Kenya in Crisis

Two thoughts on the future of Kenya. The first (read link below) has a philosophical appeal and goes right to the heart of the Kenyan Dilema. The author decries the Power Vacuum that exists, failed or biased national institutions, and a polarized Church. He leaves us wondering as to whom we should turn for dear peace?
Meanwhile the Kibaki Administration claims that the crisis can be solved internally; AU or UN should not intervene even as the Annan committee has laid down the ground rules, to which ODM has responded, while the overly-lawyered three-man team from PNU is still mulling over them (time wasting?).
http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143981157&cid=15
AU insists Kenya will be discussed in Addis this week, of course against protestations from Kenya. Kibaki is attending (will he be recognized? If you have read my poetry collection "Thirteen Curse on Mother Africa," lulu (www.lulu.com) your guess should be that he will be recognized by his fellow Chiefs: AU Eating Chiefs never never disowned one of their member, however tainted he or she is.
Thanks to the South African delegation, Kenyan Crisis is number one item on this week's agenda at AU Headquarters in Addis.

Now, a very radical view (I say treasonable if entertained by a Kenyan) is that of the Rwandese Leader, Kagame: He opines that the Kenyan Army should take over before a downward civil spiral into the like of Rwanda of the recent past. Interestingly The Daily Nation (Kenya) had the guts to have printed it (Read Link Below to Daily Nation Kenya). This a bold and unusual statement from an African Leader against a sitting other. But remember that Rwanda is landlocked and has a Kenyan Export-Import Lifeline. We hope Uganda which also relies on Kenyan roads and rail to export and import good, does not think along the same lines.
We must pray for Kenya because even the ARMY is Ethincized.

JR Alila

http://politics.nationmedia.com/inner.asp?cat=TOP&sid=1385

Kenya in Turmoil

Lawyers (ICJ) suggest a way out of the current crisis that has set Kenyans against one another:
An interim Govt by politically inactive civil servants and professionals;
Community based nagotiations;
Constitutional Reform along the lines of the Bomas Draft.
They also reveal that the widely discredited ECK has the powers to annul the Presidential Results.

They make sense to me.

JR Alila

http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=1&news...

Kenya in Turmoil

Kenya in Turmoil

Multiethnic Nakuru is under curfew with Scores dead; Annan concludes that the situation in the Refugee camps in Rift Valley is dire. He demands that the Govt must protect the people, resettle and compensate the displaced; he observes that the elctoral crisis has evolved into fights to settle scores over historical injustices, land issues and economic marginalizationt. He warns that Odinga and Kibaki must face hard choices. ODM and Anna not happy about Kibaki's duly-elcted, recent remark.
JRA
http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143980992&cid=4
http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143980994&cid=4
Meanwhile Retired Cleric, Bishop Gitari decries the fact that the Church is partisan, and has "lost its Prophetic Voice."
http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143980996&cid=4
My take is that Kenya has no Native Angel of Peace. Let us pray that HE Annan's efforts bear fruit.

Joseph R. Alila
(Author: The Wise One of Ramogiland)

Kenya in Crisis

The public stop a Lorry full of Uganda Army Uniforms at Kenya's Malaba crossing point. The purpose of the Military Uniforms remain mysterious. Kenyans have accused Uganda's Museveni for having sent soldiers into Kenya to help Kibaki quel riots during the recent post-election crisis.

Read Link...

J.R. Alila

http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143980835&cid=4

No Retreat, Says Raila's ODM.

No retreat says Raila's ODM.
High emotions in Kisumu and Kakamega Mourning Services.

Read link

JR Alila


http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143980761

Kibaki Govt Blames US for Kenyan Post-election Violence

Read link below for US response.

JR Alila

http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143980740
http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143980760

Must Britain Recognize the Disputed Kibaki Presidecy?

THE Kenyan Govt demands to be recognized by the British Gov't, declared Kenyans Foreign Minister Mr. Moses Watengula. He demands were as a result of matters arising out of a House-of-Commons debate on the Kenyan election gridlock. Pundits wonder how the British Govt can be forced to declare the recognition of Mr. Kibaki's Presidency, that even the beleaugured ECK Chairman, Mr. Kivuiti, doubts.
If you have fogotten, this is the same Kivuitu who was frogmatched out of KICC poll-tallying center at gunpoint, with TV camers rolling, only to reemerge on State-controlled KBC-TV declaring Mr. Kibaki the winner and within the hour he would appear at Mr. Kibaki's rushed swearing ceremony.
Hon. Raila Odinga and his ODM and supporters continue to protest the decision which those in the know have declared to have been won by Hon Raila Odinga by at least 130000 votes.
Parliament in Britain is sacrosanct and the British Foreign Ministry cannot control what it deliberates up, Kenya and all. Hon Watengula needs to know that the same British Parliament can dictate British policy posture against Kenya, the same way the European Parliament did the other day. Joseph Alila. (Author: The Wise One of Ramogiland)

http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=1&newsid=115060

Kenya in Crisis

Odinga could have won by over 1%.... (US Ambassador). Read link below:


J. Alila

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/bloodied-kenyan-opposition-calls-for/n20080119100209990007

The Last Straw That Broke the Camel's Back

"We only have stones!"
This cry, from young man amidst a battle with GSU paramilitary police in Kisumu, captures the current tragedy in Nyanza in the current electoral crisis. In the Rift Valley we have read of the dreaded GSU personnel being detained by locals at roadblocks; in Kisumu, unarmed kids are practice targets of some police officers, as a recent TV footage doing the rounds on the Web taught us. What makes Rift Valley different than Nyanza? The answer is that unlike Rift Valley, Luo Nyanza is irrelevant to the nation of Kenya: it is farflung and landlocked; Anyuongi has killed navigation and fishing on Lake Victoria; Kisumu is in ruins, sugar can be imported; no other ethnicities live there; only her electoral vote matters to any politician after every five years. The Gov't forces will continue to operate in Luo Nyanza with impunity to teach the locals to "vote otherwise" next time.
Which way Luo Nyanza?
Would this election be the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back in Luo Politics?
I believe so.
If Hon. Raila Odinga fails to sit on the covetted seat (the Presidency), or fails to agitate for and get the Premiership before 2012, most Luo Nyanza voters will sit out the 2012 elections, and it will not matter who runs in ODM, which will have died anyway.
I'd rather watch Gor Mahia FC matches, commiserate with fellow elders than vote again in a fatally-cursed process that only generates anguish and gnashing of teeth among the people. We were there before in the '60s and '70s, and may survive it, again. But if not managed well, this elctoral mess may be the last straw that broke the camel's back in Luo Nyanza because pride to the point of apathy is a virtue, at least in a Luo psyche.
Ask yourself this: why are there no Luo names in Kibaki's National Dialogue and Reconciliation Committee? The answer is that Luo Nyanza is irrelevant to his political schemes; he never campaigned there anyway.

Joseph R. Alila

(Author: "The Wise One of Ramogiland," ISBN 978-14303-2554-3)

Read this for AE Standard, Kenya ....

http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143980596&cid=16

Kenya in Crisis

Kiai Report on Kenyan Elections A bungled Tally (Kiai, East A frican Standard).

J. Alila


http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143980628&cid=4

Kenya in Crisis

Guests

Look at this peaceful protester's pose next to a Kenya Police flagpole (Daily Nation, Kenya).

J. R. Alila


http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=1&newsid=114823

Kenya Elctoral Crisis

Confessions of Kirui The Whistleblower. Read this tallying officer account of the events at KICC ECK vote tallying center on 12/28-12/29 2007 from Kumekucha



http://kumekucha.blogspot.com/

Ethnicity and Politics in Kenya

Ethnicity and Politics in Kenya

It would appear that there are no voices of reason left to heal the ethnic schisms in Kenya today. Bishops have taken sides; scribes have left no doubt as to which way they lean, some even advising the agrieved (Hon. Odinga) to be magnanimous (in defeat I presume); the embatled ECK Chairman, Mr. Kivuitu, is crying for any help as electoral data continue to be manipulated in his office. Nobody, apart from ODM and its supporters, is willing to address what led to the revelation of Kenya's ethnic nakedness, which was a fumbled tallying of the Presidential vote. Even a revered name among the Kenyan literary community, Prof. James Ngugi Wa Thion'go got caught up in the quagmire of the Kenyan electoral mess. Before the election, he had warned his Limuru residents (mostly Kikuyu), "Do not to allow the spotted Leopard to herd your goats." Was the spotted Leopard, Hon Odinga (a Luo) who was running for the Presidency?

Read on ...J. R. Alila
(Author: The Wise One of Ramogiland).


http://kenyalondonnews.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1052&Itemid=1

Wisdom From Kenya Elections

Word of Wisdom to you my friends:

In our collective experience a bride does not just walk into the bridegroom's bedroom, however rich the bride price purse; men have to wrestle their way home with her on their backs. That is what separated PNU form ODM. The former PNU grabbed the bride as her fierce brothers slept; the latter kept sweet-talking and showering the bride and her grandmother with goodies. Words, unless divine, will never move a mountain, leave alone an earthly bride (The Wise One declares). Didn't PNU's greatest Scribe offer the following Epistle to all the Churches in Central Province: "Never allow the spotted Leopard to guard your goats"?In Ramogi Alila's Novel, "The Wise One of Ramogiland," The Seer asks the Preeminent Warrior, " Can you be happy to be the Premier in two months, but from a wheel chair?" ODM never bruised itself before the elections. Electoral Lists were being doctored in broad daylight, but ODM's mournful words were ignored. At that stage of ECK's complicity, ODM should have gone to court to stop the elections or order a public review of all electoral lists. Instead of The Warrior coordinating forces on the morning of 27/12/2007, he found himself fighting to be a registered voter! One must Want the Bride so badly that he killed the spotted Leopard to secure her. That was the respected Scribe's point in his Ethnic Epistle, and it worked in PNU's favour. Don't we say in Luo, YUORO LAW KWACH (The Bride is as valuble as the Leopard's cloth)? The Presidency is a Bride: The world over, people go the extra distance in the use of rare wisdom and technology to win her over: Ask President Bush or Nobel Laureat Gore; they will tell you exactly the same thing.
My friends, I am not crying over spilled milk. No. We must be smarter, more tactical in 2012-- be it for Ruto or Mudavadi; we have to be more tactical in 20017-- be it for Orengo, Nyon'go or yourself .
Unfortunately, some of us in the blogs saw what was comming, but who read the blogs, and who would act on them? Just before the election (O my troubled Visions!) I blogged in the Daily Nation warning that IF ON ELECTION NIGHT, PRESIDENTIAL RETURNS FROM PNU BEDROCKS OF CENTRAL AND UPPER EASTERN ARE NOT IN, WHILE ODM'S NYANZA, WESTERN AND RIFT VALLEY ARE TALLIED, THEN KNOW THAT THE ELECTION IS BEING RIGGED. This blog was a response to an Omari Kenya Election2007 blog, to my knowledge, it was not published.In the same troubling prophetic book, The Wise One of Ramogiland, The Seer tells the Preeminent Warrior "The Seer also sees a traumatic path; a path so traumatic at the beginning, only to be very bright at the end."

In the last paragraph of the same book, "The Wise One of Ramogiland," the Seer gives the Warrior a shepherds stick and commands him to head north to the land of the Long River where Ramogi's cousins remain in grave peril.
My troubled writings, inspired by forces beyond my grasp, force me to declare that The Preeminewnt Warrior is going to be great, but not in the manner, and not through the path you and I had envisioned.Keep the candle of hope burning.

Dr. Joseph R. Alila
(Author of the Political Satire: The Wise One of Ramogiland)

Kenyan in Crisis

1. Uganda Role in Kenya in Crisis

THe Kenyan Blogs are awash with sitings of Museveni's Soldier's in Western Kenya; the leading Kenyan publication The East African Standard reports such sitings too. Why on earth would landlocked Uganda be agitating for chaos in a region of Kenya through which its Oil, industrial supplies and domestic consumer goods pass by rail and pipelines?

Lessons from History for the young among us
That great philosopher son of Africa, the late HE Presisdent Julius Nyerere once declared when Idi Amin invaded Tanzania, "If a Snake invades your house, you must chop its head." Nyerere WENT ON TO HAND AMIN A DECISIVE VICTORY over a much overated Ugandan Army that constantly threatened Kenya with invasion. Obote, Okelo, and Museveni would ride on Nyerer's back to oust Amin. Museveni appears not to have appreciated historical lessons in which he was an actor as a young man out the University of Daresalaam. Our wise also say that "You don't chop the hand that feeds you." Museveni does not need an unstable Kenya. Kenya has an Army and her women still give birth to sons; it does not need Ugandan forces for any purpose.

J. R. Alila, PhD
(Author: The Wise One of Ramogiland)

US adds voice on Kenyan Electoral Crisis

Kenya in Crisis

With ODM agitating for mass action, The United States joins other nations in the condemnation of the Kenyan Political Stalemate; taking no sides (Daily Nation, Kenya). "It will not be business as usual" (J. Frazier, Ass. Sec. State African Affairs) Read on:

J. R. Alila

http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=1&newsid=114518

Kenya in Crisis

Small Man suffers for Big Man;
Read this:


http://kenyalondonnews.co.uk/index2.php?option=com_content&task=emailform&id=1035&itemid=1

KENYA IN CRISIS

President Kibaki has invited Hon. Odinga of the majority party, ODM to a meeting. The aim of the meeting, to be madiated by President Kuffuor of Ghana and current Chairman of AU, is to find away forward out of the choas and mistrust among Kenyan ethnicities that have been been precipitated by a botched and rigged vote-tallying by the Election Commission of Kenya (aka ECK). Kibaki was declared the winner in the recent election the world believes to have been won by Hon. Odinga.
President Kibaki hopes that Raila and ODM blink and accept to be part of a ruling coalition, or that ODM goes to court where its complaints will not be settled in the lefetime of the new parliament.
ODM will be demanding a re-run of the Presidential Vote; they may also demand an immediate creation of an excutive Prime Minister's post (for Hon. Odinga or any ODM-nominated man or woman). But this would require a constitutional amendment. Neither of these demands will be acceptable to President Kibaki, who knows how sweet the throne is, leave alone the business community who have this phobia about Hon. Odinga's predictable anti-corruption, clean-government stance.
The stalemate has a assumed a 2012 dimension. ODM must watch its steps and keep its eyes on the ball. The public who gave ODM both parliamentary majority and the Presidency (of which it has been robbed) is not dreaming of anything less than an Odinga triumph. This time is Odinga's; 2012 will be Mudavadi's or Ruto's. Luo support for either Ruto or Mudavadi in 2012 demands that the members of the ODM Pentagon must remain united in purpose. To remain politically relevant, ODM must shepherd their elected members in the House to ward off any poaching by Kibaki's PNU.

Kenyans are in for a rough ride because the protagonists have an unhealthy level of mistrust. President Moi is unusually quiet; Hon. Kalonzo of ODM-K is compromised by Presisdent Kibaki; old names in Kenyan poilitics were floored by ODM's pro-change train. The Church had thrown its support behind one candidate before the elections. Who will save Kenya? Maybe members the international community who have refused to recognize Kibaki's win. But for a man who can burry his head in the sand and who beleives that the end justifies the means, global isolation will mean little; and nothiong will stop him.

J. R. Alila

THE KENYAN REFUGEE

Fellow Kenyans at Home and in the Diaspora,

1. Does it occur to you that by announcing a fumbled electoral tally in favor of the incumbent (President Mwai Kibake) the Chairman of The Electoral Commission of Kenyan (Mr. Kivuitu) has made some of you refugees either at Home (As Internally Displaced Person), in a neighboring country (like those who have fled to Uganda and Tanzania) and in the Diaspora (because they have no home to return to) ?
2. Do you see the sense to work extra hard to avoid this getting worse than it already is to about 500, 000 Kenyans?

3. What can you do to reverse the chaos that threaten to make Kenya another Failed State?

4. What can you do to help those displaced?

5. Do you know that SILENCE does not help in this situation?

6. Do you understand that careless talk in the blogs and chatrooms can worsen the situation?
Let me hear your views on the Next Step.

J.R. Alila (Author: The Wise One of Ramogiland)

watch and listen to this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vvbUFrU7dM

The Milayi Curse

In Joseph R. Alila's "Milayi Curse" (Lulu(http://www.lulu.com))%20centuries-old/centuries-old bigotry, prejudice, unresolved wrongs, spiritual curses, and intraclan rivalry meet the reality and power of frienship between two boys, and the power of charity from one rich man to a boy from the other side of clan divide, with Fr. James O'Kilgor as a witness and Keeper of Secrets. Mrs. Milayi's prejudice must be cleansed by her Priest in her self-made spiritual deathbed. She would live as a witness and agent of peace, understanding and intraclan healing in this spiritual drama.

Joseph R. Alila (Author)