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Ambassador Bethwell Kiplagat Beware....
#75 - 0--clubafrika--Ambassador Bethwell Kiplagat Beware....--2006-03-05 00:06:45
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......OF THE KILLING FIELDS THAT IS THE CONSTITUTION REVIEW OF KENYA.
In my own judgement, Ambassador Bethwell Kiplagat is our own version of Nelson Mandela despite the fact that he has never been imprisoned or led a country like Mandela did. However, apart from his look-alike Mandela figure, in his own way he has achieved a lot for this hostile continent through his proven diplomatic and negotiating skills. Because of him and of course along with others, we now have peace in Southern Sudan and hostile tempers drastically cooled in neighbouring Somalia. As I write this article I can state with authority that he is the current chair of eminent persons in the entire African continent dealing with governance reforms in Africa under the African Peer Review Mechanism.
However events of last week have brought our amiable ambassador under a new spot light of a hostile nature. President Kibaki decided to throw him to the sharks in the boiling waters of the constitution review of Kenya. And before we condemn Kibaki for throwing the Ambassador to the sharks while the ambassador readily swallows the bait, I must first congratulate him for the honour that the Head of State has bestowed on him yet again. - Whereas the congratulatory messages are in order, one wonders whether Kiplagat's team will break through the landmines that have lined up the constitution route. One wonders whether our eloquent and likeable ambassador will succeed where Yash Pal Ghai, Bishop Sulumeti, Hon Koech, Mutava Musyimi, Salim Idha Salim and a host of other eminent Kenyans have come a cropper.
The prophets of old were not fools. They were seers with a sense of history and events of the moment. When they prophesied about the coming of the Son of Man and predicted that his own people would reject him, they knew what they were talking about. When Jesus finally came to save mankind from imminent destruction, his own people the Jews rejected him and his teachings. Eventually they crucified him on the cross in exchange for a thief and a highway robber. This was testimony that throughout history, prophets have never found acceptance and following in their native lands. And for Christianity to flourish after the death of Jesus, it had to find accommodation in the foreign lands of Greece and Rome.
What does this analogy mean for Bethwell Kiplagat's role as a peace broker in the highly polluted waters of the constitution review in Kenya? How will he wade through this charged and fast moving river of ethnicity, political backstabbing, treachery, selfishness and greed for power?
Kiplagat may want to remember before embarking on his new appointment that when the hour of reckoning came for South Africa, even the revered Nelson Mandela could not bring warring parties to agree on a single document that was to guarantee power sharing arrangement. It had to take the efforts of outsiders like Henry Kissinger and Prof. Washington Okumu of Kenya to broker the agreement.
He may also want to remember that after Garang and El Bashir had fought a 20 year civil war in Sudan, it had to take Bethwell Kiplagat a non-Sudanese to broker the peace! Do these two examples mean that South Africa and Sudan had no eminent persons to sort out their problems? I don't think so. It simply means that when there is a domestic dispute, combatants tend to listen more to neutral outsiders than a member of the family that may have an interest in the conflict.
Some of you may recall an article I wrote on these pages soon after Kibaki reshuffled his cabinet after the referendum fiasco. I stated that there was no chance that Kenya would get a new constitution now that Martha Karua, another right wing hardliner had assumed Kiraitu Murungi's former docket. The events of this week have proved me right. The new body, unilaterally selected against the wishes of Kenyans, has been housed within her office. It simply means that their operations will be closely supervised by the executive arm of the government despite the fact that the very meddling in the constitution process was the reason Kenyans rejected its project! It simply means that the government learnt no lesson at all from its referendum defeat.
With these appointments coming on the eve of another independent civil society initiative due to be launched nationally at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre, it was telling that this government move was meant to deflate the civil society initiative.
However, it may also be a ploy by the government to continue playing games with this constitution thing with no intention at all of concluding it until the people of Kenya finally lose interest in the process. In a way it will keep tired and hungry Kenyans busy guessing and anticipating something while the government buys time until elections season next year and suddenly publish a very people friendly document that they will soon rush to parliament so that they take credit just before elections.
This school of thought was given weight by Martha Karua's assertion that the process would not be rushed within a specific time frame. In other words this process promises to be a money guzzler with no end in sight at the expense of the poor Kenyan tax payer who must put up with this nonsense for ever.
The constitution review in this country has ruined the reputation of so many eminent Kenyans in the past. One would have thought that the few that are left standing would have the courage and tell the president that his unilateral decision to appoint another team that was bound to be rejected by Kenyans was not the best way to go. In other civilized societies, these eminent Kenyans would have declined the offer unless such appointments were transparent enough. But this is Kenya, where political appointments are still attractive and lucrative.
As for now, all we can do is to wait and see what happens to the team in the next thirty days with in which to give the President the new road-map.
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