One of the big mysteries of the Kibaki administration has to do with the ugly unprecedented post election violence of January 2008 shortly after the presidential elections results were announced.
Now everybody knows that it was President Daniel Arap Moi who literally invented tribal clashes. His motive for doing this was to speed up the fulfillment of his prophecy to Kenyans in 1991; “Multi-party itawachoma.” (multiparty politics will burn you to ashes.) Moi in bowing to pressure and allowing the re-introduction of multi-party democracy in Kenya in 1991 had bitterly warned Kenyans that it was not good for them, Lakini mtoto akililia wembe mpe (But if a child cries to be given a razor, give it to them so that they cut themselves and learn their lesson the hard way.)
There is overwhelming evidence (including the one given by former powerful minister of State in the office of the president under Moi, Burudi Nabwera) that the president was deeply involved in formenting and establishing regular tribal clashes in the Rift Valley. Nabwera toild shocked Kenyans through a press statement that Moi personally imported bows and arrows into the country from a certain Asian nation. These crude weapons were then distributed on the ground and the people provoked to “remove the enemy.”
I happened to be in Nakuru (playing rugby) during the height of the tribal clashes under the Moi regime in 1992 and I bumped into a friend of mine whom I had not seen for many years. He worked for the airforce and flew helicopters. We caught up on a lot of things over a few drinks and then I suddenly asked him what his mission in the Rift Valley was all about. I will never forget the look on the poor guy’s face. This chap was actually a great friend of mine and we had no secrets between us. But that day he looked aside avoided eye contact and said that his mission was top secret and there was no way he could discuss it with me. A chill went up my spine watching him squirm in his seat. He behaved in the right way not telling me anything. But his squirming spoke volumes.
Anyway back to what I was saying. By the time Kibaki took over as president, Moi had fine-tuned his tribal clashes game in the Rift Valley. Remember that these so-called clashes only emerged just before a general elections ONLY.
Any fool in Kenya had this information and the great mystery on my mind to date is did Kibaki guess what the consequences of a stolen election would be on the ground that Moi had cultivated in the Rift valley for a number of years? Did the intelligence community and security forces in the country not guess what would happen in the Rift Valley? I ask this because even the response by the government initially mainly focused in Kisumu while parts of the Rift Valley went up in flames. In fact things got so bad that it was the Kenya Army which was sent into the Rift Valley together with the GSU. That is very telling because this has never happened before in the history of the country. That a civilian problem necessitated the sending in of the military. Not only that. What was the Ugandan military doing in Kisumu and Eldoret?
I would like to give President Kibaki the benefit of the doubt and assume that he did not guess that there would be any serious problem in the Rift Valley because I don’t want to believe that he did not care. But it is strange how the president would not have a clue when ordinary folks like me knew and cringed when the election results were announced.
Somebody somewhere has to answer for all the unnecessary deaths, rapes and maiming of innocent Kenyans that went down. I don’t want to believe for one minute that all those fellow Kenyans died in vain.
Meanwhile the scene inside State House shortly after the troubles in the Rift Valley erupted is interesting and rather instructive.
It is said that the president took the first few calls from the then secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The calls were calling for his urgent action because the international community was very concerned about what was happening in Kenya. It is said that the president was rather casual and saw no need for concern or panic assuring Ms Rice that things were under control. And yet it was obvious that they were not.
Shortly after that, the president stopped taking the calls even as Ms Rice desperately tried to reach him again.
Admittedly, here the president cannot take all the blame. He received lots of help from the Bush administration to rig the 2007 elections and this must have been one of the reasons why the calls annoyed him. If you are short of evidence to point to Americans fully backing Kibaki in his evil deeds, then ask yourself why the World Bank was still doing deals with Kibaki’s Finance Minister Amos Kimunya in late Decemeber when intelligence reports on the ground were saying that at the very least it would be a close election. More accurate reports pointed to a Raila Odinga win by a landslide.
And then also remember that the Americans were the first and only Western nation to congratulate Kibaki on his re-election. They later quickly withdrew this congratulatory message. Don’t ask me how one withdraws a congratulatory message because I also have no idea how it is done.
American had many reasons not to want a Raila Odinga win at all costs. One of them was the suspect secret funding of ODM from certain Arab nations linked to terrorism. But as usual the Yankies greatly underestimated the cost that would have to be paid on the ground in terms of the innocent blood of Kenyans being poured for them to fulfill their desires.
Dark secrets of the presidency will continue on Thursday right through to the end of the holidays. However it will be interrupted tomorrow by my weekly column Drums and Nyatiti. Meanwhile I take this opportunity to thank all those wonderful Kumekucha readers who sent me messages of goodwill over the Christmas period. I was very touched reading each and every one of them. Thank you very much my brothers and sisters.
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