Interventions (25 page)

After the reintroduction of multiparty politics in Kenya in 1992, every general election—with the exception of one in 2002 when there was no incumbent running for office—had witnessed some form of political violence. Yet the magnitude and scale of the latest violence shocked Kenyans and the world as a whole. The political violence was of a different character than before, shaking the foundation of the country to a point where it posed an existential threat to Kenya itself. Consequently, the public mood throughout the mediation was one of anticipation, anxiety, and fear of the unknown if mediation failed.

On February 8 an open letter to me was published in a Kenyan newspaper by a chief subeditor. She began by citing widespread fears that I might abandon my mission in Kenya because of the deep intransigence of the leaders involved. She then went on in words that well captured the fearful public mood:

You have seen the uncertainty that has left Kenyans this vulnerable. I, for instance, feel like a little girl again, begging daddy not to leave her alone in the dark, because a monster will eat her. Annan, you have seen the monster in this country ravage its own. You have seen the degree of violence . . . You and gracious Graca—whom I nominate as the Mother of the Continent—have struck a chord with Kenyans . . . You have made political leaders commit themselves to promote peace. You must not relent in ensuring they keep their word. But being human, you are bound to be fatigued by leaders' doublespeak. We have seen the evident frustration on your face . . . This week, you have steered the talks to delicate waters—the disputed election results. This stage is described as “make or break,” which triggers another bout of cold sweat. If the situation prevails, communities might be reduced to just conscripting their school-age children into their militias, to fight for survival. We shall only be driven by base instincts . . . Remember you said that every Kenyan must feel “the cloak of government.” Leave us on a solid foundation for real change.

I was moved by these words when I read them, and in response I issued a public statement: I would be neither frustrated nor provoked to leave my work until the job was done. But privately for myself, Graca Machel, and Benjamin Mkapa—as well as for the other members of the overworked team that we were leading—the message only reinforced that we desperately needed real progress to calm the situation before it spiraled out of control.

Yet, despite the heat of the situation, careful and deliberative calculations still had to be made. What the official response to the contested election should be had to be decided. Should there be a full recount or a retallying of valid forms, a rerun of the presidential elections, or a forensic investigation into the results? I had already decided that any kind of rerun or recount of the election was not going to work. There was too much opportunity for further dispute and fiddling of the system. In the violent climate, such a route would also almost certainly make things worse. Nor was a rerun or recount going to solve any of the root causes of the crisis. By now I had come to the conclusion that a power-sharing deal and an amendment to the constitution was going to be the only way to get Kenya out of this bloody quagmire.

But the atmosphere in the meeting rooms and the instructions coming in from Odinga and Kibaki gave no scope for such a deal at this stage. I feared that if we went to the negotiators with the recommendation for a political deal, it would be shot down and killed straightaway. I knew that I could not directly lead them to this choice, proclaiming my preferred route at the outset. These were fiercely intelligent, independent negotiators we were dealing with, suspicious of any solution another might impose upon them. I decided, instead, that the best thing to do would be to take the negotiators through a deductive process. On February 12, I moved the negotiations to Kilaguni Safari Lodge, in the beautiful wild surroundings of Tsavo National Park. In this tranquil new location, as per my instructions, we would weigh together, as a group, the costs, benefits, and risks of each of the options available: a complete rerun of the election; a complete recount; a retally; a forensic audit of the election result; or a political settlement involving a negotiated agreement for power sharing between the parties. For this discussion I brought in Craig Jenness, director of the UN Electoral Assistance Division of the Department of Political Affairs (DPA), to present in expert detail what each option would mean in practice. We then conducted a joint evaluation of these options, with the negotiators taking the lead in weighing the implications.

As I had hoped, when the likely impact of all the options were laid out in stark terms, it was clear that anything other than a deal to share power had little to no chance of calming the situation and resolving the crisis. The other options would take too long, be too dangerous to attempt in such fraught circumstances, or would be too likely to lack credibility in the eyes of the public or the respective parties to the dispute. But the prospect of a power-sharing deal was still daunting to the negotiators—it was alien to Kenyan politics. With this in mind, on February 13 I invited Gernot Erler, a German minister of state, to speak to the negotiators and share his experiences of coalition government, which had come to form a very effective basis for German politics and was a well-established solution there to political crises.

The negotiators then came to an agreement and signed a statement on February 14. It noted that, given “there is a serious crisis in the country, we agree a political settlement is necessary to promote national reconciliation and unity.” In addition to this groundbreaking consensus, the statement laid out plans for reforms that included the identification and prosecution of perpetrators of the violence, and also a truth, justice, and reconciliation commission among other judicial reforms—all of which were, in my view, essential to the longer-term process of healing required to recover from this traumatic episode. In the simple February 14 document, therefore, there were not only the beginnings of an agreement for the cessation of the immediate crisis but also the seeds of a major political and societywide reform process.

According to the Red Cross, the death count in Kenya had risen above one thousand by this time, with mass displacement alongside due to the burning of villages and the threat of armed gangs, the looting of farms and homes, as well as widespread sexual violence against men and women. Meanwhile, there was still no movement on what shape the political deal would take, but at least we now had a full agreement on the way out of the crisis: a coalition government. It was a great relief to me, not least because I was sure the other electoral options on the negotiating table would have likely triggered an escalation in the violence.

By now, I had been in Kenya much longer than anyone had planned, and there was still no end in sight. I was physically drained after my heavy course of antibiotics, but there was no chance for any respite. It was like being a hunter: as you attempt to corner your quarry, any lapse in your endeavors may allow it to slip through and escape for good.

By February 25, however, the negotiations were still deadlocked. Patience had been essential in getting us this far, but we now needed more. That morning the negotiators and the mediators, myself included, spent four hours in talks to push for the final agreement on the distribution of power in the coalition, and we got nowhere. By now it was clear what the power-sharing deal required: Kibaki would remain as president; an executive prime minister's position would need to be created, which would be occupied by Odinga; and there would need to be a coalition cabinet shared between the PNU and the ODM that reflected the balance in parliament. But there was no movement on the question of the prime minister's powers. The PNU side, in particular, was holding things back, continuing to project the argument that the power of the president could not be fettered and that the ministries should not be shared.

I was frustrated and decided it was time to throw the PNU and the ODM to the people. So I went to the press and publicly explained that I had concluded the negotiators were “not capable of resolving the outstanding issues.” I said it was time for Kibaki and Odinga to conclude the negotiations face-to-face, as it was now their responsibility alone to break the deadlock.

It was a risk, as this move could have triggered an expectation that the talks would fail, inflaming the situation on the streets and in the slums. But the alternative seemed to be no deal at all, which would almost certainly then lead to a much bigger round of bloodshed, and this would take the crisis into the next stage of conflict. I had to scorch the feet of Odinga and Kibaki somehow.

I privately visited Odinga first and then Kibaki. They were not expecting this sudden move, and the prospect of negotiating face-to-face surprised them. Speaking to Odinga, I reminded him that he had all to wait for. If he worked through the compromise now, he would likely be set to become the next president. This message seemed to resonate. It was Kibaki's willingness to compromise on the powers of the president, however, that represented the real obstacle and the chance for a Kenyan peace deal.

In my meeting with Kibaki, I pressed him, explaining I was in regular contact with key members of the international community, Condoleezza Rice and George W. Bush of the United States, leaders from the EU, and elsewhere. “The international community is picking up that this failure to make a deal is because of the PNU's unwillingness to move. There will be consequences from them if this fails.”

I also tried to make Kibaki think about the long term, and presented this not as a threat to his rule but as an opportunity for him. “Raila is a younger man, Mr. President. But you are the elder and, right now, you are the president. It is you who has the power to change Kenya. This could be your legacy: a reconciled nation and a reconciled people.” He listened in his usual quiet and unemotional way, but replied there were technical issues with a coalition government and questions as to the validity of an executive prime minister in the Kenyan constitution.

“You're the one in charge here,” I reminded him. “Save your country. Otherwise you are going to have a lot falling on your head.” I studied his face carefully. “Mr. President, over one thousand people are dead,” I said in closing. “It's time to make a deal.”

The coming meeting between Odinga and Kibaki was our last chance. But I thought we now had it. My public exposure of the deadlock had made it clear that one side was holding things up. If I walked away now without a deal, it would be clear that Kibaki was to blame. He was exposed. Furthermore, I had called the U.S. administration to inform them of what was going on. Condoleezza Rice had then announced that any future relationship between the United States and Kenya depended upon them agreeing to the compromise now on the table. With the deck stacked in this manner, I thought he had to budge.

Kibaki, Odinga, and I then entered into an intense five hours of negotiations on February 28. Other than the three of us, the only people I brought in were President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania and his predecessor, Benjamin Mkapa. I wanted them to counsel Kibaki on the Tanzanian system, which also includes a sharing of power between the president and a prime minister. Kikwete, Mkapa, and I had discussed and agreed on this approach the day before, at a meeting in the Grand Regency Hotel. They were now very effective in demonstrating to Kibaki that it was more than feasible for a strong president to operate in such a system, erasing the validity of his last substantive argument against the agreement.

The quarry was now cornered. I had told the leaders that this was the final negotiation, that we would not leave until the deal was complete and we would sign it on the steps outside, in public, as soon as we were finished. Odinga was not going to back out now: this was a compromise to which he was already committed. But for Kibaki the choice was now either shift or walk out alone into the sunshine of derision at his failure to move—in the face of both the Kenyan people and the most powerful actors in the international community.

Kibaki then, finally, agreed to the power-sharing deal. I made sure there was no chance of backing out. I walked them out onto the steps of Harambee House to publicly and immediately announce the deal to the world and sign the document: the Agreement on the Principles of Partnership of the Coalition Government. But it did not feel triumphant. It had taken far too long. As they say in a Swahili proverb, “When the elephants fight it is the grass that suffers.” This was what had happened with all the people killed around us.

But with confidence restored, the bloodshed now ended. A process of political reconciliation could now begin, as would the difficult job of healing. Despite the tragic number of people already dead, we had averted a disaster of far greater potential. We had achieved something far too elusive in the history of peacemaking—halting a spiral of violence before too many of either side have little left to lose and live on only for vengeance. The signing of the accord on February 28 brought with it a sense of immense relief across Kenya: Kenyans wished each other “Happy New Year” in reference to the New Year celebrations they had been deprived of by the violence since late December.

The amendment to the constitution in the agreement, approved by the parliament shortly after, was a transitional arrangement that was to lead to a full process of root-and-branch constitutional reform. With that provision my role in mediating the Kenyan political crisis would continue. I had come for two weeks and I would still be working with them four years later. Agenda item four of the Kenyan National Dialogue and Reconciliation process, agreed on by the parties on February 1, was to deal with the fundamental causes of the violence, much of which lay in the political system. Over the months and years that followed, with Nana Effah-Apenteng leading my team on the ground, further negotiations took place to create a new Kenyan constitution. It would redistribute power through a system of devolved government, built also around land reform, a bill of rights, and a permanent reduction in the president's powers. Through this, each constituent county of Kenya and each community, including all its tribal and regional groups, would have representatives with access to a piece of power, negating the destructive winner-takes-all politics of the previous system.