Filed under: africa | Tags: ethnic arms race, George Saitoti, Rift Valley, william Ruto
Agriculture minister William Ruto (the de facto political leader of the Rift Valley Province) has dismissed reports of an ethnic arms race in his backyard as mere rumors. George Saitoti, the minister for internal security has equally dismissed the same reports.
I understand that the government is trying to show that it is in charge and that in fact there is not a widespread arms race in the Rift Valley – the area worst affected by the post-election violence of last year. An admission from the government might cause even more anxiety and force even the otherwise pacific parts of the population to seek guns. That said, I hope that these public denials are mere PR and that the government in actuality is lookin into the issue with a view of stopping the proliferation of small arms in the area and possibly arresting and prosecuting the arms-traffickers (hey, don’t judge. I am allowed to fantasize once in a while).
Filed under: africa | Tags: Charter cities, kalenjin, Kenya, Kibaki, Kikuyu, Land, Paul Romer, Raila, Rift Valley, Rift Valley Province, Ruto
I just read this on the BBC and can’t stop wishing that it is all hype. The report quotes a number of Kenyans – mostly from the Rift Valley – who seem to be acknowledging that segments of the Kenyan population are arming ahead of the 2012 elections. And this time round instead of machetes and bows and arrows they are getting guns, machine guns. A Kenyan working for an NGO in Eldoret confirmed the BBC report.
I am assuming, or rather hoping that the Kenyan intelligence community is not sleeping on the job like they did in the run-up to the 2007 elections. If people are buying machine guns it can only mean one thing. If Kenya is ever to have a civil war it will be fought in the Rift Valley. Other political conflicts in Kenya have always been over the sharing of divisible goods – mainly payoffs in terms of good jobs and chances for sleaze among the many ethnic entrepreneurs that populate the Kenyan political landscape. But the conflict in the Rift Valley will be about a somewhat indivisible good – LAND. Those that own the land will not let go or share it easily, more so if they have machine guns. And those that think that the land was taken from them wrongly will perhaps also be willing to fight for the land, more so if they also have machine guns.
The contest in 2012 just seems to get messier and messier. Kibaki should consider calling a snap election and then stepping down. That may catch the plotters unawares and bring a decisive victory to one party or the other. May be then the government will be able to deal with all these issues – land, judicial reforms, security etc – without the many distractions that the current government faces.
And in other news, Jaindi Kisero (one of my favorite columnists) has a piece on the slightly positive signs the Kenyan economy has shown so far. If only the nation’s political class would get its act togehter…
I also found this discussion on the IMF and WB interesting.
One, more thing. Last week I attended a talk by Paul Romer on Charter cities. The idea is as exciting as it is provocative. I still don’t know what to make of it though. Read more about it here.
Filed under: africa | Tags: Eldoret, Hague, Kenya, Kenyan elections 2007, Kiambaa Church burning, Moreno-Ocampo, Mwai Kibaki, Naivasha, Nakuru, ODM, PNU, Raila Odinga, Rift Valley, special tribunal
The Kenyan cabinet yesterday decided not to set up a local tribunal to try those who organized the targeted killings of people who spoke certain languages (but lived in the “wrong” places) after the bungled general elections of late 2007. Instead, in an effort to assuage the fears of a hostile parliament, the president and his cabinet decided to clean up the police force and the judiciary and have these organs try the said suspects. Yeah right.
My doubts of the cabinet’s intentions are premised on the fact that reforming the police force and the judiciary will not take a few months. The police force is the most corrupt institution in this country. Reforming it will take years. Same with the judiciary. If we are to wait for the police and judges to stop taking bribes and begin respecting the rule of law before we initiate the prosecution process then we might as well forget about the whole thing.
I remain deeply skeptical of President Kibaki’s commitment to making sure that those who organized the killing of more than 1300 Kenyans be brought to book. If he really means what he said yesterday then he should begin by firing Attorney General Amos Wako. This is a man who has been in that position through the tortures of the Moi era, the killings that preceded the 1997 general elections, and a myriad corruption scandals (including the mother of all, Goldenberg) without ever bringing any prominent player to book. Mr. Wako has been as effective as a parachute that deploys on the second bounce and should be shown the door, no questions asked.
It was always going to be difficult to bring the oafish ethnic chiefs masquerading as patriots to book. Yesterday was a stark reminder to all Kenyans that justice is political and that if change doesn’t come soon the powerful will continue doing what they want and leave the weak to suffer what they must.
Filed under: African Economies, Corruption, Crises, East Africa, Environment, Kenya, africa, agriculture | Tags: Kenya, Mau Forest, Mwai Kibaki, ODM, PNU, Raila Odinga, Rift Valley, Uhuru Kenyatta, william Ruto
Leaders are meant to lead – to set the agenda and make people believe that what is good for them is exactly what they need. On this count, Agriculture minister William Ruto has failed as a leader. On the issue of Mau Forest, he is increasingly sounding like a mad populist out to gain political mileage at the expense of millions of Kenyans – including those that he is purportedly protecting.
That deforestation in the Mau is causing the drying up of vital water sources – 12 rivers included – is no longer contested, not even by Mr. Ruto himself. I therefore do not understand why he is still against the eviction of those who illegally acquired land in the forest. The government has already agreed to compensate small holders (with title deeds) who were cheated into buying land in the forest. But wealthy Kenyans who acquired land in the Mau due to their connections to the Moi Administration should not be given a cent. In any case they should be investigated.
I say it is time that Mr. Ruto acted as a leader and made the case to his constituents that saving the Mau is in their best interest. This is the least he can do if he really aspires to be seen as a respectable national leader rather than an over-glorified tribal chief.
Filed under: Kenya | Tags: Kenya, Mwai Kibaki, Raila Odinga, Rift Valley, waki report, william Ruto
True democracy is not just about holding elections every five years. It is also about having a constructive deliberative process. A process that focuses on issues. This is only possible with the creation of important institutions to mediate this process. In a true democracy, political parties are just as important as the legal provision for loyal opposition. Disorganized and unarticulated opposition is just as bad as, if not worse than, having a single party state. It breeds instability and degenerates into politics of contingency.
Sadly, Kenya’s democratic experiment is once again emerging as having failed. With the formation of PNU and ODM, I was hopeful that these two parties would consolidate and dig in their heels to become the peddlers of policies to the people. But sooner than later PNU started unravelling. Now we have ODM going throught the same trials. Members of parliament from the Rift Valley are threatening to quit the party – on what appears to be purely tribal grounds.
That Kenyan politicians are tribalistic is not a secret. It baffles me how nearly all MPs from a given area can always have the same positions on issues. Kenyan politics is such that just by knowing someone’s last name you can accurately predict their position on any political issue. This is total buffoonery. Absolute insanity. And at the very least extremely shameful.
I am disappointed in William Ruto. For a while I thought that he would be the man that detribalises the Rift Valley. While appreciating the concerns he may have over the implementation on the Waki report, he should not have come so publicly against it. He could have been more subtle and negotiated with the government – which he is a part of – from within.
Strictly speaking, I think the members of the Rift Valley have a point. The youth that were detailed for having engaged in violence were mere pawns of the political class. They should be freed. The people that should be in jail are the leaders who incited the youth. And Raila, Kibaki and Kalonzo should own up on their mess. Kibaki for not providind Kenyans with an open electoral process and Raila and Kalonzo for reacting to Kibaki’s mischief with mischief of their own.
Filed under: Crises, East Africa, Kenya, News Analysis, World affairs, africa | Tags: Kenyan clashes, Rift Valley, Rwanda
I read with shock and disbelief reports in the Telegraph that Kenyan vernacular radio stations belonging to Kikuyus, Luos and kalenjins have started having call-ins with the kind of language that helped stoke the fires of the Rwandan genocide. The report talked of a radio station referring to members of another ethnic group as “weeds” that “must be uprooted.” This is most alarming, especially in the wake of the fresh retaliatory violence that has brought life in most of the major urban centres in the Rift Valley province to a standstill.
The government should concentrate its efforts on the gutter press to ensure that this bad habit does not become acceptable to anyone, regardless of their ethnicity. Indeed it is the gutter press, be they the funny looking ten shilling papers or vernacular stations that are more likely to cause chaos than the more respectable establishments like KTN and NTV. I feel like instead of focusing so much on the mainstream media and curtailing their rights to have live broadcasts, the government should have instead moved swiftly to stop any of the vernacular radio stations or newspapers from airing or publishing anything that might be inflammatory. Indeed if this goes on the government should suspend the licenses of all vernacular stations until things calm down. We saw the power of the radio in Rwanda and so we should not sit back and watch as Kenya goes down that same path.
Freedom of speech is important. But only when the freedom is exercised without infringing on other people’s rights. Radio stations that allow the airing of any inflammatory comments should be shut down and the editors be given a generous jail sentence because anyone who uses the mass media to encourage murder should share the responsibility with the murderers if indeed they manage to persuade Kenyans to go out and kill their fellow countrymen.
This new development is most alarming especially after the recent counter-attacks in Naivasha and Nakuru seemed to have been pre-planned and also as news emerged that the earlier attacks in the Rift Valley were pre-planned as well.
