Hopes Dim for Once-Stable Kenya
As Kenya remains on the brink of an explosive domestic crisis, experts and officials around the world are grappling with how to break the political deadlock between President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga following last week’s contested elections, which sparked ethnic bloodletting that has since killed more than 500 people.
But one thing most international observers agreed upon in the aftermath of the Dec. 27 elections was a profound regret that one of Africa’s most promising success stories—not to mention what started out as a promising election—could unravel so dramatically.
Indeed, hopes were high when voters initially went to the ballots. The Washington-based International Republican Institute, whose mission observed the election, noted that “the delegation in particular was impressed with the depth of dedication on the part of Kenyan voters. Thousands stood patiently in line for hours to exercise their civic rights and participate in the political process, often expressing how important these elections were to them and their families.”
Kenya’s previous election successes following one-party rule for several decades also raised expectations that this election would run smoothly. “In recent years, Kenya had been touted as a democratic success story,” wrote Brett D. Schaefer and Steven Groves of the Heritage Foundation. “The largely peaceful, transparent, and fair electoral experiences in 2002 and 2005 stoked hopes that the 2007 presidential election would be similarly peaceful and further solidify the democratic tradition in Kenya. Tragically, this did not happen.”
Instead, a surge of violence took many around the world by surprise. Human Rights Watch detailed the initial political wrangling that quickly devolved into violent clashes between Kibaki’s long-dominant Kikuyu tribe and Odinga’s supporters:
 “The presidential vote count appeared to be following the same pattern with ODM [Orange Democratic Movement] leader Raila Odinga leading the count. However, in an abrupt turnaround, the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) announced that Kibaki was in the lead,” the review said. “As protests mounted, the electricity was turned off in the ECK election headquarters and ECK commissioners were escorted by police from the building. Immediately afterwards, ECK Chair Samuel Kivuitu declared Kibaki the presidential winner with around 230,000 more votes than Odinga. The government then broadcast on television a clip showing Kibaki being sworn in at State House close to midnight in a hurried private ceremony.”
Since then, both sides have blamed the other for the ensuing mayhem, although U.S. and other officials say both parties could have rigged the voting, agreeing that it’s the average Kenyan who’s been robbed. Jendayi Frazer, the chief U.S. envoy for Africa, remains in Kenya to monitor the situation, and an array of personalities from South Africa’s Desmond Tutu to Britain’s Gordon Brown to presidential candidate Barack Obama have urged restraint and dialogue between Kibaki and Odinga. All have floated the possibility of a power-sharing arrangement, although that appears increasingly unlikely as both sides dig further into the trenches and refuse to negotiate.
Experts say a solution, though bleak, is still possible, but most agree that even if a power-sharing coalition or new elections ever come to fruition, they would be fraught with challenges. Moreover, the long-term effects of this unrest will damage Kenya’s once-solid reputation for quite some time.
“[I]t seems to me that the real paradox here is that Kenyan politics have to be able to deliver the solution, but they are in and of themselves the problem,” Michelle Gavin, an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told reporters on Jan. 4.
“Obviously there’s the immediate technical issue of gross irregularities in the tabulation, the process of determining the winner of the presidential election,” she said. “But more broadly speaking, what’s happened now is a huge loss of public confidence in political processes. So while everyone quite rightly is calling for a political solution, that doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence at the grassroots level in Kenya. This is a real problem.”
Another problem is the quandary that the international community faces in its response to the crisis, according to Gavin. Kibaki has made clear his disdain for outside intervention, and Gavin agrees that any solution needs to be a Kenyan one. But this also puts the United States in a particularly awkward position given its reliance on Kenya as a critical partner in the Horn of Africa, whether in helping with counterterrorism or bolstering economic and political stability in the volatile region.
Gavin pointed out that although the United States and other international players should rightfully take a hard-line stance against Kibaki claiming a legitimate mandate, “it’s hard to send that message without [sounding] like one’s not embracing entirely Raila Odinga and his Orange Democratic Movement. I don’t think anyone knows who actually won the presidential election.”
Thus, it’s difficult to envision a solution without a new vote, Gavin explained, but the logistics of that are daunting and could even cause the country to spiral further into chaos.
“Certainly if there were to be a new election, it seems clear that that needs to happen sooner rather than later,” Gavin said. “This would involve addressing the issue of the electoral commission itself, which no longer has, it seems, the confidence of the parties.
“So, how should such an entity be selected? Who governs the country in the meantime? This, I think, gets us into these discussions of some kind of government of national unity or caretaker government. Both proposals have been suggested. But what would that look like in practice?”
Gavin said these “sticky” specifics would need to be addressed to “allow the country to be governed and stable and prepare for a new election, particularly given how highly politicized the climate is at this point. I mean, imagine new campaigning for the presidential election right now—it’s a little frightening, frankly, and it’s a double-edged sword. It seems to be the best way forward, but an international community that puts a lot of pressure on Kenya to hold a new election, it seems to me there has to be some responsibility to try and help ensure that the situation doesn’t become incredibly violent in the lead-up to that election.”
Regardless of the next step, Kenya’s once-enviable reputation has clearly suffered and won’t recover overnight. “The broader problem is the big picture issue of investor confidence,” Gavin explained. “Kenya was supposed to be the rock and sort of this bastion of stability, and growth was going to kind of radiate out from there in the region. And to see, you know, these very vivid pictures of chaos, it will have effects I think on investor confidence far, far into the future. Even if in the best-case scenario this crisis manages to resolve itself quickly, one doesn’t erase the memory of images like that for quite some time.”
Following President Mwai Kibaki’s (front page) unilateral appointments to his Cabinet on Jan. 9, tensions escalated in Kenya and hopes dimmed for talks between Kibaki and his political rival Raila Odinga. According to the New York Times, bonfires erupted in Kisumu on Lake Victoria, while ethnic clashes broke out in the slums around the capital of Nairobi, and protesters began to mass in the port city of Mombasa.
Front page photo: White House photo by Susan Sterner
Libyan Envoy Makes Historic U.S. Visit
Last week, Libya’s foreign minister made a historic visit to the United States, marking the highest-level contact between the two countries in 35 years and further cementing the rapprochement between the one-time foes.
Abdel-Rahman Shalqam met with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for an hour on Jan. 3, later signing a U.S.-Libyan science and technology pact to cooperate on issues ranging from earthquake research to disease control.
Minister Shalqam also held discussions with the secretaries of homeland security and energy, as well as the deputy defense secretary and the U.S. Trade Representative Office. In addition, he received a personal tour of the White House and met with executives from Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Occidental Petroleum and Raytheon.
 Kicking off the series of meetings, Shalqam spoke to an overflow crowd of U.S. companies at a reception hosted by the National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce (NUSACC) on Jan. 2 at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel—during which he proudly declared that “Libya is open for business.”
“Bilateral relations between Libya and the United States are vital for us, for you, and for the region,” Shalqam said at the NUSACC gathering. “It is important that governments lead their people to prosperity, peace and development, and that is our responsibility as Libyans and as Americans.
“Although Libya is a small country of just 6 million people,” he continued, “it is geopolitically important.” Indeed, with proven oil reserves of 36 billion barrels and only one-fourth of this vast North African country having been explored for oil and gas deposits, Libya is being eyed by many U.S. businesses for its tremendous energy potential.
Likewise, the United States has plenty to offer the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, as the country is formally known. “We want American technology, knowledge and capital to return to Libya,” Shalqam explained, noting that an exchange of students, scholars and intellectuals represents a key part of growing Libya’s knowledge-based society.
“The National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce is proud to serve as the first stop for Minister Shalqam on this historic visit to Washington,” said David Hamod, president and chief executive officer of NUSACC, which has hosted several high-level business delegations to Libya to promote trade and investment opportunities. “He is carrying a forward-looking message to the U.S. government and to America’s business community,” Hamod added, “and we are hopeful that U.S. companies will take advantage of this new chapter in the history of our two nations.”
Shalqam’s visit was a major diplomatic coup for a country that had been shunned as an international pariah until 2003, when Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi disavowed the country’s nuclear weapons program and agreed to pay compensation for several terrorist attacks, including the 1988 Pam Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland.
Since then, U.S.-Libyan relations have gradually been on the mend, with the United States restoring official relations in 2004 after a 27-year hiatus. The lifting of the last U.S. sanctions in 2006 also boosted economic ties, with two-way trade that year coming to $3 billion, most of it in the form of Libyan petroleum exports to the United States.
But tensions clearly remain. Bureaucratic bickering has led to a stalemate over issuing visas, thus traveling to the North African country can still be very difficult for most Americans. Part of Shalqam’s message was to urge greater exchange for Libyan students studying in the United States and for U.S. companies doing business in Libya.
For their part, many U.S. officials remain wary of the Gadhafi regime and a country they once associated with “barbarism.” Congress continues to hold up funding to open an embassy in Tripoli and confirm a new ambassador there until Libya completes its compensation payments for the Pan Am 103 bombing as well as a 1986 Berlin disco attack.
Families of the Pan Am 103 victims complained that the State Department visit was premature until the compensation issue is settled, arguing that Libya rolled back on its promise to complete the final installment of $2 million per victim payout for the infamous 1988 airline bombing, for which two Libyan intelligence agents were convicted. The visit was also criticized by Human Rights Watch, which charged Libya with serious human rights abuses.
Rice brought up the compensation and human rights concerns during her meeting with Shalqam, and State Department spokesman Sean McCormack admitted that “there’s still a lot to be done with respect to instituting basic freedoms within Libya. There’s still some outstanding issues with respect to claims by U.S. citizens. Those need to be resolved.”
But all signs point to a continued thawing of relations. “Libya made a historic decision to stop its weapons of mass destruction program, and we want to work on ways to improve our relations, although there is still more work to be done,” said National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe prior to Shalqam’s visit. “We have concerns about human rights and other issues. Visits with senior U.S. officials are designed to move relations in the right direction.”
Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalqam talks with executives at a reception hosted by the National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel at the start of his U.S. visit.
Photo: Gustave Assiri
Taiwan’s U.N. Tug of War
At a Heritage Foundation discussion last month, Jaushieh Joseph Wu, Taiwan’s top envoy in the United States, laid out the case for Taiwan’s bid to join the United Nations—its 16th attempt to join the world body despite the opposition of the People’s Republic of China, which claims the self-ruled island as its own.
Backing Beijing are its 170 diplomatic allies—versus the 24 nations that formally recognize Taiwan’s sovereignty. The island’s bid to join the United Nation under the name Taiwan has also been criticized as “provocative” by the United States, which denounces any move that would challenge the status quo.
Nevertheless, the fierce opposition hasn’t deterred Taiwanese leaders, who are pressing ahead with the unlikely bid, holding a referendum on U.N. membership alongside the island’s upcoming presidential election on March 22.
That highly anticipated contest will pit the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of outgoing President Chen Shui-bian—distrusted by China for his pro-independence stance—against the opposition Nationalist Party, the Kuomintang (KMT), widely seen as friendly to mainland China. Prior to the presidential race, legislative elections are taking place this Sat., Jan. 12, and could provide momentum for one of the political parties.
 Beijing is sure to be watching all of these political developments closely over the next few months. China, a veto-wielding member of the U.N. Security Council, has consistently maintained it will use force if Taiwan formally declares statehood, and many see the island’s perennial attempts to seek U.N. recognition as a controversial expression of sovereignty.
But Wu—representative of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO), Taiwan’s de facto embassy in Washington—defended what he called his island’s inherent right for a seat at the U.N. table, citing Taiwan’s democratic values, sovereign government and economic prosperity.
“We believe that Taiwan’s 23 million citizens have the right to be represented in the United Nations and are determined to achieve this goal,” Wu told the audience at the Heritage Foundation discussion on Dec. 18 titled “Taiwan’s United Nations Bid: Domestic Democracy or International Crisis?”
“Taiwan possesses all the criteria for a sovereign state: a permanent population, a defined territory, a government and capacity to enter into relations with other states. As a result, Taiwan is clearly entitled under the U.N. Charter to seek membership,” Wu argued.
In addition to what he said were legal reasons for membership, Wu pointed to the international community’s “substantive interests” in supporting Taiwan’s U.N. bid, noting that Taiwan ranks as the world’s 18th largest economy, is “a beacon of freedom,” and is “a major contributor to the global development agenda.”
But throughout his Heritage speech, Wu tried to quell fears that Taiwan was seeking independence from China. “To be clear, this referendum is not intended to serve as a de facto declaration of independence or disrupt the status quo across the Taiwan Strait,” he stressed.
He added that despite President Chen’s overtures to change Taiwan’s constitution, these changes would not alter the core articles and “would not meddle with the sovereignty issues.”
To the contrary, Wu blamed China for undermining the status quo, complaining about its “dramatic military buildup,” its “dangerous” decision recently to map out new air routes through the Taiwan Strait, as well as China’s policy of blocking international recognition of Taiwan—a historical animosity that dates back to 1949 when the two Chinese governments split.
“Taiwan is being stifled by the People’s Republic of China in its attempt to join both the United Nations and other major international organizations,” Wu charged, adding that this obstruction extends to everything from the “World Firefighters Game … to participation in the world hairstyling contest.”
But the United States, which switched allegiance to Beijing in 1979, hasn’t been swayed from its “One China” policy and warned Taiwan against its U.N. aspirations—a stance that was reiterated by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at a yearend news conference in which she said the bid “unnecessarily raises tensions in the Taiwan Strait, and it promises no real benefits for the people of Taiwan on the international stage.”
But Wu clearly disagrees, arguing it “will allow the citizens of Taiwan to exercise their democratic rights.” And although he said his government does take American concerns into account, Wu admitted the two don’t see eye to eye on the issue; nevertheless, the referendum movement is well under way and “it’s the right thing to do at this moment.”
Fellow panelist David Brown of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, however, urged a more cautionary approach, describing the diplomatic tit-for-tat as part of a “vicious cycle between Taiwan and the mainland.”
Indeed, after losing Costa Rica as one of its allies last year (see July 2007 cover of The Washington Diplomat), Taiwan is in danger of losing its remaining allies to China’s billions. Earlier this week, it was reported that China offered $6 billion in aid to Malawi, but Taiwan hopes its legacy of goodwill will convince the African nation not to switch allegiance to Beijing, according to a government spokeswoman.
“We’ll do our best to increase development aid,” the Taiwanese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said. “But we cannot compete with China like that.”
Taiwanese Foreign Minister James Huang also accused China of trying to woo Taiwan’s friends in an effort to cripple President Chen party ahead of elections this weekend.
For follow-up analysis on the legislative elections, Heritage is also hosting a discussion titled “Taiwan's Parliamentary Elections: Who Won, Who Lost, and What It Means” on Tue., Jan. 15 at 10 a.m. (www.heritage.org).
Jaushieh Joseph Wu—representative of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO), Taiwan’s de facto embassy in Washington—defends what he called his island’s inherent right for membership into the United Nations, citing Taiwan’s democratic values, sovereign government and economic prosperity.
Photo: Lawrence Ruggeri
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