The Waki Report is headline news again, after news broke yesterday that Kofi Annan had released the accompanying "Waki's Envelope" to the International Criminal Court at the Hague. The envelope is widely believed to hold the list of 10 leading perpetrators -- the "10 Most Wanted", as it were -- of the post-election violence that erupted across Kenya following the disputed election results of December 2007. Kenyans are excited at the sudden turn of events. Yesterday, in my own first tweet reaction to what Kofi Annan had done, I remarked: "Great day 4 Kenya, now that K. Annan has sent the Waki List to THE HAGUE. Let the nightmare begin 4 the champions of impunity & doublespeak".
The 518-page Waki Report itself does not have the 10 names of The Most Wanted. For those names, we will have to wait a while for ICC's Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo's next few moves. In the meantime, click here to read the complete Waki Report, sans the cover page.
Waki's Envelope has been, to me, key to resolving the issues surrounding Kenya's post-election violence and bringing to an end the completely self-serving and hypocritical to-and-fros that we have witnessed since 2008, as desperate politicians have crudely sought to give cover to impunity and threatened ambitions. Now we'll just have to see how everything turns out. I do think that Kofi Annan's move, yesterday, will be a game-changer of profound proportions for Kenya -- and for Africa.
Vosty (@Vosty) "updated" this tweet yesterday: "Just a thought: Waki List suspects required 2step aside 4investigation! Kibaki/Raila suspects! Then what?" He seemed to worry that the departure to the Hague of a few leaders, including the top two, would rob Kenya of all its leaders -- an obviously untenable prospect. My answer to him, though, is this: We will always find a leader, even leaders, amongst us -- even if there's only one last man or woman standing. And there will be plenty of potentials before that unlikely scenario of The Last Man or Woman. But Vosty clarifies his position in a tweet today as follows: "findin leaders is not ma worry, the mess that r our institutions! Nuthin is clear cut!" Good point!
So, not to worry. I think, though, that we can trace that worry to the media-hogging passions, even pathologies, of our current crop of leaders -- whose effects have been to leave us in "no doubt" that there is no one else out there whom we can choose in their place. But Vosty clarifies his position in a tweet today as follows: "fidin leaders is not ma worry, the mess that r our institutions! Nuthin is clear cut!" Good point! Perhaps, after the Hague, we'll begin to build our institutions in earnest, fully knowing (based on clear evidence before our own eyes) that no one's indispensable.
Showing posts with label Waki's Envelope. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Waki's Envelope. Show all posts
Friday, July 10, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Ruto Wants Waki's Envelope to Head to The Hague, Now!
William Ruto, energized by his emphatic victory against a vote of no confidence moved in Parliament last week, over the maize scandal, has now turned his attention to that other matter of post-election violence, in which nearly everyone believes he was so complicit that his name cannot but be in the list in Waki's envelope. In a surprising move, he declared over the weekend, as reported in the media, that Kofi Annan should take Waki's envelope straight to the Hague. To him, all this talk of a local tribunal and a two-month extension of Waki's deadline is merely a waste of time -- a beating about the bush -- which he will have none of.
In this, Ruto is openly disagreeing with Raila, the Prime Minister, who is mulling another initiative to establish a local tribunal as an alternative to the Hague, despite that idea's recent rejection by a Parliament in which Raila's coalition has a slim majority. And I agree with him. Raila even reported, astonishingly, that Annan had allowed Kenya a two month extension, at most; astonishing because nobody seemed to know that Annan had the mandate to extend/alter Waki's deadline, and nobody, except perhaps Raila, believes that he has. Let's let it go now!
The country's future political health clearly requires a visit to the Hague. The paradox is that a presumed culprit is all for it, while those who would presumably benefit from his fall -- and who would like to see him suffer and out of the way -- rather nervously want to keep him as far away from that same Hague as they possibly can! He wants to go, but they don't want him to -- a perfect sado-masochist bind.
Are there beans they fear he will spill, even as he falls? Might such spilling lead to their own irreparable fall -- their own inevitable path to that same place? I see that Sudan's Al Bashir is increasingly and publicly beside himself with trepidation arising from his own likely indictment by the mighty ICC, a date with which is not a picnic -- and from which, in the end, no one can hide. If Ruto was, he seems no longer to be; but someone else apparently is! What is it that someone knows that Ruto knows that shouldn't be known by Tom, Dick and Harry -- and Wanjiku?
If President Kibaki and Raila -- who on a previous occasion Ruto had said should be the ones going to the Hague (since, he had argued, all post-election violence was carried out in their name) -- want a local tribunal for the spanner-boys, the small men, of the violence, that's fine. However, the big boys should all be headed to the Hague, to meet their match. They can have all the time they want there, as we watch with waning interest from afar. All that may be far from good for many, but it will be good from far for just as many.
In this, Ruto is openly disagreeing with Raila, the Prime Minister, who is mulling another initiative to establish a local tribunal as an alternative to the Hague, despite that idea's recent rejection by a Parliament in which Raila's coalition has a slim majority. And I agree with him. Raila even reported, astonishingly, that Annan had allowed Kenya a two month extension, at most; astonishing because nobody seemed to know that Annan had the mandate to extend/alter Waki's deadline, and nobody, except perhaps Raila, believes that he has. Let's let it go now!
The country's future political health clearly requires a visit to the Hague. The paradox is that a presumed culprit is all for it, while those who would presumably benefit from his fall -- and who would like to see him suffer and out of the way -- rather nervously want to keep him as far away from that same Hague as they possibly can! He wants to go, but they don't want him to -- a perfect sado-masochist bind.
Are there beans they fear he will spill, even as he falls? Might such spilling lead to their own irreparable fall -- their own inevitable path to that same place? I see that Sudan's Al Bashir is increasingly and publicly beside himself with trepidation arising from his own likely indictment by the mighty ICC, a date with which is not a picnic -- and from which, in the end, no one can hide. If Ruto was, he seems no longer to be; but someone else apparently is! What is it that someone knows that Ruto knows that shouldn't be known by Tom, Dick and Harry -- and Wanjiku?
If President Kibaki and Raila -- who on a previous occasion Ruto had said should be the ones going to the Hague (since, he had argued, all post-election violence was carried out in their name) -- want a local tribunal for the spanner-boys, the small men, of the violence, that's fine. However, the big boys should all be headed to the Hague, to meet their match. They can have all the time they want there, as we watch with waning interest from afar. All that may be far from good for many, but it will be good from far for just as many.
Monday, February 09, 2009
William Ruto, Time To Step Aside
Let me add my voice to the intensifying call for William Ruto, Kenya's Minister for Agriculture, to step aside over the maize scandal in the ministry he heads. Accumulating evidence suggests that tycoons and other businessmen allied to him have benefited in corrupt ways from the sale of maize meant for poor and starving Kenyans.
Particularly troublesome have been the claims that his friends and/or business/political associates have made windfall profits from the plight of ordinary citizens. It is alleged in various circles that they recently "procured" thousands of bags of maize at a give-away price from the state-owned National Cereals and Produce Board, without moving the consignment an inch from NCPB premises (One beneficiary, recently appointed by Ruto to a reconstituted NCPB board, was reportedly allocated a whopping 600,000 bags). They then "sold" the produce at inflated prices to millers, who incurred additional cost to transport the maize from NCPB themselves. The millers, of course, eventually passed their cost to the consumers.
Ruto, the erstwhile Youth For KANU '92 activist, sees nothing wrong in any of this -- including why millers were not allowed to buy the maize directly from NCPB -- and claims that it is "a scandal that never was." He has publicly sworn not to resign. Meanwhile, ODM, his political party (he is one of its two Deputy Chairmen), has wrapped its protective if half-hearted arms around him, claiming that he is the victim of NSIS (National Security and Intelligence Services) campaign of character assasination.
If Ruto will not resign, then he must be made to. In fact, the heat must turn on Raila Odinga, the Prime Minister and ODM leader. An increasingly agitated public, which is aware that Ruto is probably also among those in Waki's envelope who are bound for the War Crimes Court at the Hague, will expect Raila to write to the President (as stipulated in the Grand Coalition accord) asking that Ruto be relieved of his duties, at least for now. If Raila does not do so, very soon, then the public's nagging perception that he himself is soft on corruption will only grow.
Particularly troublesome have been the claims that his friends and/or business/political associates have made windfall profits from the plight of ordinary citizens. It is alleged in various circles that they recently "procured" thousands of bags of maize at a give-away price from the state-owned National Cereals and Produce Board, without moving the consignment an inch from NCPB premises (One beneficiary, recently appointed by Ruto to a reconstituted NCPB board, was reportedly allocated a whopping 600,000 bags). They then "sold" the produce at inflated prices to millers, who incurred additional cost to transport the maize from NCPB themselves. The millers, of course, eventually passed their cost to the consumers.
Ruto, the erstwhile Youth For KANU '92 activist, sees nothing wrong in any of this -- including why millers were not allowed to buy the maize directly from NCPB -- and claims that it is "a scandal that never was." He has publicly sworn not to resign. Meanwhile, ODM, his political party (he is one of its two Deputy Chairmen), has wrapped its protective if half-hearted arms around him, claiming that he is the victim of NSIS (National Security and Intelligence Services) campaign of character assasination.
If Ruto will not resign, then he must be made to. In fact, the heat must turn on Raila Odinga, the Prime Minister and ODM leader. An increasingly agitated public, which is aware that Ruto is probably also among those in Waki's envelope who are bound for the War Crimes Court at the Hague, will expect Raila to write to the President (as stipulated in the Grand Coalition accord) asking that Ruto be relieved of his duties, at least for now. If Raila does not do so, very soon, then the public's nagging perception that he himself is soft on corruption will only grow.
Friday, February 06, 2009
The Hague on Our Minds
Kenya's Parliamentarians have, it seems, discovered their poetic, finer, side. We read that some of them (I don't know how many) have lately turned to chanting something like this:
What momentous thing does this momentary poesy -- helped along by the well-known commercial line "Don't be vague, ask for Haig" -- portend?
Let them not be vague, then, when the time comes to make that weighty decision. There are no two ways about Waki's envelope.
Let us not be vague,
Let's go to the Hague!
What momentous thing does this momentary poesy -- helped along by the well-known commercial line "Don't be vague, ask for Haig" -- portend?
Let them not be vague, then, when the time comes to make that weighty decision. There are no two ways about Waki's envelope.
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