Followers

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Fare Thee Well Queen Jane


The death of local music maestro Queen Jane from menengitis has robbed Kenya of yet another national icon. You need not understand the language she sang in to appreciate the authenticity and energy QJ radiated.

Those not-too young will reminisce with her vocal prowess during her stint at Mbiri stars with Musaimo. Her landmark number Mwendwa (my dear) KK remains an household tune defining her unique melody. Fare thee well Nyambura and may your music live on.

Monday, June 28, 2010

Greatest Stupidity is to Complicate Simplicity

By Mwarang'ethe

Living in a complex society, we often fail to perceive through study, critical thinking and reflection very simple truths that even a child can see. The fact is that, the basic principles that guide a simple society are not suspended when we enter into a complex society. Such ought to be self evident, but, alas, it is not. This lack of critical thinking and the subsequent error is evident in the so called "new constitution." To many supporters of the proposed new constitution, they like the so called "progressive human rights" contained in this draft as we are taught by brain dead intellectuals.

But, what do these brain dead intellectuals mean by progressive human rights? They mean the obligation of the "state" to provide or ensure good housing, good jobs, and decent pension for the old and such as we find in Article 43 of the proposed new constitution. In accordance with this doctrine, it is for the state to show that, it does not have enough resources. In other words, it must prove it has not robbed enough to give others. This is not unexpected because; socialists/collectivists/communists have no time for morals. All they care, or they think they care about is social justice. In their perverted way of thinking, as long as a measure is intended for good cause, then, all is fine. As such, they suspend their inquiry when they meet something they like. They fail to see that, the train of cause and effect in real life will go beyond where they suspended their inquiry.

Now, the best way to see through the serfdom of so called "progressive human rights" is to reduce the Kenyan State into the size of a location. For our purposes, we propose to take a fictitious nation called Bondo with a population of 1000 people and reduce to it in a fully fledged State. In Bondo where money economy has yet to arrive, there happens to be some very hard working villagers who number 600. As a result, they command a lot of wealth in terms of goats, beans and maize. At the same time, there are about 200 citizens of Bondo who are classified as poor in terms of World Poverty Bank index. There are also 200 recent post fake independence retirees who used to work in a nation called Nairobi. In their heydays, these retirees would visit the Bondo with second hand cars imported from Dubai. They would also used to speculate in shares hoping to get rich while doing nothing. In other words, they preferred to consume their savings to keep up with Jonnies and bidding up prices of existing assets instead of investing in productive ventures like the 600 citizens of Bondo who now have goats, beans and maize.

To enhance governance, the people of Bondo decide to make a constitution. To ensure they know what they are doing, the people of Bondo engaged a committee of lawyers led by professor Ghai and Nzamba Kitonga. Being very kind hearted lawyers and well versed with the international instruments they call treaties emanating from some mysterious august bodies calling themselves the UN and AU, which require the Bondo State to provide economic and social rights of man, these lawyers and the Dear Leader agree that, every retiree in Bondo shall be entitled to at least 1 butchered goat, 1 bag of beans and 1 bag of maize every month. For the poor, which the modern lawyer is not educated to critically investigate the cause because, he deals with something they call precedent, the new constitution provides that, they should be provided with half a goat, 40 kgs of beans and 70 kgs of maize every month.

This new constitution also, provides that, it shall be the noble and highly coveted task of the Dear Leader to ensure that, the retirees and the poor receive their due every month. In other words, the poor and retirees of Bondo State can now look up to the political power as the source of material betterment and as the guide to their personal destinies. They need not care about virtues of thrift, industry and initiative. Talk of making a virtue that was once considered a vice.

The question now is, since the Dear Leader has nothing himself, where shall he get goats, maize and beans to give the poor and the retirees? In the spirit of participatory democracy, the committee of lawyers go around Bondo State collecting ideas and they come up with an ingenious idea. To get enough goats, beans and maize for distribution to the retirees and the poor, the new constitution empower the Dear Leader to confiscate via something they call direct tax from those who have more goats, beans and maize than they need and then, distribute to those who need them in the spirit of liberte, egilate and fraternite. But, none of this is new. As far back as 1580 B.C. the Great Leader of Egypt did not levy tax on the incomes of his subjects but, on the incomes of the public officials. And, since public officials produce nothing, their taxable funds consisted of what they had farmed from the public. The beauty of the Egyptian method was that, the tax collector got his cut before turning the difference to the Great Leader. As a result of this arrangement, he could not be said to have taken bribes like a Bondo Tax officer will be accused of.

If you think we are using the word confiscation with malicious intent, consult Encyclopaedia Britannica which defines taxation as that part of revenue of the State which is obtained by COMPULSORY DUES AND CHARGES. Thus, income and inheritance taxes are a DENIAL OF PRIVATE PROPERTY by the state. Why does the state deny common people private property? Simply, income/inheritance taxation is an institution of state meant to keep masses under its heel, to favour its minions, to ruin the majority for the benefit of the rulers and thereby, maintain the old divisions and castes in a society. This is so because a government's despotic powers increase as its revenues increase and as the wealth of the masses decline.

The new constitution also provides that, the more goats, beans and maize the citizen of Bondo has, the more shall be taken from him/her. The people of Bondo are advised that, this strange doctrine is called progressive tax i.e. soak the rich, which is taught by all Bondian State accredited universities. The doctrine was brought to Bondo by leading economic and law professors who happened to have schooled in a land called the West. Karl Marx would call this doctrine "FROM EACH according to his ABILITY/HARDWORK, to each according to HIS NEED/LAZINESS." But, to hide this communistic device, the Bondo professors of law, ethics, economics and even philosophy, call it progressive tax. One must wonder, why did Lenin have to have a bloody revolution when you can introduce serfdom by calling it progressive?

The new constitution goes further to provide that, where the goats, beans and maize confiscated from those who have more than they but, it is not sufficient to meet the needs of the Dear Leader, the poor and the retirees, the Dear Leader shall have powers to borrow goats, beans and maize locally and abroad. Such loans shall be called public debt. To assure the creditors, the Dear Leader shall have the right to pledge as security the future goats, beans and maize of the hardworking villagers of Bondo. The end result of this new constitution is that, those who have sacrifice, save and do all is supposed to be done to raise goats and grow beans and maize shall have to part with a portion of their wealth every month so as to provide for the Dear Leader, the poor and the retirees in Bondo State and the public debt.

More so, the new constitution provides that, before the Dear Leader distributes the goats, beans and maize which he shall confiscate from the wealthy to the needy, he shall pay himself first a salary. This salary, the Dear Leader shall decide himself or appoint a well paid committee of experts made up of his minions to decide his take. The committee of expert on Dear Leader's salary shall ensure that, the net income is as high as it was in the old constitution. Thus, the gross salary will be high enough to leave good net income as the Dear Leader is used to have. In any case, all the Bondo citizens wanted was for their Dear Leader to pay tax. To meet such stupid demands, the gross salary will be set appropriately so as to leave the net income as it was when the salary was untaxed under the previous constitution. Voila!

To ensure that all villagers of Bondo shall do an honest yearly declaration of their wealth to provide for the Dear Leader's self declared salary and still have some of it left for the needy, the new constitution provides that, every villager must fully and accurately declare his/her goats, beans and maize and give that information promptly to the Bondo Tax Revenue Authority (BTRA). Failure to declare and any cheating will be met with the Penal Code. Yes, that infamous book of punishment invented in the spirit of the Inquisition and of the teachings of the despotic regimes of the Orient. The declaration is so intrusive such that, even goats and cows paid as dowry must be declared for the purposes of taxation. After all, was it not the Master Himself, who taught us, give unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar? But, how did Caesar get his cut? We are taught by historians that, up to the 4th century of the Christian era, to get the truth about incomes, they used racks and scourges to get the truth from suspected evaders.

Since the income tax will not be enough for the Dear Leader's salary and the social purposes, the new constitution also gives the Dear Leader the powers to impose tax on wealth creation i.e. the consumption taxes such as the VAT and excise. In other words, the Dear Leader will hide taxes in goods and services the people of Bondo consume. If a citizen of Bondo has four kids, he must part with much of his wealth as compared to a citizen who has no kids when he buys bread. Thus, being responsible by raising a family will be punished for these taxes are a licence to live and one cannot run away from them. If he wants to avoid these taxes, then, he must commit suicide. If you add the income tax and the license to live tax, it will be about 60% of the Bondonian citizen income. In other words, the Bondian citizen will be 60% state slave. Only about 25% is remaining and chattel slavery/feudalism will be back.

Consequently, the amount of wealth the citizen of Bondo MAY retain for himself shall be determined by the needs of the government of Bondo without his say. The Dear Leader will make such determination of his needs in his Budget speech which will be broadcast live in TV. In other words, the government of Bondo will have powers to take everything the citizens has and leave him with wealth for mere subsistence just to allow him to produce something to be confiscated in like manner. Simply, the government of Bondo has A PRIOR LIEN on all property produced by its subjects. This is the essence of socialism for whatever else it may say; its first tenet is the DENIAL OF PRIVATE PROPERTY.

This is the blatant denial of the inalienable right to a man's property. This is not only a negation of a man's humanity, but, also, a negation of the Divine and Natural Laws. It is so because giving a man right to life is an empty title when he is denied the things that make life liveable, i.e. food, clothes and shelter. The question is, as one of the 1000 citizens of Bondo State would you accept such a Robbin Hood governance system as proposed by their new constitution? A system whereby, A and B put their heads together and decide what C shall be made to do for D? The vice of such scheming is that C is never consulted in the matter. He is simply clubbed by the police power of the state into diverting a part of his earnings to someone he has never seen. If no, why should Kenya be so organised?

In any collective/socialistic based society, truth must be killed. To make such a nation work, all people are forced to work for the ends selected by those in control. It is thus essential that the masses are taught to regard these ends as their own. This requires massive propaganda and complete control of sources of information. So, how do the masses get carried away? Simple. The leaders of constitutional reforms in Kenya have carried the masses by appealing to a common human weakness. This is so because, it is easier to make people agree on a negative programme such hatred of the enemy rather than engage in any positive task. In Kenya, the hatred has been directed against Moi and his orphans. Armed with such low standards for what constitutional reforms should be about, Kenyans are aiming at having a constitution that will punish such evil doers like Moi who took away Kenyan's wealth. To hinge a constitutional reform on such a negative programme can only lead to a disaster for all we have at the end of the day is a Bondo state as we describe above. In such a state, it is the robbers, idiots and such other men can rise to power. We prefer a well thought out constitution which should bring about independence, self reliance, individual initiative, reliance on voluntary charity etc.

We leave thee with some interesting story from the Bible and a personal observation of serfdom. In 1 Kings, Chapter 12, there is an interesting story where the people of Israel petitioned their new King, Rehoboam, son of Solomon to relieve them of the yoke his father had put on them. The designation of a levy on one's production as a yoke is very interesting especially for any man who has trained a bull to pull a plough under the yoke. The author of this article happens to have trained young bulls to pull the plough. When you start training a young bull to bear the yoke, it resists with all its might. The young bull will do whatever it can and this includes strangling himself to death to avoid the yoke. Such fight for freedom by a young bull shows how even animals value their freedom. Given this amount of resistance, one can say that, training a bull to bear the yoke may be one of the difficult jobs. However, through persistence and some serious beatings, we would subdue/wear the young bull until he bears the yoke with pride. It is the same with man for we pay tax with pride.

Having learnt to bear the yoke, the bull ploughs the farm like a tractor. But, what does the bull get out of all this labour? Nothing. Seen from this personal experience with bulls, it is understandable why the people of Israel saw taxation as a yoke. A yoke symbolises the beast of burden which has no right to property. As such, when a human being is in a like manner deprived of what he has produced, which is the essence and sole purpose of income taxation, wealth creation and consumption taxation, he is degraded to the status of an ox. The people of Israel who could sense that man was created in the image of God and therefore, could sense this indignity and they wanted none of this yoke. It was for this reason they stoned to death Rehoboam's chief tax collector called Hadoram.

In our times, stupefied by state education whose objective is to train slaves who do not understand the meaning of liberty and who confuse serfdom for liberty, we have become worshippers of the state. After all, don't we teach income taxation law in our esteemed law schools? As a result, and very sadly and very depressingly, the modern man has accepted the yoke just like an ox. However, bulls do better because; they never teach the young ones to bear the yoke. For us, we not only bear the yoke, but, we also teach our children how to bear the yoke.

As you head to the referendum, remember this. When the people of Israel had a "referendum" on whether to have a King as other nations despotic nations, Jehovah's parting words with Samuel were these: “And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen: And the Lord will not hear you in that day.” It did not take long for this prophecy to come true. Saul, the first king, taxed the people about 10 per cent. David took care of at least 25 per cent more. Solomon, his son, required about 50 per cent. When they asked Solomon's son to reduce this yoke, he responded by saying this: "Whereas my father did lade you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke: my father did chastise you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions."




Thursday, June 24, 2010

Kirui's Release a Profuse Miscarriage of Justice

Make no mistake, video evidence is no sufficient ground to convict a criminal. If video pictures are no evidence where does that leave the fate of investigation into burning houses, forceful circumcisions, rapes, beheadings and serial killers?

And oh, the government's quest to install CCTV in our streets must be an intention to beautify the cities with camera.

Kenyans must have seen it coming. Having the Kenyan police investigate one of their own must be akin to delegating hyena the responsibility of guarding the pen. No brainer. Even the Judge sounded so self-contracting by accepting the video recording as Kirui but trust police's deliberate and systematic cover up to defeat the course of justice system.

And these cops are smart. By meticulously presenting a gun for ballistic testing that is so similar to the killer weapon except the first digit, they knew they were guaranteed to both run and hide permanently.

It may be time to have an independent prosecution services different from the law enforcement police force. But again IMPUNITY enjoys immunity to any office. We surely need total change in basic values and attitudes towards human life before we even shout reforms.

You can only imagine the unbearable pain of relatives of the two victims. Imagine the traumatized witness Wafula who positively identified Kirui given he was one of those being kicked and pinned down that fateful January 16, 2008.

Granted respect for the law is what separates us from other animals in the jungle but what do you do with irrefutable evidence butchered with scandalous investigation? Well, theorists can cobble countless conspiracy theories that will not lessen the pain of a bereaved mother seeing the killer of her son set free on such shoddy prosecution.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Voting - The Modern Opium of the People

By Mwarang'ethe

In a by gone age, Karl Marx, observed that, "religion is the opium of the people." This quote, taken out of the whole quotation in which Karl Marx expressed it, gives misleading impression of what he wanted to express. The whole quotation reads:
"Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions."
Taken in full, what Karl Marx was saying is this. Religion's purpose was/is to create illusionary fantasies for the poor. Since economic realities prevent them from finding happiness in the present life, religion told them not to worry because they will after all find happiness in the afterlife. In other words, the world had become heartless and the masses were/are in distress, religion provided/provides solace as people may get relieve from physical pain from opiate based drugs.

Today, the divine rulers have concocted new opium for the masses. It is the VOTERS CARD. Anytime you read comments on this blog or any mainstream media all over the world, there is always the protest view that, "these leaders of ours need to be wiped out like the plague in this coming elections." (See comments in response to "Those behind the Uhuru Park bombing" by Chris.) In other words, in a heartless world, the voting card has become the solace. To the masses, the voting card, allows them the luxury to bear with untold corruption, inefficiency, oppression and the destruction of private wealth of any government as they wait for another ritual to vote another "new and better government" that they fervently believe will work for them. What a delusion! In simple words, the voting card is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world. It is now the opium of the masses.

In another age, calling on Americans to fight for liberty, in a speech entitled: "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death," Patrick Henry told Americans this. "... it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the numbers of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it." In another age, Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 43 BCE) expressed the view that, "Nescire autem quid ante quam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum." Translated: "To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child." Let us now review the history of voting so that we do not remain children.

In a recent election in the UK, the masses in their wisdom or lack of it put Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in power to "right the wrongs of Labour Party." Immediately and unnoticed to even some of the best analysts around the world, the new Chancellor George Osborne announced the creation of an "independent" Office for Budget Responsibility. Its job will be to forecast which will create a "rod for my back down the line and for future chancellors. That's the whole point." See the announcement here: . Simply, as they outsourced monetary policies (Labour) to unelected and unaccountable mandarins in the central banks which are answerable to the gods of money and which create booms and busts to harvest wealth of the poor, they have now outsourced budget/fiscal responsibility (Lib con Dems). Now, both the monetary and fiscal matters, the most critical matters of a nation are now in the hands of "experts" no matter what the voting masses may think in the future. If the fiscal and monetary policies will be under "experts" what will the masses be voting for? More so, is this what the voters really wanted? Watch this pace because this office will also be introduced in Kenya soon. We leave that matter for you to ponder and watch.

Sometimes in India, the Left led by the Congress party, won the elections, leading to a coalition government with the Congress party and the Communist party. This caused the stock market to crash because investors feared a change in economic policy that would hurt their profits. Sonia Ghandi, who was originally going to be the next Prime Minister, chose not to take the position and the new government was forced to adopt policies virtually identical to the previous government. Their rhetoric was/is different, but policy was/is basically the same. So, what is the point of elections then? Check also with Swedish elections of the early 1990's and the bond market reaction.

In the USA, since 1971, they have voted Nixon (Rep), Carter (Dem), Reagan (Rep), Bush I (Rep), Clinton (Dem), Bush II (Rep) and now Obama (Dem). All this time, the REAL WAGES of the real workers have stagnated such that, by 2010 real wages are the same as were in 1971. At the same time, the national debt has now reached the USA GDP, $ 13 trillion under Obama. If these are the facts, why has the fate of the American workers gotten worse with all these elections? As for Bill Clinton, he won the election on a mildly liberal reformist platform. Once in office he was forced to abandon his campaign promises because if he continued them the bond market wouldn’t react well and the economy would go down the tubes. Clinton’s famous statement to his advisers upon realizing this was, "You mean to tell me that the success of my program and my re-election hinges on the Federal Reserve and a bunch of fucking bond traders?" He was thus forced to abandon his program before it even started, instead implementing one virtually identical to Republican proposals.

The politicians the masses keep on electing have no powers. For instance, when New Zealand intelligence began secretly participating in Echelon, an international electronic spying system, the New Zealand’s Prime Minister didn’t even know about it. In America, most of the CIA’s covert actions (including coups) were done without Congressional approval and some, like the CIA's participation in Ghana’s 1966 coup, didn’t even have Presidential approval. Entire wars have been fought in secret, including Russia 1918-1920, Laos 1965-1973 and Cambodia 1970-1975. When Congress cut off funding for the Contras (US-backed terrorists in Nicaragua) in the mid-80s the CIA (and other parts of the state bureaucracy) just kept doing it in secret, disregarding Congress’s wishes.

Bush II said he wouldn’t engage in “nation-building” (taking other countries over) during the 2000 election campaign but he did it several times. He also claimed to support a balanced budget, but obviously abandoned that. Clinton advocated universal health care during the 1992 election campaign but there were more people without health insurance when he left office than when he took office. Bush I said, “read my lips - no new taxes!” while running for office but raised taxes anyway. Reagan promised to shrink government but he drastically expanded the military-industrial complex and ran up huge deficits. Rather than shrinking government, he reoriented it to make it more favourable to the rich.

Carter promised to make human rights the “soul of our foreign policy” but funded genocide in East Timor and backed brutal dictators in Argentina, South Korea, Chile, Brazil, Indonesia and elsewhere. During the 1964 elections leftists were encouraged by Democrats to vote for Johnson because Goldwater, his Republican opponent, was a fanatical warmonger who would escalate US involvement in Vietnam. Johnson won, and immediately proceeded to escalate US involvement in Vietnam. FDR promised to maintain a balanced budget and restrain government spending but did the exact opposite. Wilson won re-election in 1916 on the slogan “he kept us out of war” but then lied Americans into World War One. Hoover pledged to abolish poverty in 1928 but instead saw it skyrocket. Obama pledged to end Bush II's wars. Instead, he escalated the war in Afghanistan.

In the 1974 Canadian elections the Liberals criticized Tory plans to introduce wage and price controls but, shortly after winning office, implemented wage and price controls. In 1993 the Liberals promised to abolish the Goods and Service Tax but reneged on that after getting power. The British Liberal party promised to cut military spending during the 1906 elections but, after winning, went back on that promise in order to wage an arms race with Germany. In 1945 the British Labour party promised to set up a ministry of housing but abandoned it after winning the election.

According to the official version when leftists get elected to office we should always (or almost always) get leftist policies and vice versa when rightists get elected to office but this is not the case. The German Green party was originally pacifist and was founded on an anti-nuclear power position. They gained power in a coalition government in the late 1990s but abandoned their program, effectively delaying the end of nuclear power in Germany until the nuclear industry wanted to end it and supported military intervention during the Kosovo war. Lula, the current president of Brazil, originally ran on an anti-corporate and anti-IMF platform but is now cooperating with the IMF (although his rhetoric, but not his policies, are sometimes critical of it) and he’s just as favourable towards corporate power as his predecessor.

The socialist/social democratic/labour parties in Europe were originally revolutionary Marxist parties aiming to establish a communist society. As they won elections and gained power they increasingly abandoned this goal and became ordinary monopoly capitalist parties. At first they continued to mouth Marxist rhetoric while pushing reformist policies, but eventually even Marxist rhetoric was abandoned. Prior to world war one they declared their opposition to any kind of inter-imperialist world war on the grounds that workers should not kill each other in order to benefit their capitalist masters. When world war one broke out all but two parties (the Bolsheviks and US Socialist party – neither of whom had gained much power through elections) abandoned this stance and supported their own government in a wave of patriotic fervour.

Today they’re pushing through Reagan/Clinton-style deregulation and “free market reforms,” dismantling the very welfare states they formerly advocated. Just watch Papandreou of Greece and Socrates of Portugal, as well as Zapatero of Spain, who call themselves socialists, acting as abject puppets of the financiers. In Spain, the parliament just approved a draconian austerity program by a single vote, offering the lunatic spectacle of a country already mired deeply in economic depression, with an official unemployment rate of 20%, embracing its own self-cannibalization with a deflationary austerity program in the vain effort to regain the confidence of international financial markets and investors. What markets when they are dealing with oligopolies and cartels? They are dealing with ruthless speculators, and not with investors. Do voters have a say in all this? No.

In the US & UK Ronald Reagan & Margaret Thatcher implemented far right policies that attacked the social safety net and benefited big business in the name of the “free market.” During the same time period in Australia and West Europe the supposedly left-wing parties (labour/social democrats/socialists) held power and implemented the same “free market” policies. Clinton & Blair from the supposedly left-wing parties (Democrat & Labour) later defeated Reagan & Thatcher’s successors but once in office continued the same “free market” policies as their predecessors. Obama was elected promising to behave differently from Bush II. However, in the first single year of his office, he has killed more civilians with drones than Bush II did in 8 years. Why?

So, if this is the experience why do we hear the nonsense by the intellectuals that, "your vote makes a difference" if the politicians we elect are only supposed to implement the same policies the elite want even if it conflicts with their campaign promises? Simply, electing people to power is not the effective way to change policy. Politicians break their promises because of the way the system is set up. To hide this truth, the masses are encouraged to vote to give an illusion of ordinary citizen’s control of the state by voting for candidates in elections. The President and other politicians are supposedly servants of “the people” and the government an instrument of the general populace. What a myth!

It matters not who is elected because the system is set up such that, all elected leaders must do what big business and the state bureaucracy want and not what the masses want. Because politicians are just figureheads, they may change their rhetoric, but, all have to implement same policies. Seen this way, elections are nothing but a scam to create an illusion of ordinary people's control of the government and not the tiny elite. This helps to neutralise any resistance movements. As such, all voting only strengthens the state and the divine rulers and therefore, not an effective means to change government policy.

The two great vested interests and the real rulers are the bureaucracy and big business. However, behind these two bureaucracies lies the tiny, but, extremely powerful aristocracy. For the bureaucracy, the most powerful are the intelligence and the military. Elected leaders depend on these bureaucracies for information and may mislead leaders. For instance, in the late ‘50s the CIA secured approval to launch an uprising in Indonesia by feeding a series of increasingly alarmist reports to their superiors in the National Security Council, who otherwise might have shot the proposed uprising down.

This shows how government agencies (especially secretive ones) can pressure politicians and influence policy in preferred directions. This is enhanced by the fact that individual politicians come and go but the bureaucrats are permanent, which makes it easier for bureaucrats to manipulate information and ensures that politicians have less experience with such manipulation. Because the state bureaucracy is permanent while politicians are transitory state bureaucracies tend to accrue more power than elected representatives. State bureaucracies can also manipulate the political process by leaking damaging information about politicians they don’t like or by harassing parties or movements they don’t like (in the USA, we have seen COINTELPRO or the recent harassment of anti-war activists by the FBI). This gives an advantage to politicians favourable to the interests of the state bureaucracy.

As concerns the big business, if a party wins and starts to implement policies that are against the vested interests of the big business, the unearned profits go down and these investors withdraw their investments. Such capital flight is dreaded because it leads to economic crush as we saw in Asia in 1997. If the ruling party does not change its policies to suit the vested interests, then, it will surely loose the next elections because of bad economy. Thus, the elected leaders are forced to change policies to appease corporate elite/financial elite to avoid losing power. Where the elected leaders are faithful to the masses, such leaders are overthrown as we have seen in Chile, Iran, Guatemala, Brazil, Greece, Congo etc.

So, if this is the record, why do we hear that our votes count when they don't? Simple. Were the masses to see the truth and thereby, see that voting is pacifying opium, they would demand change to policies that subjugate them even without sham elections. To avoid such knowledge and subsequent demands while creating an illusion of change, the masses must be fed with the new opium, the voting card. This opium helps to release tension every 4/5 years so as to allow subjugation to go on as usual. In other words, a voting card is a means of establishing the structure of permanent delay to required structural, but, never discussed reforms i.e. one more election and things will be fine. No, they shall not.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Very powerful man, Ruto

Why was higher education minister not charged?

I could not help but laugh seeing the three MPs (including a whole assistant minister) huddled together in the dock facing charges of incitement. I was laughing because the three were testing the excesses of executive power in the old constitution that they would rather retain. Talk about getting a taste of your own medicine.

For characters like these their biggest concern on most days is where they are going to have lunch or how they are going to spend their weekend and with which young lass. And therefore to them there is no urgency to change the constitution. The current one is serving them well thank you. This is in sharp contrast to the majority of Kenyans faced with all kinds of worries and pressures. The root of many of these troubles is the current constitution that has helped entrench corruption into the very fabric of the country such that it is getting to a situation where you need to know somebody high up there just to sneeze comfortably.

But the big mystery was why William Ruto was not charged with the three. If this was all about hate speech then what Mr Ruto has been saying makes the three charged MPs look like Mother Theresa in comparison.

Many Kenyans are not aware of the fact that numerous people charged in the courts of Kenya are there mainly because they crossed a powerful individual and in many cases they are completely innocent. In other instances they are guilty but justice has been selective in deciding who gets charged and who is left alone. The current scenario is a perfect illustration of this.

The National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) has been writing to the principals for weeks, complaining mostly about Ruto’s utterances. Nothing has been done and no action was taken. This prompted the NCIC to aggressively start using the press to as to attract attention and put pressure on the government to take action. Still nothing happened.

Then after Sunday’s blasts, President Kibaki chaired an emergency security meeting and gave instructions. The result is what we are now seeing.

Now interestingly the biggest culprit of hate speech, William Ruto has not been charged along with the other three. Why? Interestingly Ruto was only questioned by the NCIC mainly about his activities in Cyber space with his 8 Facebook accounts. Nothing was said about the venom and lies that he has been spitting out countrywide for weeks now. Ruto was however in court with his 3 henchmen to show solidarity.

Is it possible that President Kibaki knows something that we don’t know about those who were responsible for Sunday’s heinous act? Is the charging of the 3 MPs a warning volley for those involved to stop or else…? But even then why was Ruto not charged? Could it have something to do with some secret political pacts made between PNU and the Higher education minister that make him almost untouchable? Everybody knows that if it was up to his party leader Raila Odinga, he would have been sacked from the cabinet a long time ago. But then Ruto seems to have some very powerful friends, so powerful that they are able to over-rule the PM and Party leader of Ruto’s party. Now who could that be?

Indeed Kenyans need to ask the question, who does Ruto represent in cabinet, because it certainly isn’t ODM. Still whoever it is he represents, they are extremely powerful. More powerful than the people of Kenya. That is the current constitution for you folks. Little wonder that some people will spill the innocent blood of even children without a second thought to retain it at all costs.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Uhuru park blast: Why did grenade hitmen want to maximize on deaths?

Update: This must be the mother of all national jokes to see police ask Kenyans to use a yahoo address: atpu2003@yahoo.com? And we scream murder when two words NATIONAL SECURITY is clandestinely inserted in a classified document under government guard!

See recent Mwarangethe post 2010-11 budget: A land monopolists budget

More vital clues that point to the suspects

Investigators have now established that the explosions in the Sunday Uhuru park blast were in fact grenades and that there were actually three explosions and not two as widely reported in the media.

Scenes from the 1990s so-called land clashes which always came just before a general election and featured imported bow and arrows.

But the most sickening thing that is beginning to emerge from this whole saga was how the hit men planned their strike so as to kill and seriously maim as many people as possible. Clearly the first strike was positioned in such a way as to cause people to hurdle together at the centre of the park where the two grenades that inflicted the most harm went off. One of those killed was an 8 year old boy who had left his home in Kawangware slums Nairobi knowing that he was coming for a Christian crusade and NOT a political rally.


It is clear that those who paid the killers had given careful instructions on what was to be done. In a way this gives vital clues that the investigators should not ignore. It appears that the idea was to cause such outrage that the majority of Kenyans would quickly lose their appetite for a new constitution. Exactly the same mode of operation that was used with the re-introduction of multi-party democracy into the country. Indeed this is the kind of thinking that brought in the famous land clashes which always erupted ONLY when general elections were around the corner. Catch the drift?


And of course many Kenyans have forgotten that the bows and arrows used in the land clashes were imported into the country by the then government.


I dare say that when you understand the Moi presidency, it will be very clear to you who were involved in organizing and funding the evil thing that happened at Uhuru park on Sunday. Every Kenyan needs to fully understand the Moi presidency and you can do so very easily by reading my landmark book; Dark Secrets of the Kenyan Presidency. For a free mini version of the book, please EMAIL ME NOW. Or if you are using a shared computer and this link doesn't work for you, send an email now to:- kumekuchaspecialoffer@gmail.com


In my view the church leaders made a fatal mistake promoting the Uhuru Park meeting as a normal crusade only to turn it into a NO political rally at the very last minute. I am sure the idea was to get a big crowd there and they knew that if they told the people the truth, they were not going to get such a big crowd. Interestingly evangelical church leaders in Kenya have always had great difficulties in uniting but the common enemy in the draft constitution has had the magical effect of uniting them. For many Christians a meeting with so many different Ministers was irresistible.


I am reliably informed that the intelligence service already knows who and where the attacks came from. If this is true, it doesn’t make the investigations any easier because some of the people involved have gotten away with much bigger murders than the killing of a number of nobodies at Uhuru Park. Very sad, but that is Kenya yetu for you.


Breaking News: Ruto accused of using 8 Facebook accounts that incite people. But Higher education minister defending himself against hate speech allegations says he only has one Facebook account.


Kumekucha's earlier post predicting Uhuru Park chaos and more

Why does Gideon Moi not like paying his bills?

Kenyan billionaire who operates from New York didn’t get much education

Why there are more serial killers in Kenya than you want to know

2010-11 Budget : A Land Monopolists Budget

By Mwarang'ethe

In the DN, we read a celebratory headline that: "More Kenyans can now own homes". In this story, we are told that, “Mr Kenyatta increased the threshold of core capital that banks are allowed to invest in mortgage finance from 25 per cent to 40 per cent to enable more Kenyans to own homes." In the Standard, we read this: This year’s Budget proposals seek to amend the Stamp Duty Act to reduce stamp duty on mortgages, charges and debentures from 0.2 per cent to 0.1 per cent. The Stamp Duty Act provides that every instrument be stamped with proper duty paid within 30 days, failure to which penalty is charged. The current rate of penalty is charged at 25 per cent for every three months. "In order to reduce the penalty burden on new property owners, I propose to reduce the rate of penalty from 25 per cent to 5 per cent".

Ignoring the big scandal of the big government we are creating, we focus on this issue of housing only for what happens in this sector will affect the whole economy. That being so, contrary to this communicated nonsense from our mainstream media that more Kenyans can now own homes courtesy of my Kenyatta's generosity, we argue that, the proposed 2010/11 budget is just a bonanza for the idle land monopolists and bankers at the expense of wealth creators.

However, we are not surprised for we saw this coming. On 16th April, 2010, the Standard told us this: "High - end residential property boom is over". Among other stuff, we are told this. "It is not good news for high-end residential property investors, but rental yields are falling, and may not rise any time soon. Hass Consult, a leading property firm, is warning those looking to buy high-end residential apartments with the intention of renting them out to earn income to go slow.”

Hass Property index report for the first quarter of this year — the period between January and March 2010 — indicates that rents for the high-end residential market have stagnated over the last three years, while property prices in the same market have more than doubled over the same period. "In short, the high end residential apartment boom is over after a market correction that has lasted over three years since the height of the boom and the market is stabilising." Translated this means this. The land speculation has gone too far. Since land speculation has nothing to do with the real economy, i.e. Kenyans incomes and productivity, speculators and bankers are losing or about to lose money.

This is confirmed by this from Standard: "Apartment prices go through the roof". Among other stuff, we read this. "When the price is too high, think twice. And so, too, should those buying apartments and flats in Nairobi. According to latest findings, investors targeting these two classes of homes are being ripped off, with most of the properties overpriced." More significantly, “The Hass Index, a quarterly survey on the country’s property market, further revealed that there was sluggish demand for property during the first quarter of the year. Asking prices, however, rose sharply in the quarter by about 7.8 per cent driven largely by the apartment prices." In simple words, in just 4 months, the price of LAND went up by 8%. Did Kenyan's incomes go up by that margin? No. This is at the heart of the current global economic mess. And, as a by the way, do the statisticians at the Kenyan Bureau of Statistics, who calculate that small animal they call inflation factor house prices in their calculations? Why not call them and ask as a patriotic duty?

So, when land speculators, i.e. those who profit without production comes to an end due to low incomes, what do they do? As we would expect of socialists/communists and monopoly capitalists hiding under the cover of free markets, they run to the tits of the state, i.e. the taxpayers for more subsidies. For this, we read in the Standard that: "Mortgage industry pushes for more incentives".

We hear the socialist, oh, no, a banker in the name of Frank Ireri, the MD of the Housing Finance saying this: "We are anticipating the budget to give more tax breaks, especially for those in the low-income bracket. We also hope there will be tax exemption on inputs used in the construction business." He also tells us this. "The mortgage industry is seeking for more relief on mortgage interest as well as more incentives for those saving to buy a house."

What is the response of the central socialist/banker to all this? Since figures indicate that credit to the real estate sector amounted to Sh92.5 billion as at December last year, accounting for 12.2 per cent of total credit, "[g]iven the excess demand for housing, there is considerable headroom for expansion of credit to support provision of housing," said Ndung’u. Deal sealed. Simply, we will allow you to create money out of thin air, i.e. unearned money to give land speculators to ensure prices do not come down for they will lose and bankers will lose. In other words, you gamble, you keep the profits, but, if you lose, Wanjiku gets f%£%&.

To impress the stupid and ignorant, our property analysts such as Wilberforce Oundo cheerfully, tells us that, "Property players have always been of the view that stamp duty should be done away with as is the case in countries that have followed the route and successfully encouraged investment into the real estate sector," To add weight to these wise observations of Oundo, Treasury PS adds that: "Payment of stamp duty and a number of contradicting regulations in the real estate sector have been a major concern to Treasury." Who would doubt PS Kinyua, a man who "is a first among equals when it comes to control over the Budget. He is one of the few civil servants whose position is created by an Act of Parliament." This important information is revealed to us by Justus Ondari of the DN under the title: "Behind every estimate are men and women doing all the donkey work".

To, perhaps shock and awe us, Mr Ondari, who instead of being a journalist is just a PR man, volunteers to inform us that, this man PS Kinyua, has had wonderful opportunities to work and be mentored by the gods of money at the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and off course, their minion, the Central Bank of Kenya. Yes, working with satanic slave drivers who see Africans as monkeys is considered the most significant achievement in the land of stupid and ignorant. If you think we are rambling, you just need to read an internal memo by former WB chief economist, Larry Summers. A brief history of this man is in order. After leaving the WB, he became the U.S. Treasury Secretary under the American "first black president." Thereafter, he went to brainwash at Harvard. Today, this insane man is advising our “dear brother” at WH. The memo read like this:

'Dirty' Industries: Just between you and me, shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging MORE migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Less Developed Countries]? I can think of three reasons:

1) The measurements of the costs of health impairing pollution depends on the foregone earnings from increased morbidity and mortality. From this point of view a given amount of health impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost, which will be the country with the lowest wages. I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.

2) The costs of pollution are likely to be non-linear as the initial increments of pollution probably have very low cost. I've always thought that under-populated countries in A[FRICA] are vastly UNDER-polluted, their air quality is probably vastly inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City.

How does Larry Summer’s idea compare with those of Hitler? In expressing his views about Africans, he said this:

“What we see before us of human culture today, the results of art, science, and techniques, is almost exclusively the creative produce of the Aryan... Without this possibility of UTILIZING INFERIOR MEN [AFRICANS], the Aryan would never have been able to take the first steps towards his later culture; exactly as, without help of various suitable animals which he knew HOW TO TAME, he would have never arrived at a technology which now allows him to do without these very animals. ... The words The Moor had done his duty, he may go has ... unfortunately too deep a meaning.”


When Summer’s memo became public in 1992, the Brazilian then secretary of Environment responded to this man this way:

"Your reasoning is perfectly logical but totally insane... Your thoughts [provide] a concrete example of the unbelievable alienation, reductionist thinking, social ruthlessness and the arrogant ignorance of many conventional 'economists' concerning the nature of the world we live in... If the World Bank keeps you as vice president it will lose all credibility. To me it would confirm what I often said... the best thing that could happen would be for the Bank to disappear."


For lack manners, this Brazilian man was fired. For the Summers, he continues to climb the pyramid. See the memo here:

To leave us with no doubt on the wisdom of subsiding land speculators and bankers, Morris Aron of Standard tells us that, the result of his deep and wide research is that, "In countries like the United Kingdom for example, which coincidentally Kenya draws most of its laws from, stamp duty tax regime was revised several years ago to take into account the nature of the transfer transaction and other interests. In the UK, stamp duty is varied depending on the property being sold among other considerations while in Kenya, it is charged at a flat rate of four per cent of the total value of any commercial property transaction." See "Budget could scrap property stamp duty".

Firstly, when these "experts" talk about property or housing, they are hiding the truth. Land grows in value while the mortar and bricks depreciate. Land therefore, animates the propensity to speculate, while capital favours prudential behaviour. As such, it is the speculative activities of the land that fundamentally distort the modern economy. Sample this. In the first 10 years of Thatcher's government, land prices soared by 900%. The building cost index rose by only 82%. In five years after the 1992 recession (land speculation crush), land rose by 101% while house prices rose by 25%. In the first 5 years after Tony Blair election, land prices soared by 300% while the cost of building only went up by mere 30%. Why is this? Advances in productivity and competition tend to even out the relative costs of labour and capital. As a result, the INCREASING GAINS from innovation, infrastructure etc surface as increases in land values. These land value increases eventually outpaces economic growth which leads to a crush as we see now in Kenya and elsewhere. The failure to separate land and buildings is how the secret is kept away from the masses.

Let us now focus on the UK which we are told, we the mental slaves should emulate in matters of housing. In 2004, Gordon Brown, the former UK Chancellor, said this:

"Let us call that most stop go betweens that Britain has suffered in the last 50 years have been led or influenced by the HOUSING SECTOR. Forty years ago we built 400, 000 homes a year, by the mid 1990s it had fallen to just 200, 000 so we will press ahead with resolution ... to tackle the large and unacceptable imbalance between supply and demand in the British housing market." He continued to tell us that, "we have cut capital gains tax from 40 pence to 10 pence for long term business assets and in budget after budget I want us to do even more to encourage risk takers, those with ambition, to turn their ideas into reality and make most of their talents." However, while blowing his own trumpet, he forgot to say that, under his stewardship, the house output had declined by 20, 000 a year. Why did this happen when he had cut capital gains then?

Simple, when you cut capital gains tax as Brown did and as we are now doing, these cuts are nothing but a PUBLIC SUBSIDY to the land market and a penalty to the job market. Around 2005, as the housing market started to pause as we see now in Kenya, Gordon, just like socialists who are led by emotions and not facts, decided it was time to boost the house output by pouring public money into the construction industry without NEUTRALISING the impact of capital gains from the land. So as to "help" low income families, he decided to spend £ 250 m on low cost housing for key workers so as to provide 56, 000 homes. However, by announcing these plans, the land owners reacted as one would expect. They decided to retain their sites vacant or under utilised in the expectation of even higher capital gains. For instance, when Deputy Prime Minister Prescot announced that in The Thames Gateway project, they would ease planning restrictions so as to cram hundreds of thousands of houses into a few acres, it immediately increased the prices of farmland without permission for development by 30%. In other words, as Gordon plundered private wealth in the name of taxes, he was poured the same into activities that elevate the land price. The results are there for even the blind to see.

We are doing exactly the same thing for any cut in stamp tax automatically translates into HIGHER LAND PRICES. As such, those who seek to own homes SHALL not benefit at all from this measure. As this land price increased, those who add value to the economy suffered. For instance, manufacturing fell by 3% in 1999, continuing the hollowing out process started by Thatcher. Meanwhile, those owning houses were sitting on piles of "equity" which they turned into a piggy bank. They re- mortgaged their houses so as to go for holidays in Spain and lie in sand like lizards. All in all, in the last 20 years, in the UK, house prices rose by 36%, while land prices have gone up by 307% over the same period. What is even so cruel is that socialists like Gordon in their weird logic; they create huge bureaucracies that serve no useful purpose other than recycling taxpayer's money. To the masses, this creates an illusion of enlightened government generosity. What a political hoax!
From this we can see that, the driving force in business cycle is the pursuit of capital gains from land and the governments help this by the tax system they adopt. They PRIVATISE social rents while SOCIALISING and CRIMINALISING private wealth. For instance, to fund this monster of a budget, Kenyatta talked about increased tax compliance. This means criminalising private wealth possession so as to communalise it for force and fraud.

To assist the rentier class even further, Kenyatta also allowed the banks to put more credit into the land market. Without saying too much, this will divert credit from productive sector while increasing the debt volume relative to national income and production. As we neglect our productive sector as we chase free lunch, we shall be become (but we are already there) a captive market of foreigners which is the objective of the WB and the IMF. For instance, as we import BABY DIAPERS of all things from Korea, as we read here: LG tries its hand in local diapers market” , all Kenya/We as a nation can think of is digging fish ponds and expanding hawking, kiosks and Mama Mboga kiosks as we read here: Kenya’s Budget for business. What kind of men are we who cannot even make diapers for their own babies? As such, as we go forward, more and more of incomes will have to be diverted to payment of interest to the financial sector which will be used to pay atrocious salaries and bonuses to gamblers who create no wealth.

Since this revenue will be recycled to bid up land, its value will continue to rise. As this goes on, more loans will be issued backed by speculative land values, i.e. fictitious wealth. As land values rise, the more assets banks will have to back their money creation racket. This will accelerate the ratio of debt - service to wages and profits until the whole pyramid collapses as we see in the UK, USA, Japan, Spain and many others. When that happens, since the banks will be too big to fail, the debts will be transferred to the taxpayers. Thereafter, the gods of money will turn around and tell us that, we must have austerity measures, i.e. deepen our poverty so as to reduce our public debt to appease Mr Market.

Anyway, if you want to make hay while the sun shines, this is the formula in accordance with neo classical junk economics of Larry Summers’, Greenspan’s, Kibaki’s and Kinyua’s. As the share of taxes as a proportion of the GDP goes up, as they will with the trillion KES budget, the best hedge against the tax and inflation that which will erode the value of your income is to BUY LAND and HOLD IT VACANT. However, make sure the unemployed thugs do not get you at night. If they get you, we shall only say like Peter Tosh, after all we can’t blame the youth. Their bellies are empty while yours is full with the bread of sorrow.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Those behind the Uhuru Park bombing

Uhuru Park Blast Video on youtube

It should be rather obvious who was behind the heinous bombing that took place a few hours ago at Uhuru Park just as a NO campaign rally was ending where two explosions from some explosive device that caused a stampede in the crowd has left five people dead so far and four in critical condition fighting for ther lives at Kenyatta National Hospital while 75 were injured in one way or another. More details HERE.

There are several questions we need to ask ourselves and answer upon which it will be as clear as day who was responsible. No guess work. I will start by listing those crtical questions.

1. ALWAYS ALWAYS in every crime the first thing to look for is a motive. The bombing was obviously political because this was a political meeting to drum up support amongst Kenyans to vote NO against a new constitution. And so we need to ask ourselves who has the most to gain from such a horrible incident (as long as they remain hidden behind the shadows that is).

2. We need to look at history and ask ourselves if this kind of thing has happened before and get as many facts as possible on previous “political bombings” because that will give us important clues to answer the question I have posed at the beginning of this post.

3. Thirdly we need to examine events that have happened over the last 48 hours or so and try to establish if the bombings were carefully timed (as is usually the case with these kind of politically stage managed events.)

Folks here are the answers. To the above questions.

1. Looking at the current situation over the ongoing draft constitution campaigns it is rather obvious despite denials by the NO camp that the Ayes have it. The big question until tonight was how big their margin of victory would be. And so that immediately rules out anybody who would be interested in a new constitution for Kenya being behind the bombings and makes it very obvious that those responsible want to ensure at all costs (even at the cost of human life) that Kenyans do NOT end up with a new constitution. If all goes according to plan the bombings should turn the tide of the entire campaign and win lots of sympathy for the No brigade, probably enough to enable them to emerge victorious after August 4th.

2. Political bombings have prominently been used at least twice before. In March 1975 when a bomb went off inside a public bus killing scores of innocent Kenyans. The bombing took place just a few days before the assassination of J.M. Kariuki. Those responsible for JM’s death were the Kenyatta kitchen cabinet with the help of certain prominent members of the security forces. Then GSU commandant the late Ben Gethi was the last person to be seen with the MP alive. In fact he picked him up at the Hilton Hotel in full view of witnesses.

The second time a bomb went off that analysts linked to politics was shortly after the repeal of the notorious section 2a which brought back multi-party politics into the country. And shortly after the then president had warned Kenyans that multi party democracy would “burn them.” The bomb went off in a toilet in a government building (Jogoo house) in Nairobi. There were no fatalities. Analysts quietly linked the bomb to some people in government out to send a message to Kenyans that multi-party democracy was not good and their security and peace was no longer guaranteed (a pet message of the then president Daniel arap Moi at the time.) More details in my book Dark secrets of the Kenyan presidency. For a free mini version of the book, please EMAIL ME NOW. Or if you are using a shared computer and this link doesn't work send an email now to:- kumekuchaspecialoffer@gmail.com

3. The most prominent event that has taken place over the last 48 hours or so was the highly successful visit in the country by United States Vice President Joe Biden. Biden urged Kenyans to go for a new constitution and a new beginning where leaders would be accountable and ordinary Kenyans would have a bigger say in the way they were governed. Those in the "NO" camp have predictably tried to portray this friendly advice as an attempt by the Americans to shove the new constitution down the throats of Kenyans allegedly for their (Americans) own selfish interests.

With all these facts in mind it is pretty obvious that those behind the killer bomb are determined to derail the new constitution at all costs. The people involved are most likely the same people who tried to sneak in changes at the Government press using the NSIS. It is also pretty clear that they are old school people who believe that the old methods used in the 70s and 90s can still work in Kenya. They have been left behind by the times and have failed to realize that we live in a very different time and Kenyans are much wiser than they were in past years.

What we must do now as Kenyans is to keep our eyes on the ball and resist all efforts to be side-tracked or have our attention diverted. But while doing that we must realize now that what I have been saying in this blog about certain people wanting to stop the new constitution happening at all costs is true. Indeed I have delayed releasing my special report on what the No camp were planning to do next because I was not able to verify the shocking information that I received from at least one other independent source. But obviously now things have changed dramatically and I will release this shocking dossier in the next 2 days or so. If you have not ordered it Get it NOW! It's FREE. If for some reason the link doesn't work send an email to kumekucha-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Sadly it looks like a little more Kenyan blood has to be poured before we can embrace a new constitution.

What I said amid jeers in a recent post last week:
"My big fear is what else these desperate Kenyans will do, knowing full well that the president will do nothing? Brace yourselves Kenyans, it’s going to be a pretty rough ride from here to that place called a new constitution..."

Read the entire post HERE.
The characters mentioned in that article are the ones most likely responsible for what happened today.


Why does Gideon Moi not like paying his bills?

Kenyan billionaire who operates from New York didn’t get much education

Why there are more serial killers in Kenya than you want to know

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Why there are more serial killers in Kenya than you want to know

Philip Onyancha: Was serial killer a lady’s man or did he really possess "powers"?

It was sometime in 2000 and I received a call to rush to a scene somewhere along Ngong Road in Nairobi next to the RFUEA rugby grounds. When I arrived on the scene I could not believe what my eyes. It was difficult to tell how long the man had been dead because even the blood wasn’t oozing out any more. He was middle-aged and his body was stark naked, lying face down in the long grass. But something else attracted my attention. A huge chunk of flesh had been cut out of the back of his upper thigh. It was missing and nowhere to be seen anywhere at the scene of the crime.
But more surprises were to follow. That evening there was no report in the media about the grisly murder victim. I scanned all the newspapers the next morning and they too had absolutely nothing about this bizarre crime. That was the day I realized that Kenya was in trouble and at the mercy of serial killers.

In the years that followed things worsened. Under intense public pressure to address increased crime the Kenya police became less and less open about what was really going on. The cops even established a public relations department mainly to filter the information on crimes going out to the public. The whole idea was to prove to Kenyans that crime was under control and going down rapidly.

With this kind of background the startling revelations that started last Sunday about a self-confessed serial killer called Philip Onyancha (pictured in our graphic above) just confirmed my worst fears for years.

Onyancha a 32 year old former guard with G4S security company has been taking investigators and the press around the country on a gory tour to show them crime scenes and decomposing remains of some of his 19 victims.

It is rather obvious that Onyancha was either a man of the ladies or his claims about having “powers” is true. How do you so easily lure a woman you have only recently met to a secluded loft on some ceiling? And yet the woman is not even a prostitute? While it is true he killed at least half a dozen prostitutes, Onyancha also lured many other women that he hardly knew who were not twilight girls, to their death. His preferred method of killing was by strangulation.

But even more sickening was Onyacha’s confession to murdering small children (including a 9 year old whose skull he led police to near Lenana High school. Onyancha would then continue to pester the family of his victims for ransom money even when he knew that he had already killed their loved ones. Interestingly this serial killer got so confident that he used the same cell phone number for a long time without worrying about getting caught. His explanation? The evil spirits controlling him and giving him the urge to take human life convinced him that he was “protected” and would never be arrested. And that is why investigators were puzzled at what he told them when they arrived very heavily armed to arrest him. He told them; “You are too powerful to have been able to arrest me.”

But for me what was most disturbing by far was the chilling confession of the motive behind the whole grisly affair. Onyancha said that he had been recruited into a cult by a former female teacher of his in high school and had been told that he would be an extremely wealthy man when he reached the target of killing 100 people. Those who are aware of the level of poverty in Kenya can appreciate how rapidly any such recruiter would have been able to recruit serial killers with such a promise.

The bottom line is that even as Kenyans call for Onyacha to be locked up and the key thrown as far away as possible, the truth is that there are many more ruthless serial killers out there. It appears that even as the rich worry about criminals who will kill them for their car or ATM card, now it seems that the poor too have reason to worry about a new breed of criminal who will kill them for their blood. Or to ask ransom from their jobless relatives.


Why does Gideon Moi not like paying his bills?

Kenyan billionaire who operates from New York didn’t get much education

Joshua Kulei: Little formal education but extremely street smart

Read the first post in this two-post saga.

Joshua Kulei

In the late 1990s a friend who was a MOI aide at the time described a meeting with Joshua Kulei to me that left me dumbfounded.

The man has very limited formal education and when discussing projects like in this case a newspaper property, the man has problems understanding some basic English words that have something to do with industry but cannot be easily translated into Swahili or his Kalenjin vernacular.

Yet his street-smartness and survival instincts enabled him to be one of President Moi's longest serving aides. He is still very much an untouchable because his finances, as we have seen are so closely intertwined with those of the former president it would be very difficult to successfully prosecute him without prosecuting Moi.

Interestingly, Kulei has a brother called Terer Kulei who lives in New York and manages several properties which Kulei owns in the United States. The Kulei's have a reputation in New York for retaining very healthy bank accounts.

It is quite something that a lowly former prison warden has chosen to set up office in the Big Apple where even many wealthy Americans cannot afford to live. And his wealth is growing because he has retained some of the best stock brokers in the world to trade in shares for him both in New York and London.

Terer who is younger than Kulei visits Kenya only briefly and spends most of his time in New York with his family. When he visits Kenya he is usually seen in Kulei's offices in Nairobi at Trans National Bank.

So where did the initial vast sums of money to invest in New York come from?
His pension from the Kenya Prisons pension fund perhaps?

I am being cynical here and angrily so because so cocky are these thieves of public funds that when interviewed they deny everything without giving any solid basis for their denial. They even have the audacity to sue those who dare state the obvious. Already Gideon Moi has said that he is considering suing the Guardian in London who did an article based on the Kroll report. Maybe the Gurdian legal team should start their defense by demanding that the court ask the complainant how he is able to afford to take legal action in Britain. This would be firm basis of proving that whatever there is in the Kroll report and whatever was published in the Guardian is true and in fact only a tip of the iceberg.

Aftermath of Kabarak family meeting on finances
Incidentally after the Kabarak meeting, there was heightened activity in relation to the family assets in what appears to be a well co-ordinated move to secure the family wealth, which many believe is made up of tax payers money and looted assets.
A significant chunk of the Moi assets and fortune in general is now in Namibia where it is under the protection of the former president's good friend and president of that country Sam Nujoma. The Kroll report went on to say that it was believed that Gideon Moi was set to transfer a lot of the family wealth in South Africa to Namibia where the family always feels much more comfortable and secure to keep their treasure chest.

But all has not gone smoothly for the Moi family in securing their wealth as numerous problems have emerged from that fact that some mebers of the family hate to pay their bills and monies they owe to others, even as their own coffers overflow with billions in looted cash.

A fight that took place at a popular entertainment spot in Nairobi between Gideon Moi and the family lawyer Dr Kiplagat, emphasizes this. Evidence seems to suggest that the fight was instigated by the sale of US$ 650,000 property in South Africa which Dr Kiplagat facilitated in behalf of the younger Moi. After the sale was complete the lawyer did not hand over the proceeds from the sale but instead prepared an invoice for $US 1.5 million for various legal services rendered to Gideon over a lengthy period of time that was still outstanding. He then issued a credit note for US$650,000 and demanded that the balance owed to him be paid. Gideon was furious.

Interestingly this appears to be a contradiction of Gideon’s own well-voiced principals. The same Kroll report talks about a frequent boast Gideon makes to the effect that any deals worth less than US$ 1 million do not interest him and are not worth his while.

Since December 2003, Gideon has been trying to get the money from the sale of the South African property from Kiplagat, but with no success. On several occasions he sent Chepkonga to demand the cash on his behalf from the lawyer. So when Chepkonga saw the lawyers car parked outside Fairview Hotel one day, he immediately called Gideon who quickly arrived and headed straight to the table where Dr Kiplagat was seated. A fierce argument ensued with Gideon making his usual threats.

Eyewitnesses said that what caused the proceedings to shift from a verbal fight into a fully fledged fist fight was the point where Kiplagat told Gideon; "…your father is no longer the president of this country and the days you used to order people around are long gone." To add insult to injury he then ordered Gideon to move to another table. That is when fists and kicks started flying as baffled onlookers watched and others hurried to separate the two men.

It seems that many previously close aides have fallen out with the Moi's in recent times over similar circumstances and others have just moved on sensing that it isn't that profitable to hang around anymore.

But the really baffling part of the whole saga is how Gideon would rather squabble and physically fight it out at a Nairobi hotel with his former lawyer over a mere petty cash amount (by his standards) of $650,000. And all because he does not want to honor a fee note of $1.5 million part of which is still outstanding even after the lawyer has held his $650,000. Apparently that is what a lot of ill-gotten wealth does to the brain. And to make matters worse, the money does not even belong to Gideon or his father in the first place. It is in fact money looted from the people of Kenya.

With this kind of behaviour and the reckless decisions and moves being made, the future of the Moi billions is shaky at best.

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Friday, June 11, 2010

Gideon Moi's hasira hasara

Gideon "I will not pay my bills because I am Gideon Moi" Moi.

Most Kenyans still underestimate the considerable pressure President Moi was under in his last months in office. Apart from some of his supporters urging him to hang on to power the president had to think very carefully about a viable exit strategy. Moi had become an extremely wealthy man in his 24 years at the helm of the country. Now he had to quickly secure his ill gotten wealth as he prepared to leave office.

The Kroll report details a fascinating trip that took place towards the end of former president Moi's last term as president where he visited several banks in Luxembourg with his most favoured son, Gideon, in an unmarked ordinary car and without any security or escort. Only one State house aide (who was chief of protocol at the time) accompanied them. And even he was left in waiting rooms as father and son had meetings with their bankers behind closed doors. It was clear that the purpose of this trip was to introduce the younger Moi to his bankers.

It is believed that during this trip administration of the vast Moi fortunes was transferred to Gideon. Investigators are still trying to prove that the monies were transferred around the world in a further effort to make it as difficult as possible for it to be traced back to the Mois.

But former president Moi’s efforts to secure his ill-gotten billions did not end there, they continued in earnest even after he had left office.

It seems that sometimes in November 2003 there was a meeting at the ex-president’s Kabarak home which was attended by his sons Philip and Gideon, as well as long serving aide Joshua Kulei. Also in attendance was trusted family lawyer, Dr Kiplagat. The main agenda of the meeting was to explore how best to protect the vast family wealth, both locally and broad from any possible political interference.

By this time some of Moi’s worst fears had already unfolded and there were already threats to have the former president write a statement to assist in corruption investigations which was very strongly resisted by MPs from Rift Valley. One of the individuals who very surprisingly strongly defended the former president and urged his colleagues to leave him alone was one Raila Amollo Odinga.

To many political observers this was puzzling but there is a very simple explanation. In his long years in politics Moi had learnt that a politician’s most valuable asset is calling in favours and Mi had accumulated plenty in his 24 years as president. Earlier in this book I have written in great detail about the bloody failed coup of 1982. One of the prominent people arrested was Raila Odinga and there was plenty of evidence to link him to the coup. Being so deeply involved in a coup is a capital offense which has no other punishment other than death by hanging. The late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga appealed to Moi and Moi spared Raila’s life. And so as other coup plotters like Pancreas Ochuka headed straight to the gallows, Raila cooled off his heels in detention once again. Sparing Raila’s life was a huge favour and evidence suggests that Moi called in this favour at his hour of need hence Raila’s unexpected reaction as a section of parliament closed in on the retired President.

Still, the meeting in Kabarak in November 2003 was not without plenty of drama. The family lawyer started off by advising the Moi's to keep as much of their wealth and assets as they possibly could overseas. The lawyer pointed out that legally no court order or ruling had been issued declaring the Moi wealth as having been acquired through corrupt or illegal means, which would be required by the government in order to freeze assets and bank accounts abroad. The Mois were also advised to use trusts that were experienced in hiding controversial assets on behalf of high profile clients.

But during that meeting, it emerged that Joshua Kulei's own estimates of the amount he held in trust for the Moi family and which he was now required to surrender and estimates of the same by Moi's sons did not tally. The tension got so high that death threats are believed to have been issued against Kulei.

Matters got worse at a meeting later held at Philip's house to try and resolve the misunderstanding over the issue and Kulei made the unfortunate decision to go outside the Moi family to seek for help. It is highly likely that this is the move that caused details of the meeting to leak to those who were not involved. Kulei consulted Mr Tum of the Kenya Seed Company to talk to the former president on his behalf. He told Tum that the crux of the problem was that the president's sons had failed to make any distinction between his (Kulei's) private wealth and that which he held for the former president in trust.

Now it is unlikely that such a matter will ever end up in court, but even if it was, it is clear that Kulei who was a poverty stricken prisons warder by the time he was appointed to handle the Moi wealth did not have any personal wealth of his own apart from what he was looking after on behalf of his benefactor. Any monies he would have earned for himself during that time would have either involved the use of the same funds he was supposed to look after or at least by virtue of his position. This means that the Moi's sons had a point and all the money belonged to the Moi's since he was paid to do the job. But Kulei obviously saw things differently. The man’s background is of great help in trying to understand his thinking in such a clear-cut matter.

Read the second and final part of this saga

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Dark secrets of the Kenyan presidency if you rush and EMAIL ME NOW. Or if you are using a shared computer and the link doesn't work send an email now to:- kumekuchaspecialoffer@gmail.com.
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World Cup starts with a game that raises some controversial issues

If you are one of the those people who is totally disgusted with the way the 2010 World cup has seemingly taken over everything then you will not be pleased that Kumekucha will be covering the 2010 World cup. But please don’t be too worried because our usual political reporting as well as other articles will continue and we will only be making occasional analysis on major issues that come up during the tournament… starting with the opening game earlier today.

World cup opener, South Africa versus Mexico

You will already be aware of the fact that the opening game of the 2010 World cup ended in a 1-1 draw. For me the match raised quite a number of interesting issues.

To start with many analysts are convinced that the linesman was influenced by the intimidating shouting home crowd in making his call for offside when Carlos Vela scored for Mexico late in the first half. The issue of match officials being intimidated is going to be a very major thing in this tournament. Not only when South Africa are playing but when other African countries in the tournament are playing as well. Rugby enthusiasts will remember how the South African crowds intimidated Rugby referees during the 2005 Rugby World cup also held in that country. It may be the extra push that African countries need to go far in this World cup, but is it fare?

Interestingly FIFA have refused to embrace technology to the extent that Rugby has where instant replays help officials make crucial decisions where what has happened is less than obvious. I strongly believe that if the referee had looked at the replay he would have allowed Mexico’s goal in the first half and that would have changed the whole destiny of the game.

The second thing that came out was the ability of an experienced coach to outthink their counterpart and turn the course of a game in an instant. In the first half South Africa were very lucky not to have gone for the breather not having conceded at least 3 goals. But in the second half the same team was unlucky not to have scored at the very least three goals. A change in tactics at half time did the trick. South African coach 67 year old Carlos Alberto Parreira is very experienced, probably one of the most experienced and gifted coaches the game has ever produced. Read more about the long eventful career of Carlos Alberto Parreira.

Parreira is one of only two coaches that has led four national teams to the World Cup: Kuwait (1982), United Arab Emirates (1990) Brazil (1994 and 2006) and Saudi Arabia (1998). He was also involved to some extent with the legendary 1970 championship team for Brazil, which he said inspired him to aspire to be a national football coach. Parreira has today equaled this record with the opening game handling the South African national side in this World cup.

If there is anybody who can bring the best out of a side that is not particularly good then it is Parreira.