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G21 AFRICA - KENYAN POLITICS DEVOLVES: Regular Contributor KEN KAMOCHE castigates what he sees as the paralysis and buffoonery displayed by recent scandals for the Kenyan government.
HONG KONG - Act One. The on-going saga.
Ken Kamoche Kenya has become a laughing stock in recent months. The Kibaki administration has been stumbling from one embarrassing scandal to another. If it's not caught up in new damning revelations about corruption at the highest levels, it's being accused of tyranny and the sort of intrigue from which pulp fiction paperbacks are made. Recent weeks will go down as one of the most farcical phases in Kenya's benighted political farce.
The world now knows about the massive corruption scandals that forced the sacking of several ministers a couple of months ago. The news was splashed on TV screens around the world. We got to hear of the so-called 'Githongo dossier' in which the former Kenyan anti-corruption czar chronicled in detail how senior government officials tried to stop him from investigating corruption perpetuated by people in the current regime. These actions smacked too much of a cover-up.
The ministers involved made a serious mistake in assuming that latter-day crimes could be swept under the carpet of the new administration's widened democratic space. What we need to do, they seemed to be saying, is to tackle the Moi-era corruption that brought the country to its knees before we, the new saviors, gave you the gift of a new liberation.
The public refused to buy it. There was no libera tion, new or otherwise. And if they widened the democratic space and brought to an end the blatant tyranny that had come to characterize the previous regimes, this was not a gift. The Kenyan people are entitled to expect civil liberties, freedom of expression, good governance and a corruption-free society as a matter of course, as non-negotiable rights. And if the current regime does not deliver, it must be held to account.
It turned out there was in fact very little change. The faces changed, of course, though even this is debatable because many of those tainted by graft and repression in previous regimes underwent a transformation not unlike Saul's on the road to Damascus and re-emerged as born-again democrats.
Saul's transformation is a particularly appropriate analogy for Kenyan demagogues in the post-Moi era. As readers might recall, in the book of Acts, Saul was extremely zealous of Hebrew traditions. His remit was to arrest the followers of Jesus, bring them back to Jerusalem in chains for possible execution. Or, in modern parlance as popularized by George Bush, to bring them to justice. But the oppressed Kenyans cried out, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute us? Do you not see we are the oppressed masses, crying out in the wilderness for democratic salvation?'
The tyrants were blinded by the wrath of the people, and could only begin to see when they believed they heard the Lord tell them he was going to free them from their own people and from the Gentiles, and ordering them to spread the word, urging the people to repent. And so it came to pass that the new leaders in Kenya believe they were appointed by divine decree, their crimes of graft and tyranny washed in the blood of Christ.
The socio-political structures and the basic architecture that facilitated an oppressive regime remain largely in place. President Kibaki's hands-off leadership style has allowed unsupervised ministers to run amok, behaving as if they were above the law.
Following the Githongo-dossier revelations, the country was treated to a circus of accusations and counter-accusations, denials and all manner of innuendo. The public bayed for the ministers' blood. For several weeks, the president remained mute, like a Roman emperor watching gladiatorial combatants tear each other's guts out in the coliseum. Safe in the knowledge that none of the blood and grime flying about would touch his fine flowing robes.
The Attorney General and Minister for Justice joined the charade, announcing with great fanfare that those accused of the notorious Goldenberg Moi-era scam will be hauled to court to answer charges of conspiring to defraud or some such sanitized charge. This wasn't just a conspiracy. One Kamlesh Pattni started a company in 1991 to export gold and diamonds. That in itself was a joke because the Kenyan gold and diamond industry is virtually a fiction.
But top officials, judges, bankers and a host of opportunists anxious to grab their share from this windfall feeding frenzy were more than happy to facilitate the scam. Basically the scam exploited a loophole in which the government promotes exports by granting tax-free status to exporters, which is perfectly legal. If you exported gold and brought US dollars, the central bank paid you the Kenyan shilling equivalent plus twenty percent incentive. The country ended up earning much-needed foreign exchange. The exporter, i.e. the directors of Goldenberg, raked it in, and everyone was happy. Well, everyone, except the Kenyan public.
Kenya lost $600 million in compensation for nonexistent gold and diamond exports. This was no doubt exacerbated by the fact that the then Minister for Finance controversially raised the export compensation by an additional 15%. He's one of the people now supposedly facing the music.
After three previous investigations. that resulted in zero prosecutions, the public can be forgiven for responding to the latest round of announcements with a yawn and stifled guffaw. And why the anxiety, all of a sudden, to prosecute old-record crimes while doing next to nothing about the new ones that continue to boggle the mind by their sheer magnitude and audacity?
The farce entered into Act Two when, several weeks ago, a raid was carried out at the offices of a leading media house by men in balaclavas bearing automatic weapons. They switched off the TV station and destroyed the day's stock of newspapers. This was taking things from the ridiculous to the absurd, a lamentable throwback to the bad old days of State terror and suppression of freedom of the press and freedom of expression. It sparked off yet another round of accusations, counter-accusations and speculation about Russian mercenaries ad nauseam.
Was this just another attempt to divert attention from the State's seemingly somnolent response to accusations of high-level graft?
The plot thickened when the minister in charge of security uttered those infamous words: "If you rattle a snake, you can expect it will bite you."
Suddenly the skies cleared, we could see clearly. The State was indeed a snake. It had been rattled by calls for visionary leadership, good governance and demands to tackle corruption once and for all.
It was reported that the raid was carried out by a section of the police without the knowledge of the Commissioner of Police who was out of town at the time. A blatant breach of the chain of command, at the very least. More like an internecine war within the ranks, with puppets being manipulated by shadowy hands that lurked in the corridors of power. The Commissioner of Police was, as one would expect, pretty peeved. The special police squad implicated in the raid subsequently denied all involvement.
So who ordered the raid, and who were those 'light-skinned' men in command, who were said to have harassed reporters and liberally used the 'n' word? Russian mercenaries? The Russian Embassy disavowed them.
Act Three of the increasingly hilarious farce: The men are Armenian mercenaries, reports said. They've been brought in to 'eliminate' top opposition figures, claimed one politician. The police seemed unwilling to investigate these claims and when they visited the posh neighborhood where the men lived, they claimed to have been repulsed by a vicious dog.
Hello! Armed police afraid of a dog? The same officers who daily confront carjackers and bank robbers armed with AK-47s?
Clearly, there is more to this than meets the eyes. Unfortunately, the unfolding saga of the elusive identity of two eastern European chaps, who claim to be businessmen. has captured the imagination of the nation. Every day, the country is treated to their latest outburst, by claims about who is protecting them and why they were brought into the country in the first place.
The headlines about corruption in high places, about ministers cowering in shame as new revelations come to light, have been relegated to the inside pages of the local newspapers. The farce has been impressively choreographed and professionally enacted. Those accused of high-level corruption can breathe a sigh of relief, at least for a while.
The farce has taken on a life of its own. It is unclear who is in control in the country. Ministers are quoted as saying the government should explain to the people what is going on.
Excuse me, aren't these ministers part of the government? Isn't that what it means to be a minister? If you don't agree with government policy or are baffled and disgruntled by it, you do the honorable thing and resign. Not a Kenyan trait, by any means, this business of resigning on principle. There's too much to lose, financially.
Meanwhile, the country drifts, rudderless, like a ship whose captain has fallen asleep at the wheel, fueled by rum and whiskey, knowing there's no risk of doing a Titanic because there are no icebergs in tropical waters. No, there's little chance of crashing into the hard, gritty resistance of a disillusioned public, not for another two years, anyway, when the next elections are due.
So what the public thinks does not really matter. And if they turn their eyes from the farce playing out in front of their eyes and wonder where the hell is it all going, the spin-doctors can be relied upon to dream up a new plot-line guaranteed to generate sufficient mirth and head-thrown-back laughter for another couple of weeks. Nothing must stop the absurdity and political buffoonery that have become the essence of Kenyan politics.
Meanwhile, the foreign diplomats based in Nairobi continue to challenge the Kenyan authorities to 'do more' about corruption. These people are a ragtag band of cheer-leaders and rabble-rousers who are as much a part of the Kenyan political farce-scape as everyone else. What these people conveniently ignore is that much of this corruption that has left Kenya - and indeed much of Africa for that matter - looking like a drained and shriveled up udder, is that this high-level graft wouldn't exist were it not for the opportunities that exist in the capitals of the Western world to launder the monies thus stolen.
When the British High Commissioner in Nairobi urges the Kenyan government to prosecute corrupt ministers, he comes down with a bout of selective amnesia, and doesn't mention that the stolen money was wired to and through companies registered in Britain, owned by British citizens who are walking the streets of Britain as free men and women.
The governments of Europe and America threaten to stop aid because of corruption and yet make absolutely no effort to bring to justice their own citizens who are working in league with the perpetrators of graft in Africa. This is nothing short of hypocrisy and it flies in the face of so-called legislation and codes of ethics to stop their firms from bribing foreign businessmen and governments. It's not okay to offer bribes; but apparently it's okay to receive monies siphoned from foreign treasuries, monies which end up in banks in New York, London, Frankfurt and Zurich.
It is puzzling that, in this era of global terrorism and money-laundering, Western governments show so little inclination to tackle third-world corruption where their own citizens and financial institutions are involved. It's easier to mouth accusations and exhortations, issue threats to shut the foreign aid taps, then sit back, smugly, and watch the drama unfold from ringside seats.
KEN KAMOCHE is an academic and writer based in Hong Kong. He was born in Kenya.
© 2006, GENERATOR 21.
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