Kibaki and Raila overdue/ripe for arrest and trial at The Hague

When the ICC process with regard to Kenya's 2008 post-electoral violence began almost everybody in the country (at least superficially) was an ardent Hague-lover. In hindsight I believe this was primarily based on the fact that most people hoped, wished and imagined that it is the other side (depending on where they stood on the political divide) would get it bad.

All perceived enemies would be made to properly roast for whatever injustice -- real or imagined -- that each individual or faction ecstatically concocted in fantasies about the justice that would be meted out by The Hague based ICC. This pleasure could only have been increased with the knowledge that once one was swallowed into the ICC process (unlike the local judicial system) it would be extremely difficult to wriggle out -- oh how wonderful it was, a tamper proof guillotine for enemies.

The ICC delusion did not last very long, particularly for the political class who in any case are the standard target for the ICC. The dubious selection of those to be tried, the still more dubious dismissal of charges against  two of the suspects and simply a greater awareness about how international politics is intertwined with the ICC has left many Kenyans confounded. But to be quite honest not that rueful -- for the ordinary Kenyan it is refreshing to see the rich for a change crying, squirming and desperately scratching walls for escape routes.

Nevertheless most Kenyans now waver between supporting and opposing the court; while the ranks of opposers has swelled that of supporters has been diminishing and it has been reduced to an oddly group -- especially amongst the political class and other vested interests.

Few ICC fans today can avoid falling into to two broad categories -- those who support it for political reasons and those who innocently and ignorantly hold onto the belief that the ICC is the best course towards achieving justice for the PEV (Post Election Violence) victims.

Whether be it in The Hague or here in Kenya, for the victims 'justice' has become a diversionary tactic to suppress their calls, their real needs and struggles. It is the mother of all maggots; in the name of this 'justice' that is being elusively sought everywhere they get to be tear gassed while the rest of the country and the ICC continue to cry crocodile tears for their suffering. Even at this very moment they are being brutally forced out of the rapidly disappearing camps, not because they want to or that they have some place to go but because they have become an eyesore and a pestilence unto the government.

In respect of the ongoing process the remaining Hague-lovers have various elegant reasons for supporting the ICC. The most common one is the one surrounding the fight against impunity. Here is how it goes:

If all the ICC suspects and primarily William Ruto and Uhuru Kenyatta were to go scot free, and the charges against them dismissed peremptorily then the actual murderers and habitual perpetrators of electoral violence will be emboldened. Impunity will graduate to an even higher rank.

In this event any future measures locally to seek justice and retribution for the PEV victims will be automatically hamstrung. The suspects -- from high ranking officials to the ordinary citizens -- will vehemently oppose and repudiate their culpability for the atrocities they either committed or accessorized. They will never peaceably submit to a trial, whether or not there is sufficient evidence and legal basis for such accusations.

This is supposedly set to arise out of the fact that if the political class is deemed not culpable for the 2008 post-poll violence nor bear any responsibility then why should junior officers and ordinary fellows accept to be held accountable? Any recourse to justice through the courts at that point will be deemed farcical scape-goating, outright malice and hypocrisy of the highest order.

For in all honesty it is the political class that fights for political power and positions. It is they who incite and rally the people to 'oppose' the perceived devils, foes and enemies. It is the politicians who define, identify and set who the 'legitimate' or acceptable targets are. All these are and always have been the functions of the political class and communal leadership in Kenya's history of post-electoral violence. In this respect the people often see themselves only acting in defense of their communal interests by 'fighting' or 'eliminating' what has already been defined by the political leaders as the threats.

So the witty ones in the ICC bandwagon argue that by nailing to the cross William Ruto and Uhuru Kenyatta, the only remaining politicians at the Hague and salient members of Kenya's political class, a resounding wake-up call will be sent out and reverberate throughout Kenya's political landscape: A potent unambiguous and awe evoking deterrent for post-electoral violence and impunity in Kenya and Africa at large. 

At least that is the fairy tale script that the proponents of the ICC process have in mind and from which they partially keep feeding us the less controversial parts. That is what they want you to believe -- if you don't meekly accept Ruto and Uhuru to go through the ongoing ICC sacrifice ritual, then Kenyans will keep murdering each other after every election till kingdom come. Nonsense.

When the individual members of the Kalenjin community were burning Kikuyus in a church in Kiambaa or when they were razing down retired president Moi's (the most eminent Kalenjin in Kenya) property in Eldama Ravine, were they merely acting out of political reasons that Ruto had programmed into them or was that just a traditional pretext that they had been accustomed to and easily came to them as second nature?

Let us get this straight, although the violence was indeed spontaneous in eruption the underlying grievances, prejudice, motives and the 'technical' expertise in carrying out organized attacks during post-electoral violence are long established realities on the ground amongst the Kalenjin. No one needs to go around to tell people to do what they have been doing for decades; all that is needed is the 'right' kind of foul mood and a small trigger and everything would take the same predictable course over a vast and wide area.

So in my view during the PEV in 2008 the Kalenjin were merely manifesting some sort of age-set handover through perpetration of violence that is in part buttressed by cultural inculcation of tribal prejudice against other communities and a myopic recourse (a short cut that is availed during each election over the last twenty years) the growing pressures of insufficient land. 

That is, during these PEV episodes the youths are often riled up and eager to earn their colours by exhibiting their own martial superiority and to perpetuate the myth of warlike invincibility of the Kalenjin over the other tribes. In the process they also get to temporarily and if lucky permanently kick out the 'alien' and 'greedy' occupiers from 'Kalenjin' land.

Politicians need to give little incentive to these marauding and willing bands of 'warriors'. This is the most potent piece in the jigsaw puzzle of post electoral violence in Riftvalley that is often ignored; without youths feeling pressed to prove their masculinity and warrior-worthiness there wouldn't be as many cases of widespread violence. Traditions, myths about invincibility that help to shape ethnic identity and a culture of prejudice come together to provide the adhesive and template for post-electoral violence.

Needless to say this is a culture and mentality that urgently needs to be dealt with in a manner that would permanently dissuade the youth from engaging in violence to prove their manhood without leaving them feeling robbed of their Kalenjin identity and somehow making them 'diluted' weakling versions of their ancestors. The very things they are trying to fight i.e. they are trying to prove themselves as worthy warriors and denizens of the Kalenjin nation by their flippant murdering and engaging in arson.

If peaceful engagement, workshops, seminars and sensitization does not work then the state apparatus is obligated to use brutal, overwhelming force at it's disposal. Specifically targeting the youth and purposely aimed at sending a chilling message to all of them -- forever breaking this cycle of pubescent violence and Kalenjin myth of invincibility. If the Mungiki submitted under a Kikuyu presidency, the marauding Kalenjin youths and their parents who egg them on must be sent a similar message. If you live by the sword you should expect to die by the sword -- not to gain and boast about it to the next generation.

In civilized states, violence and force is a monopoly of the government, lawfully granted to it and regulated by a constitution. Anybody else who pretends to use force and violence for whatever reason is a pretender to the throne and must quickly be brought to heel. So besides the Kalenjin youth, the Gor Mahia fans should by now be suffering routinely  from broken limbs and broken skulls. Midnight crackdowns that smoke them out from their bedrooms in Kibera, and such . . .otherwise the mayhem will go on.

Going back to the PEV of 2008, the Kikuyu on the other side believed they were under imminent threat of annihilation, particularly in Riftvalley. It is such kind of post-electoral attacks that had in fact even led to the formation of counteracting militias and vigilantes, the most eminent one being Mungiki and the Chinkororo and Sungusungu amongst the Kisii. So as the Kikuyu began to shore up their defences and to build up the momentum and morale amongst their 'warriors' they in turn started to recklessly murder other minority groups and tribes in their midst.

This particularly the perceived ODM affiliated groups such as the Luo, the Luhya and even the Kisii who were mostly affiliated to the Kikuyu and were being butchered in greater numbers by the Kalenjin and the Luo on the western part of the country. Ironically, the Kalenjin, the people who Kikuyu anger and wrath was primarily directed at barely suffered from most of the Kikuyu- Mungiki led blows. The Luo on their part became as murderous as the rest in th anarchy bandwagon and most of the running battles in Nairobi were between the Kikuyu youths and their Luo counterparts. The police simply shot those they perceived as most troublesome at any point in time.

The chaos in most other parts of the country was mainly manifested in the form of vandalism and looting as order broke down that was haphazardly carried out both against enemy and ally tribes.

In retrospect people were killing each other for many other underlying reasons than just politics. Tribal animosity, negative ethnicity that espouses a condescending attitude towards other ethnic groups, bigoted prejudice was in my view a greater cause of these massacres. People had already a bone to pick with each other; they just needed a convenient field to fight it out. The fact that the conflict in hotspots amongst communities mainly coincided with the fault lines along political and ethnic rivalries only served to intensify the violence; for the targets were clearly set in the minds of individuals, they were in plenty and for the most part easy to pick out. Ill-feeling and ill-will was plenty and overflowing, it had been a decade since these feeling had last been played out and released through PEV.

But these ill-feelings and ill-will don't sprout out of nowhere like mushrooms and toadstools. They cannot arise of their own accord, somebody must be cultivating and arduously cooking them for some gain. Of course it is the politicians for who else would it be; they are certified culprits when it comes to inciting PEV. As I had stated earlier this is one of the reasons the Hague lovers would want some amongst the political ilk to roast for such terrible manners. I have no quarrel with that and I would agree with that kind of pitchfork, lynch-some-rich-politicians self-righteous rage mentality; only that I don't think sacrificing William Samoei Ruto and Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta at the altar of the ICC is even remotely sufficient. This makes the whole ICC thing unabashedly callous, unfair and totally unnecessary.

Let me demonstrate:

Assume that for a moment that Ruto was as evil, conniving and blood-thirsty as Ocampo and Raila would want us to believe. That for months before the ill-fated 2007 December elections Ruto sat with various Kalenjin 'commanders' and plotted the murder, mass rape and expulsion of mainly Kikuyu men, women and children from the Riftvalley. That it was his vision to diligently prepare and bring into fruition the arson and wanton destruction of property worth millions and millions of shillings. Then with such elaborate preparations does it not escape some sense how such a considerable number of Kikuyu made it out at all out of Kalenjin heartland -- given that after the swearing in of Kibaki there was greater urgency and need to kill them for going a step further to infuriate the Kalenjin by 'stealing' the elections?

William Ruto, his Kalenjin constituency and many of the ODM supporters fervently believed they would win the 2007 elections.

 In this light Ruto's alleged plan to commit atrocities against non-ODM tribes rings hollow for then it would mean that Ruto had planned for months to have thousands of people killed and hundreds of thousands expelled from the Riftvalley as some sort of election victory or New Year's gift to only the Kalenjin. With victory at hand and what he would have stood to gain from that alone, for what reason would he have gone through the troubles of plotting massacres for? Again I ask . . . WHAT FOR?

Perhaps Raila knows? Raila must certainly know for he above anyone else would have been privy and a chief co-planner alongside Ruto in such a plot. Ruto and Raila Odinga it must be remembered at this time were nothing less than Siamese twins -- that is how close they were. They hated the same people (PNU and the Kikuyu bandwagon), they fought the same fights and they even plotted and cooked up the same intrigues.

Can you imagine anything other than that it is a blatant lie? For otherwise Raila and his hordes of Luo intellectuals and strategists are the most stupid, naive and politically blind bunch of nincompoops who ever walked on the face of this planet; if they trully didn't have an inkling of what their Kalenjin comrades (amongst whom being a fair share of loud mouths) were upto. Plotting genocides and such. Such a plot would obviously have had serious political ramifications for the Kalenjin, it is incredible that the Kalenjin leaders would accept to bear such responsibility and cost alone -- given that the Luo and Raila would have been some sort of major beneficiaries as well.

Even if Raila denies his complicity (in the fictitious Kalenjin master plan to kill the Kikuyu in 2008) it can only mean that it was ODM's money that was being used to fund nothing less than a full fledged genocide. Do you know why Rwanda's Felicien Kabuga is an international fugitive? He is said to have funded the Rwandese genocide. Raila should shut up, this time for his own good.

Rather than Ruto (who during that fateful time and height of the PEV was honourably doing his duty and defending Raila to the hilt at the KICC; a loyal comrade to his party boss to the last minute) it is the ODM's entire so called 'Pentagon' that should be at the Hague for funding mass rape, murder and genocide. Amongst those at such a ceremonious event (the arraignment of all ODM party big wigs at the ICC) there at the forefront should be one Raila Odinga. Like the child soldiers it can be argued that the Kalenjin nation was merely used a tool . . . a cheap means to Raila's and ODM's diabolical ends.

On the PNU side, Uhuru Kenyatta is the man who is said to have rushed to the ground in aid of the Kikuyu who were being massacred ostensibly because of Kibaki's controversial swearing in. It was because of Kibaki, on behalf of Kibaki, for the personal interests of Kibaki and even perhaps at the behest of Kibaki that Uhuru Kenyatta was even anywhere near anything remotely to do with the PEV. The same can be said of Francis Muthaura.

The fact that these two men are not push-overs and that they could call their own shots with regards to the PEV, nonetheless the over-arching interests they were acting for were those of Kibaki.

If the Mungiki were called upon and rallied from elsewhere in the country to help their Kikuyu kin in Naivasha they were also called upon on the political account and on behalf of Kibaki's own personal interests. If Kibaki had resigned at that point it is known that there wouldn't have been as much tension . . . especially to the point of calling upon the outlawed Mungiki. Remove Kibaki from the equation and there is no rational explanation left for Muthaura's actions and Uhuru turns into a bizarre busy body, one not worth being even near a law court in Kenya, leave alone the ICC.

It is Kibaki's own political, moral and legal responsibility to account for the actions of men who directly acted under his own authority and sway. In the very least alongside Muthaura and Uhuru Kenyatta, Kibaki and other PNU rabble rousers should be at The Hague.

But this is madness, we can't have Kenya's entire top political class standing trial at the Hague . . . justice or not it would be ridiculous and denigrating for this country's sovereignty. That is why it is fitting, fair and sufficient for a new charge sheet to be prepared at the ICC. Whereupon there would be an expedient and immediate arrest of Kibaki and Raila as those most responsible and who bear the greatest political responsibility; alongside those unfortunately already before the court at the Hague. They after all (the principals) can carry bigger crosses due to their stature and the deterrence message will be far much more clearer for Kenyans.

Shameless criminal! Worthless daydreamer! Lazy mongrel! Nonsensical propaganda! Only a paid idiot and an incorrigible inciter can think of such abominable things! --- I imagine that is what the reaction of Kibaki and Raila would be if they actually read this blog post.

But seriously, if the immediate arrest of Raila and Kibaki and their speedy presentation at the Hague is untenable, unpalatable and completely detrimental to interests of this country, then I say it is ten times so (legally and morally) for the Ocampo 4 to be left to hang at the Hague.

Kibaki seems to be doing his part to undo the ugly ICC business. But for political expediency Raila is fanning the flames and shamelessly kicking Ruto's head into the boiling pot of the ICC, whilst he himself has no moral authority whatsoever to do so. If Raila was still thinking for himself (and not Caroli Omondi, his PA)  he would know that he is obligated to help them despite their silly selves (as he had been doing before); If for nothing else then for his own personal interests. On the other hand if he thinks the ICC is so fair he should offer to surrender himself to it at anytime, better yet take himself there to account for his utterances and the actions of the ODM side during the PEV, being such a just, brave and principled leader.

Thus I say, either we ship all those who were at the pinnacle of the political leadership during the poll violence to the ICC (whether the ICC wants to prosecute them or not; it would be fulfilling enough to have them pushed into the guillotine even for a day) or we stop burying our heads in the sand and acknowledge that this Hague thing is a wicked game being played with a few individual's lives for political expediency yet it is we as a country who are guilty for the PEV. Truth be told, do you see in the deeper recess of your mind anything like justice written anywhere in this Hague charade?  The ICC is nothing more than a private clinic whose owners will demand some form of payment for 'curing' our PEV ailment . . . that is perhaps why Raila is so favoured by the West, he might have already auctioned some unknown part of our sovereignty or future to who knows whom for this costly ICC game.

The feistiness with which the remaining ICC suspects (particularly Ruto and Uhuru) have been fighting this very real threat to their personal freedom might be easily misconstrued as a blatant manifestation of impunity. But wouldn't you fight with whatever means and at whatever platform such a threat aimed at your own freedom?

Try to imagine, if the tables were turned and it was Raila and some of his Luo henchmen who were trembling and quaking at the sight of the ICC noose -- do you think they would 'behave' and be quiet as Raila is telling Ruto and Kenyatta to be? Raila would plead his innocence from every slum roof and pebble-like platform in and outside this country; he would even print it on Uhuru Kenyatta's Brookside milk packets and Superloaf bread wrappers. In bold print, your Unga packet will have 'Jameni Nasua Raila'.

Let us be fair we either take them all there to the ICC, or we bring them all back home -- anything in between is hypocritical and a vile and vicious form of politicking. 

M. Wycliff,
Nairobi.

GEMA: Please Stop the Mental Rape

The Greyhorn is one utterly exasperated ruminator. Try hard as he may and no matter how earnestly he vows to himself that he shall no longer bother writing about tribal politics in Kenya, the ugly tentacled fiend of ethnicized politics just keeps dragging his thoughts and intellect into that sorry subject.

It has become a sordid, recursive game of abandoning and re-abandoning this most unsavoury of topics. Ask anybody on any street or village trail in Kenya and they would acknowledge that tribal politics is something worth fighting and vanquishing -- the only problem for Greyhorn has been how to fight this vice objectively without being consumed, obsessed and without being possessed by that very same demon!

Now GEMA is an acronym that stands for Gikuyu (variant of Kikuyu), Embu, Meru Association {perhaps soon to include Akamba and doing away with 'Association'?} which are all tribes found in central Kenya. Amongst other things GEMA has become a by-word for tribal conglomeration and ganging up on tribal lines in the quest to attain political ascendancy and supremacy. It is also Greyhorn's belief that GEMA is a thin veil for something far much more flagrant and wicked -- an aggressive, negative and bellicose promotion of Kikuyu supremacy.

Before I get to the urgent business of soundly rubbishing the semi-'racist' GEMA for all it's worth, there are a few things that I feel need to be made clear.

First and foremost I personally find nothing wrong (and there will never be anything wrong) with community based organizations that strive to uplift it's members' welfare. We are all on this planet called Earth working ourselves to death for one reason and one reason only -- to uplift our standards of living and to live fulfilling quality lives. Any positive course of action towards this end should be commended and encouraged. If they be through community based organizations that lawfully voice and fight for the socio-economic welfare of it's members, then good for all of us.

Secondly, in political matters there is also nothing wrong for people sharing the same culture, traditions, language and whose members live and come from the same geographical location to sit together and determine their leadership structure. Even more importantly how they can play a more effective role and be adequately represented and be heard in national affairs. That is the reality all over the world.

 Beginning to imagine it as totally unacceptable simply because you might not be represented in such a group's interests is immersing oneself into the realm of futile self-pity, jealousy and envy. Just band your community together and make your own tribal outift; that way the other outfits are bound to pause and listen . . . perhaps they themselves would even begin to wonder if tribal outfits are actually the best way to go! More simply it is something that we just have to live with regardless of the fact whether we may like it or not.

Finally tribal and cultural consciousness is something innately human. It is something that is better exploited in a positive way rather than making attempts to quash or suppress such strong sentiments. (Even in Tanzania where tribalism is celebrated as a dead thing you will still see it crop up from time to time -- there are still pesky tribal stereotypes that have simply refused to remain dead, such as the one about the Chagga and their inordinate love for money). Cultural organizations -- a subset of tribal agglomeration and agglutination -- are known to be good ways of preserving cultural diversity, languages (and so forth) into posterity.

But I daresay this GEMA is none of these things. When GEMA was founded by Njenga Karume in the 1970s he pre-eminently had one thing in mind -- perpetuate Kikuyu domination and control of the Kenyan state apparatus by the Kikuyu. As he perceived it in his own crude way political power was to remain firmly in Kikuyu hands for eternity. (For the umpteenth time I do urge you to read David Throup’s treatise which is posted in this blog and you can judge the veracity of this claim for yourself).

Therefore GEMA in essence was created for one main purpose (the rest are simply for camouflage purposes) and that was it's founders contrived to politically subjugate and economically dominate (enslave really) all the other communities till kingdom come! Yes, if you are not a Kikuyu or a member of one of the GEMA communities, GEMA envisages the role of a subject and virtually a mindless slave for you! By ganging up all the Kikuyu together and their overwhelming economic might and human resource they really do believe they can run this country according to their whimsical wishes forever.

The GEMA philosophy was and still is an abhorrent, myopic and hateful philosophy. That is why the Attorney General at that time -- the foresighted Charles Njonjo, himself a Kikuyu elite -- fought GEMA and the insidious mentality it espoused with all his might.  Njonjo could see and perceive (as an educated fellow, including many of his intellectual peers such as Kibaki- the current president) that this was hamstringing the entire Kikuyu community and their GEMA allies for the short-term benefit of a few crude  politicians and a bandwagon of idiotic and rapacious Kikuyu businessmen.

When Moi (a Kalenjin) ascended to the presidency, GEMA (which had feverishly worked to prevent Moi from becoming Kenya's second president because he was not a Kikuyu) dissipated and it's members ran for cover. By nature the Kikuyu extremism espoused by GEMA had been inimical to the idea of Moi and his non-Kikuyuness and therefore when the tables turned the last thing Moi would have been jolly about is GEMA or anything GEMA-like in Kenya's political landscape. More so given the heart rendering humiliation the leading members of GEMA had put him through (while he was the Vice President under Kenyatta). Moi (theoretically the second most powerful person in Kenya) would be slapped by his Kikuyu juniors in the civil service and harassed at police road blocks in broad daylight, leaving this grown man to cry in anger and embarrassment. It is a small miracle that he did not have the whole lot of them hanged when he assumed power.

Thus during the 23 years of Moi's gruesome reign, GEMA remained a word that would be uttered in whispers. Unsurprisingly, immediately a Kikuyu president (Kibaki) was graciously put on the 'throne' (this time by an overwhelming and direct mandate of the Kenyan people) the cancerous GEMA and it's tribal ideology based on Kikuyu supremacy emanated like a phantom from some graveyard in central Kenya to breath once again staleness and morbid tribalism into the minds of the Kikuyu.

After the 2008 crisis Kenya was supposed to have undergone a paradigm shift; which means wholesome change of the mental conditioning and attitudinal perspectives in this country. The most salient of these was to have been in the way we think about politics.

But here we are in 2012 and the best the ingrate Kikuyu leaders can come up with is the misfit, tribal and reactionary ideology of GEMA. All of a sudden everybody in central Kenya is being urged to think like a 20th Century charcoal burner in the belief that some political gold would come out of this silly business; in the very least it is a callous move that is beset with peril on all sides.

When trully will our leaders accept (not just blabber about it) that the political landscape, the political consciousness of Kenyans and that even the constitutional threshold has changed? The latter day GEMA charcoal burners are a misguided bunch of political arsonists that will light up this country with tribal inferno.

Nothing became or came out of GEMA in the far much more propitious seventies -- it only galvanized everybody, including Kikuyu moderates against it's sordid aims. This GEMA can even be blamed for having done more than any other single factor in helping Moi come to power through the hateful and disrespectful manner they treated him. What makes those touting Kikuyu supremacy now that if they endorse a muthamaki (leader) who knows how to snuff tobacco (rũara) that the rest of us will tag along?

What irks me the most is that if today I decided to ‘convert’ from merely being Kikuyu-philiac to an honorary Kikuyu, I still won’t qualify to be a full member amidst those ‘racists’ in GEMA. They will probably butt me out to the periphery of the organization into some spanner boy, something like what Raphael Tuju used to be in NARC and PNU.

In fact being half-and-half Kalenjin and Kisii, they would probably bluntly tell me they don’t want mkate nusus (half-loafs) in their organization.  My late father once told me that there is no such thing as half-tribe or half-cast, and I better accept early that I will be known simply as another Kalenjin till I die.  In my mind I just thought he did not want to share a son with my mother’s tribe. I’m now worried that he might have been more accurate than even he himself knew – increasingly one is nowhere in Kenya without a solid tribal identity, at least that is what GEMA,  Raila and his obnoxious Luo hordes, FORD-Kenya and it’s Luhya bandwagon, MRC, Wiper etc seem to be hammering into my hardened, idealist head.

Even though am trully Kikuyu by socialization, some Kikuyu idiot (whom I would be fluently speaking to in Kikuyu) would have probably hacked me to death in 2008 in some place like Naivasha simply because my identity card clearly spells out I am Kalenjin!  (In those vengeful times that would have meant I was something absolutely worth hacking in Kikuyu territory.) This is madness! And yet GEMA is adding onto, not reducing, this tribal lunacy!

In conclusion, despite the colourful language I tend to use, I am not in the business of riling up hate and anger against anybody because I believe that I personally stand to lose the most; I sincerely pray that my opinions should not be cast in such light. As always this is an ardent appeal to our senses as a nation and this time particularly to my Kikuyu kinsmen and brothers. I urge that there should be change in tack or in the very least to change the GEMA name for this movement. This will detach and dissociate the quest of finding a single leader to voice the concerns and to represent central Kenya in national matters from the hateful, denigrating and tribal philosophy behind GEMA.

As for the rest of us, the non-GEMA Kenyans, I hope you are awakened to the fact that this new GEMA move and whatever it's objectives might be, is not forcing anyone to vote for their chosen leader (at least not yet) and Kenyans can reject him peacefully at the polls.

Finally I would like to imagine that somebody is thinking of ways of mitigating the harm that would have been done once this GEMA game would have served it's purpose.  That is what to do with the ugly emotions that would remain as the result of the roused tribal consciousness and what would become of the defaced tribal identities of the GEMA communities once they are fused with short-term politicking and the fate of a few leaders.

With all these worries, I really do feel like seeking some spiritual comfort in intercessional prayers for this country. But alas! I can’t even go to a prayer rally or church without running the risk of getting right in the middle of this very same brand of politics. The politicians (down to the councillors) have fused and tainted prayers and spiritualism with politics. It is the new political fad and crowd gimmick in Kenya. There is simply no solace from bombardment with political invectives, most of them based around tribes and personalities.

M. Wycliff,

Nairobi.

The ABOCO Monstrosity: China - Africa's darling partner and soon to be ruthless master

ABOCO (Africa Bending-Over to China's Overlordship) is an acronym of Greyhorn's own making. It refers to the undignified and dangerous manner Africa is exposing it's vulnerable economies to China's domination. (A quick view of the Jamaican dancehall tune -Bend Over- will bring the point home; an apt revelation of how 'Bending Over' is an utterly disgusting and degrading thing. This being what I want the reader to feel about China free ranging into Africa's economies).

Any person who has pedestrian knowledge of empires and major global powers would know that it is always a delicate balance for smaller powers to get their own strategic needs met vis-a-vis those of major powers. The objective: Political and economic co-existence without being trampled, subsumed or subjugated with the bigger power.  It is like having to routinely eat from the same diminishing bowl of rice with a selfish gluttonous warlord who has his battle axe at his side . . . gleefully daring you to empty the plate.

China is no in different. In fact China has been a great power in one form or the other for the better part of 3,000 years which makes China's rise nothing even remotely close to a novelty. What it trully is, is a mere and natural reclamation of China's so called 'rightful place' in the global pecking order . . .  one that had been temporarily usurped by the much smaller European powers by means of their technological advancement.

The West has never really been blind (or comfortable) with China's potential given it's vastness and large pool of human resources. It was not even an open secret, it was just an ugly fact for the West that as long as there was a single polity in China, it could only be a matter of time before that unconquerable Oriental giant regained it's traditional influence.  This then has been a source of nagging worry and anxiety for various sections of Western political thinking and military leaders for the better of the last century. Things have changed; it is no longer a thing to be worried about . . . it is something to be absolutely paranoid about.

One needs just to look at the frantic ganging up of the Americans with the Japanese, South Koreans, Australians, various other Asian states and the EU into various economic and military alliances against the growing might of China to realize how worried everybody else is (other than the usual myopic stragglers) of China's increasingly dominant position in the global economy.

The only people who are oblivious or who are actively cheering on China are those who had been smothered into perpetual economic subjugation by the dying Anglo-Saxon and European hegemony -- Africa, South America and other third world countries.  And then there is the weird polity called Russia. Nobody knows for certain what the Russians want or what they make of this growing Chinese preponderance. Perhaps they are just too confused by the leadership of Vladmir Putin to bother or it could be that they are still vindictive against the West as a hangover from the Soviet era and thus they would cheer on any nemesis of the West.

The feigned shock with China's rise -- which is rampantly being bartered in the mostly Western controlled international media -- is one that is solely based on the fact that the West has to ruefully accept that China’s economic re-emergence has come under a communist authoritarian regime and not a capitalist, 'democratic' one. A terrible and fateful historical misplacement; especially given the fact that it came so soon after the fulfilling failure (for the Yankees and allies) of the communist Soviet experiment.

{Around 550 years ago the French mystic and seer, Nostradamus foretold the fall and eventual re-emergence of China as a major power in the early part of this millennium. This was when the Ming Dynasty with an archaic army of over one million men was still a force to reckon with; the Chinese Imperial Army was a giant surrounded by midgets, for it was numerically bigger than all the standing armies of Europe, indeed the world, put together. Well, numerically China still has the biggest army in the world but even in terms of numbers it is still not as awesome as three hundred years ago, when China alone accounted for over half the number of soldiers in standing armies (peacetime armies) in the world}.

In it's natural intentions and geopolitical inclinations China is and can never be anything else other than an imperialist power. With no military wherewithal to advance her interests it has proven immensely more lucrative for China to undercut the Western powers economically.

With the capital glut and wealth that was cheaply harvested from the West's callous capitalist kleptoparasitism (which a short while ago had completely favoured the western end of the Northern Hemisphere) the West naturally got sloppy and complacent; particularly over the last half century. Western governments began to artificially place more economic value to their human capital through social welfare systems and labour laws. And why shouldn't they have? They had all the money in the world yet their populations had stagnated or in some cases had even began shrinking. So they arbitrarily placed a premium on Caucasian lives and labour.

This was a privilege that an impoverished and overpopulated China could not (and still cannot) afford. It has hundreds of millions of people to work to death and at dirt cheap prices therefore easily out-competing the rest of the world. 

The fact that these people could do nor say anything about it and that the authoritarian communist regime can still direct massive resources in whatever part of the country and outside the country in whichever way it sees fit, adds tonnes of strategic advantage to China's imperialist economic manoeuvers. Africa could better China if it were a single political entity under an authoritarian regime (democracy won’t do nor work, at least not as spectacularly -- India is the proof), we too have lots of people to cheaply work to death, people who are in any case dying of hunger and internecine tribal wars.

This economic sneaking-in and universal political pandering of China going under the guise and banner of a Chinese policy deceptively called 'Soft Power' is actually a ravenous push to get by stealth what cannot be sustainably obtained (as yet) by other coercive measures such as threat of military force.

The economic juggernaut in China has to a great extent been dependent on importation and acquisition of necessary resources from outside China. Oil from the Middle East and various kinds of raw materials and mineral wealth from Africa and other third world countries. Then of course there is money from Western and developed countries by means of providing markets for their products and through Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) etc. 

Without sustained economic growth in China to substitute for lack of individual and political freedoms China would right now be convulsing with violent social unrest. It is inconceivable the Chinese of today would acquiesce to being starved to death while at the same time being brutalized and imperiously lorded over by their authoritarian government as Mao Zedong and his communist cohorts did during Mao's reign.

The implicit contract between the China's Communist Party and the Chinese people that was arduously charted by Deng Xiaoping i.e.  “We will give you jobs and economic prosperity and in return we can stay on as authoritarian rulers” seems so far to have worked well. But the natural progression and the drivers of what has been spectacular economic growth sooner or later are bound to hit a limit, the bane lurking in all natural distribution curves.

In fact the incoming crop of China's leaders might very well be the last rulers under this authoritarian communist arrangement; for they are bound to be the last who would enjoy the cushion of unbridled economic growth. What will follow is a puzzle, but a revolution seems to be perilously in the offing -- one way or the other -- either a slow gradual one or the usual cataclysmic Chinese ones. The days of Mao Zedong's communist dynasty are for certain numbered.

All these things seem to be nothing more than an all Chinese affair that has nothing to do with those of us here in Africa, but unfortunately it has a lot to do with our future economic stability and our growing dependence on China as a substitute market to the West. This growing tie between Africa and China can only make us all the more vulnerable to such an eventuality. This is a real threat, not just to the economies of Africa, but in various unseen ways it also portends a real threat to national security all across the various states of Africa -- which I will be shortly coming to.

In certain quarters even here in Kenya a statement prophesying the demise of China might be deemed downright malicious. China's growth has been a wonderful blessing for Africa, add to this the allure of it's whitewashed imperial history -- the one in which China never 'colonized', 'enslaved' peoples or 'occupied' any country. How at the end of the 15th century they sent an embassy to Africa, how they always gave out more valuable presents than they received from the various City States along the East coast of Africa etc.

It has also not been lost to many in Africa that China has for a long time (since the seventies) been making huge generous gestures to African countries -- building stadia and fully equipped referral hospitals for free, graciously offering to pay and build various government office complexes and offering huge grants to build infrastructure (that are speedily built by Chinese firms).

The Chinese are also admired for working with little complaint and they seem to shun or abhor needless nagging -- this despite the fact that they are often thrown the most difficult, undesirable tasks that have to be done in extremely difficult conditions. The Chinese seem to do relatively far much more with minimal noise -- unlike Europeans and Americans who are perceived to be in the business of shouting from rooftops for each pebble they move and each penny they spend or donate . . . money which never fails to come with often demeaning herding of African diplomats through labyrinthine project protocols and conditions.  Western aid and grants in African minds has become synonymous with puppeteering, attachment of strings, reprehensible interference and ‘indignification’.

In contrast China has become synonymous with chapa kazi -- a Kiswahili phrase that takes meaning along the lines of utmost diligence and heroic efficiency. A Chinese civil works contractor would beat hands down a European or American firm in a popular vote anywhere in Kenya. They have attained such a high level of fame with their road construction projects that one would think such praise should be more fittingly reserved for mythical engineering demi-gods . . . unfortunately Kenyans have not been given the chance to know any such gods other than the Chinese. So Chinese efficacy might be questionable or in the very least untested.

It would also be accurate to say that China is now firmly clawed into Africa's soft underbelly.  Yet sadly, no African leader seems to be in a hurry to disengage his country and fewer still even seem cognizant of the Chinese danger; leave alone anyone of them putting their minds into how this death grip can be ameliorated or done away with going into the future.

Unlike previous imperial powers there is a certain set of circumstances with China that should always be kept in mind.

The first and most obvious one is that China has a seventh of the global population, which means one in every seven persons in this world is Chinese. These people are tightly packed in a country that is being seriously environmentally degraded and denuded by mind boggling industrial activity. The limited arable land has also been undergoing extreme transformation, over-use and traumatization. In short China is heaving at the limits to provide for it's large population, by hook or crook (and perhaps military force in the future) it must seek ways to meet the needs of it's people.

The largesse that Africa has been receiving from China are frantic bribes to ensure that China is not locked out of the only remaining cheap resource region in the world. The South Americans are already doing a good job in utilizing a bigger and growing chunk of their own natural resources which in any case are in high demand just north of their region.

Asia still has great promise for China, but being so close to the comparatively larger continent-sized China and the attendant quarrels amongst neighbours -- such as the South China Sea wrangles with Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and Indonesia -- the Asian states are understandably far much more wary of China than anybody else. Letting China's red hordes in (economically or by other means) is strategically unappealing as it might prove an uphill task to get them out once they are firmly rooted in the host country.

{This might have been the reason why the military junta in Myanmar made a sudden u-turn on it's relations with China. China's economic entrenchment in Myanmar was imprudently unmasked before full fruition by China's earnest push for more mega-projects that would have been costly to Myanmar in the long-term while most of the benefits would have accrued to China.

The avaricious and rapacious nature of the Chinese must have increasingly seemed -- even to the venal generals of Myanmar -- to be like the constricting grip of a python, slowly chocking out the legitimacy and authority of China’s puppet allies in Myanmar. Cut out and isolated from the rest of the world (at the behest and encouragement of China) Myanmar’s rulers were precipitously left at the mercy of China -- no wonder they jumped ship and immediately ran to the comforting bosom of the West.

 If corrupt, pampered generals in totalitarian Myanmar can ran away from China, why shouldn't African leaders be more cautious and prudent with the beguiling philosophy of China? That is, do business and don't ask questions -- especially about human rights, democracy and other such Western nonsense.}

Secondly, China has no apparent fallback plan if it's economic growth should suddenly collapse. The British Empire wasted into oblivion with little ramifications for a majority of Britons other than the nagging realization and feeling of being a lot more insignificant. The same was the case for the French colonial empire. The collapse of the Roman Empire left it's constituent parts still viable entities on their own and so on so forth.

The sudden collapse of the Chinese Empire would be something much less tolerable for it’s denizens and it would probably herald upheaval in unimaginable scales. This mainly lies in the fact that a divided and disintegrated China does not appear to be a good candidate for viable post-imperial prosperity. There would be far much less resources (that would not be under effective control for distribution) to be able to support China's bulging population.

So implosion and collapse of the central authority in China is not an option. Which in effect means the Chinese would sacrifice just about anything and anybody just to make sure they get what they need to continue some sort of agreeable existence. If that means economic colonization of Africa, then so it will be -- and they will do it without even flinching.

Meddling in the internal affairs of African countries is not a game that the imperial powers do out of fun; to them they are just protecting their strategic national interests at the cheapest possible cost. So supporting a rebel group here, assassinating a John Garang there, crushing a coup thereabouts, forcing the Kenyas, Zimbabwes and Ivory Coasts of this world to have coalition governments etc are all legitimate means for them. The International Criminal Court and twitter revolutions are other new techniques that they have availed themselves.

The claim by China, an imperial power that it would never interfere in the internal affairs of other countries should be taken as a polite lie -- they are already interfering, by omission and commission Sudan and Syria being good cases in point. This lie is necessitated by amongst other things the fact that China's rulers actually lack the legitimacy to rule that country -- they are in power by virtue of the martial force at their command. Chinese and non-Chinese people are heavily being breathed down by this ruthless dragon -- can you imagine the Chinese Communists practically swallowed a whole independent country called Tibet, and ever since they don't want to hear anything of it?

If you were a Chinese ruler wouldn't you silence everybody by putting forward such a cynical policy if you had swallowed a whole country? That is:  "We see no evil, we hear no evil and we speak no evil --we just do evil to our own pesky minorities and other trouble makers. To be fair we are rather efficient about it."

So believe me China would not only meddle it would occupy, colonize and even enslave Africa if it could. In a future that would be overshadowed with an unaccountable, roguish Chinese superpower, one that is desperate for resources for it's own survival, Africa might be the region under the greatest risk. But alas! This is only so because Africa is where the Chinese would have entrenched themselves the deepest -- more and more governments in Africa and even private entities are practically falling over each other to attract Chinese attentions.

As of now the Chinese have been trying out various techniques in meddling (though not interfering?), chief amongst them being bribery of high ranking officials and entire countries with wonderful altruistic seeming projects. What we do not yet know is what punitive measures China would hit us with -- should most of our countries begin to waste the Chinese initiative by turning around and running silly like Myanmar.

Would invasions and Chinese nukes start falling from the sky? Would they bankrupt our economies by calling in their huge loans and grants? Would they support terrorists and assassinate our leaders? I think we need to look more keenly at what they have been doing in Tibet, after all they have occupied that country since the 1950s and murdered a million people along the way, there are bound to be heaps of revelations about China's ugly tactics there.

In conclusion Africa should be more wary of China. This ABOCO game that we are plunging head-long into -- without even thinking of how we would get out if China proves to be an even more appalling imperial power than the West -- appears to me like a script for a disaster movie. Stop the ABOCO stampede or we forget about the much touted, fallacious and curious concept called African sovereignty.

PS:  And another blogger bites the dust

One hitherto unknown Kenyan blogger (unknown to me) Dennis Itumbi has been arrested with all the media razzmatazz that nowadays seems to come with arresting bloggers. This allegedly for fabricating the infamous letter presented in parliament alleging some sort of British conspiracy to have President Kibaki arrested and arraigned at the ICC once he leaves office.  The police were literally salivating with anticipation to have some ‘private’ time with him. Roughly tugging him from all directions and even closing his mouth with their hands to stop him from talking to the media, which he did anyway. His trousers mind you kept falling – and he kept repeating they should give him time to get a belt.

Though this man might very well be the criminal he is accused of being, am not amused by his handling during the arrest. It has not escaped my attention that I myself might also be going down that road in the coming days. That is, if there is already someone out there hunting for me. This is definitely not good for the freedom of expression, freedom of speech etc but more importantly it is not good for the worsening blogger paranoia in Kenya. Am not advocating for stupid violations of the law by bloggers, but the situation on blogger freedom will continue to be monitored and it might reach a point worth getting onto the streets to face our detractors once and for all in asserting our general freedoms.

 Even a weakened foe with no means of escape, can turn into a most formidable opponent – whoever is orchestrating this noose tightening better know his limits, or he will have a far much more grievous situation on his hands once the raw anger bursts onto the streets.

Yes, it is frustrating. This blogging enterprise is proving far much more dangerous than I bargained for -- creepy readers, strange probing urls and a government crackdown on bloggers.  Can’t anybody blog in peace anymore?  Why does everybody want Kenyan bloggers to be drinking tasteless porridge in jail all of a sudden?  Has blogging and ranting now become illegal?

Greyhorn is still irreverent; satire has to go on. . . Alluta Continua.  (Humour- monger, Rumour-monger it is all just semantics that depends on those who arrest bloggers, so why fret about it? They will beat the right meaning of blogging into any arrested blogger’s head anyway . . . although am certain none of those goons understand even half of what we write in these blogs). By the way fellow bloggers, what is the ‘cause’ we are getting arrested for again? I didn’t get that memo, am just blogging things that irritate me or topics that brutally land in my head . . . you?

M. Wycliff,

Nairobi.

Somebody smack those doddering fools at the CCK

The CCK Centre in Nairobi

 The Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) this week brazenly, flagrantly and shamelessly announced it's intention to forcibly install spyware (no one has shown ecstatic enthusiasm with such nefarious meddling) on all the the Internet Service Providers and telecoms in Kenya to ostensibly act as a Network Early Warning System (NEWS). The 'NEWS' ladies and gentleman is that Kenya would be thrown back to the good old days of totalitarian censorship and at best into a modern regimen of complete and routine violation of the constitutionally entrenched protection of individual privacy and freedoms.

This program as is well known is not a CCK originated idea. Steamy eroticism with the so called 'National Security' and how this amorphous 'thing' necessarily, nay, urgently -- needs to penetrate and violate personal liberties in this country has been the morbid fascination of the NSIS (National Security Intelligence Service). The people at the NSIS have been frantically trying to do all sorts of things that would allow them to do things that are explicity forbidden by the new constitution without the authorization of courts through individual writs. Things such as wire-tapping, censorship, control of information flow and electronic surveillance. The big bad boys of intelligence know their needs and they have tried all sorts of gimmickry to unlawfully give themselves the necessary powers 'lawfully'.

For instance before the constitutional referendum in 2010 they illegally inserted a clause into the draft constitution before it's mass printing that would have allowed personal rights with regard to privacy and liberty to be abrogated whenever the NSIS thought it had reason to meddle. That without the need for court orders, or any supervision or legal oversight whatsoever.

They could get whatever they wanted, by whatever means and from whoever they wanted at any time without notice or notification. The resulting outcry with such an outrageous and illegally inserted clause thwarted that ploy and all the copies having that clause were recalled and new fresh copies had to be printed -- a costly enterprise for the government that had gained nothing for the NSIS. Nobody was held accountable other than the clueless government printer and even he was not fired.

Ever since the NSIS hand and name has been popping up in all sorts of intelligence related issues, particularly with the ongoing legislation of laws to comply with the dictates of the new constitution. The NSIS is a spoilt baby frantically trying to claw back some of the powers it was deprived during it's transformation from the underground political mob crew known as Special Branch to it's current status as a toothless academic entity that Kenyans philosophically refer to from time to time.

So there is no doubt whose interests the CCK is fronting. There is also no doubt that the  CCK is knowingly or unknowingly lying that they will be only intercepting, and reading e-mail -- an outrageous violation by itself. (Giving the NSIS/CCK the powers to read all e-mails at their discretion is like giving the police the means and right to enter into every bedroom, toilet and bathroom across the country at any time and then to have them watch, stay at their own pleasure and even more alarmingly  participate in all that drama in whatever way they wished!).

Once the spyware (hardware and software) is installed at all the ISPs there is nothing that would prevent or deter the CCK (apart from those very same pandering ISPs) from doing far much more than just reading e-mail. The goal must be remembered is electronic surveillance in order to thwart, prosecute, confuse, obfuscate, steal identities, impersonate and to eliminate the threat from 'chosen' targets -- which could be you. But for the sake of argument let us look at what unfettered access to only people's and other entities' e-mails would mean.

At first glance monitoring and reading e-mail (which is what CCK is earnestly stating are it's innocuous intentions) both incoming and outgoing, does not seem to be anything more than another mild and remotely pesky form of privacy invasion. No more so than a peeping Tom who occasionally peers at your backyard to look at your chicken and drying underwear.

This is the misplaced notion that I will be kindly knocking out of your head -- should you be afflicted by such illustrious silliness or ignorance. Who knows, perhaps you might have the power to actually do something about it other than merely ranting on a blog like Greyhorn.

If it had escaped your attention, first and foremost, please do note that an e-mail account is not just an e-mail account. It is NO LONGER merely a place or pouch where you receive notices, notifications, memos, circulars, death threats, spam and scam, whacky love notes and such like.
Let me demonstrate with Google (the equally untrustworthy techies who are hosting this blog for free). A few years ago when you opened a Gmail account, what you had was simply an address with lots of space for receiving and sending e-mail. It was boringly effective and sufficient. As time went on companies like Google started to offer other free online services and products other than e-mail services only.

You could post copies of your documents in electronic form (Title deeds, certificates, resumes, receipts, contracts, etc) with Google documents for ease of access of copies from any location. You could post all your digitized photos into your web album into an account via Google's Picasa. You could post videos and other clips on Google's YouTube. Like me you could have a blog like this hosted by Google. Through your Gmail account you can chat and sms your friends and family -- which gives Google their mobile numbers, country and names besides being able to better map your social contacts and associations.

 All your favourite locations in the world, including the exact co-ordinate locations of your grandmother's rural home, your own home, your office, your important clients, your friends etc would be stored on your account with Google Earth. In short through it's various services Google has all the information about you, sometimes not even because you put it there but through your friends and family.

In the past all this colossal amount of personal information was hosted by Google separately, but now it has changed policy and all your information is being consolidated into related accounts -- i.e. your relevant Gmail account. By merely signing into your e-mail account somebody can access all the above information about you by hopping from one service or product to the other. Not to mention all the e-mails that are archived in your account.

So on an individual basis it would make sense for the info hungry NSIS to want to have unbridled access to everybody's e-mail account especially now that everything is being so prettily lumped together by the likes of Google for their creepy data mining needs. The CCK though is claiming that it would only 'read' your e-mails as they are being sent and received. But they can also 'read' all unencrypted data, including passwords to any of your accounts, e-mail or otherwise and all other unencrypted communication. Access is access and obviously a culture of privacy violation can only lead to other more invasive forms of violations besides those stated.

That is on a personal or individual level.

In terms of business the ramifications are even more galling. Let us say you have authorized your bank to communicate to you or accept instructions via e-mail, then sensitive unencrypted information such as PINs, passwords and other critical transaction information can, if CCK's plan goes ahead, be accessed without your knowldge or consent!! Worse still by person's whom you do not know and cannot be held accountable for the privacy violation even if you somehow managed to detect it!

It must be remembered these are not lowly thieves or fraudsters, these are powerful government agents with enormous human and intelligence resources at their disposal. The amount of damage outside their security functions that they can inflict (either for financial gain by rogue elements within the NSIS and CCK or at the behest and pay of third parties) is far much more considerable and immensely leveraged by their command of the state apparatus.

Sensitive intra-organisation circulars and memos especially at large companies that are communicated via the open Internet will be under greater threat of compromise. Those companies not already using encrypting services for their mail servers will now as a necessity have to do so. Nothing can be taken for granted anymore, that is how toxic the CCK would have made  Internet communication.

The biggest threat in this new move is not that in itself it would be the cause of the greatest damage, but that the collapse in confidence for Internet privacy in Kenya would be far much more destructive. With this move I can confidently state we can forget about the dream of an African Silicon Valley in Kenya.
Intellectual innovation cannot thrive in a sphere of inherent distrust, fear, physical and psychological impediments that the government, the NSIS and CCK  are busy putting up. We might as well hang up the gloves on succesful commercialization of online businesses as well -- why would you enter into online contracts or transactions yet you do not know what the hell is going on on the other side at any given time?

NSIS idiots could be fiddling with your orders and what-not in their information gathering frenzy either by interfering on the firm or client side. You can strike the word reliability, privacy and integrity from the lexicon of words that would describe the Internet phenomenon in Kenya at that point. Devolved Jambonetting and retarded inefficiency is what we would be back to.

In essence this CCK move is the biggest job killer and economy shrinking move that has ever been envisaged by any entity in Kenya. It urgently needs to be resoundingly thwarted and put into the graveyard of other NSIS inspired retrograde ideas.

                                                     *******************

Mutula Kilonzo and the Woes of a Miser
The Greyhorn has one of his weird theories as to why there has been cold airs between the VP Kalonzo Musyoka and the minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs Mutula Kilonzo. Here it goes:
Mutula Kilonzo, lawyer to the former president/ other rich vile characters/ conveyancing mogul has refused to put some of his colossal wealth that is rumoured to be stashed all over the world at the disposal of the Wiper Party.

Although the Greyhorn has not familiarized himself with the actual contents of the Political Parties Act, he has read there are provisions for declaration of sources of funds for political parties. This automatically aveils a wonderful and simple pretext (should Mutula need one) to summarily reject advances to have his personal wealth in being used to wipe Kalonzo's bum into power.

Such Mutulanite obstinence in the face of the greater Kamba 'cause' might not have been well taken by the Kamba hordes around Kalonzo; hordes of goons with the proclivity for retrogressive thinking. Hence the cause of the low level intrigues and bristling anger against the wily and master at law one Mr. Mutula Kilonzo.
 
What is funny is that no matter how angry they are with Mutula, they are pretty circumspect with regards to going for Mutula's jugular. No matter how vulnerable he may seem politically, the Justice Minister is a character that is just best handled with utmost caution. He is like a porcupine with hundreds of lethal and immensely poisonous spines -- dangerous arsenals that he is more likely to discharge when cornered and under relentless duress. When I grow up I want to be Mutula Kilonzo . . . so that I can piss everybody off and nobody can do anything about it!

M. Wycliff,
Nairobi.

Conjuring Controversies: The tug of war between the media and politicians

Kenyan Politicians v/s the Media, Wanjiku, Bloggers, FB/Twitter Lynch mobs ... yet they keep going

The Greyhorn of late has been reticent about writing political pieces that focus on the never ending drama in Kenyan politics. Not so much because his well of sarcasm has run dry or even because of the siege mentality that is being fostered by the mainstream media to the real risks of defamation (Nguyai an MP skewered a certain disaffected fellow who trashed him on Facebook by having him arrested as some sort of example to other cyber blabberers) ergo reserving the lucrative right to rubbish and defame exclusively to the 'knowledgeable' bores in the fourth estate. 

Wake up and smell the coffee. In the very least the Kenyan media should structure their on-line interaction to include less formal, curled sleeves kind of topical blogs as the leading media houses in the world already have -- i.e. they should be joining us, not trying to muzzle and dampen the mood by hero-worshipping those who use grey areas in the law to trample on the silly amongst us (cyber-activists).

Getting scared of the inevitable is stupid. No one can prevent a whole generation, a giant wave of anger really, of politically conscious people in Kenya that is enraged with what is going on -- from shouting from every rooftop and platform that they will not take the lies and hypocrisies any longer. With or without the mainstream media they will be exposed; for we are here in the first place because of the kid glove handling of really grimy issues by the media. 

I don't need fabricated documents with proper letterheads and what-not to express the opinion that I honestly do feel there is something really 'fishy' with Harun Mwau or that when I have nightmares I see Stanley Livondo as a 'muppet' president proclaiming in an executive policy directive that it is actually Barack Obama, Queen Elizabeth, the Pope and George Bush jnr. who are drug kingpins in this region.
 
What am saying is that am throwing the gauntlet to the barons of impunity, the days of playing around with the rule books and paid up crooks in the judiciary to keep everybody all scared and mum are over.  Your armies of venal goons could very well have to murder half the country just to shut up cyber activists within Kenya. But I could just as well be doing this from Tanzania, Uganda or some toilet in Australia. Get it right -- we are watching, we are talking and we are not our fathers we will paint you black and blue with your own filth.
 
Of course I am only mortal and being murdered is a real risk, but you see this (yes, this annoying blog) -- it will be here forever as a testimony as to who has the motive for my murder and who sanctioned it. And then more people, thousands this time, will write the same stuff about you and your murdering ways. All your relatives, children and business associates will be named, exposed, taunted on the streets and shamed as associates and offspring of a vile murderer. Perhaps you will have to murder a couple more bloggers just to show these 'kids' who is really the boss. Ultimately what you will end up having are your palatial roofs being burnt over your own heads. That is 21st Century Revolution for you.
 
Anyway, that is not my subject today -- it is something that had just to be said, I very well know opinions have consequences and am not trying to be a martyr; but if that is the price  that has to be paid for expressing my mind (in this digital diary) then so be it. The fight for our personal freedoms as history clearly shows -- from the Mau Mau to Wangari Maathai -- is and always will be a loud, murky and unavoidably a perilous struggle. Change will not drop itself onto our laps like a fat over-contented cat (or cat poop) , somebody has to pay the price when masses challenge powerful vested interests amongst the ruling elites -- it is a horrible thought, but am only as good as the next man. I have no better reason why I shouldn't die for the rest if that kind of bill should happen to fall on my plate.
 
Now as I was saying, in recent days the Geryhorn has preferred to stay away from politics -- not so much that his views are more esoteric, rarefied and inspired than that of other citizens in this country and that by keeping mum coconuts will start cracking themselves open and pouring their content into cocktail glasses with nice little umbrellas at the coast. It is that it just doesn't add any value to anything really to keep saying the same things everybody else is ranting about. And with the incredible increase of political analysts and commentators I can tell you pretty much most of the ground has been covered . . .  mowed to the point of barrenness.
 
So what I will be stating here is nothing really new . . . it is what everybody is thinking, but no one wants to say any of it out loud. Surely Abdullahi Ahmednassir can't be the only patriot in this country- yes he is rich, a lawyer and all that, but the kind of fellows he is rubbing the wrong way can as easily snuff him out too. This blog may lack the professional thresh-hold he maintains in his published works, but there will be no peace, relief and hiding place for hypocrites in public life as long as there is the Internet. This much I can assure all aspiring political candidates and incumbents.

The first reality that has dawned on the Greyhorn is that the short-term political trends in Kenya are now more than ever shaped by the media. Particularly the three most moneyed and influential media houses --Nation Media Group, Standard Media Group and the vernacular hub Royal Media Services. The rest serve only niche markets and they are not as credible and cross-cutting as these three. If you want to know what the top presidential contenders will be talking and battling in the coming week all you need to do is read today's and the two preceding days' newspapers.

More alarmingly it seems to me that the media only calls experts, queries them in a certain way and even edits their opinions to buttress what conclusions hacks and senior political columnists have already arrived at. It is a farcical game that is only temporarily defeated when politicians make unprecedented moves, like Raila's recent lashing out at the Hague suspects and Moi's faux pas at the Njenga Karume burial in endorsing Uhuru Kenyatta for the presidency yet again. It is a controversy churning machine that we have. A money machine that has taken a ruthless, destructive life of it's own.

The media's obsession even with political trivia is not by choice. It is the only thing that is guaranteed to rouse interest, rake in the numbers and most importantly make the money. This shouldn't be a surprise, it has been the trend all over the world and even here in Kenya  since independence. But the facade that had been created over the past decade that the Kenyan media has finally become the people's watchman (first and foremost) is suddenly beginning to show some ugly cracks. The game in play at the media houses is subtly different --  flow with the money, the damned costly truth may come at it's own pace.

To circumvent this pitfall of artificially generated controversies, I usually tend to look at things from a long term perspective and at a lower baseline than the hectic trot the media is keeping political analysts running at; analyzing why Raila coughed in a certain way at a burial Uhuru was the MC and such like. I still wonder why these otherwise smart people fail to refuse to be involved in these stupid games that are wholly meant to push up ratings. Seriously what long-term implications can be gained by re-analyzing the company of a politician within 24 hours by the same political analyst? Cooking and effecting plans doesn't take days, at times it takes weeks for something even mildly significant to pop-up. The rest is empty newspaper-selling chatter.

For instance ever since Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto were fatefully thrown into the same boat of the ICC misfortune, the media has been all abuzz with their alliance, their joint strategy etc. In the crazy controversy-dependent cycle of the media it seems there is indeed something really substantial there; but jumping onto the slower baseline -- the long-term view, this Uhuru-Ruto alliance quickly becomes clear is one based on the flimsiest of grounds. The electoral blocs and constituencies these two gentleman are purporting to represent and thus unite, are at the moment implacable enemies. The issues that make them so, none of them is even willing to delve into. Besides the Hague, what alliance is there really besides one between two desperate individuals who are accused of orchestrating atrocities against each other?  I say little to nothing.

Ruto surely can't miss the fact that whenever he goes to certain places in Central Kenya there are more scowls and snickering than smiles. The same goes for Uhuru Kenyatta when he goes to certain tricky areas in Rift valley. In fact their supporters at times can't even stand to mention the leader of the other side of this unseemly alliance. When rambling about issues such as the Hague, the mostly rural grassroots-folk will keep saying 'our people', 'my leader' so and so, and such like and reflexively overlook the other side of the equation as if it does not even exist. They probably even head off from the all too common 'prayer meetings' straight to a threat-mongering session at some nearby IDP camp or witnesses' homestead.

Saying that the Kalenjin are more than angry with Raila for his betrayal of the Kalenjin interests is a  pathetic understatement. Particularly with regard to land matters and the Mau Forest evictions. This still stands and persists even in the face of the fact that the entire Nation's survival is pegged on the restitution of the Mau Complex. Despite this powerful feeling of having been short-changed, this does not mean that the Kalenjin out of anger will jump willy-nilly through every hoop and loop that Ruto tells them to jump through.

No community wants to be on the losing side of national issues and debates into perpetuity. In the Mau Forest saga the Kalenjin were practically pitted against the rest of the country. Again in the 2010 constitutional referendum they were urged by this Ruto fellow to vote in the negative while  a majority of the country was projected and was passionately enthused to vote in a new constitution. Fortunately there was a saving grace in that the clergymen (though seemingly not their flock) were also in the forefront in rejecting the new constitution.

So the question that would be lingering in the minds of the Kalenjin voters is where precisely is William Ruto leading them? What has come out of what has so far been a decade of Ruto's tumultous fruitless leadership? Is he fighting for them all or is he really fighting for himself and his family? Why does Ruto's strategies only seem to lead to further isolation and animosity towards the Kalenjin community? Is it his characteristic short-term calculations or is it simply political myopia? I tell you there are many questions that are running in the minds of the Kalenjin.

But the Kalenjin are not the only ones with a problem. Their wary Kikuyu allies have a problem of their own. During the 2007-2008 crisis the Kikuyus for the first time in their long proud history felt utterly isolated in the national fabric by a palpable, visceral cloud of hatred. It was the poor innocent Kikuyus who then went on to carry the bitter baggage of disillusionment and disaffection that their political leaders and the Kikuyu elites had imprudently fostered amongst the other tribes through various actions since independence. This had sufficiently been made toxic by the tribal umbrella known as GEMA, which had been insensitively resurrected at the inception of the second Kikuyu presidency under Mwai Kibaki.

At the peak of the 2008 crisis it was not uncommon to hear some sections of the Kikuyu community openly advocating for the support of a non-Kikuyu presidential candidate to lessen the anti-Kikuyu sentiments in the national psyche. A destructive under-current that had suddenly become a real threat to the entire community. 

The Kikuyu community is the most populous, the most powerful and the most sophisticated community in Kenya. But that would mean little if the Kikuyu are consciously isolated politically, even worse if they are pitted in a violent conflict with everybody else. The Kikuyu are only as wealthy and powerful as the rest of the country is, they can no longer grow wealthy, happy, powerful etc at the expense of the other communities. Persistence on that dangerous delusional path will be equivalent to genocidal self-annihilation. Who said only  a Kikuyu can be president in Kenya, and that the national resources should always be pooled in their favour? The feelings are raw and ugly and someone needs to take heed.

I almost laugh at myself in self-pity at how things have changed little. We are practically all back to the same tribal configurations, the Kikuyu as everybody else back to sticking to their guns in support of another Kikuyu president. Personally am afraid this is not healthy and it maybe one road that may lead to far much greater anti-Kikuyu consciousness, something akin to the Xenophobia against Kenyans in Tanzania.

In a past post in this blog, I stated openly my support for Peter Kenneth (whom I still support), a Kikuyu, although what I think as my less deserving tribesman (William Ruto) is also running. Amongst other things  I believe this is a conscious act of intellectual self-deprecation and appreciation of our diverse cultures. What is beginning to annoy me is the realization that a lot more Kikuyus than I was willing to acknowledge have this god-complex (not just Martha Karua).

Even my former colleagues and intimate friends in campus cannot bring themselves to support on any ground a non-Kikuyu candidate! These are my brothers for all intents and purposes, yet their cursory dismissal of non-Kikuyu candidates leaves me feeling cheap, infuriated and a pandering dog to keep singing about Peter Kenneth while it is becoming apparent there is no Kikuyu amongst them or on the face of this planet who will ever support a member of another tribe. (That is why I still haven't published part two of that article -- my faith is wavering, and despite my gallant efforts it seems my ancestors will be the one's who will be laughing last at my naive idealism).

Just listening to Tony Gachoka and all his putrid pan-Kikuyu rhetoric makes me nauseous and feeling like puking on my food. It is as if the Kikuyu are the only humans in Kenya the rest of us are the trees in the vegetable garden of Mumbi -- to provide shades for Kikuyus. I desperately need to hear someone credible, of high integrity, of good intellectual and social standing (other than old Charles Njonjo) coming out and supporting a non-Kikuyu candidate, or am done with a Kikuyu president in my lifetime. If by election time I hear nor see such person, just one, I will robotically vote for any other person other than a Kikuyu candidate for life and urge other non-Kikuyu Kenyans to do so as well.

 My point? I am begging -- yes urgently begging -- just one patriotic high profile Kikuyu man/ woman of integrity to salvage me and hundreds of other intellectual hopefuls from a bellowing cloud of despair and disillusionment by supporting a non-Kikuyu candidate for president. That is it. As of now am nothing more than a laughing stalk and a turn-coat, simply because there is no reciprocity for my earlier tribe-blind prognostications.

Through the prism of long-term trends one can easily perceive and understand why Musalia Mudavadi feels compelled for his political survival to bluff Raila with a bellicose fight for the party's nomination. The Luhya have grown tired of being the door-keepers and sentinels for other people to either stay or get to state house. Therefore to retain any veil of legitimacy amongst the people the Luhya leaders must put up a strong stake for the presidency, not the half-hearted shenanigans that were only orchestrated to get bargaining chips in the formation of successive governments.
Any Luhya leader who is seen to best fulfill this most poignant wish of the Luhya will receive Masinde Muliro-like support this time around. 

All the other pretenders would be sacrificed or trampled into oblivion if they are perceived to be stumbling blocks and are simply serving to bring back the old divisive tactics. In this there is also nothing new or insightful -- then why does the media make all the hullabaloo about Musalia sticking his neck out in the ODM's nomination race while his reasons and motives are no secret? In Luhyaland everyone knows Mudavadi's time is neigh, he must metamorphose into a credible presidential material in Luhya eyes or his political career is as good as dead.  Therefore the media's behaviour can be easily explained by . . . yes, you guessed it . . . the papers are creating a controversy to sell more adverts and get higher ratings.

What of the other regions? This coming election can't just be a big-tribe phenomenon again. Am happy to say, that with the new higher thresh-hold for getting into the presidency, local politicians will get to seriously appreciate the concept of swing voters. Those people who are not your usual suspect supporters. The marginalized kind of people who were mostly ignored in the past like the people of North Eastern, Northern and the Coast region. 

The insularity of big tribe politics in my view will begin to be worn down under this new constitutional arrangement. Being a Luo, Kikuyu, Kalenjin or Luhya may not mean much without the Somali, Mijikenda and Turkana. I only hope Raila and the other contenders will be made to sweat for the support of these now super important and what were marginalized communities. 

Leaving the tribal politics aside (hopefully forever) I will focus on a certain cabal of MPs that is spray painting parliament, the presidency and this country's foreign policy with diarrhea. This is the earlier mentioned Haroun Mwau, MP for Kilome. His rabble rousing front-man Charles Kilonzo (Yatta MP) and Juja MP Kabogo.
Now this Harun Mwau has been black-listed by the US and president Obama personally named him as a suspected king pin in an international drug trafficking ring. Unsurprisingly this has been a thorn in his flesh in recent years, but it has been so with less intensity over the last decade. 

Mwau on his part has made it clear that there is an international conspiracy against him based on innuendos and business rivalry that is being orchestrated by agents in the state apparatus of Western governments. 

By roping in the president -- Mwai Kibaki -- into the ICC 'conspiracy' and pitting the president and the ICC suspects against the prime minister, Raila Odinga and all the respective communities, it is clear that Mwau is trying to manoeuvre a significant portion the Kenyan constituency and state apparatus against those whom he perceives as his nemesis.

Believe it or not, this elaborate scheme only hinges on a fabricated document that purports the British government is plotting with the ICC to have Kibaki arrested and arraigned at the Hague based court once he leaves office. This somehow is supposed to help the international community's golden boy -- Raila Odinga to succeed Kibaki. From the outset the logic is flawed - wouldn't Raila in any case have to be in in office if this 'plan' is to come in to fruition? Somehow it is imagined this reputedly forged document would hurt Raila's chances. Unfortunately it seems it would hurt even more the ICC suspects.

Consciously or inadvertently Mwau, Charles Kilonzo, Kabogo and Co. are flagrantly driving the Ocampo 4's case further into murky waters just to loosen the noose around the neck of the desperately frantic Harun Mwau. By all means Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto should not accept to be lulled into believing that their grievances against the West are in any way related to the drug trafficking allegations against Mwau. Mwau is a deadly Trojan Horse for Kalonzo if not other more nefarious characters -- one piece of lethal political malware. They should indeed come out and strongly distance themselves from the diplomatic row that Charles Kilonzo and Haroun Mwau have callously cooked up.

Climbing aboard the same boat as Mwau would not be detrimental -- it would be a major catastrophe -- legally, politically and morally for they will add onto their names the tags of drug dealers, traffickers etc. that the name of the Kilome MP currently carries.
Their disaffection with the West's hand in Kenyan affairs and particulary their case at the ICC (and let's not be coy or hypocritical about this, the West is neck deep in this) should be expressed independently of Mwau's woes.

All I can say about Charles Kilonzo is that we now know on whose side he is on, he is fooling nobody. The stripes and smell of a hyena on him are irrefutably and clearly out. We should have known with the reeking first fart of the hyena in the pro-Charterhouse Bank manouevres he orchestrated in parliament.

In conclusion as you see there is nothing unique in this artcile, but there is a lot in it people dare not to say even though it is all out in the open. I urge you again to do something positive, other than asking Mr. Kibunja and Mr. Iteere to persecute me for these uncomfortable views. Prosecution does not apply for Greyhorn trully believes he has broken no law, satire and weird sense, that is all is here and will ever be.

                                                         *****************
Mutahi Ngunyi has done it again -- he has superseded my posting by presenting the issues in this post on Jeff's bench, a favourite show of mine. I have just watched the repeat this morning. Ngunyi, a Kikuyu, even endorsed Mudavadi for the presidency in his protracted way. I think too many people are drawing from the same source or that the underlying political realities are more clear than I dared believe because he was talking my mind on the bench.

It has been years since I have read something written by Mutahi Ngunyi, I do not know him personally neither have I ever engaged with him in any way -- yet am surprised how his views so closely mirror mine.


Am utterly convinced Mutahi is a dangerous man. He is so eerily perceptive that am beginning to wonder if he can remotely read my mind. Which raises the uncomfortable question > how much more can he do if I actually met him?  Wouldn't I come out of his office writing my will and eulogy since the seer would have told me what would be in the remaining part of my life? Anyway I think even Raila can only ignore this man at his own peril.

PS: Kony 'makes' detractor to wank
The Kony phenomenon in cyberspace has attained a high level of attention in such a short time span that it's ubiquity is actually becoming exasperating. Therefore I wont belabour what is bound to be an irritation, itchiness and fatigue with the issue (even though the Kony campaign has mostly served to shock and  misinform you i.e. if you knew nothing about Kony, factually you are only marginally better off)

Thus I will give my two cents worth on the artificial and orchestrated obsession with the macabre eccentric known as Kony.
 
First, this is a classic example of armpit-smell or stinky-sock activism. This is whereby somebody takes a pet project that needs tonnes of money -- usually in some remote place where nobody could account for the money -- then they rub onto it as much stench as they possibly can and then damp it on rich people's faces. Like a reeking sock you are bound to notice and quickly do something (dish out cash) to be rid of the guilt on your conscience.
 
More importantly there are two important things we are missing. The Americans are not all itchy and excited about Northern Uganda all of a sudden for nothing. This attention in this part of Uganda ironically comes just when Museveni has already brought law and order to the place after decades and decades of anarchy. Where were the American's then?

Most of the oil fields in Uganda are in the North West. Unfortunately that is the neighbourhood where that pesky rat called Joseph Kony and LRA are roaming about. They ran off into this remote region straddling three countries after the collapse of the peace talks in South Sudan some six years ago.
Before the white expatriates who would be working the oil fields can start streaming in. Or before the  oil fields can be safe enough to build tennis courts in them, the LRA must first be put permanently to rest.

Otherwise what expatriate would want to lose his nose and the genitalia of his girlfriend/wife to the knives of LRA's child soldiers? Worse yet to be sodomized by armed kids and be carried off as a hostage into the forest? Kony's and LRA's time has come to an abrupt end and they are no longer welcome or have a place in oil rich Uganda. That is why even more American soldiers will be sent after them if need be.
 
Besides that, somebody had to find something for the social networks' activists who in recent times had jumped from cyberspace onto the streets of Western cities and capitals. A cause had to be given to the "Occupy" twitterers, facebookers and what-have-you so that they and their girlfriends can have something outside the Western and Northern hemisphere to rant and be all passionate about -- at least for a few weeks. Joseph Kony was good enough.

Finally, one of the two key men (Jason) behind the Kony 2012 video is under arrest.  He was caught on video committing obscene sexual acts in public i.e. he was fiddling with his male member in the open. The reason given? Malnutrition . . . and over-exhaustion with the Kony campaign. Now it is official -- there was a nut behind the Kony video, one who was so engrossed with Kony that he starved himself and masturbated in public to ease some of that Kony inspired pressure.

M. Wycliff,
Nairobi.