Hillary blames the Kenyans

Although this is a few days old, I think it is very worthwhile to take a detailed look at Hillary Clinton’s remarks from her “Townterview” at the University of Nairobi on August 6.  You can find the entire transcript of the event from the State Department’s website.  The most interesting part of the program from my perspective was how Secretary Clinton discussed the much-disputed Kenyan 2007 Presidential election.  I won’t go into the details; you can read about them here and here.  The basic point is that there is a significant amount of evidence to suggest that the US Embassy in Nairobi deliberately suppressed evidence that the election was not free and fair.  Rather than countenance that the US had any role in helping Kibaki prevail in the election, Secretary Clinton blamed the Kenyan people for the outcome.  Consider the following remarks:

…no one can reform a government from the outside. It takes the people of the country and particularly the role that civil society and the private sector played in trying to deal with the aftermath of the election. So yes, I mean, we can encourage, we can lecture, we can offer assistance, we can try to highlight good practices. But it has to be done by the people of Kenya.

…it is not only our policy, but it is our intent to do everything we can to ensure as free and fair elections as possible.

…it is not up to the United States…we cannot dictate to you who you have in your government. You have to determine how to influence and change this government, and do not be deterred by the difficulty of it.

…So it is my hope that those of you who are pushing for reform, keep thinking about ways of putting the right kinds of pressure to bear on those in power.

Now, to be clear, I do not hold Secretary Clinton responsible for the role of the US in allowing President Kibaki to prevail in the flawed election.  It took place when the Bush administration was in power and before Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State.  But to blame the Kenyan people for not doing their part to ensure the election was free and fair while the US Government has never come clean with it’s own role in suppressing evidence of rigging seems a bit much to stomach.

Daniel Kaufmann sums up the situation nicely from my perspective:

it is no secret that the US embassy in Nairobi, alongside some key international donor agencies, committed major mis-steps around the time of the ill-fated elections in late 2007.   In spite of their glaring biases and policy mishaps, the US, UK and the World Bank have largely been ’silent witnesses’ regarding what transpired on their own roles and actions at the time.

Indeed.