Hague Express Watch: The Guilty Very Afraid

Ex-Naivasha MP Jayne Kihara has registered herself at the Hague reception. So who is next? Just what Annan ordered, PANIC galore. In its wake panic leaves the guilty crawling out of the woodwork without prompting. The last few days have seen politicians make U-turns from brinkmanship to evangelistic commiseration.

But make no mistake, Kibaki is in full control and will never allow his legacy to be tarnished as the president who auctioned Kenya to ICC, never. Kibaki is not naive to tighten the noose around the neck of his trusted lieutenants. Ocampo will have to wait for a very long time after clearing numerous smokescreens conveniently erected to distract him.

Justice Waki maybe no saint but at least he clinically diagnosed our deceptive modus operandi and cleverly disabused us of its twin vices both dolled in FRAUD. Imagine if Waki undertook the ritual just like numerous commissions before him and handed over his findings and dreaded THE ENVELOPE to the appointing authority.

The contents would have been trashed and the scoundrels would have engage super gear in looting Kenya secure in the knowledge that the coast is clear. As for now all the hitherto escape routes are firmly sealed and the music is far from being pleasant.

Ocampo’s raging fire and brimstone may just be the dreaded sword of domacles that will whip us into shape. Alternatively our legendary scoundrels may as well give both Moreno and Annan the open cheque to write history with Kenya as a case study. The blood from Naivasha and Kiamba are crying for revenge from 6ft under.

Self-registration
We owe Waki plenty. Mark you were he not for fighting for his own integrity, this is one Justice Ringera had condemned to judicial oblivion during his platitudinous radical surgery. At least we have the envelope to thank Waki for, what about the dragon slayer Aaron?

One thing is clear and predictable. The murderers won’t go down alone and not in silence. Solomonic wisdom will come in handy at the theatre of political guillotine – I DID IT FOR THE BOSS.

We haven’t seen anything yet, the heat is one, the temperatures are suffocating and the chopping block is smartly laid. NA BADO.

Great Panic In The Corridors Of Power?

The bloated cabinet in session: Great panic now in meetings

For days now, I have quietly analyzed and re-analyzed the current situation in Kenya even as you read this. I have talked to my most important contacts again and again. Admittedly information is very scanty at the moment but all the clues and signs are there. And they all spell only one word; PANIC.

The Grand Coalition Government is currently facing the biggest crisis any government in Kenya has ever faced. At least I can authoritatively say that this is the position with key players in that government.

There is an African proverb that says even a giant can be brought down by a very small pebble on the footpath and folks, I have good reason to believe that this is exactly what is threatening to happen to the Kibaki/Raila adminstration.

The source of all the trouble is one annoying five letter word that is the name of a place. HAGUE. The problem is the possibility of some very senior persons appearing at that place to answer for the happenings of December 2007 and January 2008.

Kenya has always been governed by a government that is in total control. And that control has always very much included the judicial process. The single telephone calls that have changed numerous court rulings are too many to be counted and is a story for another day.

But as you read this, the fate of key individuals in the GNU is in the hands of a foreigner and what has caused major panic in the corridors of power is that that individual can hurt Kenya’s “untouchables.” A phone call won’t work this time and neither will a cheque leaf with zeros that would make anybody dizzy. That is the crux of the problem.

So the major preoccupation now is how to make the Hague go away.

Let’s flash back for a minute to January 2008 when the then Ghanian president and chair of the African Union John Kofour jetted into the country with the full backing of Americans and the Brits. You will remember that this man did a lot of work shuttling between the two major protagonists. Insiders say that after days of sleepless nights he finally managed to draft an agreement of sorts that both Raila Odinga of ODM and Mwai Kibaki of PNU were ready to sign. But what happened next remains a puzzle to this day. It is said that when the document was brought to President Kibaki, he disowned it completely and said that he had never agreed to any of the points on it. And yet he himself had earlier assured Kofour that those negotiating on his behalf would be in consultation with him.

Still the point I want to make here is that the hardliners on President Kibaki’s side must today be regretting bitterly why they pulled such an embarrassing stunt on poor John Kofour who hurriedly jetted out of the country hours after this embarrassment. Had Mwai Kibaki signed on the dotted line, there would be no Hague today. The crisis that he faces would never have existed.

You see the moment the team of eminent persons led by Koffi Anan jetted into the country, then the whole issue ceased to be a domestic squabble and turned into an international issue where the involvement of the increasingly powerful and visible International courts at the Hague could NOT be avoided. We in Kumekucha saw this very early and that is why our main writers all gleefully announced that it was now the Hague option, moments after the bill to set up a local tribunal to try post election violence perpetrators was defeated in parliament.

Back to the crisis at hand, the major worries for both Kibaki and Raila but especially Kibaki are as follows;

- That even if they are initially NOT indicted to appear at the Hague (none of them is on Anan’s list, I can authoritatively tell you. Send for my raw notes to see the full list) those who appear will be forced to mention their names in their defense and the trail will inevitably lead back to them. And that CANNOT be allowed to happen.

- The Hague trials will further splinter both major parties and turn everything into a everybody for themselves survival game. This will annihilate both major parties as political forces.

- Judging by what has happened in the recent past, even if the two principals manage to keep people from “singing” at the Hague, there is a very real possibility that the evidence already collected is enough to force both principals to appear at the Hague on some very serious charges.

If you doubt for a minute the panic in town over the Hague issue then you need to think about the following unfolding events.

- Emergency cabinet meetings have been called with the main agenda being how to avoid the Hague. All the meetings so far have reached a deadlock with no agreement on the way forward. What fascinates me greatly is the fact that although it is clear that if the GNU do not unite, most of them will hang separately, the two sides are not interested in uniting and it seems would prefer to hang separately than unite and get out of the current crisis.

- Key witnesses who testified before the Waki commission have suddenly started receiving death threats again and are living in great fear.

All this brings me to the shattering climax of this post. And that is the kamikaze (suicide) options being considered by the heavyweights in the GNU.

Option One: Since there is no way that the current parliament can pass the much needed legislation to set up a local tribunal and thus make the Hague go away, the president can dissolve parliament and call for a snap general elections.

The problem with this option is that it disqualifies the president from running again and it would mean that the term he so desperately wanted to serve until the end (irrespective of the bloodshed that was going on in Kenya) would grind to a sudden halt. However Phil of Kumekucha said here in a comment that there is a possibility that Mwai Kibaki could come back as Prime Minister in a Raila Odinga led government (with the necessary assurances having been worked out behind the scenes). I have checked with my sources and they are not laughing when I suggest such a scenario.

Of course the main problem here is that it is being assumed that the Kenyan voters will play ball. I can authoritatively tell you that they WILL NOT. You see our politicians believe that anything is possible in Kenya as long as somebody can write a cheque that is big enough to cover the “costs”. I don’t think this is true anymore. Starving poverty-stricken Kenyans not withstanding.

Option Two: The president resigns. Constitutionally this means that the Vice President will act for 90 days pending a general election. A lot can happen in 90 days, especially if you have planned for it all well in advance and written all the necessary cheques. The objectives would be the same as in option one only that there would be more time to influence how the general elections go.

My conclusion: Things will never be the same again in Kenya. This is the beginning of a chain of events that will rid Kenyans of the current political class and usher in the much awaited new beginning. My view is that it is now too late for the political class to do anything to save themselves. My only fear is what has to happen before we arrive in the promised land. Secondly I have just confirmed that what I said here months ago has come to pass. That is the major driving force behind all this is one President Barack Obama who wants to make an example of Kenya for the rest of Africa.

Posts On Obama from the past in Kumekucha;

Matatu riding president and the world economic melt-down

President of the US who rode in a matatu

Predictions of democratic nomination for Obama

All Kenyan blogs except Kumekucha said Obama had no chance

Karua Flogging Dead Anglo Leasing Ghosts

They returned the money back to the government. So Anglo Leasing is truly the scandal that never was. Kiraitu told us as much during his reign as Justice Minister. So what else does Martha Karua want after the official clarification to the same effect from both her predecessor and treasury?

The Narc-K chairperson must know when to stop talking. She served the government diligently and as much as the cabinet is missing her skirt for cover, the Gichugu MP must tame her upper pair of lips. No form nor amount of political tantrums can sanitize sour grapes.

The treasury may have promised parliaments that the government terminated all Anglo Fleecing contracts. But Basic English tells you contract is founded on obligations that must be met by both parties. The fleecers did their part and expensively package and sold us air and it is incumbent upon Kenya to pay.

Anglo Leasing owners are not local DT Dobie who we can generously subject to fiat and raw power in contravention of a signed contract. And Martha must stop being cheeky in sneaking in UNFOUNDED demands knowing too well Finance Minister and DPM together with his PS are on grander mission abroad to oil the wheels of Kenya.

Karua and Bonny Khalwale must learn to respect official communication. The able and decorated AG Amos Wako has himself told Parliament the Government had cancelled five contracts when it became apparent they were fraudulent. We don’t need sophisticated Forensic Science Laboratories when special police units can comprehensively deal with thugs and militias.

Sour grapes
Kenyans must learn to count their blessing one by one. They are fortunate enough to be led by an accomplished economist who remains a genius among his village peers since 1960s to date.

President Kibaki’s austerity measures and prudence in rejecting expensive vehicles couldn’t be more proof that he cannot allow Kenyans to be fleeced on his watch. So Karua’s challenge that Treasury officials present proof that the Government had indeed terminated Anglo Leasing contracts is retrogressive and insensitive to a progressive regime.

Madam Karua must respect the collective responsibility she took oath on and stop revealing government secrets under the pretext of seeking transparency. She is better advised to stop the beautiful circus that hitherto defined her.

Martha speaking of constitutional and legal reforms makes her lips contort so strangely she would rather not try. She must stop shadowboxing His Excellency the President who made her what she is today. Sour grapes as a rule are often juiceless.

Hague Express Watch: The Centre Cannot Hold

Martha Karua saw it and shouted GENOCIDE the loudest. And nobody can credibly fault her given all the insider knowledge accumulated in between her ears. The cabinet must be sorely missing the iron lady’s wits and guts. Just look at rudderless PNU’s gerrymandering.

The arrival of one Moreno Ocampo has changed Kenya’s political equation forever. All the bravado and brinkmanship are no more. The heat is on, the temperature boiling and with every new day the noose gets tighter around the necks of the scoundrels.

Make no mistake, President Kibaki is in total control. Just as he saved Kenya from stewing in her own blood, Kibaki will deftly but COMPETENTLY pull through this ICC crisis. His fierce patriotism will not allow him to abuse his oath of office by surrendering our sovereignty, NEVER.

What is more, Kibaki and PNU have the victim on a leash. They know too well that the ICC does not prosecute REGULAR acts of criminality which his opponents wrongfully yap about. State shooting of protesters and isolated cases extra-judicial regional killings is just proof of who has the monopoly of violence.

Last laugh
The ICC does not interfere nor investigate organs of state used to beat into shape unruly citizens. Killing, shooting to maim and tormenting citizens is an exclusive right of any regime worth its name.

ICC will find ready and incontrovertible evidence in our streets of Kabila adui, Madoadoa and Sangari. Moreno will be ruled out of order if he tries to delve into cause and effects. He must listen and act on the heat chasing the rat while the house is on fire.

The rioters shot dead from behind by police is a local matter. Moreno must act swiftly to protect those who shout loudest lest they break our eardrums. They have the number and the power to twist justice in their favour. They will have the last and longest laugh, game on.

Hague Express: Envelope Watch Day 5

Two is better and deadlier than one.

Elephant Moreno Ocampo is in the house. There is no room to wiggle. The political temperature sores, the tempo heightens, the heat intensifies, the atmosphere is poisoned. No template to read from, the plot thickens as the environment gets lethally toxic.

Will Kenya Survive The Hague Trials?

Since Independence, nothing as significant as this has happened in Kenya.

Over the next few months, we are all going to be witnesses to a situation where our political class, and those who handle them, will work tirelessly to invent ways to scuttle the legal process Annan and Ocampo have set in motion at the Hague. What these perpetually blinded folks will be forgetting is that this game is over. Their best way forward at this point is to hire the best attorneys money can buy and have them start work on a defense strategy that will at least minimize the damage the presence of their name in the Waki envelop will have caused.

As these events unfold, Kenyans should require that those mentioned in the envelop resign immediately to pave way for further investigation. It should also be made clear to such folks that they will never hold any public position in this nation until they are cleared of the charges against them. Like I said last week, this may well be God's answer to the cry of Kenyans to be delivered from the tyranny of a ruling class that has turned out worse than the colonialist.

But here is my fear.

My fear is that when these folks sense that the Hague will go down with them, they may set in motion a state of affairs that may well plunge this nation into worse chaos than what we witnessed two Decembers ago. Just consider for a moment the guys whose names we know are in the envelop for sure. Ali, Uhuru, Ruto, Michuki. Those four guys, even if we left out everybody else, command terror machines in the name of Mungiki for Uhuru, Kalenjin Warriors for Ruto, the police force for Ali, and top brass in the armed forces for Michuki. If those guys sensed that they are going down at the Hague, the evil they demonstrated to be capable of in the past will repeat itself...only this time they'll want Kenya to burn with them.

That said, I want to call on the members of Parliament to stand firm against a local tribunal. It is now clear that such a tribunal will not go anywhere. We have successfully demonstrated to the world how immature we still are by being incapable of doing as simple a thing as merely punishing goons who masterminded the mass murder of their fellow countrymen. Even worse is the political posturing going on for 2012v while IDPs continue to languish in the unforgiving seasonal cold weather. Two years later? May Parliament unite in defeating the pleas of Raila and Kibaki for a local tribunal. Let those of us who have worried about Kenya's sovereignty swallow this harsh pill and turn over our boys and girls to the Hague. And the first girl hurled there should be that woman in Kisumu who gave a shoot-to-kill order. I hear she's now in a comfortable office here in Nairobi. And we wonder why Annan don't trust these folks?

I pray that once these evil men and women are withdrawn from circulation, this nation will have an opportunity to start afresh. I pray that we will cultivate a culture where impunity is frowned upon and integrity encouraged. A culture where corruption will not be tolerated, and God feared for what He has done. It is only when men and women of solid character run the affairs of this nation that Kenya will move toward Vision 2030 with surefootedness.

We shall be free!

I know we shall because out there where God lives, those who watch over us don't sleep. Woe unto those accused when the cry of an entire nation has reached the ear of the Almighty.

Woe unto them!

Hague Express and the Tale of Two Envelopes

Annan has called Kenya bluff. The Hague engine is revving and pretenders are torn between the façade of plastic sovereignty and refusing the local tribunal. Well, you can never bake your cake and gobble it, or can you?

Kofi Annan must have witnessed firsthand original vices made and practiced in Kenya while staying in Nairobi for months last year, He saw through the gimmicks of the Mutula-led delegation to Geneva. He has proved to the scoundrels that you cannot fool all the people all the time by taking them round in circles with empty promises. In essence Annan has hit back hard where it hurt most. Just look at the panic button permanently pressed all over. Political temperatures can only go one direction, up.

The heat is on and there may be no place to hide anymore. Even those who have been entertaining the fallacy of Hague’s long process are stung. They may not show it but the dread and anxiety is written all over their faces. Ocampo’s prompt opening of the envelope handed to him by Annan amounts to another squeeze at the noose tightening around the neck of Hague suspects.

Before 2007, Kenya was a model African democracy until that democracy was heinously bastardized. Nobody ever thought the might Kanu would be politically vanquished at the 2002 polls. That came to pass and the evil Moi rose above all selfishness to hand over power. Make no mistake Moi had all the state apparatus to do as he wished. Even the polarized 2005 referendum came to pass. But not when the political stakes peaked in 2007.

Judge Kriegler may have been diplomatic in his no winner verdict. But the old man knew better than douse an inferno with fuel. Making inference from first principles leaves you asking if there was no winner then why one was sworn in at midnight.

But that is the wrong question. Basic deduction belittles the enormity of the task and apocalypse President Kibaki saved Kenya. Power abhors vacuum and Kibaki had to DUTIFULLY and DUELY fill the void lest Kenyans stewed themselves in their own blood. It therefore defeats logic to examine the genesis of PEV if we are to address its casualties.

Wrong question
Hiding behind empty sovereignty slogans are foxes waiting to pounce on their next prey. True to their colours, they will never a Special Tribunal Bill that demands those implicated to immediately step aside. That is not the way we do things in Kenya. Taking any form of personally responsible for your actions in an alien philosophy here.

The Special Tribunal Bill shamelessly permutes impunity by giving the president the freehand to abuse the powers of clemency. Surely Kenya has its owners and the voters must be ready to either pay rent or relocate elsewhere.

But not just yet. The Ocampo elephant is squarely chocking the room and no political bets are is binding now. And who knows Moreno Ocampo maybe that silver bullet to comprehensively sanitize and then deodorize Kenyan politics.

Game on. It is only us who can free ourselves from this bondage. YES WE CAN and MUST.

Can Change Really Come To Kenya Without You?

As I write this, President Obama of the United States has just finished his tour of Ghana. Before he left that Cocoa country, he said a few things about Kenya that our leaders are not taking lying down. Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula has suggested Obama’s comments were ill-informed.

On this Sunday morning in Kenya I find that very funny. And you will too after I reveal a few things about the matatu-riding president of the United States.

As usual our politicians are quick to defend themselves even as the rot all around them stinks to the high heavens. They also conveniently have very short memories.

It is a fact that President Obama and knows more about Kenya than all the past Presidents of the United States put together ever understood about Africa.

On Obama’s first trip back to the home of his ancestors in the 90s, the guy slept on the sofa in some seedy Nairobi neighborhood and rode matatus all over the place. And remember those were the pre-Michuki-rules days when breathing inside a crowded matatu was not for the faint-hearted. Indeed Obama knows more about the life of an ordinary Kenyan than Moses Wetangula or any other cabinet minister will ever understand in the next 100 years. When was the last time Kibaki, Raila or Wetangula rode in a crowded Matatu? Or slept on the sofa?

If there was any ray of hope for change in Kenya to be found with our current crop of leaders then their response to President Obama’s remarks would have been much more intelligent and less arrogant. But alas, if you are like me then you know we can never have change until we remove the current crop of jokers calling themselves our leaders. And they need to be removed by any means possible.

It should be crystal clear by now that for anything good to happen in our motherland all the current crop of leaders MUST go home. Kenyans need to gain courage and come out and insist (at great risk to their own lives) that these people go home. Tom Mboya then a young man barely out of teens did exactly that in the 1950s and it is instructive that President Obama would never have existed had Mboya not made that bold decision to help rid Kenya of colonialists.

This time it is going to be a lot harder than it was back then and so as many Kenyans as possible need to come out and say NO. In fact I have made a personal decision to make my real identity public very soon and to come out and start campaigning for change in Kenya from the trenches. I will make an announcement soon. I am of course well aware that with the kind of information I have published here in the past about some very dangerous Kenyans, I will be at great risk doing something “stupid like that.” But my reasoning is that Kenyans are already dead with the kind of life we have in our country now. “The living dead” would be what some folks would call us. Besides there is a saying that it is much better to live 100 days as a lion than 100 years as a chicken.

The time has come and the time is now for you my brothers and sisters to put your own selfish interests and comforts aside and arise to fight so that we get our country back before it is too late. Enough has been done on the web, now we need to hit the ground running and walk our talk here.

Obama did it and so can we. For our newer readers let me point out that Kumekucha was the first blog in the world to predict an Obama presidency and you can guess what the reaction to that “ridiculous” suggestion was. My own dad bluntly told me I was dreaming and should wake up.

Well, I am now dreaming once again. Of a young Kenyan president. Selfless, tribeless and ready to put their lives on the line for mother Kenya. Where are thou?


P.S. It is one thing to speak ignorantly about something you don’t quite know or understand (because later you can deny you ever said anything of the sort) but it is quite another to put it in writing for posterity. My brother Phil’s recent post on Tom Mboya was hilarious. Apparently A Francis Atwoli-like character played a major part in bringing independence to Kenya. I am still digging deep into my history books looking for this Atwoli twin from the 1950s.