Why the Opposition should not expect backing from the West

Smith Hempstone

Many Kenyans who were old enough in the early 1990s must remember Smith Hempstone, the US ambassador to Kenya at a time the opposition was agitating for the return of multi-party politics.

Hempstone, a hefty man by any standards, set the tone and tenor of the multi-party debate and push by openly siding with the opposition and members of the civil society. For his courageous stand, he was labelled a “rogue” ambassador and the nyama choma eating envoy for his love for the Kenyan cuisine.

The envoy, who died 11 years ago this month, served as the US ambassador in Kenya between 1989 and 1993 at a time America was beginning to push African countries toward democracy and human rights.

He worked toward these goals by fighting for multiparty elections in Kenya in 1991, nine years after Kenya’s second President Daniel arap Moi had outlawed all parties except his own, Kanu.

Bulldozer diplomacy

Kanu derided Hempstone, telling him he failed to understand that strong, unified government was necessary to keep Kenya’s tribal groups from splitting the country.

But the headstrong envoy would hear none of it while aiding the so-called dissidents and befriended opponents of the administration. For that he was termed rogue by those in government, causing the African press to describe his style as “bulldozer diplomacy.”

The government and Kanu isolated him and, according to Hempstone’s book Rogue Ambassador: An African Memoir, two attempts were made to kill him. The outspokenness of the Bush Administration through Hempstone on the subject of Kenyan corruption and human rights violations clearly influenced a meeting of Kenya’s international donors in Paris in November 1992. Not a single international donor pledged to provide foreign assistance to Kenya, in contrast to $1 billion in international pledges received the previous year.

The World Bank picked up the cue and stated publicly at the Paris donors’ meeting that “levels of aid for Kenya depend on clear progress in implementing economic and social reform” and indicated that no aid would be forthcoming from the bank for the next six months.

In November 1992 three senior British Privy Counsellors, Sir David Steel, Sir Bernard Braine and Peter Shore tabled a motion on Kenya’s human rights record in the House of Commons.

They condemned the arrests of supporters of multiparty democracy, noted with concern the repeated attempts by the Kenyan government to thwart the processes of democracy, and urged the British government to express its concerns about the gap between Kenya’s actions at the time and its agreement at the Commonwealth Conference to respect human rights.

Shortly before the donors’ meeting in Paris, UK Minister Lynda Chalker said, “Donors are going to be tough and that includes Britain.” Britain joined the aid suspension agreed to at the meeting.

For Hempstone’s persistence, multiparty elections were ultimately held in Kenya in 1992, and were won by Kanu and Moi with 36 per cent of the vote.

But Hempstone was not the only envoy who has played activism in Kenya. When the US envoy left in 1993, the mantle was taken up by German ambassador Bernd Mutzelberg.

While opening an ICJ-sponsored national conference on good governance and accountability, Mutzelberg indirectly answered the President, saying nothing seemed to have changed. “Some people seem eager to turn the clock backwards and return to the familiar methods of intimidation, threats and bribery,” the ambassador said in reference to the Goldenberg scandal in which billions of shillings was paid for export compensation for gold that never existed.

The British envoys to Kenya, however, kept a low profile choosing what they termed as “quiet diplomacy”. They claimed to engage the government out of the limelight. However, this was thrown out of the door by Edward Clay, who served as UK’s high commissioner between 2001-2005.

Clay served in Kenya at a time the dynamics of diplomacy and hunting for business were almost blurred. It was also the same period the Chinese were throwing about cheap money without any conditions and thus attracting Africans who loathed the way the West had treated them with their never-ending conditions to get aid.

British companies had hitherto monopolised and hogged all the business for security ranging from vehicles (Land Rovers) and communications (Team Simoco).

However, through Anglo Leasing Finance, Kenya had struck a deal to secure a new security communications system and vehicles for police and the military from Japan and China. But the contracts to procure these vehicles and machines were inflated and in some instances only “hot” air was supplied.

President Mwai Kibaki, who had come to office on the platform of anti-corruption, found his government engulfed into the country’s biggest scandal after Goldenberg.

An angry Clay complained that corrupt ministers were “eating like gluttons” and “vomiting on the shoes” of foreign donors. The envoy proceeded to hand over a dossier detailing 20 corruption scandals involving ministers. He got the support of five other envoys in Nairobi.

Why do I delve in all this history? Kenya is almost at the same place that it was in 1992 when the Opposition was disorganised, divided and demanding for the return of multi-party politics.

Unlike in the 1990s, the geopolitics have changed after the entry of China as a major donor. Many African leaders who used to look over their shoulders each time donor aid was mentioned no longer worry about the West.

While the National Super Alliance (NASA) leaders are hoping the West will stand with them, they have met studious silence and shepherded towards engaging in dialogue with the ruling Jubilee Party of President Uhuru Kenyatta.

The European Union has been the only body representing the West to issue a statement since the October 26 elections. In the lengthy 13-page statement, the grouping of 28 European nations that include Britain and Germany called for dialogue between Jubilee and NASA.

Call for dialogue

The most-catchy part of the statement to NASA leadership and its supporters must have been the one on dialogue between political leaders.

Whereas in the past the West would be wielding a big stick against Jubilee in the manner it has handled the whole electoral process, it has to worry about the market for its goods and services plus the competition posed by the Chinese.

Since Kibaki embarked on the policy of looking East, the West has suffered one setback after another. The most devastating being the construction of the multi-billion shilling Standard Gauge Railway from Mombasa to Nairobi and now being extended to Naivasha and eventually Kisumu.

Another multi-billion shilling contract to set up CCTV cameras in Nairobi, Mombasa and eventually other major cities was awarded to Safaricom and a Chinese firm, Huawei.

This begs the question, is the West giving priority to business and markets for their goods?

The writer is a journalist and communication specialist. ([email protected])