The crisis in Kenya highlights the folly of western states' direct government-to-government aid policy, writes John O'Shea
Once more the poorest of the poor in the teeming slums of Kenya seem set to pay a disproportionate price for the collective deaf ear turned by the international community to a series of alarm bells that have been ringing.
An explosive mix of poverty, unemployment and neglect have rendered the country a powder keg. All the signals of a tragedy waiting to happen were there for some time. The fuse may have been lit by frustration over the dubious re-election of the unsavoury president, Mwai Kibaki, but the country was a minefield long before the current crisis; a fact which western governments have shamefully ignored.
Now, with the stench of genocide in the air, and the appalling vista of another Rwanda looming, surely it is time for our Government to examine its policy of government-to-government aid?
In Uganda and Ethiopia we have handed over hundreds of millions of euro while atrocities and massacres were inflicted, without a murmur of protest. Uganda's Yoweri Museveni has the blood of thousands on his hands and yet the millions of euro keep coming. Ethiopia's Meles Zenawi is little better.
So is it too much to hope that Kenya's unfolding catastrophe might serve as a wake-up call for the international community?
Ireland does not provide aid directly to the Kenyan government. But there can be no disguising the fact that the willingness of many governments to hand large sums of money into the grip of a ruthless and hugely corrupt regime has helped fan the flames that have fuelled the current conflagration.
There is a critical lesson here for the Department of Foreign Affairs. The faultlines of providing direct government-to-government aid are being exposed as the blood is spilt in the streets. The unfolding calamity in Kenya makes a compelling argument on moral and practical grounds against such an approach.
The West has held Kenya up as a beacon for the new Africa. There were geo-strategic reasons for doing this.
An elaborate screen of relative prosperity, economic success and stability was set in place. But the stench of corruption was never far away and the huge inequality could not so easily be disguised. It is this anger, at once more being brushed aside and downtrodden, while another elaborate ruse is lent credence by the West, through the persistent policy of handing over billions of euro with impunity to another corrupt government, that is now being vented by the people.
Instead of rallying to their aid, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the wider so-called donor community have turned a blind eye to the inequities.
As far back as 2005, Kenya's own anti-corruption chief, John Gitongo, fled the country. The scale of the graft was such that he could no longer stay silent. He brought with him the most damning evidence of corruption, including taped evidence of ministers on the take. But far from acting on the dossier, and exerting some muscle by using the billions it has unconditionally handed over, the West once more chose to look the other way.
If the delivery of truckloads of dollars to the Kenyan government was the answer, why is it that in 1998 some 48 per cent of the population were living below the poverty line and that today the figure stands at 55 per cent? The answer lies in the fact that the money is being siphoned off to line the greasy pockets of politicians while the hungry in the slums of Nairobi die in the gutter.
Kenya is a critical ally of the US in the war on terror, and Britain too values the alliance. Thus, inconvenient truths such as wide-scale corruption, graft, and criminality have no place on the international radar. Desperate for a success story out of Africa, it has suited the West to gloss over the deep problems that boil beneath the surface in Kenya.
Much has been made of the country's 6 per cent growth rate and surf and safari image. But the reality for most Kenyans is quite different; the prosperity has passed over their heads. In just a quarter of a century the population has doubled to 31 million. Unemployment is on the rise and there is a massive exodus of people from the land to urban areas that is unsustainable.
Years of one-party rule up until 1991 have left a legacy of distrust and old scores to be settled. The fear is that the lid will now be blown off that cauldron. People with nothing to lose often have nothing to fear by taking their grievances to the streets. They have no reason to believe that developed countries that stood idly by while they were made paupers will now rally to their assistance.
But as the last wisps of smoke rise from the burned villages and the charred remains are brought for burial, we have to ask what it will take for our Government to get the stomach for a fight. Governments which have handed over hundreds of millions of euro to this corrupt government and justified it on the basis that Kenya was a shining example of stability must now examine their consciences.
Morally, practically and, most importantly, compassionately, the policy of handing over blank cheques to corrupt states is bankrupt.
John O'Shea is chief executive of the relief agency Goal