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Kenya: Revealed - Inside the Talks Room
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The East African Standard (Nairobi)
27 February 2008
Posted to the web 26 February 2008
Nairobi
A member of the PNU negotiating team engaged the Panel of Eminent African Persons in heated exchanges and is understood to have let fly comments that stunned mediators before the talks were suspended indefinitely, The Standard can report.
A disappointed lead mediator, Dr Kofi Annan, said he would now engage with the principals, Party of National Unity's President Kibaki and Orange Democratic Movement's Mr Raila Odinga, in a bid to give the talks a fresh lease of life.
This emerged even as the US State Department announced it was exploring "a wide range of possible actions" on Kenya, less than 24 hours after the deadlock.
"We will draw our own conclusions about who is responsible for lack of progress and take necessary steps. We will also exert leadership with the United Nations, African Union, European Union and others to ensure that the political solution the Kenyan people deserve is achieved," the US Secretary of State Dr Condoleezza Rice said in a statement issued by the State Department.
On Tuesday night, details of the exchanges in the mediation room remained sketchy but the minister is understood to have exploded when the former United Nations Secretary-General, Annan, tried to steer discussions towards what was already drafted in the report of the Legal Working Group.
Sources told The Standard the minister was defending the need to preserve the President's executive authority and retain him as the appointing authority for both the prime minister and members of the Cabinet when Annan interrupted the argument with the reminder.
Thereafter, the talks are said to have degenerated into accusations, with epithets being hurled across the table as the PNU and Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), the two protagonists in the disputed and discredited presidential elections engaged in a slinging match.
Both Annan and former Tanzania President Benjamin Mkapa, who also sits on the Panel of Eminent African Persons, are understood to have found themselves on the rack with attacks, some of them questioning their integrity.
It is at this point or shortly afterwards, sources said, that the minister left the mediation room in a huff.
Mbooni MP Mr Mutula Kilonzo, who together with Justice minister Ms Martha Karua, Education minister Prof Sam Ongeri and his Foreign Affairs counterpart Mr Moses Wetangula makes up the Government team at the talks, is said to have followed the minister outside.
When he returned to the still high-strung room, Mutula reportedly apologised and clarified that the minister's were "personal remarks and not that of the Government mediation team".
Tampers flared
Later, while addressing journalists at the Serena Hotel after the talks, Mutula remarked: "The meeting was too hot, tempers flared in the afternoon".
Since the weekend, it was clear the talks could be headed for a gridlock, even collapse.
Matters in the search for a political settlement out of the impasse - that has left at least 1,000 people dead, close to half a million displaced and the economy on the brink - appeared to have come to a head on Monday.
On Tuesday, that chasm appeared to have widened even as the talks' teams put on a brave face.
In perhaps his harshest speech since he arrived in the country slightly over a month ago, Annan openly spoke of his disappointment at the failure by the protagonists to understand the magnitude of the problem at hand.
He appeared dismayed that no one seemed to see the gravity of what in his estimation was an extraordinary situation that required extraordinary measures to deal with once and for all.
Struggling to remain diplomatic in the face of disdain, Annan told an international press conference: "We cannot pretend that nothing has happened, we cannot continue with business as usual".
The UN-backed mediator asked President Kibaki and Mr Raila Odinga to either take charge by giving instructions to their representatives, "or I engage them".
It was only his second statement in under 24-hours that seemed to imply that the two must now show leadership in the process.
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On Monday night after a day in which nothing moved in the talks, Annan had stated: "I believe that the Panel of Eminent African Personalities working with the Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation have done its work. I'm now asking the party leaders, Hon Raila Odinga and President Mwai Kibaki to do theirs".
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It is absolutely sad to hear/see how small minded and pitiful these negotiators are. At least they are tied to the negotiation table for the time being which means that we have some sort of damage control. I sincerely hope that the international community comes down really hard on these people if they don’t solve this crisis very soon. These irresponsible persons are going to be held accountable for what they are doing. Make no mistake about that.
/ Z
It is very disappointing to note the selfish motive the PNU negotiators have shown in this. What does power sharing mean without real power and responsibility given to the PM whoever he may be. As far as I concerned the Opposition has conceded a lot and should not be expected more than what it has already done. Greedy leaders must be eliminated by all means.
The PNU governemnt has no plan to negotiate or cede anything for the success of these negotiations. They hope to buy time tand entrench themselves more in power in spite of the calls from the rest of the world for power sharing and ODM mooving away from their position that Kibaki should resign.
When ODM calls for mass protests they plan oppose the move because of violence even though the majority of the people killed especially in Western Kenya was by bullet wounds or policemen.
The world should take notice because these groups of people would rather have bloodshed than... [Read Full Text]
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