Vol 50 No 25 | KENYA Rough ride 18th December 2009 New constitutional proposals would take powers from the presidency and give more to the regions but would not end the arguments A draft constitution bill has at last been published by a committee of experts chaired by Nzamba Kitonga. Its main aims are to limit the power of Kenya’s...
Vol 50 No 23 | KENYA Mr Moreno-Ocampo goes to Nairobi 20th November 2009 The President and the Premier are ambivalent about the ICC's plan to prosecute some of the political violence cases To the alarm of many in Nairobi's political elite, the International Criminal Court Prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, is determined to investigate and prosecute those involved in the outbreak of...
Vol 50 No 21 | KENYASOMALIA Jolly Roger justice 23rd October 2009 As attacks by Somali pirates increase in the Gulf of Aden, the trials of those captured during the last ten months begin in Mombasa The trials of suspected Somali pirates captured by United States and European Union navies began on 8 October in Mombasa. One hundred Somalis accused of attacks against cargo...
Vol 50 No 21 | KENYA Turkana hunger 23rd October 2009 As neighbouring Ethiopia takes the unusual step of asking for food aid, for 6.2 million people, Kenya's Turkana Province members of Parliament are coming under pressure to force...
Vol 50 No 20 | KENYA Leaving the door open 8th October 2009 Eighteen months after the murderous clashes, the government remains ambivalent about trying the sponsors of the post-election violence Kenya's politicians continue to obstruct the efforts of the International Criminal Court to try those most responsible for last year's political violence. This comes despite the recent hopeful...
Vol 50 No 19 | KENYAAFRICA The row over Aaron Ringera 25th September 2009 The reappointment of the anti-corruption chief opens a rift between Parliament and President Mwai Kibaki as top politicians come under fire For the first time in Kenya's history, Parliament has voted to reject a presidential order, duly noted in the official Gazette. At stake is the survival both of...
Vol 50 No 19 | KENYA Bondo welcomes Kibaki 25th September 2009 A spirit of amity, barely two months old, appears to have stabilised the coalition government. It was ushered in by President Mwai Kibaki's trip to Nyanza, Prime Minister...
Vol 50 No 17 | KENYA Who (if anybody) will try the killers? 28th August 2009 A fair trial for murderous politicians seems as unlikely as ever, despite the latest proposal The effort continues to keep the post-election violence of 2007, and those responsible, out of the International Criminal Court. One favoured way of doing that is to set...
Vol 50 No 17 | KENYA Mixed messages and sanction threats 28th August 2009 Western governments responded swiftly when last month Kenya failed to set up a special tribunal to try those responsible for the 2007 post-election violence and suggested it might...
Vol 50 No 17 | KENYA The commissioners of the TJRC 28th August 2009 On 3 August, the government swore in nine commissioners for its Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission, including six Kenyans and three foreigners.
Vol 50 No 16 | KENYA The hard road to truth, justice and reconciliation 7th August 2009 President Mwai Kibaki's 23 July appointment of Bethuel Kiplagat to chair Kenya's newly created Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission is problematic. Some suspect the government will use the TJRC to exonerate any senior politician convicted of election violence and Kiplagat, a senior aide to President Daniel arap Moi, lacks support and credibility, as do some other TJRC members. Furthermore, the TJRC's remit stretches back to 1963. Far from resolving postcolonial crises, this may prove yet another lengthy, expensive inquiry whose conclusions are seen as just another cover-up. Many regard the question of Bethuel Kiplagat's independence as fundamental. He was a leading coordinator of Daniel arap Moi's survival strategy (AC Vol 31 No 24) and critics...
Vol 50 No 16 | KENYA A 'government of national impunity' 7th August 2009 The fractious coalition government of President Mwai Kibaki and Premier Raila Odinga may have finally agreed on something: to let impunity reign. Kenyans speak of the transition from...
Vol 50 No 15 | KENYA Kofi Annan puts politicians on the spot over poll violence 24th July 2009 Options narrow after the International Criminal Court receives the list of suspects The Kenyan government has until the end of September to set up an independent special tribunal on the post-election violence of December 2007. On 9 July, former United...
Vol 50 No 15 | KENYA Kenyan politicians face new deadline 24th July 2009 Kofi Annan, the former United Nations Secretary General, made his announcement about handing over the envelope containing the list of the accused to the International Criminal Court just...
Vol 50 No 15 | KENYA The CIPEV's recommendations 24th July 2009 Recommendations from the Waki Commission of Inquiry into Post-Election Violence (CIPEV), Part V, Chapter 13.
Vol 50 No 13 | KENYA Good news for some 26th June 2009 Three main groups should do well out of Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta's maiden budget: Kenya's 210 elected members of parliament and its millionaires and commercial bankers. Kenyatta,...
Vol 50 No 12 | KENYA Uhuru's accounting crisis 12th June 2009 A series of mathematical blunders complicates preparations for the budget and suggests a government cover-up A political and economic storm battered Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta before his maiden budget speech on 11 June, as the effects of last year’s political crisis feed into...
Vol 50 No 9 | KENYA Who is in charge here? 1st May 2009 The coalition government looks irreparably split but Speaker Kenneth Marende has offered a temporary fix Kenya's coalition squabbles have spilled over into Parliament (AC Vol 50 No 9). The latest, and worst, row between the coalition partners, President Mwai Kibaki's Party of...
Vol 50 No 7 | KENYA A reform deadline for the rivals 3rd April 2009 A year after the power-sharing accord, political change is faltering and the police are shooting human rights activists Politicians gathering in Nairobi and Geneva this week candidly admit that time is fast running out for the Grand Coalition to implement its promised reforms, without which Kenya...
Vol 50 No 7 | KENYA Inside the sealed envelope 3rd April 2009 A sealed envelope with the names of ten people judged by Justice Philip Waki's Commission to be the most important financiers and organisers of last year's post-election violence...
Vol 50 No 7 | KENYA In office, but not in power 3rd April 2009 Raila Odinga’s office is not running smoothly: his small staff are at odds and are holding up the reforms The 14th Floor of the Treasury Building that Prime Minister Raila Odinga and his modest staff occupy has been the office of Kenya's finance minister since the 1980s...
Vol 50 No 6 | KENYA An African 'war on terror' 20th March 2009 The murder of an activist and the police reaction to a criminal conspiracy reveal another dark side of Kenyan politics Oscar King'ara was murdered a day after he had pointed to a cabinet minister and the Kenyan police as being directly responsible for a two-year wave of extrajudicial...
Vol 50 No 5 | KENYA Pushing Wako 6th March 2009 Kenya’s long-serving Attorney General, Amos Shitswila Wako, has been targeted for special censure by United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extra-Judicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions Philip Alston, who has...
Vol 50 No 4 | KENYA A mutual security pact 20th February 2009 Tales of corruption deepen and the coalition partners seem to be protecting each other from the fallout The disgraced former Finance Minister, Amos Kimunya, is back in the cabinet, reinstated by President Mwai Kibaki in mid-January during a mini-reshuffle. His return went almost unnoticed amid...
Vol 50 No 4 | KENYA The briefcase tycoon is back 20th February 2009 The Triton saga highlights the resurfacing of the Daniel arap Moi-era briefcase tycoon - young, brash and politically protected. Kenyan politicians prefer to work with Asian-origin businessmen: the...
Vol 50 No 3 | KENYABRITAIN Serious fraud hunt 6th February 2009 Britain's Serious Fraud Office announced on 4 February that it is closing its 'investigation into contracts secured with the Kenyan government by Anglo-Leasing finance and related business'. This...