Tame divisive rhetoric before it incites destruction and chaos

Kericho residents confront the police after Kanu members were barred from holding a campaign rally at Moi Gardens on March 5, 2016. PHOTO | TONNY OMONDI | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Tempers are rising and we are seeing much of the intemperate rhetoric that all too often acts as a precursor to the bouts of ethnic violence that despoil our electoral periods.
  • All will employ retrogressive divide-and-rule tactics, inciting tribe against tribe and clan against clan to shore up their voting blocs.
  • All bosses on either side of the political divide, together with all others who will be throwing their hats into the ring, must be conscious of the imperative for clean, wholesome, responsible campaigns.

The country is shifting into campaign mode. Both President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga have hit the hustings ahead of the 2017 elections.

Tempers are rising and we are seeing much of the intemperate rhetoric that all too often acts as a precursor to the bouts of ethnic violence that despoil our electoral periods.

All will employ retrogressive divide-and-rule tactics, inciting tribe against tribe and clan against clan to shore up their voting blocs. In the process, they will be setting up Kenyan against Kenyan and adding fuel to the already volatile mix.

Maybe it is time all the principal political players stepped back for a little self-reflection. All are familiar with the events leading up the 2007 General Election and the aftermath of a disputed presidential poll that nearly tore the country asunder.

The wounds have not healed and there has been little in the way of justice and reconciliation.

It would thus be criminally irresponsible for anyone to seek power through the same old tactics that lead to genocide and ethnic cleansing.

It, therefore, behoves all sides to cease the sabre-rattling, violent talk, and ethnic incitement.

Now that they are safely assured of unopposed nomination — Kanu style — for the Jubilee nomination, can President Kenyatta and his presumptive running mate, Deputy President William Ruto, perhaps take it that escaping International Criminal Court charges does not mean licence to again lead their sheep to slaughter?

Then there is Mr Odinga, on whose behalf blood was shed and who came to share power as prime minister in president Mwai Kibaki’s government.

Do the opposition chiefs — Mr Odinga and his Cord coalition partners and presidential ticket rivals Kalonzo Musyoka and Moses Wetang’ula — realise that aiming to dethrone the incumbent regime does not necessarily mean inciting political warfare?

All bosses on either side of the political divide, together with all others who will be throwing their hats into the ring, must be conscious of the imperative for clean, wholesome, responsible campaigns.

They must also be put on notice that if violence breaks out and innocents are killed, maimed, brutalised, raped, and exiled, it is they, the leaders, who must take primary responsibility for it.

INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL

If not the discredited ICC, then another international tribunal should be invited to keep a close watch on Kenya and ensure that any leaders who might plan, finance, and provoke crimes against humanity are held to account.

We do not have to wait until innocents have been slaughtered, but should move fast to forestall any repeat of 2008.

Since our forces of law and order cannot be trusted, the only watchdog we can trust is the United Nations or other international mechanisms.

However, before we get to that, we can move towards securing peace by at least pressurising the political classes to talk to one another rather than at one another.

Dialogue like that brokered by the Ufungamano Initiative in 1997 did very well to shepherd us along the democratic path before we started beheading each other.

Maybe that is what we need to work out — mutually acceptable means of reforming the electoral management body and the election laws and processes.

We can also look at other statutes that need amendment to better entrench democracy and the rule of law.

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That we enjoy religious freedom does not take away the fact that Kenya is a secular state.

We are free to worship Akuji, Mwene Nyaga, or the Islam, Christian, Hindu, or other gods, but that does not make religious belief mandatory.

We are also free not to worship any deity.

That is why I am absolutely stunned by the unconstitutional edict from Attorney General Githu Muigai, putting on hold the registration of some atheist group.

Mr Muigai, a fairly erudite legal scholar, apparently was humouring leaders of mainstream faiths who objected to the existence of an atheist group.

That is totally wrong and crassly hypocritical. Those are the same fellows who scream blue murder every time they feel that their right to worship is being curtailed, and yet the A-G would listen when they object to others not practising any faith.

For the record, I am not atheist, but neither am I a blind believer.

[email protected]. @MachariaGaitho on Twitter