tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32764943522438241242024-03-08T08:14:34.491-08:00THE SITUATION ROOMPolitics Unpacked!THE SITUATION ROOMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09048839964389097129noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3276494352243824124.post-84463803308529837042020-06-24T13:37:00.001-07:002020-06-24T14:06:12.327-07:00THINK KENYA AS YOU NEGOTIATE TRADE DEAL WITH US<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 15.75pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 7.5pt; orphans: auto; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<b style="font-size: 10pt;"><u><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">By Oduor Ong'wen</span></u></b></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">In the first week of February 2020, President Uhuru Kenyatta and Prime Minister Emeritus Raila Odinga attended a widely-publicized Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. On the sidelines of this event, President Kenyatta held a bilateral meeting with his US counterpart President Donald Trump. The occasion was used to officially initiate a free trade agreement (FTA) negotiation between the two countries. On March 23, 2020, the Trump administration, through the Office of US Trade Representative, notified the Congress of negotiating objectives for the reciprocal bilateral trade arrangement. On June 22, 2020, the Kenyan Government, through the Negotiating Principles, Objectives and Scope released by the Ministry of Industrialization, Trade and Enterprise Development articulated what Kenya aspires to as the endgame of these negotiations. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">The negotiations proper are yet to commence, but there are already many red flags signaling pitfalls ahead. The overall concern is that whichever way we look at it, this agreement, when concluded, will undermine efforts at regional integration at driving seat of which Kenya has been. As a customs union, the East African Community of which we are the largest economy, has a Common External Tariff (CET) regime. This means whatever goods and services enter on a Most Favoured Nation (MFN) or other terms will be deemed to have entered the markets of the other five Partner States, yet these countries – all of them LDCs – are not involved in the negotiations. It also doesn’t sit well with the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to which we signed last year. There are other key concerns as below.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">First, the motivation for Kenya in these negotiations seems to be solely based on securing market access to the United States of America beyond 2025 when the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) lapses. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">“We are trying to figure out which is going to be the path forward for our arrangement with the US post-AGOA while the Trump administration was seeking to “re-engineer its relationship with the continent,” said Macharia Kamau, the Principal Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Since AGOA was a duty free, quota free market access for qualifying goods, one is driven to ask how a reciprocal arrangement builds on this regime.</span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">Second, while United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer hailed the “enormous potential” for the two sides to deepen their economic and commercial ties, the extent to which any eventual deal would benefit Kenya economically is under question. It is worth noting that while USTR has outlined the negotiating objective to its legislature, there is no indication that Kenya’s Parliament is seized of these negotiations. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">According to the US negotiating objectives, the FTA between the two countries will bring about enhanced harmonization of rules and policies between the two unequal countries. It is a widely accepted maxim that treating two unequal partners equally amounts to injustice. Yet, this is what the US seeks to do as shall shortly become manifest. Among the list of negotiating objectives set out by the US, the trade in goods will include objectives such as ensuring “fair, balanced, and reciprocal trade with Kenya”, and securing “comprehensive duty-free market access for US industrial goods.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">Third, the FTA will compel Kenya to harmonize its trade policies and trade-related laws with those of the US in several existing areas as well as new areas such as labour, environment, investments, competition policy, and government procurement. The latter three, as well as trade facilitation, are the “Singapore Issues” that Kenya led the rest of developing countries in rejecting at the Fifth World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference in Cancun, Mexico, in September 2003. Disappointed and infuriated, the then USTR promised to achieve these objectives through bilateral deals. Is that promise coming to pass?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">Fourth, the proposed FTA also calls for strengthening “disciplines to address non-tariff barriers that constrain US exports” as well as expanding “market access for re-manufactured goods exports by ensuring that they are not classified as used goods that are restricted or banned.” This is extremely dangerous for a country that has ambitions to industrialise. In the “Big Four” agenda, Kenya has focused on manufacturing, with a goal of raising the manufacturing sector’s share of GDP to 15 percent. Disciplining the importation of used goods and imposition of tariff and non-tariff barriers are some of the administrative and policy interventions that the country may resort to in order to incentivize its local manufactures. In its negotiating objectives, the US wants to close for good this policy space. I see nothing in Kenya’s negotiating principles and objectives that would address this potential pitfall.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">Fifth, the Kenya-US FTA, according to the USTR Notice of Negotiating Objectives, also aims to secure “duty-free access for US textile and apparel products and seek to improve competitive opportunities for exports of US textile and apparel products while taking into account US import sensitivities.”</span><span lang="" style="font-family: "bookman old style";"> Kenya’s textile and apparel sector has the potential to</span><span lang="" style="font-family: "bookman old style";"> </span><span lang="" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">play a key role in anchoring the country’s deeper movement into middle income status and in serving as a source of gainful employment for its fast growing, young population. As a manufactured good, it offers opportunities for increased value capture and streamlined trade logistics, and for the building of skills and experience from the factory floor to management level. Based on these foundations, it therefore serves as a potential gateway to other manufactured goods, offering opportunities for Kenya to capture an increasing share of global trade and to advance economic diversification. With AGOA, Kenya’s apparel exports to the US increased from US$8.5 million (KSh 850 million) in 2000<span style="position: relative; top: -4pt;"> </span>to US$332 million (KSh 3.32 billion) in 2014. Almost 40,000 workers are employed in the Export Processing Zones (EPZ). While we do not advocate closing the doors on the US textile and apparel, duty free access would undermine the potential of this sub sector, which could be one of Kenya’s “quick win” areas as far our industrialisation drive is concerned.<span style="position: relative; top: -4pt;"><span> </span></span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">Further, the US wants to secure “comprehensive market access for US agricultural goods in Kenya by reducing or eliminating tariffs” and providing “reasonable adjustment periods for US import-sensitive agricultural products, engaging in close consultation with Congress on such products before initiating tariff reduction negotiations.” Kenya will have to eliminate “practices that unfairly decrease US market access opportunities or distort agricultural markets to the detriment of the United States, including: non-tariff barriers that discriminate against US agricultural goods, and restrictive rules in the administration of tariff rate quotas.” This is the clincher. In her interest, the US wants a comprehensive market access while at the same time protecting her import sensitive farm products, thus limiting market access for Kenya’s agricultural products. Kenya’s negotiating principles and objectives document is manifestly silent on both the matter of governance of imports of agricultural products and access to the US market.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">According to the US negotiating objectives, in the area of sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS), Washington wants to build upon WTO rights and obligations, including with respect to science-based measures, good regulatory practices, import checks, equivalence, regionalization, certification, and risk analysis, making clear that each Party can set for itself the level of protection it believes to be appropriate to protect food safety and plant and animal health in a manner consistent with its international obligations.”</span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">Other SPS negotiating objectives for the US in the FTA include obtaining “commitment that Kenya will not foreclose export opportunities to the United States with respect to third-country export markets, including by requiring third countries to align with non-science based restrictions and requirements or to adopt SPS measures that are not based on ascertainable risk.” In the Kenya’s negotiating objectives, the SPS provisions will be negotiated on the basis of EAC-US Cooperation agreement. In the </span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">“Cooperation Agreement Among the Partner States of the East African Community and the United States of America on Trade Facilitation, Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, and Technical Barriers to Trade,” <span>the obligation of the US is limited to capacity building, including training, information exchange and cooperation between respective authorities. There are no provisions about the US foreclosing export opportunities for EAC Partner States, including third countries (remember the US has NAFTA, for instance).</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">The US wants to ensure “high standards for implementation of WTO agreements involving trade facilitation and customs valuation” in the proposed FTA. Kenya is required to ensure that “all customs laws, regulations, and procedures are published on the Internet as well as designating points of contact for questions from traders”. The June 22 proposed principles and objectives, like with SPS measures, defers to the EAC-US cooperation agreement. Again here it applies to the SPS provisions <i>mutatis mutandis</i>. As already observed herein before, this is part of the Singapore Issues that Kenya and other developing countries fiercely resisted in the WTO. This concern similarly applies to Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) negotiations where Kenya is to implement “decisions and recommendations adopted by the WTO TBT committee that apply to standards, conformity assessment, transparency and other areas.” If we are to negotiate on behalf of promoting our local productive capacity, safety and citizens’ wellbeing, Kenya needs to have a strong position on this. Further, the US intends to “obtain commitments that Kenya will not foreclose export opportunities to the United States with respect to third-country export markets, including by requiring third countries to withdraw or limit the use of any relevant standard, guide, or recommendation developed in accordance with the TBT Committee Decision.” Where is reciprocity in Kenya’s negotiating principles and objectives?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">The USTR also listed several other negotiating objectives such as “ensuring that procedures facilitate e-commerce shipments and a simplified process for the return of domestic origin goods to meet the challenges disproportionately impacting small business e-commerce.” Moreover, Kenya will be required to “provide for automation of import, export, and transit processes, including through supply chain integration; reduced import, export, and transit forms, documents, and formalities; enhanced harmonization of customs data requirements; and advance rulings regarding the treatment that will be provided to a good at the time of importation.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">On trade in services, the US intends to “secure commitments from Kenya to provide fair and open conditions for services trade, including through: rules that apply to all services sectors, including rules that prohibit discrimination against foreign services suppliers; restrictions on the number of services suppliers in the market; and requirements that cross-border services suppliers establish a local presence.” Kenya’s position as expressed in the principles, objectives and scope is again fairly modest and likely to give the US a virtual free pass. Ordinarily requirement of the establishment of local presence in Mode 1 (cross-border services supply) is both a capacity building and employment creation issue. The principles and objectives developed by Kenya are silent on Mode 4 services supply (movement of natural persons). It reiterates that the negotiations shall take into consideration Special and Differential Treatment (SDT). Developing countries have had difficulties with SDT as they are normally based on “best endeavor” undertakings. Washington similarly wants to “retain flexibility for US non-conforming measures, including US non-conforming measures for maritime services,” while improving “the transparency and predictability of regulatory procedures in Kenya.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">The US also wants “competitive supply of telecommunications services by facilitating market entry.” In financial services, the US negotiating objectives include expanding “competitive market opportunities for the US financial service suppliers to obtain fairer and more open conditions of financial services trade.” As part of “digital trade in goods and services and cross-border data flows,” the US wants to secure “commitments not to impose customs duties on digital products (e.g., software, music, video, e-books)” and “establish state-of-the-art rules to ensure that Kenya does not impose measures that restrict cross-border data flows and does not require the use or installation of local computing facilities.” In her objects the US avers that Kenya <i>must</i> (my emphasis) agree to establish “rules to prevent governments from mandating the disclosure of computer source code or algorithms.” All these are areas where Kenya has the highest potential for being globally competitive or strategic interest and where state support or other forms of discriminative support may be called for. It is totally absent in Kenya’s negotiating principles and objectives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">While in her negotiating objectives, the US wants to seek “provisions governing intellectual property rights that reflect a standard of protection similar to that found in US law, including, but not limited to, protections related to trademarks, patents, copyright and related rights (including, as appropriate, exceptions and limitations), undisclosed test or other data, and trade secrets.” Kenya’s position is that </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">“the text on intellectual property in the Kenya - USA FTA shall aim to reduce IP-related barriers to trade and investment by promoting economic integration and cooperation in the utilization, protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights. It shall cover other intellectual property areas covered by Convention on Biodiversity, including genetic resources, folklore, traditional knowledge, and benefit sharing.” What we, as a country, seek in covering these disciplines is unclear.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">On April 22, 2020, the US Chamber of Commerce made its comprehensive response to the USTR’s March 22 Notice of Objectives. The broad areas addressed are as below:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-bottom: 12pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.0pt 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: black; font-family: wingdings; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">§<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">Single Comprehensive Deal:</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"> Conclude a single, comprehensive agreement that reflects an outcome on all issues under negotiation, as agreed by the parties, rather than seeking agreement on a subset of issues or pursuing a phased approach. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 12pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.0pt 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: black; font-family: wingdings; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">§<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">Trade in Industrial Goods:</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"> Eliminate all tariffs on industrial goods traded between the United States and Kenya, include a high-standard chapter on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) to address non-tariff barriers, and expand market access for remanufactured goods exports by ensuring that they are not classified as used goods that are restricted or banned. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 12pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.0pt 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: black; font-family: wingdings; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">§<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">Trade in Services:</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"> Secure high standard rules and open market access commitments to ensure access to Kenya’s services market, including obligations for new services. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 12pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.0pt 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: black; font-family: wingdings; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">§<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">Trade in Agricultural Products:</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"> Address market access through tariff elimination and by resolving concerns about non-science-based restrictions on agricultural trade with a high- standard chapter on Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 12pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.0pt 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: black; font-family: wingdings; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">§<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">Protect Intellectual Property:</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"> Address intellectual property (IP) rights and enforcement as they relate to patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets to enhance U.S. and Kenyan leadership in innovative industries. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 12pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.0pt 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: black; font-family: wingdings; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">§<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">Protect Investment:</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"> Eliminate forced technology transfers, reduce barriers to foreign direct investment by ensuring non-discriminatory treatment, ensure a high standard of </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">protection for U.S. investors subject to a high standard investor-state dispute settlement mechanism. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 12pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.0pt 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: black; font-family: wingdings; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">§<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">Good Regulatory Practices:</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"> Formalize a joint commitment to follow good regulatory </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">practices, including sufficient advance notice and comment periods and in-depth </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">consultations that include both domestic and foreign stakeholders. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 12pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.0pt 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: black; font-family: wingdings; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">§<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">Emerging Technologies:</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"> Promote effective regulatory cooperation to address emerging </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">technologies and prevent unnecessary regulatory divergence. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 12pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.0pt 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: black; font-family: wingdings; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">§<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">Digital Trade:</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"> Facilitate a mutual right to transfer and store data across borders for all </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">sectors, prohibit data localization requirements, ban customs duties and taxes on electronic transmissions, promote risk-based approaches to cybersecurity, foster cloud use across sectors, ensure non-discriminatory and interoperable frameworks for the protection of personal information, and align any plans to tax digital services with international tax regimes. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 12pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.0pt 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: black; font-family: wingdings; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">§<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">Government Procurement:</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"> Establish open, fair, transparent, predictable, non- discriminatory, and value-based rules to govern government procurement. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 12pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.0pt 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: black; font-family: wingdings; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">§<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">Procedural Fairness for Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices:</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"> Seek standards to ensure that government regulatory reimbursement regimes are transparent, provide procedural fairness, are nondiscriminatory, and provide full market access for U.S. products. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-bottom: 12pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.0pt 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: black; font-family: wingdings; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">§<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">Section 232 Tariffs:</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"> Remove expeditiously the U.S. Section 232 tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum from Kenya. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">The US CC document went further to address sector-specific areas including, but not limited to: (i) agriculture and biotechnology (market access). This is a window for the penetration into Kenya of genetically modified foods; (ii) Automobile (compelling Kenya to access the US Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards); (iv) customs and trade facilitation; (v) digital trade; (vi) government procurement; (vii) intellectual property; and small and medium enterprises (SMEs).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">So far, there is no similar document from the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM) or Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA). The members of these organisations as well as Kenyan farmers stand to lose substantially should the US realize its stated objectives, which are supported by their chamber of commerce, and which they are likely to realize.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">In conclusion, the Kenya-USA FTA portends a bad deal as our country will have to negotiate in areas where she currently has policy flexibilities; have to undermine the regional integration in both letter and spirit; and reverse the little gains of multilateralism in trade relations. In the undesirable event that we must negotiate this FTA with Washington, our interests would be served best doing so as the EAC. No deal is better than a bad one. Rethink these negotiations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="" style="font-family: "bookman old style";"><i>Nairobi, June 24, 2020</i></span></div>
THE SITUATION ROOMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09048839964389097129noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3276494352243824124.post-30263980066507622482020-04-21T12:08:00.001-07:002020-04-22T10:37:15.766-07:00A HERETIC’S VIEW OF KENYA’S ECONOMY POST-COVID-19<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><u><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">By Oduor Ong'wen</span></u></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">It is now five weeks since the announcement of the first positive case of a COVID-19 test. It was always a matter of “when” not “if” we were going to join the growing list of countries with cases of the vicious virus. In a rapid-fire manner, the cases began to rise. Some Kenyans were alarmed. Others adopted a cavalier attitude. The government, earlier condemned for the inept or indifferent pose exhibited as the disease wrecked havoc in lands it considered far away – even passenger arrivals from epicentres like China and Italy – swung into action with a series of protocols and directives. As the Englishmen say, the jury is still out. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">The low numbers so far posted give us some level of comfort and boost our confidence. But the COVID crisis has exposed the vulnerability of our health system. When the coronavirus pandemic broke out, our country was totally unprepared for it. There were severe shortages of testing kits and healthcare facilities. The first cases had to be tested in South Africa, taking almost a week to post results. Many Kenyans also lack universal entitlement to healthcare. We don’t have a robust social protection system despite that a policy was adopted ten years ago. Social safety nets including basic employment rights and unemployment insurance that could mitigate some of the worst effects of the pandemic’s economic impact have been considered anti-business and as such condemned. All this points to the disarming reality that the pandemic would unleash mutually reinforcing health and economic crises.<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">COVID-19 pandemic is wracking and humbling every country, economy, society, and social class. In its socioeconomic and political impact alone, COVID-19 has already made history. While I am not deriving any gratification from the fact that the invincible United States of America and mighty Europe are ravaged by the pandemic, COVID-19 has disabused the big powers of the oft peddled notion that Africa is a continent of poverty and disease. The novel coronavirus has shown that pestilence is no respecter of riches and military might. Whether we already recognise or not, the pandemic has reorganised our society socially, culturally and economically. It has the potential for political reorganisation too. As Paul Tiyambe Zeleza observes, “the neo-liberal crusade against 'big government' that had triumphed since the turn of the 1980s, suddenly looked threadbare. And so did the populist zealotry against experts and expertise. The valorisation of the politics of gut feelings masquerading as gifted insight and knowledge, suddenly vanished into puffs of ignoble ignorance that endangered the lives of millions of people.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Never before in our lifetime has the human race been so vulnerable. We only read in History books that one of the world’s deadliest pandemics was the Great Plague of 1346-1351, which ravaged larges parts of Eurasia and Africa and killed between75 to 200 million people, and wiped out 30 to 60 per cent of the European population. The plague was caused by fleas carried by rats, underscoring humanity’s vulnerability to the lethal power of small and microorganisms, notwithstanding the conceit of its mastery over nature. The current pandemic shows that this remains true despite all the technological advances humanity has made since then. Over a century ago, as World War I came to an end, an influenza epidemic, triggered by a virus transmitted from animals to humans, ravaged the globe. One-third of the world’s population was infected, and it left 50 million people dead. It was the worst pandemic of the 20th century. Now COVID fatalities are more than 2 million and we are still counting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">The public health-induced mitigation measures imposed by the government, the responses of individuals (particularly, in terms of hygiene and self- isolation), downturn in economic activity from Kenya’s major trading and investment partners and the dislocation of global capital markets are some of the immediate economic impacts of coronavirus captured by the health shock. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">But it’s not all gloom. It is from crises of this nature and great wars that countries discover and unleash their latent potential and change the course of history permanently. We can come out of this crisis with a better-organized healthcare and social security system. We can re-engineer our economy in a manner that it better responds to the needs of the Kenyan people – and consequently that will redo the political architecture of our nation. We cannot afford to let this crisis go to waste.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">What I propose hereunder as a way of dealing with the post-COVID economy is considered a heresy in neo-liberal economics. Against the coronavirus pandemic, we are at war – nationally and globally. And coming out of a war situation, we have to act in “strange ways” and dare to be us. The rulebook has to be suspended, if not revised altogether. We as a country need to have five interventions in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">First, we must address our public healthcare system holistically. Let every county be given a ring-fenced grant of Sh. 2 billion to upgrade the healthcare system including, but not limited to, building or physically upgrading hospitals, health centres and clinics, buying and repairing equipment, stocking the health facilities (some hospitals and dispensaries don’t have even bandages or paracetamol tablets), addressing health workers’ human resource issues (from salaries, work environment to health professional:patient ratio). The pandemic has exposed the vulnerability of countries that had subordinated public healthcare to profit interests like our country and the United States, among others. Let’s learn from the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) if the Cuban system can infect us with communism. Sh. 100 billion (Sh. 94 billion to counties and Sh. 6 billion to the national referral facilities) would revolutionise our healthcare system. This must be in addition to – not in place of – the current budgetary allocations. The money to the counties should not be used for any other programmes unrelated to upgrading the healthcare system.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Second, we need to support domestic production. Not less than Sh. 80 billion should be infused in the food production systems. Direct support to producers of staples like maize, wheat, rice, beans, milk etc. would ensure not only that these commodities are readily available but also the producers are backstopped. Sugar production should be included here. The support should include subsidized inputs, extension services, production and marketing infrastructure and provision of the necessary storage and warehousing facilities, among other things. Another Sh. 70 billion should be made available to those in the export crop production that includes, among others, tea, coffee, horticulture and floriculture and pyrethrum<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">The withdrawal of public services has not led to a florescence of the private sector in rural areas – but a yawning void. Market liberalisation cannot contribute to poverty reduction unless better market linkages have been forged, linkages that not only bring smallholders to the market (and the private sector to smallholders), but that also embody enhanced market power among the poor. The public sector has a critical role to play in this. Accelerating the process of rural reconstruction (including development of market access), expanding choices, improving access to information, creating conditions for equitable market relations for the poor – all these must be at the very apex of our development and poverty reduction agenda. But the issue is not just markets; it is also assets – and the challenge of securing the rights of the poor to land and water that are at the hearts of their livelihoods.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Third, the State should ensure that the manufacturing sector is producing the goods we consume as a country. In the last thirty years, Kenya has been transformed from a regional industrial hub into a huge supermarket for imported stuff – largely of questionable quality. From paper to furniture, we have turned to importing some products that can be produced here cheaper and in superior quality. The country has the capacity to produce most of what it needs in clothing and apparel, pharmaceutical products, industrial and auto spare parts. Sh. 100 billion stimulus package in the post-corona recovery plan should be able to spur optimal industrial production. The construction sector should also be supported through this window. It is the support for the agricultural, manufacturing and construction sectors that will put most of our people to work. The response to the pandemic – almost instant production of alcohol-based hand sanitisers, face masks, personal protective gear (PPE) and even a prototype of cheap ventilators – have shown that given a conducive environment, Kenyans can produce quality manufactures for both local and regional markets.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">In the short to medium-term, the agricultural products aimed at ensuring our food security and manufactured products would need to be cushioned against import surges of similar products. Over the last three decades, protectionism has become a dirty word. Trade liberalisation under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has elimination of protectionism as its main aim. But contrary to the widely held belief that WTO prohibits protecting vulnerable industries and sectors, it allows restrictive measures in response to well-defined situations like addressing a balance of payment (BOP) challenge or what is known as Safeguard. Countries facing BOP problems, i.e. problems regarding net inflow of foreign exchange or foreign cash reserves are permitted under Article XII of GATT 1994 (for both developed and developing countries) and Article XVIIIB of GATT 1994 (for developing countries only) to take measures such as tariffs beyond bound levels or quantitative restrictions. Another situation that can provoke cushioning a range of products or sectors is called Safeguard. Safeguard measures are resorted to when a product sector of a domestic industry suffers injury or is at a threat of suffering injury from imports. To induce value-addition, the State should impose export duties on primary products – unless it’s in our national interest not to do so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Fourth, the State should make a total cash grant of Sh 40 billion grant as social assistance package to every vulnerable Kenyan. This amount is less than what the country lost in Arror and Kamwerer dam projects where Sh. 21 billion was gifted to a bankrupt Italian firm and a few dealers masquerading as leaders locally and the money the State lost to the Chinese firm CATIC when the JKIA Greenfield Airport Terminal project was cancelled, amounting to Sh. 20 billion. CATIC has used that money to construct the Global Trade Centre (GTC) along Chiromo Road, Nairobi. This proposal might appear populist. But that’s not the intent, even though it will be popular. </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">COVID-19 is a supply shock and a demand shock. </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">With this money in the pockets needy Kenyans, the products and produce will get ready local market. They will buy food, construct houses, buy clothing, booze and marry many women, thus ensuring that the supply side (production) is sustained in the market. This is pretty good for an economy emerging from war.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Unlike buying of emergency provisions for the poor, corrupt State officials can’t steal this money, if profiling is transparent. It will also accord the low-income people the opportunity and dignity of having a choice as opposed to relief food that is bought remotely and presented to them in a “take-it-or-leave-it” situation. Many Kenyans using this grant as a start-up capital will also start some micro and small enterprises and create employment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">There are sectors like tourism and hospitality as well as air transport that will take a long time to recover. The State should assist them to recalibrate. For example, Kenya Airways shifting focus to cargo transportation while not losing the passenger routes it has secured in Europe, US and Asia; massive promotion of domestic tourism to return hotels and lodges to normalcy etc. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">The foregoing interventions will require the injection of between Sh. 350 billion and Sh. 500 billion. Where do we source this money? Hold your breath! The Central Bank has to release new notes worth this amount. Yes, print the money. Of course, this is heresy to neo-classical economists directing our fiscal and monetary policies. The IMF advisors that control our Treasury and State Department of Finance will vehemently oppose this. Yet, they don’t object – indeed tacitly approve – when industrialised countries engage in the same. There are already strong indications that both the US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank are going to print money to enable them respond to the COVID challenge, if they haven’t done so already. The IFIs discourage our countries from resorting to the same measures so that our economies absorb their excess liquidity through debt. Two authoritative European publications – the <b><i>Financial Times</i></b> and <b><i>The Economist</i></b> – let the cat out of the bag almost at the same time a fortnight ago.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">On April 6, 2020, the <b><i>Financial Times</i></b> opined as follows: <i>In times of emergency, particularly war, central banks have often handed freshly printed banknotes to governments. The fight against resultant inflation was postponed until after any crisis … without limits, allowing a government to finance itself by creating money can lead to hyperinflation. But these risks can be manageable: the quantitative easing of the past decade, despite predictions, has not lifted inflation above the main central banks’ 2 per cent targets. The money pumped into the rich-world economies has been met by increased demand, perhaps permanently.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">The same week, <b><i>The Economist</i></b> had this to say: <i>this is no time to fret about government debt. While cases of COVID-19 soar and economic activity grinds to a halt, governments are right to throw all resources they can at efforts to limit the pandemic’s human and economic costs … Central banks, in an effort to provide relief to troubled economies, are already buying large quantities of government debt. The Fed is purchasing unlimited amounts of Treasuries; the European Central Bank recently announced a € 750bn ($809bn) bond-buying scheme</i>. <i>A weak recovery could push central banks to finance large fiscal deficits with freshly printed cash on an ongoing basis.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, central banks led by the Federal Reserve created trillions of dollars of new money, and poured it into financial markets. The QE was supposed to prevent deflation and restore economic growth. But the money didn’t go to ordinary people: it went to the rich, who didn’t need it. It went to big corporations and banks – the same banks whose reckless lending had caused the crisis. This led to a decade of stagnation, not recovery. QE failed. QE can only succeed if the money goes directly to ordinary people and small businesses.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Instead of going for either external or domestic borrowing – both of which are expensive and punitive to the taxpayer, QE is a borrowing by the government from itself and in its own currency. If the Central Bank (CBK) issues new Sh. 500 billion worth of new cash, the money supply (M1) would grow from the current Sh. 1.5 Trillion to Sh. 2 Trillion. The money supply (M2) in this case would rise to about Sh. 2.4 Trillion. At a withdrawal rate of 2.5 per cent of M1 per month, CBK can mop out this excess liquidity in 12 months and return to the pre-COVID status. This is enough timeframe for the economy to find its own feet to stand on if the foregoing is implemented as a single package. In its report, <i>Africa’s Pulse,</i>released last week on April 13, 2020, the World Bank acknowledges that many African countries still have room for countercyclical monetary policies but avers that space for fiscal policies is quite constricted.If we don't borrow from ourselves in increased money supply, the excess dollars and euros are sure coming our way through credit from industrialised countries and IMF's Standby facility. This will be very expensive and enslaving.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Fifth, we have to address our taxation system in the medium to long term. In Kenya, like in virtually every capitalist country, the burden of taxes falls inordinately on lower and middle-income families. Income taxes, in absolute terms favour high earners at the expense of those on low pay. Most consumer taxes – like the Value-Added Tax (VAT) - are also regressive, causing the poor and middle classes to pay much higher percentage of their income than a rich person who buys the same items.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">A new progressive tax system should be introduced on production. In other words, taxes on goods should be levied at the point of production rather than at the point of purchase by the consumer, and taxes on service should be levied on the service provider for the services they provide. </span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">A tax system based on production tax would provide the broadest possible tax base. All goods produced in the country would be taxed at the point at which they enter the economy, and the producer should pay the tax. All imported goods should be taxed at the point of importation with the importer paying the tax. Similarly, taxes on services should be levied at the point at which the service is provided to the consumer and the tax paid by the service provider. Thus, in such a system, the government would have the opportunity to collect the greatest amount of revenue.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">A tax system based on a production tax would be the fairest possible tax system for both the consumer and the producer. Under this tax regime, producers of essential, semi-essential and non essential commodities would be taxed at varying rates as would providers of essential, semi-essential and non-essential services. Essential goods and services should be taxed at the lowest rate, semi-essential goods and services to be charged at a higher rate, and non-essential goods and services should attract the highest tax rate. Each consumer would have the opportunity to choose which product or service they preferred, knowing that they would be paying more for luxury items. Switching over to this tax system would, in very conservative estimates, move our tax to GDP ratio from the current 19 per cent to between 35 and 40 per cent. This is another heresy to neoliberal economists.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Like all heretics, I am ready to be stoned to death or burned alive at a public ceremony at Uhuru Park. My only request is: remember to keep social distancing during the ceremony.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Nairobi, April 21, 2020<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
THE SITUATION ROOMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09048839964389097129noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3276494352243824124.post-26851953984605676982020-03-18T12:04:00.002-07:002020-03-18T22:21:05.075-07:00WHY BBI MUST ADDRESS DISPARITIES IN KENYA<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><u><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">By Oduor Ong'wen</span></u></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">The Building Bridges Initiative, Kenya’s latest attempt at nationmaking is in the final stretch. While many Kenyans have welcomed it, a number of them led, by the Deputy President William Ruto, have dismissed it with contempt. The refrain for those contemptuous of the initiative is that it is about creating political positions for bigwigs on the backs of <i>Mama Mboga</i>. It could as well turn out to be if we just focus on political settlement but ignore three of the most important issues in the nine-issue initiative. The three are Shared Prosperity, Ethnic Competition; and Inclusivity. The remaining six issues including the lack of national ethos, runaway corruption, divisive elections, safety and security as well as responsibilities and rights depend on how we tackle these three.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #424242; font-family: "bookman old style";">Extreme inequality and skewed access to opportunities in both public and private sectors is out of control in Kenya. Despite impressive economic growth numbers we have been fed with annually since 2005, poverty still affects millions of people’s lives. It appears that a minority of wealthy individuals and investors are creaming off the yields of the country’s economic performance. While this minority of super-rich Kenyans is accumulating wealth and income, the fruits of economic growth are failing to trickle down to the poorest. The rich are capturing the lion’s share of the benefits, while millions of people at the bottom are being left behind. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #424242; font-family: "bookman old style";">The gap between the richest and poorest has reached extreme levels in Kenya. Less than 0.1per cent of the population (8,300 people) own more wealth than the bottom 99.9 per cent (more than 46 million people). The richest 10 per cent of people in Kenya earned on average 23 times more than the poorest 10 per cent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">The poverty in Kenya has a face, gender and address. <span style="color: #333333;"> </span><span style="color: #3c3330;">The top 10 per cent richest households in Kenya control more than 40 per cent of the country's income. The poorest 10 per cent control less than one per cent. </span><span style="color: #333333;">Currently, less than 10,000 people control 6 per cent of the Kenya’s national wealth. Poverty has the face of a young female Kenyan. For instance, </span><span style="color: #3c3330;">in the 20-24 years age group, there are 274,000 unemployed women compared to 73,000 unemployed men. Nearly every child in the former Central province is enrolled in primary school. One out of three children in the North Eastern region go to school.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">According to Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), the northern part of the country has lowest income inequality. For instance, Turkana has 0.28 per cent, Wajir 0.321 per cent and Mandera 0.332 per cent. The coastal regions especially Tana River, Kilifi and Kwale have the highest income inequality in the country at 0.617 per cent, 0.597 per cent and 0.565 per cent respectively using the Gini coefficient. Income inequality in the coastal region is linked to historical injustices where large tracts of land were allocated to nonresidents, leaving the locals as squatters. This inequality has led to severe poverty in the region leading the squatters to live impoverished lifestyles with minimal access to basic amenities such as schools and healthcare facilities. This has also led to increased levels of insecurity in those areas due to high unemployment rates especially in urban areas. </span><span style="color: #3c3330; font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">In the former Nyanza province, twice as many children die before their first birthday than children living in the Rift Valley – that's 133 to 61 deaths per 1,000 live births, respectively.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3c3330; font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">Poverty levels in different regions vary greatly. The percentage of people living below the poverty line in Nairobi is 44 per cent. However, only eight per cent of the population living in Woodley, Kibera Subcounty, live under the poverty line while 87 per cent of the population in Laini Saba in the same sub-county live under the line.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">In a country where employment in the public sector is key, the bias in hiring of those who work in the civil service and other state agencies is mirrored in poverty profiles. In its report published in 2012, the National Cohesion and Integration Commission, brought out the glaring disparities in access to government employment opportunities. More than half of Kenya’s ethnic groups are only marginally represented in the Civil Service – the country’s largest employer, where only 20 out of over 43 listed Kenyan communities are statistically visible. Some 23 communities have less than 1 per cent presence in the Civil Service</span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">The report shows that only seven communities – the Kikuyu, Kalenjin, Luhya, Kamba, Luo, Kisii and Meru – have a representation above 5 per cent in the Civil Service. All the other communities’ representation is below 5 per cent. </span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Five of these communities – the Kikuyu, Kalenjin, Luhya, Kamba and Luo – occupy nearly 70 per cent of Civil Service employment. Although they are the most populous, their numbers in the Civil Service are at variance with their population size. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">But the above global figures still hide the disparities. A keener look reveals that there is a variance between a community’s share of population and share of civil service posts. Where some communities have a greater share of civil service jobs than their population, others have a lesser one. The Kikuyu and the Kalenjin have a disproportionate share of civil service posts compared to their population. Their proportion in the Civil Service exceeds the size of their share in the national population. The Kikuyu, who account for 17 per cent of Kenya’s population holds 22.3 per cent of civil service jobs – giving a variance +5 per cent. They are followed by the Kalenjin at 13 per cent but comprising 17 per cent of civil service (+4 per cent variance); the Meru at 4.4 per cent constituting 5.9 per cent of the civil service (+1.5 per cent); and the Embu, who are 0.9 per cent of the national population but hog 2 per cent of civil service jobs, giving a variance of +1.1 per cent. </span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">This contrasts with communities whose presence in the civil service is lower than their share of the population. These are the Luhyia, comprising 14.2 per cent but holding 11.3 per cent of civil service jobs, giving a variance of – 2.9 per cent; Luo, at 11 per cent but constituting 9 per cent of the government workforce (-2 per cent); Somali, Kamba, Turkana and Maasai. </span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">There are many explanations for these variances, including disparities in access to education, proximity to the location of Government offices as well as willingness to seek employment in the public service. Be that as it may, it is remarkable that a service once dominated by Europeans and Asians has so dramatically changed in its composition over 40 years. The emerging patterns of staffing suggest that power and leadership influenced the ethnic composition of the public service. </span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">The Kikuyu constitute the largest single dominant ethnic group in all ministries and departments, except in the Prisons Department and the Kenya Police. The Kalenjin are the second largest group in the Civil Service. They are also the most dominant group in the Prisons Department, and the Police Force. These two groups alone make up close to 40 per cent of the entire Civil Service. Their numbers in the Civil Service suggest a direct relationship with the tenure of the presidency, in that they have both had a member as President for over 20 years. </span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Lack of access to education has been cited as undermining equitable hiring for the Civil Service across communities. Yet, the skewed recruitment into the Civil Service cuts across all job groups, including those that do not require high educational qualifications. In the lowest job groups – ABCD – the same seven major communities account for over 80 per cent of Civil Service jobs. Again, the number of those hired from each community is at variance with their population size. The communities that statistically insignificant remain outside this civil service group. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">The Constitution calls for ethnic diversity in the Civil Service.</span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";"> </span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Article 232 (1) (h) requires ‘representation of Kenya’s diverse communities’ as one of the <b><i>values and principles </i></b>of the public service. </span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Article 232 (1) (i)(ii) requires “affording adequate and equal opportunities for appointment, training, advancement, at all levels of the public service of the members of all ethnic groups.” </span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">A recruitment policy based purely on merit or competition may not give Kenyans a public service that represents the face of the country. Disparities in education infrastructure and imbalances in development generally mean that some communities are more likely to produce highly skilled people than others. It is these disparities in regional development and basic services that the country should have addressed in the past 50 years of independence. </span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">The disparities noted point to the country’s failure to identify ethnic inequalities as a challenge to national cohesion. There is a need to develop and implement policies that can reduce these inequalities. </span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #323232; font-family: "bookman old style";">At the core of the BBI recommendations to enhance inclusivity are proposals that recognize that different regions of the country present different economic and cultural opportunities. It further proposes gender-sensitive budgeting as an essential component in eliminating obstacles that marginalise women in key spheres of development.<span class="apple-converted-space"> While this is welcome, it merely scratches the surface of the problem, especially as far as skewed ethnic employment in the civil service is concerned. Countries that have experienced similar challenges of ethnic/racial exclusion like ours have resorted to constitutional instruments. This is what Singapore did. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Singapore’s model of managing ethnic relations has been described as interactionist, rather than integrationist or assimilationist. This model acknowledges social heterogeneity and views the population to be composed of separate, distinct "races". In public policies, education, employment, housing, immigration, defence and national security policies are designed to ensure that each race retains and perpetuates its distinctiveness within a general framework of national interest. The abortive OKOA Kenya constitutional amendment bill had proposed two amendments to cure ethnic exclusion: to ensure that each ethnic community does not exceed its share of national population in every cadre of the public service; and to ensure that at least 30 per cent of all civil service jobs are taken by ethnic minorities. In its referendum bill, the BBI steering Committee is advised to look at this proposal.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #323232; font-family: "bookman old style";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #323232; font-family: "bookman old style";">On shared prosperity, the report proposes a raft of measures that would promote entrepreneurship and put good cash in the pockets of young people, women and other groups surviving on the margins of the economy. The most outstanding include granting a 7-year tax holiday to start-up businesses by the youth. While this is welcome, there are hurdles faced by the young entrepreneurs that if not addressed will see many young people still unable to avail themselves of the incentives. One of these hurdles is lack of skills and mentorship. The other is pressure for loan repayment. For us to help our youth, the first intervention should be training and skills development; the second should be start-up grants to those who have acquired such skills as they are mentored in the world of business; and finally, those who have been successfully weaned from the foregoing interventions given credit facilities to expand their chosen lines of business. This would minimise the rate of failure of these enterprises and defaulting on loans even if the rates were concessional. </span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Biashara Mashinani</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";"> policies and incentives, which are aimed at promoting village-level businesses, are a welcome proposal. However, the challenges faced by the youth similarly apply and should be address through both policy and administrative interventions so that <i>Mama Mboga</i>, persons with disabilities and village artisans and urban hawkers may benefit.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #323232; font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">Regarding lending to priority sectors, the government would provide legal and regulatory guidelines for banks to lend a part of their portfolio to priority sectors. These are micro, small and medium businesses, export credit, manufacturing, housing, education, health and renewable energy. It also includes sanitation and waste management, and agriculture including livestock and fishing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #323232; font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">In a very timid manner, the report proposes that the State be held accountable on opening markets for labour-intensive manufactured Kenyan goods in EAC countries. This would result to more business opportunities for women and youth, taking into account the government’s support of women and youth-led enterprises through Uwezo Fund and Women Enterprise Fund. This matter needs to be given prominence and call for the fast-tracking on East African regional integration, including exploring “federation of the willing” option.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #323232; font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">The taskforce has also suggested a <i>Kubadili Plan</i> intended to lift marginalised wards out of underdevelopment. It would identify the wards and establish a framework of building the social and economic infrastructure to facilitate development. This should not wait for the anticipated referendum.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #323232; font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">Finally, the BBI report proposed making Kenya a 100 per cent e-service nation by digitising government services, processes, payment systems, and record keeping. While this is welcome, the danger lacks in “communicative capitalism.” </span><span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">This refers to a phase of knowledge- and technology-based commodity production in which information on a massive scale is produced, gathered, and sold for profit. What we now call the “information society” or “knowledge economy” sees the large-scale proletarianization of often highly-educated people in low-paying (often low-skilled) jobs, precariously scraping by to pay student loans, and living pay cheque to pay cheque.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #323232; font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: "bookman old style";">Another more insidious feature of communicative capitalism is the role of technology companies in exploiting the participatory features of the knowledge economy (especially social media, digitized personal information archives, search engines, and online shopping) to harvest, store, organize, and sell consumer information to other companies. We all know something happens to the information we share on Facebook, input into Amazon or Google when we search, and are rarely surprised anymore when we see ads in our feeds and email for commodities that are similar to what we’ve searched for.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: "bookman old style";">This aspect of the knowledge economy as free labor producing commoditized data for technological capital. Whenever we participate by watching the latest hit on Netflix, buy something from our favorite online store, or add information to our LinkedIn account, we are producing bits and pieces of our lives and interests that are transformed into products by technology companies. We do it for free and spend hours and hours on it. Technology companies are able to construct significant digital images and profiles of consumers, their needs and desires, their work and habits, their movements, alignments, and affiliations. I know it sounds like a scary science fiction movie, but it is true. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: "bookman old style";">The “knowledge economy” is most effective at using our desire for connection, for collectivity to promote the commodities that we help to build back onto us in ways that promise, but fail, to make up for the lack we experience under alienating capitalism. It successfully tweaks our desires and needs to negate our yearning for collectivity and convince us that our individuality is most important for a healthy life. It uses this false belief to divide us one from another and to absorb our dissent or criticisms or desire for political actions into its commodity-building software.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: "bookman old style";">One dimension of this commodity-producing information behemoth is higher education. Once the domain of elites who transmitted the culture and civilization of the wealthy, higher education, by the mid-twentieth century had become a domain of working-class struggle and class mobility.</span><span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: "bookman old style";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Nairobi, 18 March 2020<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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THE SITUATION ROOMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09048839964389097129noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3276494352243824124.post-33242607102972075872020-03-03T18:48:00.001-08:002020-03-04T10:12:24.831-08:0045TH ANNIVERSARY OF JM KARIUKI’S ASSASSINATION: DOWN THE MEMORY LANE<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">By Oduor Ong'wen</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Today is a red-letter day. On this day, forty-five years ago, Josiah Mwangi Kariuki (popularly known simply as JM), a freedom fighter, politician and successful businessman was murdered. His badly mutilated and decaying remains were discovered a few days later dumped in the Ngong Forest, a place then known to be roamed by hungry hyenas every night. But why would someone or some people want to eliminate the Nyandarua North legislator so badly that he or they would liquidate him in this most heinous manner?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">The events leading to this gruesome murder were the kind of stuff that would attract Hollywood movie producers or fiction writers of crime thrillers. </span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">According to the evidence that was pieced up then and later enriched over a period of time thereafter, somebody had decided well before that fateful Sunday of March 2 that that JM had to be eliminated. President Kenyatta was old and not enjoying the best of health. Many hangers on around the President, having eliminated Tom Mboya in July 1969, believed that JM had his eyes on the presidency and was therefore the next piece of nuisance to be got rid of. Besides, JM had a dashing style and struck a powerful chord with the masses. This earned him bitter enemies within the Kenyatta State House. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">The scheme to do away with JM is said to have been developed well before the first post-independence general elections in 1969. For JM, these elections provided him a chance to demonstrate his organisational capabilities and the respect he commanded among colleagues. The elections came not only some five months after the elimination of Mboya but barely six weeks after the Kisumu massacre, the banning of the increasingly popular Kenya People’s Union (KPU) and the detention without trial of the entire KPU leadership led by Jaramogi Oginga Odinga. It was the beginning of the increasingly radical JM projected through word and deed, snipping at the Kenyatta government at every opportunity. Speaking during a student graduation at Highridge Teachers College in early 1970, he said that the Kenya Government had betrayed the vision of the freedom fighters. New black settlers had only replaced colonial white settlers. He told a dumbfounded crowd: "I believe firmly that substituting Kamau for Smith, Odongo for Jones and Kiplagat for Keith won't solve what the gallant fighters of our <i>uhuru</i> considered an imposed and undesirable social injustice". A few weeks later he received a standing ovation at the University of Nairobi when he declared: <i>"It takes more than a National Anthem, however stirring; a National Flag, however beautiful; a National Court of Arms, however distinctive, to create a nation"</i>. Later, he spoke to Uganda's Makerere University and declared Kenya's policy on African Socialism a hoax. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">JM was now the man to watch. A GEMA delegation called on Kenyatta to complain about the MP. But it is reported that Kenyatta dismissed their worries, saying JM was "just a young inexperienced bull that doesn't know from which side to mount a cow". But clearly others did not think so. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">A scheme was put in place to slow him down by denying him permits to hold or address meetings. The restriction was extended even to innocuous gatherings like family parties. A birthday party he had scheduled for March 21, 1971,was cancelled at the eleventh hour by the State. And on January 1, 1972, a huge rally he had organised to be attended by a number of cabinet ministers and MPs was cancelled at the last minute. An incensed JM later told Parliament: "This anti-JM campaign is now bordering on stupidity". Denied a chance to speak outside Parliament, JM turned to the floor of the House to communicate. The then Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, Dr. Munyua Waiyaki, would later recall that "JM would call and ask me not to miss Parliament as he was preparing a bombshell. He particularly liked the days when I was in the Chair as he knew I wouldn't deny him a chance to say whatever he wanted". <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">JM's political enemies went on the offensive against him in the run up to the October 1974 General Election. All his campaign meetings, except one, were cancelled. He was virtually banned from visiting his constituency during the campaigns. In the meantime, Nakuru's Mayor, Mburu Gichua had camped in Nyandarua North with instructions to ensure that JM didn't go back to Parliament. To the great chagrin of his detractors, JM retained the seat with three times more votes than the combined total of his opponents. During the swearing-in of the new Parliament in November 1974, MPs gave JM a standing ovation. It rivaled the applause they had just given Kenyatta, who was in the Chamber. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">It was about this time that secret meetings began in Nakuru and in the city on how to stop JM. Taped speeches of his addresses were played to Kenyatta but it is said Mzee was not alarmed. He only suggested that the MP should be warned to change his ways. According to the late former Nakuru Town MP Mark Mwithaga, the State House clique that wanted JM eliminated was itself interested in keeping a hold on the presidency after Kenyatta. Which is why they held meetings in Nakuru and resolved that JM must die despite Kenyatta’s obvious reluctance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">JM's other strategy was to give generously to development projects. Not only did the debonair Nyandarua North MP give generously to charity, but his speeches were increasingly getting favour and approval with the Kenyan masses. His contributions to <i>Harambees</i> were also unsettling not only to Kenyatta’s courtiers, but to the King himself. For instance, he was known to have given the princely sum of Sh 80,000 to a public cause at a time when the President's highest known donation was Sh 3,000 to the Jomo Kenyatta College of Agriculture at Juja. The contributions aroused suspicion that foreigners who preferred him as a future president of Kenya were externally funding him. Propaganda was hatched and popularized that Chinese communists were behind JM's seemingly endless resources. But his widow Terry in a later media interview denied that JM had any foreign backer. "For all the time I lived with him, he never held a secret bank account. In any case, the government had the machinery to uncover such an account had it existed", she said. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">JM’s repeated harsh verdict on the growing inequalities and commentaries in favour of a more caring society founded on social justice did not help matters. On the 10th anniversary of Kenya's independence (1973), old Jomo joyfully extolled the country's achievements while JM remarked elsewhere that Kenya had become a country of ten millionaires and ten million beggars. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "bookman old style";">In early 1975, the first bombs to strike independent Kenya exploded. In the month of February, there were two detonations in Nairobi’s Central Business District. The first blast was inside the lavatories of the then Starlight Night Club on Valley Road (the spot where Integrity House now stands) and in a Travel Information Office in front of the Hilton Hotel. The day after the second explosion, JM Kariuki revealed in Parliament that his car had been hit ‘by what seemed to be bullets’. There were rumours of a botched attempt on his life. They were followed by a more serious bomb blast in a Mombasa-bound bus on February 28 at the terminus of the OTC buses long Nairobi’s Racecourse Road. The explosion killed 28 people and left about 100 people injured. Despite a massive public outcry and a police manhunt, no arrests were made. For several days thereafter, the city lived in fear, destabilised by numerous telephone bomb hoaxes. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "bookman old style";">It was clear that someone or a group was creating a climate of fear and despondency. </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">But the Kenyatta government took Kenyans on a diversionary path. The nation told that this bomb was the handiwork of a group called Maskini Liberation Organisation (MLO). </span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">In the months preceding these bombings, leaflets had been distributed all over Kenya claiming that JM, Charles Rubia and five other ‘dissidents’ were the trustees of the MLO. This disinformation campaign was followed by a series of bomb hoaxes in the form of anonymous phone calls to the police and media houses. None of them ever came to anything. This was not until after there was an actual explosion at the popular Starlight club. The call to the Central Police Station was not treated with much seriousness given that they all ended up chasing a hoax every time they received these bomb alerts. Two hours after the call was made, a bomb did go off at the Tour Information Office. There is often no mention of any casualties or injuries at the second bombing, but it is likely that there were a few.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "bookman old style";">On March 2 1975, two days after the bus blast, top security officials, among them Ben Gethi, who was the Commandant of the paramilitary General Service Unit (GSU) of the Kenya Police, are said to have publicly accosted JM outside the Hilton. He had been followed by the police throughout the day, including police reservist Patrick Shaw. Gethi reportedly asked JM to accompany the Security officials into a convoy of cars and took him to an unknown destination. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "bookman old style";">After JM’s disappearance, there was a lull of five days as his friends and family members tried to find out his whereabouts. Rumours began circulating that he had been detained without trial – a phenomenon that was the hallmark of Kenyatta dictatorship. Finally, on March 7, Vice President Daniel arap Moi who was also the Home Affairs Minister told Parliament that JM Kariuki was on a business trip to Zambia. All along, this was diversionary as top security honchos in his ministry were aware that JM’s partly decomposed body was lying at the City Mortuary. The police had sent the corpse to the mortuary as an “unidentified African male.” The same day of Tipis’ appeal, Kenyatta, on his way back to Nairobi from a month-long stay in Nakuru, made a thinly veiled speech that appealed for order, and warned ‘the government would have no mercy on any individual or group that attempted to disrupt peace and harmony in Kenya. It was then not obvious but Kenyatta apparently knew what was to come.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "bookman old style";">On Saturday March 8, the <i>Daily Nation</i> reported that JM Kariuki was in Zambia on a business trip, although the news desk already had sworn statements that the corpse in the city morgue was JM’s; editor-in-chief George Githii ordered a reluctant news desk to print this misinformation. On March 11, nine days after his abduction, a person who identified himself as “Israeli businessman” telephoned Terry Kariuki, JM’s third wife, and asked: “Have you checked whether your husband is lying at the morgue?” Mrs Kariuki informed the anonymous caller that the family had been to the Nairobi City Mortuary twice. The caller said, “Just check again” and disconnected. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "bookman old style";">After collecting herself following this terse hint, Mrs Kariuki called her two co-wives, Nyambura and Mwikali. Kariuki’s three wives met at the mortuary and had no difficulty identifying his partially decomposed body. Though the face was disfigured, the body was in the same green jacket and a dotted red scarf JM had worn on the morning he left home never to return. The widowed women screamed inside the morgue, after which armed GSU personnel sealed off the place. At the same time Vice President Moi was making a statement, reporting that Kariuki’s whereabouts were still unknown. On March 12, Police Commissioner Bernard Hinga finally confirmed that JM Kariuki was dead, killed by two bullet wounds. He claimed that the ‘partial decomposition’ of the body made identification impossible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "bookman old style";">Hinga’s pronouncement was greeted by a mass outpouring of popular anger amid collective national grief. As soon as JM’s death became public, angry students at the University of Nairobi staged massive demonstrations, which were violently dispersed by the GSU. Large crowds gathered around street corners as the police tried to cordon off roads leading into Nairobi. Most shops and schools in Nairobi and environs closed down. The media reported that, fearing public attacks, several ministers removed the flags of office from their cars and fled in fear.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "bookman old style";">Kariuki’s death also roused the National Assembly into open hostility to and defiance of the Executive. MPs immediately demanded an investigation into the murder. Moi publicly subjected himself to ridicule before Parliament, swearing that he had had no idea that JM Kariuki was dead, and was only repeating what officials had told him: “I did it in good faith. I am sorry, I am sorry.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "bookman old style";">On March 14, parliament unanimously voted to appoint a Select Committee to investigate the murder. The committee was chaired by Elijah Mwangale , the MP for Bungoma East Constituency, and it included Martin Joseph Shikuku of Butere, Jean Marie Seroney of Tinderet and other friends of Kariuki’s. The Kenyatta administration, infamous for exercising iron grip over the legislature, appeared to have lost control of Parliament completely; there was talk of the murder as being Kenya’s Watergate ( an eavesdropping scandal that had hit the US a few months prior, leading to the impeachment and resignation of President Richard Nixon). In the meantime, Kenyatta, furious at the ministers’ weakness, had summoned an emergency Cabinet meeting, where, one by one, he forced each minister to declare continued loyalty to him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "bookman old style";">The entire cabinet was to boycott JM’s burial. Mwai Kibaki was the only government minister that attended JM’s funeral in Gilgil, stressing he was there not in his capacity as a cabinet minister but as a friend of the late JM’s. Central Provincial Commissioner Simeon Nyachae bravely represented the government, but faced deep hostility and was unable to read Kenyatta’s condolence messages. Even the churches were roused into opposition, with a young Kikuyu Anglican cleric David Gitari (later the Archbishop), particularly outspoken in his criticism in a series of life radio broadcast, Kenyatta and senior ministers lay low, avoiding public events. There appears to have been hatched a plot </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">of misinforming Kenyans over this matter with a shocking zeal. In a matter of ten days, Kenya was transformed from a nation of relative calm to a nation in crisis.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Although I was only a Form Two student, I followed very keenly the developments in the JM Kariuki inquiry, particularly the sharp analyses that Hilary Ng’weno and his team provided in the <i>Weekly Review</i>. For me June 3, 1975 was a day of great expectation - and overpowering tension. The team investigating JM's murder had completed its work and was due to table their report in Parliament. Elijah Mwangale, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee, according to <i>Weekly Review</i>, was in conference with his 13 members in Room 7 on the first floor of Parliament Buildings, going over the details of the 38-page report when word came through the Clerk's office that the Committee was required at State House, Nairobi. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">The Committee was reported to have made three copies of the report. Mwangale reportedly took one with him. The other two were each put in the "custody" of the then Butere MP Martin Shikuku and Diriye Amin, then MP for Wajir East. Their instructions were simple: They were not to leave the precincts of Parliament until the afternoon session of the House was over. Meanwhile, Mwangale left for State House with a few members of his committee, among them Starehe MP Charles Rubia and Lurambi North MP Burudi Nabwera. The two MPs with the other copies were "policed" by other MPs. Suspicions were high. Attempts to sabotage efforts to table the report could not be ruled out. The tension was aggravated at 2.30 p.m. when the afternoon session of the House started without any word on when the Mwangale team would return. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">It was reported that at State House, when Mwangale and his team faced Kenyatta, they were asked one question: Why were the names of Cabinet Minister Mbiyu Koinange and that of the president's bodyguard, Senior Supt of Police Arthur Wanyoike wa Thungu, in the report? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Rubia: <i>"Kama ni hivyo Mzee, tunaweza kuondoa hayo majina tu alafu tuipeleke bunge"</i> ("If that is the case Mzee we can just delete the two names and thereafter we table it in Parliament"). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Kenyatta: <i>"Kama ni hivyo, sawa sawa"!</i> ("It’s alright if you can do that"). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Kenyatta is said to have given Mwangale a green pen. He made him delete the two names and sign against each deletion. Back in Parliament, Shikuku and Diriye entered the Chamber with their copies clutched under their arms. Without warning, Mwangale and his team entered the Chamber, eliciting sighs of relief, foot-thumping and loud cheers. Mwangale tabled the report minus the two names. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">As we mark this 45<sup>th</sup> anniversary of JM’s brutal murder, I cannot help but marvel at how far we slaves have come!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Nairobi, March 2, 2020.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
THE SITUATION ROOMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09048839964389097129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3276494352243824124.post-83350821475719824562020-02-05T19:28:00.001-08:002020-02-06T00:13:15.319-08:00MOI AS I KNEW HIM<h2>
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">By Oduor Ong'wen</span></b></h2>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">There has been an outpouring of love, adoration and canonisation of former President Daniel arap Moi since the announcement of his death yesterday. I don’t begrudge those trying to sanitise the departed former president and portray him as a saint. They have every right to do so because that is how they knew him. In their tributes, many have described Moi as “the best leader this country ever produced.” The Moi I knew doesn’t fit this description. In African traditions, it is unacceptable to talk ill of the dead – more so if the deceased was an elder. So, I will seek to not to condemn him but to describe the man as I knew him and let history do the judgement. Those who have acknowledged that the departed former president was not a paragon of virtue have averred Moi was a good man and a democrat until the abortive coup of August 1982 and his oppressive mien emerged as a reaction to the putsch. That is the narrative I seek to debunk. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">Those without memory lapses will recall that even before ascending to presidency, Moi was part of political assassinations and/or cover-ups of the same. In March 1975 </span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">when JM Kariuki was reported missing and before his body was discovered disfigured and dumped at the City Mortuary, the then-Vice President Moi without batting an eyelid told Parliament that JM was alive and on a business trip to Zambia. It later transpired that very senior people in government – especially the police – were responsible to for the legislator’s execution and attempts at concealment. Moi lied to Kenya with a straight face.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">On ascending to power in 1978, Moi sought to either kill or neuter any potential institutional challenge to his autocratic rule, however modest. Barely a year into his presidency, he in 1979 banned student union – the Nairobi University Students Organisation (NUSO) – and expelled the entire leadership comprising among others Rumba Kinuthia, Otieno Kajwang’, Mukhisa Kituyi, Josiah Omotto and Wafula Siakama. This was followed in quick succession by the proscription of University Staff Union (UASU) and the Kenya Union of Civil Servants in 1980. Simultaneously, the Central Organisation of Trade Unions (COTU) and Maendeleo ya Wanawake were coopted and later made affiliates of Kanu, the only political party.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">As if the killing of these institutions was not enough, Moi went ahead to politically harass individuals that were seen as posing real or perceived threat. In August 1980, Prof. Anyang’ Nyong’o was arrested twice in a move clearly aimed at intimidating the dons that had been at core of UASU leadership. Others subjected to routine harassment were Oki Ooko-Ombaka, Micere Mugo, Mukaru Ng’ang’a, Katama Mkangi and Shadrack Gutto. In May 1981, Moi ordered the expulsion of another lot of student leaders seeking to revive the student union. These included Odindo Opiata, Makau Mutua, Saulo Busolo, George Rubik, Dave Anyona and John Munuve among others. As this happened, Moi closed the university for close to five months and for the first time in the history of the university, we were ordered to report to chiefs on a weekly basis. Despotism had become a hallmark of Moi’s rule.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">Parallel to this, and riding the populist crest of fighting tribalism, Moi banned socio-cultural organisations like the Gikuyu Embu Meru Association (GEMA), the New Akamba Union, Luo Union and others.</span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">In May 1982, Jaramogi had made a widely publicized visit to the United Kingdom, where he addressed the British House of Commons, among other engagements. Jaramogi’s address was on “The Role of political Parties in Africa.” A firm believer in the Westminster model of parliamentary democracy, Jaramogi had fought all his adult life to institute and nurture the same in Kenya. This had put him on a permanent collision course with the colonial government (who ironically were practicing the same in their metropolis but subverting efforts to institute it in their colonies) and post-independence oligarchs. Jaramogi’s lecture received very positive coverage in the British press. The Kenyan print media took the cue from the British press but largely ignored the entire content of the address, only reporting that Jaramogi had announced his intention to launch a new political party to challenge KANU’s stranglehold on power. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">On May 26, 1982, the Governing Council of the ruling party (composed of 12 members) instructed parliament, the Attorney General Joseph Kamere and Minister for Constitutional Affairs Charles Njonjo to prepare a bill amending the constitution such that Kenya would by law become a one-party state. The resulting bill also proposed to create a new office of the Chief Secretary to serve as head of the public service. On June 9, 1982, after less than one hour of debate, Parliament of 170 members voted 168 to 2 in favour of the amendment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">Between May and June 1982, Moi ordered a crackdown targeting university lecturers, This resulted in detention without trial of Kamoji Wachiira, Edward Oyugi, Mukaru Ng’ang’a and Al Amin Mazrui. Maina wa Kinyatti and Willy Mutunga were charged with trumped up sedition offences. Mutunga’s charges were later withdrawn as he was also detained. Kinyatti was later, on October 18, 1982, sentenced to six years in jail. Others like Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Micere, Nyong’o, Gutto and Kimani Gicau had to flee the country into exile. In this crackdown, scribes were not spared. In apparent reaction to his audacity to stand against “Nyayo candidate” in a Nyeri Town parliamentary by election occasioned by the jailing of ex-freedom fighter Waruru Kanja for “violating foreign exchange laws,” journalist Wang’ondu Kariuki was charged with “possession of seditious publication” called Pambana and jailed for four-and-a half years. It is worth noting that by this time, the tyranny had become so entrenched that the despot had detained even the Deputy Director of Intelligence, Stephen Muriithi. It was at the height of this repression that junior cadres of the Kenya Air Force staged a poorly organized and executed coup. So, the coup was a consequence of Moi’s tyranny – not the converse.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">The coup provided Moi with the opportunity and excuse to intensify crack down on lawyers, authors, activists, scientists, and (especially) university lecturers and students perceived to be critical of his authoritarian rule. I was among the more than 70 students arrested and detained at the GSU Training School, Embakasi. Having been held for two months incommunicado, 67 of us were eventually charged with “Sedition.” We were released six months later when the state could not manufacture evidence to convict us. But six amongst us – Jeff Mwangi, Tom Mutuse, Ong’ele Opalla, Wahinya Boore, Ephantus Kinyua and Kituyi Simiyu – were convicted sentenced to jail term of six years each. Raila Odinga, Prof. Otieno Osanya and Otieno Mak’Onyango who had been charged with treason also had their charges dropped as they were detained without trial.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">More than the foregoing, the attempted coup provided Moi with an arsenal to settle old scores and assert himself by systematically instituting an oppressive one-man state through consolidation, centralisation, and personalisation of power while neutralising disloyal elements, real and imagined. In his book, <i>African Successes</i>, David Leonard notes that the coup attempt was “a piece of good luck” for Moi. The attempt legitimised Moi’s reorganisation of the command structure of the armed forces and the police. Once the attempt had been made and suppressed, he was able to remove leaders from positions that were most threatening. The armed forces and the police “were neutralised”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">Ben Gethi, the Commissioner of Police, for instance, was detained at Kamiti and laterretired “in public interest”. Moi also eliminated Kikuyu and Luo officers from the military and put in Kalenjin and non-ethnic challengers. For instance, he named General Mahmoud Mohammed — an ethnic Somali — the army chief of general staff.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">With the disciplined forces in the hands of handpicked loyalists, the political structure was next. President Moi had a Bill enacted that granted him emergency powers, and the provincial administration and civil service came under the Office of the President, for the first time in post-independence Kenya. In effect, a DC could stop an MP from addressing his constituents.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">Next was Parliament, whose privilege to access information from the Office of the President was revoked, thus subordinating it to the presidency. The Legislature could only rubber-stamp — not check — the excesses of the Executive. That is how, in 1986, it imposed limitations on the independence of the Judiciary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">Two expatriate judges — Derek Schofield and Patrick O’Connor — resigned, lamenting that the judicial system was “blatantly contravened by those who are supposed to be its supreme guardians.” </span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">Parliament also gave police powers to detain critics of Moi’s authoritarian regime. It did not end there. The freedoms of the press, expression, association, and movement were curtailed. </span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">In effect, Kenya became a police state.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">President Moi ensured that his presence was felt everywhere; he stared at you from the currency in your wallet and mandatory portraits in every business premise. Streets, schools, a stadium, university, airport, and monuments were named after him. He gobbled half the news time on radio and TV, where he was always the first bulletin item. Ministers wore lapel pins with his photo on them. Indeed, one Cabinet minister in the Moi government was said to have had a dozen suits, each with its own pin lapel – just in case he forgot and wore the wrong suit!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">Moi was felt in the education system, in which students recited a loyalty pledge, learnt about the Nyayo philosophy in GHC, and drank Nyayo milk. In the remotest parts of the country, the local chief was the president’s eyes and ears.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">Kanu replaced the secret ballot with a system where voters lined up behind candidates in 1986. Parliamentary candidates who secured more than 70 per cent of the votes did not have to go through the process of the secret ballot in the General Election in what was more or less a “selection within an election.”Take the case of Kiambu coffee picker Mukora Muthiora. He “defeated” the late Njenga Karume for the Kanu sub-branch chairmanship. Karume was then a former assistant minister for Cooperative Development. Provincial Commissioner Victor Musoga declared Muthiora the winner, yet he never participated in the election. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">On the morning of March 27, 1986, Moi stopped at the gates of Kipsigis Girls High School where I was a teacher on his way to Kisii Teachers College to preside over a graduation ceremony. He arrived a few minutes to ten o’clock. Perched on the sunroof of his limousine, the President praised the school and told the students how fond of the school he was. He told them that it was due to his love for the school that he had given them big land and dairy cattle. He spotted me and warned that I should not teach subversion. “I have sent you good teachers like the Secretary General here, but he should desist from teaching subversive behavior,” And with those pronouncements, I knew my goose was cooked. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">On Monday April 14, 1986 at around 7.00 p.m., I was picked up by the Special Branch after a three-hour search in my house. After 16 days of torture at the basement and 24<sup>th</sup> Floor of Nyayo House, I was sent to Kamiti maximum Prison for a four-year stint as Moi’s state guest.</span><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">Moi’s vindictiveness did not stop at the so-called dissidents. Their kith and kin were also guilty by association. None personifies this than Ida Betty Odinga. </span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">A young woman in her thirties with three children, the eldest of whom was barely nine years old, Ida Odinga was thrown into the deep end of the pool of life by Moi’s police state and expected to swim through. This was at a time when Moi had placed her father-in-law, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, under house arrest. When Raila was arrested and falsely charged with treason, she proclaimed her husband’s innocence and went on to seek for him the best legal representation locally and internationally. This struck mortal fear into the face and heart of Raila Odinga’s tormentors. Ida was determined that her husband got justice. The State was bent on perpetrating a sham trial on treason charges then hang Raila. To them this young woman was a nuisance. But they were forced to make a quick retreat. Since they had no evidence to sustain a charge of treason, they had no option but to withdraw the charges and place Raila Odinga in preventive detention. </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">Because she had shown that she could fight for justice, she was no longer just another teacher – a public servant. Because of her association with “an enemy of the State,” Mrs Odinga was now “a person of interest.” Even though she tried to do her best in her job </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">as a teacher at the Kenya High School and bring up her young children as a single mother, the Moi government would use security officers to constantly harass her with a hope of breaking her. She was eventually retired “in the public interest.”</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">Maina wa Kinyatti, having been jailed on October 18, 1982 and sentenced to six years in jail contnued to be tortured in jail by various methods, including being held naked and without food for up to seven days at a time, living with mental patients, subjected to arbitrary anal searches and being beaten with sticks while being forced to do physical exercises. The torture, in different form, was extended to his wife Mumbi. She became a marked person. Her interactions with her students were watched, her shopping analysed and her correspondences intercepted in the post office and read. On April 11, 1987 Mumbi was arrested while attending a Drama Festival in Embu. She was driven back to Nairobi and locked up overnight. In an interview with the <i>New York Times</i> published on April 27, Mumbi said that, during a total of seven hours of questioning, the police accused her of giving money to Mwakenya, organising exiles outside of the country and planning to train members of Mwakenya as guerrilla fighters. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">Winnie Muga, was a student at Kenyatta University College at the time her husband, Muga K’Olale was arrested from their house in Umoja Estate. At the time of K’Olale’s arrest, Winnie had just given birth to their firstborn girl the previous week. As they arrested K’Olale, the officers turned their house inside out – throwing nappies around, moving furniture, and even ransacking the cradle. Leaving things strewn on the floor in both their two bedrooms, kitchen and the living room, Special Branch took K’Olale with him. Restoring order in that house was left to this woman that had just given birth a few days earlier. The police chaps did not tell Winnie Muga where they were taking her husband. The young woman was to spend the next four months combing police stations and the Kenya Police headquarters in Nairobi without a clue as to where her husband had been taken. After fifteen agonizing weeks of waiting to know the whereabouts of her husband, Winnie Muga was somehow relieved to know that the husband was alive but at the same time hit by a sentence of ten years in jail slapped on K’Olale after “an own plea” of guilt to a charge of Sedition. It was alleged that K’Olale knew about the coup plot and actively participated in its planning and execution. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">Koigi wa Wamwere’s wife Nduta, and Koigi’s entire family had to endure intimidation and harassment by police on numerous occasions. Nduta eventually left Kenya in 1988 to join her husband who had fled Kenya after detention and was now living in exile in Norway. Koigi’s mother, Monica Wangu Wamwere, had her house surrounded and searched by the police on several occasions and demolished twice. In January 1995, the police once again surrounded Monica Wangu's home while a service was being held there in memory of her husband, who had died a year earlier. She had refused to bury her husband until her two sons were allowed out of prison to attend his funeral.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">Josephine Nyawira Ngengi, sister of G.G. Njuguna Ngengi who was on trial with Koigi, was arrested in May 1994 in Nakuru. She had been actively involved in the campaign for the release of political prisoners incarcerated by Moi and participated in the Mothers' hunger strike in 1992. Nyawira was held incommunicado for 22 days before being charged with robbery with violence, which carries the death penalty. Two other women, Ann Wambui Ng'ang'a and Tabitha Mumbi, and 16 men were charged with the same offence. All the three women complained that they were tortured while in police custody. Nyawira stated that she was beaten and that blunt objects were forced into her genitalia until she bled. As other people canonize Moi and talk of his legacy, this is the Moi I knew. To rephrase Mark Anthony in Shakespeare’s play, <i>Julius Caesar,</i> </span><span style="border: 1pt none; font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt; padding: 0cm;">The evil that men do lives after them;The good is oft interred with their bones;So let it be Moi. </span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 11pt;">Nairobi, February 5, 2020<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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THE SITUATION ROOMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09048839964389097129noreply@blogger.com67tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3276494352243824124.post-52596659921237317212020-01-28T18:33:00.001-08:002020-01-29T01:34:10.425-08:00BUILDING BRIDGES AND OUR PROPENSITY TO FLY LIKE CHICKEN<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
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<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">By Oduor Ong'wen</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Kenyans have learned, practiced and perfected the art of flying like chicken. Like most birds, chicken can also fly. But unlike other birds, they cannot soar high and only fly short distances. This is what Kenyans have done at every stage in our struggles for nationhood. We have gallantly fought to assert and defend our independence and forge a nation out of our many nationalities. But we have also undone these efforts with alacrity. The latest episode in this one step forward two steps back journey is being replayed in the Building Bridges Initiative conversation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">While it was gratifying to see everyone troop to Mombasa last weekend to declare their support for the BBI, it is not lost on keen observers that many of the politicians were and still are talking with both sides of their mouth. The Naivasha retreat by a section of Jubilee politicians underscores how skin deep our nationhood quest is. Every time we thought we had got it right, we have ended up shooting ourselves in the foot, thanks to our unwavering allegiance to sectarianism and self-aggrandisement. It happened immediately after the attainment of independence when the nationalist fervour was neutered less than two years later. There followed a long period of autocracy, repression and the emergence of unrepentant looting cabals in the formal and deep state. The nadir was almost three decades of, first <i>de facto</i> and later <i>de jure</i>, one-party, one-person rule. It took the courage of a few Kenyans – workers, peasants, university dons and students, clergy and various professionals – to mobilise the nation and end the autocratic regime and return Kenya to democratic and accountable system of governance. But we once again flew too low and for a very short distance. The much-hyped Second Liberation was outflanked, encircled and aborted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Another decade of sustained struggle marked by twists and turns spiced with arrests, teargas, extra-judicial executions and political chicanery finally led to a National Constitutional Conference at Bomas of Kenya that gave us a progressive draft constitution that was immediately nipped in the bud. It took a national madness of us slaughtering each other, burning people who had sought refuge in churches, ethnic cleansing and mass displacement of “visitor populations” in 2007/2008 for us to finally overhaul the Constitution – but ending up with the Bomas Draft being substantially diluted. Again, at this juncture in 2010, we thought we as a country had exorcised the ghosts that have always stood on our path to forging a nation. Once again we aimed high but flew low and a very short distance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Why is it that our attempts at forging nationhood are always thwarted when every promise is there for all to see as happened immediately after 1963, in 2004 and in 2010? In my view, it is because we have not been able to give appropriate appreciation to the reality of being a socially diverse society. Unlike countries that found themselves in similar situations like South Africa or Tanzania that were able to forge nations out of ethnically diverse countries, here in Kenya were either quick to deny the motive force that ethnic diversity is or retreated and submitted ourselves to its most backward dictates. We either consciously or otherwise evaded confronting what has become known as <i>The National Question</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">We have naively assumed that a Luhya labourer at a construction site in Nairobi would stand in solidarity with a fellow Gikuyu labourer because their class interests dictate that they do so. In our romanticisation of class struggle, it is easy to lump the Kamba and Kalenjin policemen and assume they will collectively and in class solidarity confront the oppressor since “they have nothing to lose but their chains.” I aver that this would not happen unless and until we confront the National Question. A Luo worker would rather identify with a Luo manager as long as the promotions even at the factory shop floor will be based on the surname of the worker. A Digo petty trader is more comfortable defending a Taita parastatal chief accused of graft because they have been collectively oppressed as <i>watu wa mwambao wa pwani.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">We as Kenyans have over the last sixty years lived another lie. We aver that politicians will come and go but Kenya will always be there. Welcome to the fool’s paradise. The reality is that republics are the most delicate and potentially transient of political entities. Those who make this argument forget that barely two decades ago we had a country called Yugoslavia. Others were the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. These republics are no longer in existence. Closer home, we now have four neighbouring republics in the north fashioned out of two – from Ethiopia and Sudan, there now exist additional republics in Eritrea and South Sudan. At what cost do these people end up with these self-determining entities? More than three times, Kenyans have been at the verge of joining these cleavaged former “cohesive countries.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Let us remove our heads from the sand with alacrity. After August 2017, the threat of Kenya breaking into two or more republics was very real. As our politicians would say, it was going to be messy, noisy and I dare say bloody, and with consequences. But there are persons who call themselves leaders in this country but prone to mistaking threats of war for war games. I am not sure if President Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga broached the National Question but the nine issues they identified in their Memorandum of Understanding form very good beacons for the discussion thereof. A look at contemporary history would make those of us that care for this entity called Kenya take the BBI-triggered conversation very seriously.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "bookman old style";">In both theory and practice, the national question was a subject that generated debate, controversy and disagreement within the liberation movement in South Africa. Despite widespread agreement that South Africa’s ruling class has cynically promoted tribalism and racialism, as well as fraudulent types of nationalism, in order to divide the oppressed and exploited majority, there is no consensus over how to define the nation., national identity, and nationalism. With the collapse of white minority rule and installation of a democratically elected government under the leadership of the majority this matter is far from settled if the recent xenophobic attacks against non-South African blacks is anything to go by.</span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "bookman old style";">As I have observed herein before, the national question lies at the heart of the creation of Yugoslavia in 1918 and of its destruction in 1991–92. A vision of national liberation and modernization brought the various South Slav nationalities together after World War I. However, seventy years later, a retrospective, mythical, antimodernist vision tore them apart. The appeal to the concept of self-determination was used to justify both.</span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "bookman old style";">At the center of China’s modernization drive as it concerns national minorities are four core issues: social equality, economic development, cultural autonomy, and national integration.</span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "bookman old style";">To establish the Soviet Union, the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917 at the high point of a revolutionary drama. Three aggregate forces soon contested Bolshevik power, whose future was far from secure. First, the Bolsheviks were faced with indigenous counterrevolutionary forces whose armies sought to overturn the revolution. Second, the armies of various Western capitalist states, including the United States and Japan, invaded the fledgling Bolshevik state. Finally, the Bolsheviks found themselves face to face, as the czars had been, with the problem of the non-Russian nationalities. By the mid-1920s, Soviet leaders had overcome the first two obstacles and firmly established state. The inability to conclude the resolution of the national question aided Soviet Union’s imperialist foes to undo the revolution.</span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "bookman old style";">Northern Ireland is a product of the opposing forces of imperialism and nationalism. Ireland was England’s first colony, and it has been said that the conquest of Ireland was the model for British imperialism. As a consequence of England’s attempt at domination, Ireland has been home to a variety of nationalist movements. The two nations’ mutual history offers many insights into the relationship between imperialism and nationalism, and the impact of class, ethnicity, social consciousness, and national movements on this relationship. </span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "bookman old style";">As it has everywhere else, at least in Western history, the national question has evolved in Quebec in the context of the formation and transformation of the capitalist economy and the liberal democratic state. The internal market and wage relations that tend to homogenize economic practices within a social formation (money, weights and measures, salaries, free circulation of individuals and goods) were becoming institutionalized at the same time as the modem state was becoming the center of regulation of social relations and relations of power that are now administered in the name of the nation within the framework of popular. With its French heritage, Quebec has ad to fight to assert itself within the English speaking Canadian state, with intermittent threats of seceding. </span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "bookman old style";">Even though more than seven decades have passed since India became independent, doubts remain in the minds of many regarding its future as a viable nation-state. Every now and again commentaries on the Indian political situation fill with speculation about how long Indian unity will hold. These speculations are inspired by Western notions of the nation-state where ideally language, religion, and political sovereignty have coterminous boundaries. </span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">A keen interrogation of the nine “Handshake Issues” at the centre of Kenya’s National Question. Can we develop and exhibit national ethos and ensure inclusivity and equality of opportunity without asking why we are likely to see a Luo slum dweller pelting a Gikuyu worker with stones as opposed to seeing these two confronting a Kalenjin industrialist to demand decent and dignified working conditions? From where I sit, it is impossible to eliminate corruption amongst us as long as looting of state coffers is seen as bringing home booties of conquest. State power will remain a trophy of victory – hence divisive and fraudulent electoral processes – to competing ethnic formations as long as the national question remains unresolved.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">In the on-going discourse, the most fundamental question that has so far emerged was the proposal by coastal counties that Kenya should adopt a federal system. Let’s debate in earnest and develop the capacity to soar high and tenacity to go far. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">January 28, 2020<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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THE SITUATION ROOMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09048839964389097129noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3276494352243824124.post-5449966131716399312020-01-12T04:56:00.000-08:002020-01-12T06:36:05.043-08:00BBI CONSULTATIONS AND FIGHTING WASTE AND SLEAZE<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">By Oduor Ong'wen</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Yesterday, leaders from six counties of the former Nyanza Province organized a leaders’ meeting at Kisii Sports Club to interrogate together contents of the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) report that was launched at the end of last year. The meeting brought together close to 4,000 leaders drawn from grassroots and comprising religious leaders, CBOs, women groups, small business associations, elected leaders (MCAs, MPs and governors), fisherfolk, trade unions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">The meeting invited experts that took the delegates through the key recommendations contained in the 156-page report after which the delegates gave their feedback based on the presentations. Thereafter, each delegate was given a hard copy of the report to take home and read. Resolutions were then adopted of which in my view the most important was that the process of public participation and discussion of the report should be taken to ward level.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Even before the delegates arrived in Kisii, the gathering was already condemned as unnecessary and a drain of public funds. None other than our Deputy President William Ruto led the chorus of condemnation. I find this to be a public display of either hypocrisy or confusion. But I doubt whether Ruto is confused. It’s not easy to confuse a PhD holder. So, the former is more likely and this is why:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">During the national launch at the Bomas of Kenya on November 27, 2019 speaker after speaker, Ruto included, called for the document to be taken to the grassroots so that <i>Wanjiku</i> may read for self and give feedback. Indeed, leaders allied to the DP were the first to organize the first consultative meeting on the report at the Great Rift Valley Lodge. It was highly publicized but nobody faulted it. Was that consultation fine because the DP’s brigade did it or because it excluded grassroots leaders?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">The most hilarious observation from persons faulting the public consultations launched by some of our governors is that it was a waste of public funds. Did I hear right? Deputy PORK William Ruto a defender of public funds? Am I the only visitor in Jerusalem? May I try to walk down the memory lane?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">On October 18, 2016, President Uhuru Kenyatta convened at the State House what he dubbed <i>‘Anti-Corruption’ Summit</i>. During the event, the Head of State lamented that he was unable to deal with rent seeking, which has become the hallmark of his administration. The image of the Commander-in-Chief of our defence forces, raising his arms in surrender and saying, <i>nifanye nini jameni</i> (what do you expect me to do) endures. This was an explicit admission by President Kenyatta that corruption was rife but he lacked the mechanism and support to deal with the vice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">When they emerged on the steps of Harambee House on March 9, 2018 to famously shake hands with Raila Odinga, corruption was one of the nine issues they committed to confronting head-on. Since then, we have seen reinvigoration of graft fighting agencies, high profile arrests and attempts at asset recovery. We are yet to see big shots serving jail terms, but we have a rule of law that would rather be faulted on account of granting suspects full rights than for violation of the same. Graft suspects have fully used and abused the loopholes provided by our celebrated Bill of Rights to delay cases; interfere with evidence and witnesses; and be detained in hospitals as opposed to gazetted custodial facilities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">It has become clear that the President never attempted to slay the dragon of corruption in his first term because his principal partner Ruto was unwilling. The DP has been mentioned severally in suspected corrupt deals. Apparently after the “Handshake,” President Kenyatta discovered there is something he can do about corruption and is acting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">In the fifty-six months of Jubilee’s first administration, Kenya witnessed at least 29 cases of mega scams involving <b><i>more than Sh. 2.6 Trillion</i></b>. This translates into roughly <b><i>one major case of corruption every two months</i></b>. Herein below, we recall some outstanding cases. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Number One is the scam of “Hustler Jet.” Hardly a fortnight after the Jubilee Administration was sworn into office, the new regime was entangled in an irregular expenditure of Sh. 100 million where the Deputy President had hired a private jet to visit four African countries. Mission? To lobby African Heads of State to support President Kenyatta and him in dealing with cases of crimes against humanity that they then faced at the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague. It is instructive that less than two months earlier, then candidate Kenyatta had said that the cases were <i>“personal challenges.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Number two, it is in the public domain that Sh. 21 Billion of public funds was misappropriated in the scam involving the proposed construction of two dams Arror and Kimwarer in Elgeyo Marakwet counties. What did Dr. Ruto say about it? It was “only” Sh. 7 Billion. Among the most interesting payments were Sh. 15 million paid to New Italico Limited to supply bed sheets, pillows, towels, duvets and other beddings. Of what relevance were these items in dam construction? It’s alleged that the items were delivered in Mombasa yet the dams’ locations are almost one thousand kilometres. Sh. 11 Billion is said to have been paid upfront for insurance yet government guarantee would cost zero shillings. Other questionable payments included Sh. 10.2 million to Tusker Mattresses for supply of foodstuffs even before the project started; Sh. 6.2 million to Long Rock Engineering Limited to supply furniture and transport services; Sh. 100 million to CMC Di Rivenna Kenya for unspecified services; and Sh. 19.4 million paid to Highland Valuers for relocation and valuation services even though the land where the projects were to take place is still occupied. To Ruto, these payments and others were not a waste of public funds. <b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Number three is the much-hyped Laptop Project for primary school learners. The Jubilee Alliance was to provide laptops to all children enrolling in Class One by January 2014. Seven years later, the project is yet to be implemented as it has been dogged by one scam after another in the tendering process. The tender was nullified by the high court because ‘tenderpreneurs’ inflated it by Sh.1.4 Billion from Sh. 24.6 Billion to Sh. 26 billion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d3d3d; font-family: "bookman old style";">Conflict had arisen between tendering companies and the Ministry of Education following accusations that the ministry gave top listing to Olive Telecommunications, an Indian company. Competitors Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Haier Electrical Appliances of China accused Olive of not meeting the basic tendering requirements as stipulated by national regulations. It emerged that Olive is not a device manufacturer but uses Chinese subcontractors to manufacture their Olive-branded electronic devices, contrary to the tender project's OEM (original equipment manufacturer) requirements. Kenyan tender regulations required that only OEMs could participate in the laptop bidding, according to media reports. This rule would effectively rule out Olive from participating in the tender since it could not prove it was an OEM. The Kenyan government decided to add this tender rule after it emerged that brokers had participated in the first round of tendering, which led to an inflation of proposed costs. Despite this requirement however, Olive was assigned the top position, as it allegedly pitched the lowest bid of KSh. 22 billion (US$261 million) compared to the Ksh 23 billion bid by HP and 24 billion shilling bid by Haier. Both HP and Haier had offered to establish Kenyan assembling plants for the laptops. But Olive would not be manufacturing the devices locally, according to reports.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Fourth was the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) project. This was one of the flagship projects of the Grand Coalition Government under Vision 2030. The exiting Kibaki-Odinga government had processed tenders for the project and awarded China Roads and Bridges Corporation (CRBC) at Sh. 220 Billion for the Mombasa- Nairobi leg. When it came to power, the Jubilee Government cancelled this tender, then awarded it to the same company, through single sourcing, at Sh. 334 Billion (Sh. 114 Billion more). It was later inflated to Sh. 1.3 trillion (US$ 13.8 Billion) for the entire course. The subcontracting for civil works immediately went to a local company APEC whose directors remain unknown. <b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">At number five, we have the Eurobond. In his report of the Special Audit of Eurobond in 2016, the then Auditor General Edward Ouko observed that his office was unable ascertain how Sh. 215 Billion Eurobond proceeds were utilised. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Scam number six was a Sh. 63.5 Billion terminal tendering. </span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">The project, located at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA), was designed eight years ago to make Nairobi a premier aviation hub for Africa. <span style="color: #111111;">The contract, signed in 2013 between the Authority and Anhui Construction Engineering Group, was a variation of the original contract signed in 2011, with the introduction of a new inflated provision for Sh9.5 Billion. The first contract signed in December 2011 between KAA and the company was for an agreed sum of Sh54 billion (US dollars 653.7 million).</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">The government later abandoned the project in April 2016, exposing the country to a loss of Sh. 20 Billion. This Sh. 20 Billion has been used by to build the towering Global Trade Centre (GTC) along Chiromo Road. If Ruto is so concerned about prudent use of public funds, he should have been the first to raise alarm of such a colossal sum being siphoned from the Kenyan tax payer to fund a private enterprise.</span><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Other public heists include the National Youth Service (NYS), which paid out millions to a company five months before it was registered; the Kenya Pipeline scams, Kenya Power; and the Geothermal Development Corporation mega scandals among others. We know whose surrogates head these parastatals.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #535353; font-family: "bookman old style";">Lastly, </span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">I still recall </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style";">a scene reminiscent of the SOWETO massacre in Johannesburg, South Africa on 16<sup>th</sup> June 1976, where </span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Kenyan police tear-gassed, battoned and mercilessly kicked Langata Road Primary schoolchildren protesting against a move by a hotel owned by Ruto to seize their playground and turn it into a car park. After a long circus of denials and name-calling, Ruto admitted to both his ownership of Weston Hotel, and the fact that it is built on a piece of land acquired fraudulently from Kenya Civil Aviation Authority.</span><span style="color: #535353; font-family: "bookman old style";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Governors have not hidden the fact that the money used for these consultations have come from county government coffers</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style";">. Ruto chairs the Intergovernmental Budget and Economic Council (IBEC) and is aware that each county government appropriates money for public participation. He has just panicked because the contents of the BBI report are being taken to the ordinary citizen thereby denying him and his troops opportunity for disinformation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style";">Indeed, panic is real.</span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";"> <i>January 11, 2020</i></span></div>
THE SITUATION ROOMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09048839964389097129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3276494352243824124.post-9150192344942078322020-01-03T23:34:00.000-08:002020-01-04T02:51:40.722-08:00THE YEAR RUTO AND HIS CLOWNS DANCED LAME<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
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<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">By Oduor Ong'wen</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">The Year 2019 is behind us. And the year was marked by plenty of tragi-comic shows. Forget about Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko clowning as traffic Marshall at a train station in Paris. That one is now the new normal for the Governor and would not make a headline even of a student-training publication in some makeshift media school in the neighbourhood of Mua Hills. I know many are occupied with wonder of </span><span style="color: #535353; font-family: "bookman old style";">how we let a thug and clown like this to run and ruin the most important county in the nation with more than 4 million people. Indeed East Africa’s second largest economy after Kenya. But the </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">arch-clown of 2019 remains one William Kipchirchir Samoei arap Ruto, who tragically also doubles as the Deputy President of the Republic of Kenya.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Unlike veteran scribe Philip Ochieng’, I do not wish to accuse the press. However, I know that in Kenya the profession is now heavily infested with lazy, rent-seeking quarks masquerading as journalists. So, when they refer to Ruto as “front-runner” in 2022 presidential race, I just nod in acknowledgement that the capture is indeed complete. All I know is that apart from Ruto, no [serious] contestant has declared their candidature for the position of President of the Republic of Kenya (PORK) in the August 2022 elections. So, Ruto is running against himself and leading. Although uttered in a different context, Malindi legislator Aisha Jumwa was right when she declared that Ruto is not a front-runner but the only runner. I was socialised to regard a person who enters the track before the race to run alone as either insane or a clown. But I have no reason to believe that our Deputy President is insane. That would be a ground for his removal from that lofty office.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #535353; font-family: "bookman old style";">In the race against himself, Ruto has come to believe that he is running against Raila Odinga. This is crap even if it’s his obsession. Odinga has not said he will be in the presidential race when that time comes. Many have urged him to while a sizeable number even have doubts if he will. But that has not stopped Ruto from getting busy on the campaign trail against him. Clowns are made of this. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #535353; font-family: "bookman old style";">President Uhuru Kenyatta’s advisors get cheeky at times. One of them must have counselled him that if you want to make Ruto go berserk then start talking and being friendly to Raila Odinga. The man from Sugoi took the bait and swallowed it hook, line and sinker – and it is working marvellously. What with the clowns’ choir conducted by the DP himself and comprising such crooners and poets like Kipchumba Murkomen, Aden Duale and Oscar Sudi?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #535353; font-family: "bookman old style";">Since the famous “Handshake” between Kenyatta and Odinga, Ruto and his orchestra had been practising two hits that they released in 2019. One is that Raila has been in politics forever and should retire. The other is that Kenya has been ruled by dynasties since independence and it was time for son of a peasant. </span><span style="color: #535353; font-family: "bookman old style";">Yes, it’s true that Raila Odinga has been in politics of resistance against dictatorship, looting of public coffers and impunity for a long time. Nine of those years he was in detention in such maximum security facilities as Kamiti, Manyani, Shimo La Tewa and Naivasha prisons while Ruto was stealing our money and land. If at all Ruto has set foot in those jails, it was as a minister where the inmates’ pain were increased manifold by being paraded like prize bulls for him to inspect. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #535353; font-family: "bookman old style";">Another of those years in politics Odinga spent in exile when repressive forces that Ruto was then serving as Secretary of Youth for KANU ’92 (YK92) tried to assassinate him. Again, Ruto has never been a refugee all his life and cannot comprehend the pain and indignity that comes with it. As a matter of fact, Ruto has never done anything else other than being in bad politics, robbing the public and private citizens and being linked to gangs notorious for killing people. That is his resume and we have seen it “live live” for decades. It is going to be on the table come 2022. Stories have been told about the Kiambaa Church massacre in 2007 where we saw kids being thrown back into a burning church when they tried to escape. Many accusing fingers have pointed towards one direction and the International Criminal Court indicted Bill Ruto. Sad indeed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #535353; font-family: "bookman old style";">Now, we take a look at <i>Dynasty versus Hustler</i> narrative. My dictionary defines a dynasty as a line of hereditary rulers of a country. Its broader meaning is a succession of people from the same family who play a prominent role in business, politics or another field. A hustler, on the other hand is defined as <i>a person adept at illicit dealing e.g. a drug peddler, pimp, or one who sells contraband goods</i>. The second meaning of a hustler is <i>a prostitute</i>. Given these clear meanings, I am not sure whether this nation wants to engage in this Dynasty-Hustler diversion. Trying to be clever by half, Ruto wants to engage the country in a class debate, which to me is welcome. If we were to trigger a class struggle pitting owners of means of production (exploiters) on one side and providers of labor (the exploited) on the other, I have no doubt which side Ruto would be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #535353; font-family: "bookman old style";">Ruto is a Botanist and so he might not be well versed with our country’s history. If he were, he would know that Raila was born to a schoolteacher who had to quit his teaching job in protest against racism and paternalistic attitude of white teachers against their African colleagues. He was Vice President for less than 16 months (December 1964-April 1966) and spent the remaining thirty years fighting alongside the people against land grabbing, entrenched human rights violations, assassinations, one-party dictatorship and corruption amongst other ills. This came with stints in detention and house arrests. These are by no means trappings of power associated with dynasties.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #535353; font-family: "bookman old style";">Ruto says he was born poor and went to school with no shoes. So was I. It’s all right to be born poor in an impoverished country like Kenya. Many of us can relate with that. It is also normal for persons from such backgrounds to rise, through sheer personal efforts, to become doctors, engineers, lawyers, accountants, teachers etc. and lead comfortable lives. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #535353; font-family: "bookman old style";">But when Ruto boasts now that he is big and rich, the question is how he got there. Stealing public and private lands like those belonging to the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority or Ngong Forest or poor Muteshi’s 100 acres. That is the truth, simple and clear. Ruto is basically telling Kenyans that he has been a very successful thief his entire adult life and for that Kenyans should reward him with the presidency. Is he clowning when he tells us that he is a “hustler” because he sold chicken? Unless he was selling stolen chicken. Otherwise selling chicken is not hustling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #535353; font-family: "bookman old style";">What should alarm Kenyans is that Ruto isn’t just running against himself. He is clearly sending us a warning on what to expect in the unlikely event that he becomes PORK. A public statement released by Duale, the Majority Leader in the National Assembly, cannot go unnoticed. In it, Duale delves into folklore about a shepherd who found abandoned lions in the bushes and brought them home to nurture them. Later, the lion cubs become a menace to his lambs, dogs and family. The shepherd eventually throws the lions back to the bush where they “fade away.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #535353; font-family: "bookman old style";">Duale uses the story to warn that Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i and his Principal Secretary Karanja Kibicho and no doubt many others will face the same fate as those who enjoyed power during Jomo Kenyatta, Moi, and Mwai Kibaki presidencies when there is a change in administration. He mentions past public servants like Charles Njonjo, Kihika Kimani, Hezekiah Oyugi, Christopher Murungaru and many others. Duale’s message is unambiguous: civil servants considered nasty to his King Ruto will be dealt with once the “cycle” of power comes to the DP and his crew.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #535353; font-family: "bookman old style";">Now you can talk about whatever you want but threatening public officials that you will give them the Kihika Kimani treatment is ominous. Kihika worked with some rogue civil servants like Kim Gatende and Provincial Police Chief James Mungai as well as Nakuru Mayor Mburu Gichua to routinely harass Moi and was forced to run into exile as soon as Moi took power to save his life. Is that what awaits some Kenyans if Ruto were to take power from Uhuru? We take notice that Duale’s warning is not some stupid speech made at a funeral in some village. It is an official statement released to the media.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #535353; font-family: "bookman old style";">Even Jomo Kenyatta didn’t do anything like that. He made nasty remarks and insulted people but did not issue official public warnings. He was even implicated in political killings and Moi did the same but this era of public warnings is a new thing. We shudder to imagine how many other people are in this list of those who will face the wrath of the assumed next regime?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Nairobi, January 4, 2020</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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THE SITUATION ROOMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09048839964389097129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3276494352243824124.post-43219683464202676262018-12-22T04:16:00.001-08:002018-12-22T04:39:08.685-08:00WHY MIGUNA COURT DECISION IS NOT A 7 MILLION SHILLING QUESTION<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 14.65pt 0cm; orphans: auto; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<b style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">Oduor Ong'wen</span></b></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">Miguna Miguna, the self-proclaimed general of the National Resistance Movement Kenya, won an important case against the State this last week. But the significance of that ruling was lost in the inordinate focus the Kenyan media and public trained on the quantum of compensation – Seven million Kenya Shillings – rather than the upholding of Miguna’s right to citizenship, being one by birth. Kenyans love money, dream money, kill for money, live for money, and worship money. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">Without downplaying the role of money as a medium of exchange and store of value, it becomes worrying when everything is reduced to monetary worth. But I am not begrudging the man from Nyando his award – in fact he merited much more given, the persecution he has been subjected to.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">Three weeks before this landmark ruling, the Technical Committee of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM)’s proposals to be presented to the Building Bridges Initiative Task Force were widely reported by the local media. Among other proposals, the ODM team proposed the addition of a clause to Article 16 that states that </span><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">a citizen by birth does not lose citizenship by acquiring the citizenship of another country</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">. The Orange Party seeks a new clause to categorically assert that citizens by birth who may have lost such their citizenship before 2010 Constitution shall be deemed not to have so lost their right to citizenship. This clause shall ensure that the right to citizenship of a person who is a Kenyan citizen by birth is not subject to any condition or discretion of any person or authority. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">Of course, I agree with Miguna when he avers that Kenya is ripe for a revolution. Yes, as witnessed during the January 30 inauguration ceremony for Raila Odinga as the People’s President, the objective conditions do obtain. However, my views are at variance with Miguna’s regarding subjective factors. His interpretation of these subjective factors is wanting, in my observation. V.I. Lenin, whose worldview has so inspired Miguna, is categorical that even though objective conditions for a revolution may exist, a regime cannot just tipple over if subjective forces to topple it over are absent. Hurling insults at Raila Odinga who has been more consistent in trying to shape those subjective factors is where, in my view, Miguna misses the ideological boat and rides on emotions, ideals and Narodnik motivation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">But Miguna and I agree politically on much more than the things we see and react to differently. That’s the reason I cannot agree with the action of the State to abrogate his citizenship just because he took a position, which those exercising the authority of State illegitimately considered treasonous. Citizenship by birth cannot be conferred – not even by the Constitution. The Constitution simply guarantees it. One does not choose where one is born. No law made by humans can erase the fact that Miguna Miguna was born in Nyando, Kisumu County, which is part of the Republic of Kenya.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Between 2011 and 2013 when Miguna Miguna was pillorying Raila Odinga – the vendetta that culminated in a very subjective book, the very forces that recently elected to declare him non-Kenyan pampered him. He was even cleared to run for the position of Nairobi Governor. Since he then had indicated the “correct” presidential preference, he was a “patriotic citizen.” But when his conscience couldn’t allow him to watch as electoral autocracy took root and decided to join Kenyans in resisting, he became a non-citizen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">We have seen this country grant citizenship to all manner of characters. The most notorious ones were the Artur brothers. These shadowy figures were not only conferred with the citizenship of our country, but were also allowed unfettered access to our national security system, donning as they did the ranks of Deputy Commissioners of Police. I know many Kenyans of both African and Asian extraction that have for eons held dual or triple citizenship but since they have not been seen as threats to State Security, they are not only tolerated, but feted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">But Miguna’s case is not unique both in this country and elsewhere. Dictators always feel they hold the key to citizenship. In 1997, Sheikh Ahmed Balala, a radical Muslim preacher, was stripped of Kenyan citizenship by the Moi-KANU regime and was stateless for more than three years. Because he was a thorn in the flesh of KANU oligarchs, he had to be declared non-Kenyan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">Elsewhere, we may want to recall former US President Bill Clinton’s address at the 2016 Democratic National Convention where he sought to reach out to the Muslim community, a group that had been profiled, targeted and demeaned by Donald Trump’s campaign. “If you’re a Muslim and you love America and freedom and you hate terror, stay here and help us win and make a future together,” Clinton offered. Everyone in attendance applauded. Many Muslims received the speech very favourably across America and beyond. But behind the rosy rhetoric, the clear implication was that Muslim’s rights were conditional on their support of U.S. security commitments and that such support was how Muslims earned and cemented their status as American citizens. The implication of this statement was that Americans Muslims that would declare opposition to US military misadventures around the world do not deserve citizenship even if they were born there.</span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">Recently, when the Movement for Black Lives unveiled its vision after a spate of racial killings and police brutality targeting Blacks, it was roundly condemned by the [white-owned] mainstream media as being unpatriotic. No part of the vision statement received as much immediate mainstream pushback as its stinging repudiation of U.S. foreign policy. Its demands, which included a call for military and security divestment, permanent opposition to the War on Terror, and a declaration of solidarity with Palestinians, generated criticism about specific policies (especially with respect to Israel and Palestine) and about the perceived disconnect between police brutality toward black citizens and U.S. military practices in distant lands. The implication was that by extending their vision beyond the national borders, black freedom activists were combining issues that were not inherently connected and better left to the security experts.</span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "bookman old style";">Moreover, critics were uncomfortable with the statement’s rejection of one of the most common mechanisms for outsider groups to gain inclusion in the U.S. life: national security citizenship. By this is meant the idea that one shows one’s worthiness for membership by supporting—and being willing to fight and die for—the security policies of the American State. To this day, the idea that oppressed groups earn inclusion through sacrifice on behalf of the American State remains a potent one.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">By contrast, in linking black freedom to<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em><span style="font-family: "bookman old style";">opposition</span></em><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>to the U.S. foreign policy orientation, the Movement went beyond <i>Black Lives Matter</i>statement to repudiate the classic assumption that the objectives of the <i>securocrats</i>and the goals of oppressed communities coincide and should be thought of as being one and the same. Instead, it affirmed the oppressed communities’ right to articulate their own independent foreign policy grounded above all in the interests of other marginalised groups nationally and internationally. As the document reads, “The Black radical tradition has always been rooted in igniting connection across the global south under the recognition that our liberation is intrinsically tied to the liberation of Black and Brown people around the world.” This independent orientation emphasizes solidarities abroad (between poor or colonized peoples) and, as a consequence, directly challenges the security state’s prerogatives. Suspicious of any harmonious “we the people,” freedom activists instead see a shared community emerging, not with fellow co-nationals, but with the oppressed, exploited and marginalized people everywhere.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">By emphasizing the tie between the foreign and the domestic as well as the need for a distinct black foreign policy, the authors of the vision statement carried on an essential element of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s own political legacy that is often deliberately forgotten. King isn’t ordinarily thought of as an exemplar of a black and radical internationalism, but in the last year of his life, he went much further than simply declaring his opposition to the Vietnam War. He also declared his hostility to U.S. militarism in all its forms and asserted that such hostility was integral to his account of black freedom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">King saw the war as emblematic of a general U.S. approach to foreign affairs that treated local, often non-white communities as means to the end of national ambitions and as instruments for the perpetual extension of global power. The logic that justified subverting anti-colonial independence movements in Southeast Asia was the very same logic that maintained structures of racial and class subordination at home. It is why he argued that one could not coherently promote black freedom while supporting the war. The two issues, he contended, were inextricably intertwined.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">I am of the strong view that Miguna’s support or opposition to electoral theft or the handshake should not determine his citizenship status. His insults of and innuendos directed at Raila Odinga notwithstanding, I know – and Miguna knows too – that Raila Odinga cannot and will not support pegging the citizenship of any Kenyan on the support of state policies. Indeed Raila would defend unto death Miguna’s right to criticize (not insult) leaders – him included.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">Wishing you the best this festive season.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">December 22, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
THE SITUATION ROOMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09048839964389097129noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3276494352243824124.post-9736782634464986912018-12-08T00:50:00.000-08:002018-12-08T00:52:58.203-08:00RESISTANCE IS IN OUR DNA, “HUSTLERS” AND DYNASTIES BEWARE <div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
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<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">(Part 3 of 3)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Oduor Ong'wen</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">[In this last instalment of a three-part discourse on our resistance against exploitation and domination, I look at resistance to neo-colonial rule] <o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">The lowering of the Union Jack at midnight on December 12, 1963 marked the end of orthodox colonialism directed from London. But it marked the beginning of a new form of foreign domination – neo-colonialism – in which other imperialist powers competed for the country’s wealth with the weakened Great Britain but under the oversight of local watchmen led by Kenyatta. What KLFA had warned against during the 1961 KANU Conference had come to pass. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">The Kenyan people were hugely disappointed as they watched in disbelief the hijacking and betrayal of their heroic struggle by pro-imperialist demagogues. Within just its first two years in power, the Kenyatta government was already a minority government that couldn’t risk facing the Kenyan people in elections. The workers, peasants, youth, students and other patriotic Kenyans saw it as a sell-out clique. Progressive nationalists led by Odinga, Kaggia and Pio Gama Pinto were among the first to sound warning bells and put the Kenyatta government to task for reneging on pledges that KANU had given Kenyans, more so with regard to the promise to restore the stolen land to the people of Kenya; to guarantee democracy; and to contribute to liberation struggles of other African peoples. Kenyatta’s response was a brutal purge on his erstwhile comrades. Government-sponsored murderers assassinated Pinto on February 24, 1965. It is widely held that his assassination was intended to paralyse the progressives ideologically as Pinto was believed to be the chief ideologue of the nationalist wing of KANU and was a great intellectual worker. Soon Odinga, Kaggia and all progressive nationalists in government were purged out and former KADU stalwarts invited into the cockpit of the State vessel through the infamous KANU-KADU merger of 1965.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Signs that little had changed with “independence” were manifest at Uhuru celebrations at Ruringu grounds where General Bamuinge showed up with 10,000 guerrillas and announced that the soldiers would not leave the forest unless and until the goals and objectives of the liberation struggle were realised. Barely one year later, Kenyatta made an executive order for the army to launch a “search and destroy” operation into the forests of Nyandarua and Kirinyaga to eliminate the remnants of Mau Mau. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">To neutralise the nationalists, the reactionary elements in KANU in cahoots with their newly co-opted KADU collaborators engineered a coup de grace at the infamous Limuru KANU Conference of 1966 where the Party’s constitution was amended to water down the powers of KANU Vice President (who at that time was Odinga), thus contributing to Jaramogi’s resignation from the country’s Vice President post and the formation of the Kenya People’s Union as the new opposition party. In spite of spirited efforts to portray KPU as a “Luo affair,” it emerged as a popular national party with Kaggia as its Vice President, Oyangi Mbaja from Kakamega as the National Organising Secretary and Peter Young Kihara from Kiambu as his deputy. Among the leading members of KPU were Wajir MP Khalif, the one-time Mombasa Mayor Msanifu Kombo and Kenyan poet Abdilatif Abdalla. Some of the most active branches of KPU were Machakos, Embu and Kwale.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">In its <i>Interim Manifesto</i>, the KPU condemned the entrenchment of neo-colonialism in Kenya under KANU leadership through the Sessional Paper No. 10 of 1965 cheekily titled “African Socialism and Its Application to Planning in Kenya.” It pointed out that the policies articulated therein were neither African nor socialist but the continuation of colonialist satellite economy where Kenya would remain a raw material production ghetto for European economies and active consumers of second-class industrial goods produced in the West. The manifesto did not mince words on Kenyatta regime’s betrayal and promised to implement KANU’s pre-independence programme including free and compulsory education, free healthcare, address the matter of land distribution and youth unemployment; and establish a self-sustaining and integrated national economy as opposed Kenyatta regime’s looting economy. The formation of KPU was greeted with excitement and patriotic enthusiasm from Kenya’s workers who constituted itself into its social base in the major urban centres and contributed some of their leaders to become organisers and activists of the new party. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">The Kenyatta regime answered popular opposition with unprecedented state terror. Between 1964 and 1967 there was a ruthless military offensive, led by British military officers, to crush the remaining Mau Mau guerrillas once and for all. To stem the overwhelming popularity of KPU, the KANU minority regime resorted to brutality against KPU branch officials, crude tactics to incite backward currents of negative ethnicity, cultic oathing ceremonies and other forms of fear mongering. By 1969, when it was clear that KPU was going to pose a formidable challenge for power during the General Elections, the Jomo regime resorted to a series of repressive actions including the banning of the Kenya War Council, the Kenya Ex-Freedom Fighters Union and the Walioleta Uhuru Union, culminating in the arrest of Jaramogi Odinga and other key leaders of KPU following stage-managed chaos and consequent massacre in Kisumu. The events gave Kenyatta regime an excuse to ban KPU. Kenya was by fiat made a de facto one-party state. The next ten years Kenya was a gangland with Kenyatta as the gang leader. But the main target for neutralisation was the organised workers movement. Kenyatta detained progressive trade union leaders, banned their organisation and created a puppet centre, the Central Organisation of Trade Unions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">From 1969 the KANU regime did not even attempt to hide its dictatorial character, with power concentrated in the Executive. Kenyatta greedily amassed wealth in all sectors of the economy as he surrounded himself with land grabbers and corrupt tycoons. He quickly peeled off the veil of a freedom fighter and acquired the manners and demeanour of a tribal monarch. He created a fertile ground for development, expansion, growth and prosperity of a comprador bourgeoisie that thrived in a sinister climate of lawlessness, corruption, robbery, extortion and political repression. Kenyatta disregarded the due process of law and resorted to rule by arbitrary decrees. The assassination of Tom Mboya on July 5, 1969 jolted the nation to the reality that even the regime’s insiders were not safe. The beast’s thirst for blood and increased manifold and had to be quenched even if it meant by its own children’s. The nadir of this slide to tyranny was the murder of J.M. Kariuki on March 2, 1975. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">1975 was a watershed that marked a turning point in the country’s history of resistance. As the culture of fear became entrenched in the Kenyatta regime, the popular struggle shifted away from overt parliamentary battles, which had been stifled through the growing repression of the <i>de facto</i>one-party state. Organising of political resistance shifted into the subterranean terrain. In the process, the struggle acquired a more radical and anti-imperialist orientation. Above the ground, the university became the bedrock of major democratic struggles. Progressive lecturers and radical students mobilised and transformed the campuses from the ivory towers into workshops of national democratic revolution. In 1977, the second African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC ’77) was held in Nigeria, where two Kenyan plays depicting the neo-colonial political reality of the country and corruption in high places won accolades. <i>The Trial of Dedan Kimathi</i>, co-authored by Micere Mugo and Ngugi wa Thiong’o in 1976 stood out. Equally lauded was Francis Imbuga’s <i>Betrayal in the City</i>. The University of Nairobi’s Traveling theatre took the message of nationalist to the people all over Kenya as they performed to full social halls wherever they went. Similarly, the community theatre started by Ngugi at Kamiriithu home village near Limuru thrived. In reaction, Kenyatta detained Ngugi without charge or trial in 1977. The old despot finally expired on August 22, 1978 and was replaced by his loyal understudy. Daniel arap Moi had been a keen student of Moi’s autocratic methods for twelve years as his Vice President and Minister for Home Affairs – a portfolio charged with policing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Moi began his inheritance of Kenyatta’s “political estate” on a populist note. A former herds boy and primary school teacher had risen to power, hail “the hustlers.” He was tall on anti-corruption rhetoric, ordered free milk for primary school children and released all political detainees. He spent most of the time on the road presiding over fundraising events to construct school buildings and other infrastructure or attending church services every Sunday all over the country. But progressives and keen political observers were not fooled. Immediately he was sworn in as acting president and confirmed in that position at an unconstitutional ceremony two months later, Moi stated categorically that he would follow in the footsteps (<i>nyayo</i>) of the departed despot. This was a clear message to the Kenyan people not to expect any departure from the rampant human rights abuses, corruption and economic exploitation by the local bourgeoisie and foreign interests. It did not take long before the mask slid and fell. In October 1979, the KANU leadership barred Jaramogi Odinga, George Anyona and other progressive nationalists from being candidates in the General Elections scheduled for the following month. Many Kenyans were alarmed. The Nairobi University Students Organisation, under the leadership of Rumba Kinuthia staged a public procession against these anti-democratic moves. The students were granted “early Christmas vacations” and the entire NUSO leadership including Kinuthia, Mukhisa Kituyi, Otieno Kajwang’, Josiah Omotto and Wafula Siakama expelled. In the absence of official opposition following the ban on KPU in 1969, the 1970s saw the Kenyan people identify, campaign for and vote in progressive nationalists and radical democrats like Koigi wa Wamwere, Mashengu wa Mwachofi, Chibule wa Tsuma, Abuya Abuya, Lawrence Sifuna, Martin Shikuku, Chelegat Mutai and James Orengo, whom they could rely upon to raise in parliament issues affecting Kenyan workers and peasants and confront the corrupt individuals in the corridors of power.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">KANU under Moi became even more intolerant that by 1981, many Kenyans were loudly demanding for the formation of other political parties. Attempt by Jaramogi, Anyona and other progressives to form Kenya African Socialist Alliance (KASA) made KANU panic. It moved with alacrity to change the Constitution in 1982 making Kenya a <i>de jure</i>one-party state. This enraged Kenyans even more and culminated in members of the Kenya Air Force staging a short-lived coup d’etat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">The coup provided Moi with the opportunity to crack down on lawyers, authors, activists, scientists, and (especially) university lecturers perceived to be critical of his authoritarian rule. Most were detained for what the State called “over-indulgence in politics” and having “Marxist leanings”. Among these were Prof Edward Oyugi, Al-Amin Mazrui, Kamoji Wachiira, and Mukaru Ng’ang’a. Former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, then a University of Nairobi law lecturer, had earlier been detained for having “seditious” literature purportedly advising “J M Solidarity. Don’t be fooled. Reject these Nyayos”. Other university lecturers did not fare any better, such as Mau Mau historian Maina wa Kinyatti, who was jailed for six years for allegedly possessing a “seditious publication titled “Moi’s Divisive Tactics Exposed.” Prof Micere Mugo, and Dr Kimani Gecau, fled to Zimbabwe. The University, which Moi called a “den of dissidents with foreign backing”, was closed for almost a year after the coup. It was never the hotbed of “intellectual pyrotechnics” thereafter. He later had to institute the biggest purge in the history of Kenya in the guise of fighting the MWAKENYA underground resistance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">By 1988, even the regime’s most ardent supporters could not stand the tyranny anymore. Opposition grew within KANU, from the religious fraternity, lawyers and other civil society entities. This culminated in the removal of Section 2A of the Constitution and reintroduction of political pluralism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">This history of resistance to oppression, exploitation and tyranny continues. It manifested in 2002 when Kenyans thought they had broken free by electing NARC; it again temporarily triumphed in 2010 with the promulgation of the new Constitution. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Kenyans always unite in resistance against their oppressors. It matters little whether those oppressors wear the dresses of dynasties or they put on the masks of hustlers and chicken thieves. It is in our DNA to resist the bad and fight for the good.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">December 8, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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THE SITUATION ROOMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09048839964389097129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3276494352243824124.post-20737960800134833422018-12-01T01:34:00.002-08:002018-12-01T01:34:38.597-08:00RESISTING COLONIALISTS AND SEEDS OF BETRAYAL<div align="center" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; font-size: 12pt;">(Part 2 of 3)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; font-size: 12pt;">Oduor Ong'wen</span></b><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; font-size: 12pt;">[In this second installment of three-part discourse on our resistance against exploitation and domination, I look at resistance to colonial rule and how colonialists hijacked it] <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">The social oppression, political repression and economic exploitation that afflicted the Kenyan people in the post-independence era had had its roots firmly planted in more than four centuries of foreign invasion and imperialist domination and four centuries of patriotic resistance by the people determined to defend or regain their freedom. However, the “national” History that is being taught in our schools and colleges is custom made to glorify forces of occupation, oppression, repression and exploitation against our people and to ignore, distort or demean the gallant efforts of the peoples of Kenya from the Indian Ocean Coast to the shores of Lake Victoria and for close to five centuries. But the real history reveals to us that every effort to subjugate and oppress our peoples was met by equal determination to repel and reverse. Sometimes our people were victorious while other times the forces of domination, occupation and exploitation had through their superior weaponry, organisation or mere treachery, been able to prevail over our people. But even in their temporal triumph, they were unable to extinguish the flame of freedom in our peoples.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">While the British colonial authorities had seen peasant revolts as a nuisance and had always devised ways to contain them and succeeded, the swell in the ranks of the Kenyan trade union movement, the revolutionary content of its goals and the growing political stature of its radical leadership presented the colonial government and settler community with waking nightmares. This was exacerbated by the intensifying nationwide discontent against imperialism and covert organisation and mobilisation for armed struggle. The workers affirmed their power on the May Day Parade of 1950 held in Nairobi that drew tens of thousands of workers and the general public. The people were thrilled and excited by the radical and fiery speeches by the leadership and their clear demands. Barely a fortnight after this rally, on May 15, 1950, EATUC was banned and its General Secretary Makhan Singh as well as its President Fred Kubai arrested and jailed. Makhan Singh, seen by colonialists as the ideological brainpower of the trade union movement, stayed behind bars for ten years. The workers were not cowed. They immediately responded by organising a nationwide strike to demand the immediate release of their incarcerated leaders Makhan Singh, Kubai and Cege Kibacia. Their other demands included new minimum wage, the abolition of repressive taxicab byelaws, an end to arbitrary arrests of workers and total, immediate and unconditional national independence for Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika. Involving more than 100,000 workers, for nine days the strike in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, Nakuru and other towns brought the colonial economy to one of its greatest tests so far. The colonial authorities resorted to their tired script. They rounded up hundreds of workers, including strike organisers and other activists and jailed them for long periods. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">If the colonial authorities were deluded that the repressive response to the workers struggle would quell the restlessness for freedom, they were in for a shocking reality. Banning workers’ organisations and incarcerating their leaders was like adding petrol into a raging fire. It was like the 1950 General Strike was the Launchpad for Kenya’s Liberation Struggle. After it, Kenya’s workers became more militant and involved in the ongoing national political struggles. During the June 1951 KAU elections, radical trade unionists captured most of the key leadership positions in the Nairobi branch and immediately transformed the branch from a dull outfit into a vibrant mobilising force which recruited members raised funds for KAU. Some of these leaders formed the nucleus of the clandestine Mau Mau Movement. The void created by the banning of workers organisations, the imprisonment of their leaders and growth of anti-imperialist consciousness aided by KAU’s failure to champion the immediate demands of the Kenyan people led to phenomenal increase in underground political organising. The radical KAU leaders in Nairobi coalesced around a more covert grouping called the “Forty Group” (Anake a 40) and apart from Kaggia and Kubai, its other members included Isaac Gathanju and Eliud Mutonyi. It is this group that formed the Mau Mau Central Committee. The Committee became the nerve centre of anti-colonial armed struggle. Comprising twelve people, the Mau Mau Central Committee initiated and coordinated a recruitment drive during which anti-colonial oath of unity was administered. The oath was to bind members to uphold discipline, secrecy, solidarity and commitment to the cause. Eliud Mutonyi was the Committee’s chairman and Gathanju secretary. Workers’ leaders like Kaggia and Kubai were Central Committee members, although held no official posts. By 1952, a crisis situation had developed in Kenya with the downtrodden masses exhibiting unprecedented restlessness for political change. Incidents of open defiance against colonial authorities became the order of the day and civil disobedience a regular occurrence. The British colonialists were staring at the prospect of an open insurrection.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Internationally, revolutions had broken out simultaneously in China, Korea and Vietnam and the British were determined to forestall similar situations in Kenya. They decided on a pre-emptive strike against the nationalists with the declaration of a State of Emergency on October 20, 1952 and unleashing Operation Jock Scott – arresting hundreds of national leaders, banning all political organisations and instituting martial law. The War Council of the Mau Mau Central Committee responded to the British declaration of war by mobilising the Kenya Land Freedom Army for a military counter-offensive. From its strongholds of Kirinyaga and Nyandarua forests and mountains, KLFA led a sustained armed struggle using sophisticated tactics. Between 1952 and 1955, the Mau Mau forces scored strings of victories that were attributed to the coherence of the movement’s political vision, commitment, sacrifice and discipline. The Mau Mau Charter outlined the movement’s immediate political programme which included the demand for an African government in Kenya; the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of foreign troops; rejection of foreign laws; demand for major commercial and economic activities to be put in African hands; and for immediate stop to the harassment, imprisonment and rape of Kenyan women. Kenya Defence Council was born at the Mwathe Conference, held in August 1953, at which Dedan Kimathi wa Waciuri was elected President of KDC and Field Marshal of KLFA. The Conference divided KLFA into eight armies under semi-autonomous commands. In February 1954, the Kenya Parliament was formed with objectives of intensifying military campaign while separating the military and political aspects of the struggle but remaining under the overall direction of the Mau Mau Central Committee. The Kenya Parliament had a national character and comprised twelve elected members with Kimathi as the first Prime Minister. The feat of setting up a military edifice comprising eight armies and sustaining it with little outside assistance for over seven years of ferocious guerrilla campaign technically superior military machine attests to Mau Mau’s level of discipline, determination and commitment. The fact that the Mau Mau Central Committee was able to see that engaging the colonial authorities needed complementing the armed struggle with other forms of resistance like the highly successful Bus Boycott of September 1953 revealed that not only was the leadership flexible and mature but also the massive popular support it commanded. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Women played a pivotal role in the struggle. They gathered and supplied intelligence, coordinated the supplies, and engaged in full combat activities. No prior organisation had involved Kenyan women to the extent that Mau Mau did. Indeed there were many women commanders, including Field Marshal Muthoni. But the biggest tool of colonial penetration was not the gun. It was the Bible. The missionaries fiercely and violently fought against the indigenous peoples’ customs and traditions in a clearly well orchestrated cultural onslaught that was aided by missionary-sponsored schools and settler controlled mass media. This bred an upsurge of cultural resistance. As early as the 1930s a vibrant patriotic indigenous press had emerged. Newspapers like <i>Sauti ya Mwafrika, Ramogi, Mugambo wa Mu Embu, Wasya wa Mukamba and Inooro ria Gikuyu</i>were some of the more established titles. As a direct antidote to the missionaries, the Kenya independent churches movement emerged and acquired a distinctly anti-colonial flavour. In Mount Kenya region, a religious movement known as <i>Andu a Kaggia</i>led a cultural mass movement that aimed at creating a “purely African movement” diametrically opposed to and divorced from Eurocentric theology. It did away with European customs and replaced them with a new doctrine emphasising African customs and traditions: all converts had to be baptised or re-baptised in their mother names and weddings conducted in the African customary tradition. <i>Andu a Kaggia</i>had a mirror parallel in <i>Maranda</i>movement in Nyanza. <i>Maranda</i>were determined to prevent missionary penetration and to reverse their foreign cultural influences. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">The most controversial of the independent churches to emerge was the <i>Dini ya Msambwa</i>led by Elijah Masinde. Beginning early 1940s, it became locked in one confrontation after another with colonial authorities in Elgon Nyanza (now Bungoma and Trans Nzoia counties) where it developed strong taproots amongst the poor peasants and agricultural workers. Masinde and his followers refused to carry the hated <i>kipande</i>or be conscripted into forced labour. They mounted massive protests when the colonial authorities attempted to requisition their cattle for the British war effort. They later called on African people to start manufacturing guns in preparation for armed struggle against continued colonial rule. On February 10, 1948, colonial police opened fire on a peaceful rally called by <i>Dini ya Msambwa</i>at Malakisi where they killed eleven and wounded not less than sixteen. Six days later, Elijah Masinde was arrested and deported to Lamu. <i>Dini ya Msambwa’s</i>militant followers were not deterred by these acts of state terrorism. They simply retreated and reorganised underground and continued with the liberation struggle. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">The struggle for independence in Kenya, led by Mau Mau, was not an isolated nationalist uprising. It fit to the global confrontation between progressive social forces and desperate imperialist regimes being forced to beat hasty retreat. It was the same period South Africa was witnessing the Defiance Campaign, the Algerian war for national independence, the Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam and the beginning of the Cuban revolutionary insurrection. Fearing the struggle in Kenya acquiring internationalist character, British colonialists devised a “carrot and stick” approach. The carrots were neo-colonial reforms that would devolve a little muscle to the local puppets while the British colonialists retained the real power. Under the Lyttleton Constitution of 1954, the colonial government increased the number of African seats in the settler-dominated Legislative Council and permitted the resumption of organised political activity but restricted this to district associations and excluded districts that were predominantly Gikuyu, Meru and Embu from this partial relaxation of the ban. The increased African representation in the LegCo had its unintended consequences. It brought on board patriots like Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, who effectively used the colonial House to denounce the evils of colonialism, demand the immediate release of all political prisoners and push the colonialists to concede to more constitutional reforms to the dismay and frustration of pro-colonialist members led by Gikonyo Kiano. Odinga stunned the LegCo membership and irked the colonial authorities when he declared that “in the heart of hearts of the African people, their true leaders were those in detention, jail and concentration camps.” The Synnerton Plan created a rural petty bourgeoisie with interest in commercial farming drawing its membership from the scum of homeguards, colonial chiefs and other collaborators.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">The stick was the intensification of military operations in Mt. Kenya region, rounding up of thousands of people and herding them into concentration camps, forcing peasants into fortified villages to deprive guerrilla fighters of a support base and supplies network in a genocidal attempt to annihilate the Gikuyu community. Land and other property of those detained or carted away into concentration camps were confiscated and given to collaborators. Supporting the liberation became a very painful and expensive affair for people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">The banning of the militant EATUC and imprisonment of its entire leadership created a crisis of leadership among the working class and colonialists, in alliance with US intelligence, embarked on grooming a new reactionary trade union leadership. It was with this backdrop that the Kenya Federation of Labour was formed. Led by the articulate and indefatigable Tom Mboya, KFL quickly emerged as the national labour centre. KFL drew the Kenyan working class away from such political issues of land and national independence and restricted their demands to narrow shop floor issues like minimum wage, worker housing and workman compensation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">In 1961, KLFA produced a document titled Struggle for Kenya’s Future that was circulated at KANU Conference. The document identified the neo-colonial character of the regime that was poised to replace British colonial one, observing that the British Master Plan was “to carefully relinquish political control to a properly indoctrinated group of the ‘right kind of Africans’ so as to ensure they left in ‘political form’ so that ‘its capitalist sponsors might remain in economic content.’” It in the alternative proposed that the people of Kenya should struggle to “a socialist society … which unlike capitalism concerns itself with the welfare of the masses rather than the profits and privileges of a few.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">When KANU was formed in 1960, it had as its base the former membership of the banned KAU, the Kenyan workers in Nairobi, Central Kenya, Nyanza, and Rift Valley. Many of the recruits to the new party had participated in or supported the struggle in one way or the other as combatants in the armed struggle, strike and boycott mobilisers or organisers, pamphlet or leaflet distributors, recruitment of combatants, supply of food, medicine or ammunition for the fighters. It therefore represented the aspirations of the most radical of the nationalist movement at the time. The original KANU manifesto articulated the wishes and aspirations of the staggering majority of the Kenyan people, unlike KADU, which even though ostensibly championing more or less the same goals, was in reality an opportunistic settler-controlled lobby of collaborators. The KADU leadership worked hand in glove with leading settler ideologues and leaders like Sir Michael Blundell, Havelock and other reactionary elements who fought desperately to keep their obscene privileges.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">The settler community had seen the danger signs of what to expect in the wake of inevitable KANU victory. Its radical programme was not what they were ready for. They, with the connivance of the colonial administration worked overtime to ensure their interests would be safe in post-independent Kenya. The main parties – KANU and KADU – were therefore manipulated in the name of “capacity building” to negotiate a constitution that would favour the interests of settler community and foreign commercial interests in the name of being “pragmatic.” Kenyatta was a big disappointment. Never before had a people invested so much faith and hope in one man and ended up with despair and dejection. After he was transferred from Lodwar to Maralal, the colonial authorities organised cleared delegations to visit him and apprise him of the political situation in the country. While radical nationalists like Jaramogi Oginga Odinga or his former inmate Kaggia could not be cleared to go and debrief him, the likes of Daniel arap Moi were facilitated. If old Jomo had any little nationalist traction left in him, it was wiped out at his half-way house in Maralal. The New Kenya Party of Sir Blundell, representing settler economic and political interests and deeply engaged in <i>real politik</i>, emerged from Lancaster talks as the real winner. The Lancaster House Conference strictly followed NKP recommendations both in form and content and KANU and KADU delegates were content to cross the t’s and dot the i’s. “Independence” was negotiated in series. Private property (mainly of the settler community) was protected; foreign military bases remained intact; and all the progressive demands listed in the KANU programme were shunned. Blundell and his NKP cronies managed to enlist the support of the entire KADU reactionary clique and, more painfully but significant, the right wing of KANU party, including the arch demagogue, Jomo Kenyatta. The KANU that emerged post-Lancaster was not recognisable. It was more like an Africanised version of the New Kenya Party.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">December 1, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
THE SITUATION ROOMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09048839964389097129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3276494352243824124.post-41154497930143238682018-11-24T00:12:00.001-08:002018-11-24T00:18:32.155-08:00KENYANS WILL RESIST HEGEMONS, IT’S WIRED IN OUR DNA<div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
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<b><span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">(Part 1 of 3)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">Oduor Ong'wen</span></b><span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">[In this first installment of three-part discourse on our resistance against exploitation and domination, I recall how our people have in the past risen against “messianic” hegemons] <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">William Samoei Ruto wants to save Kenyans. Since the conclusion of last election cycle that ended with Uhuru Kenyatta practically running against himself last October, the Deputy President and his supporters have repeatedly reminded Kenyans that we have for far too long been under the hegemony or spell of some dynastic families but that is about to change as Messiah has been born – and the Messiah is a hustler. I have consulted three dictionaries and all give me the two meanings of the word “hustler.” The first meaning is <i>one who makes money by selling or peddling illicit goods</i>. Examples they give include drug peddlers, dealers in contraband goods and pimps. The second meaning of a hustler is prostitute. I don’t know whether the DP belongs in the first or second definition. What matters is that he has confessed to being a hustler.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">Every hegemonic or exploitative enterprise masquerades as inspired by something other than domination or theft. The General Act of the Berlin Conference in 1885, under which the European powers cut Africa, like wedding cake into slices of formal colonial possessions, claimed that their purpose was “furthering the moral and material well-being of the native populations - and bringing home to them the blessings of civilization.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">Similar rhetoric has attended all such seizures. Colonial establishment was presented as a liberating act to save native people from their enslavement to the Devil, or the Arabs, or each other, they had to be forced into general servitude, while their land and natural wealth were transferred to more enlightened people from over the seas. Preposterous as such propaganda may seem to most of us today, it was taken very seriously. In some quarters, it still is. But not everyone was duped. The resistance against Portuguese invaders at the Coast in the 15<sup>th</sup>Century was the earliest manifestation of Kenyans’ resolve against the duplicitous forces.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">In the 1890s, there was a massive mobilisation of the people along the Indian Ocean coast to take up arms and resist British and German imperialist invasion. Between 1895 and 1896 a broad patriotic alliance of the Kenyan coastal peoples led by Mbaruk Al Amin Mazrui waged guerrilla warfare with such ferocity that forced the British to deploy a special task force from India to quell the uprising. Besides the armed struggle, our people also engaged in cultural resistance that produced some of the most inspiring and patriotic Swahili poetry and songs ever. The struggles delayed the construction of the Uganda Railway for long periods because the people saw this “Lunatic Express” as a sinister symbol of foreign invasion. All along the railway route, and at the administrative posts created to facilitate the construction, several armed engagements between patriotic peasant forces and the British forces of occupation were witnessed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">In Central Kenya, the resistance against the I.B.E.A. Company was organised around the leadership of Waiyaki wa Hinga and Ngunyu wa Gakeere. With their ingenious military organisation, the British troops were no match for this “ragtag” force of the Kenyan peasants. It was not brought under control until the British captured Waiyaki after many battles and buried him alive on August 17, 1892 at Kibwezi. Further North West along the rail route, the Nandi patriots led by Koitalel arap Samoei sustained a decade-long guerrilla campaign against the British colonialists between 1895 and 1905. These wars severely disrupted British administration and frequently halted the progress of railway construction. The raids by the Nandi were coordinated and executed with the level of discipline that baffled the colonialists. Having failed to subdue Koitalel’s forces in the battlefield, the British resorted to treachery. They lured Koitalel into a duplicitous “peace talks” meeting at which they shot him in cold blood on October 19, 1905. Further west, the nation was in revolutionary mood with the Luo, the Samia, Bukusu and Tiriki people waging sustained resistance to the establishment. Between 1894 and 1900, British military officer C.W. Hobley led several “punitive” expeditions to subdue the Kager clan in Ugenya and parts of Alego, Bukusu militants, Abasamia and Tiriki warriors. In 1904, another expeditionary force was deployed in Kisii where it massacred villagers, burnt people’s houses and food stores and engaged in a looting spree, stealing cattle and confiscating grains. But this did not dampen the people’s spirit of resistance. In 1908 there was an uprising in West Kitutu, North Nyaribari and East Wanjare (or Bonchari) that led to a company of the 3<sup>rd</sup>Kings African Rifles being sent for a second expedition to Kisii where it repeated the earlier atrocious acts. At the end of this campaign, the British captured one of the leaders, a young woman called Moraa, and exiled her to Kismayu.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">The fire that Mbaruk Al Amin Mazrui had lit at the coast was not extinguished. From 1913 to 1914, Me Katilili was Menza and Wanje wa Mandoro effectively mobilised the Giriama peasants to fight against the theft of their land by the British. They took an oath not to pay taxes to the colonial authorities and to desist from complying with forced labour regulations. Me Katilili was captured and deported to Kisii where she was put under restrictions. Determined as ever, she escaped from the colonial detention in January 1914 and walked back 700 miles to Kilifi to rejoin her comrades in the struggle and advance the resistance. She was recaptured on October 17, 1914 and died soon after. The roles of the likes of Me Katilili and Moraa – and Mary Nanjiru later on – also brought to shame the sexists who always would want to see a woman’s place as the kitchen and bedroom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">By 1920 when Kenya was declared a colony, there had already developed a sizeable Kenyan working class. The next two decades beginning 1920 marked a new and important stage in the development of anti-imperialist struggle in Kenya. The workers, who were divided along racial, ethnic and religious lines at the beginning gradually came to realise that as a working people, they had common class interests and their collective advancement depended upon their unity of purpose. They began to organise at national level and sought to link trade union struggles with the overall national political struggles. They pitched their struggles around such issues as the wanton exploitation, poor housing, poor working environment as well as more political ones like the notorious <i>kipande</i>system. Militant workers’ organisations were created. These included Labour Trade Union of Kenya, the African Workers Federation and the East African Trade Union Congress and produced brilliant, courageous and astute national trade union and political leaders like Makhan Singh, Chege Kibacia and Fred Kubai.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Colonial authorities were getting terrified by the day as workers organised on a national scale. Fearing the explosive potential of political organisation at the national level, the colonialists tried all tricks in the book to prevent the formation of nationwide political associations. Nonetheless such organisation as the Young Kikuyu Association, the Young Kavirondo Association, the Kenya Highlands League, the East African Association, and later the Kikuyu Central Association, the Taita Hills Association, the Ukamba members Association and the North Kavirondo Association acquired national character. They consulted closely and coordinated their activities. At the tender age of 25, Harry Thuku had in 1920 become a recognised national leader with considerable following among the workers in Nairobi. He played a leading role in the formation of the Young Kikuyu Association and the progressive non-racial East African Association. Thuku was active in the famous Dagoretti meeting of June 1921 that exposed the atrocities against young Kenyan women workers forced to work on settler farms, denounced the <i>kipande</i>system, protested strongly at the proposed wage reduction and coordinated the drafting of a petition that was sent to the Governor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">On March 14, 1922, Harry Thuku was arrested and detained at Nairobi’s Central Police Station. This sparked off one of the most massive protests ever witnessed in the streets of Nairobi. On March 16, 1922 as the protesters gathered at what is now University of Nairobi’s Great Court, mounted troops assisted by inebriated settlers that had been drinking alcohol at the nearby Norfolk Hotel opened fire on them killing 200 people in cold blood – including their heroic leader, Mary Muthoni Nyanjiru. YKA was banned.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">As workers mounted one onslaught after another on the hated colonial government and its settler captains of industry, various Kenyan communities in their locales engaged colonial authorities with resolve. In Machakos, Ndonyo wa Kamiti led the Kamba people in demands for immediate end to forced labour and taxes. In Nyanza, Simon Nyende, Reuben Omulo, Ojijo Oteko, Jonathan Okwiri and other patriots organised a popular struggle against the <i>kipande</i>system and high taxes, land alienation and demand for clear explanation on the exact status of the new “Crown Colony.” The struggle, under the banner of <i>Piny Owacho</i>([people of] the land has said) articulated these grievances through a series of mass rallies between 1922 and 1923. One such rallies held at Lundha in Gem in 1922 made a declaration that the land had said that colonial occupation was inimical to people’s welfare and freedom and had to end. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">Following the proscription of the YKA, a new organisation, the Kikuyu Central Association was formed to pursue the cause YKA had initiated. It instantly became the single most powerful legal outfit operating in the colony. Under the leadership of Jesse Kariuki, Joseph Kang’ethe and James In 1928, Beautah who was the secretary and employee of the East African Postal Services was transferred to Kampala. The need for someone to keep records and write letters became dire. It was then that its leadership approached Johnstone Kenyatta, a meter reader with Nairobi Municipal Board, who readily agreed to the offer but at a fee of a bottle of whisky for every letter or set of minutes written. This was such an expensive demand given that Africans were not allowed to drink pre-bottled alcohol. But KCA needed the services badly and agreed to the terms. Arrangements were made with sympathetic Asian businessmen to smuggle out the liquor. A year later, KCA raised money and sent Kenyatta to London to plead at the Colonial Office the case of alienated African land. Kenyatta was articulate in his presentation of the KCA demands to the Colonial Office. He was also able to link up with Pan African activists like Kwame Nkuruma, Marcus Garvey and W.E. DuBois. On return in 1930, Kenyatta convinced the KCA leadership on the need for a longer and closer engagement with the Colonial Office. It was on this understanding that KCA sent him back to London in 1931 where he ended up staying for eight years. Kenyatta’s stint in London had both gains and pain for the KCA organisation. He spent most of the time at Hyde Park making demagogic speeches. In the process, he was able to expose the Kenyan people’s case to the international community and attract solidarity from other struggling people from other parts of Africa, Caribbean, Irish, Latin America and Asia. On the other hand, he is said to have led a reckless life – excessively drinking, womanising and travelling – at the expense of the peasants who had to send him cash regularly. It is recorded that he defaulted on rent often and had to shift residences often. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">The Ukamba Members Association was initially a wing of KCA but became autonomous and full-fledged organisation during the campaign against destocking in the late 1930s. It’s members comprised peasants, workers, policemen and soldiers. Its leaders, including Muindi Mbingu, had cut their political teeth through a long apprenticeship in the militant working class movement and national politics of Nairobi in the 1920s. The massive and radical anti-destocking campaign of 1938 led by UMA was a broad-based political movement. The UMA won a sweet victory when in December 1938 the colonial government acquiesced to the demands of the people and halted compulsory culling of livestock and returned more than 2,500 heads of cattle that had been confiscated. All over the country, there were peasant resistances and even though a nationwide political organisation was proscribed, national resistance movement emerged and prospered in various communities across the length and breadth of the colony. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";"><i>November 24, 2018</i></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style";">(<b>Next week: Fight to kick out "kaburus")</b><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
THE SITUATION ROOMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09048839964389097129noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3276494352243824124.post-17324433331124641442018-11-17T02:03:00.000-08:002018-11-17T02:47:08.058-08:00WHY UHURU’S FOOD SECURITY AGENDA IS MISPLACED<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
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<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">Oduor Ong'wen<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">Uhuru Kenyatta is committed to what has become known as “The Big Four” agenda as he serves his second and final term as the President. These comprise food security, universal healthcare, affordable housing and manufacturing. Today I wish to focus on the Food Security agenda and declare that it is misplaced and is destined to fail. From the onset I aver that the problem facing Kenya and other Third World countries is not food insecurity. It is lack of Food Sovereignty. As such I would have been happy if President Kenyatta and the framers of the “Big Four” had focused on Food Sovereignty instead.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">I have studied government policy documents of Food Security and found very many worrying propositions. Two fundamental assumptions are particularly worrying. These are that the adoption of neoliberal economic policies would lead to greater food security; and the country’s food security can be rather adequately be indicated by aggregate food availability per capita.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">In pursuit of neoliberal economic policies our policy makers have vested faith in the <i>Washington Consensus</i>that gives primacy to “market forces,” “free trade” and “privatization” in development strategies. These policies are assumed to be necessary and sufficient conditions for assuring sufficient food production, adequate access to food by the poor and for good governance. Experience since the wave of liberalization nad privation in the mid 1980s tell a different story. Indeed our current situation where the stores of the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) are full while maize farmers are stranded with their harvests of the last season is telling. These policies make it easier to move maize from “Mexico” to Mombasa port in a record four days while we cannot move the produce from North Rift to Makueni County even in six months.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">There is little in the history of the now rich industrialised countries, or of the relatively successful developing ones, to suggest that this is the course that these nations followed. Indeed a historical review of the development strategies and especially of the food and agricultural policies followed them is instructive. Western European countries, Japan and the United States have highly subsidized agricultural sectors, as well as an array of institutions and policies designed to protect poor food producers and consumers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">With regard to over-reliance on quantitative indicators of food security, obtaining comparable quantitative estimates of trends in under-nutrition as an indicator of the absence of reliable access to adequate food and equity in its distribution among different social groups is much more difficult. Secondly, quantitative indicators of the autonomy of food systems and their long-term ecological and social sustainability are equally partial due to the qualitative nature of these concepts. Neglecting these crucial dimensions of the issues – as the authors of Kenya’s Food Security policy have – is not only misleading but also extremely dangerous.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">The policy places inordinate faith in commercial farmers. Many of these own large farms or ranches. Obviously, a landowner could set a large tract of land aside as a natural area, and in so doing, be a good steward of a "very large farm." But such a farm or ranch would not generate much income or produce much of economic benefit to society. If land is to generate income and create a good place to live, the land must not only be "used" but "used well." And thus, most farms and ranches must be "smaller" than they are today. The emphasis on the "commercial" purpose of farming has encouraged – essentially forced – most farms to become so large that farmers can no longer "use the land well." Each farmer can only know and love so much land.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">The relationship between farm size and farm "lifestyle" is similar to that of size and stewardship. With respect to the physical environment; open space, fresh air, scenic landscapes, etc.; residence farms may be any size, and up to a point, larger may seem better. Beyond some point, however, farms or ranches get larger at the expense of their neighbours and their communities, regardless of whether the motive for expansion is commercial or residential. And, the quality of the farmer or rancher's relationships with his or her "neighbours" ultimately affects the quality of "the place they live."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">If our rural communities are to remain healthy, desirable places to live, they must preserve the health and productivity of people, their physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing; the people, that is, must be treated well. A further requirement is that if people are to treat each other well, they must know each other well, must be motivated to treat each other well, must have time to treat each other well, and must be able to afford to treat each other well. If our rural communities are to remain good places to live, we must have communities of people who love each other. And, we cannot have communities of people who love each other if some feel that they must drive others away so they can own more land.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">This brings us to another purpose for farming, farming for sustainability. Sustainability requires that farmers be motivated by the purposes of economic viability (commercial), ecological integrity (stewardship), and social responsibility (lifestyle). If farmers or ranchers focus on any one of the three, without giving conscious purposeful consideration of the other two, they inevitably threaten the sustainability of their farming operations. Farms or ranches that focus on economic viability, i.e., commercial farms, eventually will become too large to "use the land well" and inevitably degrade their relationships with their neighbours. Similarly, farms that focus only on individual lifestyle, excluding concern for neighbours, productivity, or the natural environment may threaten sustainability. And, farms or ranches that focus solely on stewardship do nothing to support healthy community relationships or to provide for the food and fiber or employment needs of people. In all three cases, by focusing on a single purpose, they threaten sustainability. Largeness is not the cause of the lack of sustainability of a farm, but instead, is a symptom of a narrow focus on a single purpose of farming – most typically, on commercial farming.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">This is in no way a glorification of tiny farms and ranches. Of course, farms and ranches can also be too small to be sustainable – they can't generate enough income, can’t take care of the land, nor provide a good place to live. But, farmers who rely on “alternative” farming methods – reduce input costs, market in the niches, build relationships, etc. – can generate more net income with fewer acres of land and less money invested. Still, farms that are "too small" do relatively little harm to the economy, the environment, or to the community, and thus, to the sustainability of agriculture. Why do small farmers farm for sustainability? They are farming for quality of life. In other words, they are farming to perpetuate quality livelihoods for the living and yet unborn.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">There are five intrinsic characteristics of farming for sustainability that are either absent or not sufficiently canvassed in the policy. First is the development and promotion of a food system that offers security for its participants by ensuring the capacity to produce, store, import or otherwise acquire sufficient food to meet the needs of its members at all times.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">Second is a food system that provides maximum autonomy and self-determination, thus reducing vulnerability to market fluctuations and other social and political pressures.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">Third is a reliable food system that is not amenable to seasonal, cyclical and other variation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">Fourth, a secure food system should be equitable. This means that as a minimum it should guarantee dependable access to adequate food for all individuals and groups both now and in future.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">Finally, it should be socially and environmentally sustainable so that the ecological systems on which all societies and food production depend are protected and enhanced over time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">Our national Food Security policy has tried to compress everything into food availability, stability and access. It is my position that de-emphasising the questions of autonomy, equity and long-term ecological sustainability makes it a tool for profiteers lurking in the shadows to unfairly benefit from the troubles of small producers and consumers. But I am not surprised. Uhuru Kenyatta has never slept hungry due to lack of food. If he ever slept without eating, it was perhaps because he didn’t have the appetite or over-indulged, as we are sometimes wont to. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">November 17, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
THE SITUATION ROOMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09048839964389097129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3276494352243824124.post-30333170070583480222018-11-10T02:05:00.002-08:002018-11-10T02:05:40.717-08:00<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
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<b><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">WHY WE MUST SUPPORT UNIVERSAL MEDICARE PLANS<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">Oduor Ong’wen<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">Disease ranks alongside poverty and ignorance among the three most dreaded enemies that our founding fathers vowed to fight and vanquish. Fifty-five years down the line, the war is far from won. Indeed, these enemies appear to have gained the upper hand in the recent years. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">State-funded funded healthcare programme was one of the first bold moves by the newly independent government in the early 1960s. However, gradually but steadily – almost unnoticed by the Kenyan public – there has been a major shift in healthcare strategy in the recent years. This culminated in the now infamous cost-sharing system in public hospitals and health units.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">Thanks to the Washington Consensus, the shift has placed the responsibility of healthcare provision from the state to the “market forces.” The defining feature of this shift is many deaths from otherwise preventable and treatable diseases, resurgence of diseases that humanity thought were already conquered like tuberculosis and detention of decomposing corpses in village bandas christened “private clinics.” Not to mention quacks defiling patients in the so-called clinics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">David Werner, the author of the best selling book, <i>Where There Is No Doctor</i>, is very clear on why the public should be worried about the shift in global and national health strategies. Werner, a guru in community health practice and a consultant for the World Health Organisation (WHO), recalls how the celebrated concept of universal primary healthcare had been adopted by virtually all governments at the landmark 1978 WHO-UNICEF global health conference that endorsed the Alma Alta Declaration.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">To advance toward ‘Health for All by the year 2000’, the Declaration promoted the principles that all people are entitled to basic health rights and that society ( and thus the government) has a responsibility to ensure that the people’s health needs are met, regardless of gender, race, class, relative ability or disability. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">The centerpiece of the Declaration was primary health care, a comprehensive strategy that included an equitable, consumer-centred approach to health services and also addressed underlying social factors that influence health. It called on ministries of health and health workers to be accountable to the common people, and social guarantees to ensure that basic needs (including food) of all people are met.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">Any examination of the impact of the relationship between macro-economic change, including SAPs, and health should be informed by a historical and contemporary understanding of the economic, social and technical factors influencing health outcomes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">The disease burden and pattern experienced by the people of Kenya today are strikingly similar to those of 19<sup>th</sup>century Europe, i.e., they are primarily diseases of under-development and poverty, not a feature of warm climates in the tropics. Urban areas experience disease patterns more akin to those dominant in the industrialised countries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">Historical and contemporary experiences have shown that there is a definite but complex relationship between economic growth on the one hand and health status on the other. In general, sustained economic growth over the long run does lead to improved health and nutritional status: in the now-industralised countries the large and sustained decline in mortality has been accomplished by reductions in morbidity (disease) and malnutrition, and largely preceded any effective medical interventions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">Factors influencing health outcomes include economic and environmental influences as well as direct health sector interventions. Thus, it is useful to categorise these factors into two broad groups - those originating inside the health sector and those that do not. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">Most observers now accept that adjustment has had a negative impact on infant and child mortality. There is evidence that non-adjusting countries with low levels of debt in Sub-Saharan Africa have succeeded in accelerating the rate of improvement of their infant mortality rates during the 1980’s; that the rate of progress in severely indebted, non-adjusting countries has remained broadly unchanged; and that progress in severely indebted, intensively-adjusting countries has slowed markedly. UNICEF cites evidence of increases in infant and young child mortality in several SSA countries over the past few years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">The likely causes of these reversals derives from declines in incomes; increases in food prices; and reductions in health sector spending, which have led to the imposition of user charges for health care, cutbacks in preventive programmes’ budgets and interruptions in supply of pharmaceuticals to public health care facilities. These have in turn resulted in deterioration in both the quantity and quality of diets, and reductions in immunisation coverage and in utilisation of health services for acute conditions, as well as weakening of disease control programmes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">Consequently, the incidence (and possibly the severity) of the vaccine-preventable diseases has probably increased together with mortality from diarrheal disease, respiratory infections and malaria. There has also been a resurgence of certain communicable diseases which were previously substantially under control, particularly malaria, tuberculosis and cholera. All of these have contributed to increased morbidity and Presumed Mechanisms<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">In addition to the negative impact on women’s health associated with the general decline in communicable disease control and health care provision, there is evidence that morbidity and mortality associated with pregnancy has also been aggravated. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">The introduction of user charges for antenatal and maternity care has been associated with an increase in deliveries conducted at home, as well as those occurring in hospital without previous antenatal care or assessment. The rising costs of transport together with the lack of money on the part of poor women have been other contributory factors. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">Finally, there is evidence, mainly of qualitative nature, that </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">deteriorating economic circumstances, which have forced an increasing number of women into commercial sex activity have </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">influenced risk behaviour in relation to HIV transmission. The above factors have undoubtedly resulted in a sharp rise in already high maternal mortality rates, especially in poor countries and amongst lower socio-economic groups.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">To ensure that the quest for universal and affordable healthcare succeeds, the government must rethink the Washington Consensus policies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">November 10, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
THE SITUATION ROOMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09048839964389097129noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3276494352243824124.post-1487065732568787282014-07-07T05:55:00.001-07:002014-07-07T05:55:11.654-07:00WELCOME TO GUNDI LA HAKIAs we mark the twenty fourth anniversary of the July seventh uprising (SabaSaba) that launched our struggle for return to pluralism in earnest, the Kenyan people should be excused if they resort to cynicism and apathy.<br />
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For a start, SabaSaba was not about Kanu renegades Kenneth Matiba and Charles Rubia as the compromised and complicit Kenya's mainstream media would like to sell it. It was about Kenya and Kenyans. These two were just the latest addition to the swelling number of brave Kenyan men and women who were standing up to the Moi-Kanu dictatorship to say ENOUGH IS MORE THAN ENOUGH.They were adding to the voices of patriotic politicians like Jaramogi Oginga Odinga and George Moseti Anyona, who had gone ahead to attempt the registration of an alternative political party - Kenya Socialist Alliance; They were echoing the sounds raised by progressive clerics like John Henry Okullu, Alexander Kipsang' Muge, David Gitari and Timothy Njoya; they were fortifying the resolve of student activists like Mwandawiro Mghanga, Titus Adungosi, Oduor Ong'wen and Buke Wafula who were languishing in Kamiti and Naivasha Maximum Security Prisons for speaking truth to power. But Kudos to Matiba and Rubia for choosing the right side of history when they were rejected by their own in the 1988 Mlolongo (s)elections<br />
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The discredited Kenyan media has tried - ineffectually - to patent Saba Saba to some individuals, regions, communities and/or sectarian interests. Kenyans should dismiss this with plenty of contempt. SabaSaba is a manifestation of Kenyans' fighting spirit against dictatorship, oppression, repression, exploitation and social marginalization. It embodies our struggle to retain our dignity as a people. SabaSaba is and will remain our rallying call against INJUSTICE in Kenya.<br />
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It is against this background that we use the eve of SabaSaba silver jubilee to launch this GUNDI LA HAKI ( Glue of Justice) to rededicate ourselves to the cry in our national anthem that Justice be our shield and defender.<br />
ENJOY, CONTRIBUTE AND PROPAGATE<br />
<br />THE SITUATION ROOMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09048839964389097129noreply@blogger.com0