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Comment by afrojp on January 16, 2011 at 8:37pm

Kenya no longer asleep, the chickens will come home to roost very soon

Wise people have often told us that the more things change, the more they stay the same. I have been reminded of this by Senior Counsel John Khaminwa. This respected lawyer has rather odd views on the dilemma of The Hague Six. Writing in the current issue of The Nairobi Law Monthly, Mr Khaminwa says, ‘With a new director of public prosecutions, a new chief justice and a new attorney general, genuine suspects may be dealt with locally effectively and ruthlessly in accordance with the law, which may be more punitive than (in) The Hague.’ And so he invites The Hague to discontinue its interest in the Kenyan case.

I doubt that even Khaminwa himself believes this hollowness. But he probably does. If I were to address the man – which I shall refrain from doing – I would say that Khaminwa reminds me of Winston Smith, the tragic hero of George Orwell’s novel, Nineteen-Eighty-Four. After unremitting years of spirited resistance against the decayed regime of Big Brother, Smith eventually gives way. Orwell concludes the tragic story of Winston Smith with the words: ‘He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.’

I should be tempted to say such things about Khaminwa, a lawyer who was once, long ago, detained without trial. It should perhaps not worry us very much when politicians say the kind of things Khaminwa is saying. But we must worry when people who have been paragons of reform tell us to be satisfied with cosmetic change. The problem was never the individuals heading these institutions. It was always the system. Already, both President Kibaki and Premier Raila are bargaining to have their poodles in these positions. The two principals who rode to power as votaries of change have become barefaced poodle masters.’ They have won the victory over themselves and they love Big Brother.

Yet Big Brother is not a real person. It is wrong, for example, to think that Big Brother is someone like former President Moi. Big Brother is a system, a culture – a whole way of doing things. His name and face is impunity. Without the toppling of Big Brother, it does not matter that we import angels and saints from heaven to take over. They will do the self-same things as those who preceded them. Eight years ago we were chanting that all was possible without Moi. Today the Government is talking about spending Sh4.7 billion to defend the President’s people and the Premier’s people in The Hague. Conversely, it is asking The Hague to drop the case against its people so that they can be tried by a ‘reformed Judiciary.’ And in both events, the Government has begun a campaign to incite African countries against the Rome Statutes. Such is the system Khaminwa is telling us to take pride in.

On a positive note, we have sworn in a Judicial Service Commission. People like John Khaminwa and Raila Odinga have been Big Brother’s victims in the past. It will be the height of tragedy if it transpires that their struggle was never against Big Brother, but rather against themselves. For, when Raila bargains with Kibaki over whose man should be the AG and whose the CJ, the rest of the nation becomes like the creatures in George Orwell’s other story, Animal Farm. They look from Raila to Kibaki and from Kibaki to Raila and they cannot tell the difference. When Khaminwa says what he is saying, Kenyans look from him to the people who have given the Judiciary a bad name and they cannot tell the difference. They look at the new Constitution and at the old one and they cannot tell the difference.

Ultimately, the onus of upholding common decency shifts from the appointing authority to the person being appointed and to the interpreters. When the appointing authority demonstrates that he has no face to lose, the person being offered the job must show that he is not a poodle. We have read in the press the names of some very reputable lawyers, two of whom the two principals are likely to appoint to be AG and CJ in disregard of the JSC and the spirit of the Constitution. In this case, these people must dignify themselves by rejecting the appointment. But if their self esteem is so low, then let them take up the appointment. But they must know all the time that the nation holds them in contempt, regardless that they had the qualifications. For, it is not just about the qualifications.

It is about whose interests they are going to serve. If they are going to serve Kenyans, they must subject themselves to a competitive professional engagement process. Public perceptions matter. Kenyans will want to believe that you did not get there because your mother placed a certain tongue in your mouth, nor were you placed there so that you can preside over the swearing into office under dubious circumstances, of the person who appointed you. Kenyans will want to have faith in the court system atop of which you sit.

Perhaps Mzee Kibaki does not have much at stake, as an outgoing Head of State. I said it to Raila Odinga last week and I say it again – Kenyans are watching your every step, Mister Prime Minister. You can ask the African Union to get out of the Rome Statutes. You can allow Kenya’s taxes to follow politicians to The Hague as the Turkana die of famine. You can trade the horses of constitutional appointments with Mzee Kibaki. You can do all these and more. Lawyers like John Khaminwa may endorse all this. But Kenya is no longer asleep. The chickens will come home to roost within the next twenty months.

　

The writer is a publishing editor and media

Source : http://www.standardmedia.co.ke

Comment by YURI WATANABE on January 1, 2011 at 6:29am

i want travel to kenya this year tell is nice .

i can see masai mara