Kenya Votes

"This is the toughest political race Kenyans have ever seen." (BBC News, December 26, 2007)

Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki won Thursday's closely-fought election, the electoral commission has declared. The announcement came after opposition leader Raila Odinga accused Mr Kibaki of electoral fraud and called for a full re-assessment of the results. Opposition protesters began riots in the capital Nairobi, just minutes after the announcement. The count was badly delayed, sparking violence in which at least 10 people are reported to have been killed. (BBC News, December 30th, 2007)
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I have stopped in or traveled through Nairobi more times than any other city except Amsterdam but not as much in recent years. In mid-2002 I visited twice and was caught up in the pre-election drama which was to determine who was to succeed Daniel arap Moi after his long stint as leader. He was only Kenya's second president since independence in 1963, preceded by the father of the country "Mzee" Jomo Kenyatta.

For once the opposition parties put aside their differences and formed a coalition behind Mwai Kibaki which defeated the ruling party, KANU, for the first time ever. Moi's government had become corrupt and dictatorial and Mwai Kibaki was swept into power on an anti-corruption platform. He defeated Uhuru Kenyatta, the son of "Mzee" and a Moi appointee to parliament and the cabinet. There was a real sense of hope for change for the first time in a very long time. But that hope has again faded over the past five years.

I was again in Nairobi in March 2006 for a weeklong conference of African Christian leaders from almost 50 countries. During my time there police raided an independent TV station very early one morning and knocked it off the air, a station that happened to speak out against government wrongdoing. A cabinet member admitted to having ordered the raid and was not in the least apologetic. The BBC reports that Mwai's cabinet and advisors have been called the Mt. Kenya mafia.

Now five years later Kenyans again went to the polls, hoping again for change. More than 70% of eligible voters were expected to vote. Counting had been halted amidst charges of corruption and very high tensions. But the results were announced today and Raila Odinga, the son of Kenya's first vice-president Oginga Odinga, had been narrowly defeated after leaving the coalition he had joined with Mwai Kibaki in 2002 to defeat Moi.

My first visit to Nairobi was in 1967 during the leadership of Jomo Kenyatta while I was en route to college in the United States. As an eighteen year-old I had said good-bye to my parents and siblings in Lusaka as I and four other Zambian scholarship recipients boarded an East African Airways Comet 4 airliner headed for Nairobi with a stop in Dar Es Salaam. In Nairobi we were kindly hosted by the US Embassy as we joined scholarship recipients from East Africa and awaited a connecting flight to Europe and the USA (actually the route took us to Paris via Addis Ababa, Cairo, Athens, and Rome).

The ambassador's wife kindly offered to take us on an afternoon tour of the Nairobi Game Park which lies within sight of the downtown skyscrapers. Three of us squeezed with her into her VW Beetle and we took off in anticipation of seeing my first giraffe, zebra, and other animals. Disappointingly we drove for the longest time without seeing any animals, not even the ubiquitous impala - our host was so embarrassed. To add to that we had a flat tire while driving through a wooded area. We all got out and while one of us stood watch for dangerous animals, which we were now not so keen to see, the other two helped our hostess change the wheel.

Just as we were ready to think about leaving the park we noticed a cluster of vehicles across a plain; this would indicated some animal activity. So our hostess decided to forgo the road and cut across the grassy plain in a direct line. All of sudden we came to a body-shaking stop and the floor of the VW developed a concave curve to it. We had landed on a rock hidden in the grass. We all piled out, examined the situation, and simply lifted the vehicle off the rock and kept going. We eventually saw a group of cheetahs before heading for the exit gate with our hostess wondering out loud how she was going to tell her husband about the car.

On a couple of later visits to Nairobi I was to visit the park again and on one occasion actually watched a lion feeding on a buffalo kill right beside the road. It is indeed worth a visit, especially if one does not have time to go on a safari to one of Kenya's other famous parks.

More on Kenya on a later post.

rpk

On A Mission

I have followed with interest the news of the death of Benazir Bhutto and some of the opinion pieces about her. Many have alluded to the fact that she was on a mission and quote her as saying "I did not choose this life; it chose me." I admired her from a distance when she was prime minister - a woman in power in a Muslim country. I followed with interest her tumultuous return to Pakistan last October after years of self-imposed exile following the dismissal of her government amidst corruption charges in 1999. I watched with horror the reports of the bombings that night, which she barely escaped. And I watched with admiraton as she vowed not to quit. She seemed to understand the risks involved in returning to Pakistan but couldn't seem to help herself to choose otherwise. In the end she died because she was on a mission that others opposed.

When I watched the accounts of Ms. Bhutto's return to Pakistan in October I wondered what it was that would drive someone into such obvious danger. It seemed that a cause greater than herself had gotten a hold of her and she saw herself as being destined to lead it.

I call myself a follower of Jesus Christ and claim that as his follower he has taken a hold of my life and asked me to join his mission, the establishment of his influence through people committed to the cause. His mission includes establishing justice, mercy, righteousness, peace, love, and so much more. He launched his mission by being put to death by his enemies but then overcoming death and empowering his followers to multiply his mission wherever they went.

His mission often invites danger but I must admit that whenever there has been the foreseen possibility of danger to my own life as I have traveled the world, I have made a detour. I did that once in 1990. I was due to visit Karachi to encourage and enable Christian leaders share the mission of Jesus with their own people. Riots broke out a few days before I was to arrive and I opted to change my flights and avoid the visit.

Perhaps I need to read the enlistment agreement again and sign again on the dotted line.

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it - Jesus. (As recorded by Luke 9:24)

rpk

Why is Pakistan Important?

A. HISTORY

• Pakistan's history goes back to the Indus Civilization of 2500 B.C. (Bronze Age). Ruins at Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro in the Indus River Valley have revealed a great deal about these ancient cultures, among the earliest civilizations in known human history.


• Through its history Pakistan has been invaded by the Greeks, Persians, Arabs, Afghans, Turks, and Mongols and latterly was incorporated into the Bristish Empire as part of India.


• Pakistan's modern history begins with the British partition of India in August 1947 when Britain formed two additional nations out of India, viz. West Pakistan (now Pakistan) and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) creating homelands for the Muslims who were concerned with domination by the much larger Hindu population (see map). Millions of people moved across the borders in both directions according to their religion and about 500,000 were killed in clashes. Pakistan's first president was Muhammad Ali Jinnah and his party was the Muslim League

B. GEOGRAPHY

• Pakistan enjoys a coast line on the Arabian Sea and common borders with Iran, Afghanistan, China, and India, and is only a few miles from Tajikistan.


• This location makes it strategic both as a communication route and to provide balance to some of the major powers in the region.

C. PEOPLE

• Pakistan has a an estimated population of 165 million divided into the following major ethnic groups: Punjabis(44.68% of the population), Pashtuns (15.42%), Sindhis (14.1%), Seraikis (10.53%), Muhajirs (7.57%), Balochis (3.57%) and others (4.66%).


• Ethnicity plays a major role - most of the military personnel are Punjabis, the Pakistan People's Party (Benazir Bhutto's party) draws from the Sindhis, etc. etc.


• Ninety six percent of Pakistanis are Muslim (76% Sunni and 20% Shia). Pakistan is the second most populous Muslim-dominated country in the world and has the largest population of Shia Mulsims. Christians and Hindus comprose less than 2% each.

D. POLITICS

The military has dominated the government for the 60 years that Pakistan has been independent.

• 1947-58 First Democratic Era


• 1958-71 First Military Era


• 1971-77 Second Democratic Era : Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto's father, formed the Pakistan People's Party in the 1970's and as brought to power by General Yahya Khan in 1972. However in 1977 General Zia -ul-Haqq took power in a bloodless coup after declaring invalid an election which Bhutto had won. Bhutto was later hanged.


• 1977-88 Second Military Era: General Zia introduced strict Islamic law in 1978 which is often cited as a root cause for the current climate of sectarianism and fundementalism. Zia was killed in a plane crash, later shown to be sabotage. This as also the era of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.


• 1988-99 Third Democratic Era: Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif each twice led governments and were both removed on charges of corruption


• 1999-2007 Third Military Era: When Nawaz Sharif tried to replace army chief Pervez Musharraf the military ousted Sharif in a coup. Sharif was exiled, with pressure from the US, to Saudi Arabia. Musharraf took over the presidency.


• 2007 Pervez Musharraf resigned from the military so that he could continue as President. Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif returned to Pakistan in late 2007 to run in elections set for January 2008. On December 27th, 2007 Benazir Bhutto was assassinated.

D. NUCLEAR POWER

• The father of Pakistan's nuclear industry is Abdul Qadeer (A. Q.) Khan. In the early 1970's when working as a translator for URENCO, a European nuclear research institute, he stole key secrets which he took back to Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto's father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who was Prime Minister enlisted him to develop Pakistan's capabilities to counteract India's similar attempts. The A. Q. Khan Research Laboratory, using enriched uranium, was built at Kahuta, near Islamabad and after years of development conducted its first nuclear test in May 1998.


• As a means of generating income Pakistan has exported its technology to Iran, North Korea, and Libya and A. Q. Khan has become a national hero


• The possession of nuclear capabilities by Pakistan adds a serious concern during any time of political unrest.

E. THE WAR ON TERROR

• Pakistan has appeared to work on both sides of the war on terror. In past years it recognized the Taliban government of Afghanistan and provided the schools (madrassas) at which Taliban-type philosphy was taught and indoctrinated.


• The tribal areas bordering Afghanistan are largely uncontrolled by the central government and have provided refuge for the Taliban, Al Qaeda and other insurgent groups.


• The central government needs to be influenced and assisted to keep the radical groups in check.

Pakistan presents an enigma to the west. It occupies a key role in a very unstable and ever changing region. Thus much that is negative is overlooked and much aid is given to attempt to assist it to make right decisions which will be helpful to its people and to the region.

rpk

Trouble in Pakistan

"NEW YORK TIMES
December 28, 2007

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — The Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated near the capital, Islamabad, on Thursday..."

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My memories of Pakistan are of an unsettled nation. In October 1989 I visited the largest city, Karachi, for a day and met with leaders of Christian churches at Holy Trinity Anglican cathedral. I had arrived in the previous evening from Dhaka, Bangladesh and recall that the taxi I took to my downtown hotel did not move slower than 60 mph through the city streets; it was a memorable ride. After the meeting the next morning my host showed me some of the city before dropping me off at the airport for an internal Pakistan Interational Airlines (PIA) flight to Lahore in the north. In Lahore I met with the Anglican bishop (The Very Right Reverend Dr.....) the next day who was also hosting a conference. I made a presentation at the conference and then left for Karachi that evening and flew on to London the next day via a stop in Kuwait. I remember that when I checked in for my flight to Minneapolis at London's Gatwick Airport the next day I was "randomly selected" for a thorough search after the security agent noted the Pakistani visa in my passport. That visa was to raise other questions occasionally by security staff at other airports.

In early 1990 I found myself assigned to projects on two continents, in Africa and Asia. This resulted in my flying from Kinshasa, Zaire (now Dem. Rep. of Congo) to Dhaka, Bangladesh via Nairobi and Karachi. My flight from Nairobi to Karachi was a PIA Boeing 707, one of the last 707's to fly passengers, I imagine. We had an intermediate stop in Abu Dhabi and arrived in Karachi at about 2:00 a.m. I had booked a hotel room near the airport to make my morning connection to Dhaka later that morning a little less painful. Unfortunately, upon checking in I was advised that I had no reservation. I showed the hotel clerk the pink confirmation slip from my travel agent but it had no effect - no room at this inn. After pressing a bit the clerk finally told me that they had a room but it was not up to my standard. At 3:00 a.m. my standard had fallen considerably and I challenged him to try me. I was shown to a small room with two beds, a sink, and a shower...and a towel. The rate was $20; I slept well, had a shower, and was glad to have saved my employer quite a bit of money.

I later discovered that the reason my reservation had "disappeared" was that there had been riots in the city center the previous day and the airlines had moved their crews out to airport hotels to avoid being caught up in the unrest. Later on that trip I was scheduled to return to Karachi following a visit to Sri Lanka to follow up my previous visit. While I was in Colombo I became aware of further unrest in Karachi and was advised by my director, who was in Taiwan, to change my itinerary and head straight home. So I bought a ticket on UTA, a French airline later merged with Air France, and flew overnight to Paris with a stop in Muscat on the Arabian peninsula.

I recently read a very good account of the development of Pakistan's nuclear capabilities titled DECEPTION: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons by Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark.

rpk

Christmas comes to the Himalayas in June

IN DECEMBER 1990 I got my first glimpse of a place I had known about all my life, or so it seemed. I finally saw Mount Everest. A year earlier greater freedom had come to Nepal in the wake of the fall of Communism in Europe and the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Large and violent demonstrations on the Durbar Marg in front of the royal palace had influenced the king to loose some of his control and allow for elections. Religious freedom was also coming to this Hindu kingdom where there were only a handful of Christian congregations and I was visiting local Christian leaders to assist in organizing a conference the following summer.

As my Thai Airways plane made its way from Bangkok to Kathmandu my seat mate, an employee of the Nepal government, excitedly showed me the Himalayas in the distance, pointing out Mount Everest. Soon after we spiraled down into the Kathmandu valley to land and I was making my way through immigration and customs and headed for a local hotel.

I was disappointed to discover that the Himalayas were hardly visible from the city because it is nestled in the Kathmandu Valley. I caught a glimpse of a couple of snow capped peaks from my second floor hotel room but nothing more. I was told that I would only be able to see the Himalayas from the edge of the valley. Unable to bear the thought of traveling all that way and not seeing the Himalayas up close and personal I arranged for a taxi to pick me up after noon and take me to the recommended viewing location. The whole trip would cost me $40 which I thought was a reasonable price for admission to one of the world's greatest natural spectacles.

We left Kathmandu in the early afternoon and climbed our way out of the valley through the terraced rice fields. Periodically we helped thresh sheaves of some crop which had purposely been laid out on the tarred road for passing traffic to run over. We arrived at our destination at about 4:00 p.m., the ideal time for viewing the panorama before me. The western sun cast a pink glow on the snow capped mountain range as my guide pointed out to me five of the tallest peaks in the world, including Mount Everest. I stood there and gazed in wonder at what must be one of the greatest sights on our planet.

We drove back to Kathmandu as the sun set and darkness fell. I worried about an ever-glowing red light on the dashboard and wondered whether we would make it but the driver seemed not to be concerned.

I returned to Nepal again the following March (when I rode around Kathmandu on the back of a motor cycle...but that's another story) and again in June 1991 for the conference. It was during that event that a newspaper article announced that for the first time ever the government would recognize December 25th 1991 as a public holiday. Several leaders at the conference gathered one day to draft a response of thanks to the Prime Minister and the king. Christmas had come to Nepal in June.

rpk

Christmas in the Valley

THE CHRISTMASES OF MY CHILDHOOD do not evoke many memories. However I do remember that on at least a couple of occasions we traveled forty miles from Kawama Mission, where we lived, south along the Luapula River Valley to Johnston Falls Mission (now Mambilima Mission) to join forces with our friends the Fords. Jim and Dorothy Ford and their four children had come to Johnston Falls from the UK sometime in the early '50's. Margaret, Patricia ('Patsy'), Angus, and Jonathan had become our closest childhood friends both geographically and relationally and we were of similar ages.

Two incidents stand out in my memory from those years. On one occasion we were all gathered in the home of Bwana Lammond and his wife Betty, the center of the three main houses at Johnston Falls. Willie Lammond had come from Scotland to Johnston Falls in 1900 and established much of the mission work in the area. As we waited that Christmas afternoon around the Christmas tree to open presents, in walked Father Christmas with his bag of gifts. He turned out to be none other than Mr. Lammond. Before he handed out presents he had us all participating in a Scottish jig, leading it with much gusto. He was a man of incredible energy; in later years I remember him at age 90 supervising the installation of a metal roof in place of the thatch on his house. He was not contented to supervise it from the ground but actually climbed the ladder!

On another occasion the Fords were joined for the Christmas holiday by another boarding school friend, Adrienne Taylor, from Fort Lamy (now N'Djamena) in Chad. While we got to go home twice a year she was only able to get home during the longer mid-year break because it took a week or more to travel between Sakeji School in northwestern Northern Rhodesia and Chad. So she would stay with friends who lived closer to school and we were only three days' journey away. Adrienne was a wonderful friend and we enjoyed her so much that when our mother told us in 1960 that we would soon be joined by another sibling, we agreed that if it was a sister we would like her to be named Adrienne. And so it was to be - Adrienne Ruth Kruse was born at Central Hospital in Kitwe, Northern Rhodesia in April 1961, while Esther and I were at boarding school and we received the news by mail a few days later.

rpk

Christmas in Cambridge

IN DECEMBER 1996 our family traveled to England for Christmas - one of the few occasions that all four of our families have been able to get together. We took my mother-in-law, Betty, along with us. She had never been outside of North America and she will never forget that Christmas. We started our stay in London and spent a day walking to Buckingham Palace, St. James' Park, the War Museum where Churchill bunkered down his headquarters during WWII, Westminister Abbey, The Houses of Parliament, Whitehall and Downing Street, ending up at Trafalgar Square where our son was deluged with pigeons. By then we had walked enough and hailed a taxi to take us to Hard Rock Cafe for dinner.

FOOTBALL

The next day my brother Gordon, with his wife and family of four met is in West London and we traveled together by Underground to watch Chelsea FC beat West Ham FC 2-0 at Chelsea FC's home field of Stamford Bridge. After a weekend with Gordon in Romford we drove up to Cambridge to stay with my sister, Adrienne and her family.

CAMBRIDGE

On Christmas Eve Betty and I opted to take a walking tour of Cambridge and we will never forget the experience. We showed up at the Tourist Information Office at 1:30 pm to discover that we are the only two for that day's tour. So we had our own private guide who led us around Cambridge. We visited many of the colleges including St. John's, Trinity, Caius, Magdalene, and others; we learned about the churches, including St. Mary's at the city center and The Round Church; we saw buildings dating back a thousand years; we crossed the River Cam and saw the Bridge of Sighs (modeled after a bridge in Venice). It was a chilly day with a fairly strong breeze requiring frequent wiping of noses and covering the tips of our ears. But it was a cloudless day and the western sun created beautiful lighting on the college buildings as we wandered along the Backs on the other side of the River Cam.

One building we really wanted to visit that day but were not permitted to was the Chapel of Kings College. Commissioned by King Henry VI in the fifteenth century it took over 100 years to build and is one of England's outstanding historic buildings. At 3:00 p.m. every Christmas Eve it hosts A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols which features the college choir and has been an annual event since 1918. The lessons and carols vary each year except for the first carol which is always Once in Royal David's City with the first verse a solo sung a capella by a young chorister. The BBC broadcasts the service around the world. As Betty and I walked along The Backs with our guide the setting sun lit the college chapel building beautifully and we observed the line of people waiting to be admitted to the service; some had perhaps been in line since 7:00 a.m. On later visits to Cambridge I have been able to enjoy the interior of the chapel, most recently in August 2007 when the picture above was taken.

Locally in Minneapolis A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols has been broadcast live by Minnesota Public Radio for 25 years at 99.5 FM at 9:00 a.m. on Christmas Eve and I have tried to listen to it every Christmas since that memorable visit to Cambridge.

The choir of Kings College Chapel will be touring the United States in 2008 and will sing at the Cathedral of St. Paul on April 8th.

http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/

rpk

Christmas on the High Seas

FORTY FIVE YEARS AGO, in December 1962 our family returned to Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) after a year in England. We traveled on the Pretoria Castle, a 28,705 ton oceanliner owned by the Union Castle Line whose fleet sailed weekly between Southampton and South Africa. Our family occupied a cabin on the 'C' deck (for 'cheapest'!) just above the water line, or so it seemed. We left Southamption on a Thursday evening headed for Cape Town from where we would travel north by train for four days to our final destination in Northern Rhodesia.

MADEIRA
On Sunday we stopped at the Portuguese island of Madeira but remained on board and viewed the port of Funchal from a distance. We did enjoy the sight of nimble young lads climbing on board and diving from the deck rails into the water after coins tossed in by the passengers. Hitting salt water from such a height must have hurt their heads but somehow they managed to cushion the blow.

We then sailed south for five days without a view of land. We occupied our time with deck games, various organized activities, and special initiation ceremonies with King Neptune as we crossed the equator. Having crossed it before in the 1953-54 voyages we escaped the initiation process...I think.

ASCENSION ISLAND
The following Friday saw us arrive off of Ascension Island but passengers had to remain on board due to security on the island which contained a major telecommuications and satellite tracking station. I remember watching schools of piranha fighting over bits of food thrown over the side. Several men who let a fishing line down the side of the ship managed to snag a large fish (they called it a tiger fish) but the weight of it broke the line as they were hauling it up the side.

ST. HELENA

Our next stop was two days south at St. Helena island, famous for being the site of Napoleon's final exile and resting place. This was a special voyage because Union Castle only routed their ships via Ascension and St. Helena four times a year. The ship anchored off shore and small boats from the mainland ferried passengers ashore to shop and see the sights. Being a Sunday Dad restricted what we could do i.e. we could not spend any money. So Mum, Esther, and I decided to climb another of St. Helena's famous attractions named Jacob's Ladder. Comprising 699 steps and 900 feet in length the stone stairway takes you from the town at sea level up to a fort on the adjacent highland. Somehow we managed to make it to the top and then walked down along the less steep roadway that had probably been constructed at a later date.

CHRISTMAS

Christmas day fell on Tuesday. Throughout the journey Dad and Mum had hosted a daily Bible Study in our cabin for any who wanted to join. As I recall there were about 20 each day including fellow Northern Rhodesian missionaries and a lady with the Dorothea Mission in South Africa. No doubt the Bible Study was held that day as any other. However two events help me to remember that specific day. Somehow Mum and Dad had managed to smuggle a suitcase or two of wrapped gifts on board giving us a wonderful surprise for the day although I do not remember the details of the specific gifts. Later the staff of the ship had all the children congregate in a foyer area near an elevator (lift). The elevator door was decorated to look like a fireplace and, you guessed it, Father Christmas (Santa Claus) emerged from the elevator as if he had just dropped down the chimney. With a "Ho! Ho! Ho!' he swung his big bag of toys off his shoulders and proceeded to hand out gifts to all the children - twelve and under. I was thirteen, considered now grown up, so I stifled my diappointment and realized that I was not a child anymore. Gifts would not come so readily in the years ahead.

CAPE TOWN
Early morning two or three days later we docked at Cape Town Harbor and that afternoon boarded a train for the long trip north to Ndola in land-locked Northern Rhodesia.

rpk

Kruselines Christmas Greetings

GOD DID NOT send Christ to us; God came to us in Christ. (Don S. Skinner )

GOD DID NOT send a subordinate to redeem us. He chose to do it himself. ( Alister McGrath)

The year has again flown by with its welcome and perhaps not-so-welcome surprises and we find ourselves at that time of year when we celebrate again the one certainty we have - the love of God our Creator and His revelation to us in history through the baby of Bethlehem. I have been so enriched this year through my having to study the historical evidence for that great act of love and the reliability of the historical accounts of his life as given us in the Gospels.

We have had a snowy December and temperatures have dipped below zero on the F scale (minus 18 on the C scale) at least once. But I was reminded that even the cold weather has its beauty as one morning last week hoarfrost coated the trees in the early morning sun as I drove to work. This comes with warmest Christmas greetings from our home to yours and every best wish for 2008. May God's presence in your life be your daily experience.