WSF2006

This past week while this blog was dominated by a group of young Kenyan activist and patriots demanding accountability at the World Social Forum, the main stream media was dominated by another Kenyan patriot, John Githongo and his demands for Kibaki’s government to show some accountability.

At first glance it is hard to see what the two groups have in common. The protest at the WSF was lead by a youth group from Korogocho, the third biggest slum in Nairobi. Their demands were simple: cheap food and free entrance into the WSF. Many of them laughed when they were asked if they were registered to vote. To register to vote you need an ID card. To get an ID card in Korogocho is, to put it politely, difficult. This group had never addressed their MP, saw ministers only on TV, and the only time they appeared on the president’s radar – indirectly – was when the first lady, while interrupting the party of her neighbor and tenant the World Bank Country Director, ordered the music to be turned down at his party, informing him “This is Muthaiga, not Korogocho.”

John Githongo on the other hand is an acclaimed journalist, has a degree in Economics and Philosophy, founded and run the Kenyan chapter of Transparency International, was appointed the first ever Permanent Secretary for Governance and Ethics reporting directly to the president. His demands involve investigations into corrupt multi million dollar government contracts which involve hiring forensic accountants and getting threats direct from the top of the government which forced him into exile in Oxford, England. This has lead to accusations that he is an agent of the British government, that he has betrayed his country, that he has betrayed his president, that he has betrayed his tribe and even the online wanainchi joined in calling him disappointment of the year 2005.

(Aside: how things change:
2005 – whistler blower called disappointment of the year
2006 – (different) whistle blower named person of the year.)

These two groups, the Korogocho youth at the WSF and John Githongo, seem to have little in common. But they do.

First of all they are patriots. The youth group started each speech at the WSF with a loud, “wazalendo muko?” They were clear in that they were not just fighting for themselves but for the soul of Kenya. Githongo is a patriot as his actions show. The man left a top job, security and comfort because he could not sit back and watch while the country was fleeced. Integrity. How many times do you hear that word when talking about the political elite in Kenya?

Secondly, both the youth and Githongo have the same lesson for us. Courage is not enough. If you want to fight, if you want to stand up for your rights, if you create a fairer system, you need courage, yes, but you also need a strategy. A well defined, well worked out strategy. Then you can shake the system. I wrote how the youth group was organised, had a team of spokespeople, knew who to target, had a list of grievances, had a list of demands, and had a way of making sure they were implemented. They were courageous to take on the WSF organising committee in the eye of the world media, the eye of the police and in the eye of the Red Berets a.k.a GSU. But that courage would have taken them nowhere if they did not have the strategy behind it to make sure their grievances were dealt with.

Githongo, as well is proving to be a master of strategy, just as they think they have him in mate, he manages to come out with an unexpected move. He wrote a dossier, they rubbished it, so he released audio tapes with damning evidence. They wanted to interview him, he agreed, but in London at the Kenyan High Commission. They “lost” the recording, he released a written statement. Eventually after months of dilly dallying the anti corruption authorities decided to close the case, the attorney general said the tapes were inaudible (as Madd asked – kwani they rest of us who could hear the recordings clearly have bionic hearing?), he released more tapes with more explosive evidence. Now everybody is wondering, what else does he have? Does he tapes of Ringera? Does he have tapes of the president? Suddenly Githongo seems to be holding all the cards again.

Courage is not enough. We saw it from the youth, we saw it from Githongo. To succeed in your goals, you need strategy as well.

Well the inevitable happened. Just over an hour ago a large group stormed the Windsor Golf and Country Club food tent taking a lot of food in the process. A short while later the group moved to The Norfolk’s food tent with similar results. As a result, under heavy police guard, both hotels have decided to pack up their things and leave. I do not think they’ll be back. The only surprising thing about all this is that it did not occur earlier.

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wsf | world social forum | wsf2007

(Looks like the WIFI is finally up and running).

Sometimes a little action can go a long away. The youth groups’ protest to the WSF Organising Committee has generated a positive change in policy. Yesterday, the gates were open to Kenyans for free. As the word had not spread not too many people took advantage of the offer. However the youth groups came with their members/friends/neighbours and all got in for free. The gates were also opened for vendors selling food at reasonable prices, a plate of food for KSH 50.00 as opposed to the KSH 500.00 charged by the Windsor Group.

All’s well that ends well?

Not quite.

According to the East African Standard

Earlier, there was commotion at the World Social Forum in Kasarani when delegates from South African, mainly slum dwellers, stormed the venue demanding either the scrapping of entry fee.

The more than 300 demonstrators converged at the stadium’s main gate at 9am demanding that the gate fee be waived. Police manning the gate tried to block them, but were overwhelmed as the mob forced its way inside.

Carrying placards and chanting “free entry”, the demonatrators proceeded to the secretariat, where they dismantled computers and shredded official documents.

I didn’t witness that protest as I was busy playing the daily game called sitting in the Nairobi traffic jam.

Yesterday the protest gained momentum, and while there are many issues being raised the catalyst seems to be very presence of the Windsor Group, through their expensive food tent, at the World Social Forum. The protest on Tuesday were lead by various Kenyan human rights and social awareness organisations such as Release Political Prisoners, Name and Shame Corruption Network (an umbrella organisation of the 76 groups), The Kenyan Anti Corruption Network, The Truth and Justice Commission. The Peoples’ Parliament, Kabita Mpya and many more.

Apart from the prices they are charging the main piece of contention about the Windsor Group’s presence at the WSF is their proprietor. The Windsor Group, which owns the exclusive Windsor Golf & Country Club on the outskirts of Nairobi, is owned by John Njoroge Michuki, the Minister of State for Provincial Administration and National Security. Michuki has raised the wrath of many Kenyans in the past couple of years. From ordering police to shoot to kill during the riots in Mathere when protestors claim that agents working for the government sparked the riots, to protecting the Artur brothers foreign mercenaries operating in Kenya, to ordering the raid on the East African Standard newspaper and then implying that he would not tolerate media criticism of the government by issues his infamous, “when you rattle a snake you must be prepared to be bitten by it” statement. This list can go on and on.

In what the protestors called the prefect example of the world going upside down, food vendors and hawkers from slums adjacent to the Kasarani stadium where the WSF is taking place are not allowed to sell their wares within the stadium while across town in the city centre a group of hawkers were arrested at a WSF meeting at Freedom Corner in Uhuru Park as the police said they did not have a license despite WSF officials claiming they did, meanwhile Muchuki is making money selling expensive food at the forum. As they asked those sitting and eating inside the Windsor tent, “Are you tourists or are you socialists?”

The Windsor Group’s presence at the WSF is a massive tactical blunder by the WSF organising committee, especially since it is obvious to anyone who follows Kenyan politics that it was bound to raise tensions. What is even more amazing is that the Peoples’ Parliament tent, where all these human rights organisations are based, is directly opposite the Windsor tent!

On Wednesday there are plans by the human rights organisations, joined by various international socialists and workers’ rights group, to hold meetings in the Windsor tent the whole day in order to stop any business being done. Let us hope the protest and the response to the protest remain peaceful.

I written a lot about the protests and problems at the WSF as this reflects what is happening. However there is a lot of good and positive energy here. It is sad that such an unnecessary blunder, letting the Windsor Group in while keeping hawkers and food vendors out, is starting to overshadow the whole proceeding.

Again once I get the dvd recordings I took of the protests yesterday converted I will upload them online.

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wsf | world social forum | wsf2007

Walking around Kasarani today the World Social Forum did not feel any different from the hundreds of conferences held in Nairobi each year. Many stalls organised side by side, lots of curios for sale, the occasional traditional dances, and people generally milling around killing time. For a conference that was meant to be shaking the world things were pretty ordinary and normal. In fact it reminded me a lot of the Nairobi ASK Show (minus the cows, camels, and goats). Unlike the ASK show however this WSF lacks one thing. KENYANS. There are people for all over the world here and it is clear they are passionate about this forum, but most of the Kenyans here are probably staff or volunteers. I’ve blogged before about the almost total information blackout within Kenya on this event. Now I am not going to get draw into who is to blame for that. But today at lunch time Kenyans struck back.

The catering at the WSF is done by Windsor Country Club and The Norfolk Hotel. Cheapest plate of food is around KSH 400/-. Sodas are 100/- and water is 100/-. Check out the price list for yourself

There is a “food court” further outside but the prices there are also around 400/-. Volunteers are paid KSH 500/- per day. Kasarani is miles outside city centre. A return trip costs around KSH 120/- which leaves them with KSH 380/-. How can you have a situation where even your own volunteers can not afford to buy food? And then of course there are the ordinary wanainchi, the Kenyan public, who do not even get that daily KSH 500/- that volunteers get. How are they meant to eat? Remember that Kenyans are meant to pay a registration fee of KSH 450/- to enter the forum. That might be fine for any other conference but for the World Social Forum it felt like “the masses” were being locked out systematically. Today at lunch time they struck back.

The poster says, “Reduce food prices in the WSF.” A demonstration organised by a youth group from Korogocho started a loud vocal protest outside the Windsor catering tent. Korogocho is the third largest slum area in Nairobi after Kibera and Mathare. The demonstarters called for a reduction in food prices and informed everyone buying from Windsor to remember what they had gathered in Nairobi for. To battle inequality. How can you have a conference where most of the participants if they could get in, would not be able to afford the food and call that same conference social?

The demonstration moved from the food tent to outside the building holding the WSF secretariat. After giving the organising committee the traditional ten second count to show themselves, the group (this time joined by many non Kenyan delegates as well as journalists happy that finally some action was going down) stormed the offices. We climbed all the way to the top floor where the secretariat is housed and these guys demanded to see Professor Oyugi who is the head of the organising committee so they could prevent their grievances. There was no way the Professor could refuse and he agreed to come out, sit with the youth, listen to their grievances and respond. The grievances were as follows (I am working from memory here so forgive me.)

• Food prices to be lowered dramatically or “ordinary” food vendors to be allowed in to sell food at reasonable prices.
• The Youth claimed that a group from Korogocho had helped designed the WSF 2007 logo and that that logo had been sold to Celtel for KSH 20 million of which the youth had not received a cent.
• Why had Celtel been given a communication monopoly? Why wasn’t Safaricom involved when it has more Kenyan subscribers?
• The registration fee of KSH 450/- was way to high and should be abolished immediately. Where was the money going?
• Selection of volunteers was done in a way in which those without internet access were effectively locked out.
• Some volunteers were getting preferential treatment in that they were getting three meals a day while most of the volunteers were suffering as they could not even afford the food.

Professor Oyugi to his credit came out and engaged directly with the group.

He explained that the WSF organisning committee is made up of about 8 sub committees with 10 members each so he does not have the mandate or authority to deal with all the issues but he would address those which he could. According to Professor Oyugi:

• Food: from tomorrow tents will be provided for “Mama Mandazis” and the like to sell food at reasonable prices.
• A decision on the admission price would be made by noon tomorrow. The registration fees were used to pay the cost of hiring Kasarani which is KSH 13 million. The Professor offered to lower the price to KSH 50/- to which the group informed him that KSH 50/- is one weeks rent for many of them. Does he think they can afford not to pay rent? Oyugi stated that if the fee was dropped completely the stadium would be overrun, which all the youth said would be a brilliant thing. Oyugi remarked that the stadium may not survive the onslaught at which the youth replied that they were not all thugs and anyway the thugs would not be interested in the WSF. We shall wait and see.
• No logo was sold to Celtel for any price. The WSF approached Safaricom and asked them to partner with the conference. Safaricom declined saying the event was, “too political” for them to be associated with. Celtel provided communication equipment as well as WSF publicity banners in exchange for being the communication partner.
• Volunteer issues were addressed by a guy called Alvin/Alfred who is the head of volunteers. He said he will look into them and report tomorrow.

Let me say at this juncture that this is as accurate a description as I can remember. I recorded the whole exchange on a camcorder which I will upload once I figure out the most efficient way to share a 1 hour long 1 GB DVD recording online without access to Bit Torrent. Any ideas on that anybody?

All in all the demonstration was carried out peacefully. The youth went to great pains to show they were not a disorganised rabble looking for trouble but respectable men and women with legitimate grievances. The Professor engaged with them respectfully. Tomorrow we will see if he is a man of his word. Let us have a conference for the masses.

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I wrote this post at the WSF at Kasarani and then battled with the WIFI connection for over an hour before I gave up. Most of the volunteers I have spoken with are not even aware that the whole conference is meant to be a WIFI hotspot and those who do did not have any clue as to what was wrong or where I could get help. Unfortunately I have seen nothing that has shown me that this situation will change. So I have got all that Celtel airtime for nothing!

This beautiful lady proudly holding her flag was part of a demonstration by the people of Western Sahara calling for, “Uhuru” (freedom).

The World Social Forum is in full flow here at Kasarani stadium. The energy around is infectious. It is brilliant being around thousands of people who are all passionate about something or another. The jargon being thrown around is daunting. If you don’t know your HIPCs from your P8s or whether or not you should be supporting EPAs then you can hide in the food tents (and while you are there eat a 75/- samosa). Everyone is friendly and smiling and the sessions seem passionate. The logistical nightmares continue, the professional journalists are pulling their hair out because they haven’t been able to go online and the electricity keeps cutting (the 10 seconds between the power cutting and the generators kicking is more than enough time to lose the 6 page article you just typed.)

My main aim here is to get a picture with Desmond Tutu so if anyone sees him around let him know Mental “The Rhino” Acrobatics would like a word.

All my pictures will be in my World Social Forum Flickr set.

Information for the masses:

• When the WIFI is working the connection is still free to the public. Do not do what I did which is load up your free celtel SIM with KSH 1000/- in anticipation of the USD 15 wireless access fee because so far the network is unprotected and you can just log on.
• Do NOT buy a Celtel SIM card as I advised earlier. You get a free one when you register.
• There are shuttle buses running from the city centre for KSH 150/- each way which is a lot cheaper than the KSH 1000/- cab drivers are charging. But where you catch the buses and where they drop you is mystery.

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wsf | world social forum | wsf2007