikuyus, local leader Peter Maina worries that his community continues to be demonised, and says there are insufficient guarantees for them to go home.
“These Kalenjins don’t consider us their equals anymore. They just want us to leave so that they can remain alone, that’s why they keep on harvesting and destroying our crops,” he said.”They told us that we need to forget about what happened, that it was Satan who did all that chaos.”
In Gitwe, a small village near the city of Eldoret, the segregation has been institutionalised, down to the school system.Anthony Mwangi has never seen his former Kalenjin classmates since the violence. They now go to a “Kalenjin only” school on a nearby hill. His school, which was partially destroyed, is now a school for Kikuyu pupils like himself.
“The Kalenjin are afraid and guilty of what they did during the violence,” said Anthony, a well-built 17-year-old in a beige uniform.Gitwe school’s head teacher, Peter Ashimosi, says the psychological impact of the violence is still felt by the children and warns that the lack of interaction between the communities risks engendering more problems.”Before the violence, the school was a mixture of ethnic groups. The children were mixing freely, there were no tensions at all,” he said.
“It’s believed that the one’s who burned the schools are from houses down the valley (Kalenjin), so the Kalenjin parents feared retaliation and pulled out their children,” he explained.Across the ridge from Gitwe, is Lomok school having only Kalenjin pupils and teachers. Ann, a teacher, lamented that the “segregation will affect overall peace.”"The pupils will just learn that it is wrong to live with other communities,” she added.Veronica Wanjiru, 16, expresses the distrust that continues to take root in Kenya’s Rift Valley.
“They didn’t come back because they knew what they did: they burned houses, our school, they killed people,” said the young Kikuyu girl, who still lives in a camp with her grandmother.
“I had two good friends that I miss. But even if they come back, I won’t be so close to them because I can’t trust them any more.”
Ruben Kebatta explains that he will not let his 14-year-old twins interact with Kalenjins anymore: “We are still very bitter; we lost a lot of property and lives,” he said.”May we dwell in unity, peace and liberty.” The words of the national anthem the Gitwe schoolchildren sing under the Kenyan flag every morning have a hollow ring, with no reconciliation in sight.Charles doesn’t begin to make any apology for the 2008 violence and his complaint that his tribe is systematically discriminated against seems to carry the promise of more unrest.
“If the people didn’t fight last year, we would not have a power-sharing government, we would not have justice, just a stolen victory… I think it was necessary for the people to fight.”
The Trail of the Serpent
Eastern Province
IDPs hounded out of resettlement Land in Ukambani “Mungiki wa rudi kwao” was the chant by one of the women .
Rift Valley Province
Kamwaura, Kenya – “They’ve pulled up my crops again,” said Jane Wangui, a Kikuyu who still lives in a camp for fear of returning to the farm near ethnic Kalenjin she fled last year. “I can no longer trust them.”Her feet blackened by the soil, Jane, 60, rests after a morning on her “shamba” (farm), a 90-minute walk from the “transit” camp at Kamwaura in the fertile Molo region. Here 65 people sleep in tents and work their land during the day.A year-and-a-half after post-election violence brought bloodshed to Kenya, during which members of the Kalenjin ethnic group attacked the Kikuyu tribe of President Mwai Kibaki, several thousand displaced people have still not returned home.
“I just came back from my farm. Today, I found that they have again uprooted my potatoes,” she said. “Since February, I’ve been going to my farm on a daily basis. We can’t stock any harvest, it’s been stolen.”I’m very careful not to stay too late in my shamba. I don’t know what can happen when it’s dark.”
“I can’t trust these people (Kalenjin) any more. They told us they had no problem with us, and a few months later they were killing us.
“Life is miserable here. Before I had wealth accumulated and today I have nothing to eat,” said Jane, who survives on one meal a day.Spurred by economic reasons and encouraged by the government, a number of Kikuyu families began migrating in the 1960s from their traditional central provinces to the Rift Valley, the “ancestral home” of the Kalenjin.Land here is an explosive issue due to unbalanced distribution and population pressures in a poor, mainly agricultural country.Lucy Muthoni, 48, says she doesn’t understand why her neighbours continue to rip up her plants.
“They even told me there was no point in planting maize, since I might no longer have access to my land at harvest time,” she said.”Personally, I don’t think we can ever heal the rift between us and the Kalenjin. They betrayed us.”Like other displaced people who believe the government has not tightened security enough, Lucy does not want to claim compensation and buy a plot of land at Kamwaura. She wants to continue to run her farm.
At Rai farm, in the Eldoret region, one of the worst hit by the violence in the Rift Valley, huge areas of agricultural land have been turned to dust by a long-running drought.Njunguna Gachui has built a flimsy house with bits of wood for windows and a plastic tarpaulin for a roof.”I had 60 sheep, some cows. At the age of 70 I have to begin a new life,” he said. “My children’s future has been destroyed because I lost my property.” His daughter, Catherine Njoki, said the government had offered little in the way of assistance.”They promised they would build a house for us but they never delivered on their promises.”It will be very hard to reconcile fully with the neighbours. It will take a long time for the trust to come back. Everyday you can see what has been destroyed.”
Relations are strained with one neighbour in particular, a former Kenyan athlete whom, they allege, gave petrol to youths to burn down their house so he could get their land. Benjamin Ngaruiya, one of the displaced people at Rai farm, said the 10 000 shillings (about R1 000) he received is not enough to build a decent home and buy fertiliser to begin farming again.Only his father and mother have been resettled in a simple house on their plot of land that was devastated during the violence.
The government likes to point out that all the big camps created at the time of the violence have now been closed.One local official even told the AFP the displaced people were trying to benefit by holding out for better land.
Ngaruiya denied the claim. “These officials from the government are only touring towns,” he said. “They never come inside the rural zones. They ignore us.”His father Michael Nyanga Njeru recalls the days when there were four homes on his property. All have been reduced to rubble. Still he remains defiant.”I’m not going to leave this land, because it’s my property. We bought it legally. I’m not going anywhere else. I will be buried here.”
Truth Commission Politics
Sensing that there could be no political will to deal decisively with suspected perpetrators of the post-election violence, Justice and Constitutional Affairs minister Mutula Kilonzo now says that influential Party of National Unity (PNU) bigwigs are misleading President Mwai Kibaki on the issue of a local tribunal in a bid to scuttle any efforts to deal with the problem domestically.The individuals, he said, have misled the President over a wide range of issues particularly that which deals with presidential immunity from any form of prosecution while in office.Mutula attributed the stalemate in Cabinet on the establishment of a local special tribunal to deal with crimes committed during post-poll chaos to powerbrokers within PNU who are advancing their vested interests in the pretext of protecting the integrity of the office of the President.According to the minister, President Kibaki fully backs the move to strip him of the privilege of immunity from prosecution incase he is implicated in the post-election violence that resulted to the killing of at least 1, 300 people, displacement of 350, 000 others and wanton destruction of property.He avers that Kibaki is aware that the International Crime Act which domesticated the Rome Statue that established the International Criminal Court (ICC) has no room for presidential immunity.
The Cabinet has been deadlocked on whether or not the President Kibaki should retain the privilege of immunity from any civil or criminal litigation with regard to crimes committed during the poll-election violence most of which touch on gross violation of human rights.A group of ministers allied to PNU have vehemently opposed the proposal on grounds that the country could easily degenerate into anarchy should the president be exposed to criminal or civil litigation.The Ministers who include Kiraitu Murungi (Energy), John Michuki (Environment), Moses Wetangula (Foreign Affairs) and Chirau Mwakwere (Transport) argue that stripping the president of the constitutional powers will be tantamount to a breach of country’s sovereignty.But yesterday, Mutula lashed out at the Ministers for misleading the President due to political, tribal and sectarian interests even when the law is very clear on the issue.“Kibaki is very understanding but he is being misled by PNU operatives. It is the PNU coalition where I am the Secretary General which is objecting to stripping Kibaki of presidential immunity from prosecution,” said Mutula while addressing a Media Owners Association (MOA) luncheon at a Nairobi hotel yesterday.
He said the Rome Statue, which Kenya is party to, does not grant any person immunity from prosecution irrespective of his or position.“Kibaki signed the International Crime Bill into law in January this year which domesticated the Rome Statute without issues of sovereignty coming up. This means the President allowed himself to be subjected to prosecution both locally and internationally if implicated in the atrocities during the electoral mayhem hence the issue of presidential immunity should not arise,” said Mutula.Mutula who chairs a ministerial sub-committee mandated to review the bill on the establishment of the local tribunal to try the suspected perpetrators of the post-election violence maintained that his team will not relent in the quest to ensure that the President is stripped of the constitutional privilege of immunity against prosecution incase he is linked to the crimes committed during the post-election violence or held responsible under the principle of command responsibility.This position is also shared by Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) in its push for a fair and credible judicial process.
Other members of the committee include Ministers James Orengo (Lands) Moses Wetangula (Foreign Affairs) and Attorney General Amos Wako.Yesterday, Mutula said the committee has resolved to adopt the proposals in the current form and even explore further ways of cushioning the tribunal from political manipulation in order to meet international standards.The Constitution of Kenya Amendment Bill and Independent Special Tribunal Bill has clauses that strip Attorney General of his powers to terminate prosecution through nolle prosequi and bars the Chief Justice from transferring judges unilaterally.The team has come up with a raft of options among them Kenya contemplating to withdraw from the Rome Statute and repeal the International Crime Act.Despite still opposition from some ministers and MPs, the team says a local special tribunal which meets international standards was the best option to deal with crimes committed during the post-election violence.It recommends an upper tier tribunal to handle international crimes such as crimes against humanity and a lower one for crimes punishable under the Kenya Penal code such as rape and murderIn the event that Kenya decides to withdraw from the Rome Statute, it will join the league of failed states which have failed to prosecute crimes.However, the minister warned even if Kenya withdraws from the Rome Statute, the masterminds of the mayhem can still be arrested and prosecuted by any country under the international customary law.The committee also recommends the High Court or a Special Division of High Court to handle the crimes committed during the post-election violence.With Kenyans’ confidence in the country’s criminal justice system waning significantly, this route may not guarantee justice to the victims of the chaos.If all these fail, the Kenyan case will be taken over by the International Criminal Court at The Hague, Netherlands for investigation and subsequent prosecution.The committee will table the proposals in the Cabinet on Monday next week for discussion.
However, Mutula expressed optimism that the government will establish a special local tribunal to handle the crimes committed during the post-poll chaos in order to end impunity which continue to haunt the country.“Kenya’s hope lies in establishing a local special tribunal. Kenyans must push leaders to take this difficult decision.A country where impunity thrives is not good for anyone including those practicing it. Let the masters of impunity not hide in government, churches, region or tribal cocoons,” charged Mutula.The minister used the opportunity to condemn MPs for shooting down a bill seeking the establishment for a local tribunal to try the architects of the post-poll chaos saying it was a demonstration of impunity at its best.“The rejection of the bill even by ministers who were part of the Cabinet that approved it shocked the nation. But the greatest shocker was Parliament which had in the previous year approved the National Accord and adopted the report of the Waki Commission which formed the basis of the special tribunal.For Parliament to turn around and go against the spirit of its earlier decision and worst still go against the will of the people is itself impunity of the most unholy kind,” noted the minister.Most MPs have vowed to oppose any attempt to set up a local tribunal or special court to deal with the crimes on grounds they will be prone to manipulation from the political class.He also criticized those vouching for the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission to handle the crimes committed during the violence saying it is not recognized by the Rome Statute.
“Rome Statute and International Criminal Act do not consider punishing international crimes through reconciliation or prayer. International crimes are punished such as crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide are punished through a judicial process such as a special tribunal or ICC,” added Mutula.
By KT
“When all goes well and I feel strong, Oh, help me, Lord, to see That I must place my confidence In You and not in me”. —Anon.
MV-Fina
BY David Axe
The ceremony last Feb. 12 at the commercial seaport in Mombasa, Kenya, was a surprising one. When the Ukrainian-owned merchant ship Faina sailed into port, five months after its capture by Somali pirates and a week after its release, the Kenyan government rolled out the red carpet. Civilian officials and military officers lined the pier, and armed guards patrolled, as Faina’s weary seafarers debarked. There were speeches and reluctant testimonies by Faina’s senior crew before the strange gathering came to a halting end. Hundreds of vessels had been seized by Somali pirates over the previous decade, and their releases had rarely prompted an official celebration such as this.
The ceremony might have been inspired by the intensive media coverage that had surrounded the Faina’s capture and the subsequent stand-off, pitting U.S. Navy warships against the merchant ship’s ragtag captors. Faina’s captain died of natural causes in the early days of the crisis. Ultimately, the vessel’s owners paid a $3.2 million ransom, which itself is not unusual. Faina had stood out, among captured vessels, owing to her cargo: 33 Soviet-designed T-72 main battle tanks, plus other arms and ammunition — all of murky provenance and ownership. To cynical observers, the June ceremony was seen as an opportunity for Nairobi to voice its official position regarding the weapons’ origins and destination.
Nairobi waged a clumsy campaign to first cover up, then deny, its alleged South Sudan connection. In October, Kenyan authorities briefly arrested Andrew Mwangura, a prominent Mombasa seafarers’ advocate who had corroborated the U.S. Navy’s claim regarding the weapons’ destination. Faina’s welcoming party was the capstone event in this apparent disinformation strategy.
“We are very happy that our military equipment, purchased by the government from the Ukrainian government, has arrived safely — and we cannot wait to take possession,” spokesman Alfred Mutua said. In the following days, the tanks rolled from Faina’s holds and apparently headed to Kahawa Barracks, outside Nairobi. Commercial satellite imagery confirmed the presence of 33 tanks at Kahawa in March, according to Jane’s Defence Weekly, a British trade publication.
But subsequent investigation by Jane’s appeared to show the tanks migrating elsewhere. The magazine’s probe, combining satellite imagery with other photographic evidence and eyewitness reports, showed “a pattern of tanks making their way north” to neighboring South Sudan. The semi-autonomous, predominantly Christian region has in the past waged a bloody separatist campaign against Khartoum and the North’s majority Muslim population.
The Faina shipment apparently represented the third and final installment of a large batch of heavy weaponry for South Sudan, sourced from Ukraine and brokered by Nairobi. In November, the German magazine Der Spiegel claimed it had records proving an earlier shipment of 42 tanks that had largely escaped international scrutiny. Khartoum has more than equaled South Sudan’s apparent arms program, with large-scale purchases of fighter jets, helicopters and other weapons, sourced mostly from Russia and China.
The mutual re-armament, in violation of a U.N. arms embargo, bodes poorly for reconciliation efforts aimed at forestalling a continuation of the 20-year, North-South civil war. The fighting ended in 2005, and in 2007 former Kenyan President Daniel Moi traveled to Sudan to smooth out the implementation of a formal peace deal. According to the so-called “Comprehensive Peace Agreement,” in 2011, South Sudan will vote whether to remain a part of Sudan, or formally secede.
But “the implementation of the CPA has been hampered by the lack of good faith and the absence of political will,” according to the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. Ongoing tension might tilt the referendum toward sovereignty, resulting in a fresh round of fighting — a contingency both the North and South seem to be preparing for, and one to which Kenya seems resigned. Since the CPA’s implementation, Kenya has aligned itself closely with South Sudan. Kenya gets discounts on South Sudanese oil. In return, Kenyan banks have financed massive construction projects in South Sudan. Nairobi’s apparent military assistance to South Sudan underscores Kenya’s investment in the region’s eventual, full independence.
The U.S. military’s “outing” of the Kenya-South Sudan relationship reflects Washington’s delicate stance on regional security. Washington works closely with the Kenyan government to prevent pirate attacks and prosecute captured pirates. But the U.S. seems willing to somewhat jeopardize that relationship in order to prevent arms flowing to South Sudan.
Still, the U.S. State Department is arguably South Sudan’s second-most-important supporter. Last year, the State Department awarded a contract to Virginia-based consultancy USIS, to help train up the South Sudanese army — a deal that does not include arms transfers. The goal, an unnamed State Department source told Wired magazine’s Danger Room blog , is to take the South’s army “out of the bush, basically, within the construct of the CPA — as a force that can come together in a unity government. Or if in 2011, the South secedes, that force could become the element of a South Sudan that’s sovereign.”
Despite the clear risk of massive bloodshed, sovereignty for South Sudan is a prospect both Kenya and the U.S. seem to be preparing for. The difference is in the tactics used. Washington’s support for South Sudan is subtle and non-material. Nairobi’s alleged support, by contrast, is the stuff of pirate tales and techno-thrillers — and apparently too obvious to escape major scrutiny
David Axe is an independent correspondent, a World Politics Review contributing editor, and the author of “War Bots.” He blogs at War is Boring. His WPR column, War is Boring, appears every Wednesday.
Gwikinyira:Bill Gates & Njoroge
Bill Gates organized an enormous session to recruit a new Chairman for Microsoft Europe. 5000 candidates assembled in a large room. One candidate was Njoroge a Kenyan living in USA . Bill Gates thanked all the candidates for coming and asking those who do not know JAVA programming to leave, 2000 people left. Njoroge said to himself, “I do not know JAVA, but I have nothing to lose if I stay. I’ll give it a try’”.
Bill Gates asked the candidates who never had experience of managing more than 100 people to leave, 2000 people left and Njoroge said to himself “I never managed anybody by myself, but I have nothing to lose if I stay. What can happen to me?” So he stayed behind again.
·Then Bill Gates asked candidates who didn’t have a minimum of a Diploma in Business Management to leave. 500 people left the room. Njoroge said to himself, “I left school at 15, grade 7, but what have I got to lose?” So, he stayed in the room. Lastly, Bill Gates asked the candidates who do not speak Serb-Croat to leave. 498 people left the room. Njoroge says to himself, “I do not speak one word of Serb-Croat but what do I have to lose?” So he stayed and finds himself with one other candidate. · EVERYONE ELSE HAS GONE.
Bill Gates joined them and said, “Apparently you are the only two candidates who have all the required qualifications & experience I am looking for and speak Serb-Croat, so I’d now like to hear you have a conversation together in that language. And……..” · Calmly, Njoroge turned to the other candidate and in a horse voice said “Wi mwega mundu wa nyumba?” The other candidate answered softly but clearly saying “Gutiri na uuru, no gwethera ciana mutu. . . !!”
Regional Governments & Self Rule
Central Regions
Rarely has a topic turned out to be so emotive, divisive and controversial like the majimbo debate.A debate that should otherwise be very intellectually stimulating has been reduced to a weapon for political one-upmanship and for settling ethnic scores.Far too many people feel that majimbo is a red-herring for ethnic dichotomisation. Their fears are greatly justified by the ethnic pogroms that have always, unfailingly, followed calls for majimboism.This ugly history notwithstanding, the real majimbo should stand up. Maybe all of us, pro-majimboists, and anti-majimboists need to pause for a moment.Let me confess here. I have been a rabid majimbo-phobic. Today, I am a real convertee to the gospel of majimboism. It is much easier to work on the real fears of the phobics, as well on the mischievous designs of the centrics, than to throw away the baby with bath water.
For beneath the acrimony, majimbo is good for us, a ‘‘nice-to-have’’ and not a ‘‘must-have’’ for the sake of our country.I have many reasons for my stand, but two will suffice. Take the case of our government structures at the grassroots. It is simply a tower of Babel.You have a district agricultural officer who reports to Kilimo House, trying to work through a district commissioner who reports to Harambee House. If they are to have a project that requires irrigation, the water officer has to seek the authority-to-incur-expenditure (AIE) from Maji House
I haven’t even talked about the Public Works, Environment and Youth officers involved – just in case the project has a Kazi-Kwa-Vijana component.The local MP has no inkling about the civil servants who serve in his constituency, let alone being responsible for their performance. In case of new districts, all these departments have to build their offices independently.So pathetic and scattered are the offices that in some districts, they are referred to as the “government slums”. I look forward to the day the jimbo governor moves in to restore order.
I look forward also to see the demystification of Nairobi. In South Africa, Parliament sits in Cape Town, the Executive in Pretoria, the Judiciary in Bloemfontein while the main business address is Johannesburg.By the same measure, I look forward to having tea at Parliament Buildings in Eldoret, and go for a case mention in the Judiciary headquarters in Kisumu. I can only imagine the glee with which sukuma wiki vendors will welcome the announcement that the office of the Prime Minister has been moved to Thika.
The second reason is sad, unfortunately. All over the country, illegal gangs are coming up by the day. They may be different in terms of modus operandi or region. However, a striking similarity among them is the way they rush in to duplicate (or is it substitute?) functions that are the preserve of the central government.From illegal taxes to providing ‘‘security’’, these gangs point out to the need for us to re-examine the centralised system of governance.The distance between the central government and the people has grown to the maximum limit. When Jomo Kenyatta became President, Kenya’s population was 9 million. Today we are 36 million, yet the same miserable central government structures still prevail. They are writhing in pain, over-burdened by this insurmountable yoke of responsibility.We have the option of continuing to hide our heads in the sand like the ostrich or to move with the times.
by Moses Kuria ( secretary-general, Centre for Strategic and International Studies)
Karanja From Daily Kos Takes on The Iranian Election
Karanja’s Dairy(daily Kos) -I am a fire breathing liberal, and a huge Obama supporter, for which reason, I liked the idea of an Ahmadinejad loss in the recent Iranian elections, particularly given that the storyline that was developing was that his loss would be translated as a win for Obama’s softly softly approach toward Iran and as an endorsement by the Iranian people (whom conservatives like to proclaim they have no quarrel with – even as they support sanctions that would weaken the Iranian economy wreaking havoc to those very Iranian people’s lives) of his extension of an open hand of friendship and open dialogue. Alas, the election did not go as I had hoped, against the slim odds that Mir-Hossein Mousavi might have toppled Ahmadinejad. Slim odds, in my opinion, because as all news media admitted in the lead up to the election, the close polls that were coming out of Iran were questionable, at best, and even if they had been accurate, the best case scenario would have suggested that the election would turn on turnout, and would have gone to whomever would succeed in getting out their supporters. I would argue that in fact it is quite likely that the polls would have unduly skewed toward the opposition, given that the opposition’s support was centered in the urban areas, and among the young and educated elites within the country, who would have access to telephones and other telecommunications technology and hence may very well have been over-polled.
This would suggest to me that in fact the polls showing Mousavi running almost even with Ahmadinejad could not be relied on as an indication of national sentiment right across Iran. Ahmadinejad according to all media reports enjoyed greater support from the majority of the rural population, who have benefitted hugely from his policies. Those people live outside Tehran, do not Tweet, and possibly have little reason to take to the streets, particularly given that their man got back in office. Whatever you think of Iran, and its system of government, Ahmadinejad was elected democratically four years ago, and has ruled in accordance with a relatively free, fair and democratic Iranian system, which contrary to popular belief is actually one where dissent takes place in relative openness and without crackdowns as most would prefer to believe. That the supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is an unelected official and the true Iranian Head of State is certainly a situation that is suspect in mine, as well as in the eyes of many, but then again, I can’t believe the United Kingdom, the other country whose nationality I hold, has a Monarch as the official Head of Sate.
Furthermore, the Supreme Leader was installed as a result of the Theocracy that followed the Iranian Revolution that ousted the Shah of Iran, who btw, had been installed by the United States interfering with and ousting the democratically elected Iranian government of the time in 1953. With regard to the British Monarchy, I am personally super offended that my taxes go to support a whole family and their cousins and aunts and uncles, who also happen to be the world’s wealthiest welfare dependents, but that’s just me. So, with that out of the way, the idea that this election was not free and fair is not a foregone conclusion. The fact that the demonstrators are fighting a dictator is not necessarily one that is borne out by all the facts. That they are demonstrating against a leader they did not vote for and whom they do not like is certainly clear. That the elections were rigged is certainly not clear either. Therefore, to continue to encourage the Iranian people to demonstrate against the election is not necessarily responsible. Senator Saxby Chambliss of GA, went on Chris Mathews declaring that the election was stolen and calling on President Obama to call it as such. This is hugely irresponsible, and is not backed by any facts whatsoever. President Obama, as usual is ahead of most everyone else, and has struck exactly the right tone on the question of the Iranian elections. As he pointed out, not only is there no guarantee that Mousavi would be dramatically different, but there really is nothing to suggest that Mousavi won, other than that his supporters are certainly very passionate, and clearly do not accept that Ahmadinejad won. Surely if Ahmadinejad was the tyrannical dictator that it has been suggested he was, I can’t imagine that we would have seen the relative calm surrounding the demonstrations that we have seen, notwithstanding the eight deaths that were reportedly caused by Ahmadinejad’s supporters, and not by official government personnel.
Many news reports have admitted that it is not clear that Mousavi won, and in fact, the only extent to which many have gone was to argue that Ahmadinejad could not have won by the margins that it is claimed he won. I argue that in fact it is highly credible that he did win by larger than expected margins, given the heavy skew in favor of the opposition, that I believe the polls would have had, and given a possible higher turnout among the rural vote that supports Ahmadinejad than the urban (more visible, more tweetable) vote. We in the west had absolutely no opportunity whatsoever to gage the rural support for Ahmadinejad, and furthermore, given that they may not have even viewed President Obama’s extension of friendship, may not have necessarily cared for greater engagement with the west, and hence may well not have cared for a change of government. I come from Kenya, and during the recent turmoil that followed the disputed elections of December 2007, I saw similar kneejerk reactions in the west in support of the opposition, calling for President Kibaki who had won in a closely contested election, to back down and or negotiate to end the impasse.
What most in the west were not privy to, was that the opposition were in fact a murderous bunch of thugs who killed over a thousand government supporters and tried to ethnically cleanse the government supporting members of the Kikuyu tribe from opposition strongholds, leading to hundreds of thousands displaced form their homes and ending up as internally displaced people, who to this day remain displaced, over two years later! It was not convenient to report this particularly given that the opposition was seen as more pro-western, which in fact they were. It is not that the Kenyan government is anti-western, but in fact the reality is that the opposition was far more malleable towards western manipulation, with the opposition leader, Raila Odinga having close ties to the MI6, and having enjoyed the support of British business backers, who stood to gain from greater exploitation of Kenya in a Raila administration. In that election, just like in the Iranian, there was no clear evidence that the incumbent had not indeed won, but furthermore, there was evidence that the opposition had been less than honest and transparent in their strongholds, having started their murderous rampage on the eve of the election, killing security personnel who had been sent to man polling stations within the strongholds of the opposition in Western and Nyanza provinces.
The US and Britain were impatient with President Kibaki, I believe who had refused all western aid, having succeeded in turning Kenya into a self dependent economy that was growing at a 7% rate annually and running purely on tax revenues. One example of his refusal to play ball was when he refused George Bush’s “so called” aid for HIV AIDS programs, which came with the strings attached of having to spend the money on US patented drugs, which cost so much more than generics that Kenya could have obtained from India and Brazil. It is therefore with such examples that I tread the free Iran bandwagon with great care, knowing that I do not understand enough about internal Iranian politics to jump to the conclusion that a) Iran is not Democratic and that b) that Mousavi won the last election. As far as I can see, there are demonstrations against an election result that a good number of Iranians, quite possibly almost half of the population disagree with. Can you even begin to imagine if the nearly half of the American electorate that voted for Senator McCain had refused to accept the election results last year, and decided to take to the streets? That would be seriously huge numbers and would certainly produce the same results as what we are seeing in Iran.
Granted that is a distant possibility, but take for example, Gore vs. Bush in 2000. That election was even closer, and was disputed and remains disputed to this day. That is one situation where demonstrations could have taken place, and indeed did take place. But can you imagine what it would have looked like if masses of Democrats had felt strongly enough to come out for big demonstrations. I certainly think that people actually did feel strongly enough and would have come out en masse if Gore had encouraged it. He did not. Moussavi has been encouraging the demonstrations, and so has the western media in their one sided coverage. I am just not convinced that the western view will be borne out by the facts on this occasion. I support the right of the Iranian people to demonstrate in peace, without the fear of violence or retribution, but this seems to be the case right now. I support the right of the Iranian people to demand exactly what sort of government they want to see, and indeed to question their election results if they do not feel that they were fair and transparent enough. I will however, not jump on the bandwagon of jumping to the conclusion that this half, if that, of the Iranian population is the only true point of view. I also wholeheartedly agree with President Obama’s decision to sit this one out, and I believe that time will prove him right to have done so very soon, and I sincerely hope that he does not cave to the right’s demands to throw himself any further into the melee.
By Karanja- A liberal American Blogger on Daily Kos
Now On Twitter
Now on On Twitter
Ungumania Kenya(Corruption)
Alston’s Report: Bigoted Wild Allegations
It is inconceivable that anyone would have investigated the activities of Mungiki and Sabaot Land Defence Force in a mere ten days. This is hardly enough time to investigate chicken theft.On his visit, Alston spent one hour with the Police, despite having been granted total access. It was apparent he did so merely to fulfil a mandatory requirement, rather than establish the truth. In fact, during the two 30-minute sessions at Police Headquarters, he complained he would be late for other appointments and had to leave. He did not try to visit any police stations and cannot now complain he was not assisted.
Alston provides little beyond wild allegations. It seems he was handed a written document by local activists to adopt as his own work. In his hurry to use plagiarised material, he failed to interrogate why civil society organisations used unqualified persons to conduct post mortem examinations in Mt Elgon.In his overzealousness to condemn those he was instructed to, he has published inexcusable falsehoods. His assertion there was no need to assemble evidence to apportion blame is an astonishing disregard for due process. According to him, the fact that any unproved allegation had been made is sufficient reason to condemn the Government without the need for further proof!
There is no precedent for such absurd reasoning. All reports by rapporteurs are made on the basis of information sufficient to require further investigation, not to sustain a conviction.
The report comes as ‘civil society’ organisations with links to Mungiki try to elicit public sympathy against efforts to restore law and order. Their diversionary tactic is to distract attention from the more than 5,000 Mungiki prosecuted, including the leader Maina Njenga, and the many defectors executed by this gang.Little or no effort was made to investigate each allegation or to obtain credible evidence. Given the resources available to organisations that have made these allegations, it is telling that none has sought to “bring the killers to book” by setting in motion any proceedings or, at the very least, lodging formal complaints.In summary, Alston suggests that he had three objectives: (a) to ascertain the types of unlawful killings; (b) to investigate whether those responsible are held to account; and (c) to propose measures to reduce incidence of killings and “impunity”.It is sad to note that:He chose to concentrate exclusively on accusations against the police. He did not find it necessary to ask about the systematic murder of citizens by Mungiki. Maybe he thought it was not important. He, however, appeals to the criminals to stop killing!b) Alston did not identify even one person responsible for specific killings sufficiently enough to sustain any prosecution;c) The ‘recommendations’ he makes were handed to him by activists keen to attract donor funding and, therefore, neither interested in truth nor accuracy.
There are a number of factors that militate against any attempt to take the report seriously. First, the sweeping findings and generalisations by the rapporteur are astonishing. Obsession with the police is evident in the three areas that he elected to study.
Alston provides not an iota of evidence on alleged killings by police. All he has are wild allegations by civil society groups. Torture allegations against police or military personnel are based on similar information. These, however, are outside Alston’s mandate and fall within the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Torture, an established office in the same UN office. He also concentrates on post-election violence, which was not a case of extra-judicial killings. Police action in reaction to widespread politically-instigated violence was, arguably, also outside his mandate.
The report is a cheap anti-police statement that strains to ensure the result is skewed. Alston claims he interviewed many Government officials, but he falsified the list of people he met and his visits were brief and hurried. His report is fabricated and postulated entirely on the allegations of phantom witnesses supplemented by bias and prejudice.
In current investigations, it is clear that Mungiki hace changed tack and infiltrated the public opinion machinery. The activities of the group have escalated following the report’s release.While cases of human rights abuse cannot and will not be tolerated, it is essential that there be credibility in independent investigations. This report, sadly, does not have such credibility. It would have been useful to have a truly independent report with plausible evidence of wrongdoing. But our security shall not be battered by populist compilations with no investigative merit.
By Eric Kiraithe
Humility
God hates seven things. Tellingly, the first is pride. When someone overvalues himself by undervaluing others, he inevitably reveals it with his proud look. Puffed up in self-conceit, he may also devise evil and sow discord. No wonder God hates proud looks. Proud and powerful people may think they can disregard others’ displeasure, but they cannot disregard God’s opposition.
Peter reminds us not to trust in ourselves but in the One who will exalt us “in due time” (1 Peter 5:6). As we submit to Him, we avoid the risk that pride brings to our character and we become thankful, humble servants of God.
We should never look down on others ! devise evil and sow discord with the aim of building ourselves.We can grow and build without undervaluing others.Because we seek a better future for ourselves We should also seek a better future for others even though seperate from ourselves
Acceptance of killing of Innocent Kikuyus
With the pervasive demonisation of the Mungiki militia group providing an effective cover for the killing of members of the Kikuyu community – Mungiki and non-Mungiki alike – ordinary citizens are reluctant to speak out, both for fear of being accused of supporting the sect and of the reactions of Mungiki militia to criticism. Calling on the political and religious leadership of the Kikuyu community to face up to the challenge in its midst, Maathai urges the country to heal the growing rift between the community and other Kenyans.
Mungiki
In the course of history everywhere in the world, it is the leadership of the day that guides its people towards peace or war, poverty or wealth, development or collapse, slavery or freedom. And so it is with Kenya’s current leadership, a leadership which is failing to see the signs of anger and frustration of those they govern even though the writing is on the wall. Since the rupture over the infamous Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in 2003, the referendum on the constitution, the general elections and the subsequent fallout from them, Kenya has continued to slide dangerously backwards.
In 2008, thanks to a quick response from the African Union and the international community, Kenya was saved from the brink and a National Accord was arrived at to allow the Party of National Unity (PNU) and the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) to declare a ceasefire, share power and work towards national cohesion and reconciliation. Kenya was given a new lease of life but since then the leadership has wasted away that second chance as it continues to compete and play politics with only 2012 in mind. In the past, the failure to recognise danger signs were the reason why some people expressed shock and dismay that deadly post-election violence could happen in Kenya in 2007-08. Such people had believed that Kenya was a peaceful country. Unfortunately, that perception was because people ignored the danger signs and lived a lie. To such people the tribal clashes of 1991, 1992 and 1997 were quickly forgotten. Yet during those earlier clashes, as in 2007-08, distress calls to the police for help were ignored. Many people died, and more were maimed, raped and displaced, while much property was destroyed. Again, once politicians shared power and privileges, nobody was held responsible for those crimes. Everything was swept under the carpet and was quickly forgotten. As it turned out, the clashes of the 1990s proved to be rehearsals for the post-election violence of 2007-08 and in all cases the violence was largely directed at the Kikuyu community.
Currently, the danger signs are palpable. Instances of citizens being murdered in cold blood in cases where no robbery is involved, or citizens shouting down leaders at public rallies – such as happened during Jamhuri Day (12 December 2008) and Labour Day (1 May 2009) – or youth uprooting the railway, engaging police in gun battles in rural towns, or engaging in killing orgies of defenceless villagers, are all signs of a society that is falling apart and losing respect for the rule of law. The government knows that the violence and killings are largely perpetrated by members of militia groups, which are created and funded by politicians. Different communities have their militia, which bear different names. The government knows these militia groups and knows that politicians use them to punish and defeat their opponents, especially during elections. If they win elections, the same politicians end up in government and become part of the leadership.
Mungiki, which is currently making headlines, is the militia group from the Kikuyu community. Information about the group is kept secret, but unconfirmed reports indicate that this militia is split into several groups. The original Mungiki members were only interested in pursuing the Kikuyu form of worship, which prays facing Mt. Kenya. This group does not believe in Christianity and calls for the traditional Kikuyu way of life, including practicing female circumcision. Owing largely to its stand on those two issues, the strongly christianised Kikuyu community has been unsympathetic towards this group and has largely demonised the sect. The banning of the sect by the government has criminalised it, and therefore the community and Kenyans in general have tolerated the extrajudicial killing of its members.The police have taken advantage of this demonisation and criminalisation to kill Mungiki indiscriminately, because they know that they will not be called to account. Why the members of the sect are denied freedom of worship, in a country where everybody else can worship as they please, is not clear. Indeed it is only among the Kikuyu community that worshiping in a traditional way is demonised, criminalised and the killing of followers is tolerated.
The second group camouflages itself as Mungiki but is said to be comprised of militiamen being recruited from thousands of unemployed youth. With the failure of the cash crop economy, impoverishment and the introduction of drugs and illicit alcoholic drinks in the Central region, it has been easy to recruit youth and men into militia groups. Criminality gradually infiltrated some of these militia groups, especially as they sought ways to sustain themselves beyond the handouts from their sponsors. Therefore, they become available to politicians and others for hire. They are the type we encounter protecting grabbed public lands or properties built on stolen land. Sometimes they may receive police protection, an indication of their political patronage.
The third group is claimed to be closely connected to the law enforcement arm of the government and is used to collect information, intimidate and instil fear in citizens, terrorise matatus and silence elements like dissidents, activists and competing elements. It may also provide ‘protection’ or other services for a fee. These are the ones people accuse of hiring police guns to commit crimes.
In some cases the militiamen and the law enforcement arm of the government form a symbiotic relationship, which sometimes goes sour with either of them getting killed. When militiamen are killed they are labelled thieves and members of the Mungiki sect. That is usually an indication that the matter get closed and no further action is expected. Because of the internalised disdain of the Mungiki sect, especially in the Kikuyu community, the expected outcry against their killings has been absent and nobody in the community wants to be seen supporting Mungiki. At the same time Mungiki has instilled so much fear in the community that nobody is willing to speak about them or their actions for fear of immediate elimination.Therefore, when innocent persons are killed and are labelled Mungiki, death is stoically accepted as the will of God and the community internalises the pain. Killing members of Mungiki, irrespective of their innocence, has became so acceptable that all that police have to claim to literally get away with any murder is to say that the victim was a member of Mungiki. Unfortunately, that has degenerated into acceptance of killing of innocent Kikuyus. Currently this is further degenerating into members of Mungiki turning on the community itself in a cycle of vengeance and tit-for-tat.
The recent murder of the son of the former member of parliament for Gatundu North, Hon. Kariuki Muiruri, painfully exemplifies the tragedy and the dilemma that the Kikuyu community faces. The son was shot dead by a plainclothes policeman, who subsequently walked into a police station and wrote in the Occurrence Book (OB) that he had killed a thief who was also a member of the Mungiki sect! Yet the son was on holiday and the two met casually at a social place. Whatever the circumstances that led to the shooting of the son, this was a case of an innocent young man killed by a policeman who knew that nothing would happen to him if he were to record that the man was a member of the Mungiki sect. But for the fact that the victim was the son of a former member of parliament and a former assistant minister, Muiruri’s son would have joined the list of thousands of Kikuyu youth who have been killed under similar circumstances and labelled thieves and members of the Mungiki sect.
The Mungiki phenomenon, almost like the Mau Mau experience five decades ago, is providing cover for extrajudicial killings, intimidation, harassment, criminalisation and the bashing of the Kikuyu community under the pretence that police are protecting citizens from Mungiki. Sometimes police are fully aware of the activities carried out by this group. The killings in Mathira and Kirinyaga, for example, are said to have been committed with full knowledge of the law enforcement arm of the government. Indeed, citizens claim that distress calls to the police for help were never responded to until the killings had been completed. The extrajudicial killings of innocent Kenyans have been attracting international attention. This is because not only is the state perceived to be failing in protecting its citizens, but the police are being blamed for some of the deaths. Promises to carry out a thorough investigation come to nothing, and nobody has been held to account. After all, the police cannot be expected to investigate and incriminate themselves.
Perhaps militia groups like Mungiki have gotten out of hand. But is the right response to militia groups a license to kill them indiscriminately? We are not in a state of war, and nobody should be killed without following the due process of the law of the land, police excuses for self-defence notwithstanding. Police Commissioner Hussein Ali will find it hard to explain how in his era Kenya has experienced a level of carnage at the hands of the police greater than at any other time, even when compared with the colonial era. When the government sends the message that the Mungiki group should be crushed, it is an endorsement for extrajudicial killings. For their part, the militiamen will subsequently go on a killing spree to avenge members killed. This cycle of death has become a common feature, has instilled fear and has given rise to frustration in the people of Central Kenya.
The way I see it, the political and religious leadership of the Kikuyu community should rise to the challenge facing the entire community. This is a community that suffers from accumulated trauma and frustration extending back to the beginning of the colonial era. From the latest attack during the post-election violence, the community has yet to bury their dead, settle the internally displaced persons (IDPs) and send their children back to school. A culture of Kikuyu bashing, criminalisation and isolation is being perpetrated and is quickly entrenching itself, creating a deep rift between the community and other Kenyans. The fact that this is happening when the national leadership in State House is from the community is doubly tragic. How can they be so bashed, so criminalised, killed, displaced and humiliated when their beloved son is in State House? Will he wait until he or members of his family are touched by the tragedy afflicting the community? If they are now encouraged to turn on each other, there will be no shortage of helping hands, including being given guns to kill their own children! For a country awash with militia groups, these are dangerous signs not only for the Kikuyu community, but for Kenya as a whole. The question I would ask Prime Minister Raila Odinga is, have you not heard the cries or seen the tears of these Kenyans in your capacity as the coordinator of government business? Have you not seen the mourning mothers?
* Wangari Maathai .Nobel Peace Prize winner
Victims of British Brutality:Crimes for Queen & Country
Crimes Queen & Country
In a few weeks, a group of quiet, dignified elderly men and women will arrive in London to explain how the forces of the British state crushed their testicles or breasts with pliers. It was part of a deliberate policy of breaking a civilian population who we regarded as “baboons”, “barbarians” and “terrorists”.They will come bearing the story of how Britain invaded a country, stole its land, and imprisoned an entire civilian population in detention camps – and they ask only for justice, after all this time.
As a small symbol of how we as a country have not come to terms with our history, compare the bemused reaction to the arrival of these Kenyan survivors of Britain’s gulags to the recent campaign supporting the Gurkhas. We have all waxed lyrical over the Nepalese soldiers who were, for two centuries, hired by the British Empire to fight its battles. Sometimes they were used in great causes, like the defeat of Nazism. Sometimes they were used to crush democratic movements in India or Malaya or Pakistan. But they did the bidding of the Empire – so they are that rare bunch of foreigners whom the right will welcome. I too strongly supported their rights to reside in Britain, out of simple humanity – if they’re good enough to die for us, they’re good enough to live with us. But isn’t it revealing that even in 2009, we can cheer the servants of Empire but blank the people mutilated and murdered by it?
The British arrived in Kenya in the 1880s, at a time when our economic dominance was waning and new colonies were needed. The Colonial Office sent in waves of white settlers to seize the land from the local “apes” and mark it with the Union Jack. Francis Hall was the officer of the East India Company tasked with mounting armed raids against the Kikuyu – the most populous local tribe – to break their resistance. He said: “There is only one way of improving the [Kikuyu] and that is to wipe them out; I would only be too delighted to do so but we have to depend on them for food supplies.”
The British troops stole more than 360,000 acres from the Kikuyu, and renamed the area “the White Highlands.” But the white settlers were aristocratic dilettantes with little experience of farming, and they were soon outraged to discover that the “primitives” were growing food far more efficiently on the reserves into which they had been driven. So they forced the local black population to work “their” land, and passed a law banning local Africans from inde-pendently growing the most profitable cash crops – tea, coffee, and sisal.The people of Kenya objected, and tried to repel the invaders. They called for ithaka na wiyathi – land and freedom. After peaceful protests were met with violence, they formed a group, dubbed the Mau Mau, to stop the suppression any way they could. They started killing the leaders appointed by the British, and some of the settlers too. As a result, the London press described them as “evil savages” and “terrorists” who were motivated by hatred of Christianity and civilisation. They had been “brainwashed” by “Mau Mau cult leaders”, the reports shrieked. The 1.5 million Kikuya overwhelmingly supported the Mau Mau and independence – so the British declared war on them all. A state of emergency was announced, and it began with forced removals of all Kikuyu. Anybody living outside the reserves – in any of the cities, for example – was rounded up at gunpoint, packed into lorries, and sent to “transit camps”. There, they were “screened” to see if they were Mau Mau supporters.
British Gulag
Professor Caroline Elkins, who studied the detention camps for five years for her remarkable book Britain’s Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya, explains the tactics adopted by the British to snuffle out Mau Mau. “Electric shock was widely used, as well as cigarettes and fire,” she writes. “Bottles (often broken), gun barrels, knives, snakes, vermin and hot eggs were thrust up men’s rectums and women’s vaginas. “The screening teams whipped, shot, burned, and mutilated Mau Mau suspects.”
The people judged to be guilty of Mau Mau sympathies were transferred to torture camps. There, each detainee was given a number which they had to wear on a band on their wrist. They were then stripped naked and sent through a cattle dip, before the torture would begin again. “Detainees were frog-marched around the compound and beaten until blood ran from their ears,” Elkins writes.
The Kikuyu survivor Pascasio Macharia describes some of the tortures he witnessed: “The askaris [guards] brought in fire buckets full of water, and the detainees were called one by one, [my friend] Peterson first. The askaris then put his head in the bucket of water and lifted his legs high in the air so he was upside down. That’s when [one of the camp commandants] started cramming sand in Peterson’s anus and stuffed it in with a stick. The other askari would put water in, and then more sand. They kept doing this back and forth … Eventually they finished with Peterson and carried him off, only to start on the next detainee in the compound.”
British Crimes against Kikuyus
When I reported from Kenya earlier this year, I met elderly people who still shake with fear as they talk about the gulags. William Baldwin, a British member of the Kenya Police Reserve, wrote a memoir in which he cheerfully admits to murdering Kikuya “baboons” in cold blood. He bragged about how he gutted them with knives while other suspects watched. Another British officer, Tony Cross, proudly called their tactics “Gestapo stuff”. For the civilians outside, life was only slightly better. Women and children were trapped in 800 “sealed villages” throughout the countryside. They were surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards, and forced at gunpoint to dig trenches that sealed them off from the world.
There was always another, honourable Britain that fought against these crimes. The Labour left – especially Barbara Castle and Nye Bevan – fought for the camps to be exposed and shut. They didn’t succeed until the British imperialists were finally forced to scuttle away from the country entirely. We will never know how many people they murdered, because the colonial administration built a bonfire of all the paperwork on their way out the door. Elkins calculates it is far more than the 11,000 claimed by the British Government, and could be as many as 300,000.
Yet in Britain today, there is a blood-encrusted blank spot about Empire. On the reality show The Apprentice, the contestants recently had to pick a name for their team, and they said they wanted “something that represented the best of British” – so they settled on “Empire”. Nobody objected. Imagine young Germans blithely naming a team “Reich”: it’s unthinkable, because they have had to study what their fathers and grandfathers did, and expunge these barbarous instincts from their national DNA.
This failure to absorb the lessons of Empire is not only unjust to the victims; it leads us to repeat horrifying mistakes. Today, we are – with the Americans – using unmanned drones to bomb the Pakistan-Afghan borderland, as we did a few years ago in Iraq. Nobody here seems to remember that the British invented aerial counter-insurgency in this very spot – with disastrous consequences.In 1924, Arthur “Bomber” Harris bragged that all rebellion could be stopped with this tactic. We have shown them, “what real bombing means, in casualties and damage: they know that within 45 minutes, a full-sized village can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed,” he said. Yet instead of “pacifying” them, it radically alienated the population and lead to an uprising. If we knew our history, we would not be running the same script and expecting a different ending.
Gordon Brown said last year (in India, of all places) that “the days of Britain having to apologise for its colonial history are over”. The survivors of England’s blanked-out torture camps are entitled to ask: when did they ever apologise?
j.hari(British National)
Madaraka Day Special
Because ideas will always retain their power and words offer the means to meaning I feel I have to express why I dont grieve our national spirit being in a coma. For those who will listen to my enunciation of truth.The truth is, there is something terribly wrong with Kenya and that is why I am Kikuyu first .The truth is hard to accept because most people are deceived about themselves. Rationalizations and the incessant search for scapegoats(politicians,the constitution,our tribes) are the psychological cataracts that blind us all.But the day has passed for my superficial patriotism.
He who lives in a lie , lives in spiritual slavery.But freedom is still the bonus we receive for knowing the truth.”Ye shall know the truth,” says Jesus, “and the truth shall set you free.” .And the truth of my enunciation is setting me free.The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality. There comes a time when silence becomes betrayal.The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which it calls is a difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, we do not easily assume the task of opposing unjust systems , especially in country like ours. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom.
When the issues at hand seem as perplexing as the Kiambaa church aquittal , as they often are in the case of Kenya, we’re always mesmerized by indifference and collective denial.Where we once had the freedom to think and challenge we now have coercing to conformity and solicited submission for the sake of false peace. How did this happen? Who’s to blame for this false hopes?(maybe its Eric Wainaina’s song Kenya only) Well certainly there are those more responsible than others for the breakdown in my patriotism to Kenya(The Church Burners, Justice David Maraga,Raila Odinga,Mwai Kibaki),but again truth be told, if I was looking for the guilty, I need only ask you to look into a mirror.
After reading that a judge had set free the church burners and jackson Kibor,I waited to hear from you but all I heard was the echo of your silence. Then I sought to end my own silence and remind you what it is our ‘Nation’ has forgotten. More than forty six years ago great citizens wishing to embed our independence forever in our collective psyche, shed their blood for fairness, justice, and freedom (Not for a flag, a country name or even eight provinces).
So I write to you on this issue, because we(those who are now Kikuyu first) are determined to be taken seriously. We feel the day has come the ‘true patriots’ (Generation Kenya ,Revisioning Kenya & Kenya first gang) to explain to the growning many like me how the whole road to happiness can be granted in Kenya today ,So that men,women and children are not beaten and killed in churches.I look uneasily on the glaring contrast of visions and political direction and ask can I be loyal to this Kenya ? Show me how I can be Kenyan first and Kikuyu second when I see the injustice of Kiambaa and all the recent talk that accompanied the burial. Joe Ndungu
‘V’ version
Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC)
While Kenyans praise the setting up of a body by Parliament to investigate historical injustices with a view to reconciling communities torn apart by ethnic hatred and inequalities, doubts surround the success of such an initiative.Negotiators named by post-war leaders to the international mediation group were of the view that signing of the National Accord without putting in place mechanisms to heal the war wounds would be an exercise in futility.A raft of proposals towards possible reconciliation and peaceful co-existence were made, one being the setting up of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) to investigate historical injustices, including the eruption of post-election violence.Nobody in Kenya can claim the cloak of a saint before the TJRC.
In adult life, everybody in this country is an accomplice in meting out injustices. Since violence or political assassinations always have leaders’ blessings, how will this commission summon such personalities without provoking ethnic animosity?
Only the privileged class can get away with injustices as was evidenced by the 2007 general elections. Kenyans who bear the scars of senseless protests against bungled election results were not the contestants for the top seats.The big question is, what constitutes injustices in the eyes of the commission and the public? Caution, patience and sobriety should be the guides if the country is to forestall a recurrence of violence.Some of the heart-rending testimonies by victims and the stone faces of the perpetrators could be stressful. The commission could be presiding over the disintegration of the nation or perform a miracle to restore the short-lived unity at independence.
The latter is unlikely where negative ethnicity has deepened in all sectors including the Legislature.The leaders across the divide should convene a national healing conference as part of the preparation of the perpetrators and victims to look at the commission, not as a witch-hunter or a trial court, but as a peace-broker.
Going by recent inflammatory statements by leaders after the burial of Kiambaa church fire victims and the conspicuous absence of some coalition leaders, it is safe to conclude that we have forgotten that the country was engulfed in one of the worst violence in living memory.It is thus upon the two principals to rise to the occasion and save the coalition and the country from disintegration.Given the sensitivity of the terms of reference of the commission, the coalition government should move with speed to reinforce the confidence of Kenyans in the healing process.The unease in the coalition government that was crafted out of the ashes of a bloody war should not be a hindrance to the smooth functions of the commission. The TJRC process should not be turned into another public relations exercise to hoodwink the international community, which insisted on reconciliation rather than confrontation.An appearance by leaders across the divide would encourage the perpetrators and victims to fearlessly testify at the commission that seeks to reconcile communities and individuals who regard their neighbours as arch-enemies.
By Joseph Kamotho. EGH.
Mugumo
We must prune the old and unproductive branches but the tree should not be uprooted.
In the fiery dawn of time, when the earth trembled in the throes of creation, a dense cloud of mist stood over the land as Ngai (GOD), the divider of the Universe, descended to earth, to his seat of mystery.There upon the dazzling snow capped peaks of the black crystal mountain called Kirinyaga, he made a dwelling place. From that day the mountain became his symbolic abode and was revered as sacred ground.
One day, Ngai led Gikuyu, father of the Gikuyu nation, to the misty peaks of the sacred mountain. Pointing out the beauty of the land lying below he said:”You shall carve your inheritance from this land, it shall belong to you and your children’s children to be passed from generation to generation until the twilight of existence.”And so it became. The Agikuyu were given the land of rivers and ravines, of hills and valleys, of forests with all the creatures therein, and all the gifts of nature that Mugai, divider of the Universe had bestowed on his people.
As the morning sun broke through the misty skies, Gikuyu did as his creator had commanded. He descended to Mukurwe wa Gathanga where a grove of sacred fig trees grew in rich red earth.Resting in the shade of the sacred grove, he found the most beautiful of women. Taking her to be his wife, he named her Mumbi, the creator or moulder of the tribe.From the sacred Mukuyu grove, Gikuyu took his name. Together, Gikuyu and Mumbi built a home and gave birth to nine daughters.
Away from Myth
The (Mugumo/Mukuyu) fig tree is one of the more frequently mentioned trees in the Scriptures. It was from its leaves that Adam and Eve made their first covering (Gen. 3:7). The fig tree was valued first of all for its delicious, sweet fruit (Judges 9:11). It was also a symbol of prosperity and security: “and Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig tree” (1 Kings 4:25). It was an enjoyable thing to rest, meditate on God’s word, and pray in the shade of the fig tree. (John 1:48)
Figs are considered characteristic fruit for the land of Palestine. The best loved and most nutritious were the spring fruits, which ripened in May and referred to as figs in the fig tree of the first time (Hosea 9:10). The main harvesting of figs occurred in the later months of the summer and in the fall. Those figs were called late figs. They were inferior in their quality. The poorest ones were even fed to cattle.
The Fig Tree as a Symbol
Some places in the Bible indicate that the fig tree also has a symbolic meaning. One of the Lord’s miracles is most intriguing when his curse of the fig tree caused it to wither. This seems to have been the only miracle in which Jesus used his power to destroy, to annihilate something. It also is the only miracle which was of no benefit to anyone. All others were done for men. The Lord multiplied bread, healed diseases, raised the dead. This miracle was as if in conflict with our Master’s disposition, who to the suggestion of destroying the wicked, answered back to his disciples: “Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of”. (Luke 9:55). All these facts imply an exceptional character of that miracle and its symbolic meaning. But to understand this symbolism, the miracle must be considered in the light of our Lord’s parable of the barren fig tree.
“A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? And he answering said unto him: let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it and dung it. And if it shall bear fruit, well and if not then after that thou shalt cut it down.” (Luke 13:6-9)
The parable was preceded by his words: “Except ye repent ye shall likewise perish”. The explanation of this parable was obvious to the listeners. The owner of the vineyard is the God of Israel (Isa 5:7). The dresser is the Messiah, who, three years into his mission, would, through his digging and fertilizing, make the nation bring fruit unto God. At the time of the utterance of this parable, the fate of this nation was still not decided. Our Lord still had half a year of his dressing work before him. It seems that the cursing of the fig tree is as if it is the finishing of the unfinished parable.
After his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, the end of our Lord’s mission was fast approaching. Returning from Bethany, the Master approached the fig tree and looked for fruit in it. Having found none, he passed this sentence on the tree: “Let no fruit grow on thee henceforth for ever” (Matt. 21:19). Some interpret this event literally, as a curse on a tree which had no fruit. But such an interpretation is in conflict with a note made by the author of the Gospel of Mark, who emphasizes that “the time for figs was not yet” (Mark 11:13). Both our Lord and his disciples realized that in that season, in the early spring, no figs could ever be found on a fig tree. The lesson was manifest: his seeking the fruit had a symbolic meaning, it was a living parable, so often used by the prophets. Jesus wanted to finish the story of the barren fig tree which he had told earlier. After three and a half years of the dressing work was complete, he wanted to show that the antitypical fig tree brought no fruit. The fate of the tree was decided. On the next day it withered.
The fig tree was used as a picture of Israel not without a cause. As early as in the Old Testament, figs were identified with the nation of Israel by the prophets. Hosea wrote: ‘I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness, I saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig tree in her first time” (Hosea 9:10). Jeremiah received the vision of two baskets of figs, which represented Israel: “Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah” (Jer. 24:5).
How soon was Christ’s prophecy fulfilled about the withering of the symbolic fig tree to be fulfilled?. In the year 70 A.D. the temple was destroyed. No longer was there a place to offer sacrifices, the opportunity to serve the Lord according to the precepts of the Law thus ended. Jerusalem fell into ruin, and the whole nation was expelled from their own land and dispersed throughout the world. Speaking about the time of his Kingdom approaching, Christ again turns his disciples’ attention to the fig tree. “Now learn a parable of the fig tree: When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth his leaves, ye know that summer is nigh. So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the door”. (Matt. 24:32, 33)
It should be observed that this parable was uttered on the same day when the barren fig tree was cursed. Therefore it would be difficult to assume that when Christ told them to watch for signs taking place on that very kind of a tree, it was merely accidental. These two events constitute one whole. As a result of the rejection of the Messiah on the part of the Jews, during his first advent, God’s favor was turned away from them, as shown in the withered tree. Whereas, the softening of the branches and the bringing forth of leaves represents the return of favor to this nation during the time of the establishment of the Kingdom in Christ’s second advent. Let us, then, carefully observe this symbolic fig tree.
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