Diplomatic Failings

Always count on the great dull-o-tron of American public diplomacy to spoil the message. A few days ago, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer called the chaos in Kenya's Rift Valley ethnic cleansing, which it clearly is. People from one ethnic group are fleeing their homes because they will be killed if they don't.

Now State Department spokesman Sean McCormack employs the well-known strategy of packing a thought with so many useless words that it can no longer be considered a coherent thought. So Frazer's "it's ethnic cleansing" becomes ...

"Well, look, Jendayi – Jendayi Frazer, our Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, was reflecting back to the press corps her firsthand view of the situation in the Rift Valley based on her travel there, I think, two or three weeks ago – a firsthand visit. You know, I don’t have anything to modify Jendayi’s statement. I can provide a bit of context, I believe, for perhaps her reasons, in addition to her firsthand assessment for making such a statement; that is, that we do know – you talk to experts within the government – we do know that there are thousands of people that have, for a variety of different reasons, been displaced in Kenya. Some of those people have been displaced because they were fleeing violence, they perceived some threat to themselves, to their families, so they fled violence. There is evidence that there are individuals that were forced to move out of various areas for a variety of different reasons, some based on ethnicity.

So it is a situation that is of deep concern to us, one that we are following very closely. We have an office here in the Department headed up by Clint Williamson, Ambassador Clint Williamson, who is charged with documenting any circumstances of atrocities wherever they may occur, whether it’s Kenya or around the world, collecting information, documenting any atrocities that may have occurred, and then following up in the appropriate manner and bringing to justice those responsible for any atrocities. He’s in the process now of collecting any information that may indicate any crimes, any atrocities that may have been committed. It will be an issue that is dealt with down the road. And very often, the case with these kind of circumstances is that you don’t have a full understanding, a complete picture of what happened, until after the situation is over and things have calmed down.

All of this points to the need for the two political leaders – President Kibaki and Mr. Odinga – to come together, work with former UN Secretary General Annan, find a political solution. Because the violence springs from the political tensions that have arisen in the wake of the election, the contested election, and it is incumbent upon these two individuals and the political leadership in their political parties to come to some political accommodation within the framework of Kenyan laws and Kenyan constitution so that they can move beyond this sad and violent chapter in Kenya’s history."

Depressing.