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Kenya (Human Rights)
1.29 pm
Mr. John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington): I am extremely heartened by the acceptance of the subject of human rights abuses in Kenya for today's debate. It is a reflection of the warmth and affection that many right hon. and hon. Members feel for Kenya and its people.
No one who has visited Kenya and met its people can fail to be entranced by a country so beautiful and so abundant in natural resources. From the fertile shores of Lake Naivasha to the game-filled plains of the Masai Mara, across the green foothills of Mount Kenya to the beaches of Mombasa, Kenya is a stunning garden of Eden.
No one can fail to be impressed by the fortitude, vigour and enterprise of the Kenyan people. Kenya is a vibrant melee of Africans, Asians and Mzungus--the settlers who stayed on after decolonialisation--most of whom share a common bond of loyalty and commitment to their country--a commitment bred from a courageous struggle to free themselves from colonial oppression and establish a modern nation.
I introduce the debate with considerable humility. I do not wish to be depicted as some interfering neo-colonialist lecturing an ex-colony on how to manage its affairs. Nor do I want to be portrayed as some ex-pat arrogantly expostulating over a tusker beer on the verandah of the Norfolk hotel in Nairobi.
Instead, I speak firstly as a friend to friends--a friend of the Kenyan people to the Kenyan people. I speak as someone who represents many constituents who originate from Kenya and who share my love of that country. Above all, I speak as a socialist, and thus someone who believes that international solidarity places a duty on us all to associate ourselves with and support all those whose human rights are being abused and who struggle against oppression.
The Government, with wide acclaim and my total support, have placed human rights at the centre of their international relations policy. The recent White Paper on international development defined the human rights that have been recognised by the global community and protected by international legal instruments.
We said that human rights include all those rights essential for human survival, physical security, liberty, and development in dignity of the human being. They include the right to life and liberty; the right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being, including food, water and housing; the right to social protection in times of need; the right to education; freedoms of religion, opinion, speech and expression; freedom of association; the right to participate in the political process; the right to be free from arbitrary arrest or imprisonment and to a fair trial; and, above all, freedom from torture and from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
It is with immense sadness that I report that, on virtually every count, the present Kenyan Government stand accused. On those basic physical freedoms--freedom from torture, imprisonment and loss of life--the most recent Amnesty International report published two months ago indicts the Kenyan regime.
Physical force has increasingly become a basic ingredient of Kenyan life. In its recent investigations in Kenya, Amnesty International identified numerous reports
of human rights defenders being threatened, harassed, beaten or arbitrarily arrested. Their meetings have been disrupted, and their premises raided. Journalists trying to report on events have been assaulted by the police and by members of the ruling party's youth wing.
The Kenyan police have used their wide-ranging powers of arrest without warrant extensively in round-ups of the poor, the street children and those suspected of sedition. There are continued reports of ill-treatment, torture and deaths in custody as a result of torture.
Kenya retains the death penalty, and there are currently more than 700 prisoners under sentence of death. There have been no executions in the past nine years, but many prisoners on death row have died as a result of the appalling prison conditions. A Kenyan high court judge recently described the prisons as "death chambers" and noted:
The Kenyan police have become notorious for their use of excessive lethal force. Less than a year ago, the shooting of three students by the police provoked widespread revulsion in the community, only to be followed in March this year by a further student being killed by the police, who followed up his murder by arresting and beating up his two companions.
As for the Kenyan Government's record on political freedoms, hon. Members will be aware that the last year has been dominated by preparations for the Kenyan general election, which, thankfully, has now been called for 29 December. Recently, Kenya has witnessed the use of force and intimidation by the existing regime in order to undermine the Opposition and thus the potential for free and fair elections.
Earlier this year, a loose alliance of Church groups, lawyers and reformers came together and launched under the banner of the National Convention Executive Council a new campaign with the aim of securing basic electoral reforms in advance of the general election. All but one of the demonstrations for reform organised by the NCEC have been broken up by the police and by supporters of KANU, the governing party.
On 10 October, when President Daniel Arap Moi was celebrating Moi day--his 19th year in power--his police were violently breaking up the most recent NCEC demonstration. People were beaten and tear-gassed by the police. Prominent NCEC supporters including Paul Muite, Ngengi Mugai--Jomo Kenyatta's nephew--and Richard Leakey were beaten so brutally that they left in ambulances. The police commander in charge personally physically thrashed an elderly and ailing Member of Parliament.
In a previous demonstration in July, 14 people were shot dead. Mothers carrying babies were beaten, students sitting exams at Nairobi university's school of architecture were beaten up and tear-gassed, and a lecturer had his arms broken. At the capital's All Saints cathedral,
the presidential security guard itself beat up the pro- Opposition clergy at prayer, spattering blood over the pews, and leaving one Church leader unconscious and soaked in blood.
The Kenyan Public Order Act requires meetings and demonstrations to be licensed in advance, and has been used to restrict meetings and rallies of Opposition groups. Sections of Kenya's penal code dealing with sedition and treason have formed the basis of the Government's ability to threaten their critics with detention.
In effect, some Opposition parties have been banned from the forthcoming election by the Government's refusal to allow them to register as political parties. The Safina party, led by lawyers Paul Muite and Mutari Kigano and the archaeologist and conservationist Richard Leakey, has not been allowed to register, and therefore cannot put forward candidates in the election. The Islamic party of Kenya has been banned outright.
The Kenyan constitution requires a successful presidential candidate to obtain at least 25 per cent. of the vote in five out of the country's eight regions. In key marginal areas such as Mombasa, there have been concerted attacks on northern settlers aimed at driving out potential Opposition voters--an activity that occurred in the earlier elections in 1992.
In the raids on Mombasa by ruling KANU supporters, 31 people have been reported as killed and hundreds forced to leave their homes and shelter for safety in the grounds of local churches. The Economist reported that it was revealed that the gang of 150 youths responsible for the attacks had been recruited, armed and trained in the coastal hinterland some months ago with orders to
The real question is whether President Moi will use his last term of office to leave behind the inheritance of a prosperous, cohesive democracy, or the same monument to human greed as Mobutu did--a billion-dollar Swiss bank account. The abuse of human rights in Kenya stems from a regime that will do almost anything to sustain itself in power in order to be able to continue to plunder the country's resources.
Corruption is the motivating force for denial of and attacks on human rights in Kenya's beautiful but unhappy country. The corruption of the regimes of Mobutu and Moi, denounced by their own people as Moi-butu, is on such a scale and so all-pervasive in the system of government that we have been prompted to coin a new political term for such rule. Instead of democracy or aristocracy, the states have developed a kleptocracy: a system of government whose main purpose appears to be the plundering of the nation's resources by a kleptomaniac ruler--a kleptocrat.
The massive scale of corruption in Kenya has almost been counter-productive, as in recent months international donors have increasingly frozen or withdrawn support,
and the Kenyan currency has spiralled downwards. On 31 July, the International Monetary Fund suspended its $220 million loan programme to Kenya in the face of not only the refusal of Moi's Government to act against corruption but the direct involvement of members of the Government in corrupt practices.
The corrupt scams become increasingly bizarre. In one recent notorious scam called the Goldenberg scandal, implicating Saitoti, Moi's Vice-President, huge subsidies were gained from the Government to support the export of gold and diamonds by individuals associated with the Government. The only problem with that worthy policy is that there are no gold or diamond mines in Kenya from which to export. An honest customs commissioner tried to close a similar con on sugar importation, and was sacked by the President himself.
The latest Nairobi fashion in corruption is land- grabbing, which involves the simple appropriation of publicly owned land by corrupt politicians and civil servants. In Nairobi and other towns, public parks and gardens, school playgrounds and even graveyards have been allocated to individuals well connected to the ruling elite. While that theft is going on, the country's infrastructure is deteriorating rapidly. Many people go hungry and are uneducated, ill-clothed and unhealthy, while the tragedy of street children multiplies.
What can we do to help? Our new Government can serve in the coming period as a true friend of the Kenyan people. First, in the run-up to the elections in December, we should continue--as I know my right hon. and hon. Friends have done--to impress on the Kenyan Government in the strongest possible terms the need for abuses of human rights to stop, and the importance of fair elections in a climate free from violence and intimidation.
Secondly, we should review the adequacy of the scale of assistance that we are providing through non-governmental organisations which perform the task of monitoring elections. Thirdly, we should join other international donors, including the United States and the IMF, in an approach to the Kenyan Government to agree new ground rules on human rights, corruption and poverty elimination before loan facilities are renewed.
Finally, we should commence the process of redirecting all bilateral aid to Kenya through NGOs rather than the Kenyan Government, and review procedures for ensuring financial probity in all the assistance that we provide to Kenyan organisations.
Many of us were inspired by the original Mau Mau struggle and the ideals that they developed. I dream of a return to the ideals of Jomo Kenyatta and Tom Mboya, which were hammered out in the freedom struggle and became expressed in the concept of Ujamaa, when Kenyatta said:
"going to prison these days has become a sure way to a death certificate."
Amnesty International reports hundreds of political prisoners dying each year, the majority from infectious diseases resulting from severe overcrowding and shortages of food, clean water and adequate medical care. Exact figures are hard to come by, but the most recent official figures suggest that more than 800 prisoners died in the first nine months of 1995.
"keep the coast safe for KANU".
The tragic irony is that the present level of violence and loss of life is almost certainly unnecessary to sustain President Moi and his regime in power. A divided Opposition is President Moi's best guarantee of remaining in the State House, and his recent simple manoeuvre of offering some token reforms has yet again split his opponents asunder. That, plus the inevitable sprinkling of bribes, should ensure his re-election.
"I stand for the purposes of human dignity and freedom and for the values of tolerance and peace."
I believe that our Government should assist the Kenyan people in standing once again for those virtues.
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