Who Will Bell The Cats of Goldenberg?

Who Will Bell The Cats of Goldenberg?


A Poem by Onyango Oloo
Monday, February 23, 2004

Inspired by Aesop's ancient fable:


[URL=http://www.umass.edu/aesop/cat/cattrad.html]http://www.umass.edu/aesop/cat/cattrad.html[/URL]

[URL=http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Aesop/Aesops_Fables/Belling_the_Cat_p1.html]http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Aesop/Aesop...the_Cat_p1.html[/URL]

What
are we going to do

with all this pain
What are we

going to do
with all this pain

What
are we
going
to do with all this pain

What are we going to do

What
Are we
Going to do
With all this pain

We have finally started rummaging through the
Piles and piles of dirty secrets from our own recent, gory, blood-stained
Chapters of shameful, repressive memories
Of dictators doing dreadful things on Fridays
Before strolling to church on Sundays
Whistling cheerful tunes

Like overflowing uji, we see the truth spilling out
From the mouths of long lost house maids
We hear the terrible truths of ministers dragged to their
Brutal ends whilst farm hands boasted of hyenas bleating for mercy

What are we going to do with all this blood
What are we going to do with all this blood
What are we going to do with all this blood

All this blood spilling on to the front pages of our national conscience
What shall we do with all this blood
All this blood splattering the well known pin striped suits

For months we have heard of the robbers in the cabinet
Supervised by their god fearing warlord as they stripped
The Central Bank empty
What shall we do with all that shame
The shame of leaders looting our national coffers

These commissions of inquiry to find out the well known truths
Seem to be traveling on well worn paths to familiar obscurity

What shall we do with all these painful truths
What shall we do with all these painful truths
What shall we do with all these painful truths

What shall we do with all these shameful facts
What shall we do with all these shameful facts


We know that Moi and Saitoti and his sidekicks stole
They grabbed and they looted
They swindled and they confiscated
All in the name of power, in the pursuit of greed
Worshipping King Avarice and Queen Arrogance

We have known for a while that Nicholas Biwott and his shadowy sidekicks were fingered
As the masterminds in all those dastardly crimes
Crimes of kidnapping
Crimes of torture
Crimes of grievous bodily harm
Crimes of premeditated colded blooded murder
Crimes of cover up
Crimes of deceit
They have been fingered
And they have never even bothered to clear their names
In the comfort that power was on their side
And the killers were on their payrolls

Today they can try and pin the murders on the murdered ones
And the Central Bank robberies on the incarcerated ones
Pattni will be made to pay because he is the Indian Scapegoat
As the real Goldenberg Mafiosi look to the Mafia barons in power for salvation

Who will bell the cats of Goldenberg
The mice of Kenya are asking
Who will bell the cats of Goldenberg

But what are we going to do with all this shame, all this pain
What are we going to do with all these painful truths

It is not the truth we seek, for we have had it for a while
It is not proof we need, for it was all clear as mud
Even those crimes committed in the dead of night

What we seek is not truth, but justice
What we seek is not truth, but justice
What we seek is not truth, but justice
It is justice we seek for we know the truth
It is justice we seek for we know the truth
It is justice we seek for we know the truth

What we seek is not closure, but punishment
Let the robbers get their day in court
Before they start their years in Kamiti
Let the killers get their day in court
Before they start their long sojourn in G Block

It is time they exchanged their three piece suits
For the new uniforms of Kamiti and Manyani
They did the crimes, now it is time to do the time

But who will take the first step of attaching the handcuffs
On those leading suspects
Who even as we speak chortle in the back seats
Of their tinted limousines

As we write, the country awaits a reshuffle
That will bring the robbers and killers back to centre stage
And that is why I ask
What shall we do with all this pain
What shall we do with all this pain
What shall we do with all this pain

We must do something with all these painful truths
We must do something with all these painful truths
We must do something with all these painful truths
We must do something with all these painful truths

We must do something to wash away all this shameful blood of the innocent

Before a gaping wound opens up to consume us all.

Onyango Oloo
Montreal
8:25 PM
Monday, February 23, 2004