MAKING MUSIC IN POLITICS

If Kenya's political scene was set to music, the composition might go something like this:
First a strong bass line, which rumbles under everything: Last Thursday, Luis Moreno-Ocampo asked judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) to approve a formal investigation into post-election murders, rapes and deportations in Kenya. It is now up to the judges in the Hague to decide. Chief Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo said he would visit Kenya early next year to talk to victims, and that if the court allows the investigation, inquiries could start immediately. The charges and lists of suspects could be defined in 2010.
Moreno-Ocampo also said he was concerned about reported threats to human rights activists and MPs who support the search for justice, including alleged threats and intimidation by Kenyan police officers.

Now, for the Sopranos, a high-pitched medley that is reaching a crescendo:
Last Wednesday, Agriculture Minister William Ruto organised a harambee, or fundraiser, for illegal squatters evicted from the Mau forest as part of a government plan to protect this important water catchment area. Ruto won the support of 10 Cabinet ministers and 50 MPs, as well as President Mwai Kibaki's son, Jimmy. But the public event really seemed to be an opportunity for Ruto and his allies to indulge in some fairly feisty bashing of Prime Minister Raila Odinga, whom they blame for evicting people from the Mau without offering them alternative homes and compensation. Of course, Raila is also a potential rival for the presidency in 2012. Also present at the harambee was Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, while Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka sent his apologies and a donation for a fund set up for those evicted from the Mau.
Ruto, Kenyatta and Musyoka represent the so-called three Ks -- the Kalenjins, Kikuyus and Kambas, and many believe their stance on the Mau is the first step in forming an alliance to contest the 2012 vote. Not quite in the spirit of taking tribalism out of politics.
Now, some MPs are threatening to introduce a vote of no-confidence in Raila. But the prime minister has hit back, saying at the weekend: "Those people making noise that Raila has abandoned the people who voted for him in the last elections in Rift Valley are least qualified to say so. They are thinking those people are more of theirs than they are Raila Odinga’s. They voted for me but not for those people talking the loudest. I value them so much but we must first protect the forest." Yesterday, Justice Minister Mutula Kilonzo said the threatened vote of no confidence was petty politics. He warned that it could frustrate reforms in the country. You have to wonder how much reforming is really going on when so much time is taken up in forging alliances and dissing opponents. Watch this video to get an idea of how the alliances are shaping up in the wake of the Mau controversy.

Back to the music, and woven between the bass and sopranos are two separate melodies, secondary but insistent.
One comes from northern Kenya, and it is the unsettling sound of far-off fighting and death. In this article, the writer talks about increasingly deadly clashes over water and land between cattle owners in the parched north. You can see the really gruesome effects of such battles here but it is not easy viewing. In the article, Edmund Sanders says the United Nations estimates there have been 400 deaths in northern Kenya from fights over water and pasture this year.
And the final underlying melody comes from Somalia where the hardline insurgents of Al Shabaab seized the town of Dhobley, near the border with Kenya last Saturday after rival insurgents from Hizbul Islam fled.
In the past, Al Shabaab have threatened to invade Kenya unless it reduced troop numbers along the border. There have also been allegations that Kenya is training ethnic Somalis to fight for Somalia's transitional government, allegations the Kenyan military have denied. It's a worry for Kenya -- although threats of a full-on invasion may be far-fetched.
Kenya's political music is likely to get louder and more confused in the coming weeks as the new alliances and tensions play out. Raila has warned of a reshuffle. Maybe that is the next big movement.

RIFTS AND THREATS

To paraphrase the late master-of-the-miserable Frank McCourt: worse than being a freelancer in a city of freelancers is being a mother-of-two freelancer, who has yet to overcome her parenting guilt, in a city of freelancers. And worse than that is being a mother-of-two freelancer with parenting guilt and a child who refuses to stay in school, and taunts one after another day of dossing by singing "Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool. No sir, no sir, I don't like my school. I don't like the teachers, I don't like the class. I'd rather stay home and eat all the grass."
So back to the blog, after firing off a series of pitches into the cyber void. (Would it kill people to respond, even if it's just to say no? Has the financial crisis in journalism killed off good manners?)
Anyway, enough whinging. Or at least, enough of that kind of whinging.
It's worrying to see reports of threats against those planning to testify to the International Criminal Court about the post-election killings in Kenya. It's not perhaps surprising, given what's at stake, but it doesn't bode well for the judicial process.
Justice Minister Mutula Kilonzo has said that witnesses have not come forward as expected -- Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo had asked those with testimonies to present these to him by Friday this week. Kilonzo said some witnesses had received threats, but he did not say from whom. And that many would only come forward once a witness protection programme was set up. Moreno-Ocampo, who is going to present his case for opening an investigation into crimes against humanity in Kenya to ICC pre-trial judges next month, is due to give a press conference in the Hague tomorrow. Maybe he will address this issue.
It seems that as potential prosecutions near, the atmosphere in Kenya is becoming ever more poisonous.
Imenti Central MP Gitobu Imanyara, who tabled a bill earlier this month to set up a local Special Tribunal to judge those responsible for the post-election killings, said this week that he had received fresh death threats. The Daily Nation says at least five MPs have reported receiving death threats this year. The paper said Imanyara tabled a letter in parliament in June that claimed an 18-member Kwekwe hit squad had been assigned to assassinate him, Ikolomani MP Dr Boni Khalwale, former cabinet minister Martha Karua and Embakasi MP Ferdinand Waititu. Internal Security Minister George Saitoti said this week that he was surprised security had not been beefed up for the ministers as he had requested, and promised to look into the matter.
The government has in the past said that the dreaded Kwekwe -- a secret police squad blamed for executing suspected Mungiki members among others -- had been disbanded. And new police commissioner Mathew Iteere says they are taking the new threats against Imanyara very seriously.
Death threats -- by phone call or SMS -- are not new in Kenya. In March, Reuters reported that human rights activists had gone into hiding, or even left the country, after receiving death threats following the publication of a very critical United Nations report on extrajudicial killings by the police. The Oscar Foundation, a human rights group, organised a protest against police killings in the wake of the report's findings. Later that day gunmen shot dead foundation members Oscar Kamau Kingara and Paul Oulu in a Nairobi street.
There are other signs of something being rotten in the state of Kenya.
Just look at what has been happening in Isiolo, and other parts of the Eastern Province. Earlier this month, at least 10 people were killed by cattle raiders in Gambella, in the region around Isiolo.
It was just the latest in a series of attacks. Officials say around 50 people have been killed in the area since August. The government has offered a 30-day amnesty to holders of illegal weapons in the area to surrender them. And Minister Saitoti has said a massive operation to mop up any remaining illegal weapons will be launched when the ultimatum expires. He also said that local leaders were inciting people to raid cattle. He said some of these leaders are "people who hold positions in government."
It's a sensitive region for many reasons, both political and topographical. It's also a region where China is looking for oil. China's CNOOC spudded a $26 million exploration well near Isiolo that will be the deepest yet in Kenya.
On the political front, things are getting nasty too. It seems Prime Minister Raila Odinga has definitively fallen out with his erstwhile allies in the Rift Valley over the eviction of illegal settlers from the Mau forest. The battle seems to be most bitter between Odinga and Agriculture Minister William Ruto, the prime minister's one-time right-hand man and now his fiercest critic. Ruto sees the evictions, which Odinga and the coalition government argue are necessary to preserve the important water tower that is the Mau, as a betrayal of his Kalenjin people who voted for Odinga, a Luo, in the last election. Ruto had already said he would run for president in 2012. He now says the Kalenjin will not support Odinga, who is expected to run as well.
Of course, all of this is playing out in the shadow of the ICC prosecutions. Politics, at the moment, is little more than positioning it seems.

Of Police and Politicians

Is it just me or is there something deeply worrying about the fact that the police were able to gun down nine people in Nairobi in one 12-hour period?
The men who were killed were all alleged to be members of the Mungiki criminal/mafia gang. But what does it say about a society when the only way to deal with this problem is to shoot suspects dead? New Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere has declared war on the Mungiki and promised to hunt them all down. But the shootings look like gangland justice and I think raise uneasy questions about the way the Kenyan state functions.
Of course, the Mungiki are not innocent. Iteere listed their crimes as kidnappings, rape, extortion , murder, illegal possession of firearms and robbery with violence. But shoot-to-kill justice should surely always be a last resort, not a day-to-day policy. How can one hope to end impunity in Kenya when police can act as judge and jury and executioner? I know the arguments about police having to protect themselves and the public against the violent Mungiki, who it is true have shown no mercy to their victims either. And Iteere's tough action has met with considerable support among Kenyans tired of being racketed and worse by the Mungiki. But I just fear there is something very wrong if a shoot-to-kill policy is justified by applying the same standards to law enforcement officers as you do to a criminal gang ie they kill us so we should kill them. Also, if your law enforcement officers are permitted to operate outside of the law in some cases, who is going to draw the line and rein them back again when abuses target people who are not Mungiki?
Iteere dismissed allegations by lawyer Paul Muite that police were involved in the shooting of Njuguna Gitau, the spokesman of the Mungiki's political wing, a few days earlier. He was gunned down in the street too.
Another thing bothering me: On Wednesday Kenya's MPs failed to debate a bill proposed by Gitobu Imanyara on setting up a local special tribunal to try those believed to have been involved in the post-election violence because only 19 MPs out of 222 turned up. The House needs a quorum of 30 to proceed with a debate.
The Daily Nation quoted Internal Security Assistant Minister Orwa Ojodeh as saying ministers were absent because they were attending a climate change workshop that was opened by Prime Minister Raila Odinga at the Inter-Continental Hotel. But the paper said only Odinga and Forestry Minister Noah Wekesa were actually at that workshop.
You can see why Imanyara's bill might be unpopular. It proposes that top government officials resign from their posts once mentioned as suspects in the violence that killed around 1,300, removes the president's immunity to prosecution and reduces the powers of the Attorney General and Chief Justice among others.
Now, government ministers have retreated to the Serena Hotel in Mombasa -- a lovely, rather expensive hotel in lush grounds with a beautiful view of the Indian Ocean -- for what the Standard described as a "bonding session". They are expected to discuss the constitutional review, among other things. Wonder what those other things might be. And wonder why this "bonding" could not have been done maybe during the two-month parliamentary recess that has just ended.
Parliament has already twice rejected bills to set up a local tribunal and this was a contributing factor in the decision by the International Criminal Court's Chief Prosecutor to ask for permission to investigate the post-election killings. The local tribunal bill comes up again next Wednesday for debate. If anyone is around....

WHAT WE KNOW AND WHAT WE KNOW WE DON'T KNOW

At least some things are a little clearer now. The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, has said he believes crimes against humanity were committed in Kenya during violence after the 2007 election. After meeting President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga in Nairobi last Thursday, he said he will ask ICC pre-trial judges in December to let him go ahead with an investigation. He is confident he has a strong case against two or three people.
"I consider the crimes committed in Kenya were crimes against humanity, therefore the gravity is there. So therefore I should proceed," Moreno-Ocampo said.
Kibaki and Odinga have also put their cards on the table by not referring the Kenyan case to the ICC themselves. Presumably they do not want to be seen to be selling out on those in the court's sights, powerful people believed to include Cabinet ministers. The two leaders, who may be worried about their own perceived involvement in the violence that killed around 1,300 people, have said they will cooperate with the court, but given their inability so far to bring the financiers and fomentors of the killings to book, one has to wonder about their interpretation of the word cooperate.
The option of a Kenyan tribunal to try the suspects does still appear to be open -- a bill is to be tabled in parliament when it returns from recess -- but repeated efforts to establish a court that would meet international standards have so far failed. And even if the legislation to do so was passed, how many Kenyans would believe that justice would really be served by a local institution in a country where corruption and impunity are so widespread?
Now to what we don't know. We don't know how those who may eventually be indicted will react. Will they seek refuge in their political bases? Will these bases see any indictments as a strike against their community or tribe? Will they defend their perceived leaders? And lash out at communities or tribes whose leaders they believe should also bear responsibility, not just for the post-election violence but for the mishandling of a poll many believe was stolen. Members of Odinga's ODM party are already clamouring for those they believe stole the vote to stand trial at the Hague.
With these questions still hanging unanswered, reports that people are re-arming in the volatile Rift Valley, where Kikuyu and Kalenjin fought each other after the election, are alarming, even if the evidence in this report is a little patchy. However, there is also anecdotal evidence that people are either very afraid or very angry, and not just in the Rift Valley.
This little item from the Standard newspaper earlier this month is also interesting. Yes, journalists are often unpopular but this seems to show a dangerous willingness to incite violence in a very sensitive area.
Also worrying at the moment are some very strange goings-on within the Mungiki, a mafia-esque criminal gang overlaid with a patina of Kikuyu traditional beliefs. Last week, the spokesman of the gang's political wing, Njuguna Gitau, was shot dead in a street in downtown Nairobi. The Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights has said the killing was an assassination and that Gitau had reported threats to his life from the police earlier.
The leader of the Mungiki, Maina Njenga, who was released from prison in October and then denounced the Mungiki, has said he fears for his life. Two Mungiki members who were freed from prison at the same time have been lynched. The Mungiki, which is notorious for beheading its opponents and for extortion rackets, is believed to have links to politicians, some of whom paid its members to cause trouble after the 2007 poll. An internal power-struggle? An unofficial police crackdown against some members? And to what end? In any case, it seems to bode no good.
I cannot believe that the ICC prosecutor and the international community backing him have not thought through all the implications of indictments -- the possibility that these could re-ignite fighting between political groups and the tribes they draw their support from in a country where guns are ever more readily available. Moreno-Ocampo said in Nairobi that if he gets the go-ahead from the pre-trial judges the investigation should be completed in 2010 and the suspects named.
"And that will clean the situation, so you can have a peaceful election (in 2012)," he said.
I hope he's right but that statement seems to be assuming a lot.

When Is a Reform not a Reform

The international community's message to the Kenyan government has been ringing out loud and clear: get serious reforms underway or else.
And the response seems to be: we are and we don't appreciate you saying otherwise.
If anything, the coalition government's rhetoric has become more strident since the top international mediator in Kenya's post-election crisis, Kofi Annan, came to town on Sunday.
After meeting the former U.N. secretary-general on Monday, President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga -- once political rivals, now uneasy bedfellows -- said the progress on reforms had been "impressive".
According to the power-sharing deal which ended the blood-letting after the 2007 election, the coalition government is supposed to update the constitution, reform a widely discredited police service and judiciary, and create a more equitable distribution of land. It was also supposed to bring those behind the violence to trial.
On the latter point, repeated efforts to create a local tribunal to try those suspected of fanning and financing the violence have so far failed, clearing the way for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to lead the way. It seems ready and willing to do so.
But government spokesman Alfred Mutua said on Sunday that the government's performance grade on reforms stood at 90 percent. In a full-page advertisement in the Sunday Nation, he said: "The reform agenda is on track and will be undertaken and completed for the sake of all Kenyans."
He said a constitutional review was underway, electoral reforms were on track with the formation of a new electoral commission and land reforms were to be discussed by parliament when it reconvenes. A final report on proposed police reforms is also due in two weeks time and parliament is also then to discuss major recommendations on judicial reforms.
It is a hefty list and it would be wrong to say no progress has been made. But maybe the problem lies in the fact that you can reform institutions all you want, it is not going to convince people that things have really changed if they see the same faces in charge of the new entities. Faces that have been familiar to Kenyan voters since the Moi era.
Maybe what Kenya needs is not so much a travel ban on politicians but a political ban on those who have failed in their promises and done nothing to institute reforms. Mind you, that could be said of a lot of countries.
Few seem to agree with Mutua's assessment of a 90-percent success rate. The business community rated the government's progress at 10 percent and civil society groups and human rights activists agreeing that nothing close to 90 percent has been achieved. The African Union's Panel of Eminent Persons, which is headed by Annan, said in a recent report that reforms were moving slowly and this had disillusioned the public.
There may be no concrete deadline on most of these reforms -- although it is now clear that "the sooner the better" is what the international community wants. But in the case of pursuing those responsible for the violence that killed more than 1,000 people last year, it seems increasingly likely that the government's foot-dragging is about to be challenged by the ICC. And that in itself is not without risks.
Church leaders who met Annan on Tuesday warned of the possibility of more violence breaking out when indictments are issued. It's clear that there is a very real danger of this international judicial process being painted over in the colours of local tribal and political animosities that exploded after the last election. One group might well see an indictment as evidence of another group's scheming or pressuring of the international court.
There is already evidence of growing internal tensions. The Standard reports that Monday's meeting between Annan, Kibaki and Odinga -- and their cabinet supporters -- erupted into shouting. "It was a tense meeting and at one point ministers shouted at each other trading bitter accusations over the status of reforms," a source at the meeting told the paper.
The Standard says ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo is due in Kenya a week after Annan leaves. I imagine he -- and others both inside and outside the country -- are already mulling not only the evidence he and his team have accumulated but how the indictments will play in Kenya's fractured political landscape.

MAKING KENYA AN EXAMPLE

It's been a bad couple of weeks for Kenya's governing elite. Scorned by an angry public over the president's reappointment of an unpopular anti-graft commissioner, berated by the United States for promised but paralysed reforms, threatened with travel bans, and now in the sights of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Today, the prosecutor of the ICC, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, reiterated his determination to pursue those deemed most responsible for fanning and financing last year's post-election violence.
Moreno-Ocampo said: "Kenya will be a world example on managing violence". He plans a three-pronged approach: he wants the ICC to try those suspected of bearing the most responsibility for the violence; he wants a local tribunal to try others and wants the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission to look at past examples of impunity. As a first step, the prosecutor plans to meet with President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga in the coming weeks. He already has a list of prime suspects, believed to include some cabinet ministers.
"There is no question, there is no doubt, that the next stage is the indictment of the suspects. Moreno-Ocampo has now finally set the record straight," Gitobu Imanyara, a Kenyan parliamentarian who is sponsoring a second bill to establish a local court, told Reuters.
Some argue that if those who organised and funded the violence are tried internationally, this could mean that elections due in 2012 could be more peaceful: political leaders used to playing the ethnic card to encourage followers to intimidate or beat up opponents may think twice if others have been prosecuted. But indictments could also split, and possibly destroy, the fractious coalition. And any prosecutions could increase tensions between the different ethnicities here, and that could make for dangerous polls. Although there is some evidence that economics may be playing a larger role in political preferences as financial hardship bites especially among the urban poor, I am not sure economics will trump ethnic affiliations at the ballot box just yet. A worrying sign might be the fact that efforts to resettle those still living in camps after being driven from their homes during the violence more than a year ago have been held back by fear and distrust. Some of these internal refugees say they do not want to go home because they don't think they will be safe.
But before we get to 2012, it seems increasingly likely that there will be changes to the political elite, and not just because of the ICC. The international community, led by Barack Obama's administration, is not ready to let Kenya off the hook. The calls for reform are becoming more pointed, and indeed more aggressive. Kenyan officials were angered when the U.S. sent letters to 15 ministers and officials warning them that they were blocking reforms and because of this could face travel bans. Kenya's foreign minister summoned U.S. ambassador Michael Ranneberger for talks over the letters and the government spokesman in Nairobi, Alfred Mutua, was blunt in his condemnation, saying the U.S. should have addressed its criticism to the government rather than writing directly to individuals. "What they are doing is trying to instil fear so that people do not comment on anything that the US does not believe in. We think that is plainly wrong and is not an acceptable way of doing things," he told the Daily Nation. "It is like the government of Kenya writing letters to civil servants in the US government telling them that they will be held personally responsible for the failure of the pullout from Iraq. It is preposterous to the say the least."
The U.S. move may indeed have stoked some sympathy for the discredited coalition government because of a perception that Kenya's sovereignty has been infringed, but that effect is likely to be short-lived. It may depend on who gets banned. And though international pressure may be on, it's not clear that change at the top is the end-game. Afterall, Kenya is a key ally in a volatile region, a partner in dealing with the radical Islamists in Somalia and an economic powerhouse where foreign companies have lucrative investments.
One wonders what Kibaki is thinking (always something of a mystery). Today, he was dealt another blow -- possibly -- when the unpopular head of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission Aaron Ringera resigned saying his reappointment by the president had "raised a national storm." One wonders why Kibaki thought he would get away with ignoring parliament and the public to preserve Ringera's job. Especially since the latter has been widely criticised for failing to curb corruption in any significant way. (Ringera investigated such mega-scandals as Anglo-Leasing, and Goldenberg but failed to bring any big players to book.) There must be a story there. On the surface, Ringera's departure is a slap in the face to Kibaki, but maybe there is something more going on here. Now, everyone is waiting for Kibaki's reaction to the ICC statement.
Prime Minister Raila Odinga has just come back from meeting Obama in the States and said in an interview with the Nation that the U.S. president was genuinely concerned about the situation in Kenya but that "I sometimes think Obama’s roots in Kenya can actually be a problem. Kenya is always being held to different standards compared to neighbouring countries." Odinga went on to list the reforms that Kenya has carried out, including the fact that the country has a vibrant media and active civil society, and that corruption is now often "being nipped in the bud." I'm not sure the average Kenyan would agree. And I'm not sure making Mombasa port into a 24-hour facility and reducing the number of roadblocks on the road from Mombasa to the Ugandan border -- other examples he cited -- answer calls for root-and-branch reforms.
Procrastination does seem to be part and parcel of the work of the political elite here, but maybe time is really finally running out, at least in relation to justice for the hundreds killed last year.
Moreno-Ocampo has promised that "justice will not be delayed."
I wonder if Guinea's Moussa Dadis Camara is watching.

PLAYING HARDBALL

The United States is upping the ante on Kenyan officials, turning its anti-corruption rhetoric into action. Today, U.S. ambassador to Kenya Michael Ranneberger said his country had threatened 15 Kenyans -- including government ministers, parliamentary secretaries and members of parliament -- with travel bans if they did not support reforms, including judicial reforms and changes in the police. He did not name the individuals. More importantly perhaps, he also threatened Kenya's international funds.
"The U.S. is indicating it will more closely scrutinise any proposals for Kenya in international financial institutions," he said, without giving any more details.
"These steps reflect the view at the highest levels of the U.S. government that implementation of the comprehensive reform agenda ... must proceed with a much greater sense of urgency," Ranneberger said in Nairobi.
"Doing so is crucial to the future democratic stability of Kenya ... Despite all the rhetoric and commissions and talk and all that, not much has happened"
Or in plainer speech: "These steps follow an awful lot of private diplomacy ... It goes hand-in-hand with what we said: No business as usual ...The people we've sent letters to are not thugs, they're not criminals. They're people we have dealt with over the years, people who can play a role helping to transform this country," he said.
Interestingly, however, Ranneberger said there was no plan to cut U.S. aid for Kenya -- up to 3 billion dollars in aid, trade deals and tourism revenues, according to AFP. So I guess there is still room to tighten the screws a little further if this latest salvo goes unheeded.
Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua said Kenya does not respond to activism diplomacy.
If you are interested in Somalia, this piece offers an interesting and intelligent take on why the international community is so ill-equipped to intervene in any meaningful way to lift the country out of its meltdown.

HAKUNA MAGI

As Kenyans wait with expectation and some trepidation for the forecast El Nino rains in October and November, the financial and human costs of a severe drought are mounting.
Yesterday, Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta said the drought could threaten the country's 3 percent growth target for 2009/10 by curbing agricultural output and electricity generation. Kenyatta also said the central bank could do more to help the economy. The bank held its key lending rate steady at 7.75 percent on Wednesday, citing headline inflation worries. The bank has cut its key rate four times since December to stimulate growth and some analysts think that with core inflation below target, it is waiting now for those cuts to feed through. The bank's governor said drought and the global economic crisis would hit growth in the third quarter but that it could pick up in the fourth quarter, thanks to seasonal rains, higher tea and coffee prices and a stimulus package in this year's budget. Growth in Kenya fell to 1.8 percent last year -- hit partly by the post-election violence that claimed around 1,500 lives and displaced some 300,000 people -- from 7.1 percent in 2007.
The drought is already having a real, devastating impact on many people's lives. This article illustrates the effects on ordinary people in Nairobi's massive slums and on farmers and cattle rearers further north.
The World Food Program says 3.8 million Kenyans need emergency aid. But it says it may have to suspend operations in Kenya because of a budget shortfall. It is already providing food to around 2.5 million Kenyans. ".......the financial crisis and the still record high food prices around the world is delivering a devastating blow. Throw in a storm, a drought and a conflict and you have a recipe for disaster," said WFP executive director Josette Sheeran.
She warned that at the current funding levels, "we will – in October – have to cut our services throughout the world, including to half of those we are trying to reach in Kenya."
In the northeast, children are suffering because the cows that provide the milk they rely on for nutrition are dying. "Children are on the brink of death... The numbers of malnourished children coming to our feeding centres is going up and up and we expect it to get worse," Catherine Fitzgibbon, Save the Children’s deputy director in Kenya, said this week. "If we cannot get more food or cash to the region urgently to help families buy food, more children will die."
Since July, the number of severely malnourished children seeking treatment at Save The Children's northeastern emergency feeding centres has increased by 25 percent.
And desperation is causing more and deadlier conflicts. Last week, at least 29 people were killed during a cattle raid in the Laikipia district in central Kenya.
Everyone is waiting for the El Nino rains. Prime Minister Raila Odinga has warned of a "castastrophe" if they fail. But they could also aggravate problems in some areas -- and already have. The Standard reported yesterday that five people had died in floods in the western town of Kisumu. The United Nations is helping Kenya to prepare for the torrential rains that would alleviate the drought but could also cause flash floods, mudslides and deaths.

CHICKENS COMING HOME TO ROOST

Is Mutula Kilonzo speaking for the coalition government? Or is the justice minister going out on a limb when he says that there is no way Kenya is going to be able to try those suspected of fomenting and inciting the post-election violence? This week, Kilonzo said he would write and inform the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno-Ocampo, that the Kenyan government could not meet a Sept. 30 deadline to set up a local mechanism to try the suspects. "The country must come to terms that calls for Hague is now real. We will not ask for more time for creation of local tribunal. We want to move forward, we have a lot of other work to do," he said.
Kilonzo has been out of tune with President Mwai Kibaki before. After Kibaki announced in late July that Kenya would try the suspects in local tribunals and use the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission, Kilonzo said that the latter did was not equipped to try those alleged to have fanned and financed the violence, which killed around 1,500.
Whether Kilonzo is positioning himself for a post-Kibaki era or acting without ulterior motives, he has won some praise for urging the ICC to move in. He has reportedly also been receiving death threats, although it is not clear from whom or exactly why.
Moreno-Ocampo is in the United States this week to meet State Department officials and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And the U.S. ambassador in Kenya, Michael Ranneberger, is expected to make a "major announcement" today on U.S. actions to push for reforms. He has previously said that the U.S., despite not being a signatory to the ICC, will support its action in Kenya and warned on Monday that the U.S intended to impose smart sanctions on Kenyan leaders.
These leaders already seem to be feeling the freeze. Prime Minister Raila Odinga was supposedly due to join a lunch meeting by African leaders with Obama this week, but was allegedly disinvited. An unnamed U.S. policymaker put the confusion down to "an embarrassing error by an overzealous official." Ranneberger said the cancellation was because of a techncial issue and was not related to Kenya's record in fighting corruption. But you do wonder if there is a reason that Obama seems unwilling to be seen with Odinga. Maybe today's "major announcement" from Ranneberger will clarify things?
Ocampo is reported to have said last week that he wants to make Kenya an example of the costs of impunity. Those Kenyans who believe their names to be on a list of suspects that he has received from a Kenyan investigating commission must be feeling nervous. Ocampo apparently wants to meet with Kibaki and Odinga soon. Perhaps that will be the next step on this somewhat slow road to justice.

THE LONG ARM OF THE LAW

I feel I should be writing a requiem for Kenya's parliament.
It might not be flattering, but the debate over President Mwai Kibaki's decision to reappoint Justice Aaron Ringera as head of the country's anti-corruption commission (KACC) has really exposed the extent to which this elected body -- flawed though it may be -- has been sidelined and rendered essentially impotent. Many MPs believe Ringera's re-appointment to be illegal because Kibaki acted without consulting Parliament and the KACC advisory board, but it is unclear whether they will even be allowed to debate the issue on substance.
Ringera has been criticised by many Kenyans for failing to bring down those believed to
be behind the Anglo Leasing scandal, in which sham companies sought to siphon off billions of Kenyan shillings. Check out Michaela Wrong's book "It's Our Turn to Eat" for a fairly chilling account of Ringera's role in warning off then anti-graft czar John Githongo who was investigating Kenya's biggest financial scandal.
On Thursday, parliament speaker Kenneth Marende will rule on whether Parliament can discuss a report that has already declared the re-appointment of Ringera and two of his assistants illegal. In the preceding debate, it was clear MPs had a real sense of helplessness.
"We have been at the mercy of the Executive and that of the Judiciary for a very long time; unless this honourable House claims its space, this country has no future," said Mr Mutava Musyimi, the MP from Gachoka MP (PNU).
Justice Minister Mutula Kilonzo told parliament that discussing the report would be illegal, since there is a court case pending against the re-appointment. Former Justice Minister Martha Karua pointed out that if this stood it meant that, faced with a difficult or embarrassing debate on any subject, the government could find a "crony or hireling" to launch a court case and essentially shut down parliament.
"By reappointing Ringera, Kibaki has basically shot himself in the foot, further weakening his government. It's like putting a red rag in front of a bull, with the bull being parliament and the public," said political commentator Robert Shaw.
I'm not sure that worries Kibaki though.
He must have known this decision would draw some flak, to say the least. But he did it anyway. It is either incredible chutzpah or a somewhat worrying nonchalance about public and international opinion.
Speaking of which, Kibaki's decision was criticised by the U.S. administration, and this drew a sharp rebuke from the government in Nairobi. Outspoken U.S. Ambassador Michael Ranneburger said the KACC had done a poor job under Ringera and faulted Kibaki for reappointing him. Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetangula retorted that the Kenyan Government "considers the statement objectionable, in bad taste and an affront to the Head of State to whom it is accredited in appointing Justice Ringera as Director of the KACC."
"The ministry further takes great exception to the tone of the Embassy’s statement which casts aspersions on the Government’s commitment to fight corruption and end impunity," he said in a two-page letter to the embassy.
Just a minor diplomatic spat, all words no action? Maybe, but the United States has been steadily chipping away at Kenya's coalition government, which it believes is failing to deliver on promised reforms. Having the world's superpower breathing down your neck cannot be comfortable for Kenyan authorities and the Obama administration shows no sign in letting up the pressure. Something to bear in mind as Kenya faces the potential prospect of embarrasing trials at the International Criminal Court over deadly post-election violence in 2007/8.
And then came a political twist. On Tuesday, Kenya's top cop -- police commissioner Major General Hussein Ali -- was removed from his duties to become Postmaster General. Ali had been under pressure since February when a report by U.N. rapporteur Philip Alston said he should be sacked because of abuses by his forces, particularly during the post-election violence. Kenya's police have long been accused of extra-judicial killings, torture and corruption -- all charges the force has denied. But nothing happened until now. It is the timing of Kibaki's decision to remove Ali that had most Kenyans talking, coming as it did in the middle of the intense public and political debate over the Ringera decision.
And some are unimpressed.
"I think the changes are another slap in the face. You do not reward a police commissioner whose force has been implicated in human-rights violations with a new appointment. You charge the person," Kenya Human Rights Commission Executive Director Wanyeki Muthoni said. "Reforms have to start with the possibility of accountability, internally and externally. Everything else, although necessary, will not change the culture of policing in this country, which is what we fundamentally want," she said.
Ali has been replaced by Mathew Kirai Iteere, the Israeli-trained former commandant of the police's paramilitary General Service Unit (GSU), a unit loyal to the presidency whose record is not exactly squeaky clean. The challenges facing Iteere are well laid out in this article from the Daily Nation. Not mentioned is the fact that the Kenyan police force was rated East Africa's most corrupt public institution in a recent survey by Transparency International.
For an alternative view of Ali's record, check out this article, which praises him for doing his best to reform an institution that can only become truly effective when other political, social and economic problems in Kenyan society are addressed.
Having an impotent, frustrated and flawed parliament is not going to help.
Go raibh maith agat, Daithi

Water and Power

We're just back from a three-week odyssey around the remoter parts of Britain and Ireland. After our overnight flight from Nairobi, we stepped into the sunshine outside Heathrow's Terminal Five and marvelled at an amazing water feature made up of scores of spurting jets lit individually from underneath with glorious shades of pink, purple and gold. Our girls shrieked with delight as the jets rose and fell while we pondered the bizarre sight of water and electricity being used for art. It was like an out-of-body experience after weeks of rationing. We felt like running around with buckets.
Mind you, after three weeks, we agreed that there was water a-plenty in Europe's western reaches. After much thought, I decided the only word for the weather in Ireland was "atrocious".
Back home in Nairobi, our garden is parched and brown, emaciated cows are meandering along the busy roads, rhinos are being moved from Nakuru national park to Nairobi national park because of the drought, friends of friends say the elephants have left Amboseli, the zebra are falling down and hippos are keeling over in ankle-deep mud. The drought is biting everywhere it seems -- except in the west where land is green and lush and flooded.
The power rationing is worse than when we left. We have no power during the day on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. (The Kenyan Power and Lighting Company said today the power cuts would end in October . I wonder if electricity bills will go back to normal then -- somehow I don't think so. The irony is that bills are going up even during rationing because the KPLC is using costly emergency generators.) Landlords in the poorer areas of Nairobi are drilling boreholes and charging their tenants for the water, which apparently often tastes bad.
The very tangible consequences of the drought have sharpened a political debate over the Mau forest -- a vital water tower which has been illegally settled and deforested over decades. Politicians are debating how to evict those settled there and, as so often here, the debate may be more about political alliances and allegiances ahead of 2012 than the actual environmental problems caused by the destruction of the Mau.
Other sturdy perennials are also making the news. Today, parliament was voting on whether or not to go into recess -- many MPs first want to debate President Mwai Kibaki's decision to reappoint Aaron Ringera as head of the Kenyan Anti-Corruption Commission. Some have decried Kibaki's decision as illegal and unconstitutional -- although there is some debate about the exact technicalities of the relevant law. Ringera is widely seen to have been ineffective and, well, Kenya's track record on corruption speaks for itself.
The Kenyan branch of Transparency International and the African Centre for Open Governance (AFRICOG) accused Kibaki of breaking the law.
"By unilaterally purporting to reappoint Ringera, Mwai Kibaki has attempted to deal the independence of the commission and its advisory board the decisive death-blow," AFRICOG's Gladwell Otieno told reporters.
Some might say the KACC had long been written off in many Kenyan minds, given the failure of this administration to seriously tackle endemic corruption.

Holidayzed and Confused

It's been hard to find time to write this blog now that school's out -- entertaining two excited young 'uns is a 24/7 task which leaves me struggling some evenings to remember my name. As for deciphering what's going on in Kenyan politics -- well, it's a tough job even when you haven't had a gaggle of sequined five-year-olds playing homicidal mermaids in the garden all afternoon.
But here goes.
Last week, the Kenyan cabinet said it would use the local judiciary to try those suspected of funding and inciting the post-election violence. This, predictably, has caused some outrage -- everyone acknowledges that the judiciary is backlogged, inefficient and all too open to influence. Human Rights Watch said the cabinet's decision to opt for using regular Kenyan courts was a failure. "Bringing justice to these victims is the most urgent test of the coalition government's willingness to resolve Kenya's crisis," said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "The Cabinet just resoundingly failed that test."
It appears the International Criminal Court (ICC) -- which has said it will step in if Kenya fails to prosecute the main suspects -- is so far holding fire. Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo told the Daily Nation that he would wait and see until September, when the Kenyan government is supposed to give an update on its progress.
Critics say that the cabinet's decision shows it has no desire to end impunity -- probably because this is quite a personal issue for some members of the coalition government. It says it will reform the police and the judiciary to ensure that the trials are fair and effective. Prime Minister Raila Odinga said: "We will reform the police force because people don’t want the police to prosecute themselves. We also realised that the Judiciary is riddled with corruption." (That statement is a fairly glaring indictment of the cabinet's decision.) Odinga went on to say: "We want to empower the office of the AG (Attorney-General) so that it can handle all the prosecutions. ICC can still come in if it feels some people need to be prosecuted at The Hague. But as of now the government wants to amend laws so that we can prosecute our own. The government will not accept to take its people to The Hague."
This is not acceptable to many Kenyans.
"The general feeling is that our government does not want to deal with impunity. Now by the cabinet refusing to heed to this recommendation by a very senior judge like Waki (the author of an early report naming those suspected of financing and inciting the violence), Kenyans are treating this as an act of cowardice. A government that is not prepared to face the truth and deal with the impunity that has been committed, and a government that is taking its citizens for granted," said James Mwamu, vice chairman of Kenya's law society.
There are voices of opposition even within the cabinet.
President Mwai Kibaki said last Thursday that the newly established Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) would also play a role in bringing the suspects to justice. But it is not particularly clear how much legal power the commission will have to punish those found guilty. Justice Minister Mutula Kilonzo said today that the TJRC is not equipped to deal with the post-election violence. “The law regarding the TJRC states clearly that this is not a criminal justice system but a mechanism to unite people,” he said. “Do not allow politicians to mislead you.”
Which is a pretty blunt warning from a politician. Kilonzo wanted to set up a special tribunal, but failed to win cabinet support. He wants the ICC to move to arrests by December.
It's hard to see how the ICC could possibly accept a decision to try these suspects in courts which are universally decried as inefficient and corrupt -- even by the prime minister. Some analysts are saying the cabinet decision shows Kibaki and Odinga have completely lost control . It does seem that the country's rulers are running scared, making policy on the back foot and alienating more and more people, at home and abroad (and I'm thinking here of the Obama administration), as they struggle to cram the post-election violence back into its Pandora's box. It seems unlikely they will succeed, and their open divisions and ongoing paralysis on this is certainly fuelling calls for a change of government.
It would appear the ball is now in Moreno Ocampo's camp. He cannot be seen to step on the toes of a sovereign government -- especially given public perceptions of the court in Africa -- but surely, he can only allow so much procrastination from the Kenyan government.

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Names are floating to the surface in Nairobi.
Kenya's National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) has published a report on those suspected of funding and inciting the post-election violence, just a week after peace broker Kofi Annan handed a list of top suspects to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, a prelude to the suspects being tried in the Hague if Kenya's authorities fail to judge them, fairly, here.
The KNCHR named over 200 people as suspects in organizing or financing the violence that killed around 1,500 people and displaced hundreds of thousands. The names include many who were already rumoured to be on the Annan list, although the KNCHR did not confirm that. They named Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, Tourism Minister Najib Balala, Police Chief Hussein Ali, plus other ministers and members of parliament. Many of those named in the KNCHR report have denied the allegations, faulting the report's conclusions as rumour or hearsay.
So what next? Kenyan authorities are supposed to come up with a concrete plan by September on setting up a local court, which should then be in place by next July.
But according to a survey, most Kenyans -- 68 percent of those questioned -- want the suspects tried at the Hague. It's not hard to see why -- in a state where corruption is a way of life, the idea that the powerful will be fairly judged is a tough one to embrace.
The coalition cabinet is due to meet on Monday to discuss the problem. They already met once since Annan handed over the envelope and failed to agree on a way forward -- no surprise to Kenyans who have watched the unlikely bedfellows squabble over policy and even protocol for months now. However, maybe the threat of international prosecution of members from both President Mwai Kibaki's PNU and Prime Minister Raila Odinga's ODM will at some point bring the rivals together to craft a solution to avoid the Hague.
That might not be the best result for Kenya.
I guess the options are fairly obvious:
-- The Kenyan authorities could set up a special tribunal to try the top suspects, but the leaders will have to persuade parliament, which has already rejected this idea once in February.
-- They could try to create a special court of some kind by decree bypassing parliament-- always knowing that the eyes of the ICC will be fixed on them to make sure they meet their standards.
-- The tottering government could, I suppose, call a snap election. Yes, that might unleash violence and chaos, but it might also delay the day of judgment and that might be worth the risk for some. In any case, no option is danger-free. This New York Times article quotes a former government human rights official, Maina Kiai , as saying that ethnic gangs are rearming themselves across the country, this time with guns not machetes or bows and arrows.
"(Kiai) contends that unless the culprits are punished for the killings last year, which included hacking up old men and burning toddlers to death, the next time there is a disputed election, which he thinks there surely will be, people will be emboldened to wreak havoc again."
Among those favouring the ICC option, some hope for the purging of a leadership that has become a byword for corruption. In this post, the writer says it is high time those who have milked the country for their own benefit be forced out. I would simply ask: are there enough clean, experienced political heavyweights on the bench to take their place?
I do think it is encouraging that a process is underway to attribute responsibility for the post-election killing. Too often, such violence in Africa is blamed on tribal tensions, as if that explained everything. But like anywhere else, tensions, tribal or otherwise, have to be inflamed, intimidation and retribution have to be funded, people have to be persuaded to set aside years of fraternity and turn on neighbours.
Away from pure politics, the drought is really beginning to take its toll on Nairobi (of course, it has been causing deaths and havoc in other parts of the country for many months now). Water rationing is getting tougher. Our house will have water from 9am on Monday until 3 pm on Tuesday, that's it for the week. And we are the lucky ones -- not least because someone before us had the foresight to install a really big water tank. Some neighbourhoods have had no water in three weeks. And while Mother Nature can be blamed for some of the shortages, she's being given a helping hand by criminal cartels working with some officials at the Nairobi water distribution company who have been selling water meant for the city to farmers upcountry.

Annan Pushes the Envelope

Kofi Annan has acted, and it appears it's game on again in the pursuit of those accused of masterminding Kenya's post-election killing.
The former U.N. Secretary-General and peace broker in Kenya's post-election chaos has delivered on his promise: handing an envelope of names of those suspected of being the fomentors and financiers of the post-election violence to the International Criminal Court. The list, drawn up by the Kenyan Waki Commission, is supposed to include businessmen and politicians -- some quite high up -- accused of inciting or funding the violence which claimed around 1,500 lives after the disputed 2007 poll. As Kenyans fought each other over the election result, Annan helped broker a power-sharing deal which led to a coalition government between President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who claimed Kibaki had stolen the vote. Annan has since repeatedly called for those deemed most responsible for the killings to face justice, giving two deadlines for action by Kenyan authorities, the most recent being August.
His decision to hand over the envelope came after Kenyan parliamentarians said they had agreed with the ICC that they would set up a local tribunal by 2010, or hand the case over to the court in the Hague. The parliamentarians also said they would inform the ICC of the progress of their investigations in September.
It would appear Annan is uncomfortable with seeing the issue put on the backburner in any way.
In a statement from Geneva, he said he welcomed Kenya's efforts to establish a special tribunal, but added that "any judicial mechanism adopted to bring the perpetrators of the post-election violence to justice must meet international legal standards and be broadly debated with all sectors of the Kenyan society in order to bring credibility to the process".
He also said: "Justice delayed is justice denied ... The people of Kenya want to see concrete progress on impunity. Without such progress, the reconciliation between ethnic groups and the long-term stability of Kenya is in jeopardy."
Some Kenyan parliamentarians have praised Annan. One MP, Adan Duale from Dujis, said: "Nobody should panic. This is the best and only way we are going to have a fair investigation. It is just to the victims and the accused."
One imagines however that there probably is a pinch of panic in the corridors of power right now.
It's interesting that Annan seems to be taking the role of tough guy on this issue, while once outspoken ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo has adopted a somewhat more conciliatory tone, as his comments as in this Reuters interview show. Saying there would be no impunity, the prosecutor said: "They (the Kenyan parliamentarians) said that in September they will come with a specific plan ... They think they will take one year ... They can decide. It's their decision. I am not imposing a deadline." Moreno-Ocampo's comments certainly seemed to offer some wriggle-room to the Kenyan authorities, but the fact that Annan has handed over the sealed envelope of names has upped the ante again.

Why the Delay?

It's hard to fathom what is going on with plans to judge those deemed responsible for Kenya's post-election violence in 2007/08.
Just a month ago, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, a peace broker in the post-poll chaos, said the coalition government had to take concrete steps towards setting up a local tribunal by the end of August or he would hand an envelope with the names of the top suspects to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague. Now, it seems Kenyan parliamentarians have agreed with the ICC to set up a local tribunal by July 2010, or then hand the case over to the ICC.
On Friday, the ICC prosecutor gave Kenya 12 months to set up a special tribunal, saying his was a court of last resort.
A statement released after a meeting of Kenyan ministers and Luis Moreno-Ocampo said: “If there is no parliamentary agreement, and in accordance with the Kenya Government’s commitment to end impunity of those responsible for the most serious crimes, the Government of Kenya will refer the situation to the prosecutor in accordance with Article 14 of the Rome Statute
Why the delay? It's a bit of a thumbsucker given that until recently speed seemed to be the order of the day. In June, Annan said: "If it (a local tribunal) is not established within a reasonable period in this case towards the end of August, I will have no option but to hand over the envelope to the ICC to take over from there."
So is the ICC getting cold feet? Is this the effect of increasingly vocal opposition on the continent to a court that is perceived by many to focus most of its attention on Africa, while ignoring human rights abuses by leaders/governments in other regions?
On Saturday, AU ministers passed a resolution to deny the ICC cooperation regarding Sudan's indicted President Omar al Bashir. They argued that the chaos in Darfur, which his indictment was meant to address, might escalate if an arrest warrant for him is executed
Or is this because the war in Kenya's neighbour Somalia -- where foreign fighters are said to be joining the militant al Shabaab group against the Western-backed transitional government -- means that anything that might cause instability in Kenya is now too high-risk a strategy. This post certainly thinks so.
In other words, a strong Kenya -- or at least a Kenya that is not openly at war with itself as a court tries to pin blame on those most responsible for the post-election violence -- is needed to help thwart al Shabaab and its allies, and hold this most recent, and increasingly violent, front in the "war on terror".
Kenya is vulnerable. Last week, the US-based Fund for Peace and Foreign Policy Institute ranked it 14th in its list of failed states -- that's below North Korea, Yemen and Ethiopia. Last year, it was in 26th place. And perhaps the international community thinks that a vulnerable albeit imperfect state next-door to a state that harbours al Qaeda allies needs support, more than justice.

I would be interested to know what Annan has to say about this deadline change, which certainly takes the pressure off the Kenyan government. With a 12-month deadline, you can't help but think that the issue is being swept under the carpet. A lot can happen in a year in politics.

Security Forces Under Fire

Kenya's security forces are in the news again, and again it's bad news. A report by U.S.-based Human Rights Watch accuses them of torture and rape during an operation to disarm feuding clans in North Eastern province -- a volatile region near Kenya's borders with Ethiopia and Somalia -- last October. According to HRW, "scores" of men were tortured, at least a dozen women raped, and over 1,200 people wounded during the three-day operation.
"Some men had their genitals pulled with pliers, tied with wire or beaten senselessly as a method of torture designed to make them confess and turn over guns," the report said.
"This was clearly an operation directed from above. And the torture that we described in this report was systematic and widespread, so much so that we believe there is a good case to be made that crimes against humanity were committed," said Kenneth Roth, HRW executive director. The brutality was not very effective. Some families reportedly bought guns from Somalia to hand over to the security forces and get them off their backs.
As with other allegations of abuse, the authorities have denied the charges in the HRW report."The story of torture and rape by our forces does not exist. Anyone who says so needs psychiatric help," police spokesman Eric Kiraithe told Reuters.
HRW is calling for the removal of the police commissioner and the attorney-general -- the same demand made by UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston in a report earlier this year that found that police in Kenya kill often, and with impunity.
But the two men -- Hussein Ali and Amos Wako -- are still in their jobs. If anything, the Alston report in some ways served to boost defenders of the security forces, some of whom argued that the U.N. rapporteur was meddling in Kenya's sovereign affairs -- always a popular argument on a continent where many view the West and its institutions with suspicion, and not without justification.
Security in Kenya is not a simple subject of course. Some Kenyans will tell you the police and security forces have a difficult, thankless job. Gun crime is on the rise, kidnappings for ransom are becoming more common, carjackings are reportedly in double-figures every night in Nairobi and some say illegal weapons smuggled in from Somalia are fueling a nationwide crime spree. Criminals will shoot with impunity -- three CID officers were shot dead while on patrol in Athi River on Saturday -- and some might argue so should the police, especially given the snail's pace of justice in this country (another failing that has been laid at the Attorney-General's door).
President Mwai Kibaki has announced a national task force to put police reforms on a fast track, but it is hard to see how you can change a deeply entrenched culture of impunity and excess if you do not change the leadership under which this has flourished.
The rot in the security forces does not just manifest itself in excesses against civilians and criminals. There are worrying signs of internal feuding among the police as well.
On Saturday, two senior administration policemen were gunned down by their regular police counterparts in Mombasa. It's not clear why: the regular police said the APs were with a group of gangsters and preparing a robbery. Some witnesses said this was not the case. Some APs said their colleagues were killed because of their investigations into the drugs trade on the coast. Internal Security Minister George Saitoti has ordered an inquiry. But beyond the details, it is clear that with insecurity on the rise, and faith in the security forces at a low, talk of internal feuding only adds to the feeling that serious top-down reform is urgently needed.

Kenya and Somalia

Mogadishu's gutted streets are more than 1,000 kms (and a universe) away from the leafy 'burbs of Nairobi but the shockwaves from Somalia's latest bout of fighting are rippling through to the Kenyan capital. Not to get caught up in paranoia, but warnings of potential attacks by Somali militant Islamists seem to be increasing. Just last week, I was advised by friends to stay away from two public places popular with foreigners because of security warnings. It's frustrating not to know where the information comes from -- is it bonafide intelligence, Kenyan or otherwise; chatter on the Internet; something else? Today's Daily Nation offered one explanation : the suspect visit to Nairobi of two British businessmen -- one of Lebanese origin, the other Egyptian -- in February which led to a raid on their host's home, unearthing pictures of shopping malls on his computer and what police described as terrorist training material.
There can be no doubt that Nairobi offers a smorgasbord of soft targets. Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula may have reassured foreigners that diplomatic police are on high alert, but there is little evidence of heightened security at some of the more obvious places. Then, this weekend, things moved up a level.
Somalia's transitional government appealed to Kenya, Ethiopia, Yemen and Djibouti to send troops within 24 hours to fight its Islamist foes. Of course, troops did not materialise -- at least officially --but Wetangula has appeared to suggest that Kenya's door is open to military intervention. "We will not sit by and watch the situation in Somalia deteriorate beyond where it is. We have a duty ... as a government to protect our strategic interests including our security," he said. "Kenya will do exactly that to ensure the unfolding developments in Somalia do not in any way undermine or affect our peace and security as a country."
(Ethiopia, which sent troops in in 2006 to support the then government, denies there are any of its soldiers in Somalia now. Residents in central Somalia say, though, that they have seen them and there are fresh reports of Ethiopians on the ground.)
Then al Shabaab said it would attack Nairobi if Kenya got involved.
"If it tries to, we will attack Kenya and destroy the tall buildings of Nairobi," Sheik Hasan Yacqub, an al Shabaab spokesman, said in Kismayo. Al Shabaab has threatened to seize part of Kenya's northeast in the past, but this latest menace is more emotive and has global resonance.
The possibility of Kenyan intervention -- as part of a wider "coalition of the willing" or on its own, in soldiers or in hardware or logistics -- is intriguing, not just for its effect on Somalia.
Would intervention create the national identity that so many commentators say is missing here -- nothing like a common enemy to bring people together. What would be the effect on the hundreds of thousands of Somalis in Kenya -- not just in squalid refugee camps like Dadaab but also in Eastleigh in Nairobi? Would intervention improve Kenya's somewhat fractious relationship with the Obama administration (the terror alerts put a whole new perspective on Obama's decision to visit Ghana on his African trip)? And how exposed is Nairobi, and wider Kenya, to attacks by al Shabaab or some of the hundreds of hardened foreign fighters who have come to Somalia to wage jihad?
Intervention of any kind is risky, but leaving Somalia to become an entrenched training ground for al Qaeda and its allies in east Africa is a real danger. Maybe we are at a tipping point where the international community has decided that a failed Somalia is no longer just another African "basket case" that draws sympathy but little else, but instead is everybody's problem. A glimmer of hope perhaps for the residents of Mogadishu, where around 300 people have been killed in fighting just since May 7.
For a look at what some people think of foreign intervention, check out the BBC's Have Your Say

This Time I Mean It

Kofi Annan has set another deadline for Kenya's politicians. This time, the former U.N. Secretary-General, who brokered a political deal between President Mwai Kibaki's PNU and Prime Minister Raila Odinga's ODM after the 2007 elections, has said he will hand over a list of those suspected of fomenting post-election violence to the International Criminal Court if Kenya does not set up a local tribunal before the end of August. This is Annan's second deadline. The first was in March. The list of 10 top suspects is believed to include politicians and businessmen, and clearly shining any light on this bloody, murky period will be a risky business.
Justice Minister Mutula Kilonzo says Kenya is not ready to set up a local tribunal. He says the country is still too polarized. The funerals last month of those burnt alive in a church during the post-election crisis showed just how fresh the wounds are, and how far we are from real reconciliation. I'm pretty cynical about politicians generally but the fact that Raila's ODM and the Kalenjin community did not attend this most symbolic of funerals shocked me, and made me wonder what is needed to bring the different groups together and rebuild trust. Maybe a local tribunal would help -- like the gacacas in Rwanda -- but a tribunal without trust would only inflame mutual suspicions. There have been few signs from members of the bickering government that they are selfless enough to set up the kind of tribunal that might really investigate who funded the violence, who incited it and who carried it out. Also it is hard to see how a genuine search for justice can take place when most Kenyan politicians are already in campaigning mode for 2012 and, according to their own members, preparing warchests.
It's a strange time in Nairobi. There is heightened security because of threats from radical Islamists in Somalia -- it's hard to judge just how serious the risks are but Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula has assured embassies that the diplomatic police are on high alert. That is not really encouraging. Then, there are rising fears about crime. It's always hard to gauge how much of this is hyperbole, but kidnappings for ransom certainly seem to be on the rise, and some friends say nobody wants to live in stand-alone houses anymore for fears of break-ins. The Mungiki sect and vigilantes are waging a brutal, unforgiving, uncensored war in the Rift Valley, according to today's Daily Nation. And in Nairobi, millions are living lives so devoid of hope that violence, for anybody or any reason, could easily, one imagines, seem less crushing than suffering in silence. For a really damning report on what life is like away from the muzak-filled shopping malls and latte-serving coffee shops that I and many expats frequent, check out this story: "Exploited by landlords, threatened by police, extorted by gangs, the slums in Nairobi are a human rights black hole where residents are deprived of basic services, denied security and excluded from having a say on their future," Amnesty International Secretary-General Irene Khan told reporters.
It all adds up to a very unstable environment. Throw in a row over prosecuting those responsible for the post-election violence and the potential naming of powerful names, and things could get even more volatile.

KENYA DELTA BLOW

The decision by Delta Air Lines to cancel its inaugural flight from Atlanta to Nairobi last week was an intriguing event. I can understand that Delta might be worried about flying into Jomo Kenyatta International Airport -- officials insist they have met all the security requirements to allow direct flights but the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) failed to clear the route at the last moment because of "noted security vulnerabilities in and around Nairobi." (One of the most striking things about living in Nairobi is the softness of potential terrorist targets around the city -- and this at a time when Kenya has been condemned by hardline Islamist militants fighting in Somalia for its role in supporting their enemies there.)
What I did not understand about the Delta affair was the max-impact timing of the announcement -- the day before the inaugural flight was due to land.
It's intriguing because there are so many possible reasons for the headline-grabbing move. Perhaps the truth is stranded somewhere between the press releases, angry comments and off-the-record briefings from all sides.
Some Kenyan officials were furious. Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula summoned outspoken U.S. ambassador Michael Ranneberger to his office to demand an explanation. Wetangula made the not unreasonable point that "great friends like Kenya and America" do not have to communicate through website postings" -- unless, I suppose, one of the great friends is trying to make a very deliberate point about how it views the other. The United States has been pretty outspoken about what it perceives as the failings of the Kenyan government and maybe the timing of the Delta decision was a deliberate or at least serendipitous slap on the wrist.
Ranneberger said the decision to cancel the flight was taken at the last minute and had nothing to do with the situation in neighbouring Somalia where hundreds of foreign fighters have joined Islamist insurgents fighting against President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed's Western-backed government. Even if the threat was Somalia-linked -- and insurgents have threatened Kenya before now -- this risk is not new. So one wonders why the Delta decision had to be so last-minute.
Was it a deliberately provocative message to the Kenyan government from the Obama administration that unless you shape up, we are going to play diplomatic hardball? Was there a real, in-the-moment threat to the flight and if so, from whom and how viable was it? And indeed what is being done to track down the people responsible for that threat?
Or perhaps beyond politics, economics played a role. This story points out that Delta plans to cut international capacity beginning in September. So maybe the Nairobi route is no longer a priority? It's a tough time for airlines globally and the decision to halt the Nairobi flight did not pertain to Delta alone, but perhaps economics was at least part of the overall picture.
Some Kenyan officials say they expect the Atlanta-Nairobi flights to begin shortly.

Hard truths

A government delegation travelled to Geneva this week to respond to a U.N. report condemning police impunity, corruption and hundreds of extrajudicial killings in Kenya. U.N. special rapporteur Philip Alston's report was both condemned and cautiously accepted with some caveats by the government when it was released a few months ago -- a typically divided response from a coalition team at war with itself. These divisions were still festering as the team got ready to leave for Geneva to testify before the U.N. Human Rights Council. Prime Minister Raila Odinga's ODM party took umbrage because their people were not included in the delegation. Later, two of their members were added. But a joint position on the report was not hammered out until the team got to Geneva, and only then during late-night negotiations between the ODM members and those from President Mwai Kibaki's PNU.
In the end, the team -- which included Internal Security Minister George Saitoti, Attorney-General Amos Wako and Justice Minister Mutula Kilonzo -- agreed to respect human rights and implement some of the recommendations of the Alston report. They did not, however, accept the special rapporteur's call for the Attorney-General and the head of police to be sacked.
So far so predictable.
What really got people talking in Nairobi was the cost of the trip -- helpfully totted up on the Daily Nation's front page. First class air tickets, hotel rooms and generous daily allowances for the 13-member team came to 5 million shillings, the paper said. "It remains to be seen if that is a prudent use of public funds at a time when the economy is on the decline and the Treasury is cutting costs to keep the country afloat," the Daily Nation opined, presumably tongue-in-cheek.
Of course, government officials must travel. It would be naive to think otherwise. But perhaps in a country where 10 million people risk going hungry especially in the dry, far-flung reaches of the north, where children are malnourished in urban slums like Kibera , where Nakumatt supermarkets have a permanent container where shoppers can donate maize, cereals and other necessities for the hungry, a humble gesture from the government -- like flying economy perhaps -- might be appreciated. It would be so easy and would play well in the press. It would also be the right thing to do and if morality is not your thing, one could imagine it might win over the hearts of some frustrated wananchi, the voters of tomorrow. You have to wonder if the failure to make any sort of gesture in these hard times shows arrogance, ignorance or naivety. It certainly makes one question the connection between those in power and the people they represent.
The second interesting thing about the Geneva jaunt was what Kilonzo told the U.N. Human Rights Council about ethnicity and tribalism -- the ghost at the table that influences so much in Kenya but whose name is rarely evoked, at least directly.
Kilonzo blamed Kenya's dire human rights record on unemployment and inequality. He may have been seeking scapegoats for the government's failure to end the culture of impunity that runs from filching company stationery and demanding bribes to shoot-to-kill policies among the police but Kibaki's team might justifiably be asked what they have done to substantively address these twin root causes. This aside, Kilonzo went on to deliver a startlingly frank assessment of Kenya's problems: "Ineffective justice and dispute resolution mechanisms continue to promote impunity which is complicated by low public confidence," he said. "To a large extent, ethnicity poses a significant challenge in Kenya where there is a weak sense of national values, and politics is mainly driven by ethnically-based party vehicles and coalitions."
He also sketched out a solution: "Kenya’s future as a nation depends largely on the resolution of a twin-challenge: the need to recognise and celebrate diversity, and the need to build a strong and cohesive national character."
It would be great if politicians from all parties pinned these words above their desks -- this kind of clear thinking may well be in short supply as the race for 2012 picks up pace.

Men and women in Kenya

Is endemic corruption changing the relationship between the sexes in Kenya? Are men generally being equated with politicians, gangsters or conmen in a country that is losing faith in the former and struggling to deal with the latter?
I have heard that women are quicker now to abandon men who let them down, either by failing to hold down a job, drinking their wages, or just generally not measuring up to expectations. Women are happy to hook up and have children but if the men don't deliver, they are also ready to walk, presumably if their financial situation allows it. I wonder if this is a symptom of general disillusionment with the governing classes, traditionally dominated by men, now distilled into the home?
And if women are taking the lead in the home and showing less tolerance for men's foibles, is there room for a similar shift in politics?
That was the thrust of an article in Saturday's Daily Nation, which argued that women must step up and lead. I might take issue with a few of the names listed as role models for women -- Margaret Thatcher is always difficult to sanctify -- but the final paragraphs are interesting.
Columnist Gitau Gikonyo writes: "Today most of our young men have become useless, sorry figures of men, all in a daze, hooked on substances ... The heart of the matter is that men are cry babies. I am yet to come across a circumcised man who can agree to undergo the ritual a second time. Yet he will send a woman to the delivery room many times. The writing is on the wall. Men have failed and women must now step up and take the lead."
Some might argue the comments are flippant and easy, but the idea that something new is needed in Kenyan politics seems to be a popular one.
I'm not sure though that the fact that Jimmy Kibaki, the president's increasingly voluble son, is warming up to enter the political fray by running for his father's seat in Othaya qualifies as a new beginning.
As the battle for 2012 goes on, in the increasingly irrelevant present there was more bad news for the economy -- remittances by Kenyans living abroad dropped 15 percent from January to April, compared to the year before. That dry statistic probably means some people won't be eating much. According to the UN's World Food Programme, the price of maize has risen by up to 130 percent in Nairobi and 85 percent in Mombasa over the past year. Cooking fuel prices have risen by 30 to 50 percent and the cost of water by 90 to 155 percent. This story details just what those enormous rises mean inside places like Kibera, Nairobi's massive slum. The article quotes Oxfam GB's Alun McDonald as saying: "But the urban crisis is not just about poverty - it is also about governance ...Citizens need to have affordable access to basic services such as water and healthcare. Given the political tensions in Kenya at the moment, having hundreds of thousands of increasingly poor and hungry families could well lead to further instability on the streets of Nairobi - and potentially other cities."
We've seen some of that instability in recent weeks with the clashes between police and mechanics at Nairobi's Globe Roundabout, and rioting by hawkers in Mombasa's Central Business District. Yes, the causes are different -- in Mombasa, hawkers were ordered out of the CBD some months ago and they say they can't make a living; the Nairobi spat is about jua kali (informal) mechanics being forced off land that has been purchased by a mosque. The similarities -- angry young men (mostly) with nothing to lose venting their frustrations by attacking the symbols of authority immediately available to them eg police or firetrucks. Other places and other times have shown that that kind of anger can easily be harnessed and channelled into something much more dangerous.
And finally, a sad story from inside the Daily Nation: just 11 lines but in some ways, it tells you more about problems facing Kenya than columns of analysis and opeds:
"A woman was stabbed to death using a spear by cattle rustlers. Ms Lankesya Leshaleke, 40, was herding goats and sheep at Kandutura village in Rumuruti Division when two men emerged from a thicket and confronted her. One of them was armed with an AK-47 rifle while the other had a spear. She died while undergoing treatment at a Nyahururu hospital. All the animals were stolen."
Disputes over land and resources, access to weapons, desperation and poverty. A potent mix.

GOOD VIBES IN NAIROBI

National politics may be byzantine and frustrating; city traffic may be atrocious and yes, there is a fair dollop of crime, but after six months, I can safely say we are loving Nairobi.
Just a few of our favourite things:
1. Where else can you take the children to see their own sponsored elephant after school? We bounce along a rutted road to the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust as the sun sprints lower; red dust rises as the baby elephants trot from the bush ahead of their green-coated keepers; you can stroke the baby rhino in the red coat. Beats going for a muffin at Starbucks in Belsize Park any day.
2. The drumming of the rain on the roof when you wake in the middle of the night. Maybe it's because I'm Irish, but I find it soothing, especially if I know we've put saucepans under the ever-evolving leaks!
3. Watching our daughter, who used to be terrified of putting her head under water, now swimming almost exclusively underwater, sometimes without goggles, and mostly without (apparently) breathing. (This is accompanied by maternal daydreams about what I will wear when I am standing next to Michael Phelps' mum at the Swimming Hall of Fame ceremony in a few years).
4. Driving with the girls along Peponi Road, looking out for horses, cows, spooky trees.
5. Hanging out at the Jolly Roger on a Sunday afternoon, watching the girls going mad on one of the six or seven bouncy castles or sitting uncharacteristically still for the dreams-come-true face painters (and also, it has to be said, the naughty thrill of wondering if the electricity will be cut while someone is on the rather high inflatable water slide....)
6. Being able to get out of Nairobi in just over an hour, speeding along the good road to Naivasha, climbing until we get that first always-eye-popping glimpse of the Rift Valley, counting the donkeys and shouting when we see the first warthog or zebra on the side of the road.
7. Waking up with the most amazing dawn chorus of birds -- I was convinced one bird outside our window was a bloke the other day, the tune was so complicated. I didn't worry too much though. I figured burglars or general no-gooders would probably not be whistling in the middle of their nefarious deeds.
8. Sitting with a cool Tusker watching the girls dig sandcastles, make sand cakes and scream like dervishes at Peppers on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
9. Driving to school with the girls shouting "Asante Sana" (which I think my youngest believes refers in some way to Santa Claus) at the askari; or "Go away Matatus"; or "Mummy, bambulahead" (yes, they have been to too many puppet shows!).
10. The unbelievable thrill of thinking a monkey might live in the trees around our house. No evidence or sightings yet, but the potential is enough to brighten the dullest day.
11. My own morning pick-me-ups: Gado's cartoons in the Daily Nation and the same newspaper's stars. Uncannily accurate and no boring stuff about the need to manage your finances.

Check out Rafiki Kenya's blog for a great comprehensive list of places to eat and play in Nairobi.

Manic Monday

Just an hour earlier, we had been watching a limpid sun sink into scrubby bushes at the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust as we waited for the blanketed baby elephants to waddle in from the bush, gulp down their milk and snuggle up in the straw for the night. Now, we were stuck in a Nairobi nightmare of tooting horns, stalled cars, and rising tempers. A bus had bumped a matatu at the junction of James Gichuru and Gitanga Rd -- a maddeningly anarchic and dangerous junction at the best of times and one that is crying out for a set of traffic lights. The big bus was now blocking the centre of the junction, but Nairobi's drivers were unfazed. Cars, trucks, jam-packed matatus inched their way around the obstacle. But patience is not a valued virtue in this town, and especially not on the roads. So the go-slow soon degenerated into an unbridled free-for-all with the biggest and the ballsiest ploughing their way into the melee, while those of a more timorous bent speedily u-turned out of trouble. My husband is not the timorous kind. Plus we had two just-about-to-turn-cranky girls in the back and only about 35 Smarties left in the giant tube we had brought with us for just this sort of eventuality. No time for seeking alternate routes through to Waiyaki Way. So we edged around the bus in the centre of the junction, only to find five lanes -- yes five if you count the puddled mud path, which several drivers did -- of oncoming traffic sprawled across James Gichuru (usually a two-way road). A bit like Lady Macbeth, we could go neither forward nor backwards. So we cursed and harangued and stubbornly held our ground until a sliver of space opened somewhere, allowing a infinitesimal shifting of metal which let us shimmy through to the clear road beyond. After listening without comment to their father's ranting (which included liberal use of several banned words), our eldest opined in a calm measured tone: "It's a bad night tonight." Not to be outdone, our two-year-old took up the call: "This a bad road, Daddy, this a bad road" she chimed, waggling her chubby fingers at the dark outside the windows.
Indeed. On Waiyaki Way, a Hummer had sideswiped a BMW while crossing from one lane to the next and we nearly met our end when a Tanzanian-registered truck pulled into the hard shoulder before our turn-off and then just stopped. There were no Smarties left at this point.
A slice of life .... or a metaphor for a country where a governmental go-slow is degenerating into a free-for-all where rules no longer exist and the little man is the only victim? I might have to have a few more Smarties before ruling on that one.
There has been no let-up in the steady stream of corruption allegations -- Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta is still making front pages over the 9.2 billion shilling discrepancy in his supplementary budget. After first saying there was nothing wrong with the numbers, Kenyatta then said the mistake was due to a typing or computer error. His allies have blamed a plot by political enemies at the Treasury. But President Mwai Kibaki's son, Jimmy, has assured Kenyatta that he has the head of state's backing. The Daily Nation said: Senior Treasury officials who could not be quoted because they are not authorised to reveal the information suspected that the alteration was an outcome of the succession battles enveloping the government and its departments, raising questions over the extent to which politics is affecting the functioning of the coalition government." I would tentatively suggest that the answer to those questions might be: a lot.

I am reading Michela Wrong's "It's our turn to eat" at the moment and among the most startling things, for me, is the way all the names are the same as the ones in the newspapers today. Many of the ministers and political figures implicated in or linked in one way or another to the Anglo-Leasing scandal or the Goldenburg affair are still in the public eye, many even in public office. Yes, some were fired but were soon reinstated. So maybe this coalition government will manage to survive the weekly drip-drip of corruption allegations. Afterall, they are no worse than the previous graft scandals which arguably came with more evidence of wrongdoing. However, I still tend towards the view that a tipping point must be reached at some point -- a place where political expediency for one of the coalition parties will mesh with public frustration and force some kind of change.