Kenyans hope for peace dividend

By Muliro Telewa
BBC, Nairobi

Kenyans hope the mood of peace will spread

Most Kenyans have welcomed the decision of the UN Security Council to hold its session on the peace initiatives in Sudan and Somalia in the capital, Nairobi.

This is just the fourth time that the council has met away from its base in New York.

Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs Moses Wetangula used the opportunity to lash out at the US Government, which has been advising its citizens not to visit Kenya due to fears of insecurity after terror attacks in 1998 and 2002.

"The fact that the Security Council has visited Kenya out of so many other countries should assure tourists that Kenya is a safe destination any time," he said.

'Little Mogadishu'

If there is a place where Kenyans have indicated that they want peace in Somalia, it is Nairobi's Eastleigh Estate.

Fifteen years ago, this middle-class area was predominantly Kenyan but it is now called "Little Mogadishu" after many thousands of the more affluent refugees from neighbouring Somalia moved in to occupy most of the area's residential and commercial buildings.

How do you beat up a person who says he wants peace? Kenyan policeman

Resident John Kamau told the BBC: "Since the Somali refugees started coming in to Eastleigh, the rents have more than tripled, phasing out Kenyans.

"The Security Council should sort out the insecurity situation in Somalia so that these people can go back home and leave the area for Kenyans and hopefully the rent will drop."

Addressing the council, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki said Kenyans would heave a sigh of relief when peace is eventually found in the neighbouring countries because too many small arms are being smuggled into Kenya from areas where there are conflicts.

Peace dividend

While not all of the problems in Sudan and Somalia were solved at the meeting, Kenyan demonstrators may reap an unexpected benefit.

The mood of peace which dominated the two-day meeting even seemed to affect Kenya's police.

The SPLA rebels have agreed to give up their armed campaign

Shortly before the council ambassadors were driven into the heavily guarded United Nations Environmental Programme (Unep) offices in Nairobi, a group of Sudanese young men, most of them in their late teens, started to demonstrate at the main gate.

They were waving placards in the air, shouting at the top of their voices: "We want peace. We want peace."

Instead of reaching for their truncheons as they would normally do, two uniformed senior policemen listened to the Sudanese youths for about 10 minutes.

When I asked a policeman about this change of attitude, he asked: "How do you beat up a person who says he wants peace?"

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan addressed the Security Council, in the presence of the warring parties in Sudan, rebel leader John Garang and Vice-President Ali Osman Taha, telling them to unite because "there is no time to waste".

'Don't complain'

One couldn't help noticing the way some workers at the UN offices in Nairobi scrambled to get a glimpse of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

One woman told me she enjoys the way he speaks his mind without worrying.

During his long speech to the Council, every three or four minutes he ignored his written speech and resorted to off-the-cuff remarks leaving most of his listeners in stitches.

I was told translators locked away in booths nearby don't like him.

He confuses them, since they have copies of the written word, which they are supposed to follow.

Who else tells the world without flinching that African soldiers are cheaper than troops "from very far, from Uruguay, from the North Pole" and so they should be considered for all African peacekeeping missions?

Before his speech, he warned the delegates:

"Sorry to take a lot of your time, but I imagine you came a long way to listen to us. So don't complain."

Doubting Thomas

The host of the second Security Council session to be held in Africa, President Mwai Kibaki, wore a western suit which had that boring look, but that cannot be said of this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, Kenyan professor Wangari Maathai.

An ankle length bright yellow dress with a headscarf to match brightened the day.

With a blue ribbon on the dress, it resembled the newly created Kenyan national dress.

Mr Taha and Mr Garang again shook hands, after signing a document pledging that they will sign a comprehensive peace agreement before the end of the year.

The mood at the Unep headquarters in Gigiri, on the outskirts of Nairobi, is for peace in Sudan and Somalia.

For now the warring factions in the two countries seem to agree, but some doubting Thomases are asking how long this mood will last after the world's attention is shifted elsewhere.

And the UN Security Council has flown the thousands of miles back to its more usual surroundings in New York.