NOW 8 PERCENT OF KENYANS HIV POSITIVE KENYANS WORRIED

Kenya losing the fight against HIV after all, experts warn

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Prime Minister Raila Odinga receives preliminary results of the Kenya Aids Indicator Survey 2007 from Public Health and Sanitation minister Beth Mugo in Nairobi. Photo/HEZRON NJOROGE  

By  GATONYE GATHURA and ARTHUR OKWEMBA  (email the author)

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Posted Tuesday, July 29 2008 at 21:01

In Summary

• A three per cent rise in prevalence rates came as a shock because Kenyans were of the opinion that Aids pandemic had been contained.
• 2007 KAIS study show prevalence rates in the national population at 8 per cent, an almost four point increase.
• Government has been discussing and agonising on the authenticity of the results and how to make them public.
• KAIS findings raise some pertinent questions about what is really going in the HIV and Aids field.

 

The new Aids statistics released Tuesday by the Government are bound to disappoint Kenyans who in the last few years have been made to believe that the virus was on the retreat.

A three per cent rise in prevalence rates announcement came as a shock because Kenyans were of the opinion that Aids control agencies had finally found a formula to contain the pandemic.

In the last three years Kenya has come in for special praise from global Aids agencies for managing to bring down prevalence rates from a high of 10 per cent in the 1990s to about 7 per cent in 2003 and 5.1 per cent last year.

But now according to the 2007 Kenya Aids Indicator Survey (KAIS) released on Tuesday prevalence rates in the national population stands at 8 per cent, indicating an almost four point increase.

Controversy over Aids statistics is not new and can be traced back six years ago with the launch of the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey – 2003 which indicated that HIV prevalence rates was 6.7 per cent.

Unreliable measurement

Before then, the National Aids Control Council and other Aids organisations were working on the assumption that the HIV prevalence rates were at 10 + per cent. It was then explained that the 10+ figure was wrong and arrived at through the use unreliable measurement tools – use of prenatal clinics as sentinel sites.

Consequently, the Kenya Demographic and Health Surveys (KDHS) data, indicating a 6.7 prevalence rate was adopted as the correct position then. Realizing the unreliability of the earlier figures the UN also revised its figures for some 15 countries including Kenya downwards.

Now the KAIS study used similar assessment tools to the KDHS 2003 survey and came out with similar trends and more believable figures. If the new figures are correct, then NACC and other government officials will be hard put to explain whether they deliberately misled Kenyans that the country was winning the war against the virus or the other factors at play.

Faced with this predicament, it was understood that Tuesday’s launch was not without acrimony, with some government officials refusing to be part of the process.

It is well understood that for close to a month, since the completion of the KAIS study, the Government has been discussing and agonising on the authenticity of the results and how to make them public.

The Board of the National AIDS Control Council had expressed reservations about the study, which was funded by the United States government to a tune of US$ 6 million.

When the results were first released by the team of researchers, the board is understood to have asked one of its senior epidemiologist – expert in the causes, spread, and control of diseases — to scrutinize the study and see if it was scientifically arrived at.

The scientist returned a clean bill of health about the findings. External scientists who had participated in the study are understood to have applied pressure on the government to have the report released.

At this point, this matter was referred to the Cabinet and other senior government officials for direction. After several meetings and discussions, it was agreed that National Aids Control Council and National Aids and STD Control Programme, come up with a logical answer for the public, explaining away the new 7.8 per cent prevalence rate.

KEEP OFF OUR GRAND REGENCY SAY GADHAFI OF LIBYA

Why Libya will not release hotel

Published on 30/07/2008

By David OhitoLibyan President Muammar Gaddafi has sent a stern message to the Kenya Government that the Grand Regency Hotel belongs to his country, despite efforts to repossess it.

Gaddafi fought back on a week when investigations that would determine the fate of the sale started taking shape.

The Libyan leader sent a top government delegation with his verbatim message that was read to both President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

“The hotel is sold, gone and file closed!” were Gaddafi’s words to Kenya delivered by his right-hand man, Mr Bashir Saleh Bashir, the Libyan Head of Public Service.

Libyan Ambassador Hisham Ali Shariff (left), head of public service and chairman of Libya Africa investment portfolio (LAP) Bashir Saleh Bashir (Centre) and Libyan Arab Africa Investment Trade Company chairman Mohamed Ajil after a press conference at the Grand Regency Hotel, Nairobi, on Tuesday. PHOTO: STAFFORD ONDEGO

Mr Bashir later in a press conference at the Grand Regency Hotel’s Shaba Room, repeated the stern message he had given to Kibaki and Raila.

The Libyans spoke on a day that the Parliamentary Finance Committee chairman, Mr Chris Okemo, said his team was headed for a retreat this weekend to compile a report for Parliament that could recommend repossession.

But Gaddafi left no doubt as his special envoy met Kenya’s two principals, that his government would put up a fight to keep the five-star gem.

“You can carry on with investigations, but we assure Kenyans we followed all the procedures as established by law,” Bashir told journalists.

No response from Principals

Neither State House nor the Prime Minister’s office had issued a statement by last night after the principals met the Libyans.

Okemo said the report would be ready by Thursday next week and would be tabled in Parliament.

“The report will detail how top Government officials transacted the sale of the hotel illegally,” he said at Parliament buildings.

Justice (Rtd) Majid Cockar’s Commission of inquiry into the sale deal started sittings on Monday.

The Libyan team, which had jetted into the country in the morning, was accorded high profile diplomatic treatment as they were given audience at State House with President Kibaki and later with Raila at Treasury.

Escorted by Diplomatic Police cars, the Libyan envoy’s sleek grey Mercedes Benz with a fluttering Libyan flag snaked its way across the city centre as he kept the two rendezvous.

Bashir, who doubles up as chairman of Libya Africa Investment Portfolio (LAP), was accompanied by Libyan ambassador to Kenya, Hisham Ali Sharrif, Ali Shamak — the President of Oil Libya and Mr Mohammed Ajil, the chairman of Libya Arab Africa Investment Company.

The press conference was arranged by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and personally facilitated by the Permanent Secretary, Mr Thuita Mwangi, and Mr Eliphas Barine from the Public Affairs and Communication office.

“There is no political motive behind the purchase of this hotel. I can assure you no diplomatic interests can be breached between Nairobi and Tripoli,” Bashir said.

He added: “The money we have invested here will not go back to Libya. It will remain here to develop your country.”

Buying price

An aerial view of the Grand Regency Hotel. PHOTO: tom maruko

He said the Libyan Government paid about Sh2.9 billion to the Central Bank of Kenya in May.

Sources said the Libyan government had raised concern over the uproar surrounding the hotel sale that Gaddafi said was a bilateral agreement between the Libyan Government and her Kenyan counterpart.

“We bought the hotel on a purely business interest and all legal procedures followed in a very clean transaction,” Bashir said.

Bashir also explained how Libya had great interest of investing across the continent and had a portfolio worth US$ 8 billion (Sh520 billion) all over Africa — including Kenya, Uganda, South Africa and Morocco.

Inviting Kenyans to welcome their business interests, Bashir said LAP was looking forward to partnerships in Kenya.

“There is no limit for our investments in Kenya,” the official from the oil-rich desert country said.

He explained how the barely three-year-old Libyan investment company had aggressively invested in Togo, Guinea and was looking at putting in more monies on the African soil.

“Our strategy is to invest in African countries, with corporations, Governments and private sector initiatives. LAP is just three years old and we are one of the single biggest investors in Africa,” he said.

He said the company was financing the construction of Kenya-Uganda pipeline too and was working out its shareholding.

The hotel has been sucked into controversy and propelled the resignation of Finance minister Amos Kimunya following Parliament’s verdict of a no confidence against him.

Already two parallel investigations are being carried out — one through Parliamentary Finance, Planning and Trade committee chaired by Okemo.

Another is through a judicial Commission of Inquiry appointed by President Kibaki and chaired by retired Chief Magistrate Abdul Majid Cockar.

A Cabinet Committee initially appointed after the controversy broke out recommended that the Government repossess the hotel and the transaction cancelled.

The Cockar Commission is expected to recommend legal and administrative measures on completion of its work in a month’s time.

The Cockar team will investigate circumstances leading to the sale of the hotel and the role played by the persons mentioned in the transaction process.

Lands Minister James Orengo blew the whistle on the secret sale of the hotel and demanded an explanation.

Orengo later instructed his Lands officers to enter a Caveat on the property, meaning the land on which it stands cannot be used as collateral in the bank nor be transferred to new buyer.

NOWHERE TO RUN. 100 KENYANS HOMES SET ON FIRE IN Tanzania

Homes for 100 Kenyan families torched in Tanzania

Published on 29/07/2008

By Oloo Janak More than 100 Kenyan families who settled in Musoma, Tanzania, have been left homeless after their homes were torched in communal violence at the weekend.

The Kenyan immigrants from Nandi in the Rift Valley, who have been living in Musoma for decades, had their homes set ablaze on Friday by their Tanzanian hosts over claims of involvement in cattle rustling.

By virtue of their long stay in the country, many have since become Tanzanian citizens.

Reports by Tanzanian media indicated that the burning was sparked off by an incident in which 200 livestock, including cattle, goats and sheep, was stolen last week.

targeted

The Kenyans were targeted after 10 head of cattle were reportedly recovered from the home of an immigrant, Mzee Ondiema Chemonge.

Tanzanian security personnel and local vigilantes later recovered 112 head of cattle and more than 100 goats and sheep.

TBC channel, a Tanzanian TV station at the weekend carried footage of desperate and hungry families fleeing from their burning houses.

Tanzanian government officials were quoted condemning the attack. Local police said they had launched investigations.

“We don’t know where to go now. We have lost everything,” said a middle-aged victim.

Kenyan police said the events were out of their jurisdiction because many victims had become Tanzanian citizens.

practicing witchcraft

Meanwhile, families who fled their homes in Bugumbe West Location in Kuria West District two weeks ago after their homes were burnt are trickling back.

The scores of families from the Kisii community were flushed out over claims of practicing witchcraft.

They camped at the Mabera DO’s office before local leaders convened a meeting at which it was agreed they would be accepted back.

KENYA, REVIEW MILITARY FUNDING

How terror suspects were flown out of Kenya

Published on 29/07/2008

By Ben Agina

Details on how 19 terror suspects arrested in Kenya, but removed from police custody by foreign security agents for interrogation can be revealed today.

Interrogation by the foreign agents — including US’ Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and Britain’s MI6 — have been described as “most inhumane” and involved blindfolding suspects, shackling their feet and handcuffing them from the back.

A man said to be Kenyan was arrested after the bombing of Paradise Hotel (above) in Kikambala. He was later flown to Cuba. PHOTO: FILE

According to a report by a presidential committee exclusively obtained by The Standard, the case of one detainee, Amir Mohamed, stands out as an example how foreign agents could easily access and remove suspects from police custody in various stations.

Mohamed was taken out of his cell at Nairobi’s Kileleshwa Police Station by American agents in a US registered vehicle and taken to a local hotel for interrogation.

When contacted, Government Spokesman Alfred Mutua asked: “What is the report saying?”

After consulting the Head of Public Service Francis Muthaura, Dr Mutua said the Government had not received the final report.

However, Mutua said they were aware of the committee’s “rough draft” whose content not all members were agreed on.

He said the committee was asked to make the report more accurate.

“The committee is still refining it (report) to try and come up with a more accurate document,” he said.

The Presidential Special Action Committee appointed last year to address specific concerns of the Muslim community received reports that the foreign agents had direct access to prisoners without restraint.

The report was to be handed over to the President on March 31, but to date it is yet to be received at State House.

The committee received reports from the Muslim Human Rights Forum, which witnessed Mohamed being brought back to Kileleshwa from an interrogation session on February 5, last year, in a US Embassy vehicle.

The detainee confirmed to the human rights’ group that he was interrogated by FBI agents about possible links with Al–Qaeda training military camps in Mogadishu, Somalia.

Another detainee, Mohammad Ezzouek, said he was interrogated by British intelligence agents at Kileleshwa Police Station between February 3 and 5 last year.

The human rights’ group also reported that during a fact-finding mission to Kiunga, Lamu District, the residents reported seeing foreign security personnel together with Kenyan security forces in the hunt for people fleeing Somalia and seeking refuge in Kenya.

One Abdulmalik Mohamed, said to be a Kenyan citizen and suspected of being involved in the bombing of Paradise Hotel in Mombasa, was arrested in Kenya and handed to foreign agents who flew him to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after being held in custody in Mombasa and Nairobi.

The report quotes a statement by the US Department of Defence on March 26, 2006, indicating that Abdulmalik had admitted his involvement in terrorist attacks in Mombasa in 2002 and the US Embassy bombings in Nairobi in 1998.

One suspect who appeared before the committee, Fatma Ahmed Chande, a Tanzania national married to a Kenyan, narrated her ordeal as she and her husband, Salim Awadh Salim, were fleeing from Somalia.

“It was so chilly and drizzling. We were bundled into pick ups and driven to the runway. I saw very many people, including women, kneeling,” said Chande.

“The men were blindfolded and their hands handcuffed behind their backs and feet chained. I was led to the group of women and ordered to kneel, too,” said Chande.

She added: “An armed man came to me and pulled down my veil to uncover my face. Some of the detainees were crying loudly. The men had black hoods covering their heads. We knelt for some time, till our knees ached. We were taken to the plane, still blindfolded. I could, however, see through my veil as it was of light material. It was very scaring, cold and wet.”

According to the committee, Chande’s statement confirms the report by the human rights’ group that her husband, Salim, said to be Kenyan, was moved to Ethiopia, where he is still held.

The committee received reports that on March 31, last year, heavily armed police officers cordoned off a residential area in Kongowea, Mombasa, and harassed everyone in sight as they sought terror suspects.

After the ordeal, the officers arrested two people and later released them without charges.

On the night of April 24-25, last year, heavily armed hooded ATPU personnel raided Guraya in Mombasa.

Again, they cordoned off the area and blocked the adjacent Jomo Kenyatta highway, and proceeded to break doors at homes and paraded residents, including children and the elderly, in the rain at 3am.

It was alleged that the police ransacked their homes and took away valuables and cash, arrested 11 residents, 10 of who were later released without charges, while one was deported to the Comoros.

The committee also heard from Noor Sheikh Hassan, also said to be a Kenyan citizen who, together with five others, was arrested in Liboi, a town on the Kenya-Somali border on January 6, last year, and transferred to Langata Police Station in Nairobi, where he was held in solitary confinement for 25 days.

He was denied access to a lawyer and family members and could not make any phone call.

As of today, none of the arrests have yielded any prosecution for crimes connected with terrorism.

The report adds that some of those arrested were later released without charges whereas others were prosecuted for minor immigration offences and deported.

“The rendition of the terror suspects is illegal under the Constitution and international law because it disregards judicial and administrative processes,” says the report.

Most Kenyan victims of “rendition” were arrested and detained, while others were abducted and denied legal representation.

The committee notes that rendition violates other human rights: For instance, victims of rendition have no opportunity to challenge their detention, or the arbitrary decision to transfer them to another country.

The Kenyan security agents have continued to defend themselves over the rendition, saying those taken to foreign countries were not Kenyans

The committee, however, claims to have received evidence of the rendition of at least 19 Kenyans to Ethiopia, Somalia and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Flight manifests made available to the committee show that in January and February last year, chartered planes left Nairobi with about 80 people on board to the Somali capital Mogadishu and the town of Baidoa. They were suspected to have links with Al-Qaeda.

The flights left at night, and the manifests appear to have omitted important details.

The 19 were Aden Sheikh Abdullahi, Saidi Shifa, Salam Ngama, Bashir Hussein Chirag Mohammed Sader, Said Hamisi Mohamed, Swaleh Ali Tunza, Hassan Shaban Mwazume, Hussein Ali Said, Tsuma Solomon Adam Ayila, Abdi Muhammed Abdillahi, Salim Awadh Salim, Abdulrashid Mohamed, Kasim Musa Mwarusi, Ali Musa Mwarusi, Abdallah Halifan Tondwe, Nasru Tuko, Mohammed Said Mohamed, Saqaawi Diin (all in Ethiopia) and Wahab Mohamed Abdulmalik (Guatanamo bay, Cuba).

Muslim Human Rights Forum reported to the committee that it had filed 34 applications at the High Court in Nairobi, while six others were filed in Mombasa.

Despite High Court orders in all the cases, the State defied, and only released two suspects, while the rest were moved to foreign jurisdictions.

A HELL CALLED KENYA, KEEP OFF IT IF YOU CAN

Fellow readers, personally what Koigi demanded on Sunday last week during a live broadcast on Radio Inoro is the most right thing that should have happenend soon after the post election violence. Koigi based his call on the fact that the chief spy Michael Gichangi disclosed to the Wakicommission that the NSIS had informed Kibaki there would be violence months before the general elections. He had even given names of prominent politicians behind the plot to kill certain Kenyan communities.

Koigi told Kibaki it he committed treason having neglected his resposibility as head of state to protect wananchi and instead allowed violence to claim many lives and properties. I fully support this call but then , who will arrest Kibaki? Maybe its time Kenyans abroad organised with the Hague and have him indicted.

Mwandawiro Mghanga during a Cuba revolution day of 26th july on Saturday this week called for a revolution in Kenya. Why. We have witnessed much economical and police brutality that cannot be changed by its initiators in today’s gvt especially Kibaki.

DEATH AT YOUR DOOR

Since I made Kenya my base where I intend to spend some more time – I have a lot of experiences that make me want to leave Kenya and never come back here. I have witnessed real brutal police killings. I have been directly affected by this brutality. On 13th July around 6pm a cousin of mine 20 years of old and his workmate a friend of his 19 years were leaving work heading home at one of the semi slum areas – Kayole 45.

On reaching at their desembarking point with the friend, soon after leaving the matatu some five police officers armed to the teeth ordered the two to lie down face down and hold their IDs up above their heads. The 2 did as requested by the police. But in less than a minute the two were sprayed with bullets while lying on their backs. Execution in broad day light. That week alone 30 young kenyans were shot dead. We burried him this week.

Shamelessly, the police claimed the 2 were suspects who had planned to rob a business in the area and that a third member of the so-called gang, armed witha gun had run away- Bullshit. Well, I never thought I would at sometime in my lifetime live in a lawless police state such as today’s Kenya. Now their parents have been warned to face same fate if they press on with claims of murder by police.

3 weeks ago three young friends who own some hardware shops along Duruma road in River Road Nairobi disappered in day light after they had gone to buy some hardwares near house of Magji. Eye witnesses saw the three being arrested by police near the place they went to buy their hardwares. 2 DAYS LATTER bodies of 2 of them were found dumped near Arthi River. One is still missing!. Crazy Kenya.

All the executed are Kikuyus. As Kikuyu male wearing shots is sign of being a Mungiki and therefore you are likely to get gunned down by the Kwekwe police anti Mungiki unit. Well Kenyans, where is our nation heading to?

Those of you living abroad, please dont even think of coming here if you are afraid of instatnt death. Am sure living in Kenya today is living on borrowed time. Life here has become not worthy a penny as long as you are a poor fellow. I personally have received several life threats from unknown people(police) to watch my mouth on accusing the leadership of misrule. I have been asked to leave Kenya or risk death. I have given the police all the numbers that sent or called me on this but they say If I feel insecure then I should leave.

Kenyans out there, there is little to be proud of after the last general elections. This week as have been the immediate past has made me even want to call for a direct takeover of Kenya government by the military perhaps for sometime. Our politicians are running this country outo pilot. They seem to be leaving in another p;anet of their own and not in the same Country where innocent lives continue being wasted with impunity. The chaotic life in Kenya will never be attended to by the current corrupt and murderous politicians in power. Kenyans in Kenya are more hopeless than ever and are unable to handle the ongoing disollusionment affecting millions of us back home. Millions have nowhere to run.

Its my appeal for Kenyans abroad to think of themselves as the only hope for this country ever rissing from the political filth now being praised by the current coalition gvt as a way of bring sanity to the nation.

Where are the Osewes and Martin Ngatias, where are the Muiranis and Mwauras? Where is Olengais and Kigan? You once fought Moi dictatorship but dont let this coalition pass as an innocent gvt. You all know when to stand up for fellow Kenyans regardless of party affiliations abroad. Its time.

Do something where you are to protest the carnage going on sillently in our dear country. Kenyans out there please try to bring some sense of responsibility in the heads of these heartless politicians masquarading as democrats while instructing the police to shot poverty or intimidate the poor into deadly helpless silence. A coalition of lions out to feast on innocent sheep.

Ethiopian terror

The McGill Report — Media for Global Minnesotans
 
With spies and cellphones, Ethiopian terror touches Minnesota

By Douglas McGill

Updated 7/16/2008 1:06:49 PM
 
MINNEAPOLIS, MN – The four men sitting at a downtown coffee shop here
recently told me a story that sounded too far-fetched to be true.
 
Could a humanitarian crisis following the pattern of Darfur, Sudan
actually be unfolding while capturing hardly a second of the world’s
collective attention, or Minnesota’s?
Even worse, could it actually be true, as these four Minnesotans insist,
that this unimaginable massacre is substantially being sustained by U.S.
tax dollars and moral support?
Is it possible that entire African villages are being wiped out
Darfur-style by marauding helicopter gunships belonging to a close
American ally, and that new refugee camps are being formed virtually
overnight, as we speak, thanks to Uncle Sam?
 
Superpower Struggles
This sounded like the vilest strain of anti-American propaganda. But
after a few hours speaking with these gentlemen, and doing a few more
hours of research and checking, their story seems all too definitely,
tragically, true.
The four men are in an ideal position to know. They are members of
Minnesota’s community of immigrants from Ogaden, Ethiopia – a
Montana-sized patch of desert that has been the scene of global
superpower struggles for many decades.
Every day for the past several months, these four men, along with
hundreds of other Ogaden immigrants in Minnesota, have spent hours every
week on their cellphones talking to loved ones who give them seemingly
endless eyewitness accounts of crimes and horrors in a war zone.
 
“We hear about mothers being forced to betray their own sons to the
Ethiopian Army, of fathers being handed guns and ordered to kill their
own sons on the spot or to be killed themselves,” one of the men said.
 
Minnesota Spies
“Every Ogadeni in Minnesota has friends or family who have been jailed,
tortured, or killed. It seems there is no end to it. We could tell you
stories all day for a whole week and still have more stories to tell
you.”
The men asked that their names not be published because they said
Ethiopian government spies live in Minnesota who would help the
Ethiopian authorities hunt down their family members in Ogaden to jail
them, torture them or worse as a punishment for talking with the press.
Having the second-largest population of refugees per capital of any U.S.
state (after Florida), and likely the nation’s top state in diversity of
refugees, Minnesota has once again become an early-warning system for
crimes against humanity being perpetrated in a faraway country – this
time in eastern Ethiopia.
Minnesota’s Ethiopian immigrant community is estimated between 13,000
and 20,000, the lower number being the latest U.S. Census figure, and
the higher a number given by local Ethiopian immigrant groups.
 
Ethnic Somalis
About a fourth of the state’s Ethiopian immigrants are from Ogaden,
whose natives, in contrast to Ethiopia’s majority Amharic-speaking
Christians, are Somali-speaking Muslims. And therein lies the problem.
For decades, ordinary Ogadeni herders and farmers have lived on a
literal battlefield over which Ethiopia and Somalia, acting as proxies
for global powers, have waged an epic-length conflict.
 
A conventional war was fought in 1977-78. More often, counter-insurgency
attacks by the Ethiopian government against supposed Ogaden separatists
– or now, “terrorists” — have targeted civilians and entire villages,
creating vast refugee flows.
The Ogaden landscape today is littered with the hulks of tanks and
rusting weapons used in battles since 1948. That was the year that
Britain, then the region’s dominant global power, ceded Ogaden to
Ethiopia, even though nearly all of its five million inhabitants are
ethnically and culturally Somali.
During the Cold War period, the region’s global powers were the Soviet
Union and the United States.
 
Minnesota’s Challenge
Today, the great global struggle being waged locally is the “War on
Terror.”
Official U.S. foreign policy holds that the Horn of Africa is one of the
world’s top breeding grounds for radical Islamist terrorists.
Islamist governments in Sudan and Eritrea, and a prominent Islamist
faction in Somalia, have led to the U.S. embrace of Ethiopia as a close
ally in the War on Terror – it being “the only democratic nation in the
Horn of Africa.”
But Minnesota’s large Ethiopian population challenges that formulation.
If Ethiopia is a democracy why are thousands of its citizens fleeing as
refugees and asylees to our state, insisting Ethiopia is a tyranny?
A report published last month by Human Rights Watch lends credence to
horrific stories told by the four Ogadeni men at the Minneapolis coffee
shop.
 
87 Villages
The report’s title, “Collective Punishment,” refers to the practice of
wiping out villages based on rumors that insurgents live there. The
report’s subtitle is “War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity in the
Ogaden.”
Despite Ethiopia’s attempts to block information about human rights
crimes from escaping the Ogaden, Human Rights Watch said it had received
reports of “at least 87 burnings and forced displacements of villages,
many of which involved extrajudicial killings, torture, and rape across
numerous areas of the Somali Region,” meaning the Ogaden.
Since the late 1970s, when Ethiopia and Somalia waged a conventional war
over the Ogaden, between two and three million refugees have poured out
of the region into neighboring Somalia, Kenya and Djibouti – and then
onwards to a global diaspora including Minnesota.
In the most recent violence, tens of thousands of Ogadenis have already
been displaced, and an Ethiopian economic and aid blockade threatens to
escalate the humanitarian catastrophe by orders of magnitude as a result
of drought and famine, Human Rights Watch said.
“The situation is critical,” the report says.
 
Moral Hazard
As for the question of funding, the U.S. is the largest single source of
foreign military aid to Ethiopia. Moreover, total U.S. military aid to
the country increased 17-fold after 9/11, when Ethiopia became a close
ally of the U.S. in the “war on terror.”
According to the Center for Public Integrity, the U.S. provided $16.8
million in military aid to Ethiopia in the three years following 9/11,
compared to $928,000 in the three years before 9/11. That is a small
percentage of Ethiopia’s annual defense budget, but critics say that
unofficially, U.S. support of Ethiopia and its military is far higher.
Overall, U.S. assistance to Ethiopia totaled $474 million in 2007 alone,
according to the U.S. Department of State. Including other major sources
of foreign aid, especially the UK and the European Union, Ethiopia
receives almost $2 billion in aid annually.
“Americans are also a victim in the Ogaden,” one of the men in the
coffee shop said. “Do they know their tax dollars are supporting a
tyranny like this? If they knew, wouldn’t they want it to stop?”

 

 

 

 

         —-[This List to be used for Eritrea Related News Only]—-

WHY LIBYA WANTED TO BOMB KENYA

Top secrets: Gaddafi plotted to bomb KenyaStory by KAMAU NGOTHO Publication Date: 5/26/2008

Like with politics, espionage knows no permanent friends or enemies, only the convergence of interests. Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi. Photo/FILE Said to be the second oldest profession, at times it appears to have even lesser morals than the first. No surprise that when relationship between Nairobi and Washington were at the ice cold, it was still business as usual for legendary Kenyan spy chief James Kanyotu and the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. Early one morning in February 1991, Mr Kanyotu found himself with a difficult assignment. His friends in the CIA had called with an urgent and unusual request. Dissidents They had with them 600 Libyan dissidents they wanted sequestered in Kenya before they could be flown to a safe haven out of the reach of mercurial Libyan leader, Col Muammar Gaddafi. The dissidents had been spirited out of Libya in a daring secret move and first flown to the then Zaire, now Democratic Republic of Congo. But the CIA was not confident that Zaire was a safe haven. The country’s dictator, Marshal Mobutu Sese Seko was a US ally and had himself come to power in the 1960s as a CIA protégé. But the Americans considered him unstable, unreliable and unpredictable. His avarice and love of money was legendary, and it would not be beyond him to cut a deal with Col Gaddafi and turn over the dissidents in exchange for handsome sums wired to his numerous Swiss bank accounts. The Americans wanted their charges out of Congo speedily, and Kenya seemed like the best choice. But there was one problem. President Moi at that time had no time for the US. Kenya was in the throes of the multi-party campaign and the US had come out strongly in favour of the push for democratisation. Mr Moi was particularly irked by President George Bush’s ambassador in Kenya, the outspoken Smith Hempstone, who consorted openly with and supported the growing opposition of the day and had been dismissed as the Nyama Choma (roasted meat) ambassador. An approach through Mr Hempstone would not work, for Moi would have loved nothing better than to tell the envoy to ‘shove it’. A direct approach from Washington, either through the Secretary of State or the President himself, was also considered but none wanted to chance reaching Moi when in one of his foul moods and risk a humiliating rejection. So the CIA turned to Mr Kanyotu to soften President Moi for them. It was a difficult assignment on two grounds. First of course was Mr Moi’s growing anger with the United States. Then there was the security risk for Kenya in crossing Mr Gaddafi, who might find a soft target on which to hit back at the US. The Libyan leader by then was on the American list of unfriendly regimes. He was fiercely anti-American, and was accused of financing Middle Eastern terrorist groups that were increasingly aiming at targets in the West. The Libyans at the time were also moving aggressively to position themselves in sub-saharan Africa, unlike many other North African countries, which viewed themselves primarily as members of the Arab world. That was where  Mr Kanyottu found the chink in President Moi’s armour. Libyan interests in the region had in the past few years been viewed suspiciously by Kenya, which was alarmed by the countries seeming support for dissident movements. From the early 1980, the Libyan embassy on Loita Street had become a popular calling place for radial student activists from nearby University of Nairobi. Usually it was to pick up freebies in the form of Mr Gaddafi’s writings, including his famous Green Book, and other literature and posters on Libyan and on the Palestinian cause. Mr Kanyotu’s agents kept a close watch around the embassy, paying particular attention to student leaders whom they thought might be tempted into going beyond mere infatuation with Gaddafi and enlisting into something sinister. Libya at the time already had a strong presence in neighbouring Uganda, which under President Yoweri Museveni had become the favoured transit point for Kenyan dissidents fleeing the country for exile in Europe. By early 1991, Kenya had already severed diplomatic relations with Tripoli after accusing the northern African country of sponsoring anti-Moi elements. Some student leaders at the University of Nairobi had also been arrested and charged with espionage for allegedly spying for Libya. Even without the Libyan link, President Moi at time viewed President Museveni as a dangerous radical all too keen to spread his ideology across the region. Kenya and Uganda had engaged in a brief shooting war across the common border only a few years previously, and still regarded each other with deep suspicion. With all the information at his fingertips, Mr Kanyotu was able to convince President Moi that the real threat lay not in US support for the multi-party campaign in Kenya, but in Libyan support for dissidents who might want to forment a revolution via neighbouring Uganda. Mr Kanyotu thought, Moi — even for ego purposes only — would relish the moment to show both Col Gaddafi and Mr Museveni who was boss in the region. Mr Moi gave his nod, and working under the strictest security, Mr Kanyotu’s men and the CIA hurriedly constructed a camp to hold the Libyans at a remote point off the Thika-Garissa highway. Within a week, a makeshift barracks was in place complete with a borehole and a fully-equipped dispensary. To throw off-scent any nosy characters, signposts were erected purporting that American peace-corps were coming to help sink boreholes in the remote reaches of Mwingi District. On D-Day, Mr Kanyotu joined the CIA team at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport shortly after midnight. Also present was Mr Hempstone. As Nairobi slept, two US Air Force jets taxied at the far end of the apron. Unmarked buses from the Kenya Army were in place to transport the delicate human cargo. Before dawn, the Libyan exiles were sound asleep in their new, but temporary, Kenyan home. Mr Gaddafi, probably through Ugandan and Soviet intelligence sources in Nairobi, soon came to learn about the presence of Libyans dissidents in Kenya. He was furious, and immediately set about planning how to retaliate. Commando squad A Libyan commando force assembled near the Entebbe Airport in Uganda, ready to strike once the exact location of the secret camp holding Libyan dissidents in Kenya was established. Gaddafi’s first option was lightning air strike to bomb the camp and kill as many of the residents as possible. The other was to bring in a commando squad by land, raid the place and capture some of the dissidents. To keep him off-scent, Mr Kanyotu and the CIA put up several decoys that kept the Libyan intelligence operatives on a wild goose chase. Meanwhile, the Americans found a permanent refuge for the dissidents, and before the Libyan forces could strike they were secretly flown out of Kenya under cover of darkness. After ranting and raving for a period, Mr Gaddafi concluded the Kenyan leader was no pushover and offered to make peace.

KENYA, DEADLY WEAPONS SHIPPED IN

 

STANDARD 19TH JULY

On February 29, three arms shipments left the Somalia arms markets in Mogadishu. That was about three weeks after the American Embassy banned some Kenyan leaders from entering the US reportedly because either they were the architects of post-election violence or were sabotaging the national reconciliation talks.

Some Somalia livestock traders, on behalf of three different clients, reportedly placed the order. Two separate shipments were bought by Kenyans and consisted of 14 pistols, and 24 boxes of ammunition, 18 AK-47s, 14 magazines and 30 boxes of ammunition. There were also four AK-47s, six magazines and eight boxes of ammunition.

This cache was beside another consignment of two containers that have also not been traced.

The Kenyan buyers of the cache from Somalia loaded the chests in two four-by-four vehicles with Somalia registration. The arms were later ferried into Kenya and to Modogashe, halfway between Wajir and Isiolo where they were offloaded into vehicles with local registration. In mid-March, some Somali-Kenyans are reported to have presented a middleman with a wish list of weapons and ammunition for two Kenyan clients.

“In this particular case, the buyer was a militia group in Kenya,” the UN Monitoring Group report obtained by The Standard on Saturday says.

The second client requested three AK-47s, four boxes of ammunition and six magazines. The client also needed four pistols, four boxes of ammunition and three magazines.

“Both shipments were loaded in a truck transporting food and clothes. The truck departed from Elasha Somalia arms market to Jilib and Bu’ale before reaching Afmadow, where the cargo was offloaded.

A UNITED PNU, DAYS ARE NUMBERED

 

President Kibaki’s allies are making spirited last-minute efforts to save the troubled Party of National Unity (PNU) that this week appeared to ebb towards disintegration.

But the rift between PNU and some of its key affiliates widened as chaos erupted in one party with officials disagreeing over whether to back President Kibaki’s unity proposal.

PNU spokesman and nominated MP George Nyamweya announced on Saturday that the planned transformation of PNU to a single united party would go on despite resistance from key affiliates.

Nyamweya was speaking at the PNU headquarters where he gave an update of efforts to seek unity.

But even as Nyamweya spoke, it was clear PNU was swaying in troubled wind as the party’s Parliamentary Group meeting planned for Saturday was put off to Tuesday.

Chaos rocked DP, which held a National Governing Council meeting that planned replacement of party officials, including President Kibaki.

The occasion attended by four DP MPs, among them, two assistant ministers, ended in disarray after members disagreed on Kibaki should be removed as national chairman.

resigned

Assistant Ministers Wilfred Machage and Nderitu Muriithi and MPs Nemesyus Warugongo (Kieni) and Emilio Kathuri (Manyata) later stormed out of the meeting.

A section was rooting for Kibaki’s removal, but another was opposed, saying the party would die should it replace the President.

Also to be replaced was DP secretary general Nyamweya who had only minutes earlier resigned at a separate function. Trouble started when DP national organising secretary Jacob Haji read out the positions that would be filled beginning with that held by the President.

His voice was immediately drowned by heated exchange between those for and those against as the MPs and vice-chairman Joseph Munyao watched helplessly.

But Kathuri escalated the tension when he took the microphone and opposed plans to replace Kibaki. However, with section of officials shouted him down.

In the PNU function, Nyamweya was quick to deny that the party was being prepared for an individual to use as a vehicle for the presidency in 2012.

KENYA CHIEF SPY DISCLOSES POOL VIOLENCE MASTERMINDS

The standard 19TH JULY

by Limo

The National Security Intelligence Service (NSIS) presented its evidence in camera and gave out details of individuals who reportedly participated in post-election violence.

NSIS boss, Maj-Gen Michael Gichangi, met the Commission of Inquiry into the Post-Election Violence in camera for almost an hour before resuming the public hearings, Friday. The spy boss had requested to give evidence in camera.

Persons adversely mentioned

 

 

Commission chairman, Justice Philip Waki, later said they would rule on whether to issue notices to persons adversely mentioned in the evidence to appear before the commission. Waki said it is prudent to give the people a chance to give their side of the story.

Justice Philip Waki (left) and Commissioner Pascal Kambale (in blue jersey) during a tour of Kibera slums. PHOTO: JONAH ONYANGO

Lawyer Harun Ndubi demanded that the NSIS tables evidence to show the intelligence agency advised the Electoral Commission to put in place modalities of announcing last year’s results. Ndubi sought to know if the agency was to blame for the post-poll violence.

 

He asked Gichangi to explain if his advice to the ECK may have caused the delay in announcing results, which led to the violence.

Gichangi said his advice was based on intelligence gathered — that the results could determine the mood in the country. “Our advice was on the basis of having a free and fair election or that would be seen to be so,” he said. He explained that the delay in announcing presidential results was caused by various issues. He said there was no such delay in the 1997 General Election. He could, however, not recall if the situation was similar in 2002.

While presenting his submission, Gichangi said he told ECK and other appropriate Government departments to put in place clear modalities for announcing results

18 shot dead in a week by kenya police

KENYA, TRANSACTIONS HALTED ON GRAND REGENCY SALE

Orengo halts Grand Regency dealings

Written By:Judy Maina   , Posted: Wed, Jul 09, 2008

Lands Minister James Orengo says no more transactions over the Grand Regency Hotel will take place until investigations by the cabinet sub-committee team are complete.

Orengo at the same time says his ministry is harmonizing a national land policy that will give guidelines on how to dispose public or government land.

The Lands Minister says the policy will be taken to parliament for enactment once it has been harmonized.

Orengo spoke a day after the Finance Minister Amos Kimunya bowed to pressure and stepped aside to pave way for investigations into the controversial Grand Regency sale.

He made the remarks when members of the East African Legislative Assembly-EALA paid him a visit to his office in Nairobi.

The EALA members are holding consultations with ministries and stakeholders on Kenya’s position with regard to the creation of a common market for East Africa States and freedom of movement for people and services through the integration.

Last week, the High Court stopped a Libyan company, from carrying out dealings on it.

That meant that the company remains the owner of the hotel but it cannot transfer it or dispose it off until the court hears the case.

High Court Judge Mr Justice Alnashir Visram issued temporary orders stopping the company known as Libyan Arab African Investment from interfering with the ownership of the hotel for the next 14 days.

The Judge granted the temporary order following application by one of the hotel’s receiver manager Mr Hezekiah Gichohi.

Mr Gichohi wanted the transfer of the hotel stopped because he says it owes him Sh34 million.

He says the decision by the Central Bank of Kenya to secretly transfer the hotel will interfere with his right to the money.

He believes that the transfer of the hotel is illegal and should be stopped.

Today (Wednesday) ,Hezekiah Gichohi one of the joint receiver managers of Grand Regency Hotel through his advocate Kibe Mungai is suing Central Bank governor Prof. Njuguna Ndungu of publishing falsehoods against him.

Gichohi argues that through press statement dated 23^rd April this year, Ndungu published a wrong report against him.

Last week he was in court demanding over 34 million shillings as his remuneration.

HEAL YOUR OWN COUNTRY ZIMBABWE TELLS RAILA

Zimbabwe: Odinga – a Disgrace to Africa Published by the government of Zimbabwe Email This Page Print This Page Comment on this article The Herald (Harare) OPINION 9 July 2008 Posted to the web 9 July 2008 Susan Chipanga Harare MARK Twain, an acclaimed American author wrote: “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt”.

This timeless quote was brought to mind after intolerable criticism of Zimbabwe by Raila Odinga, Prime Minister of the Kenyan Government of National Unity whose ticket to power was signed by the blood of innocent people.

Odinga’s moral right to condemn Zimbabwean elections is overshadowed by his coming into office as a result of the death of 1 500 people and the displacement of over 600 000 people. On December 30, 2007 the chairman of the Kenyan election commission declared Odinga’s opponent, incumbent president Mwai Kibaki, the winner by a margin of about 230 000 votes.

Raila challenged the results alleging fraud by the commission, but refused an election petition before the courts and urged protests, which plunged the country into one of the brutal and bloody post-election violence ever to be witnessed in recent history.

Shamefacedly, the poor fellow has been blabbering on about Zimbabwe’s elections, violence, peacekeepers and for the country to be barred from regional bodies; a case some may attribute to being overwhelmed by the glare of the media after being in political obscurity for so long. Consequently, the whole of Africa and the world are regaled by the antics of a witless and hypocritical African politician whose propensity to expose himself unearths his want of tact and maturity in African politics.

Some who are not so harsh in their criticism of Odinga’s unwarranted utterances on Zimbabwe are easy to forgive him as he is a product of incarcerations, flights into exile and betrayal by erstwhile political allies which undoubtedly has made him a bitter man mad at the whole of Africa for not intervening on his behalf. Odinga, as a result, has made himself a champion of opposition politics in Africa after his backdoor entry to leadership in Kenya making him an emperor without clothes after Kenya’s recent history which someone said reads like a Shakespearian tale; full of dramatic intrigue, intricate conspiracies and king making plots.

Odinga’s unwarranted criticism of Zimbabwe might be borne from a need to outshine Mwai Kibaki, the Kenyan president who trounced him in the December election. But, Zimbabwe cannot bear the brunt of his inferiority complex in a bid to gain recognition in African politics. Someone should advise Odinga that the route he has taken is a dead end and neither is it going to absolve him of the blood that is on his hands as rightly pointed by the presidential spokesperson, George Charamba, during the recent African Union Summit in Egypt.

Maybe Odinga’s weakness is more to do with not acquainting himself with African history. He should start to appreciate that more is at stake than meets the eye in the Zimbabwean situation. If the sentiments he echoed during his inauguration are anything to go by, then he is in for a rude awakening in his quest to liberate Kenyans from neo-colonialism.

When Odinga was sworn in as Prime Minister of Kenya on April 18 2008, he told the gathering that “we will ensure that power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of many, not the few”. Robert Mugabe whom he is now alleging is a dictator was once the darling of the West until he decided to empower his people by distributing land, which was in the hands of a few whites to the majority of the landless blacks Kenya, like all other African countries, is no exception.

It would want to address these historical imbalances and some have alluded that the chaos that Kenya witnessed is the result of historic injustices including land tenure systems and the unequal sharing of resources between the country’s more than 40 ethnic groups. Other African leaders know that addressing the injustices born out of colonialism is at the core of all African problems and that sooner or later, these issues have to be addressed by each member country.

The decisions made by African leaders at the AU summit, that is, wanting Africans to solve their own problems is born out of a realisation that abandoning Zimbabwe at this critical stage will set a bad precedent. Relevant Links East Africa Southern Africa Kenya Zimbabwe Some delusional African politicians like Odinga might not understand that sticking together with Zimbabwe is also for their future well-being.

That, Mr Odinga, is the definition of Pan Africanism. It is not about calling yourself a Pan Africanist when your deeds are devoid of “ubuntu” as you were able to countenance the beheading, skinning, raping, murdering and torturing of innocent people for your own political gain.

I am no religious fanatic but I do believe the good book offers sound advice in the case of looking at a straw in another’s eye whilst not considering the rafter in your own eye. It is evident Odinga is singing for the few morsels that the United States is dropping on his lap whilst mortgaging Kenya in the process. Reports indicate that the US government is negotiating base access agreements with the government of Kenya that will allow American troops to use military facilities when the United States wants to deploy its own army in Africa.

So at the right intervals Odinga has to make the right noises on Zimbabwe so as to appease his benefactors. Shame on you Odinga! Odinga is a disgrace to the continent, which has produced notable statesmen like Nelson Mandela who spent all his life fighting for the liberation of his people and Robert Mugabe who is fighting for the total emancipation of his people. What has Odinga to show for himself, except bloody hands, which no doubt soiled his reputation of ever being regarded as a statesman. Instead of being fixated with what is happening in Zimbabwe,

Odinga should be concerned with healing his own country where thousands still remain displaced, traumatised and reluctant to return to the their former homes because the horrors they witnessed are forever etched in their minds. Odinga will remain an overly ambitious politician who would stop at nothing to achieve his political ends. He should keep his tainted hands off Zimbabwe.

KENYA POLICE COMMITING SADISTIC MURDERS

Why was this man tortured, then killed? Story by FRED MUKINDA Publication Date: 7/10/2008

Mystery surrounds the circumstances under which a matatu driver died hours after police arrested him. Ms Margaret Wanjiru and her son, Daniel Maina, display a newspaper cutting with a picture of her husband being arrested last week. Photo/HEZRON NJOROGE Mr Peter Maina Wachira was found strangled along side his tout Peter Mwangi Gitau less than 24 hours after the arrest. A postmortem examination on his body also revealed injuries in several other parts. The body was dumped at the City Mortuary 18 hours after a police officer had been spotted handcuffing him at Nairobi’s Muthurwa Matatu Terminus. On Wednesday, police could not explain circumstances under which he was killed, but relatives and colleagues insisted that the officers were the last to hold the man alive. The arrest on June 30 was captured on camera and the photograph published in newspapers the following day. It shows an administration policeman in riot gear preparing to handcuff the 37-year-old. Mortuary records show the body was delivered in a police vehicle alongside that of the tout, and the two bodies booked in by an officer as those of  “unknown persons”. A photographer who witnessed the arrest told the Nation it took place at around 11am. The bodies were received at the mortuary at 5.40am the following day. Mortuary records also show they had been brought from Ngong in the outskirts of the city. The Nation further established that the bodies were found near Kibiku Township, about three kilometres from Ngong. Pupils spotted the bodies as they walked on a footpath to school. They lay several metres apart, off the Ngong-Ewaso Kedong road,  and were partially hidden by bushes. Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe said the circumstances surrounding the death would be known after an inquest is conducted, adding that an inquest file would be opened. The first step would be to trace Mr Wachira’s last movements since he was spotted being arrested, he said. Normally, a suspect should be transported to the local police station, once arrested and booked in the Occurrence Book (OB). The law mandates the station commander to give direction once one is held in custody, either to prosecute or release the suspect. Mr Kiraithe said relatives or anybody could institute an inquest by formally reporting Mr Wachira’s matter at a police station. In that case, he said, preliminary investigations would seek to interview the officer seen arresting Mr Wachira, alongside other witnesses at the matatu termini. His Administration police counterpart Masoud Mwinyi said he was not aware of the matter, but promised to give details after making enquiries. Mr Mwinyi had not given the information by the time of going to press. The postmortem report would also be reviewed in the probe. The autopsy report by government pathologist Peter Ndegwa cites “manual strangulation” as cause of death. It also states torture had been inflicted on the victim. After viewing the body, Wachira’s wife Margaret Wanjiru told the Nation that her husband’s face was disfigured. A deep cut had been inflicted on the head, and there were swellings and lacerations on other parts of the body. The bodies had not been identified until relatives and colleagues found them at the mortuary on Saturday last week. When police took them to the mortuary, they were only dressed in boxer shorts. The other clothes are yet to be found. Ms Wanjiru said she earlier searched police stations around the city, including Kamukunji, Central , Industrial Area, Kasarani and Makongeni. And when she finally found her husband’s body, it was so deformed she only identified it after viewing the fingers and toes. Relatives said Mr Wachira and Mr Giatu operated a matatu plying Kayole’s route 19/60 in the city. She said her husband had been a matatu driver on the route since 1990 and had never been locked up at a police station. That day, he left home in Kayole at 7am, but failed to return in the evening. Efforts to reach him on mobile phone were not successful. Prior to the arrest, he had dropped passengers at the Muthurwa terminus, which doubles as a hawkers market. At the time, there was a standoff between some hawkers and police officers who had been deployed there. Riot police had been sent to ensure hawkers did not sell outside the allotted stalls. By the time Mr Wachira and Mr Gitau were being arrested, the situation had generated into a confrontation. A witness said Mr Wachira had stepped outside his vehicle, parked a few metres away. As police frog marched him, Mr Wachira was heard shouting that he was not a hawker but a driver. The political wing if the outlawed Mungiki sect, the Kenya National Youth Alliance, asked police commissioner Hussein Ali to take action on the officer photographed arresting Mr Wachira. Spokesman Gitau Njuguna Gitau said: “The officer should explain where he took Wachira after arresting him. Since last year we’ve complained that police have been involved in extra-judicial killings,” said Mr Gitau. Mr Wachira’s children include  Daniel Wachira, 19, Wilson Mugo, 14 and four-year-old Stella Njoki. His body is to be buried in Othaya, Nyeri, on Saturday.

KENYA POLICE BRUTALITY UNDERMINIG DEMOCRACY

Police have become highly intolerant Publication Date: 7/10/2008

The people of Kenya fought valiantly for what has been dubbed the Second Liberation. It was a great victory when the dictatorial single-party regime was consigned to history so that democracy could flourish.The new era was supposed to give us much more than just the right to form political parties and to belong to, and vote for, parties of our choice. It heralded a complete opening of the democratic space and the freedoms and liberties that follow.  These include the freedom of speech, freedom to hold, impart and receive ideas, freedom of association and assembly — the list is long. We should not forget that it also includes the freedom to shout, demonstrate, march and generally make our feelings known or let out our frustrations on pressing matters of the day. The legal and constitutional reforms carried out as part of the Inter-Party Parliamentary Group package in 1997 were expressly designed to ensure that we move decisively away from the culture of the single-party regime when breaches of such fundamental rights were so rampant. That is why it is worrying that a government which came to power as a beneficiary of the agitation for democracy should be so quick to take us back to the dark days of intolerance and repression. We were witness to police brutality the other day when the authorities moved against a small group that wanted to press publicly for the resignation or sacking of Finance minister Amos Kimunya. The police say that the demonstration had not been licensed, but the principle which should apply in such cases is not so much the fine print of the law but whether such gatherings are a threat to public order. Almost every other day in our major towns, we see all sorts of groups assembling, without licence, to make their views known on various topics. Police usually do not bother to intervene unless such gatherings become unruly. It is only on issues deemed politically sensitive that they wade in with excessive zeal. In the process, they only give high publicity to groups that otherwise would have been ignored.   Write to the author

GETTING RICH THROUGH BOOKS

WHAT OTHERS SAY: Money can be everything after all – and books too Story by CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO Publication Date: 7/10/2008

MANY YEARS AGO, THERE used  to be an advertisement by the sports wear maker, Nike, which said something like “only those who have never won anything say winning isn’t everything”. We can say the same thing about money. Only those who don’t have it say money isn’t everything. The difference with money is that you have a few people like billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, who also suggest that money isn’t everything, and give lots of their fortunes away to charity. So, there are two types of people who claim money isn’t everything; those who are broke, and those who are filthy rich. The rest of us in the middle could sure use some money. That’s why your columnist has totally unrealistic dreams of becoming very wealthy one day. To keep motivated, I read quite a bit about successful managers and companies, hoping some of it will rub off. Perhaps they never come better than the issue of Fortune (usually published in May) on America’s 500 largest corporations (the so-called ‘‘Fortune 500’’). It’s many months since I read this year’s issue, but every day is like I read it only yesterday. Nothing refreshes like the story of, especially, Nucor, America’s leading steel company. In 1965, Nucor was a tiny company on the verge of bankruptcy. With their backs to the wall, the board of directors made a desperate call. It turned the company over to a division manager named Ken Iverson, then just 39. As Fortune put it, the board seemed to say; “Here, you’re too young to know any better. Take it.” Iverson began to slowly build up the company. Step by step, year by year, Fortune reports, Iverson added capacity, eventually breaking into the ‘‘Fortune 500’’ in 1980. This year, in the ruthlessly competitive steel industry, Nucor retained a solid 151 on the ‘‘Fortune 500’’ list, with 40 years of consecutive profitability. There are not too many secrets to Nucor’s success, but we would like to dare any East African company to try and match this one: As proof of the durability of Nucor’s corporate culture, the company’s annual report continues a long-held tradition of  naming every Nucor employee – more than 18,000 of them! If that is what it takes, then I will never be a billionaire. And from long-suffering Zimbabwe comes a story about money of a very different type than the 3 million per cent inflation that Comrade Bob Mugabe has wrought. If you want to read some of the best writing on South Africa and Zimbabwe – indeed Southern Africa and Africa in general – the place to go is www.thoughtleader.co.za, a blog on the website of the quality South African Weekly Mail & Guardian (owned by the astute and solemn-faced Zimbabwean former editor Trevor Ncube). ‘‘THOUGHTLEADER’’ IS THOUGHT  to be the leading and among the most financially lucrative blogs on the continent. There you will find a piece by one Jeremiah Zure. Zure throws up some surprises. Zimbabwe might look like a basket-case now, but it also has the second largest known reserves of platinum in the world. And, Zure argues, it will always attract foreign investment come democracy, dictatorship, rain or sunshine. Need proof? Well, the giant Anglo- American company recently announced that it was  investing US$400m (Sh26bn) in Unki mine, amidst heightened talk of sanctions to punish Mugabe and his cronies for their rogue ways. That proves, yet again, that I will never be a billionaire. If I had any money to invest, I would look for a place as far away as possible from Zimbabwe to put it. Being smart and brave, Thomas Pilaar, a 34-year-old American man tried taking a shortcut to Fortune’s rich list. The Associated Press reports that Pilaar, who was accused of checking out hundreds of books and DVDs from libraries around the Denver area and then trying to sell them, will be doing all his library borrowing from now on behind bars.  He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay $53,549 (Sh3.5m) in restitution. Of an estimated 1,400 books and DVDs that were taken from Denver Public Library, about 500 have been recovered. While not condoning theft, in this age when not too many people read books, I tend to be sympathetic towards people like Pilaar who steal books — as long as they are not mine. Now talk about books, and it brings us to that marvellous Italian author and philosopher, Umberto Eco. Recently a friend and I shared our private guilt about buying so many books that we have never got round to reading. At least one book I am currently reading is Nassim Nicholas Tales’s The Black Swan (highly recommended). Tales writes that whenever people visit Eco and see his awesome library that has thousands of books, they always ask him if he has read them all. Eco is usually puzzled because, says Tales, the important thing about a collection of books is not whether one has read them all. Rather, it is a store of knowledge. I have slept soundly since reading that.   Write to the author

KENYA’S BRUTAL POLICE STRIKE AGAINST DEMO