Kenyan Rivals sign deal and 45 years too long

Rival factions in Kenya's political crisis reportedly agreed Thursday to write a new constitution, a move that could allow for power-sharing as part of a deal aimed at ending weeks of violence in this East African country.

This came about after

President Bush said Thursday he will dispatch Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Kenya to demand a halt to the violence that has left more than 1,000 people dead.

The Kenya government is going to probe radio hate speech.

Kenya may take "remedial measures" against the British high commissioner for failing to recognise President Mwai Kibaki's government, a minister says. I wonder what Moses Wetangula means by this.

In the run-up to the 2007 General Elections I came across a ghastly hate email against the ODM leader, written and undersigned by the son of a (re-elected) hardline minister. The same minister is widely seen as being associated with Mungiki. This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as the inferiority of leadership in Kenya is concerned.

They had 45 years to address the burning land question in the country, but all they did was to steal and acquire huge tracts of land for themselves.

They had 45 years to prove to Kenyans that they are all equal in their aspirations, opportunities, human rights and cultural traditions, but all they did was to protect - at any cost as we now see - a resented Kikuyu-dominated hegemony and the selected rich from other tribes they need to spread their tentacles all over the country, while regional disparities and abject poverty (including among ordinary Kikuyus) continue to pester.

They had 45 years to respect and promote freedom and democratic rights, but all they did was keeping their flocks in bondage in order to control them in the pursuit of selfish interests and to issue death threats to heroes like Githongo, Maina Kiai, Muthoni Wanyeki, David Ndii and others.

The assassinations of Pio Gama Pinto, Tom Mboya, G.M. Kariuki, Alexander Muge, Robert Ouko and many others were all based on the same script: To defend an entrenched Mafia hegemony. They are those, who right now do not want the Kofi Annan mediation to succeed and sit tight in and around State House, those, who don't mind burning more of their flock, those who cling to their extremist stands and allow hate messages to circulate and protect their vernacular 'Mille Collines' radios, those who allow parochialism to erase better judgement, those who have completely lost semblance of human beings.

It is time for the still sober but shocked Kenyan citizens to stop their helpless praying or gently laying flowers at freedom corner. They should in their millions march to State House and stay there peacefully until the mayhem ends and the culprits are brought to The Hague. The tragedy is that this won't happen.

Quotes from 45 years too long by Philip Kiarie.

Related article: Beyond the politics of polarization.