It was a striking image: black-and-white passport-style photos of 24 men said to have disappeared after they were arrested or taken by police in Kenya. The faces filled a page in Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper this week. I don't know the histories of these men -- some smiling, some serious, some staring at the camera with that opaque look that you sometimes see in pictures of recently deceased people that makes you wonder if somehow they knew -- but the montage seemed a damning indictment of a judicial system that this week was roundly denounced by a U.N. official.
Philip Alston, a U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions, released a report on Wednesday, saying that Kenya's police chief and attorney-general should be fired because of hundreds of alleged murders in recent years by security forces. Alston, who spent 10 days in Kenya, looked into killings during violence after the 2007 elections which opposition leaders said were rigged, as well as extra-judicial executions linked to a police crackdown on the illegal Mungiki sect -- a feared criminal gang -- and on suspected rebels in Mount Elgon.
Alston said the police were a law unto themselves: "Killings by police in Kenya are systematic, widespread, and carefully planned. They are committed at will and with utter impunity on a regular basis by the Kenyan police," he said in his report. The security forces have denied the allegations.
Alston also implicates the army in torture and disappearances in Mount Elgon -- including units trained by Britain. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article5805036.ece
The government has said it would study the report -- after dismissive early comments by spokesman Alfred Mutua who accused Alston of almost infringing the sovereignty of the country. But the coalition is clearly not happy about the rapporteur's conclusions, which come almost exactly one year after post-election violence that killed around 1,300 people, including around 400 allegedly murdered by police.
The Alston report obviously heaps extra pressure on a struggling coalition team, crippled by a steady drip-drip of corruption revelations, paralysed by party posturing for power in 2012 and rapidly losing the confidence of the Kenyan public. Some civic leaders have warned of demonstrations if the police chief and attorney-general are not sacked -- but so far, Kenya does not strike me as a place of fervent protest. And yet, there is a groundswell of discontent fuelled by corruption scandals, government inaction over calls for a local tribunal to try those suspected of fomenting the deadly close-quarter 2007/8 killings and a perception that life is getting harder as the world economy slumps.http://www.eastandard.net/InsidePage.php?id=1144007669&cid=4
As an outsider and newcomer, I have been shocked by how many times I read in newspapers about shootouts in which four, five or six armed bandits are gunned down by police -- it seems to indicate a "shoot-to-kill" policy that offers no reprieve and demands a high price in civilian casualties. And yet, there seems to be no outcry.
I know crime is a serious problem here -- and bizarrely it seems to target those least able to pay the price in the poorer suburbs of Nairobi. Police have released a 30-minute documentary detailing the alleged crimes of the Mungiki sect, including testimony from people who said their relatives were beheaded when they refused to join the sect. However, there is something wrong if the only way to do that is to descend to the very level of the criminals you are trying to combat. http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/-/440808/535264/-/43hjh7/-/
Is Kenya -- east Africa's strongest economy -- only able to deal with crime with a hail of often indiscriminate bullets?
The Alston report must offer some relief to those who have seen family members disappear and who feel vindicated in their beliefs that the police -- or alleged death squads like the notorious but officially disbanded Kwekwe -- are responsible. But how do you start to correct a problem which has its roots in a culture of impunity that goes far beyond the police? Alston described Attorney-General Amos Wako as the "embodiment of the phenomenon of impunity" but his removal alone will not miraculously solve the problem. Surely, such a monumental change in perception among Kenyan security forces must come from the very top. And for now, the government seems to be in no mind -- and perhaps in no position -- to enforce the rule of law.
Friday 27 February 2009
Monday 23 February 2009
KITU KIDOGO
Everyone is talking about corruption in Kenya. The newspapers are bursting with the latest revelations from the maize scandal -- which threatened the downfall of Agriculture Minister William Ruto but this wily politician from the Rift Valley appears to have survived for now. Before this, we had the Triton affair, whereby Kenya Pipeline Company officials were said to have sold oil illegally to the now defunct firm. Adding to the furore, journalist and author Michela Wrong's book "It's Our Turn To Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistleblower" has been serialized in local newspapers, shining fresh light on the Anglo-Leasing scandal over security contracts and the murky forces that drove John Githongo, Kenya's former anti-corruption commissioner, into exile in London.
The picture that emerges from all this is of a country unable to fulfil its true potential until there has been a sea-change in the way it is governed. Kenya is East Africa's strongest economy as it is, one can only imagine what it could be if public service truly became just that, rather than an opportunity to enrich oneself and one's immediate community. President Mwai Kibaki took over from Daniel Arap Moi in 2002 promising to rid the country of graft. It appears that whatever the intentions, the reality is that graft is back as a way of life after a brief period underground. And now everyone is talking about it too.
Quite apart from the ramifications for business, social stability and public morale, endemic corruption like this -- and Kenya is by no means alone in Africa or the world -- is also a dangerous political force. Corruption allows those in power to build warchests to remain in office, spurring others to emulate them to try to advance their own cause. If corruption is the oil that greases the political wheel, the system is doomed to deliver rulers incapable of breaking the cycle. Especially if the body politic is divided on tribal or ethnic lines that turn every issue into a "them-or-us" affair.
Kenya and other African countries have no monopoly on corruption -- the financial crisis sweeping the globe has shown that skulduggery in high places had become widespread, and stealing is stealing whether the thief is a sweaty customs officer on a remote border post in Africa or a millionaire hedge fund manager with an airy office overlooking New York's Central Park. But when twinned with ethnic divisions in countries where need is so great, it is especially destructive and dangerous. Clearly, African governments bear responsibility but so too do Western and other foreign companies that offer and deliver kickbacks, the donors who give without due diligence in terms of accountability for the funds disbursed and international organisations who turn a blind eye to graft when it suits their broader plan.
In Kenya,corruption is feeding a divisive system that slithers under every aspect of political life and burst above ground in the violence after the 2007 polls. Corruption allows politicians to buy votes and pay militias, spending their way to victory and prolonging the vicious cycle.
I was struck while reading about the Ruto affair, and the debate in parliament to censure him, by how often political parties were equated with communities, and by that I understood the tribal groups that back them. If all politics in Kenya boils down to whose turn it is to rule -- the Kikuyu, the Kalenjin, the Luo, the Luhya etc -- then it is hard to imagine ever getting a government for all Kenyans. Perhaps the recent conference held by Kibaki's coalition to discover the "Kenya We Want", should have been about the kind of Kenyans who can bring this about. Whatever the origins of the tribal rivalries -- and these have only been exacerbated by last year's violence -- Kenya will need to bring its people together with one vision to break the cycle.
Corruption can only be eradicated from the top down. And maybe to truly want to do that, you have to genuinely want to rule for all of Kenya. Perhaps I'm wrong, but right now it's hard to see that vision prevailing in 2012.
These are just my superficial thoughts but for a thought-provoking look at tribalism in Kenya, it's worth checking out this article:http://www.kenyaimagine.com/23-Fresh-Content/Social-Issues/Ethnicity-abounds-Kenyas-identity-crisis.html
The picture that emerges from all this is of a country unable to fulfil its true potential until there has been a sea-change in the way it is governed. Kenya is East Africa's strongest economy as it is, one can only imagine what it could be if public service truly became just that, rather than an opportunity to enrich oneself and one's immediate community. President Mwai Kibaki took over from Daniel Arap Moi in 2002 promising to rid the country of graft. It appears that whatever the intentions, the reality is that graft is back as a way of life after a brief period underground. And now everyone is talking about it too.
Quite apart from the ramifications for business, social stability and public morale, endemic corruption like this -- and Kenya is by no means alone in Africa or the world -- is also a dangerous political force. Corruption allows those in power to build warchests to remain in office, spurring others to emulate them to try to advance their own cause. If corruption is the oil that greases the political wheel, the system is doomed to deliver rulers incapable of breaking the cycle. Especially if the body politic is divided on tribal or ethnic lines that turn every issue into a "them-or-us" affair.
Kenya and other African countries have no monopoly on corruption -- the financial crisis sweeping the globe has shown that skulduggery in high places had become widespread, and stealing is stealing whether the thief is a sweaty customs officer on a remote border post in Africa or a millionaire hedge fund manager with an airy office overlooking New York's Central Park. But when twinned with ethnic divisions in countries where need is so great, it is especially destructive and dangerous. Clearly, African governments bear responsibility but so too do Western and other foreign companies that offer and deliver kickbacks, the donors who give without due diligence in terms of accountability for the funds disbursed and international organisations who turn a blind eye to graft when it suits their broader plan.
In Kenya,corruption is feeding a divisive system that slithers under every aspect of political life and burst above ground in the violence after the 2007 polls. Corruption allows politicians to buy votes and pay militias, spending their way to victory and prolonging the vicious cycle.
I was struck while reading about the Ruto affair, and the debate in parliament to censure him, by how often political parties were equated with communities, and by that I understood the tribal groups that back them. If all politics in Kenya boils down to whose turn it is to rule -- the Kikuyu, the Kalenjin, the Luo, the Luhya etc -- then it is hard to imagine ever getting a government for all Kenyans. Perhaps the recent conference held by Kibaki's coalition to discover the "Kenya We Want", should have been about the kind of Kenyans who can bring this about. Whatever the origins of the tribal rivalries -- and these have only been exacerbated by last year's violence -- Kenya will need to bring its people together with one vision to break the cycle.
Corruption can only be eradicated from the top down. And maybe to truly want to do that, you have to genuinely want to rule for all of Kenya. Perhaps I'm wrong, but right now it's hard to see that vision prevailing in 2012.
These are just my superficial thoughts but for a thought-provoking look at tribalism in Kenya, it's worth checking out this article:http://www.kenyaimagine.com/23-Fresh-Content/Social-Issues/Ethnicity-abounds-Kenyas-identity-crisis.html
Sunday 22 February 2009
BURNING BUSH IN NAKURU
I suppose trying to book flights to Mombasa on Wednesday for the half-term weekend was always a bad idea. But every cloud... as they say. We finally ended up going to Nakuru National Park, driving up on Thursday from Nairobi for a two-night stay that turned out to be just as good, if not better, than our memories of our first trip to Kenya's soothing, soporific Indian Ocean coast.
The park was perfect for our demanding little 'uns. Three hours in the car is about their limit, and that's even if there are rhinos snorting, giraffes gambolling and baboons scratching right in front of them, plus an endless supply of lollies of course. Nakuru can be easily split up into child-sized bites. There was so much to see straight away, from the baboons that climbed onto our Landrover as we sipped a welcome coffee at the main gate after our drive from Nairobi (singing Mamma Mia all the way!), to the rhinos ambling into view, well everywhere really. We stayed at Sarova Lion Hill lodge in a small but cosy room with a massive double-bed, a daybed and a cot. The staff were great with our children and there were highchairs! The buffet meals were very good and in the evening, there was a performance of traditional dancing around the fire and under the stars. Our two were google-eyed with delight. Our eldest was invited out to dance and, with the unflappable calm of a five-year-old, joined in, waving the ceremonial stick with vigour. I wish I could say the same of her mother who realised just how long it had been since she danced, and knew that it showed. The park has a great range of landscapes from the wetlands where great crested cranes tiptoed haughtily among the crude baboons and the leave-me-alone-I'm-big-and-grumpy buffalo, to savannas crackling under the fierce sun where every tussock looked like it might be hiding a leopard, to the salt-rimmed lake itself, packed with question-mark pink flamingos and gargantuan pelicans. We got out of the car at the lake (all except our youngest who had had her fill of Africa's wonders and was snoozing mouth-open in her carseat). Our eldest was thrilled, walking along the feather-strewn shore, filming the flamingos -- or at least pointing the camera in their general direction -- and clambering onto the top of the Landrover for a better view. It was magical as the sun slid lower, gilding the rippling lake and the acacia-studded land behind. There are some marvellous viewpoints in the park too, Baboon Cliffs is just one. And back at Lion Hill, the gardens were full of twittering birds, swooping to feed at the bird tables or the human tables!
We did get a bit worried on day two though as we hung out at the lodge's pool after lunch (the price for getting the girls back in the car for an afternoon tour). A gloomy, forbidding cloud of smoke rose from the other side of the hill. It was clearly a forest fire, and at one point ash was falling on our skin as we peered curiously skywards, wondering if we should check with reception/get in our car and vamoose/continue to chill. But the smoke faded and inertia won out. Later, someone called us to tell us there was a fire in Nakuru, and on our way back from some more rhino-spotting that afternoon, we suddenly came upon scores of soldiers sitting on the side of the road around a frankly rather dilapidated-looking fire truck. They appeared quite calm though and there was no sign of a fire at that stage. It did make us wonder though if there really were any big cats in the park....... (we didn't see any, but since then friends have assured us they have seen leopards, even the tree-climbing kind, so our scepticism seems unwarranted). Next day as we left through Lanet gate, we found the source of the smoke. Charred trees stretched all the way from the top of the hill down to the gate. It was an eerie landscape of still smoking ash and twisted trunks -- a brutal reminder of how what seemed timeless and immutable was very finite and fragile.
On the way back to Nairobi from Naivasha after lunch at the Country Club (food not great but who cares about food when there is a massive lawn for cranky, crimped girls to run around on, and a swimming pool), we took the lower road. I have to admit I hate it. I am convinced we are going to die every time I see a blundering truck with more revs than sense try to overtake another belching behemoth. As we crept up the hill that signals the end of my personal hell, we saw a large container truck lying half way down the slope, having smashed through the thin fence between the road and the Rift Valley below. No sign of the cabin. A cautionary, sad sight which will really soothe my nerves next time we take that road!
The park was perfect for our demanding little 'uns. Three hours in the car is about their limit, and that's even if there are rhinos snorting, giraffes gambolling and baboons scratching right in front of them, plus an endless supply of lollies of course. Nakuru can be easily split up into child-sized bites. There was so much to see straight away, from the baboons that climbed onto our Landrover as we sipped a welcome coffee at the main gate after our drive from Nairobi (singing Mamma Mia all the way!), to the rhinos ambling into view, well everywhere really. We stayed at Sarova Lion Hill lodge in a small but cosy room with a massive double-bed, a daybed and a cot. The staff were great with our children and there were highchairs! The buffet meals were very good and in the evening, there was a performance of traditional dancing around the fire and under the stars. Our two were google-eyed with delight. Our eldest was invited out to dance and, with the unflappable calm of a five-year-old, joined in, waving the ceremonial stick with vigour. I wish I could say the same of her mother who realised just how long it had been since she danced, and knew that it showed. The park has a great range of landscapes from the wetlands where great crested cranes tiptoed haughtily among the crude baboons and the leave-me-alone-I'm-big-and-grumpy buffalo, to savannas crackling under the fierce sun where every tussock looked like it might be hiding a leopard, to the salt-rimmed lake itself, packed with question-mark pink flamingos and gargantuan pelicans. We got out of the car at the lake (all except our youngest who had had her fill of Africa's wonders and was snoozing mouth-open in her carseat). Our eldest was thrilled, walking along the feather-strewn shore, filming the flamingos -- or at least pointing the camera in their general direction -- and clambering onto the top of the Landrover for a better view. It was magical as the sun slid lower, gilding the rippling lake and the acacia-studded land behind. There are some marvellous viewpoints in the park too, Baboon Cliffs is just one. And back at Lion Hill, the gardens were full of twittering birds, swooping to feed at the bird tables or the human tables!
We did get a bit worried on day two though as we hung out at the lodge's pool after lunch (the price for getting the girls back in the car for an afternoon tour). A gloomy, forbidding cloud of smoke rose from the other side of the hill. It was clearly a forest fire, and at one point ash was falling on our skin as we peered curiously skywards, wondering if we should check with reception/get in our car and vamoose/continue to chill. But the smoke faded and inertia won out. Later, someone called us to tell us there was a fire in Nakuru, and on our way back from some more rhino-spotting that afternoon, we suddenly came upon scores of soldiers sitting on the side of the road around a frankly rather dilapidated-looking fire truck. They appeared quite calm though and there was no sign of a fire at that stage. It did make us wonder though if there really were any big cats in the park....... (we didn't see any, but since then friends have assured us they have seen leopards, even the tree-climbing kind, so our scepticism seems unwarranted). Next day as we left through Lanet gate, we found the source of the smoke. Charred trees stretched all the way from the top of the hill down to the gate. It was an eerie landscape of still smoking ash and twisted trunks -- a brutal reminder of how what seemed timeless and immutable was very finite and fragile.
On the way back to Nairobi from Naivasha after lunch at the Country Club (food not great but who cares about food when there is a massive lawn for cranky, crimped girls to run around on, and a swimming pool), we took the lower road. I have to admit I hate it. I am convinced we are going to die every time I see a blundering truck with more revs than sense try to overtake another belching behemoth. As we crept up the hill that signals the end of my personal hell, we saw a large container truck lying half way down the slope, having smashed through the thin fence between the road and the Rift Valley below. No sign of the cabin. A cautionary, sad sight which will really soothe my nerves next time we take that road!
Wednesday 18 February 2009
SOMETHING STIRRING
There is something strange in the air in Nairobi these days, and it's not just the unseasonal onion-dressing weather (cold, windy then scorching hot when the sun comes out.)
Even to a very lay observer, something seems to be simmering -- cross-currents of tension and anger and frustration flowing into tides of international intrigue to create something of a small whirlpool. I don't think it's just a newbie's paranoia.
The fire in a downtown Nakumatt, which killed around 26 people, the oil tanker disaster in which some 122 people were incinerated while scooping up fuel from an overturned lorry near Molo, http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKTRE5131G220090204 , the steady drip-drip of corruption allegations covering everything from oil to maize, public anger over MPs exemption from taxes, drought and looming food shortages in the northern reaches of the country -- and now a terror threat http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/530862/-/u2f30s/-/ that has security guards searching cars with ever more vigour as they enter "soft targets" like the Village Market and Westgate shopping mall.
The Grand Coalition is paralysed by infighting and bickering -- not just between the two main parties of President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga but also internally among their own supporters. http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/531266/-/u2fmmc/-/
The cabinet has yet to agree how or whether to set up a local tribunal to try those accused of fomenting last year's post-election violence. The threat of action from the International Criminal Court in the Hague hangs over the political class and the military, perhaps increasing fear of "others". http://www.nation.co.ke/News/politics/-/1064/531698/-/ygb141z/-/
It does feel like a tipping point in a country that stepped up to the brink after the 2007 elections and pulled back, but only after around 1,500 people were killed in an explosion of neighbour-on-neighbour violence that exposed serious cracks in this East African success story's society. Those wounds have yet to heal properly and the delay to the tribunal's creation is not likely to help matters.
It's going too far to predict a cataclysm, but it seems there is good reason for caution. Elections are not due again until 2012, giving politicians time to work out their differences but also to siphon cash for war chests in an economy pitted with every kind of corruption. Public discontent may simmer for years if it is not inflamed by a particular event into open rage, but we already seem to be moving from grumbling to something more active. And the terrorist threats from al Shabaab and others may remain just that -- threats, but this is a country ill-prepared to deal with even non-terror related disasters as events of the last few weeks have shown.
Given the ethnic divisions exposed by the post-election violence and the persistance and entrenchment of these divisions in politics, plus a slowing economy exposed to a global recession, Kenya might be one to watch over the next six months.
Even to a very lay observer, something seems to be simmering -- cross-currents of tension and anger and frustration flowing into tides of international intrigue to create something of a small whirlpool. I don't think it's just a newbie's paranoia.
The fire in a downtown Nakumatt, which killed around 26 people, the oil tanker disaster in which some 122 people were incinerated while scooping up fuel from an overturned lorry near Molo, http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKTRE5131G220090204 , the steady drip-drip of corruption allegations covering everything from oil to maize, public anger over MPs exemption from taxes, drought and looming food shortages in the northern reaches of the country -- and now a terror threat http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/530862/-/u2f30s/-/ that has security guards searching cars with ever more vigour as they enter "soft targets" like the Village Market and Westgate shopping mall.
The Grand Coalition is paralysed by infighting and bickering -- not just between the two main parties of President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga but also internally among their own supporters. http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/531266/-/u2fmmc/-/
The cabinet has yet to agree how or whether to set up a local tribunal to try those accused of fomenting last year's post-election violence. The threat of action from the International Criminal Court in the Hague hangs over the political class and the military, perhaps increasing fear of "others". http://www.nation.co.ke/News/politics/-/1064/531698/-/ygb141z/-/
It does feel like a tipping point in a country that stepped up to the brink after the 2007 elections and pulled back, but only after around 1,500 people were killed in an explosion of neighbour-on-neighbour violence that exposed serious cracks in this East African success story's society. Those wounds have yet to heal properly and the delay to the tribunal's creation is not likely to help matters.
It's going too far to predict a cataclysm, but it seems there is good reason for caution. Elections are not due again until 2012, giving politicians time to work out their differences but also to siphon cash for war chests in an economy pitted with every kind of corruption. Public discontent may simmer for years if it is not inflamed by a particular event into open rage, but we already seem to be moving from grumbling to something more active. And the terrorist threats from al Shabaab and others may remain just that -- threats, but this is a country ill-prepared to deal with even non-terror related disasters as events of the last few weeks have shown.
Given the ethnic divisions exposed by the post-election violence and the persistance and entrenchment of these divisions in politics, plus a slowing economy exposed to a global recession, Kenya might be one to watch over the next six months.
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