Category Archives: Refugees

THE AFRICAN UNION HAVE A ROPE ON THEIR NECKS WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF ICC DOCKET

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From: “Nyambok, Thomas”

ALL AFRICAN HEADS OF STATES WILL PASS THROUGH THE HAGUE FOR ACOUNTEBILLITY BEFORE THEY LEAVE THEIR OFFICES.

The former President Arap Moi during 2013 elections went across the border to Kampala and met with Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni about the border security regarding the rigging of Uhuru Kenyatta to take over the presidency. They feared that other presidential aspirants would work with The Hague – feared most was Raila Odinga. This is why Yoweri Museveny has been so aggressive on matters regarding the International Criminal Courts?

The former President of Kenya: Mr Mwai Kibaki also went across the boarder during the 2013, Presidential election campaign time and met with the siting Tanzania’s President. Why was it important for Kibaki to cross the boarder at the time? Is it because Raila Odinga had higher prospects of winning the elections which would put them at risk in the hands of International Criminal Courts? Was it also surprising that the Chief Justice also made a trip to Tanzania?

The African Head of States have a rope on their Necks. One thing is that they will not pull out from the International Criminal Courts because their Parliaments would have to pass it and yet parliamentarians must represent their voters’ interest.

The Government is for the people. The people are the voters as well as tax payers. The opinions of the peoples’ representatives in Parliament must be a representation of the opinions of the people they represent – this will be reflected in the Referendum. The Hague is for the poor and for the dead to get justice?

The government of the people expects that Uhuru Kenyatta should be committed to Shaw respect to the International Criminal Courts. It is not clear why Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy Ruto are conducting another very expensive campaign by having Ruto go round African countries in a private plane for support. Why? They should just go to The Hague and prove themselves innocent instead of being Vague. Genocide was executed?

Kenyatta and Ruto’s actions indicate that they have doubts, and worries about the truth of the matter before the Court. Do they think that they might find refuge in the hands of other heads of African States? Could this be their only option because there can never be an engineered loop hole at The Hague? Could it be possible that it is becoming very clear that there are other things that money cannot buy?

May be it is time for the people of the entire African Union to adopt one fundamental Constitution that outgoing Presidents are held accountable for their actions, this might help protect the innocent lives of the poor and the helpless.

The Ugandan President is something else. He seems to have some strange feelings about Kenya and the siting President Uhuru Kenyatta. Could he be pushing Kenyatta aggressively with the intention of putting him in trouble? Is he envious of the fact that Kenyans’ did not go to war after this year’s elections? He should wait for his turn to go to The Hague. Why was he holding the Nation Newspaper print? Really, what is Museveni’s real interest in Kenyatta and Ruto’s case in The Hague? Why does he want the case moved back to Kenya? Could he be guilty of something and so he is busy lobbying for a precedence to be created for his benefit? Was the reason why Dr. Garang was killed printed in the Ugandan Nation News Paper? Well, Dr. Garang died in an Ugadan Air Force one Helicopter crash.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni took the fighter Cony to International Criminal Courts and now he is stupidly turning his coats upside down to ICC? Because he is stupid and a arrogantly trying to evade Kenya by cheating the government that they are one, he got this from Moi and Kibaki to start pooling his nose to Kenyan’s matters stupidly? Can he bring Dr Garang a live? But now they will face Jail too through ICC as he did to the fighter Cony.

Who killed Dr Garang? The first president of the Southern Sudan whom I was his Media Electronic Engineer? Could this be the reason why Yoweri Museveni is against the ICC? Why should he really? Birds of the some feathers flock together – they enjoy but we got them now?

Coming back to Mr Ruto, the deputy president didn’t join the former president Mwai Kibaki on his second rigged term Inauguration at the State House Nairobi. That’s clear and he is clean in this respect and he was not given any responsibilities to have the Mungiki ready.

Ruto has proved positively that he is a man with dignity who can go to The Hague with a Motorcade as the deputy President of the Republic of Kenya and come back to Kenya as a free man.

The resent trip by Kenya’s Deputy President to some four African States, raise a big cloud on his motives. Kenyans’ have a right to know what this trip was for, and why he had to use tax payers’ money to finance this trip. The last I can remember is that Kenyatta and Ruto are accused as individuals. Why should financing these campaigns about the ICC cases be the responsibility of the people of Kenya? Were these finances budgeted for or this is the beginning of the show of financial extravagance of Kenyatta and Ruto? Why did Ruto have to threaten Kenya’s Nation Newspaper?

How about the future Hague trips? Who will be accountable for the air tickets for Courts’ trips, accommodations, and the motorcade?

Will they be paid per DM as those who have taken vacation, or leave pay? This is a private matter? The truth, fairness, transparency are required now because it has not been fair for the dead and those who can’t even make the difference? They must realize that their manifesto will not be accepted at all.

The two former presidents must also go to The Hague. They forced Innocent Kenyan lives to be lost. If Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy Ruto are found not guilty then Moi and Kibaki must sit on that plate to be an example. THE WORLD IS WAITING FOR THE OUTCOME OF THIS SEROIUS MATTER AT THIS MOMENT FOR THE DEAD.

Tom Nyambok 5/31/2013

KENYA: A MOVE TO PAY SOME FRESH IDPS ANGERS 2007 IDPS FROM NYANZA

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By Dickens Wasonga

The country may not know that even in the just concluded polls there were IDPs, only that this time they were quickly compensated and they moved back to their homes.

This was the case in Kisumu’s Kondele and Car wash areas where some people pitched camp at the Kondele police station albeit briefly. However its the good gesture by the government in Kisumu to coordinate efforts facilitated by well-wishers to appease these Kenyans that has left tongues wagging with a section of Nyanza IDPs of 2007 election related violence lamenting that they were a forgotten lot .

At the heart of the matter is the Sh 10,000 payment each of the more than fifty families said to have been evicted from their homes in Kisumu after the Supreme Court verdict on March 4 polls received.

Some fifty three families allegedly dashed to police stations in Kisumu out of fear immediately the court upheld Uhuru Kenyatta Presidency.

Spontaneous protests rocked parts of the city among them Kondele, Nyalenda, Nyawita and Obunga areas immediately the ruling was made but police moved swiftly to quell the tension.

Later, Kisumu East District Commissioner Willy Cheboi told Journalists that the security team had directed all the families camping at the police stations to vacate them since there was no cause for alarm.

The DC warned that some people were masquerading as Internally Displaced Persons to seek favors from the Government.

However, it later emerged that the families were compensated despite the government officer’s earlier claims that they would not be compensated since their property were safe.

When contacted for comments regarding the payment of the families, Kisumu East DC Willy Cheboi said he would not comment on the matter since his office did not coordinate the payments.

“The coordination of the payment was made by the County Commissioner’s office hence the officer is at the right position to comment on the matter,” Cheboi said.

The County Commissioner Lorna Odero when contacted confirmed payment of cash to the said families.

She however, denied the payment being from the Government.

“We paid the families but not from government funds. The payment was coordinated by my office but the money came from well wishers,” Odero said.

She pointed out that The Kenya Red Cross, the disaster committee and the Kisumu Rescue Committee gave out the funds for compensation.

Several IDPs in Nyanza have in the past raised concerns over the delay in compensation by the government.

They have raised complaints of not receiving compensation as their colleagues from other parts of the country and wondered how quick “a few in Kisumu were paid after the Supreme court verdict.”

Their leaders claimed the move was a clear pointer to their earlier claims that the government was favoring some IDPs while ignoring the plight of some who have been kept waiting for assistance five years down the line especially those from Nyanza who returned to the region after fleeing violence of 2007 election .

According to the chairman of 2007 IDPs from Nyanza Mr. Nelson Owegi not even a half of the 126,000 returnees from the region have been compensated by the state over the loss they suffered in the skirmishes.

Owegi said this was despite earlier promises made to them last year in August by the PS Andrew Mondoh during a meeting held at the PCs office which was atttended by representatives of the victims from across the region.

” We even visited the PS in his office in Nairobi four months later for a follow up meeting and he promised us payment before the general elections. We feel we are being discriminated by the government” he said.

Owegi was forced to flee the violence from Limuru where he was doing business and suffered a great loss during the violence which rocked the country following the disputed results of 2007 polls.

ENDS.

KENYA: ALREADY SETTLED IDP AND FORMER MAU FOREST SETTLERS ARE SNEAKING BACK and forcefully RECLAIMING THEIR FARMS – – EVEN THOSE WHO HAD SOLD THEIRS.

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Writes Leo Odera Omolo In Kericho town.

UNCONFIRMED reports making the round in this town says, that some of the already settled IDPs and former illegal settlers in Mau Forest water catchment areas were slowly sneaking back and forcefully demanding that those who had been allocated the land by the government quit.

Some of them are allegedly returning to both Mau Forest and Mau Narok and other areas like Molo, Elburgon, Likia, Njro, Kuresoi and even in Uasin Gishu, Burnt Forest and forcefully demanding back their old farms. Other unconfirmed allegations say the returnees are always coming in the company of armed security personnel.

THe common saying is that with the new Jubilee government likely to be in office soon after the March 4, 2013 general election, even those who were forcefully expelled from their farms as the skirmishes of 1992 / 93, 1996 / 1997 and 2007 / 2008 are sneaking back and putting up new houses in some places where the government had already spent the colossal amount of money in reforestation efforts.

Our informer who requested for his name to be kept anonymous for fear of reprisals said those returning to the vacated land are members of the two communities, namely the Kikuyus and the Kalenjin, and that tensions is likely to go up in the region.

He said he had some information that even those former settlers who sold their land on their own volition long time ago before the tribal skirmishes were now demanding their property back in total disregard of new developments already made by new owners on such property. This, he added, is likely to raise political temperature by way of touching on old wounds.

New settlers have also been sighted in the Mau West and Mau Narok, Kuresoi and areas, while new structures have also
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Kenya: Neighbors Kill Neighbors as Kenyan Vote Stirs Old Feuds

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From: Judy Miriga

Good People,

What should we expect with this flawed election if it cannot be differed and be postponed in order put things in order in the right perspective before election can take place???

I smell trouble people and the memories of 2007/8 is heaped in our memory lane and it shall not go away……and, everybody else is feeling the same…!!!

Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com

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Neighbors Kill Neighbors as Kenyan Vote Stirs Old Feuds

MALINDI, Kenya — In a room by the stairs, Shukrani Malingi, a Pokomo farmer, writhed on a metal cot, the skin on his back burned off. Down the hall, at a safe distance, Rahema Hageyo, an Orma girl, stared blankly out of a window, a long scar above her thimble-like neck. She was nearly decapitated by a machete chop — and she is only 9 months old.

Ever since vicious ethnic clashes erupted between the Pokomo and Orma several months ago in a swampy, desolate part of Kenya, the Tawfiq Hospital has instituted a strict policy for the victims who are trundled in: Pokomos on one side, Ormas on the other. The longstanding rivalry, which both sides say has been inflamed by a governor’s race, has become so explosive that the two groups remain segregated even while receiving lifesaving care. When patients leave their rooms to use the restroom, they shuffle guardedly past one another in their bloodstained smocks, sometimes pushing creaky IV stands, not uttering a word.

“There are three reasons for this war,” said Elisha Bwora, a Pokomo elder. “Tribe, land and politics.”

Every five years or so, this stable and typically peaceful country, an oasis of development in a very poor and turbulent region, suffers a frightening transformation in which age-old grievances get stirred up, ethnically based militias are mobilized and neighbors start killing neighbors. The reason is elections, and another huge one — one of the most important in this country’s history and definitely the most complicated — is barreling this way.

In less than two weeks, Kenyans will line up by the millions to pick their leaders for the first time since a disastrous vote in 2007, which set off clashes that killed more than 1,000 people. The country has spent years agonizing over the wounds and has taken some steps to repair itself, most notably passing a new constitution. But justice has been elusive, politics remain ethnically tinged and leaders charged with crimes against humanity have a real chance of winning.

People here tend to vote in ethnic blocs, and during election time Kenyan politicians have a history of stoking these divisions and sometimes even financing murder sprees, according to court documents. This time around, the vitriolic speeches seem more restrained, but in some areas where violence erupted after the last vote the underlying message of us versus them is still abundantly clear.

Now, the country is asking a simple but urgent question: Will history repeat itself?

“This election brings out the worst in us,” read a column last week in The Daily Nation, Kenya’s biggest newspaper. “All the tribal prejudice, all ancient grudges and feuds, all real and imagined slights, all dislikes and hatreds, everything is out walking the streets like hordes of thirsty undeads looking for innocents to devour.”

As the election draws nearer, more alarm bells are ringing. Seven civilians were ambushed and killed in northeastern Kenya on Thursday in what was widely perceived to be a politically motivated attack. The day before, Kenya’s chief justice said that a notorious criminal group had threatened him with “dire consequences” if he ruled against a leading presidential contender. Farmers in the Rift Valley say that cattle rustling is increasing, and they accuse politicians of instigating the raids to stir up intercommunal strife.

Because Kenya is such a bellwether country on the continent, what happens here in the next few weeks may determine whether the years of tenuous power-sharing and political reconciliation — a model used after violently contested elections in Zimbabwe as well — have ultimately paid off.

“The rest of Africa wants to know whether it’s possible to learn from past elections and ensure violence doesn’t flare again,” said Phil Clark, a lecturer at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. “With five years’ warning, is it possible to address the causes of conflict and transfer power peacefully?”

Spurred on by Kenyan intellectuals and Western allies, Kenya has overhauled its judiciary, election commission and the nature of power itself. Dozens of new positions, like governorships and Senate seats, have been created to ensure that resources flow down more equitably to the grass roots, an attempt to weaken the winner-take-all system that lavished rewards and opportunities on some ethnic groups while relegating others to the sidelines.
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A Pokomo woman salvaged items from her home, which was burned to the ground last month.
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But in places like the Tana River Delta, where the clashes between Pokomos and Ormas have already killed more than 200 people, the new emphasis on local government has translated into more spoils to fight over. And there are nearly 50 governor races coming up across Kenya, many of them quite heated.

“The Orma are trying to displace us so we can’t vote,” said Mr. Bwora, the Pokomo elder. “They have burned our villages, even our birth certificates. How are we supposed to vote then?”

The Orma accuse the Pokomos of doing precisely the same thing, right down to the burning of birth certificates.

On the national stage, two of Kenya’s most contentious politicians — Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto — are running on the same ticket for president and deputy president. Both have been charged by the International Criminal Court with crimes against humanity stemming from the violence last time. Mr. Kenyatta, a deputy prime minister and son of Kenya’s first president, is accused of financing death squads that moved house to house in early 2008, slaughtering opposition supporters and their families, including young children.

He could quite possibly be elected Kenya’s next president and find himself the first sitting head of state to commute back and forth from The Hague, potentially complicating the typically cozy relationship between Kenya and the West.

There is a growing perception among many members of Mr. Kenyatta’s ethnic group, the Kikuyu, and Mr. Ruto’s, the Kalenjin, that they must win this election in order to protect their leaders from being hauled off to a jail cell in Europe, which is raising tensions even higher.

Most analysts here feel this election will be turbulent, though some argue it will not be as bad as last time.

“Things are different,” said Maina Kiai, a prominent Kenyan human rights advocate. For instance, he noted, it was the Kikuyu and Kalenjin who fought one another in the Rift Valley in 2007 and 2008, but now many members of those two groups are on the same side because their leaders have formed a political alliance.

“There may be new arenas of violence,” Mr. Kiai said. “But I don’t think the extent of violence will be the same.”

There is also a keen awareness of how much there is to lose. The Kenyan economy flatlined after the turmoil of the last election. But now it has recovered mightily, spawning a dizzying number of new highways, schools, hospitals, malls, wine bars, frozen yogurt stores, even free samples in the supermarket — evidence of Kenya’s position on this continent as home to a deep and booming middle class.

Many nations in this region depend on Kenya, as demonstrated by the economic chaos caused downstream during the last election when mobs blockaded Kenya’s highways and sent fuel prices spiking as far away as the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Another safety valve may be the courts, which are now considered much more independent, one of the biggest achievements since the last election. Kenya’s new judiciary is led by a former political prisoner and widely respected legal mind, Willy Mutunga, the chief justice, who said he was threatened this week.

The hope is that if any election disputes arise between Mr. Kenyatta and the other front-runner, Raila Odinga, Kenya’s prime minister, who says he was cheated out of winning last time, Justice Mutunga will step in — before people on the streets do.

But the Tana River Delta remains a blaring red warning sign, and there have been suspicions that political figures are deliberately fanning old disputes, in this case over land.

One leading Pokomo politician, who was an assistant minister, was recently arrested and accused of incitement, though the case was soon dropped. The allegation echoed the International Criminal Court cases, which assert that behind the ground-level mayhem in 2007 and 2008 were political leaders who incited their followers to kill for political gain.

Up and down the crocodile-infested Tana River, Pokomo and Orma youth are now patrolling the banks with spears and rusty swords. The result is a grim, sun-blasted tableau of ethnically segregated but parallel villages mired in the same poverty, misery and fear.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/22/world/africa/neighbors-kill-neighbors-in-kenya-as-election-tensions-stir-age-old-grievances.html?pagewanted=2&ref=africa

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Kenya: The Inter-clan clashes in Kuria is all about politics and not because of cattle rustling as claimed in certain quarters

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News Analysis By Leo Odera Omolo In Migori Town.

He latest flare up between the two rival sub-clans in Kuria district within Migori County in which thee people have lost their precious lives and close to 70 houses torched leaving more than 570 people displaced did not come about as the result of the traditional cattle rustling, but has some political connotation which need to be investigated thoroughly by the government.

There is something in the skirmishes more than meet the eye. The Kurias are protesting against a political party which is trying to impose an unpopular candidate, who has also long been suspected to be foreign, to represent them in the Senate.

The former Kuria |MP Dr Wilfred Machage is the official ODM candidate for Migori County Senate seat. The latte,r who is also an Assistant Minister for Public Works, has represented the community ever since 2002. He has served as an MP leaning on the PNU side of the ruling grand coalition and was also the deputy PNU party leader.

However, early this year Dr. Machage successfully persuaded the ODM leader Raila Amolo Odinga to accept him with a promise that this new arrangement would give “Agwambo” political mileage over his rivals by harvesting 100 per cent of all the votes within the two Kuria districts of Kuria East and Kuria West.

The Kuria constituency which was created in 1962 has since been splinted into Kuria East and Kuria West. Dr Machage had demanded that he be given a direct nomination as his prerequisite and conditions of rejoining the ODM.

Raila Odinga following intensive persuasion by his front man in Migori County, who is Dalmas Otieno, the Minister for Public Service hastily and readily accepted Dr. Machage’s plan as viable.

Dalmas Oteno while working in cohorts with some Luo MPs from the Migori County who included Edick Omondi Anyanga {Nyatike}, Cyprian Ojwang’ Omolo {Uriri]. John Pesa {Migori} followed the arrangement with a series of night meetings held behind the closed door of the various posh Nairobi hotels.The group later tried in vain to sell the idea to the electorate, but they prove to be so adamant, forcing Raila Odinga himself to make a series of unscheduled visits to Migori in order to bulldoze and coerce the voters to accept that the Kuria community is one of the marginalized minority communities in Kenya and as such need pr0tection by way of reserving certain elective seats with the Migori County governance exclusively for the Kurias.

At the same time, Raila had assured the voters that nobody would be given direct nomination by the ODM and that all the interested aspirants would have to compete in the open for votes.

However, what might have been known to Raila is that Dr.Machage is not a popular leader of all the Kuria people. The former Kuria MP is not a member of any of the four major Kuria sub-clans livng in Kenya. He is a member of Abakenye, a small Kuria sub-clan living in the North Mara in Tanzania and neighboring Jo-Sakwa Kowak and Rieny Kowuoyo.

The major Kuria sub-clans living in Kenya comprises of Abanyabansi, Abairege, Bugumbe and Abakiria. Dr Machage is not a member of any of the four sub-clans and as such he is being treated by the Kuria people as a immigrant and a foreigner and specifically a Tanzanian.living among them.

Another Tanzanian Kuria who in the past has succeeded in sitting inside Kenyan parliament for two parliamentary terms of five years is Eng Shadrack Mangawho was elected an MP between 1992 and 1997 and has served in the defunct MOi KANU government as an Assistant Minister.

Manga is a member of another smaller Kuria sub-clan living across the common Kenya-Tanzania borders which is known as Ntimbaru. After his election, some Kuria intellectuals and politicians made a concerted efforts and even moved to court to have him {Manga} out of Kenyan parliament on claims that he was a Tanzanian and therefore a foreign an ineligible to sit in Kenya in vain. The case was thrown out by the court.

Kuria parliament seat was created in 1962 by the British appointed Boundaries omission, which was led by Prof. Mackenzie in 1962.Its first MP was Benjamin Maisori -Itumbo who was appointed to the post-independence cabinet as an Assistant Minister for Social Services. He had also served as a member of the defunct colonial Legislative Coucil in which he was nominated by the governor Sir.Patrick Renson in 1961.

Maisori-tumbo hails from Bugumbe sub-clan and had dominated Kuria politics for close to three decades. He was later replaced by Samson Marwa Mwita, and later by Walter Mwita.Al the three past MPs were the indignant Kenyan Kuria people.

By the time the ODM made the disastrous decision to have the the Migori County Senate seat reserved for the Kuria, several political – personalities had already hit the peak with their campaign for the same seat. Tey included John Magaiywa , the ODM MIGORI County branch chairman,

The result of the ODM nomination was most disappointing. Raila’s preferred candidate Dr Machage garnered paltry 51,000 votes against Magaiywa’s 72,000 votes. Strangely enough the ODM headquarters issued Dr.Machage with nomination certificate and denied Magaiywa his hard won election victory.

Those privy to information about Kuria politics have confided to us that the latest inter-clans clashes had just come about as the protest by the voters against the ODM decision of supporting the nomination loser while leaving out the winner. He skirmishes cannot be dismissed as caused by cattle rustling, but as the result of bad politics.

Ends

Kenya & Tanzania: Massai issued a threat to block tourist from accessing Serengerti park and Ngorongoro World Heritage Site

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Writes Leo Odera Omolo

The Maasai pastralist community living in the Northern Tanzanian region of Arusha has issued the government with ultimatum to either supply its starving members with free food or else it would block tourists from accessing the famous Serengeti national game park and the adjacent Ngorongoro World Heritage site.

The community has accused the Tanzanian government of reneging on an agreement and pushing its people into starvation.

The community, which is spread across the Tanzania-Kenya borders with half of its people living on the Kenyan side while another half on the Tanzanian side has given the Tanzanian government until December 22 to start issuing its members with free food as stipulated in the Ngorongoro agreement or allow them to cultivate the game park land and conduct farming therein.

The Northern Tourists Circuit comprises the world renowned Ngorongoro Crater, Serengeti National Park, Manyara and Tarangire National Parks, which accounts for 80 per cent of the country’s annual tourism earning estimated at USD 1.3 BILLION.

According to the pastoralist community leaders, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority {GCAA} has failed to provide for the community.This failure has resulted in the deaths of three children from starvation and hunger.

The NCAA is legally bound to take care of the |Maasai patoralist population living within the conservation area in order to protect the wildlife and other natural resources.

He community says it will block tourists from accessing the parks to pressure the government to honor its part of the deal, or allow its people to cultivate the land in the parks and conduct farming activities therein.

The Maasai said the would turn the tourist circuit into a no-go zone for tourists during this Christmas season.

He ultimatum was issued last week by the secretary of the Ngorngoro Pastoralist Committee .Lazaro Saitoti who said that the government must immediately supply the community with 9000 tons of emergency food grains.n addition to the NCAA giving the pastoralist community the sums of USD 9,375 million,which is equivalent to 30 per cent of the NCAAtuoirst collection of USD 5,215 million,up from the current USD 812,200 million.

The committee protect the interests of the 64,000members of the Maasai community living within the Ngorongoro Conservation area.

Other demands by the Maasai contained in the statement is that none members of the community living in the area be forcefully evicted from the protected areas..

Further demands were that hotels and lodges operating within the conservancy areas should give the community the lion’s share in terms of employment opportunities.

The community is also demanding for three representatives on the NCAA board. Currently the board has only one member from the community. They also wanted to be assured of the political goodwill to develop the community along with its neighbors

The Ngorongoro member of parliament Kaika Sabubg’o Telele warned that the community threat to block the access to the famous tourist attraction sceneries was serious and things could get out of hand unless the government take the quickest action to address the problem.

IN the MP’s view, the delay in supplying food May be a calculated move to frustrate the indigenous Maasai to leave the NCAA and find places to stay away from the conservation zones.

A senior govern ment official, however, dismissed the threat as politically motivated and asked the community to channel its case through the right channel to register their complaints.

ends

Kenya: At long last, Hon Kenyatta and Hon Ruto doing the right thing.

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from: odhiambo okecth

6th December 2012

Friends,

At long last, Hon Uhuru Kenyatta and Hon William Ruto are doing the right thing; not contesting for the Presidency and the Deputy Presidency of the Democratic Republic of Kenya.

This is what we have been talking about for some while now; that the Duo have no business contesting the Kenyan Presidency at a time they are faced with serious crimes against humanity on the account of the genocide we witnessed in Kenya in 2008 where 1,133 Kenyans were killed in cold blood following the botched elections of 2007.

Again, 600,000 Kenyans were displaced and property worth Millions of Shilling destroyed. They were then named by the Waki Commission as being amongst the 6 persons bearing the greatest responsibility on the killings, the displacements and the destroyed property.

Both Hon Kenyatta and Hon Ruto have their Fundamental Rights as Kenyans. But the only Right they have now is the Right to Clear their names of these crimes at the Hague. Not the right to contest for Leadership of Kenya.

Once they are cleared, they will have ALL the Rights to present themselves to us as Kenyans for any Leadership Role in our Sovereign State of the Republic of Kenya and we will be happy to consider their applications amongst others.

But for them to have initially insisted on contesting was a kin to committing mass suicide with Kenyans on accounts of Personal Tribulations.

This was careless and reckless. But now that they have seen the light, I want to be on record as the first person to congratulate them for doing the right thing. This Duo have some great potential that we can tap into as a Country. We only need to forget their past and forge forward as a Team determined to build Kenya.

Hon Ruto, despite his past, was a great Public Servant performer in the Ministries he was given to head. We all saw the zeal with which he addressed the issues at the Ministry of Agriculture and at the Ministry of Higher Education. I cannot say the same of Hon Kenyatta. He did not leave clear track records at the Ministries of Local Government and at Finance.

His tenure at both Ministries was marked with question marks.

But the bottom line is, we must all appreciate the wisdom with which this Duo has seen the light. If only they realized early enough that they stood no chance with Kenyans, they would have helped us in the healing process for this Country.

We are now so polarized and so tribal and we cannot pretend about this. We must as a Country face this reality to enable us surmount the same.

At The Clean Kenya Campaign, we want to Stay with these Issues as we face the General Elections of 4th March 2013, as we face our Silver Jubilee on 1st June 2013 and as we all work for the realization of Vision 2030.

We want to appeal to Kenyans to register as voters and on the 4th March 2013, to turn out in large numbers and vote for leaders of our choices. But we must not FORGET that we all have blood and that we all bleed. We must hence campaign peacefully, vote peacefully and celebrate the choice we shall have made as Kenyans PEACEFULLY.

There is absolutely NO reason for us to fight, kill, displace and destroy property.

This is not the Kenya new want. We want a Kenya where we all respect each other as we make our choices.

We must not keep quite and pretend that all is well the way we did in 2007. We must act now.

Now, look at this Petition and if you are agreeable to its content, sign and help disseminate the same far and wide;http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/removing-the-director-of-environment-at-ccn-from-office.html

Let us Move From Talking to Tasking as we Stay with the Issues garbage.

Let us all work for a Clean Kenya and a Clean Africa as a Transformative Deliverable as we turn 50 in Kenya.

Odhiambo T Oketch,
Komarock Nairobi

Extremely Urgent: 45,000 IDPs, near Goma November 21, 2012.

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From: Judy Miriga

Thanks Ali Rashid,

This underworld is mind boggling. It is unacceptable and things cannot go on like this; but they must be brought to a close. The world is falling apart if nothing will be done to bring this matter to an end……It is bad and innocent lives and blood are crying out aloud………We will not just sit and watch…….God will not be happy.

This matter of Private Merceneries if the mother of all problems we have in the world; it is the reason for economic crisis and Offshoring where Traders demand Free Trading and are fighting to eliminate existance of Governments and so, it is the reason why Governments finances goes to illegally organized groups fueling Terrorists and Pirates that are terrorizing the whole world……..

We demand for an Extremely urgent and thorough investigation to this matter and we ask the UN and the the ICC Hague not to waste any more time but act urgently to embark and bring these Organizers and Engineers of Terror and the illegal Terrorist invasions before Legal Justice so acts of Dictatorships with excessive fear from such organized gangs would come to a close.

Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com

– – – – – – – – – –

— On Sat, 11/24/12, Ali Rashid wrote:
From: Ali Rashid
Subject: ###Urgent: 45,000 IDPs, near Goma November 21, 2012.
Date: Saturday, November 24, 2012, 4:10 PM

AHASANTE KWAKUTUJULISHA

Ni hii habari hapa ambayo inatatiza.

The UPDF of course denied Otunnu’s claims. But the New York Times report also accused General Saleh and other top Ugandan army officers of using their ties to paramilitaries to plunder Congolese diamonds, gold and timber. But what exactly is Saracen International? Who really owns it? Our efforts to get a comment from Saracen International were futile by press time.

So for the time being, it may be fair to say that no one really knows for sure what Saracen International is, and who owns it. What one can say however is that Saracen International is definitely a murky trade name that is shared by a number of private security companies across Africa, Europe, the Middle East and North America.

A few have however been linked to the infamous South African mercenary firm called Executive Outcomes; the same company that allegedly tried to send mercenaries to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea in order to tap into the country’s oil and mineral wealth.

Saracen International has also been linked to a certain Erik Prince; the man whose company Blackwater is allegedly financing a “Counter-Piracy” mercenary squad in Somalia . Both the New York TimesandAssociated Press have carried similar allegations against Saracen International on the strength of“confidential” reports leaked from the African Union.

From: Judy Miriga
Sent: Saturday, November 24, 2012 10:02 PM
Subject: ###Urgent: 45,000 IDPs, near Goma November 21, 2012.

Ali Rashid,
Museveni has a case to answer at the ICC Hague……and with all these evidence

we must begin to push forward the cases of Crimes, Violation and Abuse against

Human Rights……..It is time the ICC Hague to catch up with Museven, Kagame and Kabila. Meles is dead but we know Meles and Somali Salim Saleh with Team including Kibaki, Moi with Team must follow suit.

Museveni is a bully, he took Migingo by force and killed many Luo fishermen and confiscated their fishing tools. He brought his brother Saleh Somali Pirates to take and control Migingo, Lake Victoria and the sorrounding lakes; ready to enleash lethal attack to wipe out Luo Nyanza with his Somali Al-Shabaab joined with the Mungiki which is why Kibaki has to do some explaining at the ICC Hague why the 2007/8 he used Museveni to target and wipe out the Luos from Nyanza….it is what is under conspiracy why Al-Shabaab is in the offensive to create instability by killing people from Garrisa, Tana River, Mombasa, Eastleigh in Nairobi and Kisumu.

ICC Must begin to engage these investigations while they are behind bars…..and this cannot wait any longer. Evidence are crystal clear and there is no excuse to wait for another day…….

Museveni with the Somali Brother Salim Saleh with Kagame, engaged in extreme commando with Kibaki to destroy stability of East Africa and through COMESA took pride in distabilizing the region with utter invasion of Lake Victoria with the surroundings, killed and destroyed livelihood and survival of many. They forced people to a forceful re-location because they planned an illegal OCCUPATION. This is unaccepted. The Law must take precedence and ICC Hague must take the lead to create favorable and stable habitation of people in the region. Legal Justice is the way to peace in the Greater Region of COMESA and this cannot wait.

How could the Rebel training go on in Congo and Kibaki, Kagame, Kabila and Museveni are quite pretending to be dumb. They must pay for the lives lost, human livelihood and survival that are destroyed. They must pay for the forceful Migration of of Victims of Circumstances. They must pay for causing insecurity because of illegal occupation there.

No one is above the law………!!!

Connect the dots people and everybody to push for ICC Hague to take up this matter with the urgency it deserve……..!!!

Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com

Check Out Foot-Note How America’s Dollar & Wealth have wings

Through Foundations and NGOs……Draining the Country dry….

— On Sat, 11/24/12, Ali Rashid wrote:

From: Ali Rashid
Subject: ###Urgent: 45,000 IDPs, near Goma November 21, 2012.
Date: Saturday, November 24, 2012, 4:10 PM

AHASANTE KWAKUTUJULISHA

Ni hii habari hapa ambayo inatatiza.

The UPDF of course denied Otunnu’s claims. But the New York Times report also accused General Saleh and other top Ugandan army officers of using their ties to paramilitaries to plunder Congolese diamonds, gold and timber. But what exactly is Saracen International? Who really owns it? Our efforts to get a comment from Saracen International were futile by press time.

So for the time being, it may be fair to say that no one really knows for sure what Saracen International is, and who owns it. What one can say however is that Saracen International is definitely a murky trade name that is shared by a number of private security companies across Africa, Europe, the Middle East and North America.

A few have however been linked to the infamous South African mercenary firm called Executive Outcomes; the same company that allegedly tried to send mercenaries to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea in order to tap into the country’s oil and mineral wealth.

Saracen International has also been linked to a certain Erik Prince; the man whose company Blackwater is allegedly financing a “Counter-Piracy” mercenary squad in Somalia . Both the New York TimesandAssociated Press have carried similar allegations against Saracen International on the strength of“confidential” reports leaked from the African Union.

Blackwater Founder Moves to Abu Dhabi, Records Say
By JAMES RISEN
Published: August 17, 2010

WASHINGTON — Erik Prince, whose company, Blackwater Worldwide, is for sale and whose former top managers are facing criminal charges, has left the United States and moved to Abu Dhabi, according to court documents.

Times Topic:Blackwater Worldwide

Mr. Prince, a former member of the Navy Seals and an heir to a Michigan auto parts fortune, left the country after a series of civil lawsuits, criminal charges and Congressional investigations singled out Blackwater or its former executives and other personnel. His company, now called Xe Services, has collected hundreds of millions of dollars from the United States government since 2001.

Current and former colleagues said Mr. Prince hoped to focus on security work from governments in Africa and the Middle East. They also said he was bitter about the legal scrutiny and negative publicity his company had received.

“He needs a break from America,” said one colleague, speaking only on the condition of anonymity about Mr. Prince’s long-rumored move.

Mr. Prince does not face any criminal charges, but five former top company executives have been indicted on federal weapons, conspiracy and obstruction charges. Two guards who worked for a Blackwater-affiliated company face murder charges from a 2009 shooting in Afghanistan, and the Justice Department is trying to revive its prosecution of five former Blackwater guards accused of killing 17 Iraqi civilians in 2007.

Over the past several years, Congress has also conducted a series of investigations of Blackwater’s activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, including an inquiry by the House Intelligence Committee into the company’s involvement in a proposed Central Intelligence Agency assassination program.

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Mr. Prince, declined to comment about Mr. Prince’s move. Richard L. Beizer, a Washington lawyer representing Mr. Prince in a civil case, did not respond to requests for comment.

In documents filed last week in a civil lawsuit brought by former Blackwater employees accusing Mr. Prince of defrauding the government, Mr. Prince sought to avoid giving a deposition by stating that he had moved to Abu Dhabi in time for his children to enter school there Aug. 15. In the documents filed in federal court in Virginia, Mr. Prince’s lawyers describe Abu Dhabi as Mr. Prince’s place of residence. His deposition is now scheduled to take place there next week, lawyers involved in the case said.

Mr. Prince made a name for himself during the height of the war in Iraq, when Blackwater became the most recognizable brand name in the booming field of private security contracting. The company, which Mr. Prince founded in 1997, expanded rapidly, winning a series of contracts with the State Department, the C.I.A. and the Defense Department.

But Blackwater personnel in Iraq soon gained a reputation for cowboy tactics and the use of excessive force while guarding convoys of United States diplomats, leading to complaints from Iraqis and friction with the United States military.

Blackwater’s biggest public crisis came in September 2007, when its guards on a convoy in Nisour Square in Baghdad opened fire with machine guns, grenade launchers and other weapons, killing 17 Iraqi civilians. Five guards were indicted in the United States on manslaughter charges, but the charges were dismissed late last year by a federal judge. The Justice Department is appealing that ruling.

The Nisour Square killings ultimately led the State Department to drop Blackwater from its diplomatic security contract in Iraq. But the Justice Department has been investigating whether Blackwater sought to bribe Iraqi government officials to allow the firm to operate in the country after the Nisour Square killings.

In 2009, with scrutiny of Blackwater’s activities intensifying, Mr. Prince changed the company’s name and overhauled the management. He sold the company’s aviation arm early this year, and finally placed the whole company, including its huge headquarters and training complex in Moyock, N.C., up for sale in June.

COMMENTS:

[–]Ra__ 0 points1 point2 points 3 years ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on Plenty of Blackwater and Halliburton sins have been catalogued before this. They just smile and walk away with impunity. The system has failed us.

Blackwater founder Erik Prince enters video game business
MODERN WARFARE
September 12, 2011|By John Gaudiosi, Special to CNN

“Blackwater” was developed by Zombie Studios and overseen by former Navy SEAL amd Blackwater founder Erik Prince.

More and more, today’s video game business is driven by huge military shooters like Activision’s “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3” and Electronic Arts’ “Battlefield 3.”

Now, Erik Prince, the founder of a controversial, real-world military group, is stepping into the virtual war zone with a new first-person shooter, “Blackwater.”

Designed exclusively for Microsoft’s Kinect for Xbox 360, “Blackwater” was developed by Zombie Studios and overseen by Prince, a former Navy SEAL.

The shooter is set in a fictional North African town overrun by warlords and opposing militia forces. Players enter the fray as team members of Blackwater, the mercenaries-for-hire company that Prince founded in 1997

Business > Companies > Blackwater Worldwide
Blackwater Worldwide

Ahmad al-Rubaye/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Updated: April 25, 2011

Founded in 1998 by former Navy Seals, Blackwater Worldwide says it has trained tens of thousands of security personnel to work in hot spots around the world.

The company, now called Xe Services, was once the United States’ go-to contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has been under intense scrutiny since 2007, when Blackwater guards were accused of killing 17 civilians in Nisour Square in Baghdad.

The company and its executives and personnel have faced civil lawsuits, criminal charges and Congressional investigations surrounding accusations of murder and bribery. In April 2010, federal prosecutors announced weapons charges against five former senior Blackwater executives, including its former president, Erik D. Prince.

Nearly four years after the federal government began a string of investigations and criminal prosecutions against company personnel, some of the cases have fallen apart, burdened by legal obstacles including the difficulties of obtaining evidence in war zones, of gaining proper jurisdiction for prosecutions in American civilian courts, and of overcoming immunity deals given to defendants by American officials on the scene.

But in April 25, 2011, a federal appeals court reopened the criminal case against four former American military contractors accused of manslaughter in connection with the Nisour Square shooting in 2007.

Read More…

The Baghdad Shooting
On Sept. 16, 2007, a convoy of four armored vehicles carrying Blackwater guards armed with automatic rifles rolled through Baghdad. Out on a day in which an explosion had the city on edge, a man was shot in the head while driving, yet his car kept rolling. The guards responded with a barrage of gunfire and explosive weapons, leaving 17 dead and 24 wounded.

The shootings, in the middle of traffic, set off an anti-American political firestorm in Iraq and an international debate over the role of private security contractors in modern war zones. The Blackwater guards were accused of firing wildly and indiscriminately from their convoy into other cars and at Iraqi civilians. The guards defended their actions, saying they were responding to fire from insurgents.

The Nisour Square shootings became a watershed event in the Iraq war, and led the Iraqi government to demand greater sovereignty and control over foreign contractors operating in the country. The Baghdad government later demanded and won the right to subject foreign contractors to Iraqi law, while the United States government grudgingly began to impose greater curbs on the freewheeling activities of the personnel guarding American diplomats in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The former employees of Blackwater Worldwide were accused of manslaughter after the fatal shooting. But the charges were dismissed in December 2009 by a federal judge in Washington, who criticized the Justice Department for its handling of the case and ruled that prosecutors had relied on tainted evidence.

In April 2011, however, an appeals panel ordered the case reopened. The three-judge appeals panel, disagreeing with the judge’s decision, sent the case back, ordering Judge Ricardo M. Urbina of Federal District Court to review the evidence against each defendant individually.

The appeals court ruling was a victory for the Justice Department, which had been bruised by Judge Urbina’s ruling taking it to task for an overzealous prosecution.

Blackwater itself never truly recovered from the shooting. It quickly became the subject of numerous Congressional and federal investigations and lawsuits for a broad range of activities in Iraq and elsewhere.

Shell Companies

After Blackwater was roundly condemned for its conduct in Iraq, Blackwater created a web of more than 30 shell companies or subsidiaries in part to obtain millions of dollars in American government contracts.

While it is not clear how many of those businesses won contracts, at least three had deals with the United States military or the Central Intelligence Agency. Since 2001, the intelligence agency has awarded up to $600 million in classified contracts to Blackwater and its affiliates.

The network of companies — which includes several businesses located in offshore tax havens — allowed Blackwater to obscure its involvement in government work from contracting officials or the public, and to assure a low profile for any of its classified activities.

Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee, has requested that the Justice Department investigate whether Blackwater officers misled the government when using subsidiaries to solicit contracts.

The settlement with the State Department followed lengthy talks between Blackwater and the State Department that dealt with the violations as an administrative matter, allowing the firm to avoid criminal charges. It does not resolve other legal troubles still facing Blackwater and its former executives and other personnel.

Those include the indictments of five former executives on weapons and obstruction charges; a federal investigation into evidence that Blackwater officials sought to bribe Iraqi government officials; and the arrest of two former Blackwater guards on federal murder charges stemming from the killing of two Afghans in 2009.

Relationship With the C.I.A.

In December 2009, The New York Times reported that private security guards from Blackwater participated in some of the C.I.A.’s most sensitive activities — clandestine raids with agency officers against people suspected of being insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and the transporting of detainees, according to former company employees and intelligence officials.

The raids against suspects occurred on an almost nightly basis during the height of the Iraqi insurgency from 2004 to 2006, with Blackwater personnel playing central roles in what company insiders called “snatch and grab” operations.

Instead of simply providing security for C.I.A. officers, several former Blackwater guards have said they at times became partners in missions to capture or kill militants in Iraq and Afghanistan, a practice that raises questions about the use of guns for hire on the battlefield.

Separately, former Blackwater employees said they helped provide security on some C.I.A. flights transporting detainees in the years after the 2001 terror attacks in the United States.

Blackwater’s partnership with the C.I.A. has been enormously profitable for the North Carolina-based company, and became even closer after several top agency officials joined Blackwater.

The C.I.A.’s continuing relationship with the company has drawn harsh criticism from some members of Congress, who argue that the company’s tarnished record should preclude it from such work.

Nonetheless, in June 2010 the State Department awarded Blackwater a $120 million contract to provide security at its regional offices in Afghanistan, while the C.I.A. renewed the firm’s $100 million security contract for its station in Kabul. At the time, the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, defended the decision, saying that the company had offered the lowest bid and had “cleaned up its act.”

Company Founder Erik Prince

For a time, the company’s founder, Erik Prince, had ambitions to turn Blackwater into an informal arm of the American foreign policy and national security apparatus, and proposed to the C.I.A. to create a “quick reaction force” that could handle paramilitary operations for the spy agency around the world. He had hopes that Blackwater’s military prowess could be an influential force in regional conflicts around the world.

Mr. Prince, a former Navy Seal member and the heir to an auto parts fortune, has tried to shed his ties to Blackwater and its past activities. He overhauled the company’s management in 2009, changed its name, and in later 2010 sold the privately held company. He also moved with his family to Abu Dhabi from the United States, a move that colleagues say was a result of his deep anger and frustration over the intense scrutiny he and his firm have received.

While Mr. Prince stepped down from any management or operational role, he was expected to have a financial interest in his former company’s future. The company was subject to an agreement it reached with the State Department in August 2010. Under the settlement, the company paid $42 million in fines over hundreds of violations of United States export control regulations, permitting it to continue to compete for government contracts.

The new buyers hoped to recast the company as a military training organization instead of a private security service. The company’s training center in Moyock has trained more than 50,000 United States government personnel and allied forces. The buyers hope to receive new contracts to train forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen, among other locations, especially as the United States withdraws troops and needs to train local forces.

Somalia Operation

In January 2011, Mr. Prince was said to be backing an effort by a South African mercenary firm to insert itself in Somalia’s civil war. According to a report by the African Union, an organization of African states, Mr. Prince provided initial funding for a project by Saracen International to win contracts with Somalia’s embattled government. The Somali government has been cornered into a small patch of Mogadishu by the Shabab, a Somali militant group with ties to Al Qaeda.

The company, with corporate offshoots in Uganda and other countries, was formed with the remnants of Executive Outcomes, a private mercenary firm composed largely of former South African special operations troops that operated throughout Africa in the 1990s.

According to a Jan. 12, 2011 confidential report by the African Union, Mr. Prince “is at the top of the management chain of Saracen and provided seed money for the Saracen contract.” A Western official working in Somalia says he believes that it was Mr. Prince who first raised the idea of the Saracen contract with members of the Emirates’ ruling families, with whom he has a close relationship. Mr. Prince could not be reached for comment.

With its barely functional government and a fierce hostility to foreign armies since the hasty American withdrawal from Mogadishu in the early 1990s, Somalia is a country where Western militaries have long feared to tread. This has created an opportunity for private security companies like Saracen to fill the security vacuum created by years of civil war.

Days after the disclosure of the African Union report, many of Somalia’s biggest financial supporters, including the United States, have questioned the wisdom of the deal. Somali officials, in turn, cooled to the idea of working with Saracen.

Salim Saleh named in Somali ‘mercenary’ deal
http://www.ugandacorrespondent.com/articles/2011/01/salim-saleh-named-in-%e2%80%98mercenary%e2%80%99-deals-in-somalia/
By John Stephen Katende
31st January 2011

Gen. Salim Saleh: Is he a suspect?

President Yoweri Museveni’s young brother Caleb Akandwanaho aka General Salim Saleh may be linked to possible involvement in mercenary activities in war-torn Somalia, Uganda Correspondent can exclusively reveal.

The details emerged after Saracen International; a company associated with Gen. Salim Saleh, lost a lucrative contract to undertake some work in Somalia. Our source in Mogadishu said the Transitional Federal Government [TFG] of Somalia declared last week, Thursday 27th January that it had severed its relationship with Saracen International.

The decision, we are told, came after a closed door cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed in the capital Mogadishu. Somalia’s Deputy Security Minister Ibrahim Mohamed Yarow confirmed that cabinet had indeed cancelled the agreement that the TFG government had signed with Saracen International to train Somali troops and to revive social services including building health facilities in Mogadishu.

The decision, he said, was reached after Somalia’s TFG government landed on evidence which suggested that Saracen International may have been involved mercenary activities. “…The cabinet has today overwhelmingly voted against Saracen International on the basis of mercenary acts. So the cabinet has revoked the agreement with this company”, Ibrahim Mohamed Yarow said.

The Deputy Security Minister added that while there is no doubt that his government requires assistance, as government, he said, the TFG will only enter into contractual agreements with distinguished and clean companies. He also said the cabinet’s decision on Saracen International was “irrevocable”.

The TFG’s decision to revoke Saracen International’s contract follows widespread expression of concern by several foreign governments including the US. Philip J. Crowley, a US State Department Spokesman, said in December that the American government was “…concerned about the lack of transparency” of Saracen’s financing and plans.

According to a New York Times report of 20th January 2011, “…at least one of Saracen’s past forays into training militias drew an international rebuke. Saracen’s Uganda subsidiary was implicated in a 2002 United Nations Security Council report for training rebel paramilitary forces in Congo”.

Is war a lucrative source of business for powerful men?

Other than Burundi, Uganda is the only other country in Africa that has contributed thousands of soldiers to the AU’s AMISOM peacekeeping mission in Somalia. The same New York Times report identified one of Saracen Uganda’s owners as Lt. Gen. Salim Saleh, the retired half-brother of Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni.

Salim Saleh’s possible conflict of interest also highlights some crucial things in this terribly complex story. One of the things is that the lines that separate government security officials and owners or leaders of private armies have become so fuzzy that you can never really be sure as to the motivations of any individual player.

As mercenary forces become more and more prominent in armed conflicts around the world, the profit motive becomes almost impossible to rule out. In other words, it’s almost impossible to know the real reasons that fuel the conflicts in which mercenaries play a role. UPC party President Dr. Olara Otunnu for example, has accused some UPDF soldiers of having had vested interests in prolonging the Kony war in northern Uganda.

The UPDF of course denied Otunnu’s claims. But the New York Times report also accused General Saleh and other top Ugandan army officers of using their ties to paramilitaries to plunder Congolese diamonds, gold and timber. But what exactly is Saracen International? Who really owns it? Our efforts to get a comment from Saracen International were futile by press time.

So for the time being, it may be fair to say that no one really knows for sure what Saracen International is, and who owns it. What one can say however is that Saracen International is definitely a murky trade name that is shared by a number of private security companies across Africa, Europe, the Middle East and North America. Whether that is a coincidence or not, no one really knows.

What we can confirm without fear of contradiction is that Saracen International is fully established in Uganda; see http://saracen.co.ug/index.php. Most of the other companies however deny or downplay any financial or managerial relationships between them. A few have however been linked to the infamous South African mercenary firm called Executive Outcomes; the same company that allegedly tried to send mercenaries to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea in order to tap into the country’s oil and mineral wealth.

Saracen International has also been linked to a certain Erik Prince; the man whose company Blackwater is allegedly financing a “Counter-Piracy” mercenary squad in Somalia. Both the New York Times and Associated Press have carried similar allegations against Saracen International on the strength of “confidential” reports leaked from the African Union.

Somalia has been without a proper central government since 1991 when President Siad Barre was overthrown by armed warlords. That incident effectively condemned Somalia to decades of civil war. END. Please log into www.ugandacorrespondent.com every Monday to read our top stories and anytime mid-week for our news updates.

SARACEN INTERNATIONAL IN SOMALIA WHAT IS NEXT?
By Said Dualeh
http://www.mareeg.com/fidsan.php?sid=18301&tirsan=3

24 dec 2010 (Mareeg.com) The TFG of Somalia is not achieving anything for the people of Somalia, it is only adding to the miseries of the people of Somalia proper. I have been a supporter of all types of governments in Somalia from The collapse of the Siad Barre regime1991 to the present. In my previous articles I have defended Sheikh Sharif and the parliamentary warlord Sharif Hassan thinking that they had a little interest in their heart for our people the people of Somalia who unfortunately do not know their rights as citizens of Somalia.

We need a bill of rights for Somalia to get out of this corrupt and failed

state status.

We as Somalis can be successful in business, education and professions any other country in the world as proven by the Somali Diaspora except on our own country-Somalia, why? Go figure the answer and you may have solved the Somali Dilemma.

The Somali people do not know that they do not have to put up with corrupt leaders, leaders who associate themselves with the enemies of the people of Somalia, they do not need to put up with un educated and unenlightened religious leaders who hide behind veils and brain washed youngsters who never grew up as people with rights and never seen a just government who cares about its people and their welfare. Somalis do not need to put up with International organizations and Non governmental agencies who live off destruction, mayhem and underdevelopment in less fortunate countries like Somalia where they can test their new medicines and unorthodox, untested theories of development and peacekeepers who look after their own interest.

At First in Somalia after 1991 it was unstable government getting in contract with companies that dumped Nuclear Waste on our shores and contracting with companies who took every piece of metal out of the country and sold it as Salvage waste to Asian counties. We have seen Ambassadors trying to sell off Somali government properties overseas, and then we have seen presidents, prime ministers and regional authorities printing illegal currencies in a clandestine ways that made people wonder if this poor country had anyone who cares about it. We have seen where lack of transparency and accountability can lead to misunderstanding of MOU’s memorandum of understanding which did not reference to the law of the sea- regulations spearheaded by the United Nations. We have seen Ethiopia trying to destroy Somalia using the old colonial adage (Divide them then Rule them). If anyone ever thought Ethiopia wants to see a unified Somalia or a strong Somalia think again as you may be living in a wonderland. The same goes for all of our neighbors and our Arab brethren.

We have seen how corrupt the current Somali government officials are they sold the .SO protocol bestowed to Somalia as a nation among 192 others. The same people have contracted with Saracen International- one of the new private military companies(PMC’s) such Executive Outcomes(EO), Sandline Co, Strategic Consulting International(SCI), KBR, Heritage Oil and Gas Co. The name and their symbol of Saracen International looks like a middle ages Templar Knight on horseback trying to show the “light”(Christianity) to heathens in sub-Saharan Africa. The company is run by shady characters from the former SADF- South African Defense Force and former employees of the now infamous but defunct Executive Outcomes. The current TFG Finance minister stated that the agreement was signed by Sheikh Sharif- through his trusted then chief of Cabinet Abdulkarim Jama, the current Minister of information and Post & Communication. On the other side it was signed by Lafras Luitingh aka Louis Yssel- member of the notorious Former South African law enforcement agency Civil Cooperation Bureau(CCB)- in some pulished reports the finger was pointed to him during the truth commission hearings in the new South Africa that he killed Dr. David Webster and Anton Lubowski (ANC Activists in the former South africa).Lafras Luitingh aka Louis Yssel has a checkered past that will scare anyone who reads about world intelligence reports. He had dealing with characters such as Tim Spicer, Tony Buckingham, Eeben Barlow and the late Former South Africa skin head chief of police Henrick Van der Bergh, the creator B.OS.S and later the CCB where Lafras Luitingh got his training in sabotage, political assassinations, and intelligence gathering on dissidents. He was later recruited by (Executive Outcomes) EO for their Angola, Mozambique, Malawi jobs and later Sierra Leone.

The plane currently held in Hargeisa is the type used by these private armies especially Saracen and they buy their weapons from the former Soviet satellite countries. The two South Africans on the plane in Hargeisa were released as fake Journalist but they were Saracen International employees. They have connections with the British Foreign Office who called the Somaliland foreign minister. Why did they not allow pictures to be taken or invited the media to the kangaroo trail held in Hargeisa. South African intelligence has some clout over Hargeisa for different a reason, that is where the late Somaliland President Egal died in a hospital in South Africa.

The contact is Mohamed Ibrahim Egal’s former wife Edna who was at one time

Foreign Minister of Somaliland and who owns a hospital that received assistance from South Africa. Soon there will be another mock trial in

Hargeisa, Somalia Saracen will give the weapons on the plane to the Somaliland administration formatting it as confiscation by their court and they will release the plane and the crew intact. Saracen will once again continue the operations they were hired for.

Sheikh Sharif of the TFG , Museveni of Uganda, Farole of Puntland, & Sharif’s Ala Shiekh group led by Abdulkarim Jama( former VA mosques bookkeeper) and his prime minister (Formaggio) and his defense minister(Fiqi) (2 former Somali embassy bookkeepers from Washington) the Finance minister (Halane)& The Foreign Minister (Omaar) have no clue who they are dealing with at Saracen International. Museveni’s half brother is just a cover up. This project is the deep throat of Somalia and we need transparency in these dealings with select members of the Somali parliament.

Saracen guys and their friends have helped countries overthrew elected officials and everything they do is for money. These guys were so powerful at one time that they had The British navy servicing their Antonov and soviet type helicopters near the coast of Africa. If a country like Somalia does not have money these private military companies barter for oil and fishing rights and sell those rights at a premium to the highest bidder.

They have close relationship with the leadership in the Emirates and even a stronger one with current Sultan of Oman whom they assisted in overthrowing his father off the throne.

Both the UN and the OAU despise these private military companies because they want to put them out of business. Amisom is a cash cow for Uganda who does not want the current situation to end and they sustain a weak TFG government whose diplomatic failures include a drug dealing former Ambassador in China and they keep recycling former diplomats to the UN mission in NY who have publicly stated that he will join his clansmen back home to kill people and destabilize peaceful areas. TFG are not bringing to justice the ambassador who sold embassy property in Kenya. Will this government survive without peace keepers? I do not think so.

Saracen International is a rented military company mostly comprised of former special forces, formerly known as “dogs of war”, mercenaries and now they are known as security trainers and consultants (their sanitized PR name). Their specialty is to loot poor African countries who are led by corrupt individuals with no integrity.

The Somali people have a choice to change their leadership, or else if they want to stand on the sidelines as always thinking that someone is going to come to rescue them or should we as Somalis get our hands dirty and come together and resolve our clannish divisions once and for all since we have seen that no clan in Somalia is able to subjugate the others and live in peace or wait for our destiny to be decided by organizations or private military companies who follow their interest.

Best Regards,
Thank You,
Said Hersi Dualeh

*Freelance journalist*
Anaheim, California- USA

Erik Prince and Saracen International Doing Death’s Business in Somalia ‘Prince of Mercenaries’ who wreaked havoc in Iraq turns up in Somalia

Blackwater founder sets up new force to tackle piracy

By Guy Adams in Los Angeles
Saturday, 22 January 2011SHARE PRINTEMAILTEXT SIZE NORMALLARGEEXTRA LARGE

Erik Prince, the American founder of the private security firm Blackwater Worldwide, has cropped up at the centre of a controversial scheme to establish a new mercenary force to crack down on piracy and terrorism in the war-torn East African country of Somalia.

The project, which emerged yesterday when an intelligence report was leaked to media in the United States, requires Mr Prince to help train a private army of 2,000 Somali troops that will be loyal to the country’s United Nations-backed government. Several neighbouring states, including the United Arab Emirates, will pay the bills.

Mr Prince is working in Somalia alongside Saracen International, a murky South African firm which is run by a former officer from the Civil Co-operation Bureau, an apartheid-era force notorious for killing opponents of the white minority government.

News of his latest project has alarmed, though hardly surprised, critics of Blackwater. The firm made hundreds of millions of dollars from the “war on terror”, but was severely tarnished by a string of incidents in post-invasion Iraq, in which its employees were accused of committing dozens of unlawful killings.

Mr Prince, a 41-year-old former US Navy Seal with links to the Bush administration, subsequently rebranded the company “Xe Services” and sold his stake in it. But he remains entangled in a string of lawsuits pertaining to the alleged recklessness of the firm.

For most of the past year, he has been living in Abu Dhabi, where he has close relations with the government and feels better positioned to dodge lawsuits. In an interview with a men’s magazine, he recently declared that the UAE’s opaque legal system will make it “harder for the jackals to get my money”.

The exact nature of his sudden presence in Somalia remains unclear. The Associated Press said yesterday that the army Mr Prince is training will focus on fighting pirates and Islamic rebels.

The leaked intelligence report which prompted the news agency’s story was compiled by the African Union, an organisation of African nations. It claimed that Mr Prince’s money had enabled Saracen International to gain the contract to train and run the private militia. But that element of the report was flatly contradicted by a spokesman for the Blackwater founder, who claimed that Mr Prince had “no financial role of any kind in this matter”.

In a written statement, the spokesman, Mark Corallo, added: “it is well known that he has long been interested in helping Somalia overcome the scourge of piracy. To that end, he has at times provided advice to many different anti-piracy efforts.” He declined to answer any further questions.

Whatever the exact details of Mr Prince’s role, his presence in Somalia will inevitably lead to renewed soul-searching about the growing privatisation of warfare. Critics of mercenary organisations, which are often prepared to operate where traditional armies fear to tread, claim they are often trigger-happy and lack proper accountability. In Iraq, Blackwater employees shot dead dozens of civilians; 17 people were killed in one incident alone in Nisour Square, Baghdad.

Criminal charges were eventually brought in the US against five Blackwater employees. However, they were dropped in 2009 after a federal judge ruled that the defendants’ rights had been violated during the gathering of evidence. Iraq’s Interior Ministry subsequently expelled all contractors who had worked with the firm at the time of the Nisour Square shooting.

Somalia, where the country’s UN-backed regime is fighting a civil war against al-Shabaab, a group of Islamic insurgents with links to al-Qa’ida, is, if anything, a more volatile country than post-invasion Iraq.

The government controls only a small portion of the capital, Mogadishu, where it has the support of 8,000 UN troops from Uganda and Burundi. It is training an army to extend its reach, but observers fear that its ranks will be weakened by the arrival of Mr Prince – who will pay his troops a far better wage.

Saracen’s shady corporate structure has not inspired confidence in its accountability. In 2002, the UN accused its Ugandan subsidiary of training rebel paramilitaries in the Congo. Recently, the firm has claimed to be registered to addresses in Lebanon, Liberia, Uganda and the UAE, some of which seemed not to exist when reporters tried visiting.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo…a-2191270.html

WHO IS SARACEN INTERNATIONAL? WHAT IS IT DOING IN SOMALIA?

“Saracen” is what the Crusaders used to call the Muslims, back in the day.

“Saracen International” is a trade name shared, coincidentally or not, by a number of private security companies across Africa, Europe, the Middle East and North America. These companies deny or downplay any financial or managerial relationships between them. A few, however, reportedly derive from the infamous (and pioneering) South African mercenary firm, Executive Outcomes.

Yesterday, both The New York Times and the Associated Press carried a truly mind-bending story on Saracen International, based on a “confidential” African Union report that had apparently been leaked to both news organizations.

The report claims that none other than Blackwater founder Erik Prince has been financing a “counter-piracy” mercenary squad in Somalia, through Saracen.

Somalia, a chaotic demi-state, was the scene of an iconic American military defeat 18 years ago, not to mention a one-time home base for Osama Bin Laden.

It appears that Prince, an evangelical American mercenary with longstanding ties to the Pentagon and the CIA, has partnered with a group of equally notorious South African guns-for-hire for a paramilitary mission in an Islamic nation, under a corporate banner harking back to the Crusades. But what does all that mean?

Mercenaries don’t work for free
Is this an American war by proxy? Notably, this Somali “counter-piracy” mission is advised by a former White House lawyer and by a former CIA official. However, it is also bankrolled in large part by someone in the government of Prince’s new home, the United Arab Emirates.

Reading between the lines of yesterday’s news stories, the report connecting Prince and Saracen was most likely leaked by someone who felt, understandably, that the presence of mercenaries in Somalia undermines the African Union effort there, and persists on account of official corruption.

Uganda is supplying troops to the uniformed African Union force in Somalia. And, according to AP reports, Saracen is “associated with” the younger brother of Uganda’s president, Salim Saleh. That curious phrasing suggests a mutually beneficial financial relationship. Other African media sources say Salim Saleh is an “investor” or “major shareholder” in Saracen (Uganda).

Salim Saleh’s apparent conflict of interest highlights the key take-away from this incredibly complex story: The lines that separate government security officials and the leaders of private armies have become so fuzzy that you can never really be sure as to the motivations of any individual player. As mercenary forces become more and more prominent in armed conflicts around the world, the profit motive becomes difficult to separate from other casus belli.

In other words, it’s almost impossible to know the real reasons driving any conflict in which mercenaries play a leading role.

Government connections
The Saracen-in-Somalia story started gaining notice after a Washington Times story revealed the role of a former George W. Bush administration official in coordinating Saracen’s contract with the Somali government.

The former official, Pierre R. Prosper, is pictured here in a 2003 photo from his a former gig as an ambassador for “war crimes issues.”

Prosper and Michael Shanklin, a former CIA officer stationed in Mogadishu, previously told the AP they were being paid “paid by a Muslim nation [they] declined to identify” to advise the Somali government on “legal” and “security” matters. That unnamed “Muslim nation,” it now appears, is the UAE.

Late last year, the Washington Times and the AP reported that Prosper met with United Nations monitors over their concerns that Saracen may have violated a long-running (but ineffectual) arms embargo on Somalia. (Mogadishu, a city that has roughly the population of Houston, Texas, averaged 534 “weapon-related casualties” per month last autumn, according to the UN.)

Prosper told the Times “that so far, no arms were shipped to the training camp, to the best of his knowledge.” He told the AP that “Saracen is doing the military training” in Somalia. Yet the same story quotes Saracen (Uganda) chief executive Bill Pelser as disclaiming the company’s training role in Somalia.

Pelser denied being involved in the training program in Puntland…saying he merely made introductions for another company called Saracen Lebanon.

Sure. Got it.

Lebanese authorities have no record of a company called Saracen. Pelser did not respond to requests for contact information for Saracen Lebanon.

Yesterday’s AP story features quotes from Saracen (Lebanon) executive Lafras Luitingh—evidently a distinct entity from the Ugandan company of the same name that is also led by former employees of Executive Outcomes.

Also, it’s supposed to be completely irrelevant that Saracen (Uganda) goes around “ma[king] introductions” for Saracen (Lebanon).

In the AP story, Luitingh says “the company had sought to keep the project secret to surprise the pirates.” (Because the pirates don’t know they might be attacked?) He “declined to say whether [Blackwater founder Erik] Prince was involved in the project and said [Prince] was not part of Saracen.”

Is your head spinning yet? If not, it will be soon. Keep reading.

Saracen International, Not To Be Confused With Saracen International
The AP turned up

at least three Saracens — the one registered in Lebanon, and two run by Luitingh’s business partner and based in Uganda, where government office employees told the AP the registration papers have disappeared. An AP reporter in Beirut could not find the address Luitingh’s company provided in the Somali contract. Lebanese authorities had no address listed for Saracen in Lebanon and said it is based in the United Arab Emirates.

Saracen (Uganda)’s website says the company has branches in South Africa, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Hong Kong, Angola, Zambia, Sudan and Botswana.

My own research turned up two more “Saracen Internationals,” not counting a Spanish real-estate firm with that name.

One, Saracen International Ltd, is based in Manchester, UK.

The corporate address of record is at the Towers Business Park in Manchester. The website registration, however, returns both that address and another, one shared with a café in the southern suburb of Stockport.

An email to the Yahoo account of the listed website registrant, Sira Yaqub, bounced back undelivered. The woman who answered the phone at the UK Saracen in Manchester office suggested calling back on Monday.

The other Saracen International I found is a limited-liability company based in Phoenix, Arizona.

This Saracen International is registered to William G. Lawrence and Tjaart Andre Van Der Walt, both of Phoenix. Lawrence returned a call placed to the company’s listed phone number.

“I have no relationship to the UK company of the same name. I don’t operate in Southern Africa,” he says of Saracen (Arizona).

Van Der Walt, Lawrence says, is a “friend” who has “never been part of the corporation,” although records show the LLC is registered at Van Der Walt’s home address. Lawrence says Van Der Walt, whose first name is also spelled in public records as “Thaart,” emigrated from South Africa 16 years ago and is now an American citizen.

I asked if Van Der Walt ever worked for Executive Outcomes. Lawrence says he doesn’t know, and hadn’t heard of that company.

He has, however, heard of the other Saracens. “I got a call from Somalia asking them to train their coast guard to fight the piracy threat. Only then I became aware that there was another Saracen International,” Lawrence says.

Doesn’t it seem strange, I suggested, that all these private security companies with an international client base—Lawrence’s company has operations in Jordan and the UAE—seem content to share a business name, and aren’t suing one another for copyright infringement? “I can’t account for that except…[the name] has positive connotations in the Arabic world,” Lawrence says.

Positive because, after all, they fought the Crusaders.

Lawrence says his company sells a Chevrolet Suburban outfitted with a concealed six-barrel gatling gun that can pop out of the hood and fire 50 rounds a second in every direction. The car, called the Raptor, costs upward of $300,000.

The Raptor is not something that you’d ever want to cut off in heavy traffic. You can watch its gunner blow up a hatchback on YouTube.

Is this the next must-have vehicle for Arizona’s soccer moms?

“The people we do business with are national leaders. They are always subject to threats of one kind or another. King Abdullah [of Saudi Arabia] has had four assassination attempts on him,” Lawrence says. “He doesn’t ride in our car…but we’re in his entourage.”

(Unlike the other companies that share its name, Saracen (Arizona) does not have an up-and-running website of its own. However, the marketing video for the Raptor contains a plug for saracen.org. That domain is currently listed as for sale.)

Muddied (Black)waters
Yesterday’s AP story on Prince’s ties to Saracen (Uganda) connects another company to the dubiously funded “anti-piracy” mission there.

Afloat Leasing, which owns two ships that have been working with Saracen, said it was Liberian-registered, but an AP reporter didn’t find it at the address given or in Liberian records.

I found an “Afloat Leasing Ltd” registered in South Africa. Records show this company owns a ship called the Seafarer, which departed Durban, South Africa roughly one month ago and was due to call last week in the UAE, a course that would take it past the pirate-plagued Horn of Africa.

This may or may not be the same “Afloat Leasing” named by the AP.

And as long as we’re in the caveats department, it should be noted that Prince, who recently abandoned his “redneck mansion” for the UAE, has denied, through a spokesperson, having any “financial role of any kind in this matter” with Saracen.

It should also be noted that Prince has ostensibly cut his ties with Blackwater, the company he built from nothing, although he’s tight with the new owners, whoever they are.

Did I say Blackwater? Of course, I meant Xe. Or whatever it is now. It’s hard to keep all these companies straight, sometimes. Odd, isn’t it? Most companies try so hard to come up with a memorable name. But with these companies and their constantly changing, generic-sounding brands—not to mention the roving headquarters and opaque registration—it’s almost as though they’re trying to confuse people. Like they don’t want people to remember who they are, or something.

The West Goes To War For Oil And Power In Libya
By Steve Horn @ Alter Net:

On Friday, October 14, President Barack Obama announced he would be sending 100 Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) forces to Uganda to “remove from the battlefield” (meaning capture or kill) the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), Joseph Kony. ”I believe that deploying these U.S. Armed Forces furthers U.S. national security interests and foreign policy and will be a significant contribution toward counter-LRA efforts in central Africa,” wrote Obama in a letter to U.S. House Majority Leader, John Boehner, R-OH.

The LRA, whose horrific deeds have been have been well-documented by scores of human rights reports and the documentary film, Invisible Children, can best be described as a Christian cult militia engaged in violent armed rebellion against the Ugandan government, located primarily in northern Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Sudan. An arrest warrant was issued in 2005 by the International Criminal Court against the LRA leadership for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Kony, the LRA ringleader, possibly has over 80 wives (i.e. sex slaves), according to a 2009 story by the Guardian, and has fathered over 40 children.

It gets worse.

According to a May 2009 article in Newsweek, ”[H]e and the hundreds of forcibly conscripted children who serve as his killing squads are feared throughout the region for their horrific levels of brutality and the butchery of tens of thousands of defenseless civilians. Their swath of destruction has displaced well over 2 million people. Kony has forced new male recruits to rape their mothers and kill their parents. Former LRA members say the rebels sometimes cook and eat their victims.”

The mainstream media, at least those who have covered this new U.S. military adventure, have taken the Obama administration at face value on its stated claim that JSOC troops are necessary in Uganda and neighboring countries, for the purpose of murdering the elusive and brutal war criminal-at-large, Joseph Kony.

But is this the true motive for sending JSOC troops into the region? A probe into the last several years of geopolitical posturing in Africa by the United States reveals another tale. It is the tale of a 21st century “scramble for Africa” for the procurement of oil, using imperial tools, such as drones, mercenaries and military bases, in a desperate effort to gain control of this valuable commodity.

An African Scramble for Oil

In October 2008, AFRICOM, the United States Africa Command, became the U.S. military’s sixth regional Unified Combatant Command center, joining those already housed in South America (SOUTHCOM), North America (NORTHCOM), Europe (EUCOM), the Middle East (CENTCOM), and the Pacific (USPACOM). The Unified Combatant Command centers serve as regional strategic hubs for the U.S. military planners to plot and implement the ways in which the U.S. will dominate these various regions for whatever it might deem to be in line with the national interest or national security purposes.

AFRICOM, though, did not come out of the blue and was years in the making before its realization. Not long after 9/11, in early January 2002, a key symposium titled “African Oil: A Priority for U.S. National Security and African Development” took place in Washington, DC; it was hosted by the neoconservative think-tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies (IASPS).

IASPS is most famous for its authorship of a paper called “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” a 1996 paper that, among other things, called for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, foreshadowing the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the neoconservative-lead Bush administration foreign policy team.

At the symposium, then Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Walter Kantsteiner III, stated, “African oil is a national strategic interest…[and] it’s people like you who will…bring the oil home.”

Later, in May 2004, Kantsteiner chaired a congressionally funded Africa Policy Advisory Panel report titled, “Rising U.S. States in Africa,” in which he stated, “African oil is of national strategic interest to us, and it will increase and become more important as we go forward.”

In the midst of these summits, the U.S. set up crucial military bases — in spring 2003 in Djibouti, a base called Camp Lemmonier, and in 2004 at Entebbe International Airport in Uganda.

The U.S. was now firmly implanted in the region to begin an African safari, featuring, most prominently, tours of prospective and already existing oil rigs and pipelines spanning every contour of the continent.

Oil Safari to Uganda

Not long after AFRICOM became a reality, multinational corporations also flocked into Uganda to search for oil.

The search was a flaming success story, with 2.5 billion barrels of oil now having been discovered, but still to this date, not yet procured. The royalties accompanying the oil’s usage could reach up to $2 billion a year by 2015, reported the Economist in May 2010.

This oil is located off of Lake Albert in northwest Uganda, a lake shared by both Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Multinational corporations are required to sign something known as a Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) with the Ugandan government in order to drill for Uganda’s oil. In essence, a PSA is a contractual agreement between a foreign corporation benefiting from a country’s resources and the government of a country whose resources are being benefited from.

In October 2006, according to a WikiLeaks cable, Tullow Oil, a British company, and Heritage Oil, a Canadian company, signed a PSA with the Ugandan government, led by President Yoweri Musveni. This particular PSA, though, was no ordinary one, and indeed, could serve, in part, as an explanation for the logic of Obama’s October 14 announcement.

For the first three years the PSA was signed, the details were kept secret from everyone but upper-level Tullow and Heritage executives and Museveni’s inner circle. A February 2010 report written by PLATFORM, a British nonprofit organization, titled, “Contracts Curse: Uganda’s oil agreements place profit before people,” explains the PSA best and for the first time, made public its content.

The PSA, PLATFORM explained, “contain[s] no clauses covering security provision[s]…There is no public agreement setting out the relationship between the oil companies and the military or police forces. Thus it is unclear what promises and guarantees the Ugandan government has made to ensure security and what rights the oil companies have been awarded.”

This raised numerous vital questions for PLATFORM, including, “Do oil company security or private military contractors have the right or authority to arrest, injure or kill those they perceive as a threat?” and “Is the Ugandan government incentivised to prioritise security interests over the human rights of local populations?”

That same report also included revelations by PLATFORM that the Ugandan government had constructed a “new military base on ten square miles” near Lake Albert, where the oil was located. The report also disclosed that Museveni had created something called an Oil Wells Protection Unit (OWPU), which amounted to his own security forces, or mercenaries, guarding oil rigs.

Concerned about the OWPU, PLATFORM wrote, “Apparently its mandate is ‘to provide physical security for the oil and gas industry’ and ‘conduct strategic intelligence activities in all areas where oil will be processed and marketed.’ However, the OWPU has no Web site and no clearly known structure or chain of command…In this context, the OWPU could easily be misused to repress opposition to oil extraction activities, further political gains by the government and commit human rights abuses without accountability.”

Enter Heritage Oil and Ties to Private Mercenary Armies

Possibly the most crucial fact about the undisclosed clauses concerning security provisions in the PSA, was this vital detail: The Canadian oil company Heritage, which is owned by Tony Buckingham, who many credit for being the first innovator behind the modern-day private military corporation (PMC) (think Blackwater USA, now known as Xe Services), was formerly the main stakeholder in the Albertine Basin.

In 2010, Heritage sold its stake in the project to the British company Tullow Oil for $1.5 billion. Though Heritage is no longer exploring for oil in the hopes of drilling for it in Uganda, Buckingham’s background and business connections are still crucial to grasp.

Buckingham is a former officer of the British Special Air Service (SAS) — a parallel to the U.S. JSOC forces sent into Uganda by Obama — according to a 1997 story. In 1992 Buckingham became the founder and CEO of Heritage Oil. A year later, in 1993, Buckingham founded a PMC called Executive Outcomes (EO). EO officially closed shop in 1998, but during its time of existence, it consistently followed in the footsteps of the locations that Buckingham took Heritage’s oil rigs. And Buckingham’s close ties to mercenary armies did not terminate with EO’s fall. Instead, he formed a special relationship with a key figure, the half-brother of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, Salim Saleh.

The special relationship between Saleh and Buckingham also goes a long way toward explaining the Obama decision to invade Uganda.

Salim Saleh, Erik Prince, and Guns-For-Hire in the Horn of Africa

Upon the eclipse of EO in 1998, rather than decay into oblivion, it instead morphed into a multi-tentacled machine of various PMC split-offs, the most crucial of which, at least as far as Uganda is concerned, is Saracen International.

Salim Saleh owns a 25-percent stake in Saracen. “[Saracen International] was formed with the remnants of Executive Outcomes, a private mercenary firm composed largely of former South African special operations troops who worked throughout Africa in the 1990s,” explained the New York Times in a January 2011 article.

Saleh, now Museveni’s military adviser, is a former high-ranking official for theUganda People’s Defence Force, the military of the Ugandan government. He is also a well-connected mercenary, as seen through his ownership stake in Saracen.

Saracen, in turns out, also maintains an important relationship with Blackwater USA founder and CEO, Erik Prince.

The same article that revealed the ties between EO and Saracen International also revealed that Prince possesses an ownership stake in Saracen. The Times wrote, “According to a Jan. 12 confidential report by the African Union, Mr. Prince ‘is at the top of the management chain of Saracen and provided seed money for the Saracen contract.’”

Blackwater, under Prince’s leadership, has been involved in the game of guns-for-hire in the Horn of Africa since February 2009, according to a WikiLeaks cable. The cable reveals that Blackwater won a contract to operate an armed ship, called McArthur, from a port in Djibouti, the country which is also home of the U.S. military’s Camp Lemonnier base.

The cable also reveals that McArthur ”will have an unarmed UAV” (Unarmed Vehicle, aka a drone), “will likely engage…Kenya in the future,” and that Blackwater “has briefed AFRICOM, CENTCOM, and Embassy Nairobi officials.” In other words, this means the Prince and Blackwater mission had the blessing of top-level U.S. military and diplomatic officials.

Could Prince’s and Saleh’s guns-for-hire be teaming up with JSOC forces in the Albertine basin to guard oil rigs? History provides some highly relavant precedent.

Erik Prince, Blackwater USA and Oil: History Repeating Itself?

Prince’s Blackwater has been involved in such engagements before. Rewind to Azerbaijan and Iraq, where Blackwater was tasked with guarding crucial oil pipelines and oil wells for the world’s wealthiest oil and natural gas corporations.

Investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill, in his book Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, revealed that “Blackwater USA was hired by the Pentagon…to deploy in Azerbaijan, where Blackwater would be tasked with establishing and training an elite…force modeled after the U.S. Navy SEALs that would ultimately protect the interests of the United States and its allies in a hostile region.

“Blackwater joined a U.S. corporate landscape [in the region] that included…corporations such as Bechtel, Halliburton, Chevron-Texaco, Unocal and ExxonMobil … Instead of sending in battalions of active U.S. military to Azerbaijan, the Pentagon deployed…Blackwater…that would serve a dual purpose: protecting the West’s new profitable oil and gas exploitation in a region historically dominated by Russia and Iran, and possibly laying the groundwork for an important forward operating base for an attack against Iran,” Scahill continued.

Azerbaijan, like Uganda, is home to a vast array of oil and natural gas, and also a key pipeline, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which, after reaching its respective coastal homes in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, ends up on the global export market.

In Iraq, as revealed by the Guardian in a March 2004 article, Blackwater, via a Pentagon contract, recruited Chilean “commandos, other soldiers and seamen, paying them up to $4,000 a month to guard oil wells against attack by insurgents…many of [them] had trained under the military government of Augusto Pinochet.” Pinochet, many will recall, was the brutal dictator who came to power after the CIA-initiated 1973 coup of Salvador Allende.

Iraq, like Uganda and Azerbaijan, is home to vast amounts of oil. Major syndicates ranging from BP America, ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron and ConocoPhillips have all flocked to Iraq in the mad dash for Iraq’s resources since the 2003 onset of the ongoing U.S. occupation of Iraq.

WikiLeaks Cables Reveal Ugandan Oil Bid Corruption

ExxonMobil, teaming up with Tullow Oil, as seen through the lens of important Wikileaks State Department diplomatic cables, has also shown great interest in the economic opportunities surrounding oil exploration off of Lake Albert, as well as great concern over governmental corruption in the nascent Ugandan oil industry.

A key December 3, 2009 cable, titled, “Uganda: Corruption Allegations Accompany Arrival Of Major Oil Firms,” reads, “Executives from ExxonMobil visited Uganda on November 18-19, and met with Ambassador (Jerry) Lanier (the U.S. ambassador to Uganda), Mission Officers, the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development (MEMD), Uganda’s Petroleum Exploration and Production Department (PEPD), and Tullow (Oil)…ExxonMobil representatives who traveled to Kampala said they were ‘very impressed’ with…the Ugandan government oil representatives…”

Roughly a month later, yet another important WikiLeaks-provided State Department diplomatic cable was produced on January 13, 2010, titled, “Uganda: Security Report Details Oil Sector Corruption,” which discusses the impacts rampant corruption unfolding in the Ugandan oil industry would have on the U.S. if the ExxonMobil deal falls through.

“A corrupt…agreement would undermine a potential multi-billion dollar deal between ExxonMobil and Tullow, and have serious long-term implications for U.S….in Uganda in terms of…economic development,” the cable reads.

The State Department’s diplomatic cables make it quite clear that ExxonMobil and its partner, Tullow Oil, were both deeply interested in the Ugandan oil industry, but also gravely concerned about corruption.

Yet, Tullow and ExxonMobil had little to worry about, based on both Prince’s ExxonMobil ties during his days at Blackwater USA, as well as a crucial March 2008 meeting between the Salim Saleh-led Ugandan military and high-level Tullow Oil officials, as exposed by Wikileaks.

Tullow’s Mercenary Presence Long in the Making at Lake Albert Basin

Tullow, as revealed by State Department diplomatic cables leaked to Wikileaks, has been building up a mercenary army presence in the Lake Albert area for over three years.

A March 2008 State Department diplomatic cable reads, “…Tullow Oil, one of the four exploration companies operating in western Uganda, said that as the oil activity on Lake Albert increased, a security presence would be vital.”

The cable also mentions that U.S. Ambassador to Uganda Steven Browning and Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa Rear Admiral Phillip Greene “met with representatives from Tullow Oil and the Ugandan People’s Defense Force (UPDF), as well as local leaders…on March 4.” The UPDF is lead by Salim Saleh, who also owns a 25-percent ownership stake in Saracen International, the private mercenary army also owned in part by Erik Prince.

During the meeting it was also “noted that oil exploration and production would raise the profile of the area, which could lead to increased incidences of violence between Ugandan locals and security forces…” and the meeting concluded with a request for “an assessment team…to provide the Ugandan military with an organizational, doctrinal, training, and equipment needs assessment for a future lake security force.”

Toss into the ring the ongoing great power politics rivalry between the U.S. and China, and things become even more complex.

Great Power Politics Posturing in the Works?

Though ExxonMobil and Tullow Oil lost out on the corrupt oil bid in late 2009, while exploration has been done, drilling has yet to occur in Uganda. In that vein, 100 U.S. JSOC troops, likely teaming up with Erik Prince, Salim Saleh and Yoweri Museveni-backed mercenaries, have swooped into the Lake Albert area to secure the prize, oil, before its rival does.

The opponent? China.

On October 24, Tullow sold $2.9 billion worth of its shares of oil to France’s Total Oil and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), though it has yet to be approved by the Museveni government and requires his approval.

Throughout all of this, it is vital to bear in mind the bigger picture, which is that the United States and China have been competing against one another in the new “African Scramble” for Africa’s valuable oil resources.

Serge Michel and Michel Beuret, in their 2009 book China Safari: On the Trail of Beijing’s Expansion in Africa, write, “China’s advances in Africa’s oil-rich regions have been viewed with concern bordering on paranoia in the United States….[It] could…deteriorate into a a head-to-head clash between China and the United States, prompting the kind of open conflict that some see as inevitable by 2030.”

One has to wonder what will happen with regards to this recent oil deal, knowing the players involved, and seeing the geopolitical and resources maneuvering taking place in the Lake Albert region.

If the United States and its well-connected guns-for-hire have any say, Tullow Oil, Heritage Oil, ExxonMobil will take home all the royalties, and CNOOC will be sent home packing.

Another Piece of the Puzzle: Senate Bill 1067 of 2009

It appears that since the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009, Senate Bill 1067, a bill that called for, among other things, to “apprehend or remove Joseph Kony and his top commanders from the battlefield…and to disarm and demobilize the remaining Lord’s Resistance Army fighters,” the United States has Lake Albert targeted in its crosshairs.

An important provision squeezed into the bill was a section mandating that an official strategy be written up to “disarm and demobilize” the LRA.

“Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the President shall develop and submit to the appropriate committees of Congress a strategy to guide future United States support across the region,” the bill reads. “The strategy shall include…a description of how this engagement will fit within the context of broader efforts and policy objectives in the Great Lakes Region.”

The Great Lakes Region includes Lake Albert and “broader efforts and policy objectives” translates into, based on State Department diplomatic cables and public statements made in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the control of precious oil resources in the Albertine Basin.

Signed into law by Obama in May 2009, it is crucial to put when the bill was written into proper historical context.

As revealed by State Department diplomatic cables, this was roughly a year after the special meeting between Tullow Oil representatives; U.S. Ambassador to Uganda, Steven Browning; and then head of the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, Rear Admiral Phillip Greene near Lake Albert. It was also roughly half a year after the launch of AFRICOM.

Some may have been surprised by this latest announcement to invade another country by the Obama administration, but based on recent history, there are no real surprises here. Still, despite evidence that seems to fly in the face of the reason offered by Obama to send troops to Uganda, it is still worth scrutinizing his rationale.

Humanitarian Intervention for Kony?

If there is one thing that is nearly for certain, it is that the Lord’s Resistance Army and Joseph Kony, as awful as they are, likely have nothing to do with this most recent U.S. military engagement in Uganda.

In the end, it all comes back to oil, even if top-level U.S. officials maintain that this has “nothing to do with oil.”

For one, days before this incursion, it was announced that the “the Obama administration quietly waived restrictions on military aid to Chad, Yemen, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)–four countries with records of actively recruiting child soldiers…Any country even remotely close to the horn of Africa (like these distinguished four) is just too strategically important…So, for the time being, it’s still guns for the kids,” wrote Mother Jones.

One of the rationales Obama gave for sending JSOC troops to Uganda, was that the LRA recruits and uses child soldiers, which, given this recent decision, made for the second consecutive year, is certainly not something high on the list of Obama’s concerns.

Furthermore, if human rights were actually the chief concern, why did the United States show interest in Kony only after the discovery of oil in the region? Not only that, but Kony, as many have made clear, is nowhere to be found in Uganda and is on the run or in hiding somewhere outside of the country.

To top it all off, Yoweri Museveni and his brother, the gun-for-hire Salim Saleh, both have deplorable human rights records, and unlike the LRA, maintain state control over the people of Uganda. An article titled “Uganda’s Tyrant,” written in 2007 by the Guardian, sums up the human rights situation under Museveni:

“President Museveni’s…regime is a constitutional dictatorship, with a rubber stamp parliament, powerless judiciary, censored media and heavily militarised civil institutions…Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International…confirm the harassment of Museveni’s political opponents, detention without trial, torture, extrajudicial killings, suppression of protests and homophobic witch-hunts.”

Abhorrent as his human rights record may be, the United States sent a $45 million military aid package to the Museveni-lead government in July 2011, which included four drones.

Do not be surprised if, months from now, ExxonMobil or another U.S. oil industry superpower walks away with drilling rights in the Lake Albert region and CNOOC, the current main possessor of Uganda’s Lake Albert oil resources, is sent packing.

Also don’t be surprised if Erik Prince and Salim Saleh lead Saracen International, working alongside JSOC troops, who work closely with the Central Intelligence Agency, are working as “security forces” off of the Albertine oil basin.

These are not only likely scenarios, but probable ones. Joseph Kony and his LRA allies might be taken down, but the people of Uganda, on the whole, will not benefit from this “humanitarian intervention.”

Things, unfortunately, will probably only worsen for the people of Uganda as time progresses.

Steve Horn is a researcher and writer for DeSmogBlog. He lives in Madison, WI.

The new faces behind molasses plant.
By John Kamau
The name Antonio Teixeira may not ring any bells in Kenya. But in international circles, the chairman of Energem Resources, which bought a 55 per cent stake in the Odinga family’s Spectre International –sends several alarms.

His entry into Kenya’s business circles is expected to raise eyebrows because of past business links with “mercenary” companies hired to protect mining companies in some of Africa’s bloodiest war zones, The Sunday Standard can exclusively report.

Four years ago, the South African Portuguese, also known as Tony Teixeira, was accused in the British Parliament of gun-running for Angola’s Unita rebels and for defying United Nations sanctions by supplying oil to the rebel movement.

Now questions are being raised about the controversial man behind a Canadian company that purchased the troubled Kisumu molasses plant from the Oginga Odinga family.

Teixeira has been linked to Branch Energy and Executive Outcomes, two notorious private security-cum-paramilitary companies with a record of involvement in war wealth.

Branch Energy, which had mining concessions in Sierra Leone, is 100 per cent owned by Teixeira’s Energem, is one of the pioneers in the provision of private security in return for mining concessions in war-torn nations. Executive Outcomes, on the other hand, was founded by a former Teixeira ally, Tony Buckingham, who recently sat on the board of Energem Resources.

Buckingham, a former South African soldier, was a member of the dreaded South African apartheid-era assassination squad, the 32nd Battalion, and was also behind the British mercenary company, Sandline, which in 1999 broke a UN arms embargo in Sierra Leone, allegedly with the backing of the British government.

Sandline, however, closed shop in April, this year, citing failure to get British support for its private military activities.

According to an Energem company profile obtained by the Sunday Standard, Teixeira’s newly registered company, Energem Kenya Limited, is licensed to “import refined oil products” and “bitumen for the Ministry of Roads”, headed by Raila Odinga. It is the award of an exclusive contract to a company associated with the Odinga family by a ministry headed by a member of the same Odinga family that sparked the row over the acquisition of the Kisumu molasses plant last week.

But Teixeira is not new to controversy.

Last year, another of Teixeira’s companies, Trans Sahara Trading (TST), was stopped from supplying oil to Zambia by President Levy Mwanawasa, who cited “irregularities” in the award of the tender.

And now, Teixeira’s ownership of the Kisumu molasses plant has thrust him to the centre of another dispute only eight months after he announced that his company had acquired a controlling stake in the moribund ethanol plant.

Bondo MP Dr Oburu Odinga, who is also the chairman of East African Spectre, which partly owned Spectre International, says the family has “no interest” in the ethanol maker after pulling out last November. ***WE KNOW THAT THIS IS A LIE BECAUSE TODAY THE ODINGAS OWN THE ETHANOL PLANT (KISUMU MOLASSES PLANT!)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!****

The current storm was kicked up by newly appointed Urban Development assistant minister Maina Kamanda, who accused the Odinga family of “grabbing” the land occupied by the plant, “failing to pay for it” and later selling it to Canadians.

Official documents now indicate that the land in question was offered to Spectre International by the then Commissioner of Lands, Mr S.K Mwaita, in a letter dated January 11, 2001.

The value of the entire land measuring 112 hectares was put at Sh3,699,750.

Twenty-three months later, Teixeira’s DiamondWorks, renamed Energem, acquired a controlling stake in Spectre International and paid $2 million (Sh160 million) for a stake in the Odinga family-owned enterprise.

But the molasses saga deepened further after the Ministry of Lands and Housing issued a brief this week saying there “is no record of official valuation of the property by the chief government valuer”.

Although the molasses plant was supposed to have been auctioned, the ministry’s brief raised questions on the transaction: “What appears to have been processed for sale is empty land and there is no record of how the physical infrastructure investment on the stalled project (was) sold and for how much.”

“The land deal was a direct allocation to Spectre International and there is no indication of other offers being sourced in the absence of official valuation”.

Dr Oburu Odinga who sits on the board of Spectre International with his sister, Ruth, has denied any impropriety on the family’s part.

With the matter now being investigated by a Cabinet committee, Kenyans have not heard the last of the matter.

It seems curious that the offer of the molasses plant land was made to Spectre International some five days after the Raila’s National Development Party (NDP) entered into a partnership with then ruling party, Kanu.

Although Oburu denied that the Odinga family owns the molasses plant, he conceded that two family members sit on the board of Spectre International.***THE THIEF LIES AGAIN!

Texeira entered Kenya’s business world through one of his subsidiary companies, Petroplus Africa Limited, which concluded a memorandum of understanding with the National Oil Company of Kenya (NOCK) and a separate “hospitality agreement” with the state corporation, Kenya Petroleum Refining Ltd, Kenya Pipeline Company and NOCK’s Nairobi Terminal. ****These corrupt a-holes should explain oil/petrol problems/shortages to wananchi!

“These arrangements were entered into for purposes of enabling Petroplus’s entry into the Kenyan market and to facilitate its ability to undertake a review of the mid-stream oil industry in Kenya aimed at its modernisation and development,” the company said in a statement in November last year.

Under the auspices of NOCK, Petroplus imported two trial shipments of oil products in April and May and was awarded its own oil importation and trading licence for Kenya in June 2003.

“The test results were positive and supported the decision by DiamondWorks (now Energem Resources) to acquire control through Spectre of the Kisumu ethanol plant,” the company said.

That entry, we have established, came after another of Energem’s subsidiaries faced problems in the Zambian market where Teixeira reported “difficult trading conditions” in a statement he issued to shareholders in October last year.

Although Teixeira’s name has not featured in Kenya, the allegations of gun-running made in Britain that his operations in Angola, Sierra Leone and Liberia made a fortune out of blood diamonds is bound raise a lot of heat. *** these are Raila/The Odingas business partners****

In its company profile, Energem Resources says it is “supplying bitumen and other products to the Roads and Energy ministries”, an issue that could generate political heat in Kenya.

Texeira came to the board of DiamondWorks, now known as Energem Resources, in January 2000 when his Isle-of-Man registered company, Lyndhurst Limited, advanced $5 million to the ailing DiamondWorks. The loan was converted into shares.

But the company appears to have run into trouble with Canada’s Ontario Securities Commission, which stopped the board from sitting in April 2002 and accused its members of “failing to file financial statements” and to “disclose” the affairs of DiamondWorks.

The company immediately changed its name to Energem Resources.

Sunday, March 05, 2006
GENOCIDE IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

http://radiokatwenews.blogspot.com/2006/03/genocide-in-comparative-perspective.html

THE JEWISH AND ACHOLI EXPERIENCE.

The debate between General David Tinyefunza and Olara Otunnu on whether genocide is unfolding in northern Uganda or not, deserves to be subjected to historical comparison for better understanding. Otunnu’s charge that conditions of genocide exist in northern Uganda drew evidence from the Government of Uganda and Non-Governmental Organizations reports that catalogued, among others, the deliberate policy of demonization, forcing people into concentration camps, abetting and encouraging rape by HIV/AIDS infected soldiers, and the prolongation of the conflict. The dynamics of the conflict has led to targeting unarmed civilians by both the Lord Resistance Army (LRA) and the Uganda People’s Defense Force (UPDF). These conditions, taken as a whole, Otunnu argues, meet the threshold of genocide.

General David Tinyefunza of the UPDF denies perpetrating genocide against the Acholi people, without disputing the core sources of evidence presented by Otunnu. He argues that what exists in northern Uganda is not genocide but death caused by a situation of war. He adds that President Museveni has neither the will nor the desire to exterminate the Acholi, but protect them in the so-called “protected villages.”

What is clear from the debate is that both Otunnu and Tinyefunza agree that there is mass death in Acholiland. However, they differ in their explanation about the mechanics of mass deaths, and whether the mass deaths should be characterized as genocide or collateral death. For a nuance understanding, a historical comparison of the mechanics of mass death is necessary. I would like to compare the case of the Jews during the Third Reich (Germany) under Adolf Hitler with that of the Acholi in Uganda under General Yoweri Museveni.

Leadership and Genocide: Hitler and Museveni

The path to consolidation of political and state power by Hitler and General Museveni are similar: First, both leaders began with creating environments where genocide would be seen as justifiable. Museveni ran a one-party state, where he and his associates conceived and meticulously planned genocide in broad daylight. Similarly, Hitler ran Germany as a one-party state. Both leaders excoriated democracy, constitutionalism and the rule of law, preferring bellicose militarism.

Second, both leaders demonized their victims and proceeded to whip xenophobia and the fury of the population, initially as means to prosecute a war and eventually as a final solution in itself.

For Hitler in Germany, the progressive conversion of Jews into enemies was later formalized by an executive decree in 1933, which pointed out that there was a Jewish problem. This graduated to the Nazi slogan that Jews were a misfortune.

In Uganda, Museveni’s coming to power was based on explaining national crises as caused by northerners, who came to be mostly identified with the Acholi population. This was formalized by the NRM/A intellectuals that there was a northern question; and the derogatory NRM/A slogan became Acholis are “Abanyanyas” [read as equivalent to the Nazis’ justification – Jews were a misfortune]. The “Abanyanyas” referred to non-citizens, in fact, to southern Sudanese.

In both instances, the leaderships denationalized and transformed victims into enemies of the state deserving neither mercy nor reason. The logical solution was the so-called final solution.

Constructing and Articulating the Intellectual basis of Genocide

For genocide to occur with the apparent connivance of the population, an intellectual basis needs to be created and masqueraded as critical research. This is often used to brainwash the gullible.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler vented out his hatred and xenophobia against the Jews by blaming the Jews for the humiliation that Germany suffered during World War I. Once Jews had been presented as the source of the problem in Germany, the extermination project could be justified as the final solution. But it was not only Hitler; the Nazi intellectuals also legitimated the extermination project against the Jews. They misrepresented the deaths by blaming the victims as responsible for their own destruction.

In the case of Uganda, to understand the background to the tragedy in Acholiland, we need to examine Museveni’s activities during his youthful days in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania.

While a student at the University of Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, Museveni wrote his thesis entitled, “Fanon’s Theory and its Verification in Liberated Areas in Mozambique”, where he stated that:

“to transform a human being into an efficient, uncostly and completely subservient slaves, you have, as a pre-condition, to completely purge him of his humanity, manhood and will. Otherwise, as long as he has some hope for a better free future, he will never succumb to enslavement. To become an efficient instrument of oppression, you have to radically dehumanize yourself by foregoing many qualities that are normally found in balanced human beings. You purge yourself of compassion, altruism, consideration for other people’s sufferings and the capacity to restrain your greed. Failure of the oppressor to get rid of such undesirable feelings – like compassion – will mean inability to be a successful exploiter.”

Museveni followed his thesis by remarking that “Hitler was a smart man. …What he did in Germany, we will also do it here” (Uganda). To reinforce his admiration for mass murderers, Museveni boastfully approved the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, in spite of the fact that about 50 million Africans were killed. During interview with Atlantic Monthly, Museveni said, “I do not blame white people for slave trading. If you are stupid, you should be enslaved.” Blaming the victims of this form of genocide for their own extermination is the most pitiful and bigoted utterance. Yet no outrage was registered at home and abroad.

In his book, Sowing the Mustard Seed, Museveni presented the Acholi, as a group, as responsible for the atrocities committed in Luwero. But let us consider the facts: the report of the commission of inquiry into the Luwero deaths have never been made public. Former fighters with Museveni have pointed a finger at Museveni for the Luwero deaths in their articles to the Monitor newspaper. Museveni promptly reacted by issuing injunction against retired National Resistance Movement/Army (NRM/A) military officers from continuing to publish the Luwero war memories. Museveni’s fear is that his complicity for deaths in Luwero will be exposed.

Demonizing the victims: the Acholi and the Jewish Experience

There are similarities between the two leaders in favouring and promoting hatred that would lead to the crimes of genocide.

Killings that lead to the crimes of genocide are usually preceded by psychological preparations. Museveni effected it through a vilification of the Acholi, as a group, by presenting them as responsible for the atrocities in Luwero. This provided justifications for “revenge” killings of the Acholi by the predominantly southern NRM/A soldiers. To continue stoking the flame of hatred and xenophobia against the Acholi, as a group, Museveni skillfully resorted to the indignity of displaying, for partisan reasons, human remains and rattling human skeletons as a political campaign ploy.

The various derogatory remarks about the Acholi people made by Museveni and his associates were interspersed by dehumanizing references of the Acholi people as inferior, primitive, backward and savage. In 1986, the NRM/A political commissar, Commander Karusoke Kajabago, referred to the Acholi people as biological substances, implying that they were deserving of extermination.

The domestic internalization of the demonic ideology consigned the Acholi people to enemy status, within their own country, upon whom acts of debasement and genocide are acceptable. Thus, what is aroused in the population is not so much hatred, although hatred is part of it, but indifference.

The Strategy of Genocide: Implementation and Ruses

[a]. Concentration Camps:

If we examine the phenomenon of concentration camps, we find that it is characteristic of most genocide. First, the concentration camps were created through a great deal of ruses and deception throughout Germany and Uganda.

The infamous concentration camps in Treblinka and Auschwitz were presented by the Nazis’ as industrial centers rather than what they really were. To effect the deception, the gate of Auschwitz still bears the infamous inscription, “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Brings Freedom). Although some Jewish victims might have thought that the violence was part of Hitler’s repressive measures, they had no idea what Treblinka and Auschwitz, among others, signified for them.

The extreme success of German propaganda was evident from the German murderers themselves who witnessed that, “down to their final moment before liquidation, they (Jews) believed they were going to be transported to some other place.”

Museveni’s ruse in moving the Acholi population into concentration is similar to the Nazis. Initially, the unarmed civilian populations were encouraged to run for sanctuary to UPDF detaches, to churches and to police stations during UPDF and LRA firefights, but they would return to their homes after the hostilities. But soon, the UPDF innovators and architect of the final solution saw this as a strategic blessing. The Acholis were to move into the concentration camps for protection from combat hostilities.

When the Acholi’s realized that those camps were death camps, they resisted and stayed in their homes. A victim cried, “we were told that these camps were for our protection, but we are brought here to be killed.” The UPDF made mandatory that the unarmed civilian population must relocate permanently to designated concentration camps and those refusing would be deemed LRA sympathizers. Within 48 hours, the UPDF air force strafed those unarmed civilians who were reluctant to move, militia groups killed whoever remained to collect food and property, villages were burnt and artillery units fired live shells indiscriminately into unarmed civilian communities.

[b]. Some Deceptive Linguistics of Genocide: “Work” and “Protection”

The language used by the Nazis and the UPDF are comparable and similar. The Nazi concentration camps were mostly referred to as “work camps” and never as death camps, which was what the camps were in practice.

The UPDF spoke of the concentration camps as “protection villages” and never as death camps, even when the reports of the Government of Uganda such as Suffering in Silence (January 2005); Health and Mortality Survey Among Displaced Persons in Gulu, Kitgum and Pader Districts, Northern Uganda (July 2005), and Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reports describe conditions, which evidently meet the threshold of genocide.

Who is fooling who here?

The Nazi’s fooled nobody but themselves because, after the war, they were brought before the Nuremberg Tribunal and convicted. One of the problems in Germany was that most Germans were in a state of denial as illustrated by their attitude of silence and indifference. The UPDF are also fooling themselves. General Tinyefunza confirmed that only 15 soldiers are posted to protect a population of over 50,000 concentration camp inmates from the LRA attacks. Whereas, he agreed that Museveni, an individual, is protected by over 12,000 soldiers (1 Division of troops), consuming over one-third of the national military budget. Clearly, the concentration camps are not meant to provide protection.

We must be clear that the UPDF language of offering “protection” in villages and the Nazi language of “work camps” are similar. They are effective veil to cover the unfolding genocide.

[c]. Denials and Maligning of Victims

In both Germany and Uganda, propaganda played a central role in shaping the course of genocide.

The Nazi propaganda purported that the Jewish people killed themselves while the Nazis were mere onlookers.

This is similar to Yoweri Museveni propaganda that the Acholi’s are killing themselves while the NRM/A are offering protection and safety.

Preposterous as Hitler and Museveni’s allegations are, the main purposes of the denials and maligning were to blame the victims for their extermination. This shifted the guilt onto cousins or kin and kinship of the exterminated.

The Donor Community and Accountability

There have not been any clear pronouncements about the tragic human catastrophe in northern Uganda from foreign donors, who finance up to 52 percent of Museveni’s administration budget. The donors have procured arms, trained and equipped the UPDF and the police force and continuously provided positive propaganda. It is this complicity that has made the donor community overlook the unfolding genocide in northern Uganda.

We should all be ashamed about our failure or, even connivance with, the perpetrators of genocide by giving material and moral support. Many western donor diplomatic missions have regularly visited the concentration camps, signed the visitor’s book, but made no public complains against the unfolding genocide.

The silence and support by western donor community for Museveni’s regime must be construed as giving tacit accent to continue perpetrating the unfolding genocide against the Acholi people.

How come that the tragic humanitarian suffering in Darfur that is nonetheless less severe in intensity and magnitude, than the situation in Acholi, which Jan Egeland, the United Nations Under-Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA), described as the world’s worse and forgotten humanitarian catastrophe been denied the status of genocide? How come that the tragedy does not also capture the sympathy and attention of the donor community?

The Acholi genocide remains unparallel in terms of the ferocity sustained over time by several participating perpetrators and by the complicity of the donor countries.

This is genocide where the ideological matrix of denial is among the most developed of any genocide in Africa; and, is actively propagated by donor community and agencies.

This is genocide where deniers such as General David Tinyefunza, Herbert Ogwal, Ambrose Murunga and Kintu Nyago, have called it “war” and often resorted to personal attacks, which are unrelated and distracting to what Otunnu actually charged.

This is genocide occurring in broad daylight in spite of copious indicators: the Government of Uganda official reports, Non-Governmental Organizations, Humanitarian and Human Rights Agencies reports documenting atrocities, Museveni’s published philosophical justifications of mass murders and systematic demonizations of the Acholi people, and explicit dehumanization by NRM/A political commissars, meeting the threshold of genocide.

KENYA: RAILA IN DILEMMA AS KELENJIN MPS DITCH HIM

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From: Ouko joachim omolo
Voices of Justice for Peace
Regional News

BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2012

Home Affairs Assistant minister and Bomet Member of Parliament Beatrice Kones is no longer one of the closes allies of Prime Minister Raila Odinga in Rift Valley. She has ditched the Orange Democrtatic Movement (ODM) for Eldoret North MP William Ruto’s United Republican Party (URP).

Remarks by Ruto while receiving Kones on Wednesday that she had joined the winning team could be interpreted that for the Kalenjin MPs in Rift Valley to be re-elected they must ditch Raila and his party. According to Ruto URP is the party to watch and (Ms) Kones is the last born in terms of joining us. Anyone who is not in URP is not on the winning team”.

Last month Sotik MP Joyce Laboso also ditched ODM expressing her dissatisfaction with the party. Dr Laboso, who was a key member of ODM Reloaded Team, said she was joining the Eldoret North William Ruto’s party United Republican Party (URP) saying ODM is no longer a national party and its leadership is questionable.

Politics she said is a matter of mind games; saying one thing when it suits you and denying it when it doesn’t. It’s however quite bad when the evidence is dropped right in front of you that you are lying.

The fact that Ruto has somewhat managed to convince his Kalenjin supporters that Riala is the one who has taken him to The Hague’, it means Raila is to expect other Kalenjin MPs to ditch him.

Efforts by Raila to convince Ruto to come back to ODM have been fruitless according to media reports. His reported secret meeting with Ruto on Tuesday night has been the main story few weeks ago.

The two are reportedly met at the home of businessman Joshua Kulei who is said to be leading efforts to re-unite the two, even though both Raila and Ruto have not admitted that they indeed met, with Ruto actually denying it.

It was reported that Raila offered Ruto the VP position and half the cabinet positions. Ruto is said to have refused to promise any support before the election, insisting that any deal had to be done after the first round of voting. He however promised to consider Raila’s offer.

This is the same Joshua Kulei who together with Ruto were in April 2011 acquitted of defrauding the Kenya Pipeline Company out of Sh272 million in a land purchase deal. The state claimed that Ruto fraudulently obtained Sh96 million from the KPC in 2001 claiming that he was in a position to sell 1.745 hectares of land belonging to the Ministry of Natural Resources situated in Ngong Forest.

Ruto is competing for a presidential ticket with wealthy Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, whose riches were recently estimated by Forbes at $500 million (Sh45 billion).

According to a weekly paper, truth newspaper, Raila drove himself to the venue in a pajama. It further says that the prime minister was accompanied by only one of his bodyguards and his car had no flag.

Although Ruto whose Amaco Insurance is one of Kenya’s most popular insurance companies is determined to run for President, Kofi Annan, the African Union envoy who mediated the 2008 peace deal, if an ICC suspect assumes the presidency in the next election, the consequences for Kenya could be disastrous politically and economically.

They argue that Kenya could be labelled a pariah state by the international community. This will mean that donors will withdraw their moral and financial support to Kenya. Donor-funded long- and medium-term plans and projects, such as Vision 2030, will be shelved. Poverty levels will rise. Economic growth rates will decline. Kenya will not attain middle income status by 2030.

Western nations may impose a trade embargo on Kenya. The African Union, which backed the peace process, may press upon its members to impose sanctions on Kenya. Kenya’s coveted membership in the East African Community might also be threatened.

Domestic revenues may see Kenya through, but without trading partners, revenue from exports will fall, leading to further hardships. Just ask the Cubans what the 50-year US trade embargo has done to their economy and you will see why this scenario is not desirable.

The United Nations may pull out of Kenya and set up base in a neighbouring country, thereby severely affecting the local economy. Revenue gained from UN conferences, contracts and projects will disappear. If the UN leaves, Kenya will lose millions of dollars that pass through the country’s banks. Nairobi’s housing and retail markets that cater for UN staff will collapse.

Like Zimbabweans under Robert Mugabe, Kenyans will start seeking refuge and jobs in neighbouring countries. Kenya will be viewed as a failed state like Somalia, generating the large numbers of refugees and IDPs.

Western countries will start to impose harsher travel restrictions on Kenyans. Middle and upper class Kenyans who can afford to travel and send their children abroad for further studies may be particularly affected.

If Uhuru and Ruto do not appear at their own trials, they will not be able to represent Kenya at international forums. Their travel will be restricted to countries that promise not to hand them over to the ICC.

They, in turn, may decide to follow the path of isolationism by breaking all international agreements that Kenya is signatory to. If Ruto and Uhuru attend their trials, and even if they are found innocent, they will have to spend a considerable amount of their time at The Hague.

Kenya will suffer from an absentee leadership. Anarchy might ensue. Regional warlords may take advantage of the situation and break up the country into fiefdoms. Jealous neighbours may also use the leadership vacuum to gain economic and political supremacy in the region.

If found guilty, Uhuru and Ruto will face a Nixonian moment: resign or be impeached by the National Assembly,” says Tom Maliti of the ICC Kenya Monitor blog. “At the ICC level, the men will go into detention as the court searches for a country to hold them in prison for the duration of whatever sentence is handed down.”

Although in the last weeks Kosgey has initiated a grassroots campaign to woe the Kalenjin community back to ODM to support Raila’s presidential bid, reportedly spoken personally to the Kalenjin MPs and assured them of ODM tickets if they returned to back Raila, the fact that Kalenjins view Kosgey as having been favoured by Raila as ICC case is concerned makes his campaign impossible to convince Kalenjins.

There is already rift between Road Minister Franklin Bett and Kosgey over running mate. While Raila would prefer Kosgey to be his running mate Bett insists that this must be done through ODM nomination and not direct. If Raila maintains that it is through direct nomination then the next MP to ditch him is Bett.

According to a credible source close, Bett has been pressurised by his constituents to join Ruto’s bandwagon or be shelved in March 4th general election. The source said, Bett who is also the Bureti MP has tried to market ODM party in South Rift but he has met stiff resistance from William Ruto’s supporters who have remained defiant on accepting Prime Minister Raila Odinga‘s Presidential quest.

ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo had prepared charges of crimes against humanity against Kosgey but in January the Pre-Trial Chamber declined to confirm the charges.

Ruto on the other hand is having a big problem with his URP party. He has been accused of favouring certain politicians even though he insists that there will be fair competition inside the URP.

Lugari MP Cyrus Jirongo is among the MPs who have expressed his frustrations with the URP. Ruto’s allies from Kipsigis community led by Charles Keter and Julius Kones accused him of using Chepalangu MP Isaac Ruto to fight them politically.

Another divisive issue within URP where MPs was Ruto’s choice of Environment minister Chirau Mwakwere as his vice-presidential running mate 2013. “Ruto never consulted anyone on this issue. He appears to be doing the same things he complained about when he told us to quit ODM. That is why we see no problem in dealing with Raila again, or any other party”, said one MP.

The URP leaders are also under pressure from sections of the Kalenjin community to chart their own political course and to avoid the G7 proposal for a single presidenital candidate if it is not Ruto.

A private opinion poll carried out by professionals from Rift Valley revealed that most Kalenjin MPs including those allied to Ruto will not be re-elected because they have lost popularity.

Except for Ruto himself and Belgut MP Charles Keter, all the other MPs scored less than 50 percent in the opinion poll. They were mostly accused of abandoning their constituencies or mismanaging CDF funds.

According to Waki report, William Ruto planned incitement, and financing the violence- In August 2007 he held a meeting with the other senior ODM leaders in Kipkelion near Kericho including former Sotik MP the late Lorna Labodo, the late Kipkalia K. Kones (Bomet), Kiprono L. J. Magerer (Kipkelion), and Franklin Bett (Bureti) where the leaders resolved to carry out mass evictions of non-Kalenjins from ‘their’ Rift Valley areas, particularly the Kikuyu and Abagusii.

Kalenjin MPs who have stuck with ODM despite the Ruto-led wave rebellion in the region include Ministers Henry Kosgey (Industrialisation), Margaret Kamar (Higher Education), Sally Kosgey (Agriculture), and Magerer Lang’at (Energy).

The ODM bagged 33 parliamentary seats in the Rift Valley most of them having come from the two most populous sub-clans, namely, the Kipsigis and Nandis followed by Tugen Keiyo and Marakwet.

Given that the Nandis comes the second after the Kipsigis Raila has no option but to stick with Nandi MPs. This is the community that delivered four seats in Nandi South and North namely Aldai, Emgwen, Mosop, and Tinderet.

Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
People for Peace in Africa
Tel +254-7350-14559/+254-722-623-578
E-mail omolo.ouko@gmail.com

Peaceful world is the greatest heritage That this generation can give to the generations To come – All of us have a role.

KENYA: POLL CHAOS – I SPEAK FOR THE DEAD.

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From: otieno sungu

Yesterday, one daily screamed its headlines, Poll Chaos Murderers and rapists to walk free. It was a declaration too hard for victims to swallow. Now, the task force formed by Mr. Keriako Tobiko, the Director of Public Prosecutions to review the matter of prosecuting poll suspects, returned the verdict that there is no evidence to try 8869 cases of suspects who killed, maimed, raped and destroyed property.

This is in the backdrop of government’s concerted efforts to bring back the ICC cases to be tried locally. We all know that over 1600 Kenyans were killed in 2007/08. We buried them, The President attended a memorial service sometime later in their memory, if I am not wrong, a mausoleum was erected or proposed in their honor.

We all know that over 500,000 people were displaced and some are still living in IDP camps. The government has spent millions of tax payer’s money resettling them. We have heard hundreds of individual accounts of victims of post poll rape in various forums.

Today, I do not want to write on behalf of the IDPs, victims of rape, maiming and those who lost property. The government seems to believe they have a weak case and thus they should try harder and build stronger cases.

I want to confine myself to the case of the dead, those who were killed by the marauding mobs that the government claims it cannot ascertain. I want to speak for the dead because they cannot come back from their graves to build their cases. I want to speak for them because the constitution guaranteed them the right to life and the government has an obligation to protect that right.

It is not the burden of dead victims of crimes that infringe on fundamental human rights such as the right to life to prove their cases. This responsibility lies with the government, especially where murder has occurred. It is very callous of this government to throw up its hands and declare it cannot do anything to apprehend the killers. The government machinery from the NSIS, CID and police are capable of investigating and finding these killers. These killers did not come from Mars, they are fellows within our society, people who were captured on camera hacking fellow Kenyans, burning their houses, pulling them out of vehicles and slaughtering them. These are gangs that were caught on camera, without hoods or balaclavas; brandishing machetes, bows and arrows, spears, some even transporting guns in vehicles. These people did not commit these crimes in the dead of the night; they were operating in broad daylight, in many cases right next to contingents of armed police officers.

Various institutions such as the Kenya National Commission for Human Rights documented some evidence. The NSIS must have reports of what transpired before, during and after the elections with regard to the violence. Meanwhile, the government wishes for victims, among them the dead to come out and build credible evidence.

If this government cannot find the killers, it has no moral authority to continue in office. The oath of the President is that of protecting lives and property, protecting the constitution which guarantees the fundamental rights and freedoms, among them the rights to life, free speech, association, owning property, exercising ones choices during elections.

This latest developments is further proof of the governments preoccupation with protecting the perpetrators of post poll chaos at the expense of victims. It all boils down to political will. Neither side of this coalition government wishes to bring to justice the architects of the heinous crimes. It can only mean one thing; major players in this government are themselves the perpetrators. A government worth its salt cannot claim that out of over 1600 murders, 500,000 displacements, hundreds of rape and maiming cases, in all this, it is only capable of convicting a single perpetrator whose case a victim successfully provided evidence.

This is an affront of the people of Kenya, it is an affront on the rule of law and definitely, an affront on the oaths our leaders took. If anyone still has any doubts that we expect suspected perpetrators to prosecute themselves, we are a deluded lot of a people.

This is what all Kenyans must stand up against.

Otieno Sungu.
The writer is an online civic educator and an environmental activist.

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Kenya: Has the Kasipul-Kabondo MP became an internally displaced person {IDP}:

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Writes Leo Odera Omolo

The Southern Nyanza district of Rachuonyo South is in the offing of making a history for having an elected member of parliament who has fallen under the rank of the internally displaced persons{IDPSH}

Honourable Joseph Oyugi Maguwnga is the incumbent MP for the densely populate Kasipul-Kabondo constituency is currently embroiled n total confusion as to whether to defend his sea in the old Kasipul Kabondo or shift his political base to the newly created Kabondo Kasipul constituency.

Credited for having been one of the MPs from Luo-Nyanza in the 10th parliament who has been politically very active, Magunwanga is technically and administratively displaced.

This followed the recent realignment of the new constituency boundaries. Kabondo-Kasipul is one of the several new parliamentary constituencies which were recently created by the IEBC.It is one of the 80 additional parliamentary seats, which now brings the total number of MPs in Kenya’s parliament to 290.

It has occurred that the new boundaries between the two neighboring constituencies has placed Hon. Maguwanga in a very awkward situation.

The MP is a resident of the old larger Kasipul where he has established his own home in a pace not very far from the nearby Oyugis Town. However, the new boundary has shifted and placed the homestead of the parents of the MP to be in the new Kabondo-Kasipul constituency administratively.

Three major administrative locations in an area previously known Eastern Kasipul have been include in the new constituency.The three locations included Kakelo, Kokwnyo and Kojwach.

Maguwanga who is a member of a small and minority immigrant sub-clan known as Wasweta. His parents had their family home in Kakelo, which is now part of Kabondo-Kasipul constituency.

Members of the Wasweta clan a sub-clan whose oriins could be taed back to the Suba of Suna Migori an Suba of the Suba region also settled among the Jo-Konyango in Kasipul while part of them have settled in Kakelo near Mikaye-Ober in Kakelo Location

The huge bulks of hi supporters have also been moved to the east and will now be voting in Kabondo-Kasipul. The boundary changes has put the MP in a very difficult situation forcing him to make a tough choice whether to defend his seat in the old Kasipul constituency or to shift his political base to the east and contest the coming general election in the newly created Kabondo-Kasipul constituency.

The MP is said to have lost the substantial number of voters supporter to the new electoral area, though he count on his uncles in Kojwach location where his mother hail from, it would be an up-hill task for Hon Maguwanga to make an impact and win the confidence of the electorate in the new constituency, because he is now being treated as stranger and an intruder and an outsider

On the other it would futile and disastrous for the Mp to stick to his old constituency now renamed Kasipul where he is residing without the bulks of his supporters who have been transferred to the new constituency of Kabondo-kasipul.

Reports reaching us, however, say Hon .Maguwanga has already made up his mind and that he would defend his seat in the newly created constituency.

The MP was among half a dozen of aspirants who turned up during the tearful sending off f Mr Dorah Oswago, the step-mother of Dr.Odhiambo-Olel of Kisumu who was buried at her home in Wang’chieng’ in eastern part of Kabondo a week ago. Other aspirants were Prof. Richard Otieno Muga the Vice Chancellor of the Great Lake University, Dr. M.T.Ayodo a senior lecturer at the Kabarak University, Herbert Ojwang’ a prominent Nairobi businessman an a former chairman of the board of director of the Awendo-based SonySugar Company a Mr Ogutu and others who have made it publicly clear that they would be vying for the new seat.

Local political pundits, however, were quick in pointing out that Maguwanga re-election in the new constituency of Kabondo-Kasipul will depend entirely on his track record of development activities and effective representation during his tenure in

Technically and administratively, Hon.Maguwanga fits into the description of the internally displaced persona displaced person{IDP} As to whether he would succeed in defending his seat and make it to the August Hose I still a matte of public conjecture. He will, however, will be forced to summons his strength and public relations prowess.

Ends

REFUGEE JOURNALISTS WORRIES IN EAST AFRICA.

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By Agwanda Saye.

East African journalists fleeing violence in their countries make up nearly half of the more than 450 journalists forced into exile in the past five years, the Committee to Protect Journalists found in its “Journalists in Exile 2012” report marking World Refugee Day.

“There is a journalist refugee crisis in East Africa that has drastically affected the region’s ability to maintain media institutions that provide reliable, vital information,” said Maria Salazar-Ferro, CPJ Journalist Assistance program coordinator and co-author of the report. “After enduring violence and threats, these journalists fled for their lives, only to land in a state of prolonged uncertainty as governments and the U.N. refugee agency process their cases.”

In the past year, more than a quarter of the 57 journalists who fled their homes came from an East African nation. The greatest number fled violence in Somalia, where six journalists have been killed in 2012 and no journalist murders have been prosecuted since 1992. Eritrea and Ethiopia, East Africa’s worst jailers of journalists, also lost many to exile. Journalists also sought refuge from targeted attacks and threats in conflict-ridden Syria and Pakistan.

CPJ’s annual survey of journalists in exile counts those who fled due to work-related persecution in the past 12 months and provides an overview of the past five years. Dozens of journalists seeking asylum without the legal right to work nor access to basic services live in desperate, insecure, and impoverished conditions, CPJ research shows. To help journalists reach safe destinations, regain stability, and earn a living, CPJ’s Journalist Assistance Program works with other organizations to optimize advocacy, logistical, and financial support. A special effort is being made to help East African journalists deal with this crisis.

KENYA: FLUSH BACK ON MADARAKA DAY

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From: People For Peace
Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News

BY CHRISPIN ONYANGO
NAIROBI-KENYA
SATURDAY, JUNE 9, 2012

The Madaraka Day came at a time that ordinary Kenyans are faced with many challenges from domestic to national level. Even though some few Kenyans congregated at different levels to celebrate that important day in the history of Kenya, it is to admit that very less has been done to make sense for this historical event.

At the moment, majority of Kenyans are still suffering especially the IDPs who are still suffering in the camps. It is very unfortunate President did not dare to mention anything about them during his speech on Madaraka Day.
;

Many still have nothing to look forward to and as the days go by it gets worse even at the time leaders attending a two -day conference in Mombasa on Friday called for the promotion of peace by all including the media.

Giving the keynote speech at the meeting, President Mwai Kibaki saying that peace and stability are paramount to achieving the development of any country, he never mentioned anything to do with justice, for you cannot talk of peace where there is no justice.

Speaking at the same conference, Prime Minister Raila Odinga said politicians should avoid tribal politics as this only incites communities. He did not say what happened when hundreds of displaced people blocked his motorcade in Kisumu demanding audience. Instead he drove into placard-waving IDPs outside the Tom Mboya Labour College as he left a conference on male circumcision in Kisumu last year.

Unknown to the PM, the IDPs had been waiting for him outside the college from 2pm.

They claimed they had been sidelined in the Government’s ‘Operation Rudi Nyumbani’ programme. Attempts by Raila aides to make him evade the IDPs failed as they monitored his every movement. His driver tried to drive off but the IDPs blocked the road.

Which peace and reconciliation are the political leaders talking about when children have turned to scavenging, while girls and women are trading sex for food, whereas men from the camp and from outside preying on girls because of their vulnerability.

They are talking about peace and reconciliation when most families can only afford a cup of light porridge a day. They do not bother whether these IDPs can contract diseases at the camp as a result of overflowing toilets.

Can you imagine of a father who does not care about his displaced children? Other major problems include insecurity especially in major towns such as Nairobi and Mombasa; high cost of living, tribal politics, unreliable politicians/leaders among others. For the above reasons, the 49th Madaraka Day celebration had very little impact on the lives of the ordinary Kenyans.

It is agsinst the background that in most parts of the country, many people continued with their daily chores as if nothing important was happening on that day. In my view, time is coming when such celebrations will either be attended by idlers or the haves who are absolutely sure of something on the table at the end of the day.

Ideally speaking, Kenyans are justified to boycott such events where they merely waste their time listening to politicians who are intrinsically egoistic and are never interested with the ordinary Kenyans. Surely how do you expect a poor man/woman from Kibera slums to attend such events spending the whole day empty stomach? That would be an absurdity.

This time round, President Kibaki had very little to talk about on Madaraka Day moreover the attendance was very low at Nyayo Stadium probably because of the fear of insecurity. During his speech, he assured Kenyans of better security something which I did not take serious at all.

In fact Kibaki should know that the Mombasa Republican Council is a great threat to the Kenyan security and especially now that we are approaching the General Elections.

I know some of our cunning politicians are supporting the MRC skimming for their votes. Moreover security issue has been a talk by almost every politician including security agents such as Prof. George Saitoti and Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere.

I was tongue-tied on the 28th May 2012 after an explosion in an exhibition shop along Moi Avenue in Nairobi when the Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere denied that the cause of the accident was related to terrorists but was a nearby electric power mishap. Later it was found out that the contrary was true. In short how can we trust such people who do not want to tell the truth?

On Madaraka day very early in the morning, I was privileged to be in a chapel where we sung our Kenyan National Anthem. As I was reflecting about it, I came to realize that it’s merely a beautiful and appealing song which has nothing to do with the reality on the ground. For instance, up to date ordinary Kenyans are still fighting for justice denied them by the “leaders” beginning from the grass root level to national level; secondly, Kenyans are enemies of themselves with no peace/unity as was experienced during 2007/2008 Post-election violence.

Surprisingly, nobody has a will to arrest such troubling situations beginning from the President up to the last man down in the village. So with all these can you be proud of being a Kenyans? Think about it.

In as much as we may think that the colonialists went, they are still with us in full and the worst part of it is that they are no longer wazungus but our fellow blacks who pretended to have saved Waafrika.

The Vice President Kalonzo sent a message of best wishes to Kenyans something which I viewed as a slap on the faces of ordinary Kenyans. It was like wishing somebody a good night knowing very well that he/she is going to sleep hungry.

The bourgeois like Kalonzo will continue prospering while the proletariat such as slum dwellers will ever be ‘working poor class.’ Therefore my fellow Kenyans let us take precautions by making critical judgments as we prepare to vote-in new leaders in the next General Elections.

Lastly, while listening to Deputy Prime Minister’s speech on that day, I realized that he had forgotten that Kenyans have already known his game and that he is not a serious politician. When he was in ODM, he couldn’t see anything good that Kibaki has done but on that day he hailed Kibaki for doing a good job.

Now where is the truth in him? I think any Kenyan with sound mind should rubbish such mere talks. In as much he would hail Kibaki, he won’t get many presidential votes from Central and therefore he will live to regret for quitting ODM.

Chrispin is a student in Nairobi-he write on political and social issues

People for Peace in Africa (PPA)
P O Box 14877
Nairobi
00800, Westlands
Kenya

Tel +254-7350-14559/+254-722-623-578
E-mail- ppa@africaonline.co.ke
omolo.ouko@gmail.com
Website: www.peopleforpeaceafrica.org

Kenya: Several thousand displaced after fresh clashes in Isiolo

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From: Judy Miriga

Folks,

I am saddaned. I wonder if this Coalition Government is able to hold any more or even provide security to the people of Kenya.

It is about time people go to the street and demand step down of the two Principals to allow a Transitional Caretaker Committee to take over and straighten things before electioneering.

Good politics brings forth good business of trading and commerce fair to all in the fold, but bad politics brings forth corruption, selfishness and greed, which results in un balanced failed governance in a collapsed economic business undertaking.

People of Isiolo, Mandera, Turkana and the Luo Nyanza are in greater Risk of being wiped out into extinction because of selfishness and greed. We must act fast and swiftly as this behavior is unacceptable and it must not be allowed to go on.

Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com

– – – – – – – – – – –

From: Jagem K’Onyiego

Where is the President and his Minister for internal security. Sooner or later Odinga will go there to try to bring peace, yet Odinga does not even sit in the Top Security apparatus in the Country. How much will he be able to do when he do not have even a paramilitary unit under him to use to bring peace amongst these waring clans?

Jagem

From: Chifu wa Malindi

KENYA: Several thousand displaced after fresh clashes in Isiolo

ISIOLO, 2 April 2012 (IRIN) – Hundreds of families in the central county of Isiolo have been displaced as deadly clashes pitting the Borana, Somali and Turkana communities escalate.

Ibrahim Sheikh Mohamud, a leader from the neighbouring Wajir region, told IRIN that at least 210 Isiolo families have been taken to the Anjara area in Wajir West in the past week. “They are now settled at Anjara but they sleep in the open. Almost all the children have pneumonia and malaria. They need tents, food assistance and drugs,” Mohamud told IRIN in Isiolo.

Among those fleeing the violence are widows, orphaned children and livestock herders who have lost their herds to raiders in the past year.

“We only ferried children, women and the elderly using trucks that were offered by individuals,” said Mohamud. “Some of us contributed fuel and food to assist these families; they are in a very pathetic situation.”

In the latest attack on 30 March, a young girl and an adult were shot dead less than 5km from Isiolo town. Five other people, among them a female teacher, were killed on 28 March in nearby Kilimani.

According to UN sources, two ethnic Boranas were reportedly killed by suspected Turkana gunmen in the Gambella area along the Isiolo-Garba Tulla road on 30 March, raising fears the incident could spark further revenge attacks in the coming days.

Ordered out

Herders from Wajir and Mandera districts have also started leaving Isiolo following a government directive.

“We have lost a lot of animals and people,” said Hassan Nurow, a livestock owner who was heading to Wajir. “We were expecting the government to protect us but unfortunately… [the government] instead ordered us to leave and blamed us for causing the skirmishes.”

The acting permanent secretary for provincial administration and internal security, Mutea Iringo, last week ordered all migrant pastoralists to leave Isiolo.

“These people have no reason to be around. They came here because of the drought. It has rained [and] Northeastern [Province] has enough pasture, so they have to leave immediately,” Iringo told IRIN.

The herders were said to have been asked by local politicians to remain in Isiolo to allow them to register to vote in the upcoming 2013 elections. Politics and planned development schemes have fuelled an upsurge in inter-communal killings [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/94312/KENYA-A-boomtown-powder-keg ] and displacements in Isiolo since mid-October 2011.

According to Iringo, some of the three communities’ political leaders have been instigating clashes for personnel gain. “Some of the so-called herders – claiming to be innocent – are crooks involved in the gun-running business,” he said.

“They had established Isiolo as a storage place for the guns… Evidence attesting to this [is] available. Some have been arrested selling guns or while poaching.”

Meanwhile, traders and business people are suffering.

“I have lost many animals. I had to sell four camels at 360,000 shillings (US$4,390) to hire home guards and rent a house for my family,” local livestock farmer Abdi Salan Sheikh, told IRIN.

He said he had lost more than 50 camels and 246 goats, and has had to move his family back to Mandera, in the northeast. “My children have been unable to secure a place in school in Mandera until next term.”

Shariff Mohamed, a Somali camel milk trader in Isiolo, told IRIN business rivalry was also a problem. “We have a group of people who fear that Somalis will take control of the town. I am not moving but unfortunately I only get 40 litres [of milk] unlike in the past when I used to sell 200 litres to Nairobi every day.”

Turkanas displaced

The violence has displaced at least 500 Turkana families from Isiolo town. They are now seeking refuge in Isiolo’s Ngaremara Location and in neighbouring Laikipia and Samburu districts, Ekwam Terru, a local Turkana leader, told IRIN.

“We have lost a lot. [Most] of our people are camping at a church in Ngaremara. Almost a thousand have moved to Samburu and Laikipia; they include school children.” He said at least 5,000 ethnic Turkana had been displaced and more than 122 of their houses torched.

A Ngaremara livestock trader said he is no longer able to access the Isiolo livestock market: “I have nothing now. My house was burnt. I have abandoned my farm. My kids are out of school.”

“We are in a worse condition and more desperate than Somalis [in Somalia] who have been fighting for over two decades,” said the trader.

According to upper eastern regional commissioner Isaiah Nakoru, the government has deployed security officers in the area and appealed to residents to help end the conflict, which has left dozens dead and displaced thousands since late 2011.

na/aw/cb

[END]

This report online: http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=95219

Kenyan politicians should learn from the past lessons and learn how to approach the coming general election in a sober manner

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Commentary By Leo Odera Omolo
.
Our beloved country is surrounded by several failed states, ungovernable nation and struggling economies due to man-made mistakes. Seeing these entire phenomenon’s in our immediate neighbors should serve us as the best lessons.

Although God has been with us ever since our nation attained its political independence 49 years ago, however, there is no guarantee that the same could be with us in the next decade. But I we are strong enough to discard negative ethnicity and parochial thinking; I am sure for certain that we can weather the storm.

As at for now, our country appear to be heading to a cross-road, judging by the chest thumping utterances by leading politicians from our parties.

The worse of it all, however, is the latest development whereby some people have started mixing politics with religion.

And with the election days now ticking on very fast, this is the time when w should all including religious leader hard pray hard for the Divine intervention so that our Almighty God could find an alternative escaping route for us, which is devoid of the previous experiences of the 2007/2008.

Instead of religious leaders giving Kenyan spiritual nourishment trough prayers in the churches and mosques, they have gone solo agitating for cabinet appointment that is based on religion and not on political ability and reputation.

In this context, I have in mind some of the degrading comments and utterances made this week by a certain section of Muslim leaders following the latest cabinet reshuffle effected by the two principals of the coalition government President Mwai Kibaki and the Prime Minister Raila Odinga to streamline the ministries.

Cabinet reshuffle is just the very normal re tune in every government’s normal exercise. In the neighboring Tanzania such reshuffles have occurred whereby some people who had held plum ministerial slots for decades have been at time demoted and posted to serve the nation in other capacities even as low as the regional commissioners, which is an equivalent PCs in our country.

But the seemingly more patriotic Tanzanian officials, however, have always taken their new posting with pride and serves their people diligently without any complaint.

The supremacy of political parties is also paramount in that once you appointment of election to a public body was sponsored by a particular political movement, one must toe the line and strictly adhered o the policy and programmes of the sponsoring party. One working under such circumstance must always avoid flirtation with leaders from other parties which are perceived to be not reading in the same script with the doctrines of the party which had brokered such appointment o sponsored the person in question. It could be even worse in a coalition government like the one we have in Kenya.

In this context, I have in mind the sacking of the Tourism Najib Balala who is an ODM for Mvita. This legislator was elected on an ODM ticket to serve all the resident of Mvita constituency irrespective of their ethnicity, tribes, race religion, or creed.

It is arguably that Balala was one of the most effective and efficient Minister in the coalition government, but at the same time we must not lose our sight that he his appointment was brokered by the ODM a part of it cabinet share in accordance to the national accord, and a such his loyalty to the sponsoring political party is paramount and superseded any other consideration. Balala’s sacking therefore was long over due.

I therefore strongly disagree with those accusing Raila Odinga of being a dictator. The question of dictatorship id not arise nor is the question o dishonesty on the part of the Prime Minister. In my view Raila is too tolerant person a far as the essence of party politics are concern. He has accommodated many politicians with diverse opinions under the one roof of his ODM party.

We must remember the old past, especially during the reign of power of the retired President Daniel Arap Moi’s KANU regimes when some Ministers were forced to remove their cabinet flags flying in their vehicle bonnets by the police manning the road blocks after the swift sacking announcement at lunchtime via the Voice of Kenya.

It is still fresh in our minds of an incident in which cabinet Minister from Western Kenya was caught in cross fire a s he drove from Nairobi to Nakuru on his rural home on one early afternoon after he ha been fired via one o’clock radio news footage, which he apparently was unaware of. The former Minister got a shock for his life. He was stopped at a police road block near Naivasha town, while sleeping on the left side of the back seat of his vehicle; ordered not only to remove the flag on his car, but also to surrender the official government vehicle to the next nearby police station and find his own way home. What a humiliation experience?

The impending general elections will come and go like any other previous elections and as such we should not lose our sight on the important task of building Kenya as one strong and a united nation.We must tone down our emotions and avoid venomous utterances while taking into consideration that not all of us will be sitting in the State House, but only one Kenyan with God’s blessing will be the sojourner in that House on the hills.

I am not only blaming the politicians, but also strongly abhorred the quack clergymen and priest who have been offering their services cheaply to politicians by offering them prayers by roadside, public rallies in return of financial gains or political favors.

These are some of the most ungodly actions in our country. Such religious have no moral authorities to offer prayers to the politicians outside the established churches of God. I am sure for certain that God doesn’t listen to their sycophantic and commercialized prayers and those they are praying for could face the severest punishment instead of blessings.

All in all Kenyan leaders must tone down and seek for divine intervention so that peace could prevail in our beloved motherland. The true spirit of cohesion is the answer, and not by the way of government creating so many money guzzling and ineffective commissions which are only consuming taxpayers money without achieving any tangible result that is good for the Wananchi.

Instead of offering prayers for drunken youth accompanying politician in public rallies, our religious leaders should organize one national day of prayers for the soul of those thousand of Kenyans who laid down their lives as the result of politically motivated killings during the post-election violence and those our people who wallowing in abject poverty at the numerous IDP camps.

Our leaders should brainstorm together and find the solution of how to settle the IDP so that they could resume the normal life, and have their soul and spirits genuinely reconciled with their tormentors who violently evicted them fro their legally acquired farms and property. We must not be deceiving ourselves that our leaders have reconciled themselves simply for political expediency. The genuine reconciliation must take the root in the grass roots in rural locations in places lie Narok South, Molo, Elburgon, Kuresoi, Olengruone, Londiani, Burn Forest, Turbo,Uasin Ngishu,Cheranganyi,Nandi North an Nandi South, Nandi Hills,Naivasha,Trans-Nzoia, Tans-Mara,Nakuru, Sotik-Borabu borders.

These are the place where clergymen should be accompanying politicians while preaching the gospel of serious and genuine reconciliation involving the population. Such prayers meeting are so necessary and most essential as we are approaching the next general elections. Such reconciliatory prayers must involved the elders of the communities and the down trodden citizens of this country, some who are so bitter for having lost the possession of anything they had before 2007/2008 orgies. Instead of half-hearted votes hunting reconciliation meetings like those we have witnessed in the recent past

Let us build a better Kenya for the future generation and stop placing our country in the election mood all the times. This is naive and primitive please give Kenyans a break so that they could cultivate and pant their farms now that the long rains is around.

There is nothing wrong with us holding the next general election in March 2013 as per High Court judgment, but there is still room for the two principal to agree and have this date changed to December this year owing to other logistics and technical problems such as schooling period for our children etc.

Ends

KENYA: UNTOLD STORY OF MICHUKI SHOOT TO KILL ORDER

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From: People For Peace
Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News

BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2012

John Njoroge Michuki is dead, but no one has ever asked why he was removed by President Mwai Kibaki from Internal Security to Minister for Roads and Public Works shortly he had issued a ‘Shoot-to- Kill Order’ against the out-lawed Mungiki sect in 2008. He directed the police while he served as the Minister for Internal Security.

Inset- from left to right- late Michuki-Mungiki leader Maina Njenga- School children caught in the centre of 2008 post election violence/ File

Although it could be argued that he was moved to another ministry after Human Rights groups condemned the order citing that it contravened both the Police Act and general Human Rights guaranteed by the constitution, report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, or arbitrary executions by Mr. Philip Alston can tell a lot.

Faces of sorrow and sympathy as these people including the child on your right look at the dead during the post election violence/ File

The Special Rapporteur visited Kenya from 16-25 February 2009 in order: to ascertain the types and causes of unlawful killings; to investigate whether those responsible for such killings are held to account; and to propose constructive measures to reduce the incidence of killings and impunity.

Although the main focus was on killings by the police, violence in the Mt Elgon District, and killings in the post-election period, there were many such criminal groups, but the Mungiki became particularly prominent. It suggests that Mungiki were used to play a special role in post election violence.

It would mean that the Michuki shoot to kill order was going to interfere with that special role. That is why, even though in many slums in and around Nairobi, there have historically been high levels of insecurity caused by Mungiki they were not comprehended.

Police using excessive force on innocent people during the post election violence/ File

Probably because in the early 1990s when the Mungiki, initially a cultural-religious movement, began providing security and basic services in slums, today, the Mungiki are responsible for a large number of crimes, including murder.

According to the report, even though the Government has a clear obligation to protect citizens from Mungiki and other criminal violence, during Philip’s mission, he received compelling evidence that death squads – including one called Kwekwe – exist within the police force in Kenya, and that these squads were set-up to eliminate the Mungiki and other high-profile suspected criminals, upon the orders of senior police officials.

Detailed evidence was provided by civil society investigations, 13 witnesses to the squad’s activities, survivors of attempted killings, family members of deceased or disappeared victims, and victim autopsy reports indicating shots at close range and back entry wounds.

A further key component of this evidence is the now public testimony of a police whistleblower, who recorded his statement in July 2008, before he was murdered while in hiding in October 2008.

His account according to the report provides, in precise and often excruciating, detail the composition and operations of the death squad in which he was a part, and the circumstances of the murder of 67 persons between February 2007 and July 2008.

Together, this evidence implicates the Commissioner of Police, and senior police officials from the Criminal Investigation Division, Special homes of suspected Mungiki members. Two matatu drivers were subsequently murdered.

The police carrying out the operations (those driving the vehicles and committing the murders) are generally ordered by senior police to pick up a specified individual at a particular location (often his home, workplace, or a road on which he is believed to be traveling).

Interviews were conducted with Government officials, representatives of civil society, and victims and witnesses, in five of the eight administrative provinces or areas in Kenya, as well as with officials of United Nations agencies and members of the diplomatic community. Over 100 lengthy witness interviews were conducted.

The Special Rapporteur concluded that police in Kenya frequently execute individuals and that a climate of impunity prevails. Most troubling is the existence of police death squads operating on the orders of senior police officials and charged with eliminating suspected leaders and members of criminal organizations.

Since then mysterious killings took place. On March 9, 2009 lawyer Oscar King’ara, the founder and director of an NGO known as Oscar Foundation, and Programme Coordinator John Paul Oulo were shot dead by unknown assailants.

Although they were killed only hours after Government Spokesman Alfred Mutua had told a news conference that the Foundation was Mungiki’s fundraising wing, an alleged Mungiki spokesman David Gitau Njuguna said he wanted to reveal the activities of the organisation to the media.

On 13 April 2008, Mungiki leader Maina Njenga’s wife and a driver were killed mysteriously. This was after Michuki had been removed from Internal Security ministry. Mungiki has been presented as a militia that enjoyed State goodwill to commit murder and other bloody crimes in January 2008.

When Mr Njuguna Gitau Njuguna of Mungiki’s political wing was killed after he was confronted by three unknown assailants in Nairobi’s Luthuli Avenue, their leader, Maina Njenga, was by then serving a jail term of five years at Naivasha Maximum Security Prison for being in possession of an illegal firearm.

Mr. Njuguna Gitau Njuguna was the brain behind the idea of turning Mungiki into a political party and he had a nice name for it (KENYA) which stands for Kenya Youth Alliance. He was a university graduate and a close friend of Paul Muite and Maina Kiai and other anti status-quo fellows.

Njuguga had previously organized a conference at the Limuru Conference Center that was well attended. The theme of the conference was to examine ways to effect a generational change in leadership arguing that the same old guard had been in charge of Kenya since independence.

Maina Njenga recently complained that Mungiki was bitter because they had from time to time been used and dumped by Central province leaders. Njenga had complained to police about suspicious cars that have been trailing him on the road and to his Nairobi and Kitengela residences, with some of the occupants leaving messages they wanted to talk to him.

Meanwhile, Michuki’s fear for Raila to become the president was not because he hated him, but because Odinga would feel compelled to avenge the murders of slain Luos Tom Mboya, an independence-era leader believed to have been killed by a Kikuyu, and Robert Ouko, a Moi-era foreign minister believed to have been murdered by Kalenjin.

According to Michuki Odinga would be pressured to avenge these deaths not only against the individual perpetrators, but against entire communities. So his fear was to protect his community from being avenged.

People for Peace in Africa (PPA)
P O Box 14877
Nairobi
00800, Westlands
Kenya

Tel +254-7350-14559/+254-722-623-578
E-mail- ppa@africaonline.co.ke
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Website: www.peopleforpeaceafrica.org

Egypt: Don’t Deport Eritreans

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from Yona Maro

(Geneva) – The Egyptian authorities are preparing to deport 118 detained Eritreans to Eritrea, where they risk persecution, Human Rights Watch said today. On October 29, 2011, guards at the al-Shalal prison in Aswan beat the 118 men, including 40 who already have refugee status, to force them to sign papers for their “voluntary” return to Eritrea, according to sources with access to the detainees.

Egypt should stop forcing detained Eritreans to sign repatriation forms and allow the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to interview all detained Eritreans to identify refugees among them, Human Rights Watch said. According to UNHCR, it has already registered 40 of the group as refugees in Sudan and Ethiopia. The renewed deportations signal a return to Egypt’s mass deportations of Eritreans in 2008and 2009, Human Rights Watch said.

“Detaining Eritreans and then beating them to force them to sign ‘voluntary’ return papers can’t mask the fact that Egypt is about to commit refoulement, the forced return of refugees to likely persecution,” said Gerry Simpson, senior refugee researcher and advocate at Human Rights Watch. “Instead of ripping up refugee law, ignoring UNHCR, and beating migrants and refugees, Egypt should protect them.”

Eritrea, ruled by an extremely repressive government, requires all citizens under 50 to serve in the military indefinitely. Anyone of draft age leaving the country without permission is branded a deserter, risking five years in prison, often in inhumane conditions, as well as forced labor and torture. UNHCR considers that, in practice, the punishment for desertion or evasion is so severe and disproportionate that it constitutes persecution.

Human Rights Watch spoke with multiple credible sources with regular recent access to about 160 Eritrean men and women detained for the past month in al-Shalal prison in Egypt’s southern city of Aswan.

According to the sources, the detainees said that on October 26 an Eritrean embassy official visited them and asked why they had left Eritrea. He returned on October 29 with voluntary repatriation forms and told them they would all be photographed to help prepare travel documents. The detainees all refused to sign the forms.

One of the sources who spoke with all of the detainees said the prison guards then beat 118 of them, mostly young men, to force them to sign the voluntary return papers, though the 30 or so women and seven children were not forced to sign.

Some of the detainees told one of the sources that on November 9 an Egyptian immigration officer and an Eritrean official visited the prison with additional deportation documents, including “laissez passer” papers, indicating deportation is imminent.

Ten of the men are recent deserters from Eritrea’s military. They include two senior personnel – a colonel and a person responsible for the military’s radio service – the source said. The other eight are more junior personnel, two of whom worked in food distribution services in Eritrea’s infamous Sawa military camp.

The camp is the country’s main military training center and notorious for its use of torture to punish draft evaders and people trying to escape the country, as well as for its use of forced labor.

Under Egypt’s 1954 memorandum of understanding with the UN refugee agency, the agency is supposed to carry out all refugee status determination in Egypt. This means Egyptian officials are obliged to give UNHCR access to all detained migrants to identify those who want to claim their right to seek asylum from persecution.

In practice, Egyptian authorities often deny the UN refugee agency access to detained migrants. The Egyptian authorities have not allowed UNHCR to visit the detainees, the refugee agency told Human Rights Watch.

“By blocking UNHCR from visiting asylum seekers, the Egyptian government not only tramples on their right to seek asylum but disregards its own agreements,” Simpson said. “Egypt needs to reaffirm its agreement to protect asylum seekers and let the refugee agency interview them.”

According to credible sources, over the past two months Egyptian Interior Ministry officials have given Eritrean embassy officials access to detained Eritreans, including asylum seekers registered by UNHCR in other countries, to help prepare travel documents for deportation.

Human Rights Watch said that allowing Eritrean diplomatic officials to visit detained Eritreans, including potential asylum seekers, means Egypt is violating the principle of confidentiality, essential to asylum procedures.

According to reports by Egypt’s official Middle East News Agency, in October the Egyptian authorities announced that 111 Eritreans had “voluntarily” returned to their country after they had signed Eritrean embassy paperwork. Credible sources told Human Rights Watch that Eritrean Embassy officials had visited them in prison before they were deported.

The news agency reported on October 14 that two days earlier, Egypt had deported 50 Eritreans and that, on the same day, 32 Eritreans had “illegally entered the southern border of Egypt with the intention of making their way to Sinai to illegally enter Israel.”

UNHCR said that the Egyptian authorities denied UNHCR access to some of the deportees, in line with Egypt’s policy of generally denying the refugee agency access to detained migrants. In the case of migrants intercepted in Egypt’s eastern Sinai region, UNHCR says the authorities argue that legitimate refugees should try to register with UNHCR in Cairo instead of crossing the Sinai desert.

In June 2008, Egypt summarily returned to Eritrea up to 1,200 undocumented Eritreans who had entered Egypt from Sudan. In December 2008 and January 2009, Egypt forcibly returnedmore than 45 Eritrean asylum seekers to Eritrea.

Until the reports in October, Egypt had appeared to end the deportations, except for one UNHCR-recognized Sudanese refugee, Mohammed al-Haj Abdallah, on January 25, 2010.

Under the African Refugee Convention, asylum seekers have a right to seek asylum, regardless of how they enter a country or whether they have identity documents.International law forbids countries from forcibly returning asylum seekers without first allowing them to apply for asylum and considering their cases.

Both the Convention against Torture and the African Refugee Convention forbid Egypt from sending individuals to countries where they face a serious risk of persecution or torture. Egypt is also a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which, under article 13, prohibits arbitrary expulsion and entitles foreigners to an individual decision on their removal/expulsion. The UN Human Rights Committee has interpreted article 7 of the ICCPR to forbid refoulement – or forced return – of people to places where they would be at risk of torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.

Human Rights Watch said that no international agencies in Eritrea, including UNHCR, have been able to monitor the treatment of deported Eritreans once they are back in Eritrea. However, Eritrean refugees in various countries have told Human Rights Watch that Eritreans forcibly returned to their country are routinely detained and mistreated in detention.

UNHCR’s official Guidelines to States on the protection needs of Eritrean asylum seekers state that “[i]ndividuals of draft age who left Eritrea illegally may be perceived as draft evaders upon return, irrespective of whether they have completed active national service or have been demobilized,” and that “[t]he punishment for desertion or evasion is so severe and disproportionate such as to amount to persecution.”
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Kenya: The death of an ‘ordinary person’

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from Tebiti Oisaboke

The following article has been recommended

The death of an ?ordinary person?
[http://www.nation.co.ke/News/The+death+of+an+ordinary+person/-/1056/1264142/-/141d0ns/-/index.html]

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This is really a very powerful and heart touching story. Dorothy was indeed a very charismatic and courageous Kenyan who fought her illness with resilient compassion. Special thanks goes to Ms. Lucy Hannah for bringing Dorothy’s story to the public fora. There is absolutely NO doubt that Sister Dorthy was failed by the state and left for death. What a sad death. Its painful to read stories such as Dorthy’s where the public health providers don’t bother to provide basic nursing services for their patients. How in the world could nurses be sleeping their nights away as if they are in their bedrooms while on duty? Do we have supervisors in Kenyan hospitals? Dorothy was treated like a dog in her own country yet she probably worked hard all her life, paid taxes and yet Uncle Sam turned his back on her at the time she needed him most. Most poor people like Dorothy are the largest tax contributors to Kenya’s Uncle Sam kitty and when they need the slightest help, all access doors are shut before them. These rich dudes never pay anything towards the tax revenues yet they amass all the benefits they can grab from the state Exchequer’s office. Its high time that the Kenyan government start paying disability allowances to certain classes of people who qualify such as HIV victims, old and frail, disabled etc so that they too may afford tp purchase health care coverage in the private healthcare facilities. If the hospitals are too congested to take care of all the sick people who need long time care, allow people to open nursing homes to care for these category of people and give them social security benefits. A few months ago, there was another devastating story from Kisii-Kenya where by a mother who has a mentally ill child who has since grown into a youngman now, was chained in his village hut all his life for fear that he might either wonder away, hurt someone or kill himself. When he was discovered, the newsmen visited his home where they found him covered with his own defecation waste and urine. I could not fanthom how he managed to live in such pathetic conditions today when his own local village chief was aware of his “wanting” condition. The chief could have raised an alarm in conjunction with his local MP and sough help for this guy. He was chained like a tithered animal awaiting the butcher’s knife all his life! God forbid. This is human abuse in other countries. Open group homes to care for the mentally ill citizens and don’t let poor mothers struggle alone to raise their children helplessly. I know this has been going on for long in Kenya whereby when a family member becomes completely confined in the hospital bed due to critical illness, most of the time it becomes a FT job for family members to nurse their kin while the state paid health care providers do nothing. Why does Uncle Sam extract taxes from our meager resources yet we don’t get our taxes worthy free state provided services? Ms. Hannah says it very clearly than I can, that our dishonorable politicians behave like a cottage or a bunch of Mafia professionals and NOT our human rights defenders. How long are we gonna tolerate this nonsense? We have been shot changed for many years and its just about time for all of us to say, enough is enough in 2012. She hit hard on her last paragraph as quoted here below

“It reminded me that although Dorothy always referred to herself as “an ordinary person”, she was clearly not.

By her own account, she was illiterate and poorly educated, yet she was articulate and wise about subjects that are taboo for so many — rape, HIV, and forgiveness.

It also reminded me that the fate of every — poor — citizen rests in the hands of their government.

Dorothy had been failed at every turn in her life: in the 2007 election; in personal security; as an internally displaced person; as a person living with HIV; in restitution; as a victim of sexual violence; in loss of livelihood; in legal justice and human dignity; and finally, in a fatally corrupt and inefficient institution – the health service.

But in death, she had taught me one last thing. I finally understood exactly what is meant by a “failing State”. Dorothy died of failure of State. Dorothy was buried on Saturday”.

RIP and may God bless your soul sister Dorothy. You have taught us a lot of what it means to be poor person in Kenya

Kenya & ICC: It has been established that one of the ICC suspects is linked to threats and intimidation of the Ocampo witness’s family

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Reports Leo Odera Omolo In Kapsabet Town.

ONE of the top Kenyan officials suspects in criminal cases currently going on before the International Criminal Court of Justice at The Hague {ICC} was on Monday named during investigations into threats against the family of a witness whose home was attacked and stoned in North Nandi district lat week.

The name of the ICC suspect was mentioned when police in Kapsabet town were interrogating the father of the witness whose house was stoned by menacingly threatening and rowdy youth shouting obscene and abusive slogans against the ICC and The Hague.

The incident forced the family to flee their home and took refugee into the house belonging to their relative in Eldoret Town about 30 kilometers away.

The North Nandi district Criminal, Investigation Officer {CID}Samson Thoya is leading the tem of police sleuths investigating into the matter following a directive by the Commissioner of Police Mathew Iteere.

The 65 year-old said several people recorded statements on Monday in connection with threats against the family. The father of the witness told the police that suspect held a fundraising at a nearby church which is close to the witness home and it is t that function where the ICC suspect said the family ha betrayed him.

“Immediately after mention of my family name when, we started receiving messages with threats followed by the night attack,” the man whose name could not be published or security reason and personal safety.

Police Commissioner Iteere has yet to decide whether suspect will be summoned to record statement on the matter.

Members of the family, who met with the officials from the government’s Witness Protection Agency said, they want security to be provided saying the relocation of the family is not enough.

“My son is a grown up and an adult and we had nothing to do with his decision to his and links with ICC issues. We have the right to live in our own home in our country and People must understand that we have nothing to do with ICC issues,” said the 65 year old father.

NGO Council chairman Ken Wafula met with security officials in Kapsabet over the matter. Also present in town and attended the meeting were Provincial Administration officials from the home area of the witness.

“We want to deal with the issue so that those who have been threatening can face the law,” said Wafula.

Last week the Director of Public Prosecution Keriako Tobiko officially wrote to the Commissioner of Police Mathew Iteere directing him to investigate the matter and provide the family with protection.

In direct that you cause urgent speedy investigation to be carried out into this incident. Statements should be recorded and all persons who may have been involved be interrogated, “said Tobiko’s letter in part.

The DPP letter was also copied to the NGO council chairman Wafula and the Director of the CID Ndegwa Muhoro.The witness is among those who were taken out of the country for protection.

The reported attack in Nandi took place as the confirmation hearing against three of the poll violence suspects are going o at the Hague.

Ends

KENYA: POST ELECTION VICTIM WHO CHEATED DEATH MARKS 25 YEARS OF PRIESTHOOD

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Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News
from ouko joachim omolo

BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
KISUMU-KENYA
MONDAY, AUGUST 29, 2011

Kisumu archdiocese catholic priest, Fr Elias Ngafia yesterday celebrated his 25 years silver jubilee of priesthood. Fr Ngafia, from Gikuyu ethnic community was ordained priest for Kisumu archdiocese on August 28, 1986 together with Fr John Obala who is the current Rector of St Thomas Aquinas National Seminary, Nairobi.

Fr Ngafia escaped death in 2008 during the presidential election violence. Rowdy Luo youths armed with crude weapon wanted to kill him because of being from Gikuyu background. The violence started in Eldoret and spread to Kisumu, Kericho, Mombasa, Naivasha, Molo, Njoro, Githima village near Nakuru and in Western Kenya.

Although Naivasha had the least number of people killed, Eldoret and Kisumu topped the list, followed by Kericho, Mombasa, Molo, Njoro, Kakamega, Bungoma, Nairobi, and Nakuru.

In Kisumu the Kikuyus were the target to revenge the killing of Luos in Naivasha. It was reported that the Mungiki attacked Luos, some of whom were burnt alive in one single house. There were no Kalenjins in Naivasha so they were not the target.

The Luos in Kisumu were also revenging the killings of their colleagues in Nairobi, allegedly by the Kikuyus. The Kikuyus were on the other hand revenging on the Luos and the Kalenjins for killing their fellow Kikuyus.

It is against the background that Fr Ngafia maintains that reconciliation and healing in Kenya is not going to be simple as such as Kenyans may think. Majority of IDPs have not been settled, the families of 1,133 who were brutally killed have never been compensated.

Moi has never been charged in court of law for the deaths of innocent Kenyans his regime initiated from December 1992 elections to 2002. The families of people killed in Molo, Narok, Pokot, Londiani, Elburgon and Burnt Forest areas of the Rift Valley. These attacks were aimed primarily at the Kikuyu.

Moi has never reconciled with Luos, Luhyia and Kisii for driving away from Rift Valley. The Kalenjin Assistant Minister Kipkalia Kones had just declared Kericho District a KANU zone and stated that the Kalenjin youth in the area had declared war on the Luo community in retaliation for several Kalenjins killed in earlier violence. In the Chemichimi (the Bungoma District), the Kalenjin attacked the Luhya community.

Fr Ngafia did not only escape death their houses in Koru were burnt with all the belongings. His mother, Mrs Peres Mwihaki Wainana, 87, who died today (Monday August 29), was forced to go to stay with relatives in Nyahuru. She was terribly traumatized as the result of the violence.

Yesterday Fr Ngafia had said even if his mother was not elderly she could not come for his 25 years jubilee celebrations because of the shock of the violence. He wondered why Kikuyu community were referred to as ‘Bim en Bim’ (a baboon will remain a baboon)’, a song first sung by Owino DO Misiani and Onyi Papa. The song was perceived to be anti-Kikuyu and Kibaki government for criticising their political leadership for turning against the people who took them to power.

The song followed the December 2002 elections that brought the National Rainbow Coalition of Mwai Kibaki to power; Misiani was arrested in 2003 for releasing the song.

Between 1972 and 1974, Misiani had also problems with President Kenyatta for his composition of Kalamindi in which he talked about Kenyatta’s development policies that benefited only his Central Province and his Agikuyu community.

People for Peace in Africa (PPA)
P O Box 14877
Nairobi
00800, Westlands
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Tel +254-7350-14559/+254-722-623-578
E-mail- ppa@africaonline.co.ke
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Website: www.peopleforpeaceafrica.org