Don’t be confused: preparations for Kenya’s failed August election election were controlled by Kenya’s ousted “Chickengate” IEBC and its CEO and staff with support of international “partners”

From this blog late last year:

Meanwhile, Kenya is paying an average of about $343,000.00 “severance” to each of the outgoing Independent Electoral and Boundary Commissioners for leaving earlier this fall rather than completing their terms through November 2017. No signs of accountability for the #Chickengate bribes to the IEBC by Smith & Ouzman that were prosecuted by the UK and no sign of accountability for corruption in the subsequent 2013 election technology procurements.

While the “buyout” has been negotiated, the incumbent IEBC staff without the “servered” Commission has been proceeding to undertake election preparations that will be fait accompli for the new Commission when it is appointed next year.  

Accordingly, the chief executive has proceeded to report plans to spend an astounding 30Billion KSh to conduct the 2017 general election, while setting a target of 22 million registered voters. In other words and figures, roughly $13.40US per registered voter if the target is met or $19.60US per currently registered voter. (For comparative data from places like Haiti and Bosnia,see The Ace Project data on cost of registration and elections.)

Update: see Roselyne Akombe’s interview in the Saturday Nation, Credible Oct. 26 election not possible: Akombe” 

Somaliland Update

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Britain warns of “specific threat” to Westerners in Somaliland and urges its citizens to leave. This is sad; I found Somalilanders to be most welcoming and especially appreciative of the interest and attention of Western visitors. Likewise, during 2007-08, Hargeisa just felt safer than Nairobi, or Addis or Khartoum for that matter.

Former Ambassador David Shinn recently gave an interview with the Somaliland Sun that will be reassuring to Somalilanders wondering about the impact on them of the U.S. decision this month to give formal recognition to the new Somali government:

While I don’t speak for the U.S. government, I doubt that the formal recognition of the new Somali government will have any significant impact on Washington’s interaction with Somaliland. I believe the U.S. government will continue to work with Somaliland as it has in recent years. While there may not be public references to the two track policy, the separate administration in Somaliland remains a reality and I believe Washington will treat it as such. It is up to the leaders of Somalia and Somaliland to determine the nature of their relationship. I see no indication that the United States has abandoned any commitments reached in last year’s London conference. Nor do I expect this development will change in any perceptible way U.S. policy on combatting piracy in the region.

See David Shinn’s blog here.

Red Sea

Watching Alliances Experience “Blow Out” from a Build Up of Democratic Pressure

Its a beautiful spring day here in coastal Mississippi.  A nice day for a Mardi Gras parade and to rake leaves, which we do here in the spring instead of the fall, and to watch events unfold in Africa.  As election results are coming in from Uganda, the Libyan army is attempting to repress a budding revolution against Museveni’s recent friend from the north, Col. Gaddafi.  Of course, Museveni is not the only one who has been cozy with the theatrical Libyan dictator, oil baron and would-be “Pan African” leader.

From today’s Guardian, “Britain’s alliance with Libya turns sour as Gaddafi cracks down”:

Now Britain’s risky and controversial relationship with Libya is beginning rapidly to unravel.

BP, which is also heavily involved in the country, is weeks away from beginning a major drilling operation in a vast area around the desert town of Ghadames. Indeed, a group of US senators last year suggested that the decision to free the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi could have been influenced by lobbying over BP’s commercial interests in Libya — an allegation fiercely denied by the Scottish government.

And it is not only Britain’s foreign policy on Libya that has sent diplomats scurrying into disarray as they have tried to keep up with the wave of popular uprisings against regimes that Britain supported, but the policy for the entire region.

According to Claire Spencer, head of the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House, the rapprochement with Libya in 2004 was founded on assumptions that dominated for a decade post-9/11, obsessed as the west was with the fight against al-Qaida, the wider “global war on terror” and fear of mass migration and the rising influence of Iran.

“Against that we backed the other half, the so-called moderates standing up for our values – regimes in places like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel.” The domination of that foreign policy agenda, she believes, meant that not only in the Foreign Office but in the Quai d’Orsay and the US State Department, those warning of the growing potential for unrest across the region were ignored.

Though Libya had faced accusations of refusing to recognise the rights of refugees, indefinite detentions, torture and arbitrary expulsions, Spencer believes that British diplomats felt they had only the most limited leverage on their new partner.

By yesterday the queasiness had turned to outright horror, as Britain’s foreign secretary William Hague, a day after his department revoked all British arms licences to Libya and Bahrain, condemned the “unacceptable and horrifying” use of violence by Gaddafi’s security forces against his own people, “including reports of the use of heavy weapons fire and a unit of snipers against demonstrators”.

Which leaves the crucial question of whether Gaddafi can survive. In the past, as Spencer points out, the self-styled Supreme Guide has been adept at ditching prime ministers and others to protect his position and place himself on the side of the people, a tactic he tried to use even in the current protests. Now he has abandoned that in favour of the use of outright violent suppression.

If he believes that he can confine the problems to the country’s east, he may be mistaken. Many from that region have families in Tripoli. He may find it impossible to stop rebellion spreading.

And Britain’s manoeuvring to distance itself from the man it has supported for the last seven years may have come too late.

Needless to say, here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast BP has not been especially popular since last April. I don’t think many people here have paid especially great attention to Gaddafi, but neither I suspect, have they been particularly confused about him.

I pulled out a copy the other day of a J. Peter Pham column from World Defense Review from March 2010 entitled “Libya as an African Power” which I would encourage you to read and reflect on:

The breakout came in 1997 when the annual summit of Organization of African Unity foreign ministers was held in Qadhafi’s hometown of Sirte (some of the diplomats attending were only able to do so because Libya paid their country’s arrears to the pan-African organization, thus restoring their voting rights). The foreign ministers also set up a five-member committee to mediate between Libya and the West over the Lockerbie dispute. On the heels of the summit, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni and South Africa’s President Nelson Mandela both visited Tripoli. African backing proved critical to the breakdown of the sanctions regime and the subsequent agreement to hand over two Libyan suspects for trial in the Netherlands under Scottish law for the Pan Am bombing.

Meanwhile, Libya’s strategic engagements across Africa multiplied—a state of affairs symbolically demonstrated by the change in name of the country’s state broadcaster from the “Voice of the Greater Arab Homeland” to the “Voice of Africa.” .  .  .  .

Even the creation of the African Union in place of the tired Organization of African Unity has a Libyan connection that is usually glossed over. In response to an initiative promoted by Tripoli, the OAU Assembly of African Heads of State and Government met in extraordinary session for only the fourth time in its nearly forty-year history at Sirte in September 1999. In the resulting “Sirte Declaration,” the African leaders professed to have been “inspired by the important proposals submitted by Colonel Muammar Qadhafi, Leader of the Great Al-Fatah Libyan Revolution, and particularly, by his vision for a strong and united Africa, capable of meeting global challenges and shouldering its responsibility to harness the human and natural resources of the continent in order to improve the living conditions of its peoples” and resolved to “establish an African Union” better able to “cope with the challenges and to effectively address the new social, political, and economic realities in Africa and in the world.”

.  .  .  .

Considerably more important than its role as a donor of development assistance has been Libya’s role as an investor in Africa. A government entity, the Libya African Portfolio for Investments (LAP), overseen by the country’s main sovereign wealth fund, the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), numbers among its companies the Libyan Arab African Investment Company (LAAICO), which has a mandate to promote business growth in Africa by investing in sectors as diverse as agriculture, mining, manufacturing, real estate development, telecommunications, and tourism. Currently, LAAIC has holdings in some more than two dozen African countries, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Central Africa Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo (Brazzaville), Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Another LAP company, the Oil Libya Holding Company (formerly Tamoil Africa), is engaged in refining, marketing and distribution of petroleum products in a similar number of African countries. In Morocco, for example, the Libyans have invested more than $5 billion to acquire about 200 gas stations, approximately 10 percent of the local market. Yet another LAP asset, LAP Green, has had telecommunications operations in Côte d’Ivoire, Niger, Rwanda, and Uganda. Last month LAP Green acquired 80 percent of Gemtel in South Sudan and the company has been shortlisted among the suitors seeking to acquire a 75-percent stake in the Zambia Telecommunications Company (Zamtel) being offered by the Zambia Development Agency.

.  .  .  .

Uganda is a good example of a case where Libya’s investments have served its strategic objectives while simultaneously helping the target country’s economic and social development. There are few African countries where Tripoli’s past interventions were so much on the wrong side of history.  .  .  .

.  .  .  . Currently at least $500 million in Libyan capital is participating in Uganda’s growing economy. Libya owns a 49-percent stake in the National Housing and Construction Company (NHCC), a public enterprise with a mandate to increase the housing stock in the country, rehabilitate the housing industry, and encourage Ugandans to own homes in an organized environment. Libya also owns 69 percent of Uganda Telecom Limited (the Ugandan government owns the other 31 percent), where its capital has been used to aggressively expand the company’s market share. In a joint venture with the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA), Libya has invested in a soluble coffee plant that adds value to Ugandan production by making it compliant with European standards. Libya also has the contract to build an extension of the Mombasa-Eldoret oil pipeline in Kenya to the Ugandan capital of Kampala. The extension will be designed to permit reverse flow once Uganda begins its own petroleum production. Earlier this year, a team from Oil Libya visited Uganda to explore the possibility of building an oil refinery.

The Qadhafi regime’s decision in 2003 to abandon its WMD program, settle the Lockerbie claims, and give up its hitherto support of international terrorism (the United States removed Libya from its list of state sponsors of terrorism in 2007) led to the lifting of numerous economic and trade restrictions as well as the ban on American citizens doing business there. The potential economic and political rewards of deciding to work with instead of against Washington may actually strengthen Tripoli’s capacity in dealings with the rest of the African continent, especially the poorer states of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Given some of the anti-Western, post-colonial rhetoric that has emanated from Tripoli over the years, it may be surprising for some to learn that since the thaw in bilateral relations with Washington, Libya has even demonstrated greater openness to the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) than some other states on the continent. AFRICOM Commander General William E. “Kip” Ward actually traveled to Libya twice in 2009 and met with Colonel Qadhafi .  .  .

Thus last May, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Boutwell arrived in Tubruq for a three-day port visit that was the first of any U.S. military vessel to Libya in more than four decades.  .  .  .  The visits were returned in September when a delegation of three senior Libyan officers visited AFRICOM headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, as well as U.S. Air Force Africa headquarters at Ramstein Air Base.During the officers’ visit, General Ward gave an unprecedented interview to Al-Musallh, the official journal of the Libyan armed forces, in which he described his discussions of African security matters with Qadhafi and “we look forward to working together in ways that help us achieve those common objectives for peace and stability.”

In the interest of renewing links to professionals in the Libyan military and security services after a nearly four-decade hiatus, the Bush administration requested $350,000 in State Department-administered International Military Education and Training (IMET) funding for Libya in fiscal year 2009. The Obama administration requested the same amount for the current fiscal year, specifying that the funding would be used for English language education as well as courses on civil-military relations, border security, and counterterrorism (Libya has been invited to join the U.S.-led Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership). In addition, the Obama administration budget also allocated, for the first time ever, a token $250,000 in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) to provide assistance to the Libyan air force in developing its air transport capabilities and to the Libyan coast guard in improving its coastal patrol and search-and-rescue operations. As significant as these steps may be, there is no reason why bilateral cooperation should not extend to other spheres. As Saif Aleslam al-Qadhafi, noted at the start of the U.S. rapprochement with his father: “Libya does not envisage limiting relations to fighting terrorism. It proposes joint efforts, for example, to meet the needs of Africa by eradicating disease and promoting investment.” .  .  .  .


“Stars and Stripes” on QDDR and “Civilan Power”

“US Considering Combining Military and International Affairs Budgets” at Stars and Stripes.

Citing the joint planning required between U.S. military and civilian agencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, the proposal is one of several that would put the U.S. diplomatic corps and its lead global humanitarian agency on a stronger national security footing, according to a draft of the State Department’s first-ever Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, or QDDR.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered the review last year to be modeled after the Pentagon’s four-year review, intended as a strategic guide for appropriators. It is part of an ongoing White House-led effort to link development and national security.

“To advance American interests and values and to lead other nations in solving shared problems in the 21st century, we must rely on our diplomats and development experts as the first face of American power,” Clinton said in the introduction of a “consultation draft” version leaked to The Washington Post this week. “We must lead through civilian power.”

What responsibility do Americans have for tribalism and corruption in Kenya?

Far more than most of us realize I would say.

Aside from the fact that most Americans simply are generally unaware of the whole topic, more specifically I think we have a problem from being in a real degree of denial about the extent to which both Kenyatta and Moi were tribalist and corrupt, and advanced the systems of tribalism and corruption, while we supported them for other reasons. Certainly a big part of my education from living and working in Kenya was the opportunity to have private conversations with Kenyans who would tell me about how bad things had been under Moi. Especially noteworthy were these conversations with citizens from the Kalenjin groupings in the Rift Valley.

Before going to Kenya I got too much information of tertiary importance about the history of political parties without the driving background of tribalism and torture and aggregate economic statistics without the same background. Nor was I well informed about the determinative modes of operation of Kenyatta, Moi and then Kibaki as leaders.

It seems to me that you have to understand and account for these things to understand the relative importance of a new constitution to the Kenyan people, as well as to understand something meaningful about the 2007 presidential election and the misconduct of Kenyan authorities, and the multiple different types of violence in different places in the wake of the stolen election. Then you can read the Waki Commission report on the post-election violence and make sense of the ethnic “body count” and the fact that slightly more of those killed who were identified by ethnicity were Luo than any other “tribe”, followed closely by Kikuyu.

The new constitution has given a sense of empowerment and opportunity in Kenya–but we have seen the chimera of reform before after the 2002 election. The United States and others have given themselves a lot of credit for the February 28, 2008 post-election settlement, but the agreements reached have seen a mixed record of performance so far. While the Waki Commission did a great service, no Kenyan tribunals have been created to prosecute cases from post-election violence. The Kreigler Commission abdicated the duty to assess the presidential election, while finding that the overall system and the parliamentary results were deeply flawed. The Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission has been aborted–trying again will require a significant new effort and extended time, while the next election looms.

So yes, this is exactly the right time to fully examine our role in the referendum campaign leading to the new constitution and our role in the 2007 election leading to violence followed by a settlement that has led to that referendum and to some other reforms, while others remain in limbo. With a better understanding of these last two elections we can make honest and informed decisions in a democratic manner about what our role should be now and in 2012.

And by the way, I understand that you still can’t buy “It’s Our Turn to Eat” in a Kenyan bookstore.

Open Society Report–Uganda Not Prepared for Free Election; U.S. options?

From AFP in the Daily Nation:

Uganda’s election panel has failed to establish conditions required to hold a free and fair vote less than five months before a scheduled general election, according to report seen by AFP Wednesday.

Intimidation of the opposition and media censorship both remain pervasive and the ruling party uses government structures for political purposes, says the report commissioned by Open Society Initiative for eastern Africa, a pro-democracy group linked to American billionaire George Soros.

OSIEA hired as lead author the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights defenders, Margaret Sekaggya, though the document is not a UN report.

“The electoral commission’s failure to address constant harassment, arrests and intimidation which political groups… are subjected to by police and Kiboko (stick wielding) squads has severely undermined its credibility,” the report says.

“The commission must also address the denial of freedom of expression and speech, especially the domination of broadcast media by the government and ruling party.”

The report states it is too late for Uganda to establish ground work for a free vote, which will likely be held in late February.

This obviously presents a difficult situation for U.S. policy makers. We are training Somali soldiers in Uganda in an environment of heightened tension following the World Cup bombings in Kampala, as well as training the Ugandan military and supporting their deployment in Somalia in the AMISOM mission.

If we know that the election is simply not going to be fully legitimate up front, what are our options? We could, for instance, support Museveni in the run up to the election on the theory that since he is going to stay in power anyway, it is better to help him make it look good to promote stability. And if violence breaks out, we can support nominal power sharing of some type to placate the opposition elites. We could bring open pressure now and try to broker some type of pre-election agreement to change the environment at least to some extent–or do something similar quietly. We could stay neutral and support the process as best we can without a specific agenda and maximize our position to contribute to problem-solving in the aftermath as honest brokers. Interesting choices.

Administration continues to grapple with who is to lead development efforts

Josh Rogan at Foreign Policy’s The Cable blog has a post that has drawn some expansive comments with a leaked draft of a White House “Presidential Study Directive on Global Development”, calling for establishing an interagency committee to coordinate, and elevate, development policy–thus pulling this function out of the State Department.

Rogan reports ongoing tension between the National Security Council and the State Department. No clarity as to when the administration will settle on a final approach here.

“Birtherism” Editorial: Obama born on Chinese warship off Peru’s coast?

Editorial: Obama born on Chinese warship off Peru’s coast?

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/mar/22/obama-born-on-chinese-warship-off-perus-coast/

knoxnews.com

At some point this “birtherism” becomes a significant question about American democracy.  Are we becoming better informed or less well informed in the “information age”?  What are the limits to “urban legend” and “suburban legend”, if any?  To what extent do politicians try to ride the “coattails” of these type of legends?  Will we see (or experience and not see) more active efforts by “mainstream” political players to organize or more actively exploit this sort of thing?  On the “birther” matter specifically, how will this play out with simultaneous campaigns in the US and Kenya in 2012?

I am sure that most Americans who have lived in Kenya recently have experienced strange incidents of people telling them stories or asking questions about Obama being born in Kenya.   I had a prominent lawyer from Texas tell me about how in Kenya it was common knowledge that Obama was born there and that there was a “big monument” to reflect this–and that he had been told this by “African-Americans”.  I had to explain that I had lived in Kenya for a year during the 2008 American and Kenyan presidential campaigns and managed to completely miss this while I was there.

Kenyan PM Odinga Speaks Out on Election, “Dubious” Post-Election Role of Jendayi Frazer and Ambassador

We’ll stay on and fight for reforms: Raila from The Sunday Nation

The key quote:

Friends of Kenya played a major role in getting both sides to talk. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was a key player. He called me at night and talked genuinely and passionately about developments happening in the country. He said he was willing to use his influence to facilitate negotiations. He also spoke to Mr Kibaki and relayed a similar message.

At that time, the US was playing a dubious role. The US Ambassador (Michael Ranneberger) was trying to manipulate diplomats in Nairobi. He was very quick to accept the results. (Then US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs) Jendayi Frazer also arrived and played a dubious and ambiguous role.

The British PM was more forthright and engaged genuinely.

On the election:

The election in 2007 will go down as a watershed in Kenya’s history because of the manner in which the vote tallying was manipulated. In the past, people had known that elections are manipulated. But that was before the era of Information Communication Technology and particularly before mobile phones became widely available. The mobile phone changed everything. It was now possible for results to be relayed instantly from every polling station in the country.

We in ODM had set up a very elaborate communication network and, by midday on December 28, we had a good idea what the results were. Media outlets were also announcing results directly from polling centres and the whole country could see what the result of the election was. There is no doubt in my mind and in the minds of many Kenyans what the outcome of that election was.

Eventually, the tallying of the vote was manipulated at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre. Kenyans only blame the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) but it was a far wider operation. ECK officials were heavily coerced by the state security apparatus, including the intelligence services, the police and especially the Administration Police.

This is the first time I have read of the PM speaking explicitly in this way on the record. Obviously Frazer is out of government and into the lobbying world with the firm representing Museveni, as well as her academic post, and Ranneberger’s tenure is winding down–perhaps this is intended to be a signal that the expectations for reform run both ways.

HT CK in Nairobi–had managed to miss this.

Visiting US Diplomat speaks on corruption, prosecution of post-election violence

The Standard covers Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Karl Wykoff:

The US continued to pile pressure on the Coalition Government for urgency in the implementation of key reforms and decisive action against corruption.
. . . .
Speaking just a day after the second anniversary of the signing of the National Accord, Mr Wyckoff said: “It is important to note that some significant progress has been made-particularly with respect to the constitutional review process and the interim electoral commission, but much more must be done to implement reforms with a much greater sense of urgency.”
. . . .
Wyckoff also reminded Kenya that suspects of post-election violence must be held accountable if Kenya is to avert future occurrence of skirmishes.

“The culture of impunity is critical…. it is critical that perpetrators of the violence be brought to justice,” said Wyckoff.

He further called on the Government to be proactive in protection of witnesses of post-election chaos.
. . . .
Wyckoff, who has been in the region for two weeks conducting extensive consultations in Nairobi and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on a wide range of issues, called on the coalition partners to hold a referendum that would not disintegrate the people.

“We urge the coalition leaders to work together to support a new draft constitution and to work towards the holding of a timely referendum, which will help unite the country,” he said.