From: Dher Goro
Date: Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 10:13 AM

The response to the US government’s notification to impose travel ban on high level non-reformists in the Kibaki administration has exposed the apparent limitation of some of Kenya’s leaders in understanding world events and order. For instance, I was dismayed by the dismissive comments of Cabinet Minister Franklin Bett who, having been Moi’s State House Controller, I assumed would show understanding and moderation in discussing issues of bilateral significance. Below are some backgrounders I’d wish such leaders to note;

• It cannot be accurate that President Kibaki is so laid-back and that the excesses in his administration are the handiwork of his inner circle. Kibaki has been around for too long – through the repressive regimes of Kenyatta and Moi – and has survived the trials and tribulations of post independent Kenya. In surviving through those heady days, he must be a clever fox who only feigns complacency as a survival tactic. The man knows what he wants!

• Kibaki’s defence of officials in his administration against possible
US visa ban is therefore a prior-considered re-action and strategy to rally support to sustain his pursuit to create an ethnic/special interest rule in Kenya. The problem is, like in many of his actions, it lacks creativity and was probably conceived in an environment devoid of legal enlightenment. No one among them seems to have known that visa issues are processed on individual basis. Visa issuance is processed with the individual applicant not their governments. How then can a government pursue the revocation of a citizen’s visa?

• Washington’s concerns for Kenya are borne out of strategic regional interest not just because Obama’s father was a Kenyan. The stability and prosperity of Kenya in an environment where the people of Kenya democratically determine their destiny is the greatest desire of the Obama administration. The point here is that a stable and well-governed Kenya will ensure that extremist elements already encroaching on our borders are kept at bay. Doesn’t it worry someone in the Kibaki inner circle that we are sandwiched by either murderous extremists with the desire to conquer the Eastern Africa region or ideologues whose agenda is to snuff the Kenyan capitalist head.

• A section of the Rift Valley political leadership has spent the past
year fighting the leadership of the predominant party in their region. But while they are at it, a powerful ethnic clique has been busy consolidating their power base to control government revenue and expenditure, the administration of the financial sector including the stock exchange, the management of the security and energy sector, and the ownership of the strategic mass media among others.

• Doesn’t it worry anyone that the biggest investors in Kenya these
days are people who are popularly identified as “Somalis”? It is not
easy to tell the nationality of such investors. Neither can anyone tell the source of their wealth nor their long-term intentions. But, thanks to
corruptible officials, they are taking over strategic investments. Their
influence which is evident in downtown Nairobi, has extended to the big
farmlands in Maasai country.

All this and still our leaders are so myopic and are focusing on
non-issues. The latest shocker came last week from the Harvard-trained lawyer (and former reformer?!) Kiraitu Muringi who declared that “too much democracy is not good”.

– – –
Subject: RE: SOME BACKGROUNDERS FOR KENYA’S POLITICAL LEADERS