Post by adongo12345 on Apr 16, 2007 22:58:24 GMT 3
By Adongo Ogony
www.eastandard.net/archives/sunday/hm_news/news.php?articleid=1143967443&date=17/4/2007
www.timesnews.co.ke/17april07/nwsstory/topstry.html
www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=1&newsid=96117
I have been trying to lay off the latest Artur story in our election year. Not so much because it is not important news. It is. I mean we are dealing with international criminals with deep links in the corridors of power within the Kibaki regime. Not to forget that they are experienced arsonists and supposed to be trained killers. Whenever people like that come knocking at you door, you ignore them at your own peril. Those are important guests. And not just to the few who accomodate them, but to the whole country. Let us welcome them with "makofi ya kilo"
The reason I was avoiding the Artur story, is that I felt the dramatics between Winnie Wangui wa Mwai and her alleged lover Artur Margryan, were getting too tabloid for me.
At any rate I thought we could take in the entertainment, as dangerous as it is, from the Standard Newspapers and stay away from it. Obviously I was wrong. This thing is growing in leaps and bounds and I have a feeling Michuki is about to screw things up even more.
Two things happened that started to bother me. One was the announcement by Raila Odinga that the Arturs were back in town and have been spotted at State House Mombasa and Nakuru. Raila even went as far as to say that one of the boys had left for Colombo, Sri Lanka. The very next day, Mr. Artur Margryan was on the phone from Colombo talking to the Standard. And then the ballistics started dropping down.
First was the predictable fury from those paid to protect the prestige of State House? You would wish they would do their damage control before and not after the fact. But Alfred Mutua was livid with Raila, at one time saying Raila’s statement in parliament was “too ridiculous to merit a response", but all the same going a head and giving a very confusing response:
According to Mutua “These wild allegations are not only dangerous, but also hinge on inciting the public against the government” Needless to say Mutu’a message was to threaten any body talking about the Artur’s presence and activities in Kenya with a possible sedition or treason charge.
And then we have the Immigration minister, Gedion Konchellah doing his usual denial gig. Konchellah told the nation that the Arturs were not in the country and anybody with any information to the contrary should contact the authorities.
The trouble for the two amigos, speaking on behalf of the Kibaki government is that they lied to us massively about the same Arturs not so long ago when the story first broke out and Raila alleged then that the two were mercenaries for hire. The government ridiculed Raila’s claims and threatened him with action for his “malicious lies”.
As everybody knows the same Konchellah told us these two were fine investors from the Czech Republic. Alfred Mutua repeated the same nonsensical lies until the whole Artur saga exploded.
If they lied to us then why should we believe them now? Are these not the same people who helped the same Artur crooks to stage one of the most shameful events anybody has seen in Kenya when they cooked up a fake “arrival” of the Arturs at JKIA trying to convince Kenyans that Raila was lying about the Arturs being mercenaries.
The whole thing blew in their faces when nobody could trace the alleged private jet they had come in. Then the government tried to corrupt Kenya Airways travel manifest to include one of the Arturs as a passenger in the plane. Nothing doing. The whole spectacle sent our country in a worried laughter at the sheer foolishness of some people we pay big money to keep our country safe. Kenyans know it takes the involvement of people very high up in the food chain to pull the kind of joke the Arturs and their allies were trying to pull at the airport.
The bottom line is that the Kibaki government has done some pretty bizarre and stupid things with these crooks. I find it hard to believe that whoever is helping the Arturs and whoever brought them in the country is in the business of providing high end escort boys for Wangui. This story is not about Wangui really. She has a right to fall in love with whomever, that is her choice and private business. Even Al Capone had lovers, in fact many of them.
The real issue is that when their Runda fortress was finally searched, these fellas were found with police badges including that of Deputy Commissioner of Kenyan Police, Kenyan Passports, reels of tapes and CCTV material including those suspected to have been stolen from the Standard raid, an assortment of weapons and ammunition as well as security clearances for VIP’s, plus of course tons of cash.
Wangui has no powers to diss out those badges and weapons to anybody. Not even Wambui, her mother also very much part of the Artur saga can do that. The state protection these dudes have been receiving can only come from Michuki’s office and therein lies the big irony.
After the Arturs were busted and it became obvious they were criminals who very likely had committed crimes in Kenya something astonishing happened. No they were not taken to the CID headquarters for questioning like the Standard Editors. They were not taken to any court of law in the land to face charges for committing crimes in Kenyaan soil as is required by our laws. Someone decided to break the law, again.
On orders from Michuki, no doubt, the Arturs were escorted under the cover of darkness to JKIA and basically allowed to leave the country in a first class flight to a place of their choosing. This according to Michuki was a deportation process. Of course that is a lie.
The Arturs themselves have said repeatedly that they were never deported. It is not hard to see who is right. It is also obvious the whole idea by Michuki was to smuggle the boys out of town so that no more incriminating evidence about the government’s involvement with these fellas would ever come to light. Looks like that plan is falling apart, and somebody is getting pretty mad. Again.
The Arturs are now saying they were approached by high ranking minister (s) in the Kibaki government to kill politicians. In fact a couple days ago they went ahead and mentioned one of their alleged targets who happens to Gideon Moi, son of former president Daniel Arap Moi. I’ll come back to that shortly.
The one funny aspect of the Artur Wangui soap opera is that sometime last week, Mutua suggested that newspapers were using make believe graphics that were confusing Kenyans. It seemed he was talking about manipulated pictures of Margryan and Wangui to look like they were together, here or there.
The accusation Dr. Mutua, the Kibaki Government Spokesman was making was that most of the stuff on the front pages of Daily Newspapers about Wangui and Artur were at best graphic fiction.
Well on the Saturday issue of the Standard, April 14, 2007, Artur and Wangui decided to put to rest all those speculations. They sent intimate photos of themselves doing what lovers do in some Hotel in Sri Lanka.
Dr. Mutua didn’t have to worry anymore about graphic manipulation of pictures. In fact he must have been more worried about things getting may be a little too graphic. That is why we keep warning these people; be careful what you ask for. That is why I am not so sure that going after the top honchos of the Standard is a good move. Who knows what else they have that they may be forced to bring forth. Me thinks this drama is very far from over.
One more puzzling thing, before we get to the Moi case, is that as soon as the Arturs were smuggled out of the country by the government, Kibaki hurriedly formed a Commission of Inquiry known as the Kiruki Commission. Many Kenyans thought it was another Kibaki joke to dupe the people that they were finally ready to do something about the Arturs.
The Kiruki Commission will go down in history as one of the shoddiest endevours of its kind in Kenya. Key witnesses like Raila who outed the mercenaries were never called to the commission. The Artur’s associates including the high profile Winnie Wangui and her mother Wambui were never called to give evidence under oath.
The one thing that exposed the whole charade was when the Commission refused to play tapes found at the Arturs’ residence which many believed were the tapes that were violently removed form the Standard Offices. It became obvious that the whole purpose of the Commission was to protect the criminals and their allies in government not to expose them. The hearing at the commission was public. Imagine my shock the other day when the government announced they cannot release the report to the public because of security concerns.
It is these endless twists and turns that make many of us believe there is still much more that Kenyans are going to hear from and about the Arturs and their allies in high offices.
Now let’s get back to the alleged hit on Gideon Moi. Many Kenyans are wondering, why Gideon Moi? Why not the official nightmare of the Kibaki regime, Raila Odinga.? To tell you the truth nobody is going to answer that question except those who were planning those assassinations, if indeed Artur’s statement is true. Assassinations are complex operations and nobody knows what domino effect someone was working on.
The one thing I find unsettling is why would the government still be harbouring people who actually want to expose some of the elements in the regime. Shouldn’t the government be trying to chase these people away and bury them somewhere?
Two things come to mind. You remember the forces Mukhisa Kituyi once called the informal government when he got really mad about the Arturs. Mukhisa is actually one of the few cabinet ministers to be called by the commission. He was unfortunate enough to be at the airport the day the Artur’s went bananas and talked to Michuki on the phone urging him to do something. Informal governments have been a big part of the Kibaki regime.
Everybody knows Wambui virtually runs her own wing of government. She has the cash and Kenyan politicians flock around her like flies on a pile of fresh cow dung. Who knows what else the Narc activist is cooking up at the State Lodges? The other thing I suspect is that there could be very well some serious power struggle within the various wings (formal and informal) of the Kibaki government. What is to stop one wing from trying to use the Artur’s to finish off the other wing
As for the government arresting the Standard Editors is bad politics and bad optics. The Standard raised some important questions and challenged the government to answer them. That really to me is the heart of the matter.
If the government wanted to arrest anybody, they should have the Arturs in police custody today, or may be before the courts or in jail. They have the evidence of their more obvious criminal activities, like possession of illegal guns and being in possession of security passes etc. Why is the government so scared of these criminals and would rather chase our newspaper editors. It is not the editors who want to kill Gideon Moi, it is the Arturs well known guests at State House. Deal with them and leave the Standard alone.
The Standard asked the following questions in their Monday issue: May be Michuki and Kibaki can help us with answers before the burn down the Standard again.
Some of the unanswered questions include:
Monday Standard April 16, 2007)
www.eastandard.net/hm_news/news.php?articleid=1143967411
• Why did a layman, a former policeman named Shedrach Kiruki, head the commission of inquiry?
• Why were certain parties, such as the Standard Group Limited (SGL), denied the opportunity to testify at the inquiry? After all, the Arturs allegedly led the squad that raided the Group on March 2 last year — a raid captured on CCTV, and which Internal Security Minister John Michuki has termed a Government operation.
• Why was a lawyer who sought to represent the Arturs at the commission not allowed to have his day on the stand?
• The commission’s report, the Government said, would not be made public because it touches on sensitive matters of security. So, why set up a commission of inquiry, use public funds and then refuse to make public its findings?
• Is there any truth in claims by Mr Raila Odinga, the Lang’ata MP, that these men were mercenaries? Whose dogs of war were they?
• The Arturs drove around in cars bearing Government registration plates. If the plates were faked, why were they not arrested and charged? If they were real, how did they get them and for what mission?
• The Arturs had security passes that gave them access to any part of any of Kenya’s airports at any time. Only the very apex of the Kenya Airports Authority pyramid can issue such passes. But at whose behest and for what reason?
• Immigration minister Gedion Konchellah defended the Arturs, saying they were investors. In what sector of the national economy were they interested?
• On whose advice was Konchellah and Government Spokesman Dr Alfred Mutua acting when they told Kenyans that the Arturs were investors on H class visas and work permits? On whose authority were they issuing such statements on people who would later be declared persona non grata?
• On whose advice was Konchellah acting when he authorised the issuance of passports to the two?
• It is on record that it was the National Security Intelligence Service (NSIS) that vetted and cleared the two men to get Kenyan passports! Is this true and at whose behest and for what purpose?
• Did Michuki know that the Arturs had documents making them high-ranking police officers — Deputy Commissioners to be precise? Did the Arturs in that capacity or otherwise lead the assault on SGL on March 2, last year? Did Michuki know that Margaryan was one of his officers? Did he know that the man was tasked with training some of the members of his elite squads? Are Kenyans not d**ned if he did not know? Are they not d**ned if he knew?
• Enter Wangui and her mother Wambui. Wambui does not consider herself a single parent. Wangui revealed just before Easter that she is planning to marry Margaryan who admits as much. Would a wedding be planned without Wambui and her powerful contacts being in the picture? Would Margaryan become Kenyan by marrying a Kenyan?
• Is it, in fact, true that Margaryan is writing a book? Might he expose ministers he bribed and those who assigned him tasks of kidnapping fellow MPs and investigating their bank accounts?
I suspect these questions raised by the Standard Editors have more to do with their arrests than whatever statements made by Artur Margryan. The irony of it all is that Michuki has all the time and all the resources to arrest Newspaper Editors who threaten nobody's life and yet he has yet to get anough time to visit Mt. Elgon area and see for himself what is going on. We have big problems in the country.
The writer is a human rights activist.
www.eastandard.net/archives/sunday/hm_news/news.php?articleid=1143967443&date=17/4/2007
www.timesnews.co.ke/17april07/nwsstory/topstry.html
www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=1&newsid=96117
I have been trying to lay off the latest Artur story in our election year. Not so much because it is not important news. It is. I mean we are dealing with international criminals with deep links in the corridors of power within the Kibaki regime. Not to forget that they are experienced arsonists and supposed to be trained killers. Whenever people like that come knocking at you door, you ignore them at your own peril. Those are important guests. And not just to the few who accomodate them, but to the whole country. Let us welcome them with "makofi ya kilo"
The reason I was avoiding the Artur story, is that I felt the dramatics between Winnie Wangui wa Mwai and her alleged lover Artur Margryan, were getting too tabloid for me.
At any rate I thought we could take in the entertainment, as dangerous as it is, from the Standard Newspapers and stay away from it. Obviously I was wrong. This thing is growing in leaps and bounds and I have a feeling Michuki is about to screw things up even more.
Two things happened that started to bother me. One was the announcement by Raila Odinga that the Arturs were back in town and have been spotted at State House Mombasa and Nakuru. Raila even went as far as to say that one of the boys had left for Colombo, Sri Lanka. The very next day, Mr. Artur Margryan was on the phone from Colombo talking to the Standard. And then the ballistics started dropping down.
First was the predictable fury from those paid to protect the prestige of State House? You would wish they would do their damage control before and not after the fact. But Alfred Mutua was livid with Raila, at one time saying Raila’s statement in parliament was “too ridiculous to merit a response", but all the same going a head and giving a very confusing response:
According to Mutua “These wild allegations are not only dangerous, but also hinge on inciting the public against the government” Needless to say Mutu’a message was to threaten any body talking about the Artur’s presence and activities in Kenya with a possible sedition or treason charge.
And then we have the Immigration minister, Gedion Konchellah doing his usual denial gig. Konchellah told the nation that the Arturs were not in the country and anybody with any information to the contrary should contact the authorities.
The trouble for the two amigos, speaking on behalf of the Kibaki government is that they lied to us massively about the same Arturs not so long ago when the story first broke out and Raila alleged then that the two were mercenaries for hire. The government ridiculed Raila’s claims and threatened him with action for his “malicious lies”.
As everybody knows the same Konchellah told us these two were fine investors from the Czech Republic. Alfred Mutua repeated the same nonsensical lies until the whole Artur saga exploded.
If they lied to us then why should we believe them now? Are these not the same people who helped the same Artur crooks to stage one of the most shameful events anybody has seen in Kenya when they cooked up a fake “arrival” of the Arturs at JKIA trying to convince Kenyans that Raila was lying about the Arturs being mercenaries.
The whole thing blew in their faces when nobody could trace the alleged private jet they had come in. Then the government tried to corrupt Kenya Airways travel manifest to include one of the Arturs as a passenger in the plane. Nothing doing. The whole spectacle sent our country in a worried laughter at the sheer foolishness of some people we pay big money to keep our country safe. Kenyans know it takes the involvement of people very high up in the food chain to pull the kind of joke the Arturs and their allies were trying to pull at the airport.
The bottom line is that the Kibaki government has done some pretty bizarre and stupid things with these crooks. I find it hard to believe that whoever is helping the Arturs and whoever brought them in the country is in the business of providing high end escort boys for Wangui. This story is not about Wangui really. She has a right to fall in love with whomever, that is her choice and private business. Even Al Capone had lovers, in fact many of them.
The real issue is that when their Runda fortress was finally searched, these fellas were found with police badges including that of Deputy Commissioner of Kenyan Police, Kenyan Passports, reels of tapes and CCTV material including those suspected to have been stolen from the Standard raid, an assortment of weapons and ammunition as well as security clearances for VIP’s, plus of course tons of cash.
Wangui has no powers to diss out those badges and weapons to anybody. Not even Wambui, her mother also very much part of the Artur saga can do that. The state protection these dudes have been receiving can only come from Michuki’s office and therein lies the big irony.
After the Arturs were busted and it became obvious they were criminals who very likely had committed crimes in Kenya something astonishing happened. No they were not taken to the CID headquarters for questioning like the Standard Editors. They were not taken to any court of law in the land to face charges for committing crimes in Kenyaan soil as is required by our laws. Someone decided to break the law, again.
On orders from Michuki, no doubt, the Arturs were escorted under the cover of darkness to JKIA and basically allowed to leave the country in a first class flight to a place of their choosing. This according to Michuki was a deportation process. Of course that is a lie.
The Arturs themselves have said repeatedly that they were never deported. It is not hard to see who is right. It is also obvious the whole idea by Michuki was to smuggle the boys out of town so that no more incriminating evidence about the government’s involvement with these fellas would ever come to light. Looks like that plan is falling apart, and somebody is getting pretty mad. Again.
The Arturs are now saying they were approached by high ranking minister (s) in the Kibaki government to kill politicians. In fact a couple days ago they went ahead and mentioned one of their alleged targets who happens to Gideon Moi, son of former president Daniel Arap Moi. I’ll come back to that shortly.
The one funny aspect of the Artur Wangui soap opera is that sometime last week, Mutua suggested that newspapers were using make believe graphics that were confusing Kenyans. It seemed he was talking about manipulated pictures of Margryan and Wangui to look like they were together, here or there.
The accusation Dr. Mutua, the Kibaki Government Spokesman was making was that most of the stuff on the front pages of Daily Newspapers about Wangui and Artur were at best graphic fiction.
Well on the Saturday issue of the Standard, April 14, 2007, Artur and Wangui decided to put to rest all those speculations. They sent intimate photos of themselves doing what lovers do in some Hotel in Sri Lanka.
Dr. Mutua didn’t have to worry anymore about graphic manipulation of pictures. In fact he must have been more worried about things getting may be a little too graphic. That is why we keep warning these people; be careful what you ask for. That is why I am not so sure that going after the top honchos of the Standard is a good move. Who knows what else they have that they may be forced to bring forth. Me thinks this drama is very far from over.
One more puzzling thing, before we get to the Moi case, is that as soon as the Arturs were smuggled out of the country by the government, Kibaki hurriedly formed a Commission of Inquiry known as the Kiruki Commission. Many Kenyans thought it was another Kibaki joke to dupe the people that they were finally ready to do something about the Arturs.
The Kiruki Commission will go down in history as one of the shoddiest endevours of its kind in Kenya. Key witnesses like Raila who outed the mercenaries were never called to the commission. The Artur’s associates including the high profile Winnie Wangui and her mother Wambui were never called to give evidence under oath.
The one thing that exposed the whole charade was when the Commission refused to play tapes found at the Arturs’ residence which many believed were the tapes that were violently removed form the Standard Offices. It became obvious that the whole purpose of the Commission was to protect the criminals and their allies in government not to expose them. The hearing at the commission was public. Imagine my shock the other day when the government announced they cannot release the report to the public because of security concerns.
It is these endless twists and turns that make many of us believe there is still much more that Kenyans are going to hear from and about the Arturs and their allies in high offices.
Now let’s get back to the alleged hit on Gideon Moi. Many Kenyans are wondering, why Gideon Moi? Why not the official nightmare of the Kibaki regime, Raila Odinga.? To tell you the truth nobody is going to answer that question except those who were planning those assassinations, if indeed Artur’s statement is true. Assassinations are complex operations and nobody knows what domino effect someone was working on.
The one thing I find unsettling is why would the government still be harbouring people who actually want to expose some of the elements in the regime. Shouldn’t the government be trying to chase these people away and bury them somewhere?
Two things come to mind. You remember the forces Mukhisa Kituyi once called the informal government when he got really mad about the Arturs. Mukhisa is actually one of the few cabinet ministers to be called by the commission. He was unfortunate enough to be at the airport the day the Artur’s went bananas and talked to Michuki on the phone urging him to do something. Informal governments have been a big part of the Kibaki regime.
Everybody knows Wambui virtually runs her own wing of government. She has the cash and Kenyan politicians flock around her like flies on a pile of fresh cow dung. Who knows what else the Narc activist is cooking up at the State Lodges? The other thing I suspect is that there could be very well some serious power struggle within the various wings (formal and informal) of the Kibaki government. What is to stop one wing from trying to use the Artur’s to finish off the other wing
As for the government arresting the Standard Editors is bad politics and bad optics. The Standard raised some important questions and challenged the government to answer them. That really to me is the heart of the matter.
If the government wanted to arrest anybody, they should have the Arturs in police custody today, or may be before the courts or in jail. They have the evidence of their more obvious criminal activities, like possession of illegal guns and being in possession of security passes etc. Why is the government so scared of these criminals and would rather chase our newspaper editors. It is not the editors who want to kill Gideon Moi, it is the Arturs well known guests at State House. Deal with them and leave the Standard alone.
The Standard asked the following questions in their Monday issue: May be Michuki and Kibaki can help us with answers before the burn down the Standard again.
Some of the unanswered questions include:
Monday Standard April 16, 2007)
www.eastandard.net/hm_news/news.php?articleid=1143967411
• Why did a layman, a former policeman named Shedrach Kiruki, head the commission of inquiry?
• Why were certain parties, such as the Standard Group Limited (SGL), denied the opportunity to testify at the inquiry? After all, the Arturs allegedly led the squad that raided the Group on March 2 last year — a raid captured on CCTV, and which Internal Security Minister John Michuki has termed a Government operation.
• Why was a lawyer who sought to represent the Arturs at the commission not allowed to have his day on the stand?
• The commission’s report, the Government said, would not be made public because it touches on sensitive matters of security. So, why set up a commission of inquiry, use public funds and then refuse to make public its findings?
• Is there any truth in claims by Mr Raila Odinga, the Lang’ata MP, that these men were mercenaries? Whose dogs of war were they?
• The Arturs drove around in cars bearing Government registration plates. If the plates were faked, why were they not arrested and charged? If they were real, how did they get them and for what mission?
• The Arturs had security passes that gave them access to any part of any of Kenya’s airports at any time. Only the very apex of the Kenya Airports Authority pyramid can issue such passes. But at whose behest and for what reason?
• Immigration minister Gedion Konchellah defended the Arturs, saying they were investors. In what sector of the national economy were they interested?
• On whose advice was Konchellah and Government Spokesman Dr Alfred Mutua acting when they told Kenyans that the Arturs were investors on H class visas and work permits? On whose authority were they issuing such statements on people who would later be declared persona non grata?
• On whose advice was Konchellah acting when he authorised the issuance of passports to the two?
• It is on record that it was the National Security Intelligence Service (NSIS) that vetted and cleared the two men to get Kenyan passports! Is this true and at whose behest and for what purpose?
• Did Michuki know that the Arturs had documents making them high-ranking police officers — Deputy Commissioners to be precise? Did the Arturs in that capacity or otherwise lead the assault on SGL on March 2, last year? Did Michuki know that Margaryan was one of his officers? Did he know that the man was tasked with training some of the members of his elite squads? Are Kenyans not d**ned if he did not know? Are they not d**ned if he knew?
• Enter Wangui and her mother Wambui. Wambui does not consider herself a single parent. Wangui revealed just before Easter that she is planning to marry Margaryan who admits as much. Would a wedding be planned without Wambui and her powerful contacts being in the picture? Would Margaryan become Kenyan by marrying a Kenyan?
• Is it, in fact, true that Margaryan is writing a book? Might he expose ministers he bribed and those who assigned him tasks of kidnapping fellow MPs and investigating their bank accounts?
I suspect these questions raised by the Standard Editors have more to do with their arrests than whatever statements made by Artur Margryan. The irony of it all is that Michuki has all the time and all the resources to arrest Newspaper Editors who threaten nobody's life and yet he has yet to get anough time to visit Mt. Elgon area and see for himself what is going on. We have big problems in the country.
The writer is a human rights activist.
