Last week Ed Cropley, African Investment Correspondent for REUTERS listed five risks to watch for in Africa. Not surprisingly, threat of violence and corruption in Kenyan elections made the list. Last year’s post-election violence has not yet been brought to justice, and there is strong evidence that tribal and ethnic groups are arming themselves for more violence in the next election.
Cropley includes in his analysis of this risk the following statement:
“The coalition running east Africa’s biggest economy is torn over how to bring to justice the perpetrators of last year’s post-election violence, the worst bloodshed since independence from Britain in 1963.
A bill to set up a special court to prosecute the main perpetrators was defeated in parliament, and Kenyans are skeptical that powerful individuals will be arrested and charged because of widespread impunity among the political class.
However, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague said on Wednesday it intend to go after masterminds of the violence, in which at least 1,300 people died.
The ICC has a list, compiled by crisis mediator Kofi Annan, of 10 suspects. A number of influential cabinet ministers are believed to be on the list, which has sparked panic in Kenyan political circles.
President Mwai Kibaki’s administration is also under pressure to implement long-delayed reforms and fight corruption, impunity and rights abuses.”
Ben Chekwanda is a Kenyan Accountant and a columnist for www.AfricaLiberty.org. Here is what he has to say on the matter in his article “Kenya’s Reform Agenda may be Dead on Arrival”.
The crude images of post election violence of 2007 still sticks in the memories of the Kenyan people with a morbid fear there could be a repeat come the next elections, in 2012. There is strong evidence that tribal and ethnic groups are arming themselves for a possible showdown.
But the uneasy calm is explanatory. The failure of tacit diplomacy. Kofi Annan, the distinguished diplomat who was bestowed with power to deal with the motivations for the carnage was back in Nairobi this month to assess the progress of the government’s efforts to implement the reforms in what has come to be known as Agenda four. His satisfactory verdict can be described as astonishingly shocking.
Many Kenyans are asking whether Annan was fully convinced with the government’s effort or whether he gave that positive verdict out of sympathy for the two government principals, President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga. It appears Mr. Annan was too kind to the principals in his ruling, perhaps an attempt for window-dressing just to win the approval of the eminent persons.
The said commitment by the principals to the reform agenda is not to be taken serious. Maybe it should be left to chance and time, but going by the words and actions of the two principals and their lieutenants, it’s difficult to read commitment to reforms.
During his busy schedule to Kenya, Annan met various groups of the Kenyan society, among them the civil society, religious leaders, human rights groups, professionals, parliamentarians, and even retired president Moi among other interest groups. The common message that seemed to come forth as he met these groups, who luckily are more in touch with the true position of majority Kenyans, was that the government has done so little to address the agenda four.
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