.
(The Guardian) Jan. 1, 2008 – This is a lonely time for democrats in two countries, Pakistan and Kenya. Lonely, because in each case their western backers equivocate about the need to enforce free elections. In Pakistan, America and Britain fund a military dictatorship, which fails to protect its leaders, locks up its lawyers, and systematically nobbles the political process. In Kenya, we underwrite a president who has just stolen an election and set his country aflame in the process. We preach civil society, fair elections, a free press. We practise emergency rule, bent polls, and a muzzled media.
We invade our enemies in the name of democracy, but allow our allies to subvert it. All this in the service of the greater causes like counter-proliferation or the war against Islamic militants. In reality, nothing could be more calculated to heighten the risk of proliferation or to despatch millions of floating voters into the arms of rival creeds. When our client states collapse, as they inevitably do, we puzzle at how we “lost” Russia or Iraq. We fret about how anti-Western the world has become. The truth is simpler. We do not need tsars or mullahs to fan the flames. We do it quite effectively ourselves.
Elections in Pakistan looked set last night to be delayed for at least a month, as new video footage emerged challenging the official version of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. The government’s insistence that her head injuries were caused by falling on to the sun roof lever of her armoured car, is contradicted by footage that shows her head and shawl rocking from the percussive impact of a bullet. She fell back into her car before the suicide bomber set his device off. The Bhutto family has asked for Britain or the United Nations to hold an independent inquiry, and this should be done.
WASHINGTON (AFP) Dec. 30, 2007 – The US State Department congratulated Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki on his re-election, and called on all sides to accept the results despite opposition allegations of ballot fraud.
“We obviously congratulate the president on his election,” department spokesman Rob McInturff told AFP. “Again we would call on the people of Kenya to accept the results of the election and to move forward with the democratic process.”
US targets Somalia in hunt for al-Qaeda
LONDON (The Observer) Dec. 9, 2001 – American forces have already flown surveillance flights over Somalia looking for al-Qaeda forces to target in the next stage of the global war on terror.
Navy pilots have flown waves of missions to map two al-Qaeda camps near the Kenyan border with a view to launching air strikes, Pentagon sources said. US warships have positioned themselves off the coast near the capital, Mogadishu, to stop Osama bin Laden from hiding there, and to prepare for an attack if necessary.
Sensitivity over the killing of 18 Army Rangers in Somalia in 1993 is being overcome by the new, emboldened Pentagon which wants to ‘exorcise that ghost’, said a source.
The flights have intensified over the past few days. Relief workers in Somalia are reported by the State Department to be bracing for action, and the Kenyan government has said it fears a flood of refugees.
Walter Kansteiner, the US Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, has warned that Somalia’s lack of central government could attract terrorists. He said the US had ‘strong suspicions’ of connections to al-Qaeda among individuals in Mogadishu struggling to establish some kind of authority. The US has named Somalia’s al-Itihaad Islamic group on its list of targeted terrorist organisations.
The Somalia move is the most forthright action in a steady widening of the war on terror. The hunt for fresh targets in pursuing the al-Qaeda terrorist network and its leader, Osama bin Laden, has now spread to Africa, South America and the Balkans.
.
(The Independent) – This time, both men are playing the tribal card. Mr Kibaki is a Kikuyu, the majority ethnic group which has supplied two out of three of Kenya’s post-independence presidents. Mr Odinga, is a Luo , who make up just over a tenth of the population and hails from the western province of Nyanza near Lake Victoria.
On top of the personal scores to settle, there are also historical grievances. The Kibaki-Odinga falling out was almost a re-run of history. Mr Odinga’s father, Oginga, was sidelined by Kikuyu president Jomo Kenyatta after independence even though he helped propel him to power.
… According to Kenyan stereotypes, rattled off good-naturedly, Luos are well educated but spend all their money on keeping up appearances, while popular mythology has it that if you drop a coin on the grave of a Kikuyu, the corpse will come back to life to claim it.
Kenya: People and Culture
≈ Cross-posted from my diary — Kenya’s Democracy Shackled & Corrupted ≈
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Another card in the house of cards beginning to tremble. Anyone who isn’t at least a little bit frightened by now simply hasn’t been paying attention.
I think there are elements of our ruling class that are not really interested in either stability or democracy. There is a lot of money being made and corporate power being amassed as a result of this turmoil.
Perhaps those of us who think that the U.S. and U.K. actually give a damn about freedom and stability are being naive.
.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) Jan. 1, 2008 – A mob torched a church in Eldoret, some 185 miles from the capital, sheltering hundreds of Kenyans fleeing election violence, killing as many as 50 people as the convulsion of bloodshed continued after the disputed vote that gave the president a second term. The opposition leader accused the government of “genocide.”
President Mwai Kibaki said political parties should meet immediately and publicly call for calm after rioting killed at least 263 people in what had been east Africa’s most stable and prosperous democracy.
The European Union has refused to congratulate Kibaki.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Kenya Election Violence
.
Looks like the rioting has developed along etnic tribal lines with revenge killings, bordering genocide. The church killings is in Odinga territory, southwest Kenya. The victims, women and children, belonged to the Kikuyu tribe of (president) Mwai Kibaki.
Thanks for the excellent supporting links to the latest news. This you will not see on MSM outlets.
Nairobi used to be a prominent African capital city.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."My pleasure.
I’ve also had the pleasure to visit Nairobi several times – last in June 2006. Very sad to see what is happening.
.
Nuhu Ribadu, who has spearheaded Nigeria’s attempts to combat financial crime, is involved in the prosecution of seven former state governors.
Observers say that if he is removed from his post, it will be a blow to President Umaru Yar’Adua‘s credibility. The president came to power in May promising to fight rampant corruption.
Reports say Mr Ribadu was told to tender his resignation in readiness for further studies.
Nigeria’s police chief Mike Okiro called a press conference to say there were no ulterior motives behind the move, and that Mr Ribadu had been ordered to attend a one-year policy and strategic studies course in central Nigeria.
In the last few months the agency has arrested a number of former state governors, most recently James Ibori from Delta state: a hugely wealthy and powerful politician who was a key figure in President Yar’Adua’s election campaign.
James Ibori in Oil Deals?
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Hey Oui no idea if you read Somali media but it looks like the UIC is making a come back in the extreme south. Have a look see at the map and it gets mighty interesting.
Pax
.
The outcome of US elections is easy to manipulate, just look at the presidential race of 2000 and 2004. These lessons have been well learned by Chavez, Kadika and Musharraf.
Easiest to access the constituencies where a close result is expected, the manipulation is less likely to be evident. All known practises can be used: voter registration, disenfranchise voters at the polling booth, tallying fraud and simply stuffing the ballot box. CNNi has shown parts of the report in its news item in western Europe this morning and should be made available on their website.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) — On the day she died, Benazir Bhutto planned to hand over to visiting U.S. lawmakers a report accusing Pakistan’s intelligence services of a plot to rig parliamentary elections, sources close to the slain former Pakistani prime minister told CNN.
A top Bhutto aide who helped write the report showed a copy to CNN.
“Where an opposing candidate is strong in an area, they [supporters of President Pervez Musharraf ] have planned to create a conflict at the polling station, even killing people if necessary, to stop polls at least three to four hours,” the document says.
The report also accused the government of planning to tamper with ballots and voter lists, intimidate opposition candidates and misuse U.S.-made equipment to monitor communications of opponents.
“Ninety percent of the equipment that the USA gave the government of Pakistan to fight terrorism is being used to monitor and to keep a check on their political opponents,” the report says.
Sen. Latif Khosa, who helped put the report together, accused the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence of operating a rigging cell from a safe house in the capital, Islamabad. The goal, he said, is to change voting results electronically on election day.
“The ISI has set up a mega-computer system where they can hack any computer in Pakistan and connect with the Election Commission,” he said.
Media outlets in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh have run reports alleging that retired Brig. Gen. Ejaz Shah — formerly an Inter-Services Intelligence officer and now head of the civilian Intelligence Bureau — is involved in the vote rigging plans.
Black Prisons in Musharraf’s Pakistan
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."