Rob Macaire

Commonwealth Conversation - Kenya

Last week we held the local edition of the global conversation on the Commonwealth that I mentioned in my last blog. Here are some notes that I took of the event;

Many people still associate the Commonwealth with Britain and believe that membership should allow free visa travel to the UK and other Commonwealth countries. There was quite a lot of awareness on specific areas of Commonwealth activity such as Commonwealth games, Scholarship programmes, media training and coordination on legal systems.

There was a feeling that the Commonwealth could do more in exerting pressure on rights issues and constitution building in Kenya. One of the audience commented that the Secretariat should be given more power to address issues to do with Member states.

An overwhelming conclusion was that more needed to be done to promote Commonwealth and raise awareness on the activities been carried out.

I urge you to look at the website of this global conversation which has thrown up some lively debate

Posted at 13:57 02 November 2009 by Rob Macaire  |  Comments[1]

UK and Kenya, and impunity

I am delighted that there has been so much response to this new blog.  I wish there was space to come back on every point, and will try to address as many as I can over the coming weeks.  But here are a couple of quick responses for now. 

1.  Hassan talks about where UK strategic interests stop and concerns about Kenya start.  I think that's only an issue when those two collide.  Most of the time, they don't.  What do we want to see in Kenya?  We'd like the country to be more prosperous and stable, fairer, and with less poverty.  That means less corruption, better governance.  Because all of those things will make Kenya a better partner for Britain across the board - whether it's trade and investment, dealing with regional crises, dealing with transnational problems like crime and terrorism, or meeting the Millenium Development Goals.  So if you think about it, what we want lines up pretty well with what wananchi want to see. 

2.  A lot of the comments people have posted are about impunity in one way or another.  My point about justice for the post election violence was not meant to be critical of the ICC - the UK has been a strong supporter of the ICC ever since it was first set up.  And if it investigates crimes in Kenya, we'll back that fully.  My point was just that if Kenya turns its back on the opportunity to set up the sort of tribunal recommended by the Waki Commission (with international judges, international prosecutors and investigators, etc) then it will be missing out on probably the best chance to hold people accountable for their crimes.   That outside input into the tribunal would be necessary to remove the fears people have that it would be manipulated.   But it would also help re-build confidence that justice can be done here, not just in the Hague. That's what Kofi Annan, the Waki Commission, and a lot of ordinary Kenyans feel too.  But this has to be a decision for Kenyans to take.  More broadly, we're doing what we can to help Kenya tackle impunity on issues like corruption.  One way we do this is to exclude from our country senior individuals who have been strongly linked with corruption cases, even if they have not been successfully prosecuted.  I saw that my colleague Michael Ranneberger's announcement yesterday of such a visa ban got a lot of attention.  Most people I meet say this sort of action is effective and welcome and that we should do more of it (we already do it quite a lot).  What do you think?

Posted at 15:47 19 March 2009 by Rob Macaire  |  Comments[16]