One Village At a Time » Human Rights

Tell Me How to Seek the Compound I?

Susan — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:57:34 +0000

School has begun in Nambale and Siaya. Our kids are back in school and a new year begins. I am so far away from them and yet they are with me every day.I see their ragged uniforms, I look down at their unshod feet, I cringe at the disease I see in their eyes and on their scalps. I tweet for them, I solicit donations to help get them fed, I pray for them and for all the adults I’m counting on to care for them. I’m also praying that their parents really take on this community feeding program and make it their own.

I am also readying for the naming ceremony of my latest grandchild. I am looking at Shel Silverstein poems to read and I am remembering my own children when they began a new year at school. How privileged they were. Not only did they have entire new wardrobes, but they went to private schools and private universities. Health concerns or food were never even thought of. Their father was a doctor at Man’s Best Hospital, and their mother was a great cook who could go to the store and buy whatever she felt like cooking paying no heed to sales or limits.

For me, it is trying to get the world I knew to know the world I know now. I just read Bill Gates letter for the Davos Convention. It’s really good (and I don’t like him very much). He has a bully pulpit and tons of money to get his ideas out. I no longer live that other life, and getting people to care about starving children continents away is a challenge. So tonight I think about all my children, the ones that I bore, the ones my daughters bore and all the ones over in Kenya. How do I meld the worlds and make the one that needs it the most a better place for the children who live there?

Over Their Head

Susan — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:44:31 +0000

Remember Francis my driver? Despite the grenades going off when last I was in Kenya, he reassured me that El Shabbab was nothing. I can’t tell whether that was wishful thinking or meant to keep my tourist dollars over there.
Today I read an extremely cogent article by Ken Menkhaus of enough project.org. His best sentence is this: Intervention strategies that plan the war but not the peace will fail. That should by the byword for all countries.
It’s not just Kenya, but imagine of Bush had thought about planning the peace in Iraq or Afghanistan.
What is so wonderful about this article is that he painstakingly spells out the problems of Kenya’s incursion into Somalia. Now campers, I wish you would read the whole thing and indeed here is the link:http://www.enoughproject.org/files/MenkhausKenyaninterventionSomalia.pdf
But since I find that folks don’t like to read lengthy articles I’m going to give you the highlights
Kenya’s military capacity to wage war. Kenya’s military has very limited experience in direct combat, and, with the exception of some peacekeeping deployments, has never waged war across the Kenyan border. Some analysts worry that Kenya’s untested forces will fare poorly in clashes with Somali forces on Somali terrain. Related to this concern are worries that Kenya initiated this attack in the early weeks of the dheere rainy sea- son, when track roads become impassable and heavy military equipment gets bogged down. This is one of the reasons Kenyan forces moved so slowly in the first two months of the campaign. This gave many observers the impression that the Kenyan offensive was not adequately planned.
Unclear objectives. Kenyan officials have expressed divergent goals. They have at different points claimed the aim is to prevent Shabaab from engaging in cross-border abductions of tourists, defeat Shabaab, capture the strategic seaport of Kismayo, and to secure the border area.
Shabaab terrorist reprisal attacks in Kenya. Kenya is exceptionally vulnerable to Shabaab terrorist attacks. Shabaab moves freely in and out of Kenya, where the group does business, recruits, and engages in fundraising. A major Shabaab terrorist attack
in Kenya would have devastating consequences for Kenyan tourism and business. Observers have expressed alarm that Shabaab could make good on threats to take
the war to Kenya, and that Kenya would be less secure as a result of its offensive into Somalia. As evidence of this, foreign embassies have elevated security alerts for Kenya. Two grenade attacks in Nairobi, carried out by a professed Kenyan Shabaab member and recent convert to Islam, have amplified these fears. Shabaab leaders have implored their followers in Kenya to launch jihadi attacks in Kenya, a tactic that could produce “lone wolf ” terrorism in addition to planned Shabaab attacks. The actual threat may beoverstated, however, as Kenya’s value to Somali interests makes it risky for Shabaab to launch a major terrorist attack there. But the danger could grow larger the longer Kenyan forces stay inside Somalia.
Kenyan offensive as tool for Shabaab recruitment. Observers have raised concerns that Kenya’s military operation into Somali territory could work to Shabaab’s advantage,
by rallying Somalis against a foreign occupation, in much the same way that Shabaab enjoyed significant popular support when Ethiopia occupied Mogadishu in 2007 and 2008. Though Somalis are exhausted from war and are devoting most of their resources to assisting relatives affected by the famine, a sustained Kenyan military presence, with inevitable reports of civilian casualties, runs the risk of generating a new wave of Somali jihadi recruits and fund-raisers for Shabaab. The ill-advised public announcement of Israeli counterterrorism support to Kenya was exactly the kind of misstep that Shabaab could parlay into propaganda to turn the Jubbaland intervention into a jihadi cause.8 So far few Somalis and Somali Kenyans appear to have joined Shabaab in response to either the Kenyan or Ethiopian military offensives in southern Somalia; Shabaab appears instead to be relying more and more on forced conscription.
Prospects of quagmire in Kismayo. Questions have been raised about how Kenyan forces will fare if and when they take the city of Kismayo. In a crowded urban setting, Kenya’s military will lose some of the advantage it enjoys from its armored vehicles and heavy weapons, and will be more vulnerable to urban guerilla warfare and the use of roadside bombs. It could become bogged down in counterinsurgency warfare that Ethiopian forces and now African Union peacekeepers, or AMISOM, have faced in Mogadishu since 2007. There is reason to hope that local populations are so furious with Shabaab policies—especially forced recruitment and heavy taxation—that they will turn on Shabaab and prevent it from waging insurgency attacks in the town. But most communities in Somalia today are so fearful of reprisals that they are more likely to lay low and do nothing.
It’s a really good article folks.

Empowerment Not Aid

Susan — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 16:29:37 +0000

I have an ongoing problem with the millennium projects. I know they are the darling of Jeff Sachs and countless famous and important people. However, there are a couple of projects in Kenya where I work. The first one (and no campers I am not going to name it lest I get blackballed from the international community), is a feeding program and farming. When I visited it in 2006 the claims of success were astounding. But that was 2006…it’s 2012 and the Millennium Projects are finding it difficult to leave.
See they came in like a swarm of bees, told folks what they needed to do to improve their crops, gave out imported fertilizer, gave out nets for mosquitos and assumed that everyone would continue to do well. No…the community never owned the project. What Millennium has done in countless ways is to continue the culture of” donorism” thinking they could change attitudes by just showing people the right way to do things.
There is another project (and I’m proud to say it’s in Kisumu) where the people owned the project and guess what. The French who aided the villagers are able to leave. Until the Intellectual Powers, the World Powers, recognize the need to change attitudes first poverty will continue because people will continue to be dependent on donors who always leave.

Here’s the full link to the story:

http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/afrec/vol25no4/millennium-villages.html

Lions and Tigers and Grenades..Oh My!

Susan — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 22:24:40 +0000

I’m trying to remain calm as things keep blowing up in Kenya. We so need to get the new program off the ground and it has to be in November, since in December the schools close and then open in January when it gets launched.
The news, however, is not encouraging coming out of Kenya. And I’m wondering how you prepare for an explosion. I wrote a guy in my church who is an EMT about what kinds of things I should think of. I figure a tourniquet or two would be good and probably some powdered sulfa. Yeah, my mind is thinking that way.
All the work I have ever done in Africa has been a walk of faith, and I’m guessing this is just another one of those times where God has upped the ante. But I must admit for the first time ever, I’m scared. Probably that is a good thing.
So keep the faith y’all and watch for updates.

http://www.nation.co.ke/News/Man+arrested+with+13+grenades+in+Nairobi+/-/1056/1261742/-/2bfveiz/-/index.html

Scalawags

Susan — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 18:29:40 +0000

I have commented several times on the corruption of the Kenyan Government. Perhaps you’re not aware of the trials going on in the Hague, but since they involve the Vice President, Treasurer, and Uhuru Kenyatta (whose after was first president) you should want to know. They are being tried for crimes against humanity. And they are scalawags and devils one and all. Check it out.

http://www.nation.co.ke/ICCLive

Why?

Susan — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 15:28:44 +0000

Among the places Amercans will never go are the slums of Muthare and and Kibera on the outskirts of Nairobi. They are places of savage poverty, filth, and a vulnerability we cannot comprehend. They have no running water or electricity and are generally what I call God’s throwaways, because they are the poorest of the poor.

As a child growing up in the privileged suburbs of Chicago, my father, a DA at the time, often took me to court. I went to my first rape trial when I was 9. And rape trials back in the 50’s were rare indeed. However it surely raised my understanding of the awful things that could befall a woman. Woman the world round are aware of the possibility of rape everywhere they go. And rape is not a sexual thing, it is a domination of man over women or, in this case, over whole families.

I have been following the trials of the Ocampo 6. They include the Vice President of Kenya and several other high ranking Government officials. And they are all thugs. As I have read of the horrors of the killings, and have lived the results of both the killings and the burnings, I felt the horror. I knew the horror. But today as I read the Nation a whole new outrage rolled over me, taking me a minute to actually catch my breath.

It seems that hordes of gangs were hired to go into the Kibera and Muthare and rape the women in front of their families. The purpose was both intimidation of the tribes and ultimate humiliation. No man wants to see his wife raped, and it is even worse in tribal Africa because a tribe’s domination over another can be achieved through this very act. Always it is the women who are sacrificed to achieve the goal. And it is women who pay the price. In this case thousands of husbands walked away from their wives because the woman had been raped. And who can say how many women were left infected by HIV? That wasn’t even part of the article.

As I sit listening to the fountain gentle trickle water over the rocks, plentiful food in my fridge and a toilet ten feet away from me, I keep wondering why. I am a woman of God, and I have espoused always that God has a plan. But today I just have to ask Him Why?

For the full article: http://www.nation.co.ke/News/politics/The+horror+of+rapes+in+post+election+slum+life+laid+bare/-/1064/1241926/-/mym333z/-/index.html

Famine Raffles And the Patriots

Susan — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 16:12:33 +0000

It is difficult to watch the starvation in Somalia and now stumbling into Kenya. It’s not that it’s new. But it’s so much worse. People can think there is nothing I can do and so they turn their heads away. I understand, it is daunting.
Monday I went to meet with a donor though who understood our purpose and wanted to help. Like the Drummer Boy he gave what he could. He gave me 2 awesome tickets to the last pre-season game for the Patriots. These are not just any tickets, but 50 yard line tickets. They’re not up in the boonies they’re right on the field. And we are raffling them off.
Each raffle ticket is $20 and only 100 will be sold so people really get a chance to win. But what’s really cool is that if you don’t win you get a tax deduction. And we get to keep feeding the children. Maybe today is your lucky day. Please take a chance, buy a ticket to see the Pats V the Giants on 9/1 at Gillette Stadium, and if not, you’ve fed 10 children.
Pretty cool eh?

http://onevillageatatime.org/tickets/

America’s Exports Bad For African Women’s Health

Susan — Thu, 19 May 2011 23:35:47 +0000

I received an email from my colleague in Kenya. She wanted to ask my opinion about an article in the Nation. This is not an article that showed up on the RSS feed. (though the one about the HIV positive teacher raping 5 girls did).

It seems that there is a movement that started in California to give poor women who were drug abusers a monetary incentive to not have babies. For a certain amount of money, the women agreed to use an IUD’ which were inserted in them for free. This movement has now moved on to East Africa and in Kenya in particular.

$40US will be given to any woman who is HIV positive, who will submit to having an IUD implanted. This, the author writes will cut down on the number of HIV positive babies being born. This would probably help, but I am greatly disturbed by the means in which this is brought about.

$40 to a poor woman in Kenya is like thousands to someone over here. Any poor woman would want to get that money, and that’s understandable. However, there is no healthcare in Kenya. Hospitals are places you go to die, not get well. IUD’s can cause perforated uteruses, ectopic pregnancies and raging pelvic infections. There is no mention of treatment for the women, not even a follow up appointment. What ,perhaps, is understandable in the U.S ,given our national healthcare ,is out of the question in Kenya. Poor women in East Africa do not have either the education or access to medical care and are trading their health for a loaf of bread.

It seems to me a very short step before they start giving out $100 for permanent sterilization. And again, it is the poorest people, the least educated, who have the fewest rights who are given these “opportunities”. That it is being from the U.S makes it only more egregious.

Here is the link: http://www.thenation.com/article/160485/iuds-prevent-hiv-kenya

I hope you will weigh in on this one.