#UshenziKE via @NjonjoMue... And theyre still playing the game of music chairs with Kenyan lives! WRK In his book, Interventions: A Life in War and Peace, Kofi Annan recounts the following scene that took place at the start of the Kenyan mediation process. It is as hilarious as it is disturbing: The plan was that Odinga and Kibaki would come together once more at a meeting to initiate the process between the negotiators. As was standard for such matters, my team arranged the table. I would sit in the middle, with Kibaki on the right, Odinga on the left. But one of the Kibaki team then came in and rearranged the chairs, bringing in the special presidential chair, which he placed in the middle. I walked in to find this scene. This isnt a presidential meeting, I said softly. Im dealing with two protagonists. Put the chairs back. But thats undermining the president, Francis Muthaura, the head of the public service and permanent secretary to the president, argued. Uhuru Kenyatta, Kibakis minister for local government, then chimed in behind Muthaura, He never goes anywhere in this country without his chair. And it always sits in the most prominent position. This is a political mediation. Its not business as usual, I retorted. Im chairing the meeting and theyre to go on either side. I knew that if the ODM saw the presidential chair sitting in the middle, they would probably abandon the event. To stop a rebellion from PNU, however, I accepted that the president could still keep his chair, albeit to one side. The lack of urgency and childish nature of these obstacles were something to behold. This was in the middle of a four-day incident of fighting in the Rift Valley that had left sixty dead. Rumors had spread of hardline PNU leaders ferrying funds to criminal organizations, including the notorious Mungiki, a Kikuyu gang. The Mungiki were now coming out of the slums and into the town to send a brutal message to those who would threaten Kikuyu. The politicians, meanwhile, were playing with chairs.
Posted on: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 05:54:54 +0000
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