Annan flies in to add pressure for reforms

• Mediator comes in when key leaders are anxious on visa ban and violence trials

The international community led by the United States of American, have expressed concern over the slow pace of reforms.

The Obama administration and Canada have threatened to bar 15 Kenyan leaders from entering their countries. The 15 have been accused of hindering reforms.

Last Friday, the European Union expressed concern over the pace of reforms and urged the government to speed up the process. On the same day, former colonial masters, Britain, revealed that they have a list of 20 Kenyan personalities who it will deny visas over corruption.

But as Mr Annan flew into the country, Government Spokesman Alfred Mutua was putting up advertisement discrediting the international community’s stand on the pace of reforms.

The third report released last month by South Consulting, the team tasked by the Panel of Eminent Persons to monitor progress of Agenda One to Four, also decried the slow pace of reforms.

The report by the Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation Monitoring Project indicates that insecurity is one of the reasons why some of the people displaced during the post-election violence have not gone back to their farms.

On Agenda Four, the report says that things are moving rather slowly, adding, however, “it is commendable that there is movement in each of the main components that constitute Agenda Item 4”.

Mr Annan was last in the country on October 16 last year when he received the Waki report on post-election violence. He is also expected to engage the country’s leadership on the stalled efforts to try the post-election violence suspects.

The latest development indicates that the ICC has narrowed down on at least four top Kenyan officials, including three Cabinet ministers for possible trials over the post-election violence. The ICC prosecutor is expected in the country soon to meet the two principals and chart a way forward.

The persons bearing the greatest responsibility seem to have been drawn from a combination of reports on the violence including that by the Justice Philip Waki inquiry.

The Waki report identifies a key office holder at the highest level of government who may have directly participated in the preparation of the attacks.

The official is suspected of having chaired two planning meetings held in State House and Nairobi Safari Club in the run up to the election with the involvement of senior members of the Government and other prominent Kikuyu personalities.

It also speaks of another prominent politician who during a public meeting in Kiptororo in Kuresoi in December 2007, reportedly urged the Kalenjins to fight the Kikuyus until they leave Molo area.

The politician is said to have once told his supporters that “all the investors in Kericho and in the estates will be either Kalenjins or Indians”.

Another probable individual in the list is said to have said during an opening ceremony for the Seventh Day Adventist Church in a place called Mailing, that they would uproot the “sangari”, ‘shake off the soil’, ‘gather it together and ‘burn it’, in reference to ‘outsider’ communities.