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"id": 198985,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/198985/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Wetangula",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs",
"speaker": {
"id": 210,
"legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. Although this Motion was directed at the Attorney-General, it was actually a misdirection. I think that, ideally, it should have been directed at my Ministry. I have spoken to the Attorney-General and we have agreed that, in the spirit of collective responsibility, my Ministry can do a response. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, this is a Motion that nobody will quarrel about. This is a Motion that does not say anything that the Government is not doing. As you know, the whole concept and genesis of the Great Lakes Region emanated from the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda and Burundi. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Great Lakes Conference is built around the fact that the membership of the Great Lakes Conference, apart from Kenya, are all countries that share a common frontier with DRC. They include Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, Central African Republic, Angola, Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda and Sudan. Kenya was co-opted into the Great Lakes Conference because of our strategic importance and the central role in which our country plays in conflict resolution and management, and the fact that, we have been the centre of activities relating to all issues relating to conflicts in this region. That includes the Sudan peace process that ended up with the CPA and the Somali Conference that ended up with the Interim Government in Somalia. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in December, 2006, there was a major Great Lakes Conference held in Nairobi. At that Conference, a pact on security, stability and development was signed. At that Conference also, it was agreed that, for the first time, the headquarters of the Conference be based in Bujumbura, Burundi. Before that, the Conference was run from the United Nations (UN) Headquarters in New York. Thereafter, an Executive Secretary was appointed. That is Ambassador Mulamula from Tanzania, who has since taken up her residence in Bujumbura. She is in the process of establishing a secretariat. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it was required that the protocols outlined by the Mover of the Motion under the pact were to be ratified by member countries and, thereafter, be deposited with the UN in New York as the depository. To date, only Burundi has ratified the protocols. The rest of the countries are in the process of ratifying these protocols. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, here in Kenya, my Ministry has prepared a Cabinet Paper that has been forwarded to the Cabinet Office. That was done some weeks back, so that it October 17, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 4541 can be taken to the Cabinet for approval, before it is brought to this Parliament for debate and approval. That is the only sensible way of ratifying a protocol of that magnitude. We want to involve the leadership, particularly Parliament, so that hon. Members can be able to own and understand the process and speak sensibly, whenever they try to, about what the Great Lakes Conference is all about. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, you have seen some of our colleagues standing up here and speaking as if Ethiopia is part of the Great Lakes Conference! Others were speaking as if Somalia was part of the Great Lakes Conference! It is by bringing that protocol here that we will be able to get all our colleagues to have a sense of ownership and clear understanding. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, what has been the achievement of the Great Lakes Conference so far, the ratification of the protocols notwithstanding? Through the Great Lakes Conference, we have brought peace, normalcy and democracy in Burundi. It is through the conference that we held endless negotiation meetings, some of which I was privileged to attend, to bring together the warring factions in Burundi, to the extent that they agreed to lay down their arms, face the ballot and bring into place a democratically elected Government of President Pierre Nkurunziza. That is a milestone! Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we all know what was going on in Burundi before. It is gratifying to see that, through the Great Lakes Conference, even before the countries ratified the protocols, we have such a milestone in terms of achievement. Today, Burundians sit down, talk and agree or disagree without engaging in armed conflicts. That is something that we feel very proud about. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, through the Great Lakes Conference, DRC held a competitive and democratic election that international observes gave a \"tick\"! Despite and in spite of all the imperfections that one could point out, it was, generally, an acceptable free and fair democratic election, organized under the auspices of the Great Lakes Conference. That is a major milestone, again, from the Great Lakes Conference! Today, in the DRC, they have a vibrant Parliament, like ours here, despite the upheavals in the eastern part by Gen. Laurent Nkunda. The rest of the country is reasonably on the highway to peace. They have a Parliament, a Government and a Cabinet. You have seen President Kabila come to participate in international fora not just in Kenya, but in the African Union (AU), in the UN and all over. That, again, is an achievement of the Great Lakes Conference! Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Great Lakes Conference has also been instrumental in bringing about negotiations and peace between the rebels in northern Uganda and the Government of President Museveni. You can see that Joseph Kony, the rebel leader, has downed his arms. He has accepted a cease-fire and there is a peace process going on. Through the Great Lakes Conference, conflicts in Congo Brazaville have virtually been contained. A band of armed fighters called the Ninja, recently voluntarily walked to Brazzaville and were welcomed by the Government and are in the process of being integrated in the national security apparatus, thereby bringing to an end one of the most horrendous conflicts in the Great Lakes Region. Jean Pierre Bemba, the rebel leader in the DRC Congo is now the leader of the Official Opposition in a democratically elected structure. He is now in Portugal ostensibly undergoing medical treatment but he is recognised as the Leader of the Official Opposition. Indeed, before he left the DRC Congo, he sought permission from the Speaker of Parliament to give him leave of absence. That means that he recognises the achievement of the Great Lakes Conference in bringing about democracy and its institutions to which he has subjected himself. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, what Ms. Ndung'u is asking us to do, we are already doing. In Kenya, we should pat ourselves on the back for, first, being recognised and accepted by the Great Lakes configuration to be the only country outside the Conference to be allowed in the ring. 4542 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES October 17, 2007 Secondly, to be allowed to chair the all important Great Lakes Conference meetings that we held here on 15th and 16th December, 2006. Thirdly, to congratulate our own President for being elected the Chairman of that Conference, a position he still holds. That is a position that, as a country, we must be proud of and we must use to bring greater peace and stability in the region. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the protocols on the issues of democracy and governance, prevention and suppression of sexual violence against women, protocols on exploitation of resources, management of natural resources and so on, all these are things that are ongoing. Whether we talk about the management of Lake Victoria, River Nile or protection of the Congo Forest--- I want to take this opportunity to mention that I am happy to read in the newspapers today, that the Government of Uganda has reversed the allocation of Mabira Forest to developers who wanted to build a sugar factory, thereby again, protecting a key natural resource in the region. All these protocols, and the contents therein, are issues that sovereign governments are capable of doing with or without the protocols. We have a Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources that can deal with the question of the hyacinth in Lake Victoria. We have the Ministry of Water and Irrigation that is seized and engaged with the issue of the Nile Basin issues including the revision and writing of the Nile Treaty that we have so much talked about. In terms of peace, justice, governance and the fight against corruption, we have instruments in place. We may not be doing as much as we should but the structures and legal instruments are there and can execute the role that the protocols envisage. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to assure the House and the Mover of the Motion that the protocols are going to be signed by the Government after fulfilling the process that I outlined when I started my response. Once this Parliament approves the protocols and they are executed, they will be sent to New York for depository in the United Nations (UN) as is required under the Great Lakes Conference establishing protocol. When we recently met the Secretary-General of the UN, he also wished that this issue be fast-tracked. As the current chair of the conference, my Ministry has taken steps to speak to all other capitals of the ten countries, that I outlined, to encourage them to follow the path of Burundi. Countries have different legal regimes. There are some where the Cabinet alone can ratify the protocols and there are others where the President alone can do it. Whatever the means, we have encouraged them that we should, at least by Easter time next year, have all the countries having ratified the protocols and deposited them with the UN, so that all other issues that need to be done in furtherance of those protocols could be done. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to end by thanking the Mover of the Motion, but also to say as I had said earlier that this is an important Motion. It simply states what the Government is already doing. I want to thank the hon. Member because she is encouraging the Government to move a little faster but it is something that we are already doing and we are going to do it. Ms. Abdalla talked about the issue of Kenyans getting international jobs. I just want to say that in my Ministry, we have an international jobs desk with a director responsible for scouting and looking around wherever there are international opportunities and advertising for them. We have been advertising in the local Press for Kenyans who are interested in applying for those jobs. Even at the Great Lakes Conference Secretariat in Bujumbura, when the structures are clearly defined, jobs will be advertised and I want to encourage Kenyans to apply for them. There are other contributors like Maj-Gen. Nkaisserry who made very inflammatory and reckless statements that I need not respond to because they were completely out of place in the character and spirit of the Motion. They were totally unhelpful. We had similar inflammatory remarks coming from Mr. Osundwa about a certain Kabuga. We have said it here and out there, October 17, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 4543 that Mr. Kabuga, wherever he is, the Government of Kenya does not know. We are the founding signatory to the International Court of Criminal Justice (ICCJ). We have supported the process of prosecuting the perpetrators of the genocide in Rwanda. Felicien Kabuga is no exception. Indeed, information available has pointed fingers at some of the people actively engaged in politics today as the ones who have given cover various times to this man. As and when he is caught up by the Government he will be handed over to the ICCJ. I want to caution the likes of Mr. Osundwa and others that we should not turn this criminal fugitive into an electioneering tool because he should not. It amounts to benefitting from a horrendous crime of genocide. No Government can benefit in any way from shielding a man of that nature or character. Those who are benefitting from his bound and fruit should keep the Government out of it. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to seek your indulgence to say this because you also mentioned that man---"
}