Kenya: Blood of innocents will be on your hands
Dr Annan has now chosen to hold personal discussions with President Kibaki and Mr Raila Odinga in order to unlock the stalemate and save Kenya from an unavoidable outbreak of violence, which, this time round, could lead to the disintegration of a once united and prosperous country.
The mediators did not point any fingers, but it is clear to all Kenyans that this country stands on the edge of the precipice. And the latest impasse arises from the unyielding position taken by President Kibaki’s team in the negotiations.
On Monday, the PNU side came up with a totally different agenda items from what had been agreed the previous week. Progress had previously been made on the creation of the post of prime minister, who would be the leader of the party with majority MPs in Parliament and who would exercise reasonable power, including supervising ministries.
Consistency in matters agreed upon during a negotiation is not only a sign of good faith, but is the clearest testament to a desire for a speedy resolution.
The to-ing and fro-ing by PNU, which has openly exasperated the Annan team, leads many Kenyans to ask whether Mr Kibaki truly wants the best for this country — whether he cares for the thousands of displaced Kenyans languishing in refugee camps, the numerous others who paid with their lives for electoral ineptitude, whether he worries about an economy limping to a slump and if he is alive to the threat of civil war which hangs darkly over Kenya’s deeply divided population.
We reject the fundamental objection of the PNU to the power-sharing proposal which had been fleshed out. We would like to state, yet again, that any new structure of government brokered by Dr Annan must be supported by a Constitutional amendment.
For one, any changes to the presidency as it exists today is itself an alteration of the Constitutional clause which created it, therefore the changes must go back to Parliament for a Constitutional amendment. They must be defined and sanctified with the same legal weight as the document it seeks to alter.
Secondly, the leaders of ODM and Mr Kibaki’s side have a history of political betrayal. Surely, one can understand the insistence on a watertight agreement from a group of politicians who have yet to recover from the trashing by the President of the memorandum of Understanding they had reached in the previous election.
Thirdly, these changes are strictly not just about Mr Kibaki and Mr Raila. This is a golden opportunity for Kenya as a nation to tackle, in various phases, some of the lopsided political arrangements and economic injustices widely acknowledged to have caused the crisis we find ourselves in.
We would add our voice to the timely warning issued last night by the US Secretary of State, Dr Condoleezza Rice, to any of the parties responsible for undermining the mediation talks. For us the consequences of failure are far more frightening. If violence breaks out and drives this country into civil war as a result of failure at the Serena Hotel, then the blood of its victims will be in the hands of politicians who made it impossible for Dr Annan to reunite Kenya.
There is still a chance for the President and Mr Odinga to save this country. Would it be too much to ask the two gentlemen to cast aside their importance and join the teams discussing our destiny at the Serena Hotel? Would Kenyans be unrealistic in demanding a greater inclination to compromise from the party of National Unity in the mediation talks?
