Kenyatta hopes to take up dad's mantle
2013-03-01 12:26
Nairobi - Hugely wealthy and son of Kenya's founding
president, Uhuru Kenyatta hopes to take up his father's mantle despite facing
trial for crimes against humanity over election violence five years ago.
While Uhuru - meaning 'freedom', and Kenyatta, the 'light of
Kenya' in Swahili - carries his country's aspirations in his name, he has since
come to symbolise many of its woes.
Kenyatta, 51, and running mate William Ruto face trial in
the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity for their
alleged role in having orchestrated 2007-08 post-election unrest.
He was born in 1961 shortly after the release of his father
Jomo from nearly 10 years' incarceration by British colonial forces, and two
years before Kenya's independence.
Fifty years on, the deputy prime minister and former finance
minister is one of Kenya's richest and most powerful men, with the Kenyatta
family owning vast swathes of some of the country's richest lands.
The Kenyatta family business empire also includes a key
stake in major banking and media interests, as well as owning Kenya's main
dairy business.
Educated in the United States at the elite Amherst College,
where he studied political science and economics, he is considered the top
political leader of the Kikuyu people, Kenya's largest tribe making up some 17%
of the population.
Bright and charming
With permanent heavy bags beneath his eyes and well dressed
in pin stripe business suits, Kenyatta exudes an image of power and
entitlement.
But while a leaked 2009 US diplomatic cable described
Kenyatta as "bright and charming, even charismatic" it also noted
that he "drinks too much and is not a hard worker".
In the early 1990s, he ganged up with the sons of other
independence heroes to call for reform but gradually drew closer to autocratic
former president Daniel arap Moi.
"He went into politics partly because Moi asked him to,
and probably because it was a good way to protect his family's interests at a
time of political transition," said Daniel Branch, a professor at Britain's
Warwick University.
"Until recently, politics never mattered as much
personally for Kenyatta as for Raila," he added, referring to his key
rival, Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
"Uhuru is not a grassroots politician in the same way
as Raila."
Kenyatta threw his weight behind then incumbent President
Mwai Kibaki in the December 2007 election, a poll that rapidly descended into
chaos and left over 1 100 dead and hundreds of thousands forced from their
homes.
Delays in the vote count saw violence erupt over suspicion
that Kibaki was stealing the election from Odinga, and killings mainly
targeting Kikuyus spread across the country.
The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights has accused
Kenyatta of attending meetings in early 2008 to plan for retaliatory violence
by the Kikuyu.
ICC prosecutors say he mobilised the Mungiki - a sect-like
Kikuyu criminal organisation known for skinning and beheading its victims - to
attack opposition supporters.
Rule of law
Kenyatta, listed by Forbes magazine as one of the richest
people in Africa, faces five counts including orchestrating murder, rape,
forcible transfer and persecution in the polls' aftermath.
The Kikuyu launched reprisal attacks in which homes were
torched and people hacked to death in the worst outbreak of violence since
independence.
Kenyatta has repeatedly said he will co-operate with the
court, even though it could mean he will be absent from Kenya for long periods,
with the trial expected by many to stretch for several years.
"I will be able to handle the issue of clearing our
names... while at the same time ensuring that the business of government
continues," Kenyatta said in reply to a question about how he and Ruto
will juggle court appearances and run the country if elected.
Kenya, as a signatory to the Rome Statute that established
the Hague-based ICC, would be forced to act on any arrest warrant issued by the
court should the pair refuse to attend trial.
Kenyatta, who insists his "conscience is clear",
has said that he and Ruto "understand and recognise the rule of law and we
will continue to co-operate so long as we are signatories of the Rome
statute".
While his supporters hail him as a hero, to other Kenyans,
Kenyatta symbolises the country's corrupt political elite and the forces of
tribalism that brought what was once considered a beacon of regional stability
to the brink of civil conflict.
- SAPA
