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{
    "id": 132992,
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    "content": "had the opportunity of enjoying the good leadership of hon. Gitobu Imanyara, who was our first National Chairman and the man I took over from, hon. Maj-Gen. Nkaisserry. These individuals, in their individual and collective responsibility to this House, have AMANI Forum make tremendous progress in this country and region. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, the AMANI Forum is in seven national Parliaments in the Great Lakes region. It has also a branch in the East African Legislative Assembly, making it eight chapters in the region. All these legislatures have been able to recognize AMANI Forum for what it has been able to do for its parliamentarians and countries. It is only Kenya that has not been able to give the formal recognition apart from the informal links that I have already ascribed to you. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker the reason why we are asking this Parliament to resolve that AMANI becomes a body of Parliament is that it requires support like any other committee of the House. It requires facilitation, recognition and more fundamentally, it is an opportunity like many other networks that we have in the House, like Parliamentarians for Global Action. We need to give capacity to Members of Parliament to actually interrogate and train on concept, issues and practices and usage of peace messages. Members of Parliament have the option to become peace-makers or warlords. Through this Motion, I would like to persuade my honourable colleagues that each one of us has a responsibility to this great Republic to ensure that we are peace-makers. The Holy Book says in Matthew Chapter 5 in the beatitudes that: “Blessed are the peace-makers for they shall be called children of God”. Who would not want to associate their filial ties with none other than the Lord Jesus Christ? When you are a peace-maker you are called a child of God. The only child of God that we know is the Lord Jesus. So, the rest of us have the privilege and the opportunity to accelerate ourselves to higher levels by being peace-makers. That is what we would like to achieve in this. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, we would like this House, because the Tenth Parliament in particular, has been placed by history at such a strategic moment in the life of this country, given the outcome of 2007 General Elections and the aftermath of the post-election violence, that we are better placed to help heal this nation through legislatures involved in post-conflict reconciliation. We have experiences in the region; Rwanda and Uganda are countries in our region. For too long, we felt like we are an island of peace and for sure we were. But we forgot to realize that when you are secure, you should be looking harder to ensure that you are more stable. Until we got a rude awakening that this society is actually unequal in terms of distribution of wealth. This society is actually unequal in terms of power distribution, making our people butcher each other. As Members of Parliament, we need to be the peace-makers. We need to acquire the tools and appreciate each other. We would like the peace messages to start from this House. I am emphasizing this because it is very easy for hon. Members to think that they know peace and practice peace. It is different. We need even the language in which to communicate. If you recall, the Kenya National Human Rights Commission (KNHRC) always used to put out statements by hon. Members who were waging in war-like utterances. We do not want that to come from a third party. As hon. Members in this"
}