Saturday, August 28, 2010

Omar Al Bashir straddling Africa's graveyard of Human Rights Abuse...

As Bashir straddles over the graveyard of human rights in Africa, how can we rise? The Kenyan government would have us believe that Bashir stole his way into Kenya as we promulgated our constitution, no he did not. He was a guest of the state. The state concealed his name as a guest on the list for this special ocassion from the public, the media and the international community. This is betrayal.

After a long day and efforts to speak about Kenya’s recent achievements, I cannot sleep tonight. I will keep vigil and write as I have promised my arrested colleagues who not only boycotted events organised by the state but also took to the streets.I am away and I remember the faces of Somali, Ethiopian, Sudanese and Eritrean people as I spoke today about Kenya’s possible success. They smiled at the healing of a neighbor hoping for the same. There are far too many African refugees for us to take human rights abuse lightly even for a second. If these men do not feel the urgency for change the way we do, they should just step down.


By Philo Ikonya

What should have been a day of hope in Kenya- celebrations of the promulgation of Kenya’s new constitution were in top gear- has ended up in great disappointment as Kenyans realized that the State invited The Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir who has a warrant of arrest from the International Criminal Court to the Uhuru Park celebrations in Nairobi. Bashir was not arrested. He was escorted to Uhuru Park by the Kenyan Tourism minister Najib Balala. Peter Muli and Francis Kihara, ordinary citizens who like most Kenyans survive on a meal a day but have the courage to defend their country and democracy are in police cells for protesting Omar Bashir's invitation to Kenya.

On 15th March 2005, Kenya ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Kenya became party to the Statute as number 98 and today the ICC has 108 members. The Statute entered into force for Kenya on 1st June 2005 a day Kenya celebrates having received internal or self governance from the British in 1963, Madaraka Day. Can we really say the people have internal self government today?
I feel that Kenya has sold out our self governance yesterday. Indeed in the first place, the people should have been the main celebrants in the promulgation of the new constitution which we say, we the people of Kenya, give ourselves.” Instead military power took centre stage and we did not even know our full guest list.



In an endless night of watching rights abuse with only a few candles left to burn, I see Bashir astride our lands in Africa, from Chad to Kenya, Cairo and Sudan and I see a graveyard of human rights without hope as Africa looks more to China today. Who will stand with us? The U.S. A is not part of the I.C.C and Europe is being bashed as the colonial past machinery in Africa. Yes, we can stand alone and we did, but how does the world justify international diplomacy, the UN and all the money we pay to have a ministry of Foreign Affairs, and all that Diplomatic Corp in Nairobi from where it serves the Horn of Africa? We are, especially we the women who are raped daily in Congo and in Darfur and other places, betrayed all the time. Where do we begin?

Kenya has bound herself by law to facilitate the work of the ICC because Kenya has signed up to do so. Kenya did not do that. A valid question is therefore what does any law, including the constitution of Kenya mean to the Kenyan state?
Another question is about those who facilitated the post-poll violence of 2007 in Kenya. Will they be brought to book by the Hague since the 10th Kenyan Parliament failed to form a local tribunal to try the suspects and this remained the only option for justice to be meted against perpetrators of this violence? By entertaining Bashir, it would seem they were taunting the ICC and saying, look at us, you can do nothing. Honestly, Kibaki, am so ashamed of you. I have not forgotten that some months ago, you burned my mother’s granary so that you could see the words as you swore yourself back to power on the strength of a flawed election. I cannot forget this because many people died and because you know, your government has denied consistently, a report on the disappeared people of Kenya, the home desaparecidos.

The ICC is investigating the violence which happened in Kenya in 2007, and time and time again, The Prosecutor of the ICC, Moreno Ocampo has said he has a number of important names from Kenya that he might want to bring to book. Today, many of us Kenyans have doubted that such a move will ever work.

Omar Bashir was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was in Nairobi and he was not arrested. I shudder to think that he went, he saw and returned home leaving easily cheated Kenyans in great disbelief. The skeletons cry in Darfur, blood is hidden in shallow graves in Kenya, and we celebrate and sing.

Immediately Omar’s presence in Nairobi became clear to the people who had already been skeptical about the government of Kenya show of military might in the celebration of the peoples achievement in giving themselves a new constitution, some took to the streets in protest. The shouted, “Omar, go to the Hague!!”

The police broke up the demonstration with tear gas and arrested two individuals from Bunge La Mwananchi (The Peoples’ Parliament) and as a free Bashir eats a sumptuous dinner tonight after fasting in the day as it is Ramadhan, the two lie in the inhospitable Kenyan police cells in which I have also spent some nights in the past for peacefully demonstrating against police impunity, police brutality and corruption. The two are injured and will be in the cells for three days before they can be brought to court because today is a weekend. What kept us from using the money you used to entertain important your guests from financing a 24/7 court in Kenya? Have you forgotten the Internally Displaced Persons still in camps? We have 200, 000 people living in tents as a result of war over Kibaki’s votes. Google International Displacement Monitoring Centre: http://www.internal-displacement.org/idmc/website/countries.nsf/(httpEnvelopes)/B594F51B576A2A37C12573DB0036DA69?OpenDocument

It is no doubt that the President of Kenya Kibaki and the Prime Minster have sent a very sad signal to Kenyans today. I feel and see that we are all sitting at the graveyard of human rights abuse and thinking of rising some day against such realities as have been Darfur in Sudan and Kenya’s disappeared, dead in poll violence, over 1 300 and so many thousands of Internally Displaced Persons, I can only say, help my unbelief in a resurrection, in change! We are tired of situations of mass deaths like in Darfur, Kenya in 2007 and we must see that change happens not only to Kenya but to all neighboring countries. There is not time to waste.

I do not know why the world does not feel the urgency for the deaths in Darfur, I do not know why the world does not feel like me tonight about the arrest of Omar Bashir. I do not know why the people of Sudan think that this would be an affront to their leader. We cannot afford to have governments that do not hold human rights in reverence and who all too easily blame the west as our people die under poor political organization.

I protest so strongly that the United States of America is not a part of the International Criminal Court. I ask America first and with great pain, why this? I heard Condoleeza Rice say in 2009 that “the people of Sudan have suffered too much for too long, and an end to their anguish will not come easily. Those who committed atrocities in Sudan, including genocide, should be brought to justice!”
But the media observed quickly that the US is not a party to the treaty that established the ICC in 2002, the one Kenya has ratified and broken today… George Bush saw the ICC as a violation of US sovereignty and his successor has not revised this position. The U.S. A here joins China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe and Sudan in not ratifying the Rome Statute. The ICC has 108 member countries.

I protest even more strongly that anyone continues calling the defence of human rights a western notion. We are either all human or we are not. We are either all in solidarity against the Bashirs of this world or we are nothing. I know I cannot choose Kibaki’s friends for him, recently he entertained his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmedinejad of Iran surprised me. He invited him on when the two met in the UN General Assembly in New York in September 2007, a few months before the violence we endured. He also invited Muammar Gaddafi but turned down the Dalai Lama. In searching for oil in Kenya, the Chinese who were not as effective as some western counterparts take the first place in Kenya. I have also heard Kibaki speak lightly of the ICC saying that maybe Kenya could after all renege (whatever that meant) the Rome Statute.

29 comments:

  1. Good brief and this mail helped me alot in my college assignement. Gratefulness you seeking your information.

    ReplyDelete
  2. t's such a important site. imaginary, very fascinating!!!

    -------

    [url=http://oponymozgowe.pl]Opony[/url]
    [url=http://pozycjonowanie.lagata.pl]Pozycjonowanie[/url]

    [url=http://seo-katalogi.eu/zdrowie,i,uroda/opony,s,366.html]opony[/url]

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sorry for my bad english. Thank you so much for your good post. Your post helped me in my college assignment, If you can provide me more details please email me.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Is this WP theme free or premium? nice blog btw! scholarships for hisanics

    ReplyDelete
  5. My gf and I were sent here simply because this particular article was tweeted by a girl I had been following and feel very I made it here. scholarships

    ReplyDelete
  6. I’m having a small issue I can’t get my reader to pickup your rss feed, I’m using google reader by the way.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I would like to thank you for the efforts you have made in writing this post. This has been an inspiration for me. I’ve passed this on to a friend of mine.

    Thanxx

    ReplyDelete
  8. Nice to see you back. And again by having an interesting post.financial help

    financial help

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hi there

    Thanks for sharing, I have digged this post

    ReplyDelete
  10. Good point, though sometimes it's hard to arrive to definite conclusions

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hi there

    Thanks for writing this blog, loved reading it

    ReplyDelete
  12. I'm Glad i found this site.Added philoikonya.blogspot.com to my bookmark!

    ReplyDelete
  13. I was looking for a new wrist watch and was wondering if anyone had any information this? Is any of this wrist watch information good? [url=http://www.citizenwristwatches.com/]citizen watches[/url]

    ReplyDelete
  14. Hey - I am certainly glad to find this. cool job!

    ReplyDelete
  15. It is very helpful!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Hi - I am definitely happy to find this. cool job!

    ReplyDelete
  17. A encyclopaedic suitableness program tailored to an person will unquestionably focus on one or more clear-cut skills, and on age-[3] or health-related needs such as bone health.[4] Innumerable sources[citation needed] also cite loony, social and heated strength as an substantial purposes of all-inclusive fitness. This is again presented in textbooks as a triangle made up of three points, which reproduce physical, emotional, and frame of mind fitness. Incarnate good shape can also avert or treat multifarious long-lived well-being conditions brought on by unhealthy lifestyle or aging.[5] Working unconfined can also refrain from people forty winks better. To live robust it is consequential to engage in physical activity.
    Training

    Specific or task-oriented [url=http://www.pella.pl]fitness[/url] is a actually's power to depict in a identified with enterprise with a sober efficiency: after sample, sports or military service. Spelled out training prepares athletes to put on well in their sports.

    Examples are:

    400 m sprint: in a sprint the athlete must be trained to redundant anaerobically from one end to the other the race.
    Marathon: in this specimen the athlete must be trained to being done aerobically and their tenacity ought to be built-up to a maximum.
    Many blazing fighters and police officers undergo level good physical condition testing to draw if they are skilled of the physically hard tasks required of the job.
    Members of the Collective States Army and Army Native Look after must be masterly to pass the Army Physical Fitness Check-up (APFT).

    ReplyDelete
  18. What a material of un-ambiguity and preserveness of valuable familiarity about unexpected emotions.


    my page barcode scanner repair
    Also see my site: barcode scanner repair

    ReplyDelete
  19. Today, I went to the beach with my children. I found a sea shell and gave it to my 4 year old daughter and said "You can hear the ocean if you put this to your ear." She
    placed the shell to her ear and screamed. There was a hermit crab inside and it pinched her ear.
    She never wants to go back! LoL I know this is completely off topic but I had to tell someone!


    Here is my web-site: barcode scanner rental

    ReplyDelete
  20. I am sure this post has touched all the internet users, its
    really really nice piece of writing on building up new blog.


    Here is my website: barcode scanner rentals

    ReplyDelete
  21. Hi there! I understand this is somewhat off-topic but I needed
    to ask. Does building a well-established website such as yours take a
    large amount of work? I am completely new to writing
    a blog but I do write in my diary everyday. I'd like to start a blog so I will be able to share my personal experience and thoughts online. Please let me know if you have any recommendations or tips for brand new aspiring blog owners. Appreciate it!

    Here is my web page; motorola barcode scanner repair

    ReplyDelete
  22. Hello there! This post couldn't be written any better! Reading this post reminds me of my previous room mate! He always kept talking about this. I will forward this post to him. Pretty sure he will have a good read. Many thanks for sharing!

    my website; Barcode Printer Repair

    ReplyDelete
  23. With havin so much content do you ever run
    into any problems of plagorism or copyright infringement?

    My website has a lot of exclusive content I've either written myself or outsourced but it appears a lot of it is popping it up all over the web without my permission. Do you know any ways to help protect against content from being stolen? I'd truly appreciate it.


    Take a look at my page - rent scanner

    ReplyDelete
  24. This site was... how do I say it? Relevant!! Finally I've found something which helped me. Cheers!

    Feel free to visit my site; bar code printers

    ReplyDelete
  25. We absolutely love your blog and find the majority of your post's to be what precisely I'm looking
    for. Does one offer guest writers to write content for you personally?
    I wouldn't mind publishing a post or elaborating on a number of the subjects you write about here. Again, awesome weblog!

    Feel free to surf to my website bacode rental

    ReplyDelete
  26. Thank you for the good writeup. It in fact was a amusement
    account it. Look advanced to more added agreeable from you!
    However, how could we communicate?

    my page: rent barcode scanner
    Also see my webpage - rent barcode scanner

    ReplyDelete
  27. My partner and I stumbled over here different web
    address and thought I might check things out. I like what I
    see so now i'm following you. Look forward to looking at your web page yet again.

    Here is my blog ... Barcode Reader Symbol

    ReplyDelete
  28. Due to different styles and colors of UGG boots and UGG shoes,
    you'll be able to match your mood and your clothes. If you've no idea about
    whether the boots you want are real you aren't, it really is advisable not to get them. What many are finding are imitation, fake UGG Boots.

    Look at my web page; louis vuitton

    ReplyDelete
  29. There is significantly surprise this kind of simply just released sorts are listed below: uggs estimates shoes and boots mayfair boot styles girls java Highkoo
    Microsof corporation 5450 fight-style exceptional.

    When it comes to essentially the most styling infant, dress your toddler
    in uggs. In addition, if you seem on the labels for that manufacturing site, you need to bear in mind
    that the labels which exhibit "Manufactured in China" are authentic, and a
    lot of others are counterfeits.

    Also visit my blog post: www.vitonkoushiki.com

    ReplyDelete