Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Massacred by Mungiki
Children’s bodies so badly burned they couldn't be identified.
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Time in Kenya
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Nairobi
Thief-in-Chief
This man stole the presidency in Kenya in 2007. At 76, he's the world's oldest notorious thief
Traitor-in-Chief
Kenya's Judas Iscariot Kalonzo Musyoka, the Democracy-traitor-in-Chief. He betrayed all democratic ideals and wiped off any hope of ever leading Kenya.
Lier-in-Chief
The PNU spokesman, Dr Goebbels Alfred Mutua is the spinmeister of the bandit regime. He can answer any question. One of the most effective agents of disinformation.
Rattlesnake Me Chuki
Rattlesnake Me-Chuki. This man is the most famous rigging mastermind in Kenya. Known for his 'rattlesnake' temper, he has a tongue that dates back from colonial administration.
The shadow president of Kenya
Look at his eyes, cunning and foxy. He is the power-behind-the-throne. HE the shadow president of Kenya
Compromised Church
Whereas Kenya boasts a probable Pope in the John Cardinal Njue, the Church is in bed with the state. When Kibaki stole the presidency in 2007, the hitherto dependable church went mute. Now that the aftermath of that conspiracy of silence has manifested itself in full-blown ethnic wars, the church is crying faul. While Mungiki is hacking opposition supportes and the police gun down peaceful demonstrators,John Cardinal Njue has discovered that there is spiritual revival in silence. The church in Kenya is complicit in state-sponsored theft and genocide of innocent civilians.
Warlord-in-Chief
Uhuru Kenyatta is Kibaki's heir-apparent. He is using his wealth to bankroll Mungiki. He is Kenya's warlord-in-chief. The drunken-looking son of Jomo is an astute student of master-rigger Daniel Moi
Brains-for-thieves
Martha Njoka-turned-Martha Karua is the brains behind the throne. Take her off and Kibaki is exposed and vulnerable. She has presided over theft and erosion of Kenya's judiciary. Arguably the most intelligent and ugly minister in Kenya ever, she dates a Catholic priest, Father Wamugunda
George Saitoti
The Goldenberg tainted George Saitoti is presiding over police genocide in Kenya. Also a silebnt approval of Mungiki-led purge of the political scene, he hopes to succeed Kibaki by default. Saitoti lost the 2007 parliamentary seat but rigged himself in with the help of his brother using counterfeit ballots.
Police Commissioner
The Police Commissioner Ali is presiding over a police-sponsored genocide of innocent lives. A millitary man, he was made police commissioner in a surprising move. He should be charged with crimes against the Kenyan people
Enemy of the people
The disgraced ECK Boss, Samwel Kivuitu carries the blood of innocent Kenyans everywhere on his cynical face. He is the coward-of-the-nation. He does not know who won the election, yet he handed over a certificate to the thief-in-chief
Killers-for-Hire
Mungiki is a pro-government, primitive gang of goons who sniff snuff, behead their victims, forcefully and crudely circumcise men, perform female genital mutilation, drink the blood of their victims and kill-for-cash
KENYA POLICE CAUGHT ON TAPE SHOOTING KIDS
January 16, 2008Categories: 1 . . Author: josephkaroki . Comments: No Comments
Children shout slogans during a demonstration in the western town of Kisumu January 16, 2008. Youths erected roadblocks, shopkeepers nailed up windows and Kenyan riot police guarded streets before nationwide opposition protests planned for Wednesday against President Mwai Kibaki’s re-election.REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya (KENYA)
January 16, 2008Categories: 1 . . Author: josephkaroki . Comments: No Comments
Supporters of the opposition carry a mock coffin for President Mwai Kibaki, during a protest in Kisumu, Kenya, Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2008. Legislators chose an opposition member as parliament speaker in a close vote Tuesday, giving a victory to foes of Kenya’s president as they prepared for mass protest rallies that raised fears of new violence over last month’s disputed election.(AP Photo/Darko Bandic)
January 16, 2008Categories: 1 . . Author: josephkaroki . Comments: No Comments
An opposition supporter shows a leaflet outside the Orange Democratic Movement headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2008. Opposition leader Raila Odinga, whose supporters believe he was robbed of the presidency through vote rigging in last month’s election, called the protests in 42 locations nationwide, despite a government ban.(AP Photo/Riccardo Gangale)
January 16, 2008Categories: 1 . . Author: josephkaroki . Comments: No Comments
A Kenyan woman who police believed was an opposition demonstrator, left, sits on the ground after being kicked by a policeman, as police fire tear gas and live rounds into the air to break up a large opposition demonstration and chase the demonstrators away in Eldoret, Kenya, Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2008. .(AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
January 16, 2008Categories: 1 . . Author: josephkaroki . Comments: No Comments
This man is among Protesters who were shot by Police in Kisumu. A doctor attends to his wounds REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya (KENYA)
January 16, 2008Categories: 1 . . Author: josephkaroki . Comments: No Comments
Protesters gather in Nairobi on Jan 16th
January 16, 2008Categories: 1 . . Author: josephkaroki . Comments: No Comments
A father carries his child as riot Police drive past him(AFP/Walter Astrada)
January 16, 2008Categories: 1 . . Author: josephkaroki . Comments: No Comments
A terrified Kenyan schoolgirl runs past a barricade set up by residents of the Kibera slum district in Nairobi..(AFP/Simon Maina)
January 16, 2008Categories: 1 . . Author: josephkaroki . Comments: No Comments
January 16, 2008Categories: 1 . . Author: josephkaroki . Comments: No Comments
TODAY IN PARLIAMENT
Opposition MPs demanded an open ballot, fearing the secret vote could be rigged by pro-government deputies
Government gets rescounding defeat as speaker of the house is chosen from the Opposition. Emuhaya MP-elect Kenneth Marende, a career Lawyer voted in by the majority as the Parliament Speaker.
final vote MARENDE 105 KAPARO 101
ALSO JUST RECEIVED NEWS THAT GOVERNMENT CONCEDES DEFEAT AND GITOBU IS DEFEATED BY OPPOSITION’S FARAH MAALIM
January 15, 2008Categories: 1 . . Author: josephkaroki . Comments: 3 Comments
ANOTHER IDIOT!
The irrational, vile and corrupt mortal that is Muchuki, stunned Journalist by claiming “There is no crisis in Kenya.This has been an exaggeration by the media.” When I read about this, it just left me dumbfounded! Lately there seems to be an endless train of gibberish emanating from the mouths of nincompoops like Muchuki and “Baghdad” Mutua in the Kibaki Circle.
It is totally incomprehensible that with 500 Kenyans Killed, over half a million displaced and experts predicting $1 billion dollars in losses, that a man with half a brain can not term that situation as a crisis! Who is running Kenya? This is getting scary! The situation is comparable to having a psychotic, drunk, blind fool driving your car, with kids in it. Listen folks, we need to open our eyes and refuse to allow ourselves to be led by a group of thieving, unintelligent maggots like Michuki and Mutua. Maybe Michuki should go back to being a tailor, but that would be an insult to the thousands of fine tailoring professionals. We Kenyans deserve better, our kids deserve more and our independence was too costly for us to be short changed. Get this guys out of government, am tired of this bullshit!
January 15, 2008Categories: 1 . . Author: josephkaroki . Comments: 3 Comments
credits to http://www.afromusing.com/blog/2008/01/14/the-death-of-james-odhiambo-kenya-post-election-violence/
Note: Images posted on www.Ushahidi.com.Disclaimer: The following images are gruesome and disturbing. The humanitarian crisis is real and dire. Complete set of photos taken in Kakamega by Mr. Arunga are available here. The images include shots of the police station, showing the displaced taking refuge there, burning shops, vandalized petrol station and burned car.
Onlookers and concerned citizens around the body of 24 yr old James Odhiambo, who was killed in the post election violence in Lurambi - Junction on the way to Shikoti, Kakamega, western province, Kenya. The gentleman in white (Brian) on the right worked with James at the petrol station as attendants and witnessed the shooting.Close up of the bullet wound on the body of 24 yr old James Odhiambo. According to eye witnesses, he was walking to work when he met the GSU paramilitary. Mr. Odhiambo continued to walking towards towards the GSU as he thought he could talk to them and find out what is happening. According to eyewitnesses, he was shot without even though he was not violent or doing anything that would indicate he would be a threat to the GSU. The witnesses tried to contact the police so they could come and pick up the body, but the police said that they did not have fuel for the vehicle. As of the writing of this post, the late James Odhiambo was buried yesterday in Homa Bay, Nyanza province. Brian and other friends from the area traveled to Homa Bay to comfort the family. If you would like to help the family directly, please do not hesitate to contact Brian Oluoch at +254 724 912015. Mr. Odhiambo was the sole breadwinner for his family…Any contributions towards their well being is appreciated.
Pictures were taken by Mr.Michael Arunga, who works for World Vision in Darfur, and was on holiday at the time. He witnessed the burning of a kikuyu owned property, as shown in this photo.
**The decision to post the pictures here and to tell this story is partly because the pictures were sent to editors of newspapers in Kenya, they did not run them or cover the story. As people try to get back to ‘normal’ life around the country, it is important to remember that there is no normal for a lot of people in Kenya.
January 14, 2008Categories: 1 . . Author: josephkaroki . Comments: No Comments
Kenyan children of different ethnic tribes excited to see their friends on the first day of school. Oblivious to the tribal violence that has rocked their communities.
January 16, 2008Categories: 1 . . Author: josephkaroki . Comments: No Comments
Children shout slogans during a demonstration in the western town of Kisumu January 16, 2008. Youths erected roadblocks, shopkeepers nailed up windows and Kenyan riot police guarded streets before nationwide opposition protests planned for Wednesday against President Mwai Kibaki’s re-election.REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya (KENYA)
January 16, 2008Categories: 1 . . Author: josephkaroki . Comments: No Comments
Supporters of the opposition carry a mock coffin for President Mwai Kibaki, during a protest in Kisumu, Kenya, Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2008. Legislators chose an opposition member as parliament speaker in a close vote Tuesday, giving a victory to foes of Kenya’s president as they prepared for mass protest rallies that raised fears of new violence over last month’s disputed election.(AP Photo/Darko Bandic)
January 16, 2008Categories: 1 . . Author: josephkaroki . Comments: No Comments
An opposition supporter shows a leaflet outside the Orange Democratic Movement headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2008. Opposition leader Raila Odinga, whose supporters believe he was robbed of the presidency through vote rigging in last month’s election, called the protests in 42 locations nationwide, despite a government ban.(AP Photo/Riccardo Gangale)
January 16, 2008Categories: 1 . . Author: josephkaroki . Comments: No Comments
A Kenyan woman who police believed was an opposition demonstrator, left, sits on the ground after being kicked by a policeman, as police fire tear gas and live rounds into the air to break up a large opposition demonstration and chase the demonstrators away in Eldoret, Kenya, Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2008. .(AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
January 16, 2008Categories: 1 . . Author: josephkaroki . Comments: No Comments
This man is among Protesters who were shot by Police in Kisumu. A doctor attends to his wounds REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya (KENYA)
January 16, 2008Categories: 1 . . Author: josephkaroki . Comments: No Comments
Protesters gather in Nairobi on Jan 16th
January 16, 2008Categories: 1 . . Author: josephkaroki . Comments: No Comments
A father carries his child as riot Police drive past him(AFP/Walter Astrada)
January 16, 2008Categories: 1 . . Author: josephkaroki . Comments: No Comments
A terrified Kenyan schoolgirl runs past a barricade set up by residents of the Kibera slum district in Nairobi..(AFP/Simon Maina)
January 16, 2008Categories: 1 . . Author: josephkaroki . Comments: No Comments
January 16, 2008Categories: 1 . . Author: josephkaroki . Comments: No Comments
TODAY IN PARLIAMENT
Opposition MPs demanded an open ballot, fearing the secret vote could be rigged by pro-government deputies
Government gets rescounding defeat as speaker of the house is chosen from the Opposition. Emuhaya MP-elect Kenneth Marende, a career Lawyer voted in by the majority as the Parliament Speaker.
final vote MARENDE 105 KAPARO 101
ALSO JUST RECEIVED NEWS THAT GOVERNMENT CONCEDES DEFEAT AND GITOBU IS DEFEATED BY OPPOSITION’S FARAH MAALIM
January 15, 2008Categories: 1 . . Author: josephkaroki . Comments: 3 Comments
ANOTHER IDIOT!
The irrational, vile and corrupt mortal that is Muchuki, stunned Journalist by claiming “There is no crisis in Kenya.This has been an exaggeration by the media.” When I read about this, it just left me dumbfounded! Lately there seems to be an endless train of gibberish emanating from the mouths of nincompoops like Muchuki and “Baghdad” Mutua in the Kibaki Circle.
It is totally incomprehensible that with 500 Kenyans Killed, over half a million displaced and experts predicting $1 billion dollars in losses, that a man with half a brain can not term that situation as a crisis! Who is running Kenya? This is getting scary! The situation is comparable to having a psychotic, drunk, blind fool driving your car, with kids in it. Listen folks, we need to open our eyes and refuse to allow ourselves to be led by a group of thieving, unintelligent maggots like Michuki and Mutua. Maybe Michuki should go back to being a tailor, but that would be an insult to the thousands of fine tailoring professionals. We Kenyans deserve better, our kids deserve more and our independence was too costly for us to be short changed. Get this guys out of government, am tired of this bullshit!
January 15, 2008Categories: 1 . . Author: josephkaroki . Comments: 3 Comments
credits to http://www.afromusing.com/blog/2008/01/14/the-death-of-james-odhiambo-kenya-post-election-violence/
Note: Images posted on www.Ushahidi.com.Disclaimer: The following images are gruesome and disturbing. The humanitarian crisis is real and dire. Complete set of photos taken in Kakamega by Mr. Arunga are available here. The images include shots of the police station, showing the displaced taking refuge there, burning shops, vandalized petrol station and burned car.
Onlookers and concerned citizens around the body of 24 yr old James Odhiambo, who was killed in the post election violence in Lurambi - Junction on the way to Shikoti, Kakamega, western province, Kenya. The gentleman in white (Brian) on the right worked with James at the petrol station as attendants and witnessed the shooting.Close up of the bullet wound on the body of 24 yr old James Odhiambo. According to eye witnesses, he was walking to work when he met the GSU paramilitary. Mr. Odhiambo continued to walking towards towards the GSU as he thought he could talk to them and find out what is happening. According to eyewitnesses, he was shot without even though he was not violent or doing anything that would indicate he would be a threat to the GSU. The witnesses tried to contact the police so they could come and pick up the body, but the police said that they did not have fuel for the vehicle. As of the writing of this post, the late James Odhiambo was buried yesterday in Homa Bay, Nyanza province. Brian and other friends from the area traveled to Homa Bay to comfort the family. If you would like to help the family directly, please do not hesitate to contact Brian Oluoch at +254 724 912015. Mr. Odhiambo was the sole breadwinner for his family…Any contributions towards their well being is appreciated.
Pictures were taken by Mr.Michael Arunga, who works for World Vision in Darfur, and was on holiday at the time. He witnessed the burning of a kikuyu owned property, as shown in this photo.
**The decision to post the pictures here and to tell this story is partly because the pictures were sent to editors of newspapers in Kenya, they did not run them or cover the story. As people try to get back to ‘normal’ life around the country, it is important to remember that there is no normal for a lot of people in Kenya.
January 14, 2008Categories: 1 . . Author: josephkaroki . Comments: No Comments
Kenyan children of different ethnic tribes excited to see their friends on the first day of school. Oblivious to the tribal violence that has rocked their communities.
EMO Chairman Speech On Post Election Violence
SPEECH READ BY THE CHAIRMAN JAMES BETT DURING THE INTERDENOMINATIONAL PRAYERS AND PEACE RALLY AT ELDORET SPORTS CLUB – ELDORET ON 2ND MARCH 2008
Your Excellency The Ambassador of United States of America Michael Ranneberger and all members of your delegation from the US Embassy, Patrons of EMO and Bishops of leading churches, Honorable Members of Parliament from many constituencies in Rift Valley, His Worship the Mayor of Eldoret Cllr Samuel Rutto, Chairman of Wareng County council and other local leaders, ladies and gentlemen all Kalenjins and other Kenyans listening to us today via Kass Fm Radio wherever they are, Chamgei! Happy New Year! (we hear Kenyans now have a new calendar where the new year begins on 1st March)
Your Excellency, when you agreed to reschedule your trip last weekend to this week for the sake of attending this meeting, you gave a condition; that I guarantee you will get to speak with 1000 Kalenjins under a tree. I must apologize sir, because what you are sitting under is not a tree and the people in front of you are slightly less than 1000 (the crowd was estimated to be over 20,000). Nevertheless, feel welcome to the Rift Valley and the town of Eldoret. (which has been receiving many visitors lately for the right and wrong reasons)
We want to thank you for joining us today for this Interdenominational Prayers and Peace Rally coming at the backdrop of the successful mediation leading to the signing of a political power sharing deal by the two sides under the able chairmanship of former UN Secretary General Koffi Anan. When we planned this meeting two weeks ago, we did not know that the agreement would have been reached by this time but continued with our plans in faith even when things appeared uncertain in the middle of the week when we thought the talks had collapsed. But we had faith in God and continued with our plans, in faith, and gave God all the glory when the breakthrough was arrived at. We are here today therefore for prayer and thanksgiving.
We would like to thank you and the American people most sincerely for the genuine and consistent support to our country particularly at this our time of need. Indeed it is at such times when one knows who their true friends are; there were times during the last two months when many felt that Kenyans left on their own would engage into a self-destruct mode mainly because of hard-line positions adopted by some leaders. We value the friendship of the American people.
EMO Community Development Society is a community organization serving people from the Rift Valley with the aim of empowering them spiritually, socially and economically. Our vision is to see “a strong community in a strong Nation” and we strongly believe that Kenya can only be as strong as its constituent communities. We believe in creating an environment of peaceful co-existence of all communities in Kenya in order to build a stable and prosperous Nation.
The Kalenjin people have always made their decisions through broad based consensus. We have therefore over the last two months, organized various discussion forums to arrive at a consensus on the real causes of the crisis and develop a way forward. These views are therefore collated and are representative of our entire community; they are not my personal views.
We reiterate our believe that unlike other provinces, Rift Valley has some unique characteristics that require a sober approach even as we try to end the current crisis which, though political, may not necessarily end with a political solution. Many people have talked of serious underlying issues that were only triggered by the disputed presidential poll that include land, historical injustices, economic disempowerment, ethnic mistrust and unemployment among others.
But Your Excellency one disturbing and irritating thing to our people is the deliberate misrepresentation and misunderstanding of our community. We believe that genuine and long term peace can only be obtained if people are honest with each other. Starting with a wrong premise will lead to wrong conclusions which in turn lead to wrong diagnosis of the problem and wrong prescriptions or solutions.
In the interest of correcting some of these biased misconceptions, our community would like to state as follows;
There is no dispute that the electioneering process right upto the voting day was largely peaceful. Many Kenyans were satisfied with the process of voting, counting and declaration of results at the polling centers. The unprecedented and spontaneous violence that rocked most parts of the country was precipitated by the announcement of disputed presidential results by Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK). Most people in Kenya who watched the announcement of the presidential tallied votes live on TV and radio were concerned on the un-explained withholding of results from certain constituencies and subsequent differences in the results announced at constituency level and at KICC tallying centre, which led them to suspect that there was manipulation of presidential elections in the tallying process.
The violence was therefore spontaneous and NOT premeditated as has been reported by some. The theory of the violence having been planned is just that – a theory. Yet it has been so well spun that even the international community have bought it wholesale! One diplomat was recently quoted saying “it may have been spontaneous in Western, Nyanza and Coast but at least in the Rift Valley it was clearly planned”! Why this singling out of one community for selective condemnation? What would make it spontaneous in all other parts of the country “except” the Rift Valley? After the signing of the deal last week, spontaneous celebrations erupted in major cities including Mombasa, Kisumu, Nairobi, Kericho and Eldoret among others. Would it be right to say the celebrations were “spontaneous” everywhere else except in the Rift valley towns?
Even our athletes of International repute have been smeared with this dirt. Our athletes are respectable and honorable people. Since they started participating in world sporting events in the 50’s has anyone heard of them being involved in antisocial activities in western cities or anywhere else? They go, they run, they win and then they come home! Our people love their home and are peaceful.
We categorically deny that there was any form of planning, training or financing of youth to engage in violence. Your Excellency let me give you just a few points why the violence could NOT have been planned.
Just a few days ago there were reports of 200 youths undergoing militia training in the farm of a former MP being arrested in the same manner a number of oath-taking mungiki converts were arrested in Kayole. Sometimes ago youths being trained for suspicious mission were nabbed in the coast province. Many times we also hear of robbers being arrested before Kenya is reputed to have one of the best intelligence networks in the region. Indeed together with the military intelligence and police network including that of informants, nothing escapes the watchful eye of Kenya’ big brother. Claims have been made that the violence was planned as far back as six months in advance! It is utterly unbelievable that such a planning involving probably thousands of people could have escaped this elaborate network. Otherwise we may have to ask why the government failed to beef up security in Rift Valley when it “expected trouble”. Why did they instead deploy one of the strongest security operations ever seen in the country around KICC? What had been planned at KICC?
There were many PNU candidates and even voters in Kalenjin land. If perhaps the whole community was in a conspiracy of silence so that the intelligence network missed this vital information, how about the numerous parliamentary, civic candidates and voters in PNU their family, friends and relatives within the community? Didn’t even one person learn of the planning and whisper a warning to the authorities?
Majority of the Kalenjin youth who participated in the violence in most urban areas of Rift Valley were unarmed and carried little more than sticks and stones. Only a few had arrows or other weapons. Any Kalenjin man (even a respectable Bishop!) can attest that it will take less than 15 minutes to make an arrow! If this thing was planned for six months, why didn’t the youth just make as many arrows as they needed? If people were paid monies for “ethnic cleansing” why not use just a little of that money to buy a few kilos of 6” nails and make enough arrows before the elections? Let us also remember that our boys learn to make and use arrows from when they are young and play with them as toys. No adult Kalenjin man needs to be “trained” to make an arrow.
Many articles in local and international media have claimed that communities are now arming themselves in readiness for war “should Anan talks fail”. It would be understandable if those arming themselves were those who were unprepared prior to the elections and had therefore been taken by surprise; but one wonders why Kalenjins who according to the theory “prepared long ago” should be buying guns after and not before the war they themselves planned? If it is that easy to acquire these firearms, then why didn’t they do it during the “six months preparation period”? Does one wait until a war that one was prepared for has started before arming oneself? This is absurd!
These planners must have been so naïve that they did not understand the repercussions of the war they were starting. Otherwise they should have known the importance of evacuating their own from areas where there was likely to be revenge attacks from the affected community. There is no sign that Kalenjins living outside their ancestral land were evacuated or prepared to evacuate at short notice. In addition many Kalenjins traveled to their rural homes to vote and traveled back on 28th, 29th and even 30th to Nairobi, Nakuru, Nyeri and other “dangerous” areas just when their brothers were “preparing to go to war only to become and IDP in a police station two days later!
Many phone text messages that went around after the crisis have warned people to stock up essential items such as food, fuel and even airtime in anticipation of escalation of the crisis. If the Kalenjins planned a war before the elections, someone should have noticed some panic buying and stocking of these essential items amongst the planners. Can the police too check with the banks and see if there were suspicious cash withdrawals in Rift Valley on or around the voting day suggesting people were preparing for something? I was in Eldoret during the first one week of this fateful year and saw the desperation of everybody as people were grounded for lack of fuel, could not communicate by phone and almost all essential items went missing in most homes. Poor planners these Kalenjin people!
Kalenjins love weddings, get together parties and other social events especially during Christmas season. From time immemorial, it was not acceptable to have any of these events during a time of war. Circumcision ceremonies for instance were not done during such times but postponed to another year. There is no indication that this was done in Kalenjin land in the run-up to the elections. People went about their social life as usual. In fact the Kalenjin diary on 29th December which fell on Saturday and the whole new year period all the way to the 5th Jan 2008 was full of weddings, boys graduation ceremonies and many social events with no sign of imminent disturbance. If these claims of planning were half true shouldn’t the Kalenjins have cancelled or postponed these events if they knew there was a “planned” war looming?
Opinion polls for a whole six months straight showed ODM and Raila Odinga ahead of his competitors. Initial results trickling in from midnight of 27th also confirmed this. It is true that the Kalenjins expected ODM which the majority of them voted for to win. There was therefore no reason at all to start a war when you should be celebrating! If there was any need to plan anything it would be how to celebrate not to fight.
Kalenjins are very humble people who are known never to attack but only react to provocation. In fact one day when the truth will finally be told, people will realize that in almost all the cases without exception, the violence started with someone attacking a Kalenjin first. We have many reports where someone from a different community attacked a Kalenjin and immediately called the police who arrive just in time to find the Kalenjin people coming to the rescue of their tribesman only to be shot as the agressors.
Many Kalenjins risked their lives protecting, hiding and assisting Kikuyus to escape death. Why did people who had planned all these not warn their kikuyu friends and neighbors to flee before instead of risking their own lives by protecting them after the violence began? There are over two million Kikuyus in the Rift Valley. If anyone had planned an ethnic cleansing targeting them then surely the death toll would have been much higher.
This was definitely not planned nor was it ethnic cleansing. We are not defending this for the sake of any one Kalenjin individual, we are saying this to defend the truth and the dignity of one of the most peaceful, welcoming and hospitable communities in Kenya.
Violent clashes have rocked Rift Valley severally in the past. In many instances the Kalenjin people were perceived as the aggressors and not as victims. This has happened again this time round. Indeed all the attention is on the Internally Displaced persons (IDPs) from other communities. The impression has been created that no Kalenjin lost his life or was displaced or is suffering in any way as to require assistance of any kind or compensation. To the contrary there are many Kalenjins, and other communities who have died and many displaced and now living with relatives and friends. The Kalenjin community has been adversely affected, yet they are being blamed wholesomely as the killers. Demonizing of a community that has been so magnanimous as to turn their ancestral land into the only truly Kenyan Province with all tribes living peacefully and owning property should not be allowed. Rift Valley is not cosmopolitan because it is BIG, but because its people have BIG HEARTS!
We would like to express our sadness in the loss of life and maiming, destruction of property including burning down of churches. While this act is deplorable and should be condemned, we call upon the government to carry out thorough and impartial investigations to determine the claims by the local residents, that in one of the churches, certain criminals with weapons had taken refuge and were using it to launch their attacks of killing innocent people. In fact it is the feeling of many that such and other issues such at those relating to land be left to an independent commission such as the proposed Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission so that the real truth may be known.
As we embark on finding long term solutions and rebuilding our country, we will be counting on the support of friends such as the USA to assist us. Of special concern right now and right here your Excellency is the issue of farm inputs. This region is undoubtedly the breadbasket of Kenya and the majority of people around here earn their livelihoods from farming. The month of March is usually a beehive of activity as the planting season starts but for obvious reasons, this time around much of that is not visible. The other reason is the cost of inputs especially fertilizer which has more than doubled almost guaranteeing that some farmers will not plant this year. Sir, this is a grave matter not just for food security but also as part of long term peace building since people without a livelihood are more easily drawn into conflicts due to resource constraints. We know the US Government can help with this matter.
We will also be writing to you on several other issues touching on sports and agribusiness development for our youth and many other initiatives we have started for economic empowerment in this region without which genuine peace will not be guaranteed.
Finally, we applaud the signing of the power sharing deal and thank God for saving us from almost certain disaster. We want to thank the members of the National Mediation team from both sides for their tireless efforts and the panel of Eminent Persons under the chairmanship of the very patient Koffi Anan and of course the principals who took the hard decisions, Hon Raila Odinga and President Mwai Kibaki. We also thank the international community including the US government, UN, EU, AU under the new chairmanship of Tanzanian President Chakaya Kikwete, and all other friendly people who gave us the support to see us through this difficult time of our history. We pray that God will help Kenyans navigate the remaining part of the process so that we may achieve genuine long lasting peace and together build this country.
Thank you
Your Excellency The Ambassador of United States of America Michael Ranneberger and all members of your delegation from the US Embassy, Patrons of EMO and Bishops of leading churches, Honorable Members of Parliament from many constituencies in Rift Valley, His Worship the Mayor of Eldoret Cllr Samuel Rutto, Chairman of Wareng County council and other local leaders, ladies and gentlemen all Kalenjins and other Kenyans listening to us today via Kass Fm Radio wherever they are, Chamgei! Happy New Year! (we hear Kenyans now have a new calendar where the new year begins on 1st March)
Your Excellency, when you agreed to reschedule your trip last weekend to this week for the sake of attending this meeting, you gave a condition; that I guarantee you will get to speak with 1000 Kalenjins under a tree. I must apologize sir, because what you are sitting under is not a tree and the people in front of you are slightly less than 1000 (the crowd was estimated to be over 20,000). Nevertheless, feel welcome to the Rift Valley and the town of Eldoret. (which has been receiving many visitors lately for the right and wrong reasons)
We want to thank you for joining us today for this Interdenominational Prayers and Peace Rally coming at the backdrop of the successful mediation leading to the signing of a political power sharing deal by the two sides under the able chairmanship of former UN Secretary General Koffi Anan. When we planned this meeting two weeks ago, we did not know that the agreement would have been reached by this time but continued with our plans in faith even when things appeared uncertain in the middle of the week when we thought the talks had collapsed. But we had faith in God and continued with our plans, in faith, and gave God all the glory when the breakthrough was arrived at. We are here today therefore for prayer and thanksgiving.
We would like to thank you and the American people most sincerely for the genuine and consistent support to our country particularly at this our time of need. Indeed it is at such times when one knows who their true friends are; there were times during the last two months when many felt that Kenyans left on their own would engage into a self-destruct mode mainly because of hard-line positions adopted by some leaders. We value the friendship of the American people.
EMO Community Development Society is a community organization serving people from the Rift Valley with the aim of empowering them spiritually, socially and economically. Our vision is to see “a strong community in a strong Nation” and we strongly believe that Kenya can only be as strong as its constituent communities. We believe in creating an environment of peaceful co-existence of all communities in Kenya in order to build a stable and prosperous Nation.
The Kalenjin people have always made their decisions through broad based consensus. We have therefore over the last two months, organized various discussion forums to arrive at a consensus on the real causes of the crisis and develop a way forward. These views are therefore collated and are representative of our entire community; they are not my personal views.
We reiterate our believe that unlike other provinces, Rift Valley has some unique characteristics that require a sober approach even as we try to end the current crisis which, though political, may not necessarily end with a political solution. Many people have talked of serious underlying issues that were only triggered by the disputed presidential poll that include land, historical injustices, economic disempowerment, ethnic mistrust and unemployment among others.
But Your Excellency one disturbing and irritating thing to our people is the deliberate misrepresentation and misunderstanding of our community. We believe that genuine and long term peace can only be obtained if people are honest with each other. Starting with a wrong premise will lead to wrong conclusions which in turn lead to wrong diagnosis of the problem and wrong prescriptions or solutions.
In the interest of correcting some of these biased misconceptions, our community would like to state as follows;
There is no dispute that the electioneering process right upto the voting day was largely peaceful. Many Kenyans were satisfied with the process of voting, counting and declaration of results at the polling centers. The unprecedented and spontaneous violence that rocked most parts of the country was precipitated by the announcement of disputed presidential results by Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK). Most people in Kenya who watched the announcement of the presidential tallied votes live on TV and radio were concerned on the un-explained withholding of results from certain constituencies and subsequent differences in the results announced at constituency level and at KICC tallying centre, which led them to suspect that there was manipulation of presidential elections in the tallying process.
The violence was therefore spontaneous and NOT premeditated as has been reported by some. The theory of the violence having been planned is just that – a theory. Yet it has been so well spun that even the international community have bought it wholesale! One diplomat was recently quoted saying “it may have been spontaneous in Western, Nyanza and Coast but at least in the Rift Valley it was clearly planned”! Why this singling out of one community for selective condemnation? What would make it spontaneous in all other parts of the country “except” the Rift Valley? After the signing of the deal last week, spontaneous celebrations erupted in major cities including Mombasa, Kisumu, Nairobi, Kericho and Eldoret among others. Would it be right to say the celebrations were “spontaneous” everywhere else except in the Rift valley towns?
Even our athletes of International repute have been smeared with this dirt. Our athletes are respectable and honorable people. Since they started participating in world sporting events in the 50’s has anyone heard of them being involved in antisocial activities in western cities or anywhere else? They go, they run, they win and then they come home! Our people love their home and are peaceful.
We categorically deny that there was any form of planning, training or financing of youth to engage in violence. Your Excellency let me give you just a few points why the violence could NOT have been planned.
Just a few days ago there were reports of 200 youths undergoing militia training in the farm of a former MP being arrested in the same manner a number of oath-taking mungiki converts were arrested in Kayole. Sometimes ago youths being trained for suspicious mission were nabbed in the coast province. Many times we also hear of robbers being arrested before Kenya is reputed to have one of the best intelligence networks in the region. Indeed together with the military intelligence and police network including that of informants, nothing escapes the watchful eye of Kenya’ big brother. Claims have been made that the violence was planned as far back as six months in advance! It is utterly unbelievable that such a planning involving probably thousands of people could have escaped this elaborate network. Otherwise we may have to ask why the government failed to beef up security in Rift Valley when it “expected trouble”. Why did they instead deploy one of the strongest security operations ever seen in the country around KICC? What had been planned at KICC?
There were many PNU candidates and even voters in Kalenjin land. If perhaps the whole community was in a conspiracy of silence so that the intelligence network missed this vital information, how about the numerous parliamentary, civic candidates and voters in PNU their family, friends and relatives within the community? Didn’t even one person learn of the planning and whisper a warning to the authorities?
Majority of the Kalenjin youth who participated in the violence in most urban areas of Rift Valley were unarmed and carried little more than sticks and stones. Only a few had arrows or other weapons. Any Kalenjin man (even a respectable Bishop!) can attest that it will take less than 15 minutes to make an arrow! If this thing was planned for six months, why didn’t the youth just make as many arrows as they needed? If people were paid monies for “ethnic cleansing” why not use just a little of that money to buy a few kilos of 6” nails and make enough arrows before the elections? Let us also remember that our boys learn to make and use arrows from when they are young and play with them as toys. No adult Kalenjin man needs to be “trained” to make an arrow.
Many articles in local and international media have claimed that communities are now arming themselves in readiness for war “should Anan talks fail”. It would be understandable if those arming themselves were those who were unprepared prior to the elections and had therefore been taken by surprise; but one wonders why Kalenjins who according to the theory “prepared long ago” should be buying guns after and not before the war they themselves planned? If it is that easy to acquire these firearms, then why didn’t they do it during the “six months preparation period”? Does one wait until a war that one was prepared for has started before arming oneself? This is absurd!
These planners must have been so naïve that they did not understand the repercussions of the war they were starting. Otherwise they should have known the importance of evacuating their own from areas where there was likely to be revenge attacks from the affected community. There is no sign that Kalenjins living outside their ancestral land were evacuated or prepared to evacuate at short notice. In addition many Kalenjins traveled to their rural homes to vote and traveled back on 28th, 29th and even 30th to Nairobi, Nakuru, Nyeri and other “dangerous” areas just when their brothers were “preparing to go to war only to become and IDP in a police station two days later!
Many phone text messages that went around after the crisis have warned people to stock up essential items such as food, fuel and even airtime in anticipation of escalation of the crisis. If the Kalenjins planned a war before the elections, someone should have noticed some panic buying and stocking of these essential items amongst the planners. Can the police too check with the banks and see if there were suspicious cash withdrawals in Rift Valley on or around the voting day suggesting people were preparing for something? I was in Eldoret during the first one week of this fateful year and saw the desperation of everybody as people were grounded for lack of fuel, could not communicate by phone and almost all essential items went missing in most homes. Poor planners these Kalenjin people!
Kalenjins love weddings, get together parties and other social events especially during Christmas season. From time immemorial, it was not acceptable to have any of these events during a time of war. Circumcision ceremonies for instance were not done during such times but postponed to another year. There is no indication that this was done in Kalenjin land in the run-up to the elections. People went about their social life as usual. In fact the Kalenjin diary on 29th December which fell on Saturday and the whole new year period all the way to the 5th Jan 2008 was full of weddings, boys graduation ceremonies and many social events with no sign of imminent disturbance. If these claims of planning were half true shouldn’t the Kalenjins have cancelled or postponed these events if they knew there was a “planned” war looming?
Opinion polls for a whole six months straight showed ODM and Raila Odinga ahead of his competitors. Initial results trickling in from midnight of 27th also confirmed this. It is true that the Kalenjins expected ODM which the majority of them voted for to win. There was therefore no reason at all to start a war when you should be celebrating! If there was any need to plan anything it would be how to celebrate not to fight.
Kalenjins are very humble people who are known never to attack but only react to provocation. In fact one day when the truth will finally be told, people will realize that in almost all the cases without exception, the violence started with someone attacking a Kalenjin first. We have many reports where someone from a different community attacked a Kalenjin and immediately called the police who arrive just in time to find the Kalenjin people coming to the rescue of their tribesman only to be shot as the agressors.
Many Kalenjins risked their lives protecting, hiding and assisting Kikuyus to escape death. Why did people who had planned all these not warn their kikuyu friends and neighbors to flee before instead of risking their own lives by protecting them after the violence began? There are over two million Kikuyus in the Rift Valley. If anyone had planned an ethnic cleansing targeting them then surely the death toll would have been much higher.
This was definitely not planned nor was it ethnic cleansing. We are not defending this for the sake of any one Kalenjin individual, we are saying this to defend the truth and the dignity of one of the most peaceful, welcoming and hospitable communities in Kenya.
Violent clashes have rocked Rift Valley severally in the past. In many instances the Kalenjin people were perceived as the aggressors and not as victims. This has happened again this time round. Indeed all the attention is on the Internally Displaced persons (IDPs) from other communities. The impression has been created that no Kalenjin lost his life or was displaced or is suffering in any way as to require assistance of any kind or compensation. To the contrary there are many Kalenjins, and other communities who have died and many displaced and now living with relatives and friends. The Kalenjin community has been adversely affected, yet they are being blamed wholesomely as the killers. Demonizing of a community that has been so magnanimous as to turn their ancestral land into the only truly Kenyan Province with all tribes living peacefully and owning property should not be allowed. Rift Valley is not cosmopolitan because it is BIG, but because its people have BIG HEARTS!
We would like to express our sadness in the loss of life and maiming, destruction of property including burning down of churches. While this act is deplorable and should be condemned, we call upon the government to carry out thorough and impartial investigations to determine the claims by the local residents, that in one of the churches, certain criminals with weapons had taken refuge and were using it to launch their attacks of killing innocent people. In fact it is the feeling of many that such and other issues such at those relating to land be left to an independent commission such as the proposed Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission so that the real truth may be known.
As we embark on finding long term solutions and rebuilding our country, we will be counting on the support of friends such as the USA to assist us. Of special concern right now and right here your Excellency is the issue of farm inputs. This region is undoubtedly the breadbasket of Kenya and the majority of people around here earn their livelihoods from farming. The month of March is usually a beehive of activity as the planting season starts but for obvious reasons, this time around much of that is not visible. The other reason is the cost of inputs especially fertilizer which has more than doubled almost guaranteeing that some farmers will not plant this year. Sir, this is a grave matter not just for food security but also as part of long term peace building since people without a livelihood are more easily drawn into conflicts due to resource constraints. We know the US Government can help with this matter.
We will also be writing to you on several other issues touching on sports and agribusiness development for our youth and many other initiatives we have started for economic empowerment in this region without which genuine peace will not be guaranteed.
Finally, we applaud the signing of the power sharing deal and thank God for saving us from almost certain disaster. We want to thank the members of the National Mediation team from both sides for their tireless efforts and the panel of Eminent Persons under the chairmanship of the very patient Koffi Anan and of course the principals who took the hard decisions, Hon Raila Odinga and President Mwai Kibaki. We also thank the international community including the US government, UN, EU, AU under the new chairmanship of Tanzanian President Chakaya Kikwete, and all other friendly people who gave us the support to see us through this difficult time of our history. We pray that God will help Kenyans navigate the remaining part of the process so that we may achieve genuine long lasting peace and together build this country.
Thank you
Hope against reality: Does Kenya show indications of a collapsed State?
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Hope against reality: Does Kenya show indications of a collapsed State?
Bandit president Kibaki and traitor-in-chief Kalonzo Musyoka together control a willing two provinces. Six provinces in Kenya do not recognise the bandit government, are not willing to accept to be ruled by bandits and are running their affairs in a 'state within a state manner'. Today, Sunday 17 Feb 2008, Kosovo has declared independence from Serbia. Kosovo, a former province of Serbia covers an area of 10,887 sq. km, roughly the size of Connecticut and one third the size of Belgium (30,528 sq. km). Kenya's Rift Valley Province covers 173,854 sq. km, a whooping 16 times the size of Kosovo.Kosovo has been run by the UN and NATO since 1999, when Slobodan Milosevic's forces were ousted after a NATO air war launched to end his crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists. It has a population of 2m, mainly 90% ethnic Albanians. Muslims make up the majority, with Catholics and Christian Serbs.
Is it time for Kenya to pull away from the imposed hegemony from Kirinyaga? Should Kenya declare independence from Nairobi and leave the thieving bandits to turn on themselves? Some analysts are saying nothing short of a devolved government will save Kenya. In the devolved system, which should borrow from the ODM manifesto, Nairobi will be retained as the nominal capital of a weakened central government. Wealth and administrative authority will be ceded to the periphery. People who have argued that Kenya (580,367 sq. km) is too small to devolve fail to appreciate the truth about such small but viable countries like Belgium. For starters, Belgium is about one-twentieth the size Kenya and yet its GDP seven times that of Kenya.Do we have any semblance of government in Kenya? What is the definition of a state? Nation? What makes for the sovereignty of the state? Conventionally, you cannot rule over an unwilling population. Bandit president Kibaki is imposing his illegitimate will on an unwilling country.By definition, A state is a political association with effective sovereignty over a geographic area. It may mean a nation state or a sub-national state. A state usually includes the set of institutions that claim the authority to make the rules that govern the exercise of coercive violence for the people of the society in that territory, though its status as a state often depends in part on being recognized by a number of other states as having internal and external sovereignty over it. The banditry of Mwai Kibaki has been rejected by the international community, which 75% of Kenya refuses to recognise it. What is the state of the state in Kenya?A nation is a form of self-defined cultural and social community. Though a nation is not identical to a state, the people of a nation-state consider themselves a nation; while traditionally monocultural, it may also be multicultural in its self-definition. The term nation is often used as a synonym for ethnic group (sometimes "ethnos"), but although ethnicity is now one of the most important aspects of cultural or social identity, people with the same ethnic origin may live in different nation-states and be treated as members of separate nations for that reason.Signs are that Kenya is a collapsed state. Look at the symptoms of failure and judge for yourself whether Kenya is gone to the dogs.
Indicators of a collapsed State
1. Reliance on private security for safety and security, without which one feels threatened;
2. Privatized food security, basic education, health and livelihoods, mainly through reliance on charity. The general population psyche is that the government has a minimal role, and is cynical of their basic priorities;
3. Systemic conflict, with no clarity on how it will be addressed, and the population accepting it as a norm;
4. Adulterated justice system which often appears "bought/hijacked" , hence trust in them is minimal;
5. Community level governance abused, hijacked, marginalized, or openly threatened;
6. In national institutions, checks and balances tempered with for example in: procurements, payments for goods and services, recruitments, promotions and deployments, and the targeting of support in survival safety nets (e.g. bursaries, health, justice for the poor among others);
7. Misuse and misallocation/ misapplication of national resources: Purchases of luxury goods at the expense of basic essentials (Cars, trucks, natural resources, other immovable assets);
8. Systematic and personalized threats meant to cow a person(s) perceived to be a threat from exercising their rights (it takes many forms);
9. Collapsed infrastructure and utilities, that do not get preventive maintenance, and when done, the very maintenance acts become revenue generation to individuals involved; hence the state of disrepair is desirable;
10. Competing parallel structures and systems, often between privatized services (owned by politically correct persons) and those that are official, and which are neglected or undermined;
11. Integrity of national institutions tempered with: Citizenship, taxation procedures application, allocation and targeting of support to populations in need;
12. Limited or no support to interventions on equity, promotion of livelihoods and growth;
13. Dramatic privatization of national assets, creating instantaneous millionaires, who then further acquire capacity to undermine the State;
14. Frequent high mortalities from preventable causes: accidents, natural calamities, and systemic violence, often instigated or catalyzed by those who should be protectors of the people;
15. Destruction of the natural environment, often with immediate negative consequences: river catchments, drainage systems, approval of constructions that undermine the environment, and misuse of water;
16. Mushrooming of unplanned structures, for which the Town and Country Planning departments have no powers over. These then quickly lead to domino effects on every other facet of life of the population.
Hope against reality: Does Kenya show indications of a collapsed State?
Bandit president Kibaki and traitor-in-chief Kalonzo Musyoka together control a willing two provinces. Six provinces in Kenya do not recognise the bandit government, are not willing to accept to be ruled by bandits and are running their affairs in a 'state within a state manner'. Today, Sunday 17 Feb 2008, Kosovo has declared independence from Serbia. Kosovo, a former province of Serbia covers an area of 10,887 sq. km, roughly the size of Connecticut and one third the size of Belgium (30,528 sq. km). Kenya's Rift Valley Province covers 173,854 sq. km, a whooping 16 times the size of Kosovo.Kosovo has been run by the UN and NATO since 1999, when Slobodan Milosevic's forces were ousted after a NATO air war launched to end his crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists. It has a population of 2m, mainly 90% ethnic Albanians. Muslims make up the majority, with Catholics and Christian Serbs.
Is it time for Kenya to pull away from the imposed hegemony from Kirinyaga? Should Kenya declare independence from Nairobi and leave the thieving bandits to turn on themselves? Some analysts are saying nothing short of a devolved government will save Kenya. In the devolved system, which should borrow from the ODM manifesto, Nairobi will be retained as the nominal capital of a weakened central government. Wealth and administrative authority will be ceded to the periphery. People who have argued that Kenya (580,367 sq. km) is too small to devolve fail to appreciate the truth about such small but viable countries like Belgium. For starters, Belgium is about one-twentieth the size Kenya and yet its GDP seven times that of Kenya.Do we have any semblance of government in Kenya? What is the definition of a state? Nation? What makes for the sovereignty of the state? Conventionally, you cannot rule over an unwilling population. Bandit president Kibaki is imposing his illegitimate will on an unwilling country.By definition, A state is a political association with effective sovereignty over a geographic area. It may mean a nation state or a sub-national state. A state usually includes the set of institutions that claim the authority to make the rules that govern the exercise of coercive violence for the people of the society in that territory, though its status as a state often depends in part on being recognized by a number of other states as having internal and external sovereignty over it. The banditry of Mwai Kibaki has been rejected by the international community, which 75% of Kenya refuses to recognise it. What is the state of the state in Kenya?A nation is a form of self-defined cultural and social community. Though a nation is not identical to a state, the people of a nation-state consider themselves a nation; while traditionally monocultural, it may also be multicultural in its self-definition. The term nation is often used as a synonym for ethnic group (sometimes "ethnos"), but although ethnicity is now one of the most important aspects of cultural or social identity, people with the same ethnic origin may live in different nation-states and be treated as members of separate nations for that reason.Signs are that Kenya is a collapsed state. Look at the symptoms of failure and judge for yourself whether Kenya is gone to the dogs.
Indicators of a collapsed State
1. Reliance on private security for safety and security, without which one feels threatened;
2. Privatized food security, basic education, health and livelihoods, mainly through reliance on charity. The general population psyche is that the government has a minimal role, and is cynical of their basic priorities;
3. Systemic conflict, with no clarity on how it will be addressed, and the population accepting it as a norm;
4. Adulterated justice system which often appears "bought/hijacked" , hence trust in them is minimal;
5. Community level governance abused, hijacked, marginalized, or openly threatened;
6. In national institutions, checks and balances tempered with for example in: procurements, payments for goods and services, recruitments, promotions and deployments, and the targeting of support in survival safety nets (e.g. bursaries, health, justice for the poor among others);
7. Misuse and misallocation/ misapplication of national resources: Purchases of luxury goods at the expense of basic essentials (Cars, trucks, natural resources, other immovable assets);
8. Systematic and personalized threats meant to cow a person(s) perceived to be a threat from exercising their rights (it takes many forms);
9. Collapsed infrastructure and utilities, that do not get preventive maintenance, and when done, the very maintenance acts become revenue generation to individuals involved; hence the state of disrepair is desirable;
10. Competing parallel structures and systems, often between privatized services (owned by politically correct persons) and those that are official, and which are neglected or undermined;
11. Integrity of national institutions tempered with: Citizenship, taxation procedures application, allocation and targeting of support to populations in need;
12. Limited or no support to interventions on equity, promotion of livelihoods and growth;
13. Dramatic privatization of national assets, creating instantaneous millionaires, who then further acquire capacity to undermine the State;
14. Frequent high mortalities from preventable causes: accidents, natural calamities, and systemic violence, often instigated or catalyzed by those who should be protectors of the people;
15. Destruction of the natural environment, often with immediate negative consequences: river catchments, drainage systems, approval of constructions that undermine the environment, and misuse of water;
16. Mushrooming of unplanned structures, for which the Town and Country Planning departments have no powers over. These then quickly lead to domino effects on every other facet of life of the population.
Brood of vicious vipers: the people Prime Minister Raila must keep at bay
Brood of vicious vipers: the people Prime Minister Raila must keep at bay
Kibaki's foot soldiers have fought many battles for him. Now is payback time. In life, some things come to haunt you so soon that you wish you had not said or done. At such times, one wishes that he owned a huge eraser and had access to the audience 'hard-disk' to erase the memories and sanitize self. But no!
Kenya has its fair share of loose talkers who have never spared a moment in their moment of glory and drunkenness with illicit power to call the Peoples' Prime Minister Raila Odinga unprintable names. Those vicious vipers never spared a moment to lambast, demonize and condemn the country's foremost reformer and agent of real regime change.
Take one Musikari Nazi Kombo (kombo) for example. At the height of his blindness, he wanted to derail the Luhya from the Orange. So vicious was Kombo that during the launch of the still-born and incorrigibly corrupt and inept Panu aka PNU, he called ODM 'one dangerous man', a phrase he did not originate because it had been used by others to refer to really dangerous men. Political plagiarism was so nasty on that day, that Nyachae, Mwakwere and the coward of crocodiles and alleged croco eater, Danson Mungatana were in an Olympics to demonize the ODM. Get it from the Horse's mouth: Many will recall Musikari Kombo, his eyes almost popping out of his glasses, describing ODM and its presidential candidate as One Dangerous Man during the PNU launch at Nyayo National Stadium.
Drug dealer and PNU foot soldier-cum-toilet digger one Stanley Livondo, a parliamentary loser for the Lang’ata constituency, told Kenyans that voting for Raila is asking for the country to be translated to slums. Stanley Livondo was planted on Lang'ata, voters imported from such constituencies as Starehe and others, but nothing happened. Livondo is facing litigation for conning a pugilist he was promoting after he failed to pay the agreed fees.
Not to be left behind in the besmirching Olympics, Simeon Nyachae
aka son of
Nyandusi went for the member below the belt. Dismissing Raila as an uncircumcised Luo, Nyachae swore that only a coffin would remove him from parliament. He is alive yet out of parliament for good courtsey of the Kisii people who rejected him for the veterinary doctor and ODM-leaning member of Charity Ngilu's Narc. Dr Robert Onsare Monda ended Nyachae's rein of terror and we are glad that he is about to behold with his own eyes as the Peoples' Prime Minister ascends to the leadership of Kenya. Nyachae has been funding a ragtag millitia called Chinkororo who will certainly get to him for pay and protection when the law catches up with him and them.
Premier Koinange Street twilight client Chirau Ali Mwakwere came up with his 'kamata kamata' as if he was setting dogs loose on Koinange Street to raid and silence his former clients. Kiraitu Murungi served Mr Kibaki as his minister for constitutional affairs and stood in the way of a new constitution. He was behind the dishonoring of the 2002 MOU between NAK and LDP. He represents a reminder of how a good regime founded on trust can be ruined.
Change of fate
Enter Martha Karua and Dr Goebbels Njoroge Mutua, the disinformation chief at the government spokesman's office. Recently, Mutua boisterously bought from Karua's book of vituperative and impunity and said "you cannot share power with losers". As fate would have it, life has gone full cycle and soon he will be speaking for the government of Raila Odinga. We wonder whether he has any moral left to resign and forego his KShs 800,000/= before he is embarassed by being asked to say what he ought to say about the ODM government. But we hold our horses.
Whither Karua goeth thee. Having stone-walled the talks and said some of the most irrational things, Ms Karua finds herself in an unenviable position. Her Office of Constitutional Affairs must be ceded to ODm in order for a new break be made from the corruption and ineptitude that has characterized the banditization of the judiciary.
These turncoats are a vicious brood of venomous vipers. What they said yesterday is so crass that they now wish they didn't open their fangy mouths to utter the stench that still reverberates in our ear-drums.
Listen to Kiraitu Murungi: "I have known Raila for a long time. We share an eventful long history since when we struggled to liberate the country from the dictatorial single party rule in the 1990s. I even represented him in court". Balderdash. Look at those twisted and vile lips. A friend in need is a friend indeed. Kiraitu worked overtime when he was a blue-eyed boy of the system. He ensured Raila was removed from the Chairmanship of the parliamentary select committee on constitutional reforms even though they both served in the cabinet. He sponsored his side-kick Paul Kibugi Muite, who ended up achieving nothing worth talking about becasuse the constitution was never rewritten under him. So, has Kiraitu awoken from his cozy sleep to realize that power has shifted west to Bondo, Vihiga, Mvita, Eldoret, Kitui and down the coast of Mombasa?
We will spare you the verbiage of Kalonzo's excuses about the PNU-ODM-K support for the Raila-Kibaki deal. His own house of ODM-K is on fire and many Ukambani MPs are deserting his bloated ego for the true Akamba leaders, Charity Kaluki Ngilu and John Harun Mwau. Besides, Kalooser has eaten humble pie, because as bandit veep, he is a member of government which the Peoples' PM will supervise. In other words, Kalooser will report to PM Raila in the government business. What is more, having bought some breather for his banditry, Mwai Kibaki does not need Kalooser as badly as he did when the ODM brigade was to be contained.
We would like to ask, how will the cantankerous Mungatana, the twisted lips Kiraitu, the hot-tempered Karua, the sly rattlesnake Me Chuki and the abusive Kombo Kombo work with the peoples' PM? How will the forked-tongue Mutua speak for the people-friendly government. How about Mr 'a stock-exchange-is-not-a-fish-market' aka 'a title-deed is a mere piece of (toilet) paper' Amos Kimunya work with the pragmatic PM?
Whereas we embrace national healing, we have to warn the ODM to beware of the brood of vicious vipers. The mean no good for Kenya. We will be watching how their tones will change as they move to wax lyrical about the wisdom of the Raila-Kibaki deal.Sooner than we can imagine, we will hear cartoons talking about being the ones who urged Kibaki to sign the deal. Another idiot will even come forward and tell us that they were circumcised with Raila. All these politicians will be up to no good. All they want is to curry favors and the peoples' PM must not inherit Kibaki disdainful baggage of loathed powermen and women. They must be kept at bay, at all costs.
Kibaki's foot soldiers have fought many battles for him. Now is payback time. In life, some things come to haunt you so soon that you wish you had not said or done. At such times, one wishes that he owned a huge eraser and had access to the audience 'hard-disk' to erase the memories and sanitize self. But no!
Kenya has its fair share of loose talkers who have never spared a moment in their moment of glory and drunkenness with illicit power to call the Peoples' Prime Minister Raila Odinga unprintable names. Those vicious vipers never spared a moment to lambast, demonize and condemn the country's foremost reformer and agent of real regime change.
Take one Musikari Nazi Kombo (kombo) for example. At the height of his blindness, he wanted to derail the Luhya from the Orange. So vicious was Kombo that during the launch of the still-born and incorrigibly corrupt and inept Panu aka PNU, he called ODM 'one dangerous man', a phrase he did not originate because it had been used by others to refer to really dangerous men. Political plagiarism was so nasty on that day, that Nyachae, Mwakwere and the coward of crocodiles and alleged croco eater, Danson Mungatana were in an Olympics to demonize the ODM. Get it from the Horse's mouth: Many will recall Musikari Kombo, his eyes almost popping out of his glasses, describing ODM and its presidential candidate as One Dangerous Man during the PNU launch at Nyayo National Stadium.
Drug dealer and PNU foot soldier-cum-toilet digger one Stanley Livondo, a parliamentary loser for the Lang’ata constituency, told Kenyans that voting for Raila is asking for the country to be translated to slums. Stanley Livondo was planted on Lang'ata, voters imported from such constituencies as Starehe and others, but nothing happened. Livondo is facing litigation for conning a pugilist he was promoting after he failed to pay the agreed fees.
Not to be left behind in the besmirching Olympics, Simeon Nyachae
aka son of
Nyandusi went for the member below the belt. Dismissing Raila as an uncircumcised Luo, Nyachae swore that only a coffin would remove him from parliament. He is alive yet out of parliament for good courtsey of the Kisii people who rejected him for the veterinary doctor and ODM-leaning member of Charity Ngilu's Narc. Dr Robert Onsare Monda ended Nyachae's rein of terror and we are glad that he is about to behold with his own eyes as the Peoples' Prime Minister ascends to the leadership of Kenya. Nyachae has been funding a ragtag millitia called Chinkororo who will certainly get to him for pay and protection when the law catches up with him and them.
Premier Koinange Street twilight client Chirau Ali Mwakwere came up with his 'kamata kamata' as if he was setting dogs loose on Koinange Street to raid and silence his former clients. Kiraitu Murungi served Mr Kibaki as his minister for constitutional affairs and stood in the way of a new constitution. He was behind the dishonoring of the 2002 MOU between NAK and LDP. He represents a reminder of how a good regime founded on trust can be ruined.
Change of fate
Enter Martha Karua and Dr Goebbels Njoroge Mutua, the disinformation chief at the government spokesman's office. Recently, Mutua boisterously bought from Karua's book of vituperative and impunity and said "you cannot share power with losers". As fate would have it, life has gone full cycle and soon he will be speaking for the government of Raila Odinga. We wonder whether he has any moral left to resign and forego his KShs 800,000/= before he is embarassed by being asked to say what he ought to say about the ODM government. But we hold our horses.
Whither Karua goeth thee. Having stone-walled the talks and said some of the most irrational things, Ms Karua finds herself in an unenviable position. Her Office of Constitutional Affairs must be ceded to ODm in order for a new break be made from the corruption and ineptitude that has characterized the banditization of the judiciary.
These turncoats are a vicious brood of venomous vipers. What they said yesterday is so crass that they now wish they didn't open their fangy mouths to utter the stench that still reverberates in our ear-drums.
Listen to Kiraitu Murungi: "I have known Raila for a long time. We share an eventful long history since when we struggled to liberate the country from the dictatorial single party rule in the 1990s. I even represented him in court". Balderdash. Look at those twisted and vile lips. A friend in need is a friend indeed. Kiraitu worked overtime when he was a blue-eyed boy of the system. He ensured Raila was removed from the Chairmanship of the parliamentary select committee on constitutional reforms even though they both served in the cabinet. He sponsored his side-kick Paul Kibugi Muite, who ended up achieving nothing worth talking about becasuse the constitution was never rewritten under him. So, has Kiraitu awoken from his cozy sleep to realize that power has shifted west to Bondo, Vihiga, Mvita, Eldoret, Kitui and down the coast of Mombasa?
We will spare you the verbiage of Kalonzo's excuses about the PNU-ODM-K support for the Raila-Kibaki deal. His own house of ODM-K is on fire and many Ukambani MPs are deserting his bloated ego for the true Akamba leaders, Charity Kaluki Ngilu and John Harun Mwau. Besides, Kalooser has eaten humble pie, because as bandit veep, he is a member of government which the Peoples' PM will supervise. In other words, Kalooser will report to PM Raila in the government business. What is more, having bought some breather for his banditry, Mwai Kibaki does not need Kalooser as badly as he did when the ODM brigade was to be contained.
We would like to ask, how will the cantankerous Mungatana, the twisted lips Kiraitu, the hot-tempered Karua, the sly rattlesnake Me Chuki and the abusive Kombo Kombo work with the peoples' PM? How will the forked-tongue Mutua speak for the people-friendly government. How about Mr 'a stock-exchange-is-not-a-fish-market' aka 'a title-deed is a mere piece of (toilet) paper' Amos Kimunya work with the pragmatic PM?
Whereas we embrace national healing, we have to warn the ODM to beware of the brood of vicious vipers. The mean no good for Kenya. We will be watching how their tones will change as they move to wax lyrical about the wisdom of the Raila-Kibaki deal.Sooner than we can imagine, we will hear cartoons talking about being the ones who urged Kibaki to sign the deal. Another idiot will even come forward and tell us that they were circumcised with Raila. All these politicians will be up to no good. All they want is to curry favors and the peoples' PM must not inherit Kibaki disdainful baggage of loathed powermen and women. They must be kept at bay, at all costs.
And why do Kenya's other tribes resent them so much?
And why do Kenya's other tribes resent them so much?
By Michela WrongPosted Friday, Feb. 8, 2008, at 12:11 PM ETCENTRAL PROVINCE, Kenya—On the hillsides, tea is still being picked; in the valleys, women still weed rows of beans, feet stained ocher by the soil; and in downtown Nyeri, the matatu taxi vans still honk by custom. The only immediate hint that something is amiss is to be found on the veranda of the Outspan Hotel. Despite boasting one of Africa's most stunning views—Mount Kenya stretches serenely on the far side of the plains—the Outspan is strangely quiet these days; most of its tourists have fled.
If Kenya is ablaze, it's almost possible to miss that fact in Central Province. A few hours' drive west, machete-wielding youths blockade roads, shops have been looted, and refugee camps spring up like mushrooms. At first glance, the country's most serious crisis since independence has barely dented the banal routines of daily life.
There's a reason for this. Central Province is the home of President Mwai Kibaki—his Othaya constituency lies just south of Nyeri. While his Kikuyu kinsmen have been burned alive and lynched across the rest of Kenya, punished for his suspected rigging of the December elections, only a madman would dare lift a hand to a Kikuyu on his home turf.
But that doesn't allay a crawling sense of unease. The relationship between the Kikuyu and the rest of Kenya has been warped, residents sense, possibly beyond repair. Nyeri's inhabitants are haunted by a more immediate fear. Most of the 300,000 people displaced in the violence are Kikuyus. Even as nervous Luos cluster for protection in local police stations, hundreds of Kikuyus are returning, demanding housing, work, and school places. "At the moment people are telling those displaced to stick where they are, because there is great land scarcity here," says Muthui Mwai, a Nyeri journalist. "No one wants them back."
Land scarcity is the leitmotif of the Kikuyu, the historic source of their anguish and the motivating force behind their success story. Accounting for around 22 percent of Kenya's population of 38 million, the Kikuyu's mark on the East African nation has been far greater than the figures imply, thanks to that driving hunger.
Under Kenya's first president, Jomo Kenyatta, another kinsman, they streamed out of Central Province, settling in the Rift Valley and on the coast. Today, they dominate the economy. Kikuyus drive most of Kenya's matatus and its taxis, run its newspapers, and constitute much of its civil service, their entrepreneurial reach extending from the glitziest of hotels to the remotest roadside duka (kiosk). They also, joke Kikuyus, account for the biggest share of the country's criminals and prison inmates.
They hail themselves as "the Jews of Kenya," envied and hated in equal measure for that entrepreneurial zeal. But there's a difference: Europe's Jews never combined economic influence with political power. The Kikuyu have done just that, providing two of Kenya's three presidents. And their current predicament can be traced to that double-fisted grip on the nation-state and the resentment it stirs among their compatriots.
The Kikuyu story, legend has it, begins on a ridge north of the town of Muranga, south of Nyeri, amid the misty valleys carved by Mount Kenya's melting snows. To the precolonial Kikuyu, Mount Kenya, known as Kirinyaga, was the seat of God, or Ngai. Ngai created Gikuyu—the first man—then pointed earthward. "Build your homestead where the fig trees grow," he said. Later, he sent Mumbi to join him, and the couple established the 10 clans that constitute "the house of Mumbi," as the Kikuyu are also known.
You can actually visit this Kikuyu version of the Garden of Eden. Behind a sky-blue gate, painted with the words Mukurwe Wa Nyagathanga—the Tree of Gathanga—lie two mud huts, one for Gikuyu and one for Mumbi. The site looks toward Kirinyaga, but the mountain, famously elusive, is usually shrouded in cloud.
The compound may be an officially designated historical monument, but it looks semineglected. The skeleton of a half-built hotel, abandoned when a shady contractor disappeared with the funds—"This, too, is part of our culture," jokes a villager—drips water nearby. In my many trips there, I've never stumbled on another visitor. "It's not our way to look backward, only forward," explains my Kikuyu driver.
The farming community that fanned out from this site had a special affinity with the soil. "There is a great desire in the heart of every Gikuyu man to own a piece of land on which he can build his home," Kenyatta wrote in Facing Mount Kenya. "A man or a woman who cannot say to his friends, come and eat, drink and enjoy the fruit of my labour, is not considered as a worthy member of the tribe."
It was this affinity that brought the Kikuyu into conflict with the British Empire. Initially, Britain's 19th-century explorers showed little interest in the area that would be designated "Kenya," training their eyes instead on the Buganda kingdom across Lake Victoria. Central Province's fertile valleys were simply the place to stock their caravans with fresh food before the long trip west.
But with time, Kenya itself became the draw. Most of the land that British settlers appropriated belonged to the nomadic Masai, not the Kikuyu, but it was the Kikuyu who led an armed insurrection, Mau Mau, in the 1950s. With their fast-growing population, the Kikuyu needed room to expand. The British had removed that possibility by farming the White Highlands. British Capt. Richard Meinertzhagen claimed to have seen what was coming. "They are the most intelligent of the African tribes that I have met; therefore they will be the most progressive under European guidance and will be the most susceptible to subversive activities," he wrote.
Mau Mau has left its scars, psychological if not physical. At least 150,000 Kikuyus passed through British detention camps, and more than 20,000 Mau Mau fighters died in combat. Central Province's residents can still point out the caves where the freedom fighters hid and sketch the location of the British prisons and scaffolds where they were executed—in Nyeri's case, on what is now the golf club's parking lot.
Seeking scapegoats in that turbulent past, many older inhabitants insist today's troubles are the work of a British government that has never forgiven the Kikuyu their revolt. Now the Brits are supposedly the hidden hand behind Luo leader Raila Odinga's opposition campaign. "This is not a war between Kenyans, it's a war imported from abroad," fumes Joseph Karimi, co-author of The Kenyatta Succession. "The British were not satisfied with the rule of the Kikuyu, so they brought in this war. They never actually left Kenya and they never intend to."
If the British won the fight against Mau Mau, the Kikuyu won the peace. When Britain pulled out in 1963, it was Kenyatta, once jailed as a Mau Mau leader, who became president, his community that took pole position. Forced proximity with the colonial administration and the proliferation of missionary schools in Central Province meant the Kikuyu were better educated than other Kenyans and best placed to benefit from independence. What's more, they enjoyed the president's patronage. "My people have the milk in the morning, your tribes the milk in the afternoon," Kenyatta told non-Kikuyu ministers who complained.
The Kikuyu, outsiders feel, have been rubbing other communities' noses in their pre-eminence ever since. "We're obnoxious, we're thrusting, we're loud, and we're everywhere," acknowledges a Kikuyu banker friend. "Our problem is there aren't enough of us to dominate, yet we're too large to ignore. We are at once both obnoxious and indispensable."
Although Kenyatta's successor, Daniel arap Moi, systematically crushed Kikuyu aspirations while promoting his own Kalenjin, the community still thrived economically. Hence the conviction, voiced by snarl-toothed elders and fresh-faced undergraduates alike in Central Province, that only the Kikuyu—the community that stood up and defied the white invader—deserve to run the country.
I hear the familiar refrain in a hotel bar in Muranga, whose wall, significantly, is decorated with framed photographs of Kenyatta and Kibaki, but not of Moi. "If you did an experiment and took five Luos, five Luhyas, five Kambas, and five Kikuyus and gave them money to invest, you would see the result," boasts John Kiriamiti, who publishes a Muranga newspaper. "The Kikuyu would be far, far ahead." His business partner, Njoroge Gicheha, chimes in. "You cannot compare a fisherman in Nyanza who simply pulls a fish from the lake to a farmer who plants beans in Central Province and waits six months to harvest. The fact is, we work harder than other Kenyans."
It's this bumptious sense of entitlement that infuriates Kenya's 47 other tribes. But, with the exception of two bouts of ethnic cleansing in the 1990s, irritation was largely held in check under Moi, a topic of good-natured banter rather than abuse.
That changed with the 2002 elections that first put Kibaki in power. A consensus candidate backed by a broad tribal coalition, he swiftly reneged on promises of a new constitution devolving power to the regions. The pledge of a prime minister's post for Odinga, the man who probably won December's elections, was withdrawn. As the tribal coalition disintegrated, Kenyans noticed that key ministries were all held by members of what they dubbed "the Mount Kenya Mafia." Far from challenging Kenyatta's system of ethnic favoritism, Kibaki reinforced it.
While Western donors relished Kibaki's 6 percent to 7 percent growth rates, the mood on the ground was grim. The fact that Central Province's milk, tea, and coffee industries surged ahead while other regions remained marginalized did not go unnoticed.
Both sides helped whip low-level ethnic resentment into today's frenzied hatred.
Odinga raised the stakes by preaching majimboism. Majimboism means federalism, a system many might think well-suited to over-centralized Kenya. But to Odinga's supporters, it was a code word for something very specific: Kikuyus with plots or businesses in non-Kikuyu areas would be forced out and sent "home."
In Central Province, Kikuyu MPs seized on the majimboist threat to foster a siege mentality. Rumors of a project to slaughter 1 million Kikuyus circulated like wildfire. "The amount of fear-mongering [texts] and e-mails was stupendous," says Kwamchetsi Makokha, a columnist for the Nation newspaper. "It became a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you set the stage where a single community has isolated itself, what follows is a feeling of resentment by others, of 'what's so special about you?' "
There was nothing random about the violence that exploded with the announcement of a Kibaki win. Deciding that the Kikuyu intended to rule Kenya indefinitely, Luos in the Western town of Kisumu looted Kikuyu shops, while Kalenjin militias drove Kikuyus from Rift Valley farms, settling scores dating back to Kenyatta's 1970s settlement scheme.
A feared Kikuyu militia, the Mungiki, is now extracting vicious revenge. But as thugs demand ID cards at roadblocks and members of the "wrong" tribe watch homes go up in smoke, majimboism is being put into crude practice on the ground, decades of Kikuyu expansionism challenged and reversed.
Many analysts see the entrepreneurship that defines the Kikuyu experience as the only hope for peace. Holding such a huge stake in the Kenyan economy, the Kikuyu have more to lose from the spiraling anarchy than any other group.
In Nairobi, groups of young Kikuyu professionals are calling for a power-sharing deal between Kibaki and Odinga. But the only individuals capable of pushing Kibaki to cede ground at talks being mediated by former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan are probably his Kikuyu businessmen buddies. While they are beginning to feel the pinch as their hotels empty and investment portfolios collapse, this elderly group remains hard-line in its instincts.
Here in Central Province, a region locked in belligerent denial and memories of its insurgent past, there is little talk of compromise and no criticism of Kibaki. Retreating ever further into the chauvinistic bunker, some argue that the Kikuyu should create a mini-state of their own. "We can form a government from the Mount Kenya area, the Luhya, and some Kalenjin," James Wanyaga, Nyeri's former mayor, told me. "We can forget about the Luos and put our security machinery into Rift Valley, just as your people did under colonialism. And we would get on very well."
On one thing, however, all agree: There must be no more Kikuyu presidencies. The price of Kikuyu hegemony has already proved greater than anyone wants to pay. "Come 2012, a Kikuyu candidate will stand no chance at all here," says Gichema. "We don't want to be any further isolated."
Posted by Nandi Kaburwo at Friday, February 08, 2008
Labels: Candid Talk
1 comments:
Mwananchi mwaminifu said...
What some of the Kikuyu's in this article forget to admit is that they do not really work hard, they extort, they rob, they kill to get what they have. If stealing robbing and killing is hard work then let it be.
Saturday, February 09, 2008 3:57:00 AM
Post a Comment
By Michela WrongPosted Friday, Feb. 8, 2008, at 12:11 PM ETCENTRAL PROVINCE, Kenya—On the hillsides, tea is still being picked; in the valleys, women still weed rows of beans, feet stained ocher by the soil; and in downtown Nyeri, the matatu taxi vans still honk by custom. The only immediate hint that something is amiss is to be found on the veranda of the Outspan Hotel. Despite boasting one of Africa's most stunning views—Mount Kenya stretches serenely on the far side of the plains—the Outspan is strangely quiet these days; most of its tourists have fled.
If Kenya is ablaze, it's almost possible to miss that fact in Central Province. A few hours' drive west, machete-wielding youths blockade roads, shops have been looted, and refugee camps spring up like mushrooms. At first glance, the country's most serious crisis since independence has barely dented the banal routines of daily life.
There's a reason for this. Central Province is the home of President Mwai Kibaki—his Othaya constituency lies just south of Nyeri. While his Kikuyu kinsmen have been burned alive and lynched across the rest of Kenya, punished for his suspected rigging of the December elections, only a madman would dare lift a hand to a Kikuyu on his home turf.
But that doesn't allay a crawling sense of unease. The relationship between the Kikuyu and the rest of Kenya has been warped, residents sense, possibly beyond repair. Nyeri's inhabitants are haunted by a more immediate fear. Most of the 300,000 people displaced in the violence are Kikuyus. Even as nervous Luos cluster for protection in local police stations, hundreds of Kikuyus are returning, demanding housing, work, and school places. "At the moment people are telling those displaced to stick where they are, because there is great land scarcity here," says Muthui Mwai, a Nyeri journalist. "No one wants them back."
Land scarcity is the leitmotif of the Kikuyu, the historic source of their anguish and the motivating force behind their success story. Accounting for around 22 percent of Kenya's population of 38 million, the Kikuyu's mark on the East African nation has been far greater than the figures imply, thanks to that driving hunger.
Under Kenya's first president, Jomo Kenyatta, another kinsman, they streamed out of Central Province, settling in the Rift Valley and on the coast. Today, they dominate the economy. Kikuyus drive most of Kenya's matatus and its taxis, run its newspapers, and constitute much of its civil service, their entrepreneurial reach extending from the glitziest of hotels to the remotest roadside duka (kiosk). They also, joke Kikuyus, account for the biggest share of the country's criminals and prison inmates.
They hail themselves as "the Jews of Kenya," envied and hated in equal measure for that entrepreneurial zeal. But there's a difference: Europe's Jews never combined economic influence with political power. The Kikuyu have done just that, providing two of Kenya's three presidents. And their current predicament can be traced to that double-fisted grip on the nation-state and the resentment it stirs among their compatriots.
The Kikuyu story, legend has it, begins on a ridge north of the town of Muranga, south of Nyeri, amid the misty valleys carved by Mount Kenya's melting snows. To the precolonial Kikuyu, Mount Kenya, known as Kirinyaga, was the seat of God, or Ngai. Ngai created Gikuyu—the first man—then pointed earthward. "Build your homestead where the fig trees grow," he said. Later, he sent Mumbi to join him, and the couple established the 10 clans that constitute "the house of Mumbi," as the Kikuyu are also known.
You can actually visit this Kikuyu version of the Garden of Eden. Behind a sky-blue gate, painted with the words Mukurwe Wa Nyagathanga—the Tree of Gathanga—lie two mud huts, one for Gikuyu and one for Mumbi. The site looks toward Kirinyaga, but the mountain, famously elusive, is usually shrouded in cloud.
The compound may be an officially designated historical monument, but it looks semineglected. The skeleton of a half-built hotel, abandoned when a shady contractor disappeared with the funds—"This, too, is part of our culture," jokes a villager—drips water nearby. In my many trips there, I've never stumbled on another visitor. "It's not our way to look backward, only forward," explains my Kikuyu driver.
The farming community that fanned out from this site had a special affinity with the soil. "There is a great desire in the heart of every Gikuyu man to own a piece of land on which he can build his home," Kenyatta wrote in Facing Mount Kenya. "A man or a woman who cannot say to his friends, come and eat, drink and enjoy the fruit of my labour, is not considered as a worthy member of the tribe."
It was this affinity that brought the Kikuyu into conflict with the British Empire. Initially, Britain's 19th-century explorers showed little interest in the area that would be designated "Kenya," training their eyes instead on the Buganda kingdom across Lake Victoria. Central Province's fertile valleys were simply the place to stock their caravans with fresh food before the long trip west.
But with time, Kenya itself became the draw. Most of the land that British settlers appropriated belonged to the nomadic Masai, not the Kikuyu, but it was the Kikuyu who led an armed insurrection, Mau Mau, in the 1950s. With their fast-growing population, the Kikuyu needed room to expand. The British had removed that possibility by farming the White Highlands. British Capt. Richard Meinertzhagen claimed to have seen what was coming. "They are the most intelligent of the African tribes that I have met; therefore they will be the most progressive under European guidance and will be the most susceptible to subversive activities," he wrote.
Mau Mau has left its scars, psychological if not physical. At least 150,000 Kikuyus passed through British detention camps, and more than 20,000 Mau Mau fighters died in combat. Central Province's residents can still point out the caves where the freedom fighters hid and sketch the location of the British prisons and scaffolds where they were executed—in Nyeri's case, on what is now the golf club's parking lot.
Seeking scapegoats in that turbulent past, many older inhabitants insist today's troubles are the work of a British government that has never forgiven the Kikuyu their revolt. Now the Brits are supposedly the hidden hand behind Luo leader Raila Odinga's opposition campaign. "This is not a war between Kenyans, it's a war imported from abroad," fumes Joseph Karimi, co-author of The Kenyatta Succession. "The British were not satisfied with the rule of the Kikuyu, so they brought in this war. They never actually left Kenya and they never intend to."
If the British won the fight against Mau Mau, the Kikuyu won the peace. When Britain pulled out in 1963, it was Kenyatta, once jailed as a Mau Mau leader, who became president, his community that took pole position. Forced proximity with the colonial administration and the proliferation of missionary schools in Central Province meant the Kikuyu were better educated than other Kenyans and best placed to benefit from independence. What's more, they enjoyed the president's patronage. "My people have the milk in the morning, your tribes the milk in the afternoon," Kenyatta told non-Kikuyu ministers who complained.
The Kikuyu, outsiders feel, have been rubbing other communities' noses in their pre-eminence ever since. "We're obnoxious, we're thrusting, we're loud, and we're everywhere," acknowledges a Kikuyu banker friend. "Our problem is there aren't enough of us to dominate, yet we're too large to ignore. We are at once both obnoxious and indispensable."
Although Kenyatta's successor, Daniel arap Moi, systematically crushed Kikuyu aspirations while promoting his own Kalenjin, the community still thrived economically. Hence the conviction, voiced by snarl-toothed elders and fresh-faced undergraduates alike in Central Province, that only the Kikuyu—the community that stood up and defied the white invader—deserve to run the country.
I hear the familiar refrain in a hotel bar in Muranga, whose wall, significantly, is decorated with framed photographs of Kenyatta and Kibaki, but not of Moi. "If you did an experiment and took five Luos, five Luhyas, five Kambas, and five Kikuyus and gave them money to invest, you would see the result," boasts John Kiriamiti, who publishes a Muranga newspaper. "The Kikuyu would be far, far ahead." His business partner, Njoroge Gicheha, chimes in. "You cannot compare a fisherman in Nyanza who simply pulls a fish from the lake to a farmer who plants beans in Central Province and waits six months to harvest. The fact is, we work harder than other Kenyans."
It's this bumptious sense of entitlement that infuriates Kenya's 47 other tribes. But, with the exception of two bouts of ethnic cleansing in the 1990s, irritation was largely held in check under Moi, a topic of good-natured banter rather than abuse.
That changed with the 2002 elections that first put Kibaki in power. A consensus candidate backed by a broad tribal coalition, he swiftly reneged on promises of a new constitution devolving power to the regions. The pledge of a prime minister's post for Odinga, the man who probably won December's elections, was withdrawn. As the tribal coalition disintegrated, Kenyans noticed that key ministries were all held by members of what they dubbed "the Mount Kenya Mafia." Far from challenging Kenyatta's system of ethnic favoritism, Kibaki reinforced it.
While Western donors relished Kibaki's 6 percent to 7 percent growth rates, the mood on the ground was grim. The fact that Central Province's milk, tea, and coffee industries surged ahead while other regions remained marginalized did not go unnoticed.
Both sides helped whip low-level ethnic resentment into today's frenzied hatred.
Odinga raised the stakes by preaching majimboism. Majimboism means federalism, a system many might think well-suited to over-centralized Kenya. But to Odinga's supporters, it was a code word for something very specific: Kikuyus with plots or businesses in non-Kikuyu areas would be forced out and sent "home."
In Central Province, Kikuyu MPs seized on the majimboist threat to foster a siege mentality. Rumors of a project to slaughter 1 million Kikuyus circulated like wildfire. "The amount of fear-mongering [texts] and e-mails was stupendous," says Kwamchetsi Makokha, a columnist for the Nation newspaper. "It became a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you set the stage where a single community has isolated itself, what follows is a feeling of resentment by others, of 'what's so special about you?' "
There was nothing random about the violence that exploded with the announcement of a Kibaki win. Deciding that the Kikuyu intended to rule Kenya indefinitely, Luos in the Western town of Kisumu looted Kikuyu shops, while Kalenjin militias drove Kikuyus from Rift Valley farms, settling scores dating back to Kenyatta's 1970s settlement scheme.
A feared Kikuyu militia, the Mungiki, is now extracting vicious revenge. But as thugs demand ID cards at roadblocks and members of the "wrong" tribe watch homes go up in smoke, majimboism is being put into crude practice on the ground, decades of Kikuyu expansionism challenged and reversed.
Many analysts see the entrepreneurship that defines the Kikuyu experience as the only hope for peace. Holding such a huge stake in the Kenyan economy, the Kikuyu have more to lose from the spiraling anarchy than any other group.
In Nairobi, groups of young Kikuyu professionals are calling for a power-sharing deal between Kibaki and Odinga. But the only individuals capable of pushing Kibaki to cede ground at talks being mediated by former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan are probably his Kikuyu businessmen buddies. While they are beginning to feel the pinch as their hotels empty and investment portfolios collapse, this elderly group remains hard-line in its instincts.
Here in Central Province, a region locked in belligerent denial and memories of its insurgent past, there is little talk of compromise and no criticism of Kibaki. Retreating ever further into the chauvinistic bunker, some argue that the Kikuyu should create a mini-state of their own. "We can form a government from the Mount Kenya area, the Luhya, and some Kalenjin," James Wanyaga, Nyeri's former mayor, told me. "We can forget about the Luos and put our security machinery into Rift Valley, just as your people did under colonialism. And we would get on very well."
On one thing, however, all agree: There must be no more Kikuyu presidencies. The price of Kikuyu hegemony has already proved greater than anyone wants to pay. "Come 2012, a Kikuyu candidate will stand no chance at all here," says Gichema. "We don't want to be any further isolated."
Posted by Nandi Kaburwo at Friday, February 08, 2008
Labels: Candid Talk
1 comments:
Mwananchi mwaminifu said...
What some of the Kikuyu's in this article forget to admit is that they do not really work hard, they extort, they rob, they kill to get what they have. If stealing robbing and killing is hard work then let it be.
Saturday, February 09, 2008 3:57:00 AM
Post a Comment
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Kibaki as a corrupt leader
Questions:
How much do Kibaki know of the ‘collapsed’ Kenya Meat commission?
What role did he play in aiding its collapse?
Why didn’t he unearth/exposed (as VP and Finance Minister to boot), the ‘beneficiaries’ of Ksh.13
million (equivalent of Ksh.250 million today) acrued from the sale of KR land which disinherited the
workers of Kenya railway in 1980?
What relationship is there between the ‘past event’ and the sale of ‘the two’ parastatals during his
reign?
The following is an excerpt of an investigative article”Mr. Moneybags” a headline story appearing in ‘The
Standard’ newspaper Saturday January 8th 2005.
….Kibaki has been ‘faulted’ for turning a blind eye when ‘his friends’ are caught with their
‘little hands’ in the ‘cookie jar’ (read state coffers)’.
A case in point was in 1980 when he was the Vice President and Minister of Finance. At that
time, his friend of many years, Mr. F.T.J. Nyamu was Managing Director, Kenya Reinsurance
Company+, a parastatal under the Ministry of Finance.
In April that year, the government directed the Kenya Railways++ to put up decent houses
for its workers living in the shanties of Muthurwa and Landi-Mawe railway quarters.
Subseqently, the Kenya railway set aside the land next to the Railway Training School, RTS
(Railway Training Institute, RTI, as is known today ) in Nairobi South-B for the project. But
hardly before the housing project could take off, a dummy company, Tass properties, was
hurriedly formed.
The Kenya railways, then under another of Kibaki’s buddies, Mr. Davidson Ngini, sold the
land set aside for the railway estate to a dummy company (Tass properties) at only Ksh.690,
000. Two weeks later, the dummy company sold the same land to Nyamu’s Kenya Reinsurance
at Ksh. 14 million.
Instead of the Kenya railways building low-cost houses for its workers as the government
had directed, the Kenya Re-insurance company constructed what is today Plainview and
Golden-gate estates and purported to sell houses to railway workers living in Muthurwa and
Landi-Mawe. Of course it was a crazy joke as none of them could afford to buy the newly
built houses. They ended up in the hands of anybody who could afford to pay.
The Ministry of Finance never bothered to find out who made a cool Ksh. 13 million
(equivalent of Ksh.250 million today) - buying railway land for Ksh. 690,000 and selling it to
another parastatal for Ksh. 14 million in just a fortnight. Mr. F.T.J.Nyamu and Kibaki own
Finance House, a prestigous addresss in the central business district. The family company
that manages Kibaki’s businesses, Lucia limited, is housed at finance house.
Another of Kibaki’s friends, businessman, Nat Kangethe of Saatchi & Saaatchi associates
was the Finance Director at the Kenya Meat Commission (KMC) when it collapsed. During
that time, KMC entered into a queer contract with a dummy company called Halal Ltd to
construct an abbatoir for the company at Ngong. According to the 1978 Auditor-General’s
report, no abbatoir was constructed even after the government poured Ksh.50 million
(equivalent of Ksh.1 billion today) into the project. The dummy company and its ‘sole director’,
one ‘Mohamed Yusuf’ have never been heard of ever since.
Though Kibaki is not in the same wealth league as his two predecessors (Jomo Kenyatta and
Daniel Moi), he too has had interesting motley of businesses associates: He is with Mr.
Nicholas Biwott in the Deacons chain of clothes shops now re-named Woolsworth. He is
with Mr. Charles Njonjo in Heri Ltd* and with Dr. Njoroge Mungai in a real estate firm that
owns, among others, Union Towers building on Moi avenue, Paramount Plaza and Marple
Courts in Milimani. Kibaki is also with Mr. Chris Kirubi in the International Life
house.**[Prime buildings in Nairobi belongs to a few-Little wonder a unitary system of government
serves them well].
*Heri limited was formed in the 70’s with sole aim of getting a ‘piece’ of lucrative goverment contracts but
who’s shareholding read like a roll of who was who in Kenya at that time. Heri’s breakthrough came when it
was awarded a contract to supply the Kenya Armed Forces with mercedes Lorries in 1973.
+ Kenya Re-insurance Company has since been sold to the ‘public’-2007. ++ Kenya Railways has been takenover
by ‘RVR’
** Comment.
(The full article covers 4 pages of the Saturday newspaper_The Standard, authored by leading investigative journalist Kamau
Ngotho).
How much do Kibaki know of the ‘collapsed’ Kenya Meat commission?
What role did he play in aiding its collapse?
Why didn’t he unearth/exposed (as VP and Finance Minister to boot), the ‘beneficiaries’ of Ksh.13
million (equivalent of Ksh.250 million today) acrued from the sale of KR land which disinherited the
workers of Kenya railway in 1980?
What relationship is there between the ‘past event’ and the sale of ‘the two’ parastatals during his
reign?
The following is an excerpt of an investigative article”Mr. Moneybags” a headline story appearing in ‘The
Standard’ newspaper Saturday January 8th 2005.
….Kibaki has been ‘faulted’ for turning a blind eye when ‘his friends’ are caught with their
‘little hands’ in the ‘cookie jar’ (read state coffers)’.
A case in point was in 1980 when he was the Vice President and Minister of Finance. At that
time, his friend of many years, Mr. F.T.J. Nyamu was Managing Director, Kenya Reinsurance
Company+, a parastatal under the Ministry of Finance.
In April that year, the government directed the Kenya Railways++ to put up decent houses
for its workers living in the shanties of Muthurwa and Landi-Mawe railway quarters.
Subseqently, the Kenya railway set aside the land next to the Railway Training School, RTS
(Railway Training Institute, RTI, as is known today ) in Nairobi South-B for the project. But
hardly before the housing project could take off, a dummy company, Tass properties, was
hurriedly formed.
The Kenya railways, then under another of Kibaki’s buddies, Mr. Davidson Ngini, sold the
land set aside for the railway estate to a dummy company (Tass properties) at only Ksh.690,
000. Two weeks later, the dummy company sold the same land to Nyamu’s Kenya Reinsurance
at Ksh. 14 million.
Instead of the Kenya railways building low-cost houses for its workers as the government
had directed, the Kenya Re-insurance company constructed what is today Plainview and
Golden-gate estates and purported to sell houses to railway workers living in Muthurwa and
Landi-Mawe. Of course it was a crazy joke as none of them could afford to buy the newly
built houses. They ended up in the hands of anybody who could afford to pay.
The Ministry of Finance never bothered to find out who made a cool Ksh. 13 million
(equivalent of Ksh.250 million today) - buying railway land for Ksh. 690,000 and selling it to
another parastatal for Ksh. 14 million in just a fortnight. Mr. F.T.J.Nyamu and Kibaki own
Finance House, a prestigous addresss in the central business district. The family company
that manages Kibaki’s businesses, Lucia limited, is housed at finance house.
Another of Kibaki’s friends, businessman, Nat Kangethe of Saatchi & Saaatchi associates
was the Finance Director at the Kenya Meat Commission (KMC) when it collapsed. During
that time, KMC entered into a queer contract with a dummy company called Halal Ltd to
construct an abbatoir for the company at Ngong. According to the 1978 Auditor-General’s
report, no abbatoir was constructed even after the government poured Ksh.50 million
(equivalent of Ksh.1 billion today) into the project. The dummy company and its ‘sole director’,
one ‘Mohamed Yusuf’ have never been heard of ever since.
Though Kibaki is not in the same wealth league as his two predecessors (Jomo Kenyatta and
Daniel Moi), he too has had interesting motley of businesses associates: He is with Mr.
Nicholas Biwott in the Deacons chain of clothes shops now re-named Woolsworth. He is
with Mr. Charles Njonjo in Heri Ltd* and with Dr. Njoroge Mungai in a real estate firm that
owns, among others, Union Towers building on Moi avenue, Paramount Plaza and Marple
Courts in Milimani. Kibaki is also with Mr. Chris Kirubi in the International Life
house.**[Prime buildings in Nairobi belongs to a few-Little wonder a unitary system of government
serves them well].
*Heri limited was formed in the 70’s with sole aim of getting a ‘piece’ of lucrative goverment contracts but
who’s shareholding read like a roll of who was who in Kenya at that time. Heri’s breakthrough came when it
was awarded a contract to supply the Kenya Armed Forces with mercedes Lorries in 1973.
+ Kenya Re-insurance Company has since been sold to the ‘public’-2007. ++ Kenya Railways has been takenover
by ‘RVR’
** Comment.
(The full article covers 4 pages of the Saturday newspaper_The Standard, authored by leading investigative journalist Kamau
Ngotho).
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