Post by Onyango Oloo on Oct 29, 2005 8:50:25 GMT 3
Another Take by the Outlandish Onyango Oloo
I chuckled for hours today, thoroughly entertained by the apoplexy gradient getting steeper and steeper as more and more Yes Men and Yes Women jumped on the bandwagon of denouncing
Kalonzo Musyoka and
Raila Odinga for pointing out the potential for a military putsch in Kenya.
Just so that we do not get confused, here is a link from the NAK linked Nairobi daily- The Nation, pointing us to how they reported the remarks of the Orange juice aficionados in the fractious NARC cabinet:
allafrica.com/stories/200510280085.html
I want to say two things about these remarks:
One, it does not take a brain surgeon to discern the reasons why so many African countries have been prone to political turmoil.
The number one reason given by coup makers- regardless of whether they believe in their own rhetoric- is repression and corruption at state levels.
Zoom back to 1979 when
Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings unleashed his June coup de tat, and later when he reprised it on New Year’s Day 1981.
Remember
Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe and a host of other demagogues- they took advantage of real long suppressed aspirations of the people to live in democratic societies to unleash military dictatorships.
If I read Raila and Kalonzo correctly, they were NOT endorsing or telegraphing a coup plot in the offing but in actuality decrying the set of circumstances that could leave Kenyans saddled with another
Idi Amin or a
Jean Bedel Bokassa.
What is the first thing coup plotters do?
They SUSPEND the existing constitution and rule through decrees. They ban political parties and clamp down on civil society activities.
If I am not mistaken, Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka belong to that wing of NARC that has been most critical of the steady erosion of internal democracy in the Kibaki regime and the overt use of state violence against peaceful democracy loving Kenyans.
Mwai Kibaki’s saber rattling earlier yesterday was supposed to assuage the fears of the easily terrified middle class wishy washy suburban hordes who can be convinced to strangle their own grandmothers if that will assure them that they can continue to live in petit-bourgeois placid bliss.
Kenyans were yesterday assaulted with another heavy dose of content free political bombast desperately calculated to substitute for the pathetic and disastrous showing on the public debating rostrums of the leading Bananiacs.
Secondly, I wanted to REMIND Kenyans that indeed there is a bunch of cabinet ministers who are in Kibaki’s regime who have been busy ORGANIZING a creeping coup to overthrow the NARC government and replace it with an unaccountable, arrogant and elitist cabal.
I actually think these well known Kenyan politicians should all be rounded up tomorrow and thrown into the coolers to await their eagerly anticipated Treason Trials.
There is OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE in the public domain to find them GUILTY as CHARGED.
Who are these ministers who are plotting to overthrow the NARC regime?
Well, some of you may be surprised.
This is an essay I posted on the Mashada forum on Monday, August 11, 2003:
www.mashada.com/forums/index.php?az=show_topic&forum=22&topic_id=25166
25166, Kenyans Watch Out: A Civilian Coup in the Offing!
Posted by Onyango Oloo, Mon Aug-11-03 03:47 AM
Two days prior to that I had posted the following reflections on the same forum:
Is NARC Going to Hell in a Hand Basket?
www.mashada.com/forums/index.php?az=show_topic&forum=22&topic_id=25098&mesg_id=25098
Here is what I posted on the Mambogani forum on March 23, 2004:
Posted by: Onyango Oloo Mar 23 2004, 03:06 AM
A Creeping Fascist Tyranny Confronts the Kenyan Democratic Promise
A Digital Essay by Onyango Oloo
Montreal
Monday, March 22, 2004
www.mambogani.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=20&t=2390
All three digital interventions make the case that there is a wing in the current NARC government that has been scheming for awhile to use undemocratic methods to consolidate political powers in a few elitist petit and comprador bourgeois hands.
That faction is the NAK fraction of the NARC coalition that started by abrogating the written memorandum of understanding with its LDP partners; violating almost every single promise they made to the electorate and undermining the constitutional review process by throwing temper tantrums, sulking from plenary sessions and skulking before a battery of media cameras and microphones.
The attempt to dissolve the MULTI- party coalition into a single top down SUPER "NARC" political party; the drive to impose an imperial presidency; the open and flagrant violation and disregard of this country’s laws flowing from the Chief Executive and his cabinet sidekicks on down; the increasing use of state troops to quell popular dissent; the menacing threats against media freedom and other repressive tendencies point to an increasing intolerance among the chief mandarins and top dogs of the NAK regime.
In my opinion, a coup de tat WILL OCCUR in Kenya with the passage of the Wako Draft.
That coup itself will be the actual passage of that undemocratic mutilation of the wananchi’s expressed democratic will captured in the Bomas Draft.
Why would I call the startling "victory" of the Yes side a coup?
Because, based on what Kenyans can see ALL OVER THE COUNTRY, barring unforeseen blunders or manufactured political crises/scandals or a sudden meltdown in the Orange camp, the NO side will prevail in the referendum vote.
In my considered opinion the only way the Banana Camp can emerge victorious is if they rig the results.
More than that, the provisions of the Wako Draft will set the stage of the very same, if not worse imperial presidency that Kenyans have been resisting for the last forty years. It is in this context that the Wako Draft will be a COUP against democratic and patriotic Kenyans who have always fought to whittle down the powers of the president.
But is there a possibility of an actual military attempt to capture political power in Kenya.
Let us remember that the men and women who serve in the Kenyan armed forces were not conceived on the Planet Neptune. They all came from the wombs of Kenyan mothers and were sired by Kenyan fathers. They grew up with Kenyan brothers and sisters and went to school with Kenyan students.
Away from the snazzy Jamhuri Day parades, the same wanajeshi read the same newspapers and listen to the same radio newscasts. They have all formed opinions about the referendum campaign, with some leaning to the Yes side and others siding with the NO side. For those who actually support democracy and social progress, how painful must be for some of them to watch their counterparts in the police take to clobbering innocent wananchi who probably articulate the same things that outraged Kenyans express online...
The military can only attempt to take power in a society that has only partially retrieved itself from a kleptocratic, sycophantic dispensation where the citizens realize that they have a primary responsibility in deepening democratic values rather than have it imposed from without.
The litmus test in Kenya is to gauge which faction of the regime has to resort to state repression to maintain social control or impose political legitimacy. That is the wing of NARC that will provoke a possible military take over in Kenya.
In my opinion, struggling for a new democratic constitution is the very anti-thesis of plotting a military putsch.
A coup, by its very nature implies a secret plot to USURP a democratically sanctioned political authority (in the best of scenarios- but also a bloody dictatorship like Hitler’s Germany or Idi Amin’s Uganda).
By its very nature, a coup plot is not just undemocratic, it is anti-democratic.
But let me hasten to say this as well:
Many a revolutionary, patriot, democrat and progressive has donned a military fatigue and worn a beret.
One of my all time heroes, the Burkina be paratrooper
Captain Thomas Sankara is one such figure; another one is the former Venezuelan paratrooper
Hugo Chavez.
At the same time we see a "civilian" leader like George Bush unleashing more wars than Attila the Hun or Ivan the Terrible.
Looked at in this wider context we see that the fulminations of the Yes camp over coup plots is just so much yabbering, yammering, yodeling and blathering because if there is any political force which has some explaining to do about secret elitist plots to usurp democratic power in Kenya, then it is the NAK faction.
Enough said.
Onyango Oloo
I chuckled for hours today, thoroughly entertained by the apoplexy gradient getting steeper and steeper as more and more Yes Men and Yes Women jumped on the bandwagon of denouncing
Kalonzo Musyoka and
Raila Odinga for pointing out the potential for a military putsch in Kenya.
Just so that we do not get confused, here is a link from the NAK linked Nairobi daily- The Nation, pointing us to how they reported the remarks of the Orange juice aficionados in the fractious NARC cabinet:
allafrica.com/stories/200510280085.html
I want to say two things about these remarks:
One, it does not take a brain surgeon to discern the reasons why so many African countries have been prone to political turmoil.
The number one reason given by coup makers- regardless of whether they believe in their own rhetoric- is repression and corruption at state levels.
Zoom back to 1979 when
Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings unleashed his June coup de tat, and later when he reprised it on New Year’s Day 1981.
Remember
Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe and a host of other demagogues- they took advantage of real long suppressed aspirations of the people to live in democratic societies to unleash military dictatorships.
If I read Raila and Kalonzo correctly, they were NOT endorsing or telegraphing a coup plot in the offing but in actuality decrying the set of circumstances that could leave Kenyans saddled with another
Idi Amin or a
Jean Bedel Bokassa.
What is the first thing coup plotters do?
They SUSPEND the existing constitution and rule through decrees. They ban political parties and clamp down on civil society activities.
If I am not mistaken, Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka belong to that wing of NARC that has been most critical of the steady erosion of internal democracy in the Kibaki regime and the overt use of state violence against peaceful democracy loving Kenyans.
Mwai Kibaki’s saber rattling earlier yesterday was supposed to assuage the fears of the easily terrified middle class wishy washy suburban hordes who can be convinced to strangle their own grandmothers if that will assure them that they can continue to live in petit-bourgeois placid bliss.
Kenyans were yesterday assaulted with another heavy dose of content free political bombast desperately calculated to substitute for the pathetic and disastrous showing on the public debating rostrums of the leading Bananiacs.
Secondly, I wanted to REMIND Kenyans that indeed there is a bunch of cabinet ministers who are in Kibaki’s regime who have been busy ORGANIZING a creeping coup to overthrow the NARC government and replace it with an unaccountable, arrogant and elitist cabal.
I actually think these well known Kenyan politicians should all be rounded up tomorrow and thrown into the coolers to await their eagerly anticipated Treason Trials.
There is OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE in the public domain to find them GUILTY as CHARGED.
Who are these ministers who are plotting to overthrow the NARC regime?
Well, some of you may be surprised.
This is an essay I posted on the Mashada forum on Monday, August 11, 2003:
www.mashada.com/forums/index.php?az=show_topic&forum=22&topic_id=25166
25166, Kenyans Watch Out: A Civilian Coup in the Offing!
Posted by Onyango Oloo, Mon Aug-11-03 03:47 AM
Two days prior to that I had posted the following reflections on the same forum:
Is NARC Going to Hell in a Hand Basket?
www.mashada.com/forums/index.php?az=show_topic&forum=22&topic_id=25098&mesg_id=25098
Here is what I posted on the Mambogani forum on March 23, 2004:
Posted by: Onyango Oloo Mar 23 2004, 03:06 AM
A Creeping Fascist Tyranny Confronts the Kenyan Democratic Promise
A Digital Essay by Onyango Oloo
Montreal
Monday, March 22, 2004
www.mambogani.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=20&t=2390
All three digital interventions make the case that there is a wing in the current NARC government that has been scheming for awhile to use undemocratic methods to consolidate political powers in a few elitist petit and comprador bourgeois hands.
That faction is the NAK fraction of the NARC coalition that started by abrogating the written memorandum of understanding with its LDP partners; violating almost every single promise they made to the electorate and undermining the constitutional review process by throwing temper tantrums, sulking from plenary sessions and skulking before a battery of media cameras and microphones.
The attempt to dissolve the MULTI- party coalition into a single top down SUPER "NARC" political party; the drive to impose an imperial presidency; the open and flagrant violation and disregard of this country’s laws flowing from the Chief Executive and his cabinet sidekicks on down; the increasing use of state troops to quell popular dissent; the menacing threats against media freedom and other repressive tendencies point to an increasing intolerance among the chief mandarins and top dogs of the NAK regime.
In my opinion, a coup de tat WILL OCCUR in Kenya with the passage of the Wako Draft.
That coup itself will be the actual passage of that undemocratic mutilation of the wananchi’s expressed democratic will captured in the Bomas Draft.
Why would I call the startling "victory" of the Yes side a coup?
Because, based on what Kenyans can see ALL OVER THE COUNTRY, barring unforeseen blunders or manufactured political crises/scandals or a sudden meltdown in the Orange camp, the NO side will prevail in the referendum vote.
In my considered opinion the only way the Banana Camp can emerge victorious is if they rig the results.
More than that, the provisions of the Wako Draft will set the stage of the very same, if not worse imperial presidency that Kenyans have been resisting for the last forty years. It is in this context that the Wako Draft will be a COUP against democratic and patriotic Kenyans who have always fought to whittle down the powers of the president.
But is there a possibility of an actual military attempt to capture political power in Kenya.
Let us remember that the men and women who serve in the Kenyan armed forces were not conceived on the Planet Neptune. They all came from the wombs of Kenyan mothers and were sired by Kenyan fathers. They grew up with Kenyan brothers and sisters and went to school with Kenyan students.
Away from the snazzy Jamhuri Day parades, the same wanajeshi read the same newspapers and listen to the same radio newscasts. They have all formed opinions about the referendum campaign, with some leaning to the Yes side and others siding with the NO side. For those who actually support democracy and social progress, how painful must be for some of them to watch their counterparts in the police take to clobbering innocent wananchi who probably articulate the same things that outraged Kenyans express online...
The military can only attempt to take power in a society that has only partially retrieved itself from a kleptocratic, sycophantic dispensation where the citizens realize that they have a primary responsibility in deepening democratic values rather than have it imposed from without.
The litmus test in Kenya is to gauge which faction of the regime has to resort to state repression to maintain social control or impose political legitimacy. That is the wing of NARC that will provoke a possible military take over in Kenya.
In my opinion, struggling for a new democratic constitution is the very anti-thesis of plotting a military putsch.
A coup, by its very nature implies a secret plot to USURP a democratically sanctioned political authority (in the best of scenarios- but also a bloody dictatorship like Hitler’s Germany or Idi Amin’s Uganda).
By its very nature, a coup plot is not just undemocratic, it is anti-democratic.
But let me hasten to say this as well:
Many a revolutionary, patriot, democrat and progressive has donned a military fatigue and worn a beret.
One of my all time heroes, the Burkina be paratrooper
Captain Thomas Sankara is one such figure; another one is the former Venezuelan paratrooper
Hugo Chavez.
At the same time we see a "civilian" leader like George Bush unleashing more wars than Attila the Hun or Ivan the Terrible.
Looked at in this wider context we see that the fulminations of the Yes camp over coup plots is just so much yabbering, yammering, yodeling and blathering because if there is any political force which has some explaining to do about secret elitist plots to usurp democratic power in Kenya, then it is the NAK faction.
Enough said.
Onyango Oloo