Kenya: In Diplomatic Intensive Care

And that is from Time.

Give me talk, any time, over war. And it seems that it may work this time. I am surprised, and grateful. I have read the Time article, and find them well informed. Interesting thing for a truly African crisis. In the way it came about and the way it is playing out.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon jetted into Kenya on Friday for a round of talks aimed at easing Kenya's post-election crisis, traveling what has been a path well-trodden by high-profile diplomats as the world tries to keep the chaos here from mutating into all-out ethnic war. Already in Kenya was Ban's predecessor, Kofi Annan, who is mediating negotiations between President Mwai Kibaki's government and the opposition Orange Democratic Movement of Raila Odinga, who claims that Kibaki's associates stole the vote through massive vote rigging. Nelson Mandela's wife, Graca Machel, who is a U.N. expert on humanitarian issues as well as a former First Lady of Mozambique, has flown in to help bring the parties together. Former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mpaka is here, Ghana's President John Kufuor came and went, and South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa, a businessman who helped negotiate an end to apartheid, is expected to arrive shortly.

And I must say that the good will of the international community is impressing me. Yeah, ulterior motives. But guess, even to me, this affects me more than the Darfur conflict, or the rebel advance in Chad. Purely selfish reasons.

Analysts say there are many reasons for Kenya to get so more attention: It is an economic hub whose port delivers supplies to Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia and South Sudan; and it is an important U.S. ally in the War on Terror. And the potential for even greater mayhem in Kenya remains high. Both Annan and former U.S. President Bill Clinton have acknowledged their failure to prevent or stop the Rwanda genocide. And while western pundits may dismiss the comparison, for Kenyans, the fear of a second Rwanda is very real.

A second Rwanda. That is a thought that chills me to the bone.

The diplomats are venturing into a country with a power vacuum. "I think Kibaki is getting very poor advice. He's showing no personal leadership in this crisis; I'm not quite sure who around him is making the decisions," says Richard Leakey, the world famous paleontologist and chairman of WildlifeDirect.org, who is active in Kenyan politics as an anti-corruption campaigner. "I think that's a large part of the problem — the country feels at sea without a captain. But ODM has made some pretty outrageous statements too. Everybody is playing bad guy on this and nobody is trying to play good guy."

Now, can someone tell those dastardly politicians in Kenya to ‘Get out of the Way’!!

Usikelele Afrika. God bless Africa

GayUganda

PS. Leakey was wondering who is making the decisions around Mr Kibaki. Well, I have a guess. His wife. The one who insists that she is the First and not the Second Wife, and slaps functionaries who dare mistake her for the first wife. err, my fingers are allowed to slip? After all, it is my blog!

Dare To Hope

Because we dare not not hope.



The delay was caused by ... officials who were not happy about the seating arrangements.


the country is burning, day by day, hour by hour. And the leaders are in a tense standoff, to decide who sits where before they talk to each other.



...short speeches by Mr Kibaki and Mr Odinga that did offer some hope.

Both men appealed for an end to the appalling violence that has threatened to tear Kenya apart, and both said they were committed to the talks process.

There was no point-scoring, no playing to the gallery.

Sometimes our priorities are skewed. Not only them, even mine. Just have to remember that we are human beings, liable to make mistakes. Sorry, indeed is a magic word, which has a healing capacity and magic, both to the person who has been wronged, and the one who has done the wrong.

Some things cannot be righted. But we can say that we are sorry, and pledge to move on.

Kenyans look up to you; do not let them down at this hour of need

Kofi Annan

GayUganda

Kenya Bleeds. Let the Elders intervene

My mind, and heart, and soul are with our neighbour to the east.

She was so calm, she seemed dull. Now the fires, embers have been fanned, and she is ablaze. I quail before that heat.

It is almost comically funny. Because we are dark-skinned, the lighter skinned races on earth are prejudiced to look down on us, a lot. (I am, and will seek to remain, painfully politically incorrect, as long as it is a truth that I write of, as I see it!) Yet many people fail to see our racism. Oh, yes, we are racist, in upbringing, in outlook, in the way we look at the lighter skinned races, the Indians, Asians etc. In Africa, the African is politically not incorrect to be racist. It is expected.

And we are extremely clannish.

My ethnic group is my identity. When we vote in elections it is Kikuyu against Luo, and Acholi against a Munyankore.

From the Kenyan point of view (depends whether you are Kikuyu or Luo), the Kikuyus have either won or stolen the election. Now they control the government and the government soldiers and police is killing the Luos. Maintaining law and order, according to another point of view.

Police shooting live bullets into the crowd. That is something that is going to inflame tensions. Yes, for a short time, people may flee the bullets. But they will go back home and brood, and try to find a way of hitting back at the government.

The president is Kikuyu, so they will seek to torch the homes of their Kikuyu neighbours, and will burn Kikuyu children sheltering in a church.

Madness and Chaos. True.

And listen to the rhetoric of the politicians. Despite the church and homes burning, despite the children massacred, the pangas sharpened, they cannot talk to one another.

Is Africa hopeless?

No. We are not.

So, what can be done?

Last year, a group of elderly statesmen and influential people formed a non partisan pressure group to work behind the scenes in the worlds pressure spots. They call themselves the Elders. They include Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Bill Clinton and others.

This situation is made for them.

We venerate old age. The elderly man, in our patriarchal societies, is the voice of wisdom and god. Kibaki is an irascible old man. He was once thought to have western progressive ideals. He might still, maybe. Odinga is not much different. These are guys who have grown arrogant in their demigod status as African leaders. They are African men, they are African leaders, almost royalty to their constituencies. So, who can have them talk together, though war and genocide looms in the country they all do love?

If the elders send in Bill Clinton, both will see a white man who does not understand what is happening. He does not understand the pride and prejudice that has been their heritage into their old ages. Bill Clinton was a mortal man who even at the top of his service to his nation, was hounded by his detractors, shamefully, by a woman! Odinga and Kibaki will not understand him. They would despise him. I know Gordon Brown has spoken to both, but the passions currently present are not logical from the western point of view. Threats of economic embargo, and pariah status in the outside world when put against the adulation of the nation and the clan and tribe pale into insignificance in Africa.

Museveni, who happens to be chair to the Commonwealth, is another discredited leader. He is in the ilk of Kibaki, and that is what Odinga will see.

The Elders. Mainly men, in patriarchal Africa. Venerated. Demigod status. They do not have to be perfect. They just have to want to do something about what is happening.

Desmond Tutu is too western in thinking. Too tied down into ‘Christian’ ideals to remember that our ideals are a mix of western Christian and African. And that the African dominate. Yet a man who could dare the wrath of a killing mob is worth of note. Mandela has not been too troubled by this. He does still think like an African chief of old. At least that is my assessment.

Amongst the elders, Mandela may be the one to get the Kenyan Kibaki and Odinga to talk.

Kenya bleeds. Let the Elders intervene.

GayUganda