January 09, 2008 (the date of publication in Russian)
Alexander Sobko
AN AFRICAN ORANGE REVOLUTION
The Kenyan massacre has bushed up the US State Department
The events of the last weeks have dispelled the myth about Kenya as a quiet resort for exotic entertainment and a showcase of African democracy. This image of the country, created by international media, yielded due price to Kenya's loyalty to the interests of Western corporations, as opposed to the Chinese.
The tragedy of December 27 when the political unrest turned a bloodbath with over 500 casualties, distorted the convenient picture.
Massive riots emerged from the contest for the President's post between the incumbent head of state, Mwai Kibaki, who belongs to the Kikuyu people, and the oppositionist leader Raila Odinga, originating from the Luo minority. Curiously, Mr. Odinga's party is entitled Orange Democratic Movement, and uses orange-color flags and bands in their public campaign.
Polls displayed a narrow advantage of Mr. Odinga. Still, according to official reports, Kibaki won with a margin of 200,000 votes.
The oppositionists – obviously with certain grounds, as doubts had already been raised by UN and EU observers – declared that the vote was falsified. The public reacted with massive unrest and protest actions that turned anarchic violence. Government troops were shooting at the demonstrators from the "orange" Luo people while the Luo vented their gall on Kikuyu civilians.
The massacre did not seem to bother the United States. Right after Kibaki was officially proclaimed the winner, the State Department hurried to congratulate the incumbent leader, urging the population to recognize the official results of the elections and to cease actions of protest. It was definitely the confidence of American support that encouraged Mr. Kibaki for both the ballot-rigging and the brutal crackdown on the political and ethnic opponents.
Still, the bias towards Kenyan democracy was too visible for the audience, including the voters of the United States. Probably for domestic considerations, the State Department subsequently developed a specific ambiguous approach towards the situation in Nairobi. It was demonstrated by the odd statement of State Dept's representative Tom Casey, who claimed that the earlier delivered official congratulations "don't reflect the view of the Administration of the United States".
One could expect at least a bit of personal comment from the leading presidential aspirant from the US Democratic Party, Barack Obama, whose ancestors originate from Kenya. However, he was as dumb on this issue as his profoundly religious Republican rivals, who similarly overlooked the blatant discordance with Christ's commandment: "Thou shalt not kill".
It is an open secret that the financial resource of top Presidential candidates is too dependent from corporate contributions. This dependence efficiently dominates over views, not speaking of ethnic compassion – forget it! Barack Obama is too happy of being an American to descend to the sufferings of the land of his origin.
The Olympic patience of Washington over the blatant violation of the human right for life in Kenya served a good lesson for the Luo people who were naive enough to borrow the colors of "Ukrainian liberation" for their political campaign. They would attract much more sympathies from Washington in case the regime of Mwai Kibaki was regarded as unfriendly. In that case, even if their political party represented a tiny political or tribal minority, its cause would arouse excessive compassion, followed with economic sanctions on the dictatorial regime – as exemplified with the case of Zimbabwe.
Last autumn, a much smaller amount of casualties ensuing from the police crackdown upon Buddhist-led oppositionist demonstrators in Myanmar, irritated the White House so much that George W. Bush dedicated a large portion of his speech at the UN General Assembly to the brutalities of this country's "military dictatorship". No wonder: contrary to the Kenyan dictator, the leadership of Myanmar is too friendly to the People's Republic of China. These geopolitical considerations determine the attitude of Washington to a particular country much more substantially than the "abstract humanism" of the New Testament.
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