My dear Kenyans, let’s reason together and save our country

What you need to know:

  • If the IEBC impasse remains, then it will be too late to make any meaningful changes by the time the 2017 General Election rolls by.
  • The UN must start now keeping close tabs on Kenya and the leaders who, by their actions and utterances, may be preparing the ground for carnage.
  • President Kenyatta and Mr Odinga have it within their powers right now to call off their respective attack dogs and initiate meaningful discussions towards ensuring a credible General Election.

I fear that the window of opportunity is fast closing for the review of electoral laws and reform of the electoral management body.

If the impasse remains, then it will be too late to make any meaningful changes by the time the 2017 General Election rolls by.

That will be a recipe for disaster, carrying with it the real threat of yet another episode of ethnic-political violence.

The fire next time might be the end of Kenya. The combined efforts of the United Nations, the African Union, the United States, the European Union, and other global players might not be enough to douse the flames.

In any case, the international community might interpret it as collective suicide.

It is time to lay out the warning now that if Kenya burns again, President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga, together with their respective lieutenants, must be held squarely responsible.

They must be warned that arrest and trial for crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes await them.

An incompetent International Criminal Court messed up the investigations and prosecutions that should have put forever behind bars those responsible for Kenya’s last bout of ethno-political violence, but that does not mean the culture of impunity must reign.

CRIME DOES NOT PAY

From the international tribunals into war crimes and genocide in Cambodia, Bosnia, the former Yugoslavia, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, East Timor, Cambodia, and even nearby Rwanda, we can learn that crime does not pay and that those who cause mass murder will one day have to face the law.

We do not have to wait until after the fact. The UN must start now keeping close tabs on Kenya and the leaders who, by their actions and utterances, may be preparing the ground for carnage.

This warning must go out, not just to Mr Kenyatta and Mr Odinga, but also to you and I, and all the other mindless Kenyans who cheer on warmongers and obey commands to go out into the streets on missions of murder and plunder.

President Kenyatta and Mr Odinga have it within their powers right now to call off their respective attack dogs and initiate meaningful discussions towards ensuring a credible General Election.

We must go further and insist that any talks are not a Jubilee-Cord affair or a continuation of the Kenyatta-Odinga family feud.

A national dialogue cannot be the preserve of the political classes, but must bring together all interest groups that have a stake in the future of Kenya.

The argument that discussion outside Parliament would be unconstitutional is patent nonsense. If so, the Lancaster House talks that shepherded Kenya’s Independence would have been deemed unconstitutional.

So would the struggle for an end to single-party dictatorship and the Ufungamano House initiative that achieved a minimal set of reforms ahead of the 1997 elections, and then went on to lay the groundwork for the new Constitution of 2010.

HUMAN DIGNITY

President Kenyatta, who clearly suffers a deficit of legal advice, should be counselled to study a little bit of Kenya’s struggle for liberty and human dignity before adopting hard-line positions. Mr Odinga should by the same token also disavow hard-line positions and shifting goal posts that serve only to bolster the belief that he is not being entirely honest with his demands.

We cannot have dialogue without the spirit of give-and-take and willingness to listen to one another.

That is why convening the dialogue must be entirely removed from the political players and entrusted to an unbiased honest broker.

The religious forum, business community, and civil society have already been mediating, but they can now go the extra step and become the convenors for any national roundtable.

Meanwhile, let us all be respectful of one another. Mr Odinga’s demands must be moderate, realistic, and not laced with threats and ultimatums. He has a tendency to preach to the converted while scaring off those he needs to win.

Mr Kenyatta must, in turn, contain his own hordes. The era of imperial presidency is long gone. It does not need his intervention to allow demonstrations and set aside dictatorial edicts from the Interior Cabinet Secretary, Attorney-General, and Inspector-General of Police who seem inclined to suspend the Constitution.

My dear Kenyans, can’t we all just get along?

[email protected]. @MachariaGaitho on Twitter