The month opened with stunning news that a Kenyan woman in her thirties who had been working for a Swedish family was facing deportation to Kenya because she had become sick and thus expensive to maintain due to cost of medical care.
According to information that was gathered by KSB, the woman retracted her willingness to get the case publicized after she was allegedly intimidated by her employer who was once based in Nairobi as a Swedish diplomat. The employer had seized the woman’s passport. Although the woman was later deported, no further information was forth coming.
It was one of those quiet deportations executed with speed to cover up scandal. In the case of the woman, the employer may have been underpaying her because she lacked status while the employer might have been evading tax for why did the boss with-hold her passport and why wasn’t she having insurance cover?
By the beginning of February, the post election violence was still continuing. To cool down temperatures, Mr. Joseph Munene aka Man Nzoro, appealed to Kenyans in Stockholm to open debate about the general situation, both in Kenya and in Stockholm.
Mr. Nzoro’s view was that Kenyans needed to resist being influenced negatively by events that were unfolding back home and that mainly featured indiscriminate violence, wanton killings, ethnic tension and displacement of people on a large scale.
In making his appeal, Mr. Munene gave the example of a Kikuyu friend in Kenya who was experiencing difficulties because he had married a Luo woman. According to Munene, Kikuyu kinsmen were on the man’s neck because they wanted the woman sent back to Kogelo.
The appeal was followed by several informal debates which tended to cool down tensions between the Kenyan communities in Stockholm. One person who publicly supported Mr. Nzoro was Mr. Wandaka who accused Kenyan politicians of playing the ethnic card for purposes of dividing Kenyans for political mileage.
ENTER MR. MILTON MUIGAI
Despite his forthrightness, Mr. Munene faced a serious challenge from Chebet Keter, a Kenyan woman, who informed KSB readers that although the idea of debate was in order, Mr. Munene had gotten some facts wrong in his presentation. Mr. Munene had claimed that one key reason why post election violence had erupted was because ODM had created illusions in the minds of boda boda operators who, according to Munene, had been told that the government would issue them with Taxis if ODM won elections.
This explanation did not go down well with Chebet who said that she had investigated the facts and found Munene’s assertions wrong. Chebet said that on the contrary, it was Kibaki’s government that failed to honour election pledges, a failure that meant that millions of Kenyans did not want Kibaki in power for a second term especially after he mismanaged the country with his Mount Kenya cartel.
Chebet gave the example of the failure of the government to deliver a new Constitution within 100 days as the debate was picked up by other Kenyans in Stockholm. One of the contributors who has been adding quality to debates was Mr. Milton Muigai who reminded both Chebet and Munene that they were “circumventing” a big point in the debate by attributing the violence to the inability of the Kibaki regime to deliver. According to Mr. Muigai, the problem rested on the manner in which the concept of “Majimbo” had been presented by ODM to voters among other reasons.
Kenyan women in Stockholm are a resilient lot. In February, a group of women led by Pastor Beatrice Kamau set up a new women’s organization – Voice Of Women (VOW) – to look into issues affecting women in Sweden. After its launch in Skarpnäck, the organization remained active throughout the year, linking up with Swedish and International women’s organizations in a bid to address women related issues including empowerment of women, domestic violence, women in politics, the rights and freedoms of women among other issues.
As usual, Kenya-Stockholm is full of rumors and propaganda. In February, certain rumors that had been planted in 2007 persisted and at different points, they had to be debunked.
When Mr. George Kinyua (a former Embassy staff member who was transferred to Canada) was leaving, Kenyans contributed money for a present in the form of a lap top in appreciation of Kinyua’s good work especially on Embassy-Kenya-Stockholm relations.
EMBASSY WOMAN AND PERSISTENT RUMORS
However, the post election violence overtook many news items and the Kinyua story was never exhausted at KSB. Lack of news about the present’s delivery generated rumors that those who were responsible for purchasing the present may have taken advantage of the crisis in Kenya to cool down the purchase then “ate the money”. KSB had to debunk this rumor because the blog site was invited to the handing over ceremony of the lap top at the Hotel where Kinyua and family were staying. In fact, a photo showing Kinyua receiving the lap top was taken at the presentation and the rumor, that appear to have been generated by the enemies of Mr. Jamlik Muritu who was in charge of the present, was baseless.
Another issue that came back on the news in February was the relationship between MOREDEK and the Muirani-led UHCK. When UHCK called a harambee at Bagarmossen church, MOREDEK released a Statement saying that the organization would not be represented at the harambee because MOREDEK had its own channels of helping IDPs in Kenya. For members of MOREDEK, attending the harambee could have amounted to a duplication of work. Another problem was that at the time the harambee was called, there had been no joint meetings between the two organizations that could form the basis of joint work and MOREDEK called for further exchanges.
According to leading propagandists in Stockholm, the main reason why MOREDEK’s leadership had decided to skip the harambee was because of ethnic considerations. The propaganda did not however stick as it was later overtaken by events. The propagandists who were propagating this version of events also believed that KSB was an “anti-Kibaki” blog because of the pro-ODM reports that were streaming through the blog site especially during the opening stages of the post election crisis.
In Kenya, Kofi Annan was making progress with the peace talks and by February 16th, certain points on the Agenda had been agreed upon although the thorny issue of election rigging remained untouched. Among issues that both PNU and ODM had agreed upon were: tackling poverty; addressing corruption in government; instituting land reforms and reaching a political settlement to end the crisis.
Suddenly in mid February, the Kenyan Embassy in Stockholm was back in the news. A blogger had picked up the story of a Kenyan woman who works at the Embassy and who had allegedly snatched a young Kenyan man during a counseling process to resolve a long standing dispute between the snatched man and his wife.
After the man was allegedly snatched and the story did the rounds in the blogs, the assumption was that it was all over but in February, it resurfaced. The difference this time was that the woman appeared to have had more sympathy from Kenyans here because she was not only struggling to put her life in order but also trying to lead a normal life with her new catch and, from the point of view of some Kenyans, what she needed the least was distractions from blogs.
PURITY BASHING AFTER THE AMBASSADOR FIRES HER MAID
In a moment of sympathy, KSB is among voices that defended the woman, arguing that she ought to be “left alone” because she had a right to fall in love following the demise of her hubby. The story never ended though and today, a different version is doing the rounds although we won’t go into details.
Another organization that defended the woman was the Voice Of Women which also took the position that the woman ought to have been left alone. Speaking to KSB, Pastor Beatrice Kamau, Chairperson of VOW, said that attacks on the woman were baseless while she also dismissed hot gossip that the woman may have grabbed a total of three men within a very short period of time.
As the Embassy woman came back to the headlines, the Ambassador, Mrs Purity Muhindi was experiencing a different kind of headache. The Ambassador had just fired her cook because she allegedly wanted to hire a new one in what critics saw as an act of tribalism.
According to the scanty facts that became available through different channels, the cook Purity inherited from former ambassador Kinyanjui was not from her tribe and since she had someone whom she thought could do the job, she exploited the fact that the cook was ailing to fire him from the job, an act that did not please some Kenyans who decided to use the story to bash Purity.
At that time, concerns had just been raised by KSB as to whether Purity was operating illegally at the Embassy. This was because Kibaki’s Presidency was facing problems of legitimacy with Sweden not having recognized the Kenyan government officially. The issue was how Purity could have been proceeding with official business with the Swedish authorities at a time when the same government she represented had not been recognized by her hosts in Stockholm.
As the month of February approached a close, good news arrived from Kenya that a peace deal had been reached between ODM and PNU. Part of the good news was that the post of Prime Minister would be created and handed over to Raila Odinga who was widely believed to have won the Presidency before it was stolen from him.
The best part of the deal was that the post election violence could now come to an end and as Kenyans prepared for the setting up of a Coalition government that we have today. Activity in Kenya-Stockholm for the month ended with a call for prayers by the Bagarmossen Church following the signing of the peace deal.
Okoth Osewe
About the Author
“A blogger had picked up the story of a Kenyan woman who works at the Embassy and who had allegedly snatched a young Kenyan man during a counseling process to resolve a long standing dispute between the snatched man and his wife.”
Months later, the defenders of this young Kenyan man who had been “snatched” became his fiercest critics. As you read through, put the jigsaw puzzle together to see who is who.
Kenya-Stockholm is always full of happennings: The Beauty has since turned into a Beast.