Heavy traffic may delay player
November 29, 2010
Raila Call For Kenyan Gay Arrests- Diversionary Tactic From Grand Corruption
Nairobi — Prime Minister Raila Odinga was on Wednesday put to task in Parliament over corruption in the Cabinet and why some ministers implicated in graft were still holding on to their positions.Mr Odinga, the ODM party leader, was also accused of applying double standards when it came to dealing with MPs from his side of the coalition.
Mr Odinga, the ODM party leader, was also accused of applying double standards when it came to dealing with MPs from his side of the coalition.”Mr Prime Minister, we would like to know your definition of political responsibility because when it is ministers from your party, you defend them, but when they are from the other side you remain silent,” Ms Amina Abdalla, a PNU nominated MP, said on Wednesday.
Gichugu MP Martha Karua challenged the PM to give his position on Immigration minister Otieno Kajwang’, who despite being struck off the lawyers’ roll several times by the Law Society of Kenya over accountability issues was still appointed to the Cabinet.Mr George Nyamweya (MP, Nominated) accused Mr Odinga of applying double standards.
He challenged the PM over why he had suspended then Agriculture minister William Ruto and Education minister Sam Ongeri over alleged fraud in their ministries, while urging patience in the current cases.Mr Njoroge Baiya said Industrialisation minister Henry Kosgey should have resigned over alleged abuse of office and corruption relating to importation of old vehicles.But Mr Odinga said he was not aware of any tainted ministers in the Cabinet. He also said that no one would be spared in the war on graft.
April 10, 2010
Economist :Will justice be done at last?
Apr 8th 2010 | | From The Economist print edition
So far nobody has been charged with killing any of the 1,100-plus Kenyans who died in the violence after a disputed election at the end of 2007. The Kenyans were meant to set up their own tribunals to punish the worst offenders. But since they failed to do so, the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague has at last agreed to proceed with cases against unnamed powerful Kenyans who, for their own political ends, are suspected of inciting the violence and paying its perpetrators.
The court’s decision has been eagerly awaited for two years. It has been strongly endorsed by Kofi Annan, a former secretary-general of the UN, who helped bring peace after the election by persuading the president, Mwai Kibaki, and the opposition leader, Raila Odinga, to form a unity government. Mr Kibaki, a Kikuyu, stayed on as president, with his pals keeping a grip on finance and security. Mr Odinga, a Luo who claims kinship with Barack Obama, became prime minister, with people in his wider and looser alliance getting a raft of lesser ministries. The bloated coalition’s first task was to set up a special tribunal to charge those responsible for the election violence. But nothing happened. Cases against several thousand people accused of such crimes as arson, rioting, looting and shooting were opened. Thanks to police bungling few have ever come to court.
All the more important, then, to hold the higher-ups to account. The ICC is keen. Its chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, an Argentine, says the Kenyan case is among the most clear-cut in his docket. Plentiful evidence was gathered at the time by human-rights workers, journalists, security men and diplomats. There is no shortage of witnesses, though the ICC wants a witness-protection programme put in place. Most Kenyans seem to trust the court. Messrs Kibaki and Odinga sound co-operative. Mr Odinga says he will send anybody the ICC asks for to The Hague. Mr Kibaki says he agrees. The justice minister insists his ministry is ready to help. Mr Moreno-Campo says his team will start work in Kenya in May. Verdicts, he reckons, could be handed down in 2012.
But there are snags galore. For a start, the ICC’s timetable means the trials would take place amid Kenya’s next elections, when the risk of violence is highest. A trial just then might well be portrayed as a show-trial. Then there is the tricky question of whom the ICC would pick to send to The Hague. Mr Moreno-Ocampo has hinted there will be only a handful of prosecutions, perhaps a couple from each side of the ruling coalition. A senior politician from the Kalenjin group might, say, be charged with responsibility for killing Kikuyu women and children in the Rift Valley, while a senior Kikuyu could be accused of paying off Kikuyu gangs to kill opposition backers in Nairobi. Most Kenyans seem to want bigwigs put in the dock, in the hope of ending impunity for top people that has so damaged the country.
It will be hard to nail them down. The rich have expensive lawyers. Mr Kibaki may find excuses for refusing to give up one of his allies. Mr Moreno-Ocampo, for his part, must display the balancing skills of a trapeze artist. If he is thought to favour one side or another, violence could erupt. If the ICC seems to wield too heavy a stick, the accused may stir up anti-colonial feeling—still a potent force—in their defence. Above all, the ICC must navigate the murky waters of Kenyan politics, where alliances can change with unexpected speed. For example, the minister of agriculture, William Ruto, a Kalenjin, has reached out to a once-implacable rival, Uhuru Kenyatta, the minister of finance, a Kikuyu who is a son of Kenya’s founding president and who, by some estimates, is Mr Kibaki’s chosen successor.
January 13, 2009
Anglo Maizing Scandal-Corruption In Kenya
Even as the country stands on a brink of starvation more twists are emerging in the maze importation deal that has shifted from an intervention measure to what appears to be a mega scandal. Fears now abound that the tax payer could loose billions, unless the well executed cartel is nipped in the bud. The shady deals have now boiled to the surface with ministers trading accusations as to who could be behind the maize importation scams. Prime Minister Raila Odinga is the latest victim of the emerging saga. The legislators said the PM has stood in the way of engaging another grain handling company slowing down the clearance of the imported cereals. They also accuse the PM of favouring a member of his family in the maize importation process that is becoming more of a financial scandal than crisis solving mechanism.
The latest hint that taxpayers in Kenya are losing billions to corrupt elements in the government was dropped by Justice Minister Martha Karua who blamed some cabinet colleagues for the looming food crisis stopping short of calling it artificial. A section of parliamentarians claimed that an estimated Sh2 billion could have already been lost in the corrupt deals involving maize importation. Though Agriculture minister William Ruto has banned all exports of maize by invoking section 30 of the NCPB Act, the rogue middlemen are still getting away with the same.
Once in Southern Sudan, the commodity goes for more than three times the cost compared to Kenya. While NCPB sells the maize to millers and middlemen at a price of Sh1750 per 90 kilogramme bag, the middlemen repackage the commodity and export it to Southern Sudan where it goes for about Sh6000 for the same quantity. The situation is getting so desperate that the even the low cost maize flour unveiled by the Government a month ago has served little purpose as more and more Kenyans join the list of those in need of urgent food rations to avert a food crisis.The situation is compounded by the fact that thousands of maize bags valued at over Sh150 million have been allocated to questionable millers in what is fast developing into a huge scandal in the wake of a seemingly divided government. Middlemen and brokers that the Prime Minister and Agriculture minister William Ruto promised to eliminate in the maize importation deal are reported to be on the loose and more vicious than before.
They are taking advantage of a desperate situation to cut deals with willing government officials denying the bona fide beneficiaries of the imported maize and making quick kills while the government officials are in for huge kickbacks even as thousands face starvation. Initial reports indicated that out of the 144,000 bags of maize given to large milling companies by the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB), only 40,000 could be accounted for in terms of milled flour
Over 100,000 bags remained unaccounted for even as the government remains mum on the issue. Some briefcase milling companies with no known physical addresses are said to have inflated their milling capacity leading to a situation where hey were allocated more than they can manage. Surprisingly, no serious follow-up measures are being undertaken by the government to reign in these crooks casting aspersions and doubts to where the government stands on the matter.
A report on the investigations into the corrupt deals associated with milling companies is expected to be handed to Attorney General by the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission for possible prosecution. Insiders in the industry however point to a possibility where the NCPB could have colluded with the millers to inflate their milling capacity and therefore blackmailed the government on the issue.
Story by: lumiti khabuchi
December 31, 2008
One Year On & the $130 Insult for IDPs
Mary Macharia will never go home again, even though a year has passed since ethnic tensions flared into violence after Kenya’s deeply flawed presidential election.Macharia’s 3-year-old daughter, Joyce Njoki, was among dozens of people she saw “burned to ashes” when a mob set fire to a church where hundreds were taking refuge in one of the crisis’ most horrific acts of violence. Macharia herself suffered burns over most of her body.
“Our leaders are the ones who instigated this whole thing and now they are pretending everything is back to normal,” Macharia, 40, told The Associated Press from a displacement camp where she lives outside the Kenyan capital.”I cannot live next to my enemies,” said Macharia, who spent eight months in the hospital receiving skin grafts and can no longer farm because her injuries are so debilitating.The tensions that were laid bare during one of the darkest moments in Kenya’s history are still festering, a year after its election on Dec. 27, 2007 unleashed weeks of ethnic violence that killed more than 1,000 people.
The evidence is everywhere: in the displacement camps where tens of thousands of people still live; in the divided towns where ethnic groups had lived side-by-side since independence from Britain in 1963; and in growing disillusionment with a coalition government accused of ignoring the roots of the crisis.”The lives of most Kenyans are no better today than they were a year ago,” said Ben Rawlence, a researcher at Human Rights Watch. “This is not the new chapter that Kenyans hoped for.”
The coalition government between President Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga, who became prime minister under the deal, has held together, but observers say it has not done enough to address the causes of the violence or to root out corruption.The fighting erupted after ballot counting showing the challenger Odinga in the lead swung dramatically in Kibaki’s favor amid allegations of election fraud.Long embittered by the political and economic dominance of Kibaki’s Kikuyu tribe, voters from among Kenya’s 41 other tribes — including Odinga’s Luo — staged protests and riots that quickly escalated into horrific violence.After much wrangling, Kibaki and Odinga agreed to put politicians believed to have organized and funded the fighting to go before a special tribunal — keeping the cases from being sent to the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
But not everybody has hopes for justice.
In past years, government commissions set up to look at ethnic clashes have taken years to complete reports that then gathered dust. And observers say the time it took for the two leaders to agree on a trial points to deep antagonism that makes it difficult for them to govern together.
Still, many diplomats praised the men for at least trying to move the country forward, despite their differences.The American ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger, said the tribunal was just one sign that the coalition government could make changes.”An enormous amount has happened,” he told The Associated Press. “The structure for change is being put in place.”"Grand coalitions are never love affairs,” said the German ambassador to Kenya, Walter Lindner, at a recent news conference in Nairobi.
There are indeed some bright spots.
Tourists are returning to Kenya’s safari parks and Indian Ocean beaches. The coalition government is holding despite the obvious strains. And national pride exploded over the election of Barack Obama — whose father was Kenyan — as U.S. president.
But Kenya faces a long road to recovery.
The rioting and ethnic clashes exposed deep divisions over land and economic inequality that have been ignored or exploited for political gain for decades. While the power-sharing deal ended much of the killing, Kenya lost up to $1 billion because of the turmoil.The Kenyan Red Cross says nearly 60,000 out of 350,000 displaced remain in camps. Less than half have gone home; nearly 130,000 are simply unaccounted for — either living with friends or family or moving from town to town.In many areas, especially in western Kenya, the violence brought a bloody end to decades of coexistence among Kenya’s ethnic groups, transforming the ethnic makeup villages, cities and towns. Some worry the change may be permanent, boding ill for democracy in this once-stable African country.
James Mugwiri, 56, lived for 19 years with his family outside Eldoret — the site of the church blaze that killed Macharia’s daughter. But Mugwiri, a Kikuyu, fled his 12 acres when the killings began, and lived for months at a sprawling fairground in Eldoret where guards kept watch for marauding gangs.He finally felt safe enough to return to town, but he has given up on reclaiming his land. He feels betrayed by the coalition government — which he had great hope for — saying the two men are happy now they have solidified their power.
Instead of going back to his farm, Mugwiri rents a home for $100 a month so he can flee again with no strings attached.
idps
“What happened to us has forced us to live like birds on trees, ready to fly away in case anything happens,” he said.The government has given many of the displaced 10,000 Kenya shillings — about $130 — to resettle, an amount government spokesman Alfred Mutua acknowledges is a token sum.”The government is not in a position to compensate people, what people are being given is a token to help them maintain their daily needs,” he told the AP. “People always want more money,” he added. “It’s a token of appreciation. But it is also costing us. Ten-thousand shillings given to all these families is a lot of money.”
He did not detail how much money the government has given out, saying it was still being calculated. He did not return further calls for comment.Rose Wanjiru Karanja, 32, who lived for nearly a year in a camp in Naivasha, said the money was an insult.
“We are being ferried like goats,” she said from the back of a pickup truck, where some 70 women and children were traveling to a parcel of land they bought by pooling their government money.”We are going to build a slum. We owned farms and now we are going to build houses that are 10 feet by 10 feet. Even prisoners get better treatment — they eat well, they are driven in buses,” she said.
As for politics and the power of the vote, Karanja has no hope.”Now they are looking for our votes and they are living well, but they should not be forgiven,” she said of Kenya’s politicians. “They should be taken to the Hague.”
October 15, 2008
Waki Report PDF
Waki Report PDF(click here)If files are unavailable due to megabyte bandwidth please view ipaper link.iphone users can view and download ipaper here(click here)Also listen to the Shocking BBC interview of Kalenjin church burners and Jackson Kibor
October 10, 2008
Regional Decentralization(Majimbo) the way to go!
Right now Kenya needs three things 1.Constituency boundary review. 2.Provincial boundary review. 3.Regional Decentralization
- Reverted back to central Region -Kasarani, Westlands & Dagoretti
September 11, 2008
Salim Lone Retires-Good riddance to bad rubbish
Good Riddance To Bad Rubbish.
Enough said………….
September 10, 2008
New Kenyan Opinion Poll Political Propaganda
According to a former top researcher with the Chicago-based National Opinion and Research Centre, B. Sheatsley, “opinion polls’ most obvious contribution has been to substitute objective measures of people’s opinions and behaviour for the guesswork that once surrounded these matters.”
In this sense, it becomes quite clear that something still does not work, the way opinion polls are conducted.
For instance, what does it exactly mean to ask a random group of people “who, between President Kibaki and Premier Raila Odinga, is working hardest?”This was the question Gullup recently asked in its only opinion poll this year. Just what was such a question supposed to mean?It is so subjective as to render it meaningless – certainly not the stuff of scientific polls. It comes out as having had pre-determined results, making it utterly baseless.Among those anonymous individuals asked to respond, who has any idea how the two spend their working day – the whole minutiae of crafting policies, studying situation papers and intelligence briefings, attending to various national chores, events and ceremonies, and meeting numerous delegations?
Except for the people who work in those offices, the answer is none.As far as any Kenyan can tell, both the President and Prime Minister have been on a hectic daily ever since the Grand Coalition was formed, each addressing the business of State.Just recently, when the President was off to an AU meeting in Egypt and another one in Japan, the Prime Minister was handling the toxic issues of the Grand Regency scandal and the Mau Forest.
Soon, he was off to the UK and the US, while President Kibaki was home grappling with domestic chores.This outward picture, which is the only idea that Kenyans have of the two at work, does not show any of them being busier or more lethargic than the other.It does not need repeating that the two leaders’ styles of doing things are diametrically opposed: that one is laid-back and the other more physically active.
It would be wrong for any Kenyan to think that being a hands-on operative equals hard work, though the PM does work hard, or that being “laid-back” means laziness.In many places, including large companies, many unsung people do the donkey-work, while the showy type get most of the limelight.
It does not make sense to equate two offices which have specific constitutional mandates, and which are serving the same government simultaneously.
July 17, 2008
Kenyan Cabinet
A power-sharing agreement here that brought peace in the wake of controversial elections in December that sparked political violence that killed at least 1,500 people, has been hailed as a model by the African Union for countries like Zimbabwe struggling to deal with the aftermath of a disputed vote. In February, President Mwai Kibaki named opposition leader Raila Odinga to the newly created post of prime minister. Kibaki and Odinga – the latter had accused the incumbent president of rigging the election – then agreed to parcel out top government posts among their allies and expand the Cabinet from 34 ministries to 41 to better represent Kenya’s 42 ethnic groups.At the time, it seemed diplomacy had worked, damping a blazing political rivalry with a handshake and a smile.
Violence soon ended. But five months later, many analysts say little has been done to remedy the conditions of impunity and corruption at the heart of Kenya’s political crisis. Among the country’s new ministers are men accused of inciting election violence and being key players in corruption scandals that have swindled taxpayers of more than $1 billion since the 1990s, according to Kroll Inc., an international risk-assessment firm. And a look at this year’s national budget suggests that the new parliament has returned to business as usual, these same analysts say.
“The script remains the same,” said Barach Muluka, a political commentator in the capital, Nairobi. “The cast is largely the same. A few players have come on board but everything is largely the same.”Not far from the site in the small village of Kiambaa where Kalenjin tribal fighters set a church alight, burning more than 30 Kikuyus alive in January, Kalenjin elders pointed to the man who they say could have stopped the violence.
“If William Ruto says stop, it will stop,” the elders told Human Rights Watch. Ruto, who denies involvement in ethnic violence, is the new minister of agriculture.In February, police investigated William ole Ntimama, the new minister of national heritage, after finding gasoline canisters in his vehicle in the town of Narok. Members of his Masai ethnic group had killed and raped Kikuyu residents, before burning their homes to the ground. Ntimama denies the allegations. “This is a warlord Cabinet,” said Muluka. “The citizens, the voters, are gun fodder. Once the warlords get what they want, the guns fall silent.”
To be sure, there are signs that Kenya is returning to normal. In the lakeside town of Naivasha, safari vehicles are filled with foreign tourists gawking at hippos and drinking tea at lakeside estates that were once the stomping grounds of Kenya’s colonial class. Across the road, sagging white tents, and trampled savannah grass are reminders of a displacement camp for thousands of refugees who had fled election violence. Chairs still cluster around a tin-roof building where the Kenya Red Cross handed out food and medicines. Today, only a few hundred people remain, fearful of going home and still waiting for the $158 government stipend for resettlement. The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights estimates that there are 190,000 displaced people still living in camps across Kenya.
But there are signs that Kenya is heading for another political calamity.
Kenya has requested $1.1 billion from international donors to avert a looming food crisis caused by rising prices, and just 15 percent of the national budget has been allocated for development programs, according to the Mars Group, a Kenyan anti-corruption watchdog organization. Moreover, the newly created Cabinet positions will cost at least $800 million in office space, staff, bodyguards and state-issued luxury cars, more than a tenth of the national budget. Another $30 million, nearly the amount of the entire education budget, has been set aside for water and power utilities at the presidential estate. And more than $100 million has been allocated for debt payments on so-called ghost projects, including $70 million for a naval ship that has never been delivered and $100 million for a nonexistent fertilizer company, according to the Mars Group.
Why? Parliament has yet to debate the budget. Instead, lawmakers have spent much of their time fighting a 
plan to tax their annual salaries of $160,000. In contrast, a U.S. senator earns $169,300. “If they dillydally, and invoke political dishonesty as we have seen in the past – take advantage of power to reintroduce tribalism, corruption, and benefit a nucleus of friends – then there is a likelihood that this will not be a lasting peace,” said Omar Hassan, a commissioner with the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights. “The portrayal that Kenya was a unified, dignified, peaceful country, that same myth will be challenged and deconstructed a second time.”
Cabinet ministers under a cloud
Kenya’s new coalition government includes seven new ministries. Several Cabinet ministers, however, are believed to be behind past corruption scandals and post-election violence. They include:– William Ruto, minister of agriculture: Kenya’s National Commission on Human Rights accuses him of threatening Kikuyu farmers who had settled on Kalenjin lands. Both militiamen and refugees displaced by the conflict say he incited violence. Ruto denies the allegations.– William ole Ntimama, minister of national heritage: A Masai leader, he has been accused of inciting violence against Kikuyu farmers in the Rift Valley. He denies the allegations.– Amos Kimunya, minister of finance: Just this month, he announced his resignation after parliament gave him a vote of no-confidence. Kimunya is believed to have participated in the secret sale of a government-owned luxury hotel to a Libyan investment group for less than half its value.– John Michuki, acting minister of finance: As the former minister for internal security, Michuki ordered raids on a Nairobi newspaper that had written extensively about government corruption and the presidents family affairs.
July 17, 2008
Grand Hoax running Kenya
Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Justice Minister Martha Karua on Wednesday tore into the anti-corruption policy of the very Government they serve.By the virtue of their positions, the statements only added to the confusion that has characterized the war on corruption.As Prime Minister, Raila is charged with supervising and coordinating functions of Government, which has been the breeding ground for corruption. On her part, Karua is the custodian of the Justice machinery. In principle, the two should serve as the fulcrum around which the battle must be fought.
On his part, Raila appeared to plead lack of political will, but Karua attacked the Executive, accusing it of failing to live up to its promises.
And by calling for the return of celebrated anti-corruption czar John Githongo, who fled the country in 2005 amid claims that his life was in danger, Raila appeared to openly express dissatisfaction with the individuals and institutions charged with the task. Karua challenged the Grand Coalition to take the unique opportunity and bi-partisan approach and suggest policy and legal options to rid Kenya of corruption once and for all.“So long as we have pending cases of old corruption arising from transactions of Goldenberg, Anglo-Leasing and the Ndung’u Report, we cannot clear the backlog. The perception will be that the Government is still tolerating corruption,” Karua noted.
However, Raila and Karua admitted that the Government faced legal and policy hurdles in the fight against corruption.“While the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission tries to freeze assets acquired corruptly in foreign jurisdictions, our own courts have issued injunctions against the same,” Raila said.
Backing Karua’s stand on unfinished business of old corruption, Raila said it was embarrassing to see people named in corruption cases reports of Public Accounts Committee and Public Investments Committee of Parliament demonstrating and accusing others of the vice.
July 1, 2008
Mps after kimunya’s blood over taxes
Finance Minister Amos Kimunya remained defiant last night, rebuffed calls for his resignation and denied acting with impunity over the secret sale of the Grand Regency Hotel.The minister insisted the Sh2.9 billion the Government received from the Libyans was the best value for the national asset and that the deal was clean.Kimunya, who spoke to The Standard on the telephone, said the deal did not involve President Kibaki and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.”It was a clean deal that was directly between the Libyan Embassy in Nairobi and the Central Bank of Kenya,” said the minister as he sought to distance the two presidents from the sale that has sparked controversy and calls for his resignation.Despite the barrage of condemnation and protests by Cabinet ministers, religious leaders, civil society and other Kenyans to resign, Kimunya said the calls were not justified and some of his colleagues were making utterances from a point of ignorance.He threw brickbats at his Cabinet colleague, Constitutional Affairs Minister Martha Karua, accusing her of emotionally whipping propaganda to misinform the public.Kimunya suggested it was Karua and other ministers of her ilk who should be resigning and not himself. He said they were “incompetent to serve as ministers”.”If a minister can accuse me on the sale of Grand Regency without clarifying from me the details of the same, it is really unfortunate, and that is why they should resign first because they are incompetent,” said Kimunya.
Its mere politics
He added: “This deal was so official that I cannot understand why ministers would want to demonise it without even knowing the facts,” said Kimunya.The minister said calls for his sacking and resignation were “pure propaganda” and that his colleagues were a let down to the Government and Kenyans for commenting on issues before verifying facts “which are in the open”.”The highest value for the purchase of Grand Regency was Sh2.1 billion, but it was sold for Sh2.9 billion last week after the sale was finalised and the transfer made,” explained Kimunya.He said claims that the hotel was sold for Sh7 billion were malicious and a plot by some politicians in Government to demonise him.Kimunya also defended claims against single sourcing, saying the Libyans registered their interest for the Grand Regency since April and nobody else came up with any other offer.”The issue of single sourcing does not arise because no other country was interested. Again, there are no complaints from any country that had shown interest in purchasing Grand Regency,” the minister said.He said several brokers and agents had been cut off from the deal and this had not gone down well with many parties, including some politicians now making accusations.
“My colleagues are busy making comments on an issue they seem not to understand. None of them has asked me to explain the details, and again, it’s all in the open. Theirs is political propaganda which does not help anybody,” he said.The minister also denied allegations of corruption and money changing hands between senior officials and the Libyans. He said no government could bribe another in such a deal.”It was the Libyan government that wanted to deal directly with Central Bank. I could not have said anything until the deal had been done. It’s on record and in the open,” said Kimunya.
MPs are malicious
Kimunya introduced another dimension to the saga, claiming that he had suddenly become unpopular among MPs in Parliament after introducing taxes on their allowances.”They think by making malicious statements on serious issues they will cut me down to size. I challenge anybody who has evidence that the hotel was sold at Sh7 billion to produce it,” said Kimunya.And Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetangula, speaking from Egypt where he is attending the African Union summit, said he knew of the deal between the Libyan Embassy and the Central Bank.Wetangula, however, said he had long left Wetangula, Adam Makhokha and Company Advocates, the firm said to have handled the sale transaction.The minister said he retired from the firm in January after he was appointed to the Cabinet. But the law firm retained the name for purposes of business.
May 21, 2008
Rift Valley Amnesty:Kibaki has already rewarded the criminals
Kenya’s newly formed coalition government is divided over how to deal with thousands of people arrested in connection with the post-election violence which was sparked by the country’s disputed presidential poll. Divisions have emerged among ministers allied to Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s Orange Democratic Party (ODM) and President Mwai Kibaki’s Party of National Unity (PNU) over the issue of amnesty.
Ministers in the premier’s party are calling for amnesty, an appeal rejected by their counterparts in the president’s party. “ODM called for protests and PNU ordered police to shoot at the youths to quell the protests. The police were as guilty as anyone,” said Agriculture Minister William Ruto.
”This is a matter that decides whether our country is under the rule of law or the rule of the jungle. There is due process to be followed before the youths are released,” said Justice Minister Martha Karua.Thousands of people are still being held by the police in connection with violence in December and January that killed over 1,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands. Many of those arrested were from the Kalenjin ethnic group in the Rift Valley or from the western city of Kisumu, who were supporters of opposition leader Raila Odinga, now the prime minister.
Several of the lawmakers from these areas are calling for amnesty for those being held, a call that was echoed by the premier during his visit to the Rift Valley. Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetangula said on Wednesday the issue whether to forgive those who committed crimes after the Dec.27 elections will be discussed in the cabinet on Thursday. And his Information counterpart Samuel Porghisio downplayed rifts among ministers over the handling of the post-election violence suspects. ”What we have witnessed is individual opinion of some MPs. Amnesty was never an issue of agreement or disagreement during the(Kofi) Annan-led talks,” he said. Energy Assistant Minister Charles Keter said most of those arrested were engaged in political protests against what they perceived as a stolen election. “We (MPs) are their products. This is the time we should pardon each other; we will not stop agitating for their release,” said Keter. “These people were fighting for their rights. I feel that if we have a coalition government which is trying to reconcile Kenyans, they should be given amnesty,” he said.
But key figures in President Kibaki’s party have rejected calls for amnesty, saying those responsible for serious crimes should be brought to justice.”Thorough investigations should be conducted and those who killed should be charged with murder. Those who set houses ablaze should face arson charges,” said Dick Wathika, an assistant minister for public works. Those who support amnesty argue that the arrests inexplicably targeted communities supporting Odinga, while supporters of the president who committed crimes in towns like Naivasha and Nakuru received less attention from the police. “We have people who were murdered in Naivasha. The people who murdered them were seen by the police and the police never arrested a single one of them. Human heads were used to block roads in Naivasha and the police saw it and they never arrested a single person holding a human head,” said Prof. Ayiecho Olweny, education assistant minister. Supporters of amnesty also argue that most of those arrested are young people who likely had little role in organizing crimes. Some members of the president’s party including human rights officials agree.
”These are basically youth who are used by other people, so my thinking is that we need to have a structured amnesty program, nota blanket amnesty,” said Lee Kinjanjui, a legislator.
Hassan Omar Hassan of the Kenya National Commission for Human Rights said the Amnesty debate has become politicized. ”What is happening from both sides is that the debate has taken an ethnic dimension, it has taken a partisan position, it has taken grounding within the framework of personalities,” he said. “We cannot politicize matters of great national importance to that point. And I think it will not do any Kenyan any good if that were the trend this discussion were to take.” As divisions persist, analysts said the fate of the post-election violence suspects remain in the hands of the cabinet which is expected to discuss the issue by the end of the day.
May 16, 2008
Kenya: frustrations are now boiling up into ethnic territorial claims
The colonial heritage also found expression in an administrative tradition where territorial control was paramount of all priorities. Stemming from this, interior boundaries defined exclusive territories, both in the form of nature reserves (forest, national parks) and “ethnic reserves”, which often took on the aspect of administrative bodies. The result was a sectorization which certain repercussions on the distribution of the different communities which populate the country. This situation has become a source of inter-ethnic tension. And it is particularly portentous in the Chebyuk area of the Mount Elgon district where an IRD researcher has been conducting a long-term study on the origins of the conflict over access to arable land which opposes the Kalenjin language communities (Sabaots, Ndorobos and Soy), and whose emergence is closely linked to identity affirmation.
The fertile, well watered Chebyuk region on the southern slopes of Mount Elgon, about 2000 m high, was until 2006 home of a population of 35 000 over a 10 km2 surface area. Following primary forest clearance which had begun in the 1970s, crops of maize, cabbage, onion and potatoes, for export to Kenya’s large towns and cities, developed steadily. Since that time, the geographic area has represented an agricultural front for families coming mainly from the Sabaot community, settled on either side of the frontier between Kenya and Uganda. To meet people’s demand for farming plots, in the 1970s a committee of elders, co-opted by government authorities, organized a first land distribution operation. However, from the mid 1980s, rivalries rose up over ownership of this expanse of land.
Pressure from the Sabaot community led to the settlement and clearance of a more extensive zone than the legally delimited area. In 1989, complaints about the misappropriation of these land allocations prompted a government decision to reorganize the attribution of the farming plots. It was a time when tensions came to a head and houses were burned down. Tensions broke out with rival land claims which were arbitrated by a politico-administrative class which persisted in maintaining a a system of partiality.
The 1989 land reform therefore provided for the redistribution of all land in the localities of Emia and Chebyuk. It was organized in three phases, each corresponding to a particular area of Chebyuk: the lists of beneficiaries of phases 1 and 2 were finalized in 2004; the one for phase 3 was made official in 2006, marking the end of what was a 30-year-long land redistribution programme (see Map). It was subsequent to this final reorganization that the conflict rose to the surface, ending in a form of spatial segregation that rent asunder the apparent unity of the Sabaot community. Towards the end of 2006, clashes between the Sabaot and Ndorobos, a new ethnic identity that had gradually emerged from among those of the Sabaot group who had been cast aside, resulted in the displacement of 60 000 people and the death of 200 others. The region’s inhabitants assimilated with the Ndorobos then took refuge on the high moorland expanses of Chepkitale and in the forest reserve area at the boundary of the Trans Nzoia district. Others, assimilated with the Soy, went over to the plains not far from the Ugandan border (Cheptais), the main town of the district (Kapsokwony) or the neighbouring district of Trans Nzoia.
More recently, the violent stresses associated with the December 2007 elections, expressed locally by rival factions’ taking up of arms, played a role in the magnifying the conflict. Those long battles for land nevertheless find their origin more in the history of State schemes for regulating access to land ownership, rooted in practices of political favouritism and authoritarian methods employed to implement land redistribution operations. Land appropriation battles in the Mount Elgon region stem in the end from repeated episodes of land allocations and evictions which gave rise to frustrations that are now boiling up into ethnic territorial claims
April 23, 2008
Rift Valley & KenyaToday
The highest law of the land, the Constitution of Kenya, is explicit on the issue of property ownership by any Kenyan anywhere in the country.This was deliberate because the right to property was one of the sticking points during the Lancaster conferences at the dawn of Independence.The Constitution that was agreed on was explicit that no property of any description shall be compulsorily taken possession of, and no interest in or right over property of any description shall be compulsorily acquired from any Kenyan anywhere.
The import of that is that even if a Truth and Reconciliation Commission is set up, it is doubtful if its mandate will be to extinguish the right to property in the name of correcting historical injustices.The saddest thing about the land situation in Kenya is that the largest culprits actually are amongst some of our political elite and are the same ones who manipulate the peasantry to unleash terror on perceived ‘foreigners’ amongst them.
That a section of Rift Valley Members of Parliament, piqued after failing to clinch Cabinet posts, are actually using the internally displaced people in Rift Valley as a bargaining tool with the government, is not only morally unacceptable, but also highly alarming and extremely myopic.One of the reasons why Kenya is facing a looming food shortage is that thousands of farmers cannot till their land as they are afraid of going back to their farms after being chased away due to the outcome of the just concluded election.It is therefore very irresponsible for political leaders to use these people as political bait to further their personal ambitions. That is the height of sadism.
But more so, this is a grim pointer to the levels that our politicians have gone to achieve their aims and what precedent such actions portend for the future.It is clearly emerging that a new style of political ransom is slowly taking root in Kenya, where disgruntled politicians use all means at their disposal, legal or illegal, to score political goals.This is a bad precedent for Kenya. This time round, the Government should not negotiate with the disgruntled MP’s who want their fellow country men to live in sub-human conditions. The supreme law of the land is clear and it should be followed to the letter.
The President and the Prime Minister should put their feet down and refuse to be held hostage by a group of disgruntled politicians and move swiftly to ensure that the internally displaced are quickly and securely resettled.Similarly, any politician who is found to be inciting the population to chase away and make it hard for the internally displaced from settling down, should face the full wrath of the law without mercy. The culture of political impunity should be brought to an end in Kenya and no one should be allowed to hold a group of people hostage like this.
We all understand the genesis of the land inequity in Kenya and we cannot simply wake up one day and seek to undo history. The colonial notoriety of land acquisition and the subsequent land redistribution mess under both Kenyatta and Moi regimes will not be tackled by torching houses, chasing and killing innocent people.
Finally, it makes sense for the Government to quickly step in and assist in compensating Kenyans who were affected by the political turmoil that beset this country.These were Kenyans who were paying taxes on the belief that the Government would do its part and ensure their property is secure but the Government has failed to fulfil its end of the bargain and should thus step forward and compensate its tax payers.That is the way forward.
January 13, 2008
Resurrecting the Kiama(council of elders)
During the first two months of this year, there was a deliberate isolation of the Kikuyu as a community. Whatever the reasons were, the result was that the community retreated to its tribal relations, creating a unity some say has not been seen since the Mau Mau war of the mid 1950s.The Kikuyu have been coming together primarily to raise material support to help their displaced brothers and sisters, especially in the Rift Valley. But these meetings have also tackled debate on how things got this bad, where ‘the river left the banks’. One result of these discussions has been the gradual realization that Kikuyu seem to be the only tribe with no non-political community leadership. During several community events, there has been debate on whether the community should re-establish a council of elders, last heard of in the 1950s.Those against its formation say political leaders are articulating the needs of the community adequately. They also think a council would lead to confusion over whose opinion has more weight in decisions, especially those with political ramifications. This group also insists that the Kikuyu should lead other communities away from tribal cocoons and into nationalistic platforms whenever dealing with issues. But those who want a council of elders established feel that ethnicity is a reality, with political positions being negotiated according to community numbers.
This group believes there is need to separate political representation from community leadership, to avoid confused signals, especially when the interests of the political class go against those of the community. They argue that a council of elders will enable the Kikuyu wield their 22 per cent stake in the country in a way political leaders cannot. They also say the community’s politicians are currently not being heard when they speak. They say the views of politicians tend to be taken out of context because the President is a Kikuyu, which would not be the case were it a council of elders speaking. It is a fact that community leadership has a profound effect on politics, both at the local and national levels.
This was strongly apparent during the campaigns where the media were awash with clips of members of the Luo, Kalenjin, Miji Kenda, Luhya politicians seeking blessings from their community elders. This was the same even with politicians from Meru, who are ethnically close to the Kikuyu, who consulted the Njuri Ncheke. Those trying to find solutions to problems that have afflicted the community feel several Kikuyu politicians would resist the formation of a council because it would dilute their influence in the community. They say such a council might stand in the way of political ambitions because it might vet how well an individual can articulate the needs of the community. This would determine whether they would support one’s political bid. A significant question is whether a Kikuyu council of elders would have appreciated the danger of an opposition political strategy seeking to isolate them as a community, by branding them as the root cause of all the country’s problems.
This was also evident during and after the referendum. The proponents ask whether such a council would have advised on an appropriate counter-strategy to the Kikuyu-phobia the opposition whipped up in last year’s campaigns. It would also have been interesting to see how such a council would have responded to the government’s operation against the Mungiki last year, which seemed to target any young Kikuyu male adult. Would a Kikuyu Council of Elders have talked to their counterparts from other communities after the presidential vote tally? Would the various sides have reached an agreement that their communities would avoid violence, and leave the dispute to politicians?
March 2, 2007
The Enduring Power of Ethnic Nationalism
On a visit early this year to Africa , President Bush deplored the genocide in Rwanda in the 1990s, defended his refusal to send U.S. troops to Darfur and decried the ethnic slaughter in Kenya.Following a contested election, the Kikuyu, the dominant tribe in Kenya, have been subjected to merciless assault. People are separating from one another and butchering one another along lines of blood and soil.According to a compelling lead article in the new Foreign Affairs, “Us and Them: The Enduring Power of Ethnic Nationalism,” we may be witnessing in the Third World a re-enactment of the ethnic wars that tore Europe to pieces in the 20th century.”Ethnonationalism,” writes history professor Jerry Z. Muller of Catholic University, “has played a more profound role in modern history than is commonly understood, and the processes that led to the dominance of the ethnonational state and the separation of ethnic groups in Europe are likely to recur elsewhere.”Western Man has mis-taught himself his own history.
“A familiar and influential narrative of 20th-century European history argues that nationalism twice led to war, in 1914 and then again in 1939. Thereafter, the story goes, Europeans concluded that nationalism was a danger and gradually abandoned it. In the postwar decades, Western Europeans enmeshed themselves in a web of transnational institutions, culminating in the European Union.”Muller contends that this is a myth, that peace came to the Old Continent only after the triumph of ethnonationalism, after the peoples of Europe had sorted themselves out and each achieved its own home.
At the beginning of the 20th century, there were three multi-ethnic empires in Europe: the Ottoman, Russian and Austro-Hungarian. The ethnonationalist Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913 tore at the first.World War I was ignited by Serbs seeking to rip Bosnia away from Austria-Hungary. After four years of slaughter, the Serbs succeeded, and ethnonationalism triumphed in Europe.Out of the dead Ottoman Empire came the ethnonationalist state of Turkey and an ethnic transfer of populations between Ankara and Athens. Armenians were massacred and expelled from Turkey.
Out of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires came Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. In the latter three nations, however, a majority ethnic group ruled minorities that wished either their own national home, or to join lost kinsmen.
In Poland, there were Ukrainians, Germans, Lithuanians and Jews. In Czechoslovkia, half the population was German, Slovak, Hungarian, Polish, Ruthenian or Jewish. In Yugoslavia were Slovenes, Croats, Bosnians, Serbs, Macedonians, Montenegrins and Albanians.The Second World War came out of Hitler’s attempt to unite all Germans in one ethnonational home—thus the Anschluss with Austria, the demand for return of the Sudeten Deutsch, and the pressure on Poland to return the Germans’ lost city of Danzig, and for Lithuania to give back German Memel and the Memelland it seized in 1923.World War II advanced the process in the most horrible of ways.The Jews of Europe, with no national home, perished, or fled to create one, in Israel.The Germans of the Baltic states, Prussia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Balkans and their own eastern provinces, almost to Berlin, were expelled in the most brutal act of ethnic cleansing in history—13 million to 15 million Germans, of whom 2 million perished in the exodus.At the end of World War II, Europe’s nations were more ethnically homogenous than they had ever been, at a horrendous cost in blood.
After 45 years of Cold War, the remaining multi-ethnic states—the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia—broke up into more than two dozen nation-states, all rooted in ethnonationlism.As Muller argues, ethnonationalism may be a precondition of liberal democracy. Only after all the tribes of Europe had their own ethnically homogenous nation-states did peace and comity come. And what happened in Europe in the 20th century may be a precursor of what is to come in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
In China, Uighurs, Mongolians and Tibetans all resist assimilation. Tatarstan may be the next problem for Russia. In the Balkans, it is Kosovo. Serbs there and in Bosnia may emulate the Albanians and secede.Many, writes Muller, “find ethnonationalism discomfiting both intellectually and morally. Social scientists go to great lengths to demonstrate that this is a product not of nature but of culture. …”But none of this will make ethnonationalism go away.”Indeed, we see it bubbling up from the Basque country of Spain, to Belgium, Bolivia, Baghdad and Beirut. Perhaps the wisest counsel for Kenya may be to get out of the way of this elemental force. Rather than seek to halt the inexorable, we should seek to accommodate it and ameliorate its sometimes awful consequences.
