Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Please excuse the fact that we've not had time to translate our statement into French.
I apologize for not speaking French very well. In Kenya, people do not even speak English well.
I'm very grateful for this opportunity to be here. I speak here as a political commentator on Kenya as well as a member of the Kenyans for peace through truth and justice, a coalition of civic associations in Kenya. However, I speak on my own behalf and not on behalf of the coalition.
Ladies and gentlemen, over 1,000 people have been killed over the last three months in Kenya. Over 600,000 people have fled their homes in fear because of acts of violence against them by a politically motivated armed militia and because of actions of the state, including the police and the presidential paramilitaries, the government service unit.
This morning the United States of America announced its welcoming of the formation of a coalition government that has 43 members in its cabinet. This grossly inflated, large cabinet will cost the country considerable amounts. An estimate this morning of the amount that they will receive in salaries and expenses indicates that 43 cabinet ministers will cost the country approximately 80% of the Kenya national budget--which was approved last year--of $10.2 billion.
I'm concerned that the international community has been rushing to recognize this government. Let us be clear: we have a government that has been formed by a person who is clearly, from the evidence, responsible for having carried out a civilian coup in Kenya, who seized power--rather as Mugabe is trying to do today in Zimbabwe--by fiddling with the votes. Mwai Kibaki also took power by rigging the election votes. He heads the government as a usurper president with no popular mandate in that position.
The fact he does so makes a mockery of the electoral process in which citizens participated, an election process which was largely peaceful, well run, and in which nearly 70% of the electorate participated. Canada's acceptance of the new government would essentially be acceptance of impunity for the crimes of election-rigging and carrying out a coup.
The Kenya government has paid lip service to the holding of an independent judicial inquiry into the process of rigging of the elections. There are no plans to disarm the militia or to bring to justice any of those who carried out extrajudicial killings.
There have been thousands of women raped. The Nairobi Hospital women's centre has been overflowing, and numerous rape crisis centres have had to be set up across the country. No word is provided on how those responsible for these crimes will be brought to justice.
Although there has been verbal commitment by this government to the formation of a commission of inquiry into the evictions from land in the Rift Valley province, this is unlikely to proceed since the last government, which itself was a coalition government comprising exactly the same group of people who will comprise this government, also failed to carry out that commission. In fact, the inquiry that was set up was prohibited from proceeding by the current President Mwai Kibaki. There are no plans at all for ensuring a safe return, a safe passage for the 600,000 IDPs.
We're concerned that people will be hasty in welcoming the formation of this coalition government. In our view, an interim government is certainly necessary--an interim government that has all the different political parties and all the players involved--to form a government that would oversee, in a limited mandate of perhaps one year to 18 months, and bring to justice those responsible for killings, to investigate the causes of the rigging of the elections, and to oversee the re-holding of the presidential elections.
Many are claiming that we don't want to see elections in Kenya again because they resulted in violence. I would like to remind the committee here that the elections themselves were extraordinarily peaceful. It was only once the coup had taken place, once Kibaki had announced that he had won the elections, that in fact violence broke out in Kenya. Even the European Union, in their international observer missions, reported that the elections, as far as they were concerned, were well run, and that it was only after the results were rigged that the violence broke out.
I would like to recommend to this committee that Canada should be cautious in recognizing this current government. It should be seen only as an interim government. Canada should request that the Kenyan government make clear how it will be dealing with the extensive violations of human rights, including the crimes against humanity that Human Rights Watch has alleged are taking place in the Mount Elgon region.
Canada should be careful in terms of its aid, since much of that aid is in danger of being used entirely to finance the ministerial positions. I would hope that Canada would take a position that would say that the way in which it will operate in relation to this government must hold to the principles of democracy, good governance, and human rights. If this government is recognized as a permanent government, then it breaks Canada's commitments to the principles of good governance, since the president himself is somebody who took power through a coup.
I will leave my statements there for the moment. I am open for questions.
