Several white students in South Africa face criminal charges after allegedly forcing black campus employees to eat food that had been urinated on. A video has surfaced which appears to show the students instructing five elderly workers to drink beer and perform athletic tasks. At one point, the University of Free State employees are apparently forced to eat food which has been urinated on.

Pambazuka News spoke with Wangui Wa Goro, a public intellectual, writer, translator and academic and an Associate Fellow at the Institute of Human Rights and Social Justice at London Metropolitan University about the power sharing agreement reached by Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga on February 28, 2008. Pambazuka News readers will remember her for her incisive commentary on Kenya pre and post the crisis. We spoke about the implications of the peace-deal on the larger questions of peace and justice, the meaning of democracy itself, the continuing role of Civil Society Organizations and lessons for other African countries.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: The power sharing deal has Raila Odinga as the Prime Minister and Mwai Kibaki remaining the President. We are not yet clear on exact day-to-day functioning of each – but what are your initial thoughts?

WANGUI WA GORO: I am glad that the parties have come to some agreement at the moment because it will ease the tension in the country. I am however wary because of the way in which we have witnessed the mediation process. I think that many Kenyans are skeptical about the goodwill of some in the process. As Kenyans, we are also aware of our capacity for duplicity and doubletalk ("ujanja").

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Both Kibaki and Raila formed a coalition government shortly after the 2002 elections that collapsed and in way, the violence we saw was a direct result of their inability to get along – do you a see a difference this time? Will it hold?

WANGUI WA GORO: I think the fact that the process is being witnessed nationally and internationally by all will place a huge burden on those who want to cheat unlike before when “Memorandums of Understanding” were agreed behind closed doors. This is a significant difference between 2002 and 2008.

I am however still concerned that the Kenyan people should know the outcome of the election that just took place. These agreements could undermine our confidence in the mechanisms of democracy and the institutions for this. We are bowing to the will of individuals rather than to the will of our nation and this is wrong. I hope, therefore, that this arrangement is a transitional one. We are rolling back our attainment of multipartism which should provide checks and balances.

I think the loss of life and displacements we have witnessed should act as a wake up call for all of us and the world and if the two leaders are serious and actually work together, this may work. I still believe that the civil society, other political players and the international community should continue pressing for the delivery of the agreement in order for the transitional process and justice to take place. The hard work now has a framework as does the chance for a new constitution. Kenyans will have to work hard to heal the nation and to continue to seek peace, truth and justice. I hope that these processes can heal the nation. I pray that for this alone, that peace will hold.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Do you see a continuing role for the international community? Should there be a difference between African and Western pressure?

WANGUI WA GORO: No. I think that what should matter the most is what Kenyans want and the African and international pressure should reflect that will of the Kenyan people. I see a continued role of the international community in "supervising" the agreement and ensuring that Kenya does not slide into anarchy. This they can do by using the agreement to hold individuals and their parties to account.

I hope that The Kofi Annan Team remains with Kenyans for the duration of the Transitional Period in an advisory or consultative role to ensure that we remain within the spirit and letter of the agreements. I hope that Parliament will also take responsibility for running the affairs of the country and that Kenyans find mechanisms for engaging constructively with their leaders, particularly the civil society in an organized form. We have never been here in our history.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: The civil society organizations have been agitating for an arrangement that would make peace possible. What should their role be in the post-peace deal period?

WANGUI WA GORO: The role of the civil society is now more crucial than ever. They will have to be the domestic monitors of the agreement and further, because of their knowledge and the way in which they have conducted themselves over the last two months, they will find an important role as a lobby which is not entrenched in the processes. They can engage constructively and this will be very important for the country. We have also seen the importance of their vanguard role in this process. There are many lessons to be learned here and I hope that unlike 2002, they do not let up.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: A short question- Where are the people in this deal?

WANGUI WA GORO: That is precisely the point! I believe that the discussions with Dr. Kofi Annan are continuing on the longer-term issues this coming Friday. We should wait and see what is agreed then.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Moving forward - The Kenyan society has been divided in ways we have not seen before- probably not since the end of British colonialism. More than 1,500 dead, hundreds of thousands of refugees, not to speak of an economy in tatters – how do we repair the torn fabric?

WANGUI WA GORO: On the Kenyan society being divided for the first time, this is not correct. Divide and rule tactics were part of British colonial rule. Kenya has also had very difficult moments in its history such as the assassination of Tom Mboya when the so called differences amongst ethnicities were supposed to be very high. People were very hurt then.

And many other terrible things have happened to people like Pio Gama Pinto, Bishop Muge, JM Kariuki, Robert Ouko etc. and Kenyans can see patterns here which are not ethnically driven. Some of these leaders were asking fundamental questions about injustice and inequality. We have also had a coup d'etat in 1982 when many people died, and in 1984 many Kenyans were killed in the Wagalla Massacre. In 1992 many Kenyans were displaced from the Rift Valley and many were also killed - over 1500. And between 1982 to 1990 many Kenyans were jailed, tortured, killed and exiled. These traumas have continued since independence. I hope that this disregard for life and for Kenyans stops for once and for all. All of us are important and our lives are precious in equal measure.

You will also know that those who fought for freedom have died in abject poverty and without recognition until recently. We have to have a broader understanding of our history and not allow the distortions of "ethnicism" to blind us to the class dimension, corruption, poverty and disenfranchisement of the majority Kenyans of all ethnicities, cultures and religions.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Can we reflect on the role of Western democracy on historical legacies? Does the Kenya crisis suggest there is something wrong with Western democracy? What does African democracy look like?

WANGUI WA GORO: I think that there is a difference between the cultures of practice of "democracy" and what we understand as democratic principals. Democracies are built over time through good practice over years. There must be some of the values of what is called a "good society" which people seem to understand to be in the contract for democracy such as accountability, representation, transparency and the institutions and mechanism for delivering these such as the rule of law, independent institutions such as Parliament and the Judiciary which remove entrenched power from parties or individuals..

Now, I don't think we have seen African Democracy working at its best in Kenya or much of Africa because of the kinds of legacies and traditions and practices we adopted after Independence. You will know we inherited the Constitution and some of the practices from colonial rule, in our case from Britain. For instance, the police force was used to defend the state from the people and this culture has continued. We did not have a moment of reflection of the kind of nation state we might want for ourselves. This question of regional representation and distribution of resources for instance is one;, it was raised for debate but then shelved and ignored, and is at the heart of some of the difficulties we have today.

The philosophy of forgive and forget is another. Another is the power of the presidency which grew and grew since Kenyatta and became entrenched in the constitution because people became so frightened of him and the Presidency. This continued under Moi and in 1982, Kenya moved from a de facto one party state to a de jure one party state which really entrenched Moi's dictatorship.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Is it all about what the rulers want, not what citizens want…So we need constitutional reforms that speaks to the Kenyan political reality, for example?

WANGUI WA GORO: I think that is what has come out as a most over riding desire of the Kenyan people. But as you know, fine constitutions can be written, and in fact, the first Kenyan one was not that bad. It is having it implemented that is a problem. Britain for instance does not have a written tradition but it evolves rules and values through Acts of Parliament and the law. Kenyans can use this opportunity to enshrine the kind of nation they want and BOMAS began to address this issue. I think a new constitution will be very good for Kenya because KENYANS will feel that they own it.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What does equality mean to democracy? It is a word that is assumed to be already contained in democracy, yet we see nations with vicious inequalities call themselves democratic - your thoughts?

WANGUI WA GORO: On paper, Kenya has a Bill of Rights which recognises equality. But in reality, we have seen the day to day treatment of women, people with disabilities, people of "other" religions or "ethnicities" treated badly. In public, it is difficult to pass bills against violence against women such as rape. There are no policies on the aged and it is only recently that the rights of the child have come on board.

Words are meaningless if people do not feel protected from their historic and cultural vulnerabilities. Our laws have been couched in ambiguous terms such as both recognising civil law and common law. We are not aware of what these issues mean in a diverse nation state of different ethnicities and religious persuasions so you will have one Kenyan treated differently than another because of common law which recognises the different cultures. We also do not know about each others cultures so we are limited in our arguments for Kenyan universal values. Our democracy will be most tested and beneficial when we address these issues because they lie at the heart of our current disquiet over disenfranchisement from power and lack of self-determination.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Wangui, the question of whether Kenya should be a federal state has come up quite a bit - those for it argue that resources will be distributed better - those against it that it will entrench ethnic tension. Your take?

WANGUI WA GORO: I think that a federal state would be premature. I think that if local government was strong and there was less corruption, such a system could work. As it is now, some regions have been marginalised eternally in punitive ways and naturally they will want to have federal states. Our local government has also not been representative in the political sense or professional enough, similar to the public institutions which remain in a colonial and postcolonial time warp. They need to modernize to reflect the modern Kenyan and global world. Then we have this parallel system of administration of Provincial and District Officers who are powerful but not locally accountable. I think that these arrangements cannot foster democratic engagement when power is distributed through patronage. Appointment to senior positions has also been problematic as has been corruption and the allocation of resources.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: How do we develop and implement a people's agenda?

WANGUI WA GORO: I think that the local issues matter a great deal to people. Their day-to-day lives. Having power and control over their own immediate destiny -which cannot be done by some centralized remote, and often middleclass or bourgeois administration. There needs to be genuine engagement with governance by the people, ways of holding their elected leaders to account and ways for having their voices heard and acted upon. As we have lived in Kenya, it has been hard in the past to have access to your elected leader and people are frightened of these people whom they elected. That is my recollection of Kenya as I knew it then.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Finally Wangui, what can countries like Zimbabwe and South Africa learn from Kenya? Or countries like Uganda or Ethiopia where Museveni or Meles might point to Kenya as a warning for playing around with the fire of democracy? Are there lessons to be gleaned across the board?

WANGUI WA GORO: I think we need to start thinking outside the box. I think the whole of Africa can learn from itself. There are lessons that point to the failures of the post colonial states from the North to the South. You can see the upheaval everywhere. There are particularities about each of our countries, such as the resilience of the pro-people cultures and their continuities. There are also longer traditions of institutionalization in some places like South Africa and the economic power of Apartheid is very deeply entrenched.

So we need to learn from all our cultures and see how we can improve on the particular. The cultures we cultivate are also important, such as the cultures of struggle, the cultures of fear, the cultures of solidarity. What has amazed me in these last few weeks is the strength of individuals and organizations in the civil society and the pro-people movements and their willingness to defend "the good of society".

I hope that Kenyans and our leaders are willing to give peace, truth, justice and reconciliation a try. It will be very difficult to heal our nation now that blood has flown. There is no turning back the clock and these hurts remain for a very long time. We must learn from the holocausts in our continent and elsewhere. Kenya is and can be a wonderful place.

*Wangui Wa Goro, a public intellectual, writer, translator and academic and an Associate Fellow at the Institute of Human Rights and Social Justice at London Metropolitan University.

**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Survivors of an earthquake that hit southwestern Rwanda in early February have complained that their shelter needs have not been adequately met, despite efforts to provide them with other basic necessities. "The painful day-to-day living conditions that we are currently facing remain largely forgotten, despite relief provided to us in days following the quake," said Gaston Minani, a father of five, who lost his home in Rusizi district.

The underground bomb shelter in Levinsky Park near Tel Aviv's Central Bus Station has, in recent months, turned into a squalid, staggeringly overcrowded little refugee camp. Some 200 African men, mainly from Eritrea, sleep crammed into every possible nook and cranny in two airless, low-ceilinged rooms and a corridor. The dirty concrete floor is heaped with mattresses and blankets, and scattered with scraps of food and debris. Hanging from the walls are plastic bags stuffed with clothing.

The Centre of African Studies (London), based at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), is pleased to announce a two-day conference on ‘Researching Violence and Conflict: Methodological and Ethical Considerations,’ to be held at SOAS 4 and 5 July 2008. This conference will be held in conjunction with the Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies (AEGIS).

Speaking ahead of the World Bank/ International Monetary Fund (IMF) 2008 spring meeting in Washington, United States of America in April 2008. Africa IDP Voice said it was now vital to introduce a new United Nations Millennium Development Goal (MDG) requiring governments to prevent and reduce prevalence of Internal Displacement and put in place national , regional and international legal, policy and institutional frameworks for their protection and assistance as an indispensable part of the fight against poverty.

In this course, participants will increase their understanding of the psychosocial consequences for refugees living in camps and urban settings and learn practical methods they can use to implement effective family and community based interventions. The course will take place in the 6th floor lounge, Hill House, Main Campus at the American University in Cairo from Monday June 16 to Saturday June 21, 2008 (excluding Friday) everyday from 9 am to 5 pm.

The course will cover various advanced topics in international refugee law. Topics to be covered include the \"nexus\" requirement of the definition; the meaning of \"persecution\"; developments in the interpretation of the exclusion provisions of the Convention; the non-refoulement and expulsion provisions of the Convention; refugee rights guaranteed by the Convention; and, the interaction between the Convention and other regional and complementary forms of protection. The course will take place in the 6th floor lounge, Hill House, Main Campus at the American University in Cairo from Monday June 02 to Saturday June 07, 2008 (excluding Friday) everyday from 9 am to 5 pm.

Ugandan rebels have walked out of peace talks because the government refused their demands for senior government posts, a rebel spokesperson said on Friday. The two sides have been meeting in Sudan-mediated peace talks since July 2006 in an effort to resolve a brutal 20-year insurgency in northern Uganda. Earlier this week, the talks took a major step forward with an agreement on how to prosecute alleged war crime

Kenya is at risk of plunging into a new wave of violence, despite progress in negotiations to end a political crisis, because several armed groups are mobilising on all sides of the country’s ethno-political divisions, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG) think-tank. Firearms are much less widely available in Kenya than in neighbouring countries. In the context of this article, “armed groups” include those using machetes, spears, poison arrows and clubs.

As refugees began moving from the northern Cameroonian town of Kousseri to a more permanent site in Maltam some 32 kilometres away this week, services and facilities were being rapidly prepared to accept them but conditions remain extremely basic. Refugees, most of whom fled Chad at the beginning of February when anti-government rebels launched an attack on the capital N’djamena, started being trucked to Maltam on 16 February.

In the coming months, up to 24,000 Mauritanians will return home after almost 20 years in exile. Many have been living in refugee camps in Senegal since a minor border dispute escalated into deadly ethnic riots in 1989. Some black Mauritanians later returned on a voluntary basis, but the vast majority remained in Senegal.

Angola has been ranked worst in the world for tackling child deaths, in a new report by a UK-based charity that compares child deaths to a country's income per person. Oil-rich Angola has a child mortality rate of 260 deaths per thousand - 162 deaths higher than predicted for its economy's size, according to the report, released on Monday.

In a historic decision, a French court has accepted a request of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to try Wenceslas Munyeshyaka and Laurent Bucyibaruta before French courts for their alleged participation in the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Munyeshyaka was a priest in charge of the St Famille parish in Kigali during the genocide in which countless Victims who sought refuge there were brutally massacred.

Sierra Leone's war crimes court on Friday rejected an appeal by three former militia leaders against long jail sentences handed down last July for atrocities committed during the former British colony's civil war. "The court finds no reason to interfere (with the sentences)," Presiding Judge George Gelaga King told the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

Violence in eastern Chad is preventing aid workers from reaching thousands of refugees who fled Sudanese government attacks in Darfur last week, with a new wave of refugees expected after fresh bombardments. Beatrice Godefroy, head of the Swiss branch of Doctors Without Borders in Chad, told Reuters up to 8,000 refugees had poured across the border from Darfur last week and were living rough in the desolate area around the border town of Birak.

Congolese Tutsi rebels said on Friday they were suspending participation in an east Congo ceasefire commission until an independent inquiry was launched into United Nations allegations that they massacred civilians. The move announced by renegade Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda marked the latest hitch in a ceasefire accord for eastern Democratic Republic of Congo signed on January 23 by Nkunda's rebels, the government and rival militia groups.

The Ugandan government has struck a deal with the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) about where their leaders will be tried. LRA leaders accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes would be tried by a national court under the terms of the deal. Many of the people have been charged with horrific crimes – and international warrants have been out for their arrest for more than two and a half years.

The Bush administration has asked the Supreme Court to throw out a lawsuit that accuses more than 30 U.S. and European corporations of violating international law by assisting South Africa's former apartheid government. The case -- three suits being considered jointly -- seeks up to $400 billion in damages from corporations such as Ford Motor Co., IBM Corp., Citigroup Inc., and General Electric Co., for their business relationships with the South African government from 1948 to 1994, according to court papers.

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) urges the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) to "to adopt a specific resolution condemning intimidation of human rights defenders, and demand respect for the physical and moral integrity of human rights defenders" amongst other things.

MEMORANDUM TO THE ACHPR ON THE HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION IN KENYA

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), its member organisation, the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC), and the Kenyans For Peace, Truth and Justice (KPTJ – a coalition of Kenya's governance, human rights and legal organizations), welcome the decision of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) to examine the human rights situation in Kenya at the occasion of its 4th extraordinary session which will be held in Banjul, The Gambia, from 15 to 24 February 2008.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

FIDH, KHRC and KPTJ request the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights to:

1. Invite Kenyan, African and International NGOs to present an assessment of the state of human rights in Kenya at the occasion of the 4th extraordinary session.

2. Adopt a resolution at the occasion of the 4th extraordinary session to: a) Condemn the serious violations of the provisions of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and its Protocol on the Rights of Women;

b) Denounce the electoral irregularities that were committed during the presidential ballot of 27 December 2007 as blatant violation of the African Charter on Elections, Democracy and Governance;

c) Reaffirm support toward the efforts of the Mediation Team towards effective political solution to the crisis, based on peace, truth and justice ;

d) Request the Kenyan authorities and any other duty-bearers to: ? ensure unobstructed investigations on the alleged breach of the Presidential and National Assembly Elections Act and the Constitution of Kenya by the Electoral Commission of Kenya;

? ensure the protection of civilians, including human rights defenders; ? take all necessary measures to ensure the end of impunity of the authors, co-authors and instigators of post electoral inter-ethnic violence;

? ensure that all individuals responsible for directly inciting ethnic violence be investigated and prosecuted;

? ensure that all members of security forces responsible for disproportionate repression of peaceful demonstrators and other individuals be investigated and prosecuted; ? ensure the opening of investigations against militia members responsible for human rights violations;

? ensure unobstructed investigations on the murder of two opposition Members of Parliament; death threats pronounced against the human rights defenders;

? take all the necessary measures to ensure respect for the United Nations (UN) Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement;

? establish transitional justice mechanisms to address the underlying causes of the violence and provide justice addressing immediate and historical wrongs in Kenya;

? more generally, to take all necessary measures to settle the root causes of the crisis in Kenya, notably the issue of land and internally displaced persons, and to guarantee justice, respect for human rights and democratic governance.

3) Request, together with Kenyan and International NGOs, a meeting with the African Union Peace and Security Council, to present the human rights situation in the country so as to mitigate or prevent further or imminent violations

4) Invoke its inherent jurisdiction to draw the attention of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government the to existence of serious or massive violations of human rights in Kenya, and the trigger, namely the flawed presidential election

5) Urge the Member States to adopt the African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa. FIDH, KHRC and KPTJ request the Special Rapporteur of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Human Rights Defenders in Africa:

? To adopt a specific resolution condemning intimidation of human rights defenders, and demand respect for the physical and moral integrity of human rights defenders, in conformity with the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and the Declaration on the protection of Human Rights Defenders adopted in 1998 by the United Nations General Assembly.

*Signed by: International Federation for Human Rights Kenya Human Rights Commission Kenyans for Peace, Truth and Justice : ? Africa Centre for Open Governance (AfriCOG) ? Awaaz ? Centre for Law and Research International (CLARION) ? Centre for Multiparty Democracy (CMD) ? Centre for Rights, Education and Awareness for Women (CREAW) ? (CRADLE) ? Constitution and Reform Education Consortium (CRECO) ? East African Law Society (EALS) ? Haki Focus ? Hema la Katiba ? Independent Medico-Legal Unit (IMLU) ? Innovative Lawyering ? Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA) ? Institute for Education in Democracy (IED) ? International Commission of Jurists (ICJ-Kenya) ? Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) ? Kenya Leadership Institute (KLI) ? Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) ? Kituo cha Sheria ? Media Institute ? Muslim Human Rights Forum ? National Constitution Executive Council (NCEC) ? Regional Centre for Stability, Security and Peace in Africa ? Sankara Centre ? Society for International Development (SID) ? Urgent Action Fund (UAF)-Africa ? Youth Agenda.

**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org