After the dictatorship of Mr. Mwai Kibaki rigged elections last year and secretly installed Kibaki as President, the Swedish government has refused to recognize the Kibaki dictatorship. The Swedes have taken the position adopted by the International community that has maintained that the irregularities witnessed and documented at the tallying level of Presidential results were such that the outcome that was announced by the discredited Electoral Commission of Kenya did not reflect the will and aspirations of the Kenyan people who voted.
Politically, the implication is that Ambassador Purity Muhindi and other diplomatic staff at the Kenyan Embassy in Stockholm may be transacting business at the Embassy illegally thereby committing several crimes that might be punishable under Swedish and International law.
Once a new government has been elected in any country and recognized by the International community, the leadership of such a government (in this case Kenya) is under an obligation to update its diplomatic staff to the Swedish government by either making changes or retaining the old staff members if no changes are necessary. While Kibaki might have done so, the problem is that the Swedish government cannot accept such an update because it does not recognize the Kibaki government. For the Swedes, it is like there is currently no government in Kenya.
Although Purity had already presented her credentials to the King of Sweden when she first arrived in this country and other non odiangabuk Embassy staff members had their appointments registered at the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Purity cannot represent Kenya in any State function in Sweden because she is representing an illegitimate government that is abhorred by Sweden and the International community on grounds that Kibaki and thieves around him stole the December 2007 elections.
Sweden is one country which was swift in advising its citizens not to travel to Kenya in the wake of the crisis that engulfed the country while the Swedish Ambassador to Kenya has continued to remain active along with other countries whose representatives have underlined the fact that the election issue needs to be sorted out otherwise it won’t be “business as usual”.
The Swedish government has stated publicly that it backs the Annan talks and what this means for Ambassador Purity is that she ought to be staying at home on a daily basis together with key members of her staff to await the outcome of the talks and the position of the Swedish government in relation to the thorny issue of recognition.
ILLEGAL TRANSACTIONS AND MEETINGS
Instead, Purity has been jumping from one diplomatic meeting to another because nobody has alerted her that she is actually committing a crime. If she is not recognized by the Swedish government, another thing that should have happened to her is that she ought to have been recalled by her boss in Nairobi, leaving one or two junior staff members to maintain a low-profile running of the Embassy by dealing with very essential services such as renewal of Passports of Kenyan citizens and other related problems of Kenyans in Scandinavia. What is Lady Purity doing instead?
She is transacting business, while the Embassy is issuing visas to foreign Nationals intending to travel to Kenya, collecting revenue, appearing at diplomatic meetings with SIDA and other agencies and even dictating the deportation to Kenya of ailing supportive staff members for reasons that are still not yet clear.
The reason why KSB is raising this issue is because recently, Purity attended a meeting that was organized by a Swedish government agency and a Swede who was at the meeting reported to KSB that her presence was a big embarrassment because everybody knew that she was not supposed to be at the meeting. The Swedes were shy and nobody could approach her and politely tell her to leave.
We still don’t know whether Purity attended a Lunch session thrown by the wives of Ambassadors in Sweden at the prestigious Kaffe Opra on 11th February to raise cash for victims of post election violence in Kenya. Mary Gwada, a Kenya Gospel singer was performing at the function although KSB failed to cover it because of too much work load related to post election violence. We have not yet followed up the event but we hope that Purity did not attend it because she was not welcome!
About a week ago, Mr. Daniel Kotutt, a top official at the Embassy, called KSB to say that the Embassy was intending to intervene in a case in which an ailing Kenyan woman was facing deportation to Kenya by her employer after the employer discovered that she was sick. Her lungs had collapsed and she had to be rushed to hospital where she was admitted at the ICU.
Kotutt said that he wanted to take the issue with the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. What he forgot is that the government on whose behalf he wanted to intervene to try and help a Kenyan citizen had not been recognized by the Swedish government and that under the circumstances, the maximum he could do at the Office (since the Kenyan government pays rent) is to read a Newspaper or surf the Internet, not picking the phone to call Swedish State agencies and other authorities.
In fact, the only worker who should be active at the Embassy is the receptionist who should be answering incoming phones and telling callers that the Embassy will remain inactive until the Swedish government recognizes the Kibaki government. “Check the newspapers for an update because the Embassy is not operational”, should be the kinda answers to callers.
This issue needs to be investigated and if it is true that Ambassador Purity and her staff members have been taking illegal contacts on behalf of a bogus government that has not yet been recognized by the Swedish government, then an injunction could be filed in Court to prevent the Ambassador from misleading the world and conducting business in the name of the Kenyan government in Sweden.
This could constitute an interesting angle of the anti-Kibaki struggle which could then be widened to paralyze Kenyan Embassies at a global level through appeals to world governments to close down these Embassies especially if the crisis in Kenya deepens and innocent Kenyans begin to die once again.
Okoth Osewe
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