Kenya PM dropped from Obama luncheon

Kenya's Prime Minister Raila Odinga arrived in the United States of America on Saturday night to news of cancellation of a luncheon with US President Barack Obama which had earlier been scheduled for later this week.

The news followed a round of confusion over whether he would attend the luncheon, hosted by the White House for selected leaders from sub-Saharan Africa on the sidelines of the 64th Session of the UN General Assembly in New York.

New York-based Kenyan ambassador to the UN Zachary Muburi-Muita told the Nation on Saturday night that the State Department contacted him on Friday to “disinvite” Mr Odinga from the September 22 luncheon with President Obama in New York for African leaders.

The ambassador last Monday confirmed to the Nation that he had received an invitation letter for the PM to attend the luncheon. A dispatch to the Foreign Affairs ministry from Kenya’s Ambassador to Washington, Mr Peter Ogego, seen by the Nation confirmed the cancellation.

On Saturday, the Mr Muburi-Muita said State Department officials told him that the earlier invitation was sent accidentally; that the luncheon is actually only for African heads of State and not heads of government.

But at the White House Press briefing on Friday, US ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said the following: “The President will also host on the 22nd a lunch for heads of state and government from sub-Saharan Africa.”

Mr Muburi-Muita said the cancellation was disappointing and did not know why the invitation was issued in the first place, only to be rescinded. “This is something we expect from a third world country, not from the United States,” he said. Mr Odinga will participate in the Opening of the 64th Session of the UN General Assembly and General Debate.

The Prime Minister will make his addresses to the General Assembly on the afternoon of Friday as the 12th speaker. While in the US, the PM will address a number of gatherings and bilateral meetings on critical issues in Kenya.

He is also scheduled to hold discussions with various Heads of State and Government. On Saturday, the Nation learnt from other government sources quoting a dispatch from Kenya’s ambassador to the US Peter Ogego, that no arrangements had been made for Mr Odinga and President Obama to meet.

In Nairobi, neither Foreign Affairs minister Moses Wetang’ula nor his PS Mwangi Thuita returned our calls. President Obama, the son of a Kenyan father, has kept his distance from both President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Odinga as a signal of US displeasure with Kenya’s response to official corruption, ethnic violence and police abuses.

The American leader chose Ghana as his first official destination in Africa, and he did not invite Mr Odinga to a White House meeting when the Prime Minister visited the US in June.

Kenya has been left out of the list of 40-plus countries invited to the luncheon, and will be among nations the US is snubbing because of disputes over their governance or an antagonistic relationship with Washington. They include Eritrea, Guinea, Madagascar, Niger, Sudan and Zimbabwe.

“We are looking to have a dialogue with responsible leaders about the future of Africa’s economic and social development,” Susan Rice said on Monday in announcing the luncheon.

It has however been confirmed that Mr Odinga will attend a High-Level Meeting on Climate Change at the UN General Assembly and hold a number of bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the Assembly and another on Level Event on Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries.

He will hold discussions with the Clinton Global Initiative, attend the Africa Investor Index Series Summit and be at the Head of State/Government Roundtable within the General Assembly. The PM will also hold discussions with the International Contact Group on Somalia to discuss the situation in the neighbouring country.

On Thursday, the PM will deliver a lecture at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Public Administration on his Vision on the Challenges of Democratic Transition and Transfer of Power in Africa. Mr Odinga is accompanied by Cabinet ministers John Michuki, Beth Mugo and Wycliffe Oparanya.

Barack Obama campaigned for mass murderer, Odinga, on U.S. tax dollars.

Obama’s Kenya ghosts

Mark Hyman, Washington Times, 10/12/08

COMMENTARY:

About 50 parishioners were locked into the Assemblies of God church before it was set ablaze. They were mostly women and children. Those who tried to flee were hacked to death by machete-wielding members of a mob numbering 2,000.

The 2008 New Year Day atrocity in the Kenyan village Eldoret, about 185 miles northwest of Nairobi, had all the markings of the Rwanda genocide of a decade earlier.

By mid-February 2008, more than 1,500 Kenyans were killed. Many were slain by machete-armed attackers. More than 500,000 were displaced by the religious strife. Villages lay in ruin. Many of the atrocities were perpetrated by Muslims against Christians.

The violence was led by supporters of Raila Odinga, the opposition leader who lost the Dec. 27, 2007, presidential election by more than 230,000 votes. Odinga supporters began the genocide hours after the final election results were announced Dec. 30. Mr. Odinga was a member of Parliament representing an area in western Kenya, heavily populated by the Luo tribe, and the birthplace of Barack Obama’s father.

Mr. Odinga had the backing of Kenya’s Muslim community heading into the election. For months he denied any ties to Muslim leaders, but fell silent when Sheik Abdullahi Abdi, chairman of the National Muslim Leaders Forum, appeared on Kenya television displaying a memorandum of understanding signed on Aug. 29, 2007, by Mr. Odinga and the Muslim leader. Mr. Odinga then denied his denials.

The details of the MOU were shocking. In return for Muslim backing, Mr. Odinga promised to impose a number of measures favored by Muslims if he were elected president. Among these were recognition of “Islam as the only true religion,” Islamic leaders would have an “oversight role to monitor activities of ALL other religions [emphasis in original],” installation of Shariah courts in every jurisdiction, a ban on Christian preaching, replacement of the police commissioner who “allowed himself to be used by heathens and Zionists,” adoption of a women’s dress code, and bans on alcohol and pork.

This was not Mr. Odinga’s first brush with notoriety. Like his father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, the main opposition leader in the 1960s and 1970s, Raila Odinga is a Marxist He graduated from East Germany’s Magdeburg University in 1970 on a scholarship provided by the East German government. He named his oldest son after Fidel Castro.

Raila Odinga was implicated in the bloody coup attempt in 1982 against then-President Daniel Arap Moi, a close ally of the United States. Kenya has been one of the most stable democracies in Africa since the 1960s. The ethnic cleansing earlier this year was the worst violence in Kenya since that 1982 coup attempt.

Mr. Odinga spent eight years in prison. At the time, he denied guilt but later detailed he was a coup leader in his 2006 biography. Statue of limitations precluded further prosecution when the biography appeared.

Initially, Mr. Odinga was not the favored opposition candidate to stand in the 2007 election against President Mwai Kibaki, who was seeking his second term.
However, he received a tremendous boost when Sen. Barack Obama arrived in Kenya in August 2006 to campaign on his behalf.
Mr. Obama denies that supporting Mr. Odinga was the intention of his trip, but his actions and local media reports tell otherwise.

Mr. Odinga and Mr. Obama were nearly inseparable throughout Mr. Obama’s six-day stay. The two traveled together throughout Kenya and Mr. Obama spoke on behalf of Mr. Odinga at numerous rallies. In contrast, Mr. Obama had only criticism for Kibaki. He lashed out against the Kenyan government shortly after meeting with the president on Aug. 25. “The [Kenyan] people have to suffer over corruption perpetrated by government officials,” Mr. Obama announced.

“Kenyans are now yearning for change,” he declared. The intent of Mr. Obama’s remarks and actions was transparent to Kenyans - he was firmly behind Mr. Odinga.

Mr. Odinga and Mr. Obama had met several times before the 2006 trip. Reports indicate Mr. Odinga visited Mr. Obama during trips to the U.S. in 2004, 2005 and 2006. Mr. Obama sent his foreign policy adviser Mark Lippert to Kenya in early 2006 to coordinate his summer visit. Mr. Obama’s August trip coincided with strategizing by Orange Democratic Movement leaders to defeat Mr. Kibaki in the upcoming elections. Mr. Odinga represented the ODM ticket in the presidential race.

Mr. Odinga and Mr. Obama’s father were both from the Luo community, the second-largest tribe in Kenya, but their ties run much deeper. Mr. Odinga told a stunned BBC Radio interviewer the reason why he and Mr. Obama were staying in near daily telephone contact was because they were cousins. In a Jan. 8, 2008, interview, Mr. Odinga said Mr. Obama had called him twice the day before while campaigning in the New Hampshire primary before adding, “Barack Obama’s father is my maternal uncle.”

President Kibaki requested a meeting of all opposition leaders in early January in an effort to quell the violence. All agreed to attend except Mr. Odinga. A month later, Mr. Kibaki offered Mr. Odinga the role of prime minister, the de facto No. 2 in the Kenyan government, in return for an end to the attacks. Mr. Odinga was sworn in on April 17, 2008.

Mr. Obama’s judgment is seriously called into question when he backs an official with troubling ties to Muslim extremists and whose supporters practice ethnic cleansing and genocide. It was Islamic extremists in Kenya who bombed the U.S. Embassy in 1998, killing more than 200 and injuring thousands. None of this has dissuaded Mr. Obama from maintaining disturbing loyalties.

Mark Hyman is an award-winning news

http://www.stockhouse.com/Blogs/ViewDetailedPost.aspx?p=84417

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