Having not voted for Kibaki (even in 2002 he never had my vote) and Raila (I just don’t like him) too, I have been fence sitting and I have no plans of taking a position. It’s bad enough that some few matha fuckers from central decided that they have to stay in power … and worse still, still insist that they should hold on to power. The most logical thing for them to do is to have an agreement to ‘equally’ share the power … but common sense tells us that can never happen … especially to two people who are power hungry. Who are there for their own personal satisfaction, and more so to serve their own interest and not those of all Kenyans.
At one point, I was glad that Raila was going to be the president … for the sake of having a change, not that I thought he would change how Kenyans are governed for the better. But from the happenings of the last five weeks, specifically in Rift Valley … am certain had Raila been president, by the end of his five year term we would not be having a Kenya, coz of the massaca that is still going on. More so, now, if Kibaki does not play ‘smart’ there will be no Kenya left … the little that is remaining that is hanging by a thread.
One thing I know, there is no way Kibaki will agree to share his powers with Raila. Even will all the pressure and all that we will be screaming to him. As far as he is concerned, he is there to stay till 2012 and there is no way no one will change that. Assuming that an agreement is signed, just like the famous MOU, it will exist on paper and something different will done. What we all seem to forget is that once Annan & his team have left the country … it’s us who will be left to sort out our issues … they will not stand by Kibaki to make sure that what was signed will be implemented. But let also look the other side and assume that Kibaki will somehow agree to share power. When Annan leaves, do you believe that the two will agree to work ‘together’ for the sake of a better Kenya? Very unlikely … just like in the 2005 referendum we will be in for another show of MIGHT.
So, am asking you all, in which ever side of the divide you are to join me on the fence … I know its strong enough to accommodate us all … so that we can look at the issue that we are having on a higher ground. First of all, Kenyans do not deserve any of the two leaders; we are all better than that. But since ‘that’ is what we have, we currently have to work with them … not by taking sides but by really looking to what is best for all Kenyans.
I believe that the way forward is for Raila to accept that the sit was stolen from him … we all bitterly accept that and we start working to making sure that never happens again … ever. (I know many of you want to swallow me, but I can handle it since am online). Then after that we have to make sure that we have a new constitution. A constitutional change is what will solve all our issues … not any MOU or agreements made in hotels by the government and the opposition. And by a constitutional change I mean a constitution that will take care of all Kenyans interests … not some matha fuckers trying to show one another who is ‘stronger’. The constitutional change should not be spearheaded by any of the political leaders … but by groups with no political interests (or by honest fence sitters).
We then should for just one minute stop listening to the politicians and do our own thinking. We have made the political leaders feel like gods to us and treated them like people we can’t leave without. At times I think that were it not for the political leaders we would very far in terms development socially & economically. Let us stop politizing everything that comes our way … only then will we stop looking the politicians as our gods. We have the real God the only one who deserves to be treated like one. And for leadership we have some of the business people, our parents, elder brothers and/or sisters, some of the church leaders, some of our teachers, some of our lawyers, some of our political analyst, etc that we can look up to when we need guidance … but please not them political leaders!
With these I believe that from then on, things will start to fall in place and will be a smiling people again.
Any fence sitters?
No fence sitters this time. Kazi inaendelea...TOSHA...TENA...ENDELEA. Na COalition iko na ODM-K
ReplyDelete-Derek-
The way these GRUMPY GOON OLD MEN are acting, and I am talking about those holding onto power, are behaving like 5 years is an eternity. Then what after 5 years? Will they hold Kenya hostage again? Or try to force Uhuru unto Kenyans? It is time we call a spade a spade, where does this nonsense stop? Martha Karua calling Ambassadors and High Commissioners "Junior Officers in the order of pecking." They will get their day of reckoning. The can of worms that they have opened up, just to cling onto power for another measly 5 years, they behave as if 5 years is an eternity, wonder where they will run after it is all said and done.
ReplyDeleteYOU THE MOST FOOLISH PNU MEMBER I HAVE COME ACROSS- GET THIS STRAIGHT !!IT IS DONE THE COALITION GOVERNMENT IT WILL BE- IF KIBAKI REFUSES TO ACCEPT IT THEN HE IS OFF TO UGANDA
ReplyDeleteYOU THINK KENYANS AND THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITIES WILL LET HIM SIGN ON THEN LEAVE WITHOUT PUTTING THE MECHANISM IN PLACE?? THEN YOU ARE MORE THINK THEN I THOUGHT!!EVEN IF IT MEANS KENYANS HAVING INTERNATIONAL MONITORING ARMED PERSONAL TO HELP KENYAN PEOPLE TO MAKE SURE A COALITION IS IN PLACE IT WILL BE DONE!!
lISTEN CAREFULLY?? AMERICA we are doing it for the Kenyan people!!we have talked to the civil society and business sector and are all in agreement for a coalition government
So Shut up and stop your propaganda ati Kibaki might renegade on his agreement once the KOffi Annan leaves!! Then Kibaki will be picked so fast and removed from Kenya so fast that it will shock him!!!kibaki can't hold kenya and kenyans hostage to his power hungry greed!!!
THE DEALS KIBAKI HAS SIGNED WITH CHINA ARE IN YOUR MEDICINE CABINET!
ReplyDeleteKenyans have been listed among African consumers at highest risk of exposure to counterfeit drugs.
Findings of a recent study on the drugs market presented at the ongoing pan-African conference in South Africa indicates that many African governments lack the necessary mechanisms to curb the sale of counterfeit medicines.
“The responsibility of combating counterfeits should be the shared among relevant government agencies, manufacturers, distributors, health professionals, consumers and the general public,” said World Health Organisation (WHO) representative Moses Chisale.
In Kenya , a National Quality Control Laboratories (NQCL) and the Pharmacy and Poisons Board survey found that nearly 30 per cent of the drugs in the market are counterfeit.
The study that was done two years ago found that some of the drugs were no more than chalk or water, marketed as pharmaceutical products.
The situation has since worsened with the Kenyan Association of Pharmaceutical Industry estimating that some $130 million worth of counterfeit pharmaceutical products are sold in the market annually. Experts say counterfeit drugs expose consumers to an escalation in health conditions.
In Africa , concern has been rising over the treatment of malaria following the discovery that patients are being treated with medicines that contain no active ingredients.
Last year, a Chinese firm, Holley-Cotec Pharmaceuticals, was forced to recall 20,000 doses of its Duo-cotexin malaria drugs after it discovered that an illegal ring was manufacturing a version with low active ingredients and selling it at one fifth of the market price.
The ongoing conference, which is sponsored by American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, brings together customs officials, regulators, representatives of 10 sub-Saharan governments including Kenya, the WHO and the Pharmaceutical Security Institute.
Participants are discussing the threats that counterfeit medicines and unregistered generics pose to patients and is expected to develop joint control measures.
The WHO defines a fake or counterfeit drug as a medicine that is deliberately and fraudulently mislabelled with respect to its identity or source. Pfizer says in the last three years, global authorities have seized more than 30 million fake Pfizer tablets from counterfeiters, and enough active pharmaceutical ingredients to manufacture over 50 million more.
“We are committed as a company to do all we can to keep fake medicines out of the marketplace ,” said Karl Lintel, Pfizer’s regional director for Africa.
I agree totally with the last post! the person who is fencing is PNU and is trying to create fear in Kenya's that kibaki might renegade on the coalition agreement after he signed it.
ReplyDeleteI think the person is looking at the Narc power-sharing e.t.c. well that was a gentleman's agreement!! and Kibaki failed!! now do you think that Kenyans or the international community(WHO ARE AWARE OF THE PREVIOUS AGREEMENT) will allow this to happen again!! Kamiti is waiting- like Kenyans have said are are repeating every day?? kenya is not owned by Kibaki and his cronies!!it is owned by the people of Kenya!! and this time 2008!!Kenyans will get their wish!! not the whole wish!!as elections and democracy was stolen from them! but they will get a Platform through the coalition to put all the mechanism in place so that what happened in December 2007 will never ever happen again!!
Now I advise you to go back to your PNU members and KIBAKI and tell them it is a done deal!! if they renegade! they should head off to Uganda or Somalia or -book in KAMITI PRISON- no immunity!!
Sayra,
ReplyDeleteI feel you. Finally some balanced article! This is welcome relief from the war/rumour mongering that i have witnessed here. But sorry to disappoint you...they will skin you alive...just sample the comments above. Na bado.
JEFF
Sorry jamaa, until now, the president is Mwai. Even if there is a coalition with ODM (ODM-K are already in the coalition), KIbaki will be the one to run the show.
ReplyDeleteHe can choose to appoint a different man as prime minister. Say William Ole Ntimama. Whjat will happen after that. Kazi itaendela...
Then ODM, (OPPOSITION DAIMA MILELE or ODINGA DICTATORIAL MOVEMENT) walk out of the goverment. Na Kazi ya opposition iendelee...
-Derek-
Put your shit together Sayra. You have to vote for somebody next time. If you didn't vote for this suckers, then you have no right to argue. You are not one of us.
ReplyDeleteWacha;:):) this is funny a fencing:)
ReplyDeletethe person even abuses kikuyu's!! then adds they hate Kibaki and Kiabki is a thief!! then wait a minute then this individual after all this even calling Kibaki a thief goes on to say that Raila should accept that the elections were stolen from him and just move on- and even talks about Kibaki and his cronies will put a new constitution to work??
And that Raila should do this for the sake of Kenyans?? because Kibaki is not serious with the KOffi Annan lead talk and that he will sign the coalition government document which in fact he plans to renegade on!!!right!! this sums it up!!
Well my answers is Raila represents Kenyans who want democracy in Kenya and I totally agree with this individual that kibaki stole the votes- 2. Kenyan will never allow a thief and thug to control Kenya again.
3, Kenya and international community already know this is one of the plans Kibaki and his heard liners have in place- and Kenyans and International community have mechanism in place- Go tell Kibaki to try renegading we are waiting - I guess that is what Kenyans hope he does!so that we can remove him once and for all!! The world knows Kibiki with his cronies are a Sleazy bunch of greedy psychopaths
who have no interest of Kenyans at heart!!
Take a stand Sayra,
ReplyDeleteYou can see what the current fence sitter is doing.
You say...'So, am asking you all, in which ever side of the divide you are to join me on the fence … I know its strong enough to accommodate us all … so that we can look at the issue that we are having on a higher ground. First of all, Kenyans do not deserve any of the two leaders; we are all better than that. But since ‘that’ is what we have, we currently have to work with them … not by taking sides but by really looking to what is best for all Kenyans'. In the paragraph you stealthily accept the status quo. I call that a Cardinal Njue move. Biased impartiality
in the next paragraph you go on to infect us with more...'Then after that we have to make sure that we have a new constitution. A constitutional change is what will solve all our issues … not any MOU or agreements made in hotels by the government and the opposition. And by a constitutional change I mean a constitution that will take care of all Kenyans interests … not some matha fuckers trying to show one another who is ‘stronger’. The constitutional change should not be spearheaded by any of the political leaders … but by groups with no political interests (or by honest fence sitters)'...
Now if you accept that the elections were stolen (and you did). How do you expect us to trust the same person to write a fair constitution? What will stop Kibaki from staying in power come 2012 or some other bshitter pulling the same move in the future? I think your fence sitting move is not altruistic but another PNU move to stick illegitimately in power. Justice and equality are important. You can not commit a crime and tell the victims to cool down before they receive justice. You go on to accuse Raila of massacres in the rift valley without any evidence. There is however evidence of government killing citizens.
and that is me doing my own thinking not following politician. and I am not even in ODM
Coalition Government : Equal powers vested in Both:
ReplyDelete1;Prime Minister- President elect by people of Kenya:
2:President : Mpumbavu Mavi ya Kuku
Kibaki - Cloned by Michuki, Martha Karua, Saitoti, Karume e.t.c who whose hands will be tied down- in case his itchy fingers try to steal again from the Kenyan People- his cronies (Mungiki members will end up in Kamiti) send there by the people of the democratic country of Kenya-
Anonymous said...
Sorry jamaa, until now, the president is Mwai. Even if there is a coalition with ODM (ODM-K are already in the coalition), KIbaki will be the one to run the show.
He can choose to appoint a different man as prime minister. Say William Ole Ntimama. Whjat will happen after that. Kazi itaendela...
Then ODM, (OPPOSITION DAIMA MILELE or ODINGA DICTATORIAL MOVEMENT) walk out of the goverment. Na Kazi ya opposition iendelee...
-Derek-
You can cheat yourself that you are a fence sitter but there is none of that in this.
ReplyDeleteYou are either for the status quo or against it (either silently or actively).U may not like the pple on the side u support but that is irrevelant.
Kibaki is the only fence sitter.
ReplyDeleteIt's true that the fence sitter will not honour any agreement with any party. Even Kalonzo will be kicked in the ass to give room for a Mungiki friendly personality (in the name of Uhuru).
Kibaki will use Moi's tactics to rule. Name him a minister today and fire him tomorrow. Shoot him on the third day, and he is silenced for ever. THAT IS WHY HE WILL NOT ALLOW POWER-SHARING.
KIbaki is out to ruin Kenya forever. If you are patriotic stand up and be counted. Say NO to Kibaki. A new consti and a re-run will save Kenya. Otherwise Kenya will turn into a Mungiki terrorist state.
Now Now!!PNU stop being desperate! kweli go tell Kibaki time up - he is either with us- THE KENYAN PEOPLE- in the formation of a coalition government with the two opposition parties!!! OR NOT WITH THE KENYAN PEOPLE~ Then that means he should leave Kenya- we Kenyans will revoke his Kenyan citizenship plus all his cronies - to our understanding - Somalia and Uganda have already offered him citizenship- we strongly advise KIBAKI to take the Somalia offer- where his expertise are greatly needed.(SHOT TO KILL ORDERS AND- MUNGIKI GANGS -WILL THRIVE IN SOMALIA)
ReplyDeleteDEMOCRACY FOR THE PEOPLE OF KENYA IS A MUST!!!
I never agree with Sam Okello on anything, but he warned Kenyans about GEMA's big stomach in his novel, HER EXCELLENCY. GEMA's insatiable appetite for land, air and sea is the root of our problems. Now, do I agree with Okello's solutions? That's another matter.
ReplyDeletePlease let us listen to what Sam Okello is telling us at this critical juncture of our country's history,
Using a brilliant mixture of facts, foretelling, prophecy, wit and humor, Sam Okello managed to show that GEMA has an insatiable appetite for power.
The book, HER EXCELLENCY, which is a major expose of GEMA and Lucyy Kibaki, is a sober reminder of what can happen to a society when one group considers itself to have the sole stronghold of land, sea and air.
We should have our politics informed by sober analysis of issues. This book, by Sam Okello (this time not done together with Marianne Briner) is a classic of our times. It behooves us, young and old, all and sundry, to get ourselves a copy and read it.
I am glad I read this book, and I dont regret the decision. I am looking forward to read other good books written by a young and upcoming writer and social/political commentator and analyst, Sam Okello!
Let's prefer democracy to Mungikiism.
ReplyDeleteKenya is too precious to be allowed to sink into the Mungiki chaos.
Support Democracy Movements and changes that may save our country.
Panya Na Umbwa (PNU) is ONLY interested in killing and and stealing. Kazi iendelee means stealing to continue: slappings,Artur bros,Anglo-Leas,Goldenberg to continue...kazi iendele? Is Kenya worth this?
Tru Kenyan
Dear Sayra
ReplyDeleteA defeatist attitude will not serve Kenya well.
During Kenyatta's time, we all sat on the fence as Mzee Jomo Kenyatta stole land from his own people and practiced nepotism and tribalism in the highest order. During Moi's tenure, we all sat on the fence and for 24 years, Moi ruled Kenya with an unchallenged heavy fist! So in 2002, Kenyans collectively said enough is enough and they voted Moi out! If you remember correctly, without Raila's support, Kibaki would have never become President in 2002. As a true patriot, Raila put his own political ambitions and career on hold and rallied an entire country to vote for Kibaki. Once Kibaki was sworn in, he basically told Raila and any other non GEMA person to fuck off and suck his dick! Because of this, we will not sit on the fence! Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
We demand a change of the constitution which at this point, is more important than who is head of state.
We demand that the powers of the President be devolved.
We want MAJIMBOISM
We demand an equal if not greater share of ALL cabinet seats. After all, we are the majority in parliament.
Don't ask Kenyans to sit on the fence. So much has been lost since Kibaki and the Mt. Kenya Mafia rigged themselves back to power. The human sacrifice of all the men, women and children, indeed this freedom fighters should not be in vain. We must honor them by continuing to peacefully fight for justice and equality of all citizens.
SIT ON THE FENCE? NOT WITH MY ASS!
"It’s bad enough that some few matha fuckers......
ReplyDelete...not some matha fuckers trying to....."
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????!!
Anonymous Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteDear Sayra
SIT ON THE FENCE? NOT WITH MY ASS!
CLAP!!CLAP!!!CLAP!!!
thanks true Democratic Kenyan!I couldn't have said it any better!
Sayra, your article makes very little sense, when it's not incoherent, it's woefully ignorant. I suggest you spend some of your fence-sitting time dealing with the cobwebs closer to home.
ReplyDeleteJeff thanx ... at least there is one person who feels me.
ReplyDeleteI voted in last general election but my vote did not go to any of the two big loosers.
On saying that am a fence sitter i didn't mean sitting there doing nothing ... but we fence sit and look at the issues critically. We all know that both sides have their major problems that they themselves are not willing to sort.
I did not say that the constitution will be worked by the government ... but by none political groups.
Am still fence sitting.
Anon 11:53 AM - aka Sam Okello - stop praising your own books here. How desperate one has to be to continue in times like this to think about how to make money? Shame on you.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately we need political leaders. We need a system by which the country can be organized and run. Our parents, teachers, brothers, sisters etc etc are just that. Businessmen are in business to make money and will only guide us well if they're making some. You'll be surprised what they can turn to if their profits are threatened. As for church leaders, don't even go there. At the rate with which we're moving they might all be in parliament come 2012 and then they shall all fall under political leaders. And then we shall stop listening to them. And then.......... Anyway, the church is not leading it’s flock any more.
ReplyDeleteWhat we do need to cut back on is fanatical tribal loyalty. Note that I said fanatical. Otherwise tribal loyalty is here to stay and it’s one thing we’re better off accepting and looking for ways to utilize positively. We may try to go round it but tribe, almost obviously, is the reason why we do not have Luo MPs in Nyeri and yet we have some in Nairobi for example. Whether or not we listen to the leaders is a different story all together. The perpetrators of the mayhem we witnessed after the polls were not necessarily heeding a call from their MPs or preferred presidential candidate. Neither was it necessarily blind loyalty to tribe. Infact blind tribal loyalty was witnessed more on the thieving side. I too was seething with anger yet I have never seen any of my leaders or their agents up close let alone been incited by them. I believe that’s the case for many other Kenyans. The people were fighting for their own. They were watching and listening and the minute they got scorned they knew it. That was accumulated anger, frustration and resentment finally spewing out. It's unfortunate though that it was directed to innocent families, buildings and infrastructure that took years and lots of money to build.
As for the massacre being worse if Raila won the presidency, that is not something we can say with absolute certainty. Remember that anger from the stolen polls was the single most destructive spark. Of course there are the historical injustices and alienation of whole provinces by successive governments but the clearest spark was the stolen polls. So what if the presidency was not stolen? Would the people still have erupted into such rage and fury or would they have waited for a more organized systemic righting of the inequalities? I think the latter would have been the case.
I never agree with Sam Okello on anything, but he warned Kenyans about GEMA's big stomach in his novel, HER EXCELLENCY. GEMA's insatiable appetite for land, air and sea is the root of our problems. Now, do I agree with Okello's solutions? That's another matter.
ReplyDeletePlease let us listen to what Sam Okello is telling us at this critical juncture of our country's history,
Using a brilliant mixture of facts, foretelling, prophecy, wit and humor, Sam Okello managed to show that GEMA has an insatiable appetite for power.
The book, HER EXCELLENCY, which is a major expose of GEMA and Lucyy Kibaki, is a sober reminder of what can happen to a society when one group considers itself to have the sole stronghold of land, sea and air.
We should have our politics informed by sober analysis of issues. This book, by Sam Okello (this time not done together with Marianne Briner) is a classic of our times. It behooves us, young and old, all and sundry, to get ourselves a copy and read it.
I am glad I read this book, and I dont regret the decision. I am looking forward to read other good books written by a young and upcoming writer and social/political commentator and analyst, Sam Okello!
Hmm, where does someone start to critique your story - how do I leave the real world and join you in a fantasy world where you have clean politicians? For one, we have all sinned only that the magnitude of our sins varies. So to imagine that you can get clean politicans to work with is just that - imagination. To put it metaphorically, you wish that these two politicians should be locked in a political kamiti prison and the key thrown in the Indian ocean... You might find out that when you are through, you'll look at the next person and do the same thing, and finally, yourself! Everyone is inclined advance their interest - legally or otherwise. It is the law you operate that scare people from such indulgance.
ReplyDeleteTo acknowledge that the votes were stolen and do nothing about it just reminds about what some people said of one Simon M. wa Gachie in Kiambu. Do you remeber him? He went on a robbery and killing spree, but that was acceptable because he wasn't doing it to his kith and kin. It only became crime worth telling whoever cared to listen when he did that to his own people. Look at Simon's story in DN & EAS to jog your memory about what crime can do to people if they abet or condone it.
I hope you don't mean fence sitting of the kind the churches did - knowing and seeing bad things go on but keeping quiet - no difference to the kith and kin of one Simon M. of Gachie if you ask me.
Well said Wanjiku.
ReplyDeleteBut make no mistake , the Majority are starting to get tired of all these games despite the face saving window the minority has been handed. It will soon be made absolutely clear[ From within ] and in no uncertain terms that its time for order to prevail and Kenya to move forward. They either tow the line or they will be swept aside permanetly. Enough is enough - The tension out there is building and ready to explode, there is NO WAY of putting this genie back in the bottle.
all the above comments are by Marianne Briner. This woman is demented. She need a good slap from Lucy. Listen to her impersonating Jeff, Derek. Listen to her bringing a book... that has no relevance to this discussion. Can somebody stop this prostitute. She's messing up this blog.
ReplyDeleteMariane Briner, the prostitute, get lost. You are not even worth a penny.
And Stop using Sam's name on this blog. Sam is not cheap like you. Sam can advertise his books. He don't have to cheapen himself by wanting free press.
So Kumekuchans, you see a comment regarding, Derek, Jeff , Sam, some anons, it Marianne Briner the impersonator at work...this cheap pimp!
Fence sitting??????
ReplyDeleteJoin you and Kibaki Fance sitting?
WHy did kumekucha allow such an absurd article???
Anyway Sayra, I aint joining and by the way politicians are professionals, lawyers, engineers, civil society leaders na wengine wengi
So stop spreading your confusion and casting your dark net of ignorance on kumekucha
POLE _ Sit on the fence with the silent PNU supporters and opportunists like KAlonzo
Kumekucha please ban Jeff and Sam Okello and their PNU symptahisers from wasteful posts
Marianne Briner, stop right away. I mean stop. Do not and I say do not start bringing up Her Excellency on this blog. I'm warning you stop!. Again I repeat stop! You never learn. What did plagiarising this same work get you? I urge you Chris to delete comments that Marianne is trying to produce here on your blog regarding Her Excellency!
ReplyDeleteThanks Chris,
Hellen Okello(the real hellen Okello)
HOW I WAS RAPED BY JEFF KOINANGE--
ReplyDeleteAs I said before, he was dressed quite casual. I felt therefore a bit 'overdressed' and proposed to go to my room to change into something less fancy.
He agreed and asked if he could come up also since he needed to call his people before going out for dinner. I told him to give me 15 minutes so I could change before.
And then I made a big mistake: I had two passes for my room and I gave him one .... still feeling to be in total control of him.
I was still in the bathroom when he entered my room - not after 15 minutes as I had asked him, but after less than 5 minutes.....
Without any warning he opened the sliding doors of my bathroom - pulled me out telling me "Don't feel shy with me....."
And then the big shock: he was already naked .... he then pushed me on the bed and in seconds tried to enter me..... I struggled and asked him several times to stop - but he forced himself into me that's when he must have hurt me.
He held my arms down and started kissing me in a very brutal way - maybe he wanted to stop me from screaming.
He realized the pain in my face since he even made the remark, "Did I hurt you ? "
I started crying and begged him several times to stop. But he only said, "I can't - so just let me finish.." and continued.
Every move he made was like a knife cutting deeper and deeper into me ....... it was horrible.
When he finished - and yes, he even had an orgasm - he turned around and for a few minutes he was lying on his stomach next to me without saying one word.
He then got up and - still naked - he even made the phone calls he originally had come for. I heard him talking and even laughing to somebody for abt. 10 minutes.
I later checked the numbers he had called (the Hotel gave me the bills when I checked out). The first one was the London Office of CNN and the second - the call which lasted 10 minutes - was the private cell phone ( 020 - 76931670 ) of Alphonso van Marsh, CNN London.
After having finished his phone conversation and without even having used the bathroom to clean himself, he got dressed.
I then noticed that he did not even wear any pants - not even socks - just these black trousers, a sweater and a sort of black soft-leather boots.
He then turned around to me saying "I am sorry, but I have to go" - and just touching my cheeks - still wet from my tears - with his fingertips, he left......
After he had left, I then saw the blood on my body and on the bed sheets - and I had only one thought: to wash away this 'dirt' ....
Like if I was cleaning my body, I could also clean my mind and maybe even wash away the memory of what had just happened to me.
So in spite of still having pain, I took a shower and stayed under the running hot water for more than half an hour .......
( http://mariannebriner-distantlover.blogspot.com/2008/02/london-february-20-2007-part-2.html)
To all,
ReplyDeleteDerek here. Please I beg to sit on the fence at this particular time and whoever is up to some mickey mouse game should allow Hellen Okello get her PEACE.
With all due respect, I have just bumped into a post that talks about impersonation. Please leave me out of that and for another time, please let the Okellos have their peace. Honestly, it costs no dimme and whoever thinks he is up to any gain, should think again about it all. I only visit to catch up and enjoy by the sidelines and feel obliged to tell anybody, including the boring 'JEFF' imposter to STOP.
-Derek-
Marianne Briner, stop messing up our discussions with your cheap, sick stupid ....
ReplyDeleteThis pimp needs to take this trash from Kumekucha. Kumekucha is a distinguished blog....
ReplyDeleteAnonymous Wanjiku - Mombasa said...
ReplyDeleteWay to go Wanjiku!! WELL SAID!
I don't know you but I sense a person who is looking at ordinary Mwanaichi- it was not tribal when we lined up to cast our voted- that is why in places like Rift valley people were voted out(PNU)former MP- and replaced by MP's that Kenyans felt would serve their interest better? why then i
s nobody saying this?? WAS THIS TRIBAL?? nope KENYANS SPOKE WITH THEIR VOTE.
CHECK KABONDO WA KABONDO THE PEOPLE of Mukruwenyi wanted a change -and even when PNU refused him TICKET in thier party -he joined another party and he was still voted in because the people in that constituency used their voting power to change the status quo which PNU wanted.
Now for the PRESIDENCY majority of Kenyans spoke and they used their voting power to remove KIBAKI (it was not a close election as some would want to use that propaganda) Raila won out right with a majority vote- given to him by the people of Kenya who own Kenya! But then rigging happened we had thieves in place who were so seasoned that they put apparatus in place long before elcections
1. electrol commission offers were hand picked
2. Judges were picked just in case ODM was foolish enough to take the case to court
4. Police force from certian tribe and extras from Mungiki gang(memo found) were put on high alert and were informed that they were sure of kibaki's win- and ODMER'S people would hold demonstrations and they had to act swift by using all force necessary to stop them(this is when the shot to kill order was given)
4, reactivated Mungiki gang promised them immunity and posted them in Nyanza, Rift Valley, Western and coast province to cause the first initial Chao's to confuse Kenyans and cause unrest and fear so that Kenyans would be forced to toe the Line
5.Museveni of Uganda was consulted and asked for assistant to handle any "hooligan" (statement from source) trying to disrupt Kenyans peaceful and duly elected president Kibaki!! Kenyans this was even before the elections??
Statement from one PNU MP not kikuyu- said that they new they were not going to win reading the moods of Kenyan - him and other MP's discussed this and they felt the election come-out would match the referendum quote " some of us had already cleared our personal belonging from our offices, their is no way we saw PNU winning the elections"" end of quote!
So Behind the scenes a stage was set to rig the elections even before the process began.
Kenyans we must correct this by supporting the coalition government which will then work on with the Help of many brilliant Kenyans - a structure and implementation of a new constitution-
correct the judicial system(the newly appointed judges by kibaki must be removed since they were not there to look after the interests of Kenyans or uphold the law- they were there to serve one master-Kibaki)
KENYANS MUST AND I REPEAT MUST DEMAND FOR A COALITION GOVERNMENT IMMEDIATELY-no going backwards- there is only one way forward and it is called "DEMOCRACY" WHICH MANY INNOCENT KENYANS WERE KILLED FIGHTING FOR IT AND ARE STILL SUFFERING.!!
goog night pimp! marianne briner...at last you've gone to bed. wake up with another angle to this in the morning.
ReplyDeletewe can't wait to hear from your stinky mouth in the morning.
Hariddan, trollop, pimp, cheap steak, wrinkled pussy Marriane Please leave kenyans alone. go to your copoutry. as a paedophile, you can enjoy yoiung men and richer white men in your country. leavbe kenya to kenyans. dirty cunt
ReplyDeleteYes we are now aware through several sources that kibaki and cronies i.e MARTHA KARUA, MICHUKI, NGENGA KARUME,AND ALL THE LOT OF KIKUYU MAFIA LIKE MUHOHO, e.t.c planned the rigging and put the apparatus in place before the elections- the word they also paned out with the HELP of the nation newspaper and government media house is "TO CLOSE TO CALL" this way it would be very difficult for ODM to prove otherwise. and the rest they thought would be history!!
ReplyDeleteaha! but to the surprise and rude shock to the plotter's they never expected Kenyans to be that vigilant - you see they forgot that ODM WAS NOT for ONLY RAILA !! ODM was a party formed by most of the other tribes which form the rest of kenya- while PNU was a solid Kikuyu party with a few other tribes that were given the bread crumbs within the party (what I mean by that is no power)
Here we are with KENYANS VS KIBAKI IN THE COURT OF DEMOCRACY!!!
Dear Sayra
ReplyDeleteME TOO
I am fence sitting
YES i am fence sitting on the ODM side
You seem to be fence sitting on the Kibaki side...
and for JEFF and SAM
I am fence sitting on BRINER side
KENYANS MUST HAVE DEMOCRACY - innocent life's were lost fighting for democracy our last elections
ReplyDeleteAnglo leasing case is coming up and the government suddenly produced promisary notes from nowhere claiming that they have to pay the crooked companies- the same companies that gave wrong information(lies) and was in cahoots with some of the PNU MP's who are still in government today to steal more money from the kenyan people!!
it is a must must coalition government must be put in place and elections within 2 years to remove this PNU thieving thugs once and forall^^^^^^
Oh please *****
ReplyDeletewe know KIBAKI has to agree on a coalition government or else he is out in the cold!!who is trying to confuse who on Kumekucha??
Game on!!it is done deal!! Somalia awaits those who do not toe the Kenya coalition line!! Major General Uhuru Kenyatta is already in coalition with his Mungiki army!!
DID YOU SAY UHURU KENYATTA ALREADY JOINED to be part of THE COALITION GOVERNMENT MEDIATION OF KOFFI ANNAN??
ReplyDeleteI thought KANU is with PNU?? how then does UHURU negotiate seats outside the PNU umbrella???
Actually you are wrong regarding Uhuru(KANU) being with PNU they agreed not to field a president- but KANU as a party can go into Government of coalition directly with ODM if they choose to do so- it is only ford-k and any other party which signed the whole way with PNU that can't.
ReplyDeleteI maybe wrong but this is what I read in their marriage of convenience!
Anonymous said...
DID YOU SAY UHURU KENYATTA ALREADY JOINED to be part of THE COALITION GOVERNMENT MEDIATION OF KOFFI ANNAN??
Briner, Marianne aka Mrs.Biwott, you know what time it is!
ReplyDeleteI say Marianne Briner, you need to stop talking! go tuck your daughter aka vet. under the covers...she's cold.
ReplyDeleteKumekucha is our distinguished blog. Marianne , we will not let you cheapen the blog of the people---Kumekucha.
ReplyDeleteTHE BOMAS DRAFT
ReplyDeleteThe document that the National Constitutional Conference adopted in 2004 — popularly known as the Bomas Draft —proposed radical changes to share executive power.
It suggested that executive authority be vested in the President, deputy president, prime minister and ministers.
Under the current Constitution, only the President exercises such power.
The Bomas Draft, a brainchild of the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission, created two chambers of Parliament— the National Assembly and the Senate.
According to the draft, the President would be Head of State and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.
The head of Government is the prime minister.
ODM is believed to be pushing for the implementation of the Bomas draft to solve the political crisis.
PNU is, however, opposed to the move and reportedly favours a non-executive prime minister with the President as both Head of State and Head of Government.
The Bomas Draft says the President appoints the leader of the largest political party in Parliament as the PM.
But if the leader of the party with the parliamentary majority or coalition is unable to command the confidence of Parliament, the President shall appoint an MP, who is the leader of the second largest parliamentary party or coalition.
In case the two options are not viable, the President may also propose another MP and Parliament may approve such a member as PM.
The Bomas Draft denies the President powers to fire the PM and other ministers. It says the President may propose to the House the dismissal of the PM. The President can only sack the PM if such a proposal is approved by 50 per cent of the MPs.
According to the Bomas Draft, the Cabinet, which is approved by the President but constituted by the prime minister, consists of the premier, two deputy prime ministers and ministers.
All members of the Cabinet must be MPs. To prevent a bloated Cabinet crafted for political expediency, it limits the number of ministers, saying they should not be less than 15 and not more than 20.
Parliament can push for the removal of a minister if a Motion of no confidence is approved by more than 50 per cent of MPs.
The President, on the recommendation of the prime minister, shall appoint a Secretary to the Cabinet.
To be implemented, the President and Prime Minister must sign a Cabinet decision.
The President assents to Bills passed by Parliament, but the Prime Minister is expected to implement the Acts of Parliament.
The Bomas Draft fixes the election date for the President on the second Tuesday in August of every fifth year. He/she shall be elected by direct suffrage through a secret ballot.
Every presidential candidate would be required to nominate a running mate, who would automatically become the deputy President in the event of victory for the camp.
The winning presidential candidate should garner more than 50 per cent of the total votes cast and, in addition, receive a minimum 25 per cent of the votes cast in more than half of the regions.
If none of the candidates meet this requirement, a re-run shall be conducted within three weeks between the top two candidates and the one who receives majority votes declared winner.
Presently, the candidate who gets majority votes and in addition garners 25 per cent of votes cast in at least five provinces is declared winner.
Members of the largest parliamentary party or coalition that does not form the Government shall elect the Official Leader of Opposition from their ranks.
The Bomas draft proposes the district as the principal level of devolution and establishes a district government for each district.
The Senate provides an institution through which the devolved levels of government formulate and enact national legislation and protect the interests of the regional, district and locational governments.
The President’s functions are largely ceremonial and include presiding over State functions such as addressing the opening of each Parliament.
Mayors and their deputies would also be elected directly by the electorate if the Bomas draft were to be enforced.
Currently, councillors conduct mayoral elections.
Accountability, and Agency
ReplyDeleteTu quoque is the last refuge of every scoundrel. When everybody is guilty, no one really is. Or so the Kibaki junta wants you to believe. Even as evidence mounted of their theft, Kibaki’s PNU manufactured the meme that the ODM was as guilty of rigging. No matter that if this were the case then it supported the case for a recount. No matter that any rigging would prima facie be in favor of the incumbent who is in control of state machinery. No matter that this does not address the doctoring of results at ECK headquarters.
KENYAN REMINDING PNU HOW THEY RIGGED 2007 ELECTIONS AND DENIED KENYANS THEIR DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS!!
ReplyDeleteKenya crisis: EU releases details of doctored votes
Details of doctored votes in the just-ended polls were released yesterday by European Union observers, who declared that Kenya's General election fell short of democratic standards and lacked transparency.
A report by the European Union observer mission, which sent out 152 officials to monitor voting in different parts of the country, said there was a "lack of transparency" in the tallying of results which gave President Kibaki victory, raising doubt about their accuracy.
It says "serious inconsistencies and anomalies" in results announced by the ECK led to differences between the presidential results for Kieni and Molo issued at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre and those reported by its EU chief observer was shown result forms for Lari and Kandara which had been altered while in Kerugoya there was difference of more than 10,000 in the number of presidential and parliamentary voters.
It says competition among the election candidates in the national elections was uneven, as some abused state resources while the state controlled Kenya Broadcasting Corporation was biased in its coverage of the campaigns.
The report, which was presented to the media by the observer mission head Alexander Lambsdorff, tells of the difficulties faced by its officials in obtaining results from Returning Officers at most polling station in Central Province and Coast.
Cases of Results being withheld and only being released to observers after confirmation by ECK officers in Nairobi occurred in Mathioya, Kaloleni, Mvita, Kisauni, Changamwe, Likoni and Central/North Imenti.
A number of party agents reported that they had been denied copies of result forms while forms in Kangema were signed only by an agent of the Party of National Unity.
Now the observation team is calling for an independent audit of the presidential votes.
Speaking at an international press conference held at Hotel Intercontinental, Mr Lambsdorff, said it was up to Kenyans to decide on the composition of the audit team and duration the investigations will take.
It is also up to Kenyans to decide what action they will take based on the outcome of the investigations. Our job is to let the facts speak for themselves without speculation or conjecture, he said.
Mr Lambsdorff said problems in the electoral process began after the close of the polls, EU observers being turned away from tallying centres, particularly in Central Province, without being given results and being denied access to the tallying room at the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) headquarters.
Whilst the results of election were announced, the official figures for all the constituencies are still not available and adequate measures have not been taken at all levels to ensure the results can be correlated in the public domain,� the report adds.
According to Mr Lambsdorff, in Molo the figure released at the counting hall at the constituency level was that President Kibaki had garnered 50,145 votes, but the national figure released by the ECK showed the head of state received 75,261.
The presidential votes tally released in Kieni constituency level showed Mr Kibaki had received 54,337 votes, while the national figures announced by ECK chairman, Mr Samwel Kivuitu showed he had garnered 72,054.
Mr Lambsdorff said in North Imenti, after the counting of parliamentary and civic votes were completed, returning officers postponed tallying to the following day saying they were too tired to continue.
In Thika, he said, counting of presidential votes was stopped at one oclock in the night without any explanation and in Nyer EU agents were told that they could only get the results of the presidential election after the returning officer returned from Nairobi.
Mr Lambsdorff said the uncharacteristically higher voter turnout in Central province and Nyanza also raised queries that needed further investigation.
Turnouts higher than 90 per cent were observed in a number of polling stations namely in Central and Eastern Province. In Maragua, ECK officials informed the EU observation team that there were some doubts regarding the high turnout, the EU interim report said.
Central is the home turf of President Kibaki, while Nyanza is the birth place of ODM's presidential candidate Raila Odinga.
The report says at the ECK headquarters, the EU team chief observer was shown forms on which the election results for constituencies 205 (Lari) and 096 (Kandara) had been changed.
It was unclear by whom, where and especially when these changes were made, the document adds.
The document says it was not possible to verify whether the signature of the party agents was included before or after the changes.
The team's deputy observer, Mr Graham Elson, expressed disappointment with the electoral process saying Kenya failed to maintain the standards it had set in the 2002 General Election and the referendum and was only comparable to Nigeria.
The EU team had about 150 observers comprising short term and long term election observers. On the polling day the team managed to observe a total of 752 polling stations on the election day.
It says candidates agents were present in nearly all polling stations visited, however, according to the report, there was a tendency of over-representation by PNU or ODM agents in the strongholds of the two parties.
The aggregation of results in the tally centres were delayed and also lacked transparency in many constituencies, the 15-page interim report adds.
The report cites a complaint by the ECK chairman Kivuitu that some returning officers were reported to have disappeared after the completion of the tallying process in their constituencies. A comprehensive report will be released in February.
THIS ARE THE VERY SERIOUS REASONS WHY COALITION GOVERNMENT IS A MUST TO CLEAN OUT THIS THUGS WHO PLAN TO MESS KENYAN!!!!!
ReplyDeleteSecret Meetings held to dupe and bribe!
Uhuru Kenyatta's double-speak about his ambition to become Kenya's President after Kibaki is no surprise. Uhuru Kenyatta is the chosen heir in an elaborate plan by Mt. Kenya politicians to ensure that the Presidency stays with the community beyond 2022. A group of Mt. Kenya politicians have planned how Uhuru will take over the Presidency in 2012 whether Kibaki wins another term or not in December 2007.
Before PNU was formed, Kibaki had held a series of secret meetings with top leaders from Central Province to chart the way forward for the future of the Kikuyu Community after 2007. The meetings started as early as April this year when the Kibaki men realized that he had no credible party that could see him get re-elected. Purely Mt. Kenya outfits Narc-Kenya and DP were at the time pressuring him to adopt their ticket amid dissent from non-Kikuyu ministers.
Notably, while the politicians were of the impression that Kibaki should join either of the two Mt. Kenya parties, Kibaki's golfing baddies now entrenched in government, parastatals and in Mt. Kenya owned TransCentury share-trading and acquisition company were busy working on a formula that would see Kibaki re-elected at the same time ensuring that the presidency remains with the Kikuyu beyond 2012.
Handwritten minutes of meetings show that the planners - the athuri group - are so secret that even members of the Ameru and Aembu are not included. The argument is that these communities will obviously support a Kikuyu come 2012 because they have no option. To this end, it was agreed that Kiraitu Murungi and David Mwiraria be returned to the cabinet to ensure "they are for ever grateful" and to win the loyalty of the Ameru. It came as no surprise that it was Lucy Kibaki who made hints of their return which was effected speedily. Minutes show the group nicknamed itself "athuri".
About the same time, the athuri secretive group comprising of Kibaki as chairman, Njenga Karume and John Michuki as alternate chairmen, Mary Wambui, Jimmy Kibaki, Judy Kibaki, Eddy Njoroge, George Muhoho, Stanley Murage, Nat Kangethe, Bishops Arthur Gitonga and George Gathii, and Cyrus Gituai (PS OP) were holding meetings with the retired president Moi's group of Nicholas Biwott, Ezekiel Bargetuny, Gideon Moi, Sila Yego and Uhuru to layout the post-Kibaki succession plan.
Ready to play ball as usual were Luhya leaders in the then GNU. A plot was hatched to have Ford-Kenya take the lead in the formation of PNU thereby hide the true intention of the Mt. Kenya boys. In one meeting it was agreed that Musikari Kombo was more pliable, weak and dumb enough to be used. That Kombo was weak on his Western Province turf after invasion by ODM was cited as reason enough for him to play errand boy without question. "Nyamu eno ahoyaga matigio. Reke tomuhe ihindi" (this animal worships leftovers. Let's give him a bone to chew), Kibaki is said of Kombo in reference to empty departments given to Kombo's cronies after he threw a tantrum following a post-referendum new cabinet in 2005.
Not surprisingly, in a recent tour of Western Province, Kibaki told Kombo and company including Moody Awori that he will include him in his cabinet. It was strange given that the president found it necessary to make this promise when all parties under PNU should automatically be in Cabinet after elections. Was this an attempt to stem some disquiet regarding the president's mean trick of short-changing partners? Was this reassurance to Kombo and meant to appease Luhya voters who have lost faith and trust that Kibaki, an introverted tribalist, can never honour a promise? Problem is, there is no party Kombo can use to negotiate for positions in the post-elections cabinet. This is because Ford-Kenya has been swallowed by PNU and is fielding no candidates!
Earlier, in the athuri meeting, it was also argued that Kombo's never-ending ambition to be "given" the vice presidency was a great enticement to have him play blind ball. His desperation for money was also used fully. No less a person than his nemesis Soita Shitanda of Malava has accused Kombo of being in PNU for the money. It is instructive that while all parties under PNU have their own candidates, only Ford-Kenya failed to field a single candidate of its own. The ECK register shows that all Former Ford-Kenya MPs in Bungoma, including Kombo are running on PNU. It means that Ford-Kenya is finally dead.
That's how the equally quick-to-please Noah Wekesa was recruited to lead a façade of forming PNU while the backroom Muthaiga boys worked on a parallel plan. It is notable that immediately Wekesa thought he had clinched it with PANU, the Mt. Kenya boys took it over renamed it PNU and got busy swallowing all the other parties other than Kanu. Wekesa's cries of betrayal were to no avail. His boss Kombo, as usual was more interested in the cash handouts that comes with "horse trading" than protecting his sidekick or the interests of Ford-Kenya.
Back to the issue of the Kibaki succession, Uhuru finally agreed to join the Kibaki team but was given enough concessions as the heir-in-waiting: First, Kanu would field independent candidates but who will be funded by PNU to ensure Kanu becomes strong since PNU would disintegrate by 2009 and a win or lose by Kibaki would have prepared Uhuru to inherit the Mt. Kenya vote. Second, the bad blood between Uhuru and Moi over his association with ODM would be cleansed by the appointment as ministers of Gideon Moi, Nick Salat, Paul Sang and Nicholas Biwott in a Kibaki government. As it were only Paul Sang got the appointment earlier than after the elections. These appointment promises remain intact for after 2008 and are the reason Moi and company are campaigning hard for Kibaki in Rift Valley. Third, through such association with Moi's boys and should Kibaki lose, Kanu would have re-established a foothold in Central Kenya and the Rift Valley, and with Moi's support in the Rift Valley, Uhuru will be president and Gideon Moi the vice in 2012.
When it came to other communities and other competitors, the athuri prevailed upon Kibaki to abandon the ambitions of Awori, Kombo, Kituyi, Saitoti, Martha Karua and Kirwa as inconsequential. This was after Kibaki was presented with secret research evidence from Mutahi Ngunyi, who has since moved to State House. Mutahi reported that other than Karua, the pretenders to the throne would all loose their seats in the 2007 elections. Chipped in Karume in reference to Karua "Mwari wa muthambia kioro afataire kuihura/kuithambia mbere...." (The daughter of a toilet cleaner should wipe herself first!) – a derogatory reference to Kirinyaga people whom mainstream Kikuyu refer to as toilet cleaners. The slur was acquired in colonial times when the Kirinyaga dominated the city council cleansing department).
As for Saitoti, it was felt that he was an outsider who carried too much baggage from the Goldenberg scum. He was seen to be "disloyal" in his earlier announcement that he would vie against Kibaki in this year's elections. The Kiambu Muranga axis of the athuri felt that Saitoti ambitions for 2012 did not augur well for Uhuru. Michuki reported he had met Moi who has no time for his former VP, and that consideration of Saitoti would antagonize Moi whom Saitoti blamed for the Goldenberg theft.
To placate Moi, the athuri minutes report to Kibaki refers to " Gacamia/Gathakaria ga gukenia Moi" (or a sweetener to appease Mzee Moi). It has now emerged that the sweet for Moi is a plot to ensure Saitioti looses the Kajiado North parliamentary seat. It is with this hindsight the Saitoti is under siege from DP's Lee Kinyanjui and blames "someone" in PNU. And Saitoti is very uncomfortable at the moment with the Kibaki Group even going as far as claiming that PNU wants him to loose the Kajiado North seat. These fears are well founded as the athuri feel that Saitoti is an outsider in Central Province and therefore not the best bet for the Presidency even after Kibaki.
Part of their minutes show the athuri discussed ways of dealing with the imminent fallout with other communities in 2012. The Luhya as a community are dismissed as peaceful and would be grateful for anything. Kombo despite promises was ruled out as a running mate. Moody's influence in Western Province was found lucking and Kombo, Kituyi and Wekesa were seen to have succumbed to the ODM wave in the Province. " Manegere Mathagu ma guku na nimakurota kuubuka", (Give them some chicken wings and they will dream of flying), Michuki is quoted dismissing any worries about Luhya support for Kibaki.
The meeting thus decided that " Gutuma atongoria abaluhya mecirie nimakugia ufata munene kuri thirikari Kibaki ashinda'( to give the Luhya leaders the impression that they will be a major part of Kibaki's government if he wins). The emphasis was that these leaders should be made to work for Kibaki since their worth as vote-getters had diminished. This seems to be the "decoy" assurance Kibaki was promising on his recent tour.
When PNU was taken over, it was decided that Kibaki give other parties like Ford-Kenya and Ford-People, the illusion that they are part of PNU. Only Kombo took this bait and Ford-K is the only party that is headed to oblivion in the PNU. Secretly, Kikuyu parties like Safina, Narc-Kenya and DP were to be allowed to "revolt" and field candidates in their own names in the nominations. Kombo is being made to believe that he is a co-owner of PNU and therefore a future VP. However, in a telling game of juggling the liver ala Michuki, the athuri have argued that after elections, Ford-Kenya would be dead. The plot was to ensure Kombo got money to stand on PNU and let Ford-Kenya die. It is interesting that the ECK lists Kombo and his Bungoma cohorts as all standing on PNU!
Hence, the Kibaki athuri hatched a plot to keep all the non-Kikuyu members of PNU hopeful. However, the confidential athuri minutes show that after the elections and incase Kibaki wins, he will form an alliance with Kalonzo Musyoka as VP because Kibaki will only have Kikuyu MPs. The athuri also argue that most other provinces are already lost to ODM and there will be no need to reward "aragoli" (Mt. Kenya name for the Luhya) after they reject Kibaki.
According to Mutahi Ngunyi's brief, to boost turnout, all Kibaki needs to do is ensure large turnouts in Central where the "unattached voter" will be helped to vote. This is reference to double registration occasioned by national IDS numbers being shared by several voters and those also of dead voters given to other people. It is quite alarming that most cases termed "double registration" by the ECK are actually ID numbers of other voters outside Mt. Kenya and the dead ones now given Kikuyu names and allocated voters cards. The rigging ploy is that while the original holder of the legitimate ID number will be denied voting because of double registration, the imposter in Central Kenya will have voted.
While analyzing the situation in Rift Valley, the athuri considered the consequences of naming Kipruto Kirwa as Kibaki's running mate, an idea they said originated from a meeting former President Daniel Arap Moi had held with Narc-Kenya chairman Raphael Tuju in Nakuru in October. Moi had argued that promising Kirwa a running mate position to Kibaki (without intending to make him VP) would clip the ODM wave in Rift Valley. This, it is explained, would make Kalenjins vote for Kibaki since former Eldoret North MP William Ruto who is a member of the powerful ODM Pentagon is not Raila Odinga's running mate.
But Moi's suggestion was rejected as the athuri argued that it would be very difficult to dump Kirwa after the elections were he to be named the running mate. Mutahi argued that Uhuru's support from the Kalenjin in 2012 would be jeopardized as the Kalenjin would rebel again. " Dukayihie mbogo ithitio. Nitutihitie andu aya maita meri matikugueterera gutihio ka gatatu", warned Ngunyi, who is married to a Kalenjin, in his presentation. Loosely translated, it means "Never underrate a wounded Buffalo. We have wounded these chaps twice – using them in 2002 against Moi and firing them after for Moi's mistakes. They will not wait for a third wound". The athuri finally decided that the VP slot should be left vacant and dangled to all communities especially the Luhya and the Kalenjin to vote for Kibaki.
Apparently, while Kibaki needs Moi's help, the athuri acknowledge that Moi is a danger given the Kroll Report, which revealed that the former President and his family looted public coffers more than Kshs.130 billion. They have decided to restrict Moi to campaigns against ODM in Rift Valley where they believe corruption by Moi is not an issue. Yet some members in the group are cautious with this arrangement arguing that it may backfire and hurt Kibaki on the platform of Corruption. It is with this in mind that an anxious Moi, whose moles had leaked the reservations by the athuri to him, met Kibaki at State House Nakuru for 45 minutes on November 29, 2007.
Sources reveal that Moi wanted assurance that Kibaki would not renegade on a secret deal never to prosecute Moi and his family for crimes committed during his era. To secure protection Moi secured a free ride to Parliament for his sons and his private sectraty, John Lokorio in three constituencies on a Kanu ticket. Moi who had just arrived back from Ethiopia contributed Kshs3 billion to Kibaki's campaign kitty.
However, a clever Moi said the money will be used by him in Kibaki Tena campaigns in Rift Valley against Raila. Moi is now funding all the pro-Kibaki candidates in the province. It is also believed that it is from this money that leaflets against Raila are being produced and distributed in Rift Valley.
The more dastardly of the cash use is the funding of ethnic clashes in Molo. Kikuyu and Kalenjin youth are being paid to kill and burn houses belonging to Kisii migrant workers in the area in an attempt to cut down ODM votes in the native Kisii-Nyanza. The pro-Kibaki media have deliberately chosen to focus on source interviews and name-tag captions showing the Kisii as the victims. Yet this is not new. It is the third phase after the failure when government ignited ethnic flare-ups on the Kisii-Kalenjin border at Sondu mid this year as the ODM wave hit fever pitch in the country. The second phase failed where widows and orphans would be paid to parade themselves as victims of ethnic clashes in Kisii. It looks like Moi has now gone for the real ones by igniting the Kuresoi killings.
CENTRAL PROVINCE, Kenya—On the hillsides, tea is still being picked; in the valleys, women still weed rows of beans, feet stained ocher by the soil; and in downtown Nyeri, the matatu taxi vans still honk by custom. The only immediate hint that something is amiss is to be found on the veranda of the Outspan Hotel. Despite boasting one of Africa’s most stunning views—Mount Kenya stretches serenely on the far side of the plains—the Outspan is strangely quiet these days; most of its tourists have fled.
ReplyDeleteIf Kenya is ablaze, it’s almost possible to miss that fact in Central Province. A few hours’ drive west, machete-wieldingMwai Kibaki youths blockade roads, shops have been looted, and refugee camps spring up like mushrooms. At first glance, the country’s most serious crisis since independence has barely dented the banal routines of daily life.
There’s a reason for this. Central Province is the home of President Mwai Kibaki—his Othaya constituency lies just south of Nyeri. While his Kikuyu kinsmen have been burned alive and lynched across the rest of Kenya, punished for his suspected rigging of the December elections, only a madman would dare lift a hand to a Kikuyu on his home turf.
But that doesn’t allay a crawling sense of unease. The relationship between the Kikuyu and the rest of Kenya has been warped, residents sense, possibly beyond repair. Nyeri’s inhabitants are haunted by a more immediate fear. Most of the 300,000 people displaced in the violence are Kikuyus. Even as nervous Luos cluster for protection in local police stations, hundreds of Kikuyus are returning, demanding housing, work, and school places. “At the moment people are telling those displaced to stick where they are, because there is great land scarcity here,” says Muthui Mwai, a Nyeri journalist. “No one wants them back.”
Land scarcity is the leitmotif of the Kikuyu, the historic source of their anguish and the motivating force behind their success story. Accounting for around 22 percent of Kenya’s population of 38 million, the Kikuyu’s mark on the East African nation has been far greater than the figures imply, thanks to that driving hunger.
Under Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta, another kinsman, they streamed out of Central Province, settling in the Rift Valley and on the coast. Today, they dominate the economy. Kikuyus drive most of Kenya’s matatus and its taxis, run its newspapers, and constitute much of its civil service, their entrepreneurial reach extending from the glitziest of hotels to the remotest roadside duka (kiosk). They also, joke Kikuyus, account for the biggest share of the country’s criminals and prison inmates.
They hail themselves as “the Jews of Kenya,” envied and hated in equal measure for that entrepreneurial zeal. But there’s a difference: Europe’s Jews never combined economic influence with political power. The Kikuyu have done just that,kenyatta providing two of Kenya’s three presidents. And their current predicament can be traced to that double-fisted grip on the nation-state and the resentment it stirs among their compatriots.
The Kikuyu story, legend has it, begins on a ridge north of the town of Muranga, south of Nyeri, amid the misty valleys carved by Mount Kenya’s melting snows. To the precolonial Kikuyu, Mount Kenya, known as Kirinyaga, was the seat of God, or Ngai. Ngai created Gikuyu—the first man—then pointed earthward. “Build your homestead where the fig trees grow,” he said. Later, he sent Mumbi to join him, and the couple established the 10 clans that constitute “the house of Mumbi,” as the Kikuyu are also known.
You can actually visit this Kikuyu version of the Garden of Eden. Behind a sky-blue gate, painted with the words Mukurwe Wa Nyagathanga—the Tree of Gathanga—lie two mud huts, one for Gikuyu and one for Mumbi. The site looks toward Kirinyaga, but the mountain, famously elusive, is usually shrouded in cloud.
The compound may be an officially designated historical monument, but it looks semineglected. The skeleton of a half-built hotel, abandoned when a shady contractor disappeared with the funds—”This, too, is part of our culture,” jokes a villager—drips water nearby. In my many trips there, I’ve never stumbled on another visitor. “It’s not our way to look backward, only forward,” explains my Kikuyu driver.
The farming community that fanned out from this site had a special affinity with the soil. “There is a great desire in the heart of every Gikuyu man to own a piece of land on which he can build his home,” Kenyatta wrote in Facing Mount Kenya. “A man or a woman who cannot say to his friends, come and eat, drink and enjoy the fruit of my labour, is not considered as a worthy member of the tribe.”
It was this affinity that brought the Kikuyu into conflict with the British Empire. Initially, Britain’s 19th-century explorers showed little interest in the area that would be designated “Kenya,” training their eyes instead on the Buganda kingdom across Lake Victoria. Central Province’s fertile valleys were simply the place to stock their caravans with fresh food before the long trip west.
But with time, Kenya itself became the draw. Most of the land that British settlers appropriated belonged to the nomadic Masai, not the Kikuyu, but it was the Kikuyu who led an armed insurrection, Mau Mau, in the 1950s. With their fast-growing population, the Kikuyu needed room to expand. The British had removed that possibility by farming the White Highlands. British Capt. Richard Meinertzhagen claimed to have seen what was coming. “They are the most intelligent of the African tribes that I have met; therefore they will be the most progressive under European guidance and will be the most susceptible to subversive activities,” he wrote.
Mau Mau has left its scars, psychological if not physical. At least 150,000 Kikuyus passed through British detention camps, and more than 20,000 Mau Mau fighters died in combat. Central Province’s residents can still point out the caves where the freedom fighters hid and sketch the location of the British prisons and scaffolds where they were executed—in Nyeri’s case, on what is now the golf club’s parking lot.
Seeking scapegoats in that turbulent past, many older inhabitants insist today’s troubles are the work of a British government that has never forgiven the Kikuyu their revolt. Now the Brits are supposedly the hidden hand behind Luo leader Raila Odinga’s opposition campaign. “This is not a war between Kenyans, it’s a war imported from abroad,” fumes Joseph Karimi, co-author of The Kenyatta Succession. “The British were not satisfied with the rule of the Kikuyu, so they brought in this war. They never actually left Kenya and they never intend to.”
If the British won the fight against Mau Mau, the Kikuyu won the peace. When Britain pulled out in 1963, it was Kenyatta, once jailed as a Mau Mau leader, who became president, his community that took pole position. Forced proximity with the colonial administration and the proliferation of missionary schools in Central Province meant the Kikuyu were better educated than other Kenyans and best placed to benefit from independence. What’s more, they enjoyed the president’s patronage. “My people have the milk in the morning, your tribes the milk in the afternoon,” Kenyatta told non-Kikuyu ministers who complained.
The Kikuyu, outsiders feel, have been rubbing other communities’ noses in their pre-eminence ever since. “We’re obnoxious, we’re thrusting, we’re loud, and we’re everywhere,” acknowledges a Kikuyu banker friend. “Our problem is there aren’t enough of us to dominate, yet we’re too large to ignore. We are at once both obnoxious and indispensable.”
Although Kenyatta’s successor, Daniel arap Moi, systematically crushed Kikuyu aspirations while promoting his own Kalenjin, the community still thrived economically. Hence the conviction, voiced by snarl-toothed elders and fresh-faced undergraduates alike in Central Province, that only the Kikuyu—the community that stood up and defied the white invader—deserve to run the country.
I hear the familiar refrain in a hotel bar in Muranga, whose wall, significantly, is decorated with framed photographs of Kenyatta and Kibaki, but not of Moi. “If you did an experiment and took five Luos, five Luhyas, five Kambas, and five Kikuyus and gave them money to invest, you would see the result,” boasts John Kiriamiti, who publishes a Muranga newspaper. “The Kikuyu would be far, far ahead.” His business partner, Njoroge Gicheha, chimes in. “You cannot compare a fisherman in Nyanza who simply pulls a fish from the lake to a farmer who plants beans in Central Province and waits six months to harvest. The fact is, we work harder than other Kenyans.”
It’s this bumptious sense of entitlement that infuriates Kenya’s 47 other tribes. But, with the exception of two bouts of ethnic cleansing in the 1990s, irritation was largely held in check under Moi, a topic of good-natured banter rather than abuse.
That changed with the 2002 elections that first put Kibaki in power. A consensus candidate backed by a broad tribal coalition, he swiftly reneged on promises of a new constitution devolving power to the regions. The pledge of a prime minister’s post for Odinga, the man who probably lost December’s elections, was withdrawn. As the tribal coalition disintegrated, Kenyans noticed that key ministries were all held by members of what they dubbed “the Mount Kenya Mafia.” Far from challenging Kenyatta’s system of ethnic favoritism, Kibaki reinforced it.
While Western donors relished Kibaki’s 6 percent to 7 percent growth rates, the mood on the ground was grim. The fact that Central Province’s milk, tea, and coffee industries surged ahead while other regions remained marginalized did not go unnoticed.
kibakiBoth sides helped whip low-level ethnic resentment into today’s frenzied hatred.
Odinga raised the stakes by preaching majimboism. Majimboism means federalism, a system many might think well-suited to over-centralized Kenya. But to Odinga’s supporters, it was a code word for something very specific: Kikuyus with plots or businesses in non-Kikuyu areas would be forced out and sent “home.”
In Central Province, Kikuyu MPs seized on the majimboist threat to foster a siege mentality. Rumors of a project to slaughter 1 million Kikuyus circulated like wildfire. “The amount of fear-mongering [texts] and e-mails was stupendous,” says Kwamchetsi Makokha, a columnist for the Nation newspaper. “It became a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you set the stage where a single community has isolated itself, what follows is a feeling of resentment by others, of ‘what’s so special about you?’ “
There was nothing random about the violence that exploded with the announcement of a Kibaki win. Deciding that the Kikuyu intended to rule Kenya indefinitely, Luos in the Western town of Kisumu looted Kikuyu shops, while Kalenjin militias drove Kikuyus from Rift Valley farms, settling scores dating back to Kenyatta’s 1970s settlement scheme.
A feared Kikuyu militia, the Mungiki, is now extracting revenge. But as mungiki demand ID cards at roadblocks and members of the “wrong” tribe watch homes go up in smoke, majimboism is being put into crude practice on the ground, decades of Kikuyu expansionism challenged and reversed
Many analysts see the entrepreneurship that defines the Kikuyu experience as the only hope for peace. Holding such a huge stake in the Kenyan economy, the Kikuyu have more to lose from the spiraling anarchy than any other group.
Here in Central Province, a region locked in belligerent memories of its insurgent past, there is little talk of compromise and no criticism of Kibaki. Growing ever further into a kikuyu nationalism, James Wanyaga, Nyeri’s former mayor, told me. “We can forget about the Luos and put our security machinery into Rift Valley, just as your people did under colonialism. And we would get on very well.” The price of Kikuyu hegemony has already proved greater than anyone wants to pay.
Apartheid (meaning apartness in Afrikaans, cognate to English apart and -hood) was a system of legalized racial segregation enforced by the National Party (NP) South African government between 1948 and 1994. It arose from a longer history of settler rule and Dutch and British colonialism. These colonial relations became policies of separation after South Africa gained self-governance as a dominion within the British Empire and were expanded and formalised into a system of legitimised racism and white nationalism after 1948. Apartheid was dismantled in a series of negotiations from 1990 to 1993, culminating in elections in 1994, the first in South Africa with universal suffrage, but the legacies of apartheid still shape South African politics and society.
ReplyDeleteApartheid legislation classified South Africa's inhabitants and visitors into racial groups (Black, White, Coloured and Indian). The system of apartheid sparked significant internal resistance.[1]. The government responded to a series of popular uprisings and protests with police brutality, which in turn increased local support for the armed resistance struggle.[2] In response to popular and political resistance, the apartheid government resorted to detentions without trial, torture, censorship, and the banning of political opposition from organisations such as the African National Congress, the Black Consciousness Movement, the Azanian People's Organisation, the Pan Africanist Congress, and the United Democratic Front, which were popularly considered liberation movements. Despite suffering extreme repression and exile, these organisations maintained popular support for the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa and forged connections with the international anti-apartheid movement during this period.[3][4] White South Africa became increasingly militarised, embarking on the border war with the covert support of the USA, and later sending the South African Defence Force into black townships. The anti-apartheid organisations had strong links with other liberation struggles in Africa, and often saw their armed resistance to apartheid as part of the socialist struggle against capitalism.[5]
In 1973, an International Convention of the United Nations General Assembly ruled that the system of apartheid amounted to a crime against humanity, and defined the crime of apartheid as "inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them."[6]
In South Africa, under apartheid, blacks were stripped of their citizenship, legally becoming citizens of one of ten, theoretically sovereign, bantustans (homelands). The government created the homelands out of the territory of Black Reserves founded during the British Empire period. These reserves were akin to the US Indian Reservation, Canadian First Nations reserves, or Australian aboriginal reserves. Many Black South Africans, however, never resided in these "homelands." The homeland system disenfranchised black people residing in "white South Africa"[7] by restricting their voting rights to the black homelands, the least economically-productive areas of the country. The government segregated education, medical care, and other public services with inferior standards for blacks. The black education system within "white South Africa", by design, prepared blacks for lives as a labouring class. There was a deliberate policy in "white South Africa" of making services for black people inferior to those of whites, to try to "encourage" black people to move into the black homelands, hence black people ended up with services inferior to those of whites, and, to a lesser extent, to those of Indians, and 'coloureds'.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Creation of apartheid
o 1.1 Racial segregation and colonialism prior to apartheid
o 1.2 Elections of 1948 and the Group Areas Act
o 1.3 Disenfranchisement of coloured voters
o 1.4 Apartheid legislation
o 1.5 Unity among white South Africans
o 1.6 Black South Africans
* 2 Apartheid system
o 2.1 Grand Apartheid, the "homeland" system
o 2.2 Forced removals
o 2.3 Petty Apartheid
o 2.4 Coloured classification
o 2.5 Women under apartheid
o 2.6 Other minorities
* 3 Internal resistance
o 3.1 ANC and the PAC
o 3.2 Sharpeville massacre
o 3.3 Resistance goes underground
o 3.4 Black Consciousness Movement
o 3.5 Student organisations
+ 3.5.1 South African Students Movement
+ 3.5.2 National Union of South African Students
+ 3.5.3 South African Students Organisation
o 3.6 Trade-Union movement
o 3.7 Churches
o 3.8 MDM
o 3.9 Student organisations
o 3.10 White resistance
o 3.11 Role of women
* 4 International relations
o 4.1 Initial relations
o 4.2 South-West Africa
o 4.3 Sharpeville and the severing of British ties
o 4.4 Sanctions
o 4.5 Aid to apartheid casualties
o 4.6 Lusaka Manifesto
o 4.7 Morogoro Conference
o 4.8 Mogadishu Declaration
o 4.9 Outward-Looking Policy
o 4.10 Effect of the Soweto Uprising
o 4.11 Other African states
o 4.12 Western ties
+ 4.12.1 Britain
+ 4.12.2 USA
o 4.13 Isolation
o 4.14 Western influence
o 4.15 South African Border War
o 4.16 Total onslaught
o 4.17 Cross-border raids
* 5 Conservatism
* 6 State security
o 6.1 State of emergency
* 7 HIV/AIDS epidemic
* 8 Final years of apartheid
o 8.1 Negotiations
* 9 Legacies of apartheid
o 9.1 Economic inequality and Black Economic Empowerment
o 9.2 Land ownership inequality and land claims
* 10 Contrition
* 11 Establishment of the "crime of apartheid" by the International Criminal Court
* 12 See also
* 13 Footnotes
* 14 References
* 15 External links
[edit] Creation of apartheid
[edit] Racial segregation and colonialism prior to apartheid
For more information on the period of history leading up to apartheid, see History of South Africa.
Although the creation of apartheid is usually attributed to the Afrikaner-dominated government of 1948-1994, it is also partially a legacy of British colonialism which introduced a system of pass laws in the Cape Colony and Natal during the nineteenth century. This stemmed from the regulation of blacks' movement from the tribal regions to those occupied by whites and coloureds, ruled by the British. There were similar regulations in Australia and New Caledonia[citation needed] (the French Code de L'indigenat).
Laws were passed not only to restrict the movement of blacks into these areas, but also to prohibit their movement from one district to another without a signed pass. Blacks were not allowed onto the streets of towns in the Cape Colony and Natal after dark and had to carry their passes at all times. Mahatma Gandhi, a young lawyer at the time, cut his political teeth by organizing non-violent protests against restrictions which hurt middle-class Indians. Jan Smuts' United Party government began to move away from the rigid enforcement of segregationist laws during World War II. Amid fears integration would eventually lead the nation to racial assimilation, the legislature established the Sauer Commission to investigate the effects of the United Party's policies. The commission concluded integration would bring about a loss of personality for all racial groups.
The practice of apartheid retained many of the features of the above segregationist policies of earlier administrations. Examples include the 1913 Land Act and the various workplace "colour bars". However, Werner Eiselen, the man who designed apartheid, argued the government could not sustain segregation and white supremacy. He also proposed in 1948 apartheid as a "political partition" policy instead of segregation in public facilities. Hence, the idea behind apartheid was more one of political separation, later known as "grand apartheid," than segregation, later known as "petty apartheid." Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd is considered the most influential politician in the growth of apartheid.[citation needed] Natives were discriminated against in almost every facet of life. Racist legislation stated where and how they could live, travel, work, be educated, get married and mingle.
There are numerous distinct differences between segregation and apartheid:
* Segregation was a more elastic strategy which was not officially concurrent with religious ideas; apartheid was ostensibly based on a Christian National dogma of the 'calling' and 'mission' of Afrikanerdom.
* Segregation was employed at time when colonial policies were being followed by the British in Africa and by the Americans in their southern states; apartheid was implemented at a time when the world order was moving away from racism and from using race as an organising criterion.
* The Native Affairs Department was less ferocious than the Bantu Affairs Department that took over from it under the apartheid regime. It played a more direct political role and was characterised by its authoritarian rigidity and unremitting control over blacks' daily lives.
* Only a small amount of segregationist legislation was passed, most of it more moderate than that passed during the apartheid years. Apartheid was formalised systematically by many laws, which mandated racism.
[edit] Elections of 1948 and the Group Areas Act
"Petty apartheid": sign on Durban beach in English, Afrikaans and Zulu (1989)
"Petty apartheid": sign on Durban beach in English, Afrikaans and Zulu (1989)
In the run up to the 1948 elections, the National Party (NP) campaigned on its policy of apartheid. The NP narrowly defeated Smuts' United Party and formed a coalition government with the Afrikaner Party (AP), then under the leadership of Protestant cleric Daniel Francois Malan. The coalition government immediately began implementing apartheid policies, passing legislation prohibiting miscegenation, classifying individuals by race, and creating a classification board to rule on race-based infractions. The Group Areas Act of 1950, designed to geographically separate racial groups, became the heart of the apartheid system. The Separate Amenities Act was passed in 1953. Under this Act, municipal grounds could be reserved for a particular race. It created, among other things, separate beaches, buses, hospitals, schools and universities. Signboards outlined things clearly with words like "whites only". These notices applied to entire buildings or parts of buildings such as government houses, hospitals, parks, restaurants, shops, beaches, post offices and all other public areas, including park benches.
Interracial contact in sport was frowned upon, but there were no segregatory sports laws. The government was able to keep sport segregated using other legislation, such as the Group Areas Act.
The government tightened existing pass laws, compelling all South Africans to carry identity documents. For the government, these identity documents became a barrier through which the migration of blacks to 'white' South Africa could be prevented. Blacks were prohibited from living in or visiting 'white' towns without a migration permit. For blacks, living in cities required employment. Families were excluded, thus separating wives from husbands and parents from children. Some authors, such as David Yudelman and Hermann Giliomee, argued the system of Apartheid can be traced to the labour movement in South Africa and Cape Colony policies as early as 1907.
[edit] Disenfranchisement of coloured voters
J.G. Strijdom, Malan's successor as Prime Minister, moved to strip coloureds and blacks of their voting rights in the Cape Province. The previous government had first introduced the Separate Representation of Voters Bill in parliament in 1951. However, a group of four voters, G Harris, WD Franklin, WD Collins and Edgar Deane, challenged its validity in court with support from the United Party. The Cape Supreme Court upheld the act, but the Appeal Court upheld the appeal, finding the act invalid because a two-thirds majority in a joint sitting of both Houses of Parliament was needed in order to change the entrenched clauses of the Constitution. The government then introduced the High Court of Parliament Bill, which gave parliament the power to overrule decisions of the court. The Cape Supreme Court and the Appeal Court declared this invalid too. In 1955 the Strijdom government increased the number of judges in the Appeal Court from five to eleven, and appointed pro-Nationalist judges to fill the new places. In the same year they introduced the Senate Act, which increased the senate from 49 seats to 89. Adjustments were made such that the NP controlled 77 of these seats. The parliament met in a joint sitting and passed the Separate Representation of Voters act in 1956, which removed coloureds from the common voters' roll in the Cape, and established a separate voters' roll for them.
[edit] Apartheid legislation
Apartheid legislation in South Africa
Precursors
Natives' Land (1913)
Urban Areas (1923)
Prohibition of Mixed Marriages (1949)
Immorality Act† (1950)
Population Registration (1950)
Group Areas Act (1950)
Suppression of Communism (1950)
Bantu Building Workers (1951)
Separate Representation of Voters (1951)
Prevention of Illegal Squatting (1951)
Bantu Authorities (1951)
Natives Laws† (1952)
Pass Laws (1952)
Native Labour (Settlement of Disputes) (1953)
Bantu Education (1953)
Reservation of Separate Amenities (1953)
Natives Resettlement (1954)
Group Areas Development (1955)
Natives (Prohibition of Interdicts) (1956)
Bantu Investment Corporation (1959)
Extension of University Education (1959)
Promotion of Bantu Self-Government (1959)
Coloured Persons Communal Reserves (1961)
Preservation of Coloured Areas (1961)
Urban Bantu Councils (1961)
Terrorism Act (1967)
Bantu Homelands Citizens (1970)
† No new legislation introduced, rather
the existing legislation named was amended.
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Main article: Apartheid legislation in South Africa
From the 1950s onwards, various repressive and racist laws were passed. The principal "apartheid laws" were as follows:[8]
* An amendment to The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949 prohibited marital union between persons of different races.
* An amendment to The Immorality Act of 1950 made sexual relations with a person of a different race a criminal offence.
* The Population Registration Act of 1950 introduced an identity card for all persons over the age of sixteen, stipulating their racial group on the card.
* The Suppression of Communism Act of 1950 banned the South African Communist Party as well as any other party that the government chose to label as 'communist'. It made membership in the SACP punishable by up to ten years imprisonment. The South African minister of justice, R.F. Swart, drafted the law.
* The Riotous Assemblies Act of 1956 prohibited disorderly gatherings.
* The Unlawful Organisations Act of 1960 outlawed certain organisation that were deemed threatening to the government.
* The Sabotage Act was passed 1962, the General Law Amendment Act in 1966, the Terrorism Act in 1967 and the Internal Security Act in 1976.
* The Group Areas Act, passed on 27 April 1950, partitioned the country into different areas, with different areas allocated to different racial groups. This law represented the very heart of apartheid because it was the basis upon which political and social separation was constructed.
* The Bantu Authorities Act of 1951 created separate government structures for blacks. It was the first piece of legislation established to support the government's plan of separate development in the Bantustans. It made a provision for the institution of Tribal, Regional and Territorial Authorities in the "reserves". Tribal Authorities were set up and positions given to Chiefs and Headmen, who became accountable for the distribution of land, the well-being and annuity systems and the progress of the small money which trickled down to them. The traditional leadership of the African populace became effective representatives of the NP. Disobliging traditional leaders were faced with cruel penalties and were often unseated, as was the case with Chief Albert Lutuli when he was discharged from his position as Chief on declining to quit the African National Congress.
* The Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act of 1951 allowed the government to demolish black shackland slums.
* The Native Building Workers Act and Native Services Levy of 1951 forced white employers to pay for the construction of proper housing for black workers recognized as legal residents in 'white' cities.
* The Reservation of Separate Amenities Act of 1953 prohibited people of different races from using the same public amenities, such as restaurants, public swimming pools, and restrooms.
* The Bantu Education Act of 1953 crafted a separate didactic scheme for African students under the aegis of the Department of "Bantu" Education. According to Verwoerd, then Education Minister, the principle of Bantu Education was to ready Africans for a subordinate role under white rule. This was what he had to say about equality in 1953: "When I have control of native education, I will reform it so that the natives will be taught from childhood to realize that equality with Europeans is not for them."
o It brought all black schooling under government control, ending mission-run schools. Apartheid placed great emphasis on separate education for different ethnic groups. Eventually there were 17 separate education systems. The education provided by the black system was of a lower standard to that provided in white, coloured or Indian schools.
* The Bantu Urban Areas Act of 1954 curtailed black migration to cities.
* The Mines and Work Act of 1956 formalised racial discrimination in employment.
* The Promotion of Black Self-Government Act of 1958 entrenched the NP's policy of separate development, outlining the political and geographic character of South Africa. It set up separate territorial governments in the "homelands", designated lands for black people where they could have a vote. The map of South Africa thus had a white centre with a cluster of black states along its borders. The aim of the Act was that these homelands or bantustans would eventually become independent of South Africa. The principle of ethnicity thus became established in law. The introduction to the Act read thus: "The Bantu people of the Union of South Africa do not constitute a homogeneous people but form separate national units on the basis of language and culture."
* Instead of the Native delegate system founded under the Natives Representative Act of 1936, a scheme for "self–governing Bantu units" was proposed. These national units were to have substantial administrative powers which would be decentralised to each "Bantu" unit and which would ultimately have autonomy and the hope of self-government. These national units were identified as North-Sotho, South-Sotho, Tswana, Zulu, Swazi, Xhosa, Tsonga and Venda. In later years, the Xhosa national unit was broken further down into the Transkei and Ciskei. The Ndebele national unit was also added later after its "discovery" by the apartheid government. The government justified its plans on the basis that South Africa was made up of different "nations", asserting that "(the) government's policy is, therefore, not a policy of discrimination on the grounds of race or colour, but a policy of differentiation on the ground of nationhood, of different nations, granting to each self-determination within the borders of their homelands -- hence this policy of separate development." The South African government exercised strong influence over the homelands even after some of them became "independent".
* The Bantu Investment Corporation Act of 1959 set up a mechanism to transfer capital to the homelands in order to create employment in the black homelands.
* The Extension of University Education Act of 1959 created separate universities for Blacks, Coloureds and Indians. Under this Act, there were no longer "open universities", and existing universities were not permitted to enroll new black students. Fort Hare University in the Ciskei (now Eastern Cape) was to register only Xhosa-speaking students. Sotho, Tswana, Pedi and Venda speakers were placed at the newly-founded University College of the North at Turfloop, while the University College of Zululand was launched to serve Zulu scholars. Coloureds and Indians were to have their own establishments in the Cape and Natal respectively. Known as "tribal colleges" or "bush campuses" because of their localities, these establishments were part of the state's scheme of South Africa's division into "national units". Ironically, these institutions, set up by the government, became the breeding grounds for black intellectualism and student activism, which was to cause a stern challenge to the NP in later years.
* The Physical Planning and Utilisation of Resources Act of 1967 allowed the government to stop industrial development in 'white' cites and redirect such development to homeland border areas. The aim was to speed up the relocation of blacks to the homelands by relocating jobs to homeland areas. White-owned business was effectively forced to relocate away from 'white' cities. This resulted in the building of cities (housing millions of people) in the black homelands such as Babalegi, Temba, Mabopane, Ga-Rankuwa, Mdantsane and Madadeni.
* The Black Homeland Citizenship Act of 1970 was a pivotal piece of legislation which marked a new phase in the government's Bantustan strategy. It changed the status of the inhabitants of the "homelands" so that they were no longer citizens of South Africa. All of them became citizens of one or other of the ten autonomous territories. The aim was to ensure whites became the demographic majority within South Africa by having all ten Bantustans choose "independence". The homelands would take accountability for millions of Africans, who would cease to be South African citizens. Not all the homelands chose to become self-governing, as they understood that, while they would have absolutely no place in South Africa, they would still be controlled by the apartheid government (in spite of their "independence"). Those who did choose autonomy were the Transkei (1976), Bophuthatswana (1977), Venda (1979) and the Ciskei (1981).
* The Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974 required the use of Afrikaans and English on a fifty-fifty basis in high schools outside the homelands.[9]
To oversee the apartheid legislation, the bureaucracy expanded, and, by 1977, there were more than half a million white state employees. The purpose of these laws was to keep the races apart and any resistance in check. The essential thinking behind apartheid was straightforward: although South Africa was a unitary country, the Nationalists argued that the people did not comprise a single nation but, rather, were made up of four distinct racial groups, namely white, black, Coloured and Indian. These races were split further into thirteen 'nations' or racial federations. White people encompassed the English and Afrikaans language groups; the black populace was divided into ten such groups. This had the result of making the white race the prevalent one. Whites were seen as the most sophisticated and, in nature, entitled to rule South Africa.
[edit] Unity among white South Africans
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Before South Africa became a republic, white politics was typified by the division between the chiefly-Afrikaans pro-republicans and the largely English anti-republicans, with the legacy of the Boer War still a factor for some people. Once republican status was attained, Verwoerd called for improved relations and greater accord between the English and Afrikaners. He claimed that the only difference now was between those who supported apartheid and those in opposition to it. The ethnic divide would no longer be between Afrikaans and English, but rather white and black. Most Afrikaners supported the notion of white unanimity to ensure their safety. English whites were divided. Many had voted in opposition to a republic, especially in Natal, where most votes said "No". Later, however, some of them recognised the perceived need for white unity, convinced by the growing trend of decolonisation elsewhere in Africa, which left them apprehensive. Harold Macmillan's "Winds of Change" pronouncement left the English faction feeling that Britain had ditched them. The more conservative English-speakers gave support to Verwoerd; others were troubled by the severing of ties with Britain and remained loyal to the Crown. They were acutely displeased at the choice between British and South African nationality. Although Verwoerd tried to bond these different blocs, the subsequent ballot illustrated only a minor swell of support, proving that a great many English speakers remained apathetic and that Verwoerd had not succeeded in uniting the white populace.
[edit] Black South Africans
The republic arrangement brought about greater harmony between English and Afrikaans white South Africans but intensified the split between those who supported and those who opposed apartheid. Black resistance adopted a more drastic approach, as blacks became conscious of the fact that they were damned by the apartheid republic.
Blacks had no say in the construction of a South African republic. They had gone up against it, realising that it would cut them off from international security. Under a republic, white South Africans had absolute autonomy and the power to entrench apartheid even more. Nevertheless, condemnation by the Commonwealth and United Nations Organisation (UNO) encouraged them with the knowledge that exterior support for the liberation effort was not lost. The NP regime had outlawed the ANC and PAC after anti-pass protests and the carnage in the Sharpeville and Langa townships. Resistance organisations went underground. In May 1961 an assembly representing the banned ANC called for negotiations between the members of the different ethnic groupings. They cautioned the Government that, if it disregarded their appeal, demonstrations would be held during the republic's inauguration. When the government overlooked them, the strikers carried out their threats. The government countered swiftly and clinically, giving police the authority to arrest people for up to twelve days. Many resistance directors were detained and numerous cases of police brutality were reported. Defeated, the protesters called off their strike. The ANC then chose to add armaments to the struggle and launched a martial wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), which would perform acts of sabotage on tactical state structures. Its first sabotage plans were set to be carried out on 16 December 1961, the anniversary of the Battle of Blood River.
[edit] Apartheid system
The apartheid system is often classified into "grand apartheid" and "petty apartheid". Grand apartheid involved an attempt to partition South Africa into separate states, while petty apartheid referred to the segregationist dimension. The National Party clung to grand apartheid until the 1990s, while they abandoned petty apartheid during the 1980s.
[edit] Grand Apartheid, the "homeland" system
A rural area in Ciskei, one of the apartheid era "homelands"
A rural area in Ciskei, one of the apartheid era "homelands"
Main article: Bantustan
When the NP came into power in 1948, its primary endeavour was to attain a white supremacist Christian National State and implement racial segregation. The key building blocks to enforcement of racial segregation were
* the arrangement of the population into African, Coloured, Indian and white racial groups;
* strict racial segregation in the urban areas;
* restricted African urbanisation;
* a tightly-controlled and more restricted system of migrant labour;
* a stronger accent on tribalism and orthodoxy in African administration than in the past; and
* a drastic strengthening of security legislation and control.
These were to form the foundation on which the "Homelands" guidelines were developed. Territorial separation was not a new-fangled institution. There were, for example, the "reserves" created under the British government in the Nineteenth Century. Under HF Verwoerd's jurisdiction, however, this land was seen as a way to control the increasing movement of black people into the city. Black people would work in the cities but live in their own areas, where they would be housed, educated, and vote for their own internal governments. The ultimate plan was to create ten independent national states out of these homelands.
The state passed two laws which paved the way for "grand apartheid", which was centred on separating races on a large scale, through spatial divisions; that is, compelling people to live in separate places defined by race. The first grand apartheid law was the Population Registration Act 30 of 1950, which necessitated all citizens' being categorised according to race and this being recorded in their identity passes. Official team or Boards were established to come to an ultimate conclusion on those people whose race was unclear. This caused much difficulty, especially for Coloured people, separating their families as members were allocated different races.
The second pillar of grand apartheid was the Group Areas Act 21 of 1950. Until then, most settlements had people of different races living side by side. This Act put an end to diverse areas and determined where one lived, how one survived and how one earned a living by virtue of racial inequality. Each race was allotted its own area, establishing the base for forced removals in later years.
The policy of separate development came into being with the accession to power of Dr HF Verwoerd in 1958. He began implementing the homeland structure as a cornerstone of separate development. Verwoerd came to believe in the granting of "independence" to these homelands. Border industries and the Bantu Investment Corporation, were established to promote economic development and the provision of employment in the homelands (to draw black people away from "white" South Africa).
The Tomlinson Commission of 1954 decided that apartheid was justifiable, but stated additional land ought to be given to the homelands, favouring the development of border industries. In 1958 the Promotion of Black Self-Government Act was passed, and proponents of apartheid began to argue that, once apartheid had been implemented, blacks would no longer be citizens of South Africa; they would instead become citizens of the independent "homelands". In terms of this model, blacks became (foreign) "guest labourers" who merely worked in South Africa as the holders of temporary work permits.
The South African government attempted to divide South Africa into a number of separate states. Some thirteen per cent of the land was reserved for black homelands -- representing fifty per cent of South Africa's arable land (Davenport, 1977: p. 268). That thirteen per cent was divided into ten black "homelands" amongst eight ethnic units. Four of these were given independence, although this was never recognised by any other country. Each homeland was supposed to develop into a separate-nation state within which the eight black ethnic groups were to find and grow their separate national identity, culture and language; Transkei -- Xhosa (given "independence"), Ciskei -- Xhosa (given "independence" in 1981), Bophuthatswana -- Tswana (given "independence"), Venda -- Venda (given "independence"); KwaZulu -- Zulu, Lebowa -- Pedi, Kangwane -- Swazi, QwaQwa -- Sotho, Gazankulu -- Tsonga, and KwaNdebele -- Ndebele. Each homeland controlled its own education and health system.
Once a homeland was granted its "independence," its designated citizens had their South African citizenship revoked, replaced with citizenship in their homeland. These people were then issued passports instead of passbooks. Citizens of the supposedly "autonomous" homelands also had their South African citizenship circumscribed, and so became less than South African.[10] The South African government attempted to draw an equivalence between their view of black "citizens" of the "homelands" and the problems which other countries faced through entry of illegal immigrants.
While other countries were dismantling their discriminatory legislation and becoming more liberal on racial issues, South Africa continued to construct a labyrinth of legislation promoting racial and ethnic separation. Many white South Africans supported apartheid because of demographics; that, is separation and partition were seen as a means of avoiding a one-person-one-vote democracy within a single unified South African state, which would render whites a politically-powerless minority. In addition, leaders of the above homelands became important defenders of apartheid, such as Kaiser Matanzima, Bantu Holomisa, Oupa Gqozo, Lucas Mangope and Mangosuthu Buthelezi.
Apartheid placed great emphasis on "self-determination" and "cultural autonomy" for different ethnic groups. For this reason, "mother-tongue" education was strongly emphasised. Thus, in addition to pouring resources into developing Afrikaans educational material, resources were also poured into developing school textbooks in black languages like Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho, Tswana, and Pedi. As a result, one of the consequences of apartheid was a South African population literate in black-African languages (a rare thing in Africa where schooling is normally carried out in colonial languages like English and French).
[edit] Forced removals
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During the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s, the government implemented a policy of 'resettlement', to force people to move to their designated "group areas". Some argue that over three and a half million people were forced to resettle during this period. These removals included people re-located due to slum clearance programmes, labour tenants on white-owned farms, the inhabitants of the so-called 'black spots', areas of black-owned land surrounded by white farms, the families of workers living in townships close to the homelands, and 'surplus people' from urban areas, including thousands of people from the Western Cape (which was declared a 'Coloured Labour Preference Area'[11]) who were moved to the Transkei and Ciskei homelands. The best-publicised forced removals of the 1950s occurred in Johannesburg, when 60,000 people were moved to the new township of Soweto, an acronym for South Western Townships.[12][13]
Until 1955 Sophiatown had been one of the few urban areas where blacks were allowed to own land, and was slowly developing into a multiracial slum. As industry in Johannesburg grew, Sophiatown became the home of a rapidly expanding black workforce, as it was convenient and close to town. It could also boast the only swimming pool for black children in Johannesburg.[14] However, one of the oldest black settlements in Johannesburg and held an almost symbolic importance for the 50,000 blacks it contained, both in terms of its sheer vibrancy and its unique culture. Despite a vigorous ANC protest campaign and worldwide publicity, the removal of Sophiatown began on 9 February 1955 under the Western Areas Removal Scheme. In the early hours, heavily armed police entered Sophiatown to force residents out of their homes and load their belongings onto government trucks. The residents were taken to a large tract of land, thirteen miles from the city centre, known as Meadowlands (that the government had purchased in 1953). Meadowlands became part of a new planned black city called Soweto. The Sophiatown slum was destroyed by bulldozers, and a new white suburb named Triomf (Triumph) was built in its place. This pattern of forced removal and destruction was to repeat itself over the next few years, and was not limited to people of African descent. Forced removals from areas like Cato Manor (Mkhumbane) in Durban, and District Six in Cape Town, where 55,000 coloured and Indian people were forced to move to new townships on the Cape Flats, were carried out under the Group Areas Act of 1950. Ultimately, nearly 600,000 coloured, Indian and Chinese people were moved in terms of the Group Areas Act. Some 40,000 white people were also forced to move when land was transferred from "white South Africa" into the black homelands. Forced removals continue in post-apartheid South Africa and are being vigorously contested by, amongst others, the shack dwellers' movement Abahlali baseMjondolo.
[edit] Petty Apartheid
The National Party passed a string of paltry (but nevertheless very painful) legislation which became known as petty apartheid. The first of these was the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act 55 of 1949, prohibiting matrimony between white people and people of other races. The Immorality Amendment Act 21 of 1950 (as amended in 1957 by Act 23) marched into the most personal liberties of individual expression and forbade "unlawful racial intercourse" and "any immoral or indecent act" between a white person and an African, Indian or Coloured person.
Blacks were not allowed to run businesses or professional practices in those areas designated as "white South Africa" without a permit. They were supposed to move to the black "homelands" and set up businesses and practices there. Transport and civil facilities were segregated. Black buses stopped at black bus stops and white buses at white ones. Trains were segregated. Hospitals and ambulances were segregated. Because of the smaller numbers of white patients and the fact that white doctors preferred to work in "white" hospitals, conditions in white hospitals were much better than those in often overcrowded black hospitals.[15] Blacks were excluded from living or working in white areas, unless they had a pass — nicknamed the dompas ("dumb pass" in Afrikaans). Only blacks with "Section 10" rights (those who had migrated to the cities before World War II) were excluded from this provision. A pass was issued only to a black person with approved work. Spouses and children had to be left behind in black homelands. Many white households employed blacks as domestic workers, who lived on the premises — often in small rooms external to the family home. A pass was issued for one magisterial district (usually one town) confining the holder to that area only. Being without a valid pass made a person subject to arrest and trial for being an illegal migrant. This was often followed by deportation to the person's homeland and prosecution of the employer (for employing an illegal migrant). Police vans patrolled the "white" areas to round up "illegal" blacks found there without passes. Black people were not allowed to employ white people in "white South Africa".
Although trade unions for black and "coloured" (mixed race) workers had existed since the early 20th century, it was not until the 1980s reforms that a mass black trade union movement developed. In the 1970s each black child's education within the Bantu Education system (the black education system within "white South Africa") cost the state only a tenth of each white child's. Higher education was provided in separate universities and colleges after 1959. Eight black universities were created in the homelands; an Indian university built in Durban and a coloured university built in Cape Town. In addition, each black homeland controlled its own separate education, health and police system. Blacks were not allowed to buy hard liquor. They were able only to buy an African home brewed beer. (although this was relaxed later). Public beaches were racially segregated. Public swimming pools, some pedestrian bridges, drive-in cinema parking spaces, graveyards, parks, and public toilets were segregated. Cinemas and theatres in "white areas" were not allowed to admit blacks. There were practically no cinemas in black areas. Most restaurants and hotels in white areas were not allowed to admit blacks except as staff. Black Africans were prohibited from attending "white" churches under the Churches Native Laws Amendment Act of 1957. This was, however, never rigidly enforced, and churches were one of the few places races could mix without the interference of the law. Blacks earning 360 rand a year, 30 rand a month, or more had to pay taxes while the white threshold was more than twice as high, at 750 rand a year, 62.5 rand per month. On the other hand, the taxation rate for whites was considerably higher than that for blacks.
Blacks could never acquire land in white areas. In the homelands, much of the land belonged to a 'tribe', where the local chieftain would decide how the land had to be utilized. This resulted in white people owning almost all the industrial and agricultural lands and much of the prized residential land. Most blacks were stripped of their South African citizenship when the "homelands" became "independent". Thus, they were no longer able to apply for South African passports. Eligibility requirements for a passport had been difficult for blacks to meet, the government contending that a passport was a privilege, not a right. As such, the government did not grant many passports to blacks. Apartheid pervaded South African culture, as well as the law. This was reinforced in many media, and the lack of opportunities for the races to mix in a social setting entrenched social distance between people.
[edit] Coloured classification
Main article: Coloured
The population was classified into four groups: Black, White, Indian, and Coloured. (These terms are capitalized to denote their legal definitions in South African law). The Coloured group included people of mixed Bantu, Khoisan, and European descent (with some Malay ancestry, especially in the Western Cape). The Apartheid bureaucracy devised complex (and often arbitrary) criteria at the time that the Population Registration Act was implemented to determine who was Coloured. Minor officials would administer tests to determine if someone should be categorised either Coloured or Black, or if another person should be categorised either Coloured or White. Different members of the same family found themselves in different race groups. Further tests determined membership of the various sub-racial groups of the Coloureds. Many of those who formerly belonged to this racial group are opposed to the continuing use of the term "coloured" in the post-apartheid era, though the term no longer signifies any legal meaning. The expressions 'so-called Coloured' (Afrikaans sogenaamde Kleurlinge) and 'brown people' (bruin mense) acquired a wide usage in the 1980s.
Discriminated against by apartheid, Coloureds were as a matter of state policy forced to live in separate townships — in some cases leaving homes their families had occupied for generations — and received an inferior education, though better than that provided to Black South Africans. They played an important role in the struggle against apartheid: for example the African Political Organisation established in 1902 had an exclusively coloured membership.
Voting rights were denied to Coloureds in the same way that they were denied to blacks from 1950 to 1983. However, in 1977 the NP caucus approved proposals to bring coloured and Indians into central government. In 1982, final constitutional proposals produced a referendum among white voters, and the Tricameral Parliament was approved. The Constitution was reformed the following year to allow the Coloured and Asian minorities participation in separate Houses in a Tricameral Parliament, and Botha became the first Executive State President. The theory was that the Coloured minority could be granted voting rights, but the Black majority were to become citizens of independent homelands. These separate arrangements continued until the abolition of apartheid. The Tricameral reforms led to the formation of the (anti-apartheid) UDF as a vehicle to try and prevent the co-option of coloureds and Indians into an alliance with white South Africans. The subsequent battles between the UDF and the NP government from 1983 to 1989 were to became the most intense period of struggle between left-wing and right-wing South Africans.
[edit] Women under apartheid
Colonialism and apartheid had a major impact on women since they suffered both racial and gender discrimination. Oppression against African women was different from discrimination against men. Indeed, they had very few or no legal rights, no access to education and no right to own property.[16] Jobs were often hard to find but many African women worked as agricultural or domestic workers though wages were extremely low[17] if not non-existent. Children suffered from diseases caused by malnutrition and sanitary problems, and mortality rates were therefore high. The controlled movement of African workers within the country through the Natives Urban Areas Act of 1923 and the pass-laws, separated family members from one another as men usually worked in urban centers, while women were forced to stay in rural areas. Marriage law and births[18] were also controlled by the government and the pro-apartheid Dutch Reformed Church, who tried to restrict African birth rates.
[edit] Other minorities
Defining its East Asian population, which is a minority in South Africa but who do not physically appear to belong any of the four designated groups, was a constant dilemma for the apartheid government. Chinese South Africans who were descendants of migrant workers who came to work in the gold mines around Johannesburg in the late 19th century, were classified as "Indian" and hence "non-white", whereas immigrants from Republic of China (Taiwan), South Korea and Japan, with which South Africa maintained diplomatic relations, were considered "honorary whites" and termed "Worthy Oriental Gentlemen", thus granted the same privileges as normal whites. It should be noted that "Non-Whites" were sometimes granted an 'honorary white' status as well, based on the government's belief that they were "civilised" and possessed Western values. This was frequently the case with African-Americans.
[edit] Internal resistance
[edit] ANC and the PAC
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In 1947, the "Three Doctors Pact" was signed doctors Naicker, Dadoo and Xuma, committing the African National Congress (ANC), Transvaal Indian Congress (TIC) and Natal Indian Congress (NIC) to co-operation. Earlier, in 1943, the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) had been established, becoming a significant component of the ANC. In 1949, the conservative leadership of the African National Congress (ANC) was overthrown by its Youth League (ANCYL). Led by Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo, elected to the ANC's National Executive that year, the ANCYL advocated a radical black nationalist programme which combined the Africanist ideas of Anton Lembede with those of Marxism. They brought the notion that white authority could only be overthrown through mass campaigns.
Once the ANCYL had taken control of the ANC, the organization advocated a policy of open defiance and resistance for the first time. This unleashed the 1950s Programme of Action, instituted in 1949, which laid emphasis on the right of the African people to freedom under the flag of African Nationalism. It laid out plans for strikes, boycotts, and civil disobedience, resulting in occasionally violent clashes, with mass protests, stay-aways, boycotts and strikes predominating. The 1950 May Day stay-away was a strong, successful expression of black grievances.
In 1952 the Joint Planning Council, made up of members from the ANC, the South African Indian Congress as well as the Coloured People's Congress, agreed on a plan for the defiance of unfair laws. They wrote to the Prime Minister, DF Malan and demanded that he repeal the Pass Laws, the Group Areas Act, the Bantu Administration Act and other legislation, warning that refusal to do so would be met with a campaign of defiance. The Prime Minister was haughty in his rejoinder, referring the Council to the Native Affairs Department and threatening to treat insolence callously.
The Programme of Action was launched with the Defiance Campaign in June 1952. By defying the laws, the organisation hoped for mass arrests with which the government would be unable to cope. Nelson Mandela led a crowd of fifty men down the streets of a white area in Johannesburg after the 11 pm curfew that forbade black peoples' presence. The group was apprehended, but the rest of the country followed its example. Defiance spread throughout the country and black people disregarded racial laws by, for example, walking through "whites only" entries. At the campaign's zenith, in September 1952, more than 2,500 people from 24 different towns had been arrested for defying various laws.
By the end of the campaign, the government arrested 8,000 people, but was forced to temporarily relax its apartheid legislation. In addition, as a direct result of the campaign, membership of the ANC increased and attention was drawn to apartheid's injustices. Once things had calmed down, however, the government responded with an iron fist, taking several supreme measures -- among which were the Unlawful Organisations Act, the Suppression of Communism Act, the Public Safety Act and the Criminal Procedures Act. Thus, in the longer term, this spelt defeat for the resistance movement. In December 1952, Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and eighteen others were tried under the Suppression of Communism Act for leading the Defiance Campaign. They received nine months' imprisonment, suspended for two years.
The Criminal Law Amendment Act stated that "[a]ny person who in any way whatsoever advises, encourages, incites, commands, aids or procures any other person [...] or uses language calculated to cause any other person to commit an offence by way of protest against a law [...] shall be guilty of an offence".[cite this quote]
The government also constricted the regulation on separate amenities. Protesters had argued to the courts that different amenities for different races ought to be of an equal standard. The Separate Amenities Act removed the façade of mere separation; it gave the owners of public amenities the right to bar people on the basis of colour or race and made it lawful for different races to be treated inequitably. Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela, Albert Luthuli and other famous ANC, Indian Congress and trade union chiefs were all vetoed under the Suppression of Communism Act. The proscription meant that the headship was now restricted to its homes and adjacent areas and they were banned from attending public gatherings.
Though cruelly limited, the movement was still able to struggle against the oppressive instruments of the state. More importantly, collaboration between the ANC and NIC had increased and strengthened through the Defiance Campaign. Support for the ANC and its endeavours increased. In August of 1953, the ANC Cape conference suggested an Assembly of the people.
Meanwhile, on the global stage, India demanded that apartheid be challenged by the United Nations. It led to the establishment of a UN commission on apartheid. This first encouraged black South Africans in their campaign, but, after five months, the African and Indian Congresses opted to call it off because of the increasing number of riots, strikes and heavier sentences on those who took part. During the campaign, almost 8,000 black and Indian people had been detained. At the same time, however, ANC membership grew from 7,000 to 100,000, and the number of subdivisions went from fourteen at the start of the campaign to 87 at its end. There was also a change in headship. Shortly before the campaign's end, Albert Luthuli was elected as the new ANC president.
A National Convention of all South Africans was proposed by Professor ZK Matthews at the Cape ANC conference on 15 August 1953. The intention was to chew over the national problems on an all-inclusive basis and outline a manifesto of amity. In March 1954, the ANC, the South African Indian Congress (SAIC), the Coloured People's Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats (SACOD) and the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) met and founded the National Action Council for the Congress of the People. Delegates were drawn from each of these establishments and a nationwide organiser was assigned. A campaign was publicised for the drafting of a freedom charter, and a call was made for 10,000 unpaid assistants to help with the conscription of views from across the country and the organisation of the Congress of the People. Demands were documented and sent to the local board of the National Action Council in preparation for drafting the Charter.
The Congress of the People was held from 26 to 27 of June 1955 in Kliptown, just south of Johannesburg. Under the attentive gaze of the constabulary, 3,000 delegates gathered to revise and accept the Freedom Charter that had been endorsed by the ANC's National Executive on the eve of the Congress. Among the organisations present were the Indian Congress and the ANC. The Freedom Charter, which articulated a vision for South Africa radically different to the partition policy of apartheid, emphasising that South Africa should be a just and non-racial society. It called for a one-person-one-vote democracy within a single unified state and stated that all people should be treated equally before the law, that land should be "shared among those who work it" and that the people should "share in the country's wealth" -- a statement which has often been interpreted as a call for socialist nationalisation. The congress delegates had consented to almost all the sections of the charter when the police announced that they suspected treason and recorded the names and addresses of all those present.
In 1956 the Federation of South African Women was founded and led by Lilian Ngoyi and the more famous Helen Joseph. On 9 August that year, the women marched on the Union Buildings in Pretoria, protesting against the pass laws. On the morning of December 5, 1956, however, the police detained 156 Congress Alliance leaders. 104 African, 23 white, 21 Indian and eight Coloured people were charged with high treason and plotting a violent overthrow of the state, to be replaced by a communist government. The charge was based on statements and speeches made during both the Defiance Campaign and the Congress of the People. The Freedom Charter was used as proof of the Alliance's communist intent and their conspiracy to oust the government. The State relied greatly on the evidence of Professor Arthur Murray, an ostensible authority on Marxism and Communism. His evidence was that the ANC papers were full of such communist terms as "comrade" and "proletariat", often found in the writings of Lenin and Stalin. Halfway through the drawn-out trial, charges against 61 of the accused were withdrawn, and, five years after their arrest, the remaining thirty were acquitted after the court held that the state had failed to prove its case.
[edit] Sharpeville massacre
Main article: Sharpeville massacre
In 1959 a group of disenchanted ANC members broke away from the ANC and formed the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), saying the ANC was too strongly influenced by white communists. First on the PAC's agenda was a series of nationwide demonstrations against the pass laws. The PAC called for blacks to demonstrate against pass books on 21 March 1960. One of the mass demonstrations organized by the PAC took place at Sharpeville, a township near Vereeniging. Estimates of the size of the crowd vary from 3,000 to 20,000.[19][20] The crowd converged on the Sharpeville police station, singing and offering themselves up for arrest for not carrying their pass books. A group of about 300 police panicked and opened fire on the demonstrators after the crowd trampled down the fence surrounding the police station. They killed 69 people and injured 186. All the victims were black, and most of them had been shot in the back. Many witnesses stated that the crowd was not violent, but Colonel J. Pienaar, the senior police officer in charge on the day, said, "Hordes of natives surrounded the police station. My car was struck with a stone. If they do these things they must learn their lesson the hard way". The event became known as the Sharpeville massacre. In its aftermath the government banned the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC).
The Sharpeville Massacre helped shape ANC policy. Before Sharpeville those advocating the use of organized violence, such as Nelson Mandela, had been marginalized as too radical by the ANC's leadership. After Sharpeville Mandela was allowed to launch his guerilla struggle (called the "M" Plan). Hence, from 1961 the ANC adopted terrorist [21] tactics, such as intimidation, bombing, murder and sabotage. Although their units detonated bombs in restaurants, shopping centres, cinemas and in front of government buildings over the following years, the military wings of the ANC and PAC were never a military threat to the state.
[edit] Resistance goes underground
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Sharpeville signalled that the South African government was not going to yield to the mood of black nationalism then sweeping across Africa, and that white South Africans did not accept that they were "colonials" to be swept into the sea by "decolonization". Sharpeville thus foreshadowed the coming conflict between black nationalists and Afrikaner nationalists over the next thirty years.
In the wake of the shooting, a massive stay-away from work was organised and demonstrations continued. Prime Minister Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd declared a state of emergency, giving security forces the right to detain people without trial. Over 18,000 were arrested, including much of the ANC and PAC leadership, and both organizations were banned. The National Party government felt that outlawing the ANC and PAC would discontinue their operations. This was not the case. Some leaders went into exile abroad, while others stayed in South Africa and pursued the fight domestically. They went underground and initiated secret armed opposition groups.
The ANC and PAC ran campaigns of sabotage and terrorism through their armed wings, Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation, MK) and Poqo ("Pure" or "Alone"). The ANC leader, Chief Albert Luthuli, did not support an armed struggle, but there was growing backing for a violent struggle as people became more and more aggravated by the government's aversion to hearing them out. In June 1961 the ANC executive concurred on the formation of an armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), meaning "Spear of the Nation".
Nelson Mandela, who was the commander of the ANC's military wing (MK), had developed the "M Plan" (Mandela Plan), a programme of controlled sabotage, launching a guerilla war modelled upon the FLN's struggle in Algeria. Its policy involved the targeting of state buildings for sabotage without resorting to murder. On 16 December 1961 MK carried out its first acts of sabotage by assaulting post offices and other structures in Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Durban. Many other acts of sabotage would take place over the next few years. In its first eighteen months, MK carried out about 200 acts of sabotage, but despite its policy, some deaths did occur. The headquarters were at the farm Lilliesleaf in Rivonia, just outside Johannesburg.
Mandela began planning for MK members to be given military tuition outside South Africa and managed to slip past authorities as he himself moved in and out of the country, earning him the moniker "The Black Pimpernel". Mandela initially resisted arrest within South Africa, but in August 1962, after receiving some inside information, the police put up a roadblock and captured him. MK's success declined after this, and the police infiltrated the organisation.
A crusade was launched against the dissident establishments. Many people were outlawed or placed under house arrest. In this way, the ANC net was shattered by the mid-1960s. Some people were held in detention, where they were often tormented or executed. In 1963, through a leak from informant Gerard Ludi, the police found the location of the MK headquarters at Lilliesleaf. In July, they raided the farm and arrested many major leaders of the ANC and MK, including Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and Ahmed Kathrada. They were detained and indicted with sabotage and attempting to bring down the government. At the same time, police collected evidence to be used in the trial, which enabled them to arrest other such people, like Denis Goldberg. Especially harmful was the information on Operation Mayibuye (Operation Comeback), a plan for bringing exiles back into the country. It also revealed that MK was planning to use guerrilla warfare.
Some ANC members, including Oliver Tambo, avoided capture and escaped South Africa to pursue the ANC's interests from beyond the country's boundaries. Tambo was to lead the ANC in exile for another thirty years. Many supporters also left South Africa for military training under MK.
The PAC's secretive martial arm was called Poqo, meaning "go it alone" or "pure" in the Xhosa tongue. Poqo was prepared to take lives in the quest for liberation. It murdered whites, police informants and black people who supported the government. It arranged a national revolution in order to conquer the white government, but poor organisation and in-house nuisances crippled the PAC and Poqo.
The PAC did not have adequate direction. When Robert Sobukwe (jailed following the Sharpeville massacre) was discharged from Robben Island in 1969, he was placed under house arrest in Kimberley until he died in 1978. Police repeatedly lengthened his incarceration through the "Sobukwe clause", which permitted the state to detain people even after they had served their sentences. Many other PAC principals were taken into custody on 21 March 1960, and those released were hampered by bans.
The PAC's management difficulties also existed in exile. When they were outlawed, PAC leaders set up headquarters, in among places, Dar es Salaam, London and the United States. In 1963, Potlako Leballo left the country for Maseru, Lesotho, and became the PAC's acting president. When Leballo bragged misguidedly about a radical conflict that the PAC was about to get under way, the police confiscated correspondence being carried across the border and discovered lists with names of other PAC members. A wave arrests followed, and 3,246 PAC and Poqo members went to jail. This led to the crumpling of the PAC within South Africa.
Leballo also annoyed PAC leaders with his apparently frail management. In 1968, they tried to drive him out of the organisation, and the PAC was eventually expelled from Maseru and Lusaka. All in all, MK ran a far more successful guerilla campaign than Poqo.
The widely-publicised Rivonia Trial began in October 1963. Ten men stood accused of treason, trying to depose the government and sabotage. Nelson Mandela was tried, along with those arrested at Lilliesleaf and another 24 co-conspirators. Many of these people, however, had already fled the country, Tambo being but one.
The ANC used the lawsuit to draw international interest to its cause. During the trial, Mandela gave his legendary "I am prepared to die" diatribe. In June 1964, eight were found guilty of terrorism, sabotage, planning and executing guerilla warfare, and working towards an armed invasion of the country. The treason charge was dropped. All eight were sentenced to life imprisonment. They did not get the death penalty, as this hazarded too much international criticism. Goldberg was sent to the Pretoria jail, and the other seven were all banished to the prison on Robben Island. Bram Fischer, the defence trial attorney, was himself arrested and tried shortly thereafter.
The trial was condemned by the United Nations Security Council, and was a major force in the introduction of international sanctions against the South African government. After Sharpeville the ANC, PAC and South African Communist Party were banned, and leaders like Mandela were either in jail or in exile.
By incarcerating leaders of MK and the ANC, the government was able to break the potency of the ANC within South Africa's borders, and greatly affect its efficiency outside of them. The ANC faced many problems in the aftermath of the Rivonia Trial, its inner administration cruelly afflicted. Exiled leaders understood that conveying skilled guerrillas into South Africa would be complicated, as bordering states were unfriendly towards the ANC. Mozambique was still a Portuguese colony, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and Bechuanaland (now Botswana) were still in colonial hands, and South West Africa (now Namibia) was controlled by the South African government. Thus, by 1964, the government had essentially broken the activist movements.
At the same time, international criticism of apartheid increased. The United Nations denounced the trial and commenced steps for the introduction of sanctions. The PAC and Poqo persisted in their activities through the late 1960s and 1970s, but, because of their use of violence, members were under continuous police surveillance, and there were few acts of damaging sabotage. The ANC looked into ways of infiltrating South Africa in spite of its dearth of internal structure.
Although the ANC attempted to reconstruct itself, there would be no real action until the 1970s, when striking militancy began to reappear. At the end of the 1960s, new organisations and ideas would form to confront apartheid. The next key act of opposition would come only in 1976, however, with the Soweto uprising.
The government's effort at defeating all opposition had been effective. The State of Emergency was de-proclaimed; the economy boomed; and the government began implementing apartheid by building the infrastructures of the ten separate Homelands, and relocating blacks into these homelands. In 1966, Verwoerd was stabbed to death in parliament, but his policies continued under B.J. Vorster and later P.W. Botha.
Famous photograph of the Soweto riots showing a student carrying the body of Hector Pieterson, one of the first casualties.
Famous photograph of the Soweto riots showing a student carrying the body of Hector Pieterson, one of the first casualties.
[edit] Black Consciousness Movement
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Prior to the 1960s, the NP government had been most effective in crushing anti-apartheid opposition within South Africa. This it did by outlawing freedom movements like the ANC and PAC, and driving their leaders into exile or captivity. This planted the seeds for the struggle, particularly at such tertiary-education organisations as the University of the North and Zululand University. These institutions were fashioned out of the Extension of University Education Act of 1959, which guaranteed that black and white students would be taught individually and inequitably.
After the banning of the ANC and PAC, and the Rivonia Trial, the struggle within South Africa had been dealt a stern blow. The age bracket that had seen the Sharpeville Massacre had become apathetic in its gloom and despair. This changed in the late 1960s and most notably from the mid-1970s, when new devotion came from the latest, more radical generation. During this epoch, new anti-apartheid ideas and establishments were created, and they gathered support from across South Africa.
The surfacing of the South African Black Consciousness Movement was influenced by its American equivalent, the American Black Power movement, and directors such as Malcolm X. African heads like Kenneth Kaunda also stirred ideas of autonomy and Black Pride by means of their anti-colonialist writings. Scholars grew in assurance and became far more candid about the NP's bigoted policies and the repression of the black people.
During the 1970s, resistance gained force, first channelled through trade unions and strikes, and then spearheaded by the South African Students' Organisation, under the charismatic leadership of Steve Biko. A medical student, Biko was the main force behind the growth of South Africa's Black Consciousness Movement, which stressed the need for psychological liberation, black pride, and non-violent opposition to apartheid.[22]
The BC faction was the most important movement of the late 'sixties and 'seventies. Founded by Biko, it materialised out of the ideas of the civil rights movement and Black Power movement in the USA. The motto of the movement was "Black is Beautiful", first made popular by boxer Mohammed Ali. BC endorsed black pride and African customs, and did much to alter feelings of inadequacy, while also raising awareness of the fallacy of blacks being seen as inferior. It defied practices and merchandise that were meant to make black people "whiter", such as hair straighteners and skin lighteners. Western culture was toured as destructive and alien to Africa. Black people became conscious of their own distinctive identity and self-worth, and grew more outspoken about their right to freedom.
The National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) was the first student representative, but it had a principally white membership, and black students saw this as an impediment. White students had concerns more scholastic than political, and, although the administration was multi-racial, it was not tackling many of the issues of the mounting number of black students since 1960. This resulted in the 1967 creation of the University Christian Movement (UCM), an organisation rooted in African-American philosophy.
In July 1967, the annual NUSAS symposium took place at Rhodes University in Grahamstown. White students were permitted to dwell on university grounds, but black students were relegated to an abode further away in a church vestibule. This brought about the construction of the South African Students Organisation (SASO), under Steve Biko, in 1969.
Black Consciousness grew very fashionable among the millions of blacks around the globe who had known and experienced intolerance. Churches did much to swell its popularity, and a number of establishments were formed to support and spread the idea -- especially among the students and workers. One of these administrations, and one in which Steve Biko played a pivotal role, was the South African Students' Organisation (SASO).
Since 1959, black people had been forced to attend universities separate to those of white students. Although the active student organisation, the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), remained a radical, multi-racial unification opposed to apartheid, white students played the most dynamic and active role. With the growth of Black Consciousness, however, black students began to understand the need for their own organisation. In 1968, many of them broke away from NUSAS and helped to form SASO. They wanted to give more prominence to the troubles of black students and black society.
The Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) was an umbrella organisation for groups such as SASO. It was created in 1967, and among its members were the Azanian People's Organisation (AZAPO), SASO, the black Community Programme (which directed welfare schemes for blacks), the Black People's Convention (which, at first, attempted to unite charitable associations like that for the Education and Cultural Advancement of African People of South Africa) and the South African Students Movement (SASM), which represented high-school learners. The BPC finally expanded into a political administration, with Steve Biko as its honorary president.
When the BCM's principles were illuminated, a number of fresh organisations, staunch in their endorsement of black liberation, came into being. AZAPO was only launched in 1978, a long time after the birth of the BCM, as a medium for its message.
The BCM drew most of its backing from high schools and tertiary institutions. Black Consciousness ethics were crucial in lifting consciousness amongst black people of their value and right to a better existence, along with the need to insist on these. The BCM's non-violent approach subsided in favour of a more radical element as its resolve to attain liberty was met with state hostility.
After the carnage in Soweto, Nelson Mandela, head of the ANC, grudgingly concurred that bloodshed was the only means left to convince the NP to accede to commands for an end to its apartheid policy. A subversive plan of terror was mapped out, with Steve Biko and the BCM to the fore. The BCM and other opinionated elements were prohibited during the 1970s because the government saw them as dangerous. Black Consciousness in South Africa adopted a drastic theory, much like socialism, as the liberation movement progressed to challenging class divisions and shifting from an ethnic stress to focusing more on non-racialism. The BCM became more worried about the destiny of the black people as workers, believing that "economic and political exploitation has reduced the black people into a class".
With Black Consciousness increasing throughout black communities, quite a few other organisations were formed to combat apartheid. In 1972, the Black People's Convention was founded, and the black Allied Worker's Union, formed in 1973, focused on black labour matters. The black Community Programmes gave attention to the more global issues of black communities. School learners began to confront the policy Bantu education, a policy designed to ready them for a second-rate role in society. They created the South African Student's Movement (SASM). It was particularly popular in Soweto, where the 1976 insurrection against Bantu Education would prove to be a crossroads in the fight against apartheid.
The chief reason for the Soweto Uprisings was the adjustment to black schooling brought in by the National Party government following the 1948 elections. The Bantu Education Act was finally instituted in 1953 after the Eiselen Commission's 1949 enquiry into the edification of non-whites. The commission advocated drastic measures in the form of restructuring the "Bantu" school arrangement. Before the Bantu Education Act, the vast majority of black children went to mission schools that obtained economic propping from the state. This changed with the conception of the Bantu Education Department. Mission schools lost government aid and had to close. Funding for the black schools now came from the taxes paid by the black people, most of whom were impoverished. The upshot was a very uneven distribution of teaching reserves between black and white scholars.
Learners and teachers alike were against the introduction of Bantu Education, which they saw as substandard. This discontent effected the creation of a number of lobby groups and movements which regarded the new organism as a governmental plan for the grooming of blacks for unskilled or semi-skilled toil. For a while, alternative culture guilds were employed as unofficial instruction facilities, but these ultimately shut down in 1960.
1959 brought the severance of black and white tertiary schooling via the Extension of University Act. Only the Universities of Cape Town and the Witwatersrand, with their considerable amount of non-white learners, were significantly impinged on. Special tertiary institutions, such as Vista, Fort Hare, Venda and Western Cape, were started up to look after the educational needs of black students. These, referred to as "Tribal colleges" or "bush universities", ignited further remonstration. As the requirement remained for a semi-skilled black workforce, more state finances were supplied in the late-'sixties for Bantu Education. The standard was far below that of white institutions, but an increasing number of black brood went to school. Teachers and amenities were scarce, with many teachers hardly more learned than their learners.
The Coloured Person's Education Act of 1963 made "coloured" education the responsibility of the Department of Coloured Affairs. These institutions had to enrol with the government and were obligatory for all coloured kids, who were no longer permitted to go to white schools. The NP regime moved forward in its endeavour to divide all racial clusters, and, in 1965, the Indian Education Act consigned Indian education to the Department of Indian Affairs.
New-fangled schools in the "homelands" made certain that no fresh schools were constructed for non-white scholars in municipal regions from 1962 to '71. The majority were employed in and around major cities, and commerce in these regions strained the state until, in 1972, it committed itself to generating better-qualified labourers by perking up the education system. This culminated in the building of forty new schools in Soweto, and, from '72 to '76, the learning populace multiplied threefold. Still, though, only one in every five Soweto children attended school.
The teaching structure was not the only root of the Soweto Uprising; there was also, of course, growing irritation with apartheid. The mechanism which most directly set the uprising in motion was the Southern Transvaal Bantu Education Department's choice, in 1974, to have all junior secondary black undergraduates be educated in the English and Afrikaans media in a fifty-fifty ratio. The Afrikaans Medium Decree, forcing all schools for blacks to use the Afrikaans language as the medium for instruction in Mathematics, Social Sciences, Geography and History at secondary-school level. Punt Janson, the Deputy Minister of Bantu Education, was quoted as saying, "I have not consulted the African people on the language issue, and I'm not going to. An African might find that 'the big boss' spoke only Afrikaans or spoke only English. It would be to his advantage to know both languages."[9]
The policy was deeply unpopular, since Afrikaans was regarded by some as "the language of the oppressor". English was favoured as the handy global medium. Protestations came from educators' establishments and school boards. Both teachers and parents felt deeply let down because, in 1973, Dr. H. J. van Zyl, the Secretary for Bantu Education, had sent out a declaration promising that each school board could decide on its teaching language after consulting him. He had also declared that training in two tongues was not advantageous to the scholars. School boards and teacher administrations initiated action, sending reps to the Minister of Bantu Education, M. C. Botha, requesting that he withdraw his verdict, but they were all left dissatisfied. In May 1975, Southern Transvaal school boards voted for a board to fight their cause, but again they failed. Some boards commanded their educators to employ only English, but, after warnings from the Department of Bantu Education, they conceded defeat and followed their orders.
Soweto learners were displeased with the admin-board structure and the rule of the Johannesburg City Council. The accumulated pressure and discontent gave rise to strikes and demonstrations by thousands of school children and, of course, the great defining moment of 16 June 1976. The Belle, Emthonjeni, Khulangolwasi, Pimville, and Thulasizwe Primary High Schools, and the Phefeni and Senoaoane Junior Secondary Schools were just some of the institutions which joined in on the strike. Most of the protest leaders came from the Naledi and Morris Isaacson High Schools.
On 30 April 1976, students at Orlando West Junior School in Soweto went on strike, refusing to go to school. Their rebellion spread to other schools in Soweto.
The revolts in Soweto commenced on 16 June and went on for three days more. The occasion marked a watershed due to the viciousness of the authorities' reply: police opened fire on marching, stone-throwing school children.
The first student to be shot was Hastings Ndlovu, aged fifteen, but the image of Hector Pieterson who was killed at age twelve, became an international symbol of and for the uprising. The official death toll on the day lies at 23, including the two children, but some place it as high as 200. The incident triggered widespread violence throughout South Africa, claiming further lives.
The clash between law-enforcement officials and protesting students enraged contract workers in Soweto. They had to neglect their work and put their jobs in jeopardy because of the conflict. Further altercations were had with the students over this. The consequential turmoil went on until October 1977, when all Black Consciousness Movements were prohibited by Jimmy Kruger, the Minister of Justice, after the death of Steve Biko a month earlier.
The Soweto protests swelled all over South Africa. The University of Zululand's records and administrational houses were set ablaze, and 33 people died in insurgences in Port Elizabeth in August. Cape Town lost 92 people between August and September. Most of the bloodshed had abated by the close of 1976, but, by that time, more than 600 people had perished. The Soweto Uprising alone brought about 170 deaths, together with injuries to another 1,430. Infrastructural harm was huge, affecting schools, municipal amenities and companies.
The consequences of the Soweto Uprising were felt for ages. Youths became aware and appreciative of their ability to stand up to the state. The Uprising had altered the political climate of the country. The deaths of over 100 Soweto school children incited the struggle in other parts of South Africa.
The growing clout and feeling of accomplishment inspired the black youth to arrange themselves for fierce resistance. They became certain of the need to use whatever way possible to bring an end to apartheid. More than 1,000 young people left South Africa, most of them to Tanzania, to be educated in militant struggle at the guerilla training. Political youth organisations increased with the creation of the Congress of South African Students (COSAS) in 1969. It drew the membership of over a million learners, but security police launched an attack on it in July 1985, and more than 500 members were seized.
The ANC also underlined youth gripes, thus strengthening and mobilising more people for the freedom fight. The ANC and PAC recruited emigrant students to join the armed struggle. Swaziland, Lesotho and Botswana were primary destinations for those escaping South Africa to continue their learning rather than hazard being locked up or murdered. The South African administration responded with additional suppressive measures to stifle the deluge.
Insistences on an advanced commission of inquiry into the happenings of 16, 17 and 18 July 1976 were printed in countrywide broadsheets, and the Urban Bantu Council was condemned for its want of action. The Regional Director of Bantu Education reacted by finding fault with the Black People's Convention for inciting a student rebellion. Minister of Bantu Education MC Botha remarked in The World paper of 18 June 1976 that "[t]he alleged aversion to Afrikaans as a medium can hardly be the only reason for the demonstrations", adding that this was manifest in the fact that seven of the participant schools were not affected by the use of Afrikaans as a teaching language. He was correct, of course, but not in the way that he believed.
In August 1976, Soweto's Black Parents' Association held a conference of more than 200 people, including some students. Dr Manas Buthelezi, leader of the BPA, encouraged students to return to their schools and attempt to resolve their gripes with internal endeavours rather than external remonstration. A list of resolutions was drawn up. The foremost applications were for the instantaneous discharge of all arrested learners and a conclusion to the Bantu Education structure. Although Jimmy Kruger promised parents that all of their children would be freed, that is not what transpired. The BPA and sympathetic sister black bodies decided to have a protest rally against the imprisonment of students.
Misery and fury amongst the black youth spilt over into violent behaviour. Afraid of the tide of hostility and annihilation, and viewing it as a threat to state security and stability, the NP government came down with a heavy hand. Police raided the townships in search of ringleaders. Among those arrested was Steve Biko.
Pictures and reports of the revolts were put out in newspapers across the globe, increasing substantially its awareness of the uprisings and South Africa's political milieu. The United Nations Security Council passed a mandatory arms ban on South Africa.
Taken into custody on 18 August 1977, Steve Biko was brutally tortured by unidentified security personnel until he lapsed into a coma. He went for three days without medical treatment and finally died in Pretoria. At the subsequent inquest, the magistrate ruled that no-one was to blame, but the South African Medical Association eventually took action against the doctors who had failed to treat Biko.
There was tremendous reaction both within and outside South Africa. Foreign countries imposed even more stringent sanctions than those which had come before, and the United Nations imposed an arms embargo. Young blacks inside South Africa committed themselves even more fervently to the struggle against apartheid, under the catchphrase "Liberation before education". Black communities became highly politicised.
The Black Consciousness Movement began to change its focus during the 1980s from being on issues of nation and community to issues of class and, perhaps as a result, had far less of an impact than in the mid-'seventies. Still, there is some evidence to suggest that it retained at least some influence, particularly in workers' organisations.
The role of Black Consciousness could be quite clearly seen in the approach of the National Forum, which believed that the struggle ought to hold little or no place for whites. This ideal, of blacks leading the resistance campaign, was an important aim of the traditional BC groups, and it shaped the thinking of many 'eighties activists, most notably the workforce. Furthermore, the NF focused on workers' issues, which became more and more important to BC supporters.
The Azanian People's Organisation (AZAPO) was the leading BC group of the 1980s. It got most of its support from young black men and women -- many of them educated at colleges and universities. The organisation had a lot of support in Soweto and also amongst journalists, helping to popularise its views. It focused, too, on workers' issues, but it refused to form any ties with the whites.
Although it did not achieve quite the same groundswell support that it had in the late 1970s, BC still influenced the thinking of a few resistance groups.
[edit] Student organisations
Student organisations played a significant role in the Soweto uprisings. Opposition to Bantu Education offered a stage for the growth of youth organisations such as the South African Students Movement (SASM), which later became the Soweto Students' Representatives Council (SSRC), and the South African Students Organisation (SASO).
[edit] South African Students Movement
Students from Orlando West and Diepkloof High Schools created the African Students Movement in 1970. This spread to the Eastern Cape and Transvaal, drawing other high schools. In March 1972, the South African Students Movement (SASM) was instituted.
SASM gave support to its members with school work and exams, and with progress from lower school levels to university. Security forces pestered its members continually until, in 1973, some of its headship fled the country. In 1974 and 1975, some affiliates were captured and tried under the Suppression of Communism and Terrorism Acts. This flagged the SASM's progress. Many school headmasters and -mistresses forbade the organisation from playing a role in their schools.
When the Southern Transvaal local Bantu Education Department concluded that all junior secondary black students had to be taught in Afrikaans in 1974, SASM limbs at Naledi High and Orlando West Secondary Schools opted to vent their grievances on school books and refused to attend their schools This form of struggle spread fast to other schools in Soweto and hit boiling point around 8 June 1976. When law enforcement attempted to arrest a regional SASM secretary, they were stoned and had their cars torched.
On 13 June 1976, nearly 400 SASM associates gathered and chose to start a movement for mass action. An Action Committee was shaped with two agents from each school in Soweto. This board became known as the Soweto Students' Representatives Council (SSRC). The protest was set aside for 16 June 1976, and the organisers were determined only to use aggression if they were assaulted by the police.
[edit] National Union of South African Students
After the Sharpeville Massacre, some black student organisations came out but were short-lived under state proscription and antagonism from university powers. They were also unsuccessful in cooperating effectively with one another, resulting in a dearth of harmony and force.
By 1963, one of the few envoys for tertiary students was the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). Although the organisation was meant to be non-racial and anti-government, it was made up primarily of white English students from customarily broad-minded universities such as those in Natal, Cape Town, the Witwatersrand and Grahamstown. These students were had compassion for the effort against the state. By 1967, however, NUSAS was forbidden from functioning on black universities, making it almost impossible for black Student Representative Councils to join the union.
[edit] South African Students Organisation
Growing displeasure among black students and the expansion of Black Consciousness led to the incarnation of the South African Students Organisation (SASO) at Turfloop. In July 1969, Steve Biko became the organisation's inaugural head. This boosted the mood of the students and the Black Consciousness Movement. By means of the unified configuration of SASO, the principles of Black Consciousness came to the forefront as a fresh incentive for the strugglers.
[edit] Trade-Union movement
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In 1973, the world's fiscal boom came to an end. At the same time, labour action in South Africa was renewed, and there were a number of strikes in Durban. The abuse of black workers had been vogue, and, as a consequence, there were many black people being paid too little on which to live. A strike, commenced in January by 2,000 workers of the Coronation Brick and Tile Company for a pay raise (from under R10 to R20 a week), drew a lot hype and encouraged other workers to do the same. Strikes for higher wages, improved working conditions and the end of exploitation occurred throughout this period.
Police employed tear gas and violence against the strikers, but could not apprehend the masses of people involved. The strikers never chose individuals to stand for them, because these people would be the first to be detained. Blacks were not permitted trade unions, which meant that the government could not act against any particular individuals. Strikes usually concluded when income boosts were tendered, but these were generally lower than had initially been insisted upon.
The Durban strikes soon extended to other parts of the country. 1973 and 1974 saw a countrywide amplification of labour opposition. There was also an increasingly buoyancy among black workers as they found that the state did not retort as harshly as they had expected. They thus began to form trade unions, even though these remained illegitimate and unofficial.
After 1976, trade unions and their workers began to play a massive role in the fight against apartheid. With their thousands of members, the trade unions had great strength in numbers, and this they used to their advantage, campaigning for the rights of black workers and forcing the government to make changes to its apartheid policies. Importantly, trade unions filled the gap left by banned political parties. They assumed tremendous importance because they could act on a wide variety of issues and problems for their people -- and not only work-related ones, as links between work issues and broader community grievances became more palpable.
Fewer trade-union officials (harassed less by the police and army) were jailed than political leaders in the townships. Union members could meet and make plans within the factory. In this way, trade unions played a pivotal role in the struggle against apartheid, and their efforts generally had wide community support.
In 1979, one year after Botha's accession to power, black trade unions were legalized, and their role in the resistance struggle grew to all-new proportions. Prior to 1979, black trade unions had had no legal clout in dealings with employers. All strikes that took place were illegal, but they did help to establish the trade unions and their collective cause. Although the legalisation of black trade unions gave workers the legal right to strike, it also gave the government a degree of control over them, as they all had to be registered and hand in their membership records to the government. They were not allowed to support political parties either, and it goes without saying that some trade unions did not comply.
Later in 1979, the FOSATU body was formed, followed by the Council of Unions of South Africa (COSAS). It was influenced strongly by the ideas of Black Consciousness and wanted to work to ensure black leadership of unions.
The establishment of the trade-union federations led to greater unity amongst the workers. The tremendous size of the federations gave them increased voice and power. 1980 saw thousands of black high-school and university students boycotting their schools, and a country-wide protest over wages, rents and bus fares. In 1982, there were 394 strikes involving 141,571 workers. FOSATU and CUSA grew from a mere 70,000 members in 1979 to 320,000 by 1983, the year of the establishment of first the National Forum and then the UDF. Both of these had an important impact, but the latter was far more influential.
With the establishment of the new constitution in 1984, the biggest and longest black uprising exploded in the Vaal Triangle. COSAS and FOSATU organised the longest stay-away in South African history, and, all told, there were 469 strikes that year, amounting to 378,000 hours in lost business time.
In accordance with the State of Emergency in 1985, COSAS was banned and many UDF leaders arrested. A meeting between white business leaders and those of the ANC in Zambia brought about the formation of COSATU in 1985. The newly-formed trade-union governing body, committed to improved working conditions and the fight against apartheid, organised a nationwide strike the following year, and a new State of Emergency was declared. It did not take long for COSATU's membership to grow to 500,000.
With South Africa facing a neigh-unprecedented shortage of skilled white labour, the government was forced to allow black people to fill the vacancies. This, in turn, led to an increase in spending on black, coloured and Indian education.
Still, there were divides amongst the trade-union faction, which had the membership of only ten per cent of the country's workforce. Not all trade unions joined the federations, while agricultural and domestic workers did not even have a trade union to join and were thus more liable. Nevertheless, by the end of this period, the unions had emerged as one of the most effective vehicles for black opposition.
[edit] Churches
The government's suppression of anti-Apartheid political parties limited their influence but not church activism. The government was far less likely to attack or arrest religious leaders, allowing them to potentially be more politically active in the struggle. The government did, however, take action against some churches.
Beyers Naudé left the pro-apartheid Dutch Reformed Church and founded the Christian Institute, bringing white and black people together. He, along with the Institute, were banned in 1977, but he later became the general secretary of the South African Council of Churches (SACC), a religious association which supported anti-apartheid activities. Significantly, it also refused to condemn violence as a means of ending apartheid. Frank Chikane was another general secretary of the SACC. He was detained four times because of his criticism of the government and once allegedly had an attempt on his life, initiated by Adriaan Vlok, former Minister of Law and Order. The charismatic Archbishop Desmond Tutu was yet another general secretary of the SACC. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in 1984 and used his position and popularity to denounce the government and its policies. Alan Boesak led the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC). He was very influential in founding the UDF and was once jailed for a month after organising a march demanding the release of Nelson Mandela.
Although church leaders were not totally immune to prosecution, they were able to criticise the government more freely than the leaders of militant groups. They were pivotal in altering public opinion regarding apartheid policies.
[edit] MDM
The Mass Democratic Movement played a brief but very important role in the struggle. Formed in 1989, it was made up of an alliance between the UDF and COSATU, and organised a campaign aimed at ending segregation in hospitals, schools and beaches. The campaign proved successful and managed to bring segregation to an end. Some historians, however, argue that this occurred because the government had planned to end segregation anyway and did not, therefore, feel at all threatened by the MDM's action.
Later in 1989, the MDM organised a number of peaceful marches against the State of Emergency (extended to four years now) in the major cities. Even though these marches were illegal, no-one was arrested -- evidence that apartheid was coming to an end and that the government's hold was weakening.
Although the MDM emerged only very late into the struggle, it did add to the effective resistance that the government faced, organising a series of protests and further uniting the opposition movement. Certainly, it was characteristic of the "mass resistance" which characterised the 'eighties: many organisations were united, dealing with different aspects of the fight against apartheid and its implications.
[edit] Student organisations
The National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) and the Congress of South African Students (COSAS) were two of the main anti-apartheid student organisations. NUSAS was largely white, but it worked closely with the black opposition groups and also educated fellow whites about the evils of apartheid. COSAS was aimed at coordinating the educational struggles. It organised strikes, boycotts and mass protests around community issues.
Protests by school children became more and more frequent after 1976, in both rural and urban areas. Members of COSAS made a number of demands to the Department of Education and Training, DET, including the scrapping of matric examination fees. It also barred many DET officials from entering schools, demanded that all students pass their exams -- "pass one, pass all" -- and disrupted exams.
There were two major urban school boycotts in 1980 and then 1983. Both involved black, Indian and coloured children, and both went on for months. There were also extended protests in rural areas in 1985 and 1986. In all of these areas, schools were closed and thousands of students, teachers, parents and principals were arrested.
As a result of all this, the National Education Crisis Committee (NECC) was set up in 1986. It comprised parents, teachers and students, and encouraged students to return to their studies, taking on forms of protest less disruptive to their education. Consumer boycott, certainly, were highly recommended. Teachers and students were also encouraged to work together to develop an alternative educational system.
[edit] White resistance
A poster of the End Conscription Campaign.
A poster of the End Conscription Campaign.
While the majority of white South African voters supported the apartheid system, a substantial minority opposed it. In parliamentary elections during the 1970s and 1980s between 15% and 20% of white voters voted for the liberal Progressive Party, whose MP Helen Suzman provided for many years the only Parliamentary opposition to apartheid. Suzman's critics argue that she did not achieve any notable political successes, but helped to shore up claims by the Nationalists that internal, public criticism of apartheid was permitted. Suzman's supporters point to her use of her parliamentary privileges to help the poorest and most disempowered South Africans in any way she could.
Harry Schwarz was in the minority opposition for over 40 years and was leader of the opposition for the United Party from 1963-1974 in the Transvaal. Schwarz was one of the defence barristers in the Rivonia Trial. In 1975, Schwarz left the United Party and formed the Reform Party which later joined the Progressive Party. in 1991 Harry Schwarz was made ambassador to the United States.
Non-violent resistance to apartheid came from the Black Sash, an organisation of white women formed in 1955 to oppose the removal of Coloured (mixed-race) voters from the Cape Province voters' roll. Even after that failure, however, it went on assisting blacks with issues such as pass laws, housing and unemployment.
Covert resistance was expressed by banned organisations like the largely white South African Communist Party, whose leader Joe Slovo was also Chief of Staff of the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe. Whites also played a significant role in opposing apartheid during the 1980s through the United Democratic Front and End Conscription Campaign. The latter was formed in 1983 to oppose the conscription of white males into the South African military. The ECC's support-base was not particularly large, but the government still saw fit to ban it 1988.
The army played a major role in the government's maintenance of its apartheid policies. It was expanded considerably to fight the resistance, and more money was being spent on increasing its effectiveness. It is estimated that something between R4,000,000,000 and R5,000,000,000 was spent on defence in the mid-'eighties. Conscription was used to increase the size of the army, with stiff prison sentences imposed for draft evasion or desertion.[23] Only white males were conscripted, but volunteers from other races were also drawn in. The army was used to fight battles on South African borders and in neighbouring states, against the liberation movements and the countries that supported them. During the 1980s, the military was also used to repress township uprisings, which saw support for the ECC increase markedly.
Cultural opposition to apartheid came from internationally known writers like Breyten Breytenbach, André Brink and Alan Paton (who founded the South African Liberal Party) and clerics like Beyers Naudé.
Some of the first violent resistance to the system was organised by the African Resistance Movement (ARM) who were responsible for setting off bombs at power stations and notably the Park Station bomb. The membership of this group was virtually all drawn from the marginalized white intellectual scene. Founded in the 1960s, many of ARM's members had been part of the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). Unlike pro-peace opposition NUSAS, however, ARM was a radical organisation. Its backing came mostly from Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town. By 1964, though, ARM ceased to exist, most of its members having been arrested or fled the country.
On 24 July 1964, Frederick John Harris, an associate of ARM, deposited a time bomb in the Johannesburg station. One person was slain, and 22 were injured. Harris explained that he had wanted to show that ARM was still in existence, but both ARM and the ANC slammed his actions. He was sentenced to death and executed in 1965.
[edit] Role of women
South African women greatly participated in the anti-apartheid and liberation movements that took hold of South Africa. They demanded the independence of their country and their people. These female activists were rarely at the head of the main organizations, at least at the beginning of the movement, but were nonetheless prime actors. One of the earliest organization was The Bantu Women's League founded in 1913.[24] In the 1930s and 1940s, female activists were strongly present in trade union movements, which also served as a vehicle for future organization. In the 1950s, organizations specifically for women were created such as the ANC Women's League(ANCWL) or a Women's Council within the South West Africa People's Organization(SWAPO).[25] In April 1954, the more global Federation of South African Women (FSAW or FedSAW) was founded with the objective to fight against racism and oppression of women as well as to make African women understand that they had rights both as human beings and as women. While female actvists fought along men and participated to demonstrations and guerrilla movements, FSAW and ANCWL also acted independently and organized bus boycotts, campaigns against restrictive passes in 1956 in Pretoria and in Sharpeville in 1960.[26] 20.000 women attended these kind of demonstrations. Many participants were arrested, forced into exile or imprisoned such as Lilian Ngoyi. In 1958, 2000 women were arrested during an anti-pass campaign.[27] After the Sharpeville Massacre, however, many organizations such as FSAW were banned and went underground.
At the same time South African women fought against gender discrimination and called for rights specific to women, such as family, children, gender equality and access to education. At a conference in Johannesburg in 1954, the Federation of South African Women adopted the "Women's Charter",[28] which focused on rights specific to women both as women and mothers. The Charter referred both to human rights, women's rights and asked for universal equality and national liberation. In 1955, in a document drafted in preparation for the Congress of People,[29] the FSAW made more demands, including free education for children, proper housing facilities and good working conditions, such as the abolition of child labor and a minimum wage.
The difficulty for these local movements was to raise global awareness in order to truly have an impact. Yet, their actions and demands gradually attracted the attention of the United Nations and put pressure on the international community. In 1954, Lilian Ngoyi attended the World Congress of Women in Lausanne, Switzerland.[30] Later, in 1975, the ANC was present at the 1975 United Nations Decade for Women in Copenhagen and in 1980 an essay on the role of women in the liberation movement[31] was prepared for the United Nations World Conference. This has been crucial in the recognition of Southern African women and their role in the anti-apartheid movement.
Among important activists during the liberation movement were Ida Ntwana, Lilian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph, Dorothy Nyembe.[32] Lilian Ngoyi joined the ANC National Executive and was elected first vice-president and later president of FSAW in 1959. Many of these leaders served long prison sentences.
[edit] International relations
Main article: Foreign relations of South Africa
In the after-effects of World War II, the Western world quickly moved from ideas of racial dominance and policies based on racial prejudice. Racially discriminative and segregationist principles were not novelties to the country. Since unionisation in 1910, the state had stood only for the white minority and pursued segregation. Apartheid was a certified, lawful and inflexible type of separation that was methodically entrenched through a battery of legislation. As it was not completely new to the country, and because many Western countries still exercised their own forms of prejudice in their assorted colonies, there was minimal rejoinder and indignation. Another issue, apparently graver, dwelled in the most prominent part of the Western world's (and, together with it, the UN's) agenda. The conclusion of the Second World War signified the commencement of the Cold War, and South Africa, with its anti-red stance, was considered a possible assistant in the passive battle against the Soviet Union.
[edit] Initial relations
The world did not, however, condone South Africa's discriminatory policies. At the first UN gathering in 1946, South Africa was placed on the programme. The primary subject in question was the handling of South African Indians, a great cause of divergence between South Africa and India. In 1952, apartheid was thrashed out again in the aftermath of the Defiance Campaign. The UN set up a task team to keep watch on the progress of apartheid and the racial state of affairs in South Africa. Although racial variance in South Africa was a cause for concern, most countries in the UN concurred that this was one of South Africa's in-house issues, which fell outside the UN's jurisdiction. The UN only became resolute in challenging South Africa later.
[edit] South-West Africa
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The apartheid issue aside, there was also a major quarrel between the UN and South Africa about the management of South West Africa. After World War I, all German colonies were made mandates of the League of Nations, the UN's forbearer. Direction of these mandates was allotted to certain countries. The Treaty of Versailles declared German West Africa a League of Nations Mandate under South African administration, and it then became known as South West Africa.
South Africa formally excluded Walvis Bay from the mandate and annexed it as an exclave. After the configuration of the UN in 1945, and the transferral of mandates from the League of Nations to the new body, the arrangement changed: former obligatory powers (vis-à-vis those in charge of ex-German colonies) were now obliged to form new concurrences with the UN over their management of the mandates. South Africa, however, refused to play ball, declining to allow the territory to move towards independence. The NP government argued that, for a quarter of a century, South-West Africa had been directed as a piece of South Africa, and the preponderance of South-West Africans wanted to become South Africans anyway. Instead, South-West Africa was treated as a de facto "fifth province" of the Union. The South African government turned this mandate arrangement into a military occupation, and extended apartheid to South-West Africa.
The UN attempted to compel South Africa to let go of the mandate, and, in 1960, Liberia and Ethiopia requested that the International Court of Justice announce that South Africa's management of South West Africa was illegitimate. They argued that South Africa was bringing apartheid to South-West Africa, too. South Africa was formally accused of maladministration, and the lawsuit, commencing in November 1960, lasted almost six years. The International Court's verdict astonished the UN: it ruled that Liberia and Ethiopia had no right to take issue with South Africa's deeds in South-West Africa. The Court did not, however, pass judgement on whether or not South Africa still had a mandate over the region. The UN declared that the mandate was indeed concluded, and a council of the UN was to run the state until its independence in 1968. South Africa rebuffed the resolution, but declared its ostensible intention to ready South-West Africa for independence.
Anxiety increased when the UN Council for South-West Africa was declined admission, and steepened still further when South Africa indicted 35 South-West Africans and then found them guilty of terror campaigns. The UN reproached South Africa and declared that South-West Africa would thenceforth be known as Namibia. At the New York Accords in 1988, South Africa finally signed the agreement that granted the country its independence.
[edit] Sharpeville and the severing of British ties
South Africa's policies were subject to international scrutiny in 1960, when British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan criticised them during his celebrated Wind of Change speech in Cape Town. Weeks later, tensions came to a head in the Sharpeville Massacre, resulting in more international condemnation. Soon thereafter, Verwoerd announced a referendum on whether the country should sever links with the British monarchy and become a republic instead. Verwoerd lowered the voting age for whites to eighteen and included whites in South West Africa on the voter's roll. The referendum on 5 October that year asked whites, "Do you support a republic for the Union?", and 52 per cent voted "Yes".
As a consequence of this change of status, South Africa needed to reapply for continued membership of the Commonwealth, with which it had privileged trade links. Even though India became a republic within the Commonwealth in 1947 it became clear that African and Asian member states would oppose South Africa due to its apartheid policies. As a result, South Africa withdrew from the Commonwealth on 31 May 1961, the day that the Republic came into existence.
In 1960, the UN's conservative stance on apartheid changed. The Sharpeville massacre had jolted the global neighbourhood, with the apartheid regime showing that it would use violent behaviour to repress opposition to racial inequity. Many Western states began to see apartheid as a possible danger to global harmony, as the policy caused much intercontinental abrasion over human-rights violation.
In April 1960, the Security Council of the UN settled for the first time on concerted action against the apartheid regime, demanding that the NP bring an end to racial separation and discrimination; but, instead, the South African administration merely employed further suppressive instruments. The ANC and PAC were forbidden from continued existence, and political assemblies were prohibited. From then on, the UN placed the South African issue high on its list of priorities.
In 1961, UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold stopped over in South Africa and subsequently stated that he had been powerless to effect a concurrence Prime Minister Verwoerd. That same year, Verwoerd proclaimed South Africa's extraction from the Commonwealth as a result of its censure of his government.
[edit] Sanctions
International opposition
to Apartheid in South Africa
Campaigns
Disinvestment · Academic boycott
Constructive engagement
Instruments and legislation
UN Resolution 1761 (1962)
United Nations Security Council Resolution 181 (1963)
Crime of Apartheid Convention (1973)
Gleneagles Agreement (1977)
Sullivan Principles (1977)
United Nations Security Council Resolution 418 (1977)
Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act (1986)
Organisations
Anti-Apartheid Movement
UN Special Committee against Apartheid
Artists United Against Apartheid
Halt All Racist Tours
Organisation of African Unity
Conferences
1964 Conference for Economic Sanctions
1978 World Conference against Racism
Other aspects
Elimination of Racism Day
Biko (song) · Activists
Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute
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On 6 November 1962, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 1761, condemning South African apartheid policies. On 7 August 1963 the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 181 calling for a voluntary arms embargo against South Africa, and that very year, a Special Committee Against Apartheid was established to encourage and oversee plans of action against the regime.
In 1966, the United Nations held the first (of many) colloquiums on apartheid. The General Assembly announced 21 March as the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in memory of the Sharpeville bloodbath. In 1971, the UN General Assembly formally denounced the institution of homelands, and a motion was passed in 1974 to eject South Africa from the UN, but this was discarded by France, Britain and the United States of America, all of them key trade associates of South Africa.
One probable type of action against South Africa was economic sanction. If UN affiliates broke fiscal and trading links with the country, it would make it all the trickier for the apartheid government to uphold itself and its policies. Such sanctions were argued frequently within the UN, and many recognised and backed it as an effectual and non-violent way of applying force, but South Africa's major trading partners once more voted against mandatory sanctions. In 1962, the UN General Assembly requested that its members split political, fiscal and transportation connections with South Africa. In 1968, it suggested the deferral of all cultural, didactic and sporting commerce as well. From 1964, the US and Britain discontinued their dealings of armaments to South Africa. In spite of the many cries for sanctions, however, none were made obligatory, because South Africa's main trading partners were again primarily concerned for their own financial security.
In 1977, the voluntary UN arms embargo became mandatory with the passing of United Nations Security Council Resolution 418.
[edit] Aid to apartheid casualties
Another way in which the UN could do something to combat apartheid was to lend support and aid to its victims. In 1963, the General Assembly passed a decree requesting that members contribute financially towards assisting apartheid sufferers. Many states[attribution needed] took note of the call and carried out the necessary action.
[edit] Lusaka Manifesto
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The Organisation for African Unity (OAU) was created in 1963. Its primary objectives were to eradicate colonialism and improve social, political and economic situations in Africa. It censured apartheid and demanded sanctions against South Africa. African states swore to aid the freedom movements in their fights against apartheid. In April 1969, fourteen autonomous nations from Central and East Africa gathered in Lusaka, Zambia, to argue about various African matters. The assembly formulated the 'Lusaka Manifesto', which was signed on 13 April by all of the countries in attendance, except for Malawi. This manifesto was later taken on by both the OAU and the United Nations.
The Lusaka Manifesto summarised the political situations of self-governing African countries, snubbing racism and inequity, and calling for black majority rule in all African nations. It did not rebuff South Africa entirely, though, adopting an appeasing manner towards the apartheid government, and even recognising its autonomy. Although African principals desired the emancipation of black South Africans, they trusted in their abilities to attain this in peaceable ways, intercession instead of militancy. The manifesto's signatories did not want to engage in a military war by supporting the liberation pugilists, because, for one thing, they could ill afford it and, for another, they dreaded retaliation.[citation needed]
[edit] Morogoro Conference
Neither the ANC nor the PAC was content with the Lusaka Manifesto. The signatories had not checked with them before laying out the document, and they foresaw the fact that African backing for the struggle would taper. The Manifesto did not truly recognise the significance of the liberation groups in the answer to South Africa's problems and even proposed dissuading them from an armed struggle. Both the ANC and the PAC had started using violent means in the 1960s, with the formation of their military wings.
Disinclined to destroy the support that they did have, however, the ANC and PAC did not explicitly condemn the Manifesto. In 1969, though, the ANC held the inaugural National Consultative Conference in Morogoro, Tanzania, where it ironed out its troubles and anxieties. The result was a decision not to end the armed struggle but, rather, to advance it. Oliver Tambo summed up thus: "Close Ranks! This is the order to our people, our youth, the army, to each Umkhonto we Sizwe militant, to all our many supporters the world over. This is the order to our leaders, to all of us. The order that comes from this conference is 'Close Ranks and Intensify the Armed Struggle!'"
Unlike the independence factions, the South African administration hailed the Lusaka Manifesto's plans for arbitration and détente. This tied in nicely with Prime Minister Vorster's own plan for the reduction of South Africa's seclusion from the rest of the world. He called his "Outward looking" policy. The state also maintained that the preservation of separate development through homelands carried out the Manifesto's insistence on human equality and dignity. The homelands, it argued, were meant eventually to be self-governing, decolonised nations where black people could take part in ballots and be free to live how they wished.
That is not to say that the NP government agreed to the Lusaka Manifesto, however. It rejected the manifesto's backing of liberation movements, in spite of the fact that the movements themselves felt the Manifesto was showing a lack of support.
[edit] Mogadishu Declaration
South Africa's negative response to the Lusaka Manifesto and rejection of a change to her policies brought about another OAU announcement in 1971. The Mogadishu Declaration declared that South Africa's rebuffing of negotiations meant that her black people could only be freed through fighting, and that no African state should converse with the apartheid government. Henceforth, it would be up to South Africa to keep contact with other African states.
[edit] Outward-Looking Policy
In 1966, BJ Vorster was made South African Prime Minister. He was not about to eliminate apartheid, but he did try to redress South Africa's seclusion and the purported laager mentality. He wanted to perk up the country's global reputation and overseas dealings, even those with black-ruled nations in Africa. This he called his "Outward-Looking" policy: South Africa would look outwards, towards the global neighbourhood, rather than adopting a siege mentality and estranging it. The buzzwords for his strategy were "dialogue" and "détente", signifying arbitration and reduction of pressure.
[edit] Effect of the Soweto Uprising
Following the Soweto Uprising in 1976 and its brutal suppression by the apartheid regime, the arms embargo was made mandatory by the UN Security Council on 4 November 1977 and South Africa became increasingly isolated internationally, with tough economic sanctions weighing heavily. Not all countries imposed or fully supported the sanctions, however; instead, they continued to benefit from trade with apartheid South Africa. During the 1980s, though, the number of countries opposing South Africa increased, and the economy came under tremendous strain.
[edit] Other African states
Vorster's attitude towards other African countries was not so much a modification of strategy as a continuance of Verwoerd's approach. Vorster's forerunner had already become aware of the fact that cordial dealings with as many black states as possible was of paramount importance. As more and more African states acquired freedom from their colonial dictatorships, bitterness towards a repressively racialist South Africa increased. If South Africa did not wish to become completely cut off from the rest of the African continent, she had to sustain gracious associations with it, starting, of course, with mutual economic support. Vorster persisted with this strategy and built good relationships with a number of independent African states.
In 1967, Vorster proffered technological and fiscal counsel gratis to any African state prepared to receive it, asserting that absolutely no political strings were attached. He gave great attention to financial facets, aware of the fact that many African states were very run-down and would require financial aid in spite of their rebuffing of South Africa's racial principles. Malawi and Lesotho were the first countries to enter discussions with the NP government. Angola and Mozambique soon followed.
One of the first steps to take in initiating dealings was to convene with the heads of these African countries. Here Vorster worked decidedly contrary to Verwoerd's policies. Where Verwoerd had declined to get together and engage in dialogue with such leaders as Abubakar Tafawa Balewa of Nigeria in 1962 and Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia in 1964, Vorster, in 1966, met with the heads of the states of Lesotho, Swaziland and Botswana. There was still mutual suspiciousness, however, particularly after Vorster's denunciation of the Lusaka Manifesto in 1969. Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland stayed candid critics of apartheid, but they hinged on South Africa's economic aid. This was inclusive of pecuniary credit and the fact that many navvies from these states worked the South African mines.
Malawi was the first country not on South African borders to accept South African aid. She identified the monetary benefits of such a deal, for there were also many Malawians were working on South African mines. In 1967, the two states delineated their political and economic relations, and, in 1969, Malawi became the only country at the assembly which did not sign the Lusaka Manifesto. In 1970, Malawian President Hastings Banda made his first and most successful official stopover in South Africa.
Associations with Mozambique followed suit and were sustained after that country won its sovereignty in 1975. Angola was also granted South African loans. Other countries which formed relationships with South Africa were Liberia, the Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Mauritius, Gabon, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Ghana and the Central African Republic. These African states slammed apartheid (more than ever after South Africa's denunciation of the Lusaka Manifesto), but fiscal reliance on South Africa, together with fear of her armed potency, resulted in their forming the aforementioned ties.
[edit] Western ties
The "Outward Looking" principle had a significant consequence for South Africa's relationships with Western nations. When Vorster brought forth his strategy, it appeared to them that South Africa might be loosening her racist grip. At the same time, the West regarded the apartheid administration as a significant friend in the Cold War of ideologies. Economically, such nations as Britain and America had numerous concerns in South Africa, and, although they did not endorse apartheid, these concerns led them to a more moderate stance on the country and to vote against financial sanctions against her at UN conferences.
[edit] Britain
When South Africa pulled out of the Commonwealth in 1961, some members[attribution needed] felt that the only way to sort her out was to enforce monetary sanctions and forbid the sale of armaments to her. Other members, most notably Britain, resisted this. She had many key trade links and, in particular, needed South Africa's gold.
There were also tactical motives for not severing all ties with the apartheid government. As the southernmost nation in Africa, and the juncture at which the Indian and Atlantic Oceans collided, South Africa was still a vital point in sea-trade routes. In 1969, the Commandant General of the South African Defence Force (SADF) confirmed that, "[i]n the entire ocean expanse from Australia to South America, South Africa is the only fixed point offering modern naval bases, harbours and airfield facilities, a modern developed industry and stable government."[cite this quote] South Africa was also a pivotal partner to the West in the years of the Cold War. If the West ever required martial, maritime or air-force services on the African continent, it would have to rely on South Africa's assistance.
From 1960 to 1961, the relationship between South Africa and Britain started to change. In his "Winds of Change" speech in Cape Town, Harold Macmillan spoke of the changes in Africa and how South Africa's racist policies were swimming upstream. Even as more countries added to the call for sanctions, Britain remained unwilling to sever her ties with the apartheid administration. Possible reasons were her copious assets in the state, an unwillingness to hazard turbulence brought on by intercontinental meddling, and the fact that many British people had kith and kin living in South Africa or, indeed, were living there themselves. Along with America, Britain would persistently vote against certain sanctions against South Africa.
[edit] USA
At the outset of apartheid, the United States was not particularly blunt about South Africa's racial policies. Following the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, however, the country voted at the UN conference against it. The US impressed a severe armament embargo on South Africa from 1964, and, from 1967, the American navy avoided the South African harbours. Unlike Britain, the USA did not see much importance in the Cape route, but they did see the economic opportunities for South African investment. Imports and exports between the two nations came to many millions of Dollars. Financial ties aside, there were also numerous cultural links between South Africa and America. South Africans of all creeds were given the chance to study in America with scholarships. The US even utilised South Africa for her exploration of outer space, setting up a satellite tracking post near Krugersdorp, and building numerous telescopes for lunar probes. This picked up ailing ties between the two countries, but, in the 1970s, America withdrew from the tracking station.
As fiscal ties between South Africa, America and Britain were reinforced, however, sporting and cultural boycotts became important gadgets in South Africa's isolation from international society. The arms prohibition obliged South Africa to look elsewhere (particularly France) for its artillery, build up its own technology and manufacture weapons itself. At first, the Cold War had little influence on the connection between the West and South Africa: America believed that the armament embargo would not put up a barrier between them. If a major quarrel broke out in Africa, South Africa would be forced to work with America anyway.
[edit] Isolation
One of the primary means for the international community to show its aversion to apartheid was to boycott South Africa in a variety of spheres of multinational life. Economic and military sanctions were among these, but cultural and sporting boycotts also found their way in. South Africa, in this way, was cut off from the rest of the globe. It also awoke the South African community to the opinions of other countries. Despite financial shunning causing significant harm to black South Africans, the ANC proclaimed it as an essential means of achieving liberty. Cultural and sporting boycotts, on the other hand, did not have a negative effect on the lives of blacks, as they were already barred from these by their own government. Not being able to partake in global sporting and cultural affairs was most trying to the whites, however, who thought themselves equal to the best in the world.
Sporting seclusion commenced in the mid-1950s and increased through the 1960s. Apartheid forbade multiracial sport, which meant that overseas teams, by virtue of their having players of diverse races, could not play in South Africa. In 1956, the International Table Tennis Federation severed its ties with the all-white South African Table Tennis Union, preferring the non-racial South African Table Tennis Board in its stead. The apartheid government came back by confiscating the passports of the Board's players so that they were unable to attend international games. Other global sports unions followed the example, but they were sluggish in doing so.
In 1959, the non-racial South African Sports Association (SASA) was shaped to secure the rights of all players on the global field. After meeting with no success in its endeavours to attain credit by collaborating with white establishments, SASA went to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1962, calling for South Africa's eviction form the Olympic Games. The IOC sent South Africa a caution to the effect that, if there were no changes, she would be barred from the 1964. The changes were initiated, and in January 1963, the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SANROC) was set up. The Anti-Apartheid Movement persisted in its campaign for South Africa's exclusion, and the IOC acceded in barring the country from the 1964 Games in Tokyo. South Africa selected a multi-racial side for the next Games, and the IOC opted to incorporate her in the 1968 Games in Mexico. Because of protests from AAMs and African nations, however, the IOC was forced to retract the invitation.
Foreign complaints about South Africa's bigoted sports brought more isolation. In 1960, Verwoerd barred a Maori rugby player from touring South Africa with the All Blacks, and the tour was cancelled. New Zealand made a decision not to convey an authorised rugby team to South Africa again.[citation needed]
B. J. Vorster took Verwoerd's place as PM in 1966 and declared that South Africa would no longer dictate to other countries what their teams should look like. Although this reopened the gate for sporting meets, it did not signal the end of South Africa's racist sporting policies. In 1968, Vorster went against his policy by refusing to permit Basil D'Oliveira, a Coloured South African-born cricketer, to join the English cricket team on its tour to South Africa. Vorster said that the side had been chosen only to prove a point, and not on merit. After protests, however, "Dolly" was eventually included in the team. Protests against certain tours brought about the cancellation of a number of other visits, like that of an England rugby team in 1969/70.
As sporting segregation persisted, it became obvious that that South Africa would have to make further changes to its sporting policies if it was to be recognised on the international stage. More and more careers were impinged upon by segregation, and they began to stand up against apartheid. In 1971, Vorster altered his policies even further by distinguishing multiracial from multinational sport. Multiracial sport, between teams with players of different races, remained outlawed; multinational sport, however, was now acceptable: international sides would not be subject to South Africa's racial stipulations.
International censure of segregated sport and calls for sporting sanctions persisted. The UN would continue to hold them against South Africa until the end of apartheid. These measures did not bring an end to international sport for South African teams, but they add very much to the country's seclusion. The bans were revoked in 1993, when conciliations for a democratic South Africa were well under way.
In the 'sixties, the Anti-Apartheid Movements began to campaign for cultural boycotts of apartheid South Africa. Artists were requested not to present or let their works be hosted in South Africa. In 1963, 45 British writers put their signatures to an affirmation approving of the boycott, and, in 1964, American actor Marlon Brando called for a similar affirmation for films. In 1965, the Writers' Guild of Great Britain called for a proscription on the sending of films to South Africa. Over sixty American artists signed a statement against apartheid and against professional links with the state. The presentation of some South African plays in Britain and America was also vetoed. After the arrival of television in South Africa in 1975, the British Actors Union, Equity, boycotted the service, and no British programme concerning its associates could be sold to South Africa. Sporting and cultural boycotts did not have the same impact as economic sanctions, but they did much to lift consciousness amongst normal South Africans of the global condemnation of apartheid.
These facets of social remoteness from the worldwide hamlet made apartheid a discomfiture and were most trying for sports and culture fans. These boycotts effectively egged on little changes to apartheid policy, and corroded white South Africans' dedication to it.
Numerous conferences were held and the United Nations passed resolutions condemning South Africa, including the World Conference Against Racism in 1978 and 1983. A significant divestment movement started, pressuring investors to refuse to invest in South African companies or companies that did business with South Africa. South African sports teams were barred from participation in international events, and South African culture and tourism were boycotted.
Countries such as Zambia, Tanzania and the Soviet Union provided military support for the ANC and PAC. It was more difficult, though, for neighbouring states such as Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland, because they were economically dependant on South Africa. Still, they did feed the struggle underground.
Ordinary people in foreign countries did much in protest against the apartheid government, too. The British Anti-Apartheid Movement was one of these, organising boycotts against South African sports teams, South African products such as wine and fruit, and British companies that dared trade with or in South Africa. Other organisations were formed to prevent musicians and the like from coming into the country, and others raised funds for the ANC and PAC.
After much debate, by the late 1980s the United States, the United Kingdom, and 23 other nations had passed laws placing various trade sanctions on South Africa.[33] A divestment movement in many countries was similarly widespread, with individual cities and provinces around the world implementing various laws and local regulations forbidding registered corporations under their jurisdiction from doing business with South African firms, factories, or banks.[34]
In an analysis of the effect of sanctions on South Africa by the FW de Klerk Foundation, it was argued that they were not a leading contributor to the political reforms leading to the end of Apartheid.[35] The analysis concluded that in many instances sanctions undermined effective reform forces, such as the changing economic and social order within South Africa. Furthermore, it was argued that forces encouraging economic growth and development resulted in a more international and liberal outlook amongst South Africans, and were far more powerful agents of reform than sanctions.
[edit] Western influence
While international opposition to apartheid grew, the Nordic countries in particular provided both moral and financial support for the ANC.[citation needed] On 21 February 1986 – a week before he was murdered – Sweden's prime minister Olof Palme made the keynote address to the Swedish People's Parliament Against Apartheid held in Stockholm. In addressing the hundreds of anti-apartheid sympathizers as well as leaders and officials from the ANC and the Anti-Apartheid Movement such as Oliver Tambo, Palme declared:
"Apartheid cannot be reformed; it has to be eliminated."[cite this quote]
Other Western countries adopted a more ambivalent position. In the 1980s, both the Reagan and Thatcher administrations in the USA and UK followed a 'constructive engagement' policy with the apartheid government, vetoing the imposition of UN economic sanctions on South Africa, as they both fiercely believed in free trade, and seeing South Africa as a bastion against Marxist forces in Southern Africa. Thatcher declared the ANC a terrorist organisation,[36], and in 1987 her spokesman, Bernard Ingham, famously said that anyone who believed that the ANC would ever form the government of South Africa was "living in cloud cuckoo land".[37]
By the late 1980s, however, with the tide of the Cold War turning and no sign of a political resolution in South Africa, Western patience with the apartheid government began to run out. By 1989, a bipartisan Republican/Democratic initiative in the US favoured economic sanctions (realized as the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act), the release of Nelson Mandela and a negotiated settlement involving the ANC. Thatcher too began to take a similar line, but insisted on the suspension of the ANC's armed struggle.[38]
Some might argue[attribution needed] that Britain's significant economic involvement in South Africa provided some leverage with the South Africa government, with both the UK and the US applying pressure on the government, and pushing for negotiations. However, neither Britain nor the US were willing to apply economic pressure upon their multinational interests in South Africa, such as the mining company Anglo American. A high-profile case claiming compensation from these companies was thrown out of court in 2004.[39]
[edit] South African Border War
Main article: South African Border War
By 1966, SWAPO launched guerilla raids from neighbouring countries against South Africa's occupation of South-West Africa/Namibia. Initially South Africa fought a counter-insurgency war against SWAPO. But this conflict deepened after Angola gained its independence in 1975 under Communist leadership, the MPLA, and South Africa promptly challenged them, allying with the Angolan rival party, UNITA. By the end of the 1970s, Cuba had joined the fray, in one of several late Cold War flashpoints throughout Southern Africa.[40] This developed into a conventional war between South Africa and UNITA on one side against the Angolan government, the Cubans, the Soviets and SWAPO on the other side.
[edit] Total onslaught
By 1980, as international opinion turned decisively against the apartheid regime, the government and much of the white population increasingly looked upon the country as a bastion besieged by communism and radical black nationalists. Considerable effort was put into circumventing sanctions, and the government even went so far as to develop nuclear weapons, allegedly with the help of Israel.[41] South Africa and Libya are the only countries to date to have developed and voluntarily relinquished their nuclear arsenals.
Negotiating majority rule with the ANC was not considered an option (at least publicly), and it left the government to defend the country against external and internal threats through sheer military might. A siege mentality developed among whites, and, although many believed that a civil war against the black majority could not possibly be won, they preferred this to "giving in" to political reform. Brutal police and military actions seemed entirely justifiable. Paradoxically, the international sanctions that cut whites off from the rest of the world enabled black leaders to develop sophisticated political skills as those in exile forged ties with both regional and world leaders.
P. W. Botha initiated a policy of "Total Onslaught, Total Strategy", whereby reform was mixed with repression. With big businesses (affected by apartheid policies) ardently desirous of change, the government established two important commissions of enquiry. The Riekert Commission concluded that blacks ought to be allowed to buy their own homes in urban areas, while the Wiehahn Commission dictated that black trade unions be given more freedom, more money be spent on black education and some apartheid legislation be abolished. The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act most certainly was, while the pass laws and employment colour bar were relaxed. Fewer people were arrested for offences pertaining to the latter as segregation in everyday life was gradually lessened. The government also gave so-called "independence" to a number of the homelands, but this seems to have been in part due to the fact that, as foreign citizens, their people could no longer expect anything from the South African government. Indeed, none of these reforms lessened the power of the white minority.
The term "front-line states" referred to countries in Southern Africa geographically near South Africa. Although these front-line states were all opposed to apartheid, many were economically dependent on South Africa. In 1980, they formed the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), the aim of which was to promote economic development in the region and hence reduce dependence on South Africa. Furthermore, many SADCC members also allowed the exiled ANC and PAC to establish bases in their countries.
Other African countries also contributed to the fall of apartheid. In 1978, Nigeria boycotted the Commonwealth Games because New Zealand's sporting contacts with the South African government were not considered to be in accordance with the 1977 Gleneagles Agreement. Nigeria also led the 32-nation boycott of the 1986 Commonwealth Games because of British prime minister Margaret Thatcher's ambivalent attitude towards sporting links with South Africa, significantly affecting the quality and profitability of the Games and thus thrusting apartheid into the international spotlight.[42]
A number of African countries contributed to the ANC's guerilla-insurgency campaign within South Africa.
[edit] Cross-border raids
South Africa had a policy to attack terrorist bases in neighbouring countries. These attacks were mainly aimed at ANC, PAC and SWAPO guerrilla-bases and safe houses in retaliation for acts of terror - like bomb explosions, massacres and guerrilla actions (like sabotage) by ANC, PAC and Swapo guerrillas in South Africa and Namibia. The country also aided organisations in surrounding countries who were actively combatting the spread of communism in Southern Africa. The results of these policies included:
* Support for anti-government guerrilla groups such as UNITA in Angola and RENAMO in Mozambique
* South African Defence Force (SADF; now the South African National Defence Force; SANDF) hit-squad raids into front-line states. Bombing raids were also conducted into neighbouring states.
* A full-scale invasion of Angola: this was partly in support of UNITA, but was also an attempt to strike at SWAPO bases.
* Targeting of exiled ANC leaders abroad: Joe Slovo's wife Ruth First was killed by a parcel bomb in Maputo, and 'death squads' of the Civil Co-operation Bureau and the Directorate of Military Intelligence attempted to carry out assassinations on ANC targets in Brussels, Paris and Stockholm, as well as burglaries and bombings in London.
In 1984, Mozambican president Samora Machel signed the Nkomati Accord with South Africa's president P.W. Botha, in an attempt to rebuild Mozambique's economy. South Africa agreed to cease supporting anti-government forces, while the MK was prohibited from operating in Mozambique. This was an awful setback for the ANC.
In 1986 President Machel himself was killed in an air crash in mountainous terrain near the South African border after returning from a meeting in Zambia. South Africa was accused of continuing its aid to RENAMO and having caused the crash using a new advanced electronic beacon capable of luring aircraft into crashing. This was never proven and is still a subject of great controversy. The South African Margo Commission found that the crash was an accident while a Soviet delegation issued a minority report implicating South Africa.[43]
[edit] Conservatism
The National Party government implemented, alongside apartheid, a program of social conservatism. Pornographic movies, gambling and other vices were banned. At the same time, it instituted the International Freedom Foundation. Printed or filmed pornography (of even the mildest variety) was banned and its possession was punishable by incarceration.
Television was not introduced until 1975 because it was viewed as dangerous by right-wingers. Television was also run on apartheid lines -- TV1 broadcast in Afrikaans and English (and was geared to a white audience); TV2 in Zulu and Xhosa (and geared to a black audience); TV3 in Sotho, Tswana and Pedi (and geared to a black audience); and TV4 showed mostly African-American programmes (for an urban-black audience). All TV channels were government-owned and acted as propaganda agents for apartheid.
Sunday was considered holy. Cinemas, bottle stores and most other businesses were forbidden from operating on Sundays. Abortion and sex education were also restricted; abortion was legal only in cases of rape or if the mother's life was threatened.
[edit] State security
During the 1980s the government, led by P.W. Botha, became increasingly preoccupied with security. On the advice of American political scientist Samuel Huntington, Botha's government set up a powerful state security apparatus to "protect" the state against an anticipated upsurge in political violence that the reforms were expected to trigger. The 1980s became a period of considerable political unrest, with the government becoming increasingly dominated by Botha's circle of generals and police chiefs (known as securocrats), who managed the various States of Emergencies.
Botha's years in power were marked also by numerous military interventions in the states bordering South Africa, as well as an extensive military and political campaign to eliminate SWAPO in Namibia. Within South Africa, meanwhile, vigorous police action and strict enforcement of security legislation resulted in hundreds of arrests and bannings, and an effective end to the ANC's sabotage campaign.
The government punished political offenders brutally. Between 1982 and 1983, 40,000 people were subjected to whipping as a form of punishment. The vast majority had committed political offences and were lashed ten times for their trouble. If convicted of treason, a person could be hanged, and the government executed numerous political offenders in this way.
[edit] State of emergency
During the last years of apartheid rule in South Africa, the country was more or less in a constant state of emergency.
Increasing civil unrest and township violence led to the government declaring a State of Emergency on 20 July 1985, giving it the power to deal with resistance to apartheid. More human rights were violated during this period than ever before. It became a criminal offence to threaten someone verbally or possess documents that the government perceived to be threatening. It was illegal to advise anyone to stay away from work or oppose the government. It was illegal, too, to disclose the name of anyone arrested under the State of Emergency until the government saw fit to release that name. People could face up to ten years' imprisonment for these offences. However, although the government increased its repressive measures, it was not enough to secure a lasting position in power.
Then-President P.W. Botha declared the State of Emergency in 36 magisterial districts. Areas affected were the Eastern Cape, and the PWV region ("Pretoria, Witwatersrand, Vereeniging"). Three months later the Western Cape was included as well. During this state of emergency about 2,436 people were detained under the Internal Security Act. This act gave police and the military sweeping powers. The government could implement curfews controlling the movement of people. The president could rule by decree without referring to the constitution or to parliament.
Four days before the ten-year commemoration of the Soweto uprising, another state of emergency was declared on 12 June 1986 to cover the whole country. The government amended the Public Security Act, expanding its powers to include the right to declare certain places "unrest areas". This allowed the state to employ extraordinary measures to crush protests in these areas. Television cameras were banned from entering "unrest areas". The state broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) provided propaganda in support of the government. This version of reality was challenged by a range of pro-ANC alternative publications.
In 1989, with the State of Emergency extended to a fourth year, Prime Minister Botha met Mandela and agreed to work for a peaceful solution to the conflict in the country. Talks commenced with the ANC, prominent business leaders, the Commonwealth and the Eminent Persons Group.
The state of emergency continued until 1990, when F.W. de Klerk became the State President, and lifted the 30-year ban on leading anti-apartheid group the African National Congress, the smaller Pan Africanist Congress and the South African Communist Party. He also made his first public commitment to release jailed ANC leader Nelson Mandela, returned to press freedom and suspend the death penalty.
[edit] HIV/AIDS epidemic
In 1982, the first recorded death from AIDS occurred in the country. Within a decade, the number of recorded AIDS cases (overwhelmingly in the black population) had risen to over 1,000, and by the mid-1990s, it had reached 10,000.
In late 1980s, the South African Chamber of Mines began an education campaign to try to stem the rise of cases. But without a change in the underlying conditions of mine workers, a major factor contributing to the epidemic, success could hardly be expected. Long periods away from home under bleak conditions and a few days leave a month were the apartheid-induced realities of the life thousands of miners and other labourers worked. Compounding the problem was the fact that as of the mid-1990s, many health officials still focused more on the incidence of tuberculosis than HIV.
[edit] Final years of apartheid
Serious political violence was a prominent feature of South Africa from 1985 to 1995. There was virtually a civil war between left-wing and right-wing South Africans. From 1985-1988 the P.W. Botha government tried to crush left-wing organizations. For three years police and soldiers patrolled South African towns. Thousands of people were detained. Deaths mounted on both sides. Many of those detained by the government were interrogated and tortured; while anti-government activists used the "necklace method" (burning people alive) to kill black people suspected of supporting apartheid. The government banned television cameras from filming "unrest zones".
The ANC and the PAC exploded bombs in restaurants, shopping centres and in front of government buildings such as magistrates courts, killing and maiming civilians and government officials in the process. By 1985, it had become the ANC's aim to make black townships "ungovernable" (a term later replaced by "people's power") by forcing residents to stop paying for services. The townships duly became the focus areas in the apartheid struggle.
Throughout the 'eighties, township people resisted apartheid by acting against the local issues that faced their particular communities. The focus of much of the resistance was against the community organisations and their leaders, who were seen to be supporting the government. The fact that they were also the ones responsible for rent collection merely added to their unpopularity. (A common form of township protest was the rent boycott.) The official governments of numerous townships were either overthrown or collapsed, to be replaced by unofficial organisations, led generally by the youth but welcoming workers and residents of all ages. People's courts were set up, and township residents accused of supporting the government were "put on trial" and dealt extreme (often lethal) punishments. Black town councillors and policemen, and their families, were attacked with petrol bombs and "necklaces", a fate suffered by many residents who resisted such tactics: they were brutally murdered by having a burning tire placed around their necks. This became known as necklacing.
During the ANC-enforced consumer boycotts of manufacturers who were seen to be treating workers badly or supporting apartheid, residents had to eat soap powder and drink kerosene if they were alleged to have bought from white-owned shops. During this period an average of more than 100 people died as a result of black-on-black violence in the black townships every month with the figure increasing to as high as 259 per month between 1990 and 1993.
Much of this unrest took the ANC by surprise. Its calls to make the townships "ungovernable" were most certainly being heeded. Much of the unrest was directed at government, but a substantial quantity was between the residents themselves. Rivalries existed between members of INKATHA and the UDF-ANC faction, and many people died as a result of this violence. It was later proven that the government manipulated the situation by supporting one side or the other when it suited it. Between 1984 and 1988, over 4,000 people died as a result of political violence.
In the early 1980s, PW Botha's National Party government recognised the need to reform apartheid. These reforms were driven by a combination of internal violence, international condemnation, changes within the National Party's constituency, and changing demographics — whites constituted only 16% of the total population and dropping, in comparison to 20% fifty years earlier. P.W. Botha told white South Africans to "adapt or die". In 1984 the Tricameral reforms were introduced. Ironically, these served only to trigger intensified political violence through the remainder of the 'eighties as more communities and political groups across the country joined the resistance movement. Between 1986 and 1988, all petty apartheid laws were repealed. In 1984, a new constitution was introduced, which gave Parliamentary representation to coloureds and Indians (but not blacks, expected to remain citizens of the homelands). Of course, PW Botha's government stopped well short of reform that included releasing ANC, PAC and SACP political prisoners, with the Prime Minister often reiterating that he would negotiate only with those groups which rejected political violence.
The 1983 constitution was part of the NP government's larger plan to reform its policy of apartheid. The new constitution, in practice, hardly amounted to much of a reform: although it gave Indians and Coloureds at least some form of say in government, it ensured that their political influence was decidedly limited. More importantly, though, the constitution did not grant black people, who made up the majority of the population, any such involvement.
Under the new constitution, parliament was divided into three distinctly racial houses -- the House of Assembly (178 members) for whites, the House of Representatives (85 members) for coloureds and the House of Delegates (45 members) for Indians. Each House handled laws pertaining to their "own affairs". These included health, education and other community issues. All laws relating to "general affairs" were handled by a cabinet made up of representatives from all three houses -- although, naturally, the whites had the majority. "General affairs" normally concerned matters such as defence, industry and taxation, but it was up to the State President, of course, to decide upon what was "general" and what was not.
The 1983 Tricameral reforms led to both a right- and a left-wing backlash, such that unrest and political violence dramatically increased, as South Africa became increasingly polarised and fragmented, the government's hold on the country steadily weakening. As a result of increased pressure both within and outside the country, the state was forced to take measures to bring an end to apartheid.
The right-wing backlash gave rise to a neo-Nazi paramilitary group, the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB), led by Eugène Terre'Blanche. A left-wing United Democratic Front (UDF) was also formed at this time, as a direct response to the new constitution. The UDF was a cleverly-crafted, broad-based democratic coalition of affiliated organisations, calling for everyone opposed to the Tricameral System to "join hands"; its aim was to coordinate resistance within the country. It brought together 400 anti-apartheid organisations, unifying the struggle and made it more effective. All told, the UDF had about 1,500,000 members.
The UDF called first for resistance against the 1983 constitution and later organised some more general resistance against the government. Most resistance between 1984 and '86 was UDF-organised, but the National Forum also had a role to play (albeit a comparatively insignificant one). Like the UDF, the National Forum comprised a number of organisations, but it was also different in two ways:
* The NF was not as non-racial, believing that whites should not be allowed to work together with the oppressed races to overthrow the government.
* The NF felt that workers' interests were of utmost importance.
With so many political organisations banned at the time, the NF and UDF did important work in resistance to apartheid.
As the 1980s progressed, so more and more anti-apartheid organizations were formed and affiliated to the UDF. Led by the Reverend Allan Boesak and Albertina Sisulu, the UDF called for the government to abandon its reforms and instead abolish apartheid and eliminate the homelands completely.
Many Indians and coloureds also rejected the Tricameral system. Their lives were hardly any better, they still had to endure a battery of apartheid legislation, and they could do nothing with the limited power afforded them to make any real changes. The first Tricameral elections were largely boycotted, and there was widespread rioting.
Blacks saw the new constitution as an insult to both them and their struggle. Although they made up the majority of the population, they still found themselves, even after constitutional reforms, totally excluded from any real form of political representation. Rioting died down soon enough in the Indian and coloured areas, but it was sustained and far more violent in the black areas.
While these widespread protests were taking place, the ANC launched a series of violent attacks on the government, whose attempt with the new constitution to garner support among the non-white populace had failed miserably.
International pressure also increased as economic sanctions began to impact on the value of the rand, which all but collapsed. In 1985, the government declared a State of Emergency which was to stay in effect for the next five years. Television cameras were banned from the "unrest areas", and, by 1988, 30,000 people had been detained. Media opposition to the system increased, supported by the growth of a pro-ANC alternative press within South Africa.
In 1987, the State of Emergency was extended for another two years, and white intellectuals met the ANC in Senegal for talks. Meanwhile, about 200,000 members of the National Union of Mineworkers commenced the longest strike (three weeks) in South African history. Violence increased between the UDF and INKATHA supporters. 1988 saw the banning of the activities of the UDF and other anti-apartheid organisations.
International pressure on Botha's government continued to grow, with the US and UK now actively promoting the solution of a negotiated settlement with the black majority. Reforms gradually increased in number and magnitude. Early in 1989, however, Botha suffered a stroke, resigned on 13 February 1989 and was succeeded later that year by FW de Klerk. In his opening address to parliament in February 1990, in what has come to be known as the "unbanning speech", President De Klerk announced that he would repeal discriminatory laws and lift the ban on the ANC, the UDF, the PAC, and the SACP. The Land Act was brought to an end. Media restrictions were lifted, and De Klerk released political prisoners not guilty of common-law crimes.
A number of reasons have been put forward for the NP's abolishment of apartheid after having stood by it for so long:
nonymous said...
ReplyDeleteTHIS ARE THE VERY SERIOUS REASONS WHY COALITION GOVERNMENT IS A MUST TO CLEAN OUT THIS THUGS WHO PLAN TO MESS KENYAN!!!!!
Secret Meetings held to dupe and bribe!
Uhuru Kenyatta's double-speak about his ambition to become Kenya's President after Kibaki is no surprise. Uhuru Kenyatta is the chosen heir in an elaborate plan by Mt. Kenya politicians to ensure that the Presidency stays with the community beyond 2022. A group of Mt. Kenya politicians have planned how Uhuru will take over the Presidency in 2012 whether Kibaki wins another term or not in December 2007.
Before PNU was formed, Kibaki had held a series of secret meetings with top leaders from Central Province to chart the way forward for the future of the Kikuyu Community after 2007. The meetings started as early as April this year when the Kibaki men realized that he had no credible party that could see him get re-elected. Purely Mt. Kenya outfits Narc-Kenya and DP were at the time pressuring him to adopt their ticket amid dissent from non-Kikuyu ministers.
Notably, while the politicians were of the impression that Kibaki should join either of the two Mt. Kenya parties, Kibaki's golfing baddies now entrenched in government, parastatals and in Mt. Kenya owned TransCentury share-trading and acquisition company were busy working on a formula that would see Kibaki re-elected at the same time ensuring that the presidency remains with the Kikuyu beyond 2012.
Handwritten minutes of meetings show that the planners - the athuri group - are so secret that even members of the Ameru and Aembu are not included. The argument is that these communities will obviously support a Kikuyu come 2012 because they have no option. To this end, it was agreed that Kiraitu Murungi and David Mwiraria be returned to the cabinet to ensure "they are for ever grateful" and to win the loyalty of the Ameru. It came as no surprise that it was Lucy Kibaki who made hints of their return which was effected speedily. Minutes show the group nicknamed itself "athuri".
About the same time, the athuri secretive group comprising of Kibaki as chairman, Njenga Karume and John Michuki as alternate chairmen, Mary Wambui, Jimmy Kibaki, Judy Kibaki, Eddy Njoroge, George Muhoho, Stanley Murage, Nat Kangethe, Bishops Arthur Gitonga and George Gathii, and Cyrus Gituai (PS OP) were holding meetings with the retired president Moi's group of Nicholas Biwott, Ezekiel Bargetuny, Gideon Moi, Sila Yego and Uhuru to layout the post-Kibaki succession plan.
Ready to play ball as usual were Luhya leaders in the then GNU. A plot was hatched to have Ford-Kenya take the lead in the formation of PNU thereby hide the true intention of the Mt. Kenya boys. In one meeting it was agreed that Musikari Kombo was more pliable, weak and dumb enough to be used. That Kombo was weak on his Western Province turf after invasion by ODM was cited as reason enough for him to play errand boy without question. "Nyamu eno ahoyaga matigio. Reke tomuhe ihindi" (this animal worships leftovers. Let's give him a bone to chew), Kibaki is said of Kombo in reference to empty departments given to Kombo's cronies after he threw a tantrum following a post-referendum new cabinet in 2005.
Not surprisingly, in a recent tour of Western Province, Kibaki told Kombo and company including Moody Awori that he will include him in his cabinet. It was strange given that the president found it necessary to make this promise when all parties under PNU should automatically be in Cabinet after elections. Was this an attempt to stem some disquiet regarding the president's mean trick of short-changing partners? Was this reassurance to Kombo and meant to appease Luhya voters who have lost faith and trust that Kibaki, an introverted tribalist, can never honour a promise? Problem is, there is no party Kombo can use to negotiate for positions in the post-elections cabinet. This is because Ford-Kenya has been swallowed by PNU and is fielding no candidates!
Earlier, in the athuri meeting, it was also argued that Kombo's never-ending ambition to be "given" the vice presidency was a great enticement to have him play blind ball. His desperation for money was also used fully. No less a person than his nemesis Soita Shitanda of Malava has accused Kombo of being in PNU for the money. It is instructive that while all parties under PNU have their own candidates, only Ford-Kenya failed to field a single candidate of its own. The ECK register shows that all Former Ford-Kenya MPs in Bungoma, including Kombo are running on PNU. It means that Ford-Kenya is finally dead.
That's how the equally quick-to-please Noah Wekesa was recruited to lead a façade of forming PNU while the backroom Muthaiga boys worked on a parallel plan. It is notable that immediately Wekesa thought he had clinched it with PANU, the Mt. Kenya boys took it over renamed it PNU and got busy swallowing all the other parties other than Kanu. Wekesa's cries of betrayal were to no avail. His boss Kombo, as usual was more interested in the cash handouts that comes with "horse trading" than protecting his sidekick or the interests of Ford-Kenya.
Back to the issue of the Kibaki succession, Uhuru finally agreed to join the Kibaki team but was given enough concessions as the heir-in-waiting: First, Kanu would field independent candidates but who will be funded by PNU to ensure Kanu becomes strong since PNU would disintegrate by 2009 and a win or lose by Kibaki would have prepared Uhuru to inherit the Mt. Kenya vote. Second, the bad blood between Uhuru and Moi over his association with ODM would be cleansed by the appointment as ministers of Gideon Moi, Nick Salat, Paul Sang and Nicholas Biwott in a Kibaki government. As it were only Paul Sang got the appointment earlier than after the elections. These appointment promises remain intact for after 2008 and are the reason Moi and company are campaigning hard for Kibaki in Rift Valley. Third, through such association with Moi's boys and should Kibaki lose, Kanu would have re-established a foothold in Central Kenya and the Rift Valley, and with Moi's support in the Rift Valley, Uhuru will be president and Gideon Moi the vice in 2012.
When it came to other communities and other competitors, the athuri prevailed upon Kibaki to abandon the ambitions of Awori, Kombo, Kituyi, Saitoti, Martha Karua and Kirwa as inconsequential. This was after Kibaki was presented with secret research evidence from Mutahi Ngunyi, who has since moved to State House. Mutahi reported that other than Karua, the pretenders to the throne would all loose their seats in the 2007 elections. Chipped in Karume in reference to Karua "Mwari wa muthambia kioro afataire kuihura/kuithambia mbere...." (The daughter of a toilet cleaner should wipe herself first!) – a derogatory reference to Kirinyaga people whom mainstream Kikuyu refer to as toilet cleaners. The slur was acquired in colonial times when the Kirinyaga dominated the city council cleansing department).
As for Saitoti, it was felt that he was an outsider who carried too much baggage from the Goldenberg scum. He was seen to be "disloyal" in his earlier announcement that he would vie against Kibaki in this year's elections. The Kiambu Muranga axis of the athuri felt that Saitoti ambitions for 2012 did not augur well for Uhuru. Michuki reported he had met Moi who has no time for his former VP, and that consideration of Saitoti would antagonize Moi whom Saitoti blamed for the Goldenberg theft.
To placate Moi, the athuri minutes report to Kibaki refers to " Gacamia/Gathakaria ga gukenia Moi" (or a sweetener to appease Mzee Moi). It has now emerged that the sweet for Moi is a plot to ensure Saitioti looses the Kajiado North parliamentary seat. It is with this hindsight the Saitoti is under siege from DP's Lee Kinyanjui and blames "someone" in PNU. And Saitoti is very uncomfortable at the moment with the Kibaki Group even going as far as claiming that PNU wants him to loose the Kajiado North seat. These fears are well founded as the athuri feel that Saitoti is an outsider in Central Province and therefore not the best bet for the Presidency even after Kibaki.
Part of their minutes show the athuri discussed ways of dealing with the imminent fallout with other communities in 2012. The Luhya as a community are dismissed as peaceful and would be grateful for anything. Kombo despite promises was ruled out as a running mate. Moody's influence in Western Province was found lucking and Kombo, Kituyi and Wekesa were seen to have succumbed to the ODM wave in the Province. " Manegere Mathagu ma guku na nimakurota kuubuka", (Give them some chicken wings and they will dream of flying), Michuki is quoted dismissing any worries about Luhya support for Kibaki.
The meeting thus decided that " Gutuma atongoria abaluhya mecirie nimakugia ufata munene kuri thirikari Kibaki ashinda'( to give the Luhya leaders the impression that they will be a major part of Kibaki's government if he wins). The emphasis was that these leaders should be made to work for Kibaki since their worth as vote-getters had diminished. This seems to be the "decoy" assurance Kibaki was promising on his recent tour.
When PNU was taken over, it was decided that Kibaki give other parties like Ford-Kenya and Ford-People, the illusion that they are part of PNU. Only Kombo took this bait and Ford-K is the only party that is headed to oblivion in the PNU. Secretly, Kikuyu parties like Safina, Narc-Kenya and DP were to be allowed to "revolt" and field candidates in their own names in the nominations. Kombo is being made to believe that he is a co-owner of PNU and therefore a future VP. However, in a telling game of juggling the liver ala Michuki, the athuri have argued that after elections, Ford-Kenya would be dead. The plot was to ensure Kombo got money to stand on PNU and let Ford-Kenya die. It is interesting that the ECK lists Kombo and his Bungoma cohorts as all standing on PNU!
Hence, the Kibaki athuri hatched a plot to keep all the non-Kikuyu members of PNU hopeful. However, the confidential athuri minutes show that after the elections and incase Kibaki wins, he will form an alliance with Kalonzo Musyoka as VP because Kibaki will only have Kikuyu MPs. The athuri also argue that most other provinces are already lost to ODM and there will be no need to reward "aragoli" (Mt. Kenya name for the Luhya) after they reject Kibaki.
According to Mutahi Ngunyi's brief, to boost turnout, all Kibaki needs to do is ensure large turnouts in Central where the "unattached voter" will be helped to vote. This is reference to double registration occasioned by national IDS numbers being shared by several voters and those also of dead voters given to other people. It is quite alarming that most cases termed "double registration" by the ECK are actually ID numbers of other voters outside Mt. Kenya and the dead ones now given Kikuyu names and allocated voters cards. The rigging ploy is that while the original holder of the legitimate ID number will be denied voting because of double registration, the imposter in Central Kenya will have voted.
While analyzing the situation in Rift Valley, the athuri considered the consequences of naming Kipruto Kirwa as Kibaki's running mate, an idea they said originated from a meeting former President Daniel Arap Moi had held with Narc-Kenya chairman Raphael Tuju in Nakuru in October. Moi had argued that promising Kirwa a running mate position to Kibaki (without intending to make him VP) would clip the ODM wave in Rift Valley. This, it is explained, would make Kalenjins vote for Kibaki since former Eldoret North MP William Ruto who is a member of the powerful ODM Pentagon is not Raila Odinga's running mate.
But Moi's suggestion was rejected as the athuri argued that it would be very difficult to dump Kirwa after the elections were he to be named the running mate. Mutahi argued that Uhuru's support from the Kalenjin in 2012 would be jeopardized as the Kalenjin would rebel again. " Dukayihie mbogo ithitio. Nitutihitie andu aya maita meri matikugueterera gutihio ka gatatu", warned Ngunyi, who is married to a Kalenjin, in his presentation. Loosely translated, it means "Never underrate a wounded Buffalo. We have wounded these chaps twice – using them in 2002 against Moi and firing them after for Moi's mistakes. They will not wait for a third wound". The athuri finally decided that the VP slot should be left vacant and dangled to all communities especially the Luhya and the Kalenjin to vote for Kibaki.
Apparently, while Kibaki needs Moi's help, the athuri acknowledge that Moi is a danger given the Kroll Report, which revealed that the former President and his family looted public coffers more than Kshs.130 billion. They have decided to restrict Moi to campaigns against ODM in Rift Valley where they believe corruption by Moi is not an issue. Yet some members in the group are cautious with this arrangement arguing that it may backfire and hurt Kibaki on the platform of Corruption. It is with this in mind that an anxious Moi, whose moles had leaked the reservations by the athuri to him, met Kibaki at State House Nakuru for 45 minutes on November 29, 2007.
Sources reveal that Moi wanted assurance that Kibaki would not renegade on a secret deal never to prosecute Moi and his family for crimes committed during his era. To secure protection Moi secured a free ride to Parliament for his sons and his private sectraty, John Lokorio in three constituencies on a Kanu ticket. Moi who had just arrived back from Ethiopia contributed Kshs3 billion to Kibaki's campaign kitty.
However, a clever Moi said the money will be used by him in Kibaki Tena campaigns in Rift Valley against Raila. Moi is now funding all the pro-Kibaki candidates in the province. It is also believed that it is from this money that leaflets against Raila are being produced and distributed in Rift Valley.
The more dastardly of the cash use is the funding of ethnic clashes in Molo. Kikuyu and Kalenjin youth are being paid to kill and burn houses belonging to Kisii migrant workers in the area in an attempt to cut down ODM votes in the native Kisii-Nyanza. The pro-Kibaki media have deliberately chosen to focus on source interviews and name-tag captions showing the Kisii as the victims. Yet this is not new. It is the third phase after the failure when government ignited ethnic flare-ups on the Kisii-Kalenjin border at Sondu mid this year as the ODM wave hit fever pitch in the country. The second phase failed where widows and orphans would be paid to parade themselves as victims of ethnic clashes in Kisii. It looks like Moi has now gone for the real ones by igniting the Kuresoi killings.
The calm we have now is just an illusion.The michuki,karua,kibaki axis have been fighting power sharing and hoping that everything will subside and things will be back to normal.
ReplyDeleteIronically power sharing is the only thing that can save their supporters.
If we dont have substantial reform as a result of the dialogue, Kenya wont be able to hold together.
nonymous said...
ReplyDeleteTHIS ARE THE VERY SERIOUS REASONS WHY COALITION GOVERNMENT IS A MUST TO CLEAN OUT THIS THUGS WHO PLAN TO MESS KENYAN!!!!!
Secret Meetings held to dupe and bribe!
Uhuru Kenyatta's double-speak about his ambition to become Kenya's President after Kibaki is no surprise. Uhuru Kenyatta is the chosen heir in an elaborate plan by Mt. Kenya politicians to ensure that the Presidency stays with the community beyond 2022. A group of Mt. Kenya politicians have planned how Uhuru will take over the Presidency in 2012 whether Kibaki wins another term or not in December 2007.
Before PNU was formed, Kibaki had held a series of secret meetings with top leaders from Central Province to chart the way forward for the future of the Kikuyu Community after 2007. The meetings started as early as April this year when the Kibaki men realized that he had no credible party that could see him get re-elected. Purely Mt. Kenya outfits Narc-Kenya and DP were at the time pressuring him to adopt their ticket amid dissent from non-Kikuyu ministers.
Notably, while the politicians were of the impression that Kibaki should join either of the two Mt. Kenya parties, Kibaki's golfing baddies now entrenched in government, parastatals and in Mt. Kenya owned TransCentury share-trading and acquisition company were busy working on a formula that would see Kibaki re-elected at the same time ensuring that the presidency remains with the Kikuyu beyond 2012.
Handwritten minutes of meetings show that the planners - the athuri group - are so secret that even members of the Ameru and Aembu are not included. The argument is that these communities will obviously support a Kikuyu come 2012 because they have no option. To this end, it was agreed that Kiraitu Murungi and David Mwiraria be returned to the cabinet to ensure "they are for ever grateful" and to win the loyalty of the Ameru. It came as no surprise that it was Lucy Kibaki who made hints of their return which was effected speedily. Minutes show the group nicknamed itself "athuri".
About the same time, the athuri secretive group comprising of Kibaki as chairman, Njenga Karume and John Michuki as alternate chairmen, Mary Wambui, Jimmy Kibaki, Judy Kibaki, Eddy Njoroge, George Muhoho, Stanley Murage, Nat Kangethe, Bishops Arthur Gitonga and George Gathii, and Cyrus Gituai (PS OP) were holding meetings with the retired president Moi's group of Nicholas Biwott, Ezekiel Bargetuny, Gideon Moi, Sila Yego and Uhuru to layout the post-Kibaki succession plan.
Ready to play ball as usual were Luhya leaders in the then GNU. A plot was hatched to have Ford-Kenya take the lead in the formation of PNU thereby hide the true intention of the Mt. Kenya boys. In one meeting it was agreed that Musikari Kombo was more pliable, weak and dumb enough to be used. That Kombo was weak on his Western Province turf after invasion by ODM was cited as reason enough for him to play errand boy without question. "Nyamu eno ahoyaga matigio. Reke tomuhe ihindi" (this animal worships leftovers. Let's give him a bone to chew), Kibaki is said of Kombo in reference to empty departments given to Kombo's cronies after he threw a tantrum following a post-referendum new cabinet in 2005.
Not surprisingly, in a recent tour of Western Province, Kibaki told Kombo and company including Moody Awori that he will include him in his cabinet. It was strange given that the president found it necessary to make this promise when all parties under PNU should automatically be in Cabinet after elections. Was this an attempt to stem some disquiet regarding the president's mean trick of short-changing partners? Was this reassurance to Kombo and meant to appease Luhya voters who have lost faith and trust that Kibaki, an introverted tribalist, can never honour a promise? Problem is, there is no party Kombo can use to negotiate for positions in the post-elections cabinet. This is because Ford-Kenya has been swallowed by PNU and is fielding no candidates!
Earlier, in the athuri meeting, it was also argued that Kombo's never-ending ambition to be "given" the vice presidency was a great enticement to have him play blind ball. His desperation for money was also used fully. No less a person than his nemesis Soita Shitanda of Malava has accused Kombo of being in PNU for the money. It is instructive that while all parties under PNU have their own candidates, only Ford-Kenya failed to field a single candidate of its own. The ECK register shows that all Former Ford-Kenya MPs in Bungoma, including Kombo are running on PNU. It means that Ford-Kenya is finally dead.
That's how the equally quick-to-please Noah Wekesa was recruited to lead a façade of forming PNU while the backroom Muthaiga boys worked on a parallel plan. It is notable that immediately Wekesa thought he had clinched it with PANU, the Mt. Kenya boys took it over renamed it PNU and got busy swallowing all the other parties other than Kanu. Wekesa's cries of betrayal were to no avail. His boss Kombo, as usual was more interested in the cash handouts that comes with "horse trading" than protecting his sidekick or the interests of Ford-Kenya.
Back to the issue of the Kibaki succession, Uhuru finally agreed to join the Kibaki team but was given enough concessions as the heir-in-waiting: First, Kanu would field independent candidates but who will be funded by PNU to ensure Kanu becomes strong since PNU would disintegrate by 2009 and a win or lose by Kibaki would have prepared Uhuru to inherit the Mt. Kenya vote. Second, the bad blood between Uhuru and Moi over his association with ODM would be cleansed by the appointment as ministers of Gideon Moi, Nick Salat, Paul Sang and Nicholas Biwott in a Kibaki government. As it were only Paul Sang got the appointment earlier than after the elections. These appointment promises remain intact for after 2008 and are the reason Moi and company are campaigning hard for Kibaki in Rift Valley. Third, through such association with Moi's boys and should Kibaki lose, Kanu would have re-established a foothold in Central Kenya and the Rift Valley, and with Moi's support in the Rift Valley, Uhuru will be president and Gideon Moi the vice in 2012.
When it came to other communities and other competitors, the athuri prevailed upon Kibaki to abandon the ambitions of Awori, Kombo, Kituyi, Saitoti, Martha Karua and Kirwa as inconsequential. This was after Kibaki was presented with secret research evidence from Mutahi Ngunyi, who has since moved to State House. Mutahi reported that other than Karua, the pretenders to the throne would all loose their seats in the 2007 elections. Chipped in Karume in reference to Karua "Mwari wa muthambia kioro afataire kuihura/kuithambia mbere...." (The daughter of a toilet cleaner should wipe herself first!) – a derogatory reference to Kirinyaga people whom mainstream Kikuyu refer to as toilet cleaners. The slur was acquired in colonial times when the Kirinyaga dominated the city council cleansing department).
As for Saitoti, it was felt that he was an outsider who carried too much baggage from the Goldenberg scum. He was seen to be "disloyal" in his earlier announcement that he would vie against Kibaki in this year's elections. The Kiambu Muranga axis of the athuri felt that Saitoti ambitions for 2012 did not augur well for Uhuru. Michuki reported he had met Moi who has no time for his former VP, and that consideration of Saitoti would antagonize Moi whom Saitoti blamed for the Goldenberg theft.
To placate Moi, the athuri minutes report to Kibaki refers to " Gacamia/Gathakaria ga gukenia Moi" (or a sweetener to appease Mzee Moi). It has now emerged that the sweet for Moi is a plot to ensure Saitioti looses the Kajiado North parliamentary seat. It is with this hindsight the Saitoti is under siege from DP's Lee Kinyanjui and blames "someone" in PNU. And Saitoti is very uncomfortable at the moment with the Kibaki Group even going as far as claiming that PNU wants him to loose the Kajiado North seat. These fears are well founded as the athuri feel that Saitoti is an outsider in Central Province and therefore not the best bet for the Presidency even after Kibaki.
Part of their minutes show the athuri discussed ways of dealing with the imminent fallout with other communities in 2012. The Luhya as a community are dismissed as peaceful and would be grateful for anything. Kombo despite promises was ruled out as a running mate. Moody's influence in Western Province was found lucking and Kombo, Kituyi and Wekesa were seen to have succumbed to the ODM wave in the Province. " Manegere Mathagu ma guku na nimakurota kuubuka", (Give them some chicken wings and they will dream of flying), Michuki is quoted dismissing any worries about Luhya support for Kibaki.
The meeting thus decided that " Gutuma atongoria abaluhya mecirie nimakugia ufata munene kuri thirikari Kibaki ashinda'( to give the Luhya leaders the impression that they will be a major part of Kibaki's government if he wins). The emphasis was that these leaders should be made to work for Kibaki since their worth as vote-getters had diminished. This seems to be the "decoy" assurance Kibaki was promising on his recent tour.
When PNU was taken over, it was decided that Kibaki give other parties like Ford-Kenya and Ford-People, the illusion that they are part of PNU. Only Kombo took this bait and Ford-K is the only party that is headed to oblivion in the PNU. Secretly, Kikuyu parties like Safina, Narc-Kenya and DP were to be allowed to "revolt" and field candidates in their own names in the nominations. Kombo is being made to believe that he is a co-owner of PNU and therefore a future VP. However, in a telling game of juggling the liver ala Michuki, the athuri have argued that after elections, Ford-Kenya would be dead. The plot was to ensure Kombo got money to stand on PNU and let Ford-Kenya die. It is interesting that the ECK lists Kombo and his Bungoma cohorts as all standing on PNU!
Hence, the Kibaki athuri hatched a plot to keep all the non-Kikuyu members of PNU hopeful. However, the confidential athuri minutes show that after the elections and incase Kibaki wins, he will form an alliance with Kalonzo Musyoka as VP because Kibaki will only have Kikuyu MPs. The athuri also argue that most other provinces are already lost to ODM and there will be no need to reward "aragoli" (Mt. Kenya name for the Luhya) after they reject Kibaki.
According to Mutahi Ngunyi's brief, to boost turnout, all Kibaki needs to do is ensure large turnouts in Central where the "unattached voter" will be helped to vote. This is reference to double registration occasioned by national IDS numbers being shared by several voters and those also of dead voters given to other people. It is quite alarming that most cases termed "double registration" by the ECK are actually ID numbers of other voters outside Mt. Kenya and the dead ones now given Kikuyu names and allocated voters cards. The rigging ploy is that while the original holder of the legitimate ID number will be denied voting because of double registration, the imposter in Central Kenya will have voted.
While analyzing the situation in Rift Valley, the athuri considered the consequences of naming Kipruto Kirwa as Kibaki's running mate, an idea they said originated from a meeting former President Daniel Arap Moi had held with Narc-Kenya chairman Raphael Tuju in Nakuru in October. Moi had argued that promising Kirwa a running mate position to Kibaki (without intending to make him VP) would clip the ODM wave in Rift Valley. This, it is explained, would make Kalenjins vote for Kibaki since former Eldoret North MP William Ruto who is a member of the powerful ODM Pentagon is not Raila Odinga's running mate.
But Moi's suggestion was rejected as the athuri argued that it would be very difficult to dump Kirwa after the elections were he to be named the running mate. Mutahi argued that Uhuru's support from the Kalenjin in 2012 would be jeopardized as the Kalenjin would rebel again. " Dukayihie mbogo ithitio. Nitutihitie andu aya maita meri matikugueterera gutihio ka gatatu", warned Ngunyi, who is married to a Kalenjin, in his presentation. Loosely translated, it means "Never underrate a wounded Buffalo. We have wounded these chaps twice – using them in 2002 against Moi and firing them after for Moi's mistakes. They will not wait for a third wound". The athuri finally decided that the VP slot should be left vacant and dangled to all communities especially the Luhya and the Kalenjin to vote for Kibaki.
Apparently, while Kibaki needs Moi's help, the athuri acknowledge that Moi is a danger given the Kroll Report, which revealed that the former President and his family looted public coffers more than Kshs.130 billion. They have decided to restrict Moi to campaigns against ODM in Rift Valley where they believe corruption by Moi is not an issue. Yet some members in the group are cautious with this arrangement arguing that it may backfire and hurt Kibaki on the platform of Corruption. It is with this in mind that an anxious Moi, whose moles had leaked the reservations by the athuri to him, met Kibaki at State House Nakuru for 45 minutes on November 29, 2007.
Sources reveal that Moi wanted assurance that Kibaki would not renegade on a secret deal never to prosecute Moi and his family for crimes committed during his era. To secure protection Moi secured a free ride to Parliament for his sons and his private sectraty, John Lokorio in three constituencies on a Kanu ticket. Moi who had just arrived back from Ethiopia contributed Kshs3 billion to Kibaki's campaign kitty.
However, a clever Moi said the money will be used by him in Kibaki Tena campaigns in Rift Valley against Raila. Moi is now funding all the pro-Kibaki candidates in the province. It is also believed that it is from this money that leaflets against Raila are being produced and distributed in Rift Valley.
The more dastardly of the cash use is the funding of ethnic clashes in Molo. Kikuyu and Kalenjin youth are being paid to kill and burn houses belonging to Kisii migrant workers in the area in an attempt to cut down ODM votes in the native Kisii-Nyanza. The pro-Kibaki media have deliberately chosen to focus on source interviews and name-tag captions showing the Kisii as the victims. Yet this is not new. It is the third phase after the failure when government ignited ethnic flare-ups on the Kisii-Kalenjin border at Sondu mid this year as the ODM wave hit fever pitch in the country. The second phase failed where widows and orphans would be paid to parade themselves as victims of ethnic clashes in Kisii. It looks like Moi has now gone for the real ones by igniting the Kuresoi killings.
2:37 PM
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteCENTRAL PROVINCE, Kenya—On the hillsides, tea is still being picked; in the valleys, women still weed rows of beans, feet stained ocher by the soil; and in downtown Nyeri, the matatu taxi vans still honk by custom. The only immediate hint that something is amiss is to be found on the veranda of the Outspan Hotel. Despite boasting one of Africa’s most stunning views—Mount Kenya stretches serenely on the far side of the plains—the Outspan is strangely quiet these days; most of its tourists have fled.
If Kenya is ablaze, it’s almost possible to miss that fact in Central Province. A few hours’ drive west, machete-wieldingMwai Kibaki youths blockade roads, shops have been looted, and refugee camps spring up like mushrooms. At first glance, the country’s most serious crisis since independence has barely dented the banal routines of daily life.
There’s a reason for this. Central Province is the home of President Mwai Kibaki—his Othaya constituency lies just south of Nyeri. While his Kikuyu kinsmen have been burned alive and lynched across the rest of Kenya, punished for his suspected rigging of the December elections, only a madman would dare lift a hand to a Kikuyu on his home turf.
But that doesn’t allay a crawling sense of unease. The relationship between the Kikuyu and the rest of Kenya has been warped, residents sense, possibly beyond repair. Nyeri’s inhabitants are haunted by a more immediate fear. Most of the 300,000 people displaced in the violence are Kikuyus. Even as nervous Luos cluster for protection in local police stations, hundreds of Kikuyus are returning, demanding housing, work, and school places. “At the moment people are telling those displaced to stick where they are, because there is great land scarcity here,” says Muthui Mwai, a Nyeri journalist. “No one wants them back.”
Land scarcity is the leitmotif of the Kikuyu, the historic source of their anguish and the motivating force behind their success story. Accounting for around 22 percent of Kenya’s population of 38 million, the Kikuyu’s mark on the East African nation has been far greater than the figures imply, thanks to that driving hunger.
Under Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta, another kinsman, they streamed out of Central Province, settling in the Rift Valley and on the coast. Today, they dominate the economy. Kikuyus drive most of Kenya’s matatus and its taxis, run its newspapers, and constitute much of its civil service, their entrepreneurial reach extending from the glitziest of hotels to the remotest roadside duka (kiosk). They also, joke Kikuyus, account for the biggest share of the country’s criminals and prison inmates.
They hail themselves as “the Jews of Kenya,” envied and hated in equal measure for that entrepreneurial zeal. But there’s a difference: Europe’s Jews never combined economic influence with political power. The Kikuyu have done just that,kenyatta providing two of Kenya’s three presidents. And their current predicament can be traced to that double-fisted grip on the nation-state and the resentment it stirs among their compatriots.
The Kikuyu story, legend has it, begins on a ridge north of the town of Muranga, south of Nyeri, amid the misty valleys carved by Mount Kenya’s melting snows. To the precolonial Kikuyu, Mount Kenya, known as Kirinyaga, was the seat of God, or Ngai. Ngai created Gikuyu—the first man—then pointed earthward. “Build your homestead where the fig trees grow,” he said. Later, he sent Mumbi to join him, and the couple established the 10 clans that constitute “the house of Mumbi,” as the Kikuyu are also known.
You can actually visit this Kikuyu version of the Garden of Eden. Behind a sky-blue gate, painted with the words Mukurwe Wa Nyagathanga—the Tree of Gathanga—lie two mud huts, one for Gikuyu and one for Mumbi. The site looks toward Kirinyaga, but the mountain, famously elusive, is usually shrouded in cloud.
The compound may be an officially designated historical monument, but it looks semineglected. The skeleton of a half-built hotel, abandoned when a shady contractor disappeared with the funds—”This, too, is part of our culture,” jokes a villager—drips water nearby. In my many trips there, I’ve never stumbled on another visitor. “It’s not our way to look backward, only forward,” explains my Kikuyu driver.
The farming community that fanned out from this site had a special affinity with the soil. “There is a great desire in the heart of every Gikuyu man to own a piece of land on which he can build his home,” Kenyatta wrote in Facing Mount Kenya. “A man or a woman who cannot say to his friends, come and eat, drink and enjoy the fruit of my labour, is not considered as a worthy member of the tribe.”
It was this affinity that brought the Kikuyu into conflict with the British Empire. Initially, Britain’s 19th-century explorers showed little interest in the area that would be designated “Kenya,” training their eyes instead on the Buganda kingdom across Lake Victoria. Central Province’s fertile valleys were simply the place to stock their caravans with fresh food before the long trip west.
But with time, Kenya itself became the draw. Most of the land that British settlers appropriated belonged to the nomadic Masai, not the Kikuyu, but it was the Kikuyu who led an armed insurrection, Mau Mau, in the 1950s. With their fast-growing population, the Kikuyu needed room to expand. The British had removed that possibility by farming the White Highlands. British Capt. Richard Meinertzhagen claimed to have seen what was coming. “They are the most intelligent of the African tribes that I have met; therefore they will be the most progressive under European guidance and will be the most susceptible to subversive activities,” he wrote.
Mau Mau has left its scars, psychological if not physical. At least 150,000 Kikuyus passed through British detention camps, and more than 20,000 Mau Mau fighters died in combat. Central Province’s residents can still point out the caves where the freedom fighters hid and sketch the location of the British prisons and scaffolds where they were executed—in Nyeri’s case, on what is now the golf club’s parking lot.
Seeking scapegoats in that turbulent past, many older inhabitants insist today’s troubles are the work of a British government that has never forgiven the Kikuyu their revolt. Now the Brits are supposedly the hidden hand behind Luo leader Raila Odinga’s opposition campaign. “This is not a war between Kenyans, it’s a war imported from abroad,” fumes Joseph Karimi, co-author of The Kenyatta Succession. “The British were not satisfied with the rule of the Kikuyu, so they brought in this war. They never actually left Kenya and they never intend to.”
If the British won the fight against Mau Mau, the Kikuyu won the peace. When Britain pulled out in 1963, it was Kenyatta, once jailed as a Mau Mau leader, who became president, his community that took pole position. Forced proximity with the colonial administration and the proliferation of missionary schools in Central Province meant the Kikuyu were better educated than other Kenyans and best placed to benefit from independence. What’s more, they enjoyed the president’s patronage. “My people have the milk in the morning, your tribes the milk in the afternoon,” Kenyatta told non-Kikuyu ministers who complained.
The Kikuyu, outsiders feel, have been rubbing other communities’ noses in their pre-eminence ever since. “We’re obnoxious, we’re thrusting, we’re loud, and we’re everywhere,” acknowledges a Kikuyu banker friend. “Our problem is there aren’t enough of us to dominate, yet we’re too large to ignore. We are at once both obnoxious and indispensable.”
Although Kenyatta’s successor, Daniel arap Moi, systematically crushed Kikuyu aspirations while promoting his own Kalenjin, the community still thrived economically. Hence the conviction, voiced by snarl-toothed elders and fresh-faced undergraduates alike in Central Province, that only the Kikuyu—the community that stood up and defied the white invader—deserve to run the country.
I hear the familiar refrain in a hotel bar in Muranga, whose wall, significantly, is decorated with framed photographs of Kenyatta and Kibaki, but not of Moi. “If you did an experiment and took five Luos, five Luhyas, five Kambas, and five Kikuyus and gave them money to invest, you would see the result,” boasts John Kiriamiti, who publishes a Muranga newspaper. “The Kikuyu would be far, far ahead.” His business partner, Njoroge Gicheha, chimes in. “You cannot compare a fisherman in Nyanza who simply pulls a fish from the lake to a farmer who plants beans in Central Province and waits six months to harvest. The fact is, we work harder than other Kenyans.”
It’s this bumptious sense of entitlement that infuriates Kenya’s 47 other tribes. But, with the exception of two bouts of ethnic cleansing in the 1990s, irritation was largely held in check under Moi, a topic of good-natured banter rather than abuse.
That changed with the 2002 elections that first put Kibaki in power. A consensus candidate backed by a broad tribal coalition, he swiftly reneged on promises of a new constitution devolving power to the regions. The pledge of a prime minister’s post for Odinga, the man who probably lost December’s elections, was withdrawn. As the tribal coalition disintegrated, Kenyans noticed that key ministries were all held by members of what they dubbed “the Mount Kenya Mafia.” Far from challenging Kenyatta’s system of ethnic favoritism, Kibaki reinforced it.
While Western donors relished Kibaki’s 6 percent to 7 percent growth rates, the mood on the ground was grim. The fact that Central Province’s milk, tea, and coffee industries surged ahead while other regions remained marginalized did not go unnoticed.
kibakiBoth sides helped whip low-level ethnic resentment into today’s frenzied hatred.
Odinga raised the stakes by preaching majimboism. Majimboism means federalism, a system many might think well-suited to over-centralized Kenya. But to Odinga’s supporters, it was a code word for something very specific: Kikuyus with plots or businesses in non-Kikuyu areas would be forced out and sent “home.”
In Central Province, Kikuyu MPs seized on the majimboist threat to foster a siege mentality. Rumors of a project to slaughter 1 million Kikuyus circulated like wildfire. “The amount of fear-mongering [texts] and e-mails was stupendous,” says Kwamchetsi Makokha, a columnist for the Nation newspaper. “It became a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you set the stage where a single community has isolated itself, what follows is a feeling of resentment by others, of ‘what’s so special about you?’ “
There was nothing random about the violence that exploded with the announcement of a Kibaki win. Deciding that the Kikuyu intended to rule Kenya indefinitely, Luos in the Western town of Kisumu looted Kikuyu shops, while Kalenjin militias drove Kikuyus from Rift Valley farms, settling scores dating back to Kenyatta’s 1970s settlement scheme.
A feared Kikuyu militia, the Mungiki, is now extracting revenge. But as mungiki demand ID cards at roadblocks and members of the “wrong” tribe watch homes go up in smoke, majimboism is being put into crude practice on the ground, decades of Kikuyu expansionism challenged and reversed
Many analysts see the entrepreneurship that defines the Kikuyu experience as the only hope for peace. Holding such a huge stake in the Kenyan economy, the Kikuyu have more to lose from the spiraling anarchy than any other group.
Here in Central Province, a region locked in belligerent memories of its insurgent past, there is little talk of compromise and no criticism of Kibaki. Growing ever further into a kikuyu nationalism, James Wanyaga, Nyeri’s former mayor, told me. “We can forget about the Luos and put our security machinery into Rift Valley, just as your people did under colonialism. And we would get on very well.” The price of Kikuyu hegemony has already proved greater than anyone wants to pay.
3:51 PM
KENYANS WE DON'T NEED PEOPLE WHO RIDICULE OUR TRIBES AND CUSTOMS -POKE FUN AND SNEER AT WHO WE ARE IN OUR RESPECTIVE COMMUNITIES
ReplyDelete"WE ARE KENYANS AND ANY ONE OF US CAN BE THE LEADER OF KENYAN NATION!!
WHO EVER SAID !!ONLY KIKUYU'S CAN PRODUCE A KENYAN PRESIDENT ARE SICK PSYCHOPATHS!!continue reading to understand!
Uhuru Kenyatta's double-speak about his ambition to become Kenya's President after Kibaki is no surprise. Uhuru Kenyatta is the chosen heir in an elaborate plan by Mt. Kenya politicians to ensure that the Presidency stays with the community beyond 2022. A group of Mt. Kenya politicians have planned how Uhuru will take over the Presidency in 2012 whether Kibaki wins another term or not in December 2007.
Before PNU was formed, Kibaki had held a series of secret meetings with top leaders from Central Province to chart the way forward for the future of the Kikuyu Community after 2007. The meetings started as early as April this year when the Kibaki men realized that he had no credible party that could see him get re-elected. Purely Mt. Kenya outfits Narc-Kenya and DP were at the time pressuring him to adopt their ticket amid dissent from non-Kikuyu ministers.
Notably, while the politicians were of the impression that Kibaki should join either of the two Mt. Kenya parties, Kibaki's golfing baddies now entrenched in government, parastatals and in Mt. Kenya owned TransCentury share-trading and acquisition company were busy working on a formula that would see Kibaki re-elected at the same time ensuring that the presidency remains with the Kikuyu beyond 2012.
Handwritten minutes of meetings show that the planners - the athuri group - are so secret that even members of the Ameru and Aembu are not included. The argument is that these communities will obviously support a Kikuyu come 2012 because they have no option. To this end, it was agreed that Kiraitu Murungi and David Mwiraria be returned to the cabinet to ensure "they are for ever grateful" and to win the loyalty of the Ameru. It came as no surprise that it was Lucy Kibaki who made hints of their return which was effected speedily. Minutes show the group nicknamed itself "athuri".
About the same time, the athuri secretive group comprising of Kibaki as chairman, Njenga Karume and John Michuki as alternate chairmen, Mary Wambui, Jimmy Kibaki, Judy Kibaki, Eddy Njoroge, George Muhoho, Stanley Murage, Nat Kangethe, Bishops Arthur Gitonga and George Gathii, and Cyrus Gituai (PS OP) were holding meetings with the retired president Moi's group of Nicholas Biwott, Ezekiel Bargetuny, Gideon Moi, Sila Yego and Uhuru to layout the post-Kibaki succession plan.
Ready to play ball as usual were Luhya leaders in the then GNU. A plot was hatched to have Ford-Kenya take the lead in the formation of PNU thereby hide the true intention of the Mt. Kenya boys. In one meeting it was agreed that Musikari Kombo was more pliable, weak and dumb enough to be used. That Kombo was weak on his Western Province turf after invasion by ODM was cited as reason enough for him to play errand boy without question. "Nyamu eno ahoyaga matigio. Reke tomuhe ihindi" (this animal worships leftovers. Let's give him a bone to chew), Kibaki is said of Kombo in reference to empty departments given to Kombo's cronies after he threw a tantrum following a post-referendum new cabinet in 2005.
Not surprisingly, in a recent tour of Western Province, Kibaki told Kombo and company including Moody Awori that he will include him in his cabinet. It was strange given that the president found it necessary to make this promise when all parties under PNU should automatically be in Cabinet after elections. Was this an attempt to stem some disquiet regarding the president's mean trick of short-changing partners? Was this reassurance to Kombo and meant to appease Luhya voters who have lost faith and trust that Kibaki, an introverted tribalist, can never honour a promise? Problem is, there is no party Kombo can use to negotiate for positions in the post-elections cabinet. This is because Ford-Kenya has been swallowed by PNU and is fielding no candidates!
Earlier, in the athuri meeting, it was also argued that Kombo's never-ending ambition to be "given" the vice presidency was a great enticement to have him play blind ball. His desperation for money was also used fully. No less a person than his nemesis Soita Shitanda of Malava has accused Kombo of being in PNU for the money. It is instructive that while all parties under PNU have their own candidates, only Ford-Kenya failed to field a single candidate of its own. The ECK register shows that all Former Ford-Kenya MPs in Bungoma, including Kombo are running on PNU. It means that Ford-Kenya is finally dead.
That's how the equally quick-to-please Noah Wekesa was recruited to lead a façade of forming PNU while the backroom Muthaiga boys worked on a parallel plan. It is notable that immediately Wekesa thought he had clinched it with PANU, the Mt. Kenya boys took it over renamed it PNU and got busy swallowing all the other parties other than Kanu. Wekesa's cries of betrayal were to no avail. His boss Kombo, as usual was more interested in the cash handouts that comes with "horse trading" than protecting his sidekick or the interests of Ford-Kenya.
Back to the issue of the Kibaki succession, Uhuru finally agreed to join the Kibaki team but was given enough concessions as the heir-in-waiting: First, Kanu would field independent candidates but who will be funded by PNU to ensure Kanu becomes strong since PNU would disintegrate by 2009 and a win or lose by Kibaki would have prepared Uhuru to inherit the Mt. Kenya vote. Second, the bad blood between Uhuru and Moi over his association with ODM would be cleansed by the appointment as ministers of Gideon Moi, Nick Salat, Paul Sang and Nicholas Biwott in a Kibaki government. As it were only Paul Sang got the appointment earlier than after the elections. These appointment promises remain intact for after 2008 and are the reason Moi and company are campaigning hard for Kibaki in Rift Valley. Third, through such association with Moi's boys and should Kibaki lose, Kanu would have re-established a foothold in Central Kenya and the Rift Valley, and with Moi's support in the Rift Valley, Uhuru will be president and Gideon Moi the vice in 2012.
When it came to other communities and other competitors, the athuri prevailed upon Kibaki to abandon the ambitions of Awori, Kombo, Kituyi, Saitoti, Martha Karua and Kirwa as inconsequential. This was after Kibaki was presented with secret research evidence from Mutahi Ngunyi, who has since moved to State House. Mutahi reported that other than Karua, the pretenders to the throne would all loose their seats in the 2007 elections. Chipped in Karume in reference to Karua "Mwari wa muthambia kioro afataire kuihura/kuithambia mbere...." (The daughter of a toilet cleaner should wipe herself first!) – a derogatory reference to Kirinyaga people whom mainstream Kikuyu refer to as toilet cleaners. The slur was acquired in colonial times when the Kirinyaga dominated the city council cleansing department).
As for Saitoti, it was felt that he was an outsider who carried too much baggage from the Goldenberg scum. He was seen to be "disloyal" in his earlier announcement that he would vie against Kibaki in this year's elections. The Kiambu Muranga axis of the athuri felt that Saitoti ambitions for 2012 did not augur well for Uhuru. Michuki reported he had met Moi who has no time for his former VP, and that consideration of Saitoti would antagonize Moi whom Saitoti blamed for the Goldenberg theft.
To placate Moi, the athuri minutes report to Kibaki refers to " Gacamia/Gathakaria ga gukenia Moi" (or a sweetener to appease Mzee Moi). It has now emerged that the sweet for Moi is a plot to ensure Saitioti looses the Kajiado North parliamentary seat. It is with this hindsight the Saitoti is under siege from DP's Lee Kinyanjui and blames "someone" in PNU. And Saitoti is very uncomfortable at the moment with the Kibaki Group even going as far as claiming that PNU wants him to loose the Kajiado North seat. These fears are well founded as the athuri feel that Saitoti is an outsider in Central Province and therefore not the best bet for the Presidency even after Kibaki.
Part of their minutes show the athuri discussed ways of dealing with the imminent fallout with other communities in 2012. The Luhya as a community are dismissed as peaceful and would be grateful for anything. Kombo despite promises was ruled out as a running mate. Moody's influence in Western Province was found lucking and Kombo, Kituyi and Wekesa were seen to have succumbed to the ODM wave in the Province. " Manegere Mathagu ma guku na nimakurota kuubuka", (Give them some chicken wings and they will dream of flying), Michuki is quoted dismissing any worries about Luhya support for Kibaki.
The meeting thus decided that " Gutuma atongoria abaluhya mecirie nimakugia ufata munene kuri thirikari Kibaki ashinda'( to give the Luhya leaders the impression that they will be a major part of Kibaki's government if he wins). The emphasis was that these leaders should be made to work for Kibaki since their worth as vote-getters had diminished. This seems to be the "decoy" assurance Kibaki was promising on his recent tour.
When PNU was taken over, it was decided that Kibaki give other parties like Ford-Kenya and Ford-People, the illusion that they are part of PNU. Only Kombo took this bait and Ford-K is the only party that is headed to oblivion in the PNU. Secretly, Kikuyu parties like Safina, Narc-Kenya and DP were to be allowed to "revolt" and field candidates in their own names in the nominations. Kombo is being made to believe that he is a co-owner of PNU and therefore a future VP. However, in a telling game of juggling the liver ala Michuki, the athuri have argued that after elections, Ford-Kenya would be dead. The plot was to ensure Kombo got money to stand on PNU and let Ford-Kenya die. It is interesting that the ECK lists Kombo and his Bungoma cohorts as all standing on PNU!
Hence, the Kibaki athuri hatched a plot to keep all the non-Kikuyu members of PNU hopeful. However, the confidential athuri minutes show that after the elections and incase Kibaki wins, he will form an alliance with Kalonzo Musyoka as VP because Kibaki will only have Kikuyu MPs. The athuri also argue that most other provinces are already lost to ODM and there will be no need to reward "aragoli" (Mt. Kenya name for the Luhya) after they reject Kibaki.
According to Mutahi Ngunyi's brief, to boost turnout, all Kibaki needs to do is ensure large turnouts in Central where the "unattached voter" will be helped to vote. This is reference to double registration occasioned by national IDS numbers being shared by several voters and those also of dead voters given to other people. It is quite alarming that most cases termed "double registration" by the ECK are actually ID numbers of other voters outside Mt. Kenya and the dead ones now given Kikuyu names and allocated voters cards. The rigging ploy is that while the original holder of the legitimate ID number will be denied voting because of double registration, the imposter in Central Kenya will have voted.
While analyzing the situation in Rift Valley, the athuri considered the consequences of naming Kipruto Kirwa as Kibaki's running mate, an idea they said originated from a meeting former President Daniel Arap Moi had held with Narc-Kenya chairman Raphael Tuju in Nakuru in October. Moi had argued that promising Kirwa a running mate position to Kibaki (without intending to make him VP) would clip the ODM wave in Rift Valley. This, it is explained, would make Kalenjins vote for Kibaki since former Eldoret North MP William Ruto who is a member of the powerful ODM Pentagon is not Raila Odinga's running mate.
But Moi's suggestion was rejected as the athuri argued that it would be very difficult to dump Kirwa after the elections were he to be named the running mate. Mutahi argued that Uhuru's support from the Kalenjin in 2012 would be jeopardized as the Kalenjin would rebel again. " Dukayihie mbogo ithitio. Nitutihitie andu aya maita meri matikugueterera gutihio ka gatatu", warned Ngunyi, who is married to a Kalenjin, in his presentation. Loosely translated, it means "Never underrate a wounded Buffalo. We have wounded these chaps twice – using them in 2002 against Moi and firing them after for Moi's mistakes. They will not wait for a third wound". The athuri finally decided that the VP slot should be left vacant and dangled to all communities especially the Luhya and the Kalenjin to vote for Kibaki.
Apparently, while Kibaki needs Moi's help, the athuri acknowledge that Moi is a danger given the Kroll Report, which revealed that the former President and his family looted public coffers more than Kshs.130 billion. They have decided to restrict Moi to campaigns against ODM in Rift Valley where they believe corruption by Moi is not an issue. Yet some members in the group are cautious with this arrangement arguing that it may backfire and hurt Kibaki on the platform of Corruption. It is with this in mind that an anxious Moi, whose moles had leaked the reservations by the athuri to him, met Kibaki at State House Nakuru for 45 minutes on November 29, 2007.
Sources reveal that Moi wanted assurance that Kibaki would not renegade on a secret deal never to prosecute Moi and his family for crimes committed during his era. To secure protection Moi secured a free ride to Parliament for his sons and his private sectraty, John Lokorio in three constituencies on a Kanu ticket. Moi who had just arrived back from Ethiopia contributed Kshs3 billion to Kibaki's campaign kitty.
However, a clever Moi said the money will be used by him in Kibaki Tena campaigns in Rift Valley against Raila. Moi is now funding all the pro-Kibaki candidates in the province. It is also believed that it is from this money that leaflets against Raila are being produced and distributed in Rift Valley.
The more dastardly of the cash use is the funding of ethnic clashes in Molo. Kikuyu and Kalenjin youth are being paid to kill and burn houses belonging to Kisii migrant workers in the area in an attempt to cut down ODM votes in the native Kisii-Nyanza. The pro-Kibaki media have deliberately chosen to focus on source interviews and name-tag captions showing the Kisii as the victims. Yet this is not new. It is the third phase after the failure when government ignited ethnic flare-ups on the Kisii-Kalenjin border at Sondu mid this year as the ODM wave hit fever pitch in the country. The second phase failed where widows and orphans would be paid to parade themselves as victims of ethnic clashes in Kisii. It looks like Moi has now gone for the real ones by igniting the Kuresoi killings.
anon@4:41
ReplyDeleteWhen you copy and past from another source, it is called plagiarism. You above post is from the 'Slate'.
I think we should address the issues raised by the blog rather than copy and paste long already read articles.
I assure you that most of the readers on this blog are intimate with the above article and many others that people regularly copy and paste on the blog.
It is not to insult you but just to say as people who love Kumekucha, it is essence lies in original though and interaction between democracy loving Kenyans (ODM) and a few lost souls that we will in the end salvage from the mafia. Spaming knowledge already in the public space is not interesting. Appreciate your effort though
That is an excellent Post on Mt Kenya and it people! and how they view other tribes in Kenya, actually those were the some sentiment in the petition by the Kenya kikuyu Diaspora
ReplyDeletein London handed to PM Brown!
he must have fallen off his seat with laughter~~after reading -which I doubt!!
if you are really an ODM member then you must have realized that someone filled a lot of space with some south Africa nonsense which does not relate to what exactly we want people to read about PNU and it's dirt- that is why I moved the important posts down to have a clear read!!
ReplyDeleteI sense you are the individual that tried to drown the site with all that south African mambo jambo-
please move on and go to the kikuyu kumekucha site!!!
nonymous said...
anon@4:41
When you copy and past from another source, it is called plagiarism. You above post is from the 'Slate'.
I think we should address the issues raised by the blog rather than copy and paste long already read articles.
I assure you that most of the readers on this blog are intimate with the above article and many others that people regularly copy and paste on the blog.
It is not to insult you but just to say as people who love Kumekucha, it is essence lies in original though and interaction between democracy loving Kenyans (ODM) and a few lost souls that we will in the end salvage from the mafia. Spaming knowledge already in the public space is not interesting. Appreciate your effort though
Like i said in this blog before some good will come out of this; the bomas draft adressed powersharing particularly to tame the presidency wich has been our main headache since independence.one way or another Kibaki will have to give in, he does not wish to beat Moi n kenyatta in leaving a terrible legacy, he wants to be the leader who conceded some presidential powers for the sake of the country , history will have some very nice words for kibaki , it might be even kind enough to forget some bad deeds like rigging.To the author of this post , i know your kind you would rather be pessimistic about some thing so that the eventualities do not disappoint you grossly , you are also the type who will settle for a half a glass full of milk .This is the mind set all kenyans should have , your man might not be in statehouse but their is a light at the end of the tunnel.
ReplyDeleteand so that you know I'm a full time ODM member on here and I can read mischief clearly when I see it!! they tried using Okello and Marianne !!didn't work!! now they want to flood our important posts
ReplyDeleteAha!! you are the mysterious destroyer of this site!!
ReplyDeleteI see? go preach Kibaki on the other rigged Kumekuchas blog I'm sure you will find many of your blind followers there!!!
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Like i said in this blog before some good will come out of this; the bomas draft adressed powersharing particularly to tame the presidency wich has been our main headache since independence.one way or another Kibaki will have to give in, he does not wish to beat Moi n kenyatta in leaving a terrible legacy, he wants to be the leader who conceded some presidential powers for the sake of the country , history will have some very nice words for kibaki , it might be even kind enough to forget some bad deeds like rigging.To the author of this post , i know your kind you would rather be pessimistic about some thing so that the eventualities do not disappoint you grossly , you are also the type who will settle for a half a glass full of milk .This is the mind set all kenyans should have , your man might not be in statehouse but their is a light at the end of the tunnel.
5:00 PM
Anonymous Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteanon@4:41
When you copy and past from another source, it is called plagiarism. You above post is from the 'Slate'.
I think we should address the issues raised by the blog rather than copy and paste long already read articles.
I
-----------------------------------
"""you are also the type who will settle for a half a glass full of milk .This is the mind set all kenyans should have , your man might not be in statehouse but their is a light at the end of the tunnel""".----------------
Being from Rift Valley!! Nyanza, western,coast,north eastern-we have never been a prostitutes - that means we have never settled for less!!only democracy~~never sold our soul~to the devil-on our difficult journey!
and as for the light at the end of the tunnel- I know it has always been there!!- problem I have- there so many thieves, thugs and murderer's on our way there- but thank god we are nearly reaching the end of the tunnel!!the light is showing brighter now!
Watch out for 2012........
ReplyDeleteKarua and company should be very careful about what they wish for.
KENYANS WAKE UP AND OPEN YOUR EYES AROUND YOU!!
ReplyDeleteFIRST LET US SAY THIS TO KIBAKI AND HIS HARDLINERS:
NO KENYAN IS READY TO LOSE A CHILD, A SISTER, A BROTHER, A FATHER, A MOTHER, UN UNCLE/AUNTIE, COUSINS AND LASTLY FRIENDS AGAIN- NOT NOW NOT EVER-
IF THEY REFUSE THE WISH OF THE KENYAN PEOPLE TO FORM A COALITION GOVERNMENT WITH THE OPPOSITION AND BRING UNREST AND DEATHS TO KENYANS AGAIN- THEN WE AS KENYANS WILL MAKE SURE ONE ON ONE- I LOOSE A CHILD -THEN EACH PNU MP MUST LOSE A CHILD TOO- THEY HAVE TO FEEL THE PAIN OF LOSS LIKE EVERY OTHER KENYAN TOO- SO BE IT LET US NOT HAVE CHILDREN OR GRAND CHILDREN NAMED AFTER US IN THE FUTURE- KIBAKI HAS CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN -JUST LIKE ANY OTHER KENYAN!!WHAT MAKES HIM THINK THAT THEIR BLOOD IS TOO PRECIOUS TO SPILL ON THE STREETS OF KENYA ?? HE SHOULD ALSO FEEL THE SAME LOSS JUST LIKE ANY ORDINARY KENYAN SINCE HE IS READY TO SPILL THEIR BLOOD SO EASILY. KENYANS ALL OVER ARE STILL WEEPING AFTER THE LOSS OF THEIR LOVED ONES!!
IF KIBAKI AND HIS HARDLINERS WANT TO SPILL MORE KENYAN BLOOD - THE IT IS A MUST THAT THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF THEIR FAMILIES MUST POUR ON THE KENYAN SOIL TOO-
HE MUST MOURN THE LOSS OF HIS OWN LIKE ANY OTHER KENYAN BECAUSE HE BROUGHT THIS MISERY TO KENYANS. THIS MAYBE HIS WAKE UP CALL TO FEEL THE PIAN OF THE KENYANS WHO LOST THEIR LOVED ONCE FROM BOTH SIDES -ODM & PNU- HE RIGGED ELECTIONS THAT IS WHY WE ARE WHERE WE ARE TODAY!
This is the time he should redeem himself by working hand in hand with the opposition party.
IF HE REFUSES A COALITION GOVERNMENT THEN WE WILL KNOW WHY BECAUSE OF GREED AND NOT A CARE ABOUT KENYANS- BUT WE WILL NOT SEAT BACK AND ALLOW HIM AGAIN TO SLAUGHTER OUR CHILDREN,
GRANDCHILDREN AND RELATIVES KILLED MERCILESSLY BECAUSE OF HIS OWN GREED FOR POWER- HE WILL AlSO FACE THE SAME LOSS OF FAMILY MEMBERS- A MUST!! you can't hide your family AND KILL OTHER KENYANS and this will be also to all the hardliners in his party THEY HAVE TO SUFFER A LOSS TOO- WITHOUT THEM MOURNING FOR THEIR OWN AND FEEL THE PAIN?? WE DON'T BELIEVE THEY WILL UNDERSTAND.
we KENYANS ARE PEACEFUL AND WE want peace and stability for Kenya- and if you are not ready to share power- and proceed TO put your plans of action in place then we Kenyans are not scared anymore- We are very ready for you.
Information from our sources in the Army and Police: transfer of police in Nyanza, Rift Valley, Western, coast e.t.c- that is a laugh - how many police do you think you can put to control the kenyans in this provinces??? are they the same in numbers with the people in each province??? The Last time you send them mixed with mungiki in uniform -they had guns -we had sticks- this time we are fully prepared- I pity the Kikuyu's that you have transfered with your order of "shot to kill" their wifes will sue you in court when they find out that you send them in to kill innocent people- but- the innocent Kenyans decided not to be Marta's and decided to fight back!!
THIS TIME WE ARE PREPARED WITH THE HELP OF OUR FAMILY MEMBERS AND FRIENDS IN THE ARMY AND POLICE FORCE - WE ARE WELL EQUIPT(I guess you forgot that nearly most Kenyans have relatives in the army(you call them foot soldiers) and police force) do you think they will let other cops or army kill their families just by your order now?? Now THAT THEY HAVE SEEN THE TRUTH!! Mungiki being used???
WE are ready= you can transfer as many police as you want- you can bring in all your recruits!(by the way most of them are Mungiki(intelligence from our insider police source) give the list of thier names!!let them be asked questions all those new recruites of yours- ati police NYS in training ha!!ha!!ha!! and you have the shame of even taking them pictures and posting them in the Daily nation newspaper to prove that they are ordinary Kenyans!! Training!!(Yes send them to us we will show them what we can to them !! yes bring them with guns!!!we are ready too - KIBAKI YOU WILL GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS THE MURDEROUS PRESIDENT OF KENYA- COMPARABLE TO IDD AMIN !
WE ARE READY- KIKUYU VS LUYHA'S KALEJIN, LUO'S, MIGIKENDA- MASAI, TURKANA'S SOMALI'S TAITA'S -LET US SEE WHAT WILL REMAIN IN CENTRAL??
YOU HAVE PUSHED US AGAINST A BRICK WALL AND THERE WILL BE A POINT OF NO RETURN!!
NO COALITION GOVERNMENT -NO DEAL
YOU THINK YOU HAVE THE POLICE AND ARMY UNDER YOUR CONTROL!! THAT IS WISHFUL THINKING!! WHAT HAPPENED IN ROMANIA SHOULD GIVE YOU A CLUE!!
LIKE YOUR TRIBESMEN ARE SINGING -LET THE INTERNATIONAL STUPID PEOPLE LEAVE KENYA- THEN WE WILL BEGIN the SLAUGHTER of those foolish Kenyans who are opposing us!!AND LIKE EVERYONE HAS NOTICED IN KENYA TODAY!!
""WHERE THERE IS SMOKE THERE IS Always FIRE LATER""
REMEMBER THE STORY OF IMANYARA(Meru) MP- deny deny deny!! then the truth come out- but your wife Lucy is still denying!!
CHARLES.NAIROBI!
ReplyDeleteDEAR SARYA!!!
its a good thing you are sitting on the fence....YOU DID NOT VOTE!!!
which is why it's easier for you spew HOT AIR AND accepting defeat!
WHY DID KUMEKUCHA ALLOW THIS!>>???
Do you know what it takes to campaign in this country...NO.
you have no idea what you are talking about....INSTEAD OF SITTING ON THE FENCE AND WATCHING TOO MUCH TV COME OUT AND BE A PART OF THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS!...
YOU ASHAME US some of you -all you do is WATCH THINGS HAPPEN ALL DAY AND MAKE FLIMSY COMMENTS THAT DONT HOLD WATER.
GET REAL...THIS IS REAL LIFE AFFECTING 30 MILLION KENYANS NOT A SOAP OPERA ON TV!
ODM IS ON THE RIGHT PATH!WHAT IF THEY SAT ON YOUR FENCE!
Anonymous Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteKENYANS WAKE UP AND OPEN YOUR EYES AROUND YOU!!
Why do you strongly believe that Kibaki and his cronies have plan B?? you seem to have inside information that they are looking to spill more Innocent blood? and they plan to reject the power-sharing like they have been screaming loudly on top of their voices??
Anyway like you say- KENYANS ARE READY FOR THEM.
The problem with this post is not the ideas in it. The writer has a right to her opinions. I'm no writer but I can tell crap when I read some. And this is one crappy piece. Ever heard of spell checks? Grammar Checks? Thesaurus? Raila to accept that his sit was stolen? Sit? Massaca? And that was mother What??!!
ReplyDeleteCheap cheap cheap that's what.
anon 10.22
ReplyDeleteIn the first place Pnu is not interested in Annan's presence in this country.
'We cannot share power!' is what the salivating hyenas around Kibaki are vowing.It's obvious ODM have out-run and out-smarted PNU AT THEIR OWN GAME!
PNU just bit much more than it can chew...the RIGGING PART SUCCEEDED....with the help of GENOCIDAL GENERAL ALI and his trigger happy troops this country was being run like personal property by tribal goons intoxicated by power!
if there is a plan B-it wont work the only plan is to reduce the powers of the prime minister and ODM in the GRAND COALITION.
PNU has carefully worked its way into a tight corner-ACCEPT!
CHARLES.NAIROBI
The worst enemy for this country is not an extremist like Koigi nor a weakling klike we can't tell who. It is a fence-seater. He is with you and yet he is not. He stands for nothing and everything all at the same time. Please people, Kenya needs people with a drive to make our country SAFE and JUST. That is not going to be achieved by a fence-seater.
ReplyDeleteSince I have stopped reading any comments in this blog since time now, I did not realize that there a new campaign against me going on - orchestrated obviously by the Okellos.
ReplyDeleteI wish to state that I never sent any comments nor under my name nor under any other name or as 'anon' - this is just a big campaign by these people using even Jeff Koinange's socalled comments asking them to 'hel' him.
I also did not publish anything about the book Her Excellency nor any extract of it - it is done by these people themselves trying to prove that I am plagiarizing their book so they can ask google to disable my Distantlover-blog.
I am sure that the Kumekucha-readers and its contributors are clever enough to see what really lies behind all this.
Don't allow people like the Okellos and their friends to cheat you for their own selfish reasons.
Marianne Briner
I wish we would agree on one thing. Kibaki and his team of hard talkers have vowed not to give any power to anyone that resembles or compares to the people's president Raila Odinga.
ReplyDeletesad enough, the negotiation is creating more environment for fence sitting than ......
Annan should go home and remain a farmer as he has been referred to by the PNU architects in yesterday's OP meeting.
SAD so much that PEACE is RUNNING away from Kenya.
SAD that we hear very much and do very little.
SAD that Kenya is cracking along some fissure-lines which may not be clear to PNU.
SAD that some people may see Kenya divided into two forever.
SAD so much that LEADERSHIP thawed ages before the 27th Dec 07.
To all who may be reading, let us make this blog a meaningful environment for constructive dialoguing and not a centrefor abuse trading.
People posting on Kumekucha, can you please refrain from this incitement, copy and pasting entire stories, and shamelessly copying people entire posts and commenting on them. If you have ll the time to do that, then you have the time to impersonate, and reduce the credibility of KUmekucha.
ReplyDeleteWhat does a visitor for the first time make of Kumekucha? A site for hatred, a site for mad people, idlers, lazy copy-pasters? Please let us be civil and dwell on the topic.
Taabu, Chris, Phil, Sayra, Luke and Kalamari will tell you that this site was honourable until Chris felt that it was time to lift the lid and allow people to share information that was being prevented by the state. Please write good posts. If you cannot, just READ and let people who can write to it.
Incitement, wacheni. KABISA.
-Derek-
We need a new strategy for economic boycott,even if it means boycotting all GEMA business down to the milk man.
ReplyDeleteIt is the only way for our voices to be heard in a non violent way
seriously does anybody expect anyone to read these long posts?
ReplyDeleteannoying is what they are!
The word "tribalism" can refer to two related but distinct concepts.
ReplyDeleteThe internal social structure of a tribe can vary greatly from case to case, but, due to the small size of tribes, it is always a relatively simple structure, with few (if any) significant social distinctions between individuals. Some tribes are particularly egalitarian, and most tribes have only a vague notion of private property; many have none at all. Tribalism has also sometimes been called "primitive communism" but this is rather misleading since allegiance to a communist state is not based on kin-selective altruism. One thing that is certain is that tribalism is the very first social system that human beings ever lived in, and it has lasted much longer than any other kind of society to date.
The other concept to which the word "tribalism" frequently refers is the possession of a strong cultural or ethnic identity that separates oneself as a member of one group from the members of another. This phenomenon is related to the concept of tribal society in that it is a precondition for members of a tribe to possess a strong feeling of identity for a true tribal society to form. The distinction between these two definitions for tribalism is an important one because, while tribal society no longer strictly exists in the western world, tribalism, by this second definition, is arguably undiminished. People have postulated that the human brain is hard-wired towards tribalism due to its evolutionary advantages. See Tribalism and evolution below.
Contents [hide]
1 Tribes and tribalism in anthropology
2 Tribalism and violence
3 Tribalism and evolution
4 "New tribalism"
5 See also
5.1 Social Structure
5.2 Mentality
6 External links
[edit] Tribes and tribalism in anthropology
Many tribes refer to themselves with their language's word for "people," while referring to other, neighboring tribes with various epithets. For example, the term "Inuit" translates as "people," but they were known to the Ojibwe by a name translating roughly as "eaters of raw meat." This fact is often cited as evidence that tribal peoples saw only the members of their own tribe as "people," and denigrated all others as something less. In fact, this is a tenuous conclusion to draw from the evidence. Many languages refined their identification as "the true people," or "the real people," suggesting that there were other people, who were simply inferior. In this, it is merely evidence of ethnocentrism, a universal cultural characteristic found in all societies.
[edit] Tribalism and violence
The anthropological debate on warfare among tribes is unsettled. While certainly found among horticultural tribes, an open question remains whether such warfare is a typical feature of tribal life, or an anomaly found only in certain circumstances, such as scarce resources (as with the Inuit), or among food producing societies. There is also ambiguous evidence whether the level of violence among tribal societies is greater or lesser than the levels of violence among civilized societies.
If nothing else, conflict in tribal societies can never achieve the absolute scale of civilized warfare. Tribes use forms of subsistence such as horticulture and foraging which, though more efficient, cannot yield the same number of absolute calories as agriculture. This limits tribal populations significantly, especially when compared to agricultural populations. When tribal conflict does occur, it results in few fatalities. Lawrence Keeley argues in War Before Civilization, however, that as a percentage of their population, tribal violence is much more lethal. Nevertheless, Keeley also admits that the absolute numbers are so low that it is difficult to disentangle warfare from simple homicide, and Keeley's argument does not ever cite any forager examples, save the anomalous Inuit.
Tribalism as a sense of identity (its second definition), on the other hand, can clearly play a strong role in motivation for aggressive wars, and this is another reason to draw a distinction between the two definitions of the word. Some examples include WWII and also the slaughter of the Cathars by crusaders in 1209 AD.
[edit] Tribalism and evolution
Tribalism has a very adaptive effect in human evolution. Humans are social animals, and ill-equipped to live on their own. Tribalism and ethnocentrism help to keep individuals committed to the group, even when personal relations may fray. This keeps individuals from wandering off.
Thus, ethnocentric individuals would have a higher survival rate -- or at least, with their higher commitment to the group, more opportunities to breed. A more significant vector may be that groups with a strong sense of unity and identity can benefit from kin selection behavior such as common property and shared resources. The tendency of members to unite against an outside tribe and the ability to act violently and prejudicially against that outside tribe likely boosted the chances of survival in genocidal conflicts. Logically, a distinct divide between one's own group and other groups fosters the ability of the individual to interact with members of those groups in a manner that is equally distinct: one being altruistic (in the case of a group of unrelated members) or kin-selective (in the case of a group of more or less related members), the other being violent.
While it may be tempting to believe that racial conflict, ethnic cleansing, and genocide are the result of increased social pressures from relatively recent societal paradigms such as nations and empires, our understanding of early human history suggests otherwise. Acts of genocide are described in the Judeo-Christian Old Testament (Deut7:2), which is one of the earliest historical works, and clearly involving a state-level society. Genocide is also often used to explain the disappearance of Neanderthals in Europe shortly after the arrival of early humans in prehistorical times, though this has been largely discredited (see Neandertal interaction with Cro-Magnons). It is logical to assume that a predisposition to tribalism and specifically to genocide aided early humans in their expansion into Europe, though no evidence of such activity exists. Modern examples of tribalist ideologies, such as the Rwandan genocide, are often treated separately as many of the characteristics that define the tribes that existed prior to the Neolithic Revolution are largely not present, for example small population and close-relatedness which were not held by the Hutus and Tutsis of the Rwandan Conflict as they both numbered in the millions and were not defined by kin, but by European-created classes.
According to a study by Robin Dunbar at the University of Liverpool, primate brain size is determined by social group size. Dunbar's conclusion was that the human brain can only really understand a maximum of 150 individuals as fully developed, complex people (see Dunbar's number). Malcolm Gladwell expanded on this conclusion sociologically in his book, The Tipping Point. According to these studies, then, "tribalism" is in some sense an inescapable fact of human neurology, simply because the human brain is not adapted to working with large populations. Beyond 150, the human brain must resort to some combination of hierarchical schemes, stereotypes, and other simplified models in order to understand so many people.
Nevertheless, complex societies (and corporations) rely upon the tribal instincts of their members for their organization and survival. For example, a representative democracy relies on the ability of a "tribe" of representatives to organize and deal with the problems of an entire nation. The instincts that these representatives are using to deal with national problems have been highly developed in the long course of human evolution on a small tribal scale, and this is the source of both their usefulness and their disutility. Indeed, much of the political tension in modern societies is the conflict between the desire to organize a nation-state using the tribal values of egalitarianism and unity and the simple fact that large societies are unavoidably impersonal and sometimes not amenable to small-society rules.
In complex societies, this tribalistic impulse can also be channeled into more frivolous avenues, manifesting itself in sports rivalries and other such "fan" affiliations.
This of course only follows if one accepts the basic western assumptions concerning the fundamental 'nature' of human beings to be competitive (insecure) and aggressive (coercive) as opposed to the possibility that healthy human beings, ie in their optimum natural balance, are actually secure as persons, and therefore fully present to life(competent) and knowingly co-operative (altruistic).
At the time of European expansion it was fashionable to consider 'tribal' people as somehow lesser beings. Indeed, it has been prevalent since the prechristian times, in one way or another.
[edit] "New tribalism"
In the past 50 years, anthropologists have greatly revised our understanding of the tribe. Franz Boas removed the idea of unilineal cultural evolution from the realm of serious anthropological research as too simplistic, allowing tribes to be studied in their own right, rather than stepping stones to civilization or "living fossils." Anthropologists such as Richard Borshay Lee and Marshall Sahlins began publishing studies that showed tribal life as an easy, safe life, the opposite of the traditional theoretical supposition. In the title to his book, Sahlins referred to these tribal cultures as "the Original Affluent Society," not for their material wealth, but for their combination of leisure and lack of want.
This work formed the foundation for primitivist philosophy, such as that advocated by John Zerzan or Daniel Quinn. These philosophers have led to new tribalists pursuing what Daniel Quinn dubbed the "New Tribal Revolution". The new tribalists use the term "tribalism" not in its traditional, derogatory sense, but to refer to what they see as the defining characteristics of tribal life: namely, an open, egalitarian, classless and cooperative community, which can be characterized as primitive communism. New tribalists insist that this is, in fact, the natural state of humanity, and proven by two million years of human evolution.
Whether life in this natural state was better or worse than life in modern society is a question that remains open to debate, and the answer may depend on each person's preferences as well as on the particular tribes that are used as a point of reference - because tribal life itself was not (and is not) the same for all tribes; the natural environment where a tribe lives has an especially important influence.
I agree with deroo on this. We need to remain focussed and to help each other in trying to come terms with the present situation. It is not good to hull abuses at each other on the blog.
ReplyDeleteFence Sitting has never helped and will never help anyone.
ReplyDeleteIt makes me sad that a few pple are so bent on destroying our country for Selfish interests.
If we were to come to terms with our situation as it is we would take the advise of our own pple like Maina Kiai, Wangari Maathai, PLO among others.
The truth is Kibaki stole elections and since everyone agrees at this point we no longer concentrate on who stole what where, all of us shld in one voice tell him- to accept to share the stolen power to save our country even for a transition only.
If we fence sit and pamper him and beg him and his cronies we'll have only ourselves to blame if next time he does something worse- like declaring himself life president? Museveni is trying out that next door what is to stop the thief of thieves from doing the same?
Won't the moderators remove the long posts. If I was in need of a lecture, I know where to go. I wanted to read a chapter in a book ditto!.
ReplyDeleteThe long posts are a mould infestation on the body of Kumekucha and they will destroy this blog.
And for Sayra, each and everyone save a few have told you to get your rear off the fence and stand for justice and truth. DO that darling
ODM'ers bado mnapayuka, ala! what do i say? Easy easy easy, maziwa utapewa mwanangu.
ReplyDeleteAnon 4.49, Kikiumana basi utajua this has nothing to do with Payukaring!
ReplyDeleteThe problem with some pple is they will put their hand in fire just to test whether it will burn them. Even 3 year olds are much sharper than them.....
Mpende msipende, kazi itaendelea.
ReplyDelete• Kenyans have unanimously elected for a better Kenya with the leadership of distinguished, Excellency and Honorable Mwai Kibaki, for those who are not aware.
• Kenyans have wizened up from childish and selfish acts proposed by a stupid bunch of ODM’ers and their so called circus ‘pentagon.
• Kenyans have decided to pursue and economic agenda that will benefit them in future, to reduce poverty through affordable education and creation of jobs.
• The government as resumed its 10year plan and its on course to maturity at the end of the 10yrs regardless of stupid economic boycotts are meant to regain power than assist Kenyans.
• More so, Kenyans are proud to be Kenyans and if you don’t like it…..YOU CAN ALWAYS LEAVE AND STICK YOUR CHILDISH COMMENTS IN DIASPORA.
annon @3.48 ati new strategy for economic boycott lol! you pple need as a lesson in economic 101. Kwani the old is non-effective? keep on entertaining us.
ReplyDeleteInfact, your economic boycotts have helped in tapping into markets that were not yet discovered. Creativity has no place for primitive minds.
IT'S ONLY A FOOLISH MUNGIKI KIKUYU THAT CAN THINK OTHER KENYANS HAVE A PRIMITIVE MIND!! IT IS ONLY MUNGIKI GANG THAT IS BUSINESS OF KILLING INNOCENT KENYANS AND THEIR MARKET IS BOOMING!!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous Anonymous said...
annon @3.48 ati new strategy for economic boycott lol! you pple need as a lesson in economic 101. Kwani the old is non-effective? keep on entertaining us.
Infact, your economic boycotts have helped in tapping into markets that were not yet discovered. Creativity has no place for primitive minds.
i got nothing to say now. My head is pretty much very empty right now. I think I am hearing voices. Help me out theaa
ReplyDeleteNews | February 19, 2008
ReplyDeleteDisplaced Kenyan teachers recruited in primary schools
EMOJONG OSERE-www.monitor.co.ug
KAMPALA
DISPLACED Kenyan refugees qualified as teachers may have reason to celebrate as some of them have been recruited to teach in nursery and primary schools in Eastern Uganda.
This was revealed by the head of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Uganda, Ms Yumiko Takashima.
She said, Save the Children Uganda, a non governmental organisation, is expected to pay the teachers. The move is aimed at making the refugees self-reliant.
Ms Takashima said secondary school teachers will not benefit from the offer due to inadequate funds.
"We have secured funds for paying people who will be teaching in local primary and nursery schools," Ms Takashima told Daily Nation on Feb ruary 16.
She said the organisation was determined to help the displaced persons until calm returns to their country.
There was, however, an unclear fate for teachers in other camps in the Eastern region as beneficiaries were those camped at Mulanda, about 30 kilometres from the border town of Malaba.
There are currently more than 7,000 Kenyan refugees camped at Mulanda, Busia town, Manafwa, Bukwa and Kapchorwa.
Those camped at Mulanda were transferred from St. Jude Primary School in Malaba due to inadequate accommodation.
She said the organisation had also secured enough food for the refugees at Mulanda camp but decried the insufficient health facilities since they are compelled to take patients to Tororo District Hospital, some 20 kilometres away.
hakuna cha ku fence sit you are either for democracy or not!! simple thing....fence sitting is construed in this instance as a reluctance to defend democracy-which basically means you are fighting for pnu or is it kalonzo?
ReplyDeletefence sitters? no such thing!!
From your post the only sentence that caught my eye was "information that was being prevented by the state:
ReplyDeleteSo the STATE BEING PNU -you are not amused that ODM is indeed now getting more detailed information that the STATE has been hiding and is able to share with KENYANS?? well get used to it because the informants are PNU disgruntled members
deroo said...
Taabu, Chris, Phil, Sayra, Luke and Kalamari will tell you that this site was honourable until Chris felt that it was time to lift the lid and allow people to share """""information that was being prevented by the state.""""" Please write good posts. If you cannot, just READ and let people who can write to it.
Incitement, wacheni. KABISA.
THANKS FOR REMINDING US OF THE THIEVE, THUG, MURDERING PSYCHOPATH THAT RIGGED HIMSELF INTO POWER ILLEGALLY-
ReplyDeleteWE AS KENYANS REJECTED HIM!! HE IS THE ONE TO GET OUT!! WE HERE UGANDA AND SOMALIA ARE READY TO RECEIVE HIM AND HAND HIM CITIZENSHIP!!
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Mpende msipende, kazi itaendelea.
• Kenyans have unanimously elected for a better Kenya with the leadership of distinguished, Excellency and Honorable Mwai Kibaki, for those who are not aware.
• Kenyans have wizened up from childish and selfish acts proposed by a stupid bunch of ODM’ers and their so called circus ‘pentagon.
• Kenyans have decided to pursue and economic agenda that will benefit them in future, to reduce poverty through affordable education and creation of jobs.
• The government as resumed its 10year plan and its on course to maturity at the end of the 10yrs regardless of stupid economic boycotts are meant to regain power than assist Kenyans.
• More so, Kenyans are proud to be Kenyans and if you don’t like it…..YOU CAN ALWAYS LEAVE AND STICK YOUR CHILDISH COMMENTS IN DIASPORA.
Anon 5.02 you sound like Martha Karua- who in your definition are Kenyans?
ReplyDeletePliz do not abuse us we are way too intelligent- you can substitute the word Kenyans for Kikuyus( als they too are too intelligent for such nonsence!) best word to use is ''We the children of Martha & Kibaki''.
Kibaki speaks and says that
ReplyDeleteCurrent constitution should guide mediation talks!
Political solution must be constitutional, says Kibaki
Written By:pps , Posted: Tue, Feb 19, 2008
President Mwai Kibaki on Tuesday met with the National Dialogue and Mediation Chairman Mr. Kofi Annan and reassured him that his Government was fully supportive of the current mediation process aimed at resolving the current political challenges facing the country.
Mr. Annan briefed President Kibaki on the progress of the ongoing mediation talks.
Speaking during the meeting at his Harambee House office, President Kibaki stated that he was willing to work together and share responsibilities in Government with members of the ODM.
The President, however, cautioned that any political solution that will be proposed must be in tandem with the current Kenyan constitution.
President Kibaki noted that the constitution must serve as a guide while the mediation team discussed what legal and institutional reforms are needed to move the country forward.
The government is, however, fully supportive of a comprehensive review of the constitution within twelve months, as a correct platform to systematically address the challenges that face the country.
President Kibaki pointed out that the current negotiations had reached a critical stage and gave his assurance to Kenyans that he would follow through the remaining stages.
Once again the President thanked members of the mediation team for their input saying that the process of dialogue initiated in January was making good and steady process
Hey Chris, perhaps you should re-introduce comment moderation so some of these airheads can learn a lesson. The comments section is getting unruly and there's a lot of useless information being posted here. At the very least, can you remove some of these posts?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteKibaki speaks and says that
Current constitution should guide mediation talks!
Political solution must be constitutional, says Kibaki
Written By:pps , Posted: Tue, Feb 19, 2008
AIR HEAD PNU MEMBER- KIBAKI HAS NO SAY IN THE CURRENT CONSTITUTION BECAUSE HE ALREADY PUKED ON IT BY RIGGING!! "THE WORD RIGGING" IS NOT IN THE CURRENT KENYA CONSTITUTION-
SO NEW CONSTITUTION WILL BE PUT IN PLACE TO EMPHASIS THAT ANY ONE RIGGING WILL BE HANGED IN KAMITI PRISON CELLS
President Mwai Kibaki on Tuesday met with the National Dialogue and Mediation Chairman Mr. Kofi Annan and reassured him that his Government was fully supportive of the current mediation process aimed at resolving the current political challenges facing the country.
Mr. Annan briefed President Kibaki on the progress of the ongoing mediation talks.
Speaking during the meeting at his Harambee House office, President Kibaki stated that he was willing to work together and share responsibilities in Government with members of the ODM.
The President, however, cautioned that any political solution that will be proposed must be in tandem with the current Kenyan constitution.
President Kibaki noted that the constitution must serve as a guide while the mediation team discussed what legal and institutional reforms are needed to move the country forward.
The government is, however, fully supportive of a comprehensive review of the constitution within twelve months, as a correct platform to systematically address the challenges that face the country.
President Kibaki pointed out that the current negotiations had reached a critical stage and gave his assurance to Kenyans that he would follow through the remaining stages.
Once again the President thanked members of the mediation team for their input saying that the process of dialogue initiated in January was making good and steady process
Mwizi Kibaki is always ready to invoke the constitution whenever he deems fit. When he breaks the said constitution, he does it without batting an eyelid. For instance, our constitution does not allow anyone to meddle into the electoral process, he did this and hurriedly swore himself in so that now he can backtrack and use the same constitution as a shield. Ofcourse the current constitution does not allow for a post of prime minister which is what is needed as a political solution (only for an interim period). Now he is very ready to incorporate members of the ODM in his govt? What crap. Am sure Kofi knows first hand what kind of people he is dealing with. I may not be in Kenya but my heart is in Kenya. I can't stomach the kind of crap going on there. Kama Mwizi Kibaki and Kalonzo don't want to reliquish or even share power then we chould as well cede and leave them with the Republic of Mt. Kenya which is too willing (if I may borrow words from Kiraitu).
ReplyDeleteThat was "should" not chould, just a typo. Am not from the tribe with these verbal deficiencies.
ReplyDeleteSome more chest thumping from PNU we do not want an illusion of power sharing. Ati follow current consti.. that they pissed all over. these guys are jokers...
ReplyDeletethou Unconfirmed reports sema..
There is murmuring of a deal after US threated PNU with military action if the situation was not sorted ASAP.
There was to much at stake with the international community.
Kweli Kweli PNU wamepatikana kabisa.
Andu aitu kuhana atia? Ndina kamufango. Kuronekana kablog gaka ni ka andu mena kiunuhu keinge gutukonie. Na niundu wa uhoro ucio re, ndirenda tucoke kwandika maundu mothe haha na ruthiomi rwitu, nao niguo marakare hanini. Kana murona atia?
ReplyDeleteKenya crisi Negotiations stcuck- by reuters
ReplyDelete....Government negotiator Mutula Kilonzo bristled when reporters quoted Rice to him as he walked into the afternoon session.
"Those are her own views. This is not America, this is Kenya. We have a constitution," he said, noting a sub-committee was formed to discuss the issue of "structures of governance".
"We have a system of laws. I believe we are going to come to a reasonable arrangement."
In a pointed statement, Kibaki's office said he was "willing to work together and share responsibilities in government" with ODM, but any solution "must be in tandem with the current Kenyan constitution."
"President Kibaki pointed out that the current negotiations had reached a critical stage and gave his assurance to Kenyans that he would follow through the remaining stages," it added.
The government's insistence on sticking to the constitution -- a colonial-era treaty which all sides agree is long overdue for reform -- could block any special new arrangement to accommodate ODM like a premier's post for Odinga, analysts say.
The deadline set by former U.N. boss Annan for a political deal by mid-February has passed, even after last week's trip to a secluded safari lodge to focus minds. But the Ghanaian has vowed to stay until mediation reaches an "irreversible point".
Kenyan political pundit Macharia Gaitho said Kibaki was caught between pressure from abroad to give way, and pressure from his own hardliners not to let ODM take too much power.
"The U.S., Britain and other major Western powers all seem to have come to the conclusion that the Kibaki government is becoming the impediment," he wrote. Continued...
the one blocking all talks is Mutula Kilonzo insisting that the Constitution is not allowing power sharing and also not the position of a powerful PM - it is becoming more and more obvious that Mutula has been put there by the former power-brokers who want to protect themselves from any investigations into corruption and murder - and in pretending to protect Kibaki and his illegal Government Mutula has shown his true colours - as I said many times before: he first was a mole in ODM and now he is the big protector of Kibaki - all this to protect the big man behind all this: Daniel arap Moi and his crony Nicholas Biwott.
ReplyDeleteKIBAKI MUST AGREE TO A COALITION GOVERNMENT OR LEAVE KENYA FOR GOOD!!AS KENYANS WE WILL NOT ALLOW HIM TO HOLD THE COUNTRY HOSTAGE BECAUSE OF GREED AND POWER!! NO!NO!! NO!! KIBAKI AND HIS CRONIES MUST GO IF THE CAN'T ACCEPT THE WILL OF THE KENYA PEOPLE AND AGREE ON EQUAL POWER SHARING!!
ReplyDeleteWE ARE READY FOR ANYTHING !!LET HIM TRY!!
KENYANS CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO ME AFTER THE GOVERNMENT HAS BEEN CAUGHT IN ACT OF GIVING FALSE INFORMATION THE ANGLO LEASING CASE IS POSTPONED UP TO NEXT YEAR?? EXPLAIN THIS OPEN HANDED CORRUPTION TO US ORDINARY KENYANS????
ReplyDeleteMonday, February 18, 2008
Records contradict minister
By Evelyn Kwamboka
THE Government signed an Anglo Leasing contract for the supply of Sh500 million security telecommunication system in 2003, court documents show.
In a petition and affidavits filed in the Central Registry of the High Court by Midland Finance Securities Limited of Switzerland and Globetel Incorporation of Cambridge, UK, the documents contradict the dates given by Finance minister, Mr Amos Kimunya. Earlier yesterday, Kimunya had claimed, the contracts were signed during the Kanu regime.
A director of the two companies, Mr David Dunkley, says the Government entered into the contract for the installation and commissioning of a Nationwide Digital Multi-channel Security system on May 29, 2003. Globetel Inc was to supply the communication system to the Administration Police. On the same day, the Government entered into a credit-financing contract with Midland for the first phase of the security contract.
The credit was to be repaid within 72 months from the date the agreement became effective. “The credit contract and the security contract were subject to the laws of England,” he says. The contract, Dunkley says, was to last two years from the date of execution. “Indeed a legal opinion was accordingly issued by the Attorney General, Mr Amos Wako, on June 17, 2003,” he claims. The UK-based company immediately embarked shipment of the equipment in the interest of the timely completion of the contract, Dunkley says in his affidavit.
“As a consequence, Globetel Inc purchased the necessary equipment for installation, had it inspected and shipped in accordance with the agreement, to Mombasa,” he adds.
The two companies also filed a case before a constitutional court on April 4, seeking orders quashing the Government’s decision to hire PriceWaterHouse Coopers to investigate the contract. They also want the AG and the Kenya Anti-corruption Commission or their agentsrestrained from arresting or preferring any criminal charges against them, their shareholders, agents, directors or contractors.
The companies want the court to declare illegal and uncontractual attempts by Government to criminalise the commercial dispute between itself and the petitioners.They contend that the agreements were entered into on the strength of AG’s legal opinion and were, therefore, lawful and do not warrant scrutiny by the audit firm contracted by the Ministry of Finance.
Hearing of the case failed to kick off, yesterday, when a Nairobi advocate, Mr Fred Ngatia, told the court he had instructions from the two companies, to join their advocate, Mr Kyalo Mbobu, in arguing the case. Ngatia told Justice Joseph Nyamu that he needs time to prepare his arguments, a request the judge granted.
The judge ordered that the case be heard on February 11, next year.
Default SECESSION IS AN OPTION: Odmers lets push our leaders -
ReplyDelete*
Fellow ODMers, it is about time we started thinking about the secession agenda. The events of the past month have proven that we have 2 Kenyas and that is the problem. We have on one hand people who want to rule over others at all cost without giving them due representation in the government. And then on the other we have people who are tired of being cheated out by leadership that consists mainly of people of one tribal origin and their close affiliates and sycophants.
I know secession sounds like such a far-fetched idea but given the situation in the country at the moment it could be the best long-term solution. The reason is that PNU diehards would rather let the country roll down the drain than see somebody else take over and govern so well that their ineptitude be brought to light. We don't have to put up with that. We don't have to put up with Mungiki and GEMA only cabinets. We don't have to put up with Karua and Michuki arrogance. If those guys want to run kenya like kangaroo let them run central and anybody else who wants to join them like kangaroo. We don't want to spend the next 10 years playing these Tom and Jerry games with PNU guys, they have no moral base from which we can meet them halfway.
When things "calm down a bit" the way kibaki hopes lets begin the agenda of pushing our leaders to Secede and create a New Kenya for us. Its very easy to govern a country, even a desert, when there is unity and when there is accountability. There is a lot than can be done with a desert these days as long as the leadership is accountable. There are lots of advancements in Agriculture and Technology that have revolutionalized the way economies can operate. These days the most important resource in an economy is the brains of the people in that economy. I believe that we ODM-affiliates are smart people that can prove to be very resourceful in our New Economies.
Fellow ODM, its time to seriously think about having our own country and starting to push our leaders towards that agenda. The sooner the better. Lets let the PNU hawks wallow in their shallowness in their Provinces. While they come up with new laws that undress women we will rebuild the Kenya that we want and catch up with the rest of the civilized world.
anon@ 9:49
ReplyDeleteI have been leaning towards your side for the longest time. But, I believe we are evolving towards there.
We have defacto majimbo now. I think it is only a matter of time before two Kenyans emerge.
Really we can not be lorded over by a cabal of ethnocentric murderers and other nefarious characters
As has been earlier said,the irony with the Kibaki Karua axis not wanting to share power is that meaningful power sharing is the only thing that can save their supporters
ReplyDeleteفیدل کاسترو پس از پنجاه سال می گوید دیگر تمایلی به رهبری کوبا ندارد
ReplyDeleteفیدل کاسترو رهبر بیمار کوبا، پس از حدود پنجاه سال حکومت، می گوید از مقام ریاست جمهوری و فرماندهی ارتش کناره گیری می کند.
آقای کاسترو در پیامی که در سایت اینترنتی گرنما - روزنامه رسمی دولت - منتشر شده، از تصمیم خود به کناره گیری از قدرت خبر داده است.
او در این پیام گفته است به خاطر وضع سلامتی خود، نه علاقه دارد و نه حاضر است در مقام ریاست جمهوری و سرفرماندهی نظامی کشور باقی بماند.
در حالی که جورج بوش، رییس جمهور آمریکا، از کناره گیری آقای کاسترو استقبال کرده و گفته امیدوار است دوره انتقال کوبا به یک نظام دموکراتیک و برگزاری انتخابات آزاد آغاز شود، جان نگروپونته، یکی از مقامات ارشد آمریکا گفته است او چشم اندازی برای لغو تحریم اقتصادی کشورش علیه کوبا در آینده ای نزدیک نمی بیند.
@Anon 9.49 am
ReplyDeleteI support you. ODM Provinces are civilized and hardworking. We need to venture in technology (water pumps, generators, modern fuels, motor vehicles, Integrated Circuits and IT). These technologies are not difficult to conquer. A focused people interested in genuinely developing their nation can make it within 10 years. I ask Maseno University to introduce Engineering(Electr, Mechanical, Civil, Metallurgy), Medical and IT faculties immediately. This will act as a hub to work hand in hand with Moi, Coast and Masinde Universities.
Let's start work today!
chris wherever you are i am not liking you very much right now!!!
ReplyDeleteyou wrote the post on the 'terrible truth kenyans dont want to hear' and it has happened...phil you are spot on pnu delivering a stillborn.what do we do now??
my problem is that i was pessimistic about this whole thing as well and posted a lot to that effect....unfortunately time has proven that pessimism right, i was hoping that someone will prove me wrong!! and prove you wrong as well....i hate that!!
i have not slept well since 28th december 2007 and now i will not be able to sleep because these guys want to keep power at all costs?!!
may God forgive and keep kenya from harm....ooooooooui!!
anon@10:22AM aka Marianne Briner. We will stand with Chris. We will not let you mess up this distinguished Blog. You are so full of yourself.
ReplyDeleteYou will not succeed. Kumekucha is for us and you will not sink it. Instead you will sink.
The birth of the Republic of Mount Kenya as suggested right here
ReplyDeletehttp://kumekucha.blogspot.com/2008/01/strong-case-for-new-republic-of-mount.html
Friends,
ReplyDeleteIt will never happen. Until the Second Coming of the Lord. The gap between the RICH KIKUYU/GEMA and the POOR KUKUYUS is so wide that before it narrows to allow you to put up a fight and join the ranks of the rich and compete with them or even sabotage their businesses, it will take a generation of Noah and Abraham. Mtangoja....SANA.
-Derek-
5 more years in the making
ReplyDeleteanon@10.36, please leave Marinne Briner out of this, HELLEN OKELLO. You have stolen her money. You have plagiarized her book and many articles. You haver cursed her out many times calling her stinking ass. You have tormemented her so much, she is now not feeling well. You have asked google to closed down her blogs evern after she has worked hard to put them into the Internet.
ReplyDeleteHEllen Okello, Sam Okello, Leave this woman alone. NOW!!!
Marianne Briner aka cathy, you are worth $.000000000000pennies. You are trying to mess with Kumekucha. We will stand by Chris. You can take your stinking butt to the moon. Nobody wants to hear about your stinky butt...no wonder Jeff Koinange flee.
ReplyDeleteAgain, you will not succeed in messing up Kumekucha by impersonating, pasting and using a language only you understands.
Marianne Briner. You are one stinking irrelevant fool. You need to just shove it.
ReplyDeleteLeave Kumekuchans alone. This is not about you and never will be.
You are a liar, prostitute, impersonator...and the list is endless and may I add the mother of all RACISTS.
Butt off KUMEKUCHA marianne Briner the thief..and the impersonator...liar...racist....pimp...slut...
You people are funny. 4.5 million people voted for Kibaki. 4.2 million people voted for Raila Odinga. Can you do your math (as Americans say) Kibaki was sworn as the president. Raila's Swearing-In as the 'PEOPLE's PRESIDENT never materialised.
ReplyDeleteYou said Kibaki's government will not last three days., then one week, then two weeks, then USA and Britain dont recognise him, you dug up the roads, burnt lorries all the way from Nairobi to Busia, burnt women and children in houses, churches and chiefs' offices. And one day was two days , then one week and this weekend we will be celebrating two months of MAENDELEO and 58 to go.
Since last week people have been singing that America...Oh Army...Oh European Union...Ohn the people are going to push Kibaki out.
Mtangoja...Mtangoja...Mpaka mingine tano, said Lucy Kibaki....
Na Kazi inaendelea...First, you said TOSHA, then we told you, NOT TOSHA...TENA...Now, it is...SAFINA INAENDLEA
Marianne Briner thief
ReplyDeleteMarianne Briner racist
marianne Briner intenational prostitute
Marianne briner impersonator
Marianne briner pimp...
I cannot defend this stinky ass pimp Marianne Briner.
ReplyDeleteWhy are you guys talking about Marianne. Oh No! Talk sense. Live and let live Cathy
ReplyDeleteshe says she doesn't visit Kumekucha. Marinne Briner, the paster, the impersonator. Eyes are watching you Marianne Briner. You can hide but you can't run. You'll be smoked out...by Kumekucha.
ReplyDeleteThe Okellos of this blog are just fools. Now they even suggest that MB speaks and writes Arab. What else now? Chinese? What about German or Swiss or French or Italian or Spanish - because that's the languages she speaks. She is more intelligent than the bunch of idiots you represent ever can imagine. Just shoot yourself before somebody else does.
ReplyDeleteDear ODMers,
ReplyDeleteThere are other leaders who can take you to the promised house upon the hill besides Tausi/Kaburu Raila. If you keep on insisting on this man leading you, then you will keep on going in circles in the wilderness until your generation is no more. Like his father, Raila is totally unacceptable to majority of Kenyans for a number of reasons:
1. He is prone to violence and uses the most down-trodden of his followers to perpetrate that violence. In 1982 he used his tribesmen in the lowest ranks in the Air Force in a coup attempt that left 1500 Kenyans dead. Most of them either died in the effort or were hanged and, were it not for the intervention of President Obote Raila would have been hanged in Kamiti as well like the other ploters. This time round you all know the brutality his most lowly followers have used to kill Kenyans and the Kenyan image.
2. His politics are not based on desire for democratic change but are driven by a strange and an unhealthy greed for power. When Wamalwa defeated him for the seat of Ford-K chairmanship, he ran away with his tribe to form NDP. Soon he was off to surppoting dictator Moi in exchange for the Kisumu Molasses factory and a promise of the presidency after Moi. After realising his naivety with regard to Moi giving him presidency, he was off again shouting Kibaki Tosha. This time it was for a promise of Prime Minister position. Blindened by greed and delusion he did not realize that the position did not exist in our constitutional order. Come 2003 and he was all over mannerlessly crying that Kibaki had short-changed him. Soon he was to equate Kibaki to Kikuyus and himself to Kenyans - and the cry changed to Kikuyus have short-changed other Kenyans. You all know too well where that tribal talk has led Kenya. Finally, 27th Dec 2007 came, despite roping together all Kikuyu haters to vote for him, Kibaki whipped his naked political bottom. This time Raila has, however, outdone his usual self. He has presided over the largest massacre and evictions by his followers of innocent Kenyans since independence. In addition, he has cried to the muzungu international community that this time if he does not get power, Kenya is going to go down with him. It seems the muzungus have sided with him if only to continue to have a peaceful Kenya where they can continue to come for easy business deals and steamy sex in the sun. Whether he will succeed in grabbing power undemocratically is the big question. What Raila, his followers, and the intimidated muzungus forget is that Raila has no monopoly on violence. Let them know urgently that the patience of the silent majority who voted against him has a limit, and they are about to cross that limit.
3. Raila is a vengeful man. If you doubt, ask any Luo politician who has failed to support Raila's mornachical agenda. He was even foolish enough to promise the Merus revenge in broad day light during the campaigns last year. It is well known that he cries at night saying that he does not know what he will tell his father in the afterlife if he dies before ascending to state house. He had delusionally promised his father in the presence of Luo elders that he will ascend to state house and avenge his father for the "wrongs" done to him by the Kikuyus. It is sad especially because Ida has to bear this burden every night.
For these reasons, dear ODMers, you can see that Raila does not fit the profile of the type of leader majority of Kenyans are looking for. The majority of the Kenyans do not care about the tribe of the leader; all they want is a foward looking, unifying leader who is not carrying a personal and a dangerous psychological baggage. Any one of the pentagon leaders will do but not Tausi/Kaburu Raila.
Yes, I agree that Raila should stop crying that other men have short-changed or out-rigged him. Also, next time he sends his followers to throw the stones, he should lead from in front like the man he claims to be instead of hidding and issuing threats from inside five-star hotels.
ReplyDeleteI had always thought it was a rumour about his nighttime cries. Well, it is trully sad, and he needs our sympathy and a doctor's attention.
@11:22
ReplyDeleteWhatever rubbish you will bring to tarnish the name of Raila, you will not succeed. RAILA is the genuinely elected PRESIDENT of the Republic of KENYA. Because of Kikuyus corrupt behaviour and thirst for power, Kenya is sufferring.
RAILA has brought Kenyans more democracy than the thief, who during the 2nd liberation, was watching the people's struggles from the window of Afya House.
Kibaki will go into history as a weak leader controlled by Mungiki and a harsh slapping wife. Kibaki is a good for nothing fellow.
What I find stupid is the fact no one even asks why the hell a PM post with equal powers to the president should be put in without a provision for Kenyans to elect the prime minister. In other words, the president should not just be the chief of armed forces, he should be the chief executive, and the prime minister should be the chief parliamentarian with substantial veto powers. They must be able to check and balance each other. And Bomas draft was useless, as usual Kenyans will go the stupid root, Bomas Draft was full oF Raila's delegates, thats why he is pushing for it. very few underestimate Kibaki's potential to be a tyrant, why the hell do you underestimate what Raila can do to our nation? He will rape us dry, and then say he did it for Kenyans, dont ask for a mobutu, ask for a leader that you can actually control
ReplyDeleteHow long will Kenya persevere to get a leader they want? I'm afraid that a third but bloody Liberation will have to be done to fully re-introduce democracy and civilization in Kenya. Mungiki and fence sitters must be wiped out totally.
ReplyDelete