Date: Tue, 25 Jun 2013 00:06:31 +0200
Obama Not Going To Kenya On Upcoming Africa Trip
By JULIE PACE 06/24/13 03:14 AM ET EDT
WASHINGTON -- When President Barack Obama arrives in Africa this week, there
will be one notable omission from his travel itinerary: Kenya, the
birthplace of his father and home to many of his relatives.
Concerns about Kenya's political situation have trumped Obama's family ties.
Kenya's new president is facing charges of crimes against humanity in the
International Criminal Court, accused of orchestrating the violence that
marred the country's 2007 election.
Ahead of Uhuru Kenyatta's victory earlier this year, a top Obama
administration official warned Kenyans that their "choices have
consequences" - a remark that now appears prescient given the president's
decision to skip a stop in his ancestral homeland.
"The optics of that, of a presidential trip, are not what he wants to be
demonstrating right now," said Jennifer Cooke, Africa director at the Center
for Strategic and International Studies.
The president will instead visit Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania, all
countries that fit more neatly into the democracy and good governance
message he'll tout during his weeklong trip. Obama, along with first lady
Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha, is scheduled to depart
Washington Wednesday morning.
The White House did consider a visit to Kenya when they contemplated an
African swing during the president's first term, before Kenyatta's election.
That trip never happened, but Obama pledged that he would, in fact, visit
Kenya before leaving office.
"I'm positive that before my service as president is completed I will visit
Kenya again," he said in a 2010 interview with Kenya's state broadcaster.
White House officials say they respect the right of Kenyans to choose their
own leaders. But deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said the U.S.
also has "a commitment to accountability and justice."
"Given the fact that Kenya is in the aftermath of their election and the new
government has come into place and is going to be reviewing these issues
with the ICC and the international community, it just wasn't the best time
for the president to travel to Kenya," Rhodes said.
Kenya's government has been muted in its response to the president's
decision to leave the county off his itinerary.
"It's for the Americans to decide where Obama goes," spokesman Muthui
Kariuki said. "There are 54 nations on the African continent and he's only
visiting three, so I don't see the real big deal about not going to Kenya."
But Sam Ochieng, a political activitist who lives in Kibera, Nairobi's
largest slum, said the U.S. president was sending a message about Kenya's
political problems by putting democratic values ahead of his personal
connections.
"It would be a shame for an American president to come to Kenya and shake
dirty hands," Ochieng said.
By now, Obama's ties with Kenya are a well-known part of his unique family
history. Barack Obama, Sr. was born in the western Kenyan village of Kogelo,
moved to the U.S. to study, and met and married the president's mother in
Hawaii. He left the family soon after his son was born.
Obama made his first trip to Kenya in 1988, after his father's death, and
wrote extensively about the visit in his memoir "Dreams From My Father."
"My name belonged and so I belonged, drawn into a web of relationships,
alliances and grudges that I did not yet understand," he wrote.
The president visited Kenya two more times, most recently in 2006 as a
freshman senator. He was greeted by cheering crowds in the capital of
Nairobi and in Kogelo, where he spent time with his grandmother and visited
his father's grave. He and wife Michelle Obama also publicly took HIV tests,
part of their campaign at the time to reduce the stigma surrounding the
virus.
But Obama's nationally televised speech criticizing the government for
failing to curb corruption or instill trust in its people earned him a cold
shoulder from Kenya's leadership. Kenya's presidential spokesman said at the
time that Obama was ignorant of Kenyan politics and had yet to form an
understanding of foreign policy.
Kenya is an important strategic partner for the U.S. in East Africa. But the
recent election has complicated the relationship.
Johnnie Carson, who until April served as head of the State Department's
Africa bureau, said in the lead-up to this year's election that "choices
have consequences," a comment that was viewed as a warning against electing
Kenyatta. His remarks were widely criticized as an inappropriate intrusion
into a sovereign nation's elections.
Kenyatta, the son of the country's first president, has been charged by the
ICC as an "indirect co-perpetrator" for the crimes of murder, deportation,
rape, persecution and inhumane acts allegedly committed by his supporters in
the aftermath of the 2007 elections. He insists he is innocent of any
wrongdoing.
More than 1,000 people were killed in the ethnic violence that followed the
flawed 2007 contest.
The ICC has pushed back the start of Kenyatta's trial until Nov. 12. Kenyan
deputy president William Ruto will also face similar charges at the
international court in September.
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