When Kenya sneezes...
WHEN Kenya sneezes, as the saying goes, Uganda catches a cold! Not a nice fate. And obviously it is less a sneeze you talk about in the recent circumstances, more an influenza of the most virulent kind, leading to great suffering and appalling death.
By John Nagenda
WHEN Kenya sneezes, as the saying goes, Uganda catches a cold! Not a nice fate. And obviously it is less a sneeze you talk about in the recent circumstances, more an influenza of the most virulent kind, leading to great suffering and appalling death.
The cold Uganda is experiencing is in comparison minor in the extreme, although admittedly inconvenient. In the almost total absence of fuel, however temporary, the results are predictable. Prices of everything rise dramatically, urgent journeys are put on hold: in some cases perhaps even leading to death. Death too might come, as often happens, to those who hoard fuel in uncertain containers, ready to explode at the flash of a match.
But all this is as nothing to the unremitting tales of slaughter and mass displacement of communities seeking safety within our neighbour, Kenya. And all because of politics and the recent elections! “All†is not perhaps a sufficient word in the circumstances.
But as a match explodes the unsafe fuel container, so unwise and uncontrolled rhetoric has set Kenya ablaze, with results which are hard to fully predict, but which may prove even harder to wipe away for generations to come. It is as if the volcanic evil had been simmering underneath for decades and had now spewed to the surface. No amount of pretence and doubletalk can hide this fact. The evil, dear Brutus, does lie deep in us.
This was the week when the balloon went up, as World War II jargon had it. Rumblings to do with the Kenya elections had been becoming steadily more ominous. Even before the counting had been finished Opposition chief Raila Odinga of the Orange Democratic Movement (whose father Oginga Odinga I had been honoured to shake hands with back in the early ‘60s in Nairobi) started demanding a recount!
What did this mean? He had been well in the early stages of the counting but his lead was diminishing by the day. This was mainly supposition because the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) was largely being non-communicative. On Sunday in rapid succession the result was announced; the incumbent Mwai Kibaki had won by a narrow majority of less than 300,000, and had swiftly been sworn in. All hell broke loose, with some semblance of a well rehearsed and conducted orchestra; from hell admittedly.
The swiftness and precision of the deadly events that followed could not be random. April 1994 Rwanda was here all over again in form, if not immediately with the same intensity.
But give it time! In four days’ time the figure of the dead had risen to above 300, a tenth of those in one torched church whence they had flown for God’s protection and mercy: echoes again of Rwanda. The statistics are revolting: how many slaughtered and maimed, in what fiendish manner; how many buildings reduced to rabble; how many internal and external migrations set in motion without a backward glance!
By the end of the weekend, some sanity was beginning to return to Kenya.
President Kibaki, who had already invited the various groupings to talks, and been spurned by Odinga’s ODM, was further holding out the olive branch, “provided temperatures cooledâ€. This was not enough, conditionalities should be set aside while Kenya burned. Even Odinga was moderating his tone, implying he would use the international community for indirect discussions. This was not enough: this matter was between Kenyans.
The EU implied that itself and the US would apply pressure for a government of national unity, a preposterous interference swiftly and rightly denied by the US. It served to highlight the sensible views of Museveni of Uganda, and current Chairman of the East African Community who, as early as a week before, while congratulating Kibaki on his re-election had asked merely whether EAC could give help in the grave Kenyan situation.
In consultation with Kikwete of Tanzania, both Kibaki and Odinga had been addressed. It won’t be outsiders to dictate to Kenya what to do; the Kenyans must be the deciders. But a regional organisation to which they belong would be a useful tool to try and bring Kenya together again. (Incidentally, they speak with forked tongues those that castigate Museveni for, rightly, congratulating a fellow regional president who had been declared winner and sworn in.) What other conclusions can be reached?
For people to turn on each other in the way it happened this past week, especially in western Kenya, is totally indefensible. Not even animals behave to each other like that. Alas it happens with human beings, as in Rwanda, Congo, Asia, Nigeria, Bosnia, Serbia, and earlier in Hitler’s Germany; to quote many examples. True, the leadership involved is even more to blame than those it leads, but even they are not simple automatons.
The Luo and Kikuyu elders and people (especially, but also others) must come together in humble supplication and ensure that these recent barbaric events can never happen again. Indeed it could be argued that they were waiting to happen, right from Independence.
That they had not yet happened essentially speaks volumes for Kenya sobriety up to now. Also, ironically, it is to President Mwai Kibaki’s advantage that a lot of his ministers, including many at the top level, were thrown out by the electorate. This sends him a clear message, and enables him to choose new ones, including from the Opposition, to fill the vacated slots. Hey presto, a natural government of national unity which Kenya much deserves.
As for Uganda, may it never catch this recent dreadful cold!
WHEN Kenya sneezes, as the saying goes, Uganda catches a cold! Not a nice fate. And obviously it is less a sneeze you talk about in the recent circumstances, more an influenza of the most virulent kind, leading to great suffering and appalling death.
The cold Uganda is experiencing is in comparison minor in the extreme, although admittedly inconvenient. In the almost total absence of fuel, however temporary, the results are predictable. Prices of everything rise dramatically, urgent journeys are put on hold: in some cases perhaps even leading to death. Death too might come, as often happens, to those who hoard fuel in uncertain containers, ready to explode at the flash of a match.
But all this is as nothing to the unremitting tales of slaughter and mass displacement of communities seeking safety within our neighbour, Kenya. And all because of politics and the recent elections! “All†is not perhaps a sufficient word in the circumstances.
But as a match explodes the unsafe fuel container, so unwise and uncontrolled rhetoric has set Kenya ablaze, with results which are hard to fully predict, but which may prove even harder to wipe away for generations to come. It is as if the volcanic evil had been simmering underneath for decades and had now spewed to the surface. No amount of pretence and doubletalk can hide this fact. The evil, dear Brutus, does lie deep in us.
This was the week when the balloon went up, as World War II jargon had it. Rumblings to do with the Kenya elections had been becoming steadily more ominous. Even before the counting had been finished Opposition chief Raila Odinga of the Orange Democratic Movement (whose father Oginga Odinga I had been honoured to shake hands with back in the early ‘60s in Nairobi) started demanding a recount!
What did this mean? He had been well in the early stages of the counting but his lead was diminishing by the day. This was mainly supposition because the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) was largely being non-communicative. On Sunday in rapid succession the result was announced; the incumbent Mwai Kibaki had won by a narrow majority of less than 300,000, and had swiftly been sworn in. All hell broke loose, with some semblance of a well rehearsed and conducted orchestra; from hell admittedly.
The swiftness and precision of the deadly events that followed could not be random. April 1994 Rwanda was here all over again in form, if not immediately with the same intensity.
But give it time! In four days’ time the figure of the dead had risen to above 300, a tenth of those in one torched church whence they had flown for God’s protection and mercy: echoes again of Rwanda. The statistics are revolting: how many slaughtered and maimed, in what fiendish manner; how many buildings reduced to rabble; how many internal and external migrations set in motion without a backward glance!
By the end of the weekend, some sanity was beginning to return to Kenya.
President Kibaki, who had already invited the various groupings to talks, and been spurned by Odinga’s ODM, was further holding out the olive branch, “provided temperatures cooledâ€. This was not enough, conditionalities should be set aside while Kenya burned. Even Odinga was moderating his tone, implying he would use the international community for indirect discussions. This was not enough: this matter was between Kenyans.
The EU implied that itself and the US would apply pressure for a government of national unity, a preposterous interference swiftly and rightly denied by the US. It served to highlight the sensible views of Museveni of Uganda, and current Chairman of the East African Community who, as early as a week before, while congratulating Kibaki on his re-election had asked merely whether EAC could give help in the grave Kenyan situation.
In consultation with Kikwete of Tanzania, both Kibaki and Odinga had been addressed. It won’t be outsiders to dictate to Kenya what to do; the Kenyans must be the deciders. But a regional organisation to which they belong would be a useful tool to try and bring Kenya together again. (Incidentally, they speak with forked tongues those that castigate Museveni for, rightly, congratulating a fellow regional president who had been declared winner and sworn in.) What other conclusions can be reached?
For people to turn on each other in the way it happened this past week, especially in western Kenya, is totally indefensible. Not even animals behave to each other like that. Alas it happens with human beings, as in Rwanda, Congo, Asia, Nigeria, Bosnia, Serbia, and earlier in Hitler’s Germany; to quote many examples. True, the leadership involved is even more to blame than those it leads, but even they are not simple automatons.
The Luo and Kikuyu elders and people (especially, but also others) must come together in humble supplication and ensure that these recent barbaric events can never happen again. Indeed it could be argued that they were waiting to happen, right from Independence.
That they had not yet happened essentially speaks volumes for Kenya sobriety up to now. Also, ironically, it is to President Mwai Kibaki’s advantage that a lot of his ministers, including many at the top level, were thrown out by the electorate. This sends him a clear message, and enables him to choose new ones, including from the Opposition, to fill the vacated slots. Hey presto, a natural government of national unity which Kenya much deserves.
As for Uganda, may it never catch this recent dreadful cold!