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The Standard Chartered marathon takes place this Sunday. It's a huge Nairobi event that raises money for preventable blindness probably among other things, it's also a very big social event too. The media have been hyping it up and even my husband has bowed to pressure and signed on to take part (but not the full 42 kilometer run, he chose 10ks instead - fair enough I thought since I am using childcare as the usual handy excuse not to pull on my trainers..).
I just caught a bit on the radio this morning that made me smile. The Kiss FM presenter Caroline Matoko was interviewing one of the marathon organisers. After discussing the marathon for a while she threw out the question to the rest of her male crew, 'have you run before?' they answered quick as a flash, 'yes, I have done a lot of running, mainly from tear gas...' another said, 'yes, I have run from theives too and gangs you know the sort of thing.' They were joking and laughing of course...
Since the 'Kreigler report' into the faulty Dec 07 Kenya election mainly focussing on the voting process itself, the 'Waki report' dominated news headlines this weekend. It was enlightening and pointed to the high level organisation of violence that was feared but unconfirmed at the time. To quote the Sunday Standard in brief:
'A commission led by Justice Philip Waki talks of a secret meeting in State House to plot revenge attacks on civilians and points at a near collapse of government which post election voilence aggressors exploited.'
'Members of the Waki Commission are convinced the Naivasha attacks between Jan 27 and 30 were planned and executed by the proscribed Mungiki with the support of central Kenya politicians and businessmen.'
'The team equally accuses ODM (opposition) leaders in the Rift Valley Province.'
It then went on to say in a seperate article:
'The Waki Report will be impossible to implement given perpetrators from ODM and PNU are in Government.'
'Last Friday Justice Philip Waki handed chief mediator in Kenya's peace process Kofi Annan a sealed envelope containing names of perpetrators of the voilence.'
'The suspects who include minsters, MPs and businessmen will be tried by a special tribunal to be formed before the end of next year'
My questions:
1. what is poor Kofi Annan expected to do with the envelope - especially as Martha Karua keeps telling him rather impolitely to butt out of Kenyan politics. I guess it can be waved over people in power when they misbehave.
2. what is the likelyhood that anyone will ever go to trial?