Breaking News - Shadowy Party Revealed in Kenya

As Kenyans are kept engrossed in the never-ending wrangles within the governing coalition, we can authoritatively reveal the existence of a shadowy party which commands the allegiance of the vast majority of politicians and MPs in the country, including almost all in the Grand Coalition.

Known as the Federal Union of Candidates in Kenya (FUCKenya), the party has developed a Strategic Harmonized and Integrated Target List (SHITList) of policies that all members are expected to support. MPs, known within the party as Parliamentary Representatives of Independent Candidates of Kenya (PRICKs), have the duty to translate these policies into law.

The policies cover almost every aspect of the country’s social and economic life. Land reform, for example, is addressed in the Strategy To Enhance Allocation of Land (STEAL) while the youth are offered the Direct Renewal and Urban Growth Strategy (DRUGS).

To ensure the party’s favoured candidates are elected, FUCKenya has devised the Bolstered Regional Integrated Ballot and Election Strategy (BRIBES) which is implemented under the Targeted Regional Integrated Ballot and Election Scheme (TRIBES).

According to informed sources, who cannot be named, the party has urged its members to resist the moves to try the Ocampo Six at the International Criminal Court, threatening to unleash its Counter-Hague Advanced Operation Strategy (CHAOS).

HADAF Somalia International Cartoon Competition

The Association of East African Cartoonists (KATUNI )invites all cartoonists to participate in the

HADAF Somalia International Cartoon Competition.

Theme: The search for peace in Somalia: Achievements and Challenges

1st Prize: $3000
2nd Prize: $1500
3rd Prize: $750

Competition Rules

• The maximum number of entries you may submit is 5.
• Deadline for receiving cartoons is Monday 14 March, 2011
  
• All entries should be without any kind of frame and must not be folded
• Each entry must be accompanied by a short biography and/or CV as well as the name and contact details of the cartoonist.
• Submitted works may be put on exhibition and used in future publications.
• The judges’ decision is final and no correspondence shall be entered into it.
• Submitted works will not be returned.
• By participating, you grant the organizers the rights to publish and use the submitted artworks in any form including:

a) Reproduction and dissemination in printed form for all editions (e.g. study edition, school edition, special edition) and in unlimited print-runs (printing right). The printing right embraces in particular hard-cover editions, paperback editions, reprints, magazines, newspapers, collected works, via all distribution channels such as retail bookshops, other retailers selling books, book clubs, open and closed user groups and in all formats.

b) Electronic/digital storage and making accessible (including in databases) by means of digital or other storage or data transmission technology, with or without intermediate storage, in such a way that users have access from a place and at a time selected individually by them and can download, play back, interactively use and/or pass to third parties this work via PC, eBook, mobile telephone or other wired or wireless appliances, for example via the internet, UMTS, cable, satellite or other transmission paths (online right).

How to Enter:

Digital copies of the cartoons may be sent to katuni@gmail.com and should be in JPEG format with a resolution of at least 300 dpi.

Original artworks or clear prints (no photocopies) should be placed in an envelope marked “Hadaf Somali Cartoon Competition” and either sent to:

Hadaf Somali Cartoon Competition,

P.O. Box 2074

Village Market 00621, Nairobi, Kenya

or dropped off at one of the following venues:

Alliance Francaise de Nairobi, Loita/Monrovia streets, Nairobi

4D Innovative Ltd, 3^rd Floor, Revlon Plaza, Kimathi St., Nairobi.

GoDown Arts Centre, Dunga Rd., Industrial Area, Nairobi.

Kenyan Dumbocracy: A Rant

"Do not underestimate the predictability of stupidity," warned Vinnie Jones in the British movie, Snatch. Kenyan politics is a monument to the veracity of that statement.

At the height of post-election violence, our politicians were falling over themselves to present cases to the International Criminal Court. Both ODM and PNU sent teams to The Hague, each arguing the case for prosecution of the other for crimes against humanity.

So convinced were they of the remoteness of the possibility of that ever occuring, that they time and again spurned the opportunity to create a credible (read malleable) local tribunal to provide a veneer of juridical respectability to the impunity with which they killed and murdered.

Now that that remote possibility has become a very real probability, the fools are closing ranks and like dogs to the vomit, reviving talk of local trials. In their panic, they are lashing out at anything and everything. The new constitution, the ICC, party leadership. They are not above looting the national treasury to pay their cronies' legal bills.

None of this should come as a surprise. Anyone who has anything more than a passing acquaintance with our politics understands that the average MP or government mandarin has the intelligence of a fencepost, however many university degrees he/she may hold. Blinded by their greed and stupefied by their seeming invicibility, they cannot identify "national interest" if it bit them in the rear.

However, there is one other group of Kenyans that better fits into Vinnie Jones' description. And that is the Kenyan voter, who time and again offers up his body and treasure to these parasites. Every 5 years, he will predictably rotate out 60-70% of idiots in Parliament replacing them with other fools. Always willing to let bygones be bygones, the Kenyan voter will never scrutinise CVs, never demand proof of integrity. To wipe the slate clean, all he demands is a public and superficial show of religiosity and a defection to whatever party catches his fancy at the moment.

The truth is, our politicians are a reflection of ourselves. Instead of continually beating our breasts at their latest affront to common sense, we should be asking ourselves what part we play in this tragicomedy and trying to be little less predictable. To paraphrase another well known Hollywood line, "stupid is as stupid votes."

Rickshaw Economics

Virtual Reality Imitating Life

I've Got Woes!

... In different area codes...

It's His Turn To Eat

Kibaki's New Year Message

The other day, I got to thinking about the President's New Year message to the nation and especially his rather oblique references to the indictments expected to be handed down by the ICC. While I do not expect that he will do our MPigs bidding and assent to their ludicrous attempt to pull us out of the Rome Statute, I nonetheless still believe that he shares their ultimate goal: to preserve the culture of impunity by protecting the organizers of the post-election violence. The only difference is that he proposes to do it, not through an unconstitutional Act of Parliament, but through a wholly incredible and implausible local tribunal.

Incredible because no one in their right mind actually believes that there exists the political will to actually dispense justice to the coterie of murderers named by the ICC prosecutor, Louis Moreno Ocampo. Otherwise, arrests would have taken place two years ago and by now their cases would be nearing completion.

Implausible because, as the President put it: "We must all take due care to ensure that the process of seeking justice, does not erode the gains we have made in the direction of national healing and reconciliation." So there we have it. The priority for a local tribunal is not to ensure that criminals get their due but rather to preserve the "gains" secured by the reconciliation process, which gains mainly consist of lucrative positions for the masterminds of the violence.

The truth is Kenyans today find themselves in the modern-day Manor Farm, witnessing what appears to be a row in the farmhouse. Mwai Kibaki and Isaac Ruto are each attempting to play an ace of spades simultaneously. Though voices may be raised, they are all alike. No question, now, what has happened. The citizens may look from MPig to President, and from President to MPig, and from MPig to President again; but already it is impossible to say which is which.