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The ‘Sinai Deaths’ Tragedy – Are we really going to see the last of these?!?!?

Courtesy of The Nation
My condolences to the families of the victims of Monday’s petrol explosion tragedy, and further quick recoveries to the many who are still fighting for their lives in hospitals around the city. Many were still in bed – probably unemployed, others were roaming the streets – hoping to get something to do for the day, others had just come back from slaving in the industrial area factories/industries – having worked for more almost 14 hours with little or no pay, and sadly others were children preparing for or heading off to school – just resuming after having been home for a whole week following the week –long teachers strike, and going back to the same conditions that will probably ensure they struggle to make something of themselves.
Gandhi said that a government worth its salt is one that cares for its most vulnerable. The continued spillage on to the streams and river that pass through the informal settlement, by the state corporation charged with ensuring that the country is ‘oiled’ (or is it ‘gased’?!) as testified by the residents, and a continued denial by the state of corporation of the continued spillage and liability for the tragedy, is clear testimony of a government that has completely lost sight of the reason of its very existence.
Visits by government officials, crazy members of parliament storming into the KPC offices demanding compensation and adhoc commitments by the government officials to compensate victims and …I hear…. Paying for their one year’s rent does nothing but good but rather serves to ‘freshen the already burning and painful wounds of the victims’ – we’ve been through this before.
Poverty and unemployment continues to be a ‘thorn in the flesh’ of Kenya’s development. At this rate, the cycle is likely to continue as the same child who fall victim to or barely survives such a tragedy, is the same one who goes to a overcrowded class room, hardly gets a book to read when he goes home, has to survive in a home fit to house (and indeed does house) pigs, the same child will drop out of school, get a job at a factory nearby probably the same one that will almost (or surely) cause his death on his way home and he will be too famished and tired to run away, and will be too broke not to want to carry some of the spilling fuel to sell for a meal or a jug of liquor that just might be his last drink ….and the cycle goes on and on and on…..
 Leadership centered on creating celebrities out of criminals and perpetrators of the worst possible crimes experienced in Kenya’s history is a sad reality. The same is true of other African countries which despite knowledge of the rot in our country lack the intestinal fortitude to point it out in the spirit of good neighborliness… the say in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king!
As we move into an election year, let us stop and think, is it worth living in country that continues to witness a serious deficiency in leadership? And if so is there anything I can do, this time round, to change that?  

An official human rights defender’s chide
I wish to take this opportunity to welcome back home a human rights defender/activist who fell victim to a rotten system that feels nothing for constitutionalism and the rule of law. I would wish to drag the Uganda Government into this for a serious whooping but the blame squarely lies on the Kenyan Government.
Just when he tried to elicit his disgust for Kenya’s exportation of torture and calling for the rule of law, Al Amin Kimathi fell victim to that which he has for a long time championed against. For almost one year now, he has been held under the worst conditions at a maximum security prison in Uganda facing charges of being involved in terrorist activities that led to the 2010 Uganda suicide attacks that left many dead and scores injured.
Several pleas were made to the government to intervene but the same fell on deaf ears as it became apparent that Kenya was in on it.
Kenya my boast of being a believer in the protection of fundamental freedoms, but there is little believing when it goes ahead and exports torture! Coalescing with a country that has little or no regard for human rights and the rule of law makes Kenya just as guilty (Soering v. United Kingdom [Application no. 14038/88, judgment of July, 1989])
The human right defender’s struggle must continue. I hope he will get a forum to put the government to task over this issue and further hope he will get reprieve for what he has had to endure. I salute you comrade!

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