..some real policemen as fake unidentified gunmen. Goons in masks, brandishing AKs, invaded the printing plant of the Kenya Standard last night and set fire to several thousand copies of the paper, before carrying off several employees. The paper believes they were policemen for the simple reason that they took the detainees/abductees to the central police station (nothing like subtlety, eh?).
Following up on this, Kenyan TV and radio channels went off the air. But somebody at the KBC continued reporting the apparent coup-against-self on their website. Screenshots and a roundup are at Kath’s. KBC is here and still reporting, but the site is very slow (likely due to load – the topographic centre of the African Internet is still the LINX, so the best way to demonstrate solidarity is probably not to follow that link).
The story has progressed rapidly – first, the Ministry of Internal Security admitted the raid was its work with the twattish words “If you rattle a snake, you must be prepared to be bitten by it” – presumably the local equivalent of JUST FUCKING WATCH IT – and now, on a hopeful note, the chief of police has been summonsed to justify the detention of three journalists.
Contacts for the Kenyan High Commission in the UK:
THE KENYA HIGH COMMISSION
45 PORTLAND PLACE
LONDON W1B 1AS
TELEPHONE:020 7636 2371/5
FAX: 020 7323 6717
e-mail: consular@kenyahighcommission.net
Full list here.
I find it inconceivable and foolhardy that:
1. The President hasn’t still found it fit to comment
on something supposedly touching on our national, and
by extension, his own security.
2. That Hon. Michuki expects to win back public
opinion with his belated attempts to sell the new
angle to this incident. The Tuesday protests, if
allowed to proceed, could just be the turning point in
this saga (unless something gives between now and
then. I certainly expect some clergymen to counsel the
nation to be “patient” this Sunday).
Someone has sent me an e-mail concerning the current
affairs in our country, which I now take the liberty
to share with you and others:
******
A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see
the farmer and his wife open a package.
“What food might this contain?” The mouse wondered –
he was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.
Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the
warning.
“There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a
mousetrap in the house!”
The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head
and said, “Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave
concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I
cannot be bothered by it.”
The mouse turned to the pig and told him, “There is
a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the
house!”
The pig sympathized, but said, “I am so very sorry,
Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but
pray. Be assured you are in my prayers.”
The mouse turned to the cow and said “There is a
mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the
house!”
The cow said, “Wow, Mr. Mouse. I’m sorry for you, but
it’s no skin off my nose.”
So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and
dejected, to face the farmer’s mousetrap alone.
That very night a sound was heard throughout the
house — like the sound of a mousetrap catching its
prey.
The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In
the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake
whose tail the trap had caught.
The snake bit the farmer’s wife. The farmer rushed her
to the hospital, and she returned home with a fever.
Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken
soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard
for the soup’s main ingredient.
But his wife’s sickness continued, so friends and
neighbors came to sit with her around the clock.
To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.
The farmer’s wife did not get well; she died. So many
people came for her funeral, the farmer had the cow
slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them.
The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the
wall with great sadness.
So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem
and think it doesn’t concern you…., remember
— when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk.
We are all involved in this journey called life. We
must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra
effort to encourage one another.