Africa is such a unique continent and over the decades there have been a lot of untruths, stereotypes and misconceptions about this beautiful continent.
It is surprising to learn that these stereotypes and misconceptions did not only come from outside the continent but also from its inhabitants.
Below is a list of some amazing things most people do not know about Africa. It includes the Good, the Bad and the Ugly things:
1.Africa has 54 Countries and one “non-self governing territory”, which is
Western Sahara.
2.Only two countries were not colonised by foreign powers in Africa, they are Ethiopia (Abbysynia) and Liberia.
3.Africa, before colonial rule, comprised of up to 10,000 different states and autonomous groups with distinct languages and customs.
4. Over 25% of all the languages in the world are spoken in Africa alone.
5. With a population of over 1.1 billion people or 16% of the world’s population, it is the second most populous continent.
6.The Second Congo War (1998-2003) is the deadliest conflict in the world since World War 2. It killed more than 5.4 Million people.
It involved more than eight other African countries on opposing sides. It is also known as “Africa’s First World War”.
7. Almost 90% of all worldwide malaria infection cases occur in Africa which also accounts for about 24% of all child deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa.
8. Africa is the second largest continent in the world with over 30 million square kilometres.
9.The largest country in Africa is Algeria. It is approximately the size of Western Europe.
10. The great Sahara Desert is bigger than Continental U.S.A. It is the largest desert in the world.
11. Africa is the world’s hottest continent and has deserts and drylands covering about 60% of the land surface area e.g Kalahari, Sahara, Libya, Namib Deserts e.t.c.
12. Africa is the world’s second driest continent. Australia is the first.
13.Africa has the world’s largest natural reserves of precious minerals e.g It has 90% of the world’s Platinum, over 40% of the Gold and more than 60% of the Cobalt.
14. There are more than 1 million Chinese citizens living in Africa and more are coming in every day. Angola alone has a population of more than 350,000 Chinese.
15. Lake Victoria is the second largest fresh water lake in the world and the largest lake in Africa. It is a major source of the River Nile.
16. Lake Malawi has more fish species than any other fresh water system on Earth.
17. The Nile River has has a total lenght of 6,650 kilometres. The longest river in the world.
18. More than 85% of the world’s Elephants and more than 99% of the remaining Lions on Earth are on the African continent.
19. The largest wildlife migration on Earth happens on the Serengeti (in Tanzania) with more than 1.2 million Wildebeests marching behind 750,000 Zebras as they cross this amazing landscape. It is an awesome sight to behold
20. Over 25% of the world’s bird species live in Africa.
21. Close to the airport in Dakar (Senegal) is a massive sculpted statue, “The African Rennaisance Monument”. It stands 49m tall on top of a 100m high hill. It is the tallest statue in Africa, and most of the world.
22. There are more Pyramids in Sudan than in Egypt. Sudan has 223 Pyramids which is double the number in Egypt but the Pyramids of Egypt are generally bigger in size than those in Sudan.
23. The name “Africa” was originally used by ancient Greeks and Romans for only the Northern region of the Continent. Africa in Latin means “sunny” and the word “Aphrike” in Greek means “without cold”.
LEO ODERA OMOLO MOURNS THE LATE NYERI POLITICIAN WARURU KANJA
May take this opportunity to extend my heartfelt profound condolence to the family and friends of the late Nyeri fierce politician Waruru KANJA.
I Knew the late Waruru Kanja way back in 1957 when he led a group of hard-core Mau Mau detainees on Mageta Island, Bondo district, now Siaya County, who were involved in jailbreak after killing the European prison commander who was in charge of the camp.
After killing the prison boss, the group escaped MAGETA Island using a makeshift raft and swam across the Nyanza Gulf {formerly Kavirondo Gulf and landed at Ulugi, near Lihanda beach on Rusinga Island in what was then known as South Nyanza distric after swimming for more that 14 hours.
The fugitives were given shelter by the LUO Elders who gave the them accomodation and food inside hideout houses, but only after separating them in four groups. The colonial police launched an elaborate search for the jail breakers both aerially using the police air-wing and motor-boats. The search also went on into the villagers on the mainland locations of Yimbo, Sakwa and Uyoma.
The colonial authorities used motor-boats and even sent their agents to the twin fishing islands of Rusinga, but all in vain, Warurur Kanja and his friends had been issued with new clothes and were living safely in the villages.
I met the late ex-Mau Mau detainee in the 1980s while he was serving in the cabinet as a Minister and Nyeri Town MP in Parliament Building over a cup of tea, and I found his memory to be very fresh. He could easily recognize me, though many years had lapsed because in 1957 I was a young man of 18 of age. Mzee Kanja was a true nationalist and freedom fighter apart from being detribalized person and humanist
When France sent 4,000 troops to Mali earlier this year to combat the rebel fighters threatening to invade Bamako, the French president justified the intervention by stressing his country’s commitment to its former West African colony. “France will remain with you as long as it is necessary,” he said.
This “helpful friend” narrative suits France, but it’s one that is too good to be true, as most of you already know from reading about things like the colonial pact. So what was France’s real motive for sending troops?
France’s relationship with its former colonies in Africa used to be known as Francafrique, and it involved the support of unpopular African politicians in order to advance and protect its economic interests. Was the sending of troops a continuation ofFrancafrique?
Al Jazeera is running a thoroughly researched 3-part series to tell the story of Francafrique, which it describes as “a brutal and nefarious tale of corruption, massacres, dictators supported and progressive leaders murdered, weapon-smuggling, cloak-and-dagger secret services, and spectacular military operations.”Below is the first part: France’s thirst for energy. Prior knowledge of the colonial pact notwithstanding, it still makes for astonishing viewing.
The second episode reveals France’s ongoing mission to maintain Africa’s dependence on France in order to secure access to oil and maintain a firm grip over its former colonies. The dirty politics and the amount of corruption at the highest level of French government that this mission required is mind-boggling. Attempting a coup/regime change in Benin and the Central African Republic, even as the French president accepted a plate of diamonds from CAR president Bokassa. Financing the election campaign of Lissouba in Congo Brazzaville because he was the candidate the French government believed they could control, an act that subsequently sowed the seeds of civil war in the country between 1993 and ’97. And paying for all this with proceeds from Elf (then a nationally-owned company), the source also of the secret payments to top-level politicians at home in France. Bribery, fraud, the embezzlement of 3.5 billion French Francs. And Europeans go on and on about corruption in Africa, as if they have nothing to do with it.
The tables turn in final episode of Al Jazeera’s 3-part series The French African Connection. In the wake of the ELF scandal (covered in episode 2), the leaders of former French colonies in Africa realised the French weren’t the only ones hungry for their country’s mineral wealth, but more importantly, that they no longer had to listen to take orders from French leaders, a realisation led by Gabon’s president Omar Bongo, who was steeped in the unofficial ways of French politics. It was now Bongo’s turn to influence politics in France, doling out cash to French officials, recommending French politicians for ministerial positions and even getting Sarkozy to fire a minister he wasn’t happy with, a reverse colonisation, according to some, true independence according to others.
But while Françafrique may have withered, it has not died. France cannot allow that to happen, because it still needs Africa to satisfy its energy needs, even if it must now compete with other energy-hungry countries like US, China, India and Brazil. The competition for Africa’s natural resources is now fierce, as the global hunger for raw materials continues to grow. And no one comes out clean in the political games connected to this competition.
ANYONE reading through the columns of the Kenyan newspapers will not escape from reading malice and deliberate distortion and concoction of the the country’s political history, especially in regards to the role of those gallant freedom fighters of the past. I was so disgusted, perturbed and dismayed when I read the stories of Kenyan heroes of the yester-years
The photographs which were lined up as those of the freedom fighters during the hero’s day celebrations were mostly of former Home-Guards and boot lickers of the colonialists. I am particularly concerned with the several supplements carried out by some of the dailies.
Our papers showed only those who were well-known as the blue-eyed agents of the colonialists and white settlers, and the photos with dubious contributions to the real task for liberation war.
The list of the pseudo heroes were published either by design or malice that excluded the portrait of Mzee Harry Thuku, the fonder of the Kikuyu Central Kenya Association, which was later to became the mother of the defunct Kenya African Union {KAU}
The late Thuku, is arguably is the father of African nationalists uprising against the British colonial rulers in this country and their associates, the white settlers, Indian business moguls, and the Arabs. In the list of the past heroes of the independent struggle,the writers deliberately excluded the photo and name of Ronald Gideon Ngala, James Smuel Gichuru,Ex-Senior Chief Koinnange Wa Mbiyu, Wokesha Mengu of Taita/Taveta, Fred Kubai, Makan Singh, Walter Fanuel Odede,Daniel Ojijo Oteko of Karachuonyo, John Paul Olola from Alego, Jalmaya Okaka Rabala of Seme, of the Kavirondo Taxpayers Association { Piny Owacho}, John Kebaso of Kisii, JOHN andala of Bunyore, Lumadede Kisala of Maragoli, Elijah Masinde of Bukhusu, Rev Canon Awori , W.W.W.Awori, Eliud Wambu Mathu, Benard Mate , J.jeremiah Nyagah and Francis J.Khamisi.
Other freedom fighters who had the colonialists and their white settlers friends sleepless nights included Arap Koilagen the head of laibons in Kericho and the descendant of Kipnyige and Koitalel Arap Samoei. Arap K Mfangano Island after his entire Talai Laibon clan} Talai were forcefully evicted from their fertile ancestral land to pave thew way for the white settlers tea plantation in Keriucho and Bomet aregions and driven to the remote Gwassi Hills in the then South Nyanza in 1934. Koilagen died in 1956 and was buried on Mfangano Island while his two other cousins died in Nyeri prison where they were detained by the colonial government
The second regent generation of freedom fighters included Lawrence Gerald Oguda,Taaitta Araap Toweett, John Marie Seroney Josef Stanley Mathenge of Nyeri, Ambalal Patel [Ambu} , V.V. Patel.Daniel Moss oF Mt Elgot Congress, Kondit Ole Tiis, Dr Julius Gikonyo Kiano, J.D. Kali
Back to JAMES Samuel Gichuru, it was the latter who prior to the return of Jommo Kenyatta from Europe in 1948 became the first President of KAU. He relinquished this position and stood down for Kenyatta to resume the party leadership.,.
Again for the second time in 1941 Gichuru stood down as the President of KANU to give way to Commn Kenyatta to resume the party”s leadership after the latter”s release from the colonial jails in 1961,
About ODEDE, The Makerere trained veterinarian had stepped into Kenyatta shoes and resumed the presidency of KAU late in October 1951 only a week after Kenyatta and other top leaders of the party were rounded up by the colonial security personnel on the night of October 20. Kenyatta and five other were vanished in the remotest part of the NORTHERN Kenya before they were charged before a court in Kapenguria and jailed with hard labour on the framed charges of managing Mau Mau. Before the end of the same month, Odede hiukself was arrested while visiting South Nyanza and vanquished into detention camp in Maralal, Samburu from where he remained in the colonial detention and restriction camps until 1960s.
It would be good for the young writers to visit libraries before penning about history and they should stop sycophantic outbursts in which people whose contributions to the independence struggle are very insignificant.
The younger journalists must stop turning the history of this country upside down
Shouts of Alego ni nono oonge Mjumbe rent the air during the Mashujaa rally in SIAYA town last Sunday when a group of ODM youths made an attempt to heckle and evict the ALlego-Usonga MP Omondi Muluany at a well attended rally held at Siaya Stadium to commemorate the heros day. The party youths and security personnel intervened and ejected the rowdy youths out of the meeting venue.
It later emerged that the MP who the Mardh 14th general on the Whiper ticket had skipped all the campaign meetings which were held all over the County during the recent by-election campaign for Siaya governor,including the one which was attended by the party leader Raila O Odinga.
The MP who appeared to have been shocked and shaken described the group as hired political goons
THOSE who attended the Siaya rally were stunned when speaker after speaker heaped a lot of praise at politicians previously aligned to the late Jaramogi IOginga Odinga showering them as The only heroes who fought for freedom.
They deliberately excluded the names of other LUO freedom fighters who were known to have differed with the Jaramogi leadership style. Observers and pundits were, however quick in pointing out that those whose names had been mentioned prominently at the really included those who are known to be Raila sycophants and political surrogates whose contribution to the liberation war and anti colonialists activities are very insignificant.
THESE names represented only the residents of Siiaya County THEY INCLUDED Achieng Oneko, Jaramogi, Argwings Kodhek, Wasonga SijeyoBut even in SIAYA county, the names of political giants and heroes like Walter Fanuel Odede, DO Makasembo were deliberately omitted and replaced by some characters of some former boot lickers of the colonialists.
Odede who later was to become the father in-law of atom Mboy WALKED INTO THE SHOES OF THE Jomo KENYAT immediately after the latter and five other leading nationalists were rounded up and arrested by he colonialists following the declaration of the STATE OF emergency in Kenya by the colonialists. He too was arrested and placed in detention in the remote Northern Kanya district of Samburu and was detained for eight year because he had taken over as the acting President of KAU. Odede like Oneko hails from Uyoms in Rarieda within Bondo district.
Other uncompromising freedom fighters whose names were missing at the Siaya rally included Tom Mboya, Elijah Omolo Agar, Lawrence Gerald Oguda,Daniel OJijo Oteko,John PAUL olola,BARRACK Owuor,The latter two were the founder of the Kavirondo Taxpayers ,which collaborated well with the Harry Thuku led Kikuyu Central Association that gave the colonialists sleepless nights.
THE Siaya rally clearly portrayed an attempt by Siaya leaders as trying at the distortion of the Nyanza region’s political history.
The history of the past should be told as per its true perspective for the interests of the present and future generations.
(Please note that we will cover the Kenya and Uganda Mutinies at a later date)
The alarm bells started to ring on the 12th January 1964: there was trouble in Zanzibar. It was a rising against the Sultan. The 2nd Scots Guards, who had made a previous visit to the island in the August of 1963 to supervise the elections, stood by to fly to the Sultan’s aid. The British Government was against intervention and the Scots Guards flew instead to Aden. The Sultan was at the mercy of the triumphant revolutionaries. The safety of the British community was in jeopardy, The Staffordshire Regiment, standing by in place of the Scots Guards, flew a company to Mombassa, where they embarked in the frigate H.M.S. Rhyll just to wait and see what happened. As it turned out the Sultan made his escape by air, to Tanganyika, thence to be transferred to the safety of the UK.
The next call for help came from President Nyerere himself. The first alarm came from Kenya on January the 20th. The men of the 1st Tanganyika Rifles, quartered near the capital Dar-es-Salaam, had risen up against their British officers, had locked them up, seized the airport, and arrested the British High Commissioner. With the mutineers holding the airport at Dar-el-Salaam, they released the British officers and NCOs from both the 1st and 2nd Battalions-some 30 from each-complete with their families and sending them to Nairobi where they arrived safely. Nyerere retained control of the government and formally made an appeal to Britain for help. It had already been decided at HQ Middle East Command at Aden that it was a task for 45 RM Commando. Hastily embarked on the carrier H.M.S. Centaur with 815 Naval Helicopter Squadron, they set sail at midnight Jan 20th and on the 24th lay off Dar-es-Salaam. At first light on the 25th, Z Company made a helicopter lift to the football field next to the mutineers’ barracks, while a gunboat put down diversionary fire to a flank.
With all weapons blazing, the Commandos rushed and seized the barrack entrance. The mutineers were then called upon to surrender. The answer was a burst of firing, to which the Commandos retaliated by demolishing the roof of the guardroom with an anti-tank rocket. It produced a sad stream of Askaris emerging with hands up. The helicopters meanwhile were completing the lift of Commandos, so that the town could be dominated and the remnant of the mutineers rounded up. Since many of the mutineers had broken out of barracks this latter task called for extensive searching. One civilian Englishman, with total disregard for his own personal safety, brought back to the guardroom one fully armed Askari festooned with ammunition and grenades. Despite his menacing attire the Askari was only too delighted to surrender to the civilian. X Company was despatched to secure the airfield and the broadcasting station, while Y Company was sent into Dar-es-Salaam. This was designed to be a two-pronged advance, with X Company’s move by helicopter. However it turned out to be a parade rather than an attack.
Vic Balsdon writes:
I have read several accounts of the suppression of the Dar es Salaam mutiny by 45 Commando but nowhere have I come across the mention of the fact that 45 took BLANK ammunition with them. The story that went around the Corps at that time was that the RSM was told that it was going to be an “exercise” and, quite understandably, assumed that the unit would only need blanks. Only later, when the unit was well under way on board HMS Centaur, did the error emerge. Lee Enfield No 4 rifles, together with the appropriate .303 ammunition (either 5 or 10 rounds per man) were hastily scrounged from the ship’s company (seamen) to prevent what might have been a monumental disaster. The passage that states that ‘the commandos went in with all guns blazing’ seems, if the rumour was true, a trifle exaggerated! The rocket that hit the roof of the Guardroom, was a practice round, not HE, and dislodged some tiles, one of which hit a mutineer on the head, killing him.
The story goes that the RSM carried the can for the @#%$! up but whether it was a misinterpretation of an order, or the wrong order from the Adjutant, was never revealed.
I can understand why the story was hushed up. We all love to rant on about our “victories” but are a little less inclined to publicise our mistakes.
Anyway, job well done, Royal, blanks or no blanks!
The cover picture of the February 1964 edition of LIFE shows a Royal Marine conducting a small group of Africans and he is clearly holding a Lee Enfield No. 4 rifle. These weapons had been replaced by the 7.62mm Self Loading Rifle (SLR) in either late 1958 or early 1959, depending on the operational committments of the various branches of the armed forces. Some branches, such as the Royal Navy, were still using the No.4 much later. Hence, 45 Commando were able to borrow some from HMS Centaur’s ship’s company to avert a near disaster and many red faces.
Our thanks to Mr Balsdon for providing this piece of the story.
If anyone has a copy of this edition and can provide us with a scan of the Tanganyika piece from the edition we would be grateful.
The Europeans, Asians and many Africans gave the Commando an unexpected tumultuous welcome as they thronged the pavements. Elements of Y Company secured Army House whilst the remainder carried out local patrols. The second-in-command of 45 was to take command of Dar-es-Salaam. Z Company was to remain at Collito Barracks and the support company was landed soon after 12 noon. The Royal Marine detachment from H.M.S. Centaur landed by lighter with the Ferret armoured cars of 16/15 Lancers. A show of force was made through the town where again they received a great welcome.
Tabora is some 400 miles west of Dar-es-Salaam and the 2nd Battalion of the Tanganyika Rifles stationed there had already mutinied, and after hearing of the events at Collito Barracks had agreed to hand in their rifles. All was quiet but this, however, was not confirmed and there was a distinct possibility that they could break out again and secure the airfield. Y and X Companies were earmarked for this task. In addition four Sea Vixens, armed with rockets, were attached to H.M.S. Centaur to provide air cover should the landing at the air strip be opposed. Personnel of Y Company, accompanied by the CO of 45 with his tactical HQ, arrived at Tabora at about five-fifteen; a flight of just over two hours. Lt-Col. Stevens remembers his arrival at Tabora as one of light comedy, despite being deeply concerned at the possibility of armed opposition. As the DC-4 came in to land, an Argosy suddenly appeared at the other end of the runway with the intention of also landing.
The Argosy won and the DC-4 hauled off to land a few moments later. The Argosy contained an Air Commodore and some men of the RAF Regiment, who had flown in from Nairobi. At six-fifteen that evening, the Beverleys arrived with the remainder of X and Y Companies. The mutineers’ barracks, being about seven miles away, the Commando’s commandeered some public works department vehicles to ferry the two Companies within two miles of the barracks. The Marines arrived at the barracks in the early hours of the morning and with great rapidity the guard room and weapons were secured. The contents of the stores and weapons of the mutineers were loaded on to the vehicles and the next stage was to arouse the sleeping battalion. This task fell to a Tanganyika Rifles officer, who with a bugler, the general assembly was sounded. The mutineers, informed that they were surrounded, fell in quietly and the ringleaders were marched off. The Tanganyika Rife mutiny was ended. Looking back on the whole operation from the start on the 25th, the operation had gone extraordinarily smoothly.
The final days were spent in consolidating positions and restoring the confidence of the population. The Royal Marine Band from H.M.S. Centaur was landed and concluded a heavy program by marching through the streets. The operation had been described as a classic and had been a resounding success. 45 RM Commando had virtually assumed military control over a country the size of Britain with a population of some six million all within 24 hours. 41 Commando flew out for Britain on Thursday the 30th January; H.M.S. Centaur had sailed for Mombassa the previous day, and 45 CDO embarked in H.M.S. Victorious to be transferred to H.M.S. Albion the Commando ship nine days later, prior to disembarkation at Aden later in February
You’re now confusing us. DECOLONIZATION means to REMOVING COLONIZATION.
According to your story, I thing you mean to say RECOLONIZATION i.e. RE-INSTUTING COLONIZATION.
Sivyo?
Courage
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On Sat, Aug 10, 2013 at 9:09 AM, Judy Miriga wrote:
Good People,
Foreign Contract to Chinese Government to Stop Poaching is another way to spread Chinese Policing into the village country-side to hijack (take-over) Kenya and deny Kenyan Youths Jobs. It is another way to directly control over Kenya and the Great Lakes of East Africa. It is a system applied for quite transitioning of Uhuru-Ruto Administration handing-over power to Chinese Government to Rule and take Kenya by storm, in the process of DECOLONIZATION; which is going the Mozambique style and it must be stopped instantaneously.
Kenya with the rest of Great Lakes of East Africa are a Democratic Nation and No amount of invasion will be accepted as long as the International and UN Treaty have not been revoked. This calls for an urgent investigation of the World Bank, IMF and United Nations’ Secretary General Ban-Ki-moonby the FBI for fueling Corruption and Impunity through being part of this great conspiracy trigger. It is because, the manner at which they recommended funding for AIDs Funding to remove poverty, provide health-care, provide security, initiate job opportunities and Education in the Great Lakes of East Africa is questionable and suspicious. They instead purposely fueled extreme corruption and impunity in the Greater Region of East Africa.
Funds have been channeled through corrupt means with unclear Agreements in Partnership with the operating International NGOs on the ground who work along the Government side, where they don’t seem to transmit those funding directly to do what they were initiated for. Consequently, there are no follow-ups to determine positive effectiveness where if there is no good results from those funding, what immediate action were taken to avoid its failure???……… It was then found that, drivers of the funding disbursement have instead created and financed take-over of East Africa which is why, Migingo and Goma was taken with annexing of Port of Kismayu. We found that, the insecurity is spreading fast with fueling of thuggery, proliferation of Arms through Kismayu, Migingo and Lake Victoria. This is zeroed-in with active participation and funding of Rebel Groups thus:
Al-Qaeda, Al-shabaab, Mungiki, Pirating, drug peddling with foreign exchange money trafficking, Child Prostitution and trafficking; with more problems to include environmental pollutions, sicknesses, careless killings, forceful Land Grabbing and theft………Therefore, all these numerous accounts of injustices are unacceptable and justice must prevail……..They are all as a result of funds being channeled the wrong way without transparency and accountability, through Foreign NGOs on the Ground supposed to be providing AIDs to the Great Lakes of Africa to remove poverty, sickness and provide security and education.
Having realized that these NGOs are not doing much fast enough to aid quick killings and take-over, the UN Agencies with the Corrupt African Leaders with their network of the International Corporate Special Business Interest resolved to forcefully take-over Great Lakes of East Africa through Chinese Private Army in Kenya that was sensored by Kalonzo Musyoka and supervised by Raila and Kibaki in the Coalition Government.
This is the unfinished business Raila, Kagame with Museveni are fighting for while their paymasters standing akimbo watching them to fulfill their mission urgently……….and which is why, there is this struggle between Raila and Uhuru Government and why Museveni is the Chairman and Kagame the Secretary in this Great Lakes of East Africa who are both entrusted with the mission by heir pay masters who are the International Corporate of Special Business Interest in the Great Region of East Africa.
This is not right, it is not fair and it is not morally justified. It is a serious crime against humanity and it cannot be left to happen that way.
Therefore, Contracting Poaching Unit by Chinese must be stopped, it is not economical viable for Kenya or to any other Sovereign Nationality of Africa. It will be the beginning of World War and, Kenya with the Great Lakes of East Africa will be the battle-ground.
PETITIONING OVER CONCERNS:
These concerns must not be taken lightly by the International Community Leaders; as they provide fodder for the Third World War meant to wipe out Africans from Africa like what happened to Mozambique. It is immorally unjust to kill Africans and replace them with Chinese. It is all along known in world records that Chinese Government is the worst in Human Rights Crime, Violation and Abuse records including environment pollution. They must not be left to destroy Kenya with the rest of East Africa. I therefore petition US President Obama to lead good leaders Allys of USA to save a situation in Kenya with the rest of Great Lakes of East Africa.
Africa needs sustainable functioning development Agenda and not those of wiping out Africans through Chinese Private Army that are posing as policing poacher………..This is not what they are going for………they are going for human beings…….which is why Raila is calling the Youth Lizards (Raila led the onslaught comparing Obura to a lizard. He said according to a Nigerian parable, there was a lizard that craved recognititon. He said the lizard climbed a tree hoping people would see him). That in their cry for justified demands as per public mandate, the Youth have no rights……..They are going to exterminate human beings not Lizards in reality, and more or so, they are more interested in poaching themselves that to protect and save ……. They are interested in the big money not to preserve Africas interest………..
Wake up people, wake up and join forces to reject this mission in totallity………Let the world help to save Africans, let Africans not perish in the hands of these selfish and greedy businessmen !!!
Extremely very sad indeed………but the Truth with Justice ill set us all free……….and Peace and Liberty in pursuit for Hapiness shall prevail…………
May God Protect and Bless Africa with its people !!!
Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com
China to help fund anti-poaching war
PHOTO | COURTESY Kenya Wildlife Service rangers on patrol. China has pledged to fund Kenya’s efforts to curb wildlife poaching. NATION MEDIA GROUP | KWS
By NATION REPORTER
Posted Friday, August 9 2013 at 23:30
China has pledged to fund Kenya’s efforts to curb wildlife poaching.
Speaking at a meeting with the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Water and Natural Resources, Prof Judi Wakhungu, Chinese ambassador to Kenya Liu Guangyuan said his country would give Kenya a grant, which he did not specify, to protect the elephant, rhino and other endangered species.
The pledge comes in the wake of renewed efforts by the Kenyan authorities to totally eradicate poaching.
The government has already formed a special unit to fight the menace, with China, the United States and UK among the countries funding it.
Last week, First Lady Margaret Kenyatta launched the “Hands off Elephants” campaign to spearhead the protection of elephants.
Speaking during the meeting with Prof Wakhungu, the Chinese envoy urged Kenya to strengthen wildlife conservation measures and severely punish poachers.
China’s anti-poaching laws are some of the most stringent in the world, with offenders often getting life imprisonment.
Expressing Kenya’s wish to join hands with other nations in combating illegal ivory and rhino horn trade, Prof Wakhungu praised China for its consistent measures and actions towards the enforcement of wildlife conservation laws.
The Kenya Wildlife Service says Kenya lost 384 elephants and 29 rhino to poachers last year alone. This year, 190 elephants and 34 rhinos have been killed.
Last month, a huge consignment of ivory was impounded in Mombasa.
The ivory, weighing 3.3 metric tonnes and valued at Sh65 million, was concealed in gunny sacks and declared as groundnuts bound for Malaysia.
The consignment comprised 382 whole pieces and 62 cut pieces of ivory.
The seizure came barely two months after customs officials in the United Arab Emirates seized 259 pieces of ivory shipped from Mombasa.
Ministry urges MPs to prioritise Wildlife Bill
Environment Principal Secretary Richard Lesiyampe flags off one of the vehicles that will be used by Inter Security Agency Anti-Poaching Unit at KWS headquarters in Nairobi August 8, 2013. The Ministry urged MPs to move with speed and pass the Wildlife Bill that seeks to tighten penalties for poachers. ANTHONY OMUYA
By JEREMIAH KIPLANG’AT jkiplangat@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Saturday, August 10 2013 at 09:57
Related Stories
Prioritise anti poaching Bill, MPs urged
Environment Cabinet Secretary Judy Wakhungu has urged MPs to move with speed and pass the Wildlife Bill that seeks to tighten penalties for poachers.
Prof Wakhungu said poaching had shot up since the beginning of the year hence the need for the fast enactment of the proposed law, which she said is expected to play a bigger role in preventing the vice.
“We are keen on the speedy enactment of the Wildlife Conservation and Management Bill, 2013 that proposes stiffer and deterrent penalties. It has been published and tabled in Parliament but expect faster enactment,” she said Thursday in a speech read on her behalf by the ministry’s Principal Secretary Richard Lesiyampe during the launch of a special unit of security officers to tackle poachers.
The Bill will be read for the first time when the lawmakers return from their recess on September 17. It is expected that the proposed law will impose heftier penalties when it is enacted.
Last June, the Cabinet approved the Bill that is set to, among others, increase the fine to up to one million shillings for those found engaging in poaching.
Enhanced sentences
Mr Lesiyampe said the Ministry was lobbying for enhanced sentences for those found guilty of poaching.
“These are not ordinary criminals. They are economic saboteurs who should not be treated softly anymore. We are thinking of 15 years imprisonment or even life sentences,” he said.
The special unit comprises 121 officers drawn from Kenya Wildlife Service, Administration Police and General Service Unit. They will undergo training at the KWS centre in Manyani before being deployed to the three poaching hotspots in the country.
The hotspots are Narok, Tsavo and Isiolo.
KWS director William Kiprono said the unit will boost the fight against poaching, a menace he said, could not be addressed alone by the wildlife department.
“It is now a serious issue that KWS cannot address it alone. It is a national problem. We need everybody on board to tackle it,” Mr Kiprono said.
The formation of the unit comes a week following the launch of another campaign, Hands Off Elephants, by First Lady Margaret Kenyatta.
The campaign aims at pushing for tighter measures to guard against elephant poaching.
COMMENTS:
theafricanthinker
•a day ago •2 upvotes
Rot in government ministries. I’m just sick of news I’m hearing from
home these days.
There is nothing good. JKIA burnt, no one knows why.
Balala is demanding corruption from investors, no one is gonna stop him.
If police and other first responders loot victims properties, who shall we trust? If the ministry entrusted with wildlife is smuggling out wild animal parts, who should protect Kenya’s natural beauties?
Poor Kenyans have always been on the losing end!
see more
jackmuraguri@hotmail.com
•a day ago •0 upvotes
Life sentence to poachers and the confiscation of all their wealth is the only solution.
see more
Hoorayhenry
•a day ago•3 upvotes
It’s not new laws that we need, we need to let people who love & value
this great heritage look after it. We, indigenous Africans have no time for wildlife. Traditionally, we’ve always seen animals as a source of our basic needs (food clothing, shelter) period. This is my argument…. KWS under the Leakeys, was so efficient that poaching had almost completely been eradicated, & in fact the population of the ‘big five’ had increased to an extent of them starting to be a menace, & there was talk of culling elephants in Kenya. KWS is still here, now managed by us indigenous Africans, why has it become a joke? SA still have their wildlife protection intact!!!! Same reason perhaps???
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Published on Aug 9, 2013
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CORD leader Raila Odinga tells off
Kisumu Central MP Ken Obura over
leadership
Updated Friday, August 9th 2013 at 23:19 GMT +3
By RUSHDIE OUDIA
KENYA: CORD leader Raila Odinga has told off the young Turks over their plans to take over leadership in ODM.
The former PM alongside other CORD leaders, who spoke during the homecoming for Kisumu County Assembly majority leader, Samuel Ong’ou, aimed their blows at Kisumu Central MP Ken Obura who had showed his interest in the ODM Secretary General’s post.
Obura’s onslaught was brought forth using parables and straight attacks.
Raila led the onslaught comparing Obura to a lizard. He said according to a Nigerian parable, there was a lizard that craved recognititon. He said the lizard climbed a tree hoping people would see him.
“You can be old in body but young in mind and similarly you can be old in mind and young in body,” said Raila, advising the young leaders.
Funyula MP Paul Otuoma said Obura was like a young bull trying to overthrow the oldest bull in the house.
Machakos Senator Johnstone Muthama also dismissed the young leaders.
“Obura does not know what he is saying and he should stop all these theatrics,” said Muthama, adding that Raila wants unity yet some people are set to destabilise ODM.
National Assembly Deputy Chief Whip, Jakoyo Midiwo told Obura to respect the older leaders.
Homa Bay Senator Otieno Kajwang’ said ODMis like a church and there is no way a small priest could sit on the bishop’s seat simply because he is old.
Fears over new split as ODM bigwigs
cling on ‘one-man’
Updated Friday, August 9th 2013 at 23:50 GMT +3
Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Dogeretti North MP Simba Arati (LEFT) are welcomed by ODM supporters in Dagoretti for presentation of bursaries in the constituency. [PHOTO: FILE]
By JUMA KWAYERA
KENYA: A fresh storm is simmering in the Orange Democratic Movement after the party’s top hierarchy failed to provide a definite roadmap to the eagerly anticipated National Delegates Convention.
The meeting is expected to result in radical decisions about the future of the party following a push from the rank and file for change at the top. ODM MPs demanded party leader Raila Odinga to cut lose certain officials at a meeting in Nairobi on Wednesday.
So sensitive is the issue that some of the party officials contacted either flatly declined to comment or referred all questions to newly appointed executive director Joseph Magerer Lang’at, himself facing a revolt as some members question his appointment.
At least 10 MPs are contemplating ‘technically’ defecting from ODM to underline their unhappiness. Former Roads Minister Franklin Bett says the party faces serious integrity questions in the manner it handles its affairs. In a tell-all interview with The Standard on Saturday, Bett took a swipe at the opacity in party operations that excludes majority of its members.
“I am aware they have tried to set meetings after the last Parliamentary Group meeting in June,” says Bett, who was in charge of the party’s presidential election team. “However, meeting and sharing with members is critical to the survival of this party. A clique around the party leader makes decisions. If a party avoids its members, it is doomed to fail. If they cannot find a way of accommodating all members, then the party risks being a one-man show.”
The brickbat that was clearly aimed at the party’s top brass left no doubt he shares the sentiments and frustrations younger MPs and senators have been expressing.
Jubilee is reportedly preparing a war chest to pounce on the dissenters. There have been reports of an effort to woo Western Kenya among other areas.
The latest developments represent the many twists and turns ODM has had to navigate to remain vibrant in the bicameral Parliament, despite its relatively weaker numerical strength. Some of the MPs met Raila on Wednesday evening during which they were categorical the bad eggs have to be dispensed with soon or the party risks another mass exodus as witnessed in the countdown to the March elections.
Kakamega meeting
The meeting was an attempt by Raila to calm the storm that has been building up involving mainly first-time MPs who have been calling for radical surgery to rid the party of senior officials they accuse of being responsible for the debacle suffered in the elections. The former PM’s responses to specific questions allegedly left some “frustrated”.
Raila, party secretary-general, treasurer and minority leader come from the same community, a reality those calling for disaggregation of seats to reflect the face of Kenya want changed.
The frustration of MPs from ODM political base in Nyanza coincides with a planned meeting in Kakamega this weekend to be addressed by, among others, former National Assembly Speaker Kenneth Marende. Marende is positioning himself for chairmanship.
The realignment takes place against a backdrop of reports that pressure is piling on Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chair Ababu Namwamba and Funyula MP Paul Otuoma “to work with” the Jubilee government. Namwamba would not respond to our phone calls or text messages.
Hot topic
One of the MPs who attended the 5-9pm “dinner” meeting told The Standard on Saturday that the former PM remained vague on when the party would hold elections to rejuvenate it. The MP says it is unlikely the much-talked about polls will take place this year, as it had become hot topic that would split the party further.
The Serena Hotel dinner talks were attended by Millie Odhiambo (Mbita), Opondo Kaluma (Homa Bay), David Ochieng’ (Ugenya), Ken Obura (Kisumu Central), Jared Opiyo (Awendo), Ken Okoth (Kibra), Sylvance Osele (Kabondo Kasipul) and George Oner Ogalo (Rangwe).
We have also learned that some MPs at the meeting said a senior official in Deputy President William Ruto’s office has been tasked with recruitment of disgruntled MPs from Nyanza and Western.
Kisumu Central MP Ken Obura referred to the meeting as routine “coffee meeting” with the party leader. “There is nothing extra-ordinary. We always meet with party leader for tea,” Mr Obura explained. The first-time MP, however, acknowledged the need to rebuild and re-brand the party.
“The National Governing Council will meet soon to set a date for elections. Once the NGC sets a date for a National Delegates Convention, we shall have enough reasons to speak on the direction we want the party to take,” he says.
Another first time MP from South Nyanza, who requested anonymity, says the session at Serena was stormy, with the MPs insisting demagogues responsible for the chaotic primaries be kicked out.
In a text message after the meeting, the MP described as “hot” the debate on the role played by chairman Henry Kosgey, Secretary-General Anyang Nyong’o, Eliud Owalo and Deputy National Assembly Minority Leader Jakoyo Midiwo in the March 4 elections.
The MPs questioned the recruitment of Magerer. The latter could not be reached by phone. Leaders from the former Western Province are pushing for either chairmanship or secretary-general’s post. Coast too is eying one of the positions, which are currently held by Kosgey and Nyong’o.
Other than Marende, Otuoma is said to be interested in Kosgey’s post while Namwamba and party assistant executive director Nabii Namwera are lining up to replace Nyong’o. Some MPs from Western are accused of either not propagating their party’s agenda or are quietly “working” with Jubilee.
10/03/08
03:32:29 pm, by nazret.com, 220 words
Categories: Ethiopia, Somalia
Should Ethiopia annex Somalia?
File Photo: Ethiopian Troops in Somalia
Should Ethiopia annex Somalia?
Writer Donald Kipkorir argues it is time for Ethiopia and Kenya to annex Somalia, in an opinion piece published in Kenya’s, The Daily Nation, titled, “Why Kenya and Ethiopia ought to annex and divide Somalia”.
Described by the Economist magazine as ‘The world’s most utterly failed state’, Somalia is a lawless state with no functioning central government since 1991. The writer argues the country is a ‘haven for terrorists and pirates’. He goes on to say,
“Annexing Somalia is thus in our strategic interest and we must do it now as the financial meltdown continues to take away the attention of the world.
Somalia as a state exists only in world maps. It is a classic case of a failed state. It is a state dismembered into as many independent units as there are sub-clans. Its 90-strong cabinet is emblematic of the actual number of units. Somalia neighbours Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti. Of these, it is only Ethiopia and Kenya that have strategic interest in Somalia. Kenya and Ethiopia must and ought to dismember Somalia and divide it between themselves along the 4 degrees latitude, each taking all the land below and above the line.”
You can read the full article from Kenya’s Daily Nation.
Should Ethiopia annex Somalia? Have Your Say
168 comments
Comment from: tola [Visitor]
I think that was the plan all along i say Hell yea we should take over Somaliland and Puntland and give the rest of Somalia to Kenya and also take Eritrea back and have Djibouti join us
10/03/08 @ 15:49
Comment from: KOKEB [Visitor]
ETHIOPIA never annex somalia. It is a dirty trick of MELATAW ZOMBIE and the TPLF TEGRE morans for all this un-wanted war.
Long live the people of ETHIOPIA & SOMALIA!
DEATH to MELESE and HIS bloodY family SHABIA!
10/03/08 @ 15:49
Comment from: dereje [Visitor]
it is sad the Somalis can’t put their house in order, relatively speaking. but Ethiopia never took other people’s land in its history and should keep it that way.
10/03/08 @ 15:53
Comment from: Emperor Menelik II [Visitor]
Perfect discussion We have to do this! Somaliland and Puntland join Ethiopia. The southern Somalians (Mogadishu)are the Shertam’ Somali dirt bag illiterate donkeys, they must join Kenya.
10/03/08 @ 15:53
Comment from: Ogadenian [Visitor]
Ethiopia is not even capable of feeding itself let alone annex Somalia. Ethiopia is in Somalia with the help of Christian Nations who have a deep hatred for all Somali Muslims,beside with all the finance,weapon,air and sea support for those Christians nations still it can not control one single city.
For goodness sake lets fight each other one to one,i meant Ethiopia against Somalia only no outside help and i swear to you Ethiopia will not last a week with us Somalis.
Its always Russian,Cuban,British, etc
Who are fighting against Somalian in the name of Ethiopians,that is why we are saying this is not fair.
10/03/08 @ 15:57
Comment from: berta [Visitor]
Not annex but it is a good strategy to temporarily split Somalia in to at least pieces. one ruled by Kenya plus AU and UN, the next piece ruled by Ethiopia plus AU and UN the other piece Puntland/Djibuti plus AU and UN.
10/03/08 @ 16:11
Comment from: Tesfaye [Visitor]
We have to be realistic. Somaliland & Puntland can join Ethiopia. Djoubiti & Eritrea should be given back to Ethiopia. Then we can build our country. We can mobilise our human and material resources to the maximum. This time we have to be serious about our internal enemies. They should be hunted and eliminated. Ethiopia needs a true national leader. Those leaders who have no respect for history are either insane or agents of foreign powers. ThEY HAVE TO BE DEALT WITH.
The case of Eritrea should be also resolved. Muslim Eritrea can be given to Sudan and the christian areas including Massawa should be given to Ethiopia. This is the way to deal with people who are bandas and messeners of destruction. The eritreans are mercenaries, slaves who been waging a war of detruction by proxy.
10/03/08 @ 16:26
Comment from: kirkiri [Visitor]
Kenya and Ethiopia don’t have the capacity to annex Somalia.
Somalia is closer to annexing both countries.
The Islamic courts union/al shabab hold more territory today than when Ethiopia cowardly thought it could do something about Somalia.
20,000 Ethiopian soldiers are dead and the Somali fighters not reached their full potential. Kenya is far weaker than Ethiopia.
Dreams are so cheap. Every fool can dream.
10/03/08 @ 16:27
Comment from: Tenkir [Visitor]
This is such a stupid question for those of us Ethiopians who know Ethiopia is run by a sophisticated gov that gives away land and territory (viz Eritrea) to manage a small country effectively In fact in a series of interviews I heard woyane officials complaining Ethiopia being too big to govern. So, please tell me how on earth will Ethiopia under the leadership of woyane would annex a land? Or are you asking a philosophical question suggesting since Somalia could be equated as a problem that the gov will not hesitate to bring anything negative to our side?
10/03/08 @ 16:28
Comment from: common sense [Visitor]
Sure it sounds an outlandish idea, but it’s really not that crazy an idea.It’s actually a win win situation for both Ethiopia and Somalia.If we look past European colonists era African tribes were just living side by side with out per say having a country of their own. It was mostly the English’s policy of divide and concur that brought about all these African nations. In light of that,if we are to entertain the idea of joining part of Somalia with Ethiopia should be given serious consideration.However it has to be in a democratic fashion with something like a referendum.I’m sure a lot of Somalis would support living side by side with their Ethiopian brothers.
10/03/08 @ 16:29
Comment from: Death to Weyanes [Visitor]
This is just stupid question? First let’s give Oromia and Ogaden their independence, they don’t want be a part of Ethiopia, then we can talk the other dream you have.
10/03/08 @ 16:42
Comment from: Emperor Menelik II [Visitor]
Tesfaye =You say Muslim Eritrea (30%) should be given to Sudan and Christian Eritrea(70%) should be given to Ethiopia? Did you know Ethiopia has more Muslim population then Sudan does? Ethiopia is 55% Muslim… at the same time you want Massawa in Eritrea to be given to Ethiopia? Massawa is Muslim Afars who live there. You want Djibouti and Somaliand to join Ethiopia and they are 100% Muslim If this is going to work we can not let religion play in this at all. The only Christians in the region are the Amhara and Tigray. The rest are Muslims.
10/03/08 @ 16:44
Comment from: raee [Visitor]
Should Ethiopia annex Somalia? what a moron question? Ethiopia should start feeding, educating, providing health care etc… for its nation. Stop talking about Ethiopia as if it’s some kind of a super power country. We have been begging for food every year God knows since when.
10/03/08 @ 16:54
Comment from: danieltekle [Visitor]
You guys are crazy.
If Haile Selasie’s annexation of Eritrea in 1951 ended with a devastation in 1991, as Eritrea gained its independence, why in the world would some of you suggest it is a good idea to annex Somalia. It is not controversial to say Eritreans and Ethiopians (at least those who live on the highlands) have a great deal in common with one another. Yet 30 years of war ensued in spite of the commonality. You want to repeat history?
Moreover, Ethiopia was also listed as a part of the failed states of the world, does that mean Kenya should annex Ethiopia, NOT!!!
Let’s clean our house before we judge other failed states.
10/03/08 @ 16:57
Comment from: Monkey [Visitor]
If Ethiopia commits to annexing Somalia and by doing so gives us an outlet to the ocean, I’ll volunteer to fight anyone who tries to stop this great plan.
The guy who thought of this is a genius.
10/03/08 @ 17:02
Comment from: gimatam shabiya [Visitor]
Really excellent article i ever read in this web site.This the only way to remove terrorist from horn Africa and to help Somalian brothers. Some Shabiyas in this web site start to urinate in there trousers.
10/03/08 @ 17:03
Comment from: uwnet lemenager [Visitor]
that’s dream which will not happen for ever because the Somalians are very energetic and a hero people. if their country were peace, they would have been control the horn of Africa by their military power,but their only enemy is a drug called “chat” or “mirah” if they avoid taking the above drug, they will be one of the strongest country in the region believe it or not.
10/03/08 @ 17:13
Comment from: Dr. Ashebir [Visitor]
Anyone who knows that even our brothers the Eritreans left us in a bloody war, would not be gullible enough to accept such seductive message. Let the Somalis keep their misfortune at a distance. Let’s not inherit their misfortune, instead fight it from overflowing.
10/03/08 @ 17:14
Comment from: Thomas [Visitor]
KOKEB
Kokeb; your comments are always full of hate, but nothing else. Why? I don’t know. Here is my assumptions; I think You are one of the losers from this government. Or, you are one of Iss-Ass Dikala who wants the destruction of Ethiopia.
Just get a life and stay in your Artera’s (Asmera) affaire. Leave us Alone please. You are Full of hate. use your hate to build your useless Aretera with your father Iss-ass.
10/03/08 @ 17:22
Comment from: soma [Visitor]
SOMALIA IS AN INDEPENDENT NATION WHO ARE SHOWING THEIR STRENGTH BY DEFEATING US AND MELESE
We all should understand Somalia is an independent nation no body will annex them.
The people of Somalia are different they are different when it come to US and Ethiopia.
Even though they have big difference among themselves when it comes to enemy like Ethiopia and US they have shown their strength.
10/03/08 @ 17:23
Comment from: Ali roble [Visitor]
In this day and age,even a drunkard Negro like this scumbag has some crazy idea, of course it unlikely his pure imagination but just some copy-cuts of colonialists and his former white master, what do with Somalia.Is he got enough share from the spoils left British by annexing Somaliland area to Kenya? What about if Luo tribes and others that live in Uganda and Tanzania when hostility against Kukuyo erupts next time around? Does Tanzania and Uganda also have right to annex them. Where we gonna draw the line? Are we redraw all African borders again thereby opening Pandora’s box?I think Ethiopia has enough problems of its own. Besides, its experience over Eritrea’s Annexation in the past taught unforgettable lesson. In the meantime I think Somalis will sort out their differences if left alone to deal with it.
10/03/08 @ 17:30
Comment from: Yonas Bekele [Visitor]
Another dumb and unsustainable idea. Somalia is not just a vast land mass, it has actually people living there and they do not want to be part of Ethiopia or Kenya. And what does Ethiopia have to gain by annexing its neighbor, if not more violence and other problems? I think we should withdraw our guys and let Somalis resolve their own problems, even if that means an Islamist state taking root there. No one like that scenario but Ethiopia is paying dearly in term of lives and treasure to help a country that may be a failed state forever.
10/03/08 @ 17:37
Comment from: habeshawu [Visitor]
the best way to secure peace in east Africa is to secure our borders and leave the Somalians to solve their problems by themselves, and most importantly give the eritrean law land to Sudan and throw the hamaseins in the salty red sea and give the high land to Ethiopia.
10/03/08 @ 17:59
Comment from: M.T. [Visitor]
no
10/03/08 @ 18:05
Comment from: sintayehu [Visitor]
please so not run so fast to say something without thinking about them. Even though Ethiopia has strong army in Horn now we can not invade Somalia because that would be a shame for us.What are we trying to show let invade Somalia like the Europeans did in their time. Somalia people are love people and we have to respect that O WE ETHIOPIANS LIKE IF ANY COUNTRY INVADE ETHIOPIA? ANSWER THAT AS THE FOR SOMALIA. But we are strong and we will be strong always.That is Ethiopia
10/03/08 @ 18:36
Comment from: Passerby [Visitor]
Honestly people! And nazret!!!!
This is the most stupidest idea let alone an idea for discussion…it suggests nazret thinks Ethiopians are that stupid? Now i wonder who owns this websites and on who side the owner is on politically.
1) Ethiopia during the 77 war won and could have annexed Somaliland but chose not to.
2) Ethiopia has under her rightful and patriotic rulers a history of hands-off lands that don’t belong to us, we went after eritrea thinking we were brothers and that didn’t workout as meles ceded all to his mothers side of the family.
3) every Ethiopian should be insulted by such questions cause Ethiopians don’t have a real representative gov’t that gives a darn about the people. When a rightful gov’t that is representative of the people comes to power, the real land of Ethiopia should be up for discussion…asseb!
10/03/08 @ 18:43
Comment from: SPINX [Visitor]
Hello my Horn Africa people
Let me take you back to 1960-70,war between Somalia and Ethiopia,or allow me to say Between Somalia and Russia and Cuba,with out the direct help of the then Soviet-Union,back then,Ogaden-land which is legally Somalian land,would still be Somalian,History repeats it’s self,Ethiopia never fought any war or battle alone by it’s own,it’s always been supported by the West,starting from Haile-Selassie and the British,then Megustu and Russia,Now Meles-USA,Dear Ethiopians,don’t believe the hype Somalians never forgot their stolen land,OGADEN,and now you acually think to take over the whole Somalia,are you out of touch,or reality,or common sense,The USA,Ethiopia’s #1,ally is no more a Super Power,it is collapsing,so Meles,please don’t think over your head,first think about how if you can beat the AL-Shabad,warriors,that are really getting stronger as we speak.Meles please think positive,and get our of Somalian-KusH-Land.HAPPY-EID,Brothers/Sisters
10/03/08 @ 19:01
Comment from: mercato [Visitor]
The nonsense idea of the century I have no word to express we have lost Djibouti ,Eritrea and part of Gondar I believe this is not our government plan!
To an wise commentator
Religions issue is like playing with fire it is not good for Christians based on east Africa reality also do not forget we have enough pagan in east Africa. Can’t you see we have enough problem? With 81 tribe and many religions. Way we do not try to negotiate with Eritrea at last we have the same culture in most area also we speak the same kind of language even our prime minister is from Eritrea.
10/03/08 @ 19:17
Comment from: aste menelik II (the best of all kings and dictators) [Visitor]
I say Somalia, Djouti, and Eritrea must all be comletely and totally be in the hand of Ethiopia. No Kenya should ever take a piece of land regardless. So that it will benefit the four countries. We will be as strong as Rassia, China, India and U.S.A. Do it right away without wasting any time. It is a very good idea but who has the stomach to do what is best for Ethiopia? If Meles can do such a thing for our country, we will praise him and keep him as an emperior that he holds currently until the time of his death. But the emperior is a spoild one, he never does what is best for our coutry but the opposite. ONE ETHIOPIA, GREEN, YELLOW AND RED. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH MY HOME.
10/03/08 @ 19:28
Comment from: ????? Free [Member]
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Stupid nechachiba
10/03/08 @ 19:51
Comment from: EthioMan [Visitor]
Some with spinning heads spinx out of control. Ethiopia does not need to prove any battels fought and won. History will do that. Africans do not need to kill eachother over anything, not relegion not ideology, both not ours to begin with. For those who shout with the crazy annex theory… well, they are just venting. Those who claim territories of sovereign nations are as crazy as the annexers.
Somalia is an independant nation, has been for many decades. The fact there is no working govt does not lead anyone to suggets such dilusional and thoughtless means. It is poisoning otherwise lawful people and nations near by. It must be condemed for what it is. Spreading poison.
My take on this issue is, Ethiopia MUST withdraw and allow the Somali people to do what they may to themselves. If and when they cross our borders, then we will let those who claim we never beat any shiritam or shabian punk back to oblivion, come and watch. Till then, I say somalia to Somalis.
10/03/08 @ 20:02
Comment from: yahye [Visitor]
:Once Kenya and Ethiopia have sent their combined army to Somalia and declared the annexation, we will present to the world a fait accompli. ”
A mentally handicapped Negro Rambo.
10/03/08 @ 20:17
Comment from: Tegerami [Visitor]
Those of you support this idea must be out of your mind. In return, rather, ethiopia shoul leave and depart from the somali region of Ogaden, which was annexed by menilki the II a century ago. Because that is the root problem for all animosity and mistrust between these two brotherly horn of afrikaners.
If once ethiopia leaves the region, no doubt that peace will be prevailed between somalis and ethios for eternity. Anyways,we had the gut to give eritrea, the real habesha land, away by the bless of our government in our modern day history. So why we lose a courage to do so in Ogaden, non-habesha land, but somali land.
10/03/08 @ 20:23
Comment from: Sprinter [Visitor]
Ethiopia is cutting and running, what can it annex? As for the Kenya Kelinjin reporter, his suggestion of passing the buck to Ethiopia is interesting. Why did he not suggest Kenya to annex instead. Because he knows Kenyans cannot face Somalis. Kenyan soldiers are heavily equipped but in battles they defate on themselves. Anyone who lived in Northern Kenya knows that.
As for Ethiopia, its hallucination is over. It is reality checks. Its opportunistic moves are bust. What a field day we Somalis have. Its time you taste defeat. Your boys are hold up in few buildings in Mogadishu. As I write they want to desperately run away. They are afraid and terribly lonely. The bullet is their fate, either way if they say or not. They have exit strategy.
It must be horrible to be defeated by a country without a regular army. Yes, yes, your adventurism has eventually cought up with you. Allua Continua!!!
10/03/08 @ 21:07
Comment from: Gemechu [Visitor]
SPINX:
Your information on regards the war between Ethiopia and Somalia is right, but I have something to tell u.
Somalia was getting full support from Russian on the begging of the war when they invade Ethiopia. They have more than 200 tanks, MG fighter’s jet and other military hardwires. Then after Russia shifted their support to Ethiopia Somalia was supported by Egypt, USA (because of Russia Support to Ethiopia) and other Middle east countries……
The real question is, there were/are no countries in Africa who won any battle without other foreign/west countries support. We or Somalia don’t produce any weapon at the moment and because of that we always seek help from those who produce it.
When your country (Eriteria) fought for their independence they were getting supports from Egypt and other Middle East countries. So please don’t make it a big deal just because we get lots of supports from other country such as USA. No matter how much the support is you don’t wean without good fighters. Somalia invaded Ethiopia with more than 200 tanks and don’t know how to use it. Finally, they have to abandon all of their tanks for Ethiopian solders.
On recent battle with your Country Eri and Ethiopia your country did get lots of support from Egypt but they were not successful. The reason why they were not successful was luck of man power. U are 4 milon and we are 80 million. Somalia is 7-10 million and we are 80 million. You need to understand the facts. Don’t be moron! Population matters when it comes to battle and economy.
10/03/08 @ 21:56
Comment from: Training1 [Visitor]
Are these people on drugs?
They can’t control Somalia and they are thinking of annexing it?
30,000 Tigryabs,2,200 Ugandans and Burundis and thousands of Americans spying on Somalia can’t control the SOUTH. Tigryans are being dragged on the streets.
Now this guys is suggesting that we annex the whole country? Please brother. Stop taking drugs before you write.
10/03/08 @ 21:59
Comment from: ZXAmiche [Visitor]
In your dreams!
Be afraid and pray Somalinization not to haunt Ethiopia and Kenya!
10/03/08 @ 22:09
Comment from: Land of the day dreamers [Visitor]
Funny these are the same retards who comment about the unity of Ethiopia day and night
But turn around and dream of the dividing a neighboring country Somalia!!!!
I am appalled even for Nazeret to publish this kind of non sense article in the first place! But again seeing most of the contents published here day in day out and the majority of their clientele here it should not be surprising!!
Fools get down of your donkeys and think again! You could not even convince your cousins, the Orthodox Christian Eritreans to stay with you, what makes you think the Somalians can go along?
Get your house in order before your dreams of others!!!!!
What you are gonna do with an empty empty empty land with the most getto people on earth?
Westerners should use it as hunting ground for wild animals?
10/03/08 @ 22:40
Comment from: Ababu [Visitor]
What a ludicrous idea!!! is there any legality of annexing a sovereign country? If so, yes. but i don’t think a failed state like Ethiopia would be able to annex a neighboring country and administer it. The only African country that played such a role was South Africa which had been mandated to admiister Namibia after the defeat of Germany in WWI. This whole idea is a wishful thinking that would mar our country to another round of instability and political complexity.
10/03/08 @ 22:51
Comment from: Wenebz [Visitor]
Ethiopia annexing who and what!? The love for aggrandizing thoughts – that is the real joke!
10/03/08 @ 23:11
Comment from: Time [Visitor]
What is his name? Kipkorir? Wow, I did not know a Kalenjin guy had the audacity to think beyond his nose!!. Does he know his uncle MOI when he was overthrown the man who saved his ass was a Somali (General Mohamoud)? All the Kalenjins went and hid themselves in their Shambas (farms) including Moi. It was Mohamoud who with few Somalis under his command took back the Statehouse and the Radio station and announced Moi is still the President.
Mohamoud took a helicopter and went to Moi’s Shamba (farm) to bring him back. The Kalenjin man (Moi) told Mohamoud ‘Please kill me in my farm. Don’t take me away’. Wow! and Wow again. A kalenjin can dare think of annexing Somalia? It is us somalis who allowed these low life neighbours who never dare look at our side the chance to even think of it. Alas, we somalis might be brave but we are stupid. This generations is definately not like our grand fathers. The year 2020 will be somalia’s year and down hill Issack Newton’s theory for Ethiopia. I guess Kenya has already started the rift more than eethiopia but what can a Kalenjin’s brain comprehend. Haven’t you seen the flying machetes? Each one of them has it in his garage and are ready to cut each other into pieces.
Having said all that, I would prefer seeing the people of Africa living in peace and prosperity rather than talking of annexing a sisterly nation. The Kalenjin boy forgot his country is at the brink of extinction.
Let me say all Afrcan countries need to re-evaluate their way forward. otherwise they will be written into the history books. Aids, Maleria, Poverty, droughts, Wars will only increase bearing in mind the scars reaources the world will be facing. I fear for Africa and he is talking of Annexing another country.
Wait until 2020 and tell me about it. Strategy and maticulous planning that covers many dimension will be the way out for Somalia. By 2020 the Alshabaab and warlords will be history and there will be enough educated somalis in western countries who will take the lead. Investing in Infrastructure, Education, Agriculture and strong social engineering will put Somalia on Track. If you remember what I said, Ethiopia will be going down hills since by then they are recovering from Meles and Tigrey Legacy if they are not mired in civil war. I just pray to God the Somalis don’t take revenge in playig a role in distabilizing Ethiopia more. That is what Meles did. If this happens I wonder who will hold together Ethiopian tribes and religions.
Somalis, we have a saying that says ” Don’t dig your brother’s grave as you might be the one that will fall into it”. Ethiopia has dug the Grave but will it be the one to fall into it? Twelve years will tell.
If you read my post please try to remember what I have posted.
Proud Somali.
NAZRET PLEASE POST IT.
10/04/08 @ 00:42
Comment from: araadom [Visitor]
Annexing Somalia-b/n Ethiopia and Kenya.
You people-why ,why you always bark when your masters in the west tell you.You daydream when your country is always called the land of famine and hunger.Do your homework clean your dirty backyard before you look into Eritrea and Somalia. For Eritrea Adois it is the land of its owners.
10/04/08 @ 01:10
Comment from: Master Mind [Visitor]
raee
Thank you.
You bunch of morons knowing your limitations and capablites should be priority, but which part of your air head have a brain to think?
Let alone annexing somalia you couldn’t take control of feeding your family, it’s too easy to open your mouth hiding your dusty head behind your $20.00 flea market PC but that is not the point…the point is know who you are, some of you idiots can not tell your own names in proper Amharic and most of you have no value of Africanism, simply a borndogs brainless idiots do you think Somalis will stand in a corner and watch you while your kimal is takin over their land?
What a stupid question???????
Nazret thank you for this rubish topic which was able to pull out these morons out of their rat hole.
10/04/08 @ 01:39
Comment from: Z-Mike [Visitor]
Although the suggestion is not a bad idea, Ethiopia should only offer Kenya 10% of Somalia’s land. Kenya did does not have the military need to stand for a fight if and when a fight (war that is0 breaks out. Kenya’s total military is estimate at about 45,000 including the police force, the navy army etc. So to suggest Kenya taking over half of Somalia is not realistic and a very dangerous suggestion by the media.
The next steps of Ethiopia should be:
1} train and build strong navy.
2) Stay in Somalia and if need get rid of the clan leaders and tell Somalis if they don’t get there act together, there wont be another nation call Somalia.
3} get rid of Sheabians along with its terrors.
4} hold a referendum in Ethiopia whether or not Eritrea becomes independent.
****Keep on building even stronger military in Ethiopia and work on stronger democratic systems. Once we do that, Ethiopia will become stronger then ever before and the world will see the strength of Ethiopia/ns.
Z-Mike
10/04/08 @ 01:51
Comment from: kitkat [Visitor]
Annex Somalia !
Yes, Please Please Annex it.
Specially for the sake of unarmed clans who are beings massacred by so called noble clans.
Please Ethiopia Annex Somalia !
10/04/08 @ 03:01
Comment from: habeshawu [Visitor]
Time,
you are full of sh*t, you keep saying 2020, did Somalia win the chance to host Olympic or what seriously be specific about your 2020 plan. you are a typical angry man with a hot balloon head just like our northern neighbors.
10/04/08 @ 03:50
Comment from: Tamrat Tamrat [Visitor]
Lets levae somalians affair to somalians. And if they tried to mess with uss like 2006, 1977, etc then will show them who we are and they strat singing cuba and russia help ethiopia. The worrest thing about the somalians is the story they creat and believ. Is it not a disgrace to discuss anexation of a nation by itself.
10/04/08 @ 04:04
Comment from: Interesting Topic [Visitor]
The writer is a good thinker of the time. But lacks the knowledge of History.
Once Hirsi Ali (a Somalian activist) said about herself that she is the 7th generation of an Immigrant came to todays Somalia. Meaning the not Habesha look like Somalians are not the original residents in todays Somalia.
Somalia never ever has been a country before the British, Italian colonization on her dividing in three. They were primitive nomadic acting and living the way their animals demanding them to do. As the Abyssinian history says, the Entire Somalia territory was under the axumite kingdom including Yemen, southern Saudi Arabia and Gulf states that many of them still looks like the Habesha people. Mogadishu means moqat and shum= the Abyssinians word. The shum/Astedader of the moqat area.
Because of spreading Islam in Africa through war and invasion, the Arabs and Iranians fought against the Abyssinians the same way the Arabs did at the time in todays Sudan against them, too. But never ever been Somalia as a state with her todays territory boundary.
Abyssinia (Ethiopia) was the oldest statehood in AFRICA/one of the world. Modern Ethiopia (small Ethiopia) is the oldest modern statehood in Africa since 1850/60+ under the leadership of the modern Ethiopian father Atse Teodros.
After the death of Zere Jacob, the powerful Queen Ellni took the Abyssinian responsibility including todays Somalia Territory. But the time was very bad to Ethiopia as the Turks and Arabs were taking vast territory in todays Sudan including the territory called Sabians (all of them were at the time Christians including eastern, northern and central Sudan). The conflict was going on actively for 400 years but started since 8/9 century. And the worst was between 11-15 in the north and eastern part of the country. In the 16 century after the queen Eleni death (1522), the Arabs saw the weakness of the kingdom and they came through the south (todays Somalia by hiring a primitive nomad converted to become Muslim and as then brainwashed blood sucker against all Christians.
The gruesome Muslim invasion against the Christian Abyssinians took 14 years (1529-1543). During this time they even reached to the centre of the Christian kingdom in Axum and burned down the Axum Tsion mariam. This shows how much human and material damaged all over the country they had caused and the country situation changed for good.
With the European help, the Arabs invasion to spread Islam through war and killing is defeated. But the Abyssinians were badly destroyed. Many have died. Others immigrated to the north to the highlands to escape. The rest became Muslims and the same times they started acting as the todays Somalian do. This is the way the Abyssinian look like Somalians became as Somalians. That is why we said Ethiopian Muslims didn’t become Muslims by choice but by force through invasion and war.
The weakness of the Abyssinians became an opportunity to the massive migration/invasion like ants for the gala migration to the southern, central and western Ethiopia. The Somalians also did the same by defeating the Adals.This way the Zemene Mesafent created and took about 300 years.
Yet, when Ethiopia regrouped and became as a nation in 1860+, there was no a single nation in Africa at the time. That is why I said, “Ethiopia is not only the oldest ancient country but also the oldest modern country, too.”
Egypt became as it is since 1922. The rest of Africa became as it is today since 1953 started from Ghana. Sudan, Kenya, Somalia and the rest of Africa is just 50+ years old. Even in the middle east countries Like Saudi Arabia became as it is today in 1906. Iraqi 1923. And other Gulf States became, as they are latter on. So, the OLF idea of Ethiopia hundreds years old is fiction, ignorant, baseless, wrong and second even if she it so, she is older than any nation in Africa and the Middle East, too. No a single African nation has a hundred years modern statehood.
When it comes to Somalia they have been a country for only 20+ years under Siadbarie. That is it. They never ever have been a country more than that. I think the habesha look like Somalians have the right to be part of Ethiopia if they want to be that way. But Ethiopia demanding them to be part of her will be a mistake. You cannot govern them because of they never been governed by themselves and they have no idea to respect it.
As the entire Kenyan cost is part of the Kenyan Somalians, Kenya will have big problem with them. If you listen Somalians individually, almost all of them like Ethiopians that any one from Africa including the Kenyans. The Somalian Immigrants that have been in Kenya will tell you their feeling about the Kenyans. While the same time those have been in Ethiopia also will tell you their appreciation and respect towards Ethiopians. Only few Jiahdists do hate Ethiopians because of religion.
Ethiopia has a big rat on her back yard and first and for most she has to deal with it. That rat is Eritrea. So, it is time to deal with the shabia rats. The have disappeared from Eritrea means all over Ethiopia will be peace and security as shabia is training all anti Ethiopian elements including the primitive Somalia Islamic terrorists, OLF and nomadic primitive ONLF.
10/04/08 @ 04:28
Comment from: Legassi Zenawi [Visitor]
Somaliland will be a free country with close ties to Ethiopia, UK, and USA, white isolated south somalia and pirate infested puntland are killing each other with their warlords and clan.
they always try to polarize and oversimplify the situation saying oh ethiopia = christian, somalia = muslim
you idiots either don’t have a clue or are primitive animals.
this is 100% about Territorial integrity of Ethiopia and 0% about religion.
u think that relgion can solve ur problem of fragmented society based on ethnic and tribal lines, YOU WRONG.
10/04/08 @ 05:10
Comment from: Legassi Zenawi [Visitor]
Ill make damn well sure that we take ONLY ASSEB and expel all NON AFAR eritrean animals/donkeys.
We will take back our ports, as Mengistu said:
“I was there [Eritrea] with 700 people, We are there only for military strategy of water [Red Sea], there’s no Oil there, no diamonds, no gold, it’s not a country, there’s no people, NOTHING”
We will be comming back for Asseb!
Ethiopia Tikdem
10/04/08 @ 05:16
Comment from: Yohannes [Visitor]
No! No! No! All so-called national boundries created by colonial masters should be dismantled. Africa must be united in order to survive in the 21st century as a viable entity. Clanish and tribal thought should be arrested. Let us think big and far into the future while educating the unlearned. Had it not been for their identity crisis, Africans could have thrived in modern global economy becuase of their untapped natural resources.
We have no one to blame now but ourselves.
Democracy is not for Africans, at least for now, for we do not have the cornerstones for it, education, self-respect, human dignity, etc. I think the primitive paternalistic dictatorship based on fatherly or may be, motherly rule would transition us to a better tomorrow. But for the current dictators….
10/04/08 @ 05:21
Comment from: dekia [Visitor]
who is giving ethiopia 100 years of more homework war again.
10/04/08 @ 07:34
Comment from: Somali [Visitor]
Kenya
– A country with the worst record of corruption in Africa since independence
– A country with the largest slums in Africa
– A country whose economy is controlled by ex-colonials and Indians and now Somalis
– A country where people a few months ago were burning/hacking and shooting each other to death – A situation that could break out again any day of the week considering all these ethnic groups are still not satisfied
– A country who’s main tourist industry is prostitution
– A country with a mindblowing aids rate – seven or eight times higher than Somalia
– A country that can’t provide water to all it’s nomadic ethnicities( funny how Djibouti was called primitive for the same reason)
This country is suppossed to solve the Somali problem? who’s going to solve KENYA’S PROBLEMS?
Ethiopia
– A country where a racist minority rules over majorities
– A country where a dozens different seccesion groups are active who want nothing to do with the country
– A country that has an inferior telecommunication system compared to Somalia
– A country with less universities in the top 100 of Africa than Somalia
– A country with a smaller GDP per capita than the failed-state Somalia( see Economist)
– A country where 15 million people every year face starvation
– A country that tap dances to every Uncle Sam tune
This country is going to solve the Somali problem? Who’s going to solve Ethiopia’s problems?
These GI JOE’s Arnold Kipkopkipko’s and Mutunga Wango’s pretending their countries are anything but slaves of America are amusing
Insha-allah by the time of his deadline 2030 Somalia will have swallowed them all
10/04/08 @ 08:03
Comment from: Mesganaw [Visitor]
Time:
A proud Somali? Proud of what?
Before the British and Italian came to scrub nomadic/primitive Somalia, there was no any form of govt since her existence. It was like a no mans land territory. It was ruled under a clan and sub clan system. After independency, Somalia was became as a nation only for less than 30 years.
Egypt was ruled by British. Libya was ruled by Italy. Algeria was ruled by France and Morocco was at last ruled by Spain. That is why there are 4 different countries despite they have the same religion and speaking the same language.
The same thing has to apply for Somalia, too. Somaliland was ruled by British. You have an Italian Somalia and Punt land. So, there must come three different nations in somalia the same way as it happened in North African and other nations, too. So you can count 2020, 2040, 2100+ as numbers are infinitive, but Somalia will not become as one nation. Canada and USA are speaking the same language and have the same religion, why they became two separate states? In the Middle East, South America and elsewhere different nations are speaking the same language and have the same religion. So, Somalia to become, as one nation because of they are speaking the same language and have the same religion is a weak, cheap and never materialise silly thinking. It is already tested for 20+ years and it didn’t work.
Why are you mad towards Ethiopia while the writer is from Kenya? Kenyans are using their arrows and machete against the Somalians calling them the primitive people in Africa.
You can cry or do what ever you like, but your Satanic wish about Ethiopia will never fulfil.
You really have no idea about Ethiopia. When the serious comes, they are one and even the air can not come between them. Accept it and learn more about the Ethiopians good side.
After all Ethiopians are the one saved Islam by giving shelter and support to Prophet Mohamed and his followers. This was the first recognised political asylum granted to any one in human history. The first person who became Muslim is an Ethiopian, Belay (Bilal). We also know what P. Mohammed said about the habesha land and people and to His followers would be conduct towards the habesha people.
But you bastard, his followers became the enemy to the prophet special friends(Habeshas). You are using his name to commit crimes by not respecting his message including towards the habesha people.
I think King Negash/the habesha people made mistakes by giving save heavens and accommodations to them and saved Islam from disappearing as it happened to other religion in human history. If they didn’t, Islam might not be here today. You can try what ever you can in the name of Mohammed against Ethiopia, but Mohammed, Jesus and God will not allow something bad happening against the habesha people. The Arabs are busy all the times against the habesha people for many centuries, but God is fighting against them in the name of the Habesha people. Their crime against the beautiful Habesha women also will be answered by God, soon. Their oil money will be the real curse towards them. You, a primitive Somalian is a slave to them. We know and you know about. Have you been in the middle East. They see you as a Mistake, servant, slave, leftover or a monkey came from the central Africa jungle.
How can you judge Ethiopia while you know nothing about yourself?
I’m talking this to you, not to other Somalians I know that are wise and respectful towards Ethiopians. Go to the Kenyans Blog and deal with them if you can how.
10/04/08 @ 10:20
Comment from: Wadani [Visitor]
If Ethiopia annexed Somalia,the dreams of Somalia will become true from the opposite way.It will be a surprising and an excitements to the Somalis that their dreams became true from their unexpected and believing their enemy of Ethiopia sides.As,ogaden peoples also,it will boost the voices we have in the federal parliaments of Ethiopia.
And it will be the end of the sources of liberator groups that used to be coming of each decades from Somalia (Mogadishu)without the Ogaden peoples consent.
Thus, it will be, a relaxing, peacefulness and a pretty ideas,if that dreams of unifications of Ethiopian and Somalia becomes true. Despite of the many causalities in the process,it will be really,a great idea and surely the rest of the region countries would be joining when they see the greatness and the prosperity reached of united countries of Addis and Mogadishu.
Nevertheless,My predictions of that early bird joining to the unions would be Asmara and the second would be Libiya even before the Djabuti joined to the unions,its Libiya of my second guess.
10/04/08 @ 10:30
Comment from: dereje [Visitor]
they say you can choose your friends but not your neighbors.
ethiopia is very unlucky to have somale and eritrea as its neighbor. ethiopias short term strategy should be to strengthen its economy and military so these bad neighbors stay off its affair and its land. in the long term ethiopia may have to take military actions to change the geography and the politics of the two menace.
10/04/08 @ 10:37
Comment from: Time [Visitor]
I have addressed this note to the editor of that article. Those like him should take heed. Africa is sick and tired of people like him.
———————————–
Dear Kir (Somali word),
What is your name again? Kipkorir? Wow, I did not know a Kalenjin guy had the audacity to think beyond his nose! Do you know your uncle MOI when he was overthrown the man who saved his sorry butt was a Somali (General-Mohamoud)? All the Kalenjins went and hid themselves in their Shambas (farms) including Moi. It was Mohamoud who with few soldiers mostly Somalis under his command took back the Statehouse and the Radio station and announced Moi is still the President.
Mohamoud took a helicopter and went to Moi’s Shamba to bring him back. The Kalenjin man (Moi) told Mohamoud ‘Please kill me in my farm. Don’t take me away’. Wow! and Wow again. A Kalenjin can dare think of annexing Somalia! It is us Somalis who allowed these low life neighbours who never dare look at our side the chance to even think of it. Alas, we Somalis might be brave but we are stupid. This generation is definately not like our grand father’s-Admission of guilt. The year 2020 will be Somalia’s year and down hill Isaac Newton’s theory for Ethiopia. I guess Kenya has already started the rift more than Ethiopia but what can a Kalenjin’s brain comprehend. Haven’t you seen the flying machetes? Each one of you has it in his garage and is ready to cut the other into pieces.
Having said all that, I would prefer seeing the people of Africa living in peace and prosperity rather than talking of annexing a sisterly nation. Kalenjin boy you forgot your country is at the brink of extinction. Let me say all African countries need to re-evaluate their way forward. Otherwise, they will be written into the history books. Aids, Malaria, Poverty, droughts, Wars will only increase bearing in mind the scarce resources the world will be facing. I fear for Africa and you are talking of annexing another country.
Wait until 2020 and tell me about it. Strategy and meticulous planning that covers many dimension will be the way out for Somalia. By 2020 the Al-shabaab and warlords will be history and there will be enough educated Somalis in western countries and back home who will take the lead. Investing in Infrastructure, Education, Agriculture and strong social engineering will put Somalia on Track. If you remember what I said, Ethiopia will be going down hills since by then they will be recovering from Meles and Tigrey Legacy if they are not mired in civil war. I just pray to God the Somalis don’t take revenge in playing a role in destabilizing Ethiopia more. That is what Meles did to Somalis. If this happens, I wonder who will hold together the Ethiopian tribes and religions. Somalis who have one religion and language have taken this long to resolve a civil war, what will you think of Kenya? this is a good perspective for a wise man.
We Somalis, have a saying that says “Don’t dig your brother’s grave as you might be the one that will fall into it”. Kenyans also say “Mchimba kisima huingia mwenyewe”. I have lived in Kenya long enough to know it upside down. You will not give me credit if I told you I am capable of formulating a strategy that will put Kenya on its knees within couple of years. I will not shout around like pumpkin head like you but be rest assured your desire was well known and it is a note well taken. Ethiopia with the help of America has already dug the grave for Somalis for many years and it is time they fall into it. As for Kenya and the likes of Kipkorir who don’t know what Somalis are, let me tell you, Somalis will not miss a sleep guarding against Kenyan invasion. The clock has started ticking two years ago and Twelve years from now will tell.
Proud Somali,
Mohamed Abass.
NAZRET PLEASE POST IT. THANKS
10/04/08 @ 10:47
Comment from: Master Mind [Visitor]
Time [Visitor]
What is a single point in all that crap?
You are recommanded to take a capule called “Vocabulary” every 8 hours before meal.
10/04/08 @ 11:07
Comment from: Tesfaye [Visitor]
Annexing Somalia is of strategic importance for Ethiopia to play the role of an ancient black civilisation. Ethiopia should take back Artra and Djoubiti. We have to do it by war if necessary. Eritrea is an ethiopian history. Those who do not want to live under Ethiopian administration are eritrean who are mercenaries. The real eritreans are ethiopians. Djubiti was taken from Ethiopia through international manipulations. Ethiopia is a might power. Unfortunaely the Zenawi group are anti-Ethiopia and are working against a centralised might power.
The Somalians have to be led. And it is only Ethiopia that could give Somalis some hope to live. The ethiopian army is still in full control in Somalia. If Ethiopia is serious, the Islamist will be destroyed with no man left. Ethiopia should wage a full scale war and annex Somalia for Ethiopia. The somalians could be chritinized and eat injera. No Islam in somalia. Somalians deserve more. Their children will go to the same schools as ethiopians. Somali girls will represent Ethiopia as ethiopians as atheletic champions.
Ethiopia is 70% christian- Orthodox Christian (60%). Islam is growing in Ethiopia but not significantly.
Wake up Ethiopians! Unite Africans under the banner of Ethiopia! Start with Somalia because Somalia needs us more!
10/04/08 @ 11:07
Comment from: visitor [Visitor]
Annexing Somalia…and what then? The problem of ethiopians is that we never learn..Last time, we annexed a country, we paid paid a huge price for it: 30 years of war and we missed a great chance to better our lives.
What i would advice all the dreamers in rags that we are, it’s to push woyannes to leave Somalia and focus on bringing health,education and food to the people they are supposed to rule :ethiopians.
10/04/08 @ 11:10
Comment from: ANNEX BRITISH EAST AFRICA AND HABASH [Visitor]
To annex Somalia mr. Kukiyo you need to
come to somali cities like Kismayo and
fight real men, Union of islamic courts/
Somali jihad movement/Somaliland National Army etc. We all know that conlonization of
of africa is finish but indeed the slaves
will never change their mindset. I am sitting today in Mombasa and looking at a Muslim /somali city and feeling home,
Kenya is a somali region and soon shall return to SOMALIYA/ we shall it return by be force or by talk, but untill then countinue with your Dreams.Because we as people
don’t talk nonsense we Somali take actions and Kenya is somali, go to any city and look for your self. while you are born slaves and only take orders, by somalis or british as in the past.We give orders. And
Todays Order to your mr Kikiyo is dream o
on my BOY>. this Text is written on behave of UNITED SOMAL EAST AFRICAN STATE (includes habashia and kenya).
thank you.
10/04/08 @ 11:11
Comment from: TEDDY [Visitor]
You mean ,annexion what a jock ,a tribal milicia army ,agazis ,blocked and harassed by bare footed children fighters ;has no means to control Somalia any longer than withdrawing or surrender .It’s sad to recognise since the evil Zenawi and his thugs took power Ethiopian Armed Forces have ceased to exist ,today the so called National Armed Forces are simply tribal based milicia forces led by illitrate TPLF bandit self apointed officers and generals .Agazis have no pride and dignity as much as the armed forces led in 1964 by Aman Adom and letter in 1977 led by Demisse Bulto ,of course the Air Force of Fanta Belay who really defeated twice Somalian invasion forces . LONG LIVE THE TRUE ETHIOPIANS !!!
10/04/08 @ 11:34
Comment from: D-barry [Visitor]
D. EAR Ogadenian please you talk sheet.I bean in ethio-somalia war 1977.When we start counter atack I saw with my eye the somalia army left behind all the Tank and weapon run like Horse 500k|meter.You know it 2 years ago it takes the heroic ethiopian army less than one week to control south Somalia.That is the fact broo.May be i have some difference with the government I still like ethiopia and the army.
10/04/08 @ 11:44
Comment from: girma yirgu [Visitor]
it is a good idea to take somalia to motherland ethiopia mokadischo means the papties city of ethiopia all ethiopian creastianity came frome thhough mmekadescha mokodischo if meles zenawi did that his name will be among the greatest of all somalia must join ethiopia as 14 provice of ethiopia
no more somalia only one ethiopia
ertrea will came by it self we must not forse them they used to be one nations
ertrea can not servive with out ethiopia please meles zenawi do that and clean your hand and make reconsilations among all ethiopians
so that your beloved childeren will with out fear of ethiopians
10/04/08 @ 11:50
Comment from: lekim [Visitor]
Only those who want Ethiopia and or Kenya to fight their dirty wars for them would advocate the annexation of Somalia. Ethiopia is a law abiding member of the world community and not a Trojan horse for imperialist pigs. Somalis can keep their banana republic.
10/04/08 @ 11:52
Comment from: Somalirealist [Visitor]
Somalia can Annex both Ethiopia and Kenya but not the vice versa.
This Kukuyu Niggar is dreaming.
Somalis own the biggest land in kenya, North Eat, NFD. SOmalis control the econmy in Kenya by taking over from the Indians. We have many politicians well placed into the system fot hat country. Muslims in Mombasa are with us. So basiccally we own Kenya.
TO Ethiopia, we own the biggest land, Oromos the majority of Ethiopia are firendly to us. 50 or more % are Muslim in Ethiopia and associate with Somalia, Eritrea is our Friend. Only Mountain people can go against us.
Above all, Somalia has the gutts to do this, without feering US and EU.
So given these facts, SOmalia can Annexx both of these countries.
However, it should not be our policy to do this.
This writer is a narrow minded fool who does not have any clue of what he is talking about about.
Somalia will think of Annexing any of its neighbours and if its neighbors start thinking so, we know how to respond with swift defeat.
10/04/08 @ 12:00
Comment from: Confussed [Visitor]
I was reading the credentials and experience of this so called the writer of this article, and come to the point of imagining the thoughts of his likes but less credentials. I guess they will imagine annexing the USA as well. All I can say is that this writer is loosing his mind and soon be a mad naked fool running around the streets begging for “Ugali”.
For those of you who applauded to his stupidest idea of all time are also thoughtless idiots. The matter of fact is that both Ethiopia and Kenya are barely making their needs let alone annexing another nation.
You all be really!
10/04/08 @ 12:32
Comment from: Seleme [Visitor]
. . . i dont agree,. . .let them live alone!. . .
10/04/08 @ 13:05
Comment from: Time [Visitor]
HERE IS THE FEEDBACK FROM THE EDITOR IN RESPONSE TO COMMENTS AND MY FOLLOW UP RESPONSE:
Mohamed,
Thanks for your comments though part of them are unnecessarily vitriolic! The strand of my thesis is that if Somalia can’t fix its problems since 1960 and be able to exploit its minerals then kenya and ethiopia should do it!
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone provided by Celtel Kenya
————————————
With all due respect Mr. Kipkorir, who would fix Ethiopia and Kenya’s problems? Did Kenya and Ethiopia exploit their resources? I think you are using lame excuse to bring forth your hidden agenda. Please advocate for civility and respect among the nighbouring countries. If we look at Kenya, solving the problem of Nairobi slums, disease and poverty will take years. Why don’t you concern yourself with that? It is humilating to suggest poor and backward countries like Ethiopia and Kenya should annex another African country. Why have you never talked of annexing Rwanda, Burundi, Angola, and Zaire to mention a few?
Your comment has no place in modern Africa. If you are among the peace loving Kalenjin people who are very friendly to Somalis, you would write an appology article in response to the ill thought and sinister article you titled “Annexing Somalia”.
10/04/08 @ 13:28
Comment from: el [Visitor]
Somali [Visitor]
assuming you are Somalian, where did you get your facts about Somalia’s GDP being higher than ethiopia or Somalia having more universities than ethiopia? It doesn’t actually matter whither you are somalian or Eritrean since you both have a lot in common in terms of being the only so called nations in the world with no annual budget and higher education(university) to talk about, let alone GDP . be happy you are not alone.
10/04/08 @ 13:47
Comment from: United Alem [Visitor]
I WILL POOT IT IN SHORT !…. NO NEED TO CREAT AGAIN EAST AFRICAN EVERLASTING WAR AS PALESTINE AND ISRAEL BETWEEN ETHIOPAN AND SOMALIAN!!!!!!EVEN 1000000 % WORST THAN PALESTINIAN AND ISRAEL!!!! “GOMEN/CABAGE BETEN” SANG TSHAY YOHANES
10/04/08 @ 14:07
Comment from: Tesfaye [Visitor]
Emperor minilk said if god gave him the the bless to live longer and in health, he would annex all territories along the indian ocean coastline.
When he aimed this He ignored the Eritreans(BANDAS)at the moment.
But minilik died before accomplishment.
Now Meles Zenawi look like
accomplishing what Minilk started.
10/04/08 @ 14:08
Comment from: mo [Visitor]
did i heard him say somalis have more per-capita then kenya.that says alot isn’t it? if that is the case knowing kenya has more per-capita then ethopia,they could only invade with artificially sustained armies. its a fact that we are prosprering more than you lot eventhougt we didnot have proper governemet for ages.what will happen if we have peace god knos
10/04/08 @ 14:38
Comment from: jank@mail.com [Visitor]
MY ANSWER IS SIMPLE YES!
WHY DID YOU TAKE YOU LONG!
for starter I have a fealing Somilian in Ethiopian have better life then Somilian in Somilian… Ethiopian problem is always money otherwise we are much modern people… even much better advance people then USA… we are very poor but we are not killing each or fool reason… you don’t some one telling you he will kill you because you are muslim etc etd.. or he doesn’t like because you are this or that ethnic groups… beside we are not war like people… we respect rule and law we vaule human life….
Beside on this Somilian would be better of ruled by Ethiopian under Ethiopian flag…
To make sure this become a reality we should arm all woman in Somilia give them gun to proect themselves from war lord… once we are all the woman in Somilia the man will lose their power… The man can not go around and tell the woman to sew their privet part… if they do the woman police officer will coem and take him to jail… you see if you want the woman right to be respected then you should give woman power how by giving them power meaning gun… GUN MEAN POWER IN AFRICA… if the woman misss use the gun and attack the Ethiopian army then that is their lose…
In fact armying the woman would be the best staragy even in all Arab countries… if all the woman have gun… how in hell the man will going to oppress them?
100,000 woman army will do the job to fix the men… now the warlord can’t wear the woman dress and do their drity job the woman will stop him!!!!
Eritean have woman army… some northern arab country also have woman army… if the woman feed up with this BS then they should be happy to fitght for their freedom…. if they didnot then they are have only themselves to belmeam
10/04/08 @ 14:53
Comment from: Shewarega [Visitor]
Somalia is a sovreign nation. What ever problem they have within them, including those of Somalilan/Puntland belongs to them. Having said that, I think Somalis should also stop this never ending plot of attacking and plotting against Ethiopia. We can all go to history and talk about who did what to whom. But lets just live that alone, and let us both strive to first reconstitute Somalia, and second bring about true Democratic governments in both countries. For Democratic nations do not spend their day plotting how to destabilize, or conquer their neighbors. Somalia had one chance to grab territories from Ethiopia. That was 1977 when Ethiopia was swept by revolution. But look what that brought upon Somalia. It disintegrated at its seems. And you fed and bred Meles, who was carrying a Somali passport, and you got what you deserved. He is bombing and destroying your homes. I think the bottom line is this talk of annexing Somalia is a joke. On the same token Somalis should stop this dream of grabbing land from their neighbors. The most important thing is that those who live there get a voice, and are beneficiaries of what they possess. I for one will be very happy if there is peace in Ogaden, and the oil is brought out to change the lives of those long suffering people there.
10/04/08 @ 15:26
Comment from: coolman [Member]
All of you people trumpeting for this
outrageous idea suffer from delusion of grandeur, which has proven to be the best recipe for disaster.
Thank God none of you seats at the wheel of power. What is next, Madagaskar? I think we should start with Sudan. And, with the oil money, we can buy all those fancy weapons and cash in Egypt and Libya.
Oh, Talian gudish fela, we are coming to get you too.
Peace
10/04/08 @ 15:31
Comment from: Mr Fair [Visitor]
I don’t know where Mr. Kopkirir grew up but I can see a dangerous mix of hate and ignorance.
If Southern and Central Somalia where part of Kenya, I have no doubt that withing few years, Kenya would have turned into a Somali dictatorship, Woyane style.
Kikuyu, Luo, Kalenjin etc. would have been just like the Gurage, Afar, Wolyta etc in Ethiopia i.e nice hard working people who have nothing to do with power struggle. In a few decades, there would probably be another Mao Mao to kick out the Somalis, or there may be Kenyan Liberation Front.
Somali Kenyans represent about 3% of the Kenyan population at the same time they control a big junk of the economy and they controlled the military to some extent. Raise that percentage to about 18% and Kenya would be in a big trouble.
What about Puntaland and Somaliland (Northern and Northwestern Somalia) being part of Ethiopia?
Here are two scenarios;
If they decide to fight occupation, then they are the ones who can organize themselves the most and they can wage a war comparable to that of Eritrea. Actually the Somalilanders (Nortwest) and the Ogadenis were historically the bulwark against the expansionist Ethiopian kings and they had the upper hand until European colonialists tied their hands(there was weapons embargo on all Somali Speaking region for more than 70 years).
If they decide to forget about Somali ethnocentrism, hold hands with their muslim brothers in the Horn, and compete for power withing Ethiopia, then the fundamentalist Ethiopian Orthodox church would be in trouble. That would have been a big boost for the humbled Ethiopian Muslims.
A short answer for the whole article would have been;
Tried it and good luck.
10/04/08 @ 16:14
Comment from: jank@mail.com [Visitor]
RE:-Somalia is a sovreign nation.
Next you will tell us they are Muslim nation.. you see sovereign nation doesn’t rap and murder their own people..
be it in Muslim be it in any law NO! country have the right to kill their own citizen… I have no marcy for those killer and murderer hiding behind Sovreign nation crap!
If they want to be respected as Sovreign ation then why are they looting the sea? if they are Msulim why are they looting at Gun point.. they are not Msulim yes they hide behind Muslim cover but what they did is not Isalam…
The old day where a sovreign nation can do any crap as they wish in their own people is gone… if you don’t trust me ask those Bosinan Msulim they got help from USA… when their own nation kill them
My point is Somilian are not a sovreign nation they break all the rule in the book be it UN rule be it Muslim rule be it devil rule be it any rule… they burn the rule and the holy book
my friend when white colonzation end the black colonzation started we Ethiopian will be the first to stop this black colonzation they like it or not..
I hope the Russian would be very happy to help us out to restore peace and law and rule in Ethiopia… it not today 20 years later Somilian will be greatful for the help we give them at their time of need…
MY question to any Ethipian would be you would not mind if the Somilian come and kick out Meles? I know you will not mind! that is why you are working with Eritrean to kick Meles therefore what is the diffrent here… if we help the Somilian people kick out the war lord…
as united with Ethiopia we are the same people think about it the federal system will sove all our proplem they can keep their port but all Somilian or Ethiopian will not need visa to come and work in Ethiopia or Somilia we use the birr and Somilaian currecy… us see we don’t want to control them we only want to be hlep that all..
From: Charles Banda
Sent: Monday, 29 July 2013, 19:15
Subject: Tanzania, Come Now, Let Us Reason Together Over Lake Malawi Dispute!
Since the Lake Malawi dispute egressed some 50 years ago, a lot has been said but less has been done to completely put it to rest. Malawi has for many times challenged that not even an inch of this lake will go to Tanzania citing 1890 treaty between German and Britain while on the other hand Tanzania challenges, “we will make sure that we own half of Lake Nyasa/Malawi, we have to correct mistakes made by our colonial masters”, citing international water body law.
When you look at these statements, you’ll note that each side has effectual argument. I see that neither Malawi nor Tanzania should underestimate the other’s argument.
What I would wish the two countries is to come and reason together just as God called Israelites to come to Him and reason together (Isaiah 1:18). We can’t fight now, please. I know that either national reading this is anxious as to what am I trying to say.
I see that Malawi is right that Lake Malawi belongs to it according to 1890 treaty and Tanzania is right to suggest rectifying colonial errors and follow international water body law. Colonial masters decided on how the borders should go, against the will of the locals since we had no authority to decide on our lands if we did maybe we could not face these wrangles today. This applies to all African countries since all were on one time under colonialism. These border demarcations are still the ones used in all African countries today. Through them, other countries are savouring enough space while others such as Malawi have no space to breathe, so rectifying colonial errors would be a good idea.
What is needed in this dispute is clear and conscience reasoning without competition, selfish ambition or thinking about war. In every dispute, it is unwise to talk about war because there can always be a civilized solution. Like I said in my other article, in real sense, no country wins war because even if it goes in one’s favour, both countries loose lives of their citizens, resources, peace, development is retarded, friends from the two countries get separated. During war, there is serious hunger, diseases, rape, loss of property, education and worship get interrupted and almost all government resources go to war etc., so please, consider these before you mention war. It is easy to merely talk about war but when it starts you wish it was never there. It is unfortunate that even ordinary citizens are mentioning about war forgetting that when it starts, politicians will be the very last ones to face a bullet if at all, any. Tell me, how many frontline politicians died in Rwanda, Congo, Libya, Iran, Iraqi, Mali and other war-tone countries? Tell me, how many ordinary citizens died? They died in millions. When politicians say, “we are ready to shed blood for our land”, they actually mean ordinary citizens’ blood, not theirs. Tell me, which politician died during July 20, 2011 anti-government demonstrations in Malawi? None of them, but they were the ones who instigated it.
There have been war threats from Tanzanian side for some time but of late, it has stopped and adopted civilized way of solving the dispute. When Tanzania kept on issuing war threats to Malawi, one time Joyce Banda said, “I am ready to die for my land” without mentioning Lake Malawi dispute, something that Tanzanian government trashed interpreting it directly to the Lake Malawi dispute. When Tanzania’s President mentioned about Tanzanian Defence Force being ready to defend their land, some Malawian citizens interpreted it as if he made reference to Lake Malawi dispute. In his speech, Kikwete did not mention Malawi for Tanzania is also exchanging words with Rwanda. Recently Paul Kagame publicly threatened to hit Jakaya Kikwete, perhaps he referred to him, who knows. This link will take you to what Kagame saidhttp://www.afroamerica.net/AfricaGL/2013/07/03/i-will-just-wait-for-you-at-the-right-place-and-i-will-hit-you-rwandan-general-paul-kagame-threatens-tanzanian-jakaya-kikwete/. All this shows that no country
wishes to loose part of its land or resources, but let’s be patient. It is good to get things with clear mind before provoking war. It is good that Malawi has not officially responded to it and I wish it doesn’t so that peace may prevail. Let the peaceful negotiations take course.
Right now we are enjoying cordial relationship with Tanzania apart from exaggerated dispute which some sectors want to magnify. As we are talking, Tanzanians are freely passing through Malawi and Malawians are freely passing through Tanzania going to other countries or even settle in either country.
Malawians are trading with Tanzanians getting cars and other goods through Tanzania’s port. Diplomatic ties are still intact. As I am writing, Tanzanians and Malawians are using Lake Malawi/Nyasa. Isn’t that good? So why talk about war?
My reasoning is as follows; since time in memorial, Malawi and Tanzania have both peacefully used Lake Malawi/Nyasa up until Malawi issued Sure-stream oil drilling license. Probably Tanzania is thinking about its citizens that they will suffer if oil drilling starts on Lake Malawi. That can be good reasoning, isn’t it? On the same note, an ordinary Malawian who benefits from fishing will also suffer. When oil drilling starts, it is only the political elites who may benefit. Tell me, what have we really benefited from Kayerekela millennium mine since it begun? Have we experienced any economic growth through it? Almost none and we are just like before or even worse! We only bank on farming. Apart from oil drilling, we can increase on manufacturing industry which for many years we have not put much effort. I suggest, Malawi government haut oil drilling for the sake of an ordinary citizen. I think Tanzania will also be happy, isn’t it Tanzanians?
Coming to Tanzania’s point of correcting border colonial errors, if they so wish, though not affecting other African countries, I suggest we do. One Malawian national called Pef, on his response to my earlier article on Lake Malawi dispute rebuked me saying, “Musanditukwanitse mwanva! Intelligent people are busy solving problems but only the wise avoids problems. Kodi iwe ukudzitcha pastor Masikmau iwe, ukati negotiations should end without war, ukuganiza zingatheke popanda wina kugonja?….” (Give me a break, you who call yourself pastor Masikamu, do you think the dispute can end without one country giving up?…”. He thinks I call myself a pastor while I am not one, so interesting. However, don’t you think what he said has some sense? Probably yes. He suggested that for the sake of peace, Malawi should give up. I believe he was a Malawian because he wrote in efficient Chichewa language. Pastor Salanje had a similar idea also. While agreeing with them, I believe we can do it in a better way by implementing a win-win game, or what do you think my fellow Malawian citizens? Malawi has a very small land size than our good neighbour, Tanzania. Since Nyasaland lost some land to Tanganyika under British-Germany treaty, we can reason together with our neighbours to give us part of their land while we hand over part of Lake Malawi. In this way, correcting colonial border errors will go in favour of both of us because the errors made by colonial masters did not only affect Tanganyika on Lake Nyasa but also Nyasaland on the land size. I think if any of the two countries deny this equal lion’s share, that country is provocative and aggressive.
In my conclusion I would like to say that, let both Malawi and Tanzania pray that no country looses on the resolution taking place through SADC former heads of states but that we will have a win-win type of conflict resolution. I suggest that we do not in any way mention war for such an idea is truly not from God but the evil one to disrupt our peace because the devil hates peace but delights in deaths. Thank God, Jesus brought life through his death on the cross so that we can live beyond death. We are brothers and sisters from way back before colonialism of which colonialism separated our families into these two countries. If either of the countries is not satisfied with the results of these negotiations, we can still seek help from International Court of Justice (ICJ), and if its resolution will go in favour of one of the two countries or both, we shall keep peace.
God bless Tanzania and Malawi!
Pastor Robert Masikamu (Public Advisor).
From: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste in images
TUESDAY, JUNE 18, 2013
Just like the police force was formed to protect colonial business interests, it explains why Jubilee government would prefer to retain this structure. It also explains why the conflict between the office of the Inspector General of Police David Kimaiyo and that of National Police Service Commission Johnston Kavuludi on appointments can never be resolved.
According to the old constitution the function of the police was to enable the colonial administration to penetrate “native” areas and enforce the policies of the colonial administration.
It was this function and structure that gave power to police boss in Kisumu, Grace Kaindi, who has been promoted to Deputy Inspector General to give orders to shoot to kill in Kisumu during 2007/08 post-election violence.
With such appointments, it will mean that rebellion symptomatic of rifts within Kenya’s police force over harsh tactics ordered to suppress opposition protests will continue to take place.
With this old structure junior police officers are to act on orders from their superiors. If they are ordered to kill they will do exactly that. If they are ordered to use force, brutality or even use live bullets to kill opposition supporters protesting constitutionally, they will do exactly that.
That is why during the post-election violence many deaths have been caused by police, who have fired tear gas and live rounds at protesters. Several police officers had been given “shoot-to-kill” orders, “a general rebellion which has been compounded by that kind of orders.”
With this structure it will also mean that salaries of the police will never be reviewed. Until June 2007, according to police pay slip of one particular police- Peter Kinyanjui: basic salary is Ks 15,000, Hse allowance 0, Gross salary 15, 0000, Deductions: Magereza SACCO 3,000.00, NHIF 320.00, NSSF 200.00, PAYE 2,740.00, Loan repayment 3,260.00- KCB LOAN 2,250.00, Total Deductions 11,770.00- Net Pay 3,230.00.
Despite the fact that this old structure has made the police very susceptible to corruption and crime in the country, Jubilee government to make Police Force in Kenya to remain a law unto itself, explaining why Inspector General David Kimaiyo defied National Police Service Commission chairman Johnstone Kavuludi by releasing a list of 47 county commanders without consulting.
This means that in order to appoint police boss who can act as the eye of the government, Kimaiyo for that matter is the right person to carry out that responsibility because he is the only one who can be trusted by the government.
This can explain clearly why in recent appointment of county police commissioners and the County CID heads, where Stanley Cheruiyot was appointed to Kisumu county, the appointments had to be carried contrary to section 7(2) of the National Police Service Act which states that all officers shall undergo vetting by the (National Police Service) Commission to assess their suitability and competence.
This section was entrenched in the new constitution following a history of human rights abuses by the Kenya Police. It also aimed at police reform, given that Kenyan police are poorly paid and have to make use with archaic housing that has not been expanded or renovated since the 1970s.
The Police have the following units: Criminal Intelligence Department, General Service Unit, Police Air-Wing, Presidential Escort, Kenya Police College, Kenya Airports Police Unit, Tourist Police, Railways Police, Traffic Police, Dog Unit, Anti Stock Theft Unit, Anti-Terrorism Unit, and Diplomatic Police.
Although Kimaiyo was appointed due to his wide experience in the police force, he is to lie low to instructions contrary to his professionalism.
Born on July 1, 1960, David Kimaiyo has a Bachelors of Arts Degree in Criminology and Criminal Administration from the University of South Africa (UNISA) and from KCA University.
He also undertook a course from the University of Leicester for his MSC, also holds a Bachelor of Theology from the Beacon University of Institute Ministry in USA, a Master of Science in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, a Master of Theology from the Beacon University of Institute Ministry, USA.
He is currently pursuing a PhD in Criminology and Social order from the University o f Nairobi. Until his appointment to the Inspector post, he has been the Director/Coordinator of the Kenya National Focal Point on Small Arms and Light Weapons.
He served as a Senior Deputy Secretary in the Ministry of National Heritage and Culture from 2008 – 2009. He was the Director of Operations of the Kenya Police from 2003 to 2008. He was Coordinator of the Kenya National Focal Point on Small Arms and Light Weapons from 2003 to 2004 and Commandant General Service Unit (GSU) from 2002 to 2003.
Kimaiyo also served as the Commander Presidential Escort Unit (PEU) from 1999 to 2002 and holds an advanced VIP protection Course from Tel Aviv in Israel.
According to his CV, he has Certificate on the Regional Implementation of the United Nations Programme of Action (UNPOA) on Small Arms and Light Weapons and on Strategic Trade Control Implementation, Legal Regulatory Training, from the University of Georgia Centre for International Trade and Security, Washington DC in USA attained in 2012.
He also holds a Certificate in Arms Making for Stockpile Management, Nairobi attained in 2010. Kimaiyo’s CV says he attained a Certificate in illicit Small Arms and Light Weapons Course (ILEA) from Gaborone Botswana in 2004 and in the same year acquired a special training in Crisis management and contingency Planning Course RIPA International United Kingdom.
He holds several awards such Order of the Chief of Burning Spear (CBS), Order of the Elder of the Burning Spear (EBS), Order of the Moran of the Burning Spear (MBS), Head of State Commendation among others. He becomes the first IG under the new constitution.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
Tel +254 7350 14559/+254 722 623 578
E-mail omolo.ouko@gmail.com
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Twitter-@8000accomole
Real change must come from ordinary people who refuse to be taken hostage by the weapons of politicians in the face of inequality, racism and oppression, but march together towards a clear and unambiguous goal.
-Anne Montgomery, RSCJ UN Disarmament Conference, 2002
WAS “NYANG’IDI THE HUGE SNAKE OF GOOD HOPE OR OF BAD OMEN, DISASTROUS AND NATURAL CATASTROPHE AND CALAMITY?.
Short Story By Leo Odera Omolo who traces a historical disastrous which occurred in Nyanza Province in 1940
It was in the early part of the year 940 when a mysterious creature visited some low-laying locations in Nyanza Province in what is today called Rarieda district.
A huge and excessively big snake visited Uyoma Peninsula. It slithered from the direction of Kunya in Kabudha a
The huge snake is believed to have slithered out of Lake Victoria in search of food, but it was of a snake species which has never been seen in the area and nothing in comparison with the known species as it was excessively huge and long
THe reptile is appeared to have traveled by night. Its presence in the village attracted thousands of people.
The big tree has previously been used as the venue of weekly administrative Baraza by the first colonial administrative chief of Uyoma, the late Chief Otumba Mbede. The place is called “Gunda Kotumba” it is situated next to the homestead of the former Chief’s son Nathan Ojungo Otumba, who had inherited his chieftainship, but was retired around 1927.
According to the account of some still surviving eye witnesses, the snake was which was baptized by the villagers as “Nyang’idi “was three time longer than the normal python and resembled the common python in color. Its body was so huge that the eye witnesses compared its size to that of the rear tyre of a tractor.
The reptile resembled the “African Rock python which is usually larger and longer than the common python, and even stronger. The serpent was not aggressive and posed no threat to anyone. Thousands of people came to Chianda villagfe,some of them travelling on bicycle or on foot as far as away as from Yimbo, Alego Usonga, Gem, Seme, Sakwa, Asembo and even across the narrow water way of the Nyanza Gulf { previously known as the Kavirondo Gulf} from Suba and other locations in Southern Nyanza just to come and have a glimpse of the mysterious snake.
It was being fed with two animals every day or half a dozen of chickens. The huge snake was never scared of disturbed by huge crowd that milled around the creature. The crowd brought the live animals which were given as sacrifice for feeding the creature.
The animals on which it feed on for a couple of weeks were sacrifices made by the elders and sub-clans in Uyoma. And because it was during the Second World War II, which had started in earnest in the previous year 1939, the colonial administration in Nyanza got the winds of the news and became alarmed, after the white missionaries had warned that the population in the region was just about to start worshiping the mysterious creature.
The white missionaries were also alarmed by the volume of people flocking to Uyoma the mysterious creature.
As the usual culture of the Luos, the musicians also composed songs of praise for “Nyangidi” sending the white missionaries into great panicking.
Acting under the pressure of the white missionaries, the then Nyanza Provincial Commissioner a Mr Hunter asked the Kisumu based colonial District Commissioner a Mr Winright to immediately dispatch the team of sharp-shooter Administration policemen to Uyoma to go and shoot, kill land destroy the huge snake.
When the three armed APs arrived at Chianda School, they were shown the tree under which Nyang’idi was resting after a mean of a sheep, the police men developed cold feet and refused to open fire on it saying it was a mysterious creature not worth killing and the policemen went back to Kisumu without firing even one single shot at the creature.
Some people who saw the creature included Hon Wilson Ndolo Ayah, the former MP for Kisumu Rural constituency. He had just joined lower primary classes at Chianda Primary School and was staying with his uncle the late Ex-Chief Nathan Ojungo Otumba.Mr Ayah on a telephone interview with this writer said he was among the smaller boys who collected grass and covered the body of the snake as it rested under a tree during warm hours of the afternoon. Ayah served in the Moi’s KANU government as Foreign Affairs Minister and at one time Minister for Water Development admitted that he had seen this mysterious creature before he physically saw any python. Mr Ayah is on his 85 years.
Another eye witness is Mrs Grace Deya Omoso, the daughter of the late Ex-Chief Nathan Ojungo Otumba who is now ageing abut 86.Contacted at her home near Wang’arot in SemeMrs Omoso said Nyang’idi was a harmless creature.Children could even move close to where it had recoiled under the tree and play around.
Mr Ayah said the creature left mysteriously and slithered at night and the next morning many people trailed its footprint which looked like a place where a D8 or D10 heavy earthmoving tractor had passed. It travelled toward the neighboring Asembo location and was later seen in Akado area of Seme west before it permanently disappearing in the horizon.
The following year 1941 the entire Luo-Nyanza was hit by acute shortage of food grain. The worse famine came about which was baptized Ke Ladhri or Ke-Aladhra which his the area like thunderstorm up to 1943. Many people died of hunger.
Two prominent colonial chiefs died. They were Chief Ahenda of Alego and Chief Onunga Amimo of Kano plains.
Two prominent medizinemen {Witchdoctors} also died. They were Katete Owuor {Rambo} of Rusinga Island and Abang’a |Oungu of Uyoma. A wealthy businessman on Rusinga Olunga Onyango also died.A unit of Luo soldiers mutinied in Madagascar laying down their armed and demanding to be told the reason and the cause on which they were fighting for.
The mutiny became so serious that the colonial administration ordered for A RAF war plane stationed in eastern Uganda to fly one influential Luo Chief to the Indian Ocean Island of Madagascar to go and persuade the soldier to continue with fighting. The late Mzee Paul Mboya from Karachuonyo was chosen for task. Mboya, however, failed and almost got assaulted by the rebellious Luo soldiers and was flown back. He was quickly replaced by the late Chef Muganda Opwapo of Ugenya. Chief Muganda succeeded.
It was one year after Nyangidi disappearance when the formidable anti-colonialist campaigner Coun.Daniel Ojijo Oteko, died mysteriously at a government hospital in Kisumu. Thedeath of Ojijo Oteko raised political temperature in the region as the population pointed accusing fingers to the chiefs and colonial administrators.
The sealed off casket containing the body of the late Ojijo Oteko was taken immediately to his home in Kanjira in West Karachuonyo and buried with only his wife allowed near the coffin which was buried under the supervision of security police and thousands mourners harshly dispersed.
The year after the appearance of Nyang’idi SNAKE IN Uyoma was the same when Chief Paul Mboya sent packing the late Hussein Onyango Obama, the grand father of the US Present Barack Obama and forced him out of his home at Kanyadhiang’ in Central Karachuyonyo to go to Nyang’oma Alego in Siaya.
The two had disagreed over Hussein Onyango Obama closeness to the politician the late Ojijo Oteko.The action came after Mboya who was the then the Chief of Karachuonyo had issued repeated warnings to Obama to steer clear of political activities in the erea. The two had disagreed on a trophy ,which Hussein Onyangoi bought while working in Nairobi and brought home and wished it be used on a football tournament involved inter-sub-clans, but the Chief retained the trophy to his own clan despite his team having been beaten.
People who were born at the time of the visit by the mysterious snake are now ageing about 62 and above. Most of them are found n Sakwa Bondo, Yimbo, Asembo and Uyoma and even in Karachuonyo.
A MEGA land scandal, which looked similar to the now infamous “Anglo Leasing Financial Scandal” has hit Kericho town like Tsunami. It has prompted the residents to call for the revocation of the allotment and start a fresh. This is after it has been discovered that those earmarked to be settled on the land were not given anything. But the D.C. and the Town’s chief had chosen to allocate the land for themselves.
The ex-Kericho Municipal Councilors, relatives and friends of the former MPs, and their political cronies undeservedly benefited from illegal allotment.
The residents were now up in arms appealing to the Kericho County governor Prof. Paul Kiprono Chepkwony to order for all the pieces o land which were dished out t undeserved persons revoked for fresh re-allocation.
Prof Chepkwony could not be reached for his comment as it was stated that he had travelled outside the region.
The scandal involved the peace of land parcel in the town ,which was set aside by the government to be use in settling members the landless Talai{Laibon} who returned to the region in 1962 after being force into colonial exile for 40 years by the former British Colonial rulers.
The Talai clan estimated to be numbering about 259 families have since been living in a small piece of land which belonged to the Municipal Council of Kericho in the most squalid condition.
Al l the previous KANU administration had failed to have the Talai clan settled on the land they can call their own ever since independence. But the defunct coalition government headed by he retired President Mwi Kibaki and the Prime Minister Raila Odinga had agree to have the matter solved once for all. The government negotiated with one of the multinational Tea companies operating in Kericho and Bomet Counties and secured the land which is next to the posh Tea Hotel.
The Prime Minister visited Kericho on several occasion in the company of the then Lands minister James Aggrey Orengo and it was agreed that the Talai people be settled.
Unconfirmed allegation and rumor say the DC had allocated himself five plots of 500X100 each using the names of his junior staff, mainly the local Kipsigis working in his office including Administration Policemen. The D.C.Joseph Njora has since been transferred to Makueni district in Eastern Province. All the alleged grabbed plots were sold like hot cake.
It is also being rumored that former Belgut MP Charles Keter who is now the Senator for Kericho had the lion’s share. All of his supporters and his multi-million cousin Ken Mutai were the beneficiaries. Former Kericho Mayor John Kauria, it is being alleged, to have grabbed several plots.
Most of the ex-Councilors who grabbed the plots are said to have quickly sold them and have since been seen driving sleek new cars in own.
The MP who benefited from the allocation included Magerer Lang’at [Kipkellion} and the Chief Town Duncan Bii is said to have allocate himself 12 plots.
Prior to the negotiation between he government and the Unilever Tea company, the company had already earmarked the plot toe used in establishing an aborreterum in own. The grabbers who seemed to have been in hurry moved in with the snake speed and started demarcating the land even before the el was sealed off and the land surveyed as required by the law. The grabbers went as far as breaking the beacons of the adjacent land plot and house belonging to the former director of the Brooke Bond tea Company Mzee Musa sang’.
Members of the Talai sub-clans were previously scattered in various districts whose inhabitants are the members of the larger Kalenjin ethnic groups. The had their ancestral land homes in Emngwen, Nandi County, Kericho and Bomet Counties, Baringo and Koibatek,mosty Eldama Ravine and in other regions.
But following the malicious ad falsified accusation by the colonial chiefs, white missionaries and white selrs, that they were practicing witchcraft, the Colonial administration in Kenya I the year 1934 ordered thathey be rounded up and exiled in a remote section of Gwassi Hills in South Nyanza.
Some of them were vanished in Northern Tanzania. Some of their elderly leaders were detained in Embu, Meru and Nyeri prisons where they died. Other were dispatched to Kismayu while one who was known as Arap Koilgen was detained on Mfangano island inside Lake Victoria where he died around 1956In 1961 one a diminutive Member of the Colonial Legislative Council the late Dr Taaitta Araap Toweett, who was representing the entire Kipsigis region moved a motion in the House asked the government to allow thetalai n toreturn toteir ancestral land. The motion which was supported by other MLC including Daniel T Moi, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Dr Julius Kiano,Tom Mboya and other nationalist was accepted by the colonial government.
And in the middle of the 1962 when it was only six months to the attainment of Kenya’s political independence
As political independence the journey of returning home.
The deal , however, was hurriedly and poorly negotiated and brokered with the British colonial administration and did not produce a tangible plan and program for the land on which the returnee could be settled on.
All the land previously owned by the Talai clan had been taken over by their neighbors and relatives during the many exile.
In Nndi the Talai oved nd settled in a place called Kaptel near the SDA University of East Africa {Barraton} and settle at Kapsisiywo, Other went to Cheranganyi,other to Trans-Nzoia and Uasin Gishu districts and found land for them in the settlement schemes. Others went Eldama Ravine Iand Baringo County.
Their population had grew from 2700 to about 7000 people.So aboiut 200 family remain stuck as squatters in Keicho Municipality for all these years.
This is the can of the famous freedom fighter Orkoiyioyot Koitalel Arap Samoei w hose rug-tug forces of the Nandi warriors fought he British for nine years and also prevented tem from building and completing the Mombasa-Kisumu Railways l ine. Samoei was shot and killed in 1905 after he was tricked to attend a peace meeting with the head of the British expedition forces who shot it point-blank.
The Talai before their expulsion were being accused by the colonial chiefs of practicing sorcery and preventing the population from becoming member of the churches and the youth from acquiring modern education in schools run by missionaries. Other allegations were that they were intimidating the white settlers and stopping from acquiring more land for tea plantation in Kericho, Sotik ,Nandi Hills and other areas.
A KENYAN VETERAN JOURNALIST WHO WITNESSED THE BIRTH OF THE OAU 50 YEARS AGO RECALS HOW THE LATE GAMAL ABDUL NASSER OF EGYPT AND AHMED BEN-BELL OF ALGERIA WERE RECEIVED WITH ULULATION AND STANDING OVATION IN ADDIS ABABA
By Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City,Saturday 25th May 2013
I was lucky to have been among the youthful budding journalists who were privileged to witness the birth of the Organization of African Unity {OAU} on May 25,1963.
This was the second largest Pan-African political gathering to be held in an African independent country. The first such major pan-African political gathering was held in Accra ,Ghana in December 1958.
Thomas Joseph Mboya, then twenty year-old Kenya member of the colonial Legislative Council for Nairobi and a leading Pan-Africanist trade unionist was elected unanimously to chair the Accra meeting beating the host Ghanaian President Dr Kwame Nkrumah {Osyageffo} with the largest number of votes.
In Addis Ababa the summit of the OAU was initial attended by 21 heads of states of the African governments. 15 other joined later in the process brining the initial number of founding fathers to 36.
Today the OAU which later transformed itself into African Union has 54 member countries including the hotly disputed Saharawi Republic.
It was during the cold war, and there were evidence of covrt operations between members of the intelligence communities from ther East and West. The two blocs were scrambling for the control of Africa’s political and economies at the time.
The man who stole the show and looked the most popular head of state was the Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser, his popularity emanating from his firm stand and beating off the Allied Invasion of the Suez Canal in 1956.Thius was after the British and France combined forces had invaded Suez Canal and Alexandria, which sparked off the middle East Crisis of 1957.
President Ahmed Ben-Bell was just smarting from the .Both Nasser and Ben-Bella had become an house hold across the African continent.
Other heads of states in attendance at the initial stage were Hompught Boigny of Ivory Coast, Leon Mba of Gabon, the poet-writer Leopold Senghor of Senegal. Olympio of Togo,Ahmed Sekou Toure of Guinea,Jomo Kenyatt of Kenya, the Prime Minister of Uganda Dr Apollo Milton Obote, Julius \Kambasrage \Nyerere of Tanganyika. AlI Muhsin of Zanzibar,Dr Sharmake of Somalia,.Chiuef Leabue Jonathan of Lesotho
THe meeting took place before the formation of the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar which was later christened Tanzania a year later after the rug-tug soldiers led by a Ugandan carpenter John Okello overthrew the Sultante of Zanzibar in 1964 paving the way for the formation of the Union between the mainland Tanganyika and the Isles of Zanzibar and Pemba, which became Tanzania.
The African countries which were still struggling to free themselves from the Yolk of colonialism were given the observers status between the mainland Tanganyika and the Isles of Zanzibar and Pemba.
Notable present at the Africa Hall, which also houses the UN Economic Commission for Africa {ECA}
President Jomo Kenyatta a personal friend of the Emperor Haile Selassie was accommodated in a suit located inside Gion Hotel, a walking distance to Africa Hall and also a short distance to the Menelik Palace,the official residence of Emperor Haile Selassie.
Other prominent Pan-Africanists who attended the inception of the OAU included the late George Padmore of Trinidad and Tobago, Dubois. Padmore was the adviser of Dr.Nkrumah on Pan-African affairs.Dr Namdi Azikiwe of Naigeria, Sir Abubakas Tafawa Balewa the Federal Prime Minister of Nigeria,Kenneth David Kaunda nf Zambia and Dr Hasting Kamuzu Banda oif Malawi.
The radical camp which was led by Dr.Nkrumah and Nasser had an agenda of wanted the founding fathers to work out on the charter and agenda of for the creation of the United States of Africa the model of the USA, but this was found to be impracticable due to the fact that almost close to half of the African continent was still under the occupation and colonialists and racists white South Africans.
The meeting began after the official opening ceremony in an electrifying speech by the Emperor Haile Salassie on May 22nd.But it encountered problem in the afternoon of the same day when the government ofCongo Leopoldville presented two sets of delegations. One delegation had come from the ceciuonist leader Moise Tshombe of Katanga and was led by one Godfroid Munongo, while the Leopoldville delegation was led by its then Minister for Foreign Affairs Justin Bomboko.
There werealso several splinter delegation like those of the Srahawi Republic and Morocco.But our gounding father used their political magnanimity and cooled down the situation. The Francophone Anglophone differences also emerged during the meeting. but was shot down and watered with anti-colonialism sentiments.
Kenya’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Joseph Murumbi was busy shuttling between Africa Hall and Gion Hotrel whenever he was required for consultations by President Kenyatta. The other Kenyan minister who looked busy was Dr. Mungai Njoroge, who was also acting as the personal physician of President Kenyatta.Tom Mboya was another Minister assigned a lot of work by the President. He was the Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs..
President Julius Kambarage Nyerere had brought along his Minister for External Affairs and Defense, the flamboyant Oscar Kambona who was then the Secretary-General of the ruling TANU party.Dr Hasting Kamuzu Banda had Kanyama Chiume a journalist as his country Minister for Foreign Affairs, whileDr. Obote had Sam Odaka and Adoko Nekyon as his principal advisers.
Dr Nkurumah the Ghanaian president had Alexei quesedion as his Foreign Affairs Minister.Things were so cheap in Addis Ababa, especially in the Mariketo area, one could buy an autoimatic pistal with full ammunition loaded in its magazine or a hunting rifles in the street provided you handed the gun to the captain or pilots of the plane while boarding it for home.Vials of drugs were sold in the open area and dd not require any doctor’s prescription.
Batteries of local and international journalists were herded into Ras Hotel ,for their accommodation.The hotel is located right in the middle if he City, but it is also a walking to the Africa Hall.Accreditation was noi very cumbersome as it is today.
It came at a time when I had already worked for the Uganda Argues in Kampala,and also edited PINY OWACHO,I had also served as s tringer for the East African Standardand later joined the staff of the BARAZA the weekly Kiswahili as its sports editor. and a regular contributor to the drum MAGAZINE East African edition
In 1963 each and every bar and restaurant in Addis Ababa had a compartment with well prepared bed for the revelers who wished to go inside for a rest with their girl-friends
Ends
About the author LEO OIDERA OMOLO is a veteran KENYAN JOURNALIST NOW AGED 76 AND STILL WRITING AND COMMENTING ON TOPOIC ARTICLES. HE OPERTATES IN KISUMUCITY.
I always like to start the issues of Africa in 1900. Our Banyankole people say: “Kamara matsiko nka icumu rya ahanda.” This translates as: “When a spear thrust by the enemy injures your internal organs, then you know that your hope for survival is very limited.” In other words, injuring the internal organs of a person is a decisive blow. I call 1900 Kamara matsiko (the extinguisher of hope) because by that year, the whole of Africa had been colonized except for Ethiopia. Why couldn’t Africa defend itself? Mainly because of internal weaknesses.
The Africans are favoured by God and nature. They live in a land area which is 11.7 million square miles in size ? bigger than USA, China, Brazil and Western Europe combined. This land is very well watered by powerful Rivers ? the Nile, the Congo, the Zambezi, the Limpopo and the Niger. It contains vast Lakes: Nalubaale (L. Victoria), Rutshuru – Butumbi (L. Edward), Masyooro (L. George), Kivu, Tanganyika, Nyasa and Turkana, among others. Africa’s 1 billion people are divided into just four linguistic groups: the Niger-Congo (including the Bantu and the Kwa groups), the Nilo-Saharan (including the Nilotic and Nilo-Hamitic dialects), the Afro-Asiatic (Arabic and Amharic) and the Khoisan (so called bush men).
Reactionaries talk as if the African peoples are so divided that they cannot live together. Even the four linguistic groups mentioned above, are linked among one another. The Somalis, for instance, call a cow: “Saa.” The Banyankore, Banyarwanda and Baganda use that word “saa” for cow-dung (busa, amasha). Our Nilotic people call water “Pii.” The Somalis call water “Biyo.”
While the African peoples are either similar or linked, the pre-colonial chiefs preferred to keep them divided into small tribal kingdoms, chiefdoms or segmentary societies.Those divisions are still being promoted by the reactionaries today. This was definitely one of the causes for the colonization of Africa. Some people try to say that technology was the main cause for our colonization. I do not believe this. China and Japan were backward technologically at that very time. The Europeans tried to colonize them but failed. Even Ethiopia could not be conquered by the Europeans. Why? They were not easy to swallow because of a higher degree of political integration. The defeat of the whole of Africa by 1900 was the ultimate vote of no confidence in the pre-colonial feudal systems of Africa.
Africa regained her freedom because of three factors: the resistance of the African peoples, the emergence of the Socialist Bloc (Soviet Union and China) in 1917 and 1949 respectively and the two inter-imperialist wars of 1914-18 and 1939-45 that weakened the imperialist countries to our advantage. We had also survived colonialism (unlike the Red-Indians, the Incas and the Aztecs of the Americas) because of our strong civilization that involved advanced agriculture. That is how we were able to survive the diseases brought by the Europeans and Arabs like smallpox and jiggers. Our cattle, sheep, goats and chicken had inoculated us against zoonotic diseases ?
diseases between man and animals.
The African peoples thus were and are quite advanced in civilization, language, agriculture, technology (iron-working) and social organization but very weak in political organization ? confining themselves to tribal and clan organization and, therefore, not taking full advantage of the similarities and linkages of the African peoples. After independence, the political leaders have also confined themselves to the colonial States as if they were God made. If Uganda is good, by giving each of our families a bigger market to sell our products and improve our welfare, why can’t East Africa be better? Political organization was weak in the pre-colonial times.That is why we were colonized. It is still weak now. That is why we do not carry the commensurate weight Africa deserves.
Eventually, we regained our independence, with Ghana being the first in 1957. Unfortunately, on account of, again, exogenous (outside) and endogenous (inside) factors, 50 years after independence, most African countries are still listed as LDCs (Least Developed Countries). Today the middle income countries in Africa are 25. There is not a single First World country in the whole length and breadth of Africa. Why? In the last 50 years in which I have been active in the resistance struggles in Uganda and Africa either directly or indirectly, I have been, together with colleagues, able to study the situation. In these 50 years, I have identified 10 strategic bottlenecks which I would like to mention. These are:
1. Ideological disorientation whereby the reactionaries fragment the African peoples into sectarianism of tribe, religion and gender chauvinism.
2. This ideological disorientation cannot allow the reactionaries to build viable and capable state pillars such as the Army, Civil service and Judiciary, among others. Consequently, any slight disturbance or challenge leads to the collapse of the State authority to the detriment of the people. Killings, rape, defilement, looting and all sorts of crime with impunity become the lot of the people.
3. Owing to inadequate analysis, attacks against the Private Sector, including the physical expulsion of elements of the entrepreneurial class as was done by the regime of Idi Amin. Even where there is no direct attack on the private sector, corruption, bribery, extortion and poor administration or regulation also hamper the thriving of the private sector. Fundraising by politicians and other groups such as churches and mosques can also disrupt the growth of the private sector and the accumulation of capital. A poor savings culture on account of ostentatious consumption, drunkenness and other forms of social indiscipline also interferes with capital accumulation and, therefore, the strengthening of the Private Sector.
4. An under-developed human resource (society) on account of lack of education and lack of health care. A non-literate, non-skilled population does not fully realize its potential.
5. Inadequate infrastructure that causes the cost of doing business in our countries to go up, thereby undermining the profitability of companies operating in our countries.
6. Small internal markets on account of the excessive balkanization of Africa that cannot support large scale agricultural and industrials production. There was also neglect of developing export oriented industries apart from exporting unprocessed minerals and other raw-materials.
7. Lack of industrialization whereby we export unprocessed agricultural products and minerals, thereby losing money and jobs to the outsiders.
8. An under-developed services sector.
9. An under-developed agricultural sector.
10. Lack of Democracy.
The African countries, after a number of wasted decades, have started solving some of these strategic bottlenecks. Democracy is now more wide-spread than in the 1960s and 1970s, for instance. Private sector – led growth is now accepted. Market integration started after the 1980 Lagos Action Plan. In the case of East African Community (EAC), it had started in 1948 with the East African High Commission and Common Services Organization but broke down during Amin’s time. We revived it in 1993. This is a good start in resolving this debilitating factor that undermines the profitability of businesses on account of the narrow markets that were caused by the balkanization of Africa.
I would like to talk on just two of the ten strategic bottlenecks I have mentioned above; the issue of small markets and inadequate development of infrastructure, especially electricity. The disorientation I mentioned above did not only apply to ideology. It also applied to the concepts of development. The amount of opposition we have faced on the issue of increasing electricity generation is unbelievable and shameful.
Let me, however, start with the issue of small markets. I have already said that, at least, the African leaders, after 1980, started working on the issue of the regional trading blocs. That is how we got COMESA, Central African Association and ECOWAS. EAC was already there as already pointed out; only that it broke down in 1977 until we revived it in 1993. SADC started off as the Frontline States and the Liberation Movements that were fighting colonialism in Southern Africa in the 1960s, 70s and part of the 1980s until the emancipation of South Africa in 1994. Of all these blocs, the EAC has the brightest future and greatest hope for Africa. EAC does not just aim at economic integration. It also aims at political integration through the formation of the East African Federation. That is what article 5 (2) of the EAC Treaty says. At some stage, we proposed to fast track this political integration. All the people of East Africa supported this and it was only in a few cases where there were some concerns about certain issues. This was very encouraging and laudable. The case for the political federation is on account of the following points:
(i) Even if the economic integration is successful, there are very crucial issues that you cannot address. It is not easy, for instance, to address the issue of common Defence when you are different countries. Yes, you can have collective Defence such as NATO’s case. However, those Defence Pacts normally depend on one or so strong members such as the USA. Where is the USA of Africa? A politically united EAC would provide the beginning of the USA of Africa which could provide the centre of gravity of Africa’s future. How have we insured Africa against future re-colonization and marginalization since Independence? When Africa confronted the moribund Portuguese colonialists and the racists in Southern Africa, we were supported with weapons by the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. That is how we won military victories in Mozambique (Samora Machel and Frelimo), in Zimbabwe (ZANU–ZAPU), in Angola (MPLA), in Namibia (SWAPO) and in South Africa (ANC). The socialist camps became part of the strategic rear of Africa with a clout that was respected and feared globally. What is our feared or respected strategic rear now? It is our duty to create this strategic rear when conditions are still favourable. It is inexcusable that we have squandered the last 50 years without doing so. Some global actors are trying to achieve military superiority on land, in the air, at sea and in space. Where does that leave Africa?
(ii) Fragmenting the hinterland from the sea coast is another big disadvantage created by the present balkanization and is fraught with potential problems.
(iii) Fragmenting the natural resources is another weakness. EAC has always had tremendous natural resources. New ones are being discovered. If these were under one political roof, our bargaining power in the world would be much greater. When we negotiate separately, there are even attempts at playing us against each other. You hear words like: “If you do not agree to these terms, your neighbours will leave you behind.” Of course, it is also easier to manage common resources better if we are under one political roof than when we are separate. I am talking about resources like lakes and rivers, among others.
(iv) Economic integration per se is not easy when you are under separate political roofs. You have seen the problems in Europe recently. Owing to different levels of development, mere economic integration may benefit different countries unequally.
By being part of a common market, the consumers buy on equal terms a product produced anywhere in East Africa, quota and tax free. At our present level of integration, we do not, however, share the taxes from the factory or share the jobs. This has potential for disenchantment with integration. When it is one political unit, even if there are inequalities, they are easy to handle because the jobs are equally accessible to all the citizens on merit and taxes are shared. EALA and all the East Africans should push even more for the cause of the East African Federation.
The issue of infrastructure, especially electricity, shows how Africa got off the track even after independence. As I repeatedly tell African audiences, there is a Kwh per capita yardstick that is simply amazing. The USA has a Kwh per capita of 12,400. Some of the African countries have as low as 12!! Uganda had a Kwh per capita of 30 in 1986. We now have a Kwh per capita of 150. When Karuma, Ayago, Isimba, the mini-hydro stations that are about to be embarked on and the geo-thermal project of Lake Katwe are finished, we shall have a Kwh per capita of 400. There is some awakening in Uganda after repeated quarrels with the persons concerned. As of now, only South Africa and Libya have a Kwh per capita of 4,000 and above. Uganda aims at 42,000 MW by 2040. Africa and EAC needs a general awakening on this issue. We should not be diverted again.
I am glad that most of the strategic bottlenecks have been identified and are being addressed. Uganda will become a lower middle income country by 2017 and an upper middle income by 2032 or earlier. At last, after endless internal struggles, this vision, with the correct understanding of the strategic bottlenecks, has been incorporated into the 5 years and 10 years plans by the National Planning Authority (NPA). We are now moving having wandered in the wilderness of “ideological and conceptual confusion” for some time.
By identifying some of these bottlenecks, much of Africa is beginning to move. The average rate of growth has doubled to 5.44% per annum since the year 2000 compared to a growth rate of 2.5% in the 1990s. When EAC gets closer together, the sky is the limit especially now when we have discovered the gaps that crippled us in the past. There are, of course, other tactical bottlenecks such as corruption and administrative delays. These are, however, easier to deal with when you have dealt with the strategic bottlenecks.
By Yoweri Kaguta Museveni
President of the Republic of Uganda
Seven dwelling houses were set ablaze by unidentified attackers forcing 19 families members of the Talai {Laibons} to flee from their homes narrowly escaping deaths.
The Talai, a, minority community or a sub-clan with sorcerers who are scattered in most of the Kalenjin sub-tribes have had no peace ever since they were forcefully evicted from their ancestral land by the colonial administration in 1934 and forced into exile in the remotest area of Southern Nyanza.
The Talai suffered the brunt of colonial persecution including forced exile out of their ancestral land in Kericho, Nandi, Baringo and other places over the accusation that they practiced witchcraft, Close to 2700 members of the sub-clan together with their herds of cattle and other domesticated animals were forced out of their land in 1934 following a proclamation endorsed by the colonial legislative Council.
The colonialists worked in collaboration with chiefs, white missionaries and white settlers who accused them of sensitizing the community against giving their land away for the plantation of tea bushes in Kericho and Nandi Hill region at the turn of the 20th century.
It was hoped most of them would die of starvation and lack of water for themselves and their animals. They were settled on top of Gwassi Hills in what is today called Gwassi district in the Suba region. Heir hard-core leaders were taken cross the Lake Victoria and exiled on Mangano Island. Others were consigned to detention camps in Nyeri and other places far away from their homes.
It was in 1962 when the diminutive Kipsigis politician, who was then the Member of the Legislative Council for Kipsigis, Dr. Taaitta Araap Towett, moved a motion in the Council and urged the government to revoke the ordinance that had banned the Talai community from Gwassi so that they could go back to their ancestral land and live happily among their fellow Kalenjin
Upon their return, the majority got scattered among many areas within the North and South rift regins and purchased farms,while other remain and less and have been living under a very squalid condition on a two acre Municipal land in Kericho Municipalty. All the previous governments had promised to secure land plots for the Talai, but in vain.
The Talai began mass exodus from Gwassi to their homes in Nandi, Baringo and other places. Unfortunately there was no land to settle them back home because when they were living in exile, the Land Consolidation Programme and land adjudication were introduce and all their land were dished out to other people. To the surprise and shocking of the colonial administration the Talai population had doubled and close to 7,000 could be accounted during their return in 1962.
This is the clan of the renown freedom fighter, Koitalel Arap Samoei, who was shot and killed by the British soldiers IN 1905, He was betrayed and lured into a faked peace talk where he was shot by a British soldier and killed. Nandi rebellion that lasted for close to nine years during which the Nandi warriors engaged the British expedition forces in running battles thereby sabotaging and preventing the construction of the Mombasa-Kisumu Railway line.
Descendants of Koitalel Arap Samoe had settled in Kbirer village in Tinderet in the Nandi Hills district. But on Tuesday night last week unknown persons had invaded the village and torched several houses forcing the occupants to run for shelter into the nearby church. The Talai said they had been warned of the consequences by the local community who claims they were practicing witchcraft causing the villagers some misfortunes.
Former Kapsisiywo civic leader David Sulo said the community had lived peacefully with their neighbors in Kabbirer for close to 50 year, but he suspected the latest flare up as politically motivated as the Talai had coexisted with their neighbors harmoniously for many years. He called upon the Provincial administration in Nandi Hills to intervene and restore order. He could not disclose the location of the whereabouts of those who hadn’t taken shelter in the churches for security reasons.
An impeccable source in Nandi Hills said that three people have already been apprehended and put into police custody on suspicion of being involved in the incident, and police were actively hunting for the rest.
Kabirer Locational Chief Sammy Keter could not tell the exact number of those in custody. The Nandi Hills D.C could not be reached for his immediate comment over the incident which has been roundly condemned by politicians and leaders in the entire Nandi Coounty.
REPORTS emerging from Rachuonyo South district within Homa-By County say clans politics is raising its ugly head ahead of the March 4, 2013 general election.
However, sources in this most populous and expansive rural farming constituency have confided to us that it would be an uphill task for an aspirant contesting the election on another party ticket outside the ODM to clinch the east.
The residents have vowed to follow the six piece voting pattern in the area to the latter despite of the concerted effort by one of the parliamentary aspirant to introduce the inter clans rivalry kind of politics which is pitting the east and the west side of the expansive constituency.
According to impeccable sources, the architect of the inter-clans rivalry politic in
Karachuonyo is Adipo Okuome, a perennial parliamentary election loser in the area ever since the late1980s. This time around, he was beaten hands down by the immediate former MP for the area Eng. James K Rege.
Disgruntled after losing in the ODM primary nomination, Adipo Okuome it is being alleged had mobilized drunken and heavily intoxicated youths who staged violence protest by way of blocking he main Kendu-Bay-Homa-Bay with logs and burning tires.
The youths stoned motorists, while singing derogatory songs against the ODM leader Raila Odinga shouting ‘no Adipo Okuome no Raila Odinga. They tore up and burnt Raila Odinga‘s election posters. The gangs of hired political goons had earlier attacked the motorcade of Eng. Rege when he toured Nyakongo area in Central Karchuonyo where the former MPs made a narrow escaped amid hails of stones.
Adipo Okuome had since ditched the ODM and took the ticket of the Wiper party and he is still in the race. Another ODM primary nomination loser David Ngala joined the UDF on whose ticket; he is still in the race for the election proper, which is slated for March 4, 2013.
Following the ODM nomination fiasco, the inter-clans politics has raised its ugly head with unconfirmed allegation claims that the Wiper candidate has been preaching for the partition of Karachuonyo constituency into to the east-West confrontation.
In Karachuonyo, the family tree is evenly distributed into sub-clans based on the clans named after the five wives of the community’s great grand father, Rachuonyo son of Jok. The descendants of the polygamous grand father are named after their grand-mothers, namely, Joka-Achieng’. Jo-Kanyipir, Jo-Kauma, Joka-Nyaluo and Joka-Adwet.
Rachuonyo’s wives were Achieng’, Nyipir, Nyaluo, Auma and Adwet.
The Kadwet group, which is the most populous sub-clan occupied the central and the eastern parts of the constituency including the Kendu-Bay town which is the nerves center of the region .politics.
The intriguing history of Karachuonyo politics rotates around the two major clans which live in the East and West. The east had the advantage accessing modern education owing to the fact that it was the homes of colonial chieftains, who dominated the area administration from 1906 to the time when Kenya attained its political independence in 1963. The old colonial chiefs who were from one sub-clan, joka-Adwet might have committed some act of injustices against members of other sub-clans, which were considered to be inferior due to lack of exposure to modern education and civilization, and from the look of things, it appears as if these sub-clans which were previously marginalized and suppressed by the colonial chiefs have yet to forgiven the Joka-Adwet sub-clan.
Despite of its population numeracy, the Joka-Adwet has yet to produce an MP ever since the inception of Karachuonyo constituency in 1962.
The first MP for Karachuonyo was the lat Elijah Omolo Agar who win the election as an independent KANU candidate the late Joseph Gogo Ochok who was the KANU official candidate during the 1963 independence general elections.
Omolo Agar met the fatal road accident in 1966 and died before completing his five year terms. At the time of his death he was serving in the post independence cabinet as an Assistant Minister for home-Affairs.
The election contest between the late Omolo Agar and the late Gogo Ochok was full of political intrigues and controversies in that Jaramogi Oginga Odinga who was the then KANU Vice President threw his weight behind the late Gogo Ochok the official KANU candidate while the late Tom Mboya who was then the KANU Secretary-General backed the candidacy of Omolo Agar.
Omolo Agar hails fro the Kanyipir sub-clan in the West .After Agar’s death, the former area member of the defunct Nyanza regional Assembly David Okiki Amayo was voted in to become the second Karachuonyo MP, Okiki Amayo, was to dominate the area politics for the next two decades until the until spoken women leader Mrs Phoebe Muga Asiyo dethroned him in another controversial and bruising election battle.
Asiiyo retired from active politic after representing thezrea for three five years term, ad was replaced by his former chief campaigner Dr. Paul Adhu Awiti.
Awiti lost to Rege in 2007 and has since been engaged by the prime minister Raila Odinga as his political adviser on Luo politic.
What is expected to come out of the election in Karachuonyo is the fact that those aspirants contesting the election in the Luo-Nyanza outside the ODM stand no chance of wining the election after the Luo political kingpin Raila Odinga had toured the area and questioned the voters not to elected “Madodoa” candidates. He warned that electing such a candidates would reduced the party majority in the next parliament.
READING about who is who among the leading political personalities and UDF supporters who converged at the party’s delegates conference in Nairobi and endorsed the Hon. W Musalia Mudavadi as the party’s flag-bearers in the 2013 presidential race, I am not amused in saying that this purely a Neo-KADU.
Those who have lived in this country long enough like myself, especially during the colonial area and the pre-independence days politics of the late 1950s and early 1960s will agree with me in principles that the UDF is a replica of the defunct Kenya African Democratic Union {KADU].
The UDF has truly balkanized all the Kenya tribes and communities which had supported KADU and collaborated well with the white settlers in a conspiracy to cause the delays in the attainment of Kenya’s political independence, which eventually was ushered in by KANU in 1963.
In the forefront of KADU were the late Ronald Gideon Ngala a Griama from the Coast Province, Henry Masinde Muliro a Bukusu from Western Province, Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi a from Tugen sub-tribe of the larger Kalenjin ethnic groups and Taaitta Araap Towett, a diminutive Kipsigis politician from the South Rift.
The UDF is therefore a true replica of the defunct KADU because it has amalgamated of Kenya’s tribes and communities which had a very negative attitudes toward the politics of true nationalism and patriotism. These communities have gone down in the history of Kenya as those who had collaborated well with the die-hard white settlers and colonialists, which were vehemently opposed to the country’s liberation and the struggle for independence.
The communities which I mentioned above had ganged up with the white settlers who were heavily funding KADU with intention, aims and objectives of delaying the Kenya’s political independence under the pretext that they were representing the marginalized minority groups.
They were the blue-eyed boy of the white settlers and colonialists who had hatched a secret plan to make Kenya a dominion country under the British Empire like Southern Rhodesia, New Zealand,Canada,Australia, and the defunct Central African Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland then under the white settlers Prime Minister Sir Roy Welensky.
Kenya was then viewed as a Whiteman’s country and its fertile highlands christened The White-Highland. The collaborating KADU politicians dined and whined in high places and five star hotels in Nairobi with the white supremacists, led by the late Group Captain L.R. Briggs of the whites only United Kenya party, the late Sir Michael Blundell of the multiracial Kenya National Party, which was later late transformed into the New Kenya Party.
The conspiracy against nationalism began in earnest immediately after the British Colonial Office in London lifted the state of emergency and lifted the restriction on the formation of the countrywide Africans political movement. Hitherto Africans were only allowed to form district political associations. But immediately after the first round table constitutional conference, which was held in the Lancaster House in London from Fabruary 1960 to April the same year.
This saw the birth of the Kenya African National Union [KANU} AT Kirigiti Stadium in Kiambu on June 30th 1960. Ngala, Moi, Muliro were conspicuously missing at the meeting that witnessed the formation of KANU in Kiambu. However, Taaita Arrap Towett was present, though he was roughed by KANU youths.
But within two weeks thereafter, the three Ngala Muliro, Moi and Towett with the help of the colonial administration and white settlers brought together the Maasai United Front then led by David Lemomo, The Towettled Kalenjin political Alliance led by Taaitta Toweett, Mombasa African Democratic Union [MADU] led by F.J.Khamisi, Coast African People Union [CAPU] led by one D.N.Korokoro and Msanifu Kombo and other Coastal politicians like Apollo Kilelu, S.Roggers Msechu
And that came the birth of KADU.Ngala Muliro and Moi declined the position offered them in KANU during the party’s inception at Kiambu.But readily accepted the positions allocated to them in KADU.
This is exactly how Mudavadi, Eugene Wamalwa, Gideon Moi,Nick Salat and others have been behaving since the clamor for the formation of political alliances
The only Rift Valley politicians who stood firm and remained steadfastly with other early nationalists were Danile Moss of the Mount Elgon District Congress and John Marie Seroney.
The late James Samuel Gichuru was made the first President of KANU on interim capacity while awaiting for the release of the late Jomo Kenyatta from the colonial detention and restriction camps in the northern
Jaramogi Oginga Odinga was made the vice president of KANU while Tom Mboya was named the party’s secretary general. The trio had the backing of other true nationalists like Julius Gikonyo, Kiano,
Dr Mungai Njoroge,Josef Stanley Mathenge, Eric Edward Khasakhala, J.D.Otiende,Mohinga Chokwe, Eliud Ngala Mwendwa, Mister Mister Arap Korir, Christopher Kiprotich Arap Murei,William Mbolu Malu,George Nthenge F.J Mukeka and others.John Kebaso, Washington Ondicho, Lawrence George Sagini,James Nyamweya and others who stood firm and steadfast with KANU and flatly refused to be manipulated by the colonialists and white settlers.
The coming weeks will certainly rove the like of Wamalwa, Mudavadi, Khalwalewrong when Kenyans would be deciding as to which group is best suited tor the Amani Group, Jubilee or CORD. However, all the indications are that CORD would overcome the two other groups which are full of masters of political deceits. I am really sorry and sympathized with Musalia Muadavadi and wondered why should the son of my old friend the King of MululuMoses Sabstian Budamba Mudavadi should be prone to political conmen and miss the boat once again as he missed in 2002.
In this context, I am not ashamed to say that politics of tribal balkanization has no room in the modern day Kenya. Therefore the time for reflection will come soon and those who are there simply to protect their status quo and stood on the way of political reforms in this country will be taught a good lesson that they will live to regret for the rest of their lifetime.
I also beg to request the Hon Najib Balala the Mviuta Mp to correct a statement which he uttered during the TNA/URP alliance rally at the Tononoka ground in Mombasa recently touching on the horny issue of land redistribution at the coast and redress against the injustices committed against the coastal communities over their ancestral land.
Could Hon Balala be more specific and honest to tell us who owns the Taita Concessions Limited, the TaitaSisal Estate,at Mwatate which is measuring close to 36,000 hectares of land. How about rhe Ziwani Sisal Estate in the neighborhood near Mwakitau,
How about the ownership of \Jipe Sisal Estate, Taveta Sisal Estate and 0ther prime land at the coast. It is high time those defending impunity be told in a clear cut-sort of terms that Kenyans are tired of leaders whose families are associated with land grabbing.
The younger generations of politicians, particularly the Kalenjin MPs who of late have been pointing accusing fingers at the Prime Minister Raila Odinga blaming him of complicity in the Mau Forest evictions and rehabilitation of this important water tower are simply not telling the truth about the historical background of the matter.
The political history of Mau Forest and other injustices related to the land distribution could as well be traced back to the final constitutional talks on the future of an independent Kenya, which were held inside the famous Lancaster House in London, UK in 1962.
These problems are inter-related to the dismantling of the so-called “White Highland”. It has since emerged that during the round table constitutional talks, the African delegates who were then representing two major political parties of the time, namely KANU and KADU were subjected to too much blackmailing by the White Settlers representative and those representing colonial authorities.
And due for the then clamor for political independence and the liberation of the country fro the colonial York to an independent African government, they hastily and hurriedly rubber-stamped many clauses in the then new Lancaster House constitution that wee only meat for the protection of white settlers and their properties.
Kanu delegates were led by the founding President the late Jomo Kenyatta, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Tom Mboya, James Samuel Gichuru, Eliud Ngala Mwanda, Muhinga Chokwe and other party stalwarts like Dr Julius Gikonyo Kiano,Samuel Onyango Ayodo, and Mbiyu Koinange.
The KADU team was led by Ronald Gideon Ngala, Daniel T. Moi, Masinde Muliro, Taaitta Arap Toweett, Marie John Seroney,Peter Habenga Okondo, William Murgor and John Keen.
The moderate white settlers were led by Michael Blundell, Sir Charles Markham, Mrs Agnes Shaw, Mrs Dorothy Hughes, Bruce Mackenzie,Sir Alfred Vincent ,Culwick and Crosskill, R.S Alexander and Humprey Slade.DEREK Eriaskin and others.
There were also extremist’s racists’ white supremacists like major BP Roberts, Major F Day, Aircomodore Howard Williams and others. Ex-officio representatives included the Governor, the deputy Governor,Sir Patrick M Renson, the Chief Secretary, W.F.Coutts and Minister for legal Affairs Griffith Jones ,Q.C. and others.
The Indian community were represented by the likes of Avind Jammidar, Ibrahim Nathoo, D.B Kholi, J.S Patel, F. De Souza, C.B.Madan, K.P Shah
Due to the clamor for political independence, KANU AN KADU delegates to the talks were coerced and blackmailed by the representatives of the Her Majesty government at the Whitehall and Colonial Office led by the then Secretary of State for the British Colonies Duncan Sandys to succumbed easily to the white settlers demands for compensation for those who wished to leave the county at the independence.
The British government at the same time readly made available millions of sterling British pounds, which was to be given to the new Kenya government headed by he late Jomo Kenyatta. The money was meant to be utilized in compensation payout to the departing white settlers and partly to be used in the purchasing of the farms owned by European settlers and other for properties and partly for the settling of the millions of the landless African people of Kenya.
Immediately when the independence came and the white settlers had realized that the new African government had the money for the compensation of their land an property, there was mass exodus of whites despite of the repeated assurances given by Jomo Kenyatta and member of the post-independence cabinet that their property would be given maximum security protection under the Bill of Right entrenched in the Lancaster House constitution, the majority of the whites settlers numbering about 200,000 in population opted to go out of Kenya for green pasture elsewhere.
The new independent government half-heartedly used the money in settling few African population in Subukia, Rongai, Londiani, Molk, Olkalou, Nyahururu, Laikipia, and other places.
The settlement scheme the re-distribution of the lands were , however, biased and only dished out selectively to favor one particular community [the Kikuyu] at the expense of other needy Kenyans.
The Kikuyus were given farm lands in areas previously considered as the indigenous Kalenjin regions in total disregards of the local indignant communities.
Members of the Kalenjin community dissented to this, but the senior Kalenjin politician of the time who were none other than Daniel Arap Moi and Dr.Taaitta Arap Towett, were happily serving in he post independence cabinet an never raised any objection to the settling of Kikuyu people in area previously considered as the Kalenjin land.
Two Kalenjin politicians, however, were vehemently opposed to the spread of Kikuyu settlement in what they considered as the Kalenjin land.They were Marie John Seroney then the MP for Tinderet and Morogo Saina then the M for Eldoret North. This was the source of hostility between Seroney and the KANU government, which led to both Seroney and Saina being jailed and landed in detention camps following the no in famous Nandi Hills Declaration.
It was the same money given by the British government for the settlement o landless African people of Kenya that Kenyatta is being alleged to have used in acquiring vast plantation s land in Taita Taveta, Mwatate, Ziwani, Laikipia, Ruiru and Salgaa near Nakuru.
Jomo Kenyatta died on August 22nd and hi hen Vice President for 12 years Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi stepped into his shoes at the mantle of power. It was during Moi’s presidency hen the government half-heartedly opened up the Mau Forest and other areas for Kalenjin settlement, most of hem illegal squatters.
The first tribal land clashes between the Kalenjin, Kikuyu, Kisii, Luos, Luhyias were believes to have been launched with the full knowledge of members of the security apparatus during the Moi’s Presidency.
It was also the Moi KANU regime which encouraged tribal land clashes which were meant t cleanse the region of what were commonly called madoadoa colours out of the region
The dreaded Kalenjin warriors were secretly trained an armed with crude weapons in the Embobut Forest, Ndoinet, Marigat and Mau Forest and then ferried on government vehicles an other tracks donated by wealthy Kalenjin businessmen and farmers when they launched three prongs full scale attack on the Kisii in Sotik, Luos in Nyando Valley, Nyakach an luhyias in Lugari and along he Rift Valley-Western Provinces boundaries causing the first internally displaced persons in 1996/97 and the last clashes and the worse of all was in 2007/2008.
The original intention was to keep a bay those who were clamoring for the multi parties system of politics then opposed to the KANU doctrine of the monolithic one party dictatorship.
On the latest opposition to Raila Odinga roe in the Mau Forest saga, the Prime Minister had no personal interests in the forest, but was just executing and implementing the collective decision of the cabinet. Some of the now outspoken MPs like William Ruto were members of the cabinet and at in the cabinet meetings when decision and government plans on the rehabilitation of Mau Forest were being deliberated upon, but they did not raise any objection.
Mr Odinga should be exonerated out f these malicious accusations and falsehood a he has done nothing wrong to the Kalenjin community because the source of injustices done to this particular community as the land redistribution is concerned lies elsewhere and not strictly with Raila Odinga.
Information emerging from Dar Es-Salaam says that the dispute between Tanzania and Malawi over Lake Nyasa has ended in deadlock with both sides strongly recommending for mediation or the involvement of the International Court of Justice {ICJ} to resolve the statement.
The recommendation was made after week long talks between the to countries held in Malawi’s northern city of Mzuzu ended last Saturday with the two sides making little progress.
This was disclosed to the media by foreign ministers from the two sides in Lilongwe, the Malawian administrative and political capital.
Malawi Foreign Minister Epharaim Mganda Chiume said that during the talks the two sides made little progress in resolving the contentious issue hence the recommendations.
The Malawian Minister, however, said the two sides had agreed to meet again in next month {Sept 2013} in the Tanzanian capital, Dar Es Salaam to carry on with further discussions on the matter before considering the involvement of either a third party or ICJ.
The Minister was quoted a having said, ”We felt that there were still other options of diplomacy we could explore including involvement of third party. We have recommended that officials from the two countries should look into the matter again in Dar-Es Salaam.”
He went on , ‘And we also recommended that before the September meeting our Attorney Generals {AGs} should take time to interpret Article 1{2}[vi of the 1890 Anglo-Germany Treaty so that when we meet again next month we should all have legal understanding of the article.”
Chiume said the border dispute between the two neighboring African nations had been there for too long and that it was high time that it was resolved amicably, adding that failure to do so would impact negatively of the two countries.
On the other hand Mr Chiume’s Tanzanian counter-part Bernard Membe said the dispute indeed required further talks with the two sides maintaining their calms and diplomacy.
“We have agreed that the dispute we have requires a negotiated settlement through diplomacy,” said Membe.
Two weeks ago the Tanzanian government issued an order that there be no more flight across the disputed lake by aircraft from Malawi carrying out aerial survey and exploration for oil and gas over the lake until the dispute is resolved. Malawi obeyed and called for a top level meeting between the two Both people, however, have been urged to refrain fro making any provocative remarks which may create during the discussions his side had urged there should be no further exploration on Lake Nyasa {Lake Malawi] ,especially in the disputed part which is the northeastern part of the lake, to give room to the ongoing discussions.
The border dispute between Tanzania an Malawi begun recently when Malawi engaged a British firm Surestream to explore Lake Malawi for oil and gas deposit. The lake border Malawi and Tanzania.
The latter claims that part of the lake on that side belongs to the former Germany colony, while Malawi’s colony believes it owns the whole lake, based on the Heligoland. Treaty between Britain, Malawi’s colonial masters, which stipulated that the borders between the two countries were on the eastern shores of Lake Malawi.
Amid fears among the people of the two countries that there would be war over the lake, presidents of the two countries, Malawi’s Joyce Banda and Tanzania’s counterpart, Jakaya Kikwete, have been quoted in both local and international media to have said ‘the two countries would ever go to war, no matter what.”
The two presidents met recently in Maputo in Mozambique where on the sidelines of SADC Summit for Heads of State, they discussed the matter amicably and arrived at fruitful results,” according to President Banda. Tanzania claims the border runs along the middle of Lake Malawi, especially the disputed part which is the northeastern
Tanzania on its part claims the border runs along the middle of Lake Malawi, which is the home to over 500 species of fish and a major tourist attraction for Malawi.
When African states became independent, they agreed to maintain their colonial borders. Tanzania then Tanganyika was a German colony that Britain took over after World War One, British administration.then the placed all the lake’s waters under Malawi {the Nyasaland}.
At issue is largely undeveloped swath of Lake Malawi, where Lilongwe has awarded a license to British firm Surestream to explore for oil in northeastern waters near Tanzania.
Malawi has carefully watched Uganda’s developments around Lake Albert, where oil firms are pouring billions of dollars to exploit reserves estimated at 2.5 billion barrels.
Lake Malawi lies in the same Great Lakes system stretching along he African Rift, and Malawi is hoping for a similarly large payout-which would transform the fortunes of a country whose economy depends o small farmers and large foreign aid.
Apparently encouraged and sensitized by the relatively small progress being made as the result of legal suit filed by the Mau Mau veterans in High Court in London against the British government for the torture and atrocities against members of the Kikuyu community in Kenya during the Mau Mau uprising years in the 1950s, another Kenyan community which had suffered similar treatment is also in the process of filing another historical suit in the UK seeking compensation for its members who had suffered similar treatment.
Member of the Talai community, a sub-tribe of the larger Kalenjin ethnic groups who were banished and exiled from their ancestral land in Kericho, Nandi, Tugen and other place for close to forty years are also considering the option of suing the British government to compensate for the loss of their ancestral land, property and the, loss of their freedom.
Commonly known as Laibon is for the belief by many Kenyans that its members possess supernatural powers of soothsaying and prophecy, the Talai community, The Talai community who were before the year 1934 were living happily among the other Kalenjin sub-tribes like the Nandis, Tugen, and Kipsigis .
The Talai had occupied the most fertile in the Kericho Highlands region. The British had decided to give this area to the white settlers for tea plantations and construction of the green tea leaves processing factories.
The large tea plantations and factories which were introduced as cash crops in the region in early 1920s still stands there and owned by foreign British multinational foreign companies to-date.
The colonial authorities in Kenya, was becoming increasingly intolerant with the falsified accusations peddled by colonial chiefs and white missionaries alleging that the Talai were mobilizing their people to stage an armed rebellion in protest for the confiscation of land meant for tea plantations. Other accusers to the colonial authorities that the Talai were capable of bewitching families even government officials to death.
A discriminating ordinance was hurriedly tabled in the Whites and settlers dominated Colonial Legislative Council in Nairobi. The newly enacted law, which was immediately sanctioned by the Whitehall and colonial office in London.
It gave the colonial authorities in Kenya the power to remove the Talai community and forced them into internal exile. Talai members were hunted down like wild antelope, bundle together in makeshift camp in Sosiot and in other places while on transits camp while waiting to be walked for miles to their new homes.
They together with their herds animals were escorted by armed soldiers and policemen across the Nyanza Province and the remotest hills are of Gwassi now known as Suba South district. The place was infested by tse-tse flies and the colonial authorities expected the members of the Talai community to perish udder such squalid condition on top of the remote Gwassi Hillsh with no water for their animals and even for human consumption.
Close 2,600 families were involved in the inhuman exercises. The Talai members use to take their herds of cow for watering 15 kilometers away at Sori at Karungu-Bay on the shore of lake Victoria only twice a week. The group was placed under the administrative watchful of one generous retired Chief Kasuku Matunga with whom the group quickly cultivated close friends and family ties, making the life much easier for them to survive. Their leader Arap Koilagen was late relocated to another remotes part of the neighboring Mfangano Island, where he later succumbed to death exile in around 1956.
While In Mfangano those Talai members who were hard-core were placed under the supervision of the latex-Senior Chief Simeon Wasonga Kwach with those who were exiled there also cultivated another very warm friendship and relationship which has lasted for decades. Strict restrictions were paced on the Talai.
They were m allowed t ravel outside Gwassi or South Nyanza district without the express permission granted permission by the local chiefs, district officers {DOs], police District Commissioners. They were also barred from receiving visitors from their original Kalenjin home region, Only the boys and girls were, however, allowed to travel back home during mandatory circumcision periods .
The came the year 1962, when Kenyan people were clamoring for political independence,the then Legislative Member representing the Kipsigis community in the white settlers dominated Colonial Legislative Council Dr. Taaitta Araap Toweett moved a motion calling upon the government to revoke lift all the restrictions t had imposed on the exiled Talai community so that these people should come back home and resume normal life among their kins in their ancestral land in Kericho.
The motion which was seconded by the late Tom Mboya and supported by among other legislators Oginga Odinga, Masinde Muliro Ronald Gideon Ngala and Daniel T.Arap Moi. It was accepted by the colonial government unanimously supported by all the 14 African elected members of the Legco, moderate Europeans and White Settler, Asian members and the rest. There, was, however some loopholes in the motion itself. It din t spelt clearly how he close 7,000 families of the Talai community would be resettled, where to settled them and the availability of the lands were never mentioned. The Talai were verbally promised they would be resettled among their people with no specific mention about the land. This is because thee were no more land in the region for free in Kericho and in most parts of Kalenjin region had already been settled and exhausted.
The Talai were then abandoned in a small Kericho Municipality parcel of land where they have been living in a crowded manner ever since 1962
The majority of hose living in Kericho have yet to get the land which they can call their own and settled on despite of the repeated assurances by the successive independent governments of Kenya.
This week members of the Talai community converged for a cultural celebration gathering. They issued fresh demands for compensation from the British government.
The community spokesman Joseph Sigilai said the community suffered heavily in the hands of the colonialists and wanted compensation from Britain as soon as possible failure of which will institute legal action.
“There are hard facts that our people were tortured by the colonialists before us being pushed from our fertile ancestral land to create room for the Tea plantations and factories in that has benefited other people still languishing in abject poverty,” said Sigilai.
The sub-tribe spokesman said they were keenly watching how the Mau Mau fighter’s case was being dealt with before making the next move or instructing lawyers to commence legal action seeking compensation.
The youths participating in the cultural gathering wee n of the role their forefathers played, particularly the late Arap Koilagen in resisting the colonialists leading to his torture and eventually forced exile and displacement of his people from Kericho in 19
He said the community was also demanding land from the government as promised saying since they retreated to their ancestral home in Kericho County, the have been accommodated relatives some of whom have now run out of patience.
“We came back to Kericho in 1962 and we were accepted and accommodated by our distance relatives. Due to pressure of land, some of us are now being told to seek for land elsewhere rendering us squatters once again” ,said Sigilai.
He said the Kenya government has only managed to settle 515 families out of the total 5,574, and we are still being told by the authorities to be patient.”Surely we have run out of patience as the government seemed to be buying times as we suffer,”said Sigalai.
The celebrations were held at the Moi Garden ground in Kericho.
The reshuffle in Coalition Government Cabinet Ministers is a prescription for avalanche with Professor Ongeri as foreign Minister is equally questionable. Once people of questionable characters are put on strategic position, the world must be worried of what will transpire next.
Kenya is so strategic to the world’s stability and success and the world cannot sit back and watch Kenya destroyed by the Chinese Commission Agent of the International Corporate Special Business Interest cartel network. We now need swift urgent action. The fact remains that The Coalition Government has failed and it cannot be allowed to spin out of control. It is already leaning at danger zone, will the world leaders sit back and spectate?
We demand that, Kibaki and Raila dissolve the Government now and the Transitional Caretaker step in to fix the fixtures towards a safer and secured democratic electioneering.
Wake up people, wake up……..
Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com
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Don’t rush new laws, warns judge
Published on 05/04/2012
BY WAHOME THUKU
Supreme Court judge Njoki Ndung’u has warned against rushing implementation of the new Constitution.
Lady Justice Ndung’u, who is one of the crafters of the Constitution, said rushing the process will lead to a false start. She said contrary to wide perceptions, the Constitution was not designed to be implemented at once or by the current Parliament only.
“It was not for this Parliament to legislate all the laws. We will take ten to 15 years to fully implement the Constitution, but if we rush, it we would fail,” the judge said.
She was addressing members of the Institute of Certified Public Secretaries of Kenya (ICPSK) during their 19th annual dinner at Panafric Hotel in Nairobi on Wednesday evening.
Ndung’u was a member of the technical committee of experts that drafted the Constitution. She was also a nominated MP at a time debate on the Constitution review was at its peak. The judge, who was the chief guest, urged professionals to get more involved in management of counties.
run like businesses
“The running of counties will determine the economic growth of the country. But they will only succeed if they are run like businesses, so you should be looking for good managers,” she told ICPSK members.
The judge said devolution of services will not happen at the same time for all counties.
Ndung’u appealed to the public to shift debate from political aspects of the next election to technical issues.
She said Judiciary has undergone tremendous reforms in the past months, but more is yet to be done.
“Success will not come from internal reforms only. We must respect judicial decisions even as we make criticism of the Judiciary,” she added. Ndung’u appealed to the public to shift debate from political aspects of the next election to technical issues.
Anti-graft veto sparks anxiety
By JUMA KWAYERA
Is there a plot to frustrate the creation of a new anti-graft body that may pursue key politicians and lock them out of the next General Election?
This is the question after Mutula Kilonzo’s removal from the Justice Ministry raised doubts about the fate of proposed changes to a draft law that would give more powers to the Independent Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission. The body is among the vetting agencies that would screen candidates for political office on integrity issues.
The EACC remains hamstrung by controversy over the appointment of commissioners.
Five months since a parliamentary committee rejected three nominees picked by President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga to head the body, the push to roll back graft has lost steam.
Its predecessor, the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission, had targeted senior politicians and other Government officials implicated in graft, but its disbandment has taken the wind out of the sails of the anti-corruption effort.
Former KACC Director-General PLO Lumumba and four deputies were shown the door last year after MPs made changes to the Bill creating the EACC. Dr Lumumba’s ejection came after his famous declaration regarding five to ten “high voltage files”, alluding to investigations targeting four Cabinet ministers and at least 45 heads of parastatals.
As with the law on KACC before it, MPs watered down the Bill, taking away proposed powers to prosecute among other steps to clip the commission’s wings even before establishment. Their argument, that such powers would cause a clash between the EACC and the Director of Public Prosecutions ignored the fact that the Bill had stated the commission would institute criminal proceedings “in consultation with the office of the Secretary of Public Prosecutions”.
Before he was moved to the Education Ministry in a recent Cabinet reshuffle, then Justice Minister Mutula Kilonzo had stated he had written to the Kenya Law Reform Commission seeking to amend the EACC Act to give it prosecutorial powers. These were the subjects of one of the more controversial changes to the Bill.
Draft law
The original draft law had also barred State officers from operating bank accounts abroad to clamp down on offshore accounts where looted public funds are stashed. The provision was expunged in a move supported by Cabinet ministers James Orengo and Amos Kimunya.
The recent Cabinet changes came against the backdrop of discussions on legislation on leadership and integrity, which will give EACC powers to bar any person from seeking elected or appointed office if they have contravened the law.
The apathy to an anti-graft effort is apparent in the way the Executive and the Legislature have dragged their feet in creating a fully operational autonomous institution.
The nomination of former Kenya Revenue Authority commissioner Mumo Matemu and his deputies —Jane Onsongo and Irene Keino — has hit a dead end. The lack of progress since has led to a growing perception Kibaki and Raila are reluctant to open a corruption can of worms ahead of the General Election.
New ministers have work cut out for them
Published on 27/03/2012
He barged into the political scene with youthful vigour and has maintained that label: Kenya future prosperity belongs to, and must be steered by the youth. That man is Eugene Wamalwa.
And with the same gusto, he took over his first ministerial appointment at the Justice ministry yesterday, in place of long-serving veteran lawyer Mutula Kilonzo.
And of course, all media has an opinion or other during these testy and momentous times. Ours is to congratulate Eugene for his elevation as Watchdog Number One of the rights of all Kenyans, even as we demand a few things in return.
Given the sensitivity and overall importance of the Justice and Constitutional Affairs docket, Eugene will undoubtedly be in the public eye a lot more, from now henceforth. For the lawyer in him, the courtroom just got wider and louder and he will learn to keep his counsel, advise government on the best possible legal routes to tread and read the charts for the ubiquitous ‘mines’ that will no doubt litter his tenure.
The new minister shall learn to develop a thick skin, as the spotlight shall invariably be on his office and interpretations or directions that may emanate from there.
Given the fractious nature of the Grand Coalition Government and a decidedly polarised Parliament, his must become a unifying rather than divisive appointment. He shall find his office faced with the self-same challenges of selective interpretation of provisions in the new Constitution by vested interests.
Not-so-rosy task
He shall have to deal with the steaming potato that is the International Criminal Court, appointments to public office, confronting the Lords of Impunity, witness protection and a host of other pieces of legislation.
It is, therefore, not a time to celebrate the elevation, rather time to roll up the sleeves and get some judicial work done.
These observations do not just apply to Eugene Wamalwa alone. The same appointing authority handed Mr Danson Mwazo, another newcomer to Cabinet, the not-so-rosy task of ensuring Kenya becomes and remains the destination of choice for tourists. Easier said than done, as many of his predecessors have found out.
However, much ground has been covered and Mr Mwazo’s task would be to breathe life into the legacies of past Tourism ministers.
Mr Wetangula is no stranger to roundtable negotiations or recognising when to play hardball. As the immediate former Foreign minister, he is very well placed to address trade matters regionally and internationally. As it is, recent high-profile visitors to Kenya were here solely on matters to do with trade. What more is there to say?
Environment minister Ali Chirau Mwakwere has for the second time taken over a docket formerly held by the late John Michuki. First was the Transport ministry and now Environment. His predecessor had things sewed up pretty well and ran a tight, well-regimented ship. If the accolades Michuki was showered with at his requiem Mass are any indicator, let’s hope he did not raise the bar too high.
Mr Jamleck Kamau comes in to replace the late son of Murang’a, Michuki. No one needs to draw him a map of Nairobi or enumerate the myriad needs unique to this city. Can he prove that he is the man Nairobians have been waiting for?
Prof Sam Ongeri is known for his methodical approach to issues. And having been a key PNU-Kanu negotiator at the Serena talks in 2008, he appears to be the right appointee to the Foreign Affairs desk. It is time he oversaw crafting of some hard and fast rules and a Foreign Policy seeing as Kenya is increasingly being called upon to lead or arbitrate between states, the world over.
In confirming Mr Njeru Githae at the Treasury, the President must have been alive to the fact that the annual Budget cycle is being assailed and pressured by demands from every ministry.
In this docket too, lies the make-or-break proposal that devolved government is waiting for. At no other time in the history of this nation has the Treasury been under such scrutiny. Githae needs no “honeymoon” and would be well advised to start counting the shillings and make sense thereof.
Plush offices
Mutula Kilonzo is no stranger to this publication. The straight-talking lawyer has little fear for criticism and will have little trouble straightening the Education ministry at a time when there are calls for revising the learning system, higher education is expanding, teachers’ unions are as militant as ever and the examinations council is taking a beating. “Good morning Mr Kilonzo”, they shall keep saying until they realise he is the man that wields the cane!
Whatever other motivation informed this mini-reshuffle, it is clear there is a lot of work ahead for all these gentlemen whose plush offices we shall call into in 100 days. Need we say more?
— On Mon, 11/7/11, Judy Miriga wrote:
From: Judy Miriga
Subject: WORLD BANKER MAKES STUNNING CONFESSION (Please Watch) It is what is true in Kenya
Date: Monday, November 7, 2011, 10:31 AM
From: Judy Miriga
Folks,
Revelation of the World Bank as a Financial Institution dominance and control into the future is threatening. This is a deliberate scheme to the world of Conspiracy. It is our life and we must take charge to decide how to live our lives Democratically. The shift of wealth from west to East is scarring. We must unite with the World to correct the wrong. Quote……THE FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE WORLD BANK 1995 – 2005, JAMES D. WOLFENSOHN, recently made a stunning speech about Wealth, Race and Economics to a group of students in Stanford University…….WOLFENSOHN’S OWN INVESTMENT FIRM IS IN CHINA, POISED TO PROFIT FROM THIS “IMMINENT SHIFT” IN GLOBAL WEALTH, and could this be the reason for the shift of Global Wealth pitying the poor livelihood…..??……Is it a conspiracy….???…..This is a silent weapon to destroy lives of the poor of Africa along with the Global poor including the destruction of the Middle Class of the world. To counter this, the Government must step up and bond with the public to safeguard public interest. The World Bank, IMF with other Financial Institution must preserve dignity and liberty of humanity. They must work alongside the people public to nub thievers who are trading unscrupulously.
A lot of Kenyan Funded loans have not been put to do what it was requested for or intended to do. The funds have since 1995 been steadily diverted. There is need to check and investigate “Equity Bank of Kenya” lest it is operating in the “Ponzi Scheme” using public money in the form of Loans in their business……This is a serious concern. World Bank, IMF with other Financial institutions must stand by the public to expose corruption which is a serious cancer to the whole world region. World Bank have enough evidence to expose to public so proper measures can be taken against unscrupulous leaders. This will prove World Bank is not covering or working together with unscrupulous rich to rob taxpayers from exhobitant defrauding scheme which is in its climax…….This cancerous killer must be nipped in the bud…..it is deadly and it is destroying the whole world…….If let loose, no one will escape or survive at the rate things are………It is wicked and satanic…….
Yes, What is driving this World Wide Change craze is greed…???……The Poor of Africa and the Middle Class poor of the World are the New Minion Class. Minions are the true workforce of Evil. Sure, Evil Overlords get the fame and notoriety, In fact, the only thing we have to look forward to is a cruel and painful death. As long as Evil Minions take pride in their work, we will continue to be a labor force for Overlords, Warlords, Mad Scientists, Criminal Masterminds and any other charismatic madman in search of world domination. They are putting a good face on evil, such like you see hunger, poverty, draught, faked HIV/Aids, faked Malaria and other faked diseases, pain and suffering of the poor, taking property and land of the poor free and by force, through torture, assassinations and exterminations…….
This is a Global Political Power machination of conspiracy, where majority of them invested in Gold, Diamond, Titanium, Gas and Oil and the Africa’s Agricultural Marketing control by the unscrupulous Rich, and some pretend behind religious groupings, driving and draining the poor of dear life and leaving the poor to die out of poverty and hunger in a hopelessness manner.
This is what Predicts China’s Economy boom against Europe Financial collapse, it is done through “Ponzi Scheme” and “Hedge Funding”……the reason China has taken control in “Intellectual Property Thieving” in the acquisition and ownership of Africa’s public and community land, in the watch of Kenya Coalition Government connected to the previous ones….It is the reason the Coalition Government of Kibaki and Raila Refused to offer proper implementation of the Constitution as is mandated at Referendum and provide Devolution of Counties as Public Demands…..it is the reason they are dilly dallying, trying to chart out the Constitution to cater for their interests……What is their the projection for the next 10 to 20 years???….This is the period the Rich of Africa and Kenya have quietly given away the land as an example of Dominion Farm by …..Ask yourselves…….Will Africa break free from its former Colonial masters???…..Yes, it must and it has, and that is the reason they had a Referendum to own their Democratic Governance. Africa is not a major problem to the Rich World, because it is open to mutual Partnership arrangement for Development where the poor also gets involved into Development Agenda on a shared give and take. But, the problem with the unscrupulous rich is that, they want to take and own everything as if it is their own. They are dealing in “Ponzi Scheme”, and this is not fair…..Africa provide vital resources for the rich, and so in a barter trade or shared in Partnership under cooperative arrangement, we will preserve life in a challenging and competitive manner. Through mutual partnership cooperative arrangement, we will remain at Peace, in Love and United with each other in the Global World of Emerging Market…It is the way to go to a long lasting relationship into the future we all aspire for. Local and Foreign NGOs controlled by the unscrupulous rich are the problem, who jointly are after eliminating the poor from survival.
We are just able to comment about the things we see happening. I believe, we can find a solution. It is the decision of the majority. If we want to safeguard lives we must provide serious debate of the same and make Mutual Agreement based justice and according to majority demands of the world.
Life is precious, lets us all unite to preserve it because of Peace, Love and Unity.
The Coalition Government of Kibaki and Raila are busy changing the constitution to suit their private and personal interest. The Coalition Government must disolve now. They failed to abide by the public mandate at Referendum and they have no business staying in Public Office. They are not constitutionally in order to occupy public office.
Wake up people and run to Court…….Stand up for your Rights, the Constitution is your Right……….
May God Bless us all…….
Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com
WORLD BANKER MAKES STUNNING CONFESSION
Uploaded by PremierLegend on May 31, 2011
THE FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE WORLD BANK, JAMES WOLFENSOHN, MAKES STUNNING CONFESSIONS AS HE ADDRESSES GRADUATE STUDENTS AT STANFORD UNIVERSITY. HE REVEALS THE INSIDE HAND OF WORLD DOMINATION FROM PAST, TO THE PRESENT AND INTO THE FUTURE. THE SPEECH WAS MAS MADE JANUARY 11TH, 2010. THE NEXT 19 MINUTES MAY OPEN YOUR MIND TO A VERY DELIBERATE WORLD.
HE TELLS THE GRAD STUDENTS WHAT’S COMING, A “TECTONIC SHIFT” IN WEALTH FROM THE WEST TO THE EAST. BUT HE DOESN’T TELL THE STUDENTS THAT IT IS HIS INSTITUTION, THE WORLD BANK, THAT’S DIRECTING AND CHANNELING THESE CHANGES.
WOLFENSOHN’S OWN INVESTMENT FIRM IS IN CHINA, POISED TO PROFIT FROM THIS “IMMINENT SHIFT” IN GLOBAL WEALTH.
Quote Commentaries:
@AffinityNetNews Right. Well said. But these people have historically waged war against those who resist them. Lincoln printed his own dollar right before he was ”mysteriously” shot, rendering Congressional dollars? worthless….bankers won.
Kennendy proposed a bill meant as a form of resistence …before he was mysteriously killed.
The Tzars of Russia resisted…then the family was finally killed and overthrown…Bankers don’t just steal. They kill those who resist.
cbasallie 3 days ago 4 On October 31, 2011 the UN announced the world had reached 7 billion in population. In the next few years it will hit 10 billion. And WHERE will all THOSE jobs come from?
Govt downplays drought severity
Uploaded by NTVKenya on Jul 8, 2011
http://www.ntv.co.ke
Abbas Gullet, the secretary general of the Kenya Red Cross society says the government has repeatedly failed to heed to warnings about the need to put in place contingency measures to deal with frequent drought. And as Lindah Oguttu reports, fresh revelations that donor funds meant for alleviating the effects of drought in northern Kenya have been embezzled further dents the government’s image, as millions face the risk of starvation.
Updated In Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, relief efforts intensify
Uploaded by worldvisionireland on Oct 27, 2011
World Vision’s response to the drought and hunger in the Horn of Africa intensifies.
We need your help. Donate today www.worldvision.ie/give
World Vision talks to Somali refugee children
Uploaded by worldvisionireland on Sep 12, 2011
World Vision staff member Mindy Minzell speaks to children in Dadaab the world’s largest refugee camp. Their main concerns: food, safety and access to an education.
Help these children now – donate what you can to www.worldvision.ie/give
Drought UNICEF children crisis
Uploaded by standardgroupkenya on Jul 17, 2011
A hunger crisis is putting millions of children at risk in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia as the drought situation begins taking its toll. The United Nations children’s fund, UNICEF, has called for an immediate expansion of assistance across the horn of Africato address the dire needs of more than two million children, 500,000 of whom face imminent risk of dying. Prime Minister Raila Odinga says aid should be distributed across the somali border to control the high numbers of refugees crossing into Kenya due to hunger.
Turkana drought
Uploaded by standardgroupkenya on Jul 16, 2011
The United Kingdom has pledged 17.5 billion shillings in emergency aid to help drought victims in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia. The news comes just in time with a report released yesterday predicting that as many as 3.5 million people in Kenya alone will be in need of food aid in the next few months. Wajir district and the greater Turkana region are among the worst hit areas. Kenya Red Cross statistics show that about 800,000 people in the Turkana region are dependent on donors. KTN’s Betty Kyallo has just returned from Turkana Central and brings us this report.
For Somali refugee children in Kenya, the new school offers a fresh start
Uploaded by unicef on Sep 9, 2011
UNICEF’s Kyle O’Donoghue reports on accelerated education for Somali children who have fled famine and conflict and are living in refugee camps in Daddab, Kenya.
For more information, please visit http://www.unicef.org
