Ninety six per cent of the country's 228,000 teachers have declared their wealth, it was revealed this week. Section 32 of the Public Officer Ethics Act, warns that people who fail to submit a declaration or clarification as required under the law, or who submit false or misleading information, are guilty of an offence.

Nice Mulejo was just 9 years old when her father decided to pull her out of school and give her away for marriage. But two days before the wedding, a concerned teacher learned of the preparations and begged Mulejo's father to allow the girl to attend school for one more day. When he reluctantly agreed, the teacher used the extra day to whisk Mulejo off to a government boarding school for girls.

Parliament has passed a Bill seeking to establish an autonomous National Commission on Gender and Development. The commission will co-ordinate and facilitate gender mainstreaming in national development. It will also initiate legal reforms on issues affecting women.

Ken Opala from Kenya, an investigative journalist who reported on the inhumane and "horrid lives" of death row convicts, has scooped the gold medal in the 2003 Natali Prize - one of the world's leading awards for journalists. Ken Opala is also the winner of the regional prize for Africa. He and other top-class journalists from Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Latin America were honoured by the International Federation of Journalists and the European Commission at a special prize giving ceremony held at the International Press Centre Résidence Palace, in Brussels on 24 October 2003.

The prospect of receiving anti-retroviral therapy was brought a little closer to millions of HIV-positive Kenyans recently, with the announcement of a price reduction for some of the drugs that are used to treat AIDS. British-based pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) said last week that it would cut the price of various anti-retrovirals (ARV’s) from between 25 to 43 percent. This comes amidst an ongoing campaign by AIDS activists to lower the cost of ARV’s, which prolong the lives of people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus.

It's now official: A severe famine will hit Northern Kenya in the next few weeks sparking off a food crisis of unprecedented proportions in the region. The disaster is likely to displace thousands and trigger mass migration into urban centres. Unless Government and relief organisations step in to forestall the disaster, thousands of livestock will die and hundreds of pastoralist families will stare starvation in the face.

More than 800 forestry officers in Kenya have been suspended while the government investigates alleged links with illegal loggers. They were given compulsory leave in an attempt to reverse a "worrisome trend in forest destruction", said Kenya's Environment Minister Newton Kulundu.

Pressure is mounting in the country against the anti-terrorism bill officially known as The Suppression of Terrorism Bill 2003. In addition to the public campaign against the bill, the human rights network is collecting signatures from Kenyans, and using these to pressurise the government to withdraw the bill. The Law Society of Kenya (LSK), the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) Kenya chapter, and religious organisations have also voiced their concern. Indeed, the LSK has offered to write a bill for the government if such a law is badly needed in the country. However, the government, through the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, has indicated that the bill will not be withdrawn. Talking to members of the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims (SUPKEM) recently the Minister, Mr. Kiraitu Murungi, said that the bill would be amended and not withdrawn. SUPKEM has led the campaign against the bill, which apparently discriminates against the Muslim community.

Government is considering banning community fundraising parties, or harambees, a cornerstone of life in Kenya. Officials say they became a tool for corruption and graft under former president Daniel arap Moi, as government workers routinely began demanding donations for funerals, school fees and weddings, or for the dispensation of birth certificates, licenses or yellow fever cards.

The Kibaki administration will be evading a historic responsibility if it fails to resolve issues that are pertinent to a peaceful transition and the very future of democracy, human rights and the rule of law in Kenya. The NARC government was voted into power primarily because the Moi government was regarded as deceptive and undemocratic. Undemocratic because the previous elections were characterised by violence and claims of malpractice; the state instruments were partisan; the government was intolerant to divergent opinions; and the government was insensitive to popular demands. However, since NARC came to power, there have been undercurrents that the Kibaki administration is no different from its predecessor after all.

Firstly, though the Kibaki government is more tolerant to different opinions, recent events indicate that the government is growing sensitive by the day. Indeed, like its predecessor, the administration is eager to use the oppressive tools of the state, including the provincial administration, to muzzle opposing opinions. The recent attempt by the administration to bar a Baringo Central MP from addressing his constituents has been interpreted in this light.

Paradoxically, while the NARC leaders were in the opposition, they vigorously campaigned for the dismantling of the provincial administration. The then official opposition party, Kibaki’s Democratic Party of Kenya, presented a memorandum to the constitution of Kenya Review Commission calling for the scrapping of the administration. However, on assuming power, they have not only defended the administration, but an assistant minister in the office of the president has been quoted as saying they will weed out those sympathetic to the previous government from the administration.

Secondly, the NARC leadership has increasingly been using the same old methods. In the recently held by-elections, NARC ministers have been criss-crossing the affected constituencies using the trappings of power, state resources and promising largesse from the state. Yet, when they were in the opposition last year, they constantly accused KANU, which was in power then, of using state resources for partisan gains. Closely related to that, of course, is the old tactic of divide and rule and the mentality that only those who support the government will benefit from government resources. Week after week, NARC ministers are quoted exhorting the various ethnic communities to support the government if they hope to benefit from its largesse.

Not even yesteryears’ democracy and human rights crusaders are immune from this anachronistic thinking. Indeed, when the president visited his home turf two months ago, there were deliberate efforts to isolate and condemn a part of Central Province that voted for the opposition. Apparently, the right to an opinion and association has lost meaning now that NARC is in power.

Thirdly, the old issue of selective application of the law has reared its ugly head again. There are increasing concerns that the war against corruption is turning out to be selective and targeted at specific individuals and families. For many key players in the current administration were in fact stalwarts of the previous administration. It’s therefore highly inconceivable that they were not involved in the corruption of that era. Indeed, their names appear in several public accounts and public investment committee reports. Others were mentioned in the various human rights reports as players in various human rights abuses, including ethnic violence. Yet, they continue serving in the cabinet as ministers, assistant ministers and others as influential NARC MPs, while government officers continue making allegations against certain families and individuals. Again the old adage that charity begins at home appears to have lost its meaning.

And fourthly is the question of the ruling coalition’s internal democracy. As it were, a political party cannot give a country what it lacks internally. Thus, NARC cannot entrench democracy in the country if it cannot grant the same to its members. One measure of a party’s attitude towards democracy is its capacity to subject its leaders to popular mandate, which is through party elections. Yet, this is the most divisive issue in NARC.

The established tradition worldwide is that parties, whose ideological persuasions are close, form coalitions after elections in order to constitute a government, where no single party wins a majority. For NARC, political parties and amorphous groups formed the coalition regardless of their political persuasions to win the December 2002 elections. Thus, the party lacks clear structures and leadership, has no quantifiable membership, lacks unifying ideology and, much worse, has not agreed whether to be one party or to retain its current amorphous state. The persistent war between factions of the coalitions means that the party will take sometime before it can guarantee its membership internal democracy. And that undermines the capacity of the coalition to entrench democracy in the country.

On the human rights front, the NARC government has done better than the previous KANU one. On assuming power, it accorded human rights campaigners positions in its ranks, opened torture chambers - among them the famous Nyayo House - and cautioned the security organs against abusing suspects’ rights. However, there have been genuine concerns that the country may be sliding back into the days of torture. In recent weeks, there have been complaints that police officers are perpetrating arbitrary arrests; extra-judicial killings are still prevalent while the security officers have been accused of torturing suspects, notably in Kisii.

Moreover, the government recently initiated a security operation in Turkana district, which was called off after a fierce battle between the residents and the security forces. While the number of the dead was given as six, there are fears that the operation left behind trails of human rights abuses, which are not yet documented.

There are also expressions of genuine grievances arising from the recent efforts to form a Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission. The concerns are that the proposed commission is a tactic to witch-hunt and humiliate certain individuals and communities, and not an effort to promote national reconciliation.

Secondly, the old tactic of destroying people’s income basis in an effort to remove them from certain areas, which was perfected in the 1990s, has been brought back. In the last few weeks, the government, in conjunction with the Nairobi City Council, has been demolishing informal business structures in order to remove those businesses from supposedly road reserves. The problem is that this destruction, which has only been conducted in upmarket areas, leaves many people without an income and thus compromises their economic rights.

More importantly, the recently published suppression of terrorism bill has sent shock waves into the spines of many Kenyans and human rights activists. Indeed, the bill has met resistance from many quarters including members of parliament. The resistance has its roots in two areas. Firstly the government published the bill without consulting with stakeholders, and appeared to be bowing to pressure from both the American and the British governments. Indeed, despite protests against this bill, the government has indicated its resolve not to withdraw the bill. Secondly, and much worse, the bill is highly repressive, runs against the national spirit and militates against our national sovereignty in favour of American and British interests.

In their analysis, the Chambers of Justice, a legal civil society group, says the bill germinates out of the US Patriot Act 2001, whose official title is Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act. In the US, the group notes, the “application of the Patriot Act by the US government has resulted in some of the grossest violations of human rights ever revealed since the Nuremberg trials.” It cites the case of the al-Qaeda suspects who are still incarcerated incommunicado at the US military base in Quatanamo Bay in Cuba, two years after they were arrested in Afghanistan.

The bill contravenes Sections 72, 74(1), 77 (2a), 77(4), 77(8), 82 and the bill of rights; contravenes the penal code section 9; and lowers the standard of the burden of proof as required in all criminal cases. Needless to add that the bill lacks adequate provisions for compensation of victims of terrorism and gives sweeping powers to the police. These powers include powers to detain cash belonging to a suspect and forfeits the property of suspected persons to the state. And, ironically, the bill not only allows foreign security forces, notably American and British, to arrest and detain Kenyans, but it also sanctions torture and police brutality. Indeed, there are reports that a team of Kenyan CID officers and the American FBI agents tortured suspects arrested recently in Mombasa on suspicion of terrorism.

And lastly, there is the issue of ratification and adoption of the international human rights conventions in Kenya. Kenya is a signatory to such important treaties as the African Charter of Human Rights and People's Rights (ACHPR) of 1981, the African Charter of the Rights and Welfare of the Child, and which are both acceptable by NEPAD's human rights committee. However, the country still lags behind in legislating and effecting these conventions.

* Evans Wafula is an advocacy officer with the Independent Medico Legal Unit in Kenya.

* Please send comments on this editorial to

The Sh6 billion-a-year fish industry is under threat from declining fish species in Lake Victoria, experts warn. Experts said there was a marked decline in fisheries resources in Africa's largest fresh water lake, posing a serious threat to the lucrative industry that employs upwards of 150,000 people.

Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki says the "day of reckoning" has arrived for those used to thriving on corruption. Ruling out the possibility of pardoning the culprits, President Kibaki said that his government's war on corruption was a serious one and that nobody should treat the crusade as a joke.

The maiden issue of Kenya's first literary magazine carries a smouldering tale of a taboo romance between two Kenyans - one ethnic Indian, one African. They cuddle behind the city's Indian haunt called Diamond Plaza. They discuss race and class. They swoon over his Swahili rap music and her homemade spiced kebabs "in a coup of cultural diversity," the author writes.

"The Kenyan Community Abroad is pleasantly surprised by the decision by the Kenyan government to follow through with the setting up of tribunals to investigate high ranking members of the judicial system on corruption charges. The most malignant ailment that has crippled our country in the last three decades has been endemic corruption that has spread through the very fabric of our nation."
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* Judges Suspended, Investigated for Alleged Corruption

A Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission will be formed in Kenya, it has been revealed. The commission may open a can of historical and legal worms in the country. Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister, Kiraitu Murungi, said the Government will form the commission after he received findings of a task force led by the Kenya Human Rights Commission chairman, Prof Makau Mutua.

The three men charged with the high-profile murder of a Kenyan academic who was helping to redraft the constitution say they were forced to confess by police. Their lawyer Muriuki Kanyiri said they were tortured for five days and told to say they were working on the orders of a specific politician.

Northern Kenya is home to two million people, an 80 percent illiteracy rate, poor living conditions and health care, low rainfall, scarce water and diminishing grazing for the mainly pastorilist population. Present day circumstances are bad enough, but the people have also suffered from dehumanising acts inflicted on them first by British colonial rule and then the subsequent post-independent governments of Kenyatta and Moi. According to the organisation the Northern Forum for Democracy: "The situation prevailing in Northern Kenya is exceptional as communities have over the years suffered from gross injustices. It makes them feel that it's a conspiracy of all Kenyans against then and therefore a situation of hopelessness reigns."

Kenya's gays and lesbians plan to forward their grievances to the government and lobby for recognition in a draft constitution currently being discussed in Nairobi by 629 delegates from across the East African country.

Kenyan public sector officials are perceived to be just as corrupt under President Mwai Kibaki as they were under former president Daniel arap Moi, according to the anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International (TI). Kenya scored 1.9 out of a clean score of 10 in both this year's and last year's Corruption Perceptions Index, formulated by TI, which reflects perceived levels of corruption among politicians and public officials.

During the 1990s more than half a million Kenyans were internally displaced because of violence along inter-ethnic lines largely instigated by the ruling KANU (Kenya African National Union) in response to the introduction of multi-party democracy. The new government, which is a coalition of former opposition parties, has embarked on an ambitious programme to eliminate corruption and enhance peace and reconciliation efforts. Despite the change in the political climate, few of the reported 350,000 internally displaced people returned to their original homes during 2003, according to the Global IDP Project.