Making the Reconciliation work for all

Mr Kibaki has a way of reinventing himself; at least we think he forced himself into history books against the backdrop of a stolen election. By turning up in parliament to debate and vote for the crucial bill meant to legalize his peace deal with Mr Raila Odinga, he became the first president to do it in Kenya. But that symbolically was not enough. The president literally sat in parliament to await the final document to entrench the deal into the constitution and before he retired to State House, he had signed it into law. That is vintage Kibaki, the man Kenya has not known for five years.

There was more. While contributing to the bill, Mr Kibaki joked about letting James Orengo single-handedly write the constitution. All these things that we have been saying, he knows them and he can write a new constitution, he quipped. As expected, the house went baaah with laughter. It is good that ends well. But where did it begin?

While the powerful men and women endorsed the entrenchment of the peace deal in the constitution by 200 votes to nil, other Kenyans are counting loses. The peace deal has to hold, it must never fail. Kenya should not be allowed to go that way again, ever. In order to prevent the recurrence of the slaughter of innocent lives and destruction of property, Kenyans have the best opportunity in our lives to step back and reexamine ourselves. Why did it begin in the first place? Why did we see the level of bestiality that we witnessed? Because we have lived a big lie for a whole half a century. It was bound to come; thank God it came during this generation.

Now back to the reconciliation and national healing. Kenyans hurt each other; lives were maimed and disfigured while livelong investments were reduced to ashes. Nothing is more painful than the over 2000 lives lost in gory death rituals at the hands of militia and the trigger-happy police. So, while the smiling MPs kiss and hug and high-five to celebrate the success of the Kofi Annan miracle for Kenya, we should look back at the pile of earths jutting out of countless homes.

Those raw earths mark a very unfortunate entry into 2008 for countless Kenyan families whose loved ones are buried therein. They paid the ultimate price. From Onyango to Kipkoech to Wasike to Karanja to Omar, Kenyans of all tribes were felled by fellow Kenyans either taking the law into their own hands or acting at the behest of shadowy power barons and financiers with stakes in government power. To the funding warlords, only one thing made sense to them, propping the illegal regime in power to serve as a conduit to intimidation and award of government tenders and contracts. They care less, and did not even show up at the funerals of the dead youth and women. To them, dead combatants are a statistic.

An election was stolen. Start with the cabinet strong men and women, beginning with Saitoti whose reelection in Kajiado North was contested against the backdrop of allegations of importation of premarked ballots. Talk of Maina Kamanda, croco-coward Mungatana, Koinange street client Mwakwere and the thief in chief Kibaki. The ECK was complacent and complicit in that heist of the electoral victory. Karua, Me Chuki, Kimunya and premier Warlord Uhuru are culpable. So are Murungi and the blood thirsty church that went on leave while Kenyans slaughtered each other.

We foresee that the powermen and women will negotiate a way out of their guilt with blackmail and other tools in their arsenal. What happens to the displaced Kenyans, suppressed to a PR figure of half a million? What happens to the lost time, which was not spent tending the crop and animals. What happens to their children who went to school without fees because the parents were rendered jobless and their savings destroyed. What happens to the broken families, forced to separate from their loved ones simply because they had dared experiment with cross-cultural, inter-tribal marriages?

If this reconciliation is to make sense to the mourning homes and agonising villages, amnesty must be sought for all the incarcerated youth and women. They must be set free and let to reunite with their families. There is simply no justification why Saitoti should contemplate judging anybody when he himself is tainted and guilty. The police lack the moral authority to prosecute crime, they are criminals, worse than the arsonists. Martha Karua's courts cannot proffer charges against convicts because the CJ presided over an illegality by participating and presiding over a twilight swearing-in of bandits. A criminal like the CJ cannot prosecute and judge other alleged criminals. There ought to be no two standards to the law. It must apply ruthlessly and without prejudice to the law-breaker.

If we need the reconciliation to be celebrated by all Kenyans, address the land question now. We have published a borrowed expose here on how Kibaki, Moi and other operatives own Kenya. This must be reversed. A productive country is measured on how well it utilizes her natural resources. Moi's and Kibaki's land acquisition, together with those of the Kenyatta families provided this country with breeding grounds for pests and snakes. They are under-utilized by people whose only land is actually a 3-by-6, their graves. Why do they need land the size of Nyanza province when they cannot take it anywhere? If they got it through the right channels it may be another story. But these people used their exalted positions to benefit from the state largesse. This must be reversed and there is no better time to do that than now.

The villager who is nursing gunshot wounds, the family whose father was felled by a gunshot, the woman who was raped by goons, and the elder who was forcefully circumcised and infected with HIV must be included in the reconciliation. There must be recompense for the maimed, the imprisoned, the dead and the prime beneficiaries of the peace deal. If Kenyans had accepted the heist and said live and let live, the world was not going to bother. The truth be told. It is only after the world witnessed the bestial way in which goons were chasing and cornering harmless Kenyans that they were jerked to a catastrophe in the making. Only when the police were got on camera dousing homes and mowing down armless youth did the world wake up to a Kenya that was sinking to the abyss. Kofi Annan did not come to Kenya because he liked what the peoples' president Raila was saying. Certainly it is not what Disinformationsmeister Mutua was saying.

The world, from Washington to Westminster to Berlin and Paris was shocked by the level of deaths in Kenya. Those who paid the ultimate price are the ones who drove the urgency into an arrogant world that had let Rwanda sink only a decade earlier. We cannot afford to let the departed be forgotten. While we think of resettling the displaced, let us spare a moment for those who are forever displaced. While we compensate the living for their lost businesses, we ought to compensate for the death of the true heroes of our third liberation.

We must build a tablet reminder with a vow never to allow vote theft in Kenya ever again. We must honor our departed with a suitable plaque on which must be embossed their names and the reason they died:

These people died after Mr Samuel Kivuitu participated in an illegality by agreeing to issue a victory certificate to a petty election thief called Mwai Kibaki. They died to free this country from election thieves and corruption. By paying the ultimate price, they forced Kenyans to reexamine cheating in national elections, national exams and land as well as national resource allocations. They died to inspire the rewriting of a new people-friendly constitution. After their deaths, many more children were born to a safe and fair country and this country looks back at that period to draw lessons never again to let it repeated.

That is the message we would like to see embossed on all the plaques in the country declaring the travesty of 2007 a turning point and a governance watershed in Kenya.

This message must live for generations, in each of the burnt-out business, church, home and street. Kenyans must use this as a repugnant reminder never to let it happen again.

Reconciliation must trickle down to the homestead, for when the trauma of a lost son and a miscarried foetus is overcome shall we join and sing together the beautiful words of our national anthem. Before that is done, the tune and the words are irritating noise and a nuisance to Kenyans.

Kenya must move forward, but we must not forget to immortalise the travesty that was committed in December 2007. By keeping the memory alive, we will be spurred to avoid a repeat of those scenes of butchery that we witnessed. Kenya must never allow cowards like Kivuitu to claim to burn and die with us for we know for sure that he is unshaken by the consequence of his cowardize and betrayal. Nor should we ever condone the impunity of power barons.

We have a deal: will it hold?

Watch the deal signing here. Listen to Kikwete.

Explaining the Gema Ruto-phobia

William Kipchirchir Samoei arap Ruto is young, sexy, charismatic and stinking rich. He is a politician, a leader and a businessman. All these cast into one, add that to him being dangerously sharp and witty and you know why the hate groups are swelling in like manner. Ruto is a good orator and he belongs to a generation in the Kalenjin community that prides itself for courage. The Kaplelach generation is one full cycle complete after the previous one which was represented by none other than Koitalel Samoei, the Nandi Orkoiyot.

Those who like the man do so with religious reverence. Those who hate him are equally passionate about their feelings. The haters have brought a new dimension to Ruto-phobia. There is now a sustained media and cyber-campaign to tarnish the man who can articulate his position without fear. He is unfairly linked to the post election violence.

But why do Gema and PNU-leaning politicians loathe Ruto? The man is one of the brains behind the Orange Movement that would later transformed into the political party that won the 2007 election in Kenya. An astute team player, Ruto would later help strike a regional deal to solidify the Western Kenya Alliance of Luhya, Kalenjin and Luo communities in ODM while solidifying Coast and North Eastern regions to the surprise of many a political pundit.

Ruto is widely perceived by GEMA (Gikuyu, Embu, Meru) hardliners as a representation of a resurgence and virulent independence of an ill-perceived Kalenjin hegemony and a quest to establish an autonomous Western Kenya jimbo, which, according to them, will engage in the business of driving away non-indigenous communities (read Kikuyu) from parts of Rift Valley. He is feared, in fact loathed. This does not wash; not in Rift Valley. The people of Rift Valley see a leader they trust.

The Mt. Kenya Mafia planned to use former President Moi in the Kibaki 2007 re-election campaigns to marshal the rich vote-basket Rift Valley for the bandit president. It was a tragedy. William Ruto, the ODM pointman of the Rift Valley held a mammoth rally in Moi’s Kabarnet backyard where he engaged him in a barrage of slur. Mzee Moi has never recovered from the humiliation he faced. Ruto led a strong campaign against Moi’s three sons Gideon Moi, Jonathan Toroitich and Raymond Moi and his protege, John Lokorio, who were contesting for parliamentary seats in Koibatek and Baringo districts. They all lost. Moi’s attempt to reach out to the people of Rift Valley to support Kibaki was met with rage and fervent resistance, with the province instead throwing its weight behind Mr Ruto.

The man was also in charge of the troops that fell the Goliath of Keiyo South Nicholas Biwott. The GEMA operatives then shifted their base to Bomet, Kericho and Nandi, hiring crowds to attend PNU rallies using Kalenjiin traitors Salat, Sang, Kimeto, Tarus and Barngetuny. They were shocked at the stanch and following ODM enjoyed from the community. By December 27, Ruto had rendered Moi permanently irrelevant in Rift Valley politics. Moi now spends most of his time in hospitals. The last time I heard of him he was seeing Dr. Silverstein, after spending weeks in Germany in the winter.

When parliament was summoned by bandit Kibaki, Ruto treated the house to brave theatrics which have only been a preserve of lawyers. In the ensuing stalemate following the stolen presidency, Ruto was conscripted to provide bedrock support at the mediation. Even after a sub-committee was constituted to fine-tune a power-sharing arrangement, ODM did not flood the team with lawyers as did PNU. Ruto, a peace-maker and strategist was in the core team that is driving the details of a transitional power-sharing pending proper elections.

And as the talks edge towards conclusion, it is becoming clear that power sharing is the only option out of the deadlock. Who knows who Raila Odinga may pick for the post of Prime Minister to fight the ‘wars’ in the House as he consolidates his troops for a grand election without the black-and-blue President Kibaki who many think may not be contesting for the presidency in two years? Watch this space.

Unfortunate attempts have been made to link Mr Ruto to an unfortunate torching of a Church in his Eldoret North Constituency. In fact PNU has attempted to link the key leaders of the ODM party to the mayhem in the country. That violence was spontaneous and it was reported in other places. If those who claim that Ruto organized the arson in Eldoret were sincere, what would they say about the Mungiki arson of 20 Luos in Naivasha? Were they funded by the area Kanu-MP, Hon. John Michael Njenga Mututho?

Ruto represents the future of Kalenjiin leadership and to attempt to link him to genocide is an attempt to drag the whole community into a needless strife with the illegitimate regime of Mwai Kibaki. The Kalenjiin will not take it lying down.

Police in two week killing olympics in Kericho

We can now reveal that police in Kericho have been on a Killing Olympics. On diverse dates between 29th Dec 2007 and 12th Jan 2008, a total of 19 youths aged between seven (yes, seven!) years old and 35 years old were mowed down by police competing to justify their 'killing olympics bonus'. The youngest victim, seven year-old Ronald Kipkoech died on new year's day in Kipkelion. He was reported to have died of injuries inflicted by gun wounds. Those who died of gun wounds are energetic youths with promising future but whose lives were cut short by greed for power and a police force taking illegal orders from a cowardly regime of thieves. They carried the hopes of their families for a better life. Their blood is on Mwizi Kibaki and his SH bandits.

Their blood is not in vain. We join their families in denouncing their killing and demand justice. Out of their graves shall emerge energy to keep the liberation struggle alive. One day, the victims of the third and final liberation will be eulogised approprioately. Look at the names of our heroes, killed by the police in their killing olympics. It is reported that some of the uniformed murderers were mungiki taking orders from a police commander in Kericho with deep connections to the ruling elite in the bandit presidency of Mwizi Kibaki.

All these incidences of deaths at the hands of uniformed gangs and police officers happened in the opposition ODM strongholds. Contrast that with what happened in Naivasha where marauding mungiki recruits wre yelling at rival tribes with the police not doing anything (see picture on left).

Naivasha witnessed cases of open police bias with mungiki chasing and burning 19 children in a house. They were captured on camera and reported saying "This is Kikuyu land!" was the cry in Naivasha from one side, which called for revenge against the rival Luo tribe."We want peace, but we (also) want to fight them," said Peter Mwangi, a 20-year-old acrobat. "We don't want Luos here." Yet the police were asking for information leading to their arrest. All the evidence is on video, what else do they need.

Click on the file to see the details of those killed by mungiki and police