Sir, - Your correspondent Penelope Dening is clearly a little new to the Kenya scene and perhaps should have spent rather less time at the Muthaiga Country Club when researching her article in The Irish Times, of August 1st. As she says, Muthaiga has changed little in many years. It has always exuded a gloom-and-doom scenario about the country, preferring, not unnaturally, the "good old days" of colonial times. Fortunately, we have moved on. Presumably Ms Dening's source, Michael Rainy, likes Kenya or he would not have stayed "for over 30 years". It was Lord Errol, incidentially, not "Lord Atholl", who was murdered in the 1940s. Besides, the number of tourists to Kenya is on the upsurge and one wonders where Ms Dening got her figures from.
She is also wide of the mark when commenting on events of more recent times. John Ward, who so exhaustively investigated his daughter's murder, long ago abandoned the conspiracy theories that Ms Dening raises in her article. Dr Ouko did not go on "a fund-raising visit to Britain and the US" before his murder. The truth of the matter is that Dr Ouko accompanied President Moi to Washington to attend a breakfast prayer meeting. Incidentally, Mr Anguka was District Commissioner for Nakuru, not "for the area where Ouko lived".
The book Rogue Ambassador was not banned in Kenya - in fact it was serialised in a local newspaper. Similarly, the book Absolute Power is currently being serialised in the Kenyan press. This should tell Ms Denning something about the freedom of the press, and of expression, in Kenya. It is a pity she did not pass this on to your readers.
Ms Dening's comments on the political situation are - to put it kindly - naive. She states that the cross-tribal nature of the ruling party, KANU, ensures its supremacy. Surely a cross-tribal party has more chance of maintaining unity and stability than divisive tribal political parties!
Ms Dening avoided drawing any conclusions from the last elections, held at the end of last year, which actually produced a stronger opposition in parliament as well as a firm mandate for President Moi for his final term in office. The elections were observed by no fewer than 26,000 monitors, drawn from three non-governmental organisations - the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK), the Catholic Justice Peace Commission and the Institute for Education in Democracy. An international secretariat in Nairobi, funded by a donor group of countries, co-ordinated the monitoring process.
The overall verdict was that the results fairly reflected the democratic will of the people of Kenya - an indication, too, of Kenya's rapidly maturing multi-party democratic system. This is also reflected in a considerable degree of cross-party collaboration, openly encouraged by President Moi. - Yours, etc., Leonard N. Ngaithe, Ag. High Commissioner, Kenya High Commission
Portland Place, London W7.