Friday, February 15, 2008

Just share!

I've been spending time with good friends of mine the past few days in the city. They have three adorable boys, but being kids, there were a few times that they'd get at each other when one of them simply didn't want to share enough with the other two. So, listening to Kofi Annan's press conference this afternoon, I couldn't help but hear the boys' mom's voice in my head, "Boys! Just share!"

Annan was to announce the agreements during the past 2 weeks' peace talks.

Basically, the parties have agreed that
  • they will work on constitutional changes in the next year, and
  • there will be a South-African-style truth and reconciliation commission which will look into the crimes committed as well as into the election itself.
The major issue still remains to be solved, that of power sharing.

The government has been refusing to give up any power. The opposition will not accept this. Nor will the people. In fact, it's very, very scary to read what the people are saying what will happen if the government continues to refuse power sharing. (Just so you know: Iten, the town mentioned in the scary article, is about 20 miles north of our children's home in Ilula... It's starting to make sense now that one mission I'm familiar with is pulling their missionaries out of the Kerio Valley and sending them to parts of the country that have not been directly affected by the post-election events.)

Last night, I was watching a press conference by a very defiant minister of justice, Martha Karua. It was scary to see the attitude of the present government...

The teams from the two parties are to meet with their leaders this weekend. On Monday, Annan will meet with Kibaki and Raila. Condoleeza Rice will also be in town that day to exert more pressure on the leaders, though Karua was saying yesterday that other countries should stop telling the Kenyan government how to run their country... On Tuesday, the two teams will reconvene. That's when the rubber will hit the road. By Tuesday, we should know if things are going to get worse before they get better.

Thank you for caring about the future of this country, but more so, about the future of our children.

Please join me in praying for a miracle between now and Tuesday! Let's pray that the men would step aside, for the good of their country, and give up some power by sharing.

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