HILLARY CLINTON MEMORIES OF KENYA

In her personal chronicle of years serving as Secretary of State in President Obama’s Cabinet, Hillary Clinton notes that she visited 112 countries. Kenya is one of the countries she visited and her memories in the country of Gor Mahia and the country of Mekatilili wa Menza are well captured in the autobiography: “Hard Choices.” Here is what she remembers about Kenya.
‘That August I also visited Kenya….I flew into Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, named after the founder of modern Kenya. On the day his country was born, December 12, 1963, he gave a famous speech that used the word harambee, Swahili for “all pull together,’ and asked his country’s newly independent citizens to unite as one. The phrase was on my mind as we drove into town from the airport and saw the hundreds of little mom-and-pop businesses lining the roads and then the office towers of downtown Nairobi.
Corruption was the major impediment to growth in most of Africa, so I was smiling when I entered the campus of the university of Nairobi and saw large crowds waving and holding banners of welcome, one of which announced, “you are now entering a no-corruption zone.” Inside I held a raucous town hall discussion with students and activists, moderated by the American journalist Fareed Zakaria
One of the participants was Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize winner who had led a grassroots movement of poor women to plant trees across Africa and reforest the continent. I was a fan and a friend of Wangari and was delighted to see her, and pained when she passed away too soon in 2011. At one point Zakaria turned to her for a comment about China’s growing influence and investment in Africa, noting that she had told the press that china was ‘willing to do business without conditions like respect for human rights.’ In her response Wangari said something that has stayed with me ever since. “We are in a continent that is extremely rich. Africa is not a poor continent. Anything you want in the world is on this continent. It’s like the gods were on our side when the world was created,” she said, to applause. “Yet we are considered among the poorest people on the planet. There is something seriously wrong. “Africans, she urged, needed to demand good governance and accountability from their leaders, and also from foreign investors and partners looking to do business there.
After more questions about the choices facing Africa’s people, Zakaria turned to a lighter topic. Five years earlier a Kenyan city councilman had written Bill a letter offering forty goats and twenty cows in exchange for our daughter’s hand in marriage. As I prepared to return to Nairobi, he made a stir in the local press by announcing that the offer was still on the table. To the delight of the crowd, Zakaria wanted to know what I thought of the proposal. I paused. I’d answered a lot of questions all over the world, but this was a first. “Well, my daughter is her own person. She is very independent.” I said. “So I will convey this very kind offer.” The students laughed and applauded.
Despite the good feelings in the hall, the mood outside was complex and uncertain. The paroxysm of violence that followed the controversial December 2007 elections led to an uneasy alliance between former opponents, President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Amolo Odinga (a newly created position). Their government included a Deputy Prime Minister, Uhuru Kenyatta, who would later be elected President himself despite being indicted for the violence by the International Criminal Court.
President Kibaki and Prime Minister Odinga brought together their Cabinet to meet with me in the hope I would tell them that President Obama would visit soon. I explained instead that the President and I were concerned about the flawed election, political violence, and rampant corruption, and that the President expected more from them. My comments led to a spirited discussion, and I offered U.S. help to improve Kenya’s election system. Along with the United Kingdom, the United States offered assistance registering voters and electronically counting votes, which would work well both when the country voted in favor of a new constitution in 2010, and when Kenyatta won the 2013 election. The United States also stepped up our support to the Kenyan military as it joined the fight in Somalia against Al Shabaab, a terrorist group with ties to Al Qaeda.
Kenya is an economic and strategic hub for East Africa, so what happens there matters not just to Kenyans. Improving governance and growth are key to their stability and prosperity, and a key priority is increasing agricultural productivity. That’s why I visited the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute with the U.S Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. We toured a soil-testing lab and exhibitions on agricultural improvements made possible by U.S development aid. For three decades, despite the fact that farming remained the dominant form of employment across Arica, agricultural exports declined. The lack of roads, inconsistent irrigation, poor storage facilities, and ineffective farming practices, including poor seeds and fertilization, undermined the hard work of farmers in the field and threatened foods supplies. Unless this problem could be solved, neither Kenya nor Africa would ever achieve economic or social potential.’
Source: Hillary Clinton: Hard Choices