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Kenya: What Would Hempstone Think?
January 13, 2009 | Katherine Southwick | Tagged as: Kenya
As the violence slowly subsides in Kenya, I’ve been wondering: What would Smith Hempstone think?
Smith Hempstone, who died in 2006, was the self-described “rogue” US Ambassador to Kenya in the early 1990s. Hempstone played an audacious public role advocating for multi-party democracy and an end to persecution of dissidents by the regime of then-President Moi. State-supported newspapers printed headlines of “Shut Up, Mr. Ambassador,” while the Kenyan opposition praised him as “the second hero of the liberation.” When he wasn’t verbalizing his disgust with rampant corruption and dictatorial rule, Hempstone could still make a point by falling asleep during a state function.
At that time, I was in high school as the daughter of another US diplomat working in Nairobi. It was a time fraught with political uncertainty, economic volatility, and great personal risk for speaking out. But overall it was an exciting and optimistic time for Kenya and democracy in Africa. It was before America’s discouraging pullout from Somalia, the horrors of Rwanda and before al-Qaeda bombed the U.S. embassy in Nairobi. Kenyans and the international community could admit to ethnic tensions within society, but they never would have conceived of the election failure and ensuing violence that recently gripped the country.
Negotiations continue between President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga that may well end the violence. But I remember when both men sought to bring democratic change to Kenya. In 1992, Kenya held its first, genuine multi-party election. The incumbent president’s party narrowly won and stayed in power for two more five-year terms while the opposition organized and gained strength. I remember one night before a performance of our school play in 1994, when the audience held a moment of silence to honor the passing of Oginga Odinga, Raila Odinga’s father. Oginga Odinga had been a prominent figure in Kenya’s struggle for independence and became a key leader in the opposition movement in the 1990s. I recall President Kibaki, also an opposition leader at that time, attending a US Embassy reception, where I admired his scholarly and mild-mannered demeanor. Hempstone lived to see Kibaki elected into his first term in office in 2002, an exemplary peaceful change in government.
Kenya’s upheavals today suggest that it was too soon to conclude that a democratic culture had become ingrained. If the vote-rigging allegations are true, then Kibaki’s party has degraded the very processes that peacefully brought him to power in 2002. Odinga’s vehement intransigence has called into question his willingness to accept unfavorable results of any truly legitimate process. And the inability of both sides to calm violent inclinations within certain regions of the country suggests an indifference towards humanity unbecoming of a democracy.
While we await the results of the negotiations between the two sides, I would like to think it’s not too late for Kenya. The nation’s stability is too important for the African continent and the world at large. Moreover, the legacies of the country’s founders and activists, including those of Odinga, Kibaki, Hempstone and anyone else who believes in democracy in Africa, remain on Kenya’s side.
--Katherine Southwick is a Bernstein Fellow for Refugees International. She lived in Kenya from 1990-1996.
Smith Hempstone, who died in 2006, was the self-described “rogue” US Ambassador to Kenya in the early 1990s. Hempstone played an audacious public role advocating for multi-party democracy and an end to persecution of dissidents by the regime of then-President Moi. State-supported newspapers printed headlines of “Shut Up, Mr. Ambassador,” while the Kenyan opposition praised him as “the second hero of the liberation.” When he wasn’t verbalizing his disgust with rampant corruption and dictatorial rule, Hempstone could still make a point by falling asleep during a state function.
At that time, I was in high school as the daughter of another US diplomat working in Nairobi. It was a time fraught with political uncertainty, economic volatility, and great personal risk for speaking out. But overall it was an exciting and optimistic time for Kenya and democracy in Africa. It was before America’s discouraging pullout from Somalia, the horrors of Rwanda and before al-Qaeda bombed the U.S. embassy in Nairobi. Kenyans and the international community could admit to ethnic tensions within society, but they never would have conceived of the election failure and ensuing violence that recently gripped the country.
Negotiations continue between President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga that may well end the violence. But I remember when both men sought to bring democratic change to Kenya. In 1992, Kenya held its first, genuine multi-party election. The incumbent president’s party narrowly won and stayed in power for two more five-year terms while the opposition organized and gained strength. I remember one night before a performance of our school play in 1994, when the audience held a moment of silence to honor the passing of Oginga Odinga, Raila Odinga’s father. Oginga Odinga had been a prominent figure in Kenya’s struggle for independence and became a key leader in the opposition movement in the 1990s. I recall President Kibaki, also an opposition leader at that time, attending a US Embassy reception, where I admired his scholarly and mild-mannered demeanor. Hempstone lived to see Kibaki elected into his first term in office in 2002, an exemplary peaceful change in government.
Kenya’s upheavals today suggest that it was too soon to conclude that a democratic culture had become ingrained. If the vote-rigging allegations are true, then Kibaki’s party has degraded the very processes that peacefully brought him to power in 2002. Odinga’s vehement intransigence has called into question his willingness to accept unfavorable results of any truly legitimate process. And the inability of both sides to calm violent inclinations within certain regions of the country suggests an indifference towards humanity unbecoming of a democracy.
While we await the results of the negotiations between the two sides, I would like to think it’s not too late for Kenya. The nation’s stability is too important for the African continent and the world at large. Moreover, the legacies of the country’s founders and activists, including those of Odinga, Kibaki, Hempstone and anyone else who believes in democracy in Africa, remain on Kenya’s side.
--Katherine Southwick is a Bernstein Fellow for Refugees International. She lived in Kenya from 1990-1996.
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