Kenyans must help Moreno-Ocampo

Kenyan political class is made up of the most hypocritical and unprincipled human beings on earth. Now that our fate is in the hands of the ICC prosecutor , Luis Moreno-Ocampo, all our politicians will claim to favour the actions the Argentinean law professor is about to take in dealing with the post election violence planners and financiers. In a typical scenario of “survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence” Kenyan politicians will now queue to pretend to help the international prosecutor identify the “real criminals” who planned, paid for and executed the post election violence. Every one of them will claim to be innocent and point accusing fingers to his or her political enemies. All will claim their lives are in danger because of the pro Moreno-Ocampo’s stand they have decided to take.

To stop Kenyan politicians from unnecessary bickering and mudslinging, the international prosecutor must open the envelop and publicly announce the names in it. As soon as the suspected culprits are named they should resign from public office and prepare for trials which should either be conducted in Kenya expeditiously or at The Hague almost immediately. The third alternative is to establish an international tribunal in a neighboring country which will make it easy for witnesses to travel to.

The people of Kenya should be extremely pleased with the action taken by Kofi Annan in handing the Waki envelop to Moreno-Ocampo. Soon justice will not only be done but it is likely to be manifestly seen to be done. Yet the tough task of investigating the culprits of the post election mass murders can only be done successfully with the cooperation he gets from Kenyans. They have to give him the support they gave Justice Philip Waki and Judge Johann Kriegler. Indeed Moreno-Ocampo’s work would have been extremely difficult without the assistance of the of both Waki and Kriegler reports. Yet the two reports would have been impossible to compile without the assistance of ordinary Kenyans who were the greatest victims of the post election violence.

The same ordinary wananchi should now join hands the way they did when they assisted Waki and Kriegler to help Moreno-Ocampo in his investigations. He will also need the expert knowledge of some Kenyans who can give guidance to the Argentinean prosecutor. Indeed these experts are the ones who convinced both Kofi Annan and Moreno-Ocampo that there are culprits who must face justice either locally or internationally. These experts include Philip Waki himself and a group of very dedicated Kenyan lawyers working for the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR). As a matter of fact it is the KNCHR election report that triggered all the international investigations going on today.

It is the KNCHR which drew the international community’s attention as early as December 2007 about incitement and incidences of violence during electioneering. At that time the human rights organization said election violence remained a big challenge in Kenya’s electoral process. It exposed widespread electoral violence which led to lose of lives, injuries, internal displacement and what it called “immense destruction and loss of property”. Additionally, it warned, thousands of Kenyans were at risk of being disenfranchised following violent displacements targeting particular ethnic groups especially those who were perceived to be politically incorrect.

This is the kind of evidence which will be very useful to Moreno-Ocampo’s prosecution. Like the KNCHR the Kenyan Fourth Estate must also be willing to come forward and assist the prosecutor convict the culprits by proving that the stories they wrote about violence were indeed the truth. Those who were inciting the people to come out and participate in “mass action” are still very well known to the people of Kenya and journalists must be prepared to help the ICC find them guilty.

There may be some journalists sympathetic to those who caused the bloodbath and therefore unwilling to assist by claiming to obey their professional ethical principle of impartiality. If that happens then the court could still call them as witnesses of the stories they wrote. The journalists cannot refuse to authenticate their stories by proving they were indeed accurate. After all, accuracy is another important journalistic ethical principle. Photographers should also be ready to assist Moreno-Ocampo identify some of the criminals who committed mass murders.

Political parties, particularly ODM and PNU, will be among the first to accuse each other before Moreno-Ocampo during his investigations. PNU will claim their supporters in Rift Valley were killed in hundreds in Rift Valley. ODM can make similar claims about the killings which took place in Naivasha where Mungiki terrorists caused mayhem soon after the elections. The truth of the matter is that both parties were to blame for the mass murders and according to the KNCHR report electoral violence at that time stemmed from differences of opinion when supporters of competing parties and their candidates violently confronted each other. The report says this kind of violence was witnessed in various parts of the country when PNU and ODM supporters clashed in campaign rallies.

According to the KNCHR widespread violence was also witnessed during parliamentary and civic party nominations on November 16th 2007 when at least seventy people were reported dead since July 2007, in elections related violence during campaign rallies and ethnic clashes. The report said over 2,000 families fled their homes in Kuresoi and Mt Elgon for fear of further attacks as the violence spread to various parts of the two places. At that time the KNCHR warned that following the displacements, over 20,000 registered voters are at the risk of being disenfranchised. At that time the Kenyan authorities did not take the KNCHR seriously. If they did they would not be embarrassed as they are now while preparing to face Moreno-Ocampo who took the Kenyan human right lawyers seriously.

Needless to say one of the most important instruments which will be used by Moreno-Ocampo in his difficult task of prosecuting sacred cows of Kenya, will be the Waki Report itself. The report clearly said some of the gangsters that killed a lot of people included Mungiki,Taliban , Chinkororo, Kamjeshi, Baghdad Boys and many others which grew and multiplied within the context of a political culture that both used and tolerated extra state violence. Gangs and militias, according to Waki, continued to proliferate all over the country, thereby increasing the presence of institutionalized extra-state violence both during and after elections, a pattern that continued to increase up through the 2007elections.

This is an extremely important evidence from Waki himself and it will be priceless to Moreno-Ocampo in his work. The rest of Kenyans should follow Waki’s example and help identify those who paid and maintained all the gangsters named above. It is a job Kenyans should do with pride because it may mark the beginning of the end of election violence in this country.

Moreno-Ocampo's Kenya case bombshell

The delaying tactics used by Kenyan politicians to enable the post election criminals get off the hook has now made Kofi Annan hand over the Wiki’s envelop to the ICC persecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo. Moreno-Ocampo is a no nonsense man , who will not hesitate to prosecute the top Ministers in the Kibaki- Raila Cabinet who are suspected of plotting and financing the post election violence that saw the death of more than 1,000 Kenyans at the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008.

Kofi Annan took the step to hand over the envelop to the ICC because he has inside information about the intention of Kenyan politicians to sweep the crimes of post election violence under the carpet. What the Kenyan politicians are thinking about is the 2012 elections, and how they can gang up together and continue to misrule this nation as a privileged ruling class, is very well known to people like Kofi Annan who have dealt with them for a long time. He knows they are dishonest. Rumours are that William Ruto, one of the people whose names are said to be in the envelop, is getting closer to Uhuru Kenyatta, whose name too is said to be in the same envelop, to defeat Agwambo’s 2012 plans.

Agwambo, on the other hand, knows he has the backing of the people of Kenya and the international community when he pushes for justice to be done. And justice cannot be done when criminals who committed mass murders continue to scheme on how they will perpetually dominate and exploit the wananchi. For justice to be done the mass murderers must be tried either here or at The Hague. It now looks like the gates of the ICC will soon open for some very important people from Kenya.

Just before he went to Geneva to meet Kofi Annan on the issue of extending the deadline to establish a local tribunal, Mutula Kilonzo is on record claiming that he would not like to do anything that could cause chaos in the country. Many pundits interpreted that statement to mean that the country should trade carefully while establishing the tribunal to prosecute important political leaders in Kenya lest certain big tribes are provoked. According to the umbeguous Kalonzo argument, prosecuting certain unnamed politicians could make the tribes they lead rise up in arms again. It cannot be that difficult to guess who the politicians in Mutula’s mind are. The big question is: If they caused trouble after the 2007 elections why should they be treated as if they were above the law? And if they are above the law in Kenya should they also be above the law internationally?

It is now clear that Kenyan leaders don’t take the establishment of a local tribunal seriously and that is why Kofi Annan had to write to Raila and Kibaki to tell them that the ICC is where some very top politicians will soon be going. Mutula obviously thinks Annan should not be ordering Kenyan leaders like primary school kids; but as a lawyer he should know better. The ICC is not governed by the Kenyan Constitution, which our leaders disregard with impunity; it is governed by The Rome Statute . Mutula should also know that the ICC was established to help end impunity for the perpetrators of the most serious crimes just like the crimes committed in Kenya soon after the last elections.

Suggestions are being made by the suspected criminals that the post election problems should be solved through the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) which will be established by the same politicians suspected of committing the international crimes in Kenya. It will not be surprising to hear of some pastors in the politicians’ payroll planning to reconcile all those who plotted and paid for the post election disturbances. The priests will then call to the people of Kenya to forget the past as the hatchets are buried in stage managed and fictitious peace treaties between the same tribal mass murderers. At that time calls will be made to Kofi Annan, Moreno-Ocampo and ICC to leave Kenya alone to solve its own problems. We will then be reminded that Kenya was a sovereign state which did not need any international intervention in its internal affairs.

Whatever the Kenyan despotic tribal leaders say or do, however, will not change the ICC stand as the International Criminal Court cannot be influenced or directed by the leadership in this country. As an independent international organization, the ICC is not even a part of the United Nations system which can be manipulated by the dictators of the Third Word, where Kenya belongs. The world is fed up with the impunity of dictatorial regimes which have leaders who torture and kill their own people and get away with it. It is in this spirit that the international community adopted the Rome Statute on July 17^th 1998 when the legal basis for the establishment of the ICC in a permanent form was backed by 120 nations.

Though the death toll of Kenyan’s post election crimes did not qualify to be described as genocide, crimes against humanity were committed here. Hundreds of thousand of people were made homeless. Officially there was no war in Kenya and so no war crimes were committed but even when countries are at war they can still be prosecuted for war crimes like it happened in trials that took place in Nuremberg and Tokyo after the Second Word War. In places where dictators have organized the mass killings of their opponents the long arm of international law has always caught up with them. International Criminal Tribunals have dealt with such cases in Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Why Kenyan politicians think they can literally get away with mass murders baffles the mind.

Now that the matter is being handled by Moreno-Ocampo it means officially the Kenyan criminals are being investigated by the office of the Prosecutor. According to the ICC website the Office of the Prosecutor is responsible for receiving referrals and any substantiated information on crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court, for examining them and for conducting investigations and prosecutions before the Court. The Office is headed by the Prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo from Argentina, who was elected by the States Parties for a term of nine years.

From now on Kenyans will be very much interested in knowing this man Luis Moreno-Ocampo. According the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, he is an Argentine lawyer who has been the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) since 16 June 2003.

According to the ICC website Moreno-Ocampo took office on 16 June 2003 by pledging his solemn undertaking as required by article 45 of the Rome Statute. As Prosecutor, he will assume full authority over the management and administration of the Office, including the staff, facilities and other resources thereof. For full curriculum vitae of the Prosecutor, click here.

This is a man who must be trusted by Kenyans because he has a proven record of working tirelessly for the sake of fighting international crimes like the ones committed in Kenya soon after the last general election. No wonder so many MPs led by Gitobu Imanyara have so much confidence in him.

Kibaki’s rejection of cars is not enough

The news about President Mwai Kibaki and the First Lady Lucy Kibaki’s rejection of eight vehicles , recently bought for State House, must not be allowed to hoodwink the people of Kenya, that the PNU leader wants to implement reforms in Kenya. His demand that Cabinet Ministers should observe car rules outlined by Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta’s Budget proposal can only be believed by the wananchi when they see the Head of State driving a reasonably smaller car. But even more important than rejecting new cars, to the people of Kenya, should be unequivocal implementation of Agenda Four, which Kibaki seems to be taking lightly.

The lackadaisical manner in which Kenyan leaders appear to implement Kofi Annan’s Agenda Four is caused by Mwai Kibaki’s reluctance to operationalise it. Raila Odinga seems to be the only leader seriously concerned in executing the recommendations whose main aim is to bridge the gap between the haves and the have nots in Kenya. In this, Raila has the international support from Kenya’s friends in the West including Barack Obama.

When Martha Karua resigned and claimed that Kenyan leaders were not interested in reforms, she knew what she was talking about. But she failed to tell Kenyans that the man she had in mind was Mwai Kibaki who is totally opposed to all the recommendations in the Agenda Four.

Today Kenyans need to be reminded that the final goal of the National Dialogue and Reconciliation mediated by Kofi Annan and the Panel of Eminent African Personalities was to achieve sustainable peace stability and justice in Kenya through the rule of law and respect for human rights. No Kenyan leader today, except Raila Odinga, can seriously claim to be concerned with the promotion of the rule of law and respect for human rights. Raila is in fact facing a very serious problem today in his own party ODM because there are leaders there who do not believe in the rule of law. William Ruto does not want to hear of any tribunal to try the criminals who caused mayhem in the post election violence in Kenya.

In the Cabinet the people who believe in human rights can be counted on one hand’s fingers. The Annotated Agenda and Timetable of the National Dialogue and Reconciliation signed on February 1^st 2008, recognized that poverty, the inequitable distribution of resources and perception of historical injustices and exclusion on the part of segments of Kenyan society constituted the underlying causes of the prevailing social tension, instability and cycle of violence. Nothing has changed in Kenya since that time. The tension is still there, the instability has gone underground but has never disappeared and the cycle of violence has now become part and parcel of life in this country. Yet these constitute the backbone of Agenda Four proposals which Kenyan leaders have shown no interest what so ever of intending to solve.

Among the most important reforms recommended by Kofi Anna’s team concerns Constitutional, institutional and legal reforms. Kenya leaders’ commitment to complete the comprehensive constitutional review process within twelve month from March 4^th 2008 was a mere joke intended to please the international community and calm the wananchi. Today it is only Nzamba Kitonga who appears to be serious about Constitutional reforms and as he moves too fast, as he appears to be doing, someone powerful will always be ready to pull the rug from under his feet and make him fail. That is how hypocritical our leaders are.

When matters were so hot and it looked like our leaders were about to lose the side of the national bread that is buttered, they quickly agreed that the national reforms should include , inter alia, the police reform, parliamentary reform, judicial reform, executive reform and civil service reform. Kenya leaders are notoriously known for passing laws they hardly intend to implement. Among these laws is The Public Officer Ethics Act of 2003 whose General Code of Conduct and Ethics is only implemented when a civil servant is about to be victimized for either being too efficient or belonging to a wrong tribe.

Section eight of the Act demands that a public officer shall, to the best of his ability, carry out his duties and ensure that the services he provides are provided efficiently and honestly. Ask any ordinary mwananchi who has wanted any service from any civil servant and you will be told the story of TKK. According to Raila himself TKK started as toa kitu kidogo ( give a little bribe ) and then it changed to toa kitu kikubwa ( give something big) and it is now at the level of toa kila kitu ( give everything you have to the corrupt officer) . To the big people like Raila this is a pleasant joke to laugh about, but to the ordinary wananchi it is a matter of life and death. Yet reforms in the civil service are taking ages to be implemented. Under Francis Muthaura nothing will be done until when the goose that lays the golden eggs is finally dead when Kenya is totally broke and ungovernable.

There have been some reforms in Parliament since Marende took over the position of the Speaker to the National Assembly but what is very sad about Kenya’s legislature is the grouping of MPs along tribal cabals instead of political parties. Today the tribal hegemony in Parliament is threatening to block any legislation to bring the criminals responsible for the post election violence to book through a local tribunal. Reforms in the Judiciary have now become a mere bar joke as justice continues to be delayed when judges swim in the ocean of bribery and corruption.

The one subject that our leaders do not want to talk about concerns land reforms; yet Kofi Annan’s team recognized that the issue of land had been a source of economic, social, political and environmental problem in Kenya for many years. From the moment Kenyatta became the first President of Kenya, huge, profitable agricultural land has belonged to the very rich in a manner that is no different at all from the colonial days of White Highlands. As the poor people were slaughtering one another in Rift Valley for the sake of land, the rich continued, as they do now, to own huge plantations where there was no trouble at all after the last elections. Our leaders are among the biggest land owners of Kenya and they want no changes in the status quo.

When Kofi Anan was around they agreed that land reform was a fundamental need in Kenya and that the issue must be addressed comprehensively and with the seriousness it deserved. Towards this end, the leaders agreed to fully support efforts to establish the factors responsible for conflicts over land and to formulate and implement actionable short, medium and long term recommendation on the issue. No sooner did Kofi Annan enter his plane back home than those beautiful words evaporated in the air. As soon as Kofi Annan went away the leaders went back to their big farms to supervise underpaid workers whom they exploit unashamedly. What the leaders forget is that next time there are land clashes their huge ill-gotten plantations will be at the centre of the clashes as they will be the major bone of contention.

It is unfortunate that on this issue of land both Raila and Kibaki appear to be paddling in the same canoe. They are both owners of huge tracks of land as they pretend to help the poor landless people of Kenya. Just like land, Agenda Four concerns itself with poverty, inequality and regional imbalances and this is where Raila is closer to the people than Kibaki.

While Annan was in town the leaders said they recognized that to ensure sustainable peace in the country, poverty eradication and equitable development were essential. The leaders further recognized that the issue of inequality, manifested along income, regional and gender lines remained key challenges for Kenya. For some very strange reasons the people of Kenya believe Raila can bring those changes given the chance and powers to do so. So far Kibaki has not made good use of both the chances and powers he has to bring the changes Kofi Annan was talking about.

Paradoxically the changes the former UN boss was talking about happen to be in the manifestos of both PNU and ODM. Both parties claimed to be champions of poverty alleviation and of implementing equitable development. But that was when they were seeking the people’s mandate to govern them. The problem is that they told Kofi Annan that they intended to harmonize their two manifestos and make poverty alleviation and equitable development a top priority of the Coalition Government.

Wananchi have been starving to death while waiting for those changes. What happened to the promise Kibaki and Raila made to utilize the National Accord to implementation mechanisms that committed them to a consultative process to identify short term, medium term and long- term strategies to fight poverty? God alone knows!

Very soon the same leaders will be seeking to be reelected in 2012 and yet unemployment, particularly among the youth, remains a serious problem. It is these same unemployed youths the leaders will be drowning in beer as they seek their votes to continue misleading Kenya. When Kofi Annan was in town the leaders agreed that unemployment was a serious concern that must urgently be addressed. When they got in office the only people they gave jobs to were their close friends and relatives and the people still remain unemployed.

This is the sad case despite the fact that the leaders acknowledged before Kofi Annan that the lack of effective opportunities that integrate the majority of Kenya’s youth into mainstream economic activities contributed to the destructive role played by the youth during the post election violence. Ensuring that all citizens have the opportunity to be gainfully employed is a policy likely to be implemented by Raila rather than Kibaki and his team. Unfortunately Raila has enemies in the ODM who would like power for the sake of accumulating wealth in the same manner as Kenyatta, Moi and Kibaki.

When it comes to rhetoric promises no one can beat Kenyan politicians at election time. Before they got into power they told the people of Kenya that the nation’s economic growth, prosperity and social stability would be their priority in ensuring that each individual is given an opportunity to develop their full potential and live in dignity. They repeated the promise word for word before Kofi Annan and said: “We commit ourselves to advocate for the development of all comprehensive strategy on combating youth unemployment.” Very soon in the next election the leaders will be seeking the unemployed youths' votes. It will be the youths’ opportunity to combat greed and corruption among our leaders who must now be shown the door. The only survivor will be Raila Odinga and whoever joins him in the revamped ODM.

Nzamba Kitonga likely to succeed

The manner in which Nzamba Kitonga’s Committee of Experts has summarized the contentious issues proves there is great hope of Kenya getting a new Constitution soon. Kitonga has avoided all the mistakes made by previous groups that have tried to give Kenya a new Constitution since President Daniel arap Moi retired in 2002. His greatest achievement so far has been to avoid issues that have tended to compartmentalize the Constitution to benefit only a section of Kenyan community.

The concentration of powers into the hands of dictators who have ruled Kenya since independence has been through the Executive and the Legislature. On these two Kitonga plans to come up with a Constitution that will establish institutions which will exercise authority “for the benefit of the people and communities in Kenya and must serve the people.” When he invited opinions from Kenyans he only wanted views that would recommend the Executive and Legislature that would serve the people. He did not want any recommendation that would allow a person exercising executive authority to “act in a manner incompatible with the principle of service to the people”.

To achieve that goal Kitonga suggested that Executive and legislative powers should be exercised within what he called “clear limits and subject to proper checks and balance.” On the issue of the Executive and the Legislature, Kitonga identified four contentious issues. The first one concerns the relationship between Parliament and the Executive. Under both Kenyatta and Moi the Executive was the tail that wagged the Parliamentary dog. Parliament was no more than a rubber stamp that only passed legislations that strengthened the hand of the State House.

To correct that situation Kitonga posed two questions to Kenyans before inviting their views: Should we have a Presidential System, with a President and a Cabinet whose members are not MPs? The manner in which that question is framed is extremely revealing. In that question he is telling Kenyans that should they choose the Presidential system, he will never draft a constitution that will create a demigod out of the president the way Kenyatta, Moi were, and, to a certain extent, Kibaki still is.

If Kenyans choose to have a Presidential System, Kitonga will draft something like the American system in which “the President is directly elected by the people and is Head of State and Head of Government, with Vice President as running mate”. If the people give Kitonga the assignment to come up with a Constitution to establish a Presidential System he will not come up with a system that gives the President powers to reward his or her political cronies with cabinet positions. Kitonga will frame up something that will make the Cabinet composed of technocrats who are not even members of Parliament.

Those who expect Kitonga to come up with a Presidential System so as to get all the Government jobs for their own tribes are in for a big shock. The kind of a Constitution Kitonga may draft will be so transparent that Ministers may have to be interviewed publicly before they are appointed by the President. This is the system likely to attract many PNU followers; but when it is examined closely, it will not end up creating a dictator like Kenyatta or Moi who were monsters created by the Constitution itself.

The second most important question posed by Kitonga on the issue of the Executive and tLegislature is: Should there be a Parliamentary System with the Prime Minister as the Head of the Executive, chosen from Parliament? Kitonga explains that in a Parliamentary system the powers to govern are derived from Parliament and the Prime Minister is appointed from a political party or a coalition of parties that have the majority of seats in Parliament. Before Kitonga invited Kenyans’ opinion on this system he told them that the Prime Minister usually appoints the Cabinet form within Parliament and that there may be a ceremonial President as representative Head of State.

This is the system backed by the ODM and the one the majority of Kenyans will support if there is a referendum on the two systems. This is the system Raila Odinga has been fighting tooth and nail to get established in Kenya and he has yet to lose in any political battle. Kitonga is likely to come up with two drafts and then put the matter before the people through a plebiscite. Whichever way the people vote, Kenya will have a constitution within the given deadline and the credit will go to Nzamba Kitonga and Mutula Kilonzo.

The one system that Kitonga may have to throw in the dustbin is what he calls a “mixed” or “hybrid” system with a President and Prime sharing powers. By trying to discourage the people from choosing this system, whose evils are very familiar to them, Kitonga poses the big question to the people of Kenya: How should this power be shared? He then explains that such “mixed” or hybrid systems vary on the extent to which executive power is shared between the President and the Prime Minister. This is the system that encourages polarization of the country along tribal lines. In Kenya the Presidency is seen as the centre of power for the Kikuyus while the Premiership is seen as the centre of power for the Luos. A constitution that brings about such a mixed system will make sure that tribal wars, especially the wars between Kikuyus ad Luos, will always be fought in Kenya.

The many suggestions which have been submitted to Nzamba Kitonga should make him know by now which system they favour. Even after making suggestions about a political system of their choice, Nzamba Kitonga still made Kenyans discuss two more important aspect of governance concerning the manner in which all Kenyan people could be properly represented and served and the manner in which the Executive could be properly accountable. Thousands of suggestions must have been made to Kitonga by all sorts of political parties, institutions and individuals. There is therefore little doubt that the final draft will come up with ways and means of achieving the two goals set by the Committee of Experts.

Nzamba’s draft is also likely to propose a bicameral legislature with an establishment of an upper house probably called the Senate. In the many replies he got from the people, Kitonga must have been given quite a lot of reasons for the establishment of a second House. Among these must have been the need to set up a House of elders who could represent their various communities. These should be, in my view, people with proven record of public service and who are able to represent their communities without creating tribal ill feelings.

Kitonga’s question about the powers of the Second House in relations to both the other House and the Executive must also have been answered in various satisfactory manners. In my view, the Second House should act as a watchdog of the Lower House which should be the House of Representative. The Upper House or the Senate should simply discuss bills passed by the Lower House with a view of detecting any tendency of legislating laws that are not in keeping with the Kenyan culture as it is represented in all communities. The Upper House should have the powers to reject or amend Bills passed by the Lower House.

Among the most important challenges that are facing the Kitonga team concern Devolution powers in the new Constitution. Giving Kenyans guidelines on issues that already have consensus Kitonga clearly explained that the new Constitution would not provide for a system whereby powers of Government are concentrated in a central government. He also explained to the wananchi that the new Constitution would make sure that powers of the Government should be shared between the Central Government and one or more devolved levels of Government. Kitonga also reminded Kenyans that they all agree that devolved government should be democratic and participatory.

Having given them these guidelines he then posed three very important questions: First he wanted to know whether there should be only two or more levels of Government. On this one I believe many Kenyans must have chosen three levels of Government comprising local government, regional assemblies and the central Government. The only major change from the kind of devolution that exists today is the establishment of powerful and democratic regional assemblies.

The second question posed by the Kitonga team on this issue concerns the powers of each level of Government. The only new change, in my view, should be in the establishment of powerful Regional Assemblies which will have powers to pass laws of the Region concerning land, health, roads and education. In my view issues concerning foreign affairs, national security and finance should still remain in the Central Government.

The third question by Kitonga on the issue of devolution concerns how much power to supervise devolved government and ensure equity across the country should be vested in the Central Government. I believe the Central Government should still be very powerful particularly on equity issues.

The last major issue examined by the Kitonga team concerns bringing the Constitution into effect. On this issue Kitonga highlighted three aspects in which Kenyans have consensus which include the fact that the new Constitution should create a fresh start for Kenya to establish the rule of law, protection of human rights and respect for anyone irrespective of their gender, ethnicity, disability, age, religion culture or political persuasion.

The question Kitonga poses for the people of Kenya is how the adoption and coming into force of the new Constitution should affect the holders of political constitutional positions or office such as President, Vice President, Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Ministers, Cabinet and Members of Parliament. Kitonga wants to know whether the holders of these offices should complete their terms. There can only be two answers to these questions. One answer is the current leaders should complete their current terms and the new Constitution is introduced into the country after the next elections.

The second answer is that changes should come as soon as possible in which case Mwai Kibaki should go home and let other leaders contest the next election as soon as possible. There are many reasons which make the first option a more preffered one because in gives Kenyans ample time to implement the major changes brought about by the new Constitution.

Kitonga points out that Kenyans agree that the institutions and office bearers in the new Constitution must have the confidence of the people and be accountable to them. But then he wonders how the adoption and coming into force of the new constitution should affect the unelected constitutional positions or offices such as the Attorney General and Judges. The simple answer to that question is that both the Attorney General and the Judges should be retired and those who want to get their jobs back should reapply for them. This is the one area where big changes are demanded by the majority of the people of Kenya.

Lastly Kitonga reminds Kenyans that all Government actions and every exercise of power should be based on the new Constitution but then he asks what measures should be taken to ensure that Parliament will pass these legislation, which will require many new laws. This is yet another reason why the new Constitution should be implemented after the next General election so as to give Parliament all the time it needs to pass the new laws. All these are questions to which Kitonga has answers from Kenyans and by the look of it he certainly has moved fast in the right direction. If he continues in this manner Kitonga is sure to succeed in giving Kenyans a new Constitution long before the next general elections.

Obama’s advice could save Kenya

In a recent interview with AllAfrica’s Charles Cobb Jr., President Obama made a number of important points which should be taken seriously by African leaders, particularly Prime Minister Raila Odinga and President Mwai Kibaki. May be the most important advice for our leaders is about institutions being more important than any one person. It so happens that both Raila and Kibaki seem to think that they are more important than institutions that put them in power and those that perpetuate their continued stay in power.

The two most important institutions that Kibaki and Raila must learn to respect are the political parties they lead and the offices they hold. Just like Kibaki thinks there is no one else in Kenya who is fit to occupy the Presidency of the country, Raila believes he is the only person fit to be the Prime Minister of Kenya. The two leaders behave as if the offices they occupy are their personal properties and not institutions that should be occupied by other qualified Kenyans.

Kibaki is the President of Kenya because he was nominated by PNU to contest for that high office. He never won a primary election the way Barrack Obama won the first round he contested against Hillary Clinton to be chosen the Democratic Party candidate for the Presidency of USA. Kibaki would not tolerate any such democratic competition within the PNU because he believes PNU is his own personal property.

Raila was chosen to contest for the Presidency on behalf of ODM in exactly the same manner though, in the case of Raila, there was an orchestrated fictitious nomination which took place at Kasarani where he was the only stage managed presidential candidate. That was so because ODM is his personal property too. If Kibaki and Raila take the advice from the American President seriously, they will take serious steps to introduce internal democracy in their parties. That way they will show that they respect their political parties as institutions the way Obama suggests.

Likewise the two leaders would take serious steps to define the duties and responsibilities of the offices of the President and Prime Minister as institutions meant to serve the nation and not offices that are used to measure up the powers of Raila Odinga and Mwai Kibaki as individual tribal leaders. If the two Kenyan leaders take Obama’s advice seriously they would incorporate the clearly defined duties of the Prime Minister and those of the President in the Constitution that will soon go before Parliament. The two offices should be created to serve the people of Kenya and not to please individual politicians or tribes.

The second most important advice from Barack Obama concerns what the American President, who is a son of Kenya, calls “progress in democracy and transparency and rule of law, in the protection of property rights, in anti-corruption efforts”. In those nineteen words Obama has described what the two Kenyan leaders have not been able to implement in their lifetime leadership of Kenya. The two have given Kenyans different party manifestos during different elections. The manifestoes have been both repetitive and identical yet what the people of Kenya want can be described by Obama in one sentence of less than twenty words!

Progress in democracy has been Kenyan leadership’s greatest weakness due to the greed of our leaders. Both Kibaki and Raila have used the word democracy to climb on the political ladder for their own personal advantage. One had even a political party called the Democratic Party. None of the two leaders have taken serious steps to introduce a civil service devoid of tribalism – a civil service that qualify to be called an efficient Executive. Obama also talks of “transparency” which is a word that would have kept Kibaki away from the Anglo Leasing scandal. Transparency in all his activities would also have kept Raila away from the maize scandal. It is a word that our two leaders should take seriously if they want to earn Obama’s respect and indeed that of the rest of humanity including Kenyans.

The Rule of Law gives both Raila and Kibaki a lot of headaches. Otherwise they would not need Kofi Annan’s guidance on how to deal with criminals who killed more than 1,000 Kenyans and made more than 300,000 wananchi homeless soon after the two failed to agree on who won the last elections. For Kibaki and Raila to make Kenyans believe that they really believe in the rule of law they have to discipline the trigger happy police force in Kenya and wipeout corruption from the corridors of power both in the Executive and the Judiciary.

The protection of property that Obama is talking about is the public property that has been grabbed by those in power from the moment Kenya become independent. Today only the property of the very rich, who happens to be the same people in political power, is being properly protected by the Government. The property of the people, whether it is land or other public utilities can be grabbed anytime in the name of political leadership. In other words corruption has been, and will remain to be, the biggest challenge facing Raila and Kibaki. It is unfortunate that the two leaders have to wait for young Barrack Obama to tell them that simple truth.

Long before Obama came to power African leaders , who included Raila’s own father, who was Mwai Kibaki’s boss in Kanu, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, used to be weary of economic assistance from outside Africa. They talked of aid without strings attached. In the interview Obama comes out as a sincere leader who wants to economically assist Africa through bilateral and multilateral programmes that would involve the people of Africa to their advantage. Apparently the only African leaders who seem to see eye to eye with the American President are to be found in Ghana. Near home the only one who seems to impress Obama is President Kikwete of Tanzania. At one time Kenya used to be politically and economically miles ahead of the two African nations now impressing Obama. Where did we go wrong? Or better still , what can Kibaki and Raila do to make us go back on the right track?

Posted by I am a at 8:39 AM

Kibaki’s Somalia plan is wrong

The full support African leaders want to give the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia should not include armed forces from Kenya. If President Mwai Kibaki plans to send Kenya soldiers to support the Government of Sheikh Sharif then he must be opposed by all the peace loving people of Kenya even if he happens to be the Commander in Chief of the Kenya Armed Forces. No one should be allowed to send young Kenyans to their early death just to please a foreign master. African leaders meeting in Libya seem to be only concerned with pleasing American President Barack Obama whose goal is to fight Muslim fundamentalism now opposing the Sharif regime through the Al-Shabaab terrorists. We should not be used to fight a proxy war on behalf of Americans.

According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Al-Shabaab is a group of Somali Islamists, primarily acting in Somalia. The group developed in the wake of the loss of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) at the hands of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and its backers, primarily the military of Ethiopia, in the War in Somalia (2006–present). An estimated 3,000 or so members of the ICU went underground to form an insurgency and armed cells across Mogadishu and elsewhere in Somalia, and are conducting attacks against the government and the allied Ethiopian forces. The term Shabaab ("youth") is common in the Islamic world for youth groups, and the current movement should not be confused with other similarly named organizations.

There is a lot of harm done to Kenya by people from Somalia without us trying to make things worse by sending our troops to that country. The so-called Somali refugees have invaded Eastleigh area of Nairobi and made a little Mogadishu out of it. Real Kenyans feel very uncomfortable in that part of the city which is the hub of all crimes. Everything is available through clandestine deals. Millions exchange hands through corruption in that den of transgression where Kenya citizenship is purchasable through bribery, sleaze and fraud. Money is flowing everywhere and the police conveniently keep a blind eye on the area.

There must be thousands of Al-Shabaab members in hiding at Eastleigh and declaring war against them could be catastrophic to Kenya. No one would like Nairobi to be turned into a Baghdad or Islamabad. The Al-Shabaab terrorists would not hesitate to launch suicide bomb attacks against us if we are foolish enough to declare war against them.

We have already provoked the Somali pirates by allowing all the captured terrorists to be tried in Kenya. The excuse for that could be that most of the captured vessels are either on their way to or from Kenyan port of Kilindini. All the same the responsibility to try pirates should be that of the international community because the ships belong to all sorts of countries. Kenya becomes vulnerable as a terrorist target if it continues to try the pirates single handedly. It is about time an international court was established to try the Somali pirates because they actually are committing international crimes at sea.

Somalia is a lawless country that has always claimed territory from its neighbours including Kenya. The law of the jungle that makes only the warlords control various clan gangsters makes it impossible for anyone to claim the leadership of any legitimate government. The country has had no political parties as such and no election for a very long time. The claim by African leaders to support TFG would make more sense if they planned a countrywide election that is acceptable to all the warring parties. Only then would it be possible for the winner of such an election to claim legitimacy of governing Somalia. What the African leaders are doing now is to make sure no Muslim fundamentalist will establish a Government in Mogadishu. And to make matters worse that is not the original thinking of these Governments. They are only trumpeting the wishes of President Barrack Obama.

If Kenya ever went to war against Somalia, Mogadishu would begin with an upper hand as it has its people scattered in many parts of the country as Kenyan Somalis but whose loyalty is to the motherland. Kenyan Somalis know everything about the Kibaki regime as they hold extremely senior positions in it including sensitive security jobs. If Kibaki tries to fight Somali Muslim fundamentalist his plans will be known by Al-Shabaab terrorists long before they are implemented. No part of Kenya could be safe. Mogadishu could fight Kenyan Government right from within itself. And Al-Shabaab would soon win the war. At the moment Al-Shabaab is only fighting the regime in Mogadishu and it will not be surprising at all if it wins that war .

In an unlikely event of ever being a free and fair election in Somalia any political party that has the backing of religious leaders is likely to win. That organization in Somalia today is the Al-Shabaab. Kenya cannot afford to be Al-Shabaab’s enemy unless it threatens the security of this country.

So far Kibaki’s security forces have totally failed to control the illegal trade of contraband goods worth billions of shillings from Somalia. There is every evidence that the pirates’ money is being invested in Kenya under the very noses of security forces. How can the same security forces be expected to win any war against Somalis terrorists when the bandits have the loyalty of the majority of Somalis?

Somali’s political, social and economic problems can only be solved by Somali people themselves. Any foreigners, including America, who have tried to help the people at the horn of Africa, have ended up burning their fingers. The people of Somalia speak one language, have one religion and belong to one tribe. Anyone who interferes with their internal fights ends up the looser. Kibaki should be told that fact in the plainest language possible, before he sends Kenyans to their early graves and exposes the entire country to unnecessary terrorist attacks.

Rather than taking Kenya to war with Somalia, Kibaki would do this country a lot of good if he strengthened the security between the two countries. Kenyan troops should never leave the border between Kenya and Somalia; but it would be extremely foolish to make the troops invade Somalia to solve internal Somali problems. If America would like to fight Muslim fundamentalists in Mogadishu it should do so on its own the Afghanistan or Iraqi way. Kenyans must never be used to fight other people’s wars.

Ruto’s blunder of fighting Raila

William Ruto has made a terrible miscalculation in fighting Raila Odinga. The Agriculture Minister is trying to make the Prime Minister take the blame for the post election murders of more than 1,000 Kikuyus. Ruto claims the Kalenjins who committed the murders did so to get Raila elected and they were only performing an ODM duty to win the elections. Raila, on the other hand, firmly believes those who committed murders before, during and after the 2007 elections should face the law either locally or at The Hague. Both the law and justice are on Raila’s side so Ruto is bound to lose this battle in the final analysis. He only seems to have tribal and xenophobic nationalism on his side.

Memories cannot be so short as to forget the manner in which the Kalenjins have always tried to eliminate the Kikuyus from the Rift Valley which they claim to be their ancestral home. Soon after the bloodbath that saw more than 300,000 made homeless at the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008 everyone who visited the pathetic internally displaced refugees at their camp in Eldoret concluded that what took place came very close to tribal cleansing of the Kikuyu people. This view was at one time shared with Kofi Annan who was among the first people to visit the homeless victims.

Long before Kenyans went to the polls Kalenjins were undergoing secret military training sponsored by very important politicians and conducted by highly qualified ex-military men in the community. The Kalenjins were ready to get rid of the Kikuyus whatever the outcome of the elections. As a matter of fact the elections were used as a mere excuse to chase the Kikuyus from what was perceived as Kalenjin land. The bitter feelings against the Kikuyus started soon after independence when Jomo Kenyatta’s Government was more concerned about settling the Kikuyus in former White Highlands of Rift Valley.

The manner in which Kalenjin warriors attacked Kikuyu homes and set them on fire proved clearly they were trained people. Every time security personnel appeared on the scene the Kalenjins simply vanished in thin air only to systematically reappear when the police moved out of the scene. Kikuyus were caught totally unaware as the civil war moved up to Nakuru as it was spreading towards Nairobi. At Naivasha the Kikuyus organized themselves under Mungiki to hit back at the spreading Kalenjins and other ethnic groups in the ODM particularly the Luos and Luhyas.

Until today many of the settled Kikuyus in the Rift Valley have established what are seen as Kikuyu villages in Kalenjin land. Indeed the people who were burnt alive by Kalenjin warriors in a Kikuyu church near Eldoret during the post election clashes were in a village of Kiambaa which is a duplication of another village of the same name in the Central Province. When the victims of the Kiambaa massacre were laid to rest the President and other Kikuyu politicians attended the ceremony which was boycotted by Kalenjin leaders. Attempts to build a permanent monument at the Rift Valley Kiambaa in memory of the murdered Kikuyus have met with vehement opposition from the Kalenjins leaders who see the monument as an attempt to make people always remember their post election crimes.

According to Ruto the murders that were committed after the 2007 elections should be forgotten. He believes the killers of 2007-2008 should be regarded as freedom fighters who were “liberating” the country from “Kikuyu domination”. He has tried in vain to sell this idea to the ODM. Indeed the bone of contention that is causing serious cracks in the ODM is based on how to treat Kalenjin killers of post election conflict. Are they murderers or war heroes? To the Kalenjin people the killers of Kikuyus were heroes trying to get back their land from “foreigners”. The only trouble is that a good number of the killed Kikuyus and a very big majority of the IDPs actually bough their land from the very same Kalenjins who turned against them. Most of the land went into the Kikuyu hands through willing Kalenjin sellers to willing Kikuyu buyers. This makes the Kalenjin killers even guiltier.

Ruto is of the opinion that the animosity between the Kalenjins and the Kikuyus should be solved through the Truth Justice Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) which will be established soon to deal with Kenya’s various political and socioeconomic problems. In this Ruto is backed by Uhuru Kenyatta who is alleged to have organized the Kikuyus at Naivasha to hit back at the Kalenjin. Among the politicians who are said to be heading for The Hague to face justice are Ruto and Kenyatta. No wonder many see them getting together to form a political alliance before 2012 as they happen to be birds of the same feather when it comes to facing the law as post election criminals.

As a decent politician who believes in the power of the ballot Raila cannot be forced to join this camp. This does not mean however that ODM does not have people who believe, very much like Ruto, in letting the whole matter be handled by the TJRC. Indeed there are some, like Anyang Nyong’o, who would rather the post election violence issue was swept under the carpet. Nyong’o believes his “mass action” call before, during and after the 2007 election could see him accompany Uhuru and Ruto to The Hague.

On matters of law and justice Raila has a name to protect both locally and internationally. He is respected everywhere in the world as a shrewd politician who champions the course of the rule of law. For that matter he is willing to sacrifice Anyang Nyong’o as the ODM secretary general and throw Ruto into the dustbin of history for the sake of his own national and international integrity. It is not beyond Raila to reorganize ODM without a section of Kalenjins, particularly Ruto’s own Nandis, and other leaders who want to implicate him with the post election murders. The new ODM could see a marriage with Martha Karua’s Narc Kenya. The fight in 2012 will therefore be between Raila, Karua and Mudavadi in one camp and Uhuru, Ruto and Kalonzo on the other camp. It will be such a tough fight whose results will be extremely difficult to predict.

Whatever the outcome, Kenya will have a very well established democracy that the people can truly be proud of. At that time the Executive will be efficient, the Legislature supreme and the Judiciary independent. The media as the fourth estate will have an uphill task of proving to be truly free. That will depend entirely on how professional they decide to become from now onwards when they report important political history as it continues to be made in this country.

Posted by I am a at 2:43 AM