Amidst disgraceful scenes this morning at the Castle Royal Hotel in Mombasa, the former aide to Prime Minister Raila Odinga, Miguna Miguna, who is on a Kenya-wide tour to promote his book ‘Peeling Back the Mask’, was ‘roughed up’ by a crowd or armed youths who object to his criticism of the PM.

Miguna Miguna’s book alleges that some of PM Odinga’s close associates are embroiled in corruption and that the PM himself was implicated in Kenya’s post-election violence in 2007-08.

POLICE INTERVENE – MP FLEES THE SCENE

It took the intervention of the police to get Miguna Miguna out of the Mombasa hotel to a place of safety in a nearby casino. He had been accompanied by Mvita MP and former Tourism Minister Najib Balala, who ‘fled the scene’.

MIGUNA ATTACKED IN KISUMU AND NAKURU

The attack on Miguna Miguna comes only two days after a gang of youths barracked and booed him at the Lakeside City Hotel in Kisumu. On that occasion the local police chief Musa Kongoli used his official car to drive Miguna away from the mob. Later the youths burnt a banner with Miguna’s name on it.

Before that ‘angry supporters of Raila Odinga stormed the venue’ in Nakuru where Miguna Miguna was speaking.

MIGUNA MIGUNA’S ALLEGATIONS NOT ADDRESSED

The Kenya Forum has made clear in recent articles that it does not warm to Miguna Miguna on a personal level but does believe that his allegations must be addressed. To date they have not been.

The physical attacks on Miguna Miguna at venues in Nakuru, Kisumu and Mombasa merely reflect the written and verbal attacks made on him personally in Kenya’s media which again have avoided dealing with the substance of his allegations. As with a bad footballer, the policy seems to be “if you can’t get the ball, get the man”.

The Prime Minister, his advisors and ‘friends’ such as Ms Sarah Elderkin (who has had acres of space in the press to have her say) and most regrettably some parts of the Kenyan media, have failed to condemn the attacks on Miguna Miguna.

WHO ARE THE ‘GOONS’? WHO ARE THE ‘REFORMISTS’?

The same people who so often use the term ‘goons’ to deride their opponents, who so often talk and write of ‘impunity’, seem to have either unleashed their own ‘goon’s to act with ‘impunity’, or at the very least refrained from condemning their actions.

These people also term anyone who disagrees with them, or who ask awkward questions, as ‘anti-reformists’.

So are the ‘reformists’ now going to sit back while the mob makes a mockery of Kenya’s new constitution and Bill of Rights?

OTHER NEWS COVERAGE AND REPORTS:

Citizen News – ‘Mombasa Youth Atack Miguna Miguna Miguna’

The Star: ‘Miguna Miguna Roughed up in Mombasa’

Demokrasia Kenya Blogspot: EYE WITNESS REPORT ON INTERNET