Call for urgent dialogue on Kenya

Date: 24/07/1997

THE announcement by Development Commissioner João de Deus Pinheiro that he is considering suspending Kenya from the Lomé Convention may have pleased MEPs, but begs more questions than it answers.

Pinheiro told the European Parliament last week that the “deteriorating situation” in the country required “urgent and necessary dialogue”, and that he was concerned about the current “bad governance in Kenya”.

His comments followed loud complaints from MEPs about the violence last week that led to the death of 14 demonstrators in the East African republic.

They had been protesting against Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi's government, attacking oppressive laws and a lack of political freedom.

“Kenya is clearly violating its commitment to Lomé, and the Commission's response indicates that it shares my concern about the deteriorating economic and political situation there,” said British Liberal Democrat MEP Graham Watson.

EU governments are said to be studying the situation - but Africa experts question why this is happening now.

They say that although Kenya's government has been behaving in the same way for many years, no one thought to raise the question of suspending it from Lomé before.

Furthermore, although plenty of other Lomé members have questionable regimes, they are being largely overlooked.

Even the insertion of the celebrated 'human rights suspension clause' in the Lomé Convention has done little to prompt the Union into encouraging real democratic reforms over the past few years.

The answer, according to critics, may in fact be simple: action is called for now because Kenya is in the news.

This knee-jerk response, they say, is yet another example of a directionless EU strategy in a region which smacks more of panicked reaction than considered response. It seems that only events as catastrophic as those in the Congo and the Great Lakes, which threaten to undermine the whole of central Africa, will prompt European politicians to even talk about its huge neighbour.

Some suggest it is the Union's preoccupation with enlargement and the single currency which has pushed the continent low down the agenda, and they warn this could be a grave error.

They point out that while Europe prevaricates over sending a troika of foreign ministers to ex-Zaïre (after months of delay, one might go in August) and now possibly Kenya, the US is paying increasing attention to Africa just as it starts to grow economically.

US President Bill Clinton's calls for support at the Denver G7 summit, and an African-American conference, mark a growing belief in Washington that there are some real opportunities to be seized in the region.

But others argue that Europe's slow approach may, in Kenya's case, be the right one. They say that isolating a country can often be counter-productive, undermining what opposition there is and harming ordinary people.

And despite the apparent crack-down, Moi does seem increasingly likely to grant concessions and hold elections this year.