Februar 06, 2008... Kenya.

In yesterday's Der Spiegel interview, Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul said: 'We Can't Just Watch as the Country [Kenya] Slips into Violence.' But she and her EU counterparts can look the other way. It is now time for Kenyans to figure out the best way to sort its own problems out.

Kenya's current difficulties arise from deliberate election rigging by the two main challengers and their associates who knew full well the internal frictions of their country. But in the face of the outcome which has come to pass, they expected that the international community including the EU would jump in to manage the situation. Well, it is now time to stop managing their responsibilities.

To motivate the Kenyan leadership to put their house in order, it would appropriate to stop all EU aid to Kenya with immediate effect. It would be appropriate to place the leadership on an EU travel ban, preferably more robustly applied than that which pertains to Robert Mugabe. It would appropriate to freeze all Kenyan assets in the EU. And it would be appropriate to threaten the Kenyan leadership with the same fate which befell Liberia's Charles Taylor.

So far, the international involvement meant to help resolve the situation has been rebuffed and declined. This is because the help has been too willingly offered, not asked for. Not that the Kenyan leadership wants help. They simply want the millions of EU and US money as blood money against Kenyan lives held hostage to their demands.

Until such times as the Kenyan leadership is as distressed about the Kenyan people as Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul is distressed about the Kenyan people, there is no hope for Kenya.