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Continent must rescue Zimbabwe too
L Muthoni Wanyeki, The East African (Nairobi)
April 07, 2008

http://www.nationmedia.com/eastafrican/current/Opinion/op070420082.htm

Forty years ago last Friday, Martin Luther King Junior was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

An icon of the American civil-rights movement sparked off by the refusal of Rosa Parks to continue to sit in the back of segregated buses, his memory continues to inspire people everywhere to challenge injustice of all kinds.

While the African-American civil rights organisations he built have an ambiguous relationship with Barrack Obama, there is no doubt that the latter's bid for the presidency is both a vindication of and testament to King's vision and legacy.

Here in Africa, the 40th anniversary of King's assassination, marked as it was by the Zimbabwean elections, provided the opportunity to reflect on our own struggle for social justice. Zimbabwe, of course, represents the most cynical and politically opportunistic representation of that struggle as being one hinged on racial equality alone.

Which is not, of course, to deny that post-colonial racial inequality was a reality that did need to be addressed. Unfortunately, that racial inequality has been used in Zimbabwe to obscure and prevent effective responses to what was also a deeper, underlying problem of democracy.

For Kenyans, the unfolding of events in Zimbabwe for the last week, following polling the previous weekend, provoked an alarming sense of déjà vu. The familiarity of being forced to wait for official results to be released - for a week and counting.

The out-of-sequence release of results, with presidential results being retained instead of being released first. The rise in public expectations of change as parliamentary results showed a majority of seats being won, finally, by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. The claims of victory by the MDC.

And then the signs of intimidation. The heavy police and military presence in Zimbabwe's main towns. The detention of foreign journalists, on the spurious grounds that they were not properly accredited. The raid on and ransacking of the MDC's offices. The announcement by MDC that its leadership had moved into safe houses.

The meeting of the politburo of the incumbent Zimbabwean African National Union-Patriotic Front ostensibly to determine how to proceed, as though the Constitution and electoral law were not clear. And all of this on top of previous threats by the military that it would not accept a mugabe defeat.

The writing is on the wall. Just as in Kenya, Zimbabwe's electoral commission will be judged and found wanting if it does not conclude its determinations in a manner that reflects and upholds the people's vote. Just as in Kenya, its failing to do so may spark off costly and utterly unnecessary conflict.

Just as in Kenya, the rest of Africa must rise to the occasion and refuse to allow any perversion of the people's will. With the weight of the past few months still on our mind, the Kenyans for Peace with Truth and Justice coalition has already stood up to be counted. We expect our foreign ministry to do the same.

If there is anything we can do to honour and respect King's memory, given what the unfolding electoral process in the United States reveals today, it is this: To accept that while change may be long in coming, its coming is, in fact, inevitable.

If there is anything we can do to honour and respect the memory of all Kenyans whose lives were lost at the altar of our political parties' expediency, it is this: To look hard and long at where thwarting the power of the vote leaves us.

Our vote is the single most important expression of our will. When that avenue for expression is removed, what are we left with? The message to Africans all across the continent - not just in Kenya and Zimbabwe -is that we should all reconsider other options for expression of our political will - despite the obviously devastating consequences.

Zimbabwe's electoral commissioners, Zanu-PF's politburo and Zimbabwe's military cannot be allowed to subvert the will of the Zimbabwean people. Not just for Zimbabweans. But for all of us.

*L. Muthoni Wanyeki is executive director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission.

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