King's Speech Oops.. the Presidents Speech! Uhuru Kenyatta's Africa Union Speech

President Uhuru Kenyatta's speech delivered in Addis Ababa at the Extra Ordinary Session of the Assemblies of Heads of State and Government of the African Union was a Kantian moment in two instances. First, in terms of his presidency the president came out guns blazing against the West and their ideals of justice. Second, in terms of African Union politics the president has started a discourse that is certainly going to continue in terms of AU engagement with powers outside the continent.

In his speech the president was as blunt as they come and gave a stinging attack to Western Nations.

Some of the snippets from this speech below shows the president has had a change of heart albeit now that he is in power and as such the gloves are now finally off.

First, that world powers were hesitant to a process that might make them accountable for such spectacularly criminal international adventures as the wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and other places, and such hideous enterprises as renditions and torture. Such states did not, therefore, consider such warnings as applicable to pacific and friendly parties.

Secondly, it was the understanding of good-faith subscribers that the ICC would administer and secure justice in a fair, impartial and independent manner and, as an international court, bring accountability to situations and perpetrators everywhere in the world. As well, it was hoped that the ICC would set the highest standards of justice and judicial processes.

This speech represents a defining moment in Uhuru Kenyatta's presidency and as such we could start percing events in Kenya in context of the pre AU convention speech and post AU convention speech. What remain is to see if he will appear at the ICC on November 12, 2013 or he will follow the AU resolution that asked him not to show up at the Hague.

Find the Presidents full speech here

Thought Provoking Read: Africa's Big Brother Lives in Beijing by John Reed

John Reed in an investigative piece on Foreign Policy contends that China might actually be spying on Africa. One of the question he possess is Is Huawei wiring Africa for surveillance? 

"Generally, most of the employees operating these systems are Chinese and the arrangements usually include delegating maintenance and decisions about future updates to Huawei as well, thus ensuring the Chinese firm's control of the basic technological architecture's foundation, evolution, and operations,"  - Chris Demchak, co-director of the Center for Cyber Conflict Studies at the U.S. Naval War College

Looking at this from a Kenyan perspective and given the happening on the ground this might actually be true. If you look at Safaricom the biggest player in telecommunications you will notice that it has close relationship with Huawei. One of the goals of Safaricom Ltd is to offer it's services to anyone and that means getting in agreements with Huawei which offers affordable phones to the base of pyramids. This agreements between Huawei and Safaricom usually extend to other areas apart from the hand-set market.

Also, sometime back I happened to have gone to an official launch at Kenya Broadcasting Corporation headquarters and I noticed most of the equipments and renovations of the state broadcaster were installed by the Chinese. This was during Kibaki administration who found a win win situation with the Chinese government. 

When one also looks at the Chinese Consulate in Kenya one will notice that they have a substantially huge complex which is next to Hurlingham plus another office dealing with trrade matters along Ngong Road. Certainly if the all countries snoop on each other but Chinese seem to be on the look out for new trade deals for their companies.

Also, looking at the Chinese benevolence in providing the African Union with a state of the art new headquarters in Ethiopia. This is the same building John Kerry the American Secretary of State marvelled upon in his first visit to AU headquarters. 

The Chinese certainly seem to have done their homework on the continent and now they unlike Americans do not need an African Drone Programme!