Let me kick off by condemning and denouncing in the strongest terms, the stupid, fascist vandalism perpetrated by masked and hooded State terrorists who smashed their way into the Standard Group premises – their downtown offices at the I&M building and their Industrial Area printing facilities on Likoni Road – yanking off power cables, pistol-whipping shocked reporters and workers, threatening to kill all and sundry and demanding the whereabouts of news anchors, editors and other Standard staff.
The Government-sent terrorists were obviously on a ruthless paramilitary mission to search and destroy human beings, equipment and paralyse the business operations of the Standard Group in a manner airily reminiscent of the 2005 invasion of the Nation Centre by a frenzied First Lady Lucy Kibaki who went on a slapping and screeching spree against journalists, oblivious to the TV cameras recording her every crime.
The fact that the Kenyan Government thwarted efforts by the assaulted KTN cameraman– who was at the Nation Centre during the Lucy invasion – to seek legal redress now appears in hindsight to have been a dress rehearsal for today’s demolition operation at the Standard and the violent assault against the Weekly Citizen recently, not forgetting the earlier arrests and harassment of Kenya Times staff.
Given the fact that the person who should be most aggrieved at the alleged offending Standard report – Mwingi MP and ODM Presidential contender Kalonzo Musyoka – has himself come out to castigate the State for its overbearing reaction and actually gone further to call for the immediate release of Messrs Savula, Onyango and Mwita clearly telegraphs the true motivation of the onslaught and assault against not just the Standard, but the Weekly Citizen, and earlier the arbitrary arrest of David Ochami and his colleagues at the Kenya Times.
Clearly Kibaki’s regime is jittery and increasingly paranoid about embarrassing leakages that seem to emanate from deep within its own ranks.
The Weekly Citizen articles seems to have meticulously documented the inner power struggles within the ruling NAK clique. The purported meeting between Kalonzo Musyoka and President Kibaki must have been exposed by an insider with access to highly classified State secrets – like the harmless meeting between two well-known Kenyan politicians.
It is shocking that this regime, elevated to power in no small part because of the courageous reporting and editorialising of this country’s journalists, photographers, radio and television reporters and anchor person has today seen the country’s Fourth Estate as its sworn enemy – forgetting the fate of its predecessor who learnt at the last moment that you cannot cage the truth at Central Police Station, Kamiti or Naivasha Maximum Security prison.
What is extremely perplexing is why the same regime left the State-friendly media untouched when it serialized the Githongo Dossier which has so far led to the downfall of three of the most powerful politicians in post KANU Kenya – Kiraitu Murungi, George Saitoti and David Mwiraria, not counting the December exclusion of Dr Chris Murungaru from the Cabinet. Could the Weekly Citizen have been right on point when they claimed that a key Presidential aide, Stanley Murage aided and abetted the release of the Githongo Dossier, not so much as to shine a harsh line of State graft, but as a weapon to vanquish the rival, so called Hurlingham Group and ensure the ascendancy of the Murage-led Muthaiga group within the NAK ruling circles? In this globalised and digitised world, for how long will you stifle Press organisations when news will trickle out via faxes, text messages, emails, phone calls and the like?
Whoever is advising the Government on media policy is obviously residing in a 19th century cave illuminated by a rapidly melting candle.
There is absolutely no difference between a regular raid by violent criminal felons who terrorise Nairobians on a daily and nightly basis and the fascist attack by a horde of State employees sent to shut down Kenya’s second largest daily newspaper and its best television station.
The Standard and the KTN should therefore go through the legal process of laying formal criminal charges against the Government of Kenya – even if these charges still have to be sieved and vetted by the same accused body. Judging by the Cholmondeley and First Lady Lucy Kibaki rulings, one does not expect much to come out of this. But this will be a symbolic act that underlines a direct political protest at the Kenyan Government’s violent disregard for its own laws.
The civil society and political activists must now move beyond the fight against corruption so as to encompass a struggle against the steady erosion of fundamental civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights by a regime populated by former doyens of the civil society sectors many of whom have first hand experience of police rungus’ and government supplied tear gas.
Where is Prof Kivutha Kibwana, formerly of the NCEC when such blatant atrocities are being perpetrated with his full knowledge? Where is Prof Wangari Maathai, our Nobel Peace laureate, a Kenyan who has been kicked and shoved, slapped and humiliated by the very same forces who raided the Standard and KTN offices in the wee hours of yesterday morning? Where is Mrs Charity Ngilu who in the past never hesitated to confront State goons?
Did Kenyans die in Muoroto, Kamiti, Naivasha, Kodiaga, Nyayo House, Likoni, Kisumu, Nakuru, Kiambu, Nyeri, Wagalla and elsewhere to elect the very same Kibaki regime which today shows such blatant disregard for democratic rights?
It seems as if the Kenyan Government has turned back the hands of the clock and flipped back the calendars to 1982 and 1986 when peaceful, democracy seeking Kenyans including young university students and their courageous lecturers were locked up for being vocal.
There is a crucial difference however between the repression of the 1980s and the State terror of the early 21st century. The Kenyan Government has decided to attack its own citizens, nay, the very voters who lined up to bring it to power a mere three years ago against a vista of heightened political consciousness, a very vibrant civil society, an increasingly globalised and digitised world where Kenya, perhaps more than most countries in Africa save South Africa and Egypt is very much the focus of the international press and the Western donor community.
These attacks, coming in the wake of the embarrassing and devastating defeat of the same Government in the November 2005 referendum and following in the heels of the internal blood-letting within the NAK tribal cabal are simply suicidal.
Why on earth would a thoroughly weakened, unpopular and discredited regime, staggered by such deadly body blows wish to open up an unnecessary new front against imaginary enemies, namely the country’s media who are only doing their job?
Is somebody within the Kibaki inner circle determined to score a fatal own goal against the very parochial interests of this increasingly isolated cabal that is hanging to power by a very strained thread?
The assault against the Standard Group surpasses what the brutal, iron fisted former regime ever unleashed against Kenya’s fourth estate and will definitely be an event that this paranoid clique will rue for a very, very long time.
