The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams began his Kenyan tour on Sunday with a plea to the African church to take a firm stand against corruption.
Speaking at Nakuru’s ACK Cathedral in a commemoration of the church’s 50th anniversary, Archbishop Williams told church leaders they must stand up against land and money grabbers. “It will pit you against some of the most powerful individuals but God is always on the side of the righteous,” the principal leader of the Church of England said.
The Archbishop of Canterbury is to embark on a pastoral visit to the Anglican Church in Eastern Congo as the guest of the Most Revd Henri Isingoma, Primate of the Church of the Province of Congo. Prior to this the Archbishop will visit Kenya where he will be received by the Most Revd. Dr. Eliud Wabukala, Archbishop of Kenya, and have fellowship with the Christian community in the country.
In the course of his visit to Kenya, Dr Williams will join in with the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the Diocese of Nakuru which will include the presentation of certificates to clergy who have completed 25 years of continuous service. He will attend the dedication of a site for the building of the proposed Kenya Anglican University (KAU) near Mount Kenya and visit local development initiatives where churches and their communities are trying to overcome poverty and adapt to climate change ”“ including a successful biogas project in Machakos Diocese. He will also participate in a symposium in Nairobi to discuss the Church’s mission in the 21st century. During the visit he will learn about the role of the Kenyan church in national reconciliation.
For a small cadre of CIA veterans, the death of Osama bin Laden was more than just a national moment of relief and closure. It was also a measure of payback, a settling of a score for a pair of deaths, the details of which have remained a secret for 13 years.
Tom Shah and Molly Huckaby Hardy were among the 44 U.S. Embassy employees killed when a truck bomb exploded outside the embassy compound in Kenya in 1998.
Though it has never been publicly acknowledged, the two were working undercover for the CIA. In al-Qaida’s war on the United States, they are believed to be the first CIA casualties.
Leaders have been told to stop politicising the Ocampo Six trials and warned against public utterances likely to rekindle violence in the country.
Anglican Church Archbishop Eliud Wabukala on Sunday told a congregation at the All Saints Cathedral that inflammatory statements could lead to anarchy as Education minister Sam Ongeri warned against hate speech.
“The Ocampo Six and ICC trials should not be politicised. This is a foundation for chaos in the General Election,” Dr Wabukala warned.
Muslim leaders in Kenya are calling for government action on Christian schools which have banned students from wearing the hijab, the head covering traditionally worn by Muslim girls and women – writes Frederick Nzwili.
Church leaders have defended the ban, saying head teachers have the right to determine dress code in the schools, according to a denomination’s religious traditions, discipline and philosophies.
“The problem has been with us for some time. In our private schools, we do not encourage or allow hijab. We insist the children have to be children just like the others. These are our laid-down procedures,” Roman Archbishop Boniface Lele of Mombasa told ENInews on 6 April 2011, six days after the Muslim leaders issued the demand in the coastal city.
In a joint statement issued after a “Consultation of Bishops in Dialogue” meeting held in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania the church leaders said they had shared testimonies about partnership mission work. Through this a common thread had emerged “our experience of finding ourselves in each other.”
“Across the globe, across the Communion, we actually really need one another,” the bishops’ statement said. “We are stronger in relationship than when we are apart. This, we believe, is a work of engaging in Communion building rather than Communion breaking. In the words of the Toronto Congress of 1963 we are engaged in living in ‘mutual responsibility and interdependence’ (Ephesians 2:13-22)”.
The bishops hailed from Sudan, Botswana, Malawi, Burundi, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Canada, the United States and England. They met at the end of February as a group of partner pairs and triads and discussed a range of issues including human sexuality, slavery and tackling poverty.
Update: An ENS article appears here also.
Church leaders in Kenya have called for calm in the wake of an International Criminal Court prosecutor’s call for the indictment on charges of “crimes against humanity” of six Kenyan political leaders.
On Dec 15, Luis Moreno Ocampo asked the court in The Hague to charge former higher education minister William Ruto, Minister for Industrialization Henry Kosgey and radio broadcaster Joshua Sang with planning a campaign of murder and ethnic cleansing in the Rift Valley against supporters of President Mwai Kibaki.
In a separate indictment Moreno Ocampo charged Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta””son of Kenya’s first president Jomo Kenyatta””Cabinet secretary Francis Muthaura and former police commissioner Maj. Gen. Mohammed Hussein Ali with murder, deportation, persecution, rape and crimes against humanity committed against supporters of Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
Now, Kenyans have voted after having heard what we, the Catholic Church in Kenya, and various people had to tell them. We respect the outcome of the referendum, where the larger numbers of Kenyans have voted to accept this new constitution. However, truth and right are not about numbers. We therefore, as the shepherds placed to give moral guidance to our people, still reiterate the need to address the flawed moral issues in this new Constitution. That voice will never be silenced.
We thank all the Christians and many Kenyans of good will who voted “no” in consideration of the issues raised by the Church. We also acknowledge many who voted “yes” while having serious misgivings on the moral issues contained in the constitution. We understand the many pressures that were at play at this time, and call upon you to revisit and play a crucial role in addressing these issues as we now seek to implement the Constitution and forge a way forward in the general reforms we now have to embark on.
The Church desires an authentic reform process, and will remain at the forefront to support a good Constitution and the legal reform process in this country….
In Mombasa, Anglican Church bishop Julius Kalu said the church has no apologies to make for opposing the new law that was endorsed by Kenyans.
Kalu said they will stand by their position adding that they continue to push for the necessary amendments to be made.
The leaders at the same time commended Kenyans for maintaining peace during and after the referendum. Bishop Kalu was speaking during a harvest service held for ASK show officials.
He said the church had not lost any moral credibility saying that it was only expressing God’s law.
Kenya’s president heralded the passage of a new constitution Thursday as a “national renewal,” after results showed that close to 70 percent of the country had backed the document replacing a British colonial-era draft that inflated the powers of the presidency.
Opponents of the new constitution conceded defeat gracefully, paving the way for a peaceful transition to the new draft document. Ethnically charged violence left more than 1,000 people dead following the disputed 2007 presidential election, raising concerns about the aftermath of Wednesday’s vote.
“The historic journey that we began over 20 years ago is now coming to a happy end,” President Mwai Kibaki told hundreds of supporters in downtown Nairobi, some of whom blew the loud vuvuzela horn made famous during the recent World Cup. “Indeed, may the new constitutional dispensation be our shield and defender.”
On Wednesday Kenyans will vote on a new constitution that proposes to take on the corruption, tribalism and impunity that have bedeviled this would-be powerhouse of East Africa since its independence in 1963. But these are anxious days for ordinary Kenyans, despite the peace songs blaring on radio stations, assurances of ample security from the government and even a peace caravan complete with camels. Most people are still shell-shocked after the last national vote, a flawed 2007 poll that led to violence which left 1,300 dead and hundreds of thousands homeless.
Jamia Abdulrahim remembers all too well the weeks when frustrated supporters of opposition candidate Raila Odinga, now the Prime Minister, wrought havoc in the slum of Kibera where she lives. Amid the fires and looting, the children of one of her neighbors were burnt to death. Members of Abdulrahim’s family have not returned to Kibera to this day. Now, as members of parliament and politicians horse-traded and calculated their next moves, the people in Kibera worry. “For a long time, so many of the MP’s were silent,” Abdulrahim says. “When we saw that most of the MPs were voting for ‘yes’ [on the constitution] that was when I slept. Our leaders are our shadows. They reflect whatever we are thinking, whatever we are doing. If they are divided Kenya goes nowhere.”
The National Council of Churches accused Kenya’s government on Monday of involvement in a grenade attack on a rally against a draft constitution that would allow abortions in life-threatening pregnancies and recognize Islamic courts.
The accusation over Sunday evening’s attack, which killed six people, could set a contentious tone between the groups supporting and opposing the draft constitution, which the country votes on Aug. 4. Political analysts said leaders of the groups needed to tamp down emotions or violence could flare.
The August referendum will be the first nationwide vote since Kenya’s 2007 presidential election, which saw more than 1,000 people killed following days of rampaging violence after the contentious vote.
Political leaders on Monday tried to separate the blasts, which the police said were caused by grenades, from the political issues around the referendum. Prime Minister Raila Odinga said the attack was an “isolated case.” But the National Council of Churches blamed the attack on the government and supporters of the draft constitution.
Church leaders in Kenya have abandoned constitutional talks with the government, announcing that they will rally Christians to vote against the draft basic law for the east African country when it is put to a referendum.
The leaders cited insincerity on the government’s part when announcing their withdrawal on April 28.
“We will instead focus energies on educating the people of Kenya on the meaning of the cardinal issues and on campaigning for the rejection of the draft,” the Rev. Peter Karanja, an Anglican priest and general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Kenya, told journalists in Nairobi.
Anglican Archbishop Eluid Wabukala of Kenya has chosen to differ with other Christian leaders in his country over a draft constitution that would permit Islamic “Kadhi” courts, and authorize abortion.
The archbishop has urged Kenyans to back the law, while suggesting that controversial clauses in it could be revised in future.
“The document is better than the current one. It is my feeling that Kenyans should accept it and amend some clauses later,” Wabukala told journalists on April 3 in Nairobi, two days after the country’s parliament had passed the law.
The Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka Thursday met a group of religious leaders and exchanged views on the draft constitution and other national matters.
The leaders included Bishop Philip Sulumeti, Vice Chair of the Kenya Episcopal Conference of the Catholic Church, Archbishop Eliud Wabukala, Head of Anglican Churches of Kenya, Rev. Canon Peter Karanja, Secretary General, NCCK, Rt. Rev. David Gathanju, the P.C.E.A. Moderator and the Head of Methodist Church, Bishop Stephen Kanyaru among others.
They church leaders reiterated their position on abortion and emphasized that life begins at conception and any contrary position in the draft should be amended before being taken to referendum.
Ongoing political wrangling in Kenya’s coalition government is having a detrimental effect on its fight against corruption. Society of Missionaries for Africa Father Patrick Devine told us that unless the roots of conflict are addressed, Kenyans will never know peace.
The publication of a draft constitution for Kenya, recognising the presence of Muslim civil courts known as the Kadhi courts, has once again widened the Christian-Muslim split in the East African nation.
Kenyan Church leaders have dismissed the creation of the Kadhi Courts, as currently proposed in the draft constitution, as a ploy to “elevate one religion over the other,” while the Islamic clerics ha ve warned that they would mobilise the Muslim community to reject a new draft that omits the Kadhi courts.
Kenyans have been discussing the prospect of a new constitution. The last attempt to have a constitution, in November 2005, ended with a majority vote rejecting the draft constitution, which proposed to create the office of the Chief Kadhi, to enjoy similar constitutional powers as the Chief Justice.
A devastating drought is sweeping across Kenya, killing livestock, crops and children. It is stirring up tensions in the ramshackle slums where the water taps have run dry, and spawning ethnic conflict in the hinterland as communities fight over the last remaining pieces of fertile grazing land.
The twin hearts of Kenya’s economy, agriculture and tourism, are especially imperiled. The fabled game animals that safari-goers fly thousands of miles to see are keeling over from hunger and the picturesque savanna is now littered with an unusually large number of sun-bleached bones.
Ethiopia. Sudan. Somalia. Maybe even Niger and Chad. These countries have become almost synonymous with drought and famine. But Kenya? This nation is one of the most developed in Africa, home to a typically robust economy, countless United Nations offices and thousands of aid workers.
The aid community here has been predicting a disaster for months, saying that the rains had failed once again and that this could be the worst drought in more than a decade. But the Kenyan government, paralyzed by infighting and political maneuvering, seemed to shrug off the warnings.
Kenya’s coalition government has lost the confidence of its people and must go, the National Council of Churches of Kenya said on July 31 after the government reneged on its pledge to bring to justice those responsible for the 2007 post-election violence that led to the deaths of 1,500 people and the displacement of 300,000 others.
In a statement published on its website and distributed to the media by the group’s chairman, the Rev Canon Peter Karanja, the NCCK said the government’s decision to drop a special tribunal to “try the suspected perpetrators of the post-election violence is the greatest betrayal of the people of Kenya.”
President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga had “failed to protect justice” and “in the face of such betrayal, Kenyans must resoundingly put across a strong message that the moral authority of the grand coalition government to govern has been grossly undermined.”
Public hearings over Kenyan constitutional reforms lead to a shouting match and police intervention last week in Mombasa. The role of Sharia law within Kenya’s civil code prompted sharp disagreements between the Anglican Bishop of Mombasa, the Rt. Rev. Julius Kalu and Sheikh Khalifa Mohammad, chairman of the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya (CIPK).
The push for constitutional reform in Kenya began in the early 90’s, but took on added intensity following the 2007 elections, that sparked communal violence in what had been one of Africa’s “model democracies”.
Let me get to the point. The Anglican church in Kenya has decided to boycott the so-called Lambeth Conference to be held in July, a periodical spiritual fest of global Anglican bishops hosted in England by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The decision has already been communicated by none other than Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi. Most other African bishoprics had already decided the same, including Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Nigeria. Nigeria’s boycott, led by Archbishop Peter Akinola, has been particularly painful for Lambeth. Nigeria happens to host the biggest concentration of Anglicans of any country in the world.
The problem is homosexuality, which the African bishops reject. It all started with the Anglican wing in the United States, who call themselves Episcopalians. Some dioceses there have accepted to bless homosexual and lesbian marriages and even to ordain openly homosexual clergy.
It is not only Africans who are outraged. Many dioceses in Asia and Latin America are equally angry. Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is a rather weak man who has proved incapable of healing the rift.
THE Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) has demanded tough action against the outlawed Mungiki sect that has recently terrorized the country.
The Church accused politicians supporting the group of promoting anarchy. Anglican Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi said the Government should crack down on sect members, as they were engaged in crime.
“The Government has the machinery to crack down on this illegal group yet nothing is happening,” the prelate said.
Archbishop Nzimbi was speaking in Kericho on Thursday May 1, 2008 during the consecration and enthronement of the Rt Rev Jackson Nasoore ole Sapit as bishop of the Kericho Anglican Diocese.
Anglican Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi and Catholic Cardinal John Njue of Kenya have welcomed a joint visit by President Mwai Kibaki and his former political opponent, Raila Odinga, now prime minister, to camps for those displaced by recent post-election conflict. But they are also calling for compensation and a speedy resettlement of those who were forced from their abodes.
“This was a very important visit. We praise the leaders for that,” Nzimbi told Ecumenical News International in Nairobi. “It shows the leaders are concerned about the plight of these people.”
Nearly 300,000 people were forced to take refuge in camps following ethnic violence that erupted after the country’s electoral commission announced Kibaki as the winner of general elections held in December. Odinga said the election had been rigged. The conflict ended with the signing of a national peace accord in February. This in turn resulted in the formation of a coalition government between Kibaki’s Party of National Unity and Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement.
“It is painful to see innocent people turned into refugees in their own country,” said Njue in Embu in eastern Kenya on April 27, while urging the government to create a suitable environment for a speedy resettlement.
Kenyans have been asked to forgive one another and reconcile as the country heals from the effects of post-election violence.
Religious leaders also thanked God for saving Kenya from the brink of collapse.
Praying in Parliament, retired Anglican Bishop Peter Njenga said: “You saved us from hatred, danger and ethnic violence that had threatened to tear our country apart. We, therefore, ask you to help us remain united and set aside our differences for the benefit of the country.”
Kakamega Catholic diocese Bishop Philip Sulumeti recognised the heavy burden the more than 200 MPs had on their shoulders in ensuring that the country remained united.
Bishop Sulumeti said Kenyans had experienced difficult moments due to the election violence and regretted the loss of lives and destruction of property.
Kenya’s rival leaders broke their tense standoff on Thursday, agreeing to share power in a deal that may end the violence that has engulfed this nation but could be the beginning of a long and difficult political relationship.
The country seemed to let out a collective cheer as Mwai Kibaki, the president, and Raila Odinga, the top opposition leader, sat down at a desk in front of the president’s office, with a bank of television cameras rolling, and signed an agreement that creates a powerful prime minister position for Odinga and splits cabinet posts between the government and the opposition.
The two sides, which have been bitterly at odds for the past two months, will now be fused together in a government of national unity.
But there are still many thorny issues to resolve, starting with how the new government will function with essentially two bosses who have tried unsuccessfully to work together before. The government must also deal with the delicate business of reassigning the choice positions already given to Kibaki’s allies.
Hopes were dashed again in Kenya on Tuesday as former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan suspended mediation talks between presidential rivals Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga. The power-sharing agreement that appeared within reach last week is proving elusive, and it’s not hard to understand why. Kenya’s elections, like those in many other developing democracies, can be an effective mechanism for imposing majority rule. But that doesn’t necessarily translate into equitable divisions of power, wealth, economic opportunity or natural resources. Elections have destabilized such countries as Ivory Coast, Pakistan and Ethiopia, and the Palestinian territories. In Kenya, they have historically been winner-seizes-all contests that have been marred by violence and have left an increasingly bitter taste in the hungry mouths of the losers.
The Anglican Church has failed the people of Kenya by not speaking with a “prophetic voice” in the wake of the disputed Dec 27 elections, the former Archbishop of Kenya has declared.
“We did not need Tutu to come all the way from South Africa to solve this crisis. We did not need Kofi Annan…
The Church should have been able to solve this problem.
But they are seen as partisan,” Archbishop David Gitari told the East African Standard.
Kenya’s post-election violence has led to the deaths of over 1,000 people and forced over 350,000 from their homes.
Last week the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK) apologised to the nation for the partisan political divisions within the churches, which had muted its prophetic voice. “Religious leaders failed to stay on the middle path, they took sides and were unable to bring the unity needed when the crisis arose,” NCCK secretary-general Canon Peter Karanja said on Feb 13.
In an interview with the Standard, Dr Gitari recounted the church-led campaign to end one-party political rule in the 1990s. “The Church is a reconciler and a reconciler does not take sides unless he is completely sure the side he is taking is the right one,” he said.
However, we are called “the light of the world and salt of the earth. Whoever does wrong has to be challenged, whether that person is your brother or tribesman,” the retired archbishop said.
Kenya’s Anglican bishops either were “not courageous enough or have taken sides,” he charged. The church’s bishops were split down the middle along tribal lines in the current dispute and “it is wrong.”
They were “failing to be prophetic,” and had lost the public’s trust, Dr Gitari said.
Following a meeting in Limeru last week, the NCCK’s executive council released a statement acknowledging that “Church leaders have displayed partisan values in situations that called for national interest. The church has remained disunited and its voice swallowed in the cacophony of vested interests.”
Kenya’s Christian leaders called for a fresh start. “All have failed, including the church leaders.”
In a statement published on the NCCK’s website, church leaders called for the arrest of those involved in inciting violence as well as the disciplining of police officers who had used excessive force in responding to
the unrest.
They also called for the strengthening of the judiciary, Parliament and the Electoral Commission, and a ban on political parties that pandered to tribal interests and sectarian passions.
–This article appears in this week’s edition of the Church of England Newspaper
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in Kenya for a day of talks with political protagonists and leaders. She’s delivering a message from President Bush: Stop the violence and return to democracy. Bush is in Tanzania on the second leg of a five-nation African tour that is focusing on U.S. humanitarian efforts on the continent. Rice’s trip to Kenya girds former U.N. chief Kofi Annan’s mediation efforts there.
THE Archbishop of York has appealed for funds for humanitarian relief in Kenya.
Dr Sentamu, addressing the General Synod on Wednesday after his visit to Kenya last week, said that there had been progress in talks between the two main parties, at odds since the disputed December election. But after more than 1000 people had been killed, and 300,000 forced from their homes by the fighting, humanitarian relief was a top priority.
As part of the response, Dr Sentamu told Synod that he and the Archbishop of Canterbury were setting up a special fund, together with the Church Mission Society.
“In the many camps, I saw people with broken limbs and other physical injuries, and many who had been terribly traumatised. One woman had lost her mind, because she saw her husband hacked to death in front of her children.”
he Church was seen by President Kibaki and the Opposition leader, Raila Odinga, as vital in humanitarian relief, peace-building, and reconciliation, he said.
T
George G. Mbugua is a 42-year-old executive with two cars, a closet full of suits and a good job as the chief financial officer of a growing company.
His life has all the trappings of a professional anywhere. He recently joined a country club and has taken up golf.
But unlike anywhere else, this executive has to keep his eyes peeled on the daily commute for stone-throwing mobs. When he gets home after a long day, he has to explain to his daughters why people from different ethnic groups are hacking one another to death. Even his own affluent neighborhood has been affected. Some of the Mbuguas’ neighbors recently fled their five-bedroom homes because of the violence that has exploded in Kenya since a disputed election in December turned this promising African country upside down.
“Nobody’s untouched,” Mr. Mbugua said.
Of all the election-related conflicts that have cracked open in Kenya ”” Luos versus Kikuyus (two big ethnic groups), The Orange Democratic Movement versus the Party of National Unity (the leading political parties), police versus protesters ”” none may be more crucial than the struggle between those who seem to have nothing to lose, like the mobs in the slums who burn down their own neighborhoods, and those who are deeply invested in this country’s stability.
Read it all from the front page of yesterday’s New York Times.