Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on November 15, 2013. FILE PHOTO | MANDEL NGAN |
AFP
Top Kenya politicians are among the leaders of various countries
whose names feature in the controversial e-mails released by Mrs
Hillary Clinton, who is seeking to succeed Barack Obama as the next
president of the United States.
In one of the emails
forwarded to her from the US Embassy in Nairobi, Ms Clinton was told of
how the then US Ambassador to Kenya, Mr Michael Ranneberger, was
summoned to State House and given a dressing down.
Wikileaks,
the whistleblower website, had just published a report indicating that
the envoy had reported to Washington about how corruption was rife in
Kenya.
The then President, Mwai Kibaki and Prime
Minister Raila Odinga told the envoy that Kenya would not tolerate his
activities in the country. At the time, there had been reports that Mr
Ranneberger was going around the country financing youth groups engaged
in political activities.
Another email from Mr Burns
Strider, the founding partner of The Eleison Group, a Democratic Party
consulting firm, says that Mr Odinga had said that Africa did not need
to be lectured about democracy. He made the remarks hours before Mrs
Clinton arrived in Nairobi as part of a seven-nation tour of Africa.
According
to the email, when Mrs Clinton met Mr Odinga, she said: “The absence of
strong and effective democratic institutions has permitted ongoing
corruption, impunity, politically-motivated violence and a lack of
respect for a rule of law. These conditions ... are continuing to hold
Kenya back.”
At the meeting, Mr Odinga switched to a
more conciliatory tone and said that African countries could learn from
her example when she conceded defeat to Mr Obama during the Democratic
primaries.
“That is a lesson Africa needs to learn
seriously,” Mr Odinga told the meeting. “In Africa, in many countries,
elections are never won, they are only rigged. The losers never accept
that they lost. If we do this, we will be able to develop democracy
truly in the African continent.”
Mrs Clinton is now a
leading presidential contender for the Democratic Party ticket. She has
been riding a storm after it came to light that when she served as
Secretary of State, she conducted official government business using her
private email accounts. In May, a US court ordered that the emails be
made public between June this year and early 2016.
Mrs
Clinton travelled to Nairobi in August 2009 as part of a seven-nation
African tour that mainly focused on trade and support for the fight
against terrorism.
The following year, Kenya was in the thick of campaigns for and against the proposed Constitution.
WARNED OF VIOLENCE
Debate on the hot issues about the Constitution also feature in the emails released so far.
One
non-profit organisation involved in maternal health had lobbied for
pro-abortion clauses while another involved in “democratic practices”
anticipated post-referendum violence after the August 4, 2010, vote.
As
campaigns heated up over the draft Constitution, the National
Democratic Institute, an American NGO, wrote a situation report warning
of possible violence after the referendum from the ‘No’ side, led by Mr
William Ruto. At the time, Mr Ruto was the MP for Eldoret North and a
Cabinet minister in the Grand Coalition Government of President Kibaki
and Prime Minister Odinga.
“Perhaps the biggest fear is
that the ‘No’ camp is not going to accept the results and this will
spark post-electoral violence (especially in the Rift Valley). So far,
there is no evidence that this will occur,” the institute wrote on the
referendum day.
“However, the point of greatest danger
is after the announcement of the results, not before. So far as the
political leader of the No side, William Ruto, is concerned, the results
in Rift Valley are at least as important as the national total.”
Eventually, Mr Ruto conceded defeat, together with church leaders in the ‘No’ campaign and there was no violence.
The
e-mails also reveal that Planned Parenthood, an NGO, had tried to
influence support for a liberal Constitution that would favour abortion.
It also petitioned Mrs Clinton to use her planned visit to Nairobi to ask leaders to support that position.
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