Wednesday, December 06, 2006

The Mind Of The Kenyan Criminal

A volunteer from Australia working for an organization that cares for orphans and vulnerable children who was gang raped in March this year by armed robbers at her home in Nairobi, bravely recounted her ordeal in a local newspaper recently. She describes how the thugs openly joked about what the law would do to them if they were convicted of armed robbery and rape (the crime they had just committed). One of them even confessed that he was expecting to die soon.

This attitude reminded me of a movie I watched recently titled; City of God which was based on a true story about a notorious thug who emerged from the slums of Rio De Janeiro in the 80s. It paints a grim picture of hopelessness in the slums where people without hope are literally forced into crime.

This seems to be the situation we are in, in Kenya today. Of course Nairobi is nowhere near being as dangerous is Rio de Janeiro is, but we're getting there fast.

The President has displayed naivety and a lack of understanding of the situation by publicly warning criminals that they would be caught up with. This kind of approach was effective in the 60s and 70s where I am told violent bank robbers gave up their guns in terror when a certain Kenyan was appointed CID boss. But it will certainly not work today because the typical violent Kenyan criminal today who robs and rapes (isn't robbing somebody enough without having to rape them as well?) has the following characteristics;

i) They prefer death to a life of hopelessness and poverty. In other words, they would rather rob and kill than hang around jobless and hopeless in poverty.
ii) They are on drugs, many of which stimulate sexual desires as well as wiping out all traces of fear of the repercussions of their activities. This dramatically increases the chances of rape taking place during a robbery.
iii) With the kind of role models we have as politicians, they view what they are doing as the lesser evil. After all they rob from individuals, while politicians rob from masses of humanity at a time.

This situation is very similar to the state of emergency in the 50s in Kenya. Mau mau thugs (they were not fighting for the independence of Kenya as many Kenyan fairy tales suggest) were landless and hopeless in poverty after the white people who had grabbed their land started making it increasingly difficult for them to survive. They were taxed and the new economic order imposed by the colonialists meant that it was difficult to live without a job, yet the jobs were not forthcoming. Many preferred to rob and rape and face the consequences rather than lie down and quietly wait for their inevitable fate. Meanwhile the golf-playing colonialists talked about how they had improved "the economic situation" after finding "nothing". Africans were advised to work hard and seek loans in banks to set up businesses and prosper.

History surely repeats itself.

The first step in reducing crime must be to remove the hopelessness in ordinary Kenyans. The way to do that is to radically fight corruption at every level and for the presidency to take a leadership role in launching programs that address the urgent problems facing ordinary Kenyans today. For instance slums can easily be eliminated if there is enough political will.

You DO NOT remove hopelessness by carrying out coups in political parties that are sanctioned by the state.

You DO Not remove hopelessness by telling the whole nation that the economy has improved when they and their friends have sunk deeper into poverty. This is a clear message to them that they are not part of the economy that matters.

The general view amongst the rich in Kenya is that nothing can be done because there will always be poor people and rich people. That is true but the situation in Kenya is that many of our rich people have gotten rich at the expense of other less powerful Kenyans and government policies have actively created and promoted poverty over the last 40 years. The result is that there are just too many poor people in Kenya today for anybody with money in their pocket and clothes on their backs to be safe.

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Who was the main brain behind the 1982 attempted coup? We now know of Raila's involvement but to this day, it is not known who within Moi's government was the main mastermind behind the coup attempt. The sad thing is that many Kenyans lost their lives, some of them at the gallows, and countless innocent Kenya Airforce officers were dismissed from the service, court-martialed and jailed, yet the main mastermind never spent a single day in jail. You will find out who this mastermind was in this week's Kumekucha Confidential. Subscribe now and get it Free (to subscribe just send a blank email to kumekucha-subscribe@yahoogroups.com now). Subscribe now and beat the rapidly approaching deadline after which an annual subscription for new subscribers will be charged. Those who subscribe before then will never pay a single cent.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

The Real Rulers Of Kenya Are Moi And Biwott

Some months back regular readers of this blog scoffed when I said here that one of the biggest hindrances to a new beginning in Kenya is retired president Moi. Many months later Kenyans have discovered how powerful Moi really is.

Who else can get the government to break the law it is supposed to uphold and carry out a shoddy so-called coup in Kanu and in broad daylight throw out the legitimate officials and replace them with a bunch of nobodies going nowhere? Persons totally bankrupt of any new ideas?

And it does not stop there. The government is clearly ready to confront and crash any move aimed at reversing what has happened in Kanu, even if it ends in bloodshed. After all what is the big deal if one or two rowdy ODM supporters die attending a demonstration that the government has already declared illegal?

However the big question Kenyans should be asking themselves is why can’t Moi bear to let go? What is he protecting? What is he hiding? Why is it that certain Kenyans seem to be so terrified of the Biwott/Moi camp? The same Biwott/Moi camp that has been linked to death threats on both the Goldenberg commission and the Sunguh committee that was set up to investigate the still unsolved murder of former foreign minister Robert Ouko? Incidentally nothing has yet come out of either set-ups which were run at great expense to the Kenyan tax payer. Does that in itself not tell you what is really happening.

My fellow Kenyans has it not yet dawned on you that Moi is still president? Oh yes, the de jure President is Kibaki, but the de facto president is definitely Daniel T. Arap Moi. Little wonder that nothing has really changed.

P.S. One other reason why Moi and Biwott are more powerful than Kibaki is because they have a "Mafia" to deal with people who don't play ball. Clean-politics President Kibaki does not.

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Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Biwott Faction Takes Over Kanu: The Danger That Looms For The Shaky Kibaki Administration

Nicholas Biwott spent a lot of cash last week but it certainly wasn't in vain. The Kerio South MP with quite a past is said to have virtually single-handedly financed the whole exercise of transporting over 4,000 Kanu delegates to Mombasa where they stayed at five star hotels and ate like kings. The whole Thing wouldn't have cost him less than Kshs 10 million. Phew!!

Uhuru Kenyatta and Kanu MPs allied to ODM also spent a lot of money hosting (mostly the same delegates who went to Mombasa, at Kasarani. The fact that it seems to have al been a waste of time, is no doubt one of the things that has made the Kenyatta faction so angry. My rough estimate is that Uhuru and company spent about Kshs 6 million.

There's lots of money in Kenya, you just need to know where to look.

But even as analysts try and fully understand what an official opposition leadership change actually means, there is a very clear danger ahead and all indications are that the shaky Kibaki administration is headed for yet another shaking. This was very clear from remarks made by both axed former Kanu chairman Uhuru Kenyatta and his sidekick, William Ruto. They said that they were waiting for Biwott to attempt to take over the instruments of the official opposition leadership, Nay, they in fact dared the Kerio South MP "to try".

Whatever happens, you can be sure that the Kenyatta camp that is currently seething with rage that will not be easily quenched is already plotting on how to go about exacting their revenge for the "under the belt" punch that they have just received from the Biwott faction. Uhuru Kenyatta has already ruled out going to court.

When you put the ODM-sympathetic MPs together with the aggrieved Kenyatta faction of Kanu MPs, you have enough numbers to cause plenty of mischief and even an attempted vote of no confidence in parliament against President Kibaki is not out of question.

It seems that parliament is going to be split right down the middle with two warring factions determined to go for nothing short of each others' jugular. Whatever happens it will certainly be a very interesting run up to the general elections.

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Many Who Have Messed With Nicholas Biwott Have Ended Up Dead.

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