Politics

Our Own Pandora’s Box - The Waki Report

Justice Waki has proved being Kenyan and having his fingers on the country’s pulse. While Kriegler skirted around the causes post election violence, Waki and his commissioners have not only named names but let a noose hanging precariously over the present kings of impunity. At the heart of Waki’s recommendations is the resolve to address IMPUNITY as epitomized by Kibaki’s regime. Faint hearted Kibaki’s political apologists may not like it but reading Waki’s report leaves no doubt Kibaki is singularly to blame for his singular resolve to concentrate on bungling last year’s elections having known before hand the outcome. - Kumekucha.

A falling out appeared imminent in the Grand Coalition Government over the implementation of the Waki Commission’s report. Prime Minister Raila Odinga sharply differed with Agriculture Minister William Ruto when he said post-election violence suspects must face the Special Tribunal for Kenya, or answer for their alleged crimes at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. - The Standard.

Controversial ODM Member of Parliament, William Ruto, told the Waki Commission of Inquiry that land ownership is not responsible for rampant ethnic clashes in the Rift Valley province. Ruto told the Commission, “The issue of the post election violence is not land, let nobody cheat you. Kikuyus always sit on the land and the only problem is at the end of 5 years. It is all politics. Land is just an excuse.” The legislator, whose clout among the Kalenjin ethnic group has grown in the past year, noted that “our politics acquires ethnic dimensions” and communities support parties where “their leaders are at the front and that is one thing we have to change.” Ruto defended his people from accusations of warlike behaviour, remarking that “there is no DNA for people to fight.” - Nairobi Chronicle.

Reading through the Waki report, one gets the impression that the police are to blame for everything. Well, 409 people got shot by police but that is out of a total of 1300 dead. Also, to insinuate that police were responsible for “most” rapes is overstating it. I’m not an apologist for the so-called SSAs (state security services) but we must understand that law and order completely collapsed during post election violence. Waki criticized police in Mombasa for, “being more concerned about guarding the oil pipeline and the port instead of guarding kiosks.” Yeah, right! Which government on earth would let looters destroy infrastructure that has taken half a century to build? And supposing that rioters had destroyed these facilities, wouldn’t the same Waki have accused police of “neglecting” duty. Lets get serious. Politicians are to blame for the whole mess of post election violence. Its hardly surprising, then, that both ODM and PNU are telling Kenyans to go slow on the Waki report. Seeing Kibaki on TV telling Rift Valley people to forgive and forget was sickening, to say the least - Godfrey.

While President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga are busy telling Kenyans how the government of National Unity is solid and united, behind the scenes deadly daggers have been drawn and it is possible that very soon we will see some major turmoil on the political front. Interestingly both sides of the political divide thing that they have outsmarted the other. I will reserve my controversial but well thought out verdict for the very end. After I have told you what they are saying and doing deep in the kitchens of PNU and ODM. The plan now in the drawing boards of PNU insiders is to look for a way to put a spanner in the works to bring down the government of national unity. The motive is simple. They have carefully gone through the Anan laws with the help of lawyers and it is clear that in the event of the GNU collapsing Kibaki remains president and has the power to re-constitute a new cabinet. The PNU think tank s confident that they will be able to easily pull this one off because they say that they have well-documented evidence of corruption amongst the top ranks of ODM (more details in my raw notes to be released tomorrow). Interestingly ODM, as brilliant as their think tank is, has not been able to document much on the PNU side in terms of evidence on corrupt deals. - Kumekucha.

Kenya was always going to be politically stable for a while following the election chaos. The coalition government is just a patch-up, a compromise. But is this the right thing to do? Sure, everyone welcomes the peace but for how long are going to ignore our deep seated problems? I like the Waki report for one reason only - it heated up things a bit. We can’t live in this deceptive calm, we have to face our demons and excorcise them. In Greek mythology, ”Pandora’s box” is the large jar carried by Pandora that contained evils to be unleashed on mankind — ills, toils and sickness — and finally hope.

Related Articles:

• Waki: The pride of Kenya
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• A Political Insurgency in Kenya
• The Waki List of Shame
• The White Ribbon Campaign - We Must Now DEMAND Our Rights!!

This post was submitted by kayliz.

© 2008 Kikulacho.