Rights NGO casts doubt on democratic standards

A leading human rights group said on Monday that Kenya, among others, should be barred from joining the newly formed Community of Democracies (COD) unless the country made greater progress toward democracy. The government had failed to improve Kenyans’ access to political rights, Kenya’s ‘Daily Nation’ newspaper reported on Monday. The US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a letter to the governmental coalition, formed in June, that Kenya should be denied admission because “numerous promises by President Daniel arap Moi have not yet resulted in any significant [political] liberalisation”. The NGO said that although the government had implemented a number of progressive reforms, including creation of the Constitutional Review Commission (CRC), power remained concentrated in the executive, and officials guilty of corruption and human rights violations were not held accountable for their actions, the ‘Nation’ reported.

HRW said the COD could ensure that next year’s presidential and parliamentary elections in Kenya adhered to international standards by seeing to it that bans on pro-democracy rallies were lifted, and that the CRC operated independently, according to the report. Kenya was one of 107 countries that took part in a June 2000 ministerial conference in Warsaw, Poland, at which the COD was launched.

“The Community of Democracies should not be so inclusive that it renders its name meaningless,” said Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of HRW, in a statement on 9 August. “Many countries wish to be called democracies and want to be seen as respecting human rights - but on their own terms. Participation in the Community should be limited to those who genuinely seek to uphold its principles,” he added. [for more details of that statement, go to: http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/08/democracies-0809.htm]