Ranneberger: Another Rogue Ambassador?

US Ambassador to Kenya Michael Ranneberger during a press conference at his Muthaiga residence in Nairobi on March 17, 2009. Is Mr Rannenberger, a man who has spent the better part of his career in political hotspots around the world now morphing into a new rogue ambassador? Photo/FILE

President Barack Obama’s man in Nairobi is quickly heading into a dangerous political and diplomatic storm.

Last week, US ambassador Michael Ranneberger’s direct boss, Mr Johhnie Carson rang Prime Minister Raila Odinga to warn him and apologise for some of the comments contained in the cables that the Nairobi Embassy sent to Washington.

The Prime Minister, a man who is savvy at making useful political friends in capitals around the world, was kind and generous.

He said he did not believe that Americans wanted to overthrow his government — as the man who is supposed to be the official spokesman for his government claimed— but added that at least, Kenyans will know what their friends think about them.

These gracious comments were a classic and pragmatic sidestep shuffle to a potentially explosive situation that could only have been underscored by Raila’s admonishment that he only wished that President Obama’s man in Nairobi went about his business in a politically dignified manner.

Mr Rannenberger has been serving here since 2006, and his term is expected to end soon. The last time Nairobi dealt with an US diplomat campaigning for a political revolution out-loud-and-in-your-face was during Smith Hempstone’s tenor.

He was dubbed the “Rogue Ambassador” for being an incessant thorn in the flesh of Moi’s Kanu regime. Is Mr Rannenberger, a man who has spent the better part of his career in political hotspots around the world now morphing into a new rogue ambassador?

While Raila could have been expecting a diplomatic tittle-tattle from WikiLeaks dossier, Mr Rannenberger¹s cable of Tuesday, January 12, is bound to sting. If it does, it might sour the diplomatic relations with Kenya, but it is unlikely to end it.

On Thursday, the leaked embassy cables on Kenya confirmed the scepticism with which the US ambassador views President Kibaki, Prime Minister Raila Odinga and the Cabinet.

Mr Rannenberger spoke out loudly of how “the culture of impunity” perpetuated by Kenya’s political and economic elite that links directly to President Kibaki and PM Raila continues to frustrate genuine reforms and this could lead the country back to a civil war situation in 2012.

“While the culture of impunity and the grip of the old guard political elite on the levers of state power and resources remain largely intact, hairline fractures are developing in their edifice,” reads the cable. This seems to be the frame of mind that has shaped Washington’s foreign policy towards Nairobi, and what is starting to get Mr Rannenberger in trouble.

In responses to the culture of impunity by the graying politicians in Kenya Mr Rannenberger’s has been “burrowing” into the reform process by engaging in local politics to rally a revolution led by the youth.

He has been travelling around the country and supporting youth groups to help them start small businesses and selling the message of change.

This strategy has been publicly backed by President Obama, and in the last year, has pre-occupied his ambassador, now being accused of breaching diplomatic etiquette as laid out by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961).

Article 41 of the convention says in regard to the conduct of a diplomatic officer that: “They also have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that State.”

As the effect of the leaked cables sink in, it is possible that despite the massive military and development aid Kenya has received from the US during President Kibaki’s rule, Mr Rannenberger’s behaviour may start alienating America’s most important partner in the Horn of Africa.