I went to a high school where the students run the school and school prefects had enormous powers. It was a system that worked quite well and there was excellent discipline. Little wonder that in those days the school performed very well in national exams. The school system was based on a strict hierarchy system where you respected those who were in higher classes than you without question.
One day something out of the ordinary happened. The acting headmaster (who should have known better because he was an old boy of the school) did something unprecedented. During Monday school assembly he called a form five boy and a form six boy to the front and then produced a cane and caned the form five student in full view of the entire school. When it was the sixth form boy’s turn to receive six of the best he just couldn’t take it and he walked away in defiance.
The whole school was left aghast in shock. What the acting headmaster had just done that day was like a general in the army caning colonels in full view of corporals and non commissioned officers.
But my point in telling you this old school story is to illustrate what the ruling political class including President Kibaki and PM Raila Odinga feels every time certain words are uttered these days. Words like “Hague” and “Ocampo”. Majority of Kenyans want the Hague option and that is simply because they want to see “big boys caned in front of the whole school”. After years of impunity I myself feel exactly the same.
ICC prosecutor Ocampo has made it clear that he is going after “two or three individuals.” There has been plenty of speculation over who those three may be but today I can report authoritatively that they are William Ruto, Henry Kosgey and Uhuru Kenyatta. These are the cabinet ministers who have been reportedly holding intensive consultations with lawyers. In other words they have panicked big time.
It is no secret that these individuals are extremely influential in government and that would explain the unexpected united position that President Kibaki and PM Raila Odinga took in insisting that even after months of dilly dallying they were still keen to try the suspects locally. What the two gentlemen were saying is that they would like the individuals concerned to go scot free because even a standard two pupil in Kenya knows that there is no way that any court in the country is going to successfully prosecute these “big boys.” It just won’t happen. That does not rule out the usual play-acting happening for the benefit of the public. Something similar to the time that Nicholas Biwott was briefly arrested and detained (in very luxurious surroundings at GSU headquarters) in connection with the murder of former foreign affairs minister Robert Ouko. In other words there can be no justice in a local tribunal. Not in a hundred years.
Fortunately Ocampo is still pressing ahead with a Hague prosecution but he will do so against colossal odds. Witnesses in Kenya have a habit of vanishing without trace and more commonly will usually end up dead (of course their death will always be from so-called natural causes). To make matters worse the kind of witnesses in the post-election violence cases are very humble simple people who scare very easily. You need evidence to convict a person in any court and I worry that evidence in this case will be “unavailable” when it is most required.
What has puzzled many Kenyans is why the Kenyan cases are being hurried along so fast and why there seems to be so much international pressure. The international community cannot afford a repeat of January 2008 and the clock is ticking fast towards the general elections of 2012. Then there is this man called President Barack Hussein Obama. The matatu-riding president of the United States must have been very touched by the plight of Kenyans when he first visited here as a nobody and seems very determined (even with his full plate of things to do as president) to be at the forefront of bringing about change in the beloved motherland. Hence the visa bans and tactics that just fall short of plain old bullying. Well I am with you on this one Mr President (and so are the vast majority o Kenyans). In this case the end fully justifies the means.
P.S. About the story I started this post with; there is something I would like to add. Tradition aside I watched that poor boy that was caned in front of the whole school and his juniors, literally fall apart. His self esteem melted and by the time we completed our sixth form the following year he was just a shadow of his former self. If I were him I would have sued that headmaster and the school. In retrospect what the acting headmaster should also have known is that you don’t change any system before you find a viable alternative to replace it. That school went to the dogs partly because of what happened that memorable Monday morning sometime in 1982.
Anyone dare touch Uhuru and we Gema and our friends will go back to the trenches Mau Mau style. Uhuru was just defending the defenseless against rapes and barbaric killings and that's why and how the genocide was stopped!
ReplyDeleteThe last time chris told that his credible sources had confided in him that Ruto was in bad books, it ended up being a flat lie that chris tried to sugar coat later.
ReplyDeleteNow chris trying to drown Taabu's monologue has quickly come up with three names. Mark my words, he will come wimping back that he was wrong. Poor Kumekucha, its slowly dying!!
There is no way FRANK BETT can be left out. He personally supervised the ethnic cleansing of Kericho.
ReplyDeleteeeeeeeeeeh. still being juvenile at best.
ReplyDeleteone doesn't just decide to roll back into the trenches 'home guard style' in their own backyard just because the long arm of the law is beckoning or rather the powers that be are exerting pressure on the village thug and his gang of goons.
since when have uhuru zenyatta and his glorified company of village goons ever defended the rights and lives of the defenseless or the weak?
as far as the killing of innocent civilians is concerned, always keep in mind that, hiti itaga iriaingi wa mutiri. period.
if i may ask how many kenyans (call them kikuyu if you will) have been murdered and continue to be murdered in cold blood by their own (kiambu thugs and barbaric killers) from the 1989 to 2009?
and where was the royal king uhuru zenyatta, saviour of the people and mighty defender of the defenseless?
pleeeeeeeeeease. don't invoke the name uhuru zenyatta along that of our fallen and surviving freedom fighters when you know very well it was johnstone kamau and the "kiambu mafia" who ended up betraying the land amy (mau mau) when they grabbed and stole all the prime land that the land-army (mau mau) had fought so hard and died for.
just stick to the topic in question for a change.
chris,you make alot of sense however this is not going to happen.uhuru is not going nowhere based on his wealth and connections world wide.I personaly believe impunity should be brought to an end irrespective of social class.Don't know much about uhuru and kosgey but i can tell you that ruto is a straight thug and should be in jail.Let me give u some insight on who ruto is.I remember in 1998 i was a jua kali in luthuli ave going around my business.one of my major clients was NSSf . every two weeks at least 4 - 5 vendors recieved LPOs from nssf to service the head office with forms.Now what this ruto did was supply forms for the next fifteen years in a single lpo(local purchase order).Now tell me how stupid is that.what if the address changes or what if the forms needed review which happened often anyway He recieved a single Lpo of 84million paid before he supplied goods.cost was about 14m.Guess what he did with the proceeds,first of all he bought a 4.6HSe range,lexus landcruiser.
ReplyDeleteThen who knows what he did next.This is the question i have for kenyans.This guy put 5 vendors out of business who have probably 5 employees each and probably another 5 family dependents each.are this the kind of fools we need in power.what do uu think this guy knows about economics.
Kill local business/production and buy a gas guzzler .This is why we are poor in africa.we see raila with a hummer and we rejoice.what does this tell u about kenyans.I am still trying to understand the ordinary kenyan psych.The string above says if u touch uhuru we are going to the caves,now what kind of conversation is this.anything beneficial to you if we end up killing each other?now my kenyan family please wake up.
Chris,
ReplyDeleteGreat attempt and you score 2/3. Just check again with Luis and you will see his lenses singularly focussed on 4 (not 3) Kenyans: WSR,UMK, FKB and GK. Ocampo is tackling impunity from both political and administrative levels-yes the LADY is there.
who is GK?
ReplyDeleteIt’s Ruto… No It’s Kulei. Oops Or Is It Ruto?
ReplyDeleteWhat a waste of Tax payers Money.
ReplyDeleteThe cabinet (including Assistant ministers are in Mombasa).
It pains that these monsters have agreed on almost everything but one issue. Executive power-Executive powers of the president and PM
Had this to be done miles away from Nairobi?
who said Kibaki will remain presi and Raila Pm.? what if there are changes, as it will be, in 2012. Will Raila not want to be president. Who told you he wants to be a ceremonial president?
My bet is that they will not come up with asolution on this one
Why cant they let kenyans decide.
Seems everything else is agreed.
But we must not forget what Michuki told Imanyara-"leave the president alone". mark you, not "the Presidency"!
As if the president MUST BE FROM MT KENYA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Don't forget this-Raila said we can hold commonwealth games. many doubted. Any change in thoughts that the FIFA cup is in nairobi?
Me thinks that Raila is best for Kenya under current circumstances! He has vision and decisive.
Kibaki is a waste of time.
Some people were and still are warlords. All these people have roots in KANU (yes the baba na mama party). William Samoei Arap Ruto (he who supplied NSSF a 14 year supply of office forms) has been a KANU heckler since 92 and probably even back. This IDIOT together with Isaac Jirongo are the architects of YK '92. Does anyone know what kind of inflation YK '92 to. My father was constructing a house which he had started in 91 but was doing it slowly. In 91 a bag of cement costed less that Ksh 100, after the 92 elections that bag's cost jumped to more that Ksh 500, do the math here to see how inflation affected cost of basic stuff in Kenya. All this because M.O.I with the help of Ruto and Jirongo printed money as if there was no tomorrow. Henry Kosgey and Franklin Bett are known RV thugs. Uhuru is a thug who tries to be sly, his thugging ways have been revealed in the kind of games he was playing with the budget. This is a person who is presiding over loot that his daddy Kamau embezzled from fellow Kikuyu and the reast of Kenyans, and he sees no shame. So if these are the people OKambo is going after, we can only say GOOD-RIDDANCE.
ReplyDeleteKenyans should wake up. Even kina Raila are no angels but am willing to side with Raila just because his quest for justice/reforms has been as consistent as no other politician's.
Poor Taabu, still trying to sound relevant. What a wimp!!!
ReplyDeleteThe three names are likely a Naivasha former MP(Jayne Kihara) for which it alleged there is evidence of her ordering the purchase of pangas and machettes for retaliation and cheering action, for Franklin Bett who is alleged to openly and publicly, perptrated action in Kericho and either Isaac Ruto alleged for inciting through his coded "madoadoa" references believed to have been the philosophy behind ethnic cleansing. Remember OCampo saying he will go for those bearing greatest responsibility, who will definetly not be the co-ordinators on the ground, but the big men.
ReplyDeleteAs for Uhuru Kenyatta, he is likely to escape since all evidence is hearsay, since the alleged meeting in State House did not have minutes and records of discussion and he actually brought the conflict around Nairobi to an end(Wangige, Uthiru, Limuru etc) otherwise Nairobi would have become the next Naivasha, by arguing youths not to retaliate. Further, nobody can ever prove what the kitchen cabinet at Statehouse discussed even yesterday evening- they do it in utter secrecy, with no sell-outs around.
So now Raila brought the World cup to Kenya? Lol. Stupid ODMorons.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteCan anyone explain to me what the problems were to justify why a bunch of useless politicians can wiped out over 1000 lives and go ahead to erace GDP growth ...from 7.1% in 2007 to just 1.8% in 2008???
If you can then we can start discussion fulani wa fulani etc until then....really Kenyans must focus on the issues!!... kwani who are these people? and are their respective tribesmen better off... ati now RV has 8.7% GDP growth???
Also why is the UK...our so called democratic partner so silent??
@6:51 PM either you were there at State House machinating with Uhuru and your fellow thugs to kill innocent Kenyans or you are ignorant.
ReplyDeleteUhuru will be indicted, charged and convicted on account of "sell-outs" giving evidence aganist him. BTW, some of that evidence is already in Ocampo's hands and even though Uhuru killed Oscar King'ara na dthis Mungiki spokesman Gitau earlier this week or last, the relevant evidence is already in Ocampo's safe at The Hague.
Poor Uhuru. Not!
Well, come what may, lets not defend anyone who perpetrated violence. Lets hope these big fish (ciuguyo iria nene) are felled swiftly, so that current and future leaders can learn a lesson. There is no excuse for taking a human life.
ReplyDeleteKenyans only want people to go to the Hague if those people dont come from their tribes but the opposing tribe. Yani doing each other in. So no one will go to the hague.
ReplyDeleteiam surprised thatb some of us are willing to die for thugs. uhuru of all people. he is among the beneficiaries of the first misrule in this country. read the daily nation's land grabbing serialization of 9th-13th november 2009 to understand what went on. even when he was a minor he owned the whole of dandora which they later sold to the government anyway. others are kibaki, michuki, angaine, paul ngei, ngala mwendwa, mahiu, koinange etc who all used the loan given by the british government for resettlement of the land less after independence to acquire prime lands from the white setlers. up to now we are still paying for that loan- imagine helping these people to repay their mortagage for 46 years when you stay in a rented single room somewhere. that is what we call the stupidity of the highest order. instead of arguing over useless issues please let us petition the british government to write off this loan.
ReplyDeleteon those in Ocampo's list think in the lines of the two principles and maybe the former police commissioner or the AG.Just think outside the box.