Kenya Democracy Project Calls for The Arrest of Mungatana and Rai

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Montreal-Monday, July 12, 2004


Statement issued by Onyango Oloo
Secretary, Kenya Democracy Project

The Kenya Democracy Project is calling for the immediate arrest and arraignment on charges of hooliganism and political thuggery of two Coast Province MPs who threatened to lead their goon squads to unleash violence against leaders of the Katiba Watch lobby group and other Kenyan pro-democracy supporters planning to peacefully assemble at the Tononoka Sports Grounds on July 24, 2004 for a public, legal and officially sanctioned rally to demand a new constitution for the east African nation.

Our attention has been drawn to the following news item in one of the Nairobi-based daily newspapers:

click here

Garsen MP Danson Mungatana who is also an Assistant Minister in charge of the provincial administration in the Office of the President, should be IMMEDIATELY dropped from the Government because of his reckless utterances. And he should be joined in the backbenches by Maina Kamanda who openly boasted of having killer goons at his beck and call.

Mungatana should also be arrested, together with Gonzi Rai, Maina Kamanda, David Mwenje and all other politicians who have openly boasted of their death squads that they are prepared to sick on to the leaders of Katiba Watch and their pro-democracy followers.

We have a question for Kinango MP Gonzi Rai who was elected to parliament on a FORD- People ticket:

Since the FORD-People Secretary General Mwandawiro Mghanga is a founder member and enthusiastic Katiba Watch supporter, can we therefore expect Mr Rai to lead a pack of rowdy thugs in unleashing violence and terror against his FORD-People fellow MP and colleague Mwandawiro if the Wundanyi MP shows up for the Tononoka rally on July 24, 2004?

The Kenya Democracy Project is shocked at these war cries by Mungatana and Rai, coming as they do while our country is still reeling from the fresh wounds and bruising body blows of Uhuru Park and Saba Saba 2004 in Kisumu.

Kenya Democracy Project wishes to remind the two benighted gentlemen that the Coast Province does not belong to them; neither does Mombasa.

We find it strange that the same politicians affiliated with Kibaki's NAK faction, politicians who barely a week ago were denouncing the so called "hooligans" and "looters" of Nairobi are today the hooligans and political thugs who are quite prepared to take the law into their own hands and unleash terror and violence against peaceful democracy loving Kenyans struggling for a new constitution.

The fact that Danson Mungatana and Gonzi Rai have actually openly and blatantly released their dangerous, hateful war like statements to the mainstream Kenyan media is a clear manifestation that they do not expect President Kibaki to censure them, Police Commissioner Brigadier Ali to arrest them or Amos Wako/Philip Murgor to prosecute them for threatening peace, security, law and order in this country.

They can do so with apparent and repeated impunity since they seem to enjoy actual defacto immunity from the Kenyan powers that be who see them as loyal attack dogs of the rabid NAK faction working assidously to thwart their factional LDP and KANU rivals in the ongoing elite dog fights that have paralysed the NARC government almost from its very first month in office.

These threats by Mungatana, Rai and others of their ilk is a severe whack across the faces of the millions of Kenyans who lined up patiently and eagerly for hours on December 27, 2002 to elect to parliament the very same politicians who are now openly threatening to physically attack them as the wananchi remind the Kibaki regime of its broken promises around delivering a new constitution within its first 100 days in office.

Since Maitha, Mungatana and Kamanda are all government ministers are Kenyans to assume therefore that these blood-curdling threats are part of the Kibaki regime’s open terror tactics to complete the police thuggery and paramilitary hooliganism that they have already demonstrated TWICE in one week in TWO different Kenyan cities?

During the Moi era, Kenyans suffered extensively because of the notion of “KANU only zones.”

Today we hear Mungatana echo Maina Kamanda and David Mwenje about NAK only zones.

All three NAK politicians have repeated creepy warnings of an unspecified nature and magnitude against Katiba Watch and its supporters.

The Kenya Democracy Project would like to ask Chris Murungaru, Kivutha Kibwana, Kiraitu Murungi, Njeru Githae, Amos Wako, Philip Murgor and Brigadier Ali a simple question:

Is the Kenyan government planning to ASSASSINATE Wahu Kaara, Martin Shikuku, Leslie Mwachiro, Ole Kina and other Katiba Watch leaders using the killer goons left over from the Likoni Massacre and other so called “ethnic clashes” that have yet to be investigated and their war lords brought to book?

Should we expect more Kenyan mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, nephews and nieces to do their mourning rehearsals NOW, as they prepare to weep and sob as they rush to the mortuaries to view the freshly killed corpses of some victims of police shootings at the scenes of up-coming pro-democracy rallies around the country?

How can President Kibaki and his NAK faction be taken seriously on the issue of violence and insecurity when its own ministers boast openly of their secretive goon squads?

Katiba Watch and its supporters do not have to send a memo to the past, present and future warlords in the Kenya government every time democratic minded Kenyans want to exercise their civil liberties like freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom of movement, freedom of expression and freedom of conscience.

With our call to President Kibaki to fire Mungatana, Maitha and Maina Kamanda for their fascist chest thumping, the Kenya Democracy Project is also launching an international diplomatic and human rights campaign to request all of Kenya's overseas donors to withhold funding from ministries headed by known Kenyan Interhamwe warlords in the making.

And we will approach respected bodies like the Montreal based Rights and Democracy, the New York based Human Rights Watch and the London-headquartered Amnesty International to lend us their networks and good offices to pursue this protracted campaign.

The biggest lesson that democratic Kenyans and social justice activists have learned from the Rwanda genocide is that prevention is better than cure.

Progressive Kenyans who are committed to comprehensive human rights will NOT wait for Truth and Justice Tribunals ala Arusha to be set up AFTER millions of Kenyans have been BUTCHERED by the likes of Mungatana, Rai, Maitha, Kamanda and Mwenje.

Oh NO.

If the Kenyan government cannot prosecute these dangerous elements within its own ranks, then Kenya Democracy Project will not hesitate to work with democratic minded lawyers in Kenya and human rights bodies overseas to initiate and pursue PRIVATE and CIVIL cases against these poltical thugs within the Kibaki regime.

We will use PEACEFUL and DEMOCRATIC methods to resist these fascists who celebrate when heavily armed Kenyan police shoot ten year old children.

We will use the courts to make the Mungatanas, Maithas and Maina Kamandas accountable to the same law and order strictures they preach even as they sharpen their pangas, poison their arrow heads and organize secret mass oathing ceremonies in Ugiriamani,Upokomoni and Ukikuyuni.

And we are putting on notice ALL the newest entrants into the Kibaki government:

Please bear in mind that the Kenyan people will NEVER "lie low like envelopes"….

Let peace, security and democratic governance prevail in Kenya.

Sincerely,

Onyango Oloo
Secretary
Kenya Democracy Project
Montreal
Monday, July 12, 2004
8:20 pm EST