Socialist Party Australia - Kenya: Conference controversy

sp writes "10 points missed at the KCA CONFERENCE

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>KENYA SOCIALIST DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE (KSDA)
>http:www.kenyasocialist.org
>email:
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>KSDA SITE UPDATE: 13 July 2003
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>#TEN POINTS MISSED AT KCA CONFERENCE
>#REFLECTIONS ON KCA CONFERENCE BY ONYANGO OLOO
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>TEN CRITICAL POINTS MISSED AT THE JULY 2003 KCA CONFERENCE
>
>Sunday 13th July 2003
>
>INTRODUCTION
>Just like its predecessors, the just concluded KCA Conference that was
>held in the United States was definitely a remarkable and commendable
>achievement. KCA members and other Kenyans of goodwill gathered to discuss
>the future of Kenya and to rate the new Narc government. It was an event
>which should not have been missed by KSDA because some of the issues that
>were raised are issues that remain central in the Allianceís political
>agenda. We take this opportunity to wholly congratulate the KCA
>leadership for the undisputable success of the Conference with the message
>that the future of Kenya is slowly getting on the hands of the new Kenyan
>generation. We believe that KCA should link up with KSDA to discuss common
>points of convergence and to introduce a new era abroad based on sharing
>political perspectives. Our political view is very Socialist and we also
>take this opportunity to encourage KCA members not to embrace
>stereotypical impressions of Kenyan Socialists but to open up to
>ideological thinking and to honestly discuss a political alternative to
>the deformed capitalist system in Kenya.
>
>After wading through initial reports from the Conference and absorbing
>briefs from our contacts who attended the historic event, our conclusion
>is that the Conference was generally pro-Narc government in Kenya and that
>the next big issue for majority of those who attended the Conference is
>that Kenya should begin a period of ìreconstructionî following the Narc
>take-over. In other words, delegates appear to have accepted that Narc is
>a suitable government that can be trusted with the future of the Nation
>and that if it is given enough time and pumped with more and dynamic
>ideas, the kind of changes that will take place in Kenya will also
>transform the lives of 30 million Kenyans to the better. Here, we wish to
>add our input to the comments that have so far been rendered since the
>Conference ended. This is because there are certain critical points that
>we feel were totally blacked out at the Conference. We have not seen these
>points being raised seriously by independent commentators who have so far
>rendered their postmortem findings since the Conference ended..
>
>In adding our comments, we are doing so in the spirit of struggle and
>solidarity with all KCA members and other progressive Kenyans who are
>relentlessly searching for a permanent solution to the political, social
>and economic crisis that has been facing our country in the last four
>decades. We feel that the following points should have been given serious
>attention at the Conference.
>
>1. LANDLESSNESS:
>Since Narc took over power, the Coalition has failed to take up the issue
>of landlessness among millions of Kenyans who are squatters in their own
>country. Although there has been limited repossession of small pieces of
>land that were grabbed by Moiís cronies, the government appears to have
>frozen all possibilities of resettling the landless. Land was the main
>reason why the Mau Mau Land and Freedom Army took up arms to topple
>British colonialism. To date, the objective of ensuring that every Kenyan
>has land to settle on has not been met. In other words, one of the major
>reasons why thousands of Kenyan freedom fighters shed their blood during
>the colonial revolution has not been met fourty years after the so called
>independence. Many Kenyans believe that the independence Movement was
>betrayed by home guards who later seized power through Jomo Kenyatta. Both
>the Kenyatta and the Moi dictatorships failed to meet the objective of
>settling the landless while there is no sign that the Narc regime will
>accomplish this mission. What happened is that the Kenyatta and Moi
>dictatorships distributed vast chunks of land to their political contacts.
>The rest of the landless population has been kept waiting with empty
>promises that will never be realized on a capitalist basis.
>
>A major reason for landlessness in Kenya is that both the Kenyatta and Moi
>dictatorships have failed to recognise the fact that it is impossible for
>the government to resettle the landless without first possessing the land
>through a major renationalization programme. As we write, thousands of
>acres of land are still owned by former colonial masters and home guards
>>from both the Kenyatta and Moi dictatorships who stole them from the
>Kenyan people before and after the colonial revolution. Some top Narc
>politicians are themselves owning thousands of acres that may have been
>acquired dubiously. We think that the question of landlessness in our
>country can only be solved through nationalization of land, a measure that
>will give the government the opportunity to be able to determine who owns
>which piece of land through a radical land redistribution program. The
>issue of land remains very sensitive in Kenya and we feel that it could
>have been given space at the KCA Conference.
>
>2. PRIVATIZATIONS:
>Just like the KANU regime, Narc continues to invite looters from the
>advanced capitalist countries to come and steal the countryís resources
>through privatizations in the name of ìForeign investmentsî. One would
>have expected that after the defeat of KANU which sold almost every
>profitable State enterprise cheaply to agents of multi national companies
>and other globalization sharks, Narc would reverse this economically
>retrogressive process by renationalizing these enterprises so that wealth
>generated through them could be redirected to finance the national
>reconstruction effort and thousands of workers who were retrenched in the
>process redeployed. Instead, the contract for the controversial mining of
>Tiomin in Kenya has just been awarded by Narc to a foreign company with
>the new government providing hopeless justifications for what will most
>likely, become one of the biggest robbery of Kenyaís natural resources by
>a foreign company.
>
>State Corporations continue to be privatized under the Narc government
>which has now recommended that even roads in Kenya should be put on
>private hands for foreign companies to reap profits through the
>establishment of toll stations. Privatization of more than 100 State
>enterprises are on the cards (see the list at KSDA website) while the
>renationalization of more than 50 other enterprises that were sold by KANU
>is not on the agenda. What is publicly known with privatizations is that
>this measure does not help in building the economy but in entrenching
>foreign domination of national politics and economy. Kenyans should oppose
>all forms of privatizations of enterprises that were acquired through the
>tax payerís money. In all the glamorous speeches that came up at the KCA
>Conference, opposition to privatizations in Kenya should have been raised.
>This is because the new regime is duping people that privatization is a
>kind of solution to the crisis in our country while in reality it is
>contributing to poverty at a national level as the countryís wealth is
>siphoned abroad.
>
>3. RETRENCHMENTS:
>As KCA hosted Narc luminaries like Charity Ngilu (Minister of Health) at
>the Conference, there are thousands of Kenyans who have been condemned to
>lives of mystery and great human suffering as a result of IMF/World Bank
>inspired retrenchments during the Moi dictatorship. What is shocking is
>that these retrenchments have continued since Narc took over power without
>government intervention. We ask: ìWhat kind of political changes will
>transform the lives of Kenyans if the little income that workers in Kenya
>have through employment are being taken away through retrenchments?î.
>KSDA continues to receive letters from retrenched Kenyan workers who are
>on the verge of starvation, Kenyans who voted for Narc expecting that
>their situations would change. Some of these letters have been published
>at our website. The situation is acute because Narc has refused to address
>the crisis and some retrenchees have demonstrated against the government
>to try and get their cases across. From our perspective, we think that all
>retrenched workers should be reinstated while the government should
>announce an immediate freeze on all retrenchments.
>
>How does Narc expect Kenyans to believe that its politics will transform
>their lives when retrenchment of workers is being conducted against the
>background of 11 million able bodied Kenyans who are out of work? Narc
>has long stopped talking about the creation of half a million jobs because
>their thinkers have understood that this cannot be done on a capitalist
>basis. To create jobs, the government must invest in both construction and
>industry. To invest in construction and industry, the government must
>control the means that produces the wealth of the Nation so that the
>countryís wealth can be put to investment through independent decisions
>taken by Parliament. These processes are currently impossible under Narc
>because the means of producing wealth in Kenya is under imperialist agents
>while major decisions about development are made by IMF and World Bank
>through their programs. In fact, the government depends on the IMF and
>World Bank to finance its budget. From our stand point, the twin issues of
>retrenchments and unemployment ought to have been taken up at the KCA
>Conference because they touch on bread and butter issues of voters who put
>Narc in power expecting real changes in their lives.
>
>4. MPs MILLION SALARIES:
>Since Narc took over power, MPs have awarded themselves salaries running
>to a million Kenyan shillings. This is at a time when the country is in
>deep economic crisis and constantly begging from Western Imperialism. What
>is paradoxical is that although KCA has been collecting signatures through
>its website to oppose the MPs salaries, the issue was totally blacked out
>at the Conference. From our sources, there was no serious attempt to
>confront the Narc MPs who attended the Conference on this issue because of
>the increasing courtship between KCA and Narc, a posture that we think,
>bordered on the conspiratorial. Through the Conference, Narc MPs ought to
>have been reminded that although they claim to be fighting corruption,
>they are looting the Kenyan economy. Failure to confront the thorny issue
>of MP salaries could be interpreted to mean that KCAís collection of
>signatures on this issue is a farce. Why should Narc kneel before the IMF
>and World Bank for hand outs when its very MPs are involved in an
>organised and systematic looting of the countryís meagre resources in
>order to sustain luxurious life styles at the expense of the tax payer? We
>think that the one million MPs salaries, the 3 million car grants, the 10
>million insurance schemes for MP and other so called benefits are issues
>that were worth taking up on a serious scale, not just by individual
>speakers but by KCA as an organisation of Kenyans abroad..
>
>5. NARC/IMF/WORLD BANK COURTSHIP:
>>From our view, it is unbelievable that a three day Conference of the KCA
>>type ended without an open challenge or even a memorandum calling on the
>>new Narc government to end its courtship with the IMF and World Bank.
>>Psychologically, millions of Kenyans who do not understand the dynamics
>>of economic exploitation of Kenyaís resources through the IMF and World
>>Bank have been made to believe that these imperialist financial
>>Institutions are contributing to the countryís economic development. The
>>nightmare scenario came when Narc, a new regime that was supposed to
>>govern differently from KANU, embarked on an active KANU style courtship
>>rituals with IMF and World Bank.
>
>President Mwai Kibaki met World Bank Chiefís at State House to beg for
>money while other top State Officials have been busy with IMF"