Senate Foreign Relations African Affairs Subcommittee Hearing On the Immediate and Underlying Causes and Consequences of Kenya’s Flawed Election

</

Senate Foreign Relations African Affairs Subcommittee Hearing
On the Immediate and Underlying Causes and Consequences of Kenya’s Flawed Election

February 7, 2008

SEN. FEINGOLD: (Sounds gavel.) Call the committee to order. Good morning, everybody. The hearing will come to order.

And on behalf of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs, I welcome all of you to this hearing on "The Immediate and Underlying Causes and Consequences of Kenya's Flawed Election."

I am honored to be joined in a little while by my colleague and the ranking member of this sub-committee, Senator Sununu. And when he arrives, I'll ask him to make some opening remarks as well.

By now, we've all seen the gruesome photos and heard the tragic stories of the brutal violence that has erupted throughout Kenya. Hopes were high in the run-up to that country's fourth multiparty elections on December 27th. And Kenyans actually turned out in record numbers to cast their votes in the extremely close race between incumbent President Mwai Kibaki and the leader of the opposi-tion, Orange Democratic Movement, Raila Odinga.

Excitement at advancing Kenya's democratic progress turned sour when results were delayed. And when Kenya's electoral commission declared Kibaki the victor and proceeded to hurriedly swear him in two days later, that hope and excitement turned to rage as the world watched the entire de-mocratic process begin to unravel. And historical grievances gave way to outbreaks of brutal vio-lence that actually continue today.

With volatile neighbors like Somalia and Ethiopia and Sudan, Kenya has often been considered relatively stable and even a model of democratic and economic development in the region.

Although the country even before this crisis was not without its problems, Kenya is an important partner for the United States. But the lack of progress in addressing a number of deep-rooted prob-lems, including political marginalization, land disputes and endemic corruption, appear to have taken a toll.

By many accounts, the situation in Kenya could still get much worse and is beginning to have nega-tive repercussions beyond its own borders. That is what it is essential that the United States and wider international community devote the necessary attention, assistance and diplomatic pressure to help pull Kenya from the brink of disaster and bring that country back to the path toward stability, democracy and development.

Given our strong relationship with Kenya, it's particularly important that the administration act in a fair and balanced manner that actively supports the people of Kenya in their right to a government that truly represents them and seeks to address the fundamental grievances that have contributed to the brutal violence.

The administration cannot overlook or ignore the complexities of this crisis, for doing so will only allow them to fester and re-emerge again in the future.

This hearing will explore both the short and long-term causes of the recent political and social un-rest in Kenya and what must be done to address these problems, and how the United States can con-tribute to these solutions.

In an attempt to present a balanced assessment of what has gone wrong and how to fix it, we have invited two panels of distinguished witnesses to focus on U.S. policy to date and how our govern-ment can best support Kenya in international stabilization efforts.

First, we'll hear from a panel of Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer, who just returned from Africa last night. We will also hear testimony from Katherine Almquist, the assistant administrator for Africa at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

I've asked them to explain how the United States has sought to strengthen democratic and judicial institutions while also consolidating the Kibaki's government's commitment to good governance.

The subcommittee will be also interested to hear how much and what kind of assistance the U.S. is prepared to provide in both the immediate and long term.

A second panel of nongovernmental witnesses will offer additional perspectives on the underlying causes of the recent unrest and the potential impact of these events throughout Kenya and the re-gion.

Mr. Christopher Albin-Lackey is a senior researcher for Africa at Human Rights Watch and has just returned from a research assessment of the human rights situation in Kenya. So he has seen first-hand the human rights and humanitarian impact of the post-election crisis.

Dr. Joel Barkan is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Iowa and a senior as-sociate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies here in Washington.

And finally, we will hear from David Mozersky, who since July 2006 has been the International Crisis Group's Horn of Africa Project director here in Washington, but worked for Crisis Group's Nairobi office for more than four years.
We're glad you're all here today. And we appreciate your willingness to testify on this timely issue.

Thank you and welcome. I look forward to your testimony and our subsequent discussion.

Before I turn to my colleagues for their opening comments, I also want to briefly acknowledge the wide interest that Kenyans have taken in this hearing. My office has received numerous calls, visits and faxes from Kenyans in the United States as well as in Kenya who wanted to share their insights into the current crisis.

At this time, I'd like to ask that these formal submissions we have received from some of these groups and individuals be included in the official record of this hearing. And I think it's important to note the broad range and diverse perspectives on the issue. And so I will do so if there is no ob-jection.

Without objection.

Finally, I want to offer my sincere welcome and appreciation to the Kenyans in the audience this morning. I know that some of you have traveled long distances to be here and that many of you are personally involved in what is going on in your country. So I am grateful for your interest and at-tendance.

Now I'm very pleased to introduce the ranking member of the full committee and a member of the committee who has been devoted to issues concerning African nations throughout his career, Sena-tor Lugar.

SEN. RICHARD LUGAR (R-IN): Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I do not have an opening statement but simply applaud the timeliness of your calling and sharing this hearing. I look forward, along with you, to hearing our distinguished witnesses and to partici-pating in questions and answers with them.

Thank you very much.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Thank you, Senator Lugar.

And Senator Ben Cardin, also a member of the subcommittee and member of the full committee, obviously -- Senator Cardin, your -- any remarks.

SEN. BENJAMIN L. CARDIN (D-MD): Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for conducting this hearing. I do have an opening statement and I would ask consent that it be made part of the record.

And just to make a brief comment, I think there was great hope that the elections of 2007 would add to Kenya's progress towards democracy. There -- it was going to be a competitive election. And I think we all were looking forward to the results of that election. But unfortunately, the elections were flawed. And the violence that has taken place in that country, we need to pay a great deal of attention to it. But I would just urge us to be looking at ways in which we can provide greater assis-tance to countries to make sure that their election process is not flawed.

I think our monitoring needs to be stronger to try to prevent this type of activities in countries that have too often led to violence. There is no -- you can't condone the violence that's taking place, and we need to do everything we can to bring it to an end. But I do think we need to pay more attention to these countries.

And I look forward to the hearing.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Thank you, Senator Cardin, for your attendance and participation.

And now we turn with perfect timing to Assistant Secretary Frazer.

MS. FRAZER: Thank you, Chairman Feingold. And I apologize for being late this morning.

Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Sununu, members of the committee.

While I'm always happy to come before you to discuss Africa, this hearing comes at a tragic time for the Kenyan people.

As requested by the committee, I've submitted for the record a longer statement that outlines the current political crisis and its underlying causes.

Before turning to your questions, I would like this morning to briefly touch on the causes of the cri-sis and share our views on the path that Kenya's leaders can take out of this crisis and how the United States contribute to helping Kenya move forward.

I ask if you will accept the longer statement --

SEN. FEINGOLD: Without --

MS. FRAZER: -- for the record. Thank you.

While the immediate spark for the current situation is the flawed presidential election on December 27th, there are also deeper underlying causes of the violence and political turmoil that are gripping Kenya. These causes include long-term social and economic inequalities, concentration of power in the executive branch, and weaknesses of critical institutions like the judiciary and parliament.

The international community supports Kofi Annan's mediation as a venue for resolving the electoral and political crisis and starting to address these more fundamental institutional and socioeconomic problems in Kenya.

On the immediate crisis, even before the Electoral Commission of Kenya, the ECK, announced Mwai Kibaki as the winner of the presidential election on December 30th, violence erupted in Ki-sumu. And after the announcement, interethnic violence started, especially in the Rift Valley.

Most of the violence since then has affected Nyanza and Western province, central and southern Rift Valley province and areas of Nairobi.

The first type of violence that occurred was more spontaneous. Looting and violent protest triggered immediately before and right after the ECK announcement.

We cannot rule out that there was pre-organization, and an inquiry into the violence is necessary to establish the facts.

This kind of violence has diminished but can be triggered anew by events on the ground, as demon-strated by a wave of riots following the murders of opposition members of parliament, Merlitus Were and David Too, on January 29th and 31st.

There was also, immediately following the ECK announcement, a pattern of organized violence, especially in the Rift Valley, aimed at driving out Kikuyus from the area. We have also seen trou-bling use of excessive force by police against civilians.

Finally, we more recently have witnessed the emergence of retributive community-based violence in reaction to earlier ethnic clashes. Evidence that the Mungiki criminal organization is being reor-ganized as a Kikuyu militia for revenge against non-Kikuyus -- is a new dynamic that we cannot tolerate.

We are also gravely concerned about the reports of increased incidents of sexual and gender-based violence and about the vulnerability of IDPs who have been -- who have already been victimized.

At this unprecedented and critical juncture in Kenya's history, our top policy priority is to bring an immediate end to the violence. The government and opposition leaders have the responsibility to do everything in their power to stop this violence. The parties also need to negotiate in good faith, with Annan's facilitation, to reach a political agreement that will allow a measure of peace and eco-nomic stability to return to Kenya and create a stable platform for addressing essential, longer-term reform projects in interethnic reconciliation.

Civil society and a business community have so far largely played constructive roles in moving Kenya forward, and their voices should be heard and respected.

Our message to the parties is consistent and strong: Stop the violence and negotiate in good faith towards a political solution.

We are also looking at a range of options against those who either incite violence or are obstructive to the negotiation process. There can be no impunity for inciting, supporting or participating in vio-lence.

Before this crisis, Kenya was on a productive path towards an open democratic society, as evi-denced by the 2002 presidential elections and a 2005 constitutional reform. The Kenyan people want and deserve to return to this path, and we will remain engaged at the highest levels to help them get there.

The United States has many interests at stake and will remain active in helping the Kenyan people and their leaders resolve this crisis.

Thank you, and I would be happy to take any questions you may have.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Thank you, Secretary Frazer.

Ms. Almquist.

MS. ALMQUIST: Chairman Feingold and members of the committee, thank you for the opportu-nity to appear before you today.

I would like to submit written testimony for the record on the contributions that the U.S. Agency for International Development has made towards strengthening democracy in Kenya, including the support we provided for -- to the run-up of the December 27 elections, our perspective on the cur-rent post-electoral crisis and efforts to address it, and next steps for USAID Kenya.

I will summarize some of the key points now. Thank you.

Unrest in Kenya of course not only threatens the well-being of Kenyans but also humanitarian and commercial operations throughout the entire region, potentially affecting more than 100 million lives, according to some analysts.

Neighboring countries are experiencing shortages of fuel and other essential supplies due to insecu-rity along the Kenyan section of the Northern Transport Corridor, one of the most important routes in Africa. Addressing conflict in Kenya, therefore, will be critical to the stability and health of the entire region.

The events since December 27th have largely undermined many of the gains that Kenya had made in consolidating its fragile democratic system since it held its first fully democratic and free and fair elections in 2002.

Kenyans' long-term challenge with respect to democracy has been to reorient the political system away from its focus on powerful individuals, specifically whoever happens to be president, and concentrate instead on three key tasks: developing effective and accountable governance institu-tions that are flexible enough to represent Kenya's diverse society; creating a set of fair, equitable rules by which political processes can be governed and fostering respect for the rule of law; and providing ample political freedom for civic organizations, the media and ordinary citizens to ex-press and organize themselves peacefully and monitor the performance of their government.

We agree with most Kenyans that their constitution is outdated and needs to be revised to reflect the needs for greater power- sharing.

The current standoff on the subject of constitutional reform stems in part from the inability of Kenya's political class to reach a consensus on how to de-concentrate power and create a more de-mocratic system of checks and balances.

USAID's program in Kenya is one of our most mature development programs in Africa, with eco-nomic cooperation going back as far as the late 1950s and early 1960s. The overarching goal of the program is to build a democratically and economically prosperous -- a democratic and economically prosperous country by assisting it to improve the balance of power among institutions of govern-ance, promote the sustainable use of its natural resources, and improve rural incomes.

USAID programs also improve health conditions, provide access to quality education for children of historically marginalized populations, and promote trade and investment programs.

In fiscal year 2007, the United States provided over $500 million in assistance to Kenya and will do the same in fiscal year 2008.

USAID has been pursuing a modestly funded, albeit carefully targeted, democracy and governance program in Kenya of about $5 million a year. Our program has worked to increase the transparency and effectiveness of government of Kenya institutions, promote more transparent and competitive political processes, and increase the capacity of civil society organizations to lobby for reforms, monitor government activities, and prevent and resolve conflict.

We do this both with the government of Kenya and nongovernmental organizations, in close col-laboration with other donors, and under the leadership of the U.S. ambassador to Kenya.

In the testimony I've submitted for the record, I have -- I provide substantial detail on these pro-grams. Therefore, I'd like to highlight just two of them now: our legislative strengthening program and our transparent and political processes program.

The goal of our work in legislative strengthening is to improve the effectiveness of Kenya's parlia-ment. To achieve this objective, we work through our partner, the State University of New York, to facilitate in key parliamentary committees. Program activities contribute to improving parliament's oversight of national budget and corruption-related issues.

The focus of USAID support is departmental committees that shadow government ministries, ad-dress budget issues and play watchdog roles.

Our elections and political processes program was part of a multidonor effort to help Kenya set the stage for credible presidential, parliamentary and local elections in 2007. Developing the capacity of the Electoral Commission of Kenya was central to our efforts.

The International Foundation for Election Systems, or IFES, has been providing assistance to the ECK since late 2001. And our support is now coming to an end for that activity following the 2007 elections.

Activities were focused on providing appropriate technology for more efficient and transparent elections administration while improving the skills, the technical skills of the ECK staff.

We also channeled funding through the Joint Donor Elections Assistance Program managed by the United Nations Development Program. This program focused on increasing the efficiency and pro-fessional management of the electoral process; enhancing information available to voters; increas-ing citizens' knowledge of the electoral process; improving the accuracy of media reporting on elec-toral issues; reducing incidences of electoral violence; and enhancing the effectiveness of domestic observation.

Other contributions in this area included political party strengthening and opinion polling. We also contributed to the deployment of resident observers and to high-profile international observation delegation to undertake an impartial and independent assessment of the conduct of the elections as a part of a broader international observation effort.

Our support for the recent elections in Kenya was an integrated program, and notable achievements were realized. These achievements are easy to identify when the results of the parliamentary elec-tions are isolated from those of the presidential election.

The parliamentary elections truly reflected the will of the Kenyan electorate, and evidence of such includes the fact that 70 percent of incumbent members of parliament were overturned in their re-election bids and that those elections were largely perceived not to have significant issues.

Voter registration for the elections exceeded expectations, and more than 1 million new voters reg-istered in 2007 alone. Yet when we look at what happened with the final vote tally for the presiden-tial elections, clearly there were still issues that need to be addressed and lessons to be learned.

You've asked what must be done to address the problems Kenya is facing now and how the United States can contribute to these solutions. Let me describe for you our current thinking. We're con-ducting a careful review of our existing programs in Kenya to decide how we might redirect re-sources to address these newly identified needs.

For most of these priorities, we have existing programs in place that can absorb additional funding. And thus, our implementation efforts should proceed fairly quickly.

First, we believe it's imperative to increase our democracy and governance programs, and I antici-pate that we will be able to double this program shortly. We're in the middle of a number of fund-ing decisions, and I expect that we can identify additional resources very quickly to support the team in Nairobi.

It is generally recognized by Kenyans across the political spectrum that constitutional electoral re-forms are essential to address the issues that have arisen from this crisis. We have plans to support a number of issues -- a number of initiatives in the area of the failure of the electoral commission to carry out a transparent and accountable process, the need for constitutional reform to address under-lying grievances, including the need to limit power of the executive, strengthen the legislature, re-form the judiciary and address land reform.

In particular, parliament has been critically important and will be critically important to achieving a political solution. We have plans to support the new speaker of parliament in addition to our ongo-ing parliamentary strengthening program, and will be working with our team in Nairobi to provide resources for increasing political dialogue and the forum that parliament can provide for national reconciliation.

Civil society has also coalesced with impressive efforts to promote dialogue and national reconcilia-tion across ethnic and party lines. And providing support to key -- several key umbrella groups will strengthen their efforts to promote dialogue and build pressure for a political solution.

These groups will need resources to pull together people through specific dialogue and reconcilia-tion programs, and we have a number of plans in place to support these initiatives.

Second, beyond the immediate humanitarian impact, the post- election crisis has significantly im-pacted people's income-generating activities and resulted in substantial livelihood and asset losses. The World Bank has estimated that up to 2 million Kenyans may be driven into poverty from the effects of violence and political upheaval following the disputed election results.

It will be critical, therefore, to help restore the livelihoods of many households in Kenya that have been forced to abandon their farms, small business and other means of livelihood. We're planning to support activities that will provide seeds and other agricultural inputs and tools, rebuild grain warehouses, extend seed capital for re-engagement, and other income-generation activities.

And third, since long-standing issues about land tenure were among the factors fueling the crisis in western Kenya, we believe that supporting reform relating to land tenure and property rights will be critical. There is a compelling need for land reform leading to the security and regularization of tenure and property rights. A draft national land policy and related implementation plan are already in place. And there has been broad consensus among Kenyans that this draft national land policy reflects national sentiment.

USAID is already a partner in the land sector, and we anticipate increasing our assistance in this regard.

Let me now turn briefly to the humanitarian situation. My colleague Deputy Assistant Administra-tor for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance Greg Gottlieb testified yesterday before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the humanitarian situation in Kenya. We have copies of his testimony for those wishing to have a more in-depth report. And I would also ask, if it's accept-able to the committee, that his testimony be submitted for the record as well.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Without objection.

MS. ALMQUIST: In brief, the situation in Kenya is extremely fluid. USAID has responded to this situation with more than $5.2 million in emergency humanitarian assistance thus far.

Immediate priorities for this assistance have included protection, water and sanitation, health, shel-ter, and camp management interventions targeting displaced populations and stressed host commu-nities in areas of Nairobi and western Kenya.

I'm happy to provide additional information on the humanitarian situation in Q&A if that would be of interest.

Mr. Chairman and members, USAID is actively engaged in reviewing how we can further redirect our existing programs and identify additional resources to meet the more critical needs following this post-election crisis. And we look forward to continued opportunities to keep you informed on our efforts in this regard.

Thank you.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Thank you, Ms. Almquist.

We'll begin with 10-minute rounds.

Assistant Secretary Frazer, thank you for your testimony and for coming to testify before the sub-committee so soon after your return from the region.

Just before we begin with Kenya-related questions, though, I'd like to raise one time-sensitive issue with you.

On December 13th, Chairman Biden sent a letter on by behalf requesting cables on the Ogaden re-gion of Ethiopia. The letter contained a specific number of each requested cable, which I would assume makes it quite simple for these communications to be located and delivered. It is now Feb-ruary 7th, nearly two months later, and these cables have still not -- are still not delivered.

What's taking so long for these cables to be delivered? As you well know, part of my job is to con-duct oversight, and I have requested these cables accordingly. I understand you've been traveling quite a bit recently, but surely the signoff procedure to get these cables to the chairman of the Africa Subcommittee isn't that difficult. I'd like to know when these cables will be delivered.

MS. FRAZER: Mr. Chairman, it's my understanding that that issue of responding to your -- that request is being vetted through the State Department. It's not an issue that my bureau clearly handles alone. And at -- as soon as that vetting is completed, then I would imagine that you would get the answers that have been requested.

But certainly, my bureau is not the one that is the final signoff on providing cables by name to the committee.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Who is the final signoff?

MS. FRAZER: I don't know, but I know that it is being vetted through the building. The lawyers will have to have a look at that. There are bigger issues that the State Department as an institution working with the Congress will have to address. And that's not something that my bureau is re-sponsible for.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Well, I hope the vetting happens quickly. I recommend that these cables are delivered as soon as possible. We've already lost too much time and quite possibly too many lives in that situation.

Let's turn to the issue at hand and discuss Kenya.

Given your trip to Kenya in the aftermath of the elections, what do you see as the major points of concern for resolving this political crisis? How are we working with former Secretary-General Kofi Annan to support his current mediation efforts? And what precise contributions are we making to these mediation attempts?

MS. FRAZER: Thank you for that question.

I think that the key for progress is the willingness and the good faith of the leadership of the PNU, the -- Mwai Kibaki's party -- and of ODM, Raila Odinga's party, and their mediators.

We are supporting Kofi Annan's mediation. We began supporting it even before it started, with Secretary Rice and the U.K. Foreign Secretary Miliband issuing a statement welcoming the AU ini-tiative under John Kufuor to negotiate with these parties. We then -- when John Kufuor decided that he would have Kofi Annan as the lead mediator, we again welcomed that.

We've met and talked to both Kufuor as well as Annan. Secretary Rice has spoken to both as well. We have provided ideas for them. We have also pushed the different parties directly, Kibaki and Odinga.

We've tried to build and help civil society voice raise up to put the pressure of their constituents on them. And so we've been working very directly, diplomatically, with the mediators themselves as well as the parties and the broader society.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Assistant Secretary, do you agree that the crisis in Kenya has serious strategic implications for the United States? And to follow on that, do you agree that the ability to anticipate crises like this one in Kenya can be as important to defending America's interests as the, you know, capacity or ability to respond to crises after they've unfolded?

MS. FRAZER: Certainly the United States has key strategic interests. We have an interest in Kenya regaining its role as a stable, democratic and economically viable country in East Africa. We have an interest in ensuring that Kenya resolves its political challenges in a way that contributes to reconciliation by the broad majority of Kenyans and restores international confidence. And we also must protect our strategic relationship with Kenya, especially on regional conflict resolution, where it impacts us directly on Sudan, particularly the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in southern Sudan, as well as our counterterrorism cooperation in which Kenya has been a key partner.

Yes, I do believe that it's important to anticipate these challenges. And I recall that when I testified as the nominee for becoming assistant secretary, in my testimony I raised the issue of how elections throughout Africa become flashpoints of conflict, and that we need to strengthen them institution-ally to be able to manage these elections.

And certainly, since being assistant secretary, I've put an emphasis on trying to support electoral commissions, the judiciary, the independent media, all as key institutions, as well as political par-ties, for managing these elections.

This problem in Kenya can actually be seen throughout all of Africa. And so we have anticipated such challenges.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Well, how does the State Department work with other U.S. agencies, including the intelligence community, to actually anticipate these kind of crises? And what resources are you using, or should you be directing to achieve that goal?

MS. FRAZER: Well, we certainly, with our intelligence community but also with our diplomats on the ground, we talk to all of the parities. We are aware of orientations of different political par-ties and their response.

Secretary Rice spoke to both sides, saying to them that they both must be willing to accept defeat. She had that message for a reason. But we certainly work with the intel community but also, I would just emphasize, our diplomats on the ground.

Our ambassador has been making speeches in the lead-up to this election, trying to influence Ken-yan leaders as well as civil society in how they respond to any particular outcome of the election.

SEN. FEINGOLD: I understand that visa bans may be under consideration -- in fact, I've heard recent information on this just prior to the hearing -- for certain members of the Kenyan government and/or the opposition party. Can you share your criteria for such consideration, who you might be considering or who you may have implemented something with regard to?

MS. FRAZER: Yes, thank you.

For the most part, we of course rely on the judgment of our embassy on the ground because they're involved in dealing with these leaders in government as well as opposition on a daily basis. But there's certain evidence.

We monitor the radio. We look in newspapers. There's evidence of those who are inciting and con-tinuing to incite violence. And they would be the first target of our effort to put a visa ban on.

And so the embassy will generate a list of names. That list will then come back to Washington. We will review it, but again, heavily relying on the mission on the ground for determining who should be on the list.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Thank you.

Ms. Almquist, as you know, the USAID -- that's the American taxpayers, of course -- funded an exit poll conducted by the International Republican Institute in Kenya. I'd like to ask you both about why this report -- actually from both of you, but you in particular -- why this report has not been made public.

Does USAID and the State Department has a view as to whether or not it should be published? Why shouldn't it be published?

MS. ALMQUIST: Mr. Chairman, I'll have to look into that for you and provide you an answer back. I'm not clear why we haven't made that report public.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Ms. Frazer?

MS. FRAZER: I haven't discussed it with IRI, and so I don't know why they haven't made their report public. But I think that, again, the key is, we've been putting a focus on the mediation by Kofi Annan. We've been preoccupied with trying to end the violence. But certainly we can ask IRI if, you know, if there's a reason for them not making the report --

SEN. FEINGOLD: Given the urgency --

MS. FRAZER: -- public.

SEN. FEINGOLD: -- of this, I don't consider either of those to be serious answers. This is a very delicate thing.

MS. ALMQUIST: Mr. Chairman --

SEN. FEINGOLD: And I really do hope you'll immediately get back to me on this.

MS. ALMQUIST: Yes, sir.

To my knowledge, we have not asked IRI not to make the report public, but I believe there is a question of confidence for IRI in the results of the exit poll. But we'll immediately get you an an-swer on that.

SEN. FEINGOLD: I'm sure we'll be worse off if it's repressed rather than getting it out and talking about whatever problems there might be.

We have been hearing from the president for several years now about -- this for Ms. Almquist again -- about Kenya's strategic importance to the United States. And the State Department's fiscal year '08 budget justification called this year a critical year for Kenya.

Yet U.S. foreign assistance to Kenya is overwhelmingly, almost 90 percent of the total, concen-trated in HIV/AIDS programs, which of course I have strongly supported.

While this epidemic is certainly a major challenge for Kenya, we've seen in the last few weeks that it is not the only serious obstacle to Kenya's stability and development.

Similarly, the U.S. government's democracy governance program in Kenya has had a narrow focus on elections. But the conflict that has broken out in Kenya has been largely fueled, by many peo-ple's views, by a sense of economic injustice.

Do you think the U.S. government has been overly focused on HIV/AIDS and elections in Kenya, rather than investing in strengthening critical institutions across a number of sectors? And could the United States have done more to invest in programs that might more effectively have prevented the current conflict from breaking out?

Ms. Almquist?

MS. ALMQUIST: Mr. Chairman, thank you for that question.

We have been seeking to increase our development assistance, non- HIV/AIDS-related, to Kenya. It's one of seven countries that both the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International De-velopment have prioritized in our last couple of budget cycles. And we continue to do that. It is critical, not just for the Kenyan people but for the entire region, that it grow economically and that it continue on its path of democracy.

Economic growth is a key area for us in our development program. We seek to build linkages be-tween the HIV/AIDS program, which, as you rightly point out, is very large. We think that's appro-priate for the scale of the HIV/AIDS crisis there and shouldn't detract from or be a trade-off against other development priorities.

Having said that, we are reviewing the economic growth strategy that we have in Kenya right now, which has been focused on natural resource management and increasing agricultural productivity as well as boosting Kenya's participation in international trade and other means for increasing its own resource base.

We think that livelihoods, as I said, is going to be critically important going forward, as well as land reform, specifically the land tenure system. We had already invested in an effort with DFID and Swedish SIDA to support a land reform strategy process. This now needs to be implemented and carried forward. And we're seeking to identify additional resources to do that.

I believe that within our budget, we will be able to prioritize that further going forward. And we do recognize the critical importance of the underlying tensions here.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Thank you.

Senator Lugar.

SEN. LUGAR: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Secretary Frazer, I'm curious as to what kind of a reception you received from the Kenyan govern-ment and the opposition party when you arrived. You went promptly, at the direction of our gov-ernment, to that country. And I'm just curious, does this make any difference to Kenyans? Was your presence or the -- our interest at that point really a factor in terms of their consideration of what was occurring in the country?

MS. FRAZER: Thank you, Senator Lugar.

I was well received by both the government and the opposition, as well as the broader Kenya soci-ety, I believe.

At the time that I arrived, only Bishop Tutu had come to Kenya. He left the day before I arrived, and he played an extremely important role in bringing church leaders together to try to put pressure again on both sides.

My presence helped to clarify that the government recognized that there were irregularities. I think there's additional need to continue to make them aware of that fact.

But after my first meeting with President Kibaki, he issued a statement saying that the government was prepared to power-share. He phrased it a "government of national unity." Later, it because a "coalition government." But it was the first public statement on his part that power-sharing was necessary to resolve this crisis.

On the opposition side, again, I was well received. I had several meetings with Raila Odinga, his immediate what is called the pentagon, the political leadership around him, as well as more in his party. And they also came out and publicly called off certain demonstrations, which was creating a sense of insecurity in the public.

We put pressure on the government to allow for freedom of the press, to allow live bands. We made sure that Raila Odinga would be given a voice. We actually arranged for him to be -- for his statements to be broadcast live.

And so I think on all sides, there was an appreciation of the U.S. role and our effort and the fact that we were quick to respond to the crisis in Kenya.

SEN. LUGAR: Well, following that, however -- and Kofi Annan, as you pointed out, is still there, and others, attempting to mediate -- is the election situation one in which regardless of how the election was conducted, there was a disposition, in your judgment of the country, before the elec-tion, not verging towards civil war but at least those who were dispossessed, those who were not doing well historically, the tribal divisions -- in other words, was the election a proximate cause for divisions that other local leaders or others were fomenting so that even if at the top you're visiting with the presidential candidates -- and even as Ms. Almquist has testified, and maybe 70 percent of the parliamentary situations, there are really no dispute about the situation -- just fundamentally, the country is not really prepared to think in a unified way, that this is a proximate cause for people go-ing their own way, settling things by force or other devices without -- within the country?

MS. FRAZER: I think that the problems in Kenya are very complex. And I think that we've seen that the country is prepared to come together. In the voice of civil society, in the voice of the media, it was a spontaneous effort, this "save our beloved country" campaign that the media had.

Ambassador Ranneberger participated in live call-in shows. Even while the violence was taking place, people were -- their voices were being heard calling for their leaders to act responsibly and to end the violence.

And so I think that yes, there is definitely deep-seeded, very deep-seated divisions that any politi-cian can mobilize on an ethnic basis. I think there are deep concerns and grievances that have to be addressed. But I do believe that Kenyan society can pull through this with responsible leadership.

I think that the question of responsible leadership is one that is not at all clear, that both sides have yet decided that the way out is through negotiations. They are participating in this process, but we are calling on them to do so in good faith, with the result being that they can help pull their societies back from the brink of this polarization and this ethnic conflict.

Clearly, whenever such violence is unleashed, the dynamic can get out of the hands of any particu-lar leader or any of the political leaders. So there is a tremendous danger in Kenya right now that the communities will go at each other, out of control of their political leadership.

SEN. LUGAR: To what extent are communications in Kenya sufficient that people throughout the country would have some understanding of the crisis? At least in these dimensions, obviously, the contention politically is evident. But our press now is carrying stories of even American compa-nies, quite apart from companies elsewhere, hesitating to invest more in Kenya, or even discussing withdrawing their support.

And thus, the unemployment you have described, both of you in your testimony, is being exacer-bated by predictions that a great deal more is to come.

In other words, what was coming to be a success story of sorts, relatively, rapidly unraveling, so that regardless of who is contending out in the hustings, there is going to be much less around the table at that point to deal with.

Now, if that's not understood by most people in Kenya, that's too bad. While these contentious problems may have been going on, historic, for a long time, at least the degree of unity in Kenya had led to a great deal of new investment and progress, which is perceived by some but not by all.

That's why I'm wondering, are the leaders able to communicate, out to the hustings, to everybody, "call it off"? In other words, you're terminating, really, a situation. Or are the emotions at this point such that people are simply determined to have at it, and even if the pie grows a great deal smaller?

And I ask this because I agree with the chairman. Clearly, we probably should be doing more in terms of our assistance in economic reform, other things, in addition to the important HIV/AIDS, the PEPFAR program. But we've been coming in, really, as everybody else is going out. In other words, in the investment climate as such, we could prop up a few situations, do some teaching about economic reform, but maybe not to a receptive audience.

So tell me about communications. What kind of leadership there?

MS. FRAZER: The media is certainly -- there's a vibrant media in Kenya that I would say reaches all parts of the country. And so if the leaders put up unequivocal statements to end the violence, it would have a positive impact. The -- and if they did it jointly, as they've been asked to do by Kofi Annan, it would have even a more magnifying positive impact.

The problem is that what you're getting out of both PNU and ODM is mixed messages. And on the one hand, you will have one leader go out, even the principals, to say a positive message of recon-ciliation, and then you'll have hard-liners on their teams go out with a different message. And so they're sending out mixed signals.

Again, as I said, civil society has been much more responsible and much more positive, which is why part of our strategy is to try to elevate that voice of civil society groups.

Whatever their solution, and there have been -- from the day I arrived in Kenya, I had a million pro-posals -- well, not a million -- (laughs) -- but many proposals handed to me from all sides, trying to find a solution. And they all had a common element in them, which is negotiation, reaching out, messages of reconciliation. So I think that if we can bolster the voice of civil society and help it to remain -- continue that responsible voice of saving Kenya, their beloved country, that the media can play a very constructive role in solving this crisis.

SEN. LUGAR: What further leadership on our part -- obviously, Kofi Annan's leadership is tre-mendous, but I -- the reason I started by asking what kind of a reception you had is really, what is the influence of the United States in Kenya at this point?

And I ask this, and this is a long time ago, but I remember vividly the Philippine election of 1986. Clearly, a great dispute about the outcome -- a million people out in EDSA, and so forth. But at that particular point, United States, I remember vividly, said to President Marcos, cut clean, you know, or go. Now, we had that degree of influence. He went down the river and out to Hawaii.

What I'm asking is who has any influence in Kenya? If not us, the U.N., the French, the British? Or is it simply up for grabs at this particular point, without the kind of influence that might bring resolution with the leaders?

MS. FRAZER: The United States certainly has significant influence in Kenya. And we are trying to use that influence to push all sides to negotiate in good faith.

There's problems within the government side. There's problems within the opposition side. And what we have to do is try to bring leverage to bear, which is why we are doing a review of all of our assistance programs. That leverage, of course, will best be applied to the government side.

We're also looking at the visa ban, which gives us some leverage, both over the government as well as over the opposition.

And so yes, the United States does have a key role to play. We feel that we've been seen so far es-sentially as a neutral party who can try to bring these two together. And we are doing our utmost to protect that position.

Of course, the United Kingdom also has significant influence in Kenya, as does the AU mediation of Kofi Annan. Kofi Annan is respected by all sides. And so I think that we will continue to try to push the negotiation to his table, rather than have parallel tracks of negotiation.

SEN. LUGAR: Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Thank you, Senator Lugar.

Senator Cardin.

SEN. CARDIN: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And let me thank both of our witnesses for their service to our country.

It's clear that the initiative by Kofi Annan is the best opportunity we have. And I think we all need to be able to support that and move in as much concerted effort as we can to bring an end to the vio-lence in Kenya that is affecting the people of that country -- I think that's our first priority -- and to work to the underlining causes that you, Madame Secretary, have brought up.

But I want to go back to the trigger mechanism. Before December 2007 elections, you acknowl-edged that elections were flashpoints in African countries. And we clearly knew that this election was a competitive election.

As I look at the reasons why it was declared by the observers not to be fair and open, free elections, is that there was indications that election results were transferred to the national election board and last-minute changes kept the government in power, that the ballots were destroyed and there was no transparency in the process, giving no confidence that the results are fair and that in fact the winner was correct.

My question is, did we anticipate these problems? Were there any efforts made to try to prevent this type of election fraud?

There was concerns out in the communities where the ballots were tabulated, but they seem to be minor compared to the problems at the national level.

So I want to know why we were not more prepared to try to avoid another flashpoint election prob-lem in Africa.

MS. FRAZER: Thank you, Senator Cardin.

Certainly, we were prepared. And we have tried to use all levers of U.S. diplomacy to try to prevent a crisis like this. We didn't anticipate, of course, the degree of the intercommunal violence. That is true.

We certainly did, however, know that if this contest was very close, that violence was a probability, which is why we emphasized, you know, to both leaders, and communicated to them that they had both to be prepared to lose.

We certainly tried to strengthen their electoral commission. I myself had met with commissioner -- the -- Kivuitu. He was widely respected. We had confidence in his ability. We understood that the selection of the commissioners, as allowed by Kenya's constitution, was a problem and that there needed to be constitutional reform. In fact, that was one of the issues being debated.

All of these leaders have been grappling with the issue of constitutional reform, which gives too much power to the presidency to elect the commissioners or to select the commissioners. And so we also tried to urge changes in how they -- the vote-tallying process was reported.

And so all throughout this process, Senator, we have been engaged in trying to support –

SEN. CARDIN: But it seems like it's Democracy 101 -- you preserve the election records, you don't destroy them. And if I understand what happened in Kenya, the ballots were actually de-stroyed. Am I –

MS. FRAZER: Well, I know that that's the rumor. I asked Chairman Kivuitu when I was on the ground in those early days: "Is there custody? Is there -- where are the ballots? There may be an inquiry. We need to make sure that clearly, no one is tampering with those papers." He told me –

SEN. CARDIN: You have confidence that no one is tampering with it?

MS. FRAZER: No, I don't have confidence that that's the case. What he told me is that they're locked up, they're being protected.

I said, "Are you sure?" And so yes, it is Democracy 101 to make sure that the issue that is being debated, which is the electoral tally and the vote, that the reporting sheets are protected. And we did raise that with the individual who is responsible, as the chairman of the electoral commission, for seeing that that's done. He gave me the assurances that it was in fact being protected, but I did not have confidence that that was the case.

SEN. CARDIN: I guess one of my concerns -- I -- one of the hats I wear here in the United States Senate is to -- is the Senate chair of the OSCE Helsinki Commission, and we spend a lot of time on election monitoring. And election monitoring is important. And in Europe, it has been very help-ful. We've seen governments fall because of our determinations of fairness of elections.

What happened in the Ukraine was amazing, that you had an election reversed by the people. But that was a powder keg, too. It could have exploded, hundreds of thousands of people in the streets. But fortunately, the violence was very, very minor.

I'm just wondering whether, Administrator Almquist, we are spending our money properly under USAID in these countries. Election monitoring is important, but it tells us after a problem has al-ready occurred. And if the powder keg is there and is explode because of the elections not being fair and open, it seems to me that it'd be better to invest funds to try to get these elections right in the first place, rather than having to get them reversed.

Is there a better way to focus our resources to try to prevent these types of circumstances in the fu-ture?

MS. ALMQUIST: Thank you, Senator.

Election monitoring was one of the components of our democracy and governance program leading up to the December 27 elections. We identified -- in 2005 in fact, when we did our last multiyear strategy for Kenya -- the need to invest up front in the election process leading up to the election.

We spent $4.6 million in technical assistance for the Electoral Commission of Kenya, through IFES and also UNDP. Amongst the kinds of assistance that they tried to provide was on the use of ap-propriate technology for transparency and accountability of the election results.

So, for instance, the ECK, with its own funds, in fact, purchased tamper-proof bags to secure elec-tion results in and transport them. However, they weren't used consistently in this process.

We provided additional experts when several of the commissioners raised questions about some of the technologies that we were trying to introduce to the commission so that they could become more comfortable, more familiar with them and would actually use them. But ultimately, we can provide the assistance, we can share lessons learned in experience from many other places around the world, not just in Africa. But if the commission doesn't take advantage of that expertise and that assistance and apply it during the course of the elections, then we see the kind of problems that we had now.

So we agree, we need to go back and review our program and learn lessons ourselves to see where we can better focus efforts in the future.

But we do think that we correctly identified the ECK as a critical component for the election proc-ess. It worked for local elections, for parliamentary elections. Everything didn't break down. And so I think we can see some achievements there. But the vote- tallying for the presidential elections was clearly still an issue.

I think that we can all see that there are constitutional reforms needed with the composition of the commission, creating greater checks and balances so that the independence and the neutrality of it going forward is improved over this time around.

SEN. CARDIN: I appreciate that answer. And we certainly not dictate the type of conduct. We can only try to provide some help as to how free and fair elections are conducted.

But it seems to me there should be a clear understanding as to how elections are tabulated and re-cords are kept in a very open, transparent but safe and secure way. And seems to me that's kind of basic.

And my concern is whether that type of technical assistance was available to Kenya prior to the De-cember elections, and whether there was just a disregard for it or whether we were not as effective as perhaps we could have been prior to their national elections.

MS. ALMQUIST: Senator, we did absolutely provide that assistance through our best civil society organizations in the United States. IFES, the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute were all involved in and received assistance or funds from USAID to provide assistance in various forms to either the Kenyan government institutions responsible for administer-ing the elections as well as increasing public awareness about the conduct of the elections and civic education, voter registration efforts, working through the media and civil society so that there would be greater accountability for the government in the process of the elections.

We worked on political party strengthening. We trained more than 200 women in political leader-ship so that they would be viable candidates to stand for elections. And in fact, 14 women were elected to parliament, which is the largest number of women elected thus far -- still not satisfactory out of a 210-member parliament, but nevertheless, we can see some achievements as a result of the assistance that was provided.

We absolutely need to go back and review those programs and see what further can be done going forward, but –

SEN. CARDIN: Let me just conclude by saying we know that elections are flashpoints. It's very important that we get the constitutional reforms, that we get the democratic institutions in these countries, the respect for human rights, the independent judiciary, the independent legislature -- or the fair elections of local officials. That's all very, very important.

But we need to concentrate on free and fair elections in the African countries. And it seems to me that we may want to take a look at revising our strategies as to how we provide technical assistance, knowing how sensitive this issue can be to the stability of these countries.

So I just -- that's my point, and I do thank you for your response.

And thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. FEINGOLD: I thank my colleagues.

And I thank the first panel. Thank you so much.

We ask the second panel to come forward.

Thank you very much. And obviously your full statements will be included in the record. And if you could keep your comments to a relative summary of your longer remarks, that would be great.

Let us begin with Mr. Albin-Lackey.

MR. ALBIN-LACKEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The statement that I submitted into the re-cord goes into some detail about the findings of a recent research mission to Kenya which focused mostly on the police killing of dozens of people in various parts of Kenya, particularly in Kisumu, as well as the nature and the origins of the intercommunal violence that has since followed the elec-tions.

I won't go into too much detail about that. I just want to highlight a few of the broader trends that we think are most important and then talk a bit about the process moving forward and our views on that.

First of all, I think the most important point to highlight maybe about the violence is that while yes, there are many and deep underlying causes of what's going on in Kenya right now, the violence is not spontaneous for the most part and can't be considered that way.

There are a lot of reasons why the ground was so fertile for inciting the kind of ethnic violence that's raging across the country today, but much of that violence was, in fact, incited. What we found again and again in communities that have been affected by violence is that people were told by local leaders that they should react to an unfavorable election result as though it were war, and that in the aftermath of the election much of the violence that has followed in recent weeks is increasingly not only incited but organized in a very detailed manner by community leaders -- by politicians at the local level at the very least.

Secondly, aside from the violence itself, perhaps the most disturbing development in all of this has been the very rapid and extreme degree of polarization that's resulted from all of this just in the space of a few short weeks. Relations between the groups who are at loggerheads in these conflicts in various parts of Kenya have often been very difficult for a long time, but things have gotten rap-idly worse.

Even just in the short time when we were there, there was a noticeable ratcheting up of the level of ethnic rhetoric, the level of hate speech, common reference to people on the other side of the ethnic divide in parts of the Rift Valley as being inhuman and the active use of that kind of rhetoric to jus-tify atrocities that had already happened and to prepare people to carry out still further violence.

And thirdly, that in many of the places where violence has already occurred, there's a very real threat of further and more serious violence. There are tens of thousands of people who have been displaced from their homes, particularly in the Rift Valley. Many of those people are now living in IDP camps that are not well-enough protected, and there are people in communities around the Rift Valley who are actively planning ways to attack those camps if they feel that they can do so and carry it out successfully.

The Kenyan police, to their credit, have really -- have done a great deal to protect people affected by violence across the country, in spite of the brutality with which they've responded to opposition protests, which has to be investigated. But the police are overstretched, and if it isn't possible for the police to rise to the task of protecting all of the people that need to be protected who are at risk of future violence, then the Kenyan government should be exploring ways of asking for outside help to deal with that problem.

Now, moving forward, as has already been said by several people, the Kofi Annan-led mediation effort is the best and really the only hope of finding a way forward, and there are many and very complicated issues that have to be addressed through that mediation effort. But there are two things that have to happen immediately and which actually ought not be the process of protracted wran-gling and negotiation.

The first is a stop to the violence, and the fact is that in spite of public statements that really don't amount to anything more than hollow posturing, neither side has done nearly enough to impress upon its supporters on the ground that further violence won't be tolerated. The fact is that many of the people who are carrying out the violence across Kenya believe that they're doing so in support of the ambitions of their political leaders at the national level, and do not believe that they're doing anything to contradict the wishes of those leaders in carrying out further violence.
That has to change, and until the leadership on both sides does that, they have to be made to under-stand that they bear a share of the accountability, a share of the blame for any further violence that happens in the coming weeks.

I'm running out of time, so let me just also say that while many of the issues that have to be dealt with are very complex, it's important to remember and not to lose sight in the face of all of that complexity of the fact that the rigged elections were the primary spark for this crisis and they have to be addressed. And while both sides bear probably an equal share of the blame for the violence that's unfolding in the streets, the primary impediment to dealing with the election issue is the Ki-baki government.

The election results and the presidential poll have no legitimacy. They have to be the subject of an impartial inquiry. And if that inquiry is inconclusive because the evidence can't be found or it's been destroyed or tampered with, then the process should end, when feasible, at some point down the line with a new election. But one way or the other, the rights of Kenya's voters have to be safe-guarded and upheld at the end of all of this.

Thank you.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Thank you very much, Mr. Albin-Lackey. Dr. Barkan?

MR. BARKAN: Thank you, chairman -- (off mike) -- for inviting me here this morning. You can hear me now. Time is short, so I'm going to condense my remarks. You have my full statement for the record.

They're basically grouped under four headings: the elections and historical perspective, the political stalemate, the violence and economic losses; thirdly, the prospect for breaking the stalemate, and what the U.S. should do to support the Annan effort.

I want to pay particular attention to the third and fourth points and also perhaps, given the question-ing in the first panel, take some questions later about our democracy assistance program, with which I've been involved with in the past, particularly in Kenya.

As for the election itself, as you noted in your opening statement, Senator Feingold, we had had three previous elections, starting with one that was not very good in 1992. There was improvement in '97, still better in 2002. There were great hopes this time that there would be another step up and this would indeed be the crowning achievement in Kenyans' tortuous and long quest for democratic governance.

I think in retrospect, in the classic 20/20 hindsight, we were a bit complacent and we need to ac-knowledge that. And as you've seen in my statement, I've suggested three areas here where we might have done a better job, particularly in terms of scrutinizing the register of voters prior to the election and perhaps jumping on the problems there that were articulated by the chairman of the electoral commission himself.

Secondly, as Assistant Secretary Frazer noted, we placed great emphasis on the chairman, who is indeed a highly competent individual. But it's the classic case of putting all your eggs on an individ-ual rather than looking at an institution, and there were five new commissioners appointed just be-fore the election, and it's questionable about their neutrality.

And finally, we expected that the domestic monitoring effort, where the United States had put con-siderable resources in recent years, would be as robust as it was certainly in 2002, and sadly, it was not. Not a polling station was covered, and in fact it was about the level that it was in '97. It was also driven with divisions. Nonetheless, you should, if you have it available, look at the final state-ment by the Kenya Domestic Observer Forum, because they lay out very clearly where the election went off the rails.

Now, the final, perhaps, and most important point to be made about the election is that while it's impossible to argue with certainty that Raila Odinga won the election, it is possible to argue with near certainty and evidence that Mwai Kibaki did not win. This is obviously a highly contested election. The results, as the previous speaker noted, are illegitimate, but they're illegitimate on both sides, and therein lies the nub of the problem.

Neither one of these individuals can govern by themselves. There must be a power-sharing deal. And therefore, the real issue is how do you move from where we are now to such a deal? At current there is a stalemate, unfortunately, and it's really almost a classic academic situation of whether this stalemate will evolve into a mutually hurtful stalemate which will make the hard-liners on both sides more forthcoming.

One might have thought that by now, President Kibaki, who relies for certainly the financial aspect of his political base on the Kikuyu business community, would have been more forthcoming, be-cause Kenya does have a robust middle class and business community. It is disproportionately Ki-kuyu and it largely supported Kibaki in the elections.

This group is actually very frustrated that it cannot get through to the hard-liners, and that in turn suggests that more needs to be done, particularly by the international community, to push those people along.

My time is rapidly eroding. I want to turn next to the key nub of the problem: It's constitutional reform. We need to focus very specifically on what we're talking about here.

It is not only the imperial presidency, as suggested by Assistant Secretary Frazer, it is also dealing with a 50-year issue on whether and to what extent there will be a devolution of power in Kenya -- some sort of federalism, if you will, that will accommodate the group rights of the various smaller ethnic minorities. And until that's grappled with, and I lay out the various points in my testimony that need to be settled in this regard, I'm afraid there will not be a permanent peace in that regard.

Finally, what should the United States do? Well, I think we need to be much more aggressive and it needs to also be acknowledged that we got off on the wrong foot. We actually congratulated the Electoral Commission of Kenya on Saturday the 29th of December. At the very moment that the election was going off the rails, we congratulated the commission on its fine job. That was a mis-step. We were behind the eight ball. And we should have swung immediately behind the call by the European community's observer delegation to support a forensic audit. The question is, where are the ballots now, and can that audit be conducted? I can address that in the question period.

The final point I wanted to make here is that we need to come down very hard on the hard-liners, and here I'm talking specifically of instituting with immediate effect and in coordination with the EU and the U.K. travel bans and asset freezes on the hard-liners, including members of their fami-lies, because a number of these people are studying in the United States and in Europe, more public diplomacy in support of civil society, and also public diplomacy in support of a group of 105 par-liamentarians who've stepped up to the plate here and are actually initiating their own initiative -- a sort of track-two initiative on their own. We also need, perhaps, to be more aggressive in respect to dealing with hate speech.

And finally, I can discuss the aid issue in the question period, but I would say now that our DG pro-gram, while it has been in Kenya for 15 years, has been running out of cash. We have an excellent program in support of the Kenyan parliament, it's begun to show results, but that program is largely out of money now and it's now co- financed by the British, who have stepped up to help us out be-cause we haven't been devoting sufficient funds to what is actually a success.
Thank you.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Thank you, Doctor. I want to note that Senator Bill Nelson has joined us, and pleased to have his participation. And now we'll turn to Mr. Mozersky.

MR. MOZERSKY: Thank you very much. Sorry. I want to express once again the appreciation of the International Crisis Group for the attention of the committee to the crisis in Kenya, and par-ticularly the efforts of Senator Feingold and Senator Sununu for submitting the recent legislation on Kenya's electoral crisis and for organizing this hearing.

The recent post-electoral violence in Kenya marks a devastating setback to the advancement of de-mocratization in Africa. The past five years have seen Kenya strengthen its democratic credentials and grow and expand its economy. Kenya has been a hub of stability in the region, leading peace-making efforts in neighboring Sudan and Somalia, accommodating regional refugee flows and host-ing international diplomatic and humanitarian efforts for the troubled region.

December's contested election has changed this dynamic, unleashing waves of violence triggered initially by President Kibaki's questionable electoral victory. But the violence that erupted in the Nairobi and Mombasa slums and in the Rift Valley over the past two weeks has touched deeper fault lines and illustrates the depth of the wounds created by Daniel Arap Moi's divide-and-rule policies during the '90s and the urgent need to address land and wealth in equities.

Without a comprehensive and sustained high-level international response, Kenya risks following many of its neighbors towards becoming a collapsed or failed state. Led by the U.S., the interna-tional community must push the parties to end the violence and to allow a return to democracy.

For a comprehensive and sustainable solution, the starting point of the negotiations must be the rec-ognition of electoral irregularities by both parties and the invalidation of the election results. The crafting of a power-sharing agreement to guide a transitional phase leading to new elections then follows.

The negotiation agenda for a period of transition should not only be about the sharing of executive powers between ODM and PNU, but should include a complete institutional reform agenda, includ-ing the creation of an effective oversight mechanism for parliament and genuine, independent judi-cial capacity to counterbalance the powers of the executive. This constitutional overhaul should be accompanied by a complete review of the electoral regulations so as to prevent any repetition of the December 2007 scenario.

Two instances of rigging appear to have taken place during the vote-tallying process: one at the constituency level and one at the central electoral commission. The first happened throughout the country with returning officers in their respective home provinces who tampered with the vote count and sent inflated returns for their preferred candidate.

The second was organized in Nairobi within the electoral commission premises. At that point, the results were changed arbitrarily to give Kibaki a 230,000-vote victory. Parliamentary results further suggest that the presidential election had been rigged. Kibaki's PNU won only 43 seats while ODM won 99 seats -- seven shy of an absolute majority.

Immediately after Kibaki's victory was announced, spontaneous riots broke out across the country. Supporters of the ODM turned their anger on those perceived to be supporters of Kibaki, mainly members of the Kikuyu tribe. Hundreds were killed in less than 24 hours.
The Rift Valley has been the region most affected by the violence. There's been widespread vio-lence in the North Rift region of western Kenya, principally in Eldoret and the surrounding districts -- an ODM stronghold. The violence in this region was triggered by the disputed elections but has its roots in a long-festering anti- Kikuyu sentiment within certain segments of the Kalenjin commu-nities.

It is possible that some of the violence was organized. A militia called the Kalenjin Warriors, whose membership and leadership is blamed for orchestrating much of the anti-Kikuyu violence, seems to have been reactivated. Several senior Kalenjin figures who were in power in the '90s and who are now ODM leaders have been linked to this militia.

It also appears that some senior government figures have been mobilizing the Mungiki sect, a Ki-kuyu religious cult with a long history of brutal killings and organized crime. Many of the grue-some killings which occurred in the Nairobi slums and in the towns of Nakuru and Naivasha be-tween January 24th to 27th have been attributed to members of this sect.

Kenya is at risk of a speedy escalation of ethnically based violence leading to pogroms and revenge killings all over the country. The imbalance of power between an entrenched head of state and a leader of the opposition makes negotiations of a political settlement difficult. A quicker, credible judicial process to settle the electoral dispute is not available.

ODM likely calculates that in case the international mediation fails, its only hope of keeping alive a political negotiation will lie in its capacity to raise the stakes through violence and civil disobedi-ence. Convincing Kibaki and the PNU to make concessions will require external pressure and guarantees that some of the interests and the security of its constituencies, notably Kikuyu busi-nessmen and migrant communities, will be safeguarded.

The U.S. should play a leading role in this respect and follow up its initial statement that business as usual would not be tolerated with a clear and direct pressure on the individuals blocking the politi-cal process. Targeted sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes against hard-liners influenc-ing PNU decision makers in the corridors of power, should be considered.
An aid freeze is a good political message but is unlikely to deliver rapid results. Threats of interna-tional legal prosecutions against individuals responsible for the crimes against humanity committed both in the Rift Valley and in Nairobi should also be considered, including by bringing to Kenya representatives of the office of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.

External pressure alone may not be enough. The critical additional factor is the business commu-nity. Creating additional pressure for a resolution from the Kikuyu business establishment should be supported by having ODM provide assurances about economic policies, commitment to liberal reforms and to the provision of security to properties and businesses established in the Rift Valley.

The challenge today is threefold: first, dealing with the contested elections by negotiating a politi-cal transition leading to a new democratic election. An internationally supported investigation should be carried out into the nature and extent of the recent electoral theft and aim at improving upon the weaknesses of the last election.

Second, negotiating a political agreement on the institutional arrangement to be set up for the transi-tion period, including power- sharing between ODM and PNU within the executive branch, with the creation of the position of a prime minister and the clear definition of executive powers, particularly on the allocation of government resources and the appointment of senior government officials. A constitutional amendment will have to be passed to institutionalize the president and prime minister powers.

Third, urgent steps must be taken to end the violence and reverse the dangerous rise of ethnic mili-tias and the momentum of interethnic killings. An internationally supported judicial commission of inquiry should be established, with a mandate to collect information on the responsibilities into the violence and recommend the vetting of any politician and civil servant found implicated in the per-petration of crimes against humanity from holding any public office pending the conclusion of criminal proceedings.

Finally, a credible institutional framework and process should be established for the negotiated dis-armament and dismantlement of all party-supported militias and the safe return of refugees and in-ternally displaced. Thank you very much.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Thank you all for your testimony and let me just mention that a number of people have arrived since we began the hearing, many from Kenya.

I want to welcome you. We welcome you, we welcome your interest, and I just want to reiterate that there's a wide range of materials that we have included in the record relating to this in addition to what you're hearing here from the witnesses, and I want you to know that I promise to remain engaged on this issue going forward and I'm sure my colleagues will as well.
Let me begin the questions with a round here.

Mr. Albin-Lackey, as you alluded to in your testimony, the violence in Kenya in recent weeks has included what has appeared to be spontaneous protest as well as more organized violence in the Rift Valley, which President Kibaki has claimed has been orchestrated by the Orange Democratic Movement, the ODM, party officials. Have you seen evidence to indicate that the national leader-ship of the opposition party was involved in planning or carrying out this violence?

MR. ALBIN-LACKEY: No, we haven't seen evidence indicating the national leadership of the ODM has been involved in organizing this, but at the same time I don't think anyone is convinced that there aren't people within the ODM leadership who haven't been involved to one degree or an-other -- perhaps not through actively organizing violence but certainly through inciting the kinds of divisions that have led to the violence subsequently. It's something that we're still investigating.

And more to the point the Kenyan National Commission for Human Rights is just now launching a very large investigation that's looking into responsibility for organizing and inciting violence across the country on both sides, and that is in addition to a team that's being sent over by the office of the high commissioner for human rights. And both of those inquiries working together ought to be get-ting as much support as possible from the United States, precisely in order to shed light on that question.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Do you think that the party leaders -- Mr. Kibaki and Mr. Odinga -- have the ability to control the various gangs that are creating havoc in some parts of Kenya and to stop their violent attacks?

MR. ALBIN-LACKEY: It's an open question. It's certainly probably the case that they had more of an ability to do that two weeks ago than they do today, and that as this violence starts to take on a dynamic of its own, with reprisals fueling further reprisals and so on, their ability to put a brake on this is diminishing.

I think that today it's still true that if the leadership of both sides made much more of a serious effort to try to rein the violence in it would have a dramatic and very rapid effect, but time is really of the essence there and it's not at all clear how much longer that'll remain true.

SEN. FEINGOLD: There have been credible reports of threats to numerous human rights defend-ers and pro-democracy activists. What steps are needed to protect human rights defenders and jour-nalists and other civilians who are being threatened, and is there any evidence that people within the Kibaki administration are behind these threats, and who else may be responsible here?

MR. ALBIN-LACKEY: There have been a lot of threats against human rights defenders that are really part of a broader climate of persecution of voices of moderation on both sides. Human rights defenders and anyone else who has stood up in opposition to violence taking place in many com-munities have been targeted for threats, for intimidation and other efforts to silence them. Some of the people that we worked with in carrying out our own research have been facing exactly those kinds of threats because they're seen as being overly sympathetic to the rights of people on the other side.

All of that is part of what is by all appearances a very organized effort to spread hate speech, includ-ing petitions and SMS's accusing people by name of being traitors to their community because of their work to uphold human rights. The Kenyan government's recently announced that it's trying to investigate the origins of some of that, but frankly, that investigation to be credible has to target both sides, and I don't know that at this point the government can credibly investigate both sides.

So the Kenyan police have to actively try to protect people being targeted for these reasons, and again, as in the situation with the IDPs, the Kenyan government has to free the Kenyan police to ask for assistance where they might need it in doing so.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Thank you, sir. Dr. Barkan, you were in Kenya as part of the International Republican Institute's election monitoring team. Can you shed some like on why the IRI's poll re-sults have not been published?

MR. BARKAN: Well, you might ask IRI why they're not releasing the poll. Their position is that the results are not yet complete, that there are some methodological issues. My understanding of those who actually conducted the poll are highly competent and I question, really, the extent of the problems.

I think there might have been some concern initially of whether this might have contributed to the divisiveness and the violence that's occurred, but my understanding about what the polls contained is essentially another piece of evidence that underlines the point I made in my testimony. That is to say that neither side really commands the legitimacy of over half the population, that it was an ex-tremely close election and the question of who won or lost by one percentage point is not really the issue here, and therefore the results of that poll ought to be released to drive the point home that both sides have to get together.

SEN. FEINGOLD: I'm pleased to hear you say that.

Doctor, in your submitted testimony you stated that the United States failed to effectively respond to the conflicts that unfolded during the two days after the December 27th election. What mistakes did the United States government make and how do you account for these errors? What should U.S. officials have done differently?

MR. BARKAN: I'm sorry, I thought you were addressing –

SEN. FEINGOLD: I was addressing you, Doctor.

MR. BARKAN: Okay. What we should have done differently: Well, number one, we should not have made the congratulatory message that we did. I also think that we should have been much more proactive in the period running up to the election. It's true Secretary Rice called both princi-pals in the week preceding the election, but I can tell you that is because Kenyans and shall we say people here in Washington who follow Kenya urged, through the channels that they had open to them, that the secretary make that move.

We could have probably done a much better job, as I also said in my testimony, in terms of scruti-nizing the record, and we definitely probably should have spoken out in terms of the composition of the electoral commission, because the five commissioners that were appointed by President Kibaki, actually it was a retrograde step because there had been an informal understanding in place since the 1997 elections, repeated prior to the 2002 elections, that the opposition would be accommodated with roughly half of the commissioners and that they would be consulted, and they were not con-sulted this time. We should have spoke out on that.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Thank you.

Mr. Mozersky, you know, when I went to Kenya last time, the purpose was to go there so I could try to deal with some other problems in the region as well as being interested in Kenya. But Kenya was the place we could go in relative stability and learn about things like Somalia and Sudan and other places. Could you briefly address the regional impacts of the current crisis from a humanitar-ian, economic and political perspective?

MR. MOZERSKY: Well, as you said, Kenya is the center for humanitarian activities in Somalia, to a certain degree diplomatic activities in Somalia and was for a long time the center for humanitar-ian and diplomatic activities on southern Sudan as well, although that's beginning to shift.

Kenya took the lead in brokering both the Somali peace agreement and the Sudanese peace agree-ment. And the crisis in Kenya, one of the side effects is that it is taking attention away from im-plementation and follow-up in both those cases.

Kenya was taking the lead in trying to organize an IGAD head of state meeting on the situation in Sudan, on the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement; that is now, I assume, off the table indefinitely. Likewise in Somalia, the attention of much of the diplomatic community in Kenya was split to also focus on Somalia, and that has now shifted, I assume, almost entirely to the crisis in Kenya.

So Kenya provided a hub for diplomatic efforts, both regional and international diplomatic efforts for the crises in the region. And it will now be much more difficult to provide consistent and sus-tained attention on Somalia, on Sudan out of our existing operations in Kenya.

SEN. FEINGOLD: I think that's a very important point coming out of this hearing for all of my colleagues to realize given the centrality that Kenya has had in terms of our policies in that region.

In your opinion, who is primarily responsible for the disastrous direction Kenya has taken since De-cember 27th? Who should face U.S. and international travel bans?

MR. ALBIN-LACKEY: I think there are two sources. There's people responsible for the violence and there are political leaders who are holding up the negotiation process.
Just to repeat the point, and I think all the speakers have made it, the solution is not -- or the solu-tion to the problem is not only a power-sharing agreement and an end to the violence; it's dealing with the electoral irregularities and putting in place a process that will lead to a new free and fair election as soon as possible. And you have resistance there on that third point from Kibaki's gov-ernment, from the PNU.

Kibaki was sworn in almost immediately. They're claiming that they are now the sitting govern-ment in power and any complaints should be taken through the legal process, but there is no credi-ble -- the opposition at least does not have confidence in the credibility of the judicial system to ad-dress that, and so that's where the international mediation has to lead the negotiations. And there it's up the U.S. and other international actors to provide the leverage necessary on the actors.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Thank you very much. Senator Lugar.

SEN. LUGAR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate the responses to the chairman's questions, and I want to underline and get more infor-mation in this respect.

Essentially, you pointed out, Mr. Lackey, that you believe that there were already political leaders in Kenya preparing for violence in the aftermath of the election. And I'm curious, Secretary Frazer mentioned Mungiki as an organization that was along militia/ethnic lines. Some have wondered whether in fact there were any Muslim activities that were involved in this. But describe, if you can more specifically, who generated violence. Were there specific groups as opposed to a spontaneous uprising of just ordinary citizens?

MR. ALBIN-LACKEY: Well, there have been a couple of different phases to this and there may still be more, but the initial explosion of ethnic violence immediately after the election was focused mostly in the Rift Valley. There, that's where these land issues and deeper historical grievances that lie at the root of why conflict boiled over so quickly and so violently are really most at play. And there, much of the violence took the form of people and our own research focused mainly around a town called Eldoret, which was the epicenter of that initial wave of violence. And the groups -- the predominant group in that area is the Kalenjin and there's a large minority population of Kikuyu set-tlers who bore the brunt of the violence partly because they were seen as supporters of Kibaki and the PNU and partly because of all of these underlying grievances there.

It was very clear that in the run-up to the elections, community elders, local politicians and others really primed people for violence by telling them that if the election went the wrong way, that was proof positive that the results were rigged and that the reaction should be war, and the word war was used over and over again in many different communities. And often, that's exactly what happened.

And after an initial -- after the first day or two of post- election violence, much of what followed was actually not just incited but organized by those same people. Different -- people from different small rural communities in some cases came together under the leadership of community elders and others and attacked larger population centers. And now, there are some of those same communities, some of those same leaders, trying to raise money to procure firearms, trying to plan attacks on IDP camps and remaining population centers.

After that, that violence then triggered a wave of reprisal attacks in other parts of the country that essentially saw the same violence taking place in reverse, and that's where this Mungiki group has come into play, which is essentially a bloody -- a very violent criminal organization that the gov-ernment had been quite brutally trying to crush in years past, recently. And now there are very dis-turbing allegations that people close to the government have been reactivating the Mungiki sect and using them to help organize some of these reprisal attacks against people who belong to ethnic groups seen as supportive of the opposition.

So really, there is, you know, as the violence is spreading, the number of parties who seem to be involved in organizing and inciting it is also growing day by day.

SEN. LUGAR: Well, given that background, let's say hypothetically that the two leaders and their immediate followers at the upper levels responded to mediation of Kofi Annan or others, and said very well, we will both support a new constitutional amendment that you've discussed here as a panel today that really gives more checks and balances, perhaps even better ethnic background of the hustings and so forth, but -- and furthermore, we will have another election. We will run this whole thing again.

Now, are the groups that you're describing going to be satisfied as a matter of fact that another elec-tion is being held if in fact the outcome of the next election was the same? You know, and it's now transparent; the world is all watching and so forth. What I'm trying to get at, are the underlying forces so great that unfortunately this particular point in Kenya's history -- and we might have had greater foresight; the whole world community might have thought more about this, but nevertheless, this has happened -- and a force has been unleashed that even constitutional reform and another election, very transparent and well run, are not going to cure?

MR. ALBIN-LACKEY: Well, I think if a new election is held, I don't think anyone is arguing that it should happen tomorrow. A lot of these issues have to be dealt with prior to that, and one of the most central is that the people most responsible for inciting and organizing this wave of post-election violence have to be identified and held to account for what they've done. Otherwise, the message will be that this is a new and acceptable part of Kenyan politics as opposed to an aberration that has to be investigated, punished and denounced on all sides.
But certainly, there's no reason to think -- it is -- in spite of all of this chaos, it's important to re-member that just at the end of December Kenyans all over the country turned out and voted peace-fully, displaying a faith in the democratic process that's been shattered by the events over the past few weeks. And the key is restoring that faith and giving people a reason to believe that their votes will count in the way they thought they would in this last election.

SEN. LUGAR: And would that large majority of Kenyans who came out to participate find then some conciliatory efforts or some reconciliation at the upper levels to be helpful? I mean, what is going to be required for this very large majority hopefully of Kenyans to have this degree of confi-dence?

Doctor, do you have a thought about this?

MR. BARKAN: Well, the leadership has to be much more proactive in terms of going out in the hustings, and I alluded to this group of 105 parliamentarians where now you have, shall we say, middle-echelon leaders but nonetheless MPs who have literally gone back to their constituents and said, you must cool it; this is counterproductive for all of us. And there was a clip in CNN the other day showing one such individual who's actually not known for his own tactics finally in effect com-ing to his senses and realizing that this thing is getting out of hand.

But I think one thing needs to be said about the violence in the western Rift Valley. This is not new. There was violence in 1992 where actually 1,500 people were killed in that area alone. There are historic roots here given land tenure in that area, Kikuyu migrants, some of whom going all the way back to the 1920s. So there's a lot of history here and that makes it very difficult to repeal.

That said, it's reported that there are retired Kalenjin army officers, those who had been senior offi-cers during the presidency of Daniel Arap Moi who were dismissed by the Kibaki government who are behind this. There is Mungiki, as was mentioned. And I might suggest that perhaps we could do a much better job investigating these organizations.

You asked about Muslims. My sense is that we devote all our counterterror efforts to what's going on in the Kenyan coast, and here we have this other very real threat to Kenyan society in the Ken-yan state elsewhere we pay insufficient attention to it, or so it would appear. And we have our main regional security office based in Nairobi and the embassy there, as you may well know.

SEN. LUGAR: What are likely to be the effects, Mr. Mozersky, of our -- of Kenyans proceeding, or maybe or own activities in this direction, that we have sanctions on individual leaders and on persons we believe are responsible for trouble? In essence, the United States itself takes these, and we encourage other nations to do the same, likewise that we encourage that there be the electoral reforms that are being suggested. And although I think Mr. Lackey would say perhaps too early to have another poll, you ought to let justice work out, that may take some time also. You know, it may be that we've come to conclusion another election is useful.
Are we likely to be effective in this respect? In other words, given the dynamics of what is in-volved, is this a program? And if it is, does it have to be international? What is the influence of the United States? What is the influence of these business leaders who we believe are giving jobs to Kenyans who are making prosperity possible? And I just underline again the chairman's thought, what does a prospect of our outlining our own respect for Kenya's leadership in Africa in these very difficult diplomatic situations?

We haven't really gotten into an unraveling of all the things that may occur, but just having visited, as our committee did yesterday, with our new envoy to Darfur, Mr. Williamson, you see extraordi-nary complexities of this which are exacerbated by what we're discussing today.
So, you know, what is our influence here and how should it be applied?

MR. BARKAN: We have tried to put our effort behind the Annan effort because this is an Afri-can-led effort and I think that was certainly the way to go. But we have to exert more pressure, and the fact of the matter is we do not have that many levers.

It's important to recognize that the aid card, which we played very effectively back in 1992 and throughout the '90s, cannot be played in part because Kenya is not aid-dependent, although with the economy declining and their revenues declining, they may soon will be. But before all this erupted, Kenya's -- the Kenya annual budget was only 8 percent dependent on aid -- in fact, a model to other countries.

So we have to look in other directions, and that's why I mentioned in my testimony the targeting of the hard-liners, perhaps publicly so. I indicated the names of those individuals who are most sus-pected of being in that category. We have to investigate to be absolutely sure so we don't falsely accuse. There actually are maybe one person on that list who shouldn't be there, but nonetheless we should move forward and we should be more public about it.

Also, on hate speech, it's possible -- this was mentioned by Mr. Lackey -- a lot of this was being spread through text messages. I'm not sure whether software exists to block those by dealing with the cell phone companies, but we should certainly explore that. Ambassador Ranneberger himself has been on the radio.

You were asking about the press in your previous panel. There are actually 42 FM radio stations in Kenya now, some that are ethnically based, and at that level, speaking in the local language, a num-ber of things we could do there to get the message of peace across.

SEN. LUGAR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Thank you, Senator Lugar.

Senator Nelson, thank you for your patience, and please proceed.

SEN. BILL NELSON (D-FL): Do you see a regional manifestations and implications to this crisis in Kenya outside of Kenya?

MR. BARKAN: Very definitely and –

SEN. NELSON: Trace that for the committee.

MR. BARKAN: -- and the leaders in the region are getting nervous.

Well, tracing it one can go all the way back to colonial times. Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda were a single unit, single currency. If you look at the transportation grids, the fact that Uganda is land-locked, gasoline in Uganda now is evidently up to $15 a gallon. The trade routes go through Mom-basa into Uganda up to southern Sudan all the way to eastern Congo and all into Rwanda. So we have this huge area, and particularly with respect to southern Sudan where we're trying to consoli-date a peace there, it's all affected simply by where Kenya is geographically located and the fact that Kenya has the largest economy in the region, more than the others combined.

SEN. NELSON: I'm curious because you mentioned Sudan. What's the linkage there in the spill-over?

MR. BARKAN: The linkage is –

SEN. NELSON: Either way.

MR. BARKAN: The linkage is in southern Sudan in terms of the extent to which the government of the south, which has come out of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement -- and that agreement it-self is very shaky and the big question, of course, whether it's going to hold, but you have to have a viable government in the south, and it's based in Juba, which is basically a bush town -- dirt roads leading up to there and most of the supplies they get come from Kenya up through northwestern Kenya and on into Sudan or up from Kampala. So their lifeblood of supplies, humanitarian assis-tance as well, ultimately is in Kenya.

The main road between Nakuru and the Uganda/Kenya border has been blocked on occasion, and petrol supplies, as I mentioned, the railway, there's been sabotage to the Uganda railway. This is a very difficult situation and President Museveni in fact flew down to Kenya last week to make his concerns known. And I might add, however, he appeared to be tilting towards the support for the government.

MR. MOZERSKY: Can I just add on that point?

SEN. NELSON: Please.

MR. MOZERSKY: If it's okay.

In addition to the economic impact there is a political impact. The Kenyan government was the leader in the negotiation process that led to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Sudan and has the chair within IGAD for the Sudan Subcommittee. And Kenyan leadership on Sudan is critical to seeing continued engagement from the region on the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

It's -- the deputy chair of the Assessment and Evaluation Commission, the main monitoring and oversight body of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, it provides diplomatic support, training to the southern Sudanese -- government of southern Sudan, as well as assistance on security issues. So the impact and implication -- Kenya's involvement in Sudan is a force multiplier, for lack of a better word, to the general international efforts to see the Comprehensive Peace Agreement implemented, and the domestic crisis in Kenya essentially removes them from playing a large role, an engaged role, in Sudan and in other regional crises where they have had the lead for the last number of years.

SEN. NELSON: And how about the economic implications on the other countries in the region?

MR. MOZERSKY: Well, I think it's largely, as Dr. Barkan pointed out, the most affected will be those who are reliant on goods and services that come through the Port of Mombasa, so Uganda, by extension, then southern Sudan as well. And the problems will only multiply as time goes on. Al-ready there has been a sharp rise in the cost of commodities and cost of petrol and it will only get worse as time goes on.

SEN. NELSON: You all talked about the process of mediation. Are there other international par-ticipants that you think would move the process of peace discussions along?

MR. BARKAN: Well, Kofi Annan has not intended to stay in Kenya forever. He's really engaged in talks about talks, and one key to the mediation is finding an appropriate individual to take over who really knows the technical issues about some of the questions that I indicated in my presenta-tion, particularly this issue of devolution, which is an extremely emotive one in Kenya. It can be reduced to a series of technical questions to facilitate a deal, but you need a very skilled negotiator supported by a team of people such as economists who know about revenue sharing and block grants and all the sort of stuff that we deal with here.

The United States perhaps can provide that and the broader international community can encourage the negotiations, but just this week, Cyril Ramaphosa, who as arguably the most qualified African to take over from Annan because he's done this before in Northern Ireland and particularly in two years of hard negotiations in South Africa, was basically rejected by the government.

And I think that really underscores the point that all of us have made in one way or another that the government is basically stalling for time, think they can ride this thing out. At best they can do so for a while, but in terms of the long-term solution it won't work.

There are Kikuyu, just to finish here, who are terribly fearful that if this keeps up, Kikuyu will be completely pushed out of the Rift Valley, that the natural homeland of the Kikuyu people, the larg-est ethnic group in Kenya, will basically end at the Limuru or the Rift Valley about 20 miles north of -- west of Nairobi and the whole country will become zoned. Somehow we have to get across to these people that they must make a deal.

SEN. NELSON: Well, if you were president, what you do?

MR. BARKAN: President of? (Laughter.)

SEN. NELSON: If you were president of the United States, what would you do –

MR. BARKAN: Well, I would urge President –

SEN. NELSON: -- to make a deal?

MR. BARKAN: What?

SEN. NELSON: You said you've got to get these people to make a deal, so what would you do if you were president?

MR. BARKAN: I think we know, given the analogy, that often it's very difficult to make a deal even here. Perhaps the president, that is to say President Bush, can call up the principals. I don't think he's done so yet, to my knowledge. Maybe there was one institute -- one instance. But you had a parade of people into Kenya including Ban Ki-moon just this week, and what you see here is almost tone deaf, so it's very frustrating.

I think only until these individual hard-liners are hurting personally -- their families, their respective economic interests, and that might take some time -- that they will become more flexible. How you hasten that, again, we have limited arrows in our quiver. It will also have to be coordinated with the EU because simply us doing a travel ban, asset freezes, et cetera, is not going to be sufficient.

SEN. NELSON: And you're talking about hard-liners on both sides?

MR. BARKAN: I'm talking about hardliners on both sides, but I think you can tell by -- from my remarks I'm suggesting that they are disproportionately on the government side. The hardliners on the ODM side are those who are behind the violence in the Rift Valley, not hardliners who do not want to reach a power-sharing agreement. They've actually presented a list of what they want to Kofi Annan, and among other things, they've based that on a parliamentary committee, the Commit-tee on Justice and Legal Affairs, that came up with a package of mini reforms just last July and which actually are fairly modest steps. But the real negotiation, it's the government that needs to be pushed.

SEN. NELSON: Final comment that I would like you to sketch for us: If the chaos continues in Kenya and the chaos continues between Sudan and Chad, that portion of the world, that makes it very difficult to advance the interests of the United States, does it not?

MR. BARKAN: Without a doubt. We have very large assets in Kenya. One that's probably not even known is a large CDC facility in Kisumu, 200 research specialists there. That place has all but shut down. And a good friend of mine, his daughter was a doctor there. She's a Kikuyu heading a research staff of 80 people. She can't go back -- trashed. We have our regional security office there, United States Department of Agriculture, even the Library of Congress, counterterrorist ef-forts, et cetera, et cetera. It's our largest embassy in operation in sub-Saharan Africa.

SEN. NELSON: Mr. Chairman and Mr. Chairman emeritus over there, you know, earlier last year, I tried to go to the Sudan. They would not let me in, so I went in the back door. But to get from Ethiopia to Chad, I had to go all the way around. I had to -- because they wouldn't overfly Sudan. I had to go all the way down across Kenya and around the southern end and then up into Chad that way.

And you know, here we have now Sudanese rebels attacking Chad's government and Chadian rebels attacking the Sudanese government creating conditions that are so much worse than what was al-ready absolutely one of the worst situations that I've ever seen of the refugees from Sudan over in Chad and then Chad refugees in additional refugees camps in eastern Chad. And now next door they've got all of this problem. So this is -- this could be a real flashpoint in Africa.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Throw in Somalia and we are in a world of hurt, as we say in Wisconsin. Let me thank the witnesses and my colleagues. I hope everybody here realizes we had four senators who spent a great deal of time on this because we're very interested. Senator Sununu is very en-gaged in this issue. There's also another member of the subcommittee -- since the question was asked, what would your advice be, Doctor, if you were president? -- he is also a member of this subcommittee. He has more than a passing interest in Kenya, but he's extremely busy -- Senator Obama. And I'm sure he would want -- (laughter) -- my good wishes conveyed to you as well.

Thank you very much. That is the conclusion of the hearing. (Sounds gavel.)

Senate Foreign Relations African Affairs Subcommittee HearingOn the Immediate and Underlying Causes and Consequences of Kenya’s Flawed Election

Senate Foreign Relations African Affairs Subcommittee Hearing
On the Immediate and Underlying Causes and Consequences of Kenya’s Flawed Election