Wikileaks report spills beans on 2007/08 post-poll chaos
Whistleblower website Wikileaks yesterday poured out secrets on how retired President Mwai Kibaki’s Party of National Unity (PNU) spread hate leaflets against Opposition chief Raila Odinga ahead of the 2007 election.
The leaflets were targeted to paint Raila as a divisive figure who was unelectable as president.
The report also talks about Raila’s controversial pre-election Memorandum of Understanding (MoU with Muslims and Kibaki that would antagonise him with the Muslim community and split the Rainbow Coalition over the sharing of power.
Muslims accused Raila of reneging on his pre-election agreement that promised their members key jobs in the government.
Kibaki’s decision to renege on the MoU is largely blamed for creating animosity that laid ground for the violence after a highly disputed election between the two leaders leading to international mediation.
The talks resulted in a coalition government which saw Raila appointed as Prime Minister.
The leaflets also helped Raila opponents project him as largely anti-members of Kibaki’s Kikuyu community.
The controversial website also leaked data of what it described as the individual linked to the 2007/08 post-election violence that would form the subject of a case at the International Criminal Court.
Those mentioned in connection with the violence that claimed nearly 1,133 lives and led to the displacement of 350,000 families from their regions such as the Rift Valley include former Cabinet ministers Wlliam ole Ntimama, Kipkalya Kones, Assistant minister Lornah Laboso and former Anaimoi MP David Kimutai.
Before elections, he and other prominent politicians attended a meeting in the interior of Ndoinet forest and after the meeting the group destroyed properties belonging to non-Kalenjins,” the website says about Kones, quoting a report by a human rights agency.
Ntimama is also accused of inciting Maasais to uproot Kisiis and Kikuyus from Narok county.
However, none of the said perpetrators was ever charged in court over the violence.
Most of the suspected perpetrators have since passed on.
Among other things the leak contained reports on the Kroll Report, anti-graft buster John Githongo’s dossier on corruption, a letter by Apple Founder Steve Jobs and private emails by former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the Libyan embassy attack that were the subject of investigations and a sour point in the last US presidential election.
Her opponent, President Donald Trump, then Republican party presidential nominee, found it as valuable ammunition to discredit the former Secretary of State.
The Kroll report detailed; the extent of corruption perpetrated by the family of the former President Daniel Arap Moi, secret trusts and front men used to steal over two billion dollars worth of state money.
The suppressed UK auditor’s report details how Kenyan state finances were laundered across the world to buy properties and companies in London, New York and South Africa and even a 10,000 hectare ranch in Austria.
