Nairobi — Deepening rifts in Kenya’s coalition government and a failure to press ahead with promised reforms have given rise to fears that the country could slide back into the kind of violence that claimed more than 1,000 lives and forced about half a million people from their homes after elections in December 2007.

“Kenyans are not only growing far apart but also frustrated and angry at the way politicians are playing a game of Russian roulette with their future; the pent-up anger will erupt with volcanic ferocity,” Wafula Okumu, a senior research fellow in the African Security Analysis Programme of the South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies, told IRIN.

“Admittedly, the coalition is currently under some stress and this is a source of worry for us in the humanitarian community,” Aeneas Chuma, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Kenya, told IRIN on 6 April. “My hope is that the [country's] leadership will recognise that as imperfect as it is, the coalition is a useful instrument in pushing the required reform agenda; it is not an end in itself.”

Chuma was speaking on the day that Martha Karua, previously a key ally of President Mwai Kibaki, resigned as justice and constitutional affairs minister after the head of state appointed seven judges without her knowledge. Karua, who plans to run for president in 2012, showed no signs of quitting the political arena: “I will now be able to totally disagree with anything that is anti-reform.”

Changes to the judiciary were among a host of reforms agreed by Kibaki and his election rival Raila Odinga during mediation talks led by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2008. Meanwhile, Odinga, the prime minister in the coalition government Annan steered into being, has become increasingly critical of the head of state, describing his leadership as “primitive”. The 7 April departure from government of an assistant minister – in a country where resignations on principle are virtually unheard of – marked another blow for the coalition’s stability. Danson Mungatana left complaining that corruption and anti-reform forces were frustrating those determined to bring change.

What makes the prospect of the partnership’s collapse all the more alarming are NGO reports that several leading politicians, notably those representing constituencies in the Rift Valley, which bore the brunt of the violence last year, have armed and trained militia units. According to Chuma, the UN is working with the government to establish the extent of this phenomenon.

“A committee has already been set up, with three members from the Office of the President and two from the UN to develop the feasibility of addressing this issue of militias,” he said. “Hopefully a rapid assessment will follow to establish the scale of militia activity in the country.”

“Kenya is at a crossroads,” Annan declared at a meeting convened in Geneva on 30 March to review progress since the signing of a National Accord in February 2008. “The time to act is now,” he added. Neither Kibaki nor Odinga travelled to Switzerland for the gathering. “There is no disagreement on what needs to be done. The parties have already agreed on a blueprint for building a more equitable, prosperous and just society. That blueprint is found in the reform package agreed in the National Dialogue,” he added.

This package includes constitutional, legal and institutional reform; tackling poverty and inequity and development imbalances; tackling unemployment, particularly among the youth; consolidating national cohesion and unity; undertaking land reform; and addressing transparency, accountability and impunity.

Annan warned that Kenya’s situation had implications far beyond its borders. “The politicisation of ethnicity, non-adherence to the rule of law, corruption and the abuse of power, and inequitable development, exist in other parts of Africa and across the globe… I believe this is one reason why the world is paying such attention to the way Kenya grapples with these issues.”

According to Okumu of ISS, these issues “have slipped off the radar screen”. “Future democratisation, peace and justice will depend on how the Kenyan nation is forged on the values of mutual understanding, trust, and respect. There must be a national dialogue to openly discuss issues of historical grievances, ethnophobia, tribalism, and nationalism,” he said. “A new election must be held within a year to put in power a government with a popular mandate and legitimacy to undertake the task of nation-building,” Okumu suggested.

The UN’s Chuma also noted there was much more work to be done. “The biggest achievement in 2008 was the stopping of the violence of course, but that alone is not enough without the far-reaching reforms, raising danger that the momentum may be lost. We hope that the Geneva meeting rekindled that sense of urgency in getting the politicians to look at the common good and meeting the hopes and aspirations of Kenyans,” he added.

As Annan himself noted in Geneva, “the average person [in Kenya] finds it hard to comprehend why the changes, some of them very fundamental, are not taking place at a faster pace”.

source.www.irinnews.org

Kampala (Uganda)/Washington D.C. (USA) – A branch of the Ugandan government that handles its anti-terrorism work is responsible for extended illegal detentions, torture, and other maltreatment at a facility based in a wealthy suburb of the country’s capitol, according to a lengthy report issued by Human Rights Watch (HRW) Wednesday in Kampala.

The report, entitled “Open Secret: Illegal Detention and Torture by the Joint Anti-terrorism Task Force in Uganda,” is based on research between last August and February of this year. 106 cases of illegal detention were uncovered by HRW, which is based in New York.

“In more than 25 instances, detainees were also tortured or subjected to other ill-treatment,” said the report, which traced back detentions over the last two years and found that 3 detainees had died from abuse suffered and another detainee was shot and killed at home after his release, according to eyewitness reports.

The Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force (JATT) responsible for or connected to those responsible for the abuses pulls its personnel from a combination of military, police and intelligence organisations, and operates under the command of the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI). JATT headquarters – which also serves as a detention centre – is located in the wealthy suburb of Kololo. Because rights groups are denied access to the centre, which is not considered a legal detention centre by Uganda’s constitution, HRW interviewed former detainees there about their treatment and what they witnessed.

“Some described being hit repeatedly with the butt of a gun; slapped in the head and ears; or beaten with fists, whips, canes, chairs and shoes,” according to the report. “JATT and CMI personnel put detainees into painful stress positions and forced red chilli pepper into eyes, nose and ears, which causes excruciating pain… Some described being shocked with electricity. They reported watching others being beaten and tortured by JATT agents, as well as observing other people with bruising, swelling and wounds.”

Detention centres in Uganda are supposed to be “gazetted” – placed on an official government register – in order to be considered legal. The Kololo facility, among others, does not meet this requirement. Illegal detention centres are often called “safe houses”.

“The history of these kind of secret ‘safe houses’ has a long and quite horrible history in Uganda that dates back to the Idi Amin era,” Paul Ronan, a senior policy analyst with Resolve Uganda, told IPS. Amin was the military dictator who ruled Uganda for nearly all of the 1970s. Harsh repression and brutal human rights abuses under his rule left more than 100,000 dead – by conservative estimates.

Despite the abuses highlighted by HRW having been reported to the media, government authorities and parliament, “military and civilian leadership with command responsibility over JATT have so far failed to curtail the abuses or to investigate, let alone prosecute, those responsible,” said the report.
JATT operations as a counter terror unit involve it heavily policing the activities of rebel groups in Uganda, including the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Democratic Republic of Congo-based group tied to nationalist and Islamic rebels operating in western Uganda, and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), operating in Northern Uganda.

In its recommendations, the report asks the government of Uganda to cease the illegal detentions, compensate its victims, and investigate and prosecute those responsible. The report also calls on the U.S. and the UK – who both provide Uganda with military aid – to ensure that their aid is conditioned on respect for human rights.

“Foreign governments who provide training and collaborate with the Ugandan military and police on counterterrorism, national security and justice issues have a substantial responsibility to use their influence with the Ugandan government to stop unlawful detention and torture of suspects in the Kololo facility,” said the report. “These governments should also urgently call on Uganda to grant detainees access to family members, legal representation and medical attention, and investigate and prosecute abuses by members of the security forces.”

The U.S. trains part of the Ugandan military for counter-terrorism operations, and those trainings involve human rights aspects as mandated by the Leahy amendment to the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act. But the amendment also prevents aid from going to governments where there is, according to the report, “credible evidence that the unit has committed gross human rights abuses.”

The U.S. embassy is then supposed to monitor those units for violations, which the State Department claims it does. But HRW wonders how – in light of its investigation and others – these military units continue to receive aid. “Given the often-cited allegations of torture and illegal detention by JATT and CMI by local and international human rights organisations, and by the Uganda Human Rights Commission, it is unclear how these individuals could have been eligible for U.S.-funded training,” the report states.

“The report recommends that U.S., the UK and other donors ensure that any military assistance to the Ugandan army be conditioned on the Ugandan military investigating and prosecuting those who are responsible for this torture and ending the culture of impunity that has developed,” Ronan told IPS.

There has been a troubling pattern, especially under President George W. Bush, where the U.S. has turned a blind eye to human rights violations by those considered allies in the “Global War on Terror” – the now-defunct moniker that drove much of Bush’s foreign policy. That pattern is especially acute in Eastern Africa. There have been accusations that – leading up to the political turmoil last year in Kenya – counter-terror resources were used to stifle political opposition. Furthermore, in a report issued last year by two UK-based rights organisations, the Kenyan government was accused of 150 arbitrary detentions in late 2006 and early 2007 where the detainees were later rendered in partnership with the U.S.

source.Inter Press Service (IPS)

Johannesburg (South Africa) — Former president Thabo Mbeki yesterday denied that he had meddled in African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma’s corruption case and again called for vigilance against the practice of spreading deliberate falsehoods.

Mbeki’s comments came as public pressure mounted on former National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) head Bulelani Ngcuka and former Scorpions boss Leonard McCarthy to explain their alleged conspiracy over Zuma’s corruption case.

Mbeki said he had initially decided not to comment about “unfounded speculation” but now thought it prudent to reassure the nation.

“Over the years, we have consistently assured the nation that at no point did the president of the Republic or any member of the executive instructed, encouraged, aided or sanctioned by the president interfere in the case of Jacob Zuma,” Mbeki said.

The NPA accused McCarthy and Ngcuka of manipulating the legal processes that led to Zuma being charged with corruption in December 2007.

The taped conversations, among other things, point to McCarthy and Ngcuka spelling out the Mbeki camp’s game plan ahead of the ANC’s Polokwane conference; Ngcuka telling McCarthy that he was the “only one who could save the country” after Mbeki lost the presidential election to Zuma; and Ngcuka instructing McCarthy when to re-charge Zuma with corruption and how the information needed to be filtered to the media.

Ngcuka, who released a statement on Tuesday questioning the authenticity of the taped telephone conversations, would not comment yesterday on whether he had indeed had such conversations nor on why he had given McCarthy legal instructions over the Zuma matter long after he had resigned as NPA head.

“Other than releasing the statement, I am not speaking on this matter anymore,” Ngcuka said.

While the state’s legal wrangle with Zuma has dominated the political landscape for almost a decade, the NPA’s decision to withdraw its case against him points to the compromising of SA’s security agencies under Mbeki’s administration.

source.Business Day (South Africa)

Cape Town (South Africa) – Two weeks before national elections in which the ruling African National Congress is being challenged for the first time by an opposition party formed from within its ranks, the party’s leader, Jacob Zuma, has questioned the basis of South Africa’s constitutional order.

In an interview with one of the country’s leading political journalists, Zuma hinted that he believed judges ought to be brought under the authority of other branches of government. South Africa’s Constitution – hailed as one of the world’s best when it was adopted in 1996 – makes its Constitutional Court the final arbiter of the rights of South Africans.

According to Moshoeshoe Monare, political editor of South Africa’s Independent newspaper group, Zuma said in the interview on Wednesday: “If I sit here and I look at a chief justice of the Constitutional Court [South Africa's top judicial officer], you know, that is the ultimate authority, which I think we need to look at it because I don’t think we should have people who are almost like God in a democracy… Why are they not human beings?”

He added: “Because… you can have a judge of whatever level making a judgment (and) other judges turning it and saying it was wrong. (This) just tells you they are not necessarily close to God. And therefore we have to look at it in a democratic setting; how do you avoid that?”
 
Zuma is on course to become South Africa’s next president after elections on April 22. In recent months he and his supporters have attacked judges – including those of the Constitutional Court – who have ruled against him in his ongoing struggle to beat corruption charges.
 
The Constitution guarantees the independence of the judiciary from the executive. Zuma will have the power to choose the country’s next chief justice and deputy chief justice but when he appoints replacements for the nine other judges of the Constitutional Court, he has to choose from a list compiled by a broadly-based Judicial Service Commission. (In the case of the top two appointments he has only to consult the commission and  leaders of political parties in Parliament.)

Amending the constitution would require a two-thirds majority in Parliament. The ANC had such a majority in the last Parliament but opposition parties hope to end it in the forthcoming election. Opinion polls indicate that although no opposition party can hope to replace the ANC in government, the ruling party will be returned with a reduced majority.
 
The principal party hoping to draw votes from the ANC’s support base, the Congress of the People (COPE), is led by ANC members who broke away after the firing of the former president, Thabo Mbeki, last September.
 
A leading founder of COPE, former defence minister and ANC chairman Mosiuoa “Terror” Lekota, cited Zuma’s efforts to escape prosecution as one of the reasons for leaving the ANC. After charges against Zuma were dropped by prosecutors last Monday, Lekota called for them to be reinstated.

source.allAfrica.com

Johannesburg (South Africa) – A top spy once closely linked to former president Thabo Mbeki saved ANC president Jacob Zuma’s political life. The Mail & Guardian has established from three independent sources central to this week’s dropping of the criminal charges against Zuma that the National Intelligence Agency’s (NIA) deputy head, Arthur Fraser, was the man who leaked to Zuma’s lawyers the secret recordings that ultimately let him off the hook.

Reacting to the M&G’s questions, NIA spokesperson Lorna Daniels said there was “no basis to the allegation that [Fraser] handed the tapes to Jacob Zuma and/or his legal team. He will have a real problem if you publish that allegation because it’s unfounded and will damage his reputation and integrity”.
She declined to respond to the M&G’s questions about how Zuma’s lawyers obtained secret NIA tapes and whether action would be taken against Fraser. “The matter is being investigated by the inspector general of intelligence’s office and we wouldn’t comment on this matter now,” Daniels said.

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) withdrew corruption and fraud charges against Zuma on Tuesday in the KwaZulu-Natal High Court after acting NPA boss Mokotedi Mpshe announced on Monday that the secret connivance between former Scorpions boss Leonard McCarthy and former NPA boss Bulelani Ngcuka amounted to an “intolerable abuse”.

The M&G was reliably told this week that Fraser did a “political flip-flop” and handed the NIA recordings, legally obtained during his probe of the Browse Mole report, to Zuma’s legal team. “We understand Fraser felt the need to ingratiate himself with the new administration of Zuma and handed the NIA tapes over,” the M&G was told by a senior legal source with knowledge of the spy tapes.

Fraser is the brother of former public service minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi.

The leaked tapes were central to Mpshe’s decision this week to withdraw charges against Zuma. The NPA presented the media with transcripts of conversations between McCarthy, Ngcuka and businessman Mzi Khumalo discussing the timing of reinstated charges against Zuma. This came after Zuma’s legal team, as part of their representations to the NPA, gave the prosecutors access to “certain recordings” of alleged political meddling in the NPA’s work.

The M&G has established that Zuma’s team was in possession of recordings emanating from the NIA and the police crime intelligence services, but that the bulk of recordings used by Mpshe to justify dropping the charges came from the former. This was confirmed by NPA spokesperson Tlali Tlali who told the M&G “only a fraction” of the recordings played to them by Zuma’s lawyers were not in the NIA’s possession.

Zuma’s lawyer, Michael Hulley, refused to disclose the source of the tapes at a press conference on Tuesday, citing client-attorney privilege.

According to Mpshe’s statement on Monday he commissioned his deputy, Willie Hofmeyr, and the acting head of the National Prosecuting Services, Sibongile Mzinyathi, to listen to the tapes in Hulley’s possession and “verify and investigate their contents”. According to Mpshe the NPA was unclear about whether the recordings had been legally intercepted or were legally in Hulley’s possession. It contacted the NIA, which confirmed it had legally obtained recordings of “many of the same conversations” during its investigation of the production and leaking of the Browse Mole report. It was transcripts of these the NPA made public on Monday.

Fraser was appointed by Mbeki and the National Security Council in 2007 to lead an investigation into the production and leaking of Browse Mole.
Written by former Scorpions investigator Ivor Powell in 2006, it alleged that Zuma had received funding from Angola and Libya and warned of potential insurrection should he not become president. The document, described by Parliament’s standing committee on intelligence as “extremely inflammatory”, contained political intelligence and numerous allegations about Zuma and other prominent political figures.

Fraser’s initial investigation into Browse Mole was widely regarded in the NPA as flimsy and one-sided, and one of its key conclusions, that Powell was responsible for the leak, was never substantiated. A second probe by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) cleared him. But, according to law enforcement sources briefed on a fresh investigation sparked by the tapes, it is now felt that the SIU interpreted its mandate so narrowly as to avoid any possibility of uncovering wrongdoing by McCarthy. Hofmeyr and the head of the police’s detective services, Rayman Lalla, are already working on a third probe of the report, focusing on McCarthy’s role.

A legal source told the M&G that Fraser changed his political tune “some time ago”. Fraser also testified during the Ginwala commission of inquiry where he took the stand against suspended former NPA boss Vusi Pikoli. “He testified against Pikoli, wanting to create the impression that he [Pikoli] didn’t do his job. It was clear from his testimony that he thought Pikoli was not a fit and proper person to hold office,” the M&G was told.

Fraser’s main gripe with Pikoli was the Scorpions’ alleged lack of cooperation in his Browse Mole probe. Significantly, Mpshe said on Monday that the NPA would “cooperate fully with the Browse Mole investigation into possible illegal intelligence gathering activities in the DSO [Scorpions], and has managed to uncover significant new information in the process”.

Fraser has 23 years of intelligence experience and joined the NIA in 1995. He worked as an investigator for the truth commission and was the NIA’s Western Cape head between 1998 and 2004. Fraser could not be reached for comment. His secretary said he is “not in Gauteng, but in another province and can’t receive any calls”.

The Inspector General of Intelligence’s (IGI) office opened an investigation into possible wrongdoing by the NIA after the NPA asked it to investigate “possible illegality surrounding the recordings that were presented to it”. The IGI’s operations chief, Imtiaz Fazel, confirmed the probe, saying the “circumstances surrounding the interception of the voice communications of certain individuals by the intelligence services is currently being investigated”. The IGI’s probe would be limited to the conduct of the intelligence services.

On Tuesday the DA asked the North Gauteng High Court for a full judicial review of the NPA’s decision to drop the Zuma charges, reports Yolandi Groenewald.
In court papers DA federal council chairperson James Selfe argued that the NPA’s decision was not rationally connected with the information before it and that public policy considerations raised by the NPA did not approach the level required to justify a decision to discontinue prosecution.

“The decision is unlawful and unconstitutional,” Selfe argues, adding that Mpshe was not authorised to make the decision. He also argued that the NPA could be reasonably suspected of bias. “The rights of the DA, its members and the public are adversely affected by the unlawfulness of the decision,” he said. The case will be heard on June 9.

The unanswered questions
* Why did National Prosecuting Agency (NPA) chiefs Mokotedi Mpshe and Willie Hofmeyr conclude there was an “intolerable abuse” of process by former Scorpions boss Leonard McCarthy if, in Mpshe’s own version, he was not influenced by McCarthy on when to recharge Jacob Zuma?
* How did McCarthy “manipulate the legal process”? The recordings make it clear that the alleged conspirators — McCarthy, Bulelani Ngcuka and Mzi Khumalo — differed over when to recharge Zuma, and Mpshe confirmed on Monday that he made an independent decision to recharge Zuma after the Polokwane conference.
* How did Zuma’s legal team plan to hand the intercepted recordings in to court if they were illegally in their possession?
* Why, if the tapes revealed illegal conduct, did the National Intelligence Agency hang on to them for almost 18 months, rather than handing them over to the NPA or justice minister?
* How did the NPA legally get around the Supreme Court of Appeal’s ruling in the Zuma matter that “a prosecution is not wrongful merely because it is brought for an improper purpose”?
* Who is the private intelligence operative “Luciano” that McCarthy corresponded with, and on whose behalf was “Luciano” communicating with the former Scorpions boss?
* Why were the transcripts not presented to Ngcuka, McCarthy and Khumalo for comment before they were made public by the NPA on Monday?
* Who was “the man” McCarthy met after the Polokwane conference to plan a “comeback strategy”, as disclosed in a voicemail to the Special Investigating Unit’s deputy head, Faiek Davids?
* Who is “the big man” at “Shell House” Ngcuka was to meet after the ANC’s provincial conferences showed overwhelming support for Zuma?

source.Mail & Guardian (South Africa), by Pearlie Joubert and Adriaan Basson

Why is Kenya allowing these two diplomats turned terrorisers and thugs to continue running Kenyan affairs? Have we ever heard of any Kenyan ambassador stationed in the US or Denmark terrorise leaders in America and Germany?

Surely, Kenyans must wake up and do something to stop these two men acting like angels in Kenya. Why should they continue humiliating Kenyan leaders and threatening them the way they do all the time.?
Kibaki should refuse to give them any audience and if they try to force their way should be arrested deported to their countries.

These are two men when they return to their countries become just petty political party fellows of no significance in their own countries. That is why they are showing their muscles. Remember others from the same country did the same during former President Moi and when their term as ambassadors ended they returned to their countries never to be heard of again.

Kenya: Do not fear them! If they return to their countries, they will not even have a house helper, cook or gardener. They will cook for themselves. And yet in Nairobi, they are able to harrass the President, What a shame! (API)

US ambassador Michael Ranneberger (right) during a press conference at the Germany Ambassador’s residence on Friday. He said that it impossible to hold fresh elections as the country does not have an electoral commission in place. Looking on is German ambassador Walter Lindner Photo/MICHAEL MUTE

Who will remove the blindfold for them to see the groundswell underneath their red carpet so they could understand it is beyond the man they call this Jaluo?

Who will tell them the rallies they are planning, as well as those of their disenchanted partner _ Orange Democratic Movement _ could court a peoples’ revolt the kind of which fell Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines and sweep them all to abyss?

Who will hoist Kibaki from PNU’s muddied waters to the pedestal of national presidency? Who will remind him that he is in his final term and despite the controversy and questions of legitimacy on the second, he will be object of not-so-funny historical anecdotes if he tries to succeed himself through Uhuru Project II?

It would be a cruel twist of irony to his supporters if he inherits and refurbishes the project Kenyans helped him crush in 2002. It would be a hilarious footnote in history if he goes ahead with the project, forgetting 2002, when the people’s power broke tribal boundaries and torpedoed him to State House, in spite of being in poor health. But still he is struggling to succeed himself along the narrow confines of tribe and party affinity!

Can’t Kibaki see his boat leaking behind his inscrutable face after Gichugu MP Martha Karua and her sidekick Mr Danson Mungatana took off? This is the moment he must get into foul mood over issues outside his royal family’s kraal.

By the way is it because Raila, between whom and Kalonzo there is no love lost, appointed half the Cabinet that the VP wants to make Karua’s replacement his task?

Raila read the signs he was soon going to face rebellion in his party and there wasn’t much respect coming his way from PNU.

That is why the foul-mouthed Transport minister Chirau Mwakwere said, when Raila complained there were no toilets in his pavilion when he visited Mombasa, the PM could as get more than he needs wherever he goes!

I have asked these questions as a way of marvelling at how deeply our leaders have been blinded by belief the power-sharing deal healed all our wounds. That is why there is still little being done to hold and unite the country through fast-tracking constitutional reforms.

I have four observations: First, the manipulation and abuse of electoral process in 2007 will not just be wiped away by power-sharing. The suspicions, pain and trauma that we have a President who should not have been, second time round, will live among sections of Kenya for a long time.

It is this festering wound that our leaders keep scraping through their cat and mouse games. It is worse when it is Kalonzo, the opportunist, lecturing this part of the nation on probity and political chastity. Yet, all he did was hover around pride of lions hunting buffaloes “only to land and pick up whichever pieces he could as the big cats fought over the spoils. And he called it a miracle” and his contribution to stop the nation from falling!

Two, until Raila conceded we were being governed in a “primitive” and “Jua Kali” style, he was one among the Three Blind Mice we learnt of in a nursery rhyme. Now it seems the other two are blinder.

Three, it is nature of bigots and non-reformists to lose touch with reality “especially once blinded by power and the feeling of de javu. As we saw in

last days of Kenyatta and Moi regimes, like with old Lion King, the kittens play around him as he daydreams. That is why at the end of African

strongmen’s regimes, theft and indiscipline reach the peak. The poor old man might not even know what is going on, or could even say “Yes” when he means no. At other times he is too distracted by failing health, blunting sense of judgement and plummeting concentration, so much they lose track of serious business of State.

Fourthly, our leaders will be woken up from their political stupor when the giant that is the ordinary Kenyan wakes up and demand that which is theirs.

All forms of servitude have an end. It comes when a people have been bled dry, when there is a vacuum in the throne and a catharsis in governance. We are on the threshold. The tree of hope is drying fast — and our blind leaders are turning away the life-saving water. But as they say of truth and mice, bury in one corner of the farm and it reappears in another.

†— The writer (ktanui@eastandard.net) is The Standard’s Managing Editor, Weekend Editions.

source.standard.ke