US cable blames Kenya's top leaders for supporting impunity

US Nairobi embassy cable is accusing Kenya’s top government officials of supporting impunity and lacking accountability in respect to governance.

The leaked cable states that failure to implement significant reforms will lead to a violent crisis in 2012 or before, much worse that the 2008 post election violence.

Meanwhile, the cable alleges that China is greatly involved with Kenya’s National Security and Intelligence Service (NSIS) by providing telecommunications gadgets.

The cable also claims that a corrupt Kenyan intelligence official pressured the Kenyan telecoms company to award a Chinese company a telephone monitoring equipment contract in August last year.

The official is said to have received kickbacks from the chinese company while on a trip to China.

Another official is said to have received monthly payments of over $5,000 (Sh390,000) which were used for medical payments.

The cable also criticised the Chinese government for not addressing the implementation of the reform agenda which the US considered pivotal to Kenya’s future stability and prosperity.

It also alleges that the Chinese government turns a blind eye to the flooding of the Kenyan market with Chinese counterfeit goods, such as batteries, which directly damage US market share in the country and that China has not demonstrated any commitment to curb ivory poaching.

Drug trafficking

The cable has also captured an international narcotics trafficking ring which operates in the country with impunity.

The cable says drug lords have managed to secure their operations through corruption, bribery and killings.

As a result, Kenya’s political, legal and law enforcement establishments are incapable of fighting the menace, the cable written in 2006 when Mr William Bellamy was ambassador states.

It accuses the attorney general and the police of deliberately bungling prosecutions of high profile drug investigations and resisting foreign assistance to crack the cases.

In one case, police are said to have removed crucial evidence from a prosecution file leading to the acquittal of suspects charged in connection with the 2004 cocaine haul.

A senior police detective investigating the haul was also gunned down in Mombasa.

Although the cable says most of the narcotics passing though Kenya are destined for Europe and the US, ''it is undisputed that cocaine consumption among Coastal youths has soared in the past several years’’.

The cable recommends that it is time ''Washington turns up the heat’’ on the Kenya government to move it to even attempt to kick its increasingly dangerous drug habit.

This, it suggests, should be done through '' a combination of public and private pressure, well coordinated with our diplomatic allies."