A cursory reading of the Petersson Murimi case as presented at KSB could easily betray three major fault lines in the thinking of the cursory reader – that KSB is attacking the Kenyan Embassy for no apparent reason, that KSB is putting undue pressure on the embattled Ambassador Purity Muhindi and that KSB is anti-Embassy because of a constant string of critical articles that have found expression at the blog site.
Before he was stripped of his citizenship, Mr. Petersson was a Swedish national with Kenyan roots. Statistics from the Swedish Immigration Department show that over 600 Kenyans have taken up Swedish citizenship while tens of applications by Kenyans seeking to become Swedes are still pending.
According to the Kenyan Constitution, a child born of a Kenyan father resident in Sweden automatically becomes a Kenyan citizen unless the parents convert the child into a Swedish citizen through an application. If you are a Kenyan male and you father a child with a white Swedish woman, your child is a Kenyan, not a Swede unless you change citizenship.
In light of the emergent confusion that is creeping into the case of Mr. Petersson and presentations by a handful of Purity’s sympathizers who have taken contact with KSB, two factors which, in legal terms, constitutes the loci standi in the situation needs to be straightened. This will also help palpable readers and observers alike in appreciating the interest with which KSB has been driving publicity of this case.
According to Swedish law, a person who converts himself or herself into a Swedish citizen does not lose his/her previous citizenship. However, according to the Kenyan Constitution, a person who takes up another citizenship automatically loses his/her Kenyan citizenship. In simpler terms, people with Kenyan roots who have taken up Swedish citizenship are legally non Kenyans. These former Wananchi have to apply for visas at the Kenyan Embassy in Stockholm if they want to travel back home to visit their relatives.
Once in Kenya, Swedes of Kenyan extraction can only stay there for a maximum of three months after which they need further permission to continue residing in Kenya. When the visa expires, the Kenyan police have a right to hunt down these former Kenyans and deport them to “their countries” because the expiry of their visas converts them into “illegal aliens” in Kenya. This practice is not unique to Kenya. It is the standard procedure in many countries around the world.
PURITY HAS HER SYCHOPHANTS IN STOCKHOLM
When you arrive at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport with a “former Kenyan”, he or she will have to line up together with “foreign nationals” entering the country while Kenyan passport holders will make a mlolongo on a different desk officially RESERVED for Kenyans. The point is the same – that persons who are not holders of Kenyan passports are not regarded as Kenyan citizens but as foreigners whose nationalities are emblazoned on their passports. They are given different treatment at the Airport while they are also expected to leave the coutry when their visas expire.
The case of Petersson Kinyua is two-pronged. On the one hand is the unknown crime(s) he might have committed to warranted withdrawal of his Swedish citizenship while on the other is the question of violation of the Kenyan constitution by the Swedish authorities who want to deport him to Kenya although he is not, by law, a Kenyan citizen.
In the Petersson reports, KB has mainly been concerned with the violations and not the crimes because the Swedish law should be competent enough to deal with the crimes.
For KSB, when dealing with the indeterminate issue of where Petersson needs to be deported, the crimes he may have committed to warrant the stripping of his citizenship are undermined because the act of stripping him of his citizenship also made him Stateless as per the Kenyan Constitution with the consequence that he cannot be deported to any country in the planet unless such a country is ready to accept him as a stateless person.
For this reasons, Kenyans posing as “voices of reason” and who are on the frontlines in attacking Mr. Petersson because there is “very little” information about his crimes are missing the point KSB is trying to get across.
We don’t support criminals simply because they have Kenyan roots. At the same time, Kenya is our country and we will not sit by and watch our Constitution (even in its colonial state) being raped by an advanced capitalist country simply because we have a lame duck Ambassador who is too lethargic to intervene by defending our Constitution and questioning the deportation of the former Kenyan using a valid Kenyan Passport.
Walambaji of Ambassador Purity can continue singing her “songs of praise” and absolving her from responsibility in the name of freedom of expression. But, if you ask KSB, we are dealing with a case of “Western domination” of third world countries because if Mr. Petersson was a former American, there is no way the Swedes could have been in procession of a valid American Passport of a person who had lost American citizenship and then proceed to deport him to America under whatever circumstance.
FRIENDS AND PAINFUL BETRAYALS IN STOCKHOLM
If the Swedes awarded Mr. Petersson citizenship, they should also deal with his current situation as a stateless person because this is their creation. It is shocking that a Kenyan providing platform for empty attacks on Mr. Petersson and lapping Ambassador Purity is actually regarded as Mr. Petersson’s “best friend” who should be joining forces to prevent Mr. Petersson’s pending and illegal deportation. We might be wrong but this is betrayal of the highest order and Kenyans should take note of the “snakes in our midst”. While condemning Petersson for having strayed in the world of crime, every patriotic Kenyan has a responsibility of defending the country’s Constitution from abuse by a European power. This is the fundamental message KSB is trying to send to our esteemed readers.
Our point of departure is where the Swedes got a valid Kenyan passport under Mr. Petersson’s name despite the fact that he is not a Kenyan citizen by law and why the Embassy cannot intervene to stop this illrgal deportation on grounds that Petersson is not a Kenyan.
The Embassy is the legal representative of the Kenyan government in Scandinavia and this case should have received exceptional treatment because it hinges on the blatant violation of the Kenyan Constitution by the Swedish authorities. Is the Kenyan Constitution a piece of toilet paper which the Swedes can use to wipe every shit with impunity under the very nose of the Ambassador or is it a legal and binding document which deserves respect by other powers? This is the fundamental dynamic of the Petersson case.
We have said before that Petersson may have been a holder of a Kenyan passport before he was awarded Swedish citizenship. Be that as it may, the unshakable position of the Kenyan Constitution is that he lost his Kenyan citizenship immediately he became a Swede and, by extension, his Kenyan passport which is legally the property of the Republic of Kenya. Regardless of whether he still had the physical procession of his passport, the document was invalid and cannot, under any circumstance, be used for travel so how comes the Swedes want to use it to deport Petersson to Kenya?
Our beef with the Embassy rotates around the question as to why the Mission cannot alert the Swedish government in writing about this position after they learnt about the case and why top Embassy staff are running away from phone calls loaded with querries about the matter. In Kenya, foreign diplomats continue to intervene, not just in cases touching on any aspect about their countries but also in Kenya’s internal politics.
We still remember how the American Ambassador to Kenya Michael E. Ranneberger, almost transformed himself into a “Governor of Kenya” following the post election violence, hosting a multitude of Press conferences, meeting top politicians to discuss a solution to the crisis, articulating US interest in a quick resolution to the crisis and basically telling Kenyans how to manage the crisis that our country got plunged in after PNU rigged the vote.
After the signing of the peace deal, the Swedish Ambassador to Kenya Ms Anna Brandt became active, suggesting that youths who were in police custody because of cases related to post election violence should not be released.
SWEDISH CITIZENSHIP IS A “PIECE OF PAPER”
When the Kenyan budget was read a few days ago, Brandt was once again in the news commenting on the budget and making some very serious recommendations. When did Purity last comment on the Swedish budget and why can’t Brandt’s kind of comments provoke a “tit for tat” kind of reaction from Ambassador Purity? Is our Ambassador a “lesser Ambassador” or is it KSB that is running crazy?
In political terms, overt political interventions by Ambassador Ranneberger and Brandt were classic displays of “Neo-colonialism”, facilitated by the mental slavery of our leaders and people by Western imperialism which must always tell us what to do especially in times when they think we are in crisis.
If other Ambassadors in our country can call Press conferences at will to lay their country’s positions on the table regarding internal issues unfolding in our country, why has the case of Petersson been left to KSB to deal with?
We are not even asking the Ambassador to call a Press conference in Stockholm because that would be “too extremist”. The issue is why she cannot even communicate through diplomatic channels to throw light on this case with the Kenyan Constitution as her weapon.
Should Kenyans sit back and watch colleagues being bribed to be deported back home after governments have raped our Constitution or should we be calling on the representative of the Kenyan government to act in the name of protecting the country’s sovereignty?
Embassy sympathizers too blind to question the catalogue of weaknesses of Ambassador Purity since she assumed office may dismiss KSB as simply “looking for publicity” with this case. In the process of a rush to defend the Ambassador, some Kenyans are slowly slipping into sycophancy, an unfortunate development in our midst.
Any patriotic Kenyan should question why Petersson has to be deported to Kenya under circumstances that are already in the public lime light. The stripping of Petersson’s citizenship is evidence that Sweden has second class citizens so if you are a foreigner who took oath of allegiance before you got your Swedish citizenship, then what you have as proof of citizenship is actually a piece of paper called a Passport.
Okoth Osewe
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