Post by Onyango Oloo on Sept 28, 2005 22:58:11 GMT 3
Kenyan Journalists Far From Being Free
By Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
With the arrest of Sunday Times Senior writer David Ochami it shows that relations between the authorities and the press in Kenya are still tense. He was arrested following his commentary on Sunday September 25, 2005 on which he argued that coups in Africa do not occur out of nothing.
He had argued that today, as the president's men talk of an impending ouster of Mwai Kibaki, there are others who feel this should occur sooner or that the August 1, 1982 mutiny should have been taken to its logical conclusion.
He said Kiraitu Murungi, David Mwiraria have not said in which form the alleged ouster would take. In Africa he said, fewer governments have been ousted through the ballot box or popular uprising than through coup de tats and armed insurgency. "Do they have information about a coup plot in the offing"?, he paused.
The originators of the ouster rumour he said wish to remind Kenyans of the August 1, 1982 coup attempt, hoping to make them revolt against their rivals. If their tactic is to make the masses revolt against the whole idea of removing a president from power, he argued that even if they were elected democratically at some point, or distort the debate on the referendum, they were wrong.
He noted that there is no guarantee that a coup or other ouster of a president involves bloodshed or is inherently bad for the country. Likewise, he said, a democratic mandate such as Kibaki's in 2002 is no excuse to betray the ideals that brought him to power. "Neither is it synonymous with democratic practice or economic and social progress. It or Kenya's 42 years of stability did not confer immunity from coups or ouster if/when he became a liability to the country and democracy itself. There are good reasons for most coups", he said.
The collapse of the Hezekiah Ochuka experiment he said denied Kenyans the opportunity to live through a military. "Maybe Kenya would be better off now without the first generation of post-independence politicians, mostly likely to have been executed. Perhaps the country could have seen a civil war", he lamented.
He said twenty two years afterwards, Africa continues to see coup de tats and civil wars, despite the AU's objections. Nations with democratic governments have not been spared.
He noted that no single reason explains why Kenya has not exploded as it nearly did in 1982. Perhaps the people have not been stretched to the breaking limit. But as Taban Lo Liyong has argued in his Culture is Rutan, this country he argued has notoriously postponed its day of conflagration and catharsis, that necessary rite of passage that makes great nations, hence today's indiscipline among leaders. Maybe there has been good intelligence or there are no bold soldiers in the barracks with the political consciousness to strike a blow for freedom which is why Kenya has stuck with these status quoist political class of recycled and means people for four decades.
He sated further: It is important to state two things here. Kenyans harbour a false sense of immunity and superiority as the USA was before 9/11, 2001, to proclaim the country is beyond what Hezekiah Ochuka dreamt in 1982, or what ministers are claiming is about to happen.
The AU he said is mistaken to condemn all coups with the pretext they are against democracy. Kenya's experience has shown that democratically governments are neither free from corruption, human rights abuses nor are they a panacea for these complex problems.
Save for the Sudan in the 1970s where a government was toppled through a military backed popular uprising and in the late Siaka Stevens' Sierra Leone where a regime engineered a mutiny against itself, he said most coups germinated from the failure of civilian regimes to live to the economic, political and social expectations of their people after eliminating all avenues for political change.
The constriction of political space and dictatorship that went hand in glove with corruption, economic collapse bred a paralysis, often backed by foreign governments and multinational corporations driving failed states to collapse and a dialectical response from the army.
He argued further that systematic tinkering with the basic law strengthened presidents who suspended civilian politics to rule by decree. The soldiers who rose to halt these riotous civilian regimes described themselves as products of peoples' anger motivated by feelings of betrayal and patriotic duty.
He noted that often other mutinies followed elections that had either been stolen or whose outcome brought to power leaders more committed to corruption and the old order. That is how Ivory Coast's virginity was ended in 1999 by the army. Kibaki's Kenya reminds one of the creeping coup phenomenon in Africa's military history in which a nation gradually moves towards civil strife caused by the failure of the political process to government the country due to an abdicating president.
His mistakes with the transition and Constitution he pointed out have aborted the momentum for effective change that brought him to power and brought the country to a halt with palpable sensations of imminent collapse. "If he is not responsible and in control, Murungi and others need not fear insurrection", he said.
In his conclusion he said as they celebrate three years of 'prosperity', other Kenyans should be allowed to hope for a blast or blow of holy wind from somewhere to end this mess. The political process is no remedy to Kenya's paralysis and backwardness. No one can stop that inexonerable advance of time!
This is not the first time journalists have been threatened or arrested. A journalist with the Weekly Citizen, Tom Alwaka, went to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on 21 September last year after receiving a summons. He was immediately detained in the Kenyatta police station and charged four days later for "stealing an official document". The weekly had published news that a para-state company had misappropriated public monies. Tom Alwaka was released on bail the same day.
Similarly after receiving a summons, Milton Omondi, correspondent for Kenya News Agency in the eastern town of Garissa, went to the police station on 21 April 2001. The journalist was questioned on the sources of an article he had written about smuggling in the area. He was released the same day but detained again three days later and released the following day. The journalist said he was threatened by the police.
Three journalists - Johann Wandetto from People Daily, Jackson Orina from Daily Nation and Abisai Amugune from East African Standard - were arrested by police on 5 May in Kitale, in western Kenya. They were accused of helping a suspect wanted by the police to escape, and were released two days later.
On 5 June police seized approximately 300 copies of Sharpener in the central Kenyan town of Nyeri. The managing editor of this regional magazine, Kinyua Mutahi, was arrested and held for a few hours, for no apparent reason. This was the second time in less than a week that the magazine was seized.
Nine journalists were arrested and detained by police for over five hours on 21 August, on their way to Mount Kenya where the government was busy developing the area with a view to building houses. They were in the company of activists from an environmentalist movement, Greenbelt. The journalists concerned were Cyrus Ombati of People Daily, Patrick Mahangani, Carol Kinuthia and Martin Telewa of Daily Nation, Peter Ngare and Kamau Kuria of East African Standard, two BBC reporters and a Reuters journalist.
On 13 November Nahashon Orenge, reporter with People Daily, was arrested by police in the western town of Gucha. The journalist had said that policemen had forced young recruits to pay money into a support fund. He was released the next day.
Haroun Wandalo and Jacob Otieno, respectively managing editor of the Kisumu office and photographer with East African Standard, and David Ohito and John Mwendwa, respectively cameraman and journalist with the privately-owned channel Kenyan Television Network, were assaulted by the police on 10 February on their way to a meeting of the opposition movement Muungano wa Mageuzi.
When police threw two tear gas grenades into their vehicle the driver lost control and swerved into a ditch. Haroun Wandalo sprained his knee and Jacob Otieno and David Ohito sustained back injuries. John Mwendwa managed to jump out of the car before the accident but he was chased by a policeman who threatened to shoot him.
A photographer with the privately-owned Daily Nation, Chris Omollo, was assaulted and insulted by policemen on 23 May while taking photos of a police raid on a bar.They hit him with the butt of a gun and despite orders from their superior to stop, about 20 policemen carried on hitting and insulting him. Chris Omollo had his shoulder dislocated, his camera damaged and his money stolen. His driver George Munywoki was also hit by the police. The journalist lodged a complaint at Langata police station in Nairobi.
Jackson Orina, from the press group Nation, was assaulted on 28 June by young supporters of the ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU), during a meeting in the western town of Kitale. After the meeting a party leader caused a scramble when he gave money to young supporters. The photographer was taking photos of the scene when party militants turned on him and hit him. They also destroyed his camera. The journalist, who was bleeding profusely, was taken to the Kitale hospital.
Pressure and obstruction
On 25 April 2001 police closed down the radio station Citizen FM and the television channel Citizen TV. Samuel Kamau Macharia, the owner of these media, was arrested on the same day but released a few hours later after paying bail of 500,000 shillings (about 7,500 euros). The journalists who covered the arrest were in turn also arrested by the police and held for a short while in the Citizen group's offices.
Police searched the offices of the privately-owned People Daily on 19 May. They were looking for Mukalo Kwayera and Peter Leftie, two journalists who had co-signed an article the previous day, claiming that the state had intervened to put an end to the quarrel about closure of hotels owned by an opposition leader. The two journalists were absent but were summoned to the Nairobi criminal investigation department. According to the journalists' lawyers, this summons was illegal and "an abuse of power". The two men preferred to go into hiding until the matter had been settled.
On the same day Nairobi police seized an unknown number of newspapers from news stands in the city. They arrested several vendors who were allegedly operating without licenses. All of the vendors were released two days later. The leader of the Kenyan newspaper vendor's association reported that the copies were seized without any explanation.
In June the state prosecutor, Amos Wako, announced that 19 managing editors who had "scandalised the public and broken the law" were to be prosecuted. According to him, these publications had never been approved by the authorities and were therefore illegal.
The Kisumu high court in western Kenya sentenced Tom Alwaka, of Weekly Citizen, on 4 June to six months' imprisonment for "contempt of court". The weekly had carried on publishing articles about a court case, despite a high court ruling to the contrary. Tom Alwaka went underground and a warrant was served for his arrest.
Vincent Agoya, reporter for People Daily specialised in criminal affairs, went underground on 20 June. He had received a summons from the police following the publication of an article accusing an officer of "misuse of company property".
On 4 September a Nairobi court confirmed the order served on Daily Nation two weeks earlier, banning it from publishing the book Rogue Ambassador in serial form. In this book by a former diplomat Hempstone stationed in Kenya, President Daniel arap Moi and his cabinet minister Nicholas Biwott were implicated in the death of former minister Robert Ouko.
On the same day six journalists were prevented from entering King'ong'o jail in the town of Nyeri in central Kenya. They wanted to cover the visit of a judge to the only survivor of a shootout in September 2000 during an attempted escape by prisoners sentenced to death. The prison guards said they were obeying orders from "above".
The Daily Nation and Taifa were sentenced on 7 September to pay 10 million shillings (about 150,000 euros) to Judge Patrick Machira. The judge had filed a complaint for "malicious libel" following the publication of articles and photos about an altercation in which he had been involved five years earlier.
CID agents prevented Geoffrey Irungu, financial journalist for People Daily, from boarding a plane for Mombasa on 13 September. He was to attend the annual congress of Kenya Airways.
On the same day Gacheru Kamau, correspondent for People Daily in Nakuru, north-west of the capital, went to the police station after receiving a summons. The journalist was charged for publishing an article on altercations in the local branch of Kanu. He was allowed to leave after paying bail of 50,000 shillings (about 750 euros).
Late in November two journalists were sentenced to pay ten and 20 million shillings (about 150,000 and 300,000 euros) respectively in damages to two law firms in libel suits. The KUJ protested against the exorbitant amounts of these fines. "In a depressed economy, these are economically disastrous sentences for the newspapers", the organisation said in a communiqué. These are only few examples demonstrating how journalists in Kenya are still far from freedom of expression. Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News relations between the authorities and the press in Kenya are still tense.
By Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
With the arrest of Sunday Times Senior writer David Ochami it shows that relations between the authorities and the press in Kenya are still tense. He was arrested following his commentary on Sunday September 25, 2005 on which he argued that coups in Africa do not occur out of nothing.
He had argued that today, as the president's men talk of an impending ouster of Mwai Kibaki, there are others who feel this should occur sooner or that the August 1, 1982 mutiny should have been taken to its logical conclusion.
He said Kiraitu Murungi, David Mwiraria have not said in which form the alleged ouster would take. In Africa he said, fewer governments have been ousted through the ballot box or popular uprising than through coup de tats and armed insurgency. "Do they have information about a coup plot in the offing"?, he paused.
The originators of the ouster rumour he said wish to remind Kenyans of the August 1, 1982 coup attempt, hoping to make them revolt against their rivals. If their tactic is to make the masses revolt against the whole idea of removing a president from power, he argued that even if they were elected democratically at some point, or distort the debate on the referendum, they were wrong.
He noted that there is no guarantee that a coup or other ouster of a president involves bloodshed or is inherently bad for the country. Likewise, he said, a democratic mandate such as Kibaki's in 2002 is no excuse to betray the ideals that brought him to power. "Neither is it synonymous with democratic practice or economic and social progress. It or Kenya's 42 years of stability did not confer immunity from coups or ouster if/when he became a liability to the country and democracy itself. There are good reasons for most coups", he said.
The collapse of the Hezekiah Ochuka experiment he said denied Kenyans the opportunity to live through a military. "Maybe Kenya would be better off now without the first generation of post-independence politicians, mostly likely to have been executed. Perhaps the country could have seen a civil war", he lamented.
He said twenty two years afterwards, Africa continues to see coup de tats and civil wars, despite the AU's objections. Nations with democratic governments have not been spared.
He noted that no single reason explains why Kenya has not exploded as it nearly did in 1982. Perhaps the people have not been stretched to the breaking limit. But as Taban Lo Liyong has argued in his Culture is Rutan, this country he argued has notoriously postponed its day of conflagration and catharsis, that necessary rite of passage that makes great nations, hence today's indiscipline among leaders. Maybe there has been good intelligence or there are no bold soldiers in the barracks with the political consciousness to strike a blow for freedom which is why Kenya has stuck with these status quoist political class of recycled and means people for four decades.
He sated further: It is important to state two things here. Kenyans harbour a false sense of immunity and superiority as the USA was before 9/11, 2001, to proclaim the country is beyond what Hezekiah Ochuka dreamt in 1982, or what ministers are claiming is about to happen.
The AU he said is mistaken to condemn all coups with the pretext they are against democracy. Kenya's experience has shown that democratically governments are neither free from corruption, human rights abuses nor are they a panacea for these complex problems.
Save for the Sudan in the 1970s where a government was toppled through a military backed popular uprising and in the late Siaka Stevens' Sierra Leone where a regime engineered a mutiny against itself, he said most coups germinated from the failure of civilian regimes to live to the economic, political and social expectations of their people after eliminating all avenues for political change.
The constriction of political space and dictatorship that went hand in glove with corruption, economic collapse bred a paralysis, often backed by foreign governments and multinational corporations driving failed states to collapse and a dialectical response from the army.
He argued further that systematic tinkering with the basic law strengthened presidents who suspended civilian politics to rule by decree. The soldiers who rose to halt these riotous civilian regimes described themselves as products of peoples' anger motivated by feelings of betrayal and patriotic duty.
He noted that often other mutinies followed elections that had either been stolen or whose outcome brought to power leaders more committed to corruption and the old order. That is how Ivory Coast's virginity was ended in 1999 by the army. Kibaki's Kenya reminds one of the creeping coup phenomenon in Africa's military history in which a nation gradually moves towards civil strife caused by the failure of the political process to government the country due to an abdicating president.
His mistakes with the transition and Constitution he pointed out have aborted the momentum for effective change that brought him to power and brought the country to a halt with palpable sensations of imminent collapse. "If he is not responsible and in control, Murungi and others need not fear insurrection", he said.
In his conclusion he said as they celebrate three years of 'prosperity', other Kenyans should be allowed to hope for a blast or blow of holy wind from somewhere to end this mess. The political process is no remedy to Kenya's paralysis and backwardness. No one can stop that inexonerable advance of time!
This is not the first time journalists have been threatened or arrested. A journalist with the Weekly Citizen, Tom Alwaka, went to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on 21 September last year after receiving a summons. He was immediately detained in the Kenyatta police station and charged four days later for "stealing an official document". The weekly had published news that a para-state company had misappropriated public monies. Tom Alwaka was released on bail the same day.
Similarly after receiving a summons, Milton Omondi, correspondent for Kenya News Agency in the eastern town of Garissa, went to the police station on 21 April 2001. The journalist was questioned on the sources of an article he had written about smuggling in the area. He was released the same day but detained again three days later and released the following day. The journalist said he was threatened by the police.
Three journalists - Johann Wandetto from People Daily, Jackson Orina from Daily Nation and Abisai Amugune from East African Standard - were arrested by police on 5 May in Kitale, in western Kenya. They were accused of helping a suspect wanted by the police to escape, and were released two days later.
On 5 June police seized approximately 300 copies of Sharpener in the central Kenyan town of Nyeri. The managing editor of this regional magazine, Kinyua Mutahi, was arrested and held for a few hours, for no apparent reason. This was the second time in less than a week that the magazine was seized.
Nine journalists were arrested and detained by police for over five hours on 21 August, on their way to Mount Kenya where the government was busy developing the area with a view to building houses. They were in the company of activists from an environmentalist movement, Greenbelt. The journalists concerned were Cyrus Ombati of People Daily, Patrick Mahangani, Carol Kinuthia and Martin Telewa of Daily Nation, Peter Ngare and Kamau Kuria of East African Standard, two BBC reporters and a Reuters journalist.
On 13 November Nahashon Orenge, reporter with People Daily, was arrested by police in the western town of Gucha. The journalist had said that policemen had forced young recruits to pay money into a support fund. He was released the next day.
Haroun Wandalo and Jacob Otieno, respectively managing editor of the Kisumu office and photographer with East African Standard, and David Ohito and John Mwendwa, respectively cameraman and journalist with the privately-owned channel Kenyan Television Network, were assaulted by the police on 10 February on their way to a meeting of the opposition movement Muungano wa Mageuzi.
When police threw two tear gas grenades into their vehicle the driver lost control and swerved into a ditch. Haroun Wandalo sprained his knee and Jacob Otieno and David Ohito sustained back injuries. John Mwendwa managed to jump out of the car before the accident but he was chased by a policeman who threatened to shoot him.
A photographer with the privately-owned Daily Nation, Chris Omollo, was assaulted and insulted by policemen on 23 May while taking photos of a police raid on a bar.They hit him with the butt of a gun and despite orders from their superior to stop, about 20 policemen carried on hitting and insulting him. Chris Omollo had his shoulder dislocated, his camera damaged and his money stolen. His driver George Munywoki was also hit by the police. The journalist lodged a complaint at Langata police station in Nairobi.
Jackson Orina, from the press group Nation, was assaulted on 28 June by young supporters of the ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU), during a meeting in the western town of Kitale. After the meeting a party leader caused a scramble when he gave money to young supporters. The photographer was taking photos of the scene when party militants turned on him and hit him. They also destroyed his camera. The journalist, who was bleeding profusely, was taken to the Kitale hospital.
Pressure and obstruction
On 25 April 2001 police closed down the radio station Citizen FM and the television channel Citizen TV. Samuel Kamau Macharia, the owner of these media, was arrested on the same day but released a few hours later after paying bail of 500,000 shillings (about 7,500 euros). The journalists who covered the arrest were in turn also arrested by the police and held for a short while in the Citizen group's offices.
Police searched the offices of the privately-owned People Daily on 19 May. They were looking for Mukalo Kwayera and Peter Leftie, two journalists who had co-signed an article the previous day, claiming that the state had intervened to put an end to the quarrel about closure of hotels owned by an opposition leader. The two journalists were absent but were summoned to the Nairobi criminal investigation department. According to the journalists' lawyers, this summons was illegal and "an abuse of power". The two men preferred to go into hiding until the matter had been settled.
On the same day Nairobi police seized an unknown number of newspapers from news stands in the city. They arrested several vendors who were allegedly operating without licenses. All of the vendors were released two days later. The leader of the Kenyan newspaper vendor's association reported that the copies were seized without any explanation.
In June the state prosecutor, Amos Wako, announced that 19 managing editors who had "scandalised the public and broken the law" were to be prosecuted. According to him, these publications had never been approved by the authorities and were therefore illegal.
The Kisumu high court in western Kenya sentenced Tom Alwaka, of Weekly Citizen, on 4 June to six months' imprisonment for "contempt of court". The weekly had carried on publishing articles about a court case, despite a high court ruling to the contrary. Tom Alwaka went underground and a warrant was served for his arrest.
Vincent Agoya, reporter for People Daily specialised in criminal affairs, went underground on 20 June. He had received a summons from the police following the publication of an article accusing an officer of "misuse of company property".
On 4 September a Nairobi court confirmed the order served on Daily Nation two weeks earlier, banning it from publishing the book Rogue Ambassador in serial form. In this book by a former diplomat Hempstone stationed in Kenya, President Daniel arap Moi and his cabinet minister Nicholas Biwott were implicated in the death of former minister Robert Ouko.
On the same day six journalists were prevented from entering King'ong'o jail in the town of Nyeri in central Kenya. They wanted to cover the visit of a judge to the only survivor of a shootout in September 2000 during an attempted escape by prisoners sentenced to death. The prison guards said they were obeying orders from "above".
The Daily Nation and Taifa were sentenced on 7 September to pay 10 million shillings (about 150,000 euros) to Judge Patrick Machira. The judge had filed a complaint for "malicious libel" following the publication of articles and photos about an altercation in which he had been involved five years earlier.
CID agents prevented Geoffrey Irungu, financial journalist for People Daily, from boarding a plane for Mombasa on 13 September. He was to attend the annual congress of Kenya Airways.
On the same day Gacheru Kamau, correspondent for People Daily in Nakuru, north-west of the capital, went to the police station after receiving a summons. The journalist was charged for publishing an article on altercations in the local branch of Kanu. He was allowed to leave after paying bail of 50,000 shillings (about 750 euros).
Late in November two journalists were sentenced to pay ten and 20 million shillings (about 150,000 and 300,000 euros) respectively in damages to two law firms in libel suits. The KUJ protested against the exorbitant amounts of these fines. "In a depressed economy, these are economically disastrous sentences for the newspapers", the organisation said in a communiqué. These are only few examples demonstrating how journalists in Kenya are still far from freedom of expression. Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News relations between the authorities and the press in Kenya are still tense.