Lucas Barasa And John Ngirachu
27 October 2008
Nairobi — The unity of ODM will be tested on Tuesday at a parliamentary group meeting, where leaders from the Rift Valley Province opposed to implementation of the Waki report will face Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
The meeting, expected to be stormy, will reach a stand on the Waki Report, whose publication has raised temperatures in government and political circles.
Key leaders in ODM hierarchy are sharply divided over the implementation of the report, which among other things, recommends prosecution for the financiers and organisers of the post-election violence in which 1,133 people were killed and more than 300,000 were left homeless.
Prime Minister Raila Odinga has, for instance, rubbed close allies Henry Kosgey and William Ruto, ODM chairman and Pentagon member respectively, the wrong way, by vouching for the implementation of the report.
Against the report
ODM ministers William ole Ntimama, Paul Otuoma and Fred Gumo have also spoken strongly against the report.
Lands Minister James Orengo and deputy prime minister Musalia Mudavadi are the only other ODM leaders who have spoken in favour of the report, while Tourism Minister Najib Balala has called for caution over its implementation.
Higher Education Minister Sally Kosgey has denied reports in Monday's Daily Nation placing her alongside those opposed to the report.
"Hon Sally Kosgei, Minister for Higher Education, Science and Technology, would like to set the record set straight, that she has not made any submissions whether verbal or in writing at any forum to any journalist or anybody as regards the Waki report," read a statement from her office signed by Ms Dorcas A. Ambuto..
On Monday, Mr Mudavadi said ODM will officially announce a common stand on the Waki Report after the party's lawyers return a verdict on the document on Tuesday.
The party, touted as the most popular in the country and enjoying a majority in Parliament, asked its lawyers last week to study the recommendations of the Waki Report after its top leaders failed to agree over how it should be implemented.
Last week, a meeting of ODM ministers called to take a common stand on the report degenerated into a row between those who support the full implementation of the report and those opposed to it. The meeting passed the report to the lawyers to study it and report back.
Sources said the lawyers had rejected the report, saying its recommendations should await a team formed to spearhead national cohesion and reconciliation to start work.
They also want names of Electoral Commission of Kenya officials blamed for the chaos to feature prominently.
The names of State House officials said to have planned the Naivasha killings should be in the report, said the lawyers.
The representatives of ODM and PNU have 50 days to sign an agreement establishing a special tribunal to prosecute the suspects.
Failure to start the process of forming a tribunal will possibly leave the suspects named in a secret list by the Waki Commission to stand trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
A deadline for Kenya to set up a tribunal ends at midnight on February 28, next year.
Thereafter, the ICC could take over the cases of those named in the Waki report, including six Cabinet ministers.
Parliament is expected to change the Constitution to pave way for creation of the special tribunal to investigate and prosecute those implicated. The Constitution can only be amended by a two-thirds majority of 145 MPs.
Although ODM will make its stand on Waki Report known on Tuesday, Mr Mudavadi said the final decision on what to do with it would be made by Kenyans.
"Decisions will be made on the basis of the Cabinet's stand, even pushing the debate further to Parliament so that Kenyans decide on the matter," he added.
Other Kalenjin MPs from the larger Rift Valley have expressed outrage at the report saying it was aimed at 'finishing' the community leaders politically including the vocal Agriculture Minister.
On Monday, Bureti MP Franklin Bett questioned why Mr Justice Waki did not 'trust" the Kenyan courts to handle cases involving the chaos and instead preferred an international tribunal and ICC.
Benefit our people
And to show the magnitude of the differences the divergent opinions over the Waki Report had caused in ODM, Mr Bett and Konoin MP Julius Kones said Kalenjin MPs will meet after the PG meeting to "assess what we will hear in the PG and evaluate if it will benefit our people."
Hard-talking and youthful Cherengany MP Joseph Kutuny said Tuesday's meeting will be do or die for ODM if its leadership sticks to implementation of the report.
"This will be the beginning of the disintegration of the party into two -- those who are against and for," said Mr Kutuny.
The MP said Kalenjin MPs would push for the trashing of the Waki report because it was doctored, malicious and fabricated with the aim of "fixing" a section of leaders in ODM.
Mr Odinga has been at loggerheads with Rift Valley leaders over appointments to the Grand Coalition government and planned resettlement of people living in Mau forest.
The leaders have also been jostling with their Western Province colleagues over the position of deputy party leader currently held by Mr Mudavadi.
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as a kenyan voter who voted for our leaders i beleive the ICC should take it course now.i have no trust for the leaders we voted for to judge each other since they are the ones who commited the crimes.do i have to name them?