Tag Archives: impunity

South Sudan: new Salva Kiir—Rannenberger Foreign Agent filing shows $1.2M non-refundable retainer “already paid” and $3.7M flat fee (contra Reuters)

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  1. COMPENSATION

6. The Consultant will charge the Client a flat fee of $3.7 million dollars for the services (the “Compensation”) for this two-year Contract.

7. The parties acknowledge that $1.2 million dollar’s of the Compensation has already been paid to the Consultant as ofthe date hereof, as a non-refundable retainer. The Consultant will invoice Client quarterly for amounts due.

Here is the May 7 filing with the Justice Department, by Gainful Solutions with a new “Exhibit AB” which includes both a letter purportedly canceling the April agreement, dated May 2, and the substitute agreement dated May 5.

The widely-reprinted Reuters story from my update to my previous post indicated that the new agreement did not mention compensation.

On May 2 Gainful Solutions filed a “Short Form” Foreign Agent registration act for Ambassador Timothy Towell as an additional lobbyist and business agent with the title of “consultant” at compensation “to be determined” to go with the previous filings for Ranneberger, Soheil Nazari-Kangarlou and Constance Berry Newman.

Note: The Justice Department has these filings incorrectly posted on its FARA.gov database under “Sudan” instead of “The Republic of South Sudan”.

Update: Politico reported on the contract change here in their “Influencers” newsletter, noting the compensation and identifying dropping reference to the hybrid court as the main change.

And read: “EDITORIAL: Cry havoc, and let slip the U.S. ex-diplomats” in The East African.

Amb. To Kenya Michael Ranneberger with late Kenyan diplomat Bethuel Kiplagat, defending Kiplagat’s controversial appointment by President Kibaki to head Kenyan TJRC

Former Amb. Ranneberger draws storm of controversy with hybrid contract with Salva Kiir’s South Sudan administration [updated May 8]

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UPDATE May 8: Reuters reports that an amended version of the “Beneficial Solutions” lobbying agreement has been filed.

“I’m doubtful the revised contract means a substantive change to the lobbying deal,” Klem Ryan, former coordinator of the UN Security Council Panel of Experts for South Sudan, told Reuters.

“The rewording seems to be a response to the negative publicity that both the South Sudanese government and those associated with Gainful Solutions received, but not a rejection of the lobbying efforts.”

Rights groups accused the government of paying to avoid justice. The new contract was “a slap in the face to victims of the horrific crimes that have been committed in South Sudan,” said Elise Keppler, associate director of U.S.-based Human Rights Watch.

The government did not respond to requests for comment on the old contract or the new one.

——-

Former Ambassador to Kenya Michael Ranneberger and a partner, Soheil Nazari-Kangarlou, have formed a firm called “Gainful Solutions” and executed a contract with the Salva Kiir administration for seemingly exclusive representation for inbound private investment from the West and for lobbying with the Trump Administration, seeking military aid, sanctions relief, and to suspend and eliminate the African Union-South Sudan “hybrid court” for war crimes agreed in negotiations to end the South Sudanese civil war. The contract involves an unusual combination of “investment agent” services with ambiguous and open ended compensation and an extraordinary “flat fee” two year lobby deal for $3.7M with $1.2M cash up front.

Adding to a firestorm of criticism since the related Foreign Agent Registration Act filings from April 18 hit the press last week, a coalition of South Sudanese civil society groups has demanded that the contract be cancelled. Susan D. Page, the inaugural U.S. Ambassador to independent South Sudan called the contract “very disturbing and disappointing” on Twitter and former Ambassador to South Africa Patrick Gaspard called it “disgusting”. Our current Ambassador is quoted below explaining why he is disturbed.

Ranneberger, Nazari-Kangarlou and Constance Berry Newman are the firm’s three employees with the title of “Consultant” per the Registration.

6. List all employees who render services to the registrant directly in furtherance of the interests of any of the foreign principals in other than a clerical, secretarial, or in a related or similar capacity

Here are some links for a flavor of what seems to be as controversial a Foreign Agent Registration Act filing as I have seen:

Former U.S. Diplomats Lobby to Stop South Sudan War Crimes Court, Foreign Policy, U.S. April 29:

. . . .

The U.S. government, which backs the peace agreement, provided $4.8 million in 2016 through the African Union to set up the court, a State Department spokesman confirmed to Foreign Policy in email. “The project is ongoing,” the spokesman said.

The lobbying contract provides an unusually candid glimpse into the South Sudanese government’s aims to undercut a peace deal it has committed to. Some current and former U.S. officials are outraged at the former diplomats involved in the contract for accepting millions of dollars from Kiir, whose government is accused of widespread human rights violations during the country’s five-year-long civil war.

Ranneberger lands deal to clean image of Salva Kiir, The Star, Kenya, April 30.

S.Sudan hires U.S. lobby group to block war crimes court, AFP, April 30.

. . . .

US Ambassador to South Sudan, Thomas Hushek, described the contract with the lobby group as disturbing.

“This, to me, is very disturbing because this is a commitment made in the peace agreement. The hybrid court is part and parcel of chapter five of the peace agreement,” Hushek said, according to Eye Radio in Juba.

South Sudan hires U.S. lobby group to block war crimes court, Daily Monitor, Uganda, April 30.

Blocking hybrid court confirms atrocities were committed–FoDAG, Eye Radio, Juba

South Sudan hires U.S. lobby group to avoid war crime charges, TRTWorld, Turkey

Gainful Solutions, Inc. and the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act, Thoughts on the Sudans, Aly Verjee:

. . . .

Beyond the outrage that has focused on the moral wrongs of any effort to block the hybrid court, the contract may expose its parties to legal peril in two distinct areas.

First, the contract’s clear intent to obstruct the formation of a key institution required by the peace agreement, the hybrid court, raises the prospect of sanctions pursuant to presidential Executive Order 13664, which permits sanctions against:

any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State…to be responsible for…(B) actions or policies that threaten transitional agreements or undermine democratic processes or institutions in South Sudan; (C) actions or policies that have the purpose or effect of expanding or extending the conflict in South Sudan or obstructing reconciliation or peace talks or processes.

Executive Order 13664 allows for the freezing of the property of any person so designated under the order.  It may be applied to both U.S. and non-U.S. persons, whether within the United States or abroad.

The second area of legal jeopardy concerns three potential areas of non-compliance with the FARA: [issues of completeness and accuracy of disclosure in the filings and of late filing].

Kenya 2007 election- Ambassador Ranneberger and Connie Newman at polling station Nairobi

Amb. Ranneberger and Connie Newman at polling place in Nairobi, during Dec. 27, 2007 Kenyan election

Ranneberger’s “great friend and mentor” Connie Newman–his choice as lead delegate for IRI to observe Kenya’s ill-fated 2007 election–is separately registered as a “consultant” on the South Sudan deal [“As an advisor to Gainful Solutions, I will travel to South Sudan with the partners of Gainful Solutions for a meeting with President Kir, The meeting will discuss how to improve the relationship between the U.S. and South Sudan and thus promote peace and stability. Other work or meetings on my behalf with Gainful Solutions will be determined on a case by case basis. There is thus far no set agenda for future activity.” For a $5,000 fee.] as discussed in Aly Verjee’s blog post. Newman is a longtime lobbyist who has been Africa lead for the Carmen Group after serving as Asst. Secretary of State for African Affairs from June 2004 to April 2005 (with Ranneberger serving as Principle Deputy Asst.Sec.) and Assistant Administrator for Africa for USAID from 2001. As a domestic lobbyist in 1991 after a long pioneering career in federal service she was given high credit in GOP circles for helping to persuade the NAACP not to oppose the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy left by civil rights icon Thurgood Marshall.

More: Former U.S. Ambassador to Kenya lobbying to stop South Sudan war crimes court.An Africanist Perspective (Ken Opalo) Apr. 30:

. . . .

Everyone is rightfully outraged. More than 400,000 have died since South Sudan descended into civil war and millions more were displaced.

These revelations also highlight the many challenges the court is likely to face if and when it is eventually set up. South Sudanese political elites (on both sides of the post-2014 conflict) are not particularly keen on facing justice for atrocities committed against civilians and armed actors. It is also unclear if Juba’s friends in Kampala, Nairobi, or Addis have any incentive to inject yet another variable into the ongoing efforts to establish a modicum of stability in South Sudan.

Moral outrage alone will not move the needle. The court’s success will depend on how much pivotal actors within IGAD are willing to lean on Machar and Kiir.

As far as lobbying in Washington, DC goes, this is yet another reminder that even weak states like South Sudan are not passive members of the international system. While their options are limited on account of their position in the hierarchical structure of the state system, they still have agency and have a variety of tools at their disposal through which they can influence the behavior of much more powerful states. See also here.

[As an aside I also want to thank Dr. Ken Opalo for hosting a great book discussion event with Dr. Gabrielle Lynch on her most recent “Performances of Injustice: The Politics of Truth, Justice and Reconciliation in Kenya” which I was able to attend Tuesday.]

In Sudan, is the International Criminal Court an impediment to progress toward democracy and/or human rights now?

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I am no expert on Sudan and the International Criminal Court practice, such as it is, is not my field in law.

But I am an observer of various related neighborhoods and did a bit of work in Sudan back in 2007-08. Also, over the years I have never quite seen answers develop to some of the conceptual uncertainties I looked at about the idea of an international criminal court while in law school. And, of course, there is my experience with the multifaceted failure of the ICC’s attempt to prosecute a few symbolic “most responsible” members of Kenya’s political elite for the instrumental murder and mayhem that was part of the competition for power in Kenya in December 2007-February 2008.

Thus, some questions:

1) Does the ICC indictment against Bashir hinder the prospects for Sudanese to get Bashir out of power through popular protest?

2) Are we all agreed that the ICC is not ready to prosecute a case against Bashir even though the facts of the case are many years old and the charges themselves have been pending for almost ten years? If so, is this not hugely important to weighing the practical value of the Bashir case to the Sudanese people today?

You can watch the discussion from a March 2009 event from the Overseas Development Institute and the Royal African Society on the ICC’s decision here.

3) How many Member States have declined to act on the Bashir warrant when he was in their jurisdiction? How many have attempted to act? How many Member States have honored the spirit of the case against Bashir during its pendency?

4) What diplomatic efforts have the Prosecutors been making during the pendency of the Bashir case? Is diplomacy by a Prosecutor a form of informal pleas bargaining? Is it really the case that the ICC cannot plea bargain? Is it in the larger interests of justice for a jurisdiction to have a prosecuting authority that cannot plea bargain? What about pardon authority?

5) What are the lessons from the failed cases against Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto? And more broadly from the overall success of the perpetrators of political violence in Kenya in avoiding prosecution, avoiding other penalties or sanctions, keeping the political gains achieved through violence and obtaining further support from Member State governments and other governments which notionally supported accountability?

I recognize that this is a very tough time for human rights and humanitarianism as reflected in this post on counter-humanitarianism, 2019’s biggest challenge: the humanitarian sell-out” from Christina Bennett at the Overseas Development Institute. All the more reason those of us who care about people in the hands of angry rulers need to ask ourselves the hard questions.

Update: The International Crisis Group has a new report out titled “Prospects for a peaceful transition in Sudan improving” (h/t The Official blog of David Shinn) which notes the ICC issue and discusses the idea of bargaining through the UN Security Council’s deferral process:

The UN Security Council might also offer to request the ICC defer investigation or prosecution of Bashir’s case for one year, pursuant to the Rome Statute’s Article 16, were he to resign or to leave office in 2020; the deferral could be extended provided Bashir stayed out of – and did not interfere in any way with – Sudanese politics. The downsides to deferring his case would be enormous, but without a pledge along these lines, Bashir is unlikely to step down.

One problem with this is that 3 of the Permanent Members of the Security Council are Non-Members of the ICC. China and Russia are hardly advocates of human rights, rule of law or democracy and the present United States administration expresses opposition to the existence of the ICC as such, escalating the complications associated with U.S. diplomacy involving ICC cases. What are the interests of the CCP here? Reports indicate that the Bashir regime has brought in Russian “Wagner Group” mercenaries.

Of course in the Kenyan cases, unsuccessfully pursuing a Security Council deferral was the major diplomatic priority for Kenya’s Government for a period of years, as well as attacks on the Court though the African Union, IGAD and whatever other fora could be found. The diplomacy failed, but the Prosecution failed anyway, with loss of life and other large costs left to the witnesses and victims.

Update Jan 16: World Politcs Review has a new piece from Richard Downey of CSIS.

Kenya IEBC terminates Chief Election Officer over procurement irregularities

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Kenya 2013 election IRI Electoral Commission voter education posterKenya, after three problematic general elections (2007, 2013, 2017), might finally be showing some initial stirrings of organic action to start to address fraud within the Election Commission. The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission has announced today the termination of Ezra Chiloba, Chief Election Officer, after a long suspension.

The last two elections were plagued by technology problems, with the 2017 vote annulled by the Supreme Court. The donors, including USAID which directly funded failed purchases in 2013, and funded a major embedded role with the IEBC for IFES throughout these years, have remained conspicuously mute on reforms and corruption issues involving the Electoral Commissions.

In the past, after opposition protests, the Commissioners from the 2007 and 2013 elections were given lucrative buyouts to pave the way for a new slate, and impunity for bribery and procurement fraud issues was the informal consensus policy among the Kenyan politicians and the Western donors supporting the election process.

After the buyout of the Commission led by Issack Hassan which had failings in the 2013 vote, Chief Election Officer Chiloba was carried over under the new Commission on through the 2017 vote. Since 2017 we have now seen three Commissioners resign in addition to Commissioner Akombe who fled country during the tensions following the Supreme Court’s annulment of the August presidential vote. The remaining Commissioners have now acted to fire Chiloba after internal audits and a report by Kenya’s Auditor General raised “charges . . . on major procurements.”

See today’s announcement:

The next step is to release to the public the audit reports indicating “charges” and refer the matters for legal proceedings.

In the meantime, several more months have gone by without any further release from the USAID FOIA office on my 2015 request for the documents from their support of the IEBC through IFES for the 2013 vote.

See “Election Assistance FOIA Update: Disappointed to see from USAID records that IFES was supporting Kenya IEBC/Kenyatta-Ruto defense of election petition by civil society and opposition“.

A year ago, Chris Msando, ICT Director for Kenya’s Election Commission, was abducted, tortured and murdered on election eve. We do not seem to care.

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See “Chris Msando: Year 53 in the History of State Assassinations” in The Elephant.

[Update, see “Grieving Msando widow sends tearful message to husband’s killers” from Nation Media.]

Just another tick on the list of potentially inconvenient lives snuffed out, brutally, in Kenya’s politics. We offered to assist through the FBI, as the British did through Scotland Yard. The Kenyatta Administration said “no thanks” and we said, in effect as far as I can see, “never mind.”

Early on there were diversionary arrests of fake suspects to suggest some type of pedestrian criminal explanation unrelated to the election, but complicating evidence regarding the abductions leaked out and those arrests fell by the wayside. Nothing further is being done.

In the days after the vote, during the counting and disputes involving the technology and broadcasts, leading to the annulment of the presidential vote by the Supreme Court, I bet an academic friend that when the year anniversary of the murders came around they would be officially unsolved with investigation “on ice”. That these things are so coldly predictable is a testament to underlying brutality of Kenyan politics.

Ten years after 2008 post election “peace deal” Kenya is a world leader in crime and impunity

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Kenya IDP Camp Post Election Violence Naivasha

Ten years ago today I watched television coverage of the “peace deal” signed by Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga in the IRI office in Nairobi, on the new K24 television station (owned by the Kenyatta family as I later learned).

I had sent off overnight a briefing memo to IRI’s president as background for a private breakfast confab he was participating in Washington on the “Kenya crisis” in advance of the news of the “peace deal”.  In the memo I explained my assessment of insights from the exit poll we had conducted on the presidential election that had been quashed from public release. For instance, that the poll showed the ODM party candidate Raila Odinga beating the incumbent (and declared winner) Kibaki among both Christians and Muslims, as well as in the overall totals.

One of the indelible memories from that day was watching the teargassing of Kenyans celebrating the agreement and expected end of the Post Election Violence. This conduct by the Police was an enduring legacy and prophetic symbol of continuity.

Uhuru Kenyatta at the time of the settlement had been serving since January as Kibaki’s Minister for Local Government and playing a leading role in city affairs in Nairobi in those days prior to devolution. He was to be appointed Deputy Prime Minister by Kibaki under the deal.  In hindsight this appointment was his functional designation as Kibaki’s successor, although that was not so clear to many of us at the time.  William Ruto, who had been leader of the ODM party’s negotiating team in the mediation process which had failed to close the gap to get to a final agreement, was on his way to serving as Minister of Agriculture as, originally, an ODM appointment in the coalition government, but later switching sides after Kibaki blocked Raila’s effort to suspend him over corruption allegations.  Martha Karua was serving as Kibaki’s Justice Minister, having led the PNU/Government side in the mediation; she resigned in frustration soon thereafter.  She has not found her place in electoral politics thereafter, but has long served as a member of IRI’s Global Advisory Board.

Today, I see news from Quartz Africa that PWC has issued its latest annual report of its Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey. Kenya has ranked #2 in the world (barely trailing South Africa, and solidly leading the rest of the Big Five: France, Russia and Uganda)! The biggest thing I’ve learned from these last ten years may be that in Kenya, you can get away with pretty much anything (from stealing an election to the vilest of mass murder, rape and mayhem in its aftermath, along with looting the public treasury while millions of Kenyans are parched and hungry).

Updated Feb 7: Autocratic fangs bared in Kenya as unlawful television shutdown finishes first week; police fail to produce unlawfully detained activist

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For a good overview:

“Kenya’s About-Face: Fear for Democracy as Dissent is Muzzled” by Jina Moore, New York Times, Feb. 4.

Today the police failed to honor an order to produce detained opposition activist/lawyer Miguna Miguna, who has been arrested by police and held in defiance of a previous order granting bail. No charges have been initiated against him by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution.

The Court ordered the Inspector General of the Police to appear tomorrow morning with Miguna. Raila and other NASA leaders came to Court for Miguna this afternoon.

Miguna is a firebrand “character” on the local scene in recent years who was not in NASA, running for Governor as an independent against ODM/NASA incumbent Evans Kidero and the new Jubilee Governor Sonko, gaining little support as a candidate. Post election he has associated himself with an activist wing of political opposition calling itself the “National Resistance Movement” and pressured for, publicized and participated in Raila’s (peaceful) “people’s president” swearing in ceremony. It would seem that the regime saw him as someone they could visibly and conspicuously “shut up” who did not have a political constituency or independent mass following.

Personally, I have not considered Miguna’s role one that I thought seemed constructive over the years, but he does not deserve to die for that and I am worried for him.

What does it take for people to see that Kenyatta and Ruto just are not the men whom their Western friends and publicists would try to make us believe?

Looking at Kenya over the years it is so easy to become inured to State violence used not in the interest of the nation or the citizens but of political power and self interest of those controlling the ruling party.

537th they came for Miguna Miguna, and I said nothing because I was not Miguna Miguna?

UPDATE: Later Monday, KTN broadcasting was restored and while NTV remained off the public airwaves its signal was restored to cable and DSTV for those subscribers. Citizen and Kikuyu language sister station Inooro were still blocked from broadcasting. The partial restoration came just ahead on a contempt petition following the original order that broadcasts be restored secured by a public interest litigant. Citizen, unlike its rivals, went to Court itself to challenge the ban.

UPDATE:  Miguna, a Kenyan born citizen who fled to Canada as a refugee during the political persecution of the Moi days, was finally taken late at night to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and bundled onto a plane for Amsterdam and on back to Toronto.  The police having run out of time finally after serial Court orders to produce him took him to the airport instead of the courtroom.  The authorities will have to file affidavits explaining their actions in preparation for contempt hearings.  Miguna asserts that he was physically mistreated aside from the extralegal aspects of his detention and his alleged deportation or expulsion.

Ken Opalo points out in The Standard that Interior Minister Matiangi shouldn’t have overreacted to Raila’s oath of office in first place, since “the people’s president” is not a real office and the ceremony was a political statement not a treasonable offense.  To this I would add that the State Department’s pronouncement from Washington helped fuel rather than diffuse the confrontation, in particular by decrying the ceremony as a “self-inauguration” without noting that the opposition had stepped back from a claim to an actual office (the stated goal of the opposition is take office through new elections later this year).

Challenges to the constitutional role of the Kenyan Courts by the Executive Branch did not start this week

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[Update: see new editorial from the New York Times: “Kenya on the brink again“.

And Gathara’s World: “Kenya’s Future Increasingly Looks Like Its Past”;

Kenya has basically regressed 50 years in the last 7 months and the 2010 constitution’s promise of a democratic renewal is fast fading. If extinguished, history suggests Kenyans may be in for decades of brutal and kleptocratic rule. It will be a steep price for the country to pay for not learning from its past.

The role of the Courts in Kenya is under most conspicuous assault with the Kenyatta government flouting orders to allow the main private television networks back on the air, and ignoring orders to release a high profile political detainee.

In fact, the decision of the Supreme Court to rule against the incumbent President to annul his re-election was unprecedented and extraordinary. It has never warranted complacency.

That one Supreme Court ruling was not a bona fide moment of “Mission Accomplished” any more than the winning of the “yes” vote backed by the United States in the 2010 referendum to approve the new constitution was “Mission Accomplished” for “the reform agenda” that we talked about back in those first years of this decade.

Kenyans will remember the beginning of the Obama Administration when Ambassador Ranneberger was a born-again reformer after getting caught out selling Kenyans on accepting the ECK’s alleged “results” as announced (and subsequently disowned) by Samuel Kivuitu in December 2007. As I learned through the Freedom of Information Act later, Ranneberger had informed Washington in his pre-election cables that the Kenyan courts at that time were not credible.

See quotes from Ranneberger’s cable of December 24, 2007 from my post “Lessons from the 2007 Elections and the new FOIA cables–part two“:

There is no credible mechanism to challenge the results, hence likely recourse to the streets if the result is questionable.  The courts are both inefficient and corrupt.

(For my summary of the 2007 election, see The Debacle of 2007: How Kenyan Politics Was Frozen and an Election Stolen With US Connivance” in The Elephant from June.)

After those December 30, 2007 announced “results” were questioned by other observers and not accepted we withdrew our pre-mature congratulations to Kibaki and shifted to support “power sharing.” We helped support negotiations that “settled” the violence among the pols and created openings for ODM politicians within Kibaki’s second administration, along with providing for the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission and the revival of the stalled constitutional reform promised voters by NARC in 2002.

After that experience of 2007-08, when the absence of credible independent courts was so sorely felt, the court system was a recognized need for the new constitution.

The new constitution eventually passed in the 2010 referendum against a spirited campaign led by William Ruto created a new Supreme Court and spurred new hope for a cleaner, stronger judiciary that could perhaps stand up to the cartels and politicians and maybe even a president.

But the “reform agenda” held our focus for only so long, and I don’t think we converted many unfaithful politicians. I never got the impression we were too enthused about the TJRC process, but one way or the other we certainly seem to have completely forgotten about that part of the 2008 National Accord since the Uhuruto regime came in power and made it clear that nothing is to come of the (expurgated) gathered evidence of the wrongs of recent decades.

From the “reform agenda” days, which corrupt Kenyan politician ever got prosecuted by the Kenyan authorities based on Ranneberger’s dossiers? Which corrupt institutions were liquidated to benefit the public? Impunity has proved untouchable and, thus corruption has only gotten worse. The new innovation is that if you get caught and pushed out of the Executive Branch you might get lucky enough to be sponsored in a governor’s race. The dossiers pile up and up.

Meanwhile, the notion of an independent judiciary in Kenya is a fledgling work-in-process. Since September 1 signs have been more negative than positive. Starting with the infamous wakora slurs from the President himself against the Judges, culminating with the inability of the Supreme Court to muster a quorum to hear the challenge to the IEBC holding the “fresh election” on October 26 (after the shooting of the Deputy Chief Justice’s driver in her car), there are questions whether September 1 was a “one off” event. Not one the ruling party intends to see metastasize into an inflection point toward reform and away from Kenya’s historical norms under “Kenyatta and Moi’s KANU especially–the “home” of Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto together for most of their years.

Who has done the best writing so far about the fake NGOs and “bots” in the Kenyan election campaign?

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Asking for a friend.

Don’t Mess from Texas: disturbing Privacy International report indicates Uhuruto re-election campaign bought Texas-based negative propaganda campaign (updated)

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Read the important report here: “Texas media company hired by Trump created Kenyan president’s viral ‘anonymous’ attack campaign against rival, new investigation reveals“.

I am a native Texan myself, so I do not think that Texans are less likely to understand the moral, spiritual or foreign relations repercussions of aggressive tribalist propaganda on behalf of William Ruto and Uhuru Kenyatta than Americans in Idaho or Arkansas, say.  The problem is that the operation seems to have been conducted by a United States-based firm, staffed by Americans, orchestrating a digitized propaganda campaign directed against both Kenyan voters and those Americans such as myself and other amateur or professional “Kenya watchers” or U.S. government personnel who would conduct internet activity touching on Kenya politics and government.

The firm in question, Harris Media, based on this report but also their associated social media, seems to have affinity for what I think of as the “White Right”–the National Front, AfD, UKIP, Roy Moore, etc., aside from Trump.  I have noted the Uhuruto government courting these folks in the United States over the years — I won’t elaborate here but it has always troubled me as an American Southerner.  Some of these people also use Christian symbolism as part of their personal branding which is that much more troubling for me.

Unfortunately the Americans involved as of this writing have not filed a Foreign Agent Registration Act registration and made the associated disclosures to the Justice Department and the American public.

The Privacy International report appears to to reveal that the American firm was an “agent for a foreign principle” in conducting a propaganda campaign for Kenyatta and Ruto’s re-election, in substantial part through generating fear and loathing of the opposition. I do know that some of my friends in Washington wrongly predicted violent behavior on the part of the opposition in the context of the botched August 8 election. Could they have been influenced by this propaganda campaign, and/or by others that have not yet been uncovered by outside investigation?