Posted on 03/17/2008 12:11:20 PM PDT by DBCJR
NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenya's president and the top opposition leader have joined to appeal for US$400 million for an emergency humanitarian and reconstruction program.
The call came on the day a global human rights watchdog accused politicians and police of helping orchestrate postelection violence in Kenya.
President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga presented representatives of 40 embassies - including Kenya's major creditors Canada, China, the European Union, Japan, Russia and the United States - with an outline of the emergency program Monday.
"We want to restore peace; we want to resettle as well as reintegrate the displaced to their respective areas and neighbourhoods," said Odinga, who is expected to become prime minister once parliament passes the laws necessary to implement a power sharing deal struck after both he and Kibaki claimed to have won the Dec. 27 presidential election.
Local and foreign observers have said the election was rigged and it was impossible to determine who won.
"We urge you to keep in mind that this is an emergency program that requires resources that are readily available and can be committed immediately without delay," Kibaki told the diplomats.
Their election dispute had sparked violence that killed more than 1,000 people, and profoundly set back an economy based on tourism and exports that had driven the region. Much of the violence took on an ethnic dimension.
In its report Monday, New York-based Human Rights Watch called on the government to address deep-rooted tensions "laid bare" by the election turmoil. It cited disputes over "the ownership and allocation of land, the constitution, and impunity for corruption and the organization of political violence."
Human Rights Watch accused pro-government and opposition politicians of helping finance and organize the violence. It also accused police of shooting hundreds of people protesting the election result in Nairobi, the western port town of Kisumu and other towns between late December and early January. In many cases, HRW said, witnesses reported that police had not acted in self-defence and had not been provoked.
Kenyan and other international rights groups and researchers have made similar allegations about the involvement of politicians and businesspeople in the violence, as well as excesses by the police. Kenyan politicians and police have repeatedly rejected such charges.
The Human Rights Watch report was based on 200 interviews with victims, witnesses, perpetrators, police, magistrates, diplomats, staff of Kenyan and international development and rights groups, journalists, lawyers, businessmen and members of parliament across the country.
"Far from being spontaneous for the most part, the violence that took place throughout January and February was organized," said Ben Rawlence, a researcher at the Africa division of Human Rights Watch.
"It was incited in some cases prior to the election and following the election it was co-ordinated. Meetings took place, elders and youth came together, money was raised, discussions took place about when and where attack should take place," he said.
"Human Rights Watch believes that there is no alternative to criminal prosecutions of those who have contributed to the violence, including for members of the police found to have used excessive force," said the report, titled "Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya's Crisis of Governance."
A proposed truth, justice and reconciliation commission that will look at past violence will be a, "very difficult and controversial process when some of the people implicated in violence are in parliament, some of them are in the cabinet," Rawlence said.
"Nevertheless, if the coalition government, if these commissions are serious about turning a new leaf and making sure that this doesn't happen again in Kenya then some of these high-level perpetrators must be brought to book," Rawlence said.
Police officials were not immediately available to comment on the Human Rights Watch report.
Salim Lone, a spokesman for the opposition Orange Democratic Movement, said some party supporters were involved in postelection violence, but their actions were not sanctioned by the party or its leadership.
"You cannot blame a political party for individual acts of violence committed by its supporters," Lone said.
George Nyamweya, spokesman for Kibaki's Party of National Unity, said he could not comment as he had not seen a copy of the report.
“”You cannot blame a political party for individual acts of violence committed by its supporters,” Lone said.”
I can.
My wife has led three medical-mercy trips to Kenya for our church body.
That sounds like a quote that might come from Hillary after she secures the nomination at the Democrat Convention. You know, after half the city is burned down by Obama supporters and after America has decided that the Democrats don’t deserve to be taken seriously.
getting aid for humanitarian crises is africa's major industry.
so we should just give them money cause they demand it? I think not....
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hnKDIlsWgxlFS3pS0kWVcIMW6BkQ
We have several from our church either there or who make regular trips there.
Do you not know that the world has a different view of Bank of America? We are the ATM of the world!
There is one good thing about the president of Kenya. He has allowed Christian missionaries to come into the country. But there is NO WAY I would give ANY African president $400 million. Go ask the EU. Or better yet, go as the UN.
“But there is NO WAY I would give ANY African president $400 million. Go ask the EU. Or better yet, go as the UN.”
Going to the UN is going to the USA. We still pick up the largest percent of the tab.
Personally - I believe we have already poured TOO MUCH money into the black hole of Africa....
It has not significantly improved their world, nor has it been appreciated in any observable manner....
Our own “African-Americans” single out Americans for their most voracious hate and blame for all their woes.....
Perhaps Africans need to look elsewhere for help — we’re tapped out and busy...
I can’t agree with you outright, but I must say that Obama’s speech tomorrow partially defending his pastor is going to blame his speech upon the culture of the black churches in America, i.e., black churches speak hate speech not only toward whites but America itself. We are supposed to understand his pastor’s speech because it is part of the institutionalized racism of black churches.
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