Slightly more than a decade after Kofi Annan was accused of doing too little to nip in the bud the genocide in Rwanda, he has gotten a chance to use his diplomatic skills to save my country Kenya from spiraling into the abyss of all out ethnic war. Following disputed election results in which the Electoral Commission of Kenya declared Mwai Kibaki as president and the main opposition party immediately rejected as the result of a rigged process, widespread violence broke out in the country. Initially seen as opposition supporters protesting the results of a flawed process, the violence has since morphed into an inter-ethnic war pitting ethnic groups that largely supported the Kibaki versus those that largely supported Raila Odinga, the main opposition candidate.
In the few days that he has been in the country trying to mediate between Kibaki and Raila, Annan has quickly come to realize that the election results were but the spark that lit the fire but not the fuel. A mix of historical ethnic prejudice and suspicions, real and perceived economic and political marginalization of certain groups, power at all costs politicians and politics based on personalities rather than ideology have finally brought Kenya to the brink of disaster.
With the hardened positions taken by Kibaki and Raila and the deterioration of the violence in the last couple of days, it seems that Kofi Annan has been handed the proverbial poisoned chalice in being entrusted as the chief mediator who can convince the protagonists to bring an end to the hostilities and achieve a negotiated settlement that will lead Kenya back to the path of sanity. Will he rise to the occasion and in small measure get atonement for his failure in Rwanda?
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2 comments:
Spot on! (I must admit I am biased against Koffi Annan and I do not expect much from him.) His record in Rwanda speaks for itself.
to be fair to annan, everybody seems to have the perfect solution most of which are based on personal interests and not those of the kenyan people.
it seems as though the annan team will succeed at setting an agenda for the next steps but not an actual solution to the issues of inequality that includes ethnic violence and blatant electoral fraud. this will be the primary responsibility of all kenyan leaders, the kenyan electorate and and all those with interest in kenya's affairs.
at the end of the day, i hope a legally binding framework is put in place to ensure the party of national unity (pnu) and the orange democratic movement (odm) both honor their obligations to each other and kenyans in general.
kenya will recover from these wounds and annan will be remembered as being a part of the reconciliation team.
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