Kenya’s prime minister looks back on 2008 violence, and with hope at 2009

A year ago, opposition leader Raila Odinga hit the streets to protest a flawed presidential election that sparked the deadliest political standoff in Kenya’s post-independence history.

Demonstrations led to riots and then ethnic clashes that spread across this East African nation, leaving more than 1,000 people dead and 350,000 homeless.

It wasn’t the first time Odinga had to fight to be heard. The son of a prominent, though marginalized, political family, Odinga says he’s been tear-gassed so many times that he has permanent eye damage.

Odinga doesn’t have to run through the streets anymore. Today he is Kenya’s prime minister under a power-sharing agreement with his rival, President Mwai Kibaki.

In an interview last week with The Times in the coastal resort of Diani Beach, Odinga spoke about the legacy of last year’s violence, why reforms haven’t moved faster, the difficulties in sharing power with his former rival and in punishing those with blood on their hands, and his expectations for 2009. A longer version of this interview appears on the Web at www.latimes.com/world.

A year after the postelection violence, would you say Kenya has changed as a nation?

The country has changed fundamentally. There was a pretense that Kenya was a united country. That facade was removed by the crisis when Kenyans showed that it is a divided country, torn along ethnic lines. The crisis has helped Kenyans rediscover themselves. And Kenyans have discovered the power of the people, that if they unite and make some demands, they are able to get what they want.

More than 1,000 people died. Looking back, what do you think they died for?

In the history of any country, a time comes when the people cannot tolerate political dictatorship and they rise up to resist forcibly. Many countries have gone through this. America could not tolerate British colonialism. Kenyans rose against the British too. The deaths are the consequences of the people’s revolution. It’s unfortunate, but people were not willing to accept election-rigging.

Do you wish you had done more to try to stop the violence?

I don’t think it was in our power to stop what happened. Election-rigging was the trigger that set in motion a chain reaction [of grievances] dealing with unresolved disputes and historical injustices that had been simmering for many years. Some people took advantage of the situation to settle those disputes.

Also there was state-sponsored terrorism. The shoot-to-kill orders by the police were responsible for more than 50% of the deaths. We could not have prevented those. These protests were spontaneous, not organized.

Since becoming prime minister, what are you most proud of?

I have been able to institute the authority of the office of the prime minister. This is a new institution that is clawing power from the presidency. I’m trying to create a balance and institute discipline within the civil service. This is not an easy task.

There is an impression that reforms are taking too long. It’s taken nearly a year just to get rid of an election commission that nearly everyone agrees did a poor job. Some have questioned whether you are still committed to reform.

Things are taking so long because we are running a coalition government. We have brought two partners who were bitter rivals together. First there are fears and suspicions. And you need to appreciate that some of the reforms needed run contrary to the interests of the other coalition partner. When you want to remove the election commission, you need to know that the commission was put in place by the other partner and, to a certain extent, the things they did were on instructions of the other partner. If this were a one-party government, things would move much faster. It’s not that we have forgotten the reform agenda. It’s that we’ve had to compromise to accommodate the coalition partner.

How is your relationship with Kibaki?

It’s fairly positive and cordial. We have weekly meetings in which we compare notes and agree on agendas. We agree most of the time. The problem really is with people you call the president’s men, the powers behind the throne. They try to undermine. . . . There is an office in the civil service that used to be very powerful . . . permanent secretary of the office of the president. That was the [de facto] prime minister, but headed by a civil servant. He’s still there.

Let’s talk about impunity. More than 1,000 people were killed, tens of thousands of homes burned, widespread looting. Yet almost no one has been punished. You’ve called for amnesty for some perpetrators. But shouldn’t there be justice?

People who are guilty of serious crimes against humanity need to be punished, irrespective of their positions, then and now. The question has always been who should identify and prosecute. Our view is that law enforcement agencies are compromised. They are themselves implicated. The police commissioner who gave instructions to shoot to kill should not be allowed to bring the charges. They are trying to arrest and charge civilians, but they themselves are getting off scot-free. There is this incident where a police officer was captured on TV tracking down innocent civilians and shooting them.

What’s the state of democracy in Africa? After flawed elections in Kenya and Zimbabwe, many believe the continent is backsliding.

African democracy is on a downward trend. We had made quite a bit of progress after the fall of the Soviet Union. That brought a wind of change across the continent. It brought down military dictators and single-party dictators and in their place came multiparty democracies. This first phase was characterized by perfunctory, superficial changes. New constitutions allowed for multiparty democracies and opposition. But in a number of cases the opposition was unprepared and elections perpetuated the same elite. . . .

In the next phase, the opposition is gaining strength and threatening the ruling parties. This is a more difficult phase. The culture of relinquishing power is not there yet in Africa. The African Union is impotent to act because the majority of the leadership carries the same baggage as [Zimbabwean President Robert] Mugabe.

Q: If you had to sum up the next year for Kenya in a word, what would it be?

A: Hope. This is the year of hope and expectations. Last year was preparations. Coming from the turmoil, basically we were just trying to recover. We were still fighting fires. Now that the embers have been extinguished, this is the year we need to do things.

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edmund.sanders@latimes.com