Dear Hon Kibaki,
I write this letter to you as a one of the pained and depressed Kenyans in the diaspora. Certainly I speak for the hundreds of thousands out there, who for one reason or another, for the first time in such a long time after the departure of your predecessor find it such a difficult reality to walk tall as a Kenyan. Your Excellency, those of us in the academia have always been reminded that you are our living, indeed immortal, role model in our pursuit of academic excellence. I must congratulate you for your brilliance in Economics and other disciplines which are less urgent now for the Kenyan people than the absolute respect and protection of, first life and secondly property.
As a man who did not bear the brutal brunt of police brutality which met those who were agitating for the restoration of multiparty democracy, but as a beneficiary of that costly order anyway, it is incumbent upon you, your Excellency to strive to uphold the human dignity of Kenyans and more so prevail upon your police force to exercise utmost restraint in controlling the people while they take part in their democratic and constitutional mass demonstrations. I do not need to remind your excellency that a dead citizen has no vote, but the parents who turn out to bury their loved ones ask the question: How many more souls need to be lost in Kenya to arouse your feelings? Are you really this dry and cold-blooded, your Excellency? Are you? Many countless Kenyans died in the struggle for independence under the murderous colonial army, some were buried in unmarked graves. Many more died in the run-up to the repeal of Section 2A of the constitution which was enacted by parliament in a record 15 minutes following your successful moving of the motion. Saba Saba represents the day that Kenyans wished to relate to police repression of the past. That past which we thought we were over and done with.
BUT your Excellency, NO KENYAN wanted to imagine that in MWAI KIBAKI's Kenya, a harmless citizen would ever die again. Not even the most psychotic optimist would imagine that your government would preside over any police-sponsored genocide and mass murder of innocent demonstrators. Even where these were caught red-handed, or in the act of committing a felony, the courts are there to try them. At least that is why we have prisons. Yet they are dying in hundreds, many more are wounded while families and friends are scarred. Yes, it has happened in 2008. Why is it necessary, I wonder. Do you really have such a veritable fear of the citizen? Why would you, when the whole world says you lost an election through the same power of the citizen. If you really feared citizen power, the first of that fear should have been expressed in your honouring your word to step down after you lost the election. At 76 years of age, you have seen, heard and had enough. You need peace of mind and soul.
I write this letter to you, a father and a grandfather. Let mothers and fathers live as peacefully as you and your family live, however poor they are. Allow our parents to age and die peacefully in old age. Mr President, in times of war the old bury the youth whereas in times of peace, such as the time that ALL KENYANS want and deserve, it is the young who bury the old. Kenyans demand and deserve PEACE. Let them have no money in their pockets BUT allow them to live in peace. Please your excellency, ask the police to allow for free demonstrations and protests by the Kenyan people. You have seen it yourself, where the police didn't interfere with the demonstrators there were less cases of looting and deaths. It is the police who are perpetrating acts of violence by using excessive force to disperse the people. Would you like to rule over a country of corpses, widows and mourning parents and relatives. Do you know that it took time for people to realise what was happening in Rwanda BUT that eventually they caught up with the perpetrators and it was rightly adjudged as genocide? Do you?
At least after the disputed election, the least you can do is to allow the people of Kenya an avenue to vent off their frustration and anger. Let them move around along the streets, let them sing themselves hoarse, let them dance themselves lame. BUT at least let them have the freedom to move and associate, the same rights that you gallantly taught us while you were in the opposition. Why is it difficult for you to offer Kenyans the same things that you pontificated about when you were out of power? Why Baba Tony does your government preside over the killing of innocent children and harmless pregnant women. Why do you allow this to happen when the whole world expects Kenyans to handle themselves in dignity.
Allow me to veer off and quote for you the position of your party (the Democratic Party, DP) regarding mass action. Your current minister for energy Hon Kiraitu Murungi who was the Shadow Attorney General in 2000 had this to say (Mageuzi Instigators Insist On Mass Action By Njeri Rugene, The Nation (Nairobi), 12 November 2000):
What has changed now? Why is it not possible to let Kenyans demonstrate and participate in mass action so long as they don't cause any damage to property and life?
I know that your handlers are telling you that 'they will steal and loot'. Are they prophets? Why didn't they tell you that your government-backed candidate for speaker of the national assembly was going to lose in yesternight' s vote in Parliament? Because they are second-guessing. Your Excellency, don't allow people to taint and spoil your name. As a Catholic, you know the good word says "A good name is better than wealth" (Proverbs 22:1). Money cannot buy a name, you may ask Biwott and Moi. They are prisoners of mass perception. Perception cannot be laundered by Hyssop, not any detergent can make it, neither can police brutality tame it. But you can recover your reputation by doing at least one thing. Get to the nearest camera and microphone and pronounce the words " Wacha hawa warukeruke tu bora wasiibe mali ya mtu". Those words are magical. Allow Kenyans to demonstrate and hold mass rallies. Let them have a meeting with their leaders including their presidents and mini-presidents. Even Kukubo Jeremiah, your fringe opponent got some votes and there are people who see him as the president. Let them not be harmed by your police. Mothers want to cook for their energetic sons, who come back in the evening after a tiring mass demonstration. That is what they want.
Finally, your Excellency, as a Kalenjiin, I wish you had moved in with resolve to terminate the endless clashes in Kuresoi and Mt Elgon with much the same verve that you have used in CRASHING harmless political opponents and harmless protesters. To date, close to 240 Kalenjiin men and women including children have died. They were buried in villages and people have kept the statistics diligently. They died with visible marks of bullets, machete cuts and arson. Those who killed the Kalenjiin did not stop at taking their lives out. In a rare show of brutality, they went ahead and chopped the corpses into pieces, sometimes defiling them then incinerating those bodies. Heartless brutes these.
I am sure you have seen the pictures on TV which show the police killing and kicking innocent and harmless demonstrators. Although your government has denied, it is highly unlikely that we shall believe them. They told us about the Margaryan thugs, saying they were investors. Later, it turned out that they were drug barons and killer-hands on hire. Mr President, DO WE have Ugandan forces on KENYAN soil? HAS KENYA, my country been invaded by Museveni's army? Isn't that a declaration of war on Kenya? Those policemen that we watched, awe-stricken, shooting harmless demonstrators, are they REALLY Kenyan police officers? Can you go on TV and assure the country that Ugandan soldiers are NOT defiling Kenyan soil and taking away Kenyan lives with abandon? Can you Baba Jimmy?
By ending I will ask you: How will you wish to be remembered by Kenyans in ten, twenty or one hundred years? As the president who was elected in 2002 with an overwhelming majority and rejected by Kenyans in 2007 BUT turned around and bled the whole country dry JUST because he wanted to remain in power. Did you really need to end your legacy with this record? Would you like to be the man we say in the Nandi language 'only mention that name in the evening (at sunset)' or would you like to ignite pride and a sense of belonging in Kenyans. Now is your time, choose your place in the history of Kenya and in the world to come. Your Excellency, I await your determined move to restore confidence in YOURSELF and the PRESIDENCY. I want to walk tall and say like your spokesman admonishes us to 'Najivunia kuwa Mkenya'. A friend just told me that we should in the interim change this to 'Navumilia kuwa Mkenya'. Is this what you want, your Excellency? I want to enter my classes and my students don't spend twenty minutes asking me whether my family is safe. I want to say I'm Kenyan and am proud to be one. STOP POLICE BRUTALITY NOW, ALLOW KENYANS TO ASSEMBLE FREELY NOW. Make it a reality for ALL of US TODAY, I beg you your Excellency.
I write this letter to you as a one of the pained and depressed Kenyans in the diaspora. Certainly I speak for the hundreds of thousands out there, who for one reason or another, for the first time in such a long time after the departure of your predecessor find it such a difficult reality to walk tall as a Kenyan. Your Excellency, those of us in the academia have always been reminded that you are our living, indeed immortal, role model in our pursuit of academic excellence. I must congratulate you for your brilliance in Economics and other disciplines which are less urgent now for the Kenyan people than the absolute respect and protection of, first life and secondly property.
As a man who did not bear the brutal brunt of police brutality which met those who were agitating for the restoration of multiparty democracy, but as a beneficiary of that costly order anyway, it is incumbent upon you, your Excellency to strive to uphold the human dignity of Kenyans and more so prevail upon your police force to exercise utmost restraint in controlling the people while they take part in their democratic and constitutional mass demonstrations. I do not need to remind your excellency that a dead citizen has no vote, but the parents who turn out to bury their loved ones ask the question: How many more souls need to be lost in Kenya to arouse your feelings? Are you really this dry and cold-blooded, your Excellency? Are you? Many countless Kenyans died in the struggle for independence under the murderous colonial army, some were buried in unmarked graves. Many more died in the run-up to the repeal of Section 2A of the constitution which was enacted by parliament in a record 15 minutes following your successful moving of the motion. Saba Saba represents the day that Kenyans wished to relate to police repression of the past. That past which we thought we were over and done with.
BUT your Excellency, NO KENYAN wanted to imagine that in MWAI KIBAKI's Kenya, a harmless citizen would ever die again. Not even the most psychotic optimist would imagine that your government would preside over any police-sponsored genocide and mass murder of innocent demonstrators. Even where these were caught red-handed, or in the act of committing a felony, the courts are there to try them. At least that is why we have prisons. Yet they are dying in hundreds, many more are wounded while families and friends are scarred. Yes, it has happened in 2008. Why is it necessary, I wonder. Do you really have such a veritable fear of the citizen? Why would you, when the whole world says you lost an election through the same power of the citizen. If you really feared citizen power, the first of that fear should have been expressed in your honouring your word to step down after you lost the election. At 76 years of age, you have seen, heard and had enough. You need peace of mind and soul.
I write this letter to you, a father and a grandfather. Let mothers and fathers live as peacefully as you and your family live, however poor they are. Allow our parents to age and die peacefully in old age. Mr President, in times of war the old bury the youth whereas in times of peace, such as the time that ALL KENYANS want and deserve, it is the young who bury the old. Kenyans demand and deserve PEACE. Let them have no money in their pockets BUT allow them to live in peace. Please your excellency, ask the police to allow for free demonstrations and protests by the Kenyan people. You have seen it yourself, where the police didn't interfere with the demonstrators there were less cases of looting and deaths. It is the police who are perpetrating acts of violence by using excessive force to disperse the people. Would you like to rule over a country of corpses, widows and mourning parents and relatives. Do you know that it took time for people to realise what was happening in Rwanda BUT that eventually they caught up with the perpetrators and it was rightly adjudged as genocide? Do you?
At least after the disputed election, the least you can do is to allow the people of Kenya an avenue to vent off their frustration and anger. Let them move around along the streets, let them sing themselves hoarse, let them dance themselves lame. BUT at least let them have the freedom to move and associate, the same rights that you gallantly taught us while you were in the opposition. Why is it difficult for you to offer Kenyans the same things that you pontificated about when you were out of power? Why Baba Tony does your government preside over the killing of innocent children and harmless pregnant women. Why do you allow this to happen when the whole world expects Kenyans to handle themselves in dignity.
Allow me to veer off and quote for you the position of your party (the Democratic Party, DP) regarding mass action. Your current minister for energy Hon Kiraitu Murungi who was the Shadow Attorney General in 2000 had this to say (Mageuzi Instigators Insist On Mass Action By Njeri Rugene, The Nation (Nairobi), 12 November 2000):
However, the Democratic Party expresses its support for the mass action call. The party's Shadow Attorney-General Kiraitu Murungi says although his party has been planning its own mass action programme, it supports the protest call as a way of removing President Moi and his government from power. The party, he says, is yet to implement "its actual time table" for mass action.
Said the Imenti South MP: "There are certain things that can only be expressed in the language of the street. The problem in this country is that the right to peaceful protest and mass action has been converted into a privilege to be enjoyed by groups that support Kanu and the government," Mr. Murungi said.
According to Mr. Murungi, anybody who supports democracy should support the right to mass action. We went into the Inter-Party Parliamentary Group consultations because we thought we could negotiate with President Moi. I now realise that it is not possible to negotiate any reform with him nor expect any major constitutional reforms when he is in power."
He adds: "Moi moves only one inch when he is under extreme pressure.
And immediately the pressure goes down, he moves two steps backward.
That is why we (DP) support any group that gives him pressure because that is the only way we can move forward in constitutional reforms."
What has changed now? Why is it not possible to let Kenyans demonstrate and participate in mass action so long as they don't cause any damage to property and life?
I know that your handlers are telling you that 'they will steal and loot'. Are they prophets? Why didn't they tell you that your government-backed candidate for speaker of the national assembly was going to lose in yesternight' s vote in Parliament? Because they are second-guessing. Your Excellency, don't allow people to taint and spoil your name. As a Catholic, you know the good word says "A good name is better than wealth" (Proverbs 22:1). Money cannot buy a name, you may ask Biwott and Moi. They are prisoners of mass perception. Perception cannot be laundered by Hyssop, not any detergent can make it, neither can police brutality tame it. But you can recover your reputation by doing at least one thing. Get to the nearest camera and microphone and pronounce the words " Wacha hawa warukeruke tu bora wasiibe mali ya mtu". Those words are magical. Allow Kenyans to demonstrate and hold mass rallies. Let them have a meeting with their leaders including their presidents and mini-presidents. Even Kukubo Jeremiah, your fringe opponent got some votes and there are people who see him as the president. Let them not be harmed by your police. Mothers want to cook for their energetic sons, who come back in the evening after a tiring mass demonstration. That is what they want.
Finally, your Excellency, as a Kalenjiin, I wish you had moved in with resolve to terminate the endless clashes in Kuresoi and Mt Elgon with much the same verve that you have used in CRASHING harmless political opponents and harmless protesters. To date, close to 240 Kalenjiin men and women including children have died. They were buried in villages and people have kept the statistics diligently. They died with visible marks of bullets, machete cuts and arson. Those who killed the Kalenjiin did not stop at taking their lives out. In a rare show of brutality, they went ahead and chopped the corpses into pieces, sometimes defiling them then incinerating those bodies. Heartless brutes these.
I am sure you have seen the pictures on TV which show the police killing and kicking innocent and harmless demonstrators. Although your government has denied, it is highly unlikely that we shall believe them. They told us about the Margaryan thugs, saying they were investors. Later, it turned out that they were drug barons and killer-hands on hire. Mr President, DO WE have Ugandan forces on KENYAN soil? HAS KENYA, my country been invaded by Museveni's army? Isn't that a declaration of war on Kenya? Those policemen that we watched, awe-stricken, shooting harmless demonstrators, are they REALLY Kenyan police officers? Can you go on TV and assure the country that Ugandan soldiers are NOT defiling Kenyan soil and taking away Kenyan lives with abandon? Can you Baba Jimmy?
By ending I will ask you: How will you wish to be remembered by Kenyans in ten, twenty or one hundred years? As the president who was elected in 2002 with an overwhelming majority and rejected by Kenyans in 2007 BUT turned around and bled the whole country dry JUST because he wanted to remain in power. Did you really need to end your legacy with this record? Would you like to be the man we say in the Nandi language 'only mention that name in the evening (at sunset)' or would you like to ignite pride and a sense of belonging in Kenyans. Now is your time, choose your place in the history of Kenya and in the world to come. Your Excellency, I await your determined move to restore confidence in YOURSELF and the PRESIDENCY. I want to walk tall and say like your spokesman admonishes us to 'Najivunia kuwa Mkenya'. A friend just told me that we should in the interim change this to 'Navumilia kuwa Mkenya'. Is this what you want, your Excellency? I want to enter my classes and my students don't spend twenty minutes asking me whether my family is safe. I want to say I'm Kenyan and am proud to be one. STOP POLICE BRUTALITY NOW, ALLOW KENYANS TO ASSEMBLE FREELY NOW. Make it a reality for ALL of US TODAY, I beg you your Excellency.
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