Senator Obama ill-informed: Kenyan government

By Tia Goldenberg

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Kenya on Thursday accused Senator
Barack Obama, a rising star in America’s Democratic party, of
making inaccurate criticisms about corruption in the country of
his father.

Obama, who is a role model to many in the east African
nation, on Wednesday ended what amounted to a homecoming tour
during which he declared graft a crisis crippling development
and reversing Kenya’s democratic gains.

Kenya routinely accuses foreign officials of spouting
neo-colonial sentiments when they have criticized the
corruption that has plagued the country for decades.

Obama’s Kenyan roots had appeared to forestall that tactic.

“Senator Obama made extremely disturbing statements on
issues which it was clear he was very poorly informed,”
government spokesman Alfred Mutua told reporters in Nairobi on
Thursday.

Mutua, who recently launched a government public relations
campaign urging people to say “I am proud to be a Kenyan” to
counter negative media reports, said Obama’s views on graft and
tribal divisions were unwelcome.

“He chose to lecture the government and the people of Kenya
on how to manage our country,” Mutua said.

In his various stops around the country, Obama told both
ecstatic crowds and senior politicians of the need for
transparency to encourage development.

In a speech at the University for Nairobi on Monday, Obama
said graft had allowed a Rwandan wanted for war crimes in that
country’s 1994 genocide to hide in Kenya and that police were a
source of insecurity.

Corruption scandals have rocked East Africa’s largest
economy, spurring the resignations of three ministers, several
public inquiries and constant threats by foreign donors to
withhold aid.

Kenyans gave the senator a welcome fit for a rock star
throughout his trip, sporting T-shirts bearing his face and
cheering him in the streets.

Though not born in Kenya, many Kenyans idolize him the way
the Irish in the 1960s revered former U.S. President John F.
Kennedy — as a native son who gave them hope for succeeding
beyond their wildest dreams.

The senator’s tour included a visit to his late father’s
village in western Kenya, a stroll through Kibera — one of
Africa’s largest slums — and stop at a mobile clinic to get
tested for HIV/AIDS with his wife.

His trip started in South Africa, where he criticized that
country’s controversial AIDS policy. He arrived in Djibouti on
Thursday to visit U.S. marines stationed there.