Uganda Rural Community Support USA

A joint commission of cooperation has been established between Liberia and the Kingdom of Morocco. The Liberia Morocco cooperation will compose of experts in political, economic, cultural and scientific fields.

The experts will identify new fields in commercial relations between the two countries and implement protocols of bilateral cooperation. The establishment of the joint commission marked the end of a four-day visit to Morocco by President Taylor. Liberia Foreign Minister, Monie Captan, says he
and his Moroccan colleague will preside over the commission.

> President Charles Taylor says Liberia is interested in seeing the situation in Sierra Leone resolved. Addressing the nation, President Taylor pointed out that Sierra Leone crisis has socio-economic and political implications for Liberia. He says he is going to undertake a West African tour to

discuss Sierra Leone’s problems with leaders in the sub-region to particularly focus on the humanitarian crisis developing in Freetown like the one that was in Somalia.

> Reports from Sierra Leone speak of uncertainty on whether the military junta will hand over power to civilian rule next year. Under the Conakry agreement the military junta is to hand back power to President Kabbah next April. A BBC report said people in the capital have expressed reservation

about the AFRC’s sincerity as regards the Conakry peace deal. Last Thursday talks between the International Community and the military junta ended in deadlock. The talks were centered around the peaceful implementation of the Conakry Accord. But it failed to agreed to Nigeria’s leadership role in

the peace keeping efforts.

> Liberia’s Ambassador designate to the United States has emphasized the need for U.S assistance in the restructuring of Liberia’s shattered economy. Mrs. Rachel Giggs says considering the long- standing relations between Liberia and the U.S. Liberia needs American assistance now more than befo
re. Mrs. Giggs was speaking at a Senate Confirmation Hearing . The Liberian Diplomat advised Liberians at home to refrain from spending on non-essential items and securing jobs based on political patronage. She said this way Liberia’s need for assistance will be seen by those whose partnership we
seek. On Friday U.S. Embassy Charg

There is a new law passed by the Seventh Parliament which restrains public servants from participating in the electoral process. In particular, it inhibits a public servant from supporting or indicating a preference for a particular political party.

This omnibus law has caused a lot of panic and annoyance in university academic circles, and it requires clarification from the Attorney-General.

Does this law cover the activities of social scientists? Are university lecturers civil servants? If so, since when?

Much earlier, even before the Seventh Parliament passed the law that is now annoying university academics, I argued in these pages that by tradition and profession university academics are not civil servants.

A civil servant is a member of the civil service, which is that branch of government responsible for the public administration of the government.

On the other hand the universal duty of university academics includes teaching, research and dissemination of ideas. While the chiefs, district and provincial officers and the police are charged with the responsibility of public administration, we - the dwellers of the ivory tower - have no han
d in such mundane affair. The terrain of the social scientist (economist, sociologist, historian, political scientist, anthropologist and linguist) is social discourse and social involvement. These people are trained to study and comment on society and social movements. They have called - together

with creative writers - as the “conscience of society.” To tell them to shut up, to expect them not to express their opinions on social movements - like elections - is to say that the whole universities’ mission is irrelevant to this country.

It is true that the majority of Kenya’s university academicians are paid by the Exchequer. But being paid by the Government alone does not make one a public or civil servant. The very Members of Parliament who passed this law are paid by the Exchequer. But being paid by the Government alone doe
s not make one a public or civil servant. The Government also contracts the services of many professionals - including consultants (foreign and local) whom it pays, but this does not necessarily turn these people into public servants.

But the argument can be stretched in a different direction. We, today in Kenya, have more than 15 universities, the majority of which are private and not funded by the state. They are doing exactly the same things the academics in the public universities are doing - teaching, research and publi
cation. Are they also expected not to get involved in public discourse and social engineering?

These are grave matters of relevance to social studies in this country, which we expect the Attorney-General and Mr Justice Chesoni of the Electoral Commission to clarify as a matter of urgency.

Already, a lot of university social scientists are talking of resigning and going to teach in other parts of the world, for this law curtails what we understand to be our academic freedom - the freedom to study and to comment on public issues and events, the freedom to gold intelligent views. I
f this law is allowed to run its full course, then it follows that as we teach our students in the universities about the policies of the various Kenyan political parties, we cannot comment on the merits or demerits of such parties and their platforms.

The universities as we know them historically, were completely autonomous from the governments. Indeed, it was not until the 19th century that governments began to pay part of the costs of running universities. This was after governments realised that the universities were pivotal in the traini
ng of public servants and relevant scientists.

But there are many universities in the world that have resisted any close association with governments in order to protect academic freedom - which includes the freedom of study the governments themselves.

Just a little while earlier, I wrote an article in which I said the Seventh Parliament was a total failure. The Members of that Parliament were governed by tribalism, selfishness, partisanship and myopia. In passing this law, they should have asked the basic question - what, strictly, is public

service?

But I can see how they felt. Anybody who was seen to be able to give Kanu support had to be silenced. What was not, in fact, known to them was that the university academics are very objective and difficult people.

Indeed, in 1992 most scholars were with the Opposition. These included the well-known activists like Odegi Awuondo, Mukaru Ng’ang’a, Kivutha Kibwana and Gibson Kuria Kamau.

In deed, the seat of anti-Kanu movement in this country has been within the public universities. That is where you found Prof Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Mr Edward Oyugi, Mr Willy Mutunga, Mr Maina wa Kinyatti and the Mwakenya Movement.

Thus, to think that university scholars are mindless pro-Kanu minions who must be gagged by the law is, to say the least, most foolish.

In other words - we all understand why chiefs or provincial administrators should be restrained from taking sides in political and election exercises. They had powers to stop politicians from holding meetings and expressing their prejudices.

But why on earth would the law stop me - as a professor of history - from expressing my political prejudices? Why should the law stop Prof Kibwana from supporting the Opposition? Where and when did we stop any politician - opposition or otherwise - from winning elections?

We are not civil servants. Some of us are paid by the State - just like the MPs are - but we are autonomous intellectual agents: free-thinkers paid by the taxpayers to think for society, and to help society make up its mind on the complex issues of our times which are beyond the comprehension o
f the ordinary man.

All change again. Safina is no longer the dreaded monster, some kind of wicked Noah’s ark and Kanu’s waking nightmare of two years ago. It is a registered party, but with a mountain to climb. It has 29 days to make a difference in Kenya’s politics.

It has taken the first step by declaring that it will target only a few civic and parliamentary seats, but it is not fielding a presidential candidate.

The registration of Safina means that Dr Richard Leakey, Kenya’s best-known palaeontologist and the man the ruling party spent the better part of 1995 demonising as an atheist, a neo-colonialist and rabid racist, now has a political platform.

It could propel him or his lieutenants to leadership, a scenario even President Moi thinks is anathema. At another level, the Leakey family is split, with brother Philip, a one-time Cabinet minister, on the other side of the political aisle.

Also thrown into disarray are politicians. Mr Kiraitu Murungi is a founder-member of Safina, but when it appeared the party would not be registered he decamped to the Mwai Kibaki-led Democratic Party of Kenya.

His colleague, Mr Paul Muite, sat tight and, indeed, said that he would not participate in the General Election if Safina was not registered. Lawyer Muturi Kigano could now run in a city constituency (Starehe) or the brand-new Mathioya in Murang’a and complicate matters for Kanu Secretary-Gener
al and Minister for Education Joseph Kamotho.

If that happened, Mr Kamotho would have a headstart, having already began his campaign as Mr Kigano waited with bated breath for the registration of Safina. That is the predicament that faces Safina’s operatives, and, as Dr Leakey and Mr Muite said on Wednesday, this could well be a tactic empl
oyed by Kanu to confuse and further divide the Opposition.

Incidentally, its leaders, including Dr Leakey, suspected that they would be registered when it was too late in the day to organise a meaningful campaign.

So in May, Dr Leakey told the Sunday Nation that if registration was to come too late, the party would concentrate on winning “some few seats just to get our voice in Parliament” .

But why was Safina registered? There is a school of thought that argues that Kanu strategists thought that Mr Kenneth Matiba would tell his supporters at their Thursday Ford Asili factional meeting at the Bomas of Kenya to support Mrs Charity Kaluki Ngilu of the Social Democratic Party.

Kanu’s number crunchers, therefore, thought that if Safina was registered it would field a presidential candidate, possibly Mr Muite or Dr Leakey, and help complicate matters for Mr Matiba’s chosen candidate.

If this is the case, then the strategists must be disappointed, for Mr Matiba only reiterated that he is still a member and leader of Ford-A and Safina declined to field a presidential candidate.

If this school of thought is to be believed, it would mean that Registrar of Societies Omondi Mbago and Attorney-General Amos Wako were economical with the truth regarding the registration of Safina.

Officially, the reason why the party was denied registration was that the name was inappropriate, but at the same time Kanu propagandists were wheeled in to publicly and loudly vilify Dr Leakey. It was widely thought that Dr Leakey would offer himself as presidential candidate were the party to

be registered and, privately, President Moi has been heard to say that behind Dr Leakey were powerful foreign interests.

It was also suggested that Safina would pose a threat to the security of the country, but last week’s announcement of the party’s registration did not refer to the name or the alleged security threat.

Once again, Mr Wako and Mr Mbago find themselves in awkward positions, courtesy of Kanu’s clumsy handling of politically-sensitive matters. Well, cleaning up after somebody else has never been interesting, has it?

When Mr Harold Wackman, the World Bank’s chief of mission in Kenya, launched the Nation Group’s newest product, the Kenya Election ‘97 Internet Website, on Friday, he said that the worldwide web has helped make the world a “global village” .

When in 1992, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia inaugurated the access of CN to Bangladeshi Television (BTV) she observed that fast technological development had brought about a revolution in information and turned the world into “one village” .

It was the Canadian communications scholar Marshall MacLuhan who coined the expression “global village” and it has become what another scholar in the same line, Cees Hamelink of the Netherlands, calls an “attractive, lucid, simple and wrong” metaphor.

Yes, it is wrong. The world is not a global village. The metaphor suggests that we of the world, thanks to development in communications technology, now know each other and know what is going on. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Most Kenyans do not know what is going on around them, let alone what is happening in the next shopping centre or district.

With regard to the Internet and television, “global village” suggests that these two media have a truly global scope. Again nothing could be further from the truth. For example, to access the Internet one needs a personal computer and a telephone line.

Listen to Hamelink: “Together all the developing countries own only 4 per cent of the world’s computers. 75 per cent of the world’s 700 million telephone sets can be found in the nine richest countries. The poor countries possess less than 10 per cent, and in most rural areas there is less than

one telephone for every 1,000 people.” Of course, there are more telephones in Japan alone (with 121 million population in 1988) than in the 50 nations of Africa (with a 1988 population four times that size.) With regard to information, a question that the developing world has tried to redress si
nce the 1970s, it is an established fact that the flow across the globe is imbalanced. Most of the world’s information moves among the countries of the developed North, less between the North and South and very little among the countries of the South. The mass media are known to give priority to t
he local over the global and usually what concerns them are incidents and not the entire picture and rarely ever do the media concern themselves with the ways and cultures that are alien to their own. When they do, the biases are too obvious, too glaring. In 1991, the International Institute of Co
mmunications conducted a worldwide survey on the global news agenda of a particular day. At the end of the day, it emerged that the world had not come closer; in fact, local news was predominant.

That led a commentator to say: “It seems there are more worlds on this earth and that mostly they stay next door, minding their own business.” There might, in fact, be two worlds in one world! In October 1988, three grey whales got stuck under ice in Alaska. One-hundred-and-fifty reporters and
26 camera crews went to cover the event for beaming to over a billion viewers around the world. Hamelink says that “most reports said nothing about the socio-economic conditions of the Eskimos in the same location” .

By The Way, Even If One Were To Argue That Because There Is Coca Cola, Mcdonald’s And Hollywood, The World Is A Village, One Would Still Run The Great Risk Of Thinking That America Is The World, The Global Village.

When McDonald’s started selling hamburgers in Moscow in 1990, one of the company’s executives of the American fast-food chain was heard to say of the Russians, “We’re going to McDonaldize them” and saw his company’s success in terms of cultural conquest.

There is a book called The Media Are American and, Fortune magazine has recently observed: “Around the globe, folks just can’t get enough of America.” What does that mean? Pop culture even if it is pap!

Global village, indeed!

QUICK QUIP: Mr George Nyanja defected from Kanu to FORD in 1992. When FORD split he went to FORD Asili. He soon left for the Kenya National Congress. He returned to Ford-A just in time for the General Election. Recently, he has quit Ford-A for the Democratic Party. On Friday, he quit the DP for

Safina. This man is politically promiscuous.

Half-a-decade after the Somali civil war that followed the ouster of dictator Siad Barre and saw the eastern Africa country become the first nation-state in modern times to collapse completely, there are interesting indicators of what might happen by way of the prospects for reconstru
ction, rehabilitation and reinvention.

One school of thought holds that Somalia, far from fleeing from the concept of the nation-state and regressing into some primitive throw-back state of affairs, is, in fact, moving beyond the nation-state and that something is evolving that is going to be a significant feature of post-industrial
, post-statist control society. This can be hard to grasp for mindsets that cannot conceive of a society organised on other than the basis of a unitary state. Somalia has had no unitary state for years now, but its people, who are as enterprising as any other African people, have, somehow, survive
d both at home and in a far-flung diaspora.

Another school of thought holds that the United Nations, which beat an undignified retreat from Somalia in 1994, has a lot to answer for what befell that country in the immediate, anarchic aftermath of the civil war. There is a growing feeling in the Somali diaspora and among well-wishers that
the UN should in fact be sued for the mess it left behind.

The UN took over control of relief efforts from the US in May 1991 and remained in Somalia until late March 1994 (the peace talks in Kenya having collapsed on March 23), with some 19,000 troops garrisoned in the shattered country. The manner of the UN departure necessitated a second deployment
of US Marines and included the abandoning of equipment, projects and much else.

Meanwhile, the business of re-building and reinventing Somalia continues. But the major Western countries and investors have abandoned Somalia to its own devices, refusing to deal with communities in the absence of a functioning government. It has been left up to NGOs and freelance, mostly Thir
d World, investors to do what can be done to alleviate Somalia’s plight.

The West and the UN should also find ways of chipping in, a central government structure notwithstanding. The people of Somalia deserve a second chance.

This is going to be a time when Kenyans must fight to remain sane and to able to make independent decisions.

When one is bombarded with all sorts of information or disinformation, or both, from every possible quarter, one runs the danger of being disempowered, rendered completely hopeless and lost in the labyrinth of indecision.

The month beginning tomorrow is going to be a long time in politics. At the end of it, Kenyans can be forgiven for feeling that they have lived through an era, not a mere four weeks. It is going to be a crowded December that Kenyans begin tomorrow. On December 3 and 4, the various political par
ties and their supporters around the country will know, officially, who their Presidential candidates are, for they will be nominated during that period.

Four days later, on December 7, the parties will decide on their civic and parliamentary candidates so that these present their papers for nomination to returning officers of the Electoral Commission on December 8 and 9. The following day, the official 20-day campaign period will begin.

December 12, two days into the campaign, is Independence Day, a time to celebrate 34 years of Uhuru. A fortnight later, the season of goodwill peaks with Christmas, Christendom’s commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ.

Unlike the case in 1992, when there were eight Presidential candidates, it would appear, at least at this early stage, that there are going to a record 14 candidates. Then there were eight parties, but this time around there are 22 of them.

There are going to be voices calling out for support, asking for votes, vilifying their opponents and there will be voices rising in celebration of Independence Day and the Christmas and Boxing days. The air is going to be thick with campaign rhetoric and the decibels are going to rise with eac
h passing day.

Kenyans have to listen to all these voices and make reasoned and sober judgements about the people to lead them into the next millennium against the crash of celebrations, the search for school fees for that dreaded January when schools re-open and new students and pupils are admitted.

Do not be disempowered. It is important to choose leaders, but one has to remain sane for, as Mencius, a disciple of Confucius, said: “The people are the most important element in a country; the spirits of the land and grain are secondary; and the sovereign is the least.”

The fiction that it is the Registrar of Societies who has the sole discretion to decide on the registration of parties was finally blown to smithereens with the belated registration of Safina.

The announcement that the ban on the party had been lifted allegedly came directly from the Office of the President, in the process badly discomfitting Attorney-General Amos Wako and Registrar Omondi Mbago, who were reduced to the role of communicating the decision to the party’s officials and
the press once it had been made.

That Mr Wako, with Mr Omondi Mbago sitting smugly beside him, could later look at journalists straight in the eye and tell them, shamelessly, that it was he who made the decision was insulting, to say the least. But it is illustrative of the unthinking disregard officials in this government str
ain the minds of many Kenyans.

In allowing the party to enter the fray, the government may have calculated that it was safer having the Safina team as part of the elections rather than out of them. Left to their own devices, some of Safina’s leaders looked destined to directions which promised nothing but discomfort for the
Kanu government, like beating the path back to the National Convention Executive Council, which the authorities have strenuously fought to neutralise through the Inter-Party Parliamentary Group and which the Safina team still profess fealty to.

A re-activated NCEC is the last thing the government wants to see. It was the lobby group’s mass action campaigns this year that forced a reluctant government to drop its obstinacy over reform, leading to the establishment of the IPPG.

There was also the very real chance that some Safina elements would be tempted to make some sort of common cause with the partyless Kenneth Matiba and other forces which will not be participating in the election. Though these forces hardly look capable anymore of effecting a disruption of the p
olls, they could just have managed to make enough of a stink to make the whole exercise look questionable in international eyes.

And though Safina promises to remain faithful to the NCEC agenda even if it succeeds to send members to Parliament, its posture as a parliamentary party is likely to be tempered in a different way than if it remained out of the loop.

The decision to register Safina was made all the more palatable by the fact that there is very little time left for newly-registered players to make any meaningful impact before the election is held.

Kanu possibly came to believe its own propaganda that Safina was so power-hungry that it would waste no time in fielding its own presidential candidate in an already overcrowded field, further balkanizing the vote to Kanu’s delight.

Safina, however, was quick to deny Kanu the pleasure. It promptly let it be known that it would field only parliamentary and civic candidates and that it had no intention of “playing into Kanu’s hands.” According to one official, the party does not intend to flood the country with candidates it

cannot sustain but will target only “specific constituencies” it is confident of performing well in.

It is understood the party commissioned a professional survey last year, which it recently updated, on which constituencies to target. The party refuses to reveal the survey’s findings, but says whichever constituencies it will earmark will be carefully selected to ensure it does not spoil the
chances of another Opposition party which already may have made a compelling enough presence on the ground.

The party insists that it is also “very determined” not to allow Kanu to paint it into some ethnic corner and will select the constituencies it will field candidates in with this consideration in mind.

Paul Muite is considered a shoo-in in Kikuyu. Maalim Farah is also reckoned to be fairly strong in Lagdera. But the strength of its other candidates is uncertain.

Party chairman Mr Muturi Kigano is reported to be eyeing Starehe in Nairobi rather than the rural Kangema constituency he has previuously shown interest in, obviously acting out of the perception that Safina could fare better in an urban rather than rural setting.

Dr Richard Leakey as expected will not be fielded: it is said he will be occupied in establishing a professional secretariat to churn out the party’s policy positions.

The party enters the arena with considerable ambition and an attitude to match. It has quickly foresworn not to entertain opportunists of no fixed party abode who have a habit of latching onto any party bandwagon in sight.

That may put paid to the ambitions of the likes of Limuru’s George Nyanja, Gatundu’s Kamuiru Gitau and scores of other party-hoppers who have failed to fit in other parties and are now loudly proclaiming they will run on Safina tickets.

Safina talks of putting in place a “rigorous vetting procedure” to keep these kind of fellows off and hints that it might not hold the usual nominations but rather will “earmark” the individuals it will consider to be of integrity.

Though it anticipates to get only a handful of MPs, the party is adamant that they will be of a quality to make an impact out of proportion to their numbers.

Safina is under no illusion that the Opposition can win the election. Its officials nevertheless charge that Kanu will not win fairly because the outcome has already been settled beforehand in the absence of the kind of reforms the party has been advocating for Then why bother to participate? F
or starters, the party says it is doing so under protest. Besides, the fact that just about every other serious Opposition party will be participating makes a Safina boycott pointless.

Safina says it will concentrate all its energies to fighting for a new constitutional order. First of all, it rejects the IPPG-inspired Constitution of Kenya Review Commission Act, through which a commission with a life of two years is to be appointed to draft proposals for constitutional refor
m.

Safina’s agenda within the two years is to push not for amendments but for a complete overhaul of the Constitution whose passage is not dependent on Parliament but on a National Convention.

There is the danger of the party over-estimating its abilities: The call for an election boycott initiated by the NCEC and which Safina initially supported has all but fallen flat.

Safina officials also say they will not be supporting any of the current presidential candidates - though they have stated clearly they will front their own once the constitutional business is concluded. Nonetheless, in the meantime, individuals who will run on the party’s ticket will naturally

have their preferences, not to mention the people who intend to vote for Safina’s parliamentary and civic candidates wherever this will be.

At least, in Mr Muite’s backyard, word is that his supporters could be rooting for Charity Ngilu, if only because the parliamentary candidate they had picked - one Dr Kariba Muniu - to run in Mr Muite’s stead before Safina got registered was to have run on the SDP ticket.

Safina still says it remains supportive of a single Opposition presidential candidate, but it is coming in with some unusual conditions. It wants a collective deal where the person selected will agree to be a purely temporary choice to oversee the kind of reform of the constitution the party wa
nts to see.

Far from there being any firm guarantee that current candidates will buy that line, especially those deeming themselves to be frontrunners, it will not be that easy to force any such choice to agree to be boxed into an interim term.

The ostensible reason for the three-year freeze on Safina’s application was because the party’s registration would have been “prejudicial” to the good order of the country, an assessment supposedly based on reports on certain Safina individuals the Registrar had in his possession (and whose con
tents and origins, one may add, were never made known).

The Head of State, however, in his furious campaigns against the party at the onset, clarified the picture somewhat when he made it appear that the whole problem was the presence in Safina of a White man, Dr Richard Leakey.

President Moi, in all probability, knew all too well Safina was not Leakey’s creation. It would also be surprising if the government genuinely believed that Dr Leakey was hell-bent on an agenda of becoming president.

Rather, the demonisation of Dr Leakey as a kind of sinister Rasputin out to recolonise Kenya was a godsend to anybody desperate in polishing up some nationalist credentials which the immediate pre-independence era may have left in considerable ambiguity. Whether or not the Mzungu in question wa
s a citizen, and for years had been a State employee at the National Museum, was immaterial.

Nation journalist Kwendo Opanga recalls watching in Britain some particularly revealing BBC TV footage of a “goodwill visit” to State House by a group of Whites resident in Kenya organised by Dr Leakey’s brother Philip, shortly after the launch of Safina. “You can do business or anything else y
ou want here. You can marry Africans . . . one, two, three or even four wives. But leadership, never!” the group was told in no uncertain terms.

Twisting the argument to one of a power-grabbing colonialist suited Kanu just fine. Just so long as the focus shifted from one of good governance.

It remains to be seen whether Safina will stick to the decision to refrain from putting up a presidential candidate. Kenyan politics have an all-too-familiar way of stoking such ambitions.

It is not too difficult for somebody to begin mobilising some targeted groups to start issuing loud statements about a Safina presidential candidate being “what the Opposition and the country needs”. The fact that as everybody knows some people in Safina cannot by any stretch of the imagination

be described as shy of ambition makes it quite conceivable that such calls may just fall on fertile ground.

Three ministers, out of 26, and 15 assistant ministers, out of 49, were bundled out in the trouble-plagued Kanu nominations that are seen as the first rehearsal in the lead-up to the Moi Succession.

The second will come on December 29 when Kanu parades the team that is emerging from the nominations against the Opposition. Strictly speaking, not a great deal has changed on the Kanu landscape especially in regard to the faces that will go into battle against the Opposition.

Mr Philip Masinde, the outgoing Minister for Labour, has not only eschewed controversy, but has also come across as weak both as Minister and Deputy Leader of Government Business.

Mr Chris Okemo, who denied him the party ticket for the big race for the Nambale seat, will feel vindicated in his long-held belief that he beat Mr Masinde in 1992 when he ran on a Ford Asili ticket, but the poll was interfered with.

Dr Protus Kebati Momanyi, who held the tourism docket, has had a turbulent time politically since 1992. First, he lost the Kanu nomination for his Bonchari seat in Kisii. Then he defected to the Democratic Party of Kenya and won the ensuing election held on December 29.

But two months later, he became the first man to defect in multi-party Kenya, back to Kanu. He was to win the ensuing by-election and early this year, he was appointed Minister. Now he has failed to win the Kanu nomination to defend his seat having lost to a newcomer Mr Zebedeyo Opore.

On the Kisii landscape, Dr Momanyi was identified with that group that was opposed to the one fronted by fellow Cabinet colleague Simeon Nyachae, but that may not now count for much because there are others identified with Mr Nyachae who fell by the roadside too.

While Mr Nyachae himself sailed through in his Nyaribari Chache constituency, his next door neighbour and relative, Dr Hezron Manduku was stopped in his tracks by the man he shut out in 1992, Prof Sam Ongeri, the former Cabinet Minister, who leads the anti-Nyachae forces in the land of Omogusii
.

Then in the neighbouring District of Gucha, former Assistant Minister Chris Obure, who is also identified with the anti-Nyachae group, reclaimed the party ticket to run for the Bobasi seat when he eclipsed Mr Stephen Manoti.

But in Kitutu Chache in Kisii, Dr Jimmy Angweny, who is in the Nyachae group, managed to keep Mr Momoima Onyonka out for the second time running. In Borabu North Mugirango, old man Atebe Marita, a close ally of Mr Nyachae, bowed out.

What this means is that where Mr Nyachae had, over the last few months, managed to knit a close group of Abagusii MPs, both Opposition and Kanu, and keep his enemies at bay, that unity has been punctured by the internal party poll and it has also ushered in the very enemies he sought to keep ou
t.

Events in the three Omogusii districts of Kisii, Gucha and Nyamira are of particular interest to observers because Mr Nyachae is a contender in the Moi Succession which makes him a target of those who are in Vice-President George Saitoti’s corner. Here is to be found Prof Ongeri.

The other losing Minister was Mr John Koech, the outgoing Chepalungu legislator, who is as controversial as he is outspoken. He might wish he had not changed his mind when he recently resigned as Minister at the Nation Newspaper offices in Nakuru on a Friday only to change his mind the followin
g Monday.

Then, he said, his constituents had urged him to reconsider his stand. The Chepalungu constituents appear to have changed their mind about him for they settled for Mr Isaac Ruto in Thursday’s nomination.

The exit from the scene of Mr Koech might have given Mr Kipkalia Kones hope that he might get back the ministerial position he lost to Mr Koech in the January Cabinet reshuffle should he win on December 29.

Mr Kones flattened perennial rival Dr W. Sitonik in Bomet constituency. In the eyes of many, the former Minister was dropped from the Cabinet because he was thought to be allied to the Nyachae group in the succession struggle.

That appears not to have affected his standing in Bomet. Similarly, Mr William ole Ntimama, who is also allied to the Nyachae group and who was removed from the Ministry of Local Government to Home Affairs and National Heritage in the reshuffle, remained unruffled in Narok North.

Mr Ntimama has come across as foe of the Vice-President, but he has also earned himself the dubious epithets of a Kikuyu hater, a forceful crusader for devolution of power to the regions (majimboism) and the foremost Maasai hawk.

Veteran and nationalist politician, Paul Ngei might now retire, not honourably though, from politics. Now having an artificial leg after an amputation, Mr Ngei finished last in a field of seven that sought nomination to run for the Kangundo seat and only he had a double digit figure.

Mr Ngei was not alone. Old guard politicians such as Wilberforce Kisiero (Mt Elgon), Kassim Mwamzandi (Msambweni), Atebe Marita, (Borabu North Mugirango), William Saina (Eldoret North), Oduya Oprong’ (Amagoro), Taitta Toweett (Sotik), Willy Kamuren (Baringo North), and Elon Wameyo were among th
e 15 assistant ministers who made an early exit. Dr Toweett, a nationalist politician of longstanding repute and a self-made academic, had appeared to rivals to be the President’s choice for nomination in the newly created constituency. That roused their ire and they complained publicly, but when
the votes were counted, party rank and file had other ideas. It was also something of a surprise when Mr Kamuren, regarded by many as being close to the President, failed to get the party nomination to defend his seat.

However, another close confidant of the President, Mr Kipng’eno arap Ng’eny, the former Managing Director of the Kenya Posts and Telecommunications Corporation, made a successful debut in the new Ainamoi constituency in Kericho.

Mr Nicholas Biwott did not have to sweat defending his Kerio South constituency, but his aide, Mr Joel Barmasai in neighbouring Uasin Gishu District was one of the three outgoing legislators who received a thumbs down from the party rank and file.

Out went Mr Barmasai (Eldoret East), Mr William Saina (Eldoret North) and Dr Joseph Misoi (Eldoret South). Where Mr Barmasai is soft-spoken and shuns controversy, Mr Saina, a descendant of the Nandi laibon, is a vocal defender of what he sees are Nandi rights and Dr Misoi had, over the last fiv
e years, emerged as a crusader for majimboism. Mr Kipruto Kirwa, another controversial politician and friend of both Dr Misoi and Mr Saina, survived in his Cherangany constituency in the neighbouring Trans Nzoia District.

Mr Kirwa emphatically shut out a confident Kiprono Kittony, son of Maendeleo Ya Wanawake chairperson Mrs Zipporah Kittony.

And as if that was not bad enough, Mrs Kittony’s brother Reuben Chesire also failed to capture Eldoret North.

The Eldoret North seat is one of the three that were captured by former operatives of the now-defunct Youth for Kanu ‘92. It was Mr William Ruto who blocked Mr Saina’s return and Mr Chesire’s bid in Eldoret North.

Mr Cyrus Jirongo, the chairman and blue-eyed boy of the super-rich YK ‘92 Kanu campaign machine, for his part, took on Mr Apili Wawire, the man he enticed away from Ford-A and helped reclaim the Lugari seat on a Kanu ticket, and consigned him to the sidelines.

Mr Jirongo’s other ally in YK ‘92, Joe Kimkung, halted Mr Kisiero’s march in Mt Elgon. The young people who have always held that they contributed immensely to Kanu’s success five years ago, seem to be saying that they are ready to take over.

President Moi not only forced many to put their ambitions on hold in Luo Nyanza when he nominated seven aspirants and therefore ensured their unopposed march to the December 29 poll, but also sent the signal that the chosen few are in his good books.

This included Mr Edwin Yinda in Alego Usonga, Mr Dedan Sewe in Bondo, Mr Aloyce Aboge in Kisumu Town West, Paul Gogo in Nyando, Sam Okello in Muhoroni, Mrs Phelgona Okundi in Rangwe and outgoing Kisumu Mayor Lawrence Akinyi Oile.

Nairobi architect Joel Nyaseme did not get this nod, but he gave a good account of himself by locking out experienced operative Grace Ogot for the Gem nomination.

Mr Yinda is the Siaya Kanu branch chairman and Mr Nyaseme his deputy and the two represent a new crop of business people, professionals and technocrats Kanu has been wooing in its bid to build its forces and image in Opposition-dominated Luo Nyanza.

It must have pained the more established politicians who are also outgoing Nominated MPs Dalmas Otieno in Rongo and Ndolo Ayah in Kisumu Rural that the President did not give them the nod. They, however, beat their rivals comfortably.

However, a piqued Dr William Odongo Omamo alias Kaliech (like an elephant) quit Kanu in a huff after President Moi nominated Mr Okello for his seat rather than let the rank and file decide in a free ballot.

The humorous former Cabinet Minister did not see the funny side of that. He abandoned the party and the President he has always praised and transferred allegiance and praise to the National Democratic Party of Kenya (NDP) and its leader Raila Odinga.

The President’s move was unpopular in some quarters because it was seen as imposition of nominees on the rank and file in eight constituencies in Luo Nyanza, but, sources say, the President was rooting for people that are likely to form his next circle of trusted lieutenants from Luo Nyanza.

It is however of some significance that Archbishop Stephen Ondiek’s endorsement by the President for the Ugenya nomination was nullified when supporters of journalist William Omoga, another former YK operative, demonstrated against the move. The archbishop is an old guard.

It is now academic whether the choice of the people of Rangwe would have been Mrs Okundi or her brother-in-law Dan, but she joins Mrs Alicen Chelaite, the immediate former Nakuru Mayor who clinched the Nakuru Town nomination, Minister Nyiva Mwendwa in Kitui West and Ms Justina Sitti (Saboti) to

complete the list of women so far gunning for Parliament on a Kanu ticket. One last observation. Turn out at the nominations was high and in some cases winners had five digit figures to their credit. Has Kanu’s stock gone up over the last five years? There is no knowing for the voters do not need

party identity cards to queue-up behind aspirants of their choice.

Apart from the President and those Parliamentary aspirants in Luo Nyanza he nominated unopposed, it is also significant that Messrs Kalonzo Musyoka (Mwingi), Musalia Mudavadi (Sabatia), Alfred Sambu (Webuye), Mr Ayah and newcomer Uhuru Kenyatta (Gatundu South) were not opposed in their respecti
ve constituencies.

Public health services around the country were paralysed yesterday, with relatives being forced to care for their sick in Government hospitals, dead bodies lying uncollected and some wards being closed as the nurses’ strike entered its second day.

In some instances, healthier patients helped to care for the critically ill as measures announced by the Government to minimise the effects of the countrywide strike failed to work.

A pathetic situation in hospitals was reported as nurses demonstrated in major towns such as Nairobi, Nakuru, Naivasha, Meru, Embu and Kisumu.

They are demanding minimum pay of Sh30,000 and allowances and have ignored pleas to resume work while their grievances are looked into. Nurses from all hospitals and dispensaries in Nairobi demonstrated in city streets and at times there were confrontations with the police.

The Director of Medical Services, Dr James Mwanzia, asked the nurses to report to their stations immediately while their grievances are addressed.

“It is unfortunate that those who resorted to this action did so in total disregard of the Ministry’s efforts to address their grievances,” Dr Mwanzia said.

The Government has asked students at medical training colleges, doctors and subordinate staff to stand in for the nurses. It has also promised police protection for those willing to resume work.

Subordinate staff at the Kenyatta National Hospital could hardly cope with the work. The situation in Casualty Ward was appalling, with patients spending hours unattended before being referred elsewhere.

One of the four doctors on duty in Casualty Ward said they could do very little without the assistance of nurses.

The not-so-sick patients assisted the matrons to feed, clothe and clean the very sick ones. During the visiting hours, relatives helped do some of the chores done by the nurses. Some patients who had been prematurely discharged waited for relatives to pick them up.

In the Labour Ward, a woman worker who said she is employed as a cleaner was in charge of the few patients still in there. Two men with serious injuries had not been attended to five hours after arriving at the hospital. Their faces and limbs were soaked in blood following an attack by robbers.

The demonstrating nurses said unqualified students at the MTC were deployed to help in the hospital at Sh300 per night.

“How can a First Year student attend to patients without the supervision of a qualified nurse? This is worsening the situation of the patient!” one demonstrator shouted.

Violence almost erupted when a team of police officers armed with G-3 rifles threatened to unleash force on demonstrators outside the College of Health Professions.

A nurse and a police officer traded words with the officer, claiming the demonstrators were provoking them. KNH Director Julius Meme appealed to nurses to return to work to save “the worsening situation” .

Amid calls “Meme must go”, he said patients were in trouble and their return to work would be of great help. Asked what steps the hospital was taking, he said: “Right now we are just watching the events as they unfold. We have asked relatives to help in feeding their sick in the wards.” The Mer
u District Hospital had uncollected bodies while expectant mothers helped each other to deliver.

Journalists who visited the institution saw three bodies lying uncollected in a ward but sources said nine bodies had lain uncollected overnight in Ward Eight.

One body was that of a male prisoner who died after he was allegedly rejected by prisons authorities following the forced mass discharge of patients at the hospital on Friday morning.

A man died at the Kisumu District Hospital but it was not immediately confirmed whether it was as a direct result of the strike. The body was removed at 10 am to the Nyanza Provincial Mortuary. Nursing students at the Kisumu MTC refused to stand in for the strikers.

At the district hospital, patients were left unattended in the wards as the striking nurses were locked out of the hospital precincts. The Out-Patient Department remained deserted as it was closed for the weekend.

Nurses in Nyamira said the Government had no choice but to accede to their demands if they expected services in hospitals to return to normal.

The Nyeri Provincial General Hospital ground to a halt as patients were requested to seek admission elsewhere and the gates to the hospital were locked. A spot check indicated that a number of patients, especially the elderly and children, were stranded as no relatives showed up to collect them
.

Meanwhile about 600 nurses from Nyeri’s converged on the Lord Baden Powell’s grounds in the town. The few doctors at the hospital were holding a meeting at the matron’s office.

The nurses converged on the Nation Distributor’s office after demonstrating along Embu roads. Only two matrons were on duty at the District Hospital.

The Machakos District Hospital Administration asked relatives of patients who could afford it to take them to private hospitals.

The hospital boss Dr Amos Mwalugongo had previously unsuccessfully tried to talk the 400 nurses in the institution to abandon the work stoppage before asking the relatives to take away their relatives.

Dr Mwalugongo also said that serious inpatients be advised to seek alternative treatment elsewhere as the situation had become unmanageable.

Doctors had complained that they could not cope with the situation as the 50 senior nurses had reportedly joined the strike.

Dr Mwalugongo’s attempts to to the nurses a statement from the Nursing Council requesting them to resume work while their grievances were being looked into was drowned in shouting.

The management of private nursing homes in the town cashed in on the situation by providing vehicles to transfer the patients to their hospitals. Operations at the Uasin Gishu district hospital were paralysed and sources said four patients being reported as having died on Friday night. The out-
patient section was deserted and patients at the casualty ward said they were not being attended to.

A security officer at the hospital said four women at the maternity ward died on Friday as there was nobody to assist them deliver. Maternity services at Chuka district hospital were grounded. Patients were forced to seek assistance at the Mission and private hospitals.

Only two patients remained in the amenity wards while several patients at the isolation wards were left at the mercy of their relatives. No outpatients turned up at the hospital or in any of the public health centres in the district.

Operations at the Rift Valley Provincial General Hospital in Nakuru town were paralysed after the 500 nurses joined the strike. Most wards were deserted as most people had their patients discharged.

The few clinical officers who were on duty tried desperately to cope with the work. “We are just trying the much we can, otherwise things are pretty bad here,” one of the officers said.

The hospital’s main gate remained locked compelling newly arriving patients and their kin to seek medical assistance elsewhere.

Many of the patients and their relatives interviewed expressed their anger at what they termed as the Government’s “I-don’t-care-attitude” saying they were being denied their fundamental right life.

Antony Maina whose 8-month old child was admitted in ward six expressed said he was dismayed at the Government’s slow response to the strike.

A doctor at the hospital who requested not to be named said it was “ridiculous” for the hospital to admit patients when the workers present could not cope with the work load.

On Friday the Hospital’s Superintendent Dr Samson Obure told the press that the management staff and clinical officers were being mobilised to help contain the possible effects of the strike.

Meanwhile close to 100 nurses from the Naivasha district hospital were dispersed by riot police as they demonstrated in the town. The Nyeri M.H.O Dr Eliud Mwangi accused the nurses of breaking their oath by striking.

In Siaya the strike has forced the local Medical superintendent, Dr Ibrahim Shiwalo, and the matron, Miss Joyce Siaya, to make frantic efforts to handle the 200 patients in-patients at the institution.

A number of in-patients at the Isiolo District Hospital left their wards due to the strike. Among those who left the hospital were expectant mothers and children. In Kitui demonstrating nurses threatened to beat up their colleagues who had not joined in the strike.

A Mr Boniface Mutua who said he suffered from a serious boil, lay in pain on the floor of one of the wards. At the Coast Provincial Hospital, Patients were sent away while several others who were admitted to the hospital earlier were moved to other institutions due to lack of treatment.

The hospitals administrator, Dr Esther Getambu, praised nurses at the maternity and casualty departments for continuing work. Five people were reported dead in various wards at Kisii District Hospital between 3 am and 5 pm.

Two bodies were still lying on the beds in ward five and eight. They were identified as those of Samson Misiani Miyaba from Kenyerere Location of Gucha District and Alloys Samson a Standard Eight pupil from Ramasha area in Kisii.

The three others were man, a woman and a child who were admitted in the hospital between last Thursday and yesterday. In Ward 7 one of the children died while on transfusion but there was no nurse to attend the victim as the helpless mother cried out for help when the child’s condition worsened
.

The Kisii District MoH Dr Andrew Nyamweya was in the hospital in the early hours yesterday the press arrived to access the situation following the national strike. Some of the worst hit wards are the maternity and the children wards.

A former associate of Corporal Foday Sankoh, leader of Sierra
Leone’s Revolutionary United Front who is now in detention in Nigeria,
said Thursday that Sankoh is unwell and has been denied medical
attention.

Alimany Bakarr Sankoh, who lives in exile in Ghana, said in a
statement “we are worried because for years now Foday Sankoh is known to
be suffering from high blood pressure which would lead to death”.

“Therefore, we are calling on the civilized world, the UN Commission
for Human rights, Amnesty International, the International Committee of
the Red Cross to prevail upon President Sani Abacha of Nigeria to
respect the Geneva Convention on the treatement of hostages and allow
Foday Sankoh access to a medical doctor”.

Alimany Sankoh said he and his group, the Campaign for the Release of
Foday Sankoh(CREFOS) demand the immediate and unconditional release of
Foday Sankoh to a “third and civilized country preferably Ghana, Burkina
Faso, Togo Cote d’Ivoire”.

He said the solution to the Sierra Leone crisis lies in the
disarmament, demobilization and encampment of combatants and none of
these cannot take place without Foday Sankoh.

“Without the release of Foday Sankoh, there will be no peace in
Sierra Leone and no foundation for stable and lasting democracy. The
rebels can only disarm to their leader who gave them the weapons”, he
said.

Crisis erupted in Sierra Leone early this year when the military
overthrew the government of President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah and the rebel
Revolutionary United Front which had been a bush war against the
government for years, rallied to the support of the coup makers.

The international community has slapped sanctions against Sierra
Leone and has ordered the coup makers to hand power back to Kabbah.

The new US Ambassador to Uganda, Nancy Jo Powell, has arrived in the country to take on her new assignment. Powell who arrived in the country on Tuesday, replaces Michael Southwick who completed his term of office in August.

Southwick, 52, ended his mission with controversial remarks over Uganda’s political future. He objected to Uganda holding a referendum. The President’s Office slammed the objection.

Powell who is yet to present her credentials to Museveni believes that the US should continue to help Uganda meet its challenges, a press release issued by the Unites States Information Service in Kampala said. “Uganda offers one of the most compelling stories of recovery and hope in Africa,” the career diplomat said while testifying before the Senate and the Foreign Relations Committee.

She said that Uganda’s transformation was not yet complete.

Powell graduated from the University of Northern Iowa in 1970 and joined the US foreign Service in 1977.

Prior to her new appointment, she was the deputy Chief of Mission in Dhaka Bangladesh, a post she took on in August 1995 among others.