wfn.org | Kenya's Churches Unite to Demand Constitutional Reform

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

6-August-1997 
97305 
 
 
97305       Kenya's Churches Unite to Demand 
               Constitutional Reform 
 
                   by Alexa Smith 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.--Much of the momentum behind escalating public pressure to 
change Kenya's constitution to grant more freedoms to opposition political 
parties is coming from coalitions that include both Protestant and Catholic 
church leaders -- a level of ecclesiastical organization not commonly seen 
in Kenya politics. 
 
    The National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK), the Kenya Catholic 
Episcopal Conference and individual denominations -- such as the 1.2 
million-member Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA) -- have signed 
statements and resolutions demanding that articles within the constitution 
that restrict speech and prohibit public assemblies be repealed so that 
opposition parties may push their platforms before Kenya's general 
elections.  Elections are supposed to be held later this year but are not 
yet scheduled. 
 
     Dating, ironically enough, from the colonial period, the contested 
articles permit the state wide- ranging controls as diverse as managing the 
news media, inhibiting travel and jailing dissidents without trial. 
 
    Those are precisely the heavy-handed tactics opponents say should not 
be legal for President Daniel arap Moi's party, the Kenya African National 
Union, to use to suppress dissent as the  nation of 27 million people 
approaches the elections -- a stance that has garnered much international 
support since political violence erupted throughout Kenya in early July. 
Security forces killed at least 10 demonstrators and injured scores of 
others, including PCEA pastor the Rev. Timothy Njoya, during nationwide 
political protests. 
 
    The Moi government has announced since then, according to Africa News 
Online, that licenses for political rallies will be granted on demand 
except in instances when security is threatened. 
 
    "There's no doubt about what's happening now," said the Rev. Jose 
Chipenda, general secretary of the All Africa Conference of Churches, which 
is headquartered in Nairobi, speaking about emerging coalitions of 
opposition parties, churches and human rights activists. 
 
    "The government is not very interested in change," said Chipenda. "The 
church has helped the opposition press for change." 
 
    But what is unusual is the unity among churches themselves, such as the 
Roman Catholic Church, the Episcopal Church and other Protestant 
denominations, and between churches and other diverse coalitions -- all of 
whom are working visibly for change. 
 
    "The churches haven't really been silent," said a Washington, D.C. 
-based spokesperson for the Africa Faith and Justice Network, looking back 
over the past 30 years of Moi's controversial presidency.  "But they're 
joining together.  They're joining together with opposition [parties] and 
human rights groups ... because they believe in the importance of 
constitutional reform.  It's an issue that's kind of united them all." 
 
    Njoya, 56, a longtime activist whose preaching has been banned from 
Kenya radio and who has been repeatedly transferred to increasingly remote 
PCEA churches, says the severe beating he took from security forces July 7 
has only brought more public support for him and for the National 
Convention Assembly, a coalition of business leaders, politicians and 
clerics that is pressing for immediate reform and is often represented by 
Njoya. 
 
    "We are calling for a strike August 8 to pressure the government -- a 
nationwide strike," he told the Presbyterian News Service in a telephone 
interview that he said was probably being tracked by the government. 
"Everything is to stop.  No reform, no business.  No reform, no elections. 
No reform, no schools.  No reform, no nothing. ... 
 
    "Kenya has been stable [despite unrest in other parts of Africa] 
because ... we agreed to an Africanized imperialism. [People] consented to 
that until we woke them up," he said, stressing that the government 
willingly gives free radio time to "conservative, charismatic preachers 
from churches in the U.S.A.," churches whose gospel proclaims an abundant 
afterlife with little mention of contemporary injustices.  Njoya estimates 
that at least nine secret police officers come weekly to hear his less 
eschatological sermons and to observe who else comes to listen. 
 
    "The government likes Pentecostal, fundamentalist preachers very much. 
They make people forget [that] in the hospitals there's no medicine, in the 
schools there are no books, that the roads are full of potholes," said 
Njoya, a graduate of Princeton Seminary whose own church, the PCEA, has 
become more firm -- and more vocal -- in its support for the 
democratization process in Kenya. 
 
    The PCEA, in fact, voted during its April General Assembly to issue a 
statement demanding constitutional reforms and the creation of an 
"impartial" electoral commission to ensure a "climate that is conducive to 
free, fair, peaceful and democratic elections."  It also condemned the 
violence July 7 and urged the government to be more reasonable and the 
protesters to be nonviolent. 
 
    "The church," said PCEA general secretary Patrick Rukenya in an 
interview with the Presbyterian News Service, "is the only hope now. 
There's that feeling ... because the church's voice is being heard now. 
And it is part of what the church should be doing.  The church is the voice 
for the voiceless ... and there is no forum to air their views." 
 
    Such a shift in stance for church leaders and for denominations, 
according to Amnesty International's Adatoy Akwei in Washington, D.C., has 
put the voices of mainline churches at the forefront of the political 
debate now in Kenya -- with the emphasis placed on more broadly based 
constitutional issues rather than on particular partisan platforms. 
"There's the sense that [people do not] want to repeat the same mistakes 
made in '92," said Akwei. 
 
    When Kenya held its first multiparty elections five years ago, there 
were allegations of vote buying and ballot-box stuffing surrounding Moi's 
narrow reelection as president, though fragmentation and disarray among 
opposition parties prevented an upset of the president, who only received 
less than 38 percent of the vote. 
 
    "This time around," said Akwei, " ... there's just the sense there 
wasn't that much movement from the political parties. ...  And [church and 
coalition leaders] want to move things along without waiting another four 
years." 
 
    In his short 14 months in Kenya, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) mission 
worker the Rev. Tim Emerick-Cayton said, he's witnessed that shift in PCEA 
circles, where the willingness to speak publicly has escalated 
dramatically.  "I've seen the church go from virtually not speaking out 
forcefully on many issues to, after the General Assembly, taking out a 
full-page ad in a major newspaper [on the church's position]. 
 
    "It's the election year," he said.  "This is the opportunity for big 
changes that are so desperately needed." 
 
    Amnesty International and Human Rights/Watch are documenting abuses by 
Kenya's government that include torture, harassment and extrajudicial 
executions by police.  The International Monetary Fund, it was reported 
this week, halted a $215 million loan to Kenya at the last minute, implying 
corruption at high levels and further damaging the Moi government's 
international credibility. 
 
     Moi has already begun meeting with church leaders and with opposition 
party politicians.  But onlookers are conscious that his style has been 
characterized in the past as "a little bit of velvet and a lot of steel" -- 
he has often publicly promised reconciliation and dialogue while 
simultaneously using violence to crush pro-democracy groups. 
 
    Chipenda said it is not surprising that church and other diverse groups 
are able to reach unanimity on the need for reforms now.  What is less 
clear is what the future holds once constitutional reform happens.  "The 
opposition is united against the status quo.  What is not yet clear is 
whether those who are united now will not be divided when presented with 
alternatives," he said. 

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