Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Council of the European Union Conclusions on Kenya
2851st EXTERNAL RELATIONS Council meeting Brussels,
18 February 2008
The Council adopted the following conclusions:
1. The Council expresses its deep concern that the violence, uncertainty and instability in Kenya continue.
2. The Council reiterates the urgent need for Kenya’s leaders to engage seriously and flexibly in order to bring an immediate end to the violence and to ensure security, stability and the protection of human rights for all in Kenya. The Council calls on the Kenyan parties to engage constructively in a genuine spirit of compromise in order to find a legitimate political settlement.
3. The Council strongly supports the efforts by the Panel of Eminent African Personalities, led by Mr. Kofi Annan, and stands ready to provide any further assistance it can to this process.
The Council reiterates the necessity for the International Community to stand united behind the dialogue process chaired by Mr. Annan. The Council will monitor this process closely.
Individuals who obstruct the dialogue process or who encourage violence will have to face the consequences.
4. The Council welcomes the agreement between the Kenyan parties on 1st February to take immediate steps to end the crisis. It is encouraging that the parties plan to address the long term issues as well as the short term ones. The Council welcomes the intention by the Kenyan parties to establish a Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission aimed at bringing about debate and consensus on how Kenya should address the root causes of the crisis.
5. The Council welcomes the response by the United Nations to events in Kenya, both politically and in support of the affected civilian population.
6. The Council welcomes the agreement by all parties to an international investigation into the violence since the elections and calls for further co-operation by the Kenyan authorities with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Special Advisor for the Prevention of Genocide of the Secretary General of the UN.
7. The Council reiterates that until a legitimate political settlement is agreed, the EU and its Member States cannot conduct business as usual with Kenya. The Council will continue to closely monitor the situation in Kenya and support all efforts towards ending the violence and ensuring democracy, stability and respect for human rights.
SMS used as a tool of hate
When Joyce Mandela’s cellphone beeped to signal she had a SMS, the 27-year old Kenyan expected a note from a friend. Instead, she found a message of hate. “If your neighbour is a Kikuyu, just kick him or her out of that house. No one is going to ask you anything,” the SMS read. “You don’t know who is sending them, you don’t know how they got your number,” said Mandela, leaning against a lush fruit tree surrounded by squalid tents in this refugee camp next to one of the capital’s sprawling slums.
MoreTuesday, February 19, 2008
ODM wants ECK disbanded
The Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) has demanded that a new team be appointed at the Electoral Commission of Kenya before the pending by-elections are held. Party leaders Raila Odinga, Musalia Mudavadi and Najib Blala said that the commission was to blame for the chaos that has rocked the country and that voters had lost faith in it following what they (the leaders) called its mishandling of the disputed December 2007 elections. Said Mr Balala: “The ECK team should resign so that its officials are investigated.” Mr Odinga also demanded that the current commissioners ‘‘should not organise or supervise any of the forthcoming by-elections.’’ The leaders were addressing thousands of mourners who turned up for Embakasi MP Melitus Were’s burial in Budalangi at which one of the MP’s widows was barred from viewing her husband’s remains.
Nigerian diplomat jets in as peace talks resume
Ambassador Oluyemi Adeniji from Nigeria is expected to arrive today to assist former UN chief Kofi Annan in the mediation efforts. Mr Adeniji is a former Nigerian minister and UN official. And Government and ODM negotiators yesterday held an informal meeting to prepare for the official resumption of the mediation talks today.
Government representatives, Cabinet ministers Martha Karua, Sam Ongeri and Moses Wetangula, and MP Mutula Kilonzo met ODM’s Musalia Mudavadi, William Ruto, James Orengo and Sally Kosgei in the absence of Mr Annan. And the African chapter of the Human Rights Watch has said a political agreement in Kenya was a step forward, but politicians must take immediate steps to ensure accountability for human rights violations for further negotiations to build lasting stability.
Reforms could see the return of powerful PM
The executive Prime Minister’s office, abolished on December 12, 1964 when Jomo Kenyatta became Kenya’s first President, is now inevitable if a political settlement out of the impasse is to be reached, The Standard has learnt. It is understood to be behind the inordinate delay in striking a deal because of its far-reaching political implications. Sources say it is also the reason for the unrelenting pressure by the international community backing power sharing “as it’s the most viable option in such an arrangement”. “We can make the amendments to make the fundamental changes in order to achieve a political settlement,” Mr Raila Odinga, the leader of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) said last night.
Monday, February 18, 2008
ODM’s proposals on how to solve crisis
ODM has proposed a two-step process to settle the political crisis even as the mediation team resumes talks this morning. Party leader, Mr Raila Odinga, said they had proposed to the US Secretary of State, Dr Condoleezza Rice, the establishment of a Government structure that would reconcile the nation and drive comprehensive constitutional and institutional reforms. On the Government structure, Raila told a news conference last evening that they had proposed a separation of State and Government functions that would see the establishment of the office of the Prime Minister and two deputies. In the proposal, the President is to be the Head of State and the Prime Minister head of Government.
MoreCommunity based Human Rights networks statement
PRESS STATEMENT BY THE COMMUNITY BASED HUMAN RIGHTS NETWORKS
Friday, February 15, 2008
CONCERNED with the political developments in our country resulting from the disputed presidential elections that have triggered politically and ethnically instigated violence affecting most parts of our country and has resulted in the killings of over 1000 people, displacements of an estimated 300,000 people, a third of whom are children who should be in school, teachers and health workers that should be at their workstations alleviating the physical and emotional effects of the violence, and destruction of property worth billions of shillings and the economic effects that this continues to have which include the price hikes of basic commodities,
United Nations Human Rights Council Statement
7th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council
Written Intervention on the Human Rights Situation in Kenya
The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and its member organisation, the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) are very concerned by the human rights situation in Kenya since the presidential election of 27 December 2007 and request the UN Human Rights Council to adopt a resolution on the situation.
KNCHR documentation, investigation and analysis of human rights violations project
The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) is mandated by its constitutive Act, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights Act No 9 of 2002, to promote and protect human rights. Pursuant to that mandate, the Commission is currently conducting investigations with a view to providing, through the voices of Kenyans and other sources, an impartial account of the post election violence and the events that have taken place since the announcement of the disputed presidential election results on 30th December 2007. We intend thereby to maintain an accurate record of this part of Kenya’s history as well as to identify perpetrators who must be held to account in order to end the culture of impunity.
MoreTell Bush to support peace and justice in Kenya!
President Bush is scheduled to visit Africa this week from Feb.15-21, and he needs another strong reminder telling him to support democracy and human rights in Kenya (and the whole continent), not aggressive US military interests, while he is there. The US has recently issued travel bans on key hard-line politicians and their families from entering the US, but the US needs to continue to apply more pressure on those responsible for the violence and for holding up the mediation efforts. Please see below for a sample letter/script and contact information for the White House and State Department. Please call/email now to express your concerns, and to make sure that the President supports peace and justice in Kenya during his trip!
MoreCall for fact-finding mission
The East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Network (EHAHRD-Net) is deeply concerned by reports made by Network sources which reveal that several prominent Kenyan human rights defenders and journalists, in particular of Kikuyu origin but also defenders from Eldoret and members of a Muslim human rights organisation, have been intimidated, publicly harassed and subjected to a series of threats during the post-election violence that has spread in the country since December 2007.
MoreRights lobby backs truth commission
Kenya’s healing process could be bolstered with the formation of a truth, justice and reconciliation commission, the Government’s human rights watchdog said Thursday. The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights warned politicians against dwelling so much on how to enter into a coalition government while jeopardising the need to address the underlying causes of the recent chaos that followed disputed presidential election results. The commission said the formation of the justice and reconciliation body was long overdue since its establishment was recommended about four years ago.
Kenya Election Chief: Rigging Possible
Kenya’s electoral chief compared the president to a notoriously corrupt predecessor on Wednesday and acknowledged the December election may have been rigged. His remarks came as negotiators sequestered themselves at a luxury game lodge to hammer out a deal aimed at ending weeks of bloodshed over the disputed presidential vote. More than 1,000 Kenyans have died and some 600,000 have fled their homes.
‘Secret army’ preparing for war
An army of young warriors is being secretly armed and reinforced in remote areas of Kenya’s Rift Valley, preparing for war if the country’s knife-edge peace talks fail. Elders have organised thousands of men from the pro-opposition Kalenjin tribe into militia units, each split into marksmen, foot- soldiers, armourers, drivers and cooks. Hidden arsenals are filled with bows and arrows, many of them dipped in deadly poison, as efforts are made to buy guns smuggled from northern Uganda or Sudan. “If the peace talks collapse, there will be war,” said David Cheserek, 46, an elected opposition councillor in Kamogich, 240 miles northwest of Nairobi.
Church backs coalition
Church leaders have called on the Government to accept a power-sharing agreement to save the country from civil strife. Religious leaders in Mombasa, called on PNU to relax its hardline stand and accept the power-sharing deal as proposed by US President George Bush and the international community. Mombasa Catholic Bishop Boniface Lele called on PNU to understand that the US was making such demands because of its concerns for Kenya and the statement by Bush did not amount to interfering with the country’s internal affairs. “The Government should not take this proposal by the US President as direct interference in the running of our country. They are doing this because of their love for Kenya,” Lele said. He said the coming to Nairobi of US Secretary of State, Dr Condoleeza Rice, to support the Annan-led talks excited the church. “For the US to send her Secretary of State is a confirmation that we are an important country,” Lele said.
More