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{
    "id": 1519047,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1519047/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 256,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Okiya Omtatah",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "When you cannot pay your schools, your universities, your hospitals. Everything is in a mess. Your debts are unserviceable. You cannot talk of a foreign policy when the front of your home is on fire. You can only talk of a foreign policy when and if the home front is not proper. So, when you talk of the home front, we have got this thing of governance by merchants of venice. Some may call it a deal making, but it is almost what you talk of the merchants of Venice in Shakespeare. Here we are, that today, in Nairobi, we have the Janjaweed being allowed to open an office. This is a genocidal organ that tried to eliminate black people. It killed millions of black people. It was not even religious because the people in Darfur are largely Muslim. They profess the Muslim faith but they were killed by this group because they were not Arabs. It is now on record. It is a matter of public notoriety that the Janjaweed, which has now been given an office in Nairobi to operate from, has a history of trying to eliminate black people. What do we stand for as a country? Who has benefited from that process? Where is the due process leading to that particular decision? Article 10 of the Constitution is very clear. It talks about policy decisions and that targets the executive, must be subjected to public participation. At the very least, a paper should have been tabled in Parliament on the issue of Kenya wishing to go to bed with the Janjaweed, then we could debate it. Also surprising is that this thing has happened so soon after the Addis Ababa debacle. I call it a debacle because looking at the evidence, such things do not happen overnight. There must have been negotiations and interactions between this group and the regime running the Republic of Kenya. So, there must have been intelligence that Kenya cannot produce a Chairperson of the AU who can be a neutral arbiter because the Government is in bed with factions that are responsible for undermining the rule of law and issues of governance on the continent. I am sure people knew. Some time back His Excellency, Dr. William Samoei Ruto was proposed to chair the negotiations over the Sudan. We remember the Government in Khartoum stating in very clear terms that it could not allow it because they perceived him to be biased. A few years later, you can see that their fears were not idle. Their fears have been proven by the presence of the Janjaweed here. We have seen matters happening in this country where even a group that pronounced its opposition to the Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo in Nairobi. So, what is Pan- African about that? When you look at the genocidal wars in the Congo, what is Pan- African about the Janjaweed being here? When you look at the genocide in Darfur in Sudan, I think we need to take a good look at ourselves as Kenyans in the mirror and ask ourselves what is going on. I am almost persuaded that we are getting to a point whereby the Republic might need to invoke Article 144 of the Constitution. For those who care to do so, you can check out what Article 144 of the Constitution provides because some things that are The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
}