Urgent call from Canada

by Mr. Abdi Omar

the kenyasomalis chairman in Northern America


We, Kenyans and friends of Kenya in the United States and Canada wish to make the following observations regarding the just concluded general and Presidential Elections in Kenya

Honorable Mwai Kibaki, the incumbent president, was declared the winner of this election and hurriedly sworn-in despite the fact that glaring evidence exists of massive and shameless rigging of the presidential election.

The international observers have expressed their inability to endorse the announced result due to the glaring evidence of rigging

The United Kingdom and the European Community have formally condemned the conduct of the election and the visibly partisan manner in which the Electoral Commission of Kenya carried out many aspects of the electoral activity

Several members of the Electoral Commission of Kenya bitterly protested the grossly flawed manner in which the elections and vote tallying were conducted. At least one of these persons has resigned his membership of the Electoral Commission in protest of the said irregularities.

The Kenyan Minister of Internal Security has suspended all live broadcasts and print media coverage of news and events in the country. He has also restricted movement of people around the capital city and in the opposition leaning regions of the nation thus plunging the country into a virtual state of emergency in an effort to pre-empt the reaction of the disenfranchised nationals to the rigged poll

Constant intimidation and harassment of the leader of the opposition and his assistants has become the order of the day.

There is high tension in the country as the disenfranchised nation seeks redress and expresses its pent-up frustration and anger regarding the massive irregularities that attended the presidential election. A strong possibility exists for the situation in the country to degenerate into a civil war due to the chaos unnecessarily engendered by the rigging of the elections.

Consequently, we call upon the US government and the governments of other democratic nations of the world to expeditiously intervene and restore civil order in Kenya.

We call upon the Honorable Mwai Kibaki, the incumbent president in this election, to respect the will of the people of Kenya and immediately resign the illegitimate presidency as a way of facilitating smooth transition of political power in the country.

We call upon the Minister of internal security to immediately restore the freedom of movement around the country and "lift" the imposed virtual state of emergency.

We demand that the country's media be set free forthwith to relay to the nation and the world at large all the news regarding all the patent happenings in the strife torn nation.

NOTE: Kenya is a highly strategic African nation for international peace and economic missions, and for regional stability; it is a beacon of hope for a region otherwise mired in incessant civil and sectarian strife. To let this nation degenerate into civil strife is tantamount to converting a stabilizing factor in a war torn region to another eyesore of human rights abuse like the Sudan, Somalia, and the Rwanda of the 1990s. Furthermore, the importance of Kenya as an ally in the war on terror cannot be overemphasized. What needs emphasis is the fact that this stabilizing and collaborative role of Kenya is fatally threatened by the events taking place in the country at this time. We cannot stress enough the necessity for the international community's intervention in that country right now.

We wish to express our reservation with the somewhat non-committal statement issued by the US ambassador to Kenya about the conduct of the said election. Many Kenyans feel that while the ambassador did not necessarily condone the electoral irregularities that he acknowledges existed, he seemed ready to gloss over the seriousness of the situation. Whereas we applaud the sincere effort that the United States Government makes to balance its national interest against its declared mission of fostering democracy around the world, we wish to emphasize that the surest way to guarantee the sustainability of Kenya's position as a viable ally in the war against terror is to ensure that real democratic institutions thrive in that country. Having demonstrated their willingness to fully embrace democracy in the conduct of their affairs, the people of Kenya need the assistance of the international community to surmount the forces that would undermine their will to democracy. Finally, as a group of Kenyans totally aware of the complexity of the mission of the United States in the world, we wish to assure the US government that it has no reason whatsoever to fear the advent of true democracy and visionary leadership in Kenya.