[fse-esf] about the situation in kenya

[Christophe Aguiton]

*dear friends,

several of you sent me a message telling me the links were not available,
here you have the texts (and sorry for cross posting).

in solidarity,

christophe

---------
Onyango Oloo Offers A Way Forward...*

*Nairobi, January 1, 2008*

*1.0. Grim and Bloody Welcome to 2008*

*Dear readers:*
*
I am sure you all know why I cannot wish anybody "Happy New Year" today as
Kibaki did earlier in these initial twenty four hours of this year.*

It is certainly far from being a "happy" New Year's Day.

Last night in my neighbourhood here in Nairobi, Kenyans welcomed 2008 in
silence and hushed tones-none of the usual yodeling, yammering and
inebriated blabbering that is associated with this time of the year.

To my friends around the world who have been wondering how am I doing, I can
report that I am safe, even though I have friends right here in *South
"B"*who have been traumatized.

*John* is an amiable man, a very popular shopkeeper who happens to be a very
good friend of mine doing business across from the *Kariba Estate *just down
the street from the shopping centre. His kiosk was razed to the ground on
Sunday evening along with a few other makeshift shacks belonging to some
vegetable sellers, food vendors and mitumba retailers.

My former neighbour (when I was still a tenant in Kariba Estate a few months
ago) had her matatu set ablaze with the perpetrators scaling the wall of her
compound to smash the back windows of her saloon car. I was in her living
room yesterday afternoon to say *pole.*

Their only so called "crime"?

Belonging to the* Agikuyu community.*

What a tragedy!

What an abomination!


*2.0. Samuel Kivuitu: "PNU and ODM-K Pressured Me to Release the Results"*

I watched the news on *KTN *earlier tonight.

One segment stood out and it was *Kivuitu's bombshell:*
*

In a Kiswahili interview the embattled ECK Chair revealed that he released
the results under undue pressure from PNU, and wait for it, ODM-K! He said
he also got four phone calls from Maina Kiai who IMPLORED him to POSTPONE
announcing the results until further investigations on the disputed tallies
had been completed. Kivuitu also said that some EU envoys also contacted him
urging him to do the same. The ECK explained that he unleashed the results
because he did not want to "appear as a coward".*

*
Well, well, well.

Is it the blood of hundreds of innocent Kenyans that is causing the acerbic
and witty Kivuitu to toss and turn, sleepless, harried and worried second
guessing his fateful announcement?*

And in a break with his PNU colleagues, *Paul Muite*, the Chairperson of the
Safina party addressed a press conference a little while ago calling for a
retallying of the votes and for President Kibaki to initiate dialogue with
Raila Odinga who earlier said that ODM's pre-condition for talks was for
Kibaki to first acknowledge that it was Raila who won the disputed
Presidential polls.

Of course heavy on all of us was the appalling news that dozens of innocent
women and children were burnt alive in a *PCEA church *in *Eldoret *and that
at least eight people were also set ablaze in the coastal city of *Mombasa*.

For most of yesterday and a large chunk of today and partly because of *John
Michuki's fascist dictum* banning live broadcasts on television, I have been
listening to the various news programmes on the BBC- *Network Africa, Focus
on Africa, Dira ya Dunia *and of course the hourly news casts.

The New Year's Eve edition of *Dira ya Dunia* was particularly fascinating.

Apart from the up to the minute updates from the likes of *Odhiambo
Joseph*in Mombasa,
*Muliro Telewa* from the Rift Valley, *Anne Mawambe and J. Makori* in
Nairobi and *David Ogot Jr.* in Kisumu, the messages- emails and short text
mobile messages- from *Kampala, Dar es Salaam, Kigali *and even as far away
as *Monrovia* and the United States have been consistent in denouncing the
electoral fraud with some openly urging Mwai Kibaki to step aside.

One of the things which has also emerged is how far reaching are the
ramifications of the widespread unrest in Kenya.

Because of globalization, both at the level of the economy and in the
superstructure of technology, communications and regional relations,
when *Kenya
*sneezes the rest of *East and Central Africa *catches a severe cold.

Already there are serious petrol shortages in Uganda and concerns about the
movement of goods bound for* Rwanda, Congo, Sudan* and other countries in
the region.

There are already Kenyan refugees seeking solace in *Uganda* at the border
points.

Tanzanians are raising concerns about the prospects and viability of the
revived East African Community with many wondering about the credibility of
the Kenyan political leadership in the wake of the stolen elections in our
country.

Of course both the local and international observers (EU and AU) have given
their verdict which reverberates with the questions raised by ODM about the
discrepancies in the tallies and other polling irregularities.

A group of Kenyan civil society organizations gathered in Nairobi yesterday
to indict the *ECK *in overlooking these serious anomalies.

Two people's names are forever tarnished by the scandal over the
announcement of the Kenyan presidential election results:

*Mwai Kibaki and Samuel Kivuitu.*



*3.0. Who Can Celebrate The Murderous Carnage?*

Just before the fateful announcement of the much disputed Presidential
results I forewarned here in *Jukwaa* that a hasty, wrong move not in sync
with the Kenyan people could easily lead to a nation-wide insurrection. I
remember being dismissed as alarmist by some commentators online with others
going further to accuse me of "incitement".

Well, the tragic events are there to bear me out.

I was not the only person to express these sentiments.

ODM flag bearer *Raila Odinga* *pleaded* with Samuel Kivuitu not to allow
himself to be used to subvert the will of the Kenyan people with Agwambo
even suggesting that the *ECK Chair *could always *tender his
resignation*in protest and principle.

By today *over two hundred and fifty Kenyan lives* had perished with many of
the dead being infants and small children too young to comprehend what the
murderous rage was all about.

I have friends and relatives in *Kibera, Mathare, Dandora, Kangemi,
Riruta*and other informal settlements dotting the former city in the
sun aka
*Nairobi* not forgetting my adopted home town of* Mombasa*. My brother and
his family live in *Kisumu.*

I have heard of violent confrontations in all of those places with people
being targeting for their ethnicity- and victims come from all tribal
backgrounds.

As I speak *Luo, Agikuyu, Kisii, Abaluhyia, Kalenjin, Miji Kenda, Taita *youth
and adults are among the fresh, but already rotting human cargo overflowing
hospital corridors all over the country. Women, men, girls and boys have
been raped and sodomized- according to a statement released to the media
today by the *Nairobi Women's Hospital.*

And the looting; the mayhem, the plunder!

My only surviving brother in Kisumu has told me that *criminals* were
raiding people's homes all over *Kondele, Migosi *and other parts of the
lakeside city- and this regardless of ethnicity or political affiliation-and
taking off with food and household goods.

Also in Kisumu, a *BBC reporter* counted at least 46 bodies including those
of two infants, most with bullet wounds- clearly a pointer to brutal police
and paramilitary extra-judicial massacres of civilians.

Clearly this spontaneous outburst of blind rage cannot be attributed to an
organized political onslaught led by this or that leader; although its root
causes are historical and thoroughly political.

The targeting of members of the *Agikuyu community *all over the country
reminds us of the unfortunate ethnic and racial targeting of *South Asians
in Pangani *and other parts of Nairobi during the *abortive 1982 coup
attempt*.

To understand the violence perpetrated by lumpen *éléments de classe* from
Kenya's sprawling slums and informal settlements, it would be instructive to
return to* Frantz Fanon's* classic *Wretched Of The Earth*.

Now Fanon-a Black psychiatrist from the Caribbean who joined the Algerian
national liberation movement-is among the most *misunderstood political
theorists of all time.*

Analysts from the Left and the Right have distorted his positions on the
subject of violence among the colonized often to portray him as someone who
glorified and romanticized violence.

On the contrary, Fanon-a left wing nationalist revolutionary, influenced by
*Marxist, Existentialist and Freudian* precepts-wanted to dissect the psyche
of the oppressed victims of Third World oppression.

He was able to demonstrate how the violence of the state ends up in a way to
dehumanize the oppressed native who in turn internalizes a violence that he
or she unleashes often on themselves, members of their own families and
sometimes their next door neighbours.

We read in the Kenyan daily papers of husbands chopping off the limbs of
their spouses because they did not have the *ugali* or *githeri *ready. In
this particular case we can not of course discount misogyny and patriarchy
in the sexist attacks.

And then we hear of co-workers killing one another over a ten shilling debt
and things like that.

Because of the way the colonial and neo-colonial state in Kenya has often
made a simplistic reductionism of our problems to "tribe" Kenyans often
reduce each other into the "evil, ethnic other" so that for some people the
problem is with "those Luos" "those Kikuyus" "those Kales" "those Wahindi"
"those Wabara" and so on, often ignoring the primacy of class analysis which
sees our political elites sharing similar business interests across the
ethnic divides.

We also know that in our very tribalized politics, the national elites have
succeeded in carving out affiliations by appealing to tribal sentiments.

In the contemporary Kenyan case, we must say that Kibaki's kitchen cabinet
perfected the art of tribal thinking in Kenyan politics.

One has to only remember *Michuki's parochial **andu aitu* exhortation from
way back in 2003 to see how the PNU leadership tried to first corral its
base around a very narrow Mt. Kenya base and secondly to isolate itself from
the rest of the country.

Now this mindset, grafting itself on the ethnic polarizations of the
Kenyatta and Moi eras and not forgetting the bloody legacy of divide and
rule colonialism has fostered in many Kenyans an essential ethnic
consciousness which has often militated against a broader, patriotic and
more progressive national consciousness.

That is why you should not be surprised to find the ordinary Luo in Kibera
or the ordinary Kikuyu in Kosovo, Mathare or the Kale in Kuresoi may see the
"enemy" in largely TRIBAL terms.

They may overlook the fact that Kenya is composed of only TWO MAJOR TRIBES:

*The poor and the rich with the former outnumbering the latter ten to one,
but with the latter a hundred times wealthier than the former.*

In times of acute national crisis, devoid of serious and focused political
leadership, the lumpen proletariat may and often will resort to the
superficial channels for unleashing their rage, which is often a barely
articulated rage at the powers that be, who because they do not live in
their communities are replaced by hapless neighbour who happens to belong to
the tribe belonging to the person they perceive as the "enemy".

As someone who considers himself a socialist revolutionary, I therefore
cannot and will not endorse the violence that has flared throughout Kenya,
even as I understand its historical background and immediate impetus.

*4.0. Taking Responsibility*

The buck stops with Mwai Kibaki with the Electoral Commission of Kenya
shouldering a large chunk of the remaining responsibility.

*How could Mwai Kibaki, in good conscience acquiesce to take over the
mantles of leadership in such controversial circumstances, especially when
the ODM wave had routed the majority of his PNU henchmen across the country
in such a devastating manner? *

Is political power so sweet that you would risk Kenya degenerating into *Sierra
Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast and Somalia* overnight?

Shame on you, *Mwai Kibaki*.

And as for you, *Samuel Kivuitu*, history will NEVER forgive you.

The* Daily Nation* in its January 1, 2008, editorial waffled in assigning
equal blame to *Raila Odinga*.

That is adding insult to post-electoral injury by blaming the victim and
equating the poll robber with the aggrieved party.

Would a single life have been lost if Kivuitu released the audit report from
the 210 constituencies and refused to crown Kibaki as the "winner" of a
stolen election?

That was a rhetorical question.

*5.0. Way Forward: A Conflict Transformation Approach*

Over the last six years I have become a fervent disciple of the* Third Side
Approach.*

What in summary is *The Third Side?*

Let me quote from some of the guidelines found on a site by the same name:


*Quote:*The Third Side is a way of looking at the conflicts around us not
just from one side or the other but from the larger perspective of
the surrounding community.

Taking the Third Side means:

• Seeking to understand both sides of the conflict
• Encouraging a process of cooperative negotiation and
speaking out against any abuse or violence
• Supporting an inclusive solution - one that fairly meets the
essential needs of both sides and the community
You can have natural sympathies for one side or the other and still choose
to take the Third Side.
Any of us can take the Third Side anytime

The challenge for Third Siders is in what it will take to transform
destructive conflict into, peaceful, democratic and constructive conflict at
home, at work, in the community, throughout the country and in the world


*William S. Ury,* a Harvard Prof and world famous mediator, who is really
the guru of the Third Side concept explains how conflict escalates from
latent tensions through overt conflict to power struggles reaching the
negative crescendo of destructive violence.

He argues that conflict escalates because of conflicting interests, disputed
rights, unequal power and injured relationships which receives no attention,
no limitation and no protection,

He says that latent tensions should be prevented; overt conflicts should be
resolved and power struggles should be contained.

In the case of latent tensions, if it is a case of frustrated needs then you
need a provider; if it is a case of poor skills, then you need a teacher and
when it comes to weak relationships, then you need bridge builders.

If matters escalate to overt conflicts, you will deal with conflicting
interests by bringing on board a mediator; disputed rights by involving an
arbiter; unequal power by investing in an equalizer and injured
relationships by recruiting a healer.

If it goes beyond that and graduates into a power struggle, William S. Ury
tells us, that you bring in a Witness to deal with situations which have not
been paid attention to; a referee where there is no limitation and a peace
keeper where there is no protection.

Can we apply the above theoretical framework to deal with the crisis in
Kenya today?

I believe we can.

What is the stage of the post-electoral conflicts in Kenya right now?

In my view, we find ALL THE LEVELS of conflict:

There are latent tensions which have broken out into overt conflicts and
destructive violence and the whole process is of course prominently
punctuated with a very decisive power struggle between the PNU forces led by
Mwai Kibaki and the ODM forces led by Raila Odinga.

If we were proceed from the initial assumptions that all Kenyans are Third
Siders to this conflict in the sense that we- whether we are PNU, ODM,
ODM-K, neutral or otherwise we all have a stake in the resolution of this
conflict then we can apply our analysis in order to come up with solutions.

I believe that the latent tensions have to do with long standing historical
injustices as well immediate fury at the way the democratic will of the
Kenyan people was usurped. We therefore have a lot of frustrated needs both
long term and immediate and these frustrated needs call for a provider.

The historical injustices can not of course be resolved in a day or so, but
they still need a provider nevertheless.

Some of these frustrated needs can often be camouflaged as tribal hostility
when in fact deep down one is talking of things like class domination,
regional disparities and long standing illegalities.

In my view the provider in this case can only be conceptualized in the
context of wide ranging social, economic, democratic and political reforms
and transformations.

For instance, a new democratic constitution would be nice.

How about wide ranging agrarian reforms and new labour laws as well ceilings
on property ownership?

Can we talk about gender equality, youth empowerment and protection of
ethnic and religious minorities among other things?

Because of the demonization of the ethnic other, we need Teachers to
demystify tribalism and valorize our unity in diversity.

On a related note, if there are weak relationships for instance between
Kalenjins and Kikuyus in Eldoret for instance, you need Bridge Builders who
would of course have to emanate from both and other Kenyan nationalities.

Since what we are dealing with are widespread overt conflicts, we need to
bring in mediators to deal with conflicting interests; arbiters to deal with
disputed rights equalizers to deal with unequal power and healers to deal
with injured relationships.

Raila Odinga and Mwai Kibaki are both insisting that they deserve to be
declared the 4th President of Kenya. ODM and PNU are both contesting the
mantle for the governing party in the 10th parliament.

Clearly, we need mediators and arbiters who will assist in resolving who
deserves to be where.

The US ambassador has suggested that a possible way forward is a government
of national unity with Raila and Kibaki sharing political power. Is this a
viable option given Kenyan realities?

Do we need a Witness?

How about a Referee?

Peace Keepers?

I am not suggesting that I have the magic wand.

What I am proposing is that all the players in the current Kenyan crisis
could benefit from the Third Side Concept.

In my opinion, it all starts with establishing through a consensus the
following facts:

How many Kenyans voted for President on December 27, 2007?

Who got the most votes?

Were all the votes counted?

Did anyone get additional, "cooked up" votes?

Is there any evidence backing up claims of anomalies and irregularities?

If so, is there any sanction for any candidate who benefited from anomalies
and irregularities?

Since Kenya needs a President, who will we swear as the head of state?

The one who got the most votes or the one who was given the most votes?

What happens to the loser and his team?

Part of these answers is contained in the laid down regulations of the
Electoral Commission of Kenya.

Part of the remaining answers is contained in the ballot boxes.

Part of the answers is to be found in Form 16 and other electoral forms.

Part of the answers is found in the findings of the local and international
observers.

Part of the answers resides in each candidate's conscience and obligation to
tell the truth and nothing but the truth.

The bigger responsibility rests with the Kenyan people, especially when it
comes to the question of repairing injured relationships which require
bridge builders and healers.

Implicit in all of the above is my firm conviction that:

*Mwai Kibaki must step aside to save Kenya from further bloodshed and
international humiliation.*

*Onyango Oloo
Nairobi, Kenya
---------
*> No JUSTICE, No PEACE!!
> Onyango Oloo Dissects The Wrong-Headed "SAVE OUR COUNTRY" Media Blitz
>
> Nairobi, January 3, 2008
>
> During my 18 year sojourn in Ontario and Quebec, I became quite
> immersed in a wide array of social justice struggles-from Indigenous
> People's rights, anti-globalization, working class struggles,
> anti-apartheid to anti-racist movements.
>
> The Canadian anti-racist movement, while different and autonomous from
> its sister movement south of the 49th Parallel, has been inspired by
> the African-American led struggles for civil, social, economic,
> cultural and political rights.
>
> Icons like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Sojourner Truth,
> Ben Chavis, Jesse Jackson Jr., Fredrick Douglass, Harriet Tubman,
> Angela Davis, George Jackson, Huey P. Newton are household names in
> the African-Canadian, Caribbean Canadian and Native Canadian
> communities.
>
> As many of us know, one of the most ubiquitous rallying cries and
> chants during anti-racist rallies, protests and demonstrations is the
> slogan, "No Justice, No Peace!"
>
> I remember the summer of 1989 being amidst angry protestors around the
> Queen's Park subway in Toronto, making our way up the street to the
> Royal Ontario Museum chanting these and other slogans to vent our ire
> about a racist exhibition at that Museum which really demeaned
> continental Africans and people of African descent in general.
>
> To some, the phrase, "No Justice, No Peace!" is just another tired
> slogan, to be grouped with "A People United, Shall Never Be Defeated!"
> or "An Injury To One Is An Injury to All".
>
> These cynics are of course obtuse, because they do not appreciate the
> blood, the sacrifice and the torture which infused the historical
> origins of those chants. The second phrase emanated from the
> anti-imperialist and anti-fascist struggles of Latin American women
> and men confronting the US backed dictatorships of Central and South
> America. The third slogan is from South Africa where the militant
> workers in that struggle-soaked nation were right at the frontlines of
> the South African national liberation movement.
>
> This morning I want to talk about "No Justice, No Peace!" in the
> contest of the ongoing social and political turmoil in Kenya.
>
> And I am doing it because I have been reeling with DISGUST, recoiling
> in horror at a new campaign for "Peace" launched primarily by Kenya's
> media houses, principally the Nation Media Group, the Standard Group
> and the folks who run Kiss 100 FM and the Nairobi Star.
>
> Now to be fair to people like Julie Gichuru at NTV and the KTN
> anchors, they appear sincere and earnest enough. It is good intentions
> all through.
>
> At least at the surface level.
>
> When you do scratch beneath that surface however, you are confronted
> with something else- a blatant attempt to restore social control and
> buttress the class domination of the comprador and petit bourgeoisie
> in Kenya.
>
> Please stay with me if you are temporarily befuddled.
>
> Most Kenyans know that the spontaneous anti-government insurrections
> were sparked off by the decision of the Electoral Commission of Kenya
> to steal the Presidential vote at the behest of Mwai Kibaki and his
> PNU cohorts. We also realize that criminals and tribalists have
> hijacked these protests to loot and plunder and attack members of
> specific ethnic groups.
>
> One would expect that ANYONE interested in a peaceful solution to the
> crisis in Kenya would begin with where "rain began to beat us" to
> quote Chinua Achebe for the billionth time.
>
> One would further expect that only a transparent restitution of
> justice would jump start a sustainable peace and national
> reconciliation process.
>
> At a minimum, there would have to be some kind of a public
> acknowledgment that the flawed Presidential election results must be
> rectified.
>
> That seems to be the consensus in Kenya, and judging by media reports,
> among the publics of Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and many other African
> countries.
>
> The indictment by the EU observer mission would seem to indicate that
> the capitals of capital have no doubt in their minds that Kibaki stole
> the elections.
>
> Given the above, one would expect that a "peace process" dubbed "Save
> Our Country" jumpstarted last night by the main Kenyan media houses
> who were in the forefront of exposing the anomalies and irregularities
> would pay attention to the question of justice even as strove to put
> out all the infernos raging across Kenya.
>
> What has happened instead?
>
> A mealy mouthed editorial piece on peace carried simultaneously across
> different Nairobi media that insults the collective intelligence of
> Kenyans.
>
> Sample this:
>
> "Political leaders on both sides must be told in no uncertain terms
> that they are currently in great danger of losing their credibility in
> the eyes of Kenyans and the international community because systemic
> killing of the innocents sweeping Kenya, destruction of the economy
> and the spread of disaffection throughout the land. No grievance and
> no cause is worth the innocent blood of Kenyan children. The orgies of
> looting, burning, rape and wanton, well-orchestrated blood-letting are
> undermining the moral basis of the politicians' cause…"
>
>
>
> -Excerpt from an editorial jointly run in the Daily Nation and Nairobi
> Star (Thursday, January 03, 2008)
>
> HELLO?
>
> Since when did "politicians on both sides" coerce ECK to steal the
> Presidential vote?
>
> The culpability rests solely with President Kibaki. From the fascist
> diktats of Michuki, Muthaura, Murage and Co. we know that the ODM
> leadership has NOT had a chance to publicly address their followers
> and therefore cannot be accused of "orchestrating" or "instigating"
> anything.
>
> Yes, the blood of innocents is flowing freely with mobs setting alight
> a church full of women and children and targeting innocent wananchi
> based on their ethnicity and regional origins.
>
> But who is talking about the orgy of POLICE and PARA-MILITARY
> EXTRA-JUDICIAL EXECUTIONS?
>
> By yesterday, there were over ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY BULLET RIDDLED
> BODIES in the New Nyanza Hospital including corpses of INFANTS. Who
> shot to death those innocent unarmed civilians? The police have been
> executing ghetto youth in Kibera, Kawangware and elsewhere. Who
> employs and commands these killers in uniform?
>
> Reports from Kisumu insist that the Kibaki regime may be using crack
> NRA troops from neighbouring Uganda to slaughter Kenyan citizens. When
> I first raised this issue online twenty four hours ago, some were
> quick to dismiss the very possibility. Today the Nyanza Provincial
> Police Officer is on the defensive, admitting she is aware of these
> widespread allegations even as she strenuously denies them.
>
> In this regard I must state that I was somewhat disappointed by the
> public statement released yesterday by Kenyan Nobel Laureate Wangari
> Maathai.
>
> While I commend her for speaking up and appealing to Kibaki to take
> charge, I am disappointed that what motivated her was not so much the
> reality that the whole of Kenya is burning but rather that "her
> people", the Central Kenyan communities were being targeted. Surely
> one can make a very strong case that the Luo communities residing in
> Kisumu, Migori, Homa Bay and elsewhere are being similarly targeted,
> this time by THE STATE itself.
>
> In fact, in the letters to editors page of the Standard there is this
> letter from a Kisumu resident of South Asian heritage which says,
> inter alia:
>
> "…The recent riots are not Kisumu riots. Even the killings are
> State-operated to gain political mileage to discredit ODM's Raila
> Odinga and his supporters."
>
>
>
> -Mahesh R, Kisumu, p.8. Letter, The Standard, Thursday, January 03,
> 2008
>
> Raila Odinga has publicly stated that he is ready to meet with
> international mediator and in fact as I write these lines is meeting
> with Archbishop Desmond Tutu at Pentagon House. Earlier this morning
> Amos Kimunya was interviewed by the BBC and he was quoted as saying
> that the Kibaki regime does NOT see the need for international
> mediators because they (PNU) can deal with the matter internally- a
> claim which is mocked by the ongoing protests. The same Kimunya has
> accused the international observers as being biased towards ODM after
> the EU team publicly denounced the anomalies in the tallying of the
> presidential results. President Kufuor of Ghana, the current AU
> Chairman was scheduled to be in Kenya today, but the Kibaki regime
> BLOCKED his coming.
>
> Are these guys SERIOUS???!
>
> Let us go back to the editorials. This is a passage from the
> Standard's:
>
>
> "…Employ a reputable international arbiter, NOT to determine who won
> the presidential poll, but to work out a road-map that will bring
> Kenya back from the brink and a mutually acceptable proposition for
> sharing power…Notwithstanding the inflation of figures in a number of
> areas, both ODM and PNU garnered 4 million plus votes in the
> presidential ballot, meaning the country is split right down the
> middle. The position of President is not vacant. Kibaki was declared
> President whether or not the presidential ballot was flawed…"
>
>
>
> -Standard editorial, Thursday, January 03, 2008
>
> It is right in this excerpt that the mask slips to reveal the PNU
> underbelly of the much ballyhooed "Save Our Country" onslaught.
>
> Huh?
>
> So we should not "determine who won the presidential poll" eh? How
> then, dear Standard editors, will we work out a road-map that will
> bring back Kenya from the brink?
>
> Even queasier is the cheesy full page ad by the Concerned Citizens for
> Peace addressing two men-Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga- to do
> something.
>
> The very content of the ad betrays its elitist, undemocratic character.
>
> The 2007 Kenyan civic, parliamentary and presidential polls was a
> national affair involving MILLIONS of Kenyan citizens. What is
> happening in Kenya is NOT a PRIVATE FIST FIGHT involving the Othaya
> and Lang'ata MPs, but rather a NATIONAL CRISIS that has the future of
> MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS of Kenyan women, children and men at stake.
>
> To try and lock out the Kenyan people from an urgent democratic
> impasse and reduce it to a two man tussle is a grave insult to the
> Kenyan people.
>
> By the way, WHERE is President Kibaki, the apparently "popularly,
> democratically and fairly elected leader"?
>
> From the look of things right now one would be forgiven if they
> thought that Major-General Hussein Ali is the acting Head of State
> with chief government propagandist Dr. Alfred Mutua as his deputy.
>
> In the few times I have seen Kibaki he is holed up at State House
> flanked with senior military officers giving the distinct impression
> that he is their hostage.
>
> It is now approximately 12:15 as I keyboard these lines and reports on
> the television indicate that there are ongoing skirmishes between the
> police and pro-ODM youths along Thika Road, Mbagathi Way, Kibera,
> Eastlands and the City Centre. In other words, there is a minor
> uprising in Nairobi and not just the capital but also Kakamega,
> Bungoma, Mombasa, Kisumu and elsewhere.
>
> On December 30th I spoke about Kibaki's Coup.
>
> Four days later the presence of police, para-military and military
> formations underscores my point about the overthrow of democratic
> rule.
>
> What is actually laughable is the phenomenon of a horde of PNU
> election losers led by Kibaki down to his deputy Awori and FORMER
> cabinet ministers Tuju, Kombo, Kituyi, Shakombo etc MASQUERADING as a
> legitimate "government".
>
> Surely, if Kibaki had the mandate that PNU hawks like George Nyamweya
> claims he has, he should have formed a government by now. He should
> have by now been addressing his 4.5 million supporters at heavily
> attended mass rallies by now. Instead, Kibaki skulks stealthily in
> State House afraid to meet the very Kenyan citizens he claims to lead.
>
> Which brings me back to the slogan:
>
> "No Justice, No Peace!!"
>
> Until we resolve the simple question of who Kenyans actually elected
> President on December 27, 2007, there WILL BE NO PEACE.
>
> In my considered opinion, the SAVE OUR COUNTRY campaign is a slick,
> dishonest appeal by the pro-Kibaki comprador and petit-bourgeois
> business elite hoodwinking Kenyans to ACCEPT the fraudulent election
> results and legitimize criminal PNU's civilian coup.
>
> Why should Kibaki or Raila share power?
>
> At the December 27th elections, Kenyans overwhelming voted for a new
> government:
>
> That government is the Orange Democratic Movement led by its flag
> bearer, Raila Amolo Odinga.
>
> Once again I say:
>
> NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE!
>
> A PEOPLE UNITED, SHALL NEVER BE DEFEATED!
>
> AN INJURY TO ONE, IS AN INJURY TO ALL!
>
> Onyango Oloo
> Nairobi, Kenya
>
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