{UAH} Pojim/WBK: This Sunday, his excellency went to church and our brave boys killed 100 terrorists - Comment - www.theeastafrican.co.ke

http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/comment/Trusting-state-to-tell-us-truth-during-terror-emergencies/-/434750/2577238/-/gfvddrz/-/index.html

This Sunday, his excellency went to church and our brave boys killed 100 terrorists - Comment

In No One Writes to The Colonel, a novella by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Colonel, an impoverished resident of an imaginary South American country suffering under a severe dictatorship, pronounces himself on censorship:

"Ever since the censorship, the newspapers talk only about Europe," he said. ''The best thing would be for the Europeans to come over here and for us to go to Europe. That way everybody would know what's happening in his own country."

For anyone who lived through Kanu's reign of terror, this paradox will be familiar. Our newspapers could not publish anything remotely critical of the regime, and news on the only licensed broadcaster was mostly on the pronouncements and activities of the president. This news would be followed by documentaries of presidential tours to various parts of the country or state visits, all solely designed to enhance his megalomaniacal ambitions. Only people with access to the foreign media knew what was going on in the country.

Thus, for instance, most Kenyans only heard of the Wagalla Massacre from foreign sources. This was the time, remember, when Kanu sycophants, irked by publication of unflattering news about the regime in the foreign media, would vent crude diatribes against foreign governments. They couldn't understand why these governments couldn't reign in their media.

Having foreign media as the only source of alternative news about one's country is an absurdity characteristic of a banana republic. Another closely related characteristic is the uncovering of high-level corruption and other criminality by foreign institutions or actions.

Let us look at a few of the latter instances. Some time back, a small European island state requested the extradition of a former Kenyan parastatal chief and an MP for money laundering. Prior to that request, the two were influential members of society, and we would never have learned of their alleged criminality. Then there is the Kroll Report on the billions of Kenya shillings stolen during the Kanu era and stashed in foreign banks, a report written by foreign agents that the government of Kenya has refused to act on.

Consider, too, the fact that the Anglo-Leasing scandal would have died a long time ago had it not been for the persistence of the Swiss government in getting to the bottom of it as part of a process of sealing loopholes in its banking laws that facilitated money laundering and theft.

Then there was the sinking of a ship carrying millions of shillings worth of drugs by an Australian naval ship off the Kenya coast. Our security agents were caught off-guard.

And most recently, a number of Kenyans in positions of power were mentioned adversely in an English court during proceedings in which top company officials were convicted of obtaining tenders through bribery. The local body charged with stopping and investigating corruption was, as it keeps telling us, busy "leaving no stones unturned" in its fight against high-level corruption. Turning stones is all it does.

Frighteningly, with respect to the newly passed Security Act, we may soon be back to getting news of the country from the foreign media. Its proponents argue that the restrictions on media freedom are limited to reportage on terrorism, but had the Act been operative during the Westgate and Mpeketoni terror acts, we would never have known of the criminal incompetence of state security actors and agencies. Such exposure of laxity by the media is vital to holding the state to account.

Can we trust the state to tell us the truth during terror emergencies? Well, it depends on which version of the truth we want. The truth that soldiers only took a few bottles of water to quench their thirst at Westgate, that the Mpeketoni attack was by "local political networks" and that the government killed 100 Al Shabaab militants after the Mandera terror attack, or the truth as exposed by the media?

Soon, we will be left to wonder why we don't just let the foreign media and other institutions do our work for us, at a fee, of course, inflated to cover for "chai" or "chicken."

Tee Ngugi is a political and social commentator based in Nairobi.

This Sunday, his excellency went to church and our brave boys killed 100 terrorists - Comment - www.theeastafrican.co.ke
http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/comment/Trusting-state-to-tell-us-truth-during-terror-emergencies/-/434750/2577238/-/gfvddrz/-/index.html‎

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.