Hillary Clinton’s Africa visit was a great success. Nowhere was that success more visible than at the University of Nairobi’s discussions dubbed Open Dialogue. Meeting students from various universities and leaders of the country’s civil society, the Secretary of State managed to stir up nationalistic emotions throughout the country when she candidly gave Kenyans an impressive shopping list of things to do to end impunity and corruption in the country. The most worried group of people listening to Mrs. Clinton must have been the Kenyan political leaders who are the obvious stumbling block to Kenya’s political, social and economic progress. The cheering audience was pleased to hear the most powerful woman in the world saying that from now onwards, America was planning to target individuals who planned and financed the post election violence that saw the death of over 1,000 and the displacement of well over 300,000 homeless men women and children.
In the audience was another prominent lady, Wangari Maathai, the 2004 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize who touched a nerve when she asked a question about China’s involvement in Africa today. Coated in the most diplomatic language the question to Hillary was what America was planning to do to salvage Africa from neo-colonial exploitation, which is being done by China through corrupt business partnership with powerful political leaders. That question let the cat out of the bag. It exposed the fact that the big Chinese developmental projects of building roads, hospitals and housing schemes are all hiding corrupt deals between Shanghai and African leaders. The big question is: Who are the African leaders engaged in the crooked contracts with the Chinese? Obviously billions of dollars are involved in the deals, though roads are in the end built and other assignments are finally done.
From the Hillary visit has come out this shocking revelation of corruption organized between African countries and the newly established global economic giants such as China. This is the one type of corruption which journalists have to expose. It involves billions of dollars and is spread in almost every African country. Obviously Wangari Maathai has stepped on an extremely sensitive toe and she is likely to be met with formidable opposition from extremely powerful people. Journalists in Kenya should not let her fight that important battle single handedly.
Hillary’s theme throughout her most stimulating discussions was the question of Governance covered by the Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation principles on long term issues and solutions, commonly known as Agenda Four. She let the cat out of the bag when she said America believed there were some Kenyan leaders who were genuinely committed to reforms in the Constitutional, electoral, judicial and the police matters. The manner in which she came out openly defending Prime Minister Raila Odinga when a critic tried to ridicule him for rejecting American “lectures” on Governance , clearly proved that the leaders she had in mind were in ODM spearhead by Agwambo.
As the Secretary of State was entering the University campus she read a sign board saying “You are now entering a corruption free zone.” That gave her the words she used in her opening remarks at Open Dialogue when she told Kenyans to make sure the slogan expanded throughout the country. The challenge she was making was to the civil society and to the youth of Kenya who all were posing their questions to her in such a manner as to beg for financial assistance to help their various NGOs.
In the audience there were no conspicuous leaders of any trade union organizations and no religious leaders but the academicians and professionals at the University’s Taifa Hall paused such anti-government questions that clearly indicated they were thoroughly disgusted with the current leadership in Kenya. They were all asking for American assistance to engage in sensitization crusades to educate Kenyans about their political rights. Hillary had a few hints to the Kenyans. They could use the present vibrant Fourth Estate to make sure corruption among the leaders and other evils in society were regularly exposed. She virtually asked journalists and the civil society not to give up the struggle as that was the manner in which her own country was liberated to an extent of having a black man at the White House today.
Hillary Clinton had two very important examples that she gave to Kenyan journalists about what to write about. The first one was from Botswana, where the discovery of diamond had benefited all the people through visible progress in infrastructure and other developmental projects. And the second one was what was happening in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is the complete opposite of what is happening in Botswana. In the Congo, which has one of the richest mineral resources in the world, people were still slaughtering one another for wealth. Nigeria, for example, still imported oil products when it was the world’s fifth producer of oil. All these were good stories which showed the importance of good governance in Africa.
Hillary found herself in a minefield when she was answering a question from a student of conflict resolution from the DRC who wanted to know what America was doing to stop multinationals from financing the war in Goma. Needless to say among the multinationals came from her own country. She had to admit those were the kind of exposes journalists were expected to do to draw the attention of the world about international crooks who help Africa under develop.
The discussion at Taifa Hall will most certainly change the political landscape in Kenya. It has helped young Kenyans realize that they have to do something to reject the current corrupt and obsolete political leadership in the country. Hillary’s hint was clear – something has to be done to establish truly democratic political parties in readiness for the next elections in 2012. After all it is through the formation of tribal political parties that Kenyan leaders have taken over power in the country. Kenya is extremely lucky to have a very large number of highly educated young men and women who are ready to play more realistic and meaningfully effective roles in the economic, social and political spheres in the country.
A young lady from Mombasa asked the Secretary of State an extremely sensitive question about marginalization of Muslim women in Kenya. It was a sensitive question because Kenyan Muslims do not want to be criticized no matter what evils thy do in the name of Islam. Hillary was so moved by the question from the Mombasa girl that she asked for particulars of the questioners, with a view of building bridges with her. At the end of the discussions it was very clear that the Secretary of State had hit the nail on its head. She had virtually mobilized young Kenyan to lawfully fight for their rights. The result of her visit to Kenya will become visible in 2012 when, hopefully, all the Agenda Four reforms will have been achieved.
Posted by I am a at 5:42 AM
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