Wed, 16 Jan 2008 23:01:02 +0300

FEATURED CONTRIBUTOR:

Dialogue, Mediation and Mass Action
by Georgie Kerayi

Mr. Kofi Annan was due to arrive in Kenya on Tuesday February 15, 2008, but his visit was down played by Mr. Michuki - a hardline member of the new partially filled cabinet announced by the Othaya MP Mwai Kibaki. "If Kofi Annan is coming, he is not coming at our invitation," Mr. Michuki was quoted bragging during his hand over to Saitoti. By the time Annan and his group comes to Kenya, we will have had at least ten such dignitaries – Tutu, Frazer, Kaunda, Chisanno, Musire, Mkapa, Graca, Kufuor, (now famous for coming to Kenya for nothing but Kibaki's tea), etc. According to Michuki, obviously speaking the mind of Kibaki, PNU has no complaint. An unnamed government spokesman confirmed, that Mr Kibaki's administration had not asked anyone to mediate its affairs. If it was a clean win, they should have been anxious to discount the ODM and ECK chairman's claims to some independent person. But their stand obviously means that they are happy with the current political uncertainty so long as their private lives are fulfilled. I am tempted to think that mental sanity may be lacking from some quarters. This evening PNU cries foul at ODM mass action and say they want dialogue, perhaps to mean that ODM is against dialogue. From yesterday's proceedings in parliament during the election of speaker and swearing in of MPs, it is clear to all PNU crusaders for internal dialogue that it is time they stopped ridiculing the dignitaries coming to Kenya to try and assist the Kenyans resolve their post election problem.

Mr. Michuki and his PNU colleagues should please not that ODM won in six of the eight provinces of the Republic of Kenya. This explains why the mass action is countrywide, and not just the Luos and Kalenjins as Dr? Noah Wekesa once alleged. If three out of every four citizens are complaining, it should worry you why you are not concerned that the majority of citizens are complaining. You should even try and pretend that you are concerned! Is it being a hardline or it could be bordering on being senile?

You yell out, "We won the elections (in two of the eight provinces) so we do not see the point for anyone coming to mediate power-sharing". Does it worry you that more than 600 people have been killed (most by the trigger – happy GK gunmen acting under express directives of the illicit government), and that 250,000 persons, not livestock, displaced from their homes in the post election violence and that their future is very uncertain?

Bottom-line: ODM wants the freedom to express their anger, not only at the PNU sponsored flaw in the 2007 elections, but also at the arrogant and alarming utterances of the like of Michuki. The mass action is a constitutional right, and an important one at that at a time like now, when majority including women are so angry. They will soon demand that you shoot them, to show the extent of their anger. Let the security men guard business premises and kill the looters, arsonists and vandalists if they spot any, but do not sit on the anger of Kenyans through a continued stand off, it is likely to make the situation a lot worse.