KENYAN TROOPS MOVE NEAR THE LAKE-UGANDA KENYAN VICTORIA ISLANDS- WAR?

 (Kenyan army and Navy seen heading to bases near the lake. Additional information by a source).

By Daily Nation-Talks on Lake Victoria border row set up

By ELISHA OTIENO and PMPS Posted Sunday, January 18 2009 at 19:10

 

 

 

The Government is in talks with Uganda to solve a boundary row involving some islands in Lake Victoria.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga said Ugandan officials had agreed to a proposal to form a joint committee to freshly demarcate the contentious border in the lake.

“I have held talks with President Yoweri Museveni over the disputed islands in Lake Victoria and we expect Ugandan authorities to send a team to join the Kenyan delegation and resolve the row,” he said.

However, the PM said preliminary findings indicated that the islands were on Kenyan soil but urged fishermen to be patient as the committee finalised its task.

He told those present at a thanksgiving party of Nyatike MP Edick Omondi Anyanga at the weekend that the subcommittee on Defence had been mandated to lead negotiations with their Ugandan counterparts.

“The 1962 map is clear but for the purpose of good relations with our neighbours we have sent ministers Moses Wetangula, George Saitoti, James Orengo and Yusuf Haji to meet the team from Uganda to iron out the row,” the PM said.

Fishermen have complained of continuous harassment by Uganda’s security officers in the lake over the border dispute.

But Mr Odinga warned that the fishermen had been pushed to the limit by the security forces from the neighbouring country and “we will not accept to be pushed further”.

“We are aware of other Kenyan islands in the lake that were seized by Uganda during the reign of Idi Amin,” he added. He named Sigulu, Lolwe, Remba, Oyasi and Ringiti as some of the islands.

Speaking elsewhere, Mr Odinga said the corruption scandals will not kill the Grand Coalition’s spirit. He said ODM was less than a year in government and some of the graft cases started before they joined.

However, the PM said the Grand Coalition would remain intact despite the corruption cases. “No one should think that the Grand Coalition is dead because we are still less than a year old since formation,” he warned.

RADIO ACTIVE WASTE DUMPED IN SOMALIA

Pirates and Mercenaries and Islamists, Oh My!

By Joseph Huff-Hannon
From the January 16, 2009 issue | Posted in International | Email this article

NUCLEAR WASTE DUMPING, FISH POACHING AND U.S.-BACKED PROXY WAR DRIVE COASTAL CRISIS

Somalia’s status as the global epicenter of piracy seemed verified when, on Jan. 9, the U.S. Navy released a photo of a container, apparently holding some $3 million in ransom money, being parachuted onto a hijacked Saudi supertanker full of crude oil in East African waters.

The ship was one of 42 vessels captured last year off Somalia’s coast by modernday pirates who have traded spyglasses for GPS technology and treasure chests for international wire transfers. Observers attribute the proliferation of seafaring bandits to the onshore strife in Somalia, which has lacked a functioning central government since 1991.

“Piracy is a problem that starts on the shore,” said U.S. Navy Cmdr. Jane Campbell of the Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet to reporters. “The international community needs to address the situation on the ground in Somalia.”

What Campbell neglected to mention is that the anarchy in Somalia has U.S. fingerprints all over it. Somalia is one of the most underreported fronts in the outgoing Bush administration’s “global war on terror,” and piracy is one of its unintended consequences.

While blowback in the Horn of Africa may be occurring on the high seas, its origins are to be found inland. In December 2006, the United States provided diplomatic cover and military training for an Ethiopian invasion force that ousted the Islamic movement known as the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which had come to administer the capital and much of the south of the country.

Two years on, the invasion and ensuing war has not only failed to secure U.S. and Ethiopian interests, it has resulted in a humanitarian disaster. Now Ethiopia is pulling out its troops, the U.S. and Ethiopian-backed Transitional Federal Government is near collapse, and President Abdullahi Yusuf, a longtime ally of Ethiopia, has resigned.

On the brink of controlling Somalia are the Islamist and anti-occupation Al Shabaab movement (“Party of the Youth”). More radical than the ICU, which was credited by many Somalis with restoring basic services and security, the Al Shabaab movement has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.

In this lawless environment, piracy has flourished. While the media have fixated on the threat to commercial shipping in the Gulf of Aden, they have largely ignored other types of pirates that are plundering and despoiling Somalia’s waters.

With a 2,000-mile coastline, the longest on the African continent, Somalia is unable to stop the “700 foreign-owned vessels that are fully engaged in unlicensed fishing” in its waters, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. Additionally, states the U.N. outfit, “there is also strong suspicion of illegal dumping of industrial and nuclear wastes along the Somali coast.”

Some Somali pirates claim they are acting as “coast guards” to protect Somalia’s waters from illegal fishing and waste dumping. In fact, a number of fishing vessels seized and ransomed have been from countries that are implicated in the illegal fishing, such as Spain.

In turn, the lack of security has become a business opportunity, as a dozen mercenary companies are providing security to commercial shippers, according to Bloomberg News.

Some nations may even prefer that mercenaries handle the pirates, rather than negotiating security agreements that would demand a higher level of transparency. “Some of the countries most active in theanti-piracy attempts are also countries with large economic interests in Somali waters,” says Gustavo Carvalho, a researcher with the London-based Global Witness who estimates that $300 million worth of fish are poached from Somali waters each year.

‘CATASTROPHIC’

The International Committee of the Red Cross calls the current situation in Somalia “catastrophic.” At least 10,000 civilians have been killed in two years of fighting. The United Nations says that up to 3.5 million people, or nearly half the country’s population, will soon need food aid to avoid starvation. And up to a million and a half people have been made internal refugees, living in sprawling tent cities outside of Mogadishu.

The capital itself is largely destroyed and abandoned. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented extensive war crimes committed by Ethiopian troops, soldiers loyal to the Transitional Federal Government and Islamic rebels. And without the estimated $1 billion Somalis working abroad send back annually, the cash economy would probably collapse.

“Everybody is so concentrated on piracy on the water, but it’s totally overshadowing the humanitarian disaster on the land,” says Sadia Ali Aden, co-founder of the Somali Diaspora Network. “Under the cloud of piracy, Ethiopian troops are still in Somalia, killing with impunity.”

Piracy largely came to a halt in 2006 when the Islamic Courts Union administered much of Somalia. Michael Shank, a senior analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus, writes that after the ICU took power in 2006, “the airport opened after 11 years of closure, shipping ports and seaports were secured to ensure safe transport of food and products, law and order returned to Mogadishu, education and health care remained a top priority, environmental regulations were instituted … and crime diminished significantly.”

The ICU was supported by a Somali business community weary of the checkpoints and shakedowns carried out by warlords, many of whom were on the CIA payroll. After highly publicized — but unsubstantiated — accusations against the ICU, including alleged ties to Al Qaeda members linked to the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, Ethiopia invaded on Christmas Eve, 2006. U.S. backing was reportedly extensive and included training exercises held with the Ethiopian army at Camp Lemonier in neighboring Djibouti.

For the United States, this is a war fought on the cheap, largely through Ethiopia, CIA-funded warlords and the occasional missile strike on “suspected terrorists.” After one U.S. strike in May 2008 killed a well-known Islamist militia leader, as well as up to a dozen civilians, retaliatory attacks were levied against African Union peacekeeping troops, further destabilizing the country just before U.N.-sponsored peace talks were to begin.

MAKING WAR, MAKING MONEY

“Everybody is fascinated with the piracy, but these are not the Robin Hoods of the sea,” says Hassan Warsame, co-founder at the Somali Diaspora Network. “They’re not taking these millions and giving them to the poor of Mogadishu. A lot of these guys were involved in other forms of crime before,” Warsame claims.

According to the Independent (U.K.), the original pirates were Somali fishermen who took to “speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least levy a ‘tax’ on them.”

“There are reports from villagers of a wide range of medical problems like mouth bleeds, abdominal hemorrhages, unusual skin disorders and breathing difficulties,” said Nick Nuttall, a spokesman for the United Nations Environment Program, to Voice of America.

In December 2004, the deadly Boxing Day tsunami washed hundreds of broken barrels of radioactive waste onto Somali shores, leading to more than 300 deaths.

Amid the chaos, mercenary companies like Blackwater Worldwide and Mississippibased Hollowpoint are looking to make some loot. Peter Singer, author of Corporate Warriors, recently referred to Africa as “a potential growth market” for mercenaries. The U.S. Navy concurred. A spokesperson for the Fifth Fleet called the arrival of private military contractors to the region, “a great trend.” But not everyone agrees.

“People forget the history of private military contractors, that it was actually in Africa where they first got really big — during apartheid and South Africa’s proxy wars in Angola and Mozambique,” says Roxanne Lawson, Africa Policy Director for the Washington, D.C.-based TransAfrica Forum, a human rights and policy organization. The contractors, says Lawson, “know the American public is suffering from invasion fatigue. So the question is what’s the next big market? Is it proxy wars? Or is it battling pirates?”

ETHIOPIA’S ROLE

Hardly a bastion of democracy, Ethiopia has close ties to Washington and secures hundreds of millions in U.S. aid every year, much of it military. In 2005, hundreds of Ethiopian civilians were gunned down by government troops in the capital of Addis Ababa following protests around a suspect election that kept Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s party in power. And Human Rights Watch has documented many recent cases in which Ethiopian troops have engaged in executions, massacres, rape and torture, as well as burning entire villages in the Ogaden, a region with an active separatist movement that borders Somalia.

When Ethiopian tanks entered Mogadishu in December 2006, many of the warlords ousted by the ICU, some of the same men involved in the fighting against U.S. marines in 1993, returned. Those allegedly responsible for the Kenya bombings have never been apprehended. As Ethiopian troops now depart, those who will likely take power in Somalia are much more radical than their elders in the ICU who were targeted by U.S. missiles, or kidnapped and sent to Ethiopian jails.

Perhaps it takes a vast new economy of banditry on the high seas to call attention to the fact that U.S. foreign policy towards Somalia is yet another example of the failure of a never-ending “war on terror.” Whether the new administration takes a different approach is an open question.

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SHEIKH SHERIF AHMED OF SOMALIA a savior or killer?

LIFTED FROM benadir-watch.com
gaatamo@benadir-watch.co

CATCHING UP WITH SHEIKH XARIIF!

Dear Sheikh Xariif,

It is so exciting to hear from you once again. Right after you left the killing fields of Southern Somalia, back in January 2007, people did not hear from you. You must have been testing the waters, but I knew that you would resurface again.

This time around, however, we have some good questions for you, in the hope that you will take this opportunity to get the record straight. To start with, you could tell us something about your friends who were bombarded, executed, tortured, persecuted, and renditioned in the area between the Kenyan and Ethiopian borders with Southern Somalia, while you moved around, meeting strange people, in strange places, holding press conferences, and lecturing the population of Somalia about the resistance to the Ethiopian invasion.

In fact, it does not seem that you even apply for visas, like us ordinary people, but you enter Kenya, Djibouti, Yemen, Egypt, England, Eritrea, Sweden, etc. you name it. You take airplanes, here and there. I am amazed at who pays your bills and how you do all these things. Man, you must be a star.

There, in the border area between Somalia and Kenya, as you know, Somalis are hunted like wild game, killed, and left to rot in the hot sun. But you are picked up, and placed in one of the most comfortable hotels in Nairobi. There, you even gave interviews in public to Al-jezzira, and I listened to what you had to say, and I admit that your language skills are outstanding. Add that to your ebony skin, white gown all the way to your heels, and glamorous white teeth.

To tell the truth I envy your discipline so much that we always end up granting you the benefit of the doubt. Tell us how much you know about the thousands of young men and women, mostly school children, who were mobilized to move out of Mogadishu in December 2006, so that they could be easy targets for the Ethiopian bombardments.

Tell us about the meetings where it was decided that your committee should provide the trucks that would take these young men and women to their death. On a one way journey to the Bay Region, of no return, in the killing fields of Idaale and Manaas.

Tell us if those torched silent faces whom you never talk about in public, buried deep in your cloak, reappear in your dreams, asking you why you sent them to their death. Because Meles says that he made the necessary arrangements in advance with certain clan chiefs in Mogadishu (Al-jazeera, January 2007).

The jubilation that accompanied the famous trip from Afgoi to Mogadishu in January 2007, the glory in the slaughter, “we did it”, we saw all that on the TV.

Tell us how much you know about this plot, we are all ears. I will give you a tip, one more does not matter, after all patience is our strength not yours, if your memory fails to remember the guys I am talking about.

I am referring to your buddy, the notorious thug, White Eye, who terrorized the peaceful communities in Merka and the peasants in the immediate Dhowoy hinterland for years, seizing women, property and land. By the way, he never missed a prayer five times a day, in front of his God, the God of Billiliqo and Ballaayo, not mine, while making riches out of the suffering of the Benadiri and Dhowoy communities. Three days before the Ethiopian invasion, he flew to Saudia, after making sure that thousands of young men and women were transported out of Mogadishu, to be massacred. People are saying that in exchange for his excellent job, he got millions of dollars and a safe haven in Saudia, where he is currently residing as a guest of Prince Sheikh Big Beard.

To say the least, you must agree with me that you were left with an empty bag, and to say a little more, I am certain that we will have occasion to revisit this subject again. Tell us how many were killed in the Ethiopian bombardments in the killing fields of Gosha, how many died of malaria, and how many were bitten by poisonous snakes.

Surely, all of this took place within a short period, a couple of weeks. In fact, it did not take you much time to zip these memories and archive them in a distant corner where you and your God only know. As you know, December is a very calm month in Southern Somalia, not much happens, as the monsoon breezes over the savannah, and people, especially young people, just, do no expect to be hunted like wild game.

Or tell us how some of your prestigious friends, such as Mr. White and group, managed to take a plane from Somalia to Yemen – and if your memory fails you, again, may I remind you that the ports and airports were all closed shortly before the fighting intensified in Southern Somalia in the middle of December 2006 and January 2007. It must be a lucky coincidence that Mr. White and group are salvaged by the Yemeni Security Services and you are salvaged by the Kenyan Security Services.

To be fair to the dead, in our books, we have to stipulate that coincidences do not occur in this business and that your relationship with these strange services started long time ago, long before Joseph, son of the crazy Carawello and the legendry coward Egal Shidaad, became the Trojan Horse of Abraha, the colonialist. One foot here, one foot there, sounds very familiar to me, you remind me of the legendary Italian pride, Arlecchino, servant of one thousand masters.

What a burden! By the way, you would have noticed that all these guys have the word “white” in their names. We even had a president, named Adam White. We even have now an illegal prime minister named Light White, nominated by an illegal president, who finds glory and emancipation in his biblical Arab ancestry. The obsession is strange, the pattern curious, when everything around them is as dark as lava.

Confused, that the perception of colors may be the root cause of the misunderstanding, the Saudis could not hold back, in fact, they snapped, “if these are your lights and whites, how do your blacks look like?” Frantz Fanon, in his majestic treatise on the psychology of the black man, calls it the inferiority syndrome, the burden of the black man as he seeks emancipation and legitimacy, even naming his children after the white color.

Of course, I am distressed that half a century later, the sub culture of the colonial domination is this time around flourishing and kicking in this unfortunate land of the Somalis. Or tell us why your prayers abandoned you in the jungles of Manaas and Lower Jubba. Could it be that the angels had a problem with your footprints all over the place?

Many people, in fact, attribute your diminishing luck to the allegation that your mission was never sacred in the first place. In fact, I never heard you talk about equal rights to political representation and equal opportunity for all. By joining the illegal TFG, you and the careerist scholars with you endorse the racist 4.5 clause which alienates the vast majority of peaceful communities in the country.

You ignore the rights of the Somali citizen, the rights of indigenous populations, and never take a position against the injustices of the clan chauvinists in the country. No wonder, many people believe that you are an artist, a „xariif” in Somali jargon, a dealer, because such command and use of language to avoid the critical issues is not possible in any other way. Or could it be that your grey cells simply could not connect the dots, jammed, and made a U-turn, in this monkey business, when the going got tough.

No wonder, the Kenyan Security Services made a sound calculation, they let you go, no strings attached, you must be more of a help outside than inside. Just like a bat, hitting one wall at a time, as you move from one stage to the next, but always inside a cage, all they have to do is push the buttons, and you dance to the melody, a marionette.

I watched your press conference on Al-Jazeera as your caravan left Mogadishu in mid December 2006. Frankly, I was suspicious, not because I could see the wrinkles on your face and your thoughts but your body language and the shrinking of your white gown seemed disturbing to me, a sign that you were on a journey. It was a troubling scene to see your caravan in what you would call a “hijra” from a city infested with crooks.

Sounds like that you are haunted by a desire to make parallelisms, seeking glory and prophecy where there is only pain, suffering, betrayal, and anger. But all you got and all you will get is the BBC propaganda machine. You must be unlucky. Then came Djibouti.

I listened to your BBC interview of June 8, 2008 as you painted the horizon with colors and flowers. What bothered me was that there was no passion and excitement in your voice as you described the terms of your “glorious” peace deal. I could even feel the uneasiness in your voice, the irritation, from thousands of miles as if big brother Ghelle is twisting your arm. I understand that you do not speak good English, but that does not give you the right to misrepresent the terms of your transaction to the Somali people.

More reckless, when you want to test and hope that things will go your way, backed by generic slogans of wanting to get the invaders out with a pen, two pages, and 300 words. More serious, you do not even seem to have a clue at the historic process that is in motion in Southern Somalia, today. What a misery, when will this strange Somalia stop producing these geniuses? And then, it was striking to hear you talk about the need to save even one life, and back here, I rejoice, finally you got it – because it seems that you are having company in the middle of the night when you are alone with your God, the God of Bakaaraha, Idaale, and Manaas.

Nagging silent voices of school children, alive in our memories, whom you will never be able to suppress, no matter what you do. Go and visit them, their bones are still alive, feeding the sacred jungles of Manaas, Idaale, and Gosha, talk to them and ask for forgiveness.

You may blame the United Nations envoy to Somalia for getting you into this mess and bringing your career to an abrupt disappointment. Too bad, you spent too much time recycling verses instead of watching and learning how the UN works. Had you some patience and some decency to give time to time, you would have known that only three years after its foundation, by 1948, the former colonial powers were using this organization to expand their strategic interests.

Deep in the ocean, the sharks continue to eat the small fish, so goes the Somali saying. Yes, that is precisely why we are in this mess, setup to fail. As far as the UN envoy is concerned, he is there to prevent the Somali catastrophe from hitting his ambitious career. He is an eagle who is trained to eat with the chicken in times of drought, a survivor, in and out, a clean career, a clean record, that is the name of the game in New York and Geneva.

But never mind, I do not expect to win this argument, for the trauma of misery, the injustices of a century of colonialism and oppression have had their toll. Painfully, I must admit that I should not be surprised if you end up equating powdered mild cans with the sovereignty of nations. The right hand does not matter as long as the left hand is feeding the guys.

The stark reality which we all face today is that the AU and IGAD chieftains, in their racist agenda, consider themselves as the new Trusteeship Council for the trust territory of Somalia, and you as nothing more than the usual Somali in the reserves, easy to handle with cookies and sticks.

But I do expect that once and for all you bring an end to this misery and stop being used, in this world of users and used. From Mogadishu, to Nairobi, to Yemen, and now Djibouti, the circle is closed, what more? Believe me, settling in Giohar and pulling the strings from the land of the Shiidle Sagaalo and Walamoi, is not an option – it is not your native town, it has never been so.

But if you insist, then we have to seek relief, you are on notice that displacing native indigenous populations is a crime against humanity. Fair enough.

Mark my words, and learn something from me. Given your record, you and the careerist professors with you, will not be the exception to prove the laws that govern colonial occupations, a proof that you must be newcomers to this game.

You did get away with a lot, this time around, however, you landed in a box with a timer – 120 days hang around your neck, finally the clock is ticking on you, you are at the mercy of gravity in a free and fair fall, and I can already feel your heart beat.

Get a new job, stop being a customer to the BBC, the ways of the Almighty are infinite. What a long journey, had you used maps, you could have found a shorter route to Mogadishu and why not Addis, after all, it is only a matter of time. Going east to go west, adios amigos, wish you a pleasant journey, you have the carpet, all roads lead to Hamaray, where your buddies are waiting for you. Only that you will not be able to hide your foot prints in the this age of the internet.

Just let the BBC propaganda machine and Hiiraan Online do the talking and the advocacy, both are good in the art of selling. They even sold Joseph to the people. Must keeping a job reach this point? Tell us, who whispers in their ears, for I would not be surprised if they nominate you for the Nobel Peace Prize.

In fact, only a couple of years ago, despite all your shining contradictions, Hiiraan Online must have seen you in a dream – they nominated you “the man of the year” – they still owe the Somali people an explanation – what was the decision based on? What is the affair?. Back to business, now. May you know that smart people like you, no matter how they look like, and how many verses they read, are not entitled to get the benefit of the doubt.

Your status, claimed or usurped, prevents you from claiming lack of knowledge as defense. Neither can you hide behind the Will of Allah to justify the death of thousands of people when your actions, politically instigate uninformed masses to become the targets of Ethiopian bombardments while you and your inner group run for cover.

I am aware that in similar conditions, confusion and frustration may take over, tempting you to use the clan factor, in fact, signs of outbursts and degeneration can already be felt in your voice. The way things are, for now, decency requires that you shut up, step aside, stay away from making stupid declarations, even if Prince Sheikh Big Beard and the fat old lady draft one for you, as they did with Sheikh Salah in 1913, and stop causing more damage.

Frankly, you owe the Somali people this consideration.

gaatamo@benadir-watch.com July 25, 2008

RAILA NOW TO QUIT ODM PNU COALITION UNLESS

 By Isaac Ongiri

The delicate Grand Coalition is on shaky ground — ODM is unhappy with how partner PNU and specifically President Kibaki is running the Government.

On Monday, the party’s senior Cabinet members met under Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s leadership — to send its message home. In contention is a raft of issues since the formation of the Grand Coalition Government in March last year, foremost among them that the party is not being treated as an equal in the coalition.

Also ruffling feathers is the unilateral decision by President Kibaki to assent to the controversial Kenya Communications (Amendment) Bill 2008, even after the Prime Minister had advised while forwarding a Media Owners Association memorandum that it be returned for further consultations.

And the allegation that Head of Civil Service Francis Muthaura has been undermining the PM surfaced again. Also rankling ODM is the way the President — through the office of the Head of Civil Service — is handling the reform of the Electoral Commission.

To underscore its seriousness, the PM lined up 18 of his senior Cabinet ministers, and thereafter addressed a press conference on their concerns.

Here, it emerged that the party was considering its options in the coalition if its interests were not met.

“We have met to review the status of this coalition Government and to discuss a few pertinent issues and draw our agenda for 2009,” Raila said.

Flex muscle

The party appeared to flex muscle on Monday when it hinted at forming a team to prepare its fallback position if things don’t work out in the coalition.

“The next Cabinet meeting will determine our next course of action. If we feel our partners are taking us for a ride, then we shall think otherwise,” said a minister who did not want to be named.

He said ODM would exhaust all avenues first before taking action.

“We have mandated the PM to first address the issues we have raised with Kibaki ahead of the Cabinet meeting. The PM will report back to the ODM team ahead of the meeting,” he said.

He continued: “We have conceded a lot and PNU seems to be taking us as junior partners. It seems Kibaki is not in charge of his team,” the minister said, adding that there was a clique of individuals who must be stopped from misadvising the President.

Crisis meeting

At the meeting held in his office, Raila distanced himself and his party from the controversial Communications Act that gags the media, saying it had been discussed by the PNU Cabinet before ODM joined Government.

ODM said the Bill was agreed on by the 17-member Cabinet from the PNU side formed in January 2008 when mediator John Kufuor arrived in the country.

The latest turn of events could put a strain on the coalition government less than a year after its formation.

Said Raila: “I advised the President not to sign that (Communications) Bill but it now appears that the President was supporting that Bill while we were opposing it”.

On Monday, The Standard obtained correspondence between Raila and Kibaki on the Communications Bill.

In his December 15, 2008 letter to Kibaki, Raila said: “I have reviewed the petition (from the media fraternity) and I’m of the considered view that fresh consultations are appropriate in the matter before any further action is taken on the Bill. There appears to be merit in some of the issues raised in the petition…”

Monday’s meeting is said to have come up with several demands that must be met by President Kibaki.

On the agenda, apart from the Kenya Communications (Amendment) Act 2008, was the transition at the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK). Also discussed was the office of the Head of Civil Service and its relationship with the functions of the PM’s office. It was proposed that Muthaura’s office be abolished if it cannot be placed under the Office of the Prime Minister, who oversees functions of Government ministries.

The meeting also proposed that the party mandates a task force to come up with a fallback position.

The party’s PG is scheduled for tomorrow, and MPs are expected to endorse the ministers’ position.

A Cabinet meeting is scheduled for Thursday.

Addressing journalists after the three-hour meeting, Raila said the party leaders had converged to have a straight talk to review the status of the coalition.

Those in Monday’s meeting included Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi, ministers William Ruto, Joseph Nyagah, Charity Ngilu, Henry Kosgey, James Orengo, Chris Obure and Otieno Kajwang.

Also present were Dalmas Otieno, Wycliffe Oparanya, Anyang’ Nyong’o, Mohamed Elmi and Hellen Sambili.

ODM ministers, Raila said, will present their reservations on the new media law on Thurday and demand a new process to review the offending clauses.

“People have fought for freedom, some have died for our country to be free, the media may have its own mistakes but Press freedom must be guaranteed. The Government must be stopped from any attempt to violate it,” the PM said.

Cracks in coalition

ECK offices

The cracks in the Coalition — four months into its first birthday — have been widening over the months, in spite of seemingly cordial relationship between Kibaki and Raila.

“It is the feeling of the ODM ministers that myself and President Kibaki should form a new caretaker committee to oversee the transition and secure Government assets formerly owned by the ECK,” Raila said.

Raila reiterated his earlier demand that the former ECK Secretariat at Anniversary Towers in Nairobi remain closed until such a time that new and an all-consultative caretaker committee is formed.

According to Raila, former ECK staff suspected of involvement in last year’s poll fiasco, and who were named in the transition team by Muthaura must not be allowed in the team.

“We know it will be necessary to have some of the ECK staff reabsorbed in the public service, but we cannot allow those whose activities in the rigging of last year’s elections are known to lead the transition,” he said.

DEADLY WEAPONS SHIP TO KENYA HIJACKED BY SOMALIS

Pirates hijack ship off Kenya coast

By AGENCIES  (email the author)

Posted Friday, September 26 2008 at 13:55

Pirates grabbed a Ukrainian cargo ship possibly loaded with military munitions and even tanks off the Kenyan shore on Thursday.

Three motor boats loaded with armed men intercepted the Ukrainian bulk carrier Faini in international waters off Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry officials said.

The Belize-flagged vessel was carrying an authorized Ukrainian government arms shipment to Kenya including 30 type T-72 tanks, an additional number of armored personnel carriers, and munitions, according to Ukraine media reports.

Ukrainian diplomats confirmed that the vessel with 21 crew members aboard – 17 Ukrainians, 3 Russians, and one Latvian – had been captured by the pirates but declined to provide details on the ship’s cargo.

The captain contacted the ship’s owner by telephone and reported that armed men were boarding, shortly before losing communications.

Ukrainian government and commercial representatives were attempting to re-establish contact.

The pirates’ demands, if any, were not reported.

KENYA: 500 KIKUYU YOUTHS EXECUTED BY KENYA POLICE

500 Kikuyu youths executed by KENYA police

Secret police killings of more than 500 youths were sanctioned by the Government, a new report claims. The murders were carried out by special execution squads and were part of the crackdown on Mungiki.

They were authorized by the top “political leadership” and the police command, says the report.

But while providing graphic details on the alleged executions by police, the report offer very little evidence that the killings were sanctioned at top levels of government.

The watchdog claims to have recorded evidence from some police officers who claimed they were ordered to take part in the killings — but said that part of their report cannot be released until the officers’ safety is guaranteed.

Mutilated

The officers were said to be seeking guarantees of safety under the Witness Protection Act. They are said to have named senior officers who gave the execution orders.

Besides shooting their victims, the police are said to have strangled, drowned, bludgeoned and mutilated some of their targets.

And the squads of ruthless killers formed to carry out the killings are still active, according to the report, by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights.

Names of victims, the dates on which they were killed and places where their bodies were dumped are all detailed.

The watchdog also gives accounts from witnesses including details of how and where the victims were seized, the names of the police officers involved and the registration numbers of the vehicles they used.

The rights group also claims police deployed to the special murder squads took advantage of the shoot-to-kill policy to set up an extortion cartel in which families of youths arrested were forced to pay hefty amounts of money to have them freed.

Witness accounts show the rogue officers demanded between Sh10, 000 and Sh1 million to free a suspect, otherwise he was killed.

Kwekwe Squad, a crack unit formed last year to hunt Mungiki sect members, is accused of being at the forefront of the killings.

Months after the squad was formed, the report says, other teams, including regular and Administration Police officers were involved. But the police on Tuesday officially denied that they had anything to do with the killings.

Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe said: “It’s impossible for police to engage in those activities. Those are not actions that may hold anybody responsible here at Kenya Police.”

The shocking new claims were revealed by KNCHR vice-chairman Hassan Omar and the watchdog’s principal human rights officer Victor Kamau.

“It’s unacceptable to kill citizens in utter disregard of the rule of law. The attorney-general must rule that all these murders and extra-judicial killings are investigated and perpetrators prosecuted,” said Mr Omar.

According to the report, the last execution, allegedly by the police, was on July 7 and several other youths are reported to have disappeared as late as last month.

Dubbed “The Cry of the Blood”, the report is a follow-up to another released on May 11, last year which police commissioner Hussein Ali dismissed as “baseless and lacking evidence”.

His spokesman Mr Kiraithe commented on Tuesday: “The force is a little bit tired of answering people who have opted to make a career out of malicious allegations against the police.”

Criminal

He went on: “We have several institutions which are ready to deal with allegations of a criminal nature, including law courts, the ombudsman and the police oversight board.”

He said the human rights commission could not be relied on, judging from their previous reports, and termed this latest one “a figment of their imagination”.

The report names 349 victims, whose bodies were identified by relatives, while another 200 are yet to be identified.

People have been reporting to the commission’s headquarters in Nairobi since October, last year, when it invited, through newspaper adverts, information on missing people.

Police used Government vehicles, privately registered cars and taxis to whisk away suspects. The officers are accused of having raided homes in the hunt for suspects and waylaying them on the roads and at matatu stages.

Others, the report says, were lured to their deaths through telephone calls suspected to have been made by officers.

In some of the incidents highlighted, KNCHR reveals mobile phone numbers used. In other cases, the callers concealed their identities.

The report also presents photographs of some of the vehicles used by police. Photographs of those killed are also presented, with the report blaming police for not opening inquest files as required by the law.

List of people said to have been killed by security agencies

The following are some of the people allegedly killed by police for their links to Mungiki:

Benson Mwangi Waraga, 55 a tailor in Nairobi found dead at City mortuary on May 19, last year, two days after he was arrested by police after a shoot-out near his workplace. A postmortem report indicated that he died of “multiple organ injuries due to multiple gunshot wounds”.

Another one is Ndung’u Wagacha,the acting Mungiki chairman. He was killed together with acting treasurer Naftali Irungu on April April 28, on the Naivasha-Nairobi highway.

Their relatives reported to the commission that police officers had visited their home several times in the past and warned they would kill him.

In another case, Wachira Peter Mwangi Gitau and Julius Irungu Mwangi were arrested on June, 30 this year during a crackdown on hawkers at the Muthurwa market in Nairobi.

Mr Wachira’s was captured on camera and the picture published in newspapers the following day. Mortuary reports showed Mr Wachira’s and Mr Gitau’s bodies were delivered there by police at dawn the following day.

Police said the bodies were collected at Ngong. A post-mortem conducted on Wachira indicated he was strangled and tortured.

Mr George Waweru Kamwene and Mr Charles Mungai Gathumbi, both officials of the Matatu Welfare Association(MWA) were found dead in Suswa, Naivasha on Augut 19, last year.

According to their relatives, the two were last seen alive at the Old Nation House roundabout, Nairobi. He had attempted to call his lawyer on cell phone but it was switched off shortly after.

The week before, Mr Gathumbi had been held for five days at the Makongeni police station while Mr Kamwene had been arrested and released.

Ms Virginia Nyakio Maina the wife of jailed Mungiki leader Maina Njenga was found dead on April 11. It was found alongside the body of her driver, Mr George Njoroge, at Gakoe forest in Gatundu on a Thursday evening.

The two went missing two days earlier after an alleged carjacking incident at Nairobi West. They were headed to her home in Ngong.

Mr Charles Ndung’u, Njoroge’s brother, said they reported the carjacking incident to the Lang’ata police station, but the officers did not offer any assistance.

The sect’s top leadership blamed a senior police officer in Nairobi for a series of systematic execution of sect members.

Her husband, Maina Njenga who is jailed in Naivasha Maximum Security Prison has been pushing for release to bury Nyakio.

His application to be released on bond had been rejected. Mr Joseph Kimani Ruo had been arrested together with Njenga in 2005.

On June 21, last year, the two were arraigned at the High Court in Nairobi for delivery of judgment of their case and Mr Ruo was acquitted.

— Fred Mukinda

KENYANS SUFFERING IN UGANDA

 

A VISIT BY “STOP TEARS MINISTRIES” BASED IN UGANDA TO MEET KENYAN REFUGEES AT A UGANDAN CAMP

 

A BRIEF INFORMATION OF OUR FINDINGS DURING THIS TRIP

 

On 11^th July 2008 Stop Tears Ministries (STM) set for a mission to Kiryandongo Refugee Camp in Bweyale Town, in Uganda. The purpose of our visit was to meet them and give them some presents. The team was led by Ms. Monica Kairu the Country Director.

 

On Saturday 12^th July 2008

The team left Bweyale Town abode hired transport at 08:45am and landed at the school for refugees in Magamaga Ranch 37 Cluster 0, Can-Rom Nursery and Primary School at 09:30am.

 

Pastor Njoroge of Kiryandongo Refugees Interdenominational Church helped us meet the refugees.

 

STM team started a tent-to-tent visits counseling and encouraging the refugees and also mobilized them for a prayer meeting that evening at 03:00pm at the Church. 

 

TENT–TO-TENT

As we went through the camp we noted that almost all families had only one tent for a shelter, apart from the lucky few who had a second one or those who found some mud and wattle, grass thatched huts left by the Sudanese Refugees who were recently repatriated back to Sudan.  You can imagine a family of eight in one tent!

 

TOILETS AND BATHROOMS

The people have no toilets and bathroom facilities.  Apart from those at or near the school; we found some of the people had tried to dig pits and improvised for latrines with scanty covers of canvas or sticks and grass.  The bath shelters are very scanty and mainly are put very close to the residential tents thus building a possibility of a health hazard.

 

KITCHENS

The people have tried to improvise by building simple earth ovens for cooking in the open using dry leaves and sticks because they do not have fire wood.

 

WATER AND SANITATION

Has been addressed by a provision of boreholes which unfortunately have hard water which the refugees say had a stale smell and a salty taste.  All members of the community take turns at fetching water from these few water places especially the children and their mothers.

 

FOOD

Food is supplied monthly from the camp stores but only a cup of beans and a cup of rice for a family and half a cup for singles this hardly supplies one meal a day. The refugee families are each allotted a plot of land to put up their shelter and cultivate some crops.  The total land for the refugee camp is said to be three square miles and anybody in the camp is free to find and utilize as much land as he can if it is not being used by any other person.

 

SEEDS

The greatest problem is the short supply of seeds; they were given very few seeds. They told us that they have been forced by the tough condition to eat the seeds for lack of food. 

 

WORK

The refuges are a hard working people in fact we found when they were all in their fields trying to cultivate maize, beans and some vegetables to keep them going even when it is dry and sunny. The earlier crop of maize and beans shows a very rich crop, so given assistance of the provision of seeds they will almost be self sustaining in times ahead. 

 

LAND

They too have need for finances to open up new land, plough and bulls can be hired at 40,000 Uganda shillings per acre or tractors can be hired at 80,000 per acre to clear the land for planting. The land is very fertile.

 

PANYADOLI HEALTH CENTRE

The team also made a long trek to Panyadoli Health Centre. There we met the sick waiting for treatment and those admitted in the wards.  In the three wards, were Pediatrics, Women, Men and Children.  On our way to the Health Centre we met a very worried refugee, who was carrying his daughter. She had been burnt by fire on her left leg. His young son of about 2 ½ years old had a very high fever but was not attended to at the Health Centre even after waiting from morning to evening.  After failing to get treatment this man then decided to take his children home. No health worker had reported to work that day.

 

Pastor Njoroge and his team told STM team that they often pray for the sick to give them hope because the Health Centre does not have enough drugs. This is part of the reasons that  make the Health Officers to stay away from their work place. In such a situation, those admitted at the Health Centre just sleep and wait for prayers while others stay at home even when they are sick.

 

AREAS OF CONCERN AND NEED: A CRY FOR HELP

 

CHILDREN

Children are being brought up in one tent for a shelter with all other family members, which could turn to a social threat to their cultural development.  Despite inadequate food to feed them, there is a lot of child labor as children have to carry out chores like carrying water from water places, joining adults in cultivation in the fields for long hours.  They have no shoes and remember there is poor sanitation and very poor bath shelters that could bring about a catastrophe in case of a breakout of contagious disease like cholera, diarrhea etc.  There are two schools in each Ranch with Nursery and Primary School.  There is great need for scholastic materials and teachers.

 

GIRLS

Young girls above 15 years due to idleness and lack of school facilities have the temptation to move out to towns and probably get involved in sexual acts of selling their bodies to get what is not available at the camp.  The elders at the camp confirmed that the girls are actually selling their bodies to help themselves. This is really sad. We request ALL the HIV/AIDS organizations to visit the camp.

 

WOMEN

Apart from women selling themselves they are subjected to almost all house hold chores mostly without assistance from the children and the men. They are therefore burdened psychologically, physically and mentally as they try to keep the family; toiling in the gardens, fetching water, preparing food and trying to bring comfort to their families.  Sometimes they have to choose between the family going hungry and sparing the seeds for planting. 

 

YOUNG MEN (YOUTH)

Young men due to idleness and lack of school facilities have resorted to drinking local brew and loitering in the town centre , which cause them to misbehave.  They might end up steeling, mugging, even murder or get themselves killed.

 

MEN

The men face challenges of managing affairs of the family without resources.  So most of the time they are idle and this could lead them to evil acts like stealing to have something for the family or even drinking local brew.  The challenges and possible failure brings a lot of frustration in families and so sometimes women abuse and beating.  This problem needs to be addressed where men can be provided with basic occupations e.g. basic tools to keep them busy or have a way of earning. These men feel frustrated when they see their wives and daughters selling sex for survival.  Some have ended up becoming HIV positive and infecting others due to the above habit.

 

GENERAL NEEDS

The clothes they came with are now worn out; sometimes they even have had to sell off household items like saucepans, mattresses, cloths etc to get food on the table. The small tents they live in are now worn-out and of less help especially during rain periods.

 

 

OUR APPEAL TO HUMANITARIAN ORGANISATIONS, THE CLERGY, GOVERNMENTS AND WELL WISHERS.

 

ü      There is a great need for assistance in various areas. The refugees confessed that they see relief stocks being brought to the stores but they are doubtful whether everything reaches them. More co-ordination is required to ensure fair distribution.

 

ü      There is great need of support in areas of provision of seeds, food stuffs, clothing, shoes, soap, scholastic materials and items for recreation, etc.

 

ü      Sanitation and improved health facilities and provision of medicines and first aid kits to avert likely illnesses that could strike the refugees at any time now. 

 

ü      There is an urgent need to help them put up alternative shelters (building materials) safer than tents. Construction of toilets is very urgent.  

 

ü      There is great need to look into areas of Education, Post Primary Institutions and skills in practical fields for the youth.

 

ü      There is great need for drugs, mosquito nets, beddings and voluntary medical staff, / paramedical at the camp and Health centre.

 

Finally STM calls on governments, organizations, companies and all peoples

to kindly assist in whatever way to take care of the suffering refugees without delay.  Kenyans abroad should play a bigger role in raising funds to help these helpless people.

 

Appreciation is extended to: The Ugandan Government for having accepted to receive, host and take care of the refugees at the Reception Centre of Mulanda Transit Camp and at Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement. Our appreciation is also extended to all other bodies that have given a hand in one way or another to these Kenyan Refugees.

 

Please send your comments and offers through Monica at: monicakairu@yahoo.com

Cell no. +256 772 88 99 99. +256 712 555 6 55.

KPLC MANAGER EXECUTED IN NAIROBI

KPLC manager dies in dawn attack

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By CHURCHILL OTIENO  (email the author)

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Posted Friday, August 15 2008 at 12:41

In Summary

• A manager and a driver with KPLC shot dead.
• Assailants had laid an ambush.
• Manager died on the spot, driver in hospital.

 

A manager and a driver with the Kenya Power and Lighting Company were this morning shot dead by unknown assailants in Nairobi’s Madaraka estate.

Mr Meshack Monye, the manager in-charge at KPLC’s Limuru Depot, and his driver Mr Harman Liengo were about to set off for their work station when they were ambushed at about 7am.

A KPLC spokesman Gregory Ngalu told Daily Nation Online that Mr Menyo died on the spot while his driver was rushed to the nearby Nairobi West Hospital where he later died.

“The attackers were apparently waiting in the compound when the driver went to pick Mr Monye,” the spokesman said.

The thugs had earlier carjacked a taxi driver, forced him into the boot of his car, before driving to the

GITHONGO TO RETURN TO KENYA

Githongo set for Kenya return

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Former Governance and Ethics Permanent Secretary John Githongo at a past news conference. He returns to Kenya this month. Photo/FILE 

By ANTHONY KARIUKI  (email the author)

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Posted Thursday, August 14 2008 at 11:47

In Summary

• John Githongo is set to return to Kenya this month.
• He returns on the invitation of PM Raila Odinga and VP Kalonzo Musyoka.
• He will address a meeting of the Kenya Human Rights Commission on 20 August.

 

John Githongo, a former Government official in charge of corruption, is set to return to Kenya this month.

Related Stories

• Return home, Raila urges Githongo

Mr Githongo was President Kibaki’s Permanent Secretary for Governance and Ethics and is expected in the country after a self-exile of over three years.

He left the country for fear of his life after exposing corrupt deals involving high-ranking Government officials. The saga came to be known as Anglo Leasing.

He is expected to address a meeting of the Kenya Human Rights Commission in Nairobi on 20 August.

In a statement issued in London, Mr Githongo said that he had been invited back by Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Vice President Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka.

“I have been greatly encouraged by both the Prime Minister and the Vice President,” he said, “and now believe that it is time to return home and make any contribution I can to the future of my country.

“Kenya has faced severe problems in recent months, and some of these remain. But I have complete confidence in the ability of Kenyans, at all levels, to confront and surmount them.

“I intend to speak my mind on what I feel needs to be done. I have no political affiliations. My obligations are solely to the people of Kenya – particularly the poor, the dispossessed and those in need.”

He is currently Senior Associate Member of St Antony’s College, Oxford, and Vice-President, Policy and Advocacy, of the relief, development and advocacy agency World Vision.

The Anglo Leasing-type contracts saw the stepping aside of then Internal Security minister Dr Chris Murungaru, Finance minister David Mwiraria, Justice minister Kiraitu Murungi and a presidential aide to pave way for investigations.

GITHONGO’S COMEBACK TO KENYA

Githongo set for Kenya return

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Former Governance and Ethics Permanent Secretary John Githongo at a past news conference. He returns to Kenya this month. Photo/FILE 

By ANTHONY KARIUKI  (email the author)

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Posted Thursday, August 14 2008 at 11:47

In Summary

• John Githongo is set to return to Kenya this month.
• He returns on the invitation of PM Raila Odinga and VP Kalonzo Musyoka.
• He will address a meeting of the Kenya Human Rights Commission on 20 August.

 

John Githongo, a former Government official in charge of corruption, is set to return to Kenya this month.

Related Stories

• Return home, Raila urges Githongo

Mr Githongo was President Kibaki’s Permanent Secretary for Governance and Ethics and is expected in the country after a self-exile of over three years.

He left the country for fear of his life after exposing corrupt deals involving high-ranking Government officials. The saga came to be known as Anglo Leasing.

He is expected to address a meeting of the Kenya Human Rights Commission in Nairobi on 20 August.

In a statement issued in London, Mr Githongo said that he had been invited back by Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Vice President Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka.

“I have been greatly encouraged by both the Prime Minister and the Vice President,” he said, “and now believe that it is time to return home and make any contribution I can to the future of my country.

“Kenya has faced severe problems in recent months, and some of these remain. But I have complete confidence in the ability of Kenyans, at all levels, to confront and surmount them.

“I intend to speak my mind on what I feel needs to be done. I have no political affiliations. My obligations are solely to the people of Kenya – particularly the poor, the dispossessed and those in need.”

He is currently Senior Associate Member of St Antony’s College, Oxford, and Vice-President, Policy and Advocacy, of the relief, development and advocacy agency World Vision.

The Anglo Leasing-type contracts saw the stepping aside of then Internal Security minister Dr Chris Murungaru, Finance minister David Mwiraria, Justice minister Kiraitu Murungi and a presidential aide to pave way for investigations.

KENYA ODM WILL QUIT COALITION

PNU reacts to ODM’s threat to end coalition

Published on 14/08/2008

By Lucianne LimoThe Party of National Unity (PNU) has reacted sharply to threats by Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) to pull out of the coalition following the announcement of the Kamukunji parliamentary election results.

PNU termed as “unfortunate” remarks made by Medical Services Minister Anyang’ Nyong’o that ODM would part ways with PNU for stealing the Kamukunji elections.

“The threat by a section of ODM to pull out of the Grand Coalition is unfortunate because the coalition is based on the Unity Accord enacted by Parliament,” Public Health Minister Beth Mugo said.

Mugo, who was addressing journalists at PNU headquarters on Wednesday, also rubbished threats by ODM that it would call for mass action.

flimsy excuses

“No coalition can be based on lies and those calling for mass action should be sincere and stop giving flimsy excuses as grounds for pulling out of the coalition. Mass action by misguided political leaders is what is misleading secondary children into violence,” she said.

The newly elected Kamukunji MP Simon Mbugua, Embakasi MP Ferdinand Waititu, and former Siakago MP Justine Muturi accompanied Mugo.

“It is high time that ODM learn to accept facts and figures when they face defeat instead of peddling lies and issuing threats,” Mugo said on behalf of PNU.

PNU and ODM have been embroiled in bitter rivalry following the announcement of the results in which PNU’s Mbugua was declared the winner ahead of ODM’s Ibrahim Mohammed.

The announcement of the election results on Monday by the Electoral Commission of Kenya elicited a war of words with ODM accusing PNU of stealing the votes while PNU maintained it won fairly.

Nyong’o, who is the party secretary general, warned that the future of the coalition was at risk following the Kamukunji events and threatened that the party might pull out.

Yesterday, PNU told off ODM and said they cannot keep threatening to pull out of the coalition every time they lost.

committed to unity

“PNU is committed to unity and no amount of threats and false propaganda will derail it from the course of unity, as it is the best for this country and we call upon our partners to respect the outcome of the will of people,” added Mugo.

Muturi clarified that the court ordered for the tallying of the votes and not a recount, as claimed by ODM.

“It is unfair for people to result to jungle law by threatening mass action. If they feel aggrieved, they can move to court and file an election petition,” said Muturi.

Mbugua maintained that he won and ODM should stop whining over their loss. Waititu said Nairobi was a PNU zone and soon they would reclaim the Starehe seat where former MP Maina Kamanda has challenged the election of Housing Assistant Minister Margaret Wanjiru

Governments undermine democracy

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.

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?”

 

 

 

 

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