Moi has good reason to fear change
Aug 01, 2010
AT a rare July 26 press briefing in London regarding the leaked US war dossier, WikiLeaks whistleblower Julian Assange disclosed receiving anonymous death threats.
By Bosire Mosi
AT a rare July 26 press briefing in London regarding the leaked US war dossier, WikiLeaks whistleblower Julian Assange disclosed receiving anonymous death threats.
The threats, originating in Kenya, came after the publication of a secret government report leaked by a Kibaki official unhappy with the protection from prosecution former President Moi has been getting from Kibaki.
Entitled “The looting of Kenya under President Moi,†the WikiLeaks dossier on Kenyan corruption details the theft of public funds in billions of dollars and where the booty is hidden in the West.
The report documents specific financial institutions and properties in the US, the UK, Germany, other EU member states, Israel, Australia and, among many others, Canada in a long list of Western havens for global corruption where the Moi loot is stashed away as either bank accounts or real estate investments.
That grand theft of public resources and the fear of exposure, arrest and prosecution explain why Moi has been crisscrossing Kenya by helicopters in recent months campaigning for the rejection of a new constitution in an August 4 referendum.
A minister and several MPs in Moi’s ‘No Campaign’ have been arrested and charged with making hate speeches and threatening tribal war in the event the draft law is ratified. Moi is the face of the status-quo, which has every reason to fear it is a target for prosecution by retroactive provisions in the proposed constitution.
The ‘No Campaign’ has no illusion the new law will make it easy to go after current and former officials for the political crimes they have committed against Kenyans with impunity for 50 years.
Kenya’s new constitution purportedly curtails executive power, ostensibly creating autonomous institutions and agencies whose activities will seemingly be shielded against presidential control and manipulation.
This separation of powers and its checks and balances threaten to render the status quo unable to use their stolen wealth to protect themselves from the force of the law.
If Moi’s defensive denials of theft, torture, murder and a plethora of other crimes against Kenyans genuine, why is he and his cronies in the ‘No Campaign’ up in arms against the enactment of a democratic constitution?
Moi is acting like somebody who has skeletons in the closet, now sees his moment of reckoning on the horizon and is panicking.
At face value, there will be nowhere to run and nowhere to hide under the new constitution. Hence, the threats of tribal war from the ‘No Camp’ and the anonymous death threats to WikiLeaks believed to be from associates of those implicated in corruption.
Moi’s best option is to hire lawyers and wait for his possible day in court to answer for his actions during the good old days. Should violence erupt like it did following Kibaki’s vote theft, the ‘No Campaign’ leaders must be held accountable based on their threats to forcibly evict ‘settler tribes’ from the Rift Valley and other provinces.
Although I have misgivings with some provisions in the new constitution it still reads like a better law than the outgoing colonial document written behind closed doors in London under a secret deal between so-called independence leader Jomo Kenyatta and the British masters.
He will be back next week
AT a rare July 26 press briefing in London regarding the leaked US war dossier, WikiLeaks whistleblower Julian Assange disclosed receiving anonymous death threats.
The threats, originating in Kenya, came after the publication of a secret government report leaked by a Kibaki official unhappy with the protection from prosecution former President Moi has been getting from Kibaki.
Entitled “The looting of Kenya under President Moi,†the WikiLeaks dossier on Kenyan corruption details the theft of public funds in billions of dollars and where the booty is hidden in the West.
The report documents specific financial institutions and properties in the US, the UK, Germany, other EU member states, Israel, Australia and, among many others, Canada in a long list of Western havens for global corruption where the Moi loot is stashed away as either bank accounts or real estate investments.
That grand theft of public resources and the fear of exposure, arrest and prosecution explain why Moi has been crisscrossing Kenya by helicopters in recent months campaigning for the rejection of a new constitution in an August 4 referendum.
A minister and several MPs in Moi’s ‘No Campaign’ have been arrested and charged with making hate speeches and threatening tribal war in the event the draft law is ratified. Moi is the face of the status-quo, which has every reason to fear it is a target for prosecution by retroactive provisions in the proposed constitution.
The ‘No Campaign’ has no illusion the new law will make it easy to go after current and former officials for the political crimes they have committed against Kenyans with impunity for 50 years.
Kenya’s new constitution purportedly curtails executive power, ostensibly creating autonomous institutions and agencies whose activities will seemingly be shielded against presidential control and manipulation.
This separation of powers and its checks and balances threaten to render the status quo unable to use their stolen wealth to protect themselves from the force of the law.
If Moi’s defensive denials of theft, torture, murder and a plethora of other crimes against Kenyans genuine, why is he and his cronies in the ‘No Campaign’ up in arms against the enactment of a democratic constitution?
Moi is acting like somebody who has skeletons in the closet, now sees his moment of reckoning on the horizon and is panicking.
At face value, there will be nowhere to run and nowhere to hide under the new constitution. Hence, the threats of tribal war from the ‘No Camp’ and the anonymous death threats to WikiLeaks believed to be from associates of those implicated in corruption.
Moi’s best option is to hire lawyers and wait for his possible day in court to answer for his actions during the good old days. Should violence erupt like it did following Kibaki’s vote theft, the ‘No Campaign’ leaders must be held accountable based on their threats to forcibly evict ‘settler tribes’ from the Rift Valley and other provinces.
Although I have misgivings with some provisions in the new constitution it still reads like a better law than the outgoing colonial document written behind closed doors in London under a secret deal between so-called independence leader Jomo Kenyatta and the British masters.
He will be back next week