Drop presidency quest, Uhuru and Ruto told

Former Ethics and Anti-Corruption PS John Githongo displays a copy of the book, Advocates for Change: How to Overcome Africa's Challenges, during its launch in Nairobi, May 31st, 2012. He urged Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto to drop their quest for the presidency. STEPHEN MUDIARI 

By DAVE OPIYO dopiyo@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted  Thursday, May 31  2012 at  14:15

Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and Eldoret North MP William Ruto have been urged to abandon their quest for the Kenyan presidency.

Former Ethics and Anti-Corruption PS John Githongo said it would be ‘bizarre’ for the two, who are facing crimes against humanity charges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) to vie for the presidency in the forthcoming General Election.

“It is utterly bizarre for them to even think of standing for the presidency,” said Mr Githongo Thursday in Nairobi, when he launched the book “Advocates for Change; How to overcome Africa’s Challenges.”

The two, together with suspended head of Public Service Francis Muthaura and radio presenter Joshua arap Sanga are charged with crimes against humanity during the 2007/08 post election violence that left 1,133 people dead and 650,000 others displaced.

The four are due to attend a Status Conference on June 11 and 12 at The Hague-based court where among other things, the trial date is expected to be set.

However, Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto have insisted the ICC charges will not deter their presidential ambitions.

They have found backing from Justice minister Eugene Wamalwa, who has said there was no express provision in the Constitution that bars the two from contesting any elective position.

"Article 66 of the Rome Statute outlines the basic principle of justice where one is presumed innocent until proven guilty and so does the Kenyan Constitution,” he said.

Black Mormons and the Politics of Identity

Michael Friberg for The New York Times

Being black, liberal and Mormon, Marguerite Dreissen represents a small but emerging point of view that is in stark contrast to the traditional profile of American Latter-day Saints, who tend to be conservative, Republican and white.

SALT LAKE CITY — When Marguerite Driessen, a professor here, entered Brigham Young University in the early 1980s, she was the first black person many Mormon students had ever met, and she spent a good bit of her college time debunking stereotypes about African-Americans. Then she converted to Mormonism herself, and went on to spend a good deal of her adult life correcting assumptions about Mormons.

“I feel a definite sense of pride in the U.S.A. that we have a Mormon candidate and black candidate,” said Catherine Spruill, 31, at her Mormon church in West Jordan, Utah.

So the matchup in this year’s presidential election comes as a watershed moment for her, symbolizing the hard-won acceptance of racial and religious minorities.

“A Mormon candidate and a black candidate? Who would have thunk?” Ms. Driessen said. “I think 30 years ago, we would not have had this choice.”

After examining the dual — and sometimes conflicting — identities, she has decided that she will cast her vote for President Obama over Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee. Ms. Driessen believes that there is plenty in the Book of Mormon to support Mr. Obama’s candidacy, and she likes to cite chapter and verse, like Mosiah 29:39 and 23:13.

“It says it is your job, people, to elect people who will protect your liberties,” said Ms. Driessen, a constitutional lawyer. “That is my standard.”

Being black, liberal and Mormon, Ms. Driessen represents a small but emerging point of view that is in stark contrast to the traditional profile of American Latter-day Saints, who tend to be conservative, Republican and white.

While many within the church community are rooting for Mr. Romney, the minority Mormon voices are becoming more assertive, perhaps because of the strength of their growing numbers. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has experienced explosive worldwide growth through its missionary work, particularly in countries with large black populations. In the United States, it is the second-fastest growing religion, according to a recently released decennial census of religions.

While the church does not track members by race, there are thriving Mormon churches with hundreds of black members today in many urban areas, including Washington, Chicago and New York, although African-Americans represent only a tiny fraction of the six million Mormons in the United States.

The conversion of blacks in this country has been a challenge, given the church’s turbulent history of excluding people of black African descent. Until 1978, black men were not allowed to become priests or bishops; dark skin was considered a biblical curse. During the 1960s, when Mitt Romney’s father, George, made civil rights a personal priority during his time as a Republican governor of Michigan, his progressive views put him at odds with church doctrine.

Over the last decades, however, there has been an aggressive campaign to diversify, and racism in the church — which was itself once powerless and persecuted as a cult — has been repeatedly denounced.

“I feel a definite sense of pride in the U.S.A. that we have a Mormon candidate and black candidate,” said Catherine Spruill, who lives in a suburb of Salt Lake and is mixed-race like Mr. Obama and Mormon like Mr. Romney. “I feel pride for my people, because America picked that.”

There is even a black Mormon Congressional candidate, Mia Love, who will soon be on the ballot in Utah. She is running as a conservative Republican for the newly created Fourth District, which includes part of Salt Lake County. A campaign video describes her in these terms, among others: “mother, mayor, leader, gun owner.”

With the larger tent has come a more diverse array of political ideologies and expressions in a church culture that has been known for its strict hierarchy and members’ adherence to authority and rules, for instance the prohibitions on caffeine and alcohol. Of more than a dozen black Mormons interviewed for this article across the country, eight were Democratic-leaning Obama supporters, two were undecided, and two others said they were committed to voting for Mr. Romney.

“With respect to Romney being a Mormon, bless his heart,” said Tracie J. Walker, 48, of Washington. “I think he’s a strange character. He got confused by money, I think. So he doesn’t understand reality today.”

None of the black Mormons who spoke to a reporter said he or she would vote strictly based on race or religion, only conscience. Even after the president’s endorsement of same-sex marriages last Wednesday, invoking Christianity and the golden rule — “treat others the way you would want to be treated,” he said — Mormon supporters of Mr. Obama did not waver, saying they made a distinction between their own private religious beliefs and what they think is right for secular society.

Kenya mission in Ireland should be 'closed down'

Chairman of the House Defence and Foreign Relations Committee Adan Keynan. The committee has proposed that Kenya’s mission in Ireland should be “closed down” May 24, 2012. FILE 

By ALPHONCE SHIUNDU ashiundu@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted  Thursday, May 24  2012 at  10:42

Parliament’s Defence and Foreign Relations Committee has proposed that Kenya’s mission in Ireland should be “closed down”.

The lawmakers said that the mission in Dublin “does not serve any significant diplomatic and economic purpose”.

The mission, with a yet-to-be-approved budget of Sh106 million, will miss out on the allocations in the next financial year because the MPs are categorical that the money should go into opening a new consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

The MPs said that because of the complaints of mistreatment of Kenyans, many of them employed in Saudi Arabia as househelps, there was a need to “take services closer to the Kenyans many of them working or living in Saudi Arabia”.

The severing of diplomatic ties with Ireland in favour of Saudi Arabia, the MPs added, was because Ireland was no longer a lucrative political or economic hub. Instead, they said, the State ought to join hands with the Saudi’s because Jeddah is “one of the largest economic and commercial centres in the world".

The MPs have also recommended that Sh470 million of the money from NSIS be used as allowances for staff in Kenya’s foreign missions. The committee also want Sh450 million for a chancery building in Kampala, Uganda. The Treasury had earmarked Sh2 million for this.

Uganda’s is Kenya’s highest trading partner.

The Committee has also proposed Sh800 million for the purchase of a chancery in New York, USA, the home of the United Nations. Looking at South Sudan, and the MPs have recommended Sh170 million for a mission in Juba, saying that it is crucial for Kenya to “recognise Juba’s economic potential”

The chairman of the committee, Adan Keynan, also fulfilled his threat to punish the spymaster for ignoring committee meetings.

Mr Keynan’s team got even with the National Security Intelligence Service as it slashed the budget of the crucial body by a massive Sh2.8 billion. The MPs said the spy agency had gotten the money in the last budget for “modernisation” and that it was not expected that the said modernisation would “be funded in perpetuity”.

The committee has been having an icy relationship with the spymaster Michael Gichangi, who has skipped the committee’s meetings over the controversial dossier that alleges that President Kibaki is under investigation by the British government for his role in the post-election violence. The UK has termed the dossier as a forgery.

For the first time in years, the committee did not invite the Director General of NSIS to defend his budget. This was to punish Mr Gichangi, for what the committee said was his “previous perpetual disobedience of committee summons”.

The House team wants the Sh2.8 billion from the spy agency allocated to the military, to the Ministry of East African Community and to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The MPs are of the view that the military gets Sh688 million to build “single-accommodation” housing units for 10,000 “junior officers”. The MPs argue that it is this shortage that made the military to freeze recruitment in the last financial year.

“This situation is not tenable in the long run as it will end up compromising national security,” the committee noted in its report. The military, the MPs added, is set to recruit in the 2012-2013 financial year.

The full budget for the housing units is Sh7.2 billion, and the government wants to build them through “offshore borrowing”.

The re-allocation to the East African Community is Sh240 million “to cater for the deficit to EAC subscriptions that arose from depreciation of the Kenya shilling” and also some Sh100 million for Kenya’s role at the helm of the regional bloc.

The report will be tabled in Parliament and if approved without amendments, the Treasury will be obligated to go as per the House directions.

UNDERSTANDING GENERATION Y

It’s official; I am consumed by Generation Y. The responses from last week's article on Generation Y were massive. Some 134 e-mails in total, 87 of them coming from Generation Y. Let me say this once again, this lot can spell and communicate in more than 140 characters. The rest of the e-mails came from parents, teachers, researchers among others. The messages were very insightful to say the least. Let me share a few of the thought-provoking responses. After all, it's time to hear what they think and how they see themselves and see the rest of us.