Tag Archives: Rift Valley Province

Justice, the ICC and Kenyan Politics

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A panel of judges at the ICC will issue their ruling tomorrow afternoon on whether or not six accused Kenyans will stand trial. The six include two declared presidential candidates. Either way the ruling will have a non-trivial impact on the pursuit of justice for the victims of the 2007-08 post-election violence (PEV). It will also significantly shape the politics of coalition building in this year’s general elections.

Because of the ICC process, the Kenyan justice system has put on ice its own process of holding the perpetrators of the PEV to account. A non-confirmation of the charges against at least some of the six co-accused will add the 2007-08 PEV to the long list of crimes against Kenyans, many of which have been committed by the high and mighty, that have gone unpunished.

Justice is political. Therefore, there is no doubt that if the process of prosecuting the crimes committed in the PEV returns to Kenya none of the big fish will be held accountable. That is the sad truth.

This is why despite the noisy political environment, a majority of the PEV victims (and other Kenyans) still back the ICC process. At the very minimum they want justice to appear to be served.

At the moment the problem of justice remains a worry largely monopolized by the 300,000 or so Kenyans in IDP camps and the relatives of the over 1,300 who were killed. [The media and the political class are squarely to blame for this shameful situation.] For the rest of the country, focus has shifted to the politics of the general elections due later this year. To this we now turn.

Two of the accused, William Ruto and Uhuru Kenyatta have declared their interest in the presidency. Mr. Kenyatta is currently the second most preferred presidential candidate after Prime Minister Raila Odinga. Mr. Ruto, while not as popular nationally, still commands a sizeable chunk of the votes in the country’s most populous province – the Rift Valley. The Rift Valley has also been the hotbed of political violence in country’s history, most of it over land.

A confirmation of the charges will seriously dent the presidential ambitions of Messrs Ruto and Kenyatta. It will make it harder for either of them to sell their candidacy outside of their immediate ethnic constituency. It will also give their opponents (and there are plenty) an opportunity to hold themselves as the clean candidates that ought to succeed Kibaki. Needless to say, a non-confirmation would bolster the duo’s campaigns. What will this mean for the general election?

It is common knowledge that the man to beat in the 2012 election will be Mr. Odinga. The two scenarios above will impact the outcome of the election mainly through their influence on the coalition building abilities of the anti-Odinga crowd.

More on this tomorrow in reaction to the ICC ruling.

provisional kenyan referendum results

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Provisional results indicate that 67% of Kenyans voted in favor of the proposed draft constitution. In all provinces but the Rift Valley and Eastern, Kenyans voted overwhelmingly in favor of the document. Rift Valley saw the stiffest opposition to the new constitution, recording a 62% NO vote. This was however expected since the regional political supremos, William Ruto and former president Moi, had vigorously campaigned against the document. In Eastern Province vice president Kalonzo Musyoka was left exposed after a strong showing by the NO side in his backyard. The vice president campaigned for the document but faced insurgent local politicians who appear to have proved that Mr. Musyoka does not have as much influence in the region as he would have us believe. Given Kenya’s highly regionalized national politics, the poor showing by Mr. Musyoka in his own backyard will have interesting implications for the Kibaki succession politics.

Of interest later today will be the breakdown of how individual MPs fared in influencing the vote in their own constituencies. Sadly, outside of Nairobi and other major urban centres most voters did not vote for the new constitution on its merits but followed the advice of their representatives, or their opponents. The most vivid example of this was in North Eastern province where quite a few number of voters turned up expecting to vote in a general election. It might be time the government issued free radio sets to families in the arid north of the country.

In other news, Kenyans appear to have learned their lesson in 2007 about election-related violence. Throughout the last few days the tv screens have been filled with programs and advertisements reminding people to keep the peace.

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.

the waki commission and the need for total truth

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I have previously stated my sympathies for William Ruto. But on this one I think the man from Eldoret North is going a bit too far. For a whole minister to go on record and rubbish the work of a highly respected commission is indeed deplorable. I hope that soon enough Ruto will realise that the more he continues to shout from the roof tops about the uselessness of the commission’s finding the more Kenyans will start pointing fingers at him.

It is true that the Rift Valley was the hotbed of the violence and that most of the perpetrators may have been Ruto’s adopted constituents. It is therefore expected that someone from the Rift Valley would come out and defend the perpetrators. But this is not how to go about it. The systemic problems that caused the flare up last January will not be solved by the commission’s prosecution of the perpetrators. I hope Kenyans realise that and that the commission appreciates this fact in its recommendations – I have downloaded a copy of the report but because of a term paper and other commitments haven’t been able to read through it (plus it’s like over 500 pages long!). In light of this fact, I don’t see why Ruto wants the truth to be swept under the carpet this early. He ought to let the truth come out and then we shall deal with the truth as responsible citizens who want a united future for Kenya.

If the people of Rift Valley and their leaders killed innocent Kenyans, Kenyans deserve to know. The victims need to know who these people are. From here we ought then to proceed to why these atrocities were committed and if we are true to ourselves we shall realise that the solution is not retribution but honest reconciliation. It is no secret that land was the issue in the Rift Valley. On this basis, some form of amnesty and redistribution of land can be worked out – but only after the truth has been put out there.

So Mr. Ruto should not be afraid, this only betrays his guilt – whether apparent or real. He should instead advocate for a responsible handling of the reconciliation process. This is his only realistic way of navigating through the tricky issue of the violence. If he however choses to confront the rest of the country by rubbishing the report, he will lose face and his own party might throw him under the bus. More importantly, Kenya may end up further divided with residents of the Rift Valley feeling alienated and marginalised. Nobody wants that. I hope this is clear to William Ruto.