Kenya blasts returning hero

KENYA yesterday stepped up criticism of US Senator Barack Obama, accusing him of insulting the Kenyan people and trivialising their achievements during a visit to his father’s homeland.

Nairobi launched the attack on the lawmaker after abruptly changing its tone on Obama, who had been welcomed as a returning hero but incurred official wrath with blistering criticism of corruption and ethnic divisions before leaving on Wednesday.

Government spokesperson Alfred Mutua blasted Obama in a nationally televised speech for choosing “to dwell on non-issues”, claiming he made “extremely disturbing statements on issues which it is clear, he was very poorly informed”.

Mutua said the government would write a formal protest to the junior senator from Illinois who, he suggested, had falsely claimed his trip to Africa was intended to “nurture relations between the continent and the United States”.

Obama’s criticism of President Mwai Kibaki’s administration was unfair, unwarranted and unjustified, he said.

He also claimed Obama was wrong in asserting that Rwandan genocide fugitive Felicien Kabuga had bought protection in Kenya, that graft had plunged the country into “crisis” and that dangerous tribal divisions were on the rise. His comment about Kabuga “is an insult to the people of this country”, Mutua said, adding he had “ignored” the government’s accomplishments in fighting corruption and boosting economic growth from near zero to six percent in three years. — Sapa-AFP