U.S. Sees Hope for Democracy in Kenya

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Friday that Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi seems to be moving his country toward true democracy after more than two decades as autocratic head of a single-party state.

Speaking at a news conference here with Moi at her side, Albright said the Kenyan leader pledged to quickly and fairly complete constitutional reforms and open up the country’s economy.

Albright also said Moi agreed to contribute Kenyan troops to the U.S.-backed African Crisis Response Initiative, which seeks to train African soldiers for service as peacekeepers on this continent. Moi refused to consider the plan when it was first raised in 1997.

A senior State Department official who attended the hourlong meeting said Moi, often aloof and unresponsive in past talks with U.S. officials, was “open and unrestrained” this time. Moi raised all the sensitive issues about the pace of Kenyan political reform that Albright had planned to bring up, the official said.

Moi “seems to be coming to grips with his legacy,” said the official, a veteran of many previous meetings with the Kenyan president. “He seems to want to leave a better Kenya than he sees today.

“There are no guarantees,” added the official, who requested anonymity. “He has made promises and broken them in the past. But he is saying all the right things.”

Albright did not visit Kenya during a 1997 tour of Africa, a decision that officials said at the time was intended to protest Moi’s autocratic behavior. Since then, Moi has allowed multi-party elections for parliament and launched the process of drafting a new constitution.

A group of opposition politicians, religious leaders, lawyers and others Kenyan citizens who met with Albright later in the day was skeptical about Moi’s intentions, the official said.

“This was a group of activists and skeptics,” the official said. “They by no means take Moi or anyone else in government at their word. But they said Kenya is a more open society than it was five or eight years ago.”

Albright used conditional terms in discussing Moi’s commitment to democracy. If Moi means what he says, Albright indicated, it will produce significant results.

“Kenya has tremendous potential for economic growth--if the government can succeed in deepening democracy, improving its constitution, fighting corruption and promoting human rights,” she said.

Albright said she urged Moi to make the constitutional process as open as possible to public involvement. Opposition leaders have said Moi plans to turn the constitution over to the parliament, where he exerts substantial influence, a step Washington clearly opposes.

U.S. officials also said Moi pledged to step down in 2003 when his term ends.

Albright also inaugurated a temporary U.S. Embassy on Friday and then, fighting back tears, met with Kenyan victims who were maimed in last year’s terrorist attack on the previous facility.

“I can’t tell you all how sorry I am for what happened to you,” Albright told the Kenyans, most of whom were only bystanders Aug. 7, 1998, when a truck bomb tore into the embassy and an adjacent office building, killing 213 people and injuring about 5,000.

A few minutes before her encounter at a Kenyan Red Cross rehabilitation center, Albright cut a red ribbon, formally opening the embassy, which will be used until a state-of-the-art, fortified structure is completed in about three years.

Albright said the bombers apparently hoped to drive a wedge between Americans and Africans. “But the opposite has happened,” she said.