Kenyans should see through leaders’ hypocrisy

 

By MAKAU MUTUAPosted Saturday, February 19 2011 at 16:10

In Summary

• The country’s political elite mistakenly believes that it has ‘kidnapped’ the ‘sovereign will’ of the people

The velvet revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt were not advertised. But they were televised. No one saw Tunisia coming. Egypt caught everyone, including the vaunted American CIA and Israeli Mossad, napping and flat-footed.

Without forewarning – and instantly – the hoi polloi exploded. Which raises questions about the situation in Kenya.

The dysfunction and paralysis in the coalition government and Parliament speak of a political class that is utterly myopic, selfish, and even destructive.

Kenyans are fed up, and could explode any minute. The people have entered the door of no return – they are boiling. Let me tell you why.

The political elite mistakenly believes that it has “kidnapped” the “sovereign will” of the people.

The “lords of impunity” bestride Kenya like so many colossi. Individuals who have been cited for the most heinous crimes known to man sit at the inner sanctum of power.

They must believe that Kenyans are simpletons, unable to see through their cruel charades.

But I have a warning for them. Kenyans have risen from the ashes before. They took on the British, and drove them out. Kenyans wrestled with the Kanu dictatorship, and vanquished it.

Last August, Kenyans forced a democratic Constitution on the feckless political class. I believe Kenyans are poised to rise again. I have four unarguable reasons why.

The first reason Kenyans are angry is PNU’s attempt to sabotage The Hague trials of the Ocampo Six.

President Mwai Kibaki, VP Kalonzo Musyoka, and the PNU/KKK cabal are determined to scuttle The Hague trials of Finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta, Eldoret North MP William Ruto, Head of Civil Service Francis Muthaura, Tinderet MP Henry Kosgey, former Police Commissioner Hussein Ali, and Kass FM’s Joshua arap Sang.

The six are wanted by ICC Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo for alleged crimes against humanity. Most Kenyans – sick of impunity by the high and mighty – want justice at The Hague.

They believe “local trials” of the Ocampo Six – a plot belatedly hatched by the PNU/KKK syndicate – is a hypocritical hoax.

Why are Kenyans so upset? VP Musyoka’s “shuttle diplomacy” to woo the AU and the UN Security Council to defer the trials of the Ocampo Six cost taxpayers a whooping Sh31 million. Never mind the IDPs who languish in squalid camps.

Mr Musyoka argues, incredibly, that Kenya should be given a chance to try the Ocampo Six at home.

This is a shocking insult to the intelligence of Kenyans and the international community. It’s over three years since the violence – why haven’t they tried the perpetrators?

They didn’t believe that the ICC would come for them. This contempt for the people by Kenya’s kleptocracy could stoke unrest. Rightly, the Americans and the British will veto Kenya’s request for a deferral.

The second reason Kenyans are unhappy is impunity and lawlessness. The Kacc has been all smoke and mirrors. It has done nothing to actually tackle impunity and public theft.

Kacc director PLO Lumumba has been nothing but false fire and brimstone. He has kicked up a lot of rhetorical dust, but nothing concrete has happened.

Could he be part of the scheme to hoodwink Kenyans that the government is “serious” about tackling impunity? Is he a lot of dog, and no bite?

The third reason is that law and order are broken in Kenya. Citizens are killed in broad daylight by police, gangs and militia – and nothing is done about it.

At times you will be lucky to get public service without paying a bribe, or belonging to the “right tribe”.

The elite are adept at invoking the “tribe” to protect lawlessness and corruption. Take the Muthaura tapes, for example.

The tapes appear to implicate Mr Muthaura admitting to “illegal” conduct in connection with post-election violence.

Next we see a coterie of Meru MPs defending him. Energy minister and PNU supremo Kiraitu Murungi famously says that Merus “will not take this lying down”.

The fourth, and last, reason Kenyans are bitter is the sabotage of the birth of a new Kenya. This is a totality of deliberate, cynical actions to thwart the new Constitution.

They include the failure to pass enabling laws to implement the Constitution, the paralysing wrangling between President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, and the coalescence of the tribal PNU/KKK cabal on the one hand, and the Raila Odinga-led ODM, on the other.

In the meantime, rural famine and urban poverty are killing people and livestock. But both PNU/KKK and ODM are totally consumed by which one of them will be in State House come 2012. The government is utterly dysfunctional.

I know many people think that “a Tunisia” or “an Egypt” could not happen in Kenya.

They say Kenyans are too docile, rural, and unsophisticated to use Facebook and Twitter to organise a velvet revolution.

Are we too captive to our “tribal demagogues” to see through their lies and hypocrisies?

Tribalism is the opium of the Kenyan masses. Leaders dish it out, and Kenyans fall for it time and again.

But I believe that Kenyans are more likely today – than at any time in recent memory – to wake up from the stupor induced by tribal myopia.

My crystal ball tells me that the people are fed up and will not let the political elite steal their future.

Makau Mutua is Dean and SUNY Distinguished Professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo Law School and Chair of the KHRC.