Post by roughrider on Nov 30, 2006 14:40:33 GMT 3
Its amazing, isn’t it?
Just the other day Kenyans voted overwhelmingly to reject Moism and consequently have Mwai Kibaki as president; today Mwai Kibaki is assiduously working with Mzee Moi to win Kenyan votes for another term!
In 2007, Uhuru Kenyatta who was Moi’s project will put all his energy into Raila Odinga’s presidential campaign; this is the only conceivable way he can be Kenya’s president in 2012. It is the same Raila Odinga who, almost single-handedly, put paid to Uhuru’s ambitions in 2002.
This is classic Mazruian parallel.
First things first; how should Kenya deal with Moi and the resurgence of Moism? The short answer is ‘justice’
To understand this simple and final solution to the Moi menace, let us put things in their proper context and recite some of the remarkable things happening in Africa lately.
Former Liberian president Charles Taylor is sitting in a Dutch jail facing 650 charges for war crimes and crimes against humanity. His rap sheet is riveting; terrorising civilians, unlawful killings, sexual violence, physical violence, use of child soldiers, abductions, forced labour and looting. If convicted by the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone, Mr Taylor will be cooling his heels in a British prison for a long, long time.
Elsewhere a Belgian court issued an international warrant of arrest for Monsieur Hissene Habre who has hitherto enjoyed a charmed life exiled in Senegal. Habre who, as Chad’s strongman-in-chief, helped redefine brutal dictatorship is facing a case brought by victims of his torturous ways; obviously victims that managed to run with their lives to tell the gruesome story. Approximately 40,000 victims were not so lucky. Mr Habre has earned the unenviable moniker as ‘Africa’s Pinochet’. Now Senegal says they will try Habre in the name of Africa for Africa.
Closer home still, ‘Chairman Kony’, whose resume includes ‘gifted Christian’, ‘seer’ and ‘husband to 60 wives’, but who has made a life and career out of bloody rebellion is among five top LRA leaders who have warrants of arrest issued by the International Criminal Court at the Hague for their role in unspeakable atrocities against civilian populations in northern Uganda.
The merits of these cases are neither here nor there; what is important is that they represent attempts to seek justice and make peace with the past.
Daniel arap Moi in the 80’s and 90’s presided over a regime of physical and economic terror against Kenyans. Moi stands accused of crimes against humanity including massive looting. Hundreds of Kenyans were forced to flee their homeland into exile because of arap Moi’s murderous ways. Indeed these were lucky, many faceless Kenyans in all probability died in Moi’s dungeons. Survivors are still holed up in western capitals carrying horrendous physical and emotional scars.
Why haven’t these Kenyans, like Habre’s victims, sought justice in international courts? With an arrest warrant out for him, Mr. Moi would be hard put to travel an inch, let alone utter another derisive word mocking Kenyans and their freedoms.
Instead thanks to a conniving and criminally irresponsible Mwai Kibaki, Moi has had an almost incident free ‘retirement’; no police statements, no frozen accounts, no uncomfortable questions, no truth, no reconciliation and no justice.
Moi – and his evil Mr. Fix-It, Nicholas Biwott - have, today, re-invented themselves and are now appendages of Mwai Kibaki’s increasingly intolerant government, infecting it with the malaise of impunity; a cruel abrogation of the sovereign will of Kenyans expressed in 2002.
I challenge all Kenyans who truly carry the scars of Mr. Moi’s murderous regime, especially those residing in the diaspora who truly love their country, to seek international justice and silence the sneering intrusions of Moism once and for all.
Just the other day Kenyans voted overwhelmingly to reject Moism and consequently have Mwai Kibaki as president; today Mwai Kibaki is assiduously working with Mzee Moi to win Kenyan votes for another term!
In 2007, Uhuru Kenyatta who was Moi’s project will put all his energy into Raila Odinga’s presidential campaign; this is the only conceivable way he can be Kenya’s president in 2012. It is the same Raila Odinga who, almost single-handedly, put paid to Uhuru’s ambitions in 2002.
This is classic Mazruian parallel.
First things first; how should Kenya deal with Moi and the resurgence of Moism? The short answer is ‘justice’
To understand this simple and final solution to the Moi menace, let us put things in their proper context and recite some of the remarkable things happening in Africa lately.
Former Liberian president Charles Taylor is sitting in a Dutch jail facing 650 charges for war crimes and crimes against humanity. His rap sheet is riveting; terrorising civilians, unlawful killings, sexual violence, physical violence, use of child soldiers, abductions, forced labour and looting. If convicted by the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone, Mr Taylor will be cooling his heels in a British prison for a long, long time.
Elsewhere a Belgian court issued an international warrant of arrest for Monsieur Hissene Habre who has hitherto enjoyed a charmed life exiled in Senegal. Habre who, as Chad’s strongman-in-chief, helped redefine brutal dictatorship is facing a case brought by victims of his torturous ways; obviously victims that managed to run with their lives to tell the gruesome story. Approximately 40,000 victims were not so lucky. Mr Habre has earned the unenviable moniker as ‘Africa’s Pinochet’. Now Senegal says they will try Habre in the name of Africa for Africa.
Closer home still, ‘Chairman Kony’, whose resume includes ‘gifted Christian’, ‘seer’ and ‘husband to 60 wives’, but who has made a life and career out of bloody rebellion is among five top LRA leaders who have warrants of arrest issued by the International Criminal Court at the Hague for their role in unspeakable atrocities against civilian populations in northern Uganda.
The merits of these cases are neither here nor there; what is important is that they represent attempts to seek justice and make peace with the past.
Daniel arap Moi in the 80’s and 90’s presided over a regime of physical and economic terror against Kenyans. Moi stands accused of crimes against humanity including massive looting. Hundreds of Kenyans were forced to flee their homeland into exile because of arap Moi’s murderous ways. Indeed these were lucky, many faceless Kenyans in all probability died in Moi’s dungeons. Survivors are still holed up in western capitals carrying horrendous physical and emotional scars.
Why haven’t these Kenyans, like Habre’s victims, sought justice in international courts? With an arrest warrant out for him, Mr. Moi would be hard put to travel an inch, let alone utter another derisive word mocking Kenyans and their freedoms.
Instead thanks to a conniving and criminally irresponsible Mwai Kibaki, Moi has had an almost incident free ‘retirement’; no police statements, no frozen accounts, no uncomfortable questions, no truth, no reconciliation and no justice.
Moi – and his evil Mr. Fix-It, Nicholas Biwott - have, today, re-invented themselves and are now appendages of Mwai Kibaki’s increasingly intolerant government, infecting it with the malaise of impunity; a cruel abrogation of the sovereign will of Kenyans expressed in 2002.
I challenge all Kenyans who truly carry the scars of Mr. Moi’s murderous regime, especially those residing in the diaspora who truly love their country, to seek international justice and silence the sneering intrusions of Moism once and for all.
