Showing posts with label KENYA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label KENYA. Show all posts
Saturday, October 24, 2026
Sunday, April 26, 2026
Thursday, December 04, 2025
Saturday, September 14, 2024
Monday, May 30, 2016
Kenya SDA Conference Bans Jeremiah Davis, Calls Him and Other Present Truth Preachers Savage Wolves
ProphesyAgainTV
Published on May 30, 2016
Let not any living hand, of minister or layman, be laid upon you with the statement, "You cannot go here, you must not go there; we shall not support you if you do not go at our bidding; or if you do not give yourself to the work of bringing souls into the truth in some certain place designated by us." God will bless you as you continue to search for lost souls in out-of-the-way places. {PH113 14.2}
Let not any living hand, of minister or layman, be laid upon you with the statement, "You cannot go here, you must not go there; we shall not support you if you do not go at our bidding; or if you do not give yourself to the work of bringing souls into the truth in some certain place designated by us." God will bless you as you continue to search for lost souls in out-of-the-way places. {PH113 14.2}
Monday, October 20, 2014
Post Bank SDAs may skip work on Sabbath
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2014 - 00:00 -- BY CAROLE MAINA
LOST BATTLE: Kenya Post Bank building in Nairobi CBD.Photo/File
THREE Seventh Day Adventist Church members employed by a bank have won a battle after the High Court ruled that their rights were violated by the employer compelling them to work on Saturdays.
Prisca Kemboi, Grace Osoro and Kennedy Tai, who work for the Kenya Post Office Savings Bank, had been accused and each surcharged more than Sh20,000 for absconding duty on Saturday.
Yesterday, Justice Linet Ndolo of the Industrial Court ruled that the bank's action was in violation of their right to observe their day of worship.
The judge directed Post Bank to review its policy on hours of work to accommodate all SDAs' rights to observe their day of worship on Saturday.
Ndolo further banned the bank from taking disciplinary action against any SDA for skipping work on Saturday.
“Matters of conscience and religion are uniquely personal and for an employer to simply insist that its employees must report to work on Saturday and ignore their day of worship is to miss the point,” she ruled.
Among the fundamental tenets of the SDA faith is the observance of the hours between sunset on Friday and sunset on Saturday as a day of worship.
Before, the three had not been required to work on Saturdays.
The court heard that the bank had generally allowed arrangements such as working through the lunch break, working extra hours in the evenings and on Sundays to compensate for the half day work hours that they did not serve on Saturdays.
However, the bank recently cancelled the arrangements and compelled the three to work on Saturdays.
When they failed to do so, the bank instituted disciplinary proceedings and warned that failure to observe official working hours would lead to more severe disciplinary action.
Their appeal against the decision was rejected.
It was the petitioner’s argument that the bank's actions was in contravention of the constitution, which guarantees them freedom of conscience, religion and belief and equality and freedom from discrimination.
The three accused the bank of favouring the Islamic faith, whose worshipers are allowed to be absent from work on Fridays to observe their day of worship.
In response, bank’s company secretary Mercy Mbijiwe said the three had accepted their responsibilities with full knowledge and understanding of the duties and especially the requirement to work six days a week.
She maintained that Saturday is an official working day for all its employees and what the three were seeking is to be given preferential treatment at the expense of others.
The bank said granting orders in favour of the three would open a pandora's box where employees of diverse religions will insist on taking time off to observe their various days of worship.
In the judgment, Justice Ndolo said an employee who is denied the opportunity to observe their day of worship will not be productive.
"A human resource policy that does not accommodate the unique spiritual needs of employees is unreasonable," she ruled.
THREE Seventh Day Adventist Church members employed by a bank have won a battle after the High Court ruled that their rights were violated by the employer compelling them to work on Saturdays.
Prisca Kemboi, Grace Osoro and Kennedy Tai, who work for the Kenya Post Office Savings Bank, had been accused and each surcharged more than Sh20,000 for absconding duty on Saturday.
Yesterday, Justice Linet Ndolo of the Industrial Court ruled that the bank's action was in violation of their right to observe their day of worship.
The judge directed Post Bank to review its policy on hours of work to accommodate all SDAs' rights to observe their day of worship on Saturday.
Ndolo further banned the bank from taking disciplinary action against any SDA for skipping work on Saturday.
“Matters of conscience and religion are uniquely personal and for an employer to simply insist that its employees must report to work on Saturday and ignore their day of worship is to miss the point,” she ruled.
Among the fundamental tenets of the SDA faith is the observance of the hours between sunset on Friday and sunset on Saturday as a day of worship.
Before, the three had not been required to work on Saturdays.
The court heard that the bank had generally allowed arrangements such as working through the lunch break, working extra hours in the evenings and on Sundays to compensate for the half day work hours that they did not serve on Saturdays.
However, the bank recently cancelled the arrangements and compelled the three to work on Saturdays.
When they failed to do so, the bank instituted disciplinary proceedings and warned that failure to observe official working hours would lead to more severe disciplinary action.
Their appeal against the decision was rejected.
It was the petitioner’s argument that the bank's actions was in contravention of the constitution, which guarantees them freedom of conscience, religion and belief and equality and freedom from discrimination.
The three accused the bank of favouring the Islamic faith, whose worshipers are allowed to be absent from work on Fridays to observe their day of worship.
In response, bank’s company secretary Mercy Mbijiwe said the three had accepted their responsibilities with full knowledge and understanding of the duties and especially the requirement to work six days a week.
She maintained that Saturday is an official working day for all its employees and what the three were seeking is to be given preferential treatment at the expense of others.
The bank said granting orders in favour of the three would open a pandora's box where employees of diverse religions will insist on taking time off to observe their various days of worship.
In the judgment, Justice Ndolo said an employee who is denied the opportunity to observe their day of worship will not be productive.
"A human resource policy that does not accommodate the unique spiritual needs of employees is unreasonable," she ruled.
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Wednesday, October 02, 2013
Did Kenyan Soldiers Loot Mall During Fight With Terrorists?
by Gregory Warner
October 02, 2013 3:27 AM
Bullet holes in the glass door of a shop in the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya. Rukmini Callimachi/AP
More than a week after Islamic militants stormed an upscale mall in Nairobi, Kenya, President Uhuru Kenyatta has vowed to set up a commission to look into lapses in intelligence and security. At least , which ended with dozens still unaccounted for.
Days after the attack, a man who manages a clothing store in the Westgate Mall sorts through damaged shoes, shirts and ties. He's visibly shaken from his trip back into the place he escaped under gunfire. Much of the damaged clothing is from bullet holes.
"These are all waste now," he says. "Even it if it is small hole, it is waste." He says there's no insurance for a terrorist attack, and some of the most expensive suits and shoes are missing.
Other shop owners reported Rolex watches, diamond jewelry and mobile phones looted, allegedly by Kenyan soldiers during the fight against the terrorists. The allegations have shaken people in Nairobi, who just a week ago were hailing the soldiers as heroes.
"We wish to affirm that government takes very seriously these allegations of looting," Interior Minister Joseph Ole Lenku said at a press conference.
Lenku was on the defensive, and not just about what his soldiers allegedly did during those four days in the mall, but what they did not do. A leaked intelligence report indicates that security chiefs and Cabinet ministers were warned about Westgate as an al-Shabab target. They were even warned of one likely mode of attack, where operatives "storm the buildings with guns and grenades."
Lenku's response: "With regard to the issue of our information or our intelligence, that is our business."
Probably the most sensitive questions still lingering in this shaken city are about how the fight was waged. Why did it take the Kenyan army four days to kill five militants? And what happened to the other five to 10 terrorists?
Kweya Obedi is the Nairobi county director of the Red Cross. He was leading a team of volunteers who rushed in on the afternoon of Sept. 21 to rescue people from where they hid inside shops. Even by that point, he says, some hours after the initial assault, the terrorists had been mostly pushed back by the special Israeli-trained unit of the police called the Recce group, experienced in hostage rescue.
"The police had better control of the situation," Obedi says.
But then a commander of the special unit was killed, reportedly by friendly fire, and the special police were sent out to guard the perimeter while the soldiers took over the operation. That, business owners say, is when they believe the looting took place.
It's still unclear why Kenya's poorly paid military took over the situation while the special police were sent outside, but several people familiar with the operation say that's when the pace of attack slowed. By 10:30 that night, the situation had gone from a full-court press on the gunmen to a siege or standoff that would stretch on for another three days.
"When the military came in there was no proper plan for takeover. That allowed the terrorists to regroup," says George Musamali, a retired officer who now runs a Kenyan security company.
Musamali criticized the military for allowing terrorists to regroup and rearm. He and others said the military declined to fight at night, which may have allowed the terrorists to hunt and kill more people in their hiding places.
Now, Kenya's president has declared a commission of inquiry to investigate the security lapses, but Musamali says that in Kenya, commissions are seen as ways to evade the problem.
"In Kenya we are used to these kind of inquiries," he says. "We never see the results."
The challenge for Kenya's controversial president, who next month goes on trial in The Hague for allegedly instigating tribal violence in the last election, is not to be seen to favor a military elite dominated by his own tribe.
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Monday, September 30, 2013
In aftermath of Kenya mall siege, shop owners suspect security troops in widespread thefts
By Jason Straziuso And Rukmini CallimacHi, The Associated Press
September 30, 2013 4:30 PM
Sonali Shah, right, fiance of 24 year old Rajan Lalitkumar Solanki, is consoled during a prayer ceremony at Arya Samaj Temple in Nairobi, Kenya, Sunday, Sept. 29, 2013. Solanki was killed in the Westgate Mall attack. Solanki was killed in the Westgate Mall attack. The masked gunmen who infiltrated Nairobi's Westgate mall arrived with a set of religious trivia questions: As terrified civilians hid, the assailants began a high-stakes game of 20 Questions to separate Muslims from those they consider infidels. (AP Photo/Sayyid Azim)
NAIROBI, Kenya - Jewelry cases smashed. Mobile phones ripped from displays. Cash registers emptied. Alcohol stocks plundered.
For the second time in two months, poorly paid Kenyan security forces that moved in to control an emergency are being accused of robbing the very property they were supposed to protect. First the troops were accused of looting during a huge fire in August at Nairobi's main airport.
Now shop owners at Westgate Mall are returning to their stores after last week's devastating terrorist attack to find displays ransacked and valuables stolen.
One witness told The Associated Press that he saw a Kenyan soldier take cigarettes out of a dead man's pocket.
Shopkeepers spent Monday carting merchandise and other valuables out of their stores and restaurants to prevent any more thefts. No one can say for sure who is responsible, but Kenya's security forces are strongly suspected.
Soon after the attack began on Sept. 21, Kenyan officials put a cordon around the mall, allowing only security forces and a few government personnel to pass through.
Since then, alcohol stocks from the restaurants have been depleted. One business owner at the mall said money and mobile phones were taken from bags and purses left behind in the mayhem. The owner insisted on anonymity to avoid retribution from Kenya's government.
Employees of a book shop on the mall's second floor returned to find registers yanked open and cash gone. The store's laptops were also stolen. All the shop's books remained in place, said owner Paku Tsavani.
Perhaps reluctant to blame Kenyan security forces, Tsavani said he doesn't know who took his goods.
"Obviously the terrorists wouldn't steal those things, so we just don't know," Tsavani said.
Sandeep Vidyarthi went into the mall Sunday to help a relative retrieve equipment from his dental practice. Inside he said he passed shop after shop that had been looted, including the Rado store that sells high-end Swiss watches.
As he was leaving the mall, Vidyarthi passed a jewelry shop near the front entrance. The owner, he said, was presenting security officials with a long list of missing precious stones and high-end necklaces.
"The jeweler had written down this very long list," he said.
It is ironic, said the management team of one Westgate business, that store owners must now make reports of stolen goods to the same security forces suspected of doing the thieving.
Interior Minister Joseph Ole Lenku confirmed the reports of theft Sunday in a news conference. The majority of the responders to the terrorist attack came from Kenya's military. A military spokesman did not answer repeated calls for comment.
"Those responsible for looting will be prosecuted," Lenku said.
The mall attack also saw good Samaritans. Paresh Shah, a volunteer who helped evacuate the injured and recover the dead during the first day, said he carried out the body of Aleem Jamal.
Shah frowned at the memory and said he saw a Kenyan soldier take Jamal's cigarettes while in the ambulance.
"I could never do that, take a dead man's cigarettes," Shah said.
Jamal's family retrieved the body at the morgue, where his wife, Taz Jamal, said her husband's wallet was missing.
A team of terrorists entered Westgate Mall shortly after noon on a busy Saturday, firing guns and throwing grenades. The attackers — the Somali extremist group al-Shabab claimed responsibility — held off Kenya's military and controlled at least parts of the mall for four days.
The attack killed at least 67 people. The mall now has a gaping three-story hole in it from the siege.
Almost a week after the attack ended, more than three dozen people remain unaccounted for, the head of the Kenyan Red Cross said Monday.
The government contends there are no remaining missing people.
"The only way to verify this is when the government declares the Westgate Mall 100 per cent cleared. Then we can resolve it," Red Cross head Abbas Gullet said.
A morgue worker told AP on Monday that six body parts have been found in the rubble. The worker, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about information not yet released, said it was not clear if the parts came from one or multiple bodies.
Five terrorists are believed to be under the rubble but no dead hostages, Interior Minister Lenku said Sunday. Government officials have said 10 to 15 terrorists attacked the mall. Lenku said some attackers might have escaped.
"We do not rule out the possibility that when we were evacuating people in the first stages of the operation, it is possible some could have slipped out," he said.
FBI agents, along with investigators from Britain, Canada and Germany, are participating in the investigation into the attack and are aiding Kenyan forensic experts. Results are not expected until later this week at the earliest.
Kenyan authorities have used anti-terrorism laws to detain a total of 12 people in connection with the attack, including one on Sunday. Three have been set free, including a British man with a bruised face who was reportedly arrested last week as he tried to board a flight from Nairobi to Turkey while acting suspiciously, the British Foreign Office confirmed Monday.
Ndung'u Githinji, chairman of parliament's foreign relations committee, said officials will "rethink" Kenya's hospitality in supporting refugee camps, a reference to Dadaab, a refugee camp near Somalia filled with more than 400,000 Somalis. Security officials say some elements in the camp support and facilitate terror attacks.
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Associated Press writers Tom Odula and David Rising contributed to this report.
Source
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Saturday, June 15, 2013
Adventist soldier sues KDF over Saturdays
TUESDAY, JUNE 11, 2013 - 00:00 -- BY JILLO KADIDA
A former army officer sacked and detained for 42 days for declining to work on Saturday which is considered the Sabbath by the Seventh Day Adventist church has sued the government citing violation of his rights.
Polycarp Miyogo Nyakora worked as a serviceman from 2002 until December 2012 when he was discharged. He says that he was discharged after he insisted on observing the true Sabbath day.
The Ministry of Defence is yet to respond to the claims. Nyakora says that for the ten years he worked with the military, he always sought permission in advance to go to church whenever he had been assigned duty on Saturday.
He told the court that he always attended church service on condition that if a distress call was made, he would be able to respond. His said his troubles began when on May 31, 2012 he sought permission to be absent from duty on June 2, 2012 for his usual day of worship.
His immediate boss, a sergeant, declined to grant him permis- sion. Aggrieved by the decision, Nyakora sought the intervention of a senior rank- ing officer.
He reported the incident to a warrant officer 1 who in turn promised to follow up the issue with the sergeant. When attempts by thewarrant officer to plead Nyakora’s case failed, the serviceman sought audience with a senior air traffic control officer who referred him back to his immediate boss.
Nyakora told the court that he then asked if one of his colleagues could stand in for him so that he could go to church but this too was refused by the sergeant.
Nyakora said he wondered why his boss refused to allow a colleague to stand in for him when he had on several occasions been called upon to stand in for others who were supposed to be on duty but who for various reasons needed to take time off.
Nyakora admits that after all attempts to get permission to go to worship failed, he still proceeded to church and reported to work in the evening. On his return, he was informed he had been discharged for absconding duty.
He was also punished with a pay cut equivalent to six days salary. Nyakora claims he was given manual labour punishment which he was forced to do on Saturday, his day of worship.
Nyakora says that while on manual punishment, he defied orders and attended church on two other occasions which saw him punished with 42 days confinement. He believes the confinement and sub- sequent discharge from service were a violation of his rights and is demanding compensation. Nyakora also wants a declaration that the 42-day confinement with a salary cut were illegal.
Also sought is an order that he be entitled to pension as he was willing to serve until his retirement but was discharged unlawfully. The Ministry of Defence is expected respond to the allegations before the hearing dates can be allocated.
Source: http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-123783/adventist-soldier-sues-kdf-over-saturdays#sthash.ZEfYn51U.dpuf
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Saturday, June 23, 2012
Kenyan president Kibaki inaugurates Adventist university library
Milton Nyakundi/ANN staff
Kenya’s President Mwai Kibaki praised the Seventh-day Adventist Church for promoting education to the nation and the wider African continent in a speech here last month to inaugurate the Adventist University of Africa’s (AUA) newly built Judith Thomas Library.
“I commend the Adventist University of Africa for championing one of the flagships of the social pillar by facilitating and promoting the provision of education,” said Kibaki, while acknowledging that the Adventist-sponsored university in Baraton was the first private university in the East African country.
On hand to host the Kenyan head of state was Adventist world church President Ted N. C. Wilson, who underscored the Adventist church’s commitment to equipping the university to offer high quality education.
“The Seventh-day Adventist church believes and remains committed to offering an education that is socially, morally and spiritually enriching,” Wilson said. “The opening of this magnificent library is an testament to that focus.”
AUA typically enrolls about 380 students per semester and is directly affiliated with the Adventist world church’s headquarters.
Its new library, a three-story complex, was built at a cost of US$6 million, with the initial $1 million donated by U.S. philanthropist Judith Thomas. Another $1 million was mobilized through a special book project initiated by the late James Cress, then secretary of the Adventist world church’s Ministerial Association.
The library includes an Ellen G. White research center, which will house books related to Adventist Church heritage and an African heritage center featuring literature, art and cultural artifacts. The library also offers wireless Internet access and subscriptions to numerous online databases, providing student researchers with access to thousands of journals and books, said university Vice Chancellor Brepong Owusu-Antwi.
The foundation stone of the library was laid in 2005 by then Vice President of Kenya Moody Awori. The complex is located at the Advent Hill compound, which hosts the denomination’s East-Central Africa Division headquarters and Maxwell Adventist Academy.
The event was attended by local administrators, politicians and cabinet ministers. AUA council chairman Pardon Mwansa, a vice president of the Adventist world church, commended the church’s headquarters for its steadfastness in influencing transformational leadership through education.
A lighter moment of the ceremony came after the Nairobi Central Adventist Church choir led a musical presentation with Karura primary school students narrating a Biblical verse on peace. The students then released doves as a symbol of peace, but the white birds didn’t fly far. Wilson said to Kibaki in front of the crowd, “Mr. President those doves have not moved an inch from where their brief flight ended and I think that is evidence of the peace and tranquility that your coming here today signifies.”
Source:© 2012, Adventist News Network
Monday, January 30, 2012
Barack Obama: Created by the CIA
Bombshell: Barack Obama outed as CIA creation
Special Report. The Story of Obama: All in The Company (In Three Parts)
Opinion Maker | August 19, 2010
Wayne Madsen
Investigative journalist Wayne Madsen has discovered CIA files that document the agency’s connections to institutions and individuals figuring prominently in the lives of Barack Obama and his mother, father, grandmother, and stepfather. The first part of his report highlights the connections between Barack Obama, Sr. and the CIA-sponsored operations in Kenya to counter rising Soviet and Chinese influence among student circles and, beyond, to create conditions obstructing the emergence of independent African leaders.
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| From 1983-84, Barack Obama worked as Editor at Business Internation Corporation, a Business International Corporation, a known CIA front company. |
Barack Obama, Sr., who met Dunham in 1959 in a Russian language class at the University of Hawaii, had been part of what was described as an airlift of 280 East African students to the United States to attend various colleges — merely “aided” by a grant from the Joseph P. Kennedy Foundation, according to a September 12, 1960, Reuters report from London. The airlift was a CIA operation to train and indoctrinate future agents of influence in Africa, which was becoming a battleground between the United States and the Soviet Union and China for influence among newly-independent and soon-to-be independent countries on the continent.
The airlift was condemned by the deputy leader of the opposition Kenyan African Democratic Union (KADU) as favoring certain tribes — the majority Kikuyus and minority Luos — over other tribes to favor the Kenyan African National Union (KANU), whose leader was Tom Mboya, the Kenyan nationalist and labor leader who selected Obama, Sr. for a scholarship at the University of Hawaii. Obama, Sr., who was already married with an infant son and pregnant wife in Kenya, married Dunham on Maui on February 2, 1961 and was also the university’s first African student. Dunham was three month’s pregnant with Barack Obama, Jr. at the time of her marriage to Obama, Sr.
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| The CIA allegedly recruited Tom M’Boya in a heavily funded “selective liberation” programme to isolate Kenya’s founding President Jomo Kenyatta, who the American spy agency labelled as “unsafe. |
Mboya received a $100,000 grant for the airlift from the Kennedy Foundation after he turned down the same offer from the U.S. State Department, obviously concerned that direct U.S. assistance would look suspicious to pro-Communist Kenyan politicians who suspected Mboya of having CIA ties. The Airlift Africa project was underwritten by the Kennedy Foundation and the African-American Students Foundation. Obama, Sr. was not on the first airlift but a subsequent one. The airlift, organized by Mboya in 1959, included students from Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia, and Nyasaland.
Reuters also reported that Muliro charged that Africans were “disturbed and embittered” by the airlift of the selected students. Muliro “stated that “preferences were shown to two major tribes [Kikuyu and Luo] and many U.S.-bound students had failed preliminary and common entrance examinations, while some of those left behind held first-class certificates.”
- Obama, Sr. was a friend of Mboya and a fellow Luo. After Mboya was assassinated in 1969, Obama, Sr. testified at the trial of his alleged assassin. Obama, Sr. claimed he was the target of a hit-and-run assassination attempt after his testimony.
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| CIA-airlifted to Hawaii, Barack Obama Sr., with leis, stands with Stanley Dunham, President Obama’s grandfather, on his right. |
Obama, Sr., who left Hawaii for Harvard in 1962, divorced Dunham in 1964. Obama, Sr. married a fellow Harvard student, Ruth Niedesand, a Jewish-American woman, who moved with him to Kenya and had two sons. They were later divorced. Obama, Sr. worked for the Kenyan Finance and Transport ministries as well as an oil firm. Obama, Sr. died in a 1982 car crash and his funeral was attended by leading Kenyan politicians, including future Foreign Minister Robert Ouko, who was murdered in 1990.
CIA files indicate that Mboya was an important agent-of-influence for the CIA, not only in Kenya but in all of Africa. A formerly Secret CIA Current Intelligence Weekly Summary, dated November 19, 1959, states that Mboya served as a check on extremists at the second All-African People’s Conference (AAPC) in Tunis. The report states that “serious friction developed between Ghana’s Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah and Kenyan nationalist Tom Mboya who cooperated effectively last December to check extremists at the AAPC’s first meeting in Accra.” The term “cooperated effectively” appears to indicate that Mboya was cooperating with the CIA, which filed the report from field operatives in Accra and Tunis. While “cooperating” with the CIA in Accra and Tunis, Mboya selected the father of the president of the United States to receive a scholarship and be airlifted to the University of Hawaii where he met and married President Obama’s mother.
An earlier CIA Current Intelligence Weekly Summary, secret, and dated April 3, 1958, states that Mboya “still appears to be the most promising of the African leaders.” Another CIA weekly summary, secret and dated December 18, 1958, calls Mboya the Kenyan nationalist an “able and dynamic young chairman” of the People’s Convention party who was viewed as an opponent of “extremists” like Nkrumah, supported by “Sino-Soviet representatives.”
In a formerly Secret CIA report on the All-Africa Peoples Conference in 1961, dated November 1, 1961, Mboya’s conservatism, along with that of Taleb Slim of Tunisia, are contrasted to the leftist policies of Nkrumah and others. Pro-communists who were elected to the AAPC’s steering committee at the March 1961 Cairo conference, attended by Mboya, are identified in the report as Abdoulaye Diallo, AAPC Secretary General, of Senegal; Ahmed Bourmendjel of Algeria; Mario de Andrade of Angola; Ntau Mokhele of Basutoland; Kingue Abel of Cameroun; Antoine Kiwewa of Congo (Leopoldville); Kojo Botsio of Ghana; Ismail Toure of Guinea; T. O. Dosomu Johnson of Liberia; Modibo Diallo of Mali; Mahjoub Ben Seddik of Morocco; Djibo Bakari of Niger; Tunji Otegbeya of Nigeria; Kanyama Chiume of Nyasaland; Ali Abdullahi of Somalia; Tennyson Makiwane of South Africa, and Mohamed Fouad Galal of the United Arab Republic.
The only attendees in Cairo who were given a clean bill of health by the CIA were Mboya, who appears to have been a snitch for the agency, and Joshua Nkomo of Southern Rhodesia, B. Munanka of Tanganyika, Abdel Magid Shaker of Tunisia, and John Kakonge of Uganda.
Nkrumah would eventually be overthrown in a 1966 CIA-backed coup while he was on a state visit to China and North Vietnam. The CIA overthrow of Nkrumah followed by one year the agency’s overthrow of Sukarno, another coup that was connected to President Obama’s family on his mother’s side. There are suspicions that Mboya was assassinated in 1969 by Chinese agents working with anti-Mboya factions in the government of Kenyan President Jomo Kenyatta in order to eliminate a pro-U.S. leading political leader in Africa. Upon Mboya’s death, every embassy in Nairobi flew its flag at half-mast except for one, the embassy of the People’s Republic of China.
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| Jomo Kenyatta, first President of Kenya. |
The intecepts of Mboya’s and Kariuki’s associates are an indication that the NSA and CIA also maintain intercepts on Barack Obama, Sr., who, as a non-U.S. person, would have been lawfully subject at the time to intercepts carried out by NSA and Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).
(Continued below)
Special Report. The Story of Obama: All in The Company – Part II
In Part I of this WMR special report, we revealed the connections between Barack Obama, Sr. and the CIA-affiliated Airlift Africa project to provide college degrees to and gain influence over a group of 280 eastern and southern African students from soon-to-be independent African nations to counter similar programs established by the Soviet Union and China. Barack Obama Sr. was the first African student to attend the University of Hawaii. Obama Sr. and Obama’s mother Stanley Ann Dunham met in a Russian language class in 1959 and they married in 1961.
The African airlift program was administered by Kenyan nationalist leader Tom Mboya, a fellow Luo tribe mentor and friend of the senior Obama. According to CIA documents described in Part I, Mboya also served the CIA in ensuring that pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese African nationalists were stymied in their attempt to dominate pan-African nationalist political, student, and labor movements.
One of Mboya’s chief opponents was Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, who was ousted in a CIA-inspired coup in 1966, one year before to Obama Sr’s son, Barack Obama, Jr. and his mother joined Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian who Obama’s mother met at the University of Hawaii in 1965, when President Obama was four years old.
In 1967, Obama and his mother joined her husband in Jakarta. In 1965, Lolo Soetoro had been called back from Hawaii by General Suharto to serve as an officer in the Indonesian military to help launch a bloody CIA-backed genocide of Indonesian Communists and Indonesian Chinese throughout the expansive country. Suharto consolidated his power in 1966, the same year that Barack Obama, Sr.’s friend, Mboya, had helped to rally pro-U.S. pan-African support for the CIA’s overthrow of Nkrumah in Ghana in 1966.
East-West Center, University of Hawaii, and CIA coup against Sukarno
Ann Dunham met Soetoro at the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii. The center had long been affiliated with CIA activities in the Asia-Pacific region. In 1965, the year that Dunham met and married Soetoro, the center saw a new chancellor take over. He was Howard P. Jones who served a record seven years, from 1958 to 1965, as U.S. ambassador to Indonesia. Jones was present in Jakarta as Suharto and his CIA-backed military officers planned the 1965 overthrow of Sukarno, who was seen, along with the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), as allies of China.
When Jones was chancellor of the East-West Center, he wrote an article for the Washington Post, dated October 10, 1965, in which he defended Suharto’s overthrow of Sukarno. Jones was “invited” by the Post to comment on the Suharto coup, described as a “counter-coup” against the Communists. Jones charged that Suharto was merely responding to an earlier attempted Communist-led coup against Sukarno launched by Lt. Col. Untung, “a relatively unknown battalion commander in the palace guard.”
Jones’s article, which mirrored CIA situation reports from the U.S. embassy in Jakarta, continued by stating that the alleged leftist coup on September 30 ”came within an inch of succeeding through the assassination of six of the top military command. It might well have succeeded had not Defense Minister Nasution and a number of other senior generals also maked for assassination acted fast in a dramatic counter-coup.” Of course, what Jones did not inform the Post’s readers was that the Suharto “counter-coup” had been assisted with the strong help of the CIA.
Sukarno never blamed the Communists for the assassination of the army generals nor did the Indonesian Cabinet, where the second= and third-ranking leaders of the PKI were present. The possibility that the assassination of the generals was a CIA/Suharto “false flag” operation to affix blame on the PKI cannot be ruled out. Two days after Suharto’s coup, a CIA “rent-a-mob” burned down the PKI headquarters in Jakarta. As they marched past the U.S. Embassy, which was also the site of the CIA station, they yelled out, “Long live America!”
Untung later said that when he became aware that Suharto and the CIA were planning a coup on October 5, 1965 – Indonesian Armed Forces Day – forces loyal to him and Sukarno moved first. Jones described this as “typical Communist propaganda.” Suharto moved against Sukarno on October 1. Jones iterated that “there was not an iota of truth . . . in the accusation that the CIA was working against Sukarno.” History has proven otherwise. Jones accused the Communists of taking advantage of Sukarno’s failing health to beat out the other candidates to succeed him. The goal, according to Jones, was to have PKI boss D.N. Aidit succeed Sukarno. Sukarno did not die until 1970, while under house arrest.
A CIA paper, formerly classified Secret and undated, states “Sukarno would like to return to the status quo ante-coup. He has refused to condemn the PKI or the 30th September Movement [of Lt. Col. Untung]; instead, he calls for unity of Indonesia and asks that no vengeance be taken by one group against the other. But, he has not succeeded in forcing the Army to abandon its anti-PKI activities and, on the other hand, he has bowed to their demand by appointing its single candidate General Suharto as head of the Army.” Suharto and Barry Obama Soetoro’s step-father Lolo Soetoro would ignore Sukarno’s call for no vengeance, as hundreds of thousands of Indonesians would soon discover.
The mass murder by Suharto of Indonesian Chinese is seen in the CIA paper’s description of the Baperki Party: “the leftist Baperki Party, with its major strength in rural areas, is largely Chinese-Indonesian in membership.” A CIA Intelligence Memorandum, dated October 6, 1966 and formerly classified Secret, shows the extent of the CIA’s monitoring of the anti-Sukarno coup from various CIA agents assigned as liaisons to Suharto’s army units surrounding the Presidential Palace in Bogor and at various diplomatic posts around the country, including the U.S. Consulate in Medan, which was keeping track of leftists in that Sumatran city and, which, in an October 2, 1965, Intelligence Memo, reported to the CIA that the “Soviet consul-general in Medan has a plane standing by that could be used for evacuation of Soviet citizens from Sumatra.” The October 6 memo also warns against allowing Untung from developing a following in Central Java.
A CIA formerly Secret “Weekly Summary Special Report” on Indonesia, dated August 11, 1967, and titled “The New Order in Indonesia,” reports that in 1966, Indonesia re-aligned its economy in order to receive International Monetary Fund (IMF) assistance. The CIA reports its is happy with the new triumvirate ruling Indonesia in 1967: Suharto, Foreign Minister Adam Malik, and the Sultan of Jogjakarta, who served as minister for economics and finance. The report also rejoices in the outlawing of the PKI, but states it “retains a significant following in East and Central Java,” where Ann Dunham Soetoro would largely concentrate her later efforts on behalf of USAID, the World Bank, and the Ford Foundation, all front activities for the CIA to “win the hearts and minds” of the Javanese farmers and artisans.
A CIA Intelligence Memorandum, formerly Secret and dated July 23, 1966, clearly sees the Muslim Nahdatul Ulama party {NU), the largest party in Indonesia and Muslim, as a natural ally of the United States and the Suharto regime. The report states that helped Suharto put down the Communists in the post-coup time frame, especially where the NU was strongest: East Java, where Obama’s mother would concentrate her activities, and North Sumatra and parts of Borneo. An April 29, 1966, formerly Secret CIA Intelligence Memorandum on the PKI states: “Moslem extremists in many instances outdid the army in hunting down and murdering members of the party [PKI] and its front groups.”
Dunham and Barry Soetoro in Jakarta and USAID front activities
Dunham dropped out of the University of Hawaii in 1960 while pregnant with Barack Obama. Barack Obama Sr. left Hawaii in 1962 to study at Harvard. Dunham and Obama divorced in 1964. In the fall of 1961, Dunham enrolled at the University of Washington while caring for her infant son. Dunham was re-enrolled at the University of Hawaii from 1963 to 1966. Lolo Soetoro, who Dunham married in March 1965, departed Hawaii for Indonesia on July 20, 1965, some three months prior to the CIA’s coup against Sukarno. Soetoro, who served Suharto as an Army colonel, was clearly called back from the CIA-connected East-West Center to assist in the coup against Sukarno, one that would eventually cost the lives of some one million Indonesian citizens. It is a history that President Obama would like the press to ignore, which it certainly did during the 2008 primary and general election.
In 1967, after arriving in Indonesia with Obama, Jr., Dunham began teaching English at the American embassy in Jakarta, which also housed one of the largest CIA stations in Asia and had significant satellite stations in Surabaya in eastern Java and Medan on Sumatra. Jones left as East-West Center chancellor in 1968.
In fact, Obama’s mother was teaching English for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which was a major cover for CIA activities in Indonesia and throughout Southeast Asia, especially in Laos, South Vietnam, and Thailand. The USAID program was known as Lembaga Pendidikan Pembinaan Manajemen. Obama’s mother, painted as a free spirit and a “sixties child” by President Obama and people who claimed they knew her in Hawaii and Indonesia, had a curriculum vitae in Indonesia that contradicts the perception that Ann Dunham Soetoro was a “hippy.”
Dunham Soetoro’s Russian language training at the University of Hawaii may have been useful to the CIA in Indonesia. An August 2, 1966, formerly Secret memorandum from the National Security Council’s Executive Secretary Bromley Smith states that, in addition to Japan, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, and the Philippines, the Suharto coup was welcomed by the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies because its created a non-aligned Indonesia that “represents an Asian counterweight to Communist China.” Records indicate that a number of CIA agents posted in Jakarta before and after the 1965 coup were, like Dunham Soetoro, conversant in Russian.
Dunham Soetoro worked for the elitist Ford Foundation, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Bank Rakyat (the majority government-owned People’s Bank of Indonesia), and the CIA-linked USAID while she lived in Indonesia and later, Pakistan.
USAID was involved in a number of CIA covert operations in Southeast Asia. The February 9, 1971, Washington Star reported that USAID officials in Laos were aware that rice supplied to the Laotian Army by USAID was being re-sold to North Vietnamese army divisions in the country. The report stated that the U.S. tolerated the USAID rice sales to the North Vietnamese since the Laotian Army units that sold the rice found themselves protected from Communist Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese attack. USAID and the CIA also used the supply of rice to force Laotian Meo tribesmen to support the United States in the war against the Communists. USAID funds programmed for civilians injured in the war in Laos and public health care were actually diverted for military purposes.
In 1971, the USAID-funded Center for Vietnamese Studies at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale was accused of being a CIA front. USAID-funded projects through the Midwest Universities Consortium for International Activities (MUCIA) — comprising the Universities of Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana and Michigan State — were accused of being CIA front projects, including those for “agricultural education” in Indonesia, as well as other “projects” in Afghanistan, Mali, Nepal, Nigeria, Thailand, and South Vietnam. The charge was made in 1971, the same year that Ann Dunham was working for USAID in the country.
In a July 10, 1971, New York Times report, USAID and the CIA were accused of “losing” $1.7 billion appropriated for the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) program in South Vietnam. CORDS was part of the CIA’s Operation Phoenix program, which involved CIA assassination and torture of South Vietnamese village elders and Buddhist clerics. USAID money was also directed to the CIA’s proprietary airline in Southeast Asia, Air America. In Thailand, USAID funds for the Accelerated Rural Development Program in Thailand were actually masking a CIA anti-Communist counter-insurgency operation. USAID funds programmed for public works projects in East Pakistan in 1971 were used for East Pakistan’s military fortifications on its border with India, in the months before the outbreak of war with India, in contravention of U.S. law that prohibited USAID money for military purposes.
In 1972, USAID administrator Dr. John Hannah admitted to Metromedia News that USAID was being used as a cover for CIA covert operations in Laos. Hannah only admitted to Laos as a USAID cover for the CIA. However, it was also reported that USAID was being used by the CIA in Indonesia, Philippines, South Vietnam, Thailand, and South Korea. USAID projects in Southeast Asia had to be approved by the Southeast Asian Development Advisory Group (SEADAG), an Asia Society group that was, in fact, answerable to the CIA.
The U.S. Food for Peace program, jointly administered by USAID and the Department of Agriculture, was found in 1972 to be used for military purposes in Cambodia, South Korea, Turkey, South Vietnam, Spain, Taiwan, and Greece. In 1972, USAID funneled aid money only to the southern part of North Yemen, in order to aid North Yemeni forces against the government of South Yemen, then ruled by a socialist government opposed to U.S. hegemony in the region.
One of the entities affiliated with the USAID work in Indonesia was the Asia Foundation, a 1950s creation formed with the help of the CIA to oppose the expansion of communism in Asia. The East-West Center guest house in Hawaii was funded by the Asia Foundation. The guest house is also where Barack Obama Sr. first stayed after his airlift from Kenya to Hawaii, arranged by the one of the CIA’s major agents of influence in Africa, Mboya.
Dunham would also travel to Ghana, Nepal, Bangladesh, India, and Thailand working on micro-financing projects. In 1965, Barack Obama Sr. returned to Kenya from Harvard, with another American wife. The senior Obama linked up with his old friend and the CIA’s “golden boy” Mboya and other fellow Luo politicians. The CIA station chief in Nairobi from 1964 to 1967 was Philip Cherry. In 1975, Cherry was the CIA station chief in Dacca, Bangladesh. Cherry was linked by the then-U.S. ambassador to Bangladesh, Eugene Booster, to the 1975 assassination of Bangladesh’s first president, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and members of his family.
The hit on “Sheikh Mujib” and his family was reportedly ordered by then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Bangladesh was also on the micro- and macro-financing travel itinerary of CIA-linked Ann Dunham.
CIA banking and Hawaii
Meanwhile, Dunham Soetoro’s mother, Madelyn Dunham, who raised young Obama when he returned to Hawaii in 1971 while his mother stayed in Indonesia, was the first female vice president at the Bank of Hawaii in Honolulu. Various CIA front entities used the bank. Madelyn Dunham handled escrow accounts used to make CIA payments to U.S.-supported Asian dictators like Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos, South Vietnamese President Nguyen van Thieu, and President Suharto in Indonesia. In effect, the bank was engaged in money laundering for the CIA to covertly prop up its favored leaders in the Asia-Pacific region.
One of the CIA’s major money laundering fronts in Honolulu was the firm of Bishop, Baldwin, Rewald, Dillingham & Wong (BBRDW). After the CIA allowed the firm to collapse in 1983 amid charges that BBRDW was merely a Ponzi scheme, Senator Daniel Inouye of the US Senate Intelligence Committee said the CIA’s role in the firm “wasn’t significant.” It would later be revealed that Inouye, who was one of the late Alaska Senator Ted Stevens’s best friends in the Senate, was lying. In fact, BBRDW was involved heavily in funding covert CIA programs throughout Asia, including economic espionage against Japan, providing arms for Afghan mujaheddin guerrillas in their war against the Soviets and covertly supplying weapons to Taiwan. One of BBRDW’s principals was John C. “Jack” Kindschi, who, before he retired in 1981, was the CIA station chief in Honolulu. BBRDW’s chairman Ron Rewald had a counterfeit college degree certificate provided for the wall of his office by the CIA’s forgery experts and his name was inserted in university records as an alumnus.
A false history for BBRDW was concocted by the CIA claiming the firm had operated in Hawaii since it was a territory. President Obama is currently plagued by allegations that he has fake college and university transcripts, a phony social security number issued in Connecticut, and other padded resume items. Did Hawaii’s fake BBRDW documents portend today’s questions about Obama’s past?
BBRDW conducted its business in the heart of Honolulu’s business district, where the Bank of Hawaii was located and where Obama grandmother Madelyn Dunham ran the escrow accounts. The bank would handle much of BBRDW’s covert financial transactions.
Obama/Soetoro and the “years of living dangerously” in Jakarta
It is clear that Dunham Soetoro and her Indonesian husband, President Obama’s step-father, were closely involved in the CIA’s operations to steer Indonesia away from the Sino-Soviet orbit during the “years of living dangerously” after the overthrow of Sukarno. WMR has discovered that some of the CIA’s top case officers were assigned to various official and non-official cover assignments in Indonesia during this time frame, including under the cover of USAID, the Peace Corps, and the U.S. Information Agency (USIA).
One of the closest CIA contacts for Suharto was former CIA Jakarta embassy officer Kent B. Crane. Crane was so close to Suharto after “retiring” from the CIA, he was reportedly one of the only “private” businessmen given an Indonesian diplomatic passport by Suharto’s government. Crane’s company, the Crane Group, was involved in supplying small arms to the military forces of the United States, Indonesia, and other nations. A foreign policy adviser to Vice President Spiro Agnew, Crane was later nominated as U.S. ambassador to Indonesia by President Ronald Reagan but the nomination was dead-on-arrival because of Crane’s dubious links to Suharto. The ambassadorship would instead go to John Holdridge, a close colleague of Kissinger. Holdridge was succeeded in Jakarta by Paul Wolfowitz.
Suharto’s cronies, who included Mochtar and James Riady of the Lippo Group, would later stand accused of funneling over $1 million of illegal foreign contributions to Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign.
President Obama has twice postponed official state visits to Indonesia, perhaps fearful of the attention such a trip would bring to the CIA connections of his mother and Indonesian step-father.
In the 1970s and 80s, Dunham was active in micro-loan projects for the Ford Foundation, the CIA-linked East-West Center, and USAID in Indonesia. One of the individuals assigned to the U.S. embassy and helped barricade the compound during a violent anti-U.S. student demonstration during the 1965 Suharto coup against Sukarno was Dr. Gordon Donald, Jr. Assigned to the embassy’s Economic Section, Donald was responsible for USAID micro-financing for Indonesian farmers, the same project that Dunham Soetoro would work on for USAID in the 1970s, after her USAID job of teaching English in Indonesia. In a 1968 book, “Who’s Who in the CIA,” published in West Berlin, Donald is identified as a CIA officer who was also assigned to Lahore, Pakistan, where Dunham would eventually live for five years in the Hilton International Hotel while working on microfinancing for the Asian Development Bank.
Another “Who’s Who in the CIA” Jakarta alumnus is Robert F. Grealy, who later became the director for international relations for the Asia-Pacific for J P Morgan Chase and a director for the American-Indonesian Chamber of Commerce. J P Morgan Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon is being mentioned as a potential replacement for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, whose father, Peter Geithner, was the Ford Foundation’s Asia grant-selector who funneled the money to Ann Dunham’s Indonesian projects.
CIA Black Projects and Hawaii
While in Pakistan, Dunham’s son Barack visited her in 1980 and 1981. Obama visited Karachi, Lahore, and Hyderabad, India during his south Asia visits. It was during the time period that the CIA was beefing up its anti-Soviet operations in Afghanistan from Pakistan.
A January 31, 1958, heavily-redacted formerly Secret NOFORN [no foreign dissemination] memorandum for CIA Director Allen Dulles from the Deputy Assistant Director of the CIA for Research and Reports [name redacted] reports on a fact-finding mission to the Far East, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East from November 17 through December 21, 1957.
The CIA Office of Research and Reports (ORR) chief reports a meeting with the staff of retired Army General Jesmond Balmer, a senior CIA official in Hawaii, about requests by the Commander-in-Chief Pacific (CINCPAC) for “a number of detailed, time-consuming research studies.” The ORR chief then reports about a CIA “survey of students at the University of Hawaii who have both Chinese language and research ability.” The ORR chief also reports that at a South-East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) Counter Subversion Seminar at Baguio, Philippines held from November 26-29, 1957, the Economic Subcommittee discussed an “economic development fund” to combat “Sino-Soviet Bloc subversive activities in the area and a consideration of possible counter-measures which might be employed.”
The Thailand and Philippines delegations were pushing hard for U.S. funding for an economic development fund, which may have provided the impetus for later USAID projects in the region, including those with which Peter Geithner and Obama’s mother were intimately involved.
Although CIA geo-political covert operations at the University of Hawaii are well-documented, the agency’s darker side of research and MK-UKTRA type operations has not generally been associated with the University of Hawaii.
A series of formerly Confidential CIA memoranda, dated May 15, 1972, points to the involvement of both the Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), the CIA, and the University of Hawaii in the CIA’s behavioral science program. The memos are signed by then-Deputy Director of the CIA Bronson Tweedy, the chief of the Intelligence Community’s Program Review Group (PRG) [name redacted], and CIA Director Richard Helms. The subject of the memos is “ARPA Supported Research Relating to Intelligence Product,” The memo from the PRG chief discusses a conference held on May 11, 1972, attended by Lt. Col. Austin Kibler, ARPA’s Director of Behavioral Research. Kibler was the chief for ARPA research into behavior modification and remote viewing. Others mentioned in the PRG chief’s memo include CIA Deputy Director for Intelligence Edward Proctor, the CIA Deputy Director for Science and Technology Carl Duckett, and Director of the Office of National Estimates John Huizenga.
In 1973, after CIA Director James Schlesinger ordered a review of all CIA programs, the CIA developed a set of documents on various CIA programs collectively called the “Family Jewels.” Most of these documents were released in 2007 but it was also revealed that Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA’s director of MKULTRA, the agency’s behavior modification, brainwashing, and drug testing component, had been ordered by Helms, before he resigned as CIA director, to be destroyed. Duckett, in one memo from Ben Evans of the CIA to CIA Director William Colby, dated May 8, 1973, conveys that he “thinks the Director would be ill-advised to say he is acquainted with this program,” meaning Gottlieb’s drug testing program under MKULKTRA.
Senior Gerald Ford administration officials, including Chief of Staff Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, ensured that after the production of the “Family Jewels” documents, no CIA revelations were made about CIA psychological behavior-altering programs, including MKULTRA and Project ARTICHOKE.
The May 15, 1972, set of memos appears to be related to the CIA’s initial research, code named SCANATE, in 1972 into psychic warfare, including the use of psychics for purposes of remote viewing espionage and mind control. The memo discussed Kibler from ARPA and “his contractor,” which was later discovered to be Stanford Research Institute (SRI) in Menlo Park, California.
In a memo from CIA Director Helms to, among others, Duckett, Huizenga, Proctor, and the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, which later inherited reote viewing from the CIA under the code name GRILL FLAME, Helms insists that ARPA had been supporting research into behavioral science and its potential for intelligence production ”for a number of years” at “M.I.T., Yale, the University of Michigan, U.C.L.A., and University of Hawaii and other institutions as well as in corporate research facilities.”
The role of the University of Hawaii in CIA psych-war operations continues to this day. The chief of research for DIA’s Defense Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence Center (DCHC) Behavioral Sciences Program, Dr. Susan Brandon, who was reportedly involved in a covert program run by the American Psychological Association (APA), Rand Corporation, and the CIA to employ “enhanced interrogation” techniques, including sleep and sensory deprivation, intense pain, and extreme isolation on prisoners held at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan and other “black prisons,” received her PhD in Psychology from the University of Hawaii. Brandon also served as assistant director of Social, Behavioral, and Educational Sciences for the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the George W. Bush White House.
The CIA’s close connections to the University of Hawaii continued to the late 1970s, when the former President of the University of Hawaii from 1969 to 1974, Harlan Cleveland, was a special invited speaker at CIA headquarters on May 10, 1977. Cleveland served as Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs from 1961 to 1965 and Lyndon Johnson’s ambassador to NATO from 1965 to 1969 before taking up his position at the University of Hawaii.
A CIA Director of Training memo dated May 21, 1971, reports on the active recruitment of a U.S. Marine officer who was entering graduate school at the University of Hawaii.
The Family of Obama and the CIA
There are volumes of written material on the CIA backgrounds of George H. W. Bush and CIA-related activities by his father and children, including former President George W. Bush. Barack Obama, on the other hand, cleverly masked his own CIA connections as well as those of his mother, father, step-father, and grandmother (there is very little known about Obama’s grandfather, Stanley Armour Dunham, who was supposedly in the furniture business in Hawaii after serving in Europe during World War II). Presidents and vice presidents do not require security background checks, unlike other members of the federal government, to hold office. That job is left up to the press. In 2008, the press failed miserably in its duty to vet the man who would win the White House. With the ties of Obama’s parents to the University of Hawaii and its links to MKULTRA and ARTICHOKE, a nagging question remains: Is Barack Obama a real-life “Manchurian Candidate?”
(Continued below)
SPECIAL REPORT: The Story of Obama All in the Company – Add one more Obama family member to the CIA payroll. Part III
WMR previously reported on the CIA links of President Obama’s mother, father, step-father, grandmother to the CIA. Not much is known about Obama’s grandfather, Stanley Armour Dunham, who Obama mistakenly referred to as “his father” in two speeches, one recently to the Disabled American Veterans.
What is officially known about Stanley Armour Dunham is that he served with the 9th Air Force in Britain and France prior to and after the D-Day invasion. After the war, Dunham and his wife, Madelyn and his daughter Stanley Ann — Obama’s mother — moved to Berkeley, California; El Dorado, Kansas; Seattle; and Honolulu. Armour Dunham is said to have worked for a series of furniture stores.
Obama maintains that his mother and father first met in a Russian-language class at the University of Hawaii in 1959. However, a photograph has emerged of Stanley Armour welcoming Barack Obama, Sr., complete with traditional Hawaiian welcoming leis, from Kenya. Obama, Sr. was the only Kenyan student airlifted to Hawaii as part of the CIA-inspired Airlift Africa project that saw Obama and 279 other students from British eastern and southern African colonies brought to the United States for college degrees prior to their homelands gaining independence from Britain. The students were selected by Kenyan nationalist leader Tom Mboya who would later conduct surveillance for the CIA at pan-African nationalist meetings. Mboya was particularly focused on two African leaders who were seen as too close to the Sino-Soviet bloc, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Sekout Toure of Guinea.
Stanley Armour Dunham with Barack Obama, Sr. at welcoming ceremony to Hawaii. The presence of two US Navy personnel indicates the plane may have landed at Hickam Air Force Base, an indication of the U.S. government’s and CIA’s role in the Airlift Africa project.
The photograph of Armour Dunham with Barack Obama, Sr., indicates that the “furniture salesman” in Hawaii was, in fact, working with a CIA-funded project to rapidly educate aspiring politicians to serve in post-independence African governments to counter Soviet- and Chinese-backed political leaders in the region.
There is a strong reason to believe that Armour Dunham worked in the 1950s for the CIA in the Middle East. An FBI file on Armour Dunham existed but the bureau claimed it destroyed the file on May 1, 1997. Considering the sour relations between the FBI and CIA during the Cold War, it is likely that Armour Dunham was being monitored by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover in the same manner as a number of other CIA officials and agents were being surveilled. Similarly, the pre-1968 passport records of Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, were destroyed by the State Department.
There is a photographic clue that the Dunhams may have been assigned by the CIA to Beirut, Lebanon in the early 1950s. A photograph of Obama’s mother and grandparents has emerged that shows Stanley Ann Dunham wearing what may be a school uniform with the insignia of “NdJ,” which stands for the College Notre-Dame de Jamhour, a private Jesuit Catholic French language school in Beirut, Lebanon. Graduates of the school include three former presidents of Lebanon, Amine Gemayel, Bashir Gemayel, and Charles Helou, all of whom maintained close relations with Washington.
Did Obama’s mother [left] go to a private school in Lebanon in the early 1950s while her father [middle] worked for the CIA in Beirut?
There is also the curious nature of President Obama’s Social Security Number, issued in Connecticut, a state where there is no other evidence of his ever being a resident. Adding to the mystery is a New York City address for a “male” named Stanley Ann Dunham, 235 E. 40th St Apt 8F, New York NY 10016-1747. The address is a few blocks away from the address of the Ford Foundation. Ann Dunham did work briefly in New York for the Ford Foundation.
On August 9, 2010, WMR reported, “In a December 19, 1971, article in the Boston Globe by Dan Pinck, [a historian and former OSS officer] titled ‘Is everyone in the CIA?’ it is alleged that identifying US Agency for International Development (USAID) officers as CIA agents was a ‘reasonably accurate accounting of certain leading operatives and associates of the CIA.’ President Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro worked for USAID in rural Java in Indonesia. Pinck’s article was a review of a 1968 book, ‘Who’s Who in the CIA’ published in Berlin.”
WMR has obtained a rare copy of “Who’s Who in the CIA,” from England. The book, published in West Berlin in 1968, lists some 3,000 CIA agents and agents-of-influence around the world.
The book also contains a reference to one CIA operative whose area of primary place of operation was Mercer Island, Washington. He was retired Air Force General Don Zabriskie Zimmermann, who was the Chief Engineer for the Boeing Company in Seattle. Before retiring from the Air Force, Zimmermann was the Air Force Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for Development in Foreign Countries. Ann Stanley Dunham reportedly graduated from Mercer Island High School in 1960 and met Obama later that year in a Russian language class after her parents moved to Hawaii. Stanley Ann’s mother, Madelyn Dunham, worked at a Boeing plant in Wichita, Kansas during World War II.
The book lists the number of CIA agents in countries during the 1950s and 60s where Obama’s father, mother, step-father Lolo Soetori, and allegedly, his grandmother and grandfather worked:
Indonesia
Jakarta 64
Surabaya 12
Medan 8
Hollandia 1
Kenya
Nairobi 19
Mombassa 2
Lebanon
Beirut 61 (including one agent also assigned to Jakarta, Lahore, and Karachi and another assigned to Lahore)
Hawaii
Honolulu 6 (one agent also assigned to Canton Island and another was fluent in French, Stanley Ann Dunham spoke French, Urdu, Bahasa Indonesian, and she studied Javanese at the University of Hawaii, in addition to Russian).
-- Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist, author and syndicated columnist. He has written for several renowned papers and blogs.
Madsen is a regular contributor on Russia Today. He has been a frequent political and national security commentator on Fox News and has also appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, and MS-NBC. Madsen has taken on Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity on their television shows. He has been invited to testifty as a witness before the US House of Representatives, the UN Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and an terrorism investigation panel of the French government.
As a U.S. Naval Officer, he managed one of the first computer security programs for the U.S. Navy. He subsequently worked for the National Security Agency, the Naval Data Automation Command, Department of State, RCA Corporation, and Computer Sciences Corporation.
Madsen is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), Association for Intelligence Officers (AFIO), and the National Press Club. He is a regular contributor to Opinion Maker.
Source
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Monday, October 18, 2010
Christopher A. Coons
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Christopher A. Coons
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County Executive of New Castle County
Incumbent
Assumed office
January 4, 2005
Preceded by Thomas P. Gordon
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President of the New Castle County Council
In office
January 2, 2001 – January 4, 2005
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Born September 9, 1963 (1963-09-09) (age 47)
Greenwich, Connecticut
Political party Democratic
Spouse(s) Annie Lingenfelter
Residence Wilmington, Delaware
Alma mater Amherst College (B.A.)
Yale Law School (J.D.)
Yale Divinity School (M.A.R.)[1]
Website Chris Coons for U.S. Senate
Christopher Andrew "Chris" Coons (born September 9, 1963) is an American lawyer and politician from Wilmington, Delaware, and is the County Executive of New Castle County. On February 3, 2010, he announced his candidacy for the Senate seat vacated by Vice President Joe Biden.[2][3]
Contents
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
County Executive of New Castle County
Incumbent
Assumed office
January 4, 2005
Preceded by Thomas P. Gordon
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
President of the New Castle County Council
In office
January 2, 2001 – January 4, 2005
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Born September 9, 1963 (1963-09-09) (age 47)
Greenwich, Connecticut
Political party Democratic
Spouse(s) Annie Lingenfelter
Residence Wilmington, Delaware
Alma mater Amherst College (B.A.)
Yale Law School (J.D.)
Yale Divinity School (M.A.R.)[1]
Website Chris Coons for U.S. Senate
Christopher Andrew "Chris" Coons (born September 9, 1963) is an American lawyer and politician from Wilmington, Delaware, and is the County Executive of New Castle County. On February 3, 2010, he announced his candidacy for the Senate seat vacated by Vice President Joe Biden.[2][3]
Contents
1 Early life and family
2 Professional career
3 Awards and honors
4 Political career
4.1 2010 U.S. Senate campaign
4.1.1 Controversy
5 Public offices
5.1 Election results
6 References
7 External links
Early life and family
Coons grew up in Hockessin, Delaware, married Annie Lingenfelter, and has three children. They live in Wilmington, Delaware. He graduated from the Tower Hill School and then Amherst College in 1985 with a B.A. in Chemistry and Political Science, earning a Truman Scholarship. During his junior year of college, Coons studied abroad at the University of Nairobi in Kenya. He earned graduate degrees from both the law and divinity schools at Yale University.
Professional career
After college, Coons worked in Washington, D.C., for the Investor Responsibility Research Center, where he wrote a book on South Africa and the U.S. divestment movement. He then worked as a volunteer for the South African Council of Churches and as a relief worker in Kenya, before returning to the U.S. to work for the Coalition for the Homeless in New York. In 1992, he earned his J.D. degree from Yale Law School, and a master's degree in Ethics from Yale Divinity School.[4]
Coons clerked for Judge Jane Richards Roth on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and then worked for the National "I Have a Dream" Foundation in New York.[5] After returning to Delaware in 1996, Coons began his eight year career as in-house counsel for W.L. Gore & Associates, Inc., Newark, Delaware-based makers of Gore-Tex fabrics and other high-tech materials. There he was responsible for the ethics training program, federal government relations, e-commerce legal work, and for general commercial contracting.[citation needed]
He has also worked with several non-profits, including the Council for the Homeless, the education-oriented “I Have a Dream” Foundation of Delaware, and the South African Council of Churches, and serves on several boards including First State Innovation, the Bear/Glasgow Boys & Girls Club, and the Delaware College of Art & Design.
Awards and honors
In 1999, he was awarded the Governor's Outstanding Volunteer Award for his work with the "I Have a Dream" Foundation, the Governor's Mentoring Council, and the United Way of Delaware.[citation needed]
Coons has been named an honorary commander of the 166th Air Wing of the Delaware Air National Guard, and is an honorary life member of the Minquadale Fire Company.
Political career
Coons first became involved in politics working on behalf of Republican politicians, first for Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign in 1980 and then for Bill Roth's Senate campaign in 1982.[6] During college, he switched from being a Republican to a Democrat and in 1988, Coons worked as a volunteer for the Senate campaign of Democratic Delaware Lt. Gov. Shien Biau Woo[5]. He was a delegate from Wilmington to the 1996 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. His first elected office was President of the New Castle County Council, elected in 2000 and serving four years before being elected County Executive in 2004. He was the endorsed candidate of the New Castle County Democratic Party in 2008, and was re-nominated by the party on September 9, 2008.
Coons was re-elected on November 4, 2008, defeating Republican candidate and former New Castle County Executive Thomas P. Gordon.
2010 U.S. Senate campaign
See also: United States Senate special election in Delaware, 2010
Coons is running in the 2010 special election against the Republican candidate Christine O'Donnell for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Ted Kaufman, who was appointed after Joe Biden resigned.[7][dead link]
In the first post-primary polls, Rasmussen Reports showed Coons with a double-digit lead over O'Donnell, describing this as a "remarkable turnaround" as the race had been leaning Republican until O'Donnell upset Mike Castle in the Republican primary election.[8]
Controversy
During the campaign, a controversy arose surrounding an article Coons wrote in 1985 for his college newspaper, entitled "Chris Coons: The Making of a Bearded Marxist". In it, he describes his transformation from a Republican to what FoxNews described as a "Democrat suspicious of America's power and ideals."[9]Coons said his college anthropology courses had "undermined the accepted value of progress and the cultural superiority of the West", while coursework on the Vietnam War had led him to suspect that "the ideal of America as a ‘beacon of freedom and justice, providing hope for the world' was not exactly based on reality." He went on to state that his belief in the "miracles of free enterprise and the boundless opportunities of America" may be untrue. Coons concluded the article with the statement that he had "returned to loving America, but in a way of one who has realized its faults and failures and still believes in its promise."[10][11]
Dave Hoffman, a Coons campaign spokesman, said the title of the article was designed as a humorous take-off on a joke Coons's college friends had made about how his time outside the country had affected his outlook. "After witnessing crushing poverty and the consequences of the Reagan Administration's 'constructive engagement' with the South African apartheid regime, he rethought his political views, returned to the America he loved and proudly registered as a Democrat," Hoffman said in a statement to POLITICO.[12]
According to FoxNews, Coons was "targeted by Republicans" over the 25-year-old piece. Coons himself downplayed the article, as well as controversial past statements by his opponent Christine O'Donnell, saying that voters were interested in current issues such as job creation and the national debt and were not "particularly interested in statements that either of us made 20 or 30 years ago."[9] David Weigel, writing in Slate, opined: "If the Tea Party Express slings the 'bearded Marxist' nonsense, I doubt it will work."[13]
Public offices
The County Executive of New Castle County takes office the first Tuesday of January and has a term of four years. In his six years in office as County Executive, Coons balanced the budget with a surplus in fiscal year 2010 by cutting spending and raising taxes.[14] New Castle County maintained a AAA bond rating throughout his tenure.[15]
Office Type Location Elected Took Office Left Office notes
County Council Legislature Wilmington 2000 January 2, 2001 January 4, 2005 President
County Executive Executive Wilmington 2004 January 4, 2005 Incumbent —
...
2 Professional career
3 Awards and honors
4 Political career
4.1 2010 U.S. Senate campaign
4.1.1 Controversy
5 Public offices
5.1 Election results
6 References
7 External links
Early life and family
Coons grew up in Hockessin, Delaware, married Annie Lingenfelter, and has three children. They live in Wilmington, Delaware. He graduated from the Tower Hill School and then Amherst College in 1985 with a B.A. in Chemistry and Political Science, earning a Truman Scholarship. During his junior year of college, Coons studied abroad at the University of Nairobi in Kenya. He earned graduate degrees from both the law and divinity schools at Yale University.
Professional career
After college, Coons worked in Washington, D.C., for the Investor Responsibility Research Center, where he wrote a book on South Africa and the U.S. divestment movement. He then worked as a volunteer for the South African Council of Churches and as a relief worker in Kenya, before returning to the U.S. to work for the Coalition for the Homeless in New York. In 1992, he earned his J.D. degree from Yale Law School, and a master's degree in Ethics from Yale Divinity School.[4]
Coons clerked for Judge Jane Richards Roth on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and then worked for the National "I Have a Dream" Foundation in New York.[5] After returning to Delaware in 1996, Coons began his eight year career as in-house counsel for W.L. Gore & Associates, Inc., Newark, Delaware-based makers of Gore-Tex fabrics and other high-tech materials. There he was responsible for the ethics training program, federal government relations, e-commerce legal work, and for general commercial contracting.[citation needed]
He has also worked with several non-profits, including the Council for the Homeless, the education-oriented “I Have a Dream” Foundation of Delaware, and the South African Council of Churches, and serves on several boards including First State Innovation, the Bear/Glasgow Boys & Girls Club, and the Delaware College of Art & Design.
Awards and honors
In 1999, he was awarded the Governor's Outstanding Volunteer Award for his work with the "I Have a Dream" Foundation, the Governor's Mentoring Council, and the United Way of Delaware.[citation needed]
Coons has been named an honorary commander of the 166th Air Wing of the Delaware Air National Guard, and is an honorary life member of the Minquadale Fire Company.
Political career
Coons first became involved in politics working on behalf of Republican politicians, first for Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign in 1980 and then for Bill Roth's Senate campaign in 1982.[6] During college, he switched from being a Republican to a Democrat and in 1988, Coons worked as a volunteer for the Senate campaign of Democratic Delaware Lt. Gov. Shien Biau Woo[5]. He was a delegate from Wilmington to the 1996 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. His first elected office was President of the New Castle County Council, elected in 2000 and serving four years before being elected County Executive in 2004. He was the endorsed candidate of the New Castle County Democratic Party in 2008, and was re-nominated by the party on September 9, 2008.
Coons was re-elected on November 4, 2008, defeating Republican candidate and former New Castle County Executive Thomas P. Gordon.
2010 U.S. Senate campaign
See also: United States Senate special election in Delaware, 2010
Coons is running in the 2010 special election against the Republican candidate Christine O'Donnell for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Ted Kaufman, who was appointed after Joe Biden resigned.[7][dead link]
In the first post-primary polls, Rasmussen Reports showed Coons with a double-digit lead over O'Donnell, describing this as a "remarkable turnaround" as the race had been leaning Republican until O'Donnell upset Mike Castle in the Republican primary election.[8]
Controversy
During the campaign, a controversy arose surrounding an article Coons wrote in 1985 for his college newspaper, entitled "Chris Coons: The Making of a Bearded Marxist". In it, he describes his transformation from a Republican to what FoxNews described as a "Democrat suspicious of America's power and ideals."[9]Coons said his college anthropology courses had "undermined the accepted value of progress and the cultural superiority of the West", while coursework on the Vietnam War had led him to suspect that "the ideal of America as a ‘beacon of freedom and justice, providing hope for the world' was not exactly based on reality." He went on to state that his belief in the "miracles of free enterprise and the boundless opportunities of America" may be untrue. Coons concluded the article with the statement that he had "returned to loving America, but in a way of one who has realized its faults and failures and still believes in its promise."[10][11]
Dave Hoffman, a Coons campaign spokesman, said the title of the article was designed as a humorous take-off on a joke Coons's college friends had made about how his time outside the country had affected his outlook. "After witnessing crushing poverty and the consequences of the Reagan Administration's 'constructive engagement' with the South African apartheid regime, he rethought his political views, returned to the America he loved and proudly registered as a Democrat," Hoffman said in a statement to POLITICO.[12]
According to FoxNews, Coons was "targeted by Republicans" over the 25-year-old piece. Coons himself downplayed the article, as well as controversial past statements by his opponent Christine O'Donnell, saying that voters were interested in current issues such as job creation and the national debt and were not "particularly interested in statements that either of us made 20 or 30 years ago."[9] David Weigel, writing in Slate, opined: "If the Tea Party Express slings the 'bearded Marxist' nonsense, I doubt it will work."[13]
Public offices
The County Executive of New Castle County takes office the first Tuesday of January and has a term of four years. In his six years in office as County Executive, Coons balanced the budget with a surplus in fiscal year 2010 by cutting spending and raising taxes.[14] New Castle County maintained a AAA bond rating throughout his tenure.[15]
Office Type Location Elected Took Office Left Office notes
County Council Legislature Wilmington 2000 January 2, 2001 January 4, 2005 President
County Executive Executive Wilmington 2004 January 4, 2005 Incumbent —
...
References
1.^ "Meet Chris Coons". Chris Coons for U.S. Senate. http://www.chriscoons.com/about/meet_chris_coons. Retrieved 2010-09-17. (campaign web site biography)
2.^ Taylor, Jessica. Chris Coons declares Delaware Senate bid. Politico. 4 February 2010.
3.^ Kleefeld, Eric (February 3, 2010). "Democrat Chris Coons Running For Delaware Senate Seat". TPMDC (Talking Points Memo). http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/02/democrat-chris-coons-running-for-delaware-senate-seat.php. Retrieved 2010-09-16.
4.^ Yearick, Bob (June 15, 2010). "Castle vs. Coons". Delaware Today. http://www.delawaretoday.com/Delaware-Today/July-2010/Castle-vs-Coons/index.php?cparticle=3&siarticle=2#artanc. Retrieved 2010-09-16.
5.^ a b CNN staff (September 15, 2010). "Chris Coons: Delaware's surprise favorite". CNN Politics (CNN). http://articles.cnn.com/2010-09-15/politics/coons.profile_1_chris-coons-election-delaware?_s=PM:POLITICS. Retrieved 2010-09-16.
6.^ O'Donnell foe's career marked by political shift
7.^ Coons to challenge Castle for Senate seat[dead link]
8.^ "Election 2010: Delaware Senate". Rasmussen Reports. September 16, 2010. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2010/election_2010_senate_elections/delaware/election_2010_delaware_senate. Retrieved September 22, 2010.
9.^ a b FoxNews staff (September 17, 2010). "46 Days to Decide: Dem Candidate Coons Comes Under Scrutiny in Delaware Senate Race". FoxNews. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/09/17/days-decidedem-candidate-comes-scrutiny-delaware-race-bidens-old-senate-seat/. Retrieved September 21, 2010.
10.^ Isenstadt, Alex (May 3, 2010). "Coons took 'bearded Marxist' turn". Politico. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/36726.html. Retrieved September 21, 2010.
11.^ Coons, Chris (May 23, 1985). "Chris Coons: The Making of a Bearded Marxist" (PDF). The Amherst Student. Media Matters for America. http://s3.mediamatters.org/static/images/item/20100920-coonsamherst.pdf. Retrieved September 21, 2010.
12.^ http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=613AC47F-18FE-70B2-A8C11DF4A50748E8
13.^ Weigel, David (September 17, 2010). "Chris Coons on the Air". Slate. http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/weigel/archive/2010/09/17/chris-coons-on-the-air.aspx. Retrieved September 22, 2010.
14.^ Delaware Online (September 24, 2010). "Coons for Senate ad claims he balanced county budget as NCCo executive". Caesar Meter Delaware Fact Check. Wilmington News Journal. http://blogs.delawareonline.com/delawarefactcheck/2010/09/24/coons-for-senate-ad-claims-he-balanced-county-budget-as-ncco-executive/. Retrieved September 29, 2010.
15.^ "Fitch Rates New Castle County, DE GOs 'AAA'; Outlook Stable". Business Wire. Forbes. September 9, 2010. http://www.forbes.com/feeds/businesswire/2010/09/09/businesswire145091665.html. Retrieved September 29, 2010..
.
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Clinton begins Africa tour in Kenya
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, left, is welcomed by Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Nairobi, Kenya, Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2009. Clinton has arrived in Kenya on the first leg of a seven-nation tour of Africa. In Africa, Clinton will address an African trade forum, meet top Kenyan officials and pledge continuing support to the beleaguered president of Somalia's shaky interim government. From Kenya, Clinton will travel to South Africa, Angola, Congo, Nigeria, Liberia and Cape Verde. (AP Photo/Sayyid Azim)
By Matthew Lee
Associated Press Writer / August 4, 2009
Associated Press Writer / August 4, 2009
NAIROBI, Kenya—U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is bringing a message of tough love to Kenya: you are a key American friend in east Africa, but you must rein in graft and follow through on political reform.
On the first leg of a seven-nation tour of Africa, Clinton will speak to Kenya's leadership about U.S. concerns for the country, the homeland of President Barack Obama's father, in the wake of corruption scandals and disputed 2007 elections that led to violence that left more than 1,000 dead.
"We remain concerned about the trajectory of the politics in Kenya over the past two years since the flawed elections of December 2007," Johnnie Carson, the top U.S. diplomat for Africa, told reporters aboard Clinton's flight to Nairobi on Tuesday.
Clinton will make that point when she sees Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and former opposition leader now Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Wednesday, he said.
Chief among her worries is that a deal brokered by former U.N. chief Kofi Annan between the rivals has not been fully implemented.
"It is important for Kenya to move forward with the constitutional, judicial, police and land reform requirements that were part of the Kofi Annan agreement," Carson said. "Implementation of those agreements has been slow and in some ways frustrating."
"The secretary wants to encourage the full implementation of the agreements, especially those elements of the agreement that deal with impunity and holding those individuals responsible for the violence accountable under law," he said.
Just hours before Clinton arrived, the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi criticized Kenya for deciding to use discredited local courts to try the suspects behind the violence. It said the move would call into question whether there is any will to carry out reforms.
"The United States will stand firmly behind the Kenyan people as they insist on full implementation of the reform agenda," the embassy said in a statement, hinting at potential sanctions against those who oppose that agenda.
"We will take the necessary steps to hold accountable those who do not support the reform agenda or who support violence," it said.
Last week, the Kenyan government said it would try suspects accused of perpetrating the violence in local courts, which have a backlog of hundreds of thousands of cases and have a reputation for corruption.
The government said it will accelerate reforms in the judiciary to ensure credible trials but the decision has already drawn heavy domestic criticism.
Several human rights bodies blamed businessmen and politicians in the current administration for orchestrating the violence, which was the worst since Kenya gained independence from Britain in 1963.
An independent commission that investigated the violence recommended last year that the government form an independent tribunal with Kenyan and foreign judges to try the suspects, arguing that Kenyan courts are not credible.
Also in Nairobi, Clinton will address an African trade forum and pledge continuing support to the beleaguered president of lawless Somalia's interim government, which is embroiled in a struggle with Islamist extremists with suspected links to al-Qaida.
From Kenya, Clinton on her first trip to Africa as secretary of state, will travel to South Africa, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Liberia and Cape Verde.
.
On the first leg of a seven-nation tour of Africa, Clinton will speak to Kenya's leadership about U.S. concerns for the country, the homeland of President Barack Obama's father, in the wake of corruption scandals and disputed 2007 elections that led to violence that left more than 1,000 dead.
"We remain concerned about the trajectory of the politics in Kenya over the past two years since the flawed elections of December 2007," Johnnie Carson, the top U.S. diplomat for Africa, told reporters aboard Clinton's flight to Nairobi on Tuesday.
Clinton will make that point when she sees Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and former opposition leader now Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Wednesday, he said.
Chief among her worries is that a deal brokered by former U.N. chief Kofi Annan between the rivals has not been fully implemented.
"It is important for Kenya to move forward with the constitutional, judicial, police and land reform requirements that were part of the Kofi Annan agreement," Carson said. "Implementation of those agreements has been slow and in some ways frustrating."
"The secretary wants to encourage the full implementation of the agreements, especially those elements of the agreement that deal with impunity and holding those individuals responsible for the violence accountable under law," he said.
Just hours before Clinton arrived, the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi criticized Kenya for deciding to use discredited local courts to try the suspects behind the violence. It said the move would call into question whether there is any will to carry out reforms.
"The United States will stand firmly behind the Kenyan people as they insist on full implementation of the reform agenda," the embassy said in a statement, hinting at potential sanctions against those who oppose that agenda.
"We will take the necessary steps to hold accountable those who do not support the reform agenda or who support violence," it said.
Last week, the Kenyan government said it would try suspects accused of perpetrating the violence in local courts, which have a backlog of hundreds of thousands of cases and have a reputation for corruption.
The government said it will accelerate reforms in the judiciary to ensure credible trials but the decision has already drawn heavy domestic criticism.
Several human rights bodies blamed businessmen and politicians in the current administration for orchestrating the violence, which was the worst since Kenya gained independence from Britain in 1963.
An independent commission that investigated the violence recommended last year that the government form an independent tribunal with Kenyan and foreign judges to try the suspects, arguing that Kenyan courts are not credible.
Also in Nairobi, Clinton will address an African trade forum and pledge continuing support to the beleaguered president of lawless Somalia's interim government, which is embroiled in a struggle with Islamist extremists with suspected links to al-Qaida.
From Kenya, Clinton on her first trip to Africa as secretary of state, will travel to South Africa, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Liberia and Cape Verde.
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