new in nairobi

Kenya Decides

2010-08-04T22:02:00.000+03:00

Just a few hours after the polls closed in Kenya's referendum on a new constitution, the results are pouring in. So far, it looks like the "Yes" camp is decisively in the lead . Some bloggers are declaring victory already.
That may be a little premature, but it does seem like a clear trend is developing. If this trend is confirmed, this will be a major victory for the coalition government. And an important personal victory for Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who is expected to run for president in polls due by 2012. Approval of the draft constitution would also be a personal victory for President Mwai Kibaki who made passing a new draft his prime "legacy" issue.
If the draft is approved, this will deal a serious blow to Higher Education Minister William Ruto, who spearheaded the "No" campaign with the help of former President Daniel Arap Moi.
Most of all, today's election marks a victory for Kenyans. Everyone (me included!) was worried about possible violence. So far, everything has been peaceful. Listening to voters across the country talk about tolerance and democracy has been very uplifting.
"I was here by 5 (am). I want to be part of this historical moment," Francis Mungai told Reuters, at the Moi Avenue polling station in Nairobi. Read more quotes from Reuters here.
Of course, there are a lot of questions. Are we seeing the decline of tribalism as a political force in Kenya? Or was this just the nature of the vote ie on a draft constitution rather than a vote on personalities? What will the No team do now? Ruto told Reuters that everyone should accept the results of the referendum. But then, somewhat sinisterly, he warned of a new religious divide in Kenya, between Muslims and Christians.
"God forbid this constitution passes, because there is a clear, serious divide coming. Divisions between Christians and Muslims who have been together for a long time are dangerous for any country," he told Reuters' Richard Lough in an interview.
That's a dangerous and somewhat confusing statement. If he's referring to the fact that Islamic courts, the kadhis courts, are enshrined in the new draft, well that is not new. They have been operating for years. So you have to question his motivation in heralding a new division now. I wonder who exactly he is trying to scare.
Moi, who campaigned strenously against the draft, was asked what he would do if the "Yes" camp won. He said: " I will express my views".
Another question remaining is what will Ruto do? Will he stay in government?
And of course, if the draft is approved, then the hard work of turning what is on paper into practical reality will begin. Odinga said today that the government would form a national post-referendum forum to unite the two sides, and he said the government would bear no grudge against those who campaigned against the draft. So maybe Ruto, Odinga's one-time right-hand man, can carry on.
But those questions are for tomorrow. Today, Kenya can enjoy the fact that the election was peaceful and, it appears, fair. The shadow cast by what happened in 2008 has hung heavy over the country. It may not have gone away entirely, but it is not quite as dark tonight.

DOWN WITH APATHY

2010-07-26T22:13:00.000+03:00

With the clock counting down to next week's referendum on a new constitution, it's worth heading over to Kuweni Serious if you want a fresh, thoughtful take on the issues facing Kenya. And more importantly, on what makes Kenya's youth tick. And remember, they make up the majority of the population.

Kuweni Serious -- a website featuring interviews with civil activists and ordinary Kenyans and founded by three young Kenyans in October 2009 -- has teamed up with Just A Band to launch a new campaign to fight the evil forces of apathy in Kenya. (Just A Band are the self-proclaimed experimental boy band behind the Makmende video that has been described as Kenya's first viral phenomenon ...in case you've been living on Mars...)

Among the new content on Kuweni Serious are a series of very witty cartoons by Just A Band's Daniel Muli, which aim to explain aspects of the draft constitution.

The site also features interviews with young Kenyans -- both the more affluent and the lower middle-class in a city slum. The team asked them what they like about Kenya, what they hate and what they would change. The answers are funny, sad, and always thought-provoking.

The new Kuweni Serious campaign -- which was launched at the iHub last week -- is not just about the referendum though. It's much bigger than that. It's about getting young Kenyans interested in politics, caring about politics and eager to do something to influence their future.

As Rachel Gichinga, who founded Kuweni Serious with Mbithi Masya and Jim Chuchu, told the crowd at the iHub after a presentation of some of their videos: "We hope we have begun a conversation ... pass on the message. Begin conversations around you."

Masya recognised that their work was probably only reaching the middle classes -- people with Internet access. But, as the 24-year-old said, this is an influential, and large group.

"We are reaching a clique of people that no one could get to ..a very detached group," he said at the launch.

"In Kenya, our middle class is not as small as it may look. It spans a great economic earning divide -- the upper and lower middle class are very far apart but collectively they are quite large and they influence a lot of what happens in the country."

He explained that many people in Nairobi's middle class are originally from other parts of the country, so when they go home , they are listened to.

"If we focus on the middle class, and get them, we believe that from there, they will take the response and go out. We are not even trying to spread a message. We are just trying to get people to care."

One of the videos on the site shows a recent protest against MPs efforts to hike their pay. The team interviewed people at the protest, showcasing the anger and frustration felt by many here.

"It was the first, honest attempt to get a peaceful rally against the members of parliament in our recent history," Masya said. "We were looking at other countries ...in Europe and everywhere and even for the slightest mistake, people are on the streets, conducting protests against members of parliament and here it just doesn't happen. We keep getting slapped in the face and we turn the other cheek, slapped in the face again, and we turn the other cheek again. We just think it's about time that came to an end."

And he thinks that the time is right to try to jolt young Kenyans out of this apathy.

"Before, the apathy helped because you shut out all these depressing things around, but now it's gotten almost overwhelming, where it is crushing us under a weight of just too many things going wrong. Like the economic disparity between different classes -- it's growing wider and wider and that's something no one can ignore ... we actually need to start waking up."

Just A Band's Blinky Bill is interviewed on KuweniSerious and was also at the iHub launch. He was pragmatic about the scale of the team's action, but he said the idea was to offer material that was not abrasive, not didactic, but easily digestible with the aim of seeking explanations.

And hopefully sparking passion and action in Kenya's youth.

"I think for the longest time we have disregarded what we can do, so I think if people got a little more involved, you'd have more youthful representation in parliament ... and the change starts from somewhere, because right now we have people in parliament who are basically old ... I'm turning 28 this year, and I feel like I have a lot to offer and I feel there are a lot of people who are in (my) age group as well who have a lot to offer. That's what we are hoping for, that people will become passionate enough about their country to get involved."

And his take on next week's referendum?

"Are people going to vote? From the people I've been talking to, a vast majority of them are going to vote ... I don't think this is going to be an election where people are going to fight. It might be closely contested, and that might be where the problem comes in," he said, adding there might be a risk of violence in hotspots if the vote was very close.

Looking further ahead, Masya, who was inspired to set up Kuweni Serious by the post-election violence in 2008 and the way he and the rest of the middle class seemed divorced from it, has a simple hope for 2012.

"No violence where an honest majority vote wins. I don't even care which side wins as long as it's a majority."

TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF IT ALL

2010-07-21T21:01:00.000+03:00

There's one question that keeps sneaking into conversations in Nairobi these days -- what's going to happen in the Aug. 4 referendum on the constitution? The polls and pundits see a win for the "Yes" team, and the figures, at first sight, look convincing.
The most recent voter survey by Strategic Research, released on July 16, said 62 percent of those questioned said they would vote "Yes". Twenty percent were in the "No" camp and 18 percent said they were undecided. That's a pretty impressive lead. And it's up considerably from the 49 percent said to be in favour of the constitution in a June poll by South Consulting, which works for Kofi Annan and others monitoring the 2008 power-sharing accord.
The "No" team, which is led by Higher Education Minister William Ruto, has been sceptical of the polls, saying they are biased in favour of the "Yes" camp. Obviously, there are wide margins for error when conducting these surveys. (Do those polled in volatile regions tell the truth, for example? Wouldn't you be a little scared, given what has happened before, of going against the grain of local opinion?)
Macharia Gaitho, a columnist in the Daily Nation, had an interesting take on the figures this week.
"Something seems wrong with the numbers," he writes. "The "No" vote remains constant with all the pollsters, 17 percent from Synovate in April, 21 percent from Infotrak in May, 20 percent from Synovate in early June, 22 percent from South Consulting in late June and now 18 percent. But the "Yes" has swung like a yo-yo. Either Kenyan attitudes are oscillating wildly for no logical reason or some of the pollsters are blatantly biased."
Gaitho calls on polling agencies and institutes to come together and review their work and their methodology to be sure that they are delivering information that the public can trust.
The winning margin on Aug. 4 could be decisive. If the "Yes" team wins, but with a narrow margin, then this will make dissent and possibly violence more likely. If the win is emphatic, there will be less room for disappointed leaders of the "No" camp to wind up their supporters into challenging the result. People worry about violence on election day -- that may be less of a risk than a slow simmering of discontent that could get a boost from a less-than-convincing win by the "Yes" camp (because they seem the likely leaders).
A report commissioned by the National Cohesion and Integration Commission, says the victors must lead by a big margin.
"The margin of a Yes win will weaken the forces of resistance to reforms but (a slim margin -- my insert) may give the losing incentives to dig," said consultant Duncan Okello.
Some market analysts are already raising the red flag about the potential effects of a tight vote.
Isaac Njuguna, an investment analyst at Zimele, tells the Daily Nation that a "Yes" vote will favour businesses and investors, but the real effects of the vote will depend on how rival groups take the results.
"We are unlikely to see a lot of activities at the bourse, but after the vote is taken then we shall be in a position to judge. But as things stand now, if the proposed constitution goes through, then we shall see more activities," he says.
That the potential for violence is real is no longer in doubt. A grenade attack on a Church meeting that doubled as a "No" rally in Nairobi in June killed at least six people. As far as I know, no one has yet been charged with the attack. Last week, a pastor and another man were arrested in Nairobi with some kind of ammonium nitrate, a detonator and a safety fuse. They have denied charges of being in possession of explosive materials and are due back in court on Aug. 24. And on Monday night, police searched Ruto's offices after a bomb threat was made. They didn't find anything and Ruto was in Mombasa so it was probably a hoax, but it's a reminder of the passions on both sides.
The Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights and the Truth Commission have also raised concerns about voter intimidation. The two organisations said they had received reports that some communities in the volatile Rift Valley had been threatened with eviction if they vote for the new law (this, of course, reflects the crux of the issue: One of the main bugbears of those leading the "No" campaign is the new constitution's provisions on land. They say these are unfair, and will lead to people being forced to give up their land. The "Yes" team says those who oppose these articles do so because they have acquired land illegally and face having it seized.) The wananchi in some hotspots are already on the move,, upping sticks to get out of contentious zones ahead of the vote. If the people who witnessed first-hand what happened before are moving, then I think there is at least valid cause for concern.

BORDER RUMBLES

2010-07-20T21:47:00.000+03:00

In the northeast of Kenya today, Kenyan security forces clashed with Somali al Shabaab rebels -- a timely reminder of how vulnerable this country is to being caught up in its neighbour's chaos. Al Shabaab rebels have been flitting across the border for some time -- this, in itself, is not new, or particularly surprising. But the gun battle today is a reminder of the desire of some of al Shabaab's fighters to expand their activities beyond Somalia, or at least to fire warning shots across the bows of nearby countries. After today's incident, both sides are said to be sending reinforcements to the area, northeast of Garissa, although it must be said that this kind of incident has happened before and it has not escalated into major conflict.
A clan elder in the Somali town of Dhobley told Reuters that two dead al Shabaab fighters were brought there and buried on Tuesday.
"Here in Dhobley, al Shabaab are calling people to jihad against Kenya and deploying more militias to the border. Local people fear more fighting between the two sides," said elder Yusuf Ali Mohamed.
The provincial commissioner of Kenya's North Eastern province said last month that security services here were ready to tackle any threat to Kenya from al Shabaab. But, as Ugandans learnt, it's hard to tackle a threat which is posed by organised, trained fighters, determined to wreak havoc and ready to die in the attempt. And that's even if your security services are the best, the most transparent and the least corrupt. As this story from the Daily Nation showed today, this is not necessarily the case in Kenya. The newspaper
says that its reporters found that contraband, weapons and illegal immigrants were being smuggled into Kenya with the help of corrupt police officers and border and customs officials. The mayor of Garissa, Mohammed Gabow blamed security agencies and said, fatalistically: "We all know what is happening but there is nothing we can do." More worryingly perhaps, North Eastern police boss (the paper does not give his exact title) Abdul Maka Mzee admitted that corruption was rife and that his officers had not succeeded in stamping it out. He pointed out that the entry points were also staffed by immigration and customs agents. Whoever is to blame, and you can probably bet there is a little bit of everyone in there, it's not a great situation on a long border with an anarchic country where Islamist rebels have said they want to attack Kenya.
In another development, a top U.S. general said today that the U.S military was preparing to step up assistance to the African Union troops (mostly Ugandans and Burundians) holding a very thin line in Mogadishu. Gen. William Ward, head of the U.S. Africa Command, said this could include additional equipment, training, logistical support and information-sharing. We know that Obama is not that squeamish about getting involved in Somalia -- well, at least from the air. Remember the U.S. commando raid that took out Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan last September? Nabhan was one of Africa's most wanted al Qaeda suspects and he was believed to have built the truck bomb that killed 15 at an Israeli-owned hotel near Mombasa in 2002. If, as Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni wants, the African Union troops take the fight to al Shabaab, they will need all the help they can get.

Kampala bombs

2010-07-12T13:09:00.000+03:00

The bombings last night in Uganda's capital Kampala provide a frightening reminder of how vulnerable east Africa is to attacks. The police in Kampala and many analysts are already pointing the finger at Somalia’s Islamist al Shabaab militia.

This is why: Uganda has thousands of peacekeepers in Mogadishu as part of the African Union AMISOM force; al Shabaab has threatened Uganda before; coordinated attacks are a hallmark of al Qaeda – in February, al Shabaab and a smaller southern miltia joined forces and swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden’s group; one of last night's targets was an Ethiopian restaurant (Ethiopia invaded Somalia in 2006 to oust an Islamist group from Mogadishu. The troops later withdrew but Somali insurgents have repeatedly accused Ethiopia of meddling in the blighted country’s affairs); and al Shabaab and the smaller Hizbul Islam banned Somalis in the areas they control from watching the World Cup (Last month, Hizbul Islam killed two people and arrested dozens of others who defied the ban).

In the past few days, there has been a flurry of new warnings about the presence of foreign fighters in Somalia. Last week, Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula told the AP that fighters from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan were relocating to Somalia. Then on Saturday, Somali President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed told Reuters that he was worried aobut the growing number of foreign jihadists in his country.

The presence of foreign fighters in Somalia is old news. The anarchy there makes it a perfect spot to train fighters from other regions. But perhaps the numbers are rising or, more worryingly, the training is done and these fighters are ready to spread the chaos beyond Somalia's borders.

IGAD (the Intergovernmental Authority on Development which includes Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia and Djibouti) agreed last week to send 2,000 more peacekeepers to Mogadishu. But the 6,000 already there are not making much headway against al Shabaab and its allies so it’s not clear that putting more boots on the ground is really an effective answer.

It seems that until there is a comprehensive strategy (military and political) with a very large budget behind it, the conflict in Somalia will drag on. And it looks like African nations need to step up to the plate and really make this happen. For now, the international cavalry is not coming, and in a way, why should they? Their domestic populations are not at risk. One could try to argue an international financial interest:Uganda and Kenya are finding more favour with international investors seeking good returns in a global downturn that corporate Africa seems to have weathered relatively well. But at the end of the day, bombs in bars won’t keep investors away, especially in the case of Uganda, which is expected to start pumping oil next year.

The next few years are potentially dangerous ones for East Africa. There is the risk of political instability in Kenya with the run-up to the next elections, expected in 2012, and ongoing efforts to bring those responsible for the 2008 violence to justice at the International Criminal Court. Uganda has presidential elections in February next year, with the promise of oil raising the stakes. South Sudan is due to hold a referendum on independence in January next year. And there are rumblings of political discontent in both Rwanda and Burundi. This is a fragile region, with big challenges and an expanding threat from Somali Islamist militias could be the spark that lights the stacked gunpowder kegs.

Reuters recently reported on a massive recruitment drive by al Shabaab in Kismayu in southern Somalia. “They are getting hundreds of volunteers who are joining them because there is no work and they (rebels) pay some money,” resident Ali Yusuf said. There are more stories about this here.

In an opinion piece written for Foreign Policy, Somali Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke makes the case against “constructive disengagement” and in favour of more international financial support.

If you turn the Somali problem on its head, you could see war as a symptom of poverty, desperation and need, rather than the cause of these things. Tackling the latter might be a more effective way of halting the conflict by robbing the militias of the one thing they need more than anything else – young desperate fighters with nothing to lose.

Quiet before the storm?

2010-07-07T11:45:00.000+03:00

As the countdown to the Aug. 4 referendum on the constitution continues, there has been some unsettling news from a monitoring team that reports on Kenya’s political progress to Kofi Annan, who helped to broker the 2008 power-sharing deal.

The report, produced by South Consulting for the Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation Monitoring Team, is due to be released today, but the Standard newspaper says it has seen a draft.

First of all, the poll shows support for the “Yes” camp falling to 49 percent, with 22 percent saying they will vote “No” and 22 percent undecided. This seems to confirm a slight decline of support since April, with the strongest opposition coming from the Rift Valley, according to the data in the Standard.

The report’s authors are worried that even if the “Yes” campaign does win the referendum, the margin could be so small that it would call into question the legitimacy of the poll.

"It is significant that this decline in the number of those supporting the Proposed Constitution has not led to a significant increase in the number of people rejecting it. A point to note, nonetheless, is that the political legitimacy of the new constitution would require a high approval rating, beyond the legal benchmark of 50 percent plus one," the new report says, according to the Standard.

The report says the “Yes” camp is still likely to win, but wonders if the new draft will have enough support to guarantee stability and unity. In other words, what will the losers do? Will they accept the will of the majority (and again, this is where the winning margin may be crucial) or will the result be challenged in a way that brings to the fore the old political, ethnic and, possibly now, even religious rivalries.

One of the features of the pre-referendum debate has been the way it has focused attention on divisions between Kenyan Muslim and Christian communities. Many Christian churches are basing their opposition to the draft on articles on abortion and the kadhis courts, that rule on matters like divorce, marriage and inheritance for Kenya’s Muslim community. No matter that kadhis courts already existed under the old constitution or that abortion is only allowed when a mother’s life is in danger. This is not the narrative being spun by some opponents of the draft, who portray the new constitution as a grave threat to the integrity and indeed identity of the Kenyan state.(this story looks at these tensions).

There is also the danger that the referendum could widen splits in the fragile coalition despite the fact that one-time rivals President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga are both campaigning for a “Yes” vote.
Some have said there may be a danger that dissatisfaction with the referendum result could lead to the collapse of the coalition, although other analysts say that is unlikely because the government can only be dissolved if Kibaki or Odinga pull out.

The monitoring team's report says that one reason for the indecision among voters is the failure of senior politicians to commit to the “Yes” camp, symbolized by the colour green. Politicians who say they are in favour of the draft but are secretly pushing for a “No”, symbolized by the colour red, are now known as watermelons – green on the outside and red on the inside.

One of the most tireless campaigners for the “Yes” camp has been Odinga, but he had an operation last week to relieve pressure on his brain caused by internal bleeding. He is at home now, but doctors are only allowing him light duties for the next, crucial, two weeks.

The monitoring team’s report urges the political leadership to become more aggressive in campaigning for the passage of the draft constitution.

"The journey to a new Constitution in Kenya has been a long and tortuous one, often frustrated by individual and ethno-political interests. The President, PM and Vice President must step up joint campaigns and reach out to everyone and everywhere," it says.

But is Odinga up to this? He is the most visible member of the “Yes” campaign with the frail Kibaki taking a very secondary role. And also, what does Odinga’s operation and health worries mean for the 2012 election? Maybe nothing. But it might be something to keep an eye on.

And finally, check out Kuweni Serious’ Soma Hiyo Something, a series of very funny and very smart cartoons meant to encourage people to read the constitution before that Aug. 4 vote.

MP PAY HIKE – CYNICAL OPPORTUNISM?

2010-07-02T21:34:00.000+03:00

Kenyan lawmakers’ decision to vote themselves a pay increase is not particularly surprising. They have already lost much credibility among the wananchi – until now, they have not paid tax on most of their earnings, they are perceived by many as overpaid timewasters and they have done little to rein in corruption.

The BBC said the pay hike meant that Prime Minister Raila Odinga (recovering in hospital after minor surgery to relieve pressure on his brain) would take home one third more than Britain’s David Cameron, and 10 percent more than Barack Obama. That’s eyebrow-raising. What’s probably more galling to Kenyans is how much more he, and other more lowly lawmakers, would be taking home compared to the people who voted for them. Xan Rice in the Guardian makes this very clear.

MPs did agree to finally pay income tax – their exemption provoked huge public anger – but the proposed rises meant they would still take home more than when they did not pay tax.

The MPs’ decision, predictably, sparked immediate fury.

"Yet another drastic pay hike for MPs ... is the most outrageous, insensitive, immoral and intolerant abuse and impunity by Kenya's officialdom the country has ever witnessed," umbrella body Kenya Alliance of Resident Associations told Reuters.

The pay rise has however hit a snag after Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta said there was no money to fund the proposed increases, which would have brought an MP’s monthly salary to 1.1 million shillings (a boost of about a quarter). Kenyatta reminded the MPs that they had warned against excessive borrowing and increasing the tax burden.

"The actions taken by Hon Members are not supportive of these noble objectives because they will trigger demands for salary increment by other sectors. Consequently, these will lead to a wage spiral, hence creating inflation and weakening our competitiveness," he warned.

So the raises, which sparked such anger, may not go through. Let’s see.

What is more shocking than the pay rise proposals themselves is the cynicism involved in MPs voting these in now. And what is really worrying is what it tells you about the future, with or without a new constitution.

Under the draft constitution, which is to be put to a referendum on Aug. 4, MPs will no longer be able to set their own salaries. So it seems the pay rise was intended to circumvent or at the very least contradict the constitution before it even goes to a public vote.

At the end of the day, a new constitution will be worthless unless the political will exists to implement its articles in their entirety. It is after all just a piece of paper – an important piece of paper of course, but what will count is its implementation. You have to be able to believe that it will not be manipulated or misinterpreted for the benefit of one group. To be able to believe that, you have to have faith in your lawmakers and in your judiciary. While the constitution contains articles that will change the way these officials are appointed, there may also need to be a change in the political culture to ensure that those appointed under the new system are as altruistic and independent as the document envisions. Some Kenyan analysts argue that a modern constitution is being imposed on institutions that are simply not ready for it.

Given this, perhaps efforts to bring those responsible for the post-election killings in 2008 may have more effect in terms of changing the political culture. That is why Luis Moreno-Ocampo’s drive to indict six of those believed to be most responsible for fomenting and financing the violence is so important. And so sensitive. And so potentially destabilizing. After all, you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.

Some Kenyans think the ICC process will be cathartic – by removing some big names and proving that impunity can only go so far. But many others are scared about how those big names will react if and when they are indicted. And how their support bases will react. That is the great unknown. The ICC process is probably still a bigger risk to political stability than the referendum.

Constitutions tend not to be written in stone. Just ask Cameroon’s Paul Biya, Niger’s Mamadou Tandja or Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, who all managed to change their constitutions to extend their rule.

Red or Green? And what does it mean?

2010-06-30T21:14:00.000+03:00

There is just over a month to go until Kenyans vote on a new constitution. Things have gone relatively quiet since six people were killed in grenade blasts at a rally organized by church groups, who oppose the draft, in Uhuru Park on June 13. The church groups blamed the government for the attacks, and the coalition denied this, saying the perpetrators would be tracked down. So far, they haven’t been.
Most people expect the draft to be approved but from Nairobi it’s hard to get a handle on levels of support in other parts of the country . A Synovate poll published in early June said 57 percent of Kenyans supported the draft -- a drop from 64 percent in an April poll. The Standard this week broke down the regional voting tendencies, saying the Rift Valley Province is firmly in the No camp.
I was in Uhuru Park for the launch of the civic education campaign a few weeks before the explosions happened. The words of Nzamba Kitonga, chairman of the Committee of Experts that drew up the draft, seem prescient, in restropect.
“The constitutional review process attracts enemies … and they will do whatever is in their means to persuade Kenyans to undermine this process,” he told the crowd before waving off three trucks taking volunteers around the country to explain the constitution to the wananchi.
The Proposed Constitution is meant to help shield east Africa’s biggest economy from a repeat of the 2008 post-election violence that killed 1,300 people and forced around 300,000 to flee their homes.
Unlike in 2005, when a draft constitution was rejected in a bitter, divisive vote, this time the country’s top politicians are on the same side: President Mwai Kibaki and his one-time rival Prime Minister Raila Odinga, are both pushing for a “Yes” vote. But some powerful politicians are pushing for a “No”, including Minister of Higher Education William Ruto, a Kalenjin who has fallen out with his one-time mentor Odinga and is expected to run for president in 2012, although he would need to widen his narrow tribal base to stand any chance of winning.
Already, the debate has shown that the intertwined political, economic and ethnic tensions that exploded in 2008 are still bubbling dangerously. Anecdotal evidence suggests some people in the tinderbox Rift and Central Valleys are already re-arming.
The new constitution will curtail the president’s powers, devolve power to the regions and reinforce civil liberties – essentially diffusing power so that the presidency is no longer the sole prize in a country where people have long voted on ethnic lines and where winning the top job has been seen as the only way to ensure a tribe’s advancement.
The draft will also create a strong Senate with the power to sack the head of state, while the president’s nominations for a series of key posts will be subject to lawmakers’ approval.

Mark Schroeder, director of sub-Saharan Africa Analysis at STRATFOR says the aim is “to come to a point where power and the pursuit of power is not a zero-sum game but can be shared with the aim of preventing the violence that happened last time.”
Christian churches oppose the draft because it allows abortion if a woman’s life is in danger and refers to Muslim Kadhis’ courts, which already operate here. Others fear articles that refer to capping minimum and maximum land holdings – although the Committee of Experts says these limits will be defined by parliament later.
Local media say some members of Kibaki’s PNU party are publicly advocating a “Yes” vote, but secretly working for a “No”, fearful that approval of the draft will benefit Odinga and his ODM party.
“It’s a game of smoke and mirrors … You’ve got people who are appearing as if they are in the ‘Yes’ camp who, frankly, one knows are not,” said Aly-Khan Satchu, an independent trader and analyst in Nairobi. “The prime minister has been very astute and … he has hijacked the ‘Yes’ vote and that’s making people who would cross over more reluctant to cross over.”
For now, markets are assuming a win for the green “Yes” camp and are not pricing in any extra risk. Given generally positive sentiment on Kenya, they are expected to remain stoic until any real signs of trouble, but violence could trigger a swift retrenchment and the political risk premium will almost certainly increase next year.
Investors are also keenly watching efforts to bring some high-profile Kenyans to trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for fomenting and financing the 2008 violence – a process likely to play out over the next year.
In May, ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said he would target up to six individuals -- believed by many to include members of the coalition government – and planned to issue arrest warrants by the end of the year.
Moreno-Ocampo says it is not his job to worry about political fallout but analysts say he cannot ignore political realities when deciding who to prosecute. How those targeted react -- whether they decide to go peacefully or whip up their tribal bases -- will be critical in determining the future political landscape.
“I don’t think (Moreno-Ocampo) can act unilaterally. He might think he is independent of some Kenyan politicians in Nairobi but there are a lot more forces at work,” said STRATFOR’s Schroeder.
Betty Maina, chief executive of the Kenya Association of Manufacturers, says the ICC process is the most destabilizing factor for Kenya, and could play badly in the run-up to 2012.
“Anyone who is trying to do anything that targets political actors in the year before an election can only be accused of … sabotaging their chances. I think his timing is terrible,” she said.
One international diplomat, who declined to be named because of local sensitivities, said progress on constitutional and electoral reforms was positive but that “you don’t need a lot to see everything being derailed.”
If it is approved, the constitution will shake up politics – and its evil twin patronage.

Drafting a new constitution was a key element of the 2008 power-sharing deal between Kibaki and Odinga. Other reforms, notably to the judiciary and police, were also promised but the coalition has been paralyzed by inter-party squabbling.
Apart from changes to the executive, the draft tackles land issues, the bedrock of political and ethnic tensions that have flared sporadically since Kenya won independence from Britain in 1963. It says non-citizens will no longer be able to hold land freehold, but instead will be given leasehold tenure not exceeding 99 years, but renewable. It also says parliament shall enact legislation to prescribe minimum and maximum land holdings.
But some analysts warn the draft is not a panacea for a country with more than 40 percent unemployment, including millions of young people living desperate lives in ever expanding slums.
“The way this problem is seen is from a very political angle without looking at the economic issues that are really underlying these things. Income disparity has increased tremendously ... and if these issues are not addressed, conflict will be likely,” said Professor Joseph Kieyah, a senior policy analyst at the Kenya Institute of Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA).

HUNGER FOR CHANGE

2010-02-22T11:43:00.004+03:00

Kenya is on the brink of a crisis again. Or, er, not. It’s hard to know. President Mwai Kibaki and his rival-ally Prime Minister Raila Odinga are at loggerheads again over the latter’s attempts to suspend two ministers whose offices were implicated in million-shilling corruption scandals. But despite the by-now-familiar rhetoric and grandstanding, it does not appear that either man is willing to transform the rift to a breakup. So, assuming that neither man is stupid and that they are very well aware of their mandates under the power-sharing agreement that ended the post-election violence, you have to believe that there is a game being played. At the very least, this row is a distraction from the main issues: the ubiquity of corruption at the upper levels of government and the need for the country to get ready to vote on a new constitution. It’s somewhat depressing – in a Groundhog Day-way – to see the “two principals”, as Kibaki and Odinga are known, squabbling again over power and position when they are being handed so many opportunities to be statesman-like.
I have been doing some interviews recently and what strikes me is the number of Kenyans who are so deeply disillusioned with politics that they are living their lives despite the government. In other words, they do not expect any help from the government, they do not expect any reforms, they do not expect any change. All they hope is that 2012 will somehow serve to cast out the old guard, the men and women who have been ruling Kenya for the past decades. Nobody seems quite sure how this clear-out will occur, or who will replace politicians seen by many as self-serving dinosaurs, but what is striking is the overwhelming acceptance that no good will come from the team now in power.
Take the guys at Kuweni Serious, for example. The Kuweni Serious team want to remain anonymous for now. They are smart, educated and frustrated. They want their site to give people a voice, to prompt debate and get people thinking about what is happening in Kenya. But they acknowledge that change is going to come slowly. And they are not quite sure how to get the leaders they think they deserve.
“We might make as much noise as we want but the probable reality is that the same people will be there again (after 2012),” said John (that’s not the 24-year-old’s real name). He and his colleagues – Rachel and James – spoke of apathy fed by disillusion.
“I know some fervent political guys who won’t even vote again,” said James. “I get the feeling that our generation are even more disconnected now than before (the post-election violence.).”
Rachel spoke of two friends who had stood in the 2007 elections and swore never to go near politics again. “It’s like Lord of the Rings – the ring corrupts everybody.”
She said people should boycott any future vote. John disagreed, he said that would just let politicians do what they wanted. They all spoke of voting as an exercise in choosing the lesser of all evils. John argued for the youth getting involved, mounting a real challenge with their own candidates. It might be too late to change what happens in 2012 – because any new candidate would need to build up trust – but maybe 2017? “It would call for a lot of sacrifice from our generation’s politicians. You have to build trust … Tribalism is also a trust issue so to break this, you would need something very powerful.”
I also spoke to those behind www.kenyaimagine.com. Again, smart, educated young Kenyans trying to change minds by publishing articles and opinions online and giving writers a forum for their thoughts. Emmo Opoti, one of the site’s founders, says reforming Kenya is also not just about changing the faces in the government.
“The state is where everything is thought to be wrong. We consider that there is a lot to be changed in the people themselves, what is our attitude towards shared resources, for example, our attitude towards weaker groups, the marginalised, what is our conception of human rights.”

He says more debate is needed on issues like saving the Mau forest, privatization, and the constitution but that these issues become tangled up in party politics too easily. “So, this is part of the problem, that we so identify with the politicians that when they adopt positions … the population thinks this must be the limit of options we have. We like to think that our platform (kenyaImagine) would present further options.
Tanzanian cartoonist Godfrey Mwampembwa, whose satirical drawings in the Daily Nation are a great way to start the day, says the political shenanigans here make his job easier but sometimes the repetitive wrangles get him down.
“Sometimes, I think things get so bleak and you say ‘what is happening?’” he said. He recalled his efforts to think up a cartoon at the start of the row over the suspended ministers – he eventually drew a woman calling Kofi Annan, saying she had been worried that the grand coalition would lead to two centres of power, but in fact there were two centres of corruption.
“I really struggled that day and I said what can I do because even as a cartoonist I’ve exhausted my ideas, so what can I do … Here, the absurdities outpace the realities. Sometimes, my job as a cartoonist is easier. You don’t need to come with ideas. You just need to illustrate, bang, what is happening.”
Something that is not happening is any progress on bringing those responsible for the 2007/08 violence to trial. Kenyans are still waiting to see whether the International Criminal Court (ICC) will prosecute those believed responsible for inciting and funding the violence. The pre-trial judges in the Hague have asked for more information. It seems to be taking a long time to decide on something that was supposedly well documented by the Waki Commission and various human rights groups.

MAKING MUSIC IN POLITICS

2009-12-01T11:17:00.003+03:00

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

2009-11-25T20:13:00.002+03:00

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

2009-11-13T09:59:00.002+03:00

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

2009-11-07T21:13:00.002+03:00

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

2009-10-06T21:38:00.002+03:00

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

2009-09-30T20:38:00.002+03:00

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

2009-09-24T21:04:00.002+03:00

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

2009-09-24T10:55:00.003+03:00

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

2009-09-24T08:38:00.002+03:00

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

2009-09-09T22:06:00.003+03:00

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

2009-09-02T22:12:00.002+03:00

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

2009-08-03T21:49:00.002+03:00

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

2009-07-18T22:11:00.002+03:00

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

2009-07-09T18:17:00.004+03:00

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?

2009-07-06T20:25:00.002+03:00

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

2009-06-30T13:18:00.003+03:00

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

2009-06-22T22:00:00.003+03:00

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

2009-06-15T21:10:00.004+03:00

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

2009-06-08T21:43:00.002+03:00

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

2009-06-06T14:31:00.002+03:00

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

2009-05-27T21:48:00.003+03:00

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

2009-05-20T20:34:00.007+03:00

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

2009-05-11T21:36:00.002+03:00

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.

KENYAN ROLLERCOASTER

2009-05-06T13:13:00.004+03:00

Many Kenyans seem to agree that the political old guard's sell-by date is long past. As frustration with government in-fighting and perceived time-wasting grows, people are looking for saviours. But few see any among the current crop of politicians and members of parliament, most of whom are lumped together in the public mind -- rightly or wrongly -- as sharp-suited, shifty time-wasting wabenzi who are in politics solely to enrich themselves or their immediate communities. There are undoubtedly exceptions but as Kenya's political roller-coaster rattles from crisis to crisis, never getting anywhere, it's easy to see why some Kenyans feel fresh faces are the only answer. Two constituencies spring to mind -- women and Kenya's young people.
Women's groups put themselves in the spotlight last week when they called for a seven-day sex boycott to demand political reform and protest poor leadership. And now, as the boycott ends, the groups, known as Gender 10, say they are drawing up a 90-day plan to keep pressure on the government to fulfil its obligations. "Women want to go on with the business of building this nation, not mourning their children or worrying about their safety," G-10 said in a statement.
Kenyan youths are also showing their disatisfaction -- whether by pulling up railtracks in Kibera over the Migingo dispute with Uganda, heckling a minister at the May Day rally, or urging change as in this post from the National Youth Convention.
It would probably be prudent to pay attention to the demands coming from Kenya's future voters, entrepreneurs and leaders. A Kenyan expert has warned that the number of unemployed youth could rise to 14 million over the next seven years. Professor Inonda Mwanje, chief executive officer of the Institute of Policy Analysis and Research, said this surge could spark off a peoples’ revolution if it is not tamed. He said parliament should dedicate a day to discussing this problem -- a tall order when the House cannot yet agree on who leads government business.
The government is aware though: In April, Prime Minister Raila Odinga said: "The unemployment we face in Kenya is nothing but a time bomb. It has been correctly stated that despondency played a big role in fuelling the violence that swept our land during the political crisis last year."
The time bomb may be ticking, but there is little sense of urgency in the corridors of power. President Mwai Kibaki and Odinga have now met again after weeks of scrapping between their PNU and ODM parties but there has been no breakthrough on the crucial question of who will head government business in parliament. And when the House Business Committee attempted to meet on Tuesday, there were not enough members for a quorum. Only five turned up. Daily Nation said those who failed to show included Odinga (who wants to head the committee), Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka (the president's choice to head the committee), deputy prime ministers Uhuru Kenyatta and Musalia Mudavadi and new Justice head Mutula Kilonzo, among many others.
Government paralysis does have a pratical cost -- it creates the perception of a failed state, or at the very least a stagnating state, and why would you put your money there? Kilonzo, who was Nairobi Metropolitan minister before getting the justice portfolio, said this week that persistent traffic jams, rising insecurity and poor infrastructure means Nairobi is losing its status as a destination of choice to investors and tourists.
For those who may be still committed to "eating" their way to the next election in Kenya, this news from Paris may be worth a read. A French judge has launched an investigation into whether the presidents of Congo-Brazzaville, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea used embezzled public funds to buy luxury homes and cars. The judge opened the case after a police investigation and at the request of the French arm of Transparency International -- setting a precedent that could be copied by anti-corruption organisations elsewhere.
Back in Nairobi, the reports of scurrilous dealings and scandals keep coming, thick and fast -- among the latest: Uhuru Kenyatta is being questioned over whether he duped MPs into passing an extra 9 billion shillings as part of the supplementary budget. And Odinga is angrily denying reports that his family and associates were involved in the maize scandal earlier this year.

SEXUAL HEALING

2009-04-30T12:19:00.002+03:00

So another political showdown has sputtered out, for now. Kenya's parliamentary speaker Kenneth Marende opted not to rule on who should be head of government business in parliament, but instead told the bickering parties of President Mwai Kibaki and his coalition partner Prime Minister Raila Odinga to sort it out between themselves, stop feuding and get back to work. In the meantime, Marende will take on the critical job himself until the parties agree on a candidate -- Kibaki wants Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka in the job, but Odinga thinks it should be his.
Marende's decision seems a smart one, and he has been hailed by some as a Kenyan Solomon. Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan praised Marende for his "wisdom and statesmanship" -- qualities that seem to be in somewhat short supply in the corridors of power these days.
But that is all old news. Nairobi is abuzz today with a much...er...sexier story. A group of 10 non-governmental organisations -- who call themselves Gender 10 -- has called on Kenyan women to deny their men sex for a week to protest at poor political leadership.
It's a great, headline-grabbing idea although perhaps not one that will find much popular support -- as one Kenyan woman told me: "If a woman does not give her man sex, she will find herself sleeping outside, or on the floor." Others have warned that the poor, deprived men will "stray". But, maybe to cover that possibility, Gender 10 has also urged prostitutes to join the sex boycott, with some NGOs saying they will pay prostitutes to stay off the streets.
Gender 10 also called on Kibaki's wife Lucy and Odinga's other half Ida to join the action.....no word yet on whether they will.
Patricia Nyaundi of the Federation of Women Lawyers (Fida) was quoted in the Daily Nation as saying: "Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures."
Whatever the boycott's effect on the nations' bedrooms, it's a clever PR job. More seriously, it illustrates the anger fizzing across Kenyan society. Gender 10 said in a statement: "The women of this country are frustrated and most perturbed by the feuds, turns and twists of the coalition Government and particularly the lack of political leadership by the two principals, the President and Prime Minister, who have continuously shown the Kenyan people the contempt card."

THE STRAW AND THE CAMEL?

2009-04-27T13:13:00.002+03:00

It seems Raila Odinga has finally had enough. Maybe. This weekend, Kenya's prime minister said that if the row over who is appointed government business leader in parliament is not resolved -- ie if he doesn't get the job over President Mwai Kibaki's nominee Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka -- then elections should be called. Odinga was quoted by the BBC as telling constituents in Lang'ata: "We have been pushed around enough. We have reached this point and we cannot retreat. We shall stand firm. If others do not want this then let us go back and hold elections."
But Kibaki has apparently told the speaker of parliament that there is no need for any further talks on the dispute as he has already appointed Musyoka. And members of his PNU party have accused Odinga's ODM -- their coalition partners -- of fomenting a coup.
The speaker is due to rule on the appointment on Tuesday but whatever he says, someone is going away unhappy. It's hard to see how the two sides can work together in any productive way now. Like a married couple who have had a late-night row where hasty, harsh words were traded, one wonders if too much has been said for any reconciliation to be possible. Or at least any reconciliation that goes beyond appearances and allows the government to effectively function.
Beyond the risk of violence surrounding a breakdown in the coalition or possible early elections, Kenya will suffer enormously if the government is unable to do anything other than strive to survive until the next scheduled elections in 2012. The myriad economic and social problems facing the country -- as a result of the global economic crisis, the drought, rising criminality and dangerous neighbours -- demand responses.
One example: Somalia's militant Islamist rebel group, al Shabaab, have apparently said they will invade Kenya's North Eastern province and install sharia law. This is not the first time Kenya, which is home to hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees, has been threatened by al Shabaab -- and who knows how serious they are -- but it is another problem for a government fast losing its raison d'etre.

HOW MANY CRISES IN A COALITION?

2009-04-24T21:53:00.002+03:00

Kenya's parliamentarians are back in the house, but the Easter break does not seem to have soothed spirits much. Already, the business of running the country has come to a standstill -- yet again because of a row over power-sharing. This time, the dispute is over who should lead government business in parliament and chair the House Business Committee, which sets the agenda. So far, so predictable, but coming after weeks of increasingly vicious sparring between the coalition partners and with a rise in international calls for more action on corruption and good governance (or some kind of governance, at least), one wonders how many more crises this coalition has in it?
President Mwai Kibaki has nominated Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka as leader of government business. Traditionally, this post has always gone to the Vice-President but this coalition government has a Prime Minister -- Raila Odinga -- and he has nominated himself.
The problem is that parliament cannot debate or pass laws until this job is filled.
On Thursday, a Cabinet meeting was cancelled -- the third cancellation in as many weeks. The House Speaker has asked for a meeting with Kibaki and Odinga to resolve the issue. The stakes may be high. The Daily Nation newspaper said that if parliament votes against the nominee for the job of government business leader, then the Business Committee cannot be formed for another six months -- effectively freezing government business. But the constitution says that if parliament does not sit for three consecutive months, it stands dissolved, which, the paper said, "would create a catastrophic constitutional crisis because there is no electoral commission to conduct an election."
Even some MPs seem to be running out of patience. I loved the suggestion from Trade Minister Amos Kimunya that parliamentarians were committing fraud by earning so-called sitting allowances without transacting business. He has offered to forgo his perks for the past three days. Agriculture Minister William Ruto tried to pass a motion that would have seen each MP lose 20,000 shillings in allowances for the four sessions since Tuesday. Laudable gestures perhaps, whatever your opinion of the individual MPs, but Kenya may need something even more dramatic now.
Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta was among MPs who said there should be fresh elections if the sparring between the coalition partners continues. But there is no electoral commission in place, so how to square that circle? Kenyatta also said that the government would not be able to get approval to spend supplementary funds because of the delays in establishing the House Business Committee. His finance ministry wants parliament to approve extra spending of 9.91 billion shillings for the 08/09 budget.
International concern is growing. Human Rights Watch has said it is alarmed about the number of governments in East Africa and the Horn that are using repressive tactics to stay in power and silence their opponents. On Kenya, one of HRW's researchers Chris Albin-Lackey is quoted as saying: "Kenya is so hobbled by corruption and by the quality of governance that the threat of poverty and ethnic violence boiling over again into something like what we saw after the elections is becoming more and more real."
And the US has urged the government to get reforms on track urgently. The Standard quotes American Ambassador Michael Ranneberger as saying the Obama administration has contacted the Kenyan government to criticise the slow pace of reforms and culture of impunity. Obama has said Kenya must tackle corruption if it wants to justify help from the US and other donors.
And finally this is interesting, if a little leftfield. It's perhaps unlikely, but just imagine if Kibaki were contemplating a third term? Constitutional limits are easily sidestepped -- just ask Algeria's Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Burkina Faso's Blaise Compaore, Gabon's Omar Bongo, Cameroon's Paul Biya, or Yoweri Museveni in Uganda. Something to think about.

Mungiki Massacre

2009-04-22T13:35:00.002+03:00

Pictures don't lie but the dead don't talk and maybe that is why it is so hard to understand what happened in Gathaithi village in central Kenya on Monday night. The aftermath is clear: bloodied, battered bodies sprawled in the red earth, weeping women, blood-stained clubs discarded by the roadside.
Newspaper reports say about 30 villagers were killed by members of the criminal Mungiki sect, who were out for revenge after vigilantes killed around a dozen of their own members. As is often the case in the aftermath of violence, the details are vague: some reports say the Mungiki lured villagers to their deaths by setting fire to a house and hacking their victims as they came to help: some say Mungiki members simply came to people's homes and took away sons and fathers; some say a vigilante group set up to fight the Mungiki -- a brutal, mafia-type group whose members were exacting tolls from business people, taxi-bicycle (boda-boda) owners and matatu drivers around Gathaithi -- called itself "The Hague", other reports say the group was named "Bantu". What exactly was the role of the police? Some reports said a police patrol had just passed through the village before the killings began; some said there were rumours that the Mungiki were going to strike and so police patrols were stepped up; but others say the armed Mungiki arrived in full view of the police.
Maybe the full truth will never come to light. Maybe truth is always in the eye of the beholder -- I have been to villages in the Ivory Coast after people were massacred and heard so many different versions of what happened. I don't think anyone was lying but each witness saw different elements of the whole event and had their own interpretation based on personal experience and enmities. Perhaps that is inevitable.
But there are questions that go beyond this particular incident: why did the Mungiki exact such a headline-grabbing, brutal revenge? Have they been emboldened by official failure to crack down on their activities in central Kenya, Nairobi and beyond? Was this a desperate act by a sect that is being attacked on several fronts -- by an alleged shoot-to-kill police policy and now enraged vigilantes? Who, if anyone, gave the okay for the killings? The Mungiki reputedly have some very powerful backers and one imagines that there may be more to this than a simple though shocking act of revenge. How do we know that all the people doing the killing were really Mungiki? How do we know that all those killed by the vigilantes were really Mungiki? Is this incident a sign of anarchy spreading in the vacuum left by a rudderless administration? And what do the killings -- by both sides -- mean for the future? A land ruled by militias -- angry young men with no jobs and no prospects being manipulated by shadowy Godfathers seeking power and profit -- is a dangerous place at the best of times and a potential timebomb when the political class is riven by divisions, widely viewed as incompetent and corrupt, and seemingly desperate to cling onto power by fair means or foul.

OF CATTLE AND CAMPS

2009-04-20T23:06:00.005+03:00

The rains have come to Nairobi .... still pole, pole though. Grey, brooding clouds glower down on the city through the sweltering afternoon, with the first drops sputtering onto the ground in the early evening. So far so good but it feels like the air is never completely cleared. A true, West of Ireland-style two-week downpour is perhaps needed.
Driving around these days, there is a new hazard to join the kamikaze matatus and pause-until-the-car-is-upon-you-then-dash pedestrians: Herds of emaciated cows meandering along the main roads, shepherded by Maasai wrapped in red blankets or less colourful cowherds in grubby T-shirts and tattered jeans. Apparently, they are coming from an area near the border with Tanzania. It's a vivid reminder of the drought which threatens nearly 10 million Kenyans with starvation in the east, south and coastal provinces. I'm not a livestock expert, but even to the uninitiated, these streetside cows are a sorry sight. Bones and little else, looking for slim pickings on the roadsides of an East African capital.
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It's easy to get caught up in the madness of the political dance in Nairobi -- all those statements, meetings, denunciations, reconciliations. The latest from the Grand Coalition is
that members of the ODM are accusing their partners in the PNU of stealing the national accord -- which ended the post-election violence -- and implementing it only to serve their interests.
It doesn't bode well for the reopening of parliament tomorrow.
Away from the daily drip-drip of political intrigues, a sad photograph on the cover of the Daily Nation last week caught my attention: It showed a woman, who was made homeless because of the post-election violence, in tears because the tent she was living in was destroyed by police officers at a refugee camp in Eldoret. Police said tents were pulled down because they were unoccupied and they were reported to have also said the camp had become a haven for criminals. The woman said she was in her tent when they came to pull it down. Whatever the real motives, the story serves as a reminder that Kenya is still home to thousands of internally displaced people -- men, women and children whose homes were destroyed during last year's violence, many of whom are still too afraid to go home to live beside those who were once neighbours and are now foes ... or could be.
It is perhaps no wonder that a recent opinion poll showed 53 percent of those questioned favoured elections before 2012. The same report revealed a staggering 97 percent of those polled did not trust their parliamentarians. On the plus side, more than 60 percent said they were satisfied with government action on supplying electricity, creating access to schools, health services and building a road network. What really struck me though were the responses of some politicians. In an article in the same paper, two politicians condemned Kenyans for being gloomy; one said an election would bring no change anyway, so why do it? Another said Kenyans suffering from drought or still in refugee camps would not want elections and that the institutions were, in any case, not ready, ie the electoral commission etc. Neither was quoted saying anything positive about the government's record.
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And finally, many are talking about an eventual movie about the American ship captain who sacrificed himself to Somali teenage pirates to save his crew. I'd rather see an intelligent film about Abdulwali Muse, the pirate who survived after having an icepick stuck in his hand. How did he end up on the Maersk Alabama, and what does that tell you about Somalia, and the resources that the international community will commit to combatting piracy but not perhaps to trying to stem the inland chaos that has helped create the teenage brigands.

THERE'S SOMETHING ROTTEN.....

2009-04-14T21:04:00.002+03:00

Sometimes I wonder if I'm being too pessimistic about Kenya's political situation. But then I read another newspaper article about corruption and marvel at how the country survives day-to-day. Today's addition to the graft hall of shame was a story in the Daily Nation about pension fraud. The details, as given, are mind-boggling, the incompetence bordering on the farcical and the consequences, as ever, depressing. According to the article, which drew from a report by the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission, conmen (by which I think the paper means corrupt officials and their middlemen) may have diverted millions of shillings to "ghost retirees", undoubtedly relatives of the "ghost voters" who took part in the 2007 general elections. The paper quotes the commission's report as saying the pensions department sent 79 million shillings to pensioners in the UK in 2005/06 but no details of those receiving the money were ever produced and no one came forward to say they had got the funds. Also, more than 400 million shillings worth of pension funds are in so-called suspense accounts because incompetent staff sent cheques to the wrong addresses and then never bothered to follow up. The government hopes to launch a new contributory pension scheme in July, and the head of the pensions department was quoted as saying that the problems would be solved by a new computer system. It seems unlikely that a software programme will be able to override human impulses -- impulses that are only too visible elsewhere in Kenyan state institutions and parastatals.
This weekend, I asked a member of the Partnership for Change movement, if Kenya had alternatives to the current crop of leaders? I was told yes, more and more members of the middle-classes -- professionals like doctors and teachers -- are entering politics because of a widespread perception that action is needed to fundamentally shake up a diseased and ineffective system. These are people who would never have been involved in politics before. People who go about their business in spite of politics. But, I was told, the situation in Kenya has become so parlous that a growing number of once-apolitical people are stepping up to the plate. The question is: can you reform the system from the outside? What kind of a political earthquake would be needed to erase years of tribal -- or community -- based politics in order to allow new wannabe politicians to come to the fore? Perhaps it's just a question of how often and how deeply the people are disappointed. But disappointment, poverty, lack of opportunity and the dangerous what-have-we-got-to-lose attitude that these evils can inspire can so easily be moulded into a them-against-us stance that would simply feed the existing clique-politics. I guess civic education has a key role to play, and groups like Partnership for Change are out there on the ground trying to get people to ask questions and demand more of those in power. It's a tall order to tackle an entrenched system whose roots extend to the colonial era. But at the very least, it's a start, a sign of positive activism in a country where stagnation seems to have seeped into every corner of the administration -- a stagnation which is steeped in fear; fear of change, fear of losing one's perks, fear of the other, fear of being blamed for changing the status quo and sometimes, simply fear of speaking out. The rain that has threatened all day has come. Time to check the torches and nightlights.

TAKING A GAMBLE

2009-04-06T21:58:00.002+03:00

I'm going to stick my neck out now and make a prediction -- I think Kenya's coalition government will collapse in the next six months. I definitely cannot see it lasting until 2012. Of course, that does not mean there have to be fresh elections. I imagine President Mwai Kibaki could call on the constitution and form a new cabinet. But this team seems to be well past its sell-by-date. (Of course, I could be wrong -- I have been in the past, most notably about the creation of the euro. I just couldn't see that working....!)
The freshest reason for my pessimism: today, Justice Minister Martha Karua resigned -- the first minister to quit the Grand Coalition. She says she was frustrated by colleagues who opposed reforms, and that she is now going to concentrate on nation-building and her 2012 presidential bid. The last straw seems to have been the naming of new judges last week without her approval or knowledge, but she had already fallen out with Kibaki, her one-time backer.
Karua, Kenya's so-called Iron Lady, was credited -- although that seems the wrong word -- with helping orchestrate Kibaki's internationally-criticised victory in the 2007 polls. She has been outspoken about corruption in recent weeks, fingering colleagues and mounting a sustained campaign against the Chief Justice. She has also never made a secret of her 2012 ambitions. Does this clever, charismatic if controversial politician feel that there is absolutely no upside to remaining with the current team because it has lost all legitimacy and standing in the eyes of the Kenyan voters? Has she seen the writing on the wall for the coalition and decided to jump ship to be free of the acrimony and mutual recriminations that are sure to follow a political collapse? Did Kibaki force her out? Whatever the real reasons, her departure is another blow to an administration that has failed on so many levels.
Karua's resignation followed a frankly farcical weekend retreat that was billed as a chance for the coalition partners to overcome their differences. They went to the Tsavo national park, but they couldn't even agree on the meeting's agenda, or indeed the sleeping arrangements. Cue sulks, walkouts, denials of walkouts, two contradictory press conferences and a full-page ad in the Daily Nation today from the PNU saying it wanted to discuss reforms but the ODM wanted power-sharing issues on the table.
"The PNU is opposed to power games at a time when the country requires a concerted effort to improve the lives of wananchi, including the resettlement of IDPs." An effort to take the high moral ground, but you have to wonder about the veracity of the first part of the sentence -- the second half is pretty spot on.
I wonder if the straw that breaks the coalition camel's back will be the question of setting up a special tribunal to judge those deemed to be responsible for the post-election bloodshed? The International Criminal Court has said when and if it steps in, it will act relentlessly and immediately ie when Kenya has shown that it cannot or will not set up a local tribunal to try the suspects. Kofi Annan still has that sealed list of suspects compiled by an independent commission and has said he will hand it over to the ICC if parliament fails to act quickly to set up a local court. He wants action by summer. Parliament is back from recess at the end of April, so things could get interesting then.
Meanwhile, the question is who is Karua going to team up with now that she has burnt bridges with her former boss? Odinga? He has spoken out in her defence today, using the opportunity to attack Kibaki as well. Her departure from government will surely have some impact on the politics of ethnicity that seems to dominate so much of public life here.

THE COST OF TRAVEL

2009-04-01T21:05:00.002+03:00

A Kenyan friend told me today how he was robbed the other evening as he headed home from work. It's not breaking news...this happens all the time, but it's the first time since I've been here that I've heard it firsthand and I thought it worth sharing. Impunity is a big, ponderous word. This is its day-to-day face.
Our friend took a matatu as usual to get home, but unbeknownst to him and the other passengers, three "gangsters" were already on board. When they had gone a little way down Lower Kabete Road, the gangsters basically hijacked the bus and forced it to make a detour towards a forest on a road that leads to Loresho. They stopped the bus and forced everyone to hand over their money and valuables. Our friend lost his mobile phone and some cash. I asked him how come the gangsters were able to board the bus undetected. "They only had little pistols .... They were young boys like me (he is about 34) ... They ask you for your money and then check your pockets but if they find some and you have not said it, then you have problems." This time nobody was beaten up and our friend made his way home on foot. "They always do it at the end of the month." He said it with resignation, no anger. I found that particularly shocking. If it happened to me, I would be livid, and dining out on the tale for month, embroidering it with each telling (that's probably the Irish in me). But he told the story in a flat voice, matter-of-factly. I asked him about going to the police, but he said there was no point. What could the police do? And you might get into more trouble as the police might actually tell the gangsters that you fingered them. "And then they would come after you. A lot of these gangsters are the sons of rich people."
I'm not trying to be falsely naive here, a wide-eyed new arrival with little nous. But what struck me is that things have come to a sad state of affairs when you can reasonably expect to be robbed at gunpoint when taking the bus home with your wages at the end of the month, and then have absolutely no recourse to justice in case the criminals find out from the police that you have had the temerity to report a robbery.
In other news, we have had rain which has brought some truly splendiferous creepy-crawlies out of the woodwork but appears not to have dampened Kenyan politicians' appetite for party politics. Fiddling while Rome burns? Another warning this week from Kofi Annan, the father of the Grand Coalition: "Kenya is at a crossroads. The time to act is now," he told a conference marking the first anniversary of the power-sharing agreement. He said Kenyans were disillusioned. "They are equally angry at widespread corruption and the lack of action to root it out ... But the situation is not hopeless ... The government can turn things around by acting swiftly and effectively on the agreed constitutional, parliamentary, judicial, police and land reforms."
But in the past week to 10 days, we have seen instead: talk of a censure motion against Justice Minister Martha Karua; rumours of a cabinet reshuffle that never happened; more press reports about possible alliances between the ODM and the PNU in the Rift Valley; President Kibaki and Prime Minister Odinga snubbing the Annan-led talks in Geneva.; and reports that human rights activists have gone into hiding, or even left the country, because of death threats after they cooperated with U.N. special rapporteur Philip Alston on his report into extrajudicial killings.
And while rain falls on Nairobi, what is happening in the rest of the country? This from the Daily Nation shows that Kenyans realise that famine should not be inevitable -- the solutions are clear -- but again where is the political appetite to tackle reform in the agricultural sector? Will it bring votes in 2012 or indeed before?
On a lighter note, I thought the Kenyan papers' April Fool articles were very good. The Nation told of how a forgotten Old Master painting had been found in State House. The "quote" from Amos Kimunya about unveiling it at a "cheese and wine party and some bitings with cocktail sausages and things" was hilarious, as was the idea that the police commissioner was sleeping in a room with the painting, Ceska pistol at the ready on the direct orders of Kibaki. Byline: Mutuma Mathiu and Ramatol Van Uppabut... The Standard ran with a piece on how Kenya had bought a Cold War sub to defend Migingo island -- the purchase carried out through an intermediary involved in Anglo-Leasing. Nice, though that particular saga does seem to be simmering away nicely despite several efforts to get Ugandan soldiers off the pile of rocks in Lake Victoria. A bizarre story but one of those ones that it might be worth keeping an eye on.

THE GOD SQUAD

2009-03-24T13:48:00.002+03:00

Last week, the National Council of Churches in Kenya called for new elections -- and was roundly slapped down by politicians of all persuasions and many ordinary Kenyans. The NCCK did not mince its words, dubbing the president "moribund" and the prime minister "ineffective". It went on to accuse the bloated cabinet of stealing development funds, worsening the drought through corruption, ignoring thousands of internal refugees and dragging their feet on constitutional reform.
"We find it immoral that members of parliament ... spend most of their time peacocking around the country ... And while the MPs are getting their tax-free allowances to acquire the latest pleasures and luxuries, Kenyans are dying of hunger."
It was a real dressing-down from the country's largest church group. And it echoes many of the complaints made every day by ordinary Kenyans and even by ministers, who have been pointing fingers at their own associates, accusing them of corruption or worse ie Justice Minister and probable presidential candidate Martha Karua lashing out at the judiciary and particularly the Chief Justice for favoritism and cronyism in the appointment of magistrates; Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka accusing colleagues of "stealing as much as they can" to fill their war chests before the next election.
But one of the main arguments made against the NCCK's call was that elections simply cannot be held because there is no electoral commission -- the electoral commission of Kenya (ECK) was disbanded after the 2007 polls, accused of bungling the results. Early this week, a parliamentary team was meant to nominate a new polls chief but that decision has now been delayed until Thursday, according to the Nation. Among other tasks, the new Interim Independent Electoral Commission will have to compile a new voters' register as the old one is defunct since the abolition of the ECK.
It's a bit of a worry, though, if the main argument against having snap polls to address widely acknowledged problems of corruption and incompetence is that the government is too ineffective and divided to even set up the institutions needed to hold a vote. Something of a Catch-22.

KEEPING TIME

2009-03-17T11:41:00.002+03:00

One of the advantages of having a restless two-year-old is that you get to watch a lot of early morning television -- although, you do have to be able to watch and assimilate while reading "Spot Goes To The Park" and keeping a cup of hot coffee away from sleep-befuddled toddler hands. So this morning, just after 6 a.m., I was delighted to find a hilarious item on Citizen TV news about a conference of Arab investors in Nairobi this week.
According to the report, the conference was due to start at 8.30 am on Monday, but well after 10, Kenyan officials from various ministries had still not appeared. Cue shots of the Arab investors sitting down at long conference tables, looking grumpy, shots of empty chairs, cutaways to the clock. Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta appeared quite miffed, and the presentation from one official -- who said Monday morning was evidently not a good time to host a conference -- was truly hilarious. There is a serious side to the story too.
Do you really want people who have money to invest in a country suffering from drought, a budget shortfall of millions of shillings, political instability and endemic corruption to be kept waiting? Kenyatta said yesterday that Kenya needed 480 billion shillings to achieve its growth objectives. The country is increasingly looking to the Middle East and Asia for fresh funds -- an Africa-wide trend that has seen Kuwait invest in Sudanese farms and dams and China pour money into infrastructure and extraction industries across the continent, to name but two examples. But competition for funds is fierce, and credit-crunch-scarred investors are becoming increasingly wary and demanding. If the Arab investors in Nairobi on Monday were rating potential investment destinations on issues of governance and efficiency, Kenya might find itself a ways down the list.

COALITION END-GAME?

2009-03-14T21:13:00.002+03:00

It seems everyone is waiting for Kenya's coalition government to fall apart. But who is going to blink first when the risks are so high? Stagnation may, afterall, be preferable to a potentially very dangerous vacuum and elections that, most agree, whenever they come will be troublesome and very possibly marked by violence. However, standing still carries its own dangers and surely at some point the internal bickering within the coalition must become untenable. Not to mention the damage being done by the lack of leadership in a time of global economic crisis which is expected to really start hitting Kenya this year. Growth forecasts have now been revised down to 3 percent for the year to June -- down from 5.8 percent previously, and a sturdy 7 percent growth in 2007. There is a 25 billion shilling shortfall in the 08/09 budget, so belts must be tightened -- perhaps those inflated salaries in parliament? Tourism, remittances, exports -- all will be affected by the global recession. If ever leaders of stature, of vision and of courage were needed, it would seem to be now.
Instead, this week a meeting of the Permanent Committee on the Management of the Grand Coalition Affairs was cancelled because of a government row over the deaths of two human rights activists in Nairobi and a subsequent protest by students which turned ugly, among other political bickerings.
Many commentators seem to agree that the coalition is doomed...but what do Kenyans think? Is there hope that the Grand Coalition could make way for a better team, or simply a feeling that the devil you know is better than the devil you don't?
Prime Minister Raila Odinga seems to be taking the biggest political hit right now, with many questioning his decision to back the students' protest, not to mention increasingly strident voices being raised against him within his own party. And all the time, President Mwai Kibaki remains mostly silent, though he has blamed the media and civil society groups for fuelling discontent. As politicians bluster with an eye or two always on 2012, reports of intimidation and evidence of the ineluctable spread of a culture of fear continue to mount, as in this story about human rights activists fleeing the Mount Elgon area after police investigations into their contributions to U.N. special rapporteur Philip Alston's report on extrajudicial killings.

NAIROBI PROTESTS

2009-03-10T23:26:00.002+03:00

More trouble on the streets of Nairobi today -- a thousands-strong student protest over alleged police killings degenerated into rioting and looting in the centre of the Kenyan capital. http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5292FB20090310
I briefly wondered this week if I should stock up on essentials -- water, biscuits, beer -- but then thought I was being paranoid, which is probably true. Call me Cassandra. Nonetheless, and despite the fact that students wouldn't be students if they did not protest against the establishment, today's violence feels like the beginning, not the end. The students were apparently joined by unemployed youths, and others from the many slums of Nairobi as well as professionals. Heaven knows there seems to be enough anger and frustration around to bring people onto the streets, even in a country with a lot to lose, relative to other African states, a strong middle-class and years of corruption behind it.
I had a strange, thought-provoking chat with a man in Limuru at the weekend. He was definitely not middle-class, and as he dragged on his cigarette, he opined: "We look to Zimbabwe and see what happened there." It might seem an exaggerated comparison, and indeed the histories and current circumstances are so different, but if a Kenyan is looking to Zimbabwe as a vision of a possible, albeit very pessimistic future, it is very depressing.
Fear seems to be gripping a large segment of the Kenyan population -- the flipside of the impunity that appears to have a stranglehold on the security forces and the political class. This article from the Daily Nation this week makes chilling reading -- it investigates alleged torture and executions by the army in Mount Elgon -- claims the military deny -- and the retribution that still awaits those who dare to speak out about the events a year ago. http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/543462/-/u33lps/-/And now in Samburu, an operation is underway against cattle rustlers that appears marked with the same callous abuse of power by those with guns. http://www.eastandard.net/InsidePage.php?id=1144008415&cid=4&ttl=Leaders%20condemn%20Samburu%20security%20operation
Kofi Annan said today he is sure the Kenyan Grand Coalition, which was born out of the post-election violence of 2007/8 -- will survive but notes that it must reform. Reform is the word on everyone's lips -- but talk is cheap and increasingly discounted in Kenya.

TAKING TEA IN LIMURU

2009-03-10T13:35:00.003+03:00

On Sunday -- one of those beautiful, blue-skied days that seem to make the birds sing louder and the air feel fresher -- we headed to Kiambethu Tea Farm in Limuru for lunch and a little learning with some friends. It was a smooth drive, just a short hop up a mercifully free Waiyaki Way, marred only by some of our convoy being stopped by the police over out-of-date driving papers. Once off the main road past the Bata sign, the emerald expanses of the tea plantations stretched up hills and curved around the road, looking like particularly inviting soft blankets but really made up of knee-high bushes planted almost on top of each other. The air was rich with the smell of the tea plants and the more mature aromas coming from the tea-producing factory nearby. People in their Sunday best traipsed along the road on the way home from church: children in elaborate frilly dresses and pretty hats, women in smart ensembles, men in fresh shirts and even jackets despite the broiling heat. Kiambethu is owned by third-generation white Kenyans and is reached by rattling up a loose-stone road before turning into a tree-covered drive and coming to a halt in front of a low house with a shady verandah, Colobus monkeys on the roof and a rich lawn that just demanded to be stretched out on.
After a cup of tea (of course!), owner Marcus Mitchell took the adults into a shady, lived-in sitting-room of faded sofas and flower etchings to talk about the tea-planting process, while the children headed for that delightful lawn and its maze of flowerbeds. A cheeky Colobus monkey hung upside-down from the roof to snatch bananas from the hands of children held aloft by the guide. Our youngest was game to try, and delighted when the hairy hand of the monkey touched her, as her older sister looked on half-enviously, half-frightened. The monkey scoffed the banana and then threw the skin back down -- something our girls found deliciously naughty. The children rampaged around the lawn, darting in-and-out of the flowerbeds and running shrieking from the very docile dogs. Then it was time for a walk among the few acres of indigenous forest left on the farm, past some well-fed, fat cows that one visitor commented looked like they had come out of an ad for a dairy product. In a land of rhinos and big cats, they nonetheless entranced the children. Other favourite sights included a chameleon and a brilliant green grasshopper. Our almost-toothless guide filled us in on the different trees and their importance to the Kikuyu, stressing that this was why they had to keep locals out. Lunch was eaten in the shade of the trees on the lawn -- like a big, well-organised family picnic. We helped ourselves to a fabulous buffet of salads, meat, cheesecake, home-made butter and soft, soft bread before lazing with more tea on the canvas chairs set out nearby. A great day out, and really close to Nairobi if you take the road to Runda past Village Market and head out that way. Best to book in advance.

WHAT NEXT?

2009-03-06T20:39:00.002+03:00

After yesterday's protests by members of the Mungiki sect, news this morning that two human rights activists had been shot dead on a central Nairobi street. http://af.reuters.com/article/kenyaNews/idAFL636946220090306
Gunned down in their car just hours after the government had said their organisation -- the Oscar Foundation -- was a front for the Mungiki, a deadly criminal gang with a record of beheading those who defy it. Another student was shot dead when the police went to retrieve the body of one of the activists. http://www.kenyanpundit.com/. Three police officers were arrested.
Whoever is to blame -- whether it is renegade police officers, officially banned death squads, private bodyguards or as some say members of the Mungiki sect http://sukumakenya.blogspot.com/2009/03/rip-oscar-kamau-kingara-and-john-paul.html --the killings deal another blow to Kenya's increasingly paralysed and tainted government and its allies in the security services.
It's hard to know when a country is on the brink of a crisis. From years in West Africa, I've learnt that trouble usually comes when you are least expecting it. The storm clouds appear to be gathering over Kenya. It doesn't mean the rain is imminent, but the atmosphere is gloomy and there is a heaviness in the air that speaks of frustration, despondency and fear.
The U.N. special rapporteur Philip Alston, whose report on extra-judicial killings in Kenya was released last week and who met the two murdered activists when he visited Kenya -- has called for a foreign investigation by the likes of Scotland Yard or the South African police -- that's a pretty clear vote of no confidence in the Kenyan authorities on all levels.
Prime Minister Raila Odinga has said: "I fear we are flirting with lawlessness in the name of keeping law and order. In the process, we are hurtling towards failure as a state."
It's a damning statement from one of the leaders of east Africa's strongest economy. The question is how far has the country to go?

Mungiki

2009-03-05T21:17:00.002+03:00

I learnt a lot about Kenya's Mungiki sect today. It started with a text message as I was coming home from dropping my eldest off at school: the playgroup for my youngest was cancelled because of Mungiki protests on the roads, and fears that mothers and children in SUVs might be caught up in them. My little one was most disappointed -- and explanations about the Mungiki -- which apparently means gang in Kikuyu -- and extrajudicial killings were just not going to cut it with a frustrated two-year-old. So I took her to Village Market -- still seeing no trouble on the roads. During the day, I learnt a little more about the Mungiki who seem to have a stranglehold on life in some of Nairobi's poorer districts and in towns in the Rift Valley and Central Provinces.

Today's protests were organised by the Mungiki to call for the implementation of a report by a special U.N. rapporteur, Philip Alston, on extrajudicial killings by the police. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jV9xNnrl729T0lEmOyfGN6bcQQIQ
Human rights groups and family members say many of the hundreds of people who have disappeared or been executed by alleged police death squads were suspected of being members of the Mungiki, and the political wing of the Mungiki has come out in the support of Alston's report. http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/535856/-/u2ijkv/-/

The Mungiki are mostly young men -- some sporting dreadlocks -- who run protection rackets, mainly targetting drivers of the ubiquitous and crazily-driven matatus or minibuses. They demand a cut from the drivers, but also apparently run rackets in construction and other businesses. They draw their beliefs from traditional Kikuyu rites and are pretty fanatical. In some districts, I was told, they ban women from wearing trousers and have their ears to the ground on what goes on inside people's houses. They are violent, deadly, allegedly beheading some young men who refused to join their ranks. They are abstemious, shunning alcohol and drugs. You know who they are, but they don't always look dangerous -- they speak in low tongues, gather in groups but you know that if you cross them, "you will get it."
Clearly, Alston's report on extrajudicial killings has touched a raw nerve in Kenya -- some say he is just revealing what every Kenyan knows ie that the police act with impunity and that the judicial system is toothless. But others argue that faced with the threat from the Mungiki, the police have no choice but to shoot-to-kill. And critics like Alston, they argue, are at best misguided and at worst simplistically interpreting events of which they have no real knowledge.
The anger felt by residents of the neighbourhoods ruled by the Mungiki is clear: today two suspected gang members were lynched in Thika. http://www.eastandard.net/InsidePage.php?id=1144008118&cid=418

Today's protests mainly disrupted life for those people using matatus to get to and from work -- those who can least afford a day's lost pay.
But, like much else in Kenya these days, the Mungiki story is not just a tale of idle-boys-gone-bad. There is a political angle. Some say politicians have been more than ready to use the Mungiki during campaigning to add a little muscle to their message. It is difficult to put a genie of political patronage back into the box. The government said on Thursday that Alston had helped to spark the protests, basically by giving the Mungiki legitimacy. http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE5240KZ20090305

LOST YEARS?

2009-03-04T12:46:00.002+03:00

My eldest daughter turns five at the end of March. It's a very big deal -- she is making plans, inviting every face painter she meets, and taking notes at the parties she has been to here in Nairobi. Birthday parties in London were extravagant affairs -- but they didn't have fire-eaters as the party we went to last weekend did! So the bar has been set quite high.
In 2012, she will be eight -- it seems such a long way away. She will have lost teeth, grown new ones, she'll be reading, tying her own laces, sleeping alone in her bed (hopefully!), she'll have learnt to swim without armbands, she'll be past the Backyardigans and onto Hannah Montana and High School Musical (or whatever the 2012 equivalent will be), she'll be casting a much more critical eye on my clothes, she'll be in a new school, she'll have discovered the joy of maths, she may even be living in a different country.
I started thinking about all these changes because I was mulling how often politicians here refer to 2012 -- it seems to be dictating every move, every decision, every pollitical play -- already. I know this is not unique to Kenya: politicians do focus on getting re-elected ridiculously soon after the final votes from their victorious election have been counted. But this over-riding obsession looks likely to condemn Kenya to three years of stagnation at best, with a possible explosion of violence at the end of those lost years.
Just a few examples:In an interview in the Sunday Nation, Agriculture Minister William Ruto said Justice Minister Martha Karua had approached him wanting to form a political alliance. She denies this, and has reportedly already said she plans to stand in 2012. Last week, the Nation also ran a story saying that parliamentarians in the Rift Valley and Central Provinces wanted to forge an alliance between Ruto of the ODM and Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta of President Mwai Kibaki's PNU party to win the election -- bringing together the votes of Ruto's Kalenjin supporters and Kenyatta's Kikuyu backers.
Even abroad, everyone is looking to 2012 http://www.guardianweekly.co.uk/?page=editorial&id=973&catID=21
It's a worrying thought - poignant even -- when you look at today's Nation which has a front-page photo of Mark Nyauma Maugo who was the best candidate in last year's Form Four examinations. In 2012, Mark and the cheering students surrounding him in the picture will be in their 20s, looking for jobs and a future. And what will happen then?
Kofi Annan recently articulated what needed to be done: "The root causes of last year's crisis need to be comprehensively addressed if the country is to avoid a repeat of the violence. These include constitutional and institutional reforms, land reform, and reducing the huge gap between the haves and the have-nots. Other priorities are creating more jobs for youth, equal access to opportunities, promoting ethnic harmony, ending the culture of impunity, and promoting transparency and accountability," he said.
It's a long list -- three years might even be too short, but what hope if those three years are to be sacrificed on the altar of the basest kind of political ambition.
**************************************************************
On another story -- the assassinations of the army chief and president in Guinea-Bissau this week http://af.reuters.com/article/guineaBissauNews/idAFL227561220090302 I heard a few newscasters referring to this as a return to the bad old days in Africa. Surely, Guinea-Bissau is an example of a pernicious new risk in Africa - the poisonous influence of drug money on fragile economies and shaky political structures. Sure, Guinea-Bissau has had coups a-plenty in the past -- and the two dead men shared a decades-old history of animosity -- but the flood of narco-dollars pouring into this poor country only herald more abuse of power, more instability and more corruption to fuel popular discontent. Far from being a return to the bad old days, this may be a warning shot across the world's bows about the dawning of bad new days in West Africa. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/daniel-howden-the-new-cocaine-capital-of-africa-1635903.html

A LAW UNTO THEMSELVES

2009-02-27T23:06:00.002+03:00

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.

KITU KIDOGO

2009-02-23T20:26:00.002+03:00

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

BURNING BUSH IN NAKURU

2009-02-22T21:32:00.001+03:00

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!

SOMETHING STIRRING

2009-02-18T11:17:00.003+03:00

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.

Rain, rhinos and a new member of the family

2009-01-18T20:40:00.001+03:00

"It must be raining somewhere," the taxi driver opined. "Maybe Nakuru?" Turns out he was right and the rain has now returned with a vengeance to Nairobi. I know we have only recently come from London -- and it was raining when we arrived -- but the sudden change from salad days to umbrella days has taken me by surprise. Raincoats have been unearthed, proper shoes ferreted out from the backs of cupboards and I have had to grapple with the question of what to do with the girls on a rainy day.....
But before Nairobi's potholes became swimming pools, we had a glorious sun-filled afternoon visit to the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust inside the Nairobi National Park. Kind friends told us that if we sponsored an elephant, we could go in the evening and watch the babies feed. So, Suguta has now joined our family. Just eight months old, she was orphaned in northern Kenya and flown to the trust after she wandered into a manyatta, seeking fluids and shelter. She was in a bad way but is thriving now. Our first sight on arriving at the Trust, was a teeny baby rhino being ushered into its shed, a bright red blanket covering its back. Cue universal coos and aahs, which faded slightly as we wandered round to see the grown-up rhinos, one of which was sporting a nasty gash in its side. I wondered if the gate secured by a single chain and padlock was really strong enough, wished I had not worn heels (more on this later!), and pondered how quickly I could climb a tree carrying a rather hefty two-year-old. None of these thoughts was particularly reassuring. Then the keepers ushered us up a thin path into the bush nearby and next thing we knew a herd of elephants trundled past, babies being led by the green-coated, wellington-booted keepers, and larger, more rambunctious beasts running at a lively pace, trying to give their carers the slip. It was a breath-taking sight. The sound, the proximity of the animals, the red dust flying in the dying rays of the sun. Lucy's eyes were like saucers as she turned round afterwards. I knew mine were the same. We followed the elephants to their stalls, where the keepers were feeding them with giant bottles of milk. The girls were fascinated. Lucy clambered on to the cross bar of the half-door to get a better look, but Rachel hit the jackpot...partly because she had just hit the dirt. I stupidly tripped (ah yes, those high heels) as I moved between the stalls, and landed flat on my belly. Not too bad, except I was carrying Rachel. She luckily fell on her bottom (again a paean of praise to the inventor of the nappy, much much more than just a diaper), but was shocked and wailed as was her due. A kindly keeper lifted her over the door of one of the stalls so she could pat the elephant (turned out to be Suguta -- our elephant!). The tiny pachyderm was wrapped up in her blanket, ready for bed. Lucy got a turn too, her long legs in school uniform shorts twisting as she tried to avoid kicking the elephant as the keeper held her aloft for a photo. The keepers sleep with the elephants and wake up every three hours to feed them. I simply could not believe it. It's as much work as a baby. The children joined the keepers as they washed their hands in water poured from a bottle, giggling hysterically. Warthogs snuffled about the yard, and a one point a small herd dashed through the few visitors, the last beast stopping dramatically before conquering his fear to join his companions on the far-side of the foreign, flip-flopped feet. Truly a great afternoon, pour les grands et les petits, as the Haribou ad says. And yet, it wouldn't be Africa -- or at least my experience of it -- without a stab of irony. As we meandered back into town, merging with the snarling, unstructured rush-hour traffic, we went past Kibera. It's a sight to chill the soul and I haven't even been in yet. People were rushing home on foot, and I wondered what kinds of beds they would lie in. They were not going home to hot baths and TV as we were. And we had just spent 4,000 shillings on an orphan elephant. A good cause, and I don't mean in any way to take away from it, but it's a funny old world. As a journalist, I know that the stories that get most play from war zones, conflicts, or deprived parts of the world, are ones about animals. When I lived in the Ivory Coast, I wrote about some chimpanzees that lived on an island west of Abidjan. http://www.africanconservation.org/dcforum/DCForumID1/162.html
They had been in a viral research centre but had ended up here in this lost lake-land. One man from a riverside village took them bananas every day. We sat on a boat and filmed and watched them. It was a brilliant experience, strange, captivating, surreal in a country hurtling towards civil war. A woman from California sent me a letter after my article was published with a fistful of dollars to buy bananas for the chimps. It's the only letter I've ever received from a reader, and the only money, though I have written about Liberian refugees living in squalour and under fire, teenagers trying to forget what they did during Sierra Leone's civil war, and women suffering from fistula.
For more details of the David Sheldrick Trust /sponsorship etc, go to www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org

Powerless

2009-01-15T22:08:00.000+03:00

The scream of a child is a terrible thing. It rends the air, raw, inexplicable, a rebuke to our carelessness, our powerlessness, our imperfection. It is the sound of innocence defiled, of a shocking, untimely realisation that the world is not a haven, not a paradise waiting to be explored by pudgy fingers, saucer-like eyes and stubby, stumbling, seeking legs. How then to explain Gaza? As any mother knows, one scream will bring you running, your heart pounding, your hands shaking. You scoop your child into your arms, and promise, promise that everything will be alright. "Mummy's here, Mummy's here."
But what if you couldn't.
I have a two-year-old, a beautiful bundle of golden curls, pool-like eyes and boundless enthusiasm for a world that is still a playground of infinite possibilities. When she cries in the night, tormented by dreads that are as yet nameless, formless, perhaps childhood's premonitions of a harsher reality, I rush to her side, I cradle, I croon, I reassure, I vow. I could not imagine not doing this. I could not imagine not being able to do this. How then to explain Gaza?
I can't do anything about the images on my television screen, I feel I should. Surely, it cannot be right just to sit here, aghast, tears welling in front of pictures of terrified children with eyes full of "why", or covered in bloody bandages, or screaming with a pain that cannot be soothed because there are no medical supplies? The parents' grief is unbearable. The children's pain unimaginable. The screams unconscionable. The hope of an end intangible and too late now for more than 300 children. Children with infectious giggles, eyes like windows on a perfect soul, cheeks made for kissing, heads full of fantasies, dreams, barely born hopes. Children like my two-year-old or my four-year-old. Children too young to understand why.
When I am older, will my daughters-old ask me, 'What did you do Mummy?'?
I won't have an answer and I feel ashamed.

Snappy days

2008-12-03T20:15:00.002+03:00

Mamba Village was a slow burner (in more ways than one) but what a great day out we had. We arrived too early around 1030 am -- clearly to the bemusement of the hordes of staff who floated around the spacious grounds with nary a soul to bother them ... except us. We headed to the crocodiles first. Our youngest snoozed in her buggy, unaware of the dinosaur-like creatures of death sunning themselves behind the rusty fence. Our eldest was up in my arms within minutes. To be fair, the crocs were really impressive. At first sight, they looked like statues, or models. Sprawled beside a green lake, still absorbing the morning's heat, they showed no sign of life. Until the guide helpfully started whacking them on their very sensitive noses with a stick. "Ah, they are the laziest creatures..." he sighed. Lazy but by no means slow. The heads snapped around, the tails delivered sideswipes designed to knock attackers into the gaping jaws, but worst of all was the hiss-like growl that proceeded action. To say it was menacing would be like saying Ireland is damp. A throaty sibilance that seemed to erases millennia, setting us back in the time when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Our eldest was not impressed. The guide was great though, how he kept harrassing those beasts. At one stage, when one recalcitrant beast lounging in a pool refused to even acknowledge our presence, he hopped nimbly over the fence, stood on a rock and started to wield his by-now somewhat frayed stick. That worked... but my heart stood still, wondering if my daughter was about to have a special African experience. The little crocs were so small after the giants of 18 years... but no more cute for that. We had a coffee in the airy restaurant, watching staff in zebra-striped aprons busily setting up a barbecue and laying tables, and lining up for what was clearly some kind of pre-lunch group pep-talk on the beautiful green lawn...The place was still deserted and I wondered if we in the kind of place that keeps running at full tilt even though the tourists have long moved onto to pastures greener and hipper. I couldn't have been more wrong. To pass the time til lunch, we wandered around an AFrica-shaped lake to see the ostriches. Ostriches are bug-eyed, bizarre creatures that you just couldn't make up. Again, somehow you felt looking at them that you were opening a door onto a more basic, ancient world....or a Hollywood set. Nearby were some cages with rabbits and baby bunnies. As we oohed and aahed -- the babies really were rather adorable even to someone like me who doesn't much like animals -- our newly awake youngest stepped back and declared "Scared, bunnies scare Ray-Ray". Oh-oh, I thought, is she ready for the crocodiles. Of course, when we took her to see the beasts later, she was unfazed. Tried to poke sticks through the fence at the slumbering beasts just 2 feet away. Strange.
There was also a bouncy castle -- an impressively large one with many nooks and crannies. Sadly, it was also strictly Cats on a Hot Tin Roof. Our youngest took two steps and hobbled back to the edge. Our eldest, inured to pain by excitement, dashed off but soon came back to put on socks. A note to the wise, always always carry socks, preferably ski socks. I got on to help my littlest manoeuvre. I did not have socks and I executed a very clumsy, very hasty sprint from the middle with a child in my arms, finished with a daring jump to the ground. My feet were sore for hours.
Then lunch. A great buffet of fresh salads, innovative combinations, beef stew, chicken, and, of course, crocodile. I'd heard crocodile tasted like chicken. I'd also heard that every unusual meat is described as tasting like chicken. It didn't. It tasted like a slightly meaty, seafood. You can only eat the tail and legs. Crocodiles have such poisonous bile in their tummies that the whole torso is off limits. A double-whammy to unwary warthogs and zoned-out zebras..if the teeth don't get you, the toxins will. Lunch was served on a wide lawn with rustling plants and shaded tables beside the lake, and by now the place was hopping. Kenyans, couples, families, expats, tourists and lots and lots of children to entertain our two. A band played "easy listening" and then some funky tunes as a charismatic singer dressed in what looked like a prison uniform and a roadworker's fluorescent jacket worked the crowd. It was a great laid-back experience -- sadly we got too into the chillin' vibe and my good vibes that evening were tempered by shame as I gazed on my eldest's red-hot upper arms. It was one of those days - chilly or roasting, depending on the movement of the clouds. Our children rode a horse, and the eldest and Daddy even dared to mount a swaying camel that really did look grumpy. And on the way out, Santa and his elves offered sweets. Our kids snapped them up but I could tell the juxtaposition of crocs, sun, camels, ostriches and scary bunnies ... plus an unfamiliar Santa with elves with tales and bird-faces would take a little digesting....

2008-11-26T21:37:00.000+03:00

After I posted the below, we had another close encounter with a matatu on the way out of the carpark at the Java coffee shop near U.N. drive. As our sedan pulled sedately out, a matatu emblazoned with "God's Grace" barrelled in on the wrong side. On the side of the minibus was the no more reassuring "God's Power". So I guess that is that then....

2008-11-26T12:30:00.000+03:00

Need for Speed
I love driving around Nairobi... mainly because I do not actually have to do the driving. We have hired a driver to ferry the children and I around while my husband is at work. I do have a licence but I am a very bad driver, and though this might not be such a disadvantage in this wild-wheeled city, I am loath to take my children’s lives into my hands!
Our driver is a courteous man with a beaming smile who has won even the heart of our still slightly traumatised youngest. Our journeys are not ambitious – to school, to the shopping centres, the play areas. That said, the route to school takes us along Ngecha road, widely acknowledged to be one of Nairobi’s worst roads. It’s not that there are potholes – the road is basically a doily, where the hard, driveable surface is but a flimsy link between the masses of dips, craters and gulleys. Our children have now learned to hold their heads steady to stop them slamming into the door jambs, and say they quite enjoy the “bumpety bump”. I suspect the novelty will wear off.
Before coming here, I had basically heard three things about Nairobi: traffic, crime and white mischief. Well, the latter is hardly going to affect me as I grapple with two children who leave me slumped on the terrace barely able to lift my Tusker after they have finally succumbed to sleep. Crime – it’s clearly around but luckily it doesn’t seem to impinge much on the life of a housebound mother-of-two. Fingers crossed. As for traffic, there is no denying that every time we leave the house, I pray to the Gods of travel and toddlers that we will not get stuck in a whopper jam. So far, we have been lucky. We do not go to the city centre but live our lives on the fringes, only occasionally venturing onto the commuter routes when we are sure most of said commuters are (finally) safely at their desks. I keep a supply of lollies and sweets in my handbag for those Westgate/Parklands go-slows and have a store of songs with actions in my repetoire to try to entertain cranky, hot children.
I love how green Nairobi is, the red, terraced slopes of banana trees and luxuriant palms sadly being bulldozed to make way for ever more extravagant villas; the remnants of coffee plants towards Limuru road, the undulating charm of Peponi Road meandering through the sun-dappled forest – it’s like the country is always banging at Nairobi’s doors, wanting to reclaim the land it once owned.
Back on the main, busy roads, I love watching the matatus – their drivers are mad, their style audacious, their music loud – what’s not to love? Check out this story http://http://www.ghettoradio.nl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=166&Itemid=41 for a better description than I can give of what they really stand for – it’s about so much more than getting from A to B, it’s how you do it, dude. We have nearly been rammed by a few, overtaken by many, and cut up by more. Some of them are named after local hip-hop artists. I liked “Skool Girl Callin”, “Evolution”, “Dispute” and “Assassins”. And the one that had “In God We Trust” painted on the back. Well, you sure as hell don’t want to trust the driver. Matatus also seem to be prime targets for the armed thugs whose deaths regularly make headlines following shootouts in the city, in the slums and outer neighbourhoods. It seems a shame that people who can’t afford their own cars are liable to find themselves being held-up at night by shady men toting AK-47s. You can’t help but think the pickings must be better elsewhere. But I guess it’s a sad commentary on need – if those riding the matatus are worth sticking up, these robbin’ hoods must be in pretty dire straits.

2008-11-20T22:48:00.000+03:00

“A week old”
We have moved out of the hotel to an apartment in the Westlands area of the city. Just five minutes in the car from two of Nairobi’s biggest malls, and it seems the car is the way to go.
I walked home from the Sarit Centre today…no mean feat after a morning of unrelenting rain which had turned what passes for paths here into sneaky stone-speckled quagmires. A tricky prospect for a buggy so far only blooded on north London’s leafy, conker-strewn streets. But we made it. Not without a few strange looks.
I’ve been advised that this trekking may be a little foolhardy as bag snatchings are common in this area. I was carrying several bags with nothing more valuable than nappies (though pretty expensive nappies at 1,500 ksh for just 15 pullups – I’m thinking we will be accelerating the nightime toilet training for our four-year-old). But it was really nice to just walk. Our 21-month-old enjoyed herself too, though for once she consented to put on her socks and shoes. Even she was impressed by the mud.
And mud featured heavily in our weekend activities. We went to the Nairobi National Park on Saturday, arriving in a downpour with our kids asleep in the back of our white Landrover. We decided to have lunch to see if the rain eased and found a simple open-sided restaurant outside the main gates, up a little path to the right as you come in. No frills but the best rice and chicken I’ve eaten for a while. My husband had goat and, uncharacteristically, I tried it to. Chewy but good. Our eldest ate a big plate of rice and chicken. I could never get her to eat rice and chicken. Nuff said. By far the cheapest and best meal we have had in Nairobi to date.
The rain dried up so we decided to head into the park. While my husband went to get tickets – a tricky, time-consuming task that for some unknown reason involves credit card-like passes that need to be swiped at the entrance – the girls and I enjoyed the sight of a wedding party being entertained in the car park by Maasai warriors, or moran. The warriors danced, the wedding party jiggled their hips and women ululated – drawing an enthusiastic, ear-piercing and pretty inaccurate mimicry from our girls. Then into the park. Just metres past the gate, we happened upon a group of baboons by the road, including babies and young adults fighting and falling out of trees. Our 21-month-old began to scream “ooh oooh aaah aaah, monkey, ooh ooh aah aah, monkey” like a dervish. It was the start of a great adventure. The girls were great, spending five hours in the car with barely a complaint (and all parents of young 'uns know that this, of course, means there was some crying and whinging but it was never as bad as it could have been). But a couple of tips: always switch the car to four-wheel drive BEFORE you enter the park, particularly if you decide to do so after days of rain. Bring a tow rope. And never, ever embark on a safari, however short you plan it to be, without an inexhaustible supply of food – and by food, I obviously mean biscuits – for the children. We saw zebras, ostriches, many, many types of deer, buffalo, giraffes, and wonder of wonders, a black rhino lurking in the bushes, looking slightly annoyed by the attention but too big to let it really get to him.
The park seemed vast, stretching off to the horizon which was marked on one side by the tall buildings of Nairobi’s central business district, rising reassuringly in the distance. It was a beautiful day, fluffy clouds piled on top of each other in a sky that seemed to stretch to the stars. It was all going so well, until we decided to make our way back.
As we barrelled down a muddy track, knowing that if we stopped we were in trouble, we came face-to-face with a sedan, sunk low in the mud as it attempted to go where no sedan should ever go. Behind it was a Landrover which was trying to pull the sedan backwards out of the muddy ruts. The cars blocked the road and so we ground to a halt, and watched with grim fascination as the Landrover’s wheels spun madly. The driver was a master, but even he could do little to help the over-ambitious sedan. The sun was setting and oblivious to the many warnings posted around the park, the Landrover driver got out to take a closer look at the sticky problem. By now, the two cars were on the same side of the road so he urged us to “go for it, mate”.
My husband gamely began to coax our Landrover forward, but by now we were neatly ensconced in two ruts. The girls wondered what was going on, my husband revved, backwards and forwards, the Landrover growled but nothing. It took about 10 minutes until finally my husband, displaying skills I had not seen before in 8 years of marriage, managed to trundle the car onto the middle of the road. We glided, slid and slipped past the two parked cars and were free. Well, still ice-skating but the ground was getting firmer.
We passed another four-by-four and then a truck of frankly grumpy-looking park attendants, clearly called to rescue the sedan. As we finally approached the main gates again, our eldest plaintively called from the back seat: “the beginning was fun, but the end was not.” Children! There’s no pleasing them. The full extent of the muddification only became apparent when we parked again in the city centre. The steps to mount the car were covered with four-inches of gooey stuff, there was a big gob of the stuff on the bonnet, standing upright proudly like an Elvis quiff and needless to say, everything else was red-brown. I’m sure it’ll be cleaned one of these days. We stumbled into the hotel lobby, muddy, shabby and high on adrenaline. I think we have arrived.

2008-11-07T20:54:00.000+03:00

November 6 - Karibu
The sky is crackling again, electric-blue flashes of lightning sparking from behind the frowning, grey-brown clouds. From the window of our hotel room on the 11th floor, Nairobi’s skyline has a touch of Manhattan about it. An edgier, new world Manhattan.
The rain pounds, the muezzin’s call to prayer soars above the high-rises and an unseen nightclub rocks to 90s dance music. We arrived here five days ago – our multiple bags bulging, our heads aching after a nine-hour flight, our two daughters wide-eyed and hysterical with excitement. The drive from Jomo Kenyatta airport was a blur of shadowy industrial sites, unlit lots and clamourings for biscuits and water. Five days later, this green, lush, traffic-choked city of contrasts is taking shape before our eyes.
The first days, as all first days, have been a whirl of red tape, street names, new faces and names instantly forgotten, warm welcomes and the frustrations that come with not knowing where to get pasta with pesto for two hungry kids. And Obama. Everywhere, Obama.
Three days after we arrived, the Illinois Senator won the U.S. presidency. In Kenya, it was, as Jeff Koinange said on K24, the ONLY big story. Obama’s grandmother lives in Kogelo, west of Nairobi in the Kisumu area. People danced in the street, as they did in Kibera, Nairobi’s massive slum which we have so far only glimpsed from the highway. As I tried to persuade my 21-month-old to eat some pizza at the hotel restaurant on Nov. 5, a small group of young men ran down University Way, chanting “Obama, Obama”. Everyone seems to have high hopes, from the prime minister who expects more investment to the residents of Kisumu, who have their eyes on an international-standard airport that could welcome AirForce One. If the election is a source of hope to African-Americans in the United States, it is no less powerful a symbol for Africans. Many seem to think a black White House might help what has often been a forgotten continent. Everyone needs a hero here.
What Nairobi probably doesn’t need is any more shops – Carrie Bradshaw and her girlfriends would not find this city lacking. Several bright, gleaming, ostentatiously wealthy shopping malls offer everything from beads and brogues to cosmetics and carseats. I even saw a tandem bicycle on sale in one mall. Prices are often a little higher than London, where we have come from, for electronics, games, and books but there is no lack of choice. It’s a surprise after four years in West Africa where shopping was never really retail therapy.
The day after we arrived, we went to a fireworks show at the Muthaiga Country Club – a wonderfully anachronistic institution that uncharacteristically let its hair down (and the hoi-polloi in) for its Guy Fawkes extravaganza. Sadly, the fireworks were beset by those maddening technical problems that can be so ubiquitous in Africa. To be fair, the skies had opened just hours before, drenching the lush grounds where Denys Finch-Hatton of “Out of Africa” fame hung out and where colonial settlers held hunt balls and somewhat racier parties. For our daughters, the rainbow that rose over Karura forest as we drove to Muthaiga beat the fireworks for pure wow factor.
Today was a public holiday – Obama Day, of course, so we headed out west to Karen for lunch at the Rusty Nail – a rambling colonial-style restaurant set in beautiful, shady grounds where birds trill as children tumble delightedly over each other on a bouncy castle while parents eat on the terrace. Our daughters had a blast, with our four-year-old latching on (literally) to an entertainer clad in a clown suit printed with images of Spiderman. Unfailingly patient and apparently with a pain threshold well above normal, he endured the children’s boisterous pushing, pummelling and general abuse with ease and a smile for hours. On our way back, we stopped at the Giraffe Centre. Out of the car, and there they were: real, live, lanky, doe-eyed giraffes being fed by visitors. Our youngest ran screaming with delight across the yard towards the animals, before becoming unaccountably fearful. But our eldest fed them, popping the pellets onto their long hairy tongues. She couldn’t quite bring herself to kiss one though. Next time. The sun was setting, the birds were settling down for the night, warthogs came to scrabble in the mud, and to top it all, there was a man making balloon models.
Not that our initiation to Nairobi life has been all fun and games (although really, it nearly has!). Our eldest has started school at a private nursery – and has already got her full uniform which includes a legionnaires hat, culottes and plimsolls. She looks fabulous but it’s quite a weird image for a working-class Irish Mum to assimilate. On her second day, I picked her up in a taxi and we took a roundabout way home to avoid the highway traffic. Bad idea. We found ourselves near the National Museum in the city centre where police had just fired tear gas to get rid of some hawkers. I thought the traffic fumes were bad but it was only when I noticed that people were actually crying and sticking their fingers up their noses in the street, that I realized what was going on. I told the girls to pull their t-shirts over their faces. They were, as usual, unflappable. I explained what had happened to our eldest, and luckily we found ourselves behind a police pickup, with a helmeted officer still holding his tear gas-firing gun. “So, sometimes the police fire these tear gas canisters to make people go away, see, from guns like that one over there,” I said. My eldest thought a moment. “So I could get some tear gas and get rid of people I don’t like.” I think I may not have told it right.
The second slightly hairy incident was one in which we were only really after-the-event bystanders. On our eldest’s second full day at school, we arrived to find clusters of people talking anxiously in low voices inside the gates and helmeted security guards revving their vans and speeding up the lane. Turns out there had been a carjacking earlier, and a driver was shot dead. Some of the children were in the school at the time and heard the gunshots. Some saw the body. There was a lot of worry and confusion but this is a tough crowd. Most of the children stayed at school while some of the more influential parents started calling round amongst themselves to talk about beefing up security. I really don’t think it will happen again anytime soon. We missed it all, trundling up in our taxi at least 20 minutes after the action.
Everyone talks about crime here, the city’s nickname is afterall Nairobbery. It’s obviously wise to be cautious. You have to think that the in-your-face contrasts between the haves and have-nots inspires some degree of resentment. But it’s also clear the carjacking on the school lane was something unusual. And that is comforting. I think I’ll be taking taxis to school for a while though.
One final thought, what is it about Shania Twain and Africa. As I leant out my window the other night, her distinctive twang rose above the buildings. In Abidjan, her videos and songs were a regular feature of Friday nights at the Hollywood bar in Cocody. I like Shania as much as the next person, and I believe (whisper it) I even have one of her CDs, but I am slightly concerned. Is there something deeper going on here?