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March 3, 2008
The African Union’s finest hour
By L MUTHONI WANYEKI, http://www.nationmedia.com
The country owes a debt of gratitude to Kofi Annan, Graca Machel and
Benjamin Mkapa - and to the African Union as a whole—for engaging with Kenya
with the seriousness that they did. With a few less than notable exceptions,
its member states withheld recognition of the outcome of the disputed
presidential election. As a collective, it upheld its Constitutive Act and
sent us the best possible calibre of mediators the continent has to offer.
We also owe a debt of gratitude to the United Nations, whose Secretariat and
member states discreetly but firmly upheld the UN Charter. It provided full
financial, logistical and technical support to the AU’s mediation team. And
the European Union and the United States also ensured that the necessary
pressure was continually but diplomatically brought to bear to ensure that a
political settlement was reached that both protagonists could live with.
Kenya is a member of both the AU and the UN and has committed to the AU’s
Constitutive Act as well as the UN Charter. This is a fact that seemed to be
forgotten by the PNU in its continual and unnecessary assertions of
sovereignty in response to the diplomatic pressure by its peers within those
two collectives.
The majority of citizens, however, understood that domestic pressure alone
would not suffice. We learnt, painfully, through the 2007 general election,
that the vote, the most basic and peaceful form of exercising choice
domestically, could still be sacrificed at the altar of political
expediency. And so we welcomed the support given to us, so immediately and
without prevarication by the AU and UN. When the history of this time is
written, the AU’s role with respect to Kenya, as well as its co-ordination
with the UN during this crisis, will stand out as one of its finest
achievements.
THIS IS NOT, HOWEVER, TO MINIMISE the importance of domestic pressure. It is
clear that the initial behind-the- scenes back and forth by our own
diplomats contributed immensely to the slow acceptance by PNU that the
country could not proceed as though the elections had produced legitimate
results and as though the ensuing violence — particularly organised violence
in the Rift Valley — could be handled internally.
It is also clear that the many briefs and positions prepared by Kenya’s
academics and civil society organisations for the mediation team also helped
frame the possible outcomes of the mediation process, as did the pressure
brought to bear by Kenya’s business community and workers’ organisations.
Most important, however, were the demands of citizens for normalcy. It is
true that those demands have often been used to gloss over the fundamental
need for reform. And it is true that, this time round, those demands were
made somewhat shamefacedly.
WE MAY NOT ALL HAVE PICKED UP pangas, rocks or rungus. But many of us
participated in the campaigning prior to the elections with utter
abandonment. Abandonment of our knowledge of right and wrong, of the harm
that ethnic or gender or political prejudices and stereotypes can cause, of
tolerance for differences.
Deep inside, we all know what we did or did not do. We know what we
contributed too. And it is to be hoped that the breathing space now afforded
by the political settlement will enable a return to normalcy in which
deliberate amnesia does not take effect.
The capabilities of the AU’s mediation team notwithstanding, ensuring that
the political settlement not only holds but takes root is not their
responsibility alone. The unrecognised and unseen contributions of many
Kenyans ultimately ensured they were able to achieve the political
settlement. The contributions of many more Kenyans — in our individual
capacities as well are required to keep us moving, eyes now wide open, away
from self-destruction and firmly back on the path that we know, Africa knows
and the rest of the world knows we should be on.
L. Muthoni Wanyeki is executive director of the Kenya Human Rights
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