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Let Nairobi gesture mean lasting peace
2008-03-01 09:07:15
By Editor
With Thursday`s historic signing in Nairobi of a power-sharing pact between Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga, that country should once again know social, political and economic stability.
Meanwhile, eastern Africa should be rightfully heaving a huge sigh of relief because the drawn-out bloody post-election conflict in Kenya has had disastrous social, economic and other consequences in the entire region.
With the breakthrough now a dream come true, we feel obliged to extend our heartfelt gratitude to all the individuals, institutions and other players whose combined effort is what has led to the peaceful resolution of what had promised to grow into a crisis of horrendous proportions.
Most of those who have closely followed the sad events in Kenya since that country’s general elections last December 27 and the announcement of the results of the poll a few days later will pick former UN secretary general Kofi Annan from Ghana and his team of eminent African personalities as the principal architects of the peace accord.
But there will also be those who would nominate people like President Kibaki and Odinga as the most eligible for accolades, while yet others would say those meriting the honour are the Kenyan people in their millions who decided to give peace a chance even when circumstances militated against any such soft or diplomatic stance.
Having such a roll of honour would obviously be a wonderful way to recognise the invaluable contribution of all those whose moral and material contribution has made the Nairobi peace deal possible.
We concur with Barbara Stanford: ``Peacemakers function in the world much like kidneys function in our bodies, constantly, unendingly removing the wastes and poisons which are an inevitable part of our lives. As long as we live, the poisons of hate, injustice and misunderstanding will be produced and peacemakers will be needed to clean up the mess.``
However, it is our sincere belief that the fact that yet another opportunity has presented itself which Kenyans ought to seize to consolidate their unity as a nation is of much greater significance than would be the dispatching of the most flamboyant of congratulatory messages to the likes of Annan.
It should possibly do merely to appreciate the fact that it is mainly Africa`s own sons and daughters who have stood firmly against all manner of odds and found a diplomatic end with little precedent to an extremely sophisticated African crisis.
Of course, not all of those who have survived the Kenyan turmoil after bearing the brunt of the suffering and misery will easily let bygones be bygones.
That takes a really great heart because emotions hurt are hard to cure.
But be that as it may, there is no arguing that Kenya has bled enough and chaos should give way to serious fence mending and reconstruction work.
Theodore Roszak has rightly noted: `People try nonviolence for a week, and when it `doesn`t work’, they go back to violence, which hasn`t worked for centuries.`` We should stand warned.
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