Rift Valley violence could be far from over!

'Secret army' preparing for war in Kenya

By Robert Oluoch and Mike Pflanz in Iten
Last Updated: 1:15pm GMT 14/02/2008

An army of young warriors is being secretly armed and reinforced in remote areas of Kenya’s Rift Valley, preparing for war if the country’s knife-edge peace talks fail.
Elders have organised thousands of men from the pro-opposition Kalenjin tribe into militia units, each split into marksmen, foot- soldiers, armourers, drivers and cooks.
Hidden arsenals are filled with bows and arrows, many of them dipped in deadly poison, as efforts are made to buy guns smuggled from northern Uganda or Sudan.

“If the peace talks collapse, there will be war,” said David Cheserek, 46, an elected opposition councillor in Kamogich, 240 miles northwest of Nairobi.

During January’s first wave of post-election violence, Mr Cheserek commanded a company of 60 Kalenjin fighters as they swept through the nearby town of Eldoret, burning homes owned by the rival Kikuyu tribe.

Accusations that President Mwai Kibaki, a Kikuyu, rigged election results triggered the fighting, but it also tapped into a frustration long held by the Kalenjin that the Kikuyus had cheated their way to owning the best land in the Rift Valley.

“We are waiting the results of Mr Annan’s talks, but if they do not go well, we will make sure there is not one Kikuyu left in the Rift Valley,” said Mr Cheserek.

As the country continues to divide along tribal lines, this week is perhaps the most crucial for Kenya’s peaceful future since independence from Britain 44 years ago.

Across the country, all eyes are on talks mediated by Kofi Annan, focused on the make-or-break issue of power sharing between the election rivals.

Compromises have been mooted by each side to end the fighting which has so far killed 1,000 people and forced 300,000 from their homes.

But at a recent rally, opposition leader Raila Odinga told a crowd of thousands that the only solution he would accept is the resignation of Mr Kibaki and fresh elections.

The President has ruled out both of these paths.

“If Mr Kofi Annan cannot bring us an acceptable solution, men will fight and there will be shedding of blood,” said 'Andrew’, 29, a Kalenjin militiaman who spoke anonymously to The Daily Telegraph in Iten, 30 miles north of Eldoret.

“That solution cannot include Mr Kibaki as president.”

He described how the tribe’s elders gathered hundreds of men at a time in clearings deep in the arid, unpoliced Kerio Valley below Iten, preaching hate against Kikuyus.

Such gatherings, common among the Kalenjin, have in the past only been called to organise defence against cattle rustlers.

Now they have an alarming new function, linking the Kalenjin’s 11 sub- clans to plan a united offensive to purge the Kikuyu from their lands.

Elders have given each man a role — some are 'sharpshooters’ because of their skills with a bow and arrow. Some, like Andrew, are drivers.

“I went from village to village collecting weapons, arrows, bows and spears, which I took to the frontline,” he said, describing his involvement in January’s fighting in Eldoret.

“Others took lorries filled with fighters. Others carried food cooked by our women to keep the fighters strong.”

'William’, 24, a teacher, said his job was to hammer house nails into arrow heads, many of which are dipped in poison concocted from roots and leaves.

“There were three in my team and we were making 1,200 arrows a day,” he said.

Since peace talks started two weeks ago, the Kalenjin war machine has slowed and fighters have been told to wait for orders.

“We are ready if they call us again, we are adding more arrows,” said 'Peter’, a village butcher.

“We tried to have our voice heard at the ballot box, but they ignored us. We tried to protest peacefully, but the police shot us and tear- gassed us.

“It is very dangerous for people not to listen to us. Now we are ready to fight to the end.”

Kenya peace talks 'breakthrough'

Kenya's ruling party and opposition have reached a "breakthrough" during talks in Nairobi to end post-election bloodshed, officials say.

The two sides are trying to break the political deadlock that has left the country convulsed by violence since December's presidential polls.

Details are unclear but chief mediator, ex-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, is expected to make an announcement soon.

Some 1,000 people have died and 300,000 others fled their homes in the clashes.

Opposition official William Ruto said the rival parties had reached a deal on an interim joint government, says the BBC's Adam Mynott in Nairobi.

Mr Ruto was quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying: "We have agreed to form a joint government. Details of that government, its time and how to share it are under discussions."

A senior UN official told our correspondent that the rival parties had reached consensus on a "broad brushstrokes agreement".

There is huge excitement in the Kenyan capital at the apparent breakthrough, which follows weeks of intransigence from both sides, says our correspondent.

President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner of the presidential election two months ago, which observers said was flawed.

The opposition Orange Democratic Movement, led by Raila Odinga, said it was cheated of victory.

Genesis of Kenya's land issues

Thursday February 7, 2008
The Guardian

Charles Mugo never thought much about the history of his family. He knew that his ancestors were driven off some of the most fertile land in Kenya to make way for white settlers, and that for years after they lived in grinding poverty as little better than indentured labour for the colonists. His father told him that some fought with the Mau Mau to liberate the country and, more importantly, the land. But the Mau Mau later became a national embarrassment so not much was said about it.

He can't even say exactly where it is they all came from, just somewhere in what the British called the White Highlands beyond Nairobi, where many Kikuyu once lived. In any case, by the time Mugo was born 34 years ago, all that was regarded by the family as ancient history. His father had a one-and-a-half acre plot in the Rift Valley given to him in the late 60s by the first post-independence government of Kenyatta. Admittedly, it was far from where the Kikuyu had traditionally farmed but it was land, the key to economic and social advancement, and it fed the family. Charles Mugo inherited the plot and made his living growing watermelon, tomatoes and other vegetables, and selling what the family did not eat at a stall alongside the main road north from Nakuru. As far as he was concerned, a historic wrong had been more or less put right.

That was until last week, when his home was razed by the neighbours and his crops plundered in the violence that swept through the Rift Valley over the disputed December 27 election. All that is left is his father's grave.

Mugo doubts he will ever farm his land again. The people who burned him out were his Kalenjin neighbours who said he never belonged there in the first place, and that he was little better than a squatter planted on their land by Kenyatta, a Kikuyu favouring other Kikuyu. So far as they were concerned, righting the wrong against Mugo's family was at their expense.

Mugo suspected trouble was coming so he had already sent his wife and children out of the Rift Valley. Now living in a corner of a large Red Cross tent in a stadium in the town of Nakuru, he says the best hope of rebuilding his life is to return to what he calls his "ancestral lands", a place he has never seen. He doesn't know what he will find there, or who, but there is no turning back after the events of the past week.

"If they want the Rift Valley to be peaceful it is best for the Kikuyu to leave. They [the Kalenjin] do not want us here and as long as we are here they will try and get rid of us, there will not be peace," he says. "The British started this but we have not had good leaders. I used to think that we were all Kenyans and we could all live together. Now I think we all have to go back to where we were before the British arrived and begin again. That is the only way we can live together in Kenya."

Ask a Kalenjin who is to blame for the mess of Kenya's land crisis and they say the Kikuyu. Ask a Kikuyu and they say the British. It just depends where you choose to begin the history of land policies based on greed and tribalism - whether by the white tribe of settlers or Kenya's post-independence rulers - that continue to drive large numbers of Kenyans deeper into grinding poverty and to be the most divisive social issue in the country.

Mugo thought he had escaped all that but a century after his ancestors were turned off their land he too finds himself landless and destitute. He is not alone.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the colonial administration justified seizing land for European settlers on the grounds that with a population of just four million Africans there was sufficient land in Kenya for everyone, although the true nature of the confiscations is exposed by the fact that the Europeans took the best land for themselves.

More than 30 million people live in Kenya today, a high proportion of them concentrated on the lush Central Highlands, Rift Valley and western Kenya. The demand for land has grown because of the scarcity of paid jobs. The majority of Kenyans are like Mugo, scraping a living from the soil. Almost 60% of Kenyans live on less than a dollar a day. They include many of the others who have sought refuge in Nakuru's stadium, including Jeremiah Oiruria, 77, who got a one-acre plot in Moro in 1971. He was in his house when the mob set fire to it and has burns down the right side of his face and body. "I was saved by my wife who pulled me out," he says. "That land is everything we had. I don't know where we go or what we do but I don't think we can go back. They don't want us. They told us we don't belong here."

Jackson Mugo, 56, from Burnt Forest, only survived by hiding under his recently harvested corn cobs. From there he watched his neighbours haul off his four cows and raze his house. "They told me before they were going to do it. They told me Kenyatta should never have sent me here. They took everything, my cattle, my bicycle, my radio. I could see them searching everywhere for the Kikuyu," he says.

Nakuru's town clerk, Albert Leina, a Masai, says it was tragic to watch Kenyans killing each other but that it has happened before and will go on happening until there is a government that chooses to address the legacy of the country's history. "We voted almost in a tribal, ethnic kind of way. You're talking about human beings. That's facts. But if all this was not triggered by the elections it would have been triggered by something else. We are talking about historic injustices and the national cake," he says.

Colonisation in Kenya was one long campaign of dispossession. "The British idea of land ownership was in total contradiction with the African idea," says Odenda Lumumba, coordinator of the Kenya Land Alliance, a network of organisations campaigning for land reform. "The British deemed that Africans didn't own land, they merely used it, and so any land lying fallow was deemed to be unused and the British took it. This made Africans essentially tenants of the crown. This was never understood by Africans. Who was this crown? Whose grandfather was it? Because all landownership was traced to grandfathers."

The Kalenjin and Masai lost more acreage but it was the Kikuyu who were hardest hit because they were robbed of almost all their land and suffered the biggest displacement, mostly from fertile areas beyond Nairobi that the colonists called the White Highlands.

A growing population of Kikuyu was crowded on to the remaining land - "native reserves", as the white people deemed them - that were little more than labour pools to provide workers for land they had once farmed themselves. On top of that Kenyans were deprived of the land they needed to move on in life with dowry payments that would help them climb up the social scale.

"The British took the land promising employment, but unemployment started soaring. Slums started developing in the urban areas. Africans were put in a helpless situation," says Lumumba. The situation was exacerbated after the first world war with an influx of former army officers in search of a better life that they found on yet more expropriated land.

The settlers weren't particularly productive - many had never farmed before - so to maintain the illusion of white superiority, the colonial administration stacked the odds against African farmers even further by banning them from growing cash crops that competed with the settlers, particularly tea and sisal.

The colonial administration introduced a "tribal chiefs" system that came to wield more power than the traditional councils of elders. The chiefs were foremost loyal to their paymasters, the British, and enforced colonial edicts with an iron fist.

Mwalimu Mati, head of Mars, an anti-corruption group campaigning to call Kenyan leaders to account for past abuses, says that at independence in 1963, Kenya inherited what has been described as one of the most skewed patterns of land distribution in the world, comparable with countries such as South Africa, Zimbabwe and Brazil. "The struggle for independence and the Mau Mau rebellion were primarily a land grievance. The white settler population had a system of apartheid. We ended up with a situation where the best land was in the hands of a very small section of the population. The rest of the population was driven on to dry, rocky, waterless areas," he says.

Kenyans looked to the first post-colonial government under Kenyatta to put the situation right. But in the hard-fought negotiations for independence he bowed to British demands for white settlers to remain on their farms if they wanted and for land only to be transferred through a "willing buyer-willing seller arrangement", also the source of the present wrangle over land in Zimbabwe.

Some white people did remain but enough left that large tracts of land came up for redistribution. The Kikuyu, Kalenjin and Masai prepared to go home. But, says Mati, that wasn't Kenyatta's plan. "The root cause of our crisis is that the land did not get bought by the people who lost it but by the Kikuyu elite of the time. That was the situation in Central province where the Kikuyu came from. Kenyatta then settled the poor landless Kikuyu in the Rift Valley on land that had belonged to the Kalenjin," says Mati.

Mugo's father was among the poor Kikuyu resettled on Kalenjin land. He was a minor beneficiary. Others did much better. What evolved in the following years was little more than a land grab by Kenya's new elite, which used British land law and Indian colonial statutes introduced to Kenya as a mechanism to distribute land as political patronage while keeping a large slice of the pie for themselves.

The largest landowners in Kenya today are the families of the only three presidents the country has had since independence - the Kenyattas, the family of his successor, Daniel arap Moi, and the present president, Mwai Kibaki, who served in the Kenyatta and Moi administrations. A little further down the scale are a residual group of white settlers, senior politicians and businessmen with political connections.

The extended Kenyatta family alone owns an estimated 500,000 acres (2,000 sq km). That represents a large chunk of the 28m acres (113,000 sq km) of arable land in Kenya. The remaining 80% of the country is mostly semi-arid and arid land. The Kenya Land Alliance says more than half the arable land in the country is in the hands of only 20% of the population. Two-thirds of the people own, on average, less than an acre per person. There are 13% who own no land at all.

Three years ago the government launched the Ndungu commission to investigate the illegal distribution of publicly owned land. The commission found that Kenyatta and Moi both grossly abused their powers to grab public land and former white-owned farms, and parcelled it out "as political reward or patronage".

"As a result a large number of the genuinely landless ... remain locked in a cycle of poverty," the commission said in its report. The commission members included Lumumba, who says, "The land belonged to the government or was in trust for the people but the trustees, particularly the presidents, behaved as if they were estate owners. They handed out individual titles to parts of national parks and gave trust land as political favours."

After Moi came to power in 1978 the land grabs evolved away from the vast tracts of farmlands that had already been parcelled out to all kinds of other publicly owned land. State corporations such as the railways, airports authority and power company have been plundered of land at a cost of "colossal amounts of money" to the public.

"Under Moi you used to get people turning up at a piece of land and they'd both have titles issued by the same government, sometimes by the president," says Mati. "If Moi wanted to give someone $1m, he didn't give them cash. He gave them the title deed to land and they'd sell that using the government land registry. Moi gave lots of people land. That was his way of governing." Other high officials, such as successive commissioners of lands and private interests such as bankers, lawyers and architects, contributed to this "unbridled plunder".

The commission said: "In every corner of the country today, there is a significant number of squatters who trace their landlessness to historical injustices and the failure of the post-independence governments to undertake a comprehensive resettlement programme. Their status as squatters has also left them in grinding poverty and vulnerable to all manner of human rights violations, including incessant evictions. This historical failure has given rise to a deep seated sense of grievance."

This is not the first organised violence over land. Moi unleashed a form of terror and ethnic cleansing against the Kikuyu in the Rift Valley 15 years ago because it was Kikuyu politicians who were pressing hardest for the introduction of multi-party democracy. No one knows how many were killed, but it ran into the thousands. Moi repeated his assault ahead of the 1997 general election, targeting Kikuyu communities on the coast as well as in the Rift Valley. That helped unleash regular localised violence over land grievances separate from the immediate politics. For instance, a low-level insurgency in the Mount Elgon district has pitted rival clans against each other over land with 22 people killed in an assault on Kimama village on December 31 alone, and another 50 in the areas around in the following week. Many of them were hacked to death as they worked in their fields.

A group calling itself the Sabaot Land Defence Force has targeted specific communities in order to drive them off their land. Human rights groups say they have documented nearly 400 deaths during the violence in the area in the past six months. About 80,000 people, a third of the district's population, has been displaced. "The violence was going to happen so long as the original grievance was not addressed. It never has been," says Mati.

The Ndungu commission agreed. "Forty years of independence is a long time during which any historical injustices regarding land should have been resolved. The fact of the matter, however, is that there are certain deep-rooted injustices that still rankle whole communities in Kenya ... The politically ignited land clashes of the 1990s are a manifestation of deep-rooted grievances that cannot be glossed over in a reform process," it said.

Kibaki came to power in 2002 promising reform. Little has happened. Mati says the only way to address the issue is to break up the vast land holdings of the Kenyattas, Mois and others. "There is a massive youth population that doesn't have land and that is unlikely to get it the way things are. And yet land is ingrained to them as the key to life. We have to address this or live with the consequences," he says.

The upheaval of the past month has created the greatest ethnic migration since the end of British rule. "To say you are taking people to their ancestral homelands is ridiculous," says Lumumba. "It's like you are going back to the native reserves because what will they find when they get there? There is no room for them there. They will end up on the periphery of the urban areas trying to survive. It will be another time bomb," he says.

Charles Mugo says there is no future for him or any other Kikuyu in Nakuru, and it is best just to go. "There were good Kalenjin. Some of our neighbours tried to protect us but they were threatened and told that next time their houses would be burned. That is when I knew that we wouldn't come back. The good people have lost out to the bad. We can never feel safe here again," he says.

Annan bugged as Kenyan warmongers banned from US

In the latest twist in the Kenya election crisis saga ten front-line PNU and ODM personalities have been banned from traveling to the United States over alleged links to the post-poll violence.

With this, international pressure appeared to shift from initial subtle threats couched in diplomatic language to concrete action on a day the crisis in Kenya featured both in the US Senate and the UN Security Council and mediation talks proper started in Nairobi.

But a dark cloud hung over the talks last night when reports that UN-backed chief mediator Mr Kofi Annan’s hotel room in Nairobi had been bugged hit the World Wide Web.

"Detectives have gone there (Serena Hotel) and established that the claims are untrue," Mr Eric Kiraithe, the police spokesman told The Standard when reached on the telephone.

But an independent source said: "Annan’s security aides found the device while the talks were in session on Tuesday".

News of the bugging came just 24 hours after skilled South African negotiator Mr Cyril Ramaphosa withdrew as the intended chief negotiator when the PNU made it known that they would not trust the South African’s intervention.

On Wednesday, the US Embassy in Nairobi declined to divulge details of the 10 personalities it has lined-up for blacklisting, only saying that five were politicians and the rest prominent business people.

The 10 have already been notified, the Embassy said.

The caution also covers family members of the politicians, including those studying in the US.

US Ambassador Mr Michael Ranneberger said there was credible evidence linking the personalities to the post-election mayhem that ripped the country apart, leaving at least 1,000 people dead and close to half a million others displaced.

The Embassy said it was only waiting for the personalities to turn up with their travel papers to enforce the ban.

Ranneberger said the Embassy was also looking at information on nearly 30 other leaders believed to have funded the bloodletting.

The Crime of Silent aloofness

"A German's point of view on Islam"

> by Dr. Emanuel Tanay, Psychiatrist

A man whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War ll owned
a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German
people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward > fanaticism. 'Very few people were true Nazis' he said, 'but many enjoyed
the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was
one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the
majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they
owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family
lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies
destroyed my factories.'

We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam is
the religion of peace, and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to
live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is
entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel
better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectra of fanatics rampaging
across the globe in the name of Islam. The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam
at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics
who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who
systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are
gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the
fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honor kill. It is the fanatics who take over
mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and
hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. The hard quantifiable fact
is that the 'peaceful majority', the 'silent majority', is cowed and
extraneous.

Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in
peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about
20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China 's huge
population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to
kill a staggering 70 million people. The average Japanese individual prior
to World War ll was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and
slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included
the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by
sword, shovel, and bayonet. And, who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into
butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were
peace loving'?

History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our
powers of reason we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of
points:
Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.
Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up,
because like my friend from Germany , they will awaken one day and find that
the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.
Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghanis,
Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have
died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.
As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group
that counts: the fanatics who threaten our way of life.

Lastly, at the risk of offending anyone who doubts that the issue is
serious and just deletes this email without sending it on, that is
contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand. So, extend
yourself a bit and send this on and on and on! Let us hope that thousands, world
wide, read this - think about it - and send it on.

PNU Accusations of Ramaphosa Condemned

Sholain Govender
Pretoria

The South African government condemns the accusations made by the Kenyan government that Cyril Ramaphosa was a dishonest peace broker.

Speaking at a media briefing, Department of Foreign Affairs Deputy Minister Aziz Pahad said the South African government has rejected with contempt, the reasons given by members of the Kenyan government for not accepting Mr Ramaphosa as a mediator.

The Kenyan government has called Mr Ramaphosa a dishonest peace broker because of past business dealings with Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) leader Raila Odinga.

"Mr Ramaphosa has categorically denied this," said Mr Pahad.

He said Mr Ramaphosa's track record both in the South African and Irish peace processes were spotless and that his withdrawal from the mediation panel was a great loss.

Mr Ramaphosa withdrew from the Kenyan mediation process, led by former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, on Monday.

Mr Pahad said that the government continues to give its support to the current African Union mediation process led by Mr Annan in Kenya.

Mr Pahad said that on a positive side, Mr Annan has met with representatives from both sides after they agreed on a roadmap.

He said that as part of the mediation process, the UN Human Rights Commission will be encouraged to go to Kenya to investigate what has happened since violence erupted shortly after the 27 December presidential elections was contested.

The civil unrest that has resulted in over 1 000 deaths to date and about 250 000 Kenyans have been internally displaced.

President Mwai Kibaki won the election by a narrow margin which led to opposition members rejecting the election and alleging it was rigged.

A Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) will also be put together consisting of local and international members, as part of the steps towards resolution thus far.

Mr Pahad said there were also many other recommendations, one of which was that the speaker of parliament hold an informal meeting with all elected members of parliaments to debate the current situation.

Both sides have named negotiators as a way forward for the mediation process.

Mr Pahad added that the South African government has not congratulated Mr Kibaki on his election win as the elections had been contested immediately after it was announced.

"It is best for us not to pre-empt anything that may come out of the TRC and UN Human Rights Commission hearings," said Mr Pahad.

The dreaded firstlady strikes again

Gitobu Imanyara emerged four days ago after days in hiding to announce to the Kenyan press that he was suing serial slapper Lucy Kibaki for attacking him at State House. Imanyara who is now also a member of parliament, says that because of Mrs Kibaki’s short stature her “slaps and blows” did not reach the tall legislator. Interestingly at one point rumors had it that Imanyara had been injured very badly from the incident that he had been hospitalized. One sensational version even said that he had died.

Imanyara also says that he had decided not to take any action because former president Mwai Kibaki called him and apologized over the incident.

This stunning admition 3 weeks after the fact begs the question as to why Imanyara chose to speak up now. He downplays his involvement and is obviously embarrassed that he was assaulted. It is also curious that the Presidential Press Service was quick to come out with a rebuttal minutes after Imanyara spoke out. It has been said that Lucy is under “lock and key” in State House after apparently shooting her own son Jimmy Kibaki on his thigh after Jimmy disagreed with his father on the current political crisis.

Kibaki has rigged in the past!

How Kibaki Rigged 1969 Parliamentary Elections In The Same Way
…As Gitobu Imanyara emerges to sue serial slapping first lady for recent attack at State House


Jael Mbogo was a parliamentary candidate in Nairobi’s then Bahati constituency in 1969 and she recently explained to a British newspaper in great detail how she was rigged out of that parliamentary seat.

The amazing thing is that the manner in which it was done bears striking resemblance to how the presidential elections was rigged late last year plunging the country in chaos. And guess who the candidate she was standing against was? Yep, one Emilio Stanley Mwai Kibaki.

Much as I am a great admirer of Tom Mboya, one of the big mistakes he made was to drive all the way to Makerere University from Nairobi in his VW Beetle to fetch one Mwai Kibaki, then an economics lecturer at that university to become Kanu’s first executive officer. Kibaki learnt a lot of his politics from Tom Mboya but by the time the 1969 general elections were held, Mboya was dead, assassinated by Kibaki’s inner circle and his close friend Kibaki was carrying on life as if nothing had happened.

But it seems that the voters knew about this betrayal and firmly voted against Kibaki. Mbogo told the Obserever that she was so far ahead in the early vote tallying that the BBC went ahead and announced that a young woman had defeated a government minister for the Bahati seat. It was not to be. In circumstances that are remarkably similar to what happened in December, the results for Bahati were delayed for several days as GSU officers surrounded the vote counting centre. When those results were finally announced, Mwai Kibaki had won by a razor-thin margin.

Jael Mbogo who is now a civil rights activist told the Observer; 'Kibaki stalled the result, and then robbed me of victory. Because he looks so holy, people are still asking if he really was capable of stealing this election. What I say is "Of course, he has done it before".

Read the Observer story here
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2251523,00.html

Shock As Police Reveal : ‘Mungiki Hitmen Killed ODM’s Mugabe Were!’

Gang infiltrates Kenya Police
Juma Kwayera | Nairobi
03 February 2008 11:59

A quiet rebellion and near-total collapse of the chain of command has exposed Kenya’s police force as incapable of dealing with the growing national crisis in the country, amid growing fears that it has also been infiltrated by the outlawed pro- government Mungiki sect.

Speaking to the Mail & Guardian on condition of anonymity following the chilling murder on last Tuesday of an opposition MP, a senior police inspector and an officer in the criminal investigations department admitted that all was not right in the police force.

“The police are angry that they are being used to solve a political problem. Our remit is maintenance of law and order, but we are being dragged into politics. It is known that the election outcome was manipulated; who does not know that?” asked the officer.

Despondency in the force is the latest twist in Kenya’s political imbroglio, which former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan said was an international priority on Tuesday when he formally launched the mediation process between the government and the opposition.

Annan, who is heading an African Union panel of eminent persons, said that the escalating violence put the country on the precipice of large-scale upheaval, which the “state must use all the means at its disposal to forestall”. Annan added that the electoral dispute was now mutating into ethnic hostility and inflaming long-suppressed passions. The AU-mandated team also includes former Tanzanian president Benjamin Mkapa and Graça Machel.

Gangs of youths believed to be members of the Mungiki sect claimed responsibility for the killing of Mellitus Mugabe Were, the opposition MP. Youths suspected of being members of Mungiki also took control of the highway linking Nairobi with the nearby town of Nakuru, a scene of much of the recent violence.

Most members of the much-feared Mungiki sect hail from the Kikuyu tribe, the same ethnic group as President Mwai Kibaki. They rose to prominence last year after a string of grisly killings, particularly in Nairobi’s slums. Police efforts to break up the gangs late last year led to days of violent clashes in which several people were killed.

Were’s death on Tuesday co-incided with the formal launch of international mediation and reinforced the perception that Mungiki, which allegedly enjoys the patronage of influential politicians and businessmen in the government, is on the rampage again after a six-month lull.

Police have confirmed that 20 out of the 115 people killed in Nakuru and Naivasha towns in the Rift Valley province were beheaded in grisly circumstances reminiscent of Mungiki’s decapitation of 200 people in Nairobi early last year.

Human rights groups, including United States-based Human Rights Watch, estimated last week that nearly a quarter of the 900 people shot dead post-election were executed by Mungiki gang members disguised as police. The senior police officer complained that the infiltration of the police by the criminal gang had exacerbated tensions in the force, leading to fears of an imminent falling out.

“We are being misused. We are resisting the public perception [that] we mop up politicians’ dirty work,” the inspector said. Two other police officers said last week’s reshuffle in the police force was precipitated by growing tension among high-ranking police officers who felt they were being misused to crack down on opposition supporters.

The opposition says that it has also received reports of Mungiki’s infiltration of the police force.

“We have been receiving reports about despondency in the police force and the military that has been forcing the government to resort to criminal gangs to control escalating violence,” Orange Democratic Movement MP Omingo Magara said.

He added: “The same sources told us about how two weeks ago the government acquired 4 000 guns and armed Mungiki to kill protesters in Rift Valley. I leave it to you to judge who is running the show in the police force,” he said.

Tensions in the security forces began to appear after Internal Security Minister George Saitoti told the police to refrain from using live ammunition, only for police to open fire on unarmed mourners in Nairobi last week, injuring several.

“The chain of command has collapsed,” Magara said. The government began deploying the military at violence flashpoints last week, fuelling the public perception that the police force is no longer obeying the command structure.

Responding to charges that the police force was no longer capable of maintaining law and order prompting the intervention of the military Police Commissioner Major General Hussein Ali said the presence of the army is “temporary.” According to the Kenyan constitution, the army can only be called out of the barracks after a state of emergency is declared.

The Buck Stops at Kibaki's doorstep

Wave of anarchy blamed on Kenya's 'General Coward'


As the post-election death toll nears 1,000 and towns go up in flames, more Kenyans are saying the 'holy' President and his elite advisers are to blame

Xan Rice in Othaya
Sunday February 3, 2008
The Observer

Mount Kenya rises in the distance, its glaciers reflecting the sharp morning light. Tea bushes cover the slopes around the huge estate, with its high walls and three separate entrances, one manned by heavily armed policemen. If the pre-election predictions had been followed, the 76-year-old golf-loving, aloof owner of the estate in Othaya should have been strolling in its neat gardens, enjoying his first month of retirement and reflecting on his legacy of furthering Kenya's passage towards democracy.

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But instead Mwai Kibaki is holed up in State House in Nairobi, three hours' drive away, fighting to entrench his presidential power following a highly contentious election victory that has plunged Kenya into its worst crisis since independence. In little over a month more than 900 people have been killed, 300,000 people displaced, and entire towns split along ethnic lines.

Yesterday the violence continued. In the town of Kericho in the Rift Valley, hundreds of homes belonging to people of Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe were being set alight by gangs of youths.

Kibaki's handling of the crisis, so far limited to one brief visit to displaced people and reading out a few pre-written statements insisting he won fairly, has invited fierce criticism. The normally pro-government Daily Nation newspaper warned Kibaki: 'If Kenya disintegrates, history books will record that the collapse of a once great, united and prosperous country happened on your watch'. The Nairobi Star was headlined: 'Where is Kibaki? ... as Kenya slips into anarchy'.

Other questions come from millions of Kenyans struggling to understand what is happening in their country. How could people have misread a man who has been in government since independence, regarded as the gentleman of Kenyan politics? What motivated an already wealthy President, with little apparent ego, caricatured in newspapers as enjoying afternoon naps, to stage what the opposition has called a 'civilian coup'?

'I have spoken to nearly every prominent columnist in this country and asked "Did you see this coming?"' said Wycliffe Muga, one of Kenya's best-known journalists. 'None of them did. From being a detached, almost aristocratic President, Kibaki suddenly seemed to change overnight into a scheming, duplicitous leader willing to see bloodshed in his thirst for power.' Some are looking into Kibaki's past to see whether they missed the warning signs of a leader who would take more than 40 years to reveal his true colours.

A brilliant student at the London School of Economics, Kibaki entered Kenya's first post-independence government in 1963. Six years later he stood in Nairobi's Bahati constituency against Jael Mbogo, the popular head of Kenya's biggest women's association. He won by a wafer-thin margin in remarkably similar circumstances to December's election; behind in the early tallying, the verdict was delayed for days and a crack squad of police officers swarmed around the vote-counting centre when the result was announced. 'I was so far ahead in early vote counting that even the BBC even reported that a young woman had felled a government minister,' Mbogo, now a civil society activist in Nairobi, told The Observer. 'Kibaki stalled the result, and then robbed me of victory. Because he looks so holy, people are still asking if he really was capable of stealing this election. What I say is "Of course, he has done it before".'

As Vice-President under Daniel arap Moi, Kibaki was well regarded. His family become rich through his contacts, but he was never tainted by corruption. He was happiest on the golf course and in the colonial-era Muthaiga Club where he held court with Nairobi's elite Kikuyus; politicians and businessmen, the lines between them often blurred.

His reluctance to press for multipartyism earned him the nickname General Coward. But by the 2002 election, after 24 years of Moi's misrule, a strongman was the last thing Kenyans were looking for. Kibaki was a safe pair of hands.

'Kibaki is the one politician I have always trusted in Kenya,' said Philip Machila, 67, who used to attend party meetings with Kibaki. 'The only problem he has always had is some of the people around him.'

The 'bad-influence' theory is always used to excuse Kibaki. Throughout his first term in office he was surrounded and shielded by old friends, virtually all Kikuyu. Initially Kibaki needed protecting. Badly injured in a car accident a few weeks before he was sworn in in 2002, he was then reported to have had a stroke. For much of 2003 it was unclear whether Kibaki would complete his term. His memory was as shaky as his walk. His health improved but access to him has not. He has not given a single media interview since he became President in 2002 and does not take questions at rare news conferences.

Several of Kibaki's Kikuyu golfing friends have assumed significant influence at State House in recent years. 'Some of these people hold very strong thoughts about the superiority of the Kikuyus and their inherent right to govern,' said a former government minister. 'It's a case of "We helped end British rule using the Mau Mau, and we are the ones that keep the economy ticking over. The other 42 ethnic groups are welcome to live in Kenya, but only we can rule".' He said he did not believe 'the President is calling the shots at all. He always has to consult the hardliners around him'.

'It was not until September last year that we could even get him out on the campaign trail,' said an adviser to Kibaki's PNU party. 'He seemed very reluctant for a long time.' But the adviser rejected the assertion that Kibaki is not completely in charge: 'He attends a security briefing even morning. He understands his legacy will be hurt if this current crisis does not end well.'

Even with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon in Nairobi this weekend, supporting mediation efforts chaired by Kofi Annan, Kibaki made a speech to the African Union that could hardly have been more antagonistic towards opposition supporters, already on edge after the murder of two opposition MPs last week. He reiterated that the election result was fair and that the opposition was to blame for the violence. It should take its election grievances to the courts, he said, and blamed unnamed foreign countries for suggesting a power-sharing. This hardline stance at a time when towns like Kericho are in flames - and his quiet dismissal of Murage a fortnight ago - means there is an increasing body of people who now believe that Kibaki alone must take the blame for the country's mess. 'I honestly believe he is the man driving the whole operation; the ineptly rigged election and the aftermath,' said David Ndii, a Nairobi-based analyst. 'Kibaki very much knows what is happening, and must be held responsible.'

The Struggle for peace is a long hard road

President Kibaki and rival Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) leader, Mr Raila Odinga, once again came face-to-face in under a week, as mediation talks kicked-off in Nairobi.

And by their gestures and speeches, the two leaders appeared to demonstrate their willingness to haul the country out of the crippling political impasse brought about by the discredited December 27 presidential poll outcome.

Sitting on either side of former United Nations chief, Mr Kofi Annan, the leaders said they would walk the necessary distance to arrest the country’s free-fall to self-destruction.

"I will leave no stone unturned, nor fail to travel that extra mile to ensure that Kofi Annan’s mediation mission between PNU and ODM succeeds. This is the least I can do for our country," Raila said in a speech read before television cameras.

He added: "This mediation process must quickly show our people that peace, justice and security are round the corner."

On his part, President Kibaki admitted that the country was at a crossroads and that there was urgent need to take a decision that would help Kenyans quickly regain their dignity and restore the stability they have enjoyed since independence.

"I feel deeply saddened to see Kenyans confronting one another violently over issues that can be discussed and resolved peacefully through dialogue," Kibaki, who once again spoke last in his second meeting with Raila, said.

He added: "I appeal to each and everyone of us to know that we only have one country called Kenya. We must all play our individual roles in safeguarding our nationhood."

The talks began within a background of relentless international pressure, a fresh round of bloodletting stoked by the brutal murder of ODM’s Embakasi MP, Mugabe Were, in the early hours of Tuesday in Nairobi and a call on the African Union not to recognise the Kibaki Government.

Both Raila and Kibaki were stunned by the brutal murder of the MP. Raila described the death of any Kenyan as a tragedy. But when an elected MP is killed, he said, the tens of thousands who elected him, as well as their families and communities, feel that a part of them had died, too.

The Lang’ata MP said those who "executed" Were wanted violence to escalate so that under its cover, they could achieve their evil designs.

"We must not fall into the trap of assassins. We will grieve, mourn, be angry and demand that the perpetrators be brought to justice," said Raila. He said Kenyans must not resort to violence, however justified their anger and outrage.

"Violence only begets violence, as we have so tragically seen in the last month," he noted.

Annan, who earlier had told Kibaki and Raila to be prepared to take hard choices, said time was of the essence and exhorted them to act fast to stem the bloodletting.

"To the leaders, people need you and want you to take charge of affairs to stop the downward slide to chaos. You have to act with urgency," Annan said.

"Today we are gathered here to launch face-to-face negotiations that offer an opportunity for leaders to steer the country towards peace and prosperity," said Annan.

The highest executive body in the European Union — The Council — sat in Brussels on Monday and made it clear that donor relations between its 27 member states and Kenya would be put in abeyance until a sustainable and consensual political solution is found.

The EU council made its stand in a unanimous statement, which pointed out that the political impasse and violence had greatly affected donors’ engagement with Kenya and the EU-Kenya relations.

"Until a legitimate solution is agreed, the EU and its member states cannot conduct business as usual with Kenya," said part of the statement by the 27 member countries.

At the African Union (AU) Heads of State meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the disputed presidential election was listed for discussion.

ODM Secretary-General, Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o, who is at the talks, called on the 53-member political body not to recognise Kibaki as President.

But Foreign Affairs minister, Mr Moses Wetangula, said in Addis Ababa that President Kibaki would attend the meeting that kicks off in the Ethiopian capital tomorrow.

Yesterday, a delegate to the meeting said: "The AU meeting is expected to discuss Kibaki’s contested re-election as the first agenda, and has also lined up important issues. The summit originally meant to discuss Africa’s industrialisation might be overshadowed by the political crisis".

A senior envoy also confirmed that the crisis featured prominently in the AU Commission President Alpha Konare’s agenda to African leaders.

Sources disclosed that Nairobi lobbied hard to exclude the issue from the agenda, but South African diplomats pressed to have it discussed at a special summit to be convened soon.

The protagonists had early in the day named their respective dialogue teams.

PNU picked Justice minister, Ms Martha Karua, Education minister, Prof Sam Ongeri, and Mbooni MP, Mr Mutula Kilonzo.

Mr Gichira Kibara of the Justice ministry was named liaison officer, assisted by Dr Ludeki Chweya of the University of Nairobi.

On its part, ODM named party Pentagon members, Mr Musalia Mudavadi and Mr William Ruto, and career diplomat and Aldai MP, Dr Sally Kosgei, as its flagbearers.

Vice-President, Mr Kalonzo Musyoka, who unveiled the PNU team at his Jogoo House office, said the Government attached "the greatest importance to national dialogue and a quick restoration of peace and tranquility in our country".

In the meantime, violence erupted again. A student and a police reservist were among 16 people killed on a day that also witnessed the cold-blooded murder of an MP.

Most of the deaths were reported in the troubled regions of the Rift Valley including Naivasha, Eldoret, Kapsabet, Burnt Forest, Kitale and Kisumu.

They were, however, of a much lower scale than witnessed in Naivasha and Nakuru at the weekend.

The victims were killed by police, flushed from Public Service Vehicles and clubbed by rowdy youths manning illegal roadblocks, attacked by raiders or lynched by an irate public.

The reservist was killed and his firearm stolen in Kipsaina village, while the student was gunned down in Bahati village, both in Kitale East District.

In Nairobi, fighting went on in Kibera late into the night. Police said three people had been killed, but witnesses said they had counted up to seven bodies.

Near Egerton University, Njoro, police shot dead two raiders. Up to 15 houses were burnt as dusk approached.

In Eldoret, police shot two people dead, pushing to seven the number of those killed in the town and its environs between the weekend and yesterday.

Another person, a driver of a courier service company, was hacked to death in Soy when he failed to identify himself at an illegal roadblock.

In Kapsaret, a man was killed at an illegal roadblock a few hours after another passenger in a PSV vehicle was flushed out and clubbed to death.

In Cheptiret, one more person was killed at a roadblock mounted at the centre.

In Kasarani, Langas estate in Eldoret, police also shot dead one person, while four others suffered gunshot wounds when about 600 raiders struck.

The public lynched two people as an uneasy calm returned to Nyanza after a day of riots. They were killed in Nyalenda and Manyatta slums in Kisumu, where residents continued to man roadblocks.

In Kakamega, police shot dead a man on Monday night. James Otieno was killed at his workshop in Lurambi when police officers moved in to disperse protesters who had barricaded the Kakamega-Webuye road.

In Central Province, one person was shot dead in Gachororo in Juja, Thika District, where residents were evicting members of other communities.

Kenya is burning as our leaders sleep

Everyday i ask myself if a simple act of voting for what should be our leadership is worth the suffering that Kenyans are now being subjected to, i look at the images below and i can almost cry with the anger that burns in my breast...... when will this thieves and criminals masquerading as our leaders come to their senses and heal this dying nation???

THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE

So who is winning this December's election?

Who can answer that? is there anyone who knows?

What a mystery, especially with the polls tied neck to neck.

beef season

So kenyan artists are starting beef.
Ha, i wonder wether they can actually handle the beef or they are just playing as usual.