Monthly Archives: June 2011

Southern Kordofan “sliding inexorably toward war”; Malaysia has got democracy down pat

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Jeffrey Gettleman reports from Southern Kordofan:

Despite an agreement signed only days ago to bring peace to this part of central Sudan, it seems to be sliding inexorably toward war.

Young men here in the Nuba Mountains are being mobilized into militias, marching into the hills to train. All the cars in this area, including humanitarian vehicles, are smeared with thick mud to camouflage them from what residents describe as unrelenting bombings. And opposition forces vow to press their fight until they win some form of autonomy, undeterred by the government’s push to stamp them out.

“It’s going to be a long war,” said Ahmed Zakaria, a doctor from the Nuba Mountains who recently quit his job to become an opposition fighter. “We want a secular, democratic state where we can be free to rule ourselves. Like Kurdistan,” Dr. Zakaria said, smiling. “And we will fight for it.”

.  .  .  .

At a small, mountainside hospital here in Lewere, an entire ward is filled with victims who said they were at a well, fetching water, when they were bombed. Most are children. Their whimpers filter through the mesh windows, along with the pungent smells of antiseptic solution and decaying flesh.

Inside, Winnasa Steven, a 16-year-old girl, writhed on a cot. From her hip, doctors cut out a three-inch chunk of ragged shrapnel, which her mother keeps, wrapped in white paper.

.  .  .  .

Aid workers said hundreds of civilians had been killed in the bombings. The Sudanese Army is also blockading roads and bombing airstrips, essentially cutting off food supplies. “These people are going to starve,” one Western aid worker said.

—————

Meanwhile, in the world of democracy promotion, the Malaysian National News Organization identifies NDI (The National Democratic Institute for International Affairs) as “one of four branches of the National Endowment of Democracy (NED), a United States-based nongovernmental organization led by a Jew, Carl Gershman.”   They say that it is not appropriate to have democracy assistance in Malaysia because “there is no restriction for the people and politicians”.

Does KSh4,500 for a bag of maize approach a “tipping point”?

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There are a lot of good things happening in Kenya that are helping to lay the groundwork for a positive future.   Right now, however, the combination of the plummeting shilling and high inflation focused especially on basic food items and other household necessities, along with an especially severe regional drought is causing suffering and raises questions for the intermediate future as we head into another election year.

Increasing numbers of refugees are flowing to Kenya from Somalia due to drought aside from the fighting, in a situation in which Kenya is already well beyond current capacity under existing refugee arrangements.

The basic situation of high and inflating cost of food staples, drought and refugees is “the usual crisis” in Kenya–its not less severe because it doesn’t get solved but we all somewhat get used to it as “background” and pay more attention to “the next new thing”.  Now however, it is getting worse.  Will Kenyan politicians continue to see this as a challenge primarily for Western donors while focusing on the election?  Is there a “tipping point” where this moves out of the background and disrupts the usual course of things in Nairobi, for better or worse?

“Severe food crisis hits region”, IRIN Global

In Kenya, rising inflation rates have also adversely affected poor households’ ability to buy food. Prices of the main staple, maize, have tripled from about 1,300 shillings (US$14.4) in January to 4,500 ($50) for a 90kg bag.

Recently, the government announced the removal of tax on imported maize in a bid to cushion consumers. But millers say rising global maize prices mean the measure will have little impact on the commodity’s prices locally.

“The problem has been compounded by the fact that the Kenyan shilling has been on a free-fall, trading at an all-time low [about 90 shillings to the US dollar] not experienced in the country for almost two decades. I do not see the cost of maize dropping any time soon,” said a miller who requested anonymity.

The recent March to May “long rains” in Kenya were poor for the second or third successive season in most rangelands and cropping lowlands, with many of these areas receiving 10-50 percent of normal rains, noted the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET).

The consequences include declining water and pasture, and subsequent livestock deaths. In the predominantly pastoralist north, a low milk supply has contributed to malnutrition levels soaring above 35 percent. The GAM rate in northwestern Turkana has hit 37.4 percent, the highest ever in the district.

Nationally, at least 3.2 million people are currently food insecure – up from a projection of 2.4 and 1.6 million in April and January, respectively.

Even in Kenya’s coastal region, thousands are food insecure, says the Kenya Red Cross Society’s (KRCS) region manager, Gerald Bombe.

“There is a need to import maize and distribute food and water to the hardest hit areas,” added Kevin Lunani, a local leader in the coastal Kisauni region.

Figures I read recently would place Kenya as the largest recipient of U.S. aid outside the greater Middle East/North Africa and Afghanistan/Pakistan–in other words greater than any other country in Latin America, Sub Saharan Africa or elsewhere in Asia, for the 2008-2011 period.  I don’t have time to dive into the numbers for serious comparisons, but accepting the general point that Kenya is a particular favorite as a major target of aid for the U.S. we need to ask whether we are accomplishing what we want to accomplish.

Catching Up on Kenyan Politics–Three Related Big Developments on Reform

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The past three months or so have been especially busy for me and I have to apologize for having to let go of my past practice of at least noting most of the major headlines in Kenyan politics on a current basis.  Likewise, what I have posted has been more heavily weighted toward quotes and citations to other sources and less original.

First, the big issue that I have largely taken a pass on has been the nomination and appointment of the new Supreme Court, especially the Chief Justice.  I will say that the new Chief Justice Willy Mutunga got off to a good start yesterday, in my book, by forsaking the traditional robe and wig for his swearing in.  My more egalitarian American sensitivities have always been turned off by the white wigs–we rebelled against the British and got rid of all that a long time ago.  I can appreciate decorum and a sense of dignity for the court, but I’m not sure that the white wig is even really dignified as opposed to just silly.  And in a country with as much of a problem with dramatic inequality both economically and in the legal and judicial system, it seems to me that a bit of humility is a positive thing.

More importantly it is encouraging to see the hope engendered by Mutunga’s appointment.  Mutunga has a combination of serious bona fides as a reformer through leadership in the “Second Liberation” and serious legal credentials.  Here is a column from retired Presbyterian minister Dr. Timothy Njoya that I found to be particularly persuasive in this regard.  He is obviously qualified in training and intellect, but was also seems chosen by the Judicial Service Commission in substantial part to be a leader of reforming the judiciary through his position as Chief Justice.  My interest is the process, and I don’t think it is my place as an American to have a strong opinion about who should or shouldn’t be appointed to a judicial position in Kenya, but it is gratifying to see Kenyan civil society leaders and others whom I like and admire for their courage in the context of the late Kenyan election crisis feel that Mutunga’s appointment is a step toward reform and the rule of law.

In considering the process, I will way that the JSC was a bit harsh on some applicants and I hope that in the future this will be improved on.  Here is a column in the Star saluting one of the applicants whom I had the opportunity to meet socially and found to be a very considerate person who ended up being charactured a bit in the media as a result of her interview.  A woman who has served long on the Kenyan High Court without hint of scandal deserves respect as a pioneer and the JSC certainly could have chosen reasonably to go in the direction of seeking someone with experience on the bench.

On the other hand, the appointment of the Director of Public Prosecution is quite a different matter.  Keriako Tobiko was nominated and approved in spite of very serious and specific allegations of corruption.  It is very hard to understand why this appointment makes any sense unless it is intended to protect key people from public prosecution–I wish this was a far fetched notion.  In fact, the situation seems blatant enough to almost make one wonder whether there was an “understanding”–a reformist chief justice for an insider as prosecutor to make sure that the weight of the law does not fall on the current powers that be?

A third big event that I have not discussed is the effort by the U.K. to gain extradition of Chrysanthus Okemo and Samuel Gicheru for prosecution for prosecution in Jersey.  Okemo, a member of parliament and former finance minister, and Gichuru, a former managing director of Kenya’s power supply monopoly the Kenya Power & Lighting Co. Ltd., are wanted in Jersey on corruption charges.  The allegations are that Gicheru took bribes from KPLC contractors and laundered the money to accounts in Jersey.  Payments are also alleged to have gone to Okemo as Finance Minister and as well when he was Energy Minister.

Frankly the British just have not had the best history on fighting graft involving the developing world and this initiative seems to me to be a breakthrough, consistent with the spirit of the new U.K. anti-bribery act.   I firmly believe that the ability of the “well connected” to stash ill gotten gains abroad with impunity has been a key factor in keeping most Kenyans economically marginalized and keeping the Government of Kenyan underperforming.  If the U.K is successful in this prosecution it could be a turning point toward a better pattern of development in Kenya in which the benefits of economic growth reach more citizens.

Ironically, however, Director of Public Prosecutions Tobiko is in a key role in evaluating the extradition request:

The government has ordered the formation of a high-level panel to consider a request for the extradition of former power utility boss Samuel Gichuru and Nambale MP Chris Okemo over fraud charges.

Attorney-General Amos Wako said he had received a full extradition request comprising 13 bundles of supporting documentation from Jersey Island.

As a result, Mr Wako said, he had instructed the chief public prosecutor to constitute the panel.

“Due to the complexity, magnitude and voluminous nature of the request, I have directed the chief public prosecutor, Mr Keriako Tobiko, to immediately constitute a high level team to study and analyse the supporting documentation and deal with the matter soonest,” Mr Wako said in a statement.

Sources said Mr Tobiko had constituted the team.

“Panel to decide fate of Okemo, Gicheru”, Daily Nation, 10 June 2011.

Wycliffe Muga: Tobiko Is Not Fit To Hold DPP Position

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I was surprised to learn, quite recently, that Uganda has a Ministry of Ethics and Integrity. It reminded me of a Tanzania-based expatriate I once met who assured me that her work was in advising a Tanzanian Ministry with an equally improbable name: the ‘Ministry of Beekeeping’ (I have since learned, incidentally, that this may have been a private joke of hers, as what Tanzania actually has is a Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, within which there is a ‘Forestry and Beekeeping Division’.)

All the same, I have to wonder what that Ugandan ministry, concerned as it is with ‘ethics and integrity’ would have made of the appointment of Keriako Tobiko as the Director of Public Prosecutions – something which seems imminent at the time of writing.

The question is, After all that we have heard, can we really believe that this is a man of sound ethics and undoubted integrity? Were the accusations made by Prof Yash Pal Ghai, merely a figment of the good professor’s imagination, or is it actually true that Tobiko considered the entire constitution-making process as little more than a ladder that he could use to get access to the top political circles, and thus ascend to high office?

At other times, these accusations may not have mattered all that much. In the first place, Kenyans were previously accustomed to a childlike obedience to the dictates of the imperial presidency. In the second place, doing the dirty work for those higher up than you – or even just having the unmistakable capacity for doing so – was a recognized path to advancement in both the Moi era, and the early years of the Kibaki presidency. But times have changed, and there is – I think – a critical mass of Kenyans who are determined that we should no longer live in a country where those in power more or less do as they please, and the rest of us just have to put up with it.

In the circumstances, accepting the appointment as DPP will most likely prove to be not so much a victor’s laurel on Tobiko’s head, as a crown of thorns. As long as he holds this office, every step he takes will judged against his seemingly irregular appointment, and unflattering assumptions will be made as to his motives for every serious decision he takes.

And there is no question that this is an irregular appointment. Nobody can say at this point whether he is guilty or innocent of all or any of these accusations. But it is clear enough that they bear looking into.

.  .  .  .

via Tobiko Is Not Fit To Hold DPP Position–The Star (Nairobi).

Former U.S. Diplomat Calls for Military Action Against Sudan Over Abyei and South Kordofan

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The situation in Sudan seems to continue to worsen.  Aside from the tragic consequences in Sudan, another round of war there does not bode well for reform in Kenya and Uganda, especially in regard to the upcoming Kenyan election.

From the Sudan Tribune at allAfrica.com, “Former U.S. Envoy calls for Military Action Against Country”:

A former US envoy to Sudan has called for taking military action against the Khartoum government in order to prevent further escalation of violence in Abyei and South Kordofan regions.

The sense of relief that prevailed after the January referendum on South Sudan independence was conducted smoothly and in a largely peaceful environment has dissipated last month when north Sudan army seized control of the fertile, oil-producing region of Abyei, the ownership of which is also claimed by South Sudan whose vote for independence in the referendum will see it become the world’s newest nation on July 9.

Concurrently, violence erupted in the country’s north-south border state of South Kordofan after the northern army attempted to disarm local fighters aligned with South Sudan. Over 60,000 people have been displaced, according to UN figures, and hundreds have been killed, according to local NGOs as the northern army carried out aerial bombardment and heavy artillery in the area.

Roger Winter, the former U.S special envoy to Sudan, on Wednesday addressed a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Human Rights, about the recent upsurge of violence in Abyei and South Kordofan.

Winter called for an immediate military action against Khartoum in order to strengthen South Sudan army and halt attacks on civilians.

“Take a military action against a Khartoum military target now,” Winter said, adding that the goal would be “to strengthen the SPLA in meaningful ways as a deterrent against Khartoum aggression, provocation and attacks against civilians”

Winter blamed the current situation on the approach adopted by the former US special envoy to Sudan Scott Gration, chiding his “seemingly intimate relationship” with the leadership of north Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP).

“Perhaps the eccentricities of General Gration’s approach to being Special Envoy for Sudan are related to the Administration’s commitment to ‘reach out’ to the Arab and Islamic world,” Winter said.

“His seemingly intimate relationship with the NCP leadership led to his many public references to that leadership as ‘my friends’,” he stressed.

Winter said that any commitments made by the Khartoum government are unreliable and that the government’s actions had led to the death of three million people. . . .

The full hearing line up from Thursday afternoon is here.

In “The Man for a New Sudan” in June 2008, the NY Times profiled Winter:

For the past quarter century — as head of a nongovernmental organization called the U.S. Committee for Refugees, as an official at the federal Agency for International Development and, most recently, as a special representative to the State Department for Sudan, a post created for him — Winter has fought in the back rooms of Washington and in the African bush to bring peace to Sudan. It’s not evenhandedness that makes him effective; it’s his total commitment to the people of south Sudan and a conviction, which has only grown with the years, that the government in Khartoum is, in essence, a brutal cabal. After two decades of fighting for their rights at negotiating tables, he has gained the southerners’ complete trust. “He’s simple and clear,” Edward Lino, the southern government’s chairman in Abyei, told me. “He doesn’t mince words. He’s a great man” who also “has great, great push.”

Update–Here is Rebecca Hamilton today in “Trouble in Khartoum” in Foreign Policy:

Northern Sudan will be a different country in geographic, ethnic, religious, political, cultural, and economic terms once the south separates. And the viability of the new northern nation is also in question, as is the survival of Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party.

“The NCP are being weakened day by day. They know they don’t have acceptance in the north,” says International Crisis Group analyst Fouad Hikmat.

Northern opposition parties blame NCP policies for the loss of the south, which is where most of Sudan’s oil lies. Moreover, well-connected Sudanese say there is dissatisfaction within the army, in addition to the armed insurgencies and political discontent in peripheral areas across northern Sudan.

Much of the current fighting may be strategic posturing as final deals are being hashed out over the division of wealth and territory between north and south in advance of July 9. But the ominous developments over the past three weeks are perhaps best understood as being driven by the NCP playing to its fiercely nationalistic domestic audience inside northern Sudan. . . .

UK Cuts Education Aid Once Again in Lastest Round on Kenyan Education Scandals (Updated)

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Update, June 16: The Irish Times reports that the U.K. will “push hard” for return of its share of stolen education aid funds.

The country’s finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta said the names of officials investigated had been given to the police, but analysts said the chances of prosecutions were low.

“Handing over reports to the criminal investigations department of the Kenyan police force is a good way of shelving investigations,” said Mwalimu Mati, chief executive officer at the corruption watchdog Mars Group Kenya. “It is hard to see how such a discredited police force can bring about justice when they are still investing in Anglo Leasing and Goldenberg.”

The Goldenberg scandal, which cost the country over 10 per cent of GDP, dates back to the early 1990s. It saw the government of Kenya pay out hundreds of millions of dollars of public money in a bogus gold export scheme. No government officials have been prosecuted for their part in it.

Despite coming to power in December 2002 on a strong anti-graft platform, President Mwai Kibaki has failed to stamp out corruption in east Africa’s largest economy. Kenya has slipped down the rankings of Transparency International’s 2010 corruption perceptions index, falling to 154 out of 178 countries.

Last year the government said it could be losing $4 billion, nearly one-third of the national budget, to kickbacks and other forms of corruption.

“Kenya is good at talking about corruption cases,” Teresa Omondi, the deputy executive director of Transparency International – Kenya, said, “but not at prosecuting anyone in them. The fact that no stringent action is ever taken means there is a risk of us hearing about all this again next year.”

“UK cuts education aid by Sh300m”, Daily Nation:

The government was on Tuesday put under pressure to rein in corruption within its ranks, with the United Kingdom announcing a Sh300 million education budget cut.

British High Commissioner Rob Macaire said that they will continue funding education, but only through non-governmental channels until the Ministry of Education adopted prudent financial management systems.

This year, the British Government has allocated Sh1.3 billion to fund various educational programmes through these channels.

“It is shocking that civil servants in trusted positions in the government would steal such an amount of money.

“We share in the outrage of Kenyans about this, because there is UK taxpayers money involved too,” Mr Macaire said.

He was responding to fresh investigations by Treasury over a Sh4.2 billion fraud in the Education ministry.

“This should not be allowed, neither tolerated,” he said, adding that the culprits should be prosecuted.

So far, the Department for International Development (DfID) has supplied 320,000 children in slums with textbooks in 1,100 selected schools.

Mr Mike Harrison, deputy director at DfID, said unless financial transactions are electronic, they would not fund the ministry.

“We need some concrete proof that the financial management in the ministry are turned around.

“Electronic money transfer will have to be at the heart of the system unlike today where paper transfer is easily doctored.”

.  .  .  .

See, “Treasury audit reveals Sh5.8bn fraud”, Daily Nation.  “Education and Medical Services staff probed over Sh 6.2bn loss“, The Star.

Ethiopian Mediation for Somaliland-Puntland Border Dispute

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Hiiraan Online reports:

Regional authorities of Somaliland and Puntland are meeting in Ethiopia amid a longstanding
dispute that worsened the security situation of the two breakaway regions over the past few
years.

An Ethiopian embassy official in Somaliland Mr. Berhia Tesfie, said that leaders of the two
regions have reached a preliminary agreement to discuss the border problem in order to forge
peace between the authorities which were at loggerheads following disagreement over Sool,
Sanaag and Ceyn regions.

“The Ethiopian government is working to mediate the difference between Somaliland and
Puntland . We have advised leaders of the two authorities to embrace peace between their
people”.

.  .  .  .

The center of the conflict is the Sool region in the central north of Somalia. On Monday, 1
October 2007, Puntland and Somaliland armed forces fought near Laasaanood, the capital of
Sool region. Fighting worsened again two weeks later, on 15 October. Since then, Laasaanood
has remained in the hands of the Somaliland forces.

The heightened border security divided a community already fractured by a number of internal
conflicts, clan rivalries.

Key New Report from AFRICOG on Kenyan Privatization Ahead of 2012 Election

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AFRICOG, the African Centre for Open Government, in Nairobi has released “Deliberate Loopholes” an extensive report on the the privitization/divestiture of Telkom Kenya and Safaricom.  Just as the Safaricom deal went through just before the 2007 election in spite of ODM litigation to block it, new deals are coming with the 2012 election approaching, including likely sale of the Government of Kenya’s stake in 11 more hotels, for example:

“Deliberate Loopholes”describes some of the lapses that occurred in the privatisation of Telkom Kenya and Safaricom: the title refers to the deliberate evasions and subterfuges that created a fertile climate for asset stripping and corruption by senior officials whose identity continues to remain shrouded behind the veil of secrecy provided by international tax havens and off-shore financial centres. The preliminary findings of this study were presented to Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which took the matter to the floor of the House.

AfriCOG’s interest in this area stems from its mandate to build and entrench an anti-corruption culture through informed and determined public action, both in the public and private sectors. Effective privatisation requires a robust regulatory environment. Regulators need to be independent in delivering on their mandate and achieving outcomes that protect the public interest and advance Kenya’s development. However, these bodies face the constant reality or threat of capture by special interests.

Kenya is currently engaged in an extensive series of privatisation exercises, with around 23 majorpublic enterprises slated for or engaged in some sort of privatisation. The unanswered questions surrounding the sale of the Laico Grand Regency Hotel are still fresh in the public’s memory. By providing objective information on the privatisation of Telkom Kenya and Safaricom, AfriCOG aims to promote public knowledge and vigilance on other public divestment ventures. Furthermore, the general public has a huge stake in privatisation considering the significant investments that citizens have made in building these institutions in the first place and the gains that ordinary investors hope to make from their divestiture.

Given the market dominance of the entities involved and the endemic corruption that plagues Kenya, it is perhaps inevitable that many of these exercises have been shrouded in political controversy. From experience, large scale privatisation is a process that can be particularly prone to political corruption, or the theft of public resources to fund elections. Since 2012 portends a particularly hard-fought and conflictual election,
heightened scrutiny against possible abuse of privatisation of state-owned enterprises with the aim of financing politics would be prudent.

“Book Bitings”–Some Thoughts on “Fighting For Darfur; Public Action and the Stuggle to Stop Genocide” by Rebecca Hamilton

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June 9 update, h/t Africa Files:  Human Rights Watch Report–“As South Split Looms, Abuses Grow in Darfur”.

I will join with many others in recommending Rebecca Hamilton’s Fighting for Darfur as well worth buying and reading for anyone interested in American policy in Africa, citizen activism in the West as a foreign policy input, genocide as a moral and political challenge and Sudan specifically.  Don’t get lost in the debate without taking time to get the book and read it–it is relatively short and quite accessible for busy non-specialists.

African Arguments features noteworthy reviews by Laura Seay of Morehouse College and Texas in Africa and Alex Thurston of Sahel Blog.

Hamilton was personally involved as a student activist and also worked for a time at the ICC after graduating from Harvard Law School before taking up this book project and journalism full-time.  Combining the roles of insider and journalist lets Hamilton provide the reader with direct access to an unusual range of the players in the activist and political community and those in the U.S. government at the time.  She also has direct experience and follow-up reporting from the camps in Darfur and Chad and sources in Darfur and access to officials in Khartoum.  She was also able to get some of the basic U.S. government documents declassified quickly enough to be used in her reporting.

Hamilton is left asking more questions than she is able to answer in the wake of the failure of the activists to deliver any clear positive change in the situation in Darfur in spite of their success in moving the domestic American political process in such a way that the United States officially engaged in a variety of diplomatic efforts.   Nonetheless, there is significant learning on offer here–and perhaps that learning can save some lives in the future.

It seems that there is some realization that the activists did not know enough about the context and specific background of the complex situation in Darfur as opposed to some other situation of mass atrocities in some other place or time.  There may be ways to address this shortfall in preparation for future conflagrations.  At the same time, I don’t think that it necessarily follows that our government would have accomplished more without the youthful energy and passion of the activists, or that things would not have gotten even worse in Darfur if the United States had not engaged to the extent that it did.

Writ large, this is a reminder that we don’t get second bites at the apple.  Darfur is not Rwanda and cannot offer redemption for our failure to act there.  Likewise, 2003 did not offer a second chance at the situation that the United States faced at the end of the first Gulf War in 1991.  In fact, invading Iraq in 2003 to remove Saddam Hussein ended up hamstringing the U.S. in responding to the newer crisis in Darfur.  Nonetheless, from our failures we can learn, and Hamilton’s is a real contribution.

__________________________________

On the “to read” list, here is a review from the Stanford Social Innovation Review of More Than Good Intentions:  How a New Economics is Helping to Solve Global Poverty” Dean Karlan and Jacob Appel.

Observations about the Kenyan and American Presidential Cycle for 2012

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-Four years ago I was just moving to Nairobi.  The “Housing Bubble” was still inflated, along with the broader “Finance Bubble”.   The Bush Administration had become deeply controversial and substantially unpopular, in particular because of Iraq, along with some of the whole Jack Abramoff/Tom Delay scenario in Congress that helped the Democrats retake the House in 2006.

-At that time, neither John McCain, the long time chairman of the International Republican Institute, for which I was going to work, nor Barack Obama, the young, fresh-faced green black Senator from Illinois, looked to the pundit class to be likely nominees for President.  McCain had stumbled from his incumbent front-runner status, with various others seeming to emerge.  Obama, obviously, needed to cap his expectations at a running mate slot if he did really well.

-It was interesting that Obama’s father had been from Kenya, and that Obama had written a memoir in part about growing up essentially without that father, but with some awareness of who he was and some communication, and then finally a visit to Kenya as a young adult.  It would never, ever have occurred to me to imagine that later, many millions of Americans could imagine that Senator Obama had been born in Kenya, smuggled into the United States secretly and his story concocted as part of a vast conspiracy by someone for some purpose deeply dangerous to the country.  That all these years his birth in Kenya had been known in Kenya but kept secret in the United States.

-Now that the President has gone to some lengths to make a very high profile release of the State of Hawaii’s actual “long form” certificate to supplement his previous release of a copy of his own birth certificate, the politicians who tried to advance their careers by enabling this nonsense have been damaged and the President’s re-election prospects improved.

-So why the exact timing?

It seems to me that Obama’s people would likely have assumed initially that the whole “birther thing” would die down, rather than grow, after he took office.  I would have.  I wouldn’t have been cynical enough about Republican politicians to realize how many would refuse to disown it or would even tacitly encourage it.

At some point it must have become clear that it should be addressed for the 2012 campaign.  So why wait so long?  Maybe the “rope a dope” factor.  Why interrupt “silly season” among people who are obviously going to be attacking you on some basis, until the time that more independent minded people are starting to think about who to vote for next year?

The conventional wisdom in the media seems to stick with the narrative that this was a “response” to Donald Trump dictated by the traction Trump was suddenly getting through the media.   Maybe, but I haven’t noticed the sourced reporting on this, as opposed to the repetition of assumption from circumstantial observation.  I think this may well be wrong.   Because the media seems to have had no idea about something a lot more consequential going on at the same time as the rump Trump boomlet: the preparation for the raid on the Bin Laden compound.

To me, it would seem that it was necessary for Obama to release the “long form” birth certificate to protect himself, and the country, from the kinds of things that might be said if the Bin Laden raid had failed. Jimmy Carter’s re-election was riding on the 1980 attempt to rescue American hostages in Iran–likewise the Bin Laden raid was a singular high risk event in U.S. domestic politics.

-Meanwhile, the Kenyan 2012 campaign is gearing up as well, with the ICC cases from the last election still in their early stages. Even with the birther issue behind him, I would expect that Obama will want to minimize any personal contact with Kenyan controversies until after his own election, relying on Secretary Clinton and his new ambassador, Scott Gration.