FEBRUARY 2008 "Kenyan Politics II: The culmination"

RENEWED VIOLENCE
Two opposition MPs were assassinated in a week (article), and fresh violence erupted unexpectedly in Kikuyu country north of Nairobi near Mount Kenya, in Nakuru and Naivasha. Initial reports were that Kikuyus were retaliating and killing two Luos for every Kikuyu killed. But later it seemed that Mungiki sect activity was responsible for the violence (article). More illegal roadblocks were set up by gangs of youths to stop buses and Luos were selectively pulled off and hacked to death, after they presented their id cards (tribes are easily recognized by last names). People continued to die every day in the slums in Nairobi. There were many reports of police brutality – opening fire on protestors, and shooting fleeing protestors in the back. Lillian, the woman who we are supporting for schooling in Kisumu (western Kenya) lost two of her family members to gunshot wounds. The estimated number of casualties is 15000, but actual death tolls are nearly impossible to get because many bodies disappeared in the night to animals. The number of displaced people is estimated to be over half a million. Although police are virtually the only ones with guns, they have been implicated in less than half of the shooting deaths.

Patrick and I seriously debated what our exit strategy should be and, more importantly, what our exit cue should be. KEMRI administration took on the same question to try to develop some guidelines about how to advise people about travel, evacuation etc… We decided we (with the dog of course) would drive south to Tanzania, avoiding Mombasa, and then reorganize there. We bought a jerry can for extra fuel, took out some cash, and made sure our passports and Suki’s crate were at hand. Some of our friends were more conservative and had bags packed and ready by the door.

Finally Anan-mediated power sharing talks got underway and the news reported optimistically on the progress of the negotiations saying that the two sides “have agreed to end violence in seven days” and then later in four weeks, yet neither of them has openly called for peace and an end to violence or admonished their supporters for targeting people by tribe. Odinga smiles and relishes his supporters cries to be armed, saying ‘Let Kibaki hear that my people want guns!” instead of admonishing them and asking them to stop killing their neighbors. Anan says that a power sharing deal is underway and yet Odinga continues his rhetoric of forcing Kibaki to resign and admit that he is not the legitimate president, leaving little room for negotiations. Kibaki continues to claim he was fairly elected and flexes this point by representing Kenya at the African Union summit, reporting that ‘everything is normal’. The other leaders didn’t buy it and called him out. The only thing that is really clear is that neither politician cares one bit about the Kenyan people – the ones sleeping in camps in their own country, the ones losing their jobs because the economy is tanking, the ones suffering because of the increase in the price of food, the ones who were so hopeless to begin with that when their vote was stolen, they erupted in a desperate violent rage against poverty and joblessness and injustice (lashing out in part against the people that they felt had benefited unfairly from Kibaki’s government, and in part just against those who had something while they had nothing).

Meanwhile, the economy continues to freefall. Only a few thousand tourists have trickled in since the elections instead of the hundreds of thousands normally expected. Goods have been left on ships for weeks, unable to be unloaded or transported out of Mombasa. Delegates from Uganda have started negotiating with officials in Dar es Salaam to try to receive their enormous volumes of imports through that port instead of Mombasa. This is such awful news for Kenya.

EYES OPENED (ours, that is…)
A member of Kenyan Parliament makes 800,000 Ksh per month, which is about US$12,000. PER MONTH! This is more than our president makes! The first thing Kibaki did when he got into office five years ago was to increase the salaries of top government officials. Kibaki makes 1.3 million Ksh (US$20,000) per month. This is unquestionably an absolutely obscene amount of money if you consider that the average day laborer, housekeeper, mechanic or gardener makes about 4-4,500 Ksh (US$55-65) per month. In the US, we complain because only the wealthy can afford to run for political office, but I’d say that I prefer having politicians who are rich than those who become politicians to get rich.

Besides the unforgivable salaries, there are countless other perks to being in power. Kibaki is the third largest landowner in Kenya, behind former presidents Moi and Kenyatta. All of their inner circles have benefited financially in astronomical proportion to the poverty around them. We’re talking Enron and the Bushes magnified by 100s. So much money was invested in campaigning that you get the very real sense that Kibaki was afraid to lose because he owed too many people money (article). He had to win to pay off his debts. The same is likely true for Odinga. The fact that both of them manipulated the voting system is evidenced by the fact that they both agreed in record time that there should be no recount or review of the election results. Odinga was just more sly and less obvious than Kibaki in his voting manipulation.

Bush sent Condoleeza Rice to peak in on things and shake a few hands. She made a few statements about “the resolution should be this and should be that” along with a few veiled threats. Kibaki’s people clearly disliked being scolded and told how to sort things out by another country. I can’t blame them. It’s a bit patronizing.

POWER SHARING … IN THEORY
Kofi Anan has spent five long weeks in Kenya trying to broker a power sharing agreement that will bring stability to Kenya (over twice as long as he has ever had to work in the past). This week, he called off talks on Tuesday because no progress was being made (article). He was frustrated, going so far as to describe himself as a “prisoner of peace” and saying that a deal would have been reached weeks ago if the political will was there. It seemed that Kibaki’s real agenda was to try to ride out the talks until everyone grew weary and just let him alone to rule the country. Kibaki withdrew promises to create a prime minister post while Odinga threatened to call for more mass demonstrations on Thursday if Kibaki did not reconvene the parliament to make the necessary constitutional changes to make such a post. Odinga doesn’t hesitate to wield the threat of violence. It’s despicable and irresponsible. He’s like a petulant child, stamping his foot and demanding that Kibaki give him some power while threatening to throw the country into chaos. He’s not the president – he’s not anyone – just a guy who can cause Kenya to suffer so he feels the right to demand some power. He says Kibaki stole the election from him, but he’s no less culpable than Kibaki when it comes to vote rigging. Otherwise, he would have pushed for a recount of the ballots.

Kibaki is playing his role of mzee (old man) very well, and copying the first two presidents of Kenya. He makes the rules the way he wants, gives people power as bribes, and does whatever he needs to in order to remain in power. He is certainly not the hand of change that he promised the people when he came into power in 2002. He may have started that way, but now Kenyans complain because he is just another Moi!

In the end, it seems that the mayors of Nairobi have shamed the two into a power-sharing deal. Two mayoral candidates in Nairobi were deadlocked in a similar dispute over the election. Perhaps they were waiting and looking to their leaders to decide how to resolve the situation. In the end, they got tired of waiting and formed their own coalition leadership on the same day that Anan suspended the talks. Finally, Kibaki dragging his feet, the two agreed on a prime minister position with executive powers. Everything is signed, but the question is will it be carried out? A lot will hinge on the actions of Parliament next week and whether each leader can convince their party’s MPs to go along with the agreement.

The next stage is to agree on how to deal with both the results of the violence (especially the displaced Kenyans) and the root causes, such as land reform issues.

So things are still calm. I sincerely thank God for Kofi Anan.

I wonder how much the prime minister will get paid.