Monthly Archives: October 2009

Defending Nairobi

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The New York Times has a story on the security situation in Nairobi. In the interest of full disclosure, Nairobi is my home town. I was there this summer and would like to point out – just for the record – that although Nairobi may not be the safest place in the world, it is not the most dangerous city in the world either. The city has 4 million people, give or take. Income inequality is off the charts. The city’s economy cannot provide enough jobs for its youth, most of whom do not spend enough time in school and therefore resort to petty theft to earn a living. This summer there was a wave of kidnappings. Some were by real criminals. At least one that got exposed was by a young woman trying to get money from her father by pretending that she was kidnapped.The Nairobi city council is run by a bunch of clowns.

I agree with Gettleman that the incidence of crime in Nairobi is way too high. That said, Nairobi is not Jo’burg or Kabul. It is still very much a live-able city – as evidenced by the many NGOs and UN agencies that have set up shop in there.

something awesome from JKUAT

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The Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology has an awesome blog. Check it out.

the ostrich way is the wrong way

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Agriculture minister William Ruto (the de facto political leader of the Rift Valley Province) has dismissed reports of an ethnic arms race in his backyard as mere rumors. George Saitoti, the minister for internal security has equally dismissed the same reports.

I understand that the government is trying to show that it is in charge and that in fact there is not a widespread arms race in the Rift Valley – the area worst affected by the post-election violence of last year. An admission from the government might cause even more anxiety and force even the otherwise pacific parts of the population to seek guns. That said, I hope that these public denials are mere PR and that the government in actuality is lookin into the issue with a view of stopping the proliferation of small arms in the area and possibly arresting and prosecuting the arms-traffickers (hey, don’t judge. I am allowed to fantasize once in a while).

kenyan ethnic groups arming ahead of 2012

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I just read this on the BBC and can’t stop wishing that it is all hype. The report quotes a number of Kenyans – mostly from the Rift Valley – who seem to be acknowledging that segments of the Kenyan population are arming ahead of the 2012 elections. And this time round instead of machetes and bows and arrows they are getting guns, machine guns. A Kenyan working for an NGO in Eldoret confirmed the BBC report.

I am assuming, or rather hoping that the Kenyan intelligence community is not sleeping on the job like they did in the run-up to the 2007 elections. If people are buying machine guns it can only mean one thing. If Kenya is ever to have a civil war it will be fought in the Rift Valley. Other political conflicts in Kenya have always been over the sharing of divisible goods – mainly payoffs in terms of good jobs and chances for sleaze among the many ethnic entrepreneurs that populate the Kenyan political landscape. But the conflict in the Rift Valley will be about a somewhat indivisible good – LAND. Those that own the land will not let go or share it easily, more so if they have machine guns. And those that think that the land was taken from them wrongly will perhaps  also be willing to fight for the land, more so if they also have machine guns.

The contest in 2012 just seems to get messier and messier. Kibaki should consider calling a snap election and then stepping down. That may catch the plotters unawares and bring a decisive victory to one party or the other. May be then the government will be able to deal with all these issues – land, judicial reforms, security etc – without the many distractions that the current government faces.

And in other news, Jaindi Kisero (one of my favorite columnists) has a piece on the slightly positive signs the Kenyan economy has shown so far. If only the nation’s political class would get its act togehter…

I also found this discussion on the IMF and WB interesting.

One, more thing.  Last week I attended a talk by Paul Romer on Charter cities. The idea is as exciting as it is provocative. I still don’t know what to make of it though. Read more about it here.

top genocidaire arrested

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The BBC reports that a former Rwandan intelligence chief suspected to have been responsible for the drawing up of death lists (including more proximately, the murder of a Tutsi queen) has been arrested in Uganda. I remain impressed by the efficacy of the UN tribunal on the Rwandan genocide in getting those that planned the murder of over 800,000 people.

I am however disappointed by the reluctance of the security apparatuses in east Africa to arrest Felicien Kabuga, a man suspected to have bankrolled genocidaires. Kabuga remains elusive. Some people believe that he is in hiding somewhere in Kenya.

guineans have to elect Camara, or else…

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Speaking to a French radio station Moussa Camara (junior officer who now leads the military junta in Guinea that just killed over 157 people this past week) intimated that the country was in danger of experiencing another military coup were he to step down. This by extension means that the country will experience a military coup if he doesn’t win in the general election in January because, he says, the army is “unstructed.” Now we have had this line before. And it works quite well. Charles Taylor threatened the Liberians into voting for him at the end of the that country’s bloody civil war. Camara seems to be employing the same tactic to armtwist poor Guineans into letting him hold onto the reins of power. And he is totally not ashamed of the transparency of what he is doing. May be it is a junior army officer thing.

I wonder why it is always this half-baked junior officers that take over in coups in (West) Africa – the worst ever being Liberia’s Samuel Doe.  Where are the Sandhurst and Westpoint educated generals? I think they might do a better job running countries than these junior officers. Perhaps it might be that the generals are already in the pockets of the civilians being overthrown in the first place. But still.