Ten Points Missed At KCA Conference

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ KENYA SOCIALIST DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE (KSDA) http:\\www.kenyasocialist.org email: harakatips@hotmail.com ++++++++++++++++++++ KSDA SITE UPDATE: 13 July 2003 +++++++++++++++++++++ #TEN POINTS MISSED AT KCA CONFERENCE #REFLECTIONS ON KCA CONFERENCE BY ONYANGO OLOO ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TEN CRITICAL POINTS MISSED AT THE JULY 2003 KCA CONFERENCE Sunday 13th July 2003 INTRODUCTION Just like its predecessors, the just concluded KCA Conference that was held in the United States was definitely a remarkable and commendable achievement. KCA members and other Kenyans of goodwill gathered to discuss the future of Kenya and to rate the new Narc government. It was an event which should not have been missed by KSDA because some of the issues that were raised are issues that remain central in the Alliance’s political agenda. We take this opportunity to wholly congratulate the KCA leadership for the undisputable success of the Conference with the message that the future of Kenya is slowly getting on the hands of the new Kenyan generation. We believe that KCA should link up with KSDA to discuss common points of convergence and to introduce a new era abroad based on sharing political perspectives. Our political view is very Socialist and we also take this opportunity to encourage KCA members not to embrace stereotypical impressions of Kenyan Socialists but to open up to ideological thinking and to honestly discuss a political alternative to the deformed capitalist system in Kenya. After wading through initial reports from the Conference and absorbing briefs from our contacts who attended the historic event, our conclusion is that the Conference was generally pro-Narc government in Kenya and that the next big issue for majority of those who attended the Conference is that Kenya should begin a period of “reconstruction” following the Narc take-over. In other words, delegates appear to have accepted that Narc is a suitable government that can be trusted with the future of the Nation and that if it is given enough time and pumped with more and dynamic ideas, the kind of changes that will take place in Kenya will also transform the lives of 30 million Kenyans to the better. Here, we wish to add our input to the comments that have so far been rendered since the Conference ended. This is because there are certain critical points that we feel were totally blacked out at the Conference. We have not seen these points being raised seriously by independent commentators who have so far rendered their postmortem findings since the Conference ended.. In adding our comments, we are doing so in the spirit of struggle and solidarity with all KCA members and other progressive Kenyans who are relentlessly searching for a permanent solution to the political, social and economic crisis that has been facing our country in the last four decades. We feel that the following points should have been given serious attention at the Conference. 1. LANDLESSNESS: Since Narc took over power, the Coalition has failed to take up the issue of landlessness among millions of Kenyans who are squatters in their own country. Although there has been limited repossession of small pieces of land that were grabbed by Moi’s cronies, the government appears to have frozen all possibilities of resettling the landless. Land was the main reason why the Mau Mau Land and Freedom Army took up arms to topple British colonialism. To date, the objective of ensuring that every Kenyan has land to settle on has not been met. In other words, one of the major reasons why thousands of Kenyan freedom fighters shed their blood during the colonial revolution has not been met fourty years after the so called independence. Many Kenyans believe that the independence Movement was betrayed by home guards who later seized power through Jomo Kenyatta. Both the Kenyatta and the Moi dictatorships failed to meet the objective of settling the landless while there is no sign that the Narc regime will accomplish this mission. What happened is that the Kenyatta and Moi dictatorships distributed vast chunks of land to their political contacts. The rest of the landless population has been kept waiting with empty promises that will never be realized on a capitalist basis. A major reason for landlessness in Kenya is that both the Kenyatta and Moi dictatorships have failed to recognise the fact that it is impossible for the government to resettle the landless without first possessing the land through a major renationalization programme. As we write, thousands of acres of land are still owned by former colonial masters and home guards from both the Kenyatta and Moi dictatorships who stole them from the Kenyan people before and after the colonial revolution. Some top Narc politicians are themselves owning thousands of acres that may have been acquired dubiously. We think that the question of landlessness in our country can only be solved through nationalization of land, a measure that will give the government the opportunity to be able to determine who owns which piece of land through a radical land redistribution program. The issue of land remains very sensitive in Kenya and we feel that it could have been given space at the KCA Conference. 2. PRIVATIZATIONS: Just like the KANU regime, Narc continues to invite looters from the advanced capitalist countries to come and steal the country’s resources through privatizations in the name of “Foreign investments”. One would have expected that after the defeat of KANU which sold almost every profitable State enterprise cheaply to agents of multi national companies and other globalization sharks, Narc would reverse this economically retrogressive process by renationalizing these enterprises so that wealth generated through them could be redirected to finance the national reconstruction effort and thousands of workers who were retrenched in the process redeployed. Instead, the contract for the controversial mining of Tiomin in Kenya has just been awarded by Narc to a foreign company with the new government providing hopeless justifications for what will most likely, become one of the biggest robbery of Kenya’s natural resources by a foreign company. State Corporations continue to be privatized under the Narc government which has now recommended that even roads in Kenya should be put on private hands for foreign companies to reap profits through the establishment of toll stations. Privatization of more than 100 State enterprises are on the cards (see the list at KSDA website) while the renationalization of more than 50 other enterprises that were sold by KANU is not on the agenda. What is publicly known with privatizations is that this measure does not help in building the economy but in entrenching foreign domination of national politics and economy. Kenyans should oppose all forms of privatizations of enterprises that were acquired through the tax payer’s money. In all the glamorous speeches that came up at the KCA Conference, opposition to privatizations in Kenya should have been raised. This is because the new regime is duping people that privatization is a kind of solution to the crisis in our country while in reality it is contributing to poverty at a national level as the country’s wealth is siphoned abroad. 3. RETRENCHMENTS: As KCA hosted Narc luminaries like Charity Ngilu (Minister of Health) at the Conference, there are thousands of Kenyans who have been condemned to lives of mystery and great human suffering as a result of IMF/World Bank inspired retrenchments during the Moi dictatorship. What is shocking is that these retrenchments have continued since Narc took over power without government intervention. We ask: “What kind of political changes will transform the lives of Kenyans if the little income that workers in Kenya have through employment are being taken away through retrenchments?”. KSDA continues to receive letters from retrenched Kenyan workers who are on the verge of starvation, Kenyans who voted for Narc expecting that their situations would change. Some of these letters have been published at our website. The situation is acute because Narc has refused to address the crisis and some retrenchees have demonstrated against the government to try and get their cases across. From our perspective, we think that all retrenched workers should be reinstated while the government should announce an immediate freeze on all retrenchments. How does Narc expect Kenyans to believe that its politics will transform their lives when retrenchment of workers is being conducted against the background of 11 million able bodied Kenyans who are out of work? Narc has long stopped talking about the creation of half a million jobs because their thinkers have understood that this cannot be done on a capitalist basis. To create jobs, the government must invest in both construction and industry. To invest in construction and industry, the government must control the means that produces the wealth of the Nation so that the country’s wealth can be put to investment through independent decisions taken by Parliament. These processes are currently impossible under Narc because the means of producing wealth in Kenya is under imperialist agents while major decisions about development are made by IMF and World Bank through their programs. In fact, the government depends on the IMF and World Bank to finance its budget. From our stand point, the twin issues of retrenchments and unemployment ought to have been taken up at the KCA Conference because they touch on bread and butter issues of voters who put Narc in power expecting real changes in their lives. 4. MPs MILLION SALARIES: Since Narc took over power, MPs have awarded themselves salaries running to a million Kenyan shillings. This is at a time when the country is in deep economic crisis and constantly begging from Western Imperialism. What is paradoxical is that although KCA has been collecting signatures through its website to oppose the MPs salaries, the issue was totally blacked out at the Conference. From our sources, there was no serious attempt to confront the Narc MPs who attended the Conference on this issue because of the increasing courtship between KCA and Narc, a posture that we think, bordered on the conspiratorial. Through the Conference, Narc MPs ought to have been reminded that although they claim to be fighting corruption, they are looting the Kenyan economy. Failure to confront the thorny issue of MP salaries could be interpreted to mean that KCA’s collection of signatures on this issue is a farce. Why should Narc kneel before the IMF and World Bank for hand outs when its very MPs are involved in an organised and systematic looting of the country’s meagre resources in order to sustain luxurious life styles at the expense of the tax payer? We think that the one million MPs salaries, the 3 million car grants, the 10 million insurance schemes for MP and other so called benefits are issues that were worth taking up on a serious scale, not just by individual speakers but by KCA as an organisation of Kenyans abroad.. 5. NARC/IMF/WORLD BANK COURTSHIP: From our view, it is unbelievable that a three day Conference of the KCA type ended without an open challenge or even a memorandum calling on the new Narc government to end its courtship with the IMF and World Bank. Psychologically, millions of Kenyans who do not understand the dynamics of economic exploitation of Kenya’s resources through the IMF and World Bank have been made to believe that these imperialist financial Institutions are contributing to the country’s economic development. The nightmare scenario came when Narc, a new regime that was supposed to govern differently from KANU, embarked on an active KANU style courtship rituals with IMF and World Bank. President Mwai Kibaki met World Bank Chief’s at State House to beg for money while other top State Officials have been busy with IMF personnel, trying to sell Kenya to these agents of imperialism. Are speakers who were paraded at the KCA Conference ignorant about IMF/World Bank’s blood-sucking schemes in Kenya or was this critical issue avoided for political convenience? True, IMF has now promised to resume aid to Kenya. But in exchange, the Narc government will have to take draconian measures that will not just continue to ravage the economy but also lead to further loss of jobs and sale of public property to western companies. The economy will be opened up for uncontrolled exploitation through liberalization programs that leaves the government a perpetual beggar. What kind of different politics does Narc have that Kenyans have not experienced through KANU? Wasn’t this a better topic at KCA Conference? We think so. 6. NARC AND THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM: This could have been our first point. Almost fourty years of experiment with capitalism in Kenya under KANU ended in total disaster as evidenced by the mass poverty and total collapse of social services in our country. The defeat of KANU in December did not mean the beginning of the end to the gap between the rich and the poor because a new capitalist government is in power. The system has several loop holes through which the ruling class can use to run down the country while at the same time telling voters that changes are on the way. Narc has inherited the system intact and every so called change is being worked out on the basis of capitalism. From our perspective, the core of the crisis in our country was not even KANU as a political party or Moi as a ruthless dictator but the rotten political system under which Kenyans were dictated to by KANU. At the KCA Conference, every speaker appeared to have departed from the point of view that the political, social and economic crisis facing our country can be solved on a capitalist basis. Appeals were made for investments in the country, an environment “conducive to investments” was encouraged by speakers while Kenyans were encouraged to convert themselves into businessmen (i.e. capitalists) and return to Kenya to “invest”, signs that the Conference itself was loaded with speakers with huge capitalist ambitions. We think that the issue of an alternative to the capitalist system of government ought to have been raised at the Conference even if it might have appeared far-fetched. It is unfortunate that KSDA was never invited to the Conference because we could have provided a comprehensive critique of Narc’s capitalist system of government while at the same time providing a viable alternative based on clear Socialist program. We know that not everybody at the Conference is a Socialist. But Kenyans with different ideological persuasions could also have been invited to pull the mask from Narc’s face because the country needs a Socialist revolution, not fresh experiments with a rotten system. It could have been a perfect opportunity to answer the “Socialism has collapsed” thinkers because new ideas are needed in Kenya. Multiparty politics is about competition of political ideas and the truth is that Kenyan Socialists have never really been heard. They have only been condemned, detained, imprisoned and forced into exile where many of our Comrades are currently operating from. The banning of Socilaist books in Kenya should be lifted. 7. MINIMUM LIVING WAGE FOR WORKERS IN KENYA: Kenyan workers, who produce the wealth which makes capitalists rich are living on what we call “starvation wages”. They can hardly live from hand to mouth. Salaries have been stagnant for ages despite rising inflation. In cases where salaries have been increased by the State to appease workers, the increments have turned out to be little crumbs on the table that have been unable to change the lives of workers in any way. We think that there should be a national campaign for the minimum living wage of Kenyan workers. If there is a Commission which has not yet been formed by the new Narc regime but which is the most urgent, it is a Commission to establish the minimum living wage commensurate with Kenya’s current rate of inflation. The old wage system that was left behind by KANU does not meet the needs of Kenyan workers if looked at from the point of view of rising prices of consumer commodities . The KCA Conference was an International platform and it is pathetic that although delegates are individuals who live in countries where the minimum living wage is defined according to the rate of inflation, this issue was left out of the Conference. 8. NATIONALIZATION OF WEALTH PRODUCING INSTITUTIONS IN KENYA: It is not possible to nationalize the means of producing wealth in Kenya without first changing the system. For the system to change, there will have to be a revolution. Revolution doesn’t mean taking up arms to kill each other. A Socialist revolution means a change of power from the ruling class represented by Narc to the working class. The nationalisation of major wealth producing institutions in Kenya should have been raised at the Conference because without taking control of wealth produced internally, the country will continue to beg from abroad regardless of whether KANU or Narc is in power. The reason why the government continues to invite IMF and World Bank to give Kenya the so called aid is because almost all institutions which produce wealth - the industries, factories, major distributions networks, Banks, insurance companies etc. are in the firm hands of foreign multinational companies whose bases are abroad. What happens is that the IMF gives us loans so that we can privatize say the Kenya Power and Lightning Company (KPLC) so that every Kenyan who uses electricity can make the Western company which buys KPLC rich. The situation is the same with Kenya Airways and all other privatised State firms. If the bulk of the wealth produced in Kenya is prevented from being repatriated abroad, we will not need IMF and World Bank and even the most informed capitalist in the Western world knows this. Nationalisation of the major “means of production” is a key element of Socialism. It was unfortunate that this issue was never raised at the KCA Conference despite the fact that it remains part of the solution to the crisis in our country. 9. THE CONSTITUTIONAL REVIEW PROCESS: Several good points were made on the on-going Constitutional Review process. But what the speakers forgot was that within the framework of capitalism, the Constitution is a piece of paper whose content is designed to serve the interest of the ruling class that, in this case, are members of the Narc government. Capitalist principles dictates that the implementation of the Constitution depends on the whims of the ruling class who control State power which, in the case of Kenya, is the Narc government. The point is that a review of the Kenyan Constitution in whatever form will not put food on the table to the starving millions of Kenyans even if that Constitution says that all Kenyans have a right to food. The Constitution might say that all Kenyans have a right to clothing, shelter, jobs, medical care etc. but these commodities and services will never be provided by the government to all Kenyans on a capitalist basis. The Constitution will always be violated by the ruling class if their interests are threatened. Mr. Gideon Moi, son of former President Moi, has just been prevented from holding a public meeting in his constituency in total violation of the Constitution. The younger Moi does not threaten Narc in any way. But he is being reminded that the Constitution is a piece of paper currently under the control of Narc ruling class. Kenyans should not be led en masse to believe that a review of the Constitution will transfer millions living in the slums of Nairobi to apartments in Buru Buru. For there to be any real changes in the situation, the property system will have to be changed so that the vast natural and human resources currently being looted in the name of profit by local and International capitalists can be redirected to build houses for slum dwellers. This is what we mean when we say that the system has to be replaced for any real changes to occur. The bigger task is that the process of changing the system requires another revolution which will have to be organized. 10. THE QUESTION OF THE NEXT REVOLUTION IN KENYA: From what we gather, the general mood at the KCA Conference was that Kenyans should engage in a collective dance with the Narc government because KANU is out of power. True, Narc has implemented lots of progressive changes since the Coalition seized power. However, the KCA Conference provided a perfect platform for Kenyans who attended it to put Narc where it belongs. Narc facilitated the “Velvet revolution” in Kenya, just like the Multiparty advocates brought about the “Multi-party” (or Saba Saba) revolution. We honour the Mau Mau for having brought about the “Colonial revolution” which nevertheless, ended in “Flag independence” and singing of the National anthem as Professor Ngugi wa Thiongo puts it. After the Narc take-over, there appears to be a poverty of ideas as to how Kenya should proceed and much of the rhetoric at the Conference was focused on “reconstruction” with a capitalist Narc at the helm. What we are saying is that the game is not yet over. The next revolution will be the kind of revolution that will put the wealth of Kenya on the hands of Kenyans, transfer land ownership back to the Kenyan people, end dependency of Kenya on Western Imperialism, put workers and peasants in power, change the exploitative capitalist system and enable Kenyans to control their own destiny. We are preparing the grounds for a Socialist revolution in Kenya and although we did not expect this subject to come up at the KCA Conference, it is important that Kenyans who are open minded begin to look further than the capitalist system under which Narc rules. The system has enslaved us under Neo colonialism. If we were to summarise answers to the question we have raised here, we would put forward the following alternatives to what Narc is offering. 1. LANDLESSNESS: Nationalize all land in Kenya as the basis of land redistribution. All landless Kenyans to be resettled on nationalised State land. 2. PRIVATISATIONS: Stop privatisations now. Renationalise all privatised State enterprises and put them under democratic workers control and management. 3. RETRENCHMENTS: Stop all retrenchments in Kenya. Re-employ all workers who have so far been retrenched both under the Moi and Narc government. 4. MPs MILLION SALARIES: Reduce MPs salaries to that of a skilled worker. No privileges to People’s Representatives at the expense of the tax payer. 5. NARC/IMF/WORLD BANK COURTSHIP: Abolish all IMF/World Bank programs. Stop all contacts with these imperialist economic institutions whose main agenda is exploitation and plunder of Kenya’s natural and human resources. 6. NARC AND THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM: We stand for a democratic socialist system of government with Kenyan working class taking a leading role in the anticapitalist struggle. 7. MINIMUM LIVING WAGE FOR WORKERS IN KENYA: Introduce a minimum living wage of between 15-20,000 Kenyan shillings for all workers in Kenya. Abolish starvation wages which have reduced Kenyan workers to paupers. This is possible if the country’s wealth is under the control of the toiling workers. 8. NATIONALIZATION OF WEALTH PRODUCING INSTITUTIONS IN KENYA: Nationalize the commanding heights of the Kenyan economy. Stop repatriating the wealth of Kenya abroad through multinational companies which have taken over the economy of our country. 9. THE CONSTITUTIONAL REVIEW PROCESS: Overhaul the colonial and undemocratic Constitution in Kenya. We stand for a new Constitution under the control of the working class, not the rich millionaire MPs in Narc who will violate it at will. 10. THE QUESTION OF THE NEXT REVOLUTION IN KENYA: We stand for a democratic socialist revolution in Kenya led by Kenyan workers under a Workers Party armed with a revolutionary theory and a clear Socialist program for real change and transformation of the Kenyan society.. Okoth Osewe Secretary, Kenya Socialist Democratic Alliance (KSDA) ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ KSDA is a revolutionary Socialist Alliance which fights for Socialism in Kenya and the World. The Alliance believes that the fundamental social, economic and political crisis facing Kenya today requires a democratic Socialist revolution with Kenyan working class taking a leading role in the struggle. The Alliance advocates for the formation of a Workers' Party in Kenya and the abolition of capitalism in the country. Contacts: KSDA Box 74, 123 22 Farsta, Sweden. website: http://www.kenyasocialist.org. Tel: 00 46 736533068. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++