Kenyatta Victory: Defiance Of Western Affirmation
24 March 2013
By Reason Wafawarova
In a week leading to Zimbabwe's referendum on a new
constitution and at a time we are experiencing bizarre
claims of supernatural happenings across the country,
it is a bit of a quandary for any columnist to focus
on a topic far away from home. Claims about the
occurrence of godly miracles and underworld
supernatural happenings in Zimbabwe now border on the
ridiculous, and the sooner the country wakes up from
this superstition stupor the better for the name of
human civilisation and for the dignity of Africans in
the 21st century.
But there is a shared feeling of relief across the
Kenyan population after the conclusion of last week's
presidential election. This time Kenya did not burn —
no images of barbaric Africa with victims of political
violence being ferried to surgical rooms with spears
and arrows stuck into their skulls. We saw these kind
of images in December 2007, and the use of traditional
weapons between the clashing political rivals painted
Africa as a backward continent struggling to transit
into civilised democracy — perhaps the same way it
makes civilised people across the planet raucously
laugh when they hear of Zimbabwean young men that
pretend to be prophets of God with powers to create
babies and cash from thin air — or weird counter
claims of satanic powers that purportedly turn school
kids into baboons, or any other such primitive
nonsense.
At the conclusion of the election in Kenya, there were
no inflammatory statements this time around. After
losing to outgoing President Mwai Kibaki in 2007,
Raila Odinga was asked by a BBC correspondent to
restrain his supporters and he responded, "I refuse to
be asked to give the Kenyan people an anaesthetic so
that they can be raped."
That was a tacit encouragement to the violent rioters,
and Odinga is lucky not to be among those later
indicted by the ICC for playing key roles in the
violence that killed 1 200 people.
At the height of the political clashes the then Lands
Minister, Kivutha Kibwana, said about Raila Odinga's
supporters: "It is becoming clear that these well-organised
acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing were well
planned, financed and rehearsed by the Orange
Democratic Movement leaders prior to the general
elections."
This time Odinga complained that the election he lost
to Uhuru Kenyatta "lacks integrity," but he quickly
called for "calm, tolerance and peace." It would
appear like the people of Kenya have learnt that
violence does not pay, and as one Kenyan said to the
BBC's Karen Allen, there has been a "revolution in
Kenya's political maturity but not a revolution in the
leadership."
While young Kenyans are celebrating the election of
the country's youngest leader ever, the losing
candidate Odinga seems to lack the maturity to concede
defeat — or the decency to accept the verdict of the
Kenyan people on his political fate. This time he
seems to be licking his wounds all by himself — with
no solidarity message even from his ally Morgan
Tsvangirai.
The court challenge announced by Odinga might simply
be a gimmick to conjure up solidarity so he can retain
the leadership of his party on a sympathy vote, or a
mere face-saving tactic to exit the political scene
with the image of a robbed gallant fighter. From a
legal perspective, the challenge looks badly
compromised by the fact that Odinga simply does not
have the numbers.
Francis Eshitemi, an Odinga supporter from Kibera,
conceded that it was clear his candidate had lost in a
free and fair election. He said: "The problem is that
Raila doesn't have the numbers. There were a few
irregularities, but the gap between Raila and Uhuru is
big."
A Kenyan academic resident in Australia, Charles Okumu,
had this to say: "The ethnic implications for the
Kikuyu-Kalenjin-Meru alliance that gave Kenyatta and
Ruto victory are huge and very significant. It is
indisputable that these three ethnic groups easily
make up about half of Kenya's population, and the ‘we
stand with our own' sentiment was quite evident in the
campaign leading to this election."
Mr Okumu added: "Apart from the numerical advantage of
this coalition, it must be credited to the coalition
leaders that they did an excellent job of mobilising
their supporters for both voter registration and for
turning out to vote on the election day. Raila Odinga
lacked in this respect."
Another Odinga supporter, Isaac Khayiya, was wary of
violence. He said: "This time we want post-election
peace, not war. We will be the ones to suffer if there
is violence. For them, Uhuru, Ruto and Odinga — they
have security and they are rich."
And in comes the quandary of the West — the dilemma
the West faces after their sponsored candidate, Raila
Odinga, was defeated by about one million votes.
Kenyatta, the ICC-indicted candidate that the West so
wished to be the loser, was delivered a solid mandate
by the Kenyan people, and that reality is a bitter
pill to swallow for Western policy makers, let alone
for the sponsors of the Kenyan ICC cases. The ICC
indictment hugely boosted Kenyatta's profile.
However paper-thin his victory margin might be
described, Uhuru Kenyatta still won the election
outright. The result itself shows the defiance of
Kenyan people to Western affirmation in the affairs of
their country, and the rest of Africa was watching.
The West's affirmation for the leadership of Zimbabwe
is on Morgan Tsvangirai and his Western sponsored-MDC-T,
but perhaps it is time the West begins to realise that
the financing of election victories in Africa is no
longer as straightforward as the United States used to
do in Central America in the seventies and the
eighties.
Like Odinga proved to be a worthless leader as Prime
Minister of Kenya under a coalition government with
Kibaki's party, Morgan Tsvangirai has done worse in
proving his lack of leadership depth as Zimbabwe's
Prime Minister in a coalition government with
President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party — and there
are more chances of the scandalous Tsvangirai losing
the vote to the veteran Zimbabwean leader than there
ever were for Odinga losing to Kenyatta.
The alliance between Tsvangirai and Odinga can be
easily described as camaraderie in confusion.
To the majority of Kenyans the matter of the ICC
indictments is viewed as an inconvenience rather than
an impediment, just like sanctions against Zimbabwe
have rallied the masses on the side of President
Mugabe. Those who voted for Uhuru Kenyatta simply do
not regard him as a criminal, and to them he is an
innocent man facing a smear campaign from a
politically motivated international court. It appears
both Uhuru and his supporters are confident that it
will be easy to have Kenyatta cleared. For Kenyans it
was the victory of politics over justice and at The
Hague the West will want imperial politics to triumph
over justice.
Kenyatta is tremendously influential in Kenya and it
can be predicted that a verdict based on the travesty
of justice as was seen in the Saddam Hussein
conviction would certainly trigger a disastrous mob
backlash in Kenya. In the run-up to the election,
Johnnie Carsons, the top American envoy to Africa,
bullishly warned that "choices have consequences," and
that was widely interpreted as a threat to Kenyans not
to vote for Kenyatta.
Clearly the majority of Kenyans have responded by an
open "game on" gesture, and the whole world waits
curiously to see Carsons' threatened consequences.
Carson's predecessor, Jendayi Frazer, has already
rubbished her successor's utterances, saying the
statement was "reckless and irresponsible," adding,
"Kenyatta knows that he needs the United States, and
the United States knows it needs Kenya. While it might
be awkward, there won't be a significant change in our
policy stance toward Kenya or theirs towards us."
In addition, US Secretary of State John Kerry said:
"We will continue to be a strong friend and ally of
the Kenyan people." In reiterating that the ICC
indictment has no effect on his capacity to do his
job, Kenyatta has also urged "the international
community to respect the will of Kenyans," and he has
called on the West to recognise "the sovereignty" of
Kenya.
The indictment of Kenyatta has rallied Kenyan citizens
to the side of their new leader — in total defiance to
the expectation of the West. This is precisely because
the ICC stands as a discredited politically motivated
court whose sole focus is on the continent of Africa.
Since its establishment in July 2002 the ICC has
indicted 30 people and they are all from the African
continent. Of these, 10 are fugitives, one is dead, 9
are either on trial or pre-trial, 4 have been
arrested, one has been acquitted, 3 have had their
charges dismissed and one has been convicted, and that
is Thomas Lubanga of the DRC, who has since appealed.
All this is despite the fact that the illegal Iraq
invasion happened almost a year after the ICC had been
instituted, or that the drone bombings of Afghanistan
civilians still goes on unabated, or that the deadly
and ruthless Nato grazing down of Sirte in the lead-up
to the murdering of Muammar Gaddafi was fully
televised for the world's full viewing.
The ICC has no political motivation to investigate any
of these Western-inflicted atrocities, and that alone
is enough enragement to rally Kenyans around their own
leaders they perceive to be victims of this egregious
conspiracy.
Ayo Johnson, the director of View Point Africa, had
this to say: "Many Africans have lost faith in the ICC
and view it as targeting African leaders and failing
to discharge its justice among non-African leaders."
He added: "Kenya sent a loud message to the ICC —
don't interfere." In what seems to be a strong
affirmation of African resentment for the motives of
the ICC, senior lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi wrote in
the newspaper The Nation that the Kenyatta-Ruto
victory "must be seen as a slap in the face of
sponsors of the ICC".
Britain committed about US$25 million to the Kenyan
election, and the stakes are quite high for the former
colonial power. The top five Kenyan corporations are
British owned, and there is a strategic military base
where British soldiers are sent before deployment to
Afghanistan. These cannot be abandoned easily and
certainly will not.
The United States considers Kenya a central part of
its military strategy in East Africa, especially when
it comes to the anti-terror efforts targeted at
Somalia.
The United States should not exactly worry too much
about the ICC status of Kenyatta, if only the country
was principled enough to respect its own rejection of
the relevance and usefulness of the court.
The US has not only refused to be a signatory to the
Rome Statute that established the ICC but has vastly
mobilised against the work of the ICC by arm-twisting
weaker states to exempt its citizens in their
commitment to the ICC.
Kenya has brought to the fore the dilemma of peace
versus justice. Those that say the result of the
election must be upheld to keep peace in the country
now face the prospect of being labelled rule of law
traitors, while those who favour the route of the ICC
idea of justice risk the label peace traitors.
Kenyan patriotism has been put on trial as well, and
it is hard to believe the ICC can thwart the patriotic
resolve of a defiant people. It is highly likely that
the ICC will drop the charges against Kenyatta and his
co-accused in a show trail to save the face of the
West.
Hardly after Kenyatta's victory the ICC dropped its
charges against Francis Muthaura — the
president-elect's co-accused. For once the people of
Africa seem to be determining global affairs.
Africa we are one and together we will overcome. It is
homeland or death!
Reason Wafawarova is a political writer based in
SYDNEY, Australia. Feedback at wafawarova@yahoo.co.uk
or visit www.wafawarovawrites.com
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