Calling for a Peaceful Resolution to the Current Electoral Crisis in Kenya

CALLING FOR A PEACEFUL RESOLUTION TO THE CURRENT ELECTORAL CRISIS IN KENYA -- (House of Representatives - February 06, 2008)

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Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Con. Res. 283, addressing the current crisis in Kenya. I, like much of the world, was shocked by the violence that followed the December 27 elections in Kenya, a country that has proven to be a great friend and ally of the United States over the years.

My heart and my condolences, as well as that of every Member of this Chamber, go out to the victims of this violence and their families, some 1,000 people who have been killed since that fateful election day.

There have been shocking events that few of us expected to see in Kenya, protesters shot by police, gangs with machetes butchering innocents, a crowd of people, including women and children, burned alive in a church. Two opposition parliamentarians, as Mr. Payne just pointed out, have been gunned down since the violence began. Now some 300,000 people have fled their homes, have fled their neighbors, and remain displaced. They are virtual refugees within their own country. Aid workers tell us that about 80,000 of these internally displaced people are children under the age of 5.

The priority for everyone has to be to stop the violence and to end the killing. In addition, we must examine the context in which the violence erupted in the first place.

The broad strokes of what happened during and after the December 27 elections are now well known. Millions of Kenyans voted that day in the country's fourth multiparty elections and it is a testament to the Kenyan people that some 14.2 million people, 82 percent of all eligible voters, were registered to vote. I won't recite the polling numbers or give an autopsy of the election, but suffice it to say that at some point the system went terribly wrong.

The European Union said the elections were ``marred by a lack of transparency which raised concerns about the accuracy and final results of this election.'' Election observers from the East African community also raised serious concerns about the elections, and eventually the United States, too, asserted that ``serious flaws in the vote tallying damaged the credibility of the process.''

I want to commend my friend and colleague, Chairman Payne, for his leadership on this issue. I joined him to cosponsor this resolution, which calls for an end to the violence and an end to restrictions on the media. It condemns threats to human rights activists and others who are working for a peaceful solution to this crisis. It calls on President Kibaki and the challenger, Mr. Odinga, to work together for a mediated solution to this crisis.

The U.S. must do all that it can to encourage them to move in this direction. The resolution emphasizes our hope that this dialogue will lead to an establishment of an interim or coalition government that can enact constitutional reform and establish a mechanism to investigate this crisis.

Mr. Speaker, I urge strong support and backing for H. Con. Res. 283.

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