After two months of discord, finally a handshake
In January, one of Africa's most stable democracies was violently ripping itself apart. How was it saved? In Part 4 of a four-part special report, the key players tell what happened.
from the August 8, 2008 edition
Page 3 of 3
Africa's elders seize a leading role
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A month of attacks, then quick progress
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Kofi Annan discusses transparency and the public face of diplomacy.
Two protagonists and the conciliators
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After two months of discord, finally a handshake
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Key elements of Kenya's peace deal
Why the Kenya talks succeeded
Timeline: Kenya's post-election path
Key players in Kenya's peace deal
Seeds of peace sown in Rift
Valley
It's midday on Feb. 26, and Annan can see that there is no use in continuing. Both teams have given in where they can. When asked to give in some more, the teams say they must "consult" with the principals, President Kibaki and opposition leader Odinga.
As always, Annan is soft-spoken, polite, and firm. "If this is as far as we can go forward as team, in my capacity of mediator, I will suspend the talks and go to the principals," he says.
The reaction is instant, and from the president's team, angry.
"Sir," Mutula Kilonzo protests, "if you had told us that you were going to suspend the talks, we would have tried harder to come to an agreement."
But after Annan leaves, the anger gives way to relief. The sheer exhaustion of five weeks had bonded the two teams. "I had got these guys laughing and hugging," Mr. Kilonzo recalls.
On the other team, ODM negotiator James Orengo says that he welcomed the move, but he adds, "It was a big gamble." If Odinga and Kibaki failed to reach an agreement, the country was in deep trouble. The BBC was reporting the nationwide death toll now at 1,500. The ODM announced it would stage nationwide protests within two days if no deal was reached.
"People don't realize how close this came to breaking down," says a Western diplomat who was regularly briefed on the talks. "Kofi was about five hours from boarding a plane and leaving Kenya. And there was no one else who could come in and take over."
Today, Annan says he never doubted that Kibaki and Odinga would eventually agree to a compromise. He had been briefing the two leaders throughout the talks, and despite the obstinacy of their mediation teams, he felt they were both ready to abandon their maximum positions for the common good.
But on Feb. 27, when Annan met the two principal leaders in the inner sanctum of the president's office at Harambee House, Annan's staff, sitting outside in the cramped lobby, were not so sure. Surrounded by nervous, pacing politicians from both sides, Annan's assistants clutched their laptops and sipped sodas while Annan laid out the details of a power-sharing deal to the two leaders.
By this time, Graça Machel had returned to South Africa. But former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa, the hotel hostage, and Mkapa's successor, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, had come to help Annan close the deal.
As he had with the two mediation teams, Annan led Kibaki and Odinga through the proposed agreement line by line, occasionally sending for an assistant to incorporate new language at each stage.
President Kibaki's main objection to the deal was the proposal to make Odinga a prime minister with executive powers, including "authority" over the cabinet. President Kikwete snorted. "Hey, you've got it easy," he told Kibaki. "In Tanzania, our prime minister has much more power than that, and that doesn't diminish my powers as president one bit."
At 2:30 p.m., after five hours, Annan had his deal; a 50/50 split of all the cabinet ministries between the two sides and an agreement to hammer out a new Constitution within a year (see story at right).
ODM team members were jubilant, for they now had power – or at least half of it. Kibaki's team members were largely relieved. But Karua was livid. "I had to wonder whether the locations of heaven and hell had changed," she recalls.
Throughout the previous two months, Kenya's news media have portrayed Karua as a tough Lady Macbeth with a political agenda and ambitions of running for president herself in 2012. But Karua sees herself as a defender of principles, such as the notion that sovereign nations should govern themselves and that institutions – in this case the Kenyan Constitution – should be reinforced, not undermined by gentlemen's deals such as the Annan peace process.
"It was a terrible process, but a worthwhile goal," she says now. "At the end we were able to support it, because it restored a sense of normalcy. The agreement stopped the violence and brought back a semblance of peace. It restored our sovereignty and control over our own affairs."
Few, if any, experts will assert that Kenya has definitely achieved a lasting peace. The ethnic, economic, and political divisions are not easily bridged. Seven months after the troubles began, an estimated 350,000 Kenyans (more than half of the homeless) remain displaced by the violence, with only a few of the communities ready for reconciliation and healing.
The distrust that set these two parties against each other remains as well. At a recent Nairobi ceremony, the president's special guards got into a shoving match with the guards of Prime Minister Odinga.
But significantly, Justice Minister Karua – one of those who fought hardest against the power-sharing pact – says she is confident that the fractious Kenyan government will achieve its goals. "We are doing well and we are going to continue our work until we get it right," she says today.
The day after the new cabinet's swearing in ceremony in April, Annan told the Monitor that only the Kenyan people themselves can solve the chronic problems that sent the country to the brink.
"They will have to do the heavy lifting, they will have to do the work," says Annan. "This is their responsibility, the leaders working with the people of the country. No outsider can want peace more than the Kenyans. They are, at the end of the day, all Kenyans."
• Last of four parts.
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