SDP Relaunches in a Dynamic Way

Friends and Supporters of SDP in Kenya and around the world:

Many of you have been wondering what happened to us, especially after the December 2007 civic, parliamentary and presidential elections.

Believe it or not, a lot has been happening, away from the daily newspaper headlines.

First and foremost, we have been reorganizing and revamping the party.

For the last two years, the National Executive Committee of the party has been very busy revising and updating the key programmatic documents of the Social Democratic Party. All of these documents are available on this blog so please feel free to download and study them. We welcome your feedback.

Secondly, we have affirmed and reinforced the SOCIALIST orientation of the party.

We believe that political parties should have clear ideological visions grounded on accessible party programmes, manifestoes and other articulations of what the party stands for. We are proud to carry high the banner of socialism in Kenya for we are convinced that in order to defeat imperialism and neo-colonialism in Kenya we must organize and mobilize for a socialist oriented National Democratic Revolution which harnesses the energies of the working people of our country both rural and urban, as well as the progressive petit-bourgeoisie, the patriotic intellectuals and all other democratic minded members of Kenya's middle strata.

We feel that the contributions of progressive members of the growing Kenyan Diaspora in North America, Scandinavia, the UK, continental Europe, the Middle East and rest of Asia as well as South Africa and all over the African continent, Latin America and the Caribbean is critical for the success of this political project. As socialists we ally with all other democratic and patriotic forces, even where these forces take non-socialist viewpoints.

We see ourselves as working in internationalist solidarity with our comrades, brothers and sisters in Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nepal and all around the world.

We support the efforts of democratic forces in the United States and elsewhere which are trying to roll back the decades of Reaganomics, Thatcherism, Bush militarism and other manifestations of imperialist neo-liberalism.

On the home front we have plans underway to recruit more people into the Social Democratic Party of Kenya and to this extent we have made a lot of progress in many parts of the country.

More recently we have made certain changes to our national leadership.

At the end of last year our Chairperson Ndugu James Orengo sought permission to seek reelection as a member of parliament on the ODM party ticket. This was readily granted since the SDP had already identified ODM as a sister party and was in fact campaigning vigorously for Raila Odinga, ODM's Presidential flag bearer. We are happy to report that Ndugu Orengo made it comfortably to the Kenya National Assembly and is already part of the Grand Coalition cabinet in the key ministry of Lands. Already Ndugu Orengo has earned kudos and plaudits by his determination to initiate the process of wide ranging and long overdue land and other agrarian reforms- moves that have put him on a collision path with elements of the ancien regime comprador bourgeoisie.

However his departure from the SDP created a vacuum that had to be filled in order for the party to function efficiently and effectively.

We have also been confronted with the need to fill the Secretary General's post following the abrupt resignation of Ndugu Cyprian Orina Nyamwamu for a number of reasons.

At its June 10th 2008 meeting held at the SDP party offices on Summit House, Moi Avenue, the National Executive Committee of the Social Democratic Party of Kenya unanimously agreed that Ndugu Mwandawiro Mghanga, the Deputy Chair of the Party serve as the Chairperson of the SDP on an interim basis pending the 2008 National Leaders Conference slated for later this year at which new officials of the party would be elected. Similarly, Onyango Oloo was unanimously approved to be the Acting Secretary General of the party.

Our leading comrades are at the forefront of important initiatives such as the Kenya constitutional review process and the campaign for peace and justice following the tragic events that followed the controversial announcement of the presidential results on December 30, 2007. We have taken part on forums in Nairobi and elsewhere on the Xenophobic attacks in South Africa, the spirited election campaign in Zimbabwe as well supporting and taking part in street protests and other demonstrations over rising food prices, the criminalization of popular dissent in Kenya and other democratic struggles.

On the international front, we are bolstering our support for the people of Cuba through our active participation in the Kenya-Cuba Friendship Society which happens to be chaired by Ndugu Mwandawiro with several SDP leaders active in the Executive of that friendship society. We are also very much part of the Kenya-Venezuela association and are making plans to form a Kenya-Vietnam Friendship group. We are also reaching out to Kenyan comrades in South Africa, the USA, Canada, Sweden and Norway to forge even stronger links with progressives in those countries.

Comrades, Supporters and Friends:

The Social Democratic Party of Kenya is soon embarking on a massive fund-raising drive targeting Kenyans and friends of Kenya both within and outside the country. Please look out for the announcement and remember that no donation is too small and no contribution is too big.

Stay tuned for further updates.

Signing off in Solidarity,

Onyango Oloo

(Acting) Secretary General

Social Democratic Party of Kenya

SDP's Message of Condolence & Solidarity to ODM

SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF KENYA
404 Summit House
Moi Avenue/Monrovia Lane
P.O. Box 4403-00100 GPO
Nairobi Kenya
Tel: +254-20-310321
Cell: +254-722-620953
Email: info@socialdemocraticpartykenya.org

June 12, 2008

Rt. Hon Raila Amolo Odinga EGH, EBS MP
The Prime Minister Of The Republic Of Kenya
ODM Party Leader
The Treasury
Nairobi

Hon. Professor Anyang' Nyong'o, MP
Minister for Medical Services
Secretary General
Orange Democratic Movement Party of Kenya
Orange House
Menelik Road
Kilimani Area
P.O. Box 2478-00202
Nairobi

RE: Message of Condolence and Solidarity to & with Orange Democratic Movement

Comrades:

We extend our mkono wa tanzia as a party to the leadership and membership of ODM following the twin tragedies of the sudden and shocking demise of the Hon. Kipklaya Kones, the Minister for Roads and Hon. Lorna Laboso, the Assistant Minister in the office of the Vice-President.

The loss of these brilliant mobilizers, government officials and indefatigable parliamentarians is not only a blow to the ODM but to the entire Kenyan nation.

As Kenyans weep over yet another round of deaths affecting the Orange Democratic Movement we need to celebrate the achievements of the two ODM MPs; we need to recall the popular mandate and following they received from the electorate; we need to savour the optimism and the promise Kenya exuded when it gave ODM an overwhelming majority in the National Assembly and in civic councils right across the country.

We should also mention that on the same day that the shocking deaths dominated our national headlines, another stalwart supporter of the ODM also passed away. Omondi Tonny, a young and upcoming musician who last year contributed tremendously to the ODM electoral campaign through his live performances, CDs and DVDs died in Mombasa following a road accident in that coastal city.

The Social Democratic Party stands in solidarity with the Orange Democratic Movement as ODM rebounds from this latest unexpected setback.

As a party we see ourselves walking and working in tandem with the Orange Democratic Movement as we struggle together to deepen the democratic gains of our nation and seek justice and equality for the people of Kenya. We share the broad social democratic ideals that ODM articulates in its manifesto and other programmatic documents and will always be a steadfast ally in the fight to carve out a new and more progressive Kenya for the present and future generations.

As they say in the African-American social movements, we should not agonize, but organize, even as we grapple with demise of the two waheshimiwa. That would be the most fitting tribute to Hon. Kones and Hon. Lorna because they perished in the midst of political organizing-they were in the throes of campaigning for ODM in the just concluded by-elections.

Indeed, even in the midst of this mourning, we at SDP must also pause to congratulate ODM on its victories in Ainamoi, Wajir North and Emuhaya. You confounded the pundits and cynics who had written off ODM's chances of garnering even a single win.

The author of this letter had the opportunity to speak with Ms. Esther Muthoni Passaris earlier today and learned first hand of the rampant irregularities in the Embakasi contest with dubious registration rolls, intimidation and attempts to block ODM supporters from exercising their constitutional right to cast a vote for a candidate of their own choice.

In this context we are talking about the twin tragedies against a backdrop of determined attempts by a clique of power mongers on the political scene to roll back the democratic gains of the Kenyan people. The just concluded by-elections underscore the need for a constitutional order and reaffirm the need to mobilize the Kenyan people to peacefully push for more democratic, social and economic reforms.

In our view, the ODM should not be overly worried about the crude attempts to reduce its majority in parliament by hook or crook. ODM should rest assured that it has and will continue to have the majority where it really counts- outside parliament, among the millions of Kenyans who hanker for a different political dispensation for this country. The masses are with ODM; please keep them politically engaged because they hold the life insurance policy that will guarantee the longevity and relevance of the Orange Vision.


Dear Comrades in the Orange Democratic Movement:

Draw from this temporary, tragic set back new energies, new vigour and redoubled resilience.

That would be the best way to keep alive the legacy of ODM's two fallen soldiers:

Hon. Lorna Laboso and Hon. Kipkalya Kones.

In Solidarity,

Onyango Oloo
(Acting) Secretary General
Social Democratic Party of Kenya

SDP's Code of Conduct

• Members of THE SDP shall always, in words and deeds, struggle for a humane society based on social justice and equality without any form of exploitation or oppression of person by person.

• Members of THE SDP shall at all times, in words and deeds, uphold the spirit internationalism of comradeship, unity and solidarity among all the working and oppressed people of the world.

• Members of THE SDP shall at all times and everywhere bear true allegiance and project a positive image of the party, its policies and ideology. They shall strive to study, understand and propagate the manifesto, constitution and all policies of the party.

• Members of THE SDP shall strive at all times to educate themselves, their families and other members about progressive and revolutionary ideas, socialism.

• Members of THE SDP shall work hard at all times to disseminate progressive, revolutionary and socialist ideas in the country and the world.

• Members of THE SDP shall everywhere and at all times, in words and deeds, identify with the cause of the liberation of the marginalised, exploited and oppressed people and all just struggles.

• Members of THE SDP shall not practise, advocate or tolerate tribalism, racism, sexism, nepotism, cronyism, xenophobia or any form of discrimination against other persons.

• Members of THE SDP shall always and tirelessly fight against corruption and all its manifestations; they shall be guardians of justice and custodians of public property and living examples of patriotism and socialist morality.

• Members of THE SDP shall not deceive the people with false promises, populism, and cheap propaganda or buy their support with money or things.

• Members of THE SDP shall tell the truth to each other, even when it is uncomfortable to do so, i.e., they shall engage in self-criticism and constructive criticism of other members, the party and its leadership.

• Members of THE SDP shall not falsely accuse or bear false witness against each other or other persons; they shall be paragons of truth and honesty.

• Members of THE SDP shall promote the spirit of mutual respect, tolerance, friendship and comradeship with one another and will not conduct themselves in a manner inimical to the unity and progress of the party.

• All members of THE SDP organs shall be bound, whilst members of those organs, to the principles of Democratic Centralism, i.e., internal democracy with collective discipline and responsibility.

• Members of THE SDP shall carry out party assignments efficiently, promptly and in a transparent and accountable manner.

• Members of THE SDP shall not reveal the secrets of the party to non members even after they leave the party. They shall not talk to non members or the press about the internal affairs of the party other than the party’s target image, media strategy and issues which it has been agreed can be discussed.

• Members of THE SDP shall avoid any conduct at public, social and personal level, which is likely to embarrass or compromise the ideology, image, aims and objectives of the party and its members.

I, ........................................... of P.O. Box ........................................ hereby commit myself to this Code of Conduct.

Signature .......................................... Date ........................................ Place .............................

Msimamo Wetu

SDP ni chama cha mapinduzi. Tunapambana kupindua mambo yote maovu na ya kupinga maendeleo na kuleta mambo mema na ya kimaendeleo nchini na duniani. Tunaamini kuwa barabara ya ukombozi kamili wa umma ni ya kimapinduzi. Na mwanzo wa mapinduzi yetu ni kujikomboa kimawazo ili tuweze kujiamini kama Wakenya, kama Wafrika, kama watu weusi na kama watu hasa. Hakuna kutawalwa kubaya kuliko kutawalwa kimawazo. Ndiyo kwa maana SDP tunapinga kasumba ya kikoloni ati sisi watu weusi hatukuwa tunafanya historia kabla ya ukoloni. Tunapinga uongo ati mila na tamaduni za Wakenya, Wafrika na watu weusi ni za kishenzi na za kupinga maendeleo. Hatukubali ati sisi watu weusi tunastahili daima kuwa makasuku wa kuiga lugha, mila, desturi na tamaduni za kigeni. Tunachukia kugeuzwa watu wa kuhurumiwa, kutegemea na kuishi kwa misaada, mikopo na mitumba ya vitu na mawazo. Wakenya tunaweza kujiamulia sudi yetu sisi wenyewe. Tunakataa uongo ati wakoloni walivamia nchi yetu ili kututoa kwa ushenzi na kututia kwa ungwana, na ati kabla ya wa wageni kuja huku hatukuwa tumegundua chochote cha maana. Si kweli ati ukoloni-mamboleo upo Kenya kwa masilahi ya maendeleo ya Kenya. SDP tutaendelea kuzingatia, kushikilia na kusambaza urithi wetu wa kitamaduni wa kimaendeleo kutoka kwa mabibi na mababu zetu. Wakati wote tutapambana dhidi ya kasumba ya kikoloni inayoenezwa na wakoloni na vibaraka wao nchini. Tutapigana na chochote kile kinachopinga uhuru wetu na kuparaganya historia na utamaduni wa mtu mweusi na wa wanaonyonywa na kugandamizwa. Tunapinga porojo za wadhalimu ati mfumo wa kunyonyana na kugandamizana ni wa halali na ati hauwezi kuepukika. Kwani tunafundisha elimu ya ukombozi wa wengi, elimu ya kiutu ya kujaili binadamu wengine, elimu ya matumaini ya ukweli na maisha ya furaha kwa wengi wanaonyanyaswa. Tunaamini umma. Umma ndiyo hufanya historia. Umma wa wanyikazi na wakulima ndiyo wenye uwezo na jukumu la kuongoza harakati za kuondoa dhuluma za mfumo wa ubepari-ukoloni-mamboleo. Umma wa Kenya ndiyo kiini cha mapinduzi ya kuboresha maisha ya jamii ya Kenya. Ndiyo kwa maana SDP ni Chama cha kweli cha umma wa Kenya.

SDP kama idadi kubwa zaidi ya Wakenya, na msingi wetu ukiwa kwa umma, tunachukia utawala wa kiimla kwani tunashuhudia hasara yake kila siku. Ndiyo kwa maana tutaendelea kujitoma katika msitari wa mbele wa harakati za kuleta uhuru, demokrasi na haki za binadamu. Kwa msingi huu, siku zote tutapambania na kulinda uhuru wa kukutana, kutoa maoni, kuandamana na wa imani. Tutapigania na kutetea uchaguzi huru na wa haki wa madiwani, wabunge na rais. Tunazingatia demokrasi ya mfumo wa vyama vingi bali demokrasi inayowapa umma uwezo kutoka mashinani wa kushiriki kikamilifu katika mambo yote muhimu yanayohusu maisha yao ya kila siku, mkiwemo umilikaji, uzalishaji na ugamvi wa rasilimali za kitaifa. Tutashirikiana na watu wote, wawe kwa chama, kikundi ama binafsi, ambao wanashikilia msimamo huu.

SDP ni chama cha wazalendo, tena wazalendo wakereketwa. Tunapenda Kenya yetu, tena sana. Tuna uchungu mkubwa na taifa letu. Ndiyo kwa sababu tunashirikiana na tutaendelea kushirikiana na watu wote wanaotaka kuona ukombozi wa kitaifa na maendeleo ya kisiasa, kiuchumi na kitamaduni nchini. Tunapinga ubepari, ukoloni-mamboleo na chochote kile kinachopinga uhuru, ukombozi na maendeleo ya taifa letu. Tunakataa ukabila, ubaguzi wa rangi, ubaguzi wa kijinsia, ubaguzi wa kiumri na chochote kile kinachohatarisha umoja wa Kenya na kuzuia maendeleo yetu. Tutapambania haki ya kila Mkenya kuishi na kuwa na mali pahali popote pale anapochagua nchini. Tutakuwa katika msitari wa mbele wa kufichua na kupambana dhidi ya njama zozote zile zenye lengo la kupanda mbegu za chuki na uhasama miongoni mwa makabila ndugu ya Kenya. Kwani Kenya tuipendayo ni ya amani, salama, uhuru, utangamano na maendeleo ambapo kila mtu anaishi maisha ya kiutu bila kunyonywa, kugandamizwa na kubaguliwa kwa vyovyote vile. Ndiyo kwa maana tunapambania Katiba Mpya ya Kitaifa itakayozingatia na kuhakikisha, miongoni mwa mambo mengine, usambazaji wa mamlaka ili kuhakikisha kuwa kila sehemu na kabila itakuwa na mamlaka ya kushiriki katika kusimamia na kufaidi kutoka kwa rasilimali zilizoko karibu nao. Usambazaji wa uongozi utahakikisha kuwa wananchi wanashirikishwa kujiamulia jinsi ya kuendesha maisha yao ya kisiasa, kiuchumi, kitamaduni na kijamii kutoka mashinani na maamuzi ya kutoka chini hadi juu ya kushirikisha watu wote.

SDP tunakataa mfumo wa ubepari kwani ni mfumo wa unyonyaji wa mtu kwa mtu. Na mfumo wa unyonyaji wa mtu kwa mtu ni mfumo wa kinyama - wa mwenye nguvu mpishe mnyonge msonge. Mfumo huu wa kijamii-kiuchumi unaotawala Kenya tangu uhuru umekuza adili za kishenzi za ulafi, ufisadi, wizi, ukatili, udhalimu, kuoneana, kunyang’anyana, kushindana kama wanyamapori, kupunjana na kudanganyana. Mfumo huu wa unyanyasaji ni kinyume cha utamaduni wa kimaendeleo wa Kiafrika, na wa ubinadamu, unaozingatia maadili ya kiutu ya usawa, umoja, kusaidiana, huruma, mapenzi, urafiki na bidii. Hivi sasa matajiri wachache sana wanazidi kutajirika huku idadi kubwa zaidi ya wananchi wanazidi kufukarika. Pengo kati ya wenye mali na walalahoi linapanuka usiku na mchana. Ufisadi umekithiri na kuwa donda ndugu. Wafanyikazi wameporwa haki zao, wananyonywa na kugandamizwa na waajiri kiholela. Wanaotoa jasho wanaishi kama watumwa huku ambao hawafanyi kazi wanaishi kwa anasa na starehe za kifalme. Wakulima wadogo hawafaidi kutoka kwa juhudi zao za kilimo kwani mazao yao yanadhibitiwa na walanguzi wanaolindwa na nguvu za dola. Mfumo huu wa kinyama umefanya Kenya kuwa na aibu ya kuwa na wananchi wasio hata na inchi ya nchi yao, maskwata! Msingi wa ujambazi, wizi, unyang’anyi, umalaya, ufisadi, vita nyumbani na maovu yote yanayoguguna jamii yetu, ni mfumo huu wa kupinga ukombozi wa wengi. Hakika hatuwezi kuishi kwa amani, usalama, utu na ungwana chini ya mfumo wa ubepari unaolinda kunyonyana na kudhulumiana.

SDP tunapendelea mfumo wa kisoshalisti, mfumo wa kiutu ambao kinadharia na kimatendo unapigania ukombozi wa kila anaenyonywa na kugandamizwa. Mfumo wa kisoshalisti utahakikisha kuwa kila mwananchi anafaidi na kufurahia rasilimali za taifa. Tunapendelea mfumo wa kisoshalisti kwani utatengeneza hali ya kuhakikisha kuwa kila mtu mwenye afya anafanya kazi na kula matunda ya jasho lake. Tunapambania mfumo wa kisoshalist kwani unazingatia masilahi ya kiutu ya kila mtu, mkiwemo watoto, wazee, wagonjwa na walemavu. Mfumo wa kijamii-kiuchumi tunaoutaka ni ule unaoshikilia maadili ya usawa, haki, umoja, huruma, kusaidiana, kugawiana na utekelezaji wa haki za binadamu si kwa maneno tu bali kwa vitendo. Tunahubiri kuhusu mfumo utakaokomboa jamii ya Kenya kutoka kwa hali iliyopo ya unyama wa kunyonyana, kunyang’anyana, kushindana, kuoneana, kupunjana na kudanganyana. SDP tunajua ukweli kwamba Kenya ina rasilimali za kutosha kumwezesha kila mwananchi kuishi maisha ya kiutu na kimaendeleo, bora tu tuondoe utamaduni wa choyo na tamaa za kinyama. SDP tunatambua ukweli kuwa bila nadharia ya kimapinduzi hapawezi kuwa na harakati za kimapinduzi. Ndiyo kwa maana tunazingatia na tutazingatia nadharia ya kisoshalisti ambayo itatumulikia barabara sahihi ya kujenga jamii ya kisoshalisti Kenya.

SDP tunaamini ukweli kuwa maendeleo ya Wakenya yataletwa na Wakenya wenyewe. Uhuru na ukombozi wa Kenya unatutegemea sisi wenyewe. Ndiyo kwa maana tunazingatia siasa ya ujamaa na kujitegemea. Historia ya Kenya na Afrika hadi sasa imetufundisha kuwa hatutakanyaga barabara ya maendeleo kwa kutegemea misaada na mikopo ya wale wale wanaoutunyonya na wanaotufukarisha. Wala hatutakombolewa na mawazo ya kibeberu ya kutudunisha na kutushindilia katika mfumo wa kibepari-kikoloni. Umaskini nchini hautaondolewa na sera za kiuchumi za kudhulumu wa wafanyikazi kama ubinafsishaji wa mashirika ya umma, uhuruishaji wa uchumi, kwa ufupi ubeparishaji wa kila sekta ya uchumi. Tutakuwa watu wa mitumba ya mabeberu hadi lini? Tutajiamulia sudi yetu wenyewe siku gani? Kwa nini tusijifikirie na kujifanyia sisi wenyewe? Si tu watu kama watu wengine? SDP tunazingatia ukweli kwamba tukifanya kazi kwa bidii na kuhakikisha tunakula matunda ya jasho letu sisi wenyewe; tukitumia rasilimali zetu vizuri huku tukihakikisha zinafaidi kila mwananchi; tukiwa na demokrasi ya umma; tukiwa na viongozi wa kizalendo wenye makini na wanaozingatia masilahi ya taifa; tukihifadhi mazingira yetu; tukiwa na sera sahihi za kiuchumi na kisiasa – ya kisoshalisti; Kenya itakuwa katika barabara ya uhuru na maendeleo. Haya tunayaamini kwa maneno na kwa vitendo, kwani hata sisi wa SDP hatukubali kuishi kwa uzembe na ulegevu, hatutegemei vya kupewa na wala hatuishi kwa uhalifu. Tunaishi kwa kulima na kufanya kazi, kwa kuhangaika na kushughulika usiku na mchana. Hatuketi na kulalamika tu, tunajaribu, tunajikaza kisabuni, tunapiga konde moyo kila mara. Msimamo huu ndiyo utatuletea uhuru na maendeleo.

SDP tunaunga mkono harakati za ukombozi wa Waafrika na watu weusi pahali popote walipo ulimwengini. Kwani tunafahamu historia chungu ya Wafrika na watu weusi ya kuwa chini ya utumwa, ukoloni-mkwengwe, ukoloni-mamboleo na ubepari. Tunafahamu njama za ubaguzi wa rangi zinazoendeshwa na ubepari na ubeberu dhidi ya Waafrika na watu weusi kote duniani. Tunajua kuwa sera za kiuchumi za kinyama za ukoloni-mamboleo zina njama za kuzuia na kuharibu uhuru na maendeleo ya Waafrika na watu weusi. Kwa sababu hii, tunaunga mkono muungano wa kimapinduzi wa Afrika. Tunakaribisha kwa mikono miwili Jumuia ya Afrika Mashariki na hatimaye kuwepo kwa taifa moja la Afrika Mashariki litakaloshirikisha Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi na hata Jamhuri ya Kidemokrasi ya Kongo. Lakini lazima muungano wa nchi za Afrika Mashariki na hatimaye Afrika uwe kwa ajili ya masilahi ya umma wa Mashariki na Afrika. Ndiyo kwa maana sisi tunaunga mkono harakati za kidemokrasi, haki za binadamu na kisoshalisti zinazoendelea Afrika na kote ulimwenguni. Kwani Wafrika na watu weusi hawawezi kuwa na uhuru, umoja, amani na maendeleo chini ya mfumo wa ubepari na ukoloni-mamboleo. Barabara ya ukombozi wa Wafrika na watu weusi duniani ni barabara ya kimapinduzi, usoshalisti.

SDP tunajua kuwa ubeberu ni adui mkubwa wa uhuru na maendeleo ya umma wa Kenya na wa dunia. Chini ya ubeberu, leo kwa sura ya ukoloni-mamboleo, nchi yetu inatawalwa kisiasa, kiuchumi, kitamaduni, kimawazo na hata kijeshi. Uchumi mkubwa wa viwanda, nishati, fedha, biashara kuu ya ndani na nje na hata mashamba mengi makubwa unadhibitiwa na mataifa ya kigeni. Rasilimali za nchi yetu zinatumika kujenga mataifa mengine huku nchi yetu ikididimia kwa lindi la umaskini kila kuchako. Jasho la wafanyikazi na wakulima wa Kenya linatumiwa kuzalishia wakoloni-mamboleo na vibaraka wao utajiri wa ajabu huku idadi kubwa ya Wakenya ikizidi kuangamia kwa umaskini na kutegemea misaada na mikopo kutoka kwa ubeberu ule ule. Hakika hatuwezi kuona uhuru wa kitaifa wakati ambapo tuko chini ya makucha ya ubeberu. Yoyote yule anaeunga mkono ubeberu ni adui wa uhuru, maendeleo na ukombozi wa Kenya. Serikali inayounga mkono ubeberu ni serikali ya kisaliti. SDP tutashirikiana kwa hali na mali na yoyote yule anaepinga ama kupambana dhidi ya ubeberu na ndiyo kwa sababu tunaunga mkono Umoja wa Nchi Zisizofungamana na Upande Wowote.

SDP tunapinga vikali ufisadi. Kwani ufisadi: uporaji wa mali ya serikali na ya umma, utumiaji madaraka vibaya, ubakuaji wa mashamba na maploti ya umma, utoaji na ulaji rushwa, wizi na uporaji unaofanywa na viongozi, magendo, ulanguzi, umafia - yote haya yanachangia kupinga maendeleo na ukombozi wa Kenya. Ufisadi unavunja nyoyo za watu wa bidii na waaminifu huku ukihujumu juhudi za Wakenya za kuboresha maisha yao. Tunajua kuwa kuna idadi kubwa ya matajiri nchini ambao wamepata utajiri wao kutokana na ufisadi. Wakati huo huo umma wa Wakenya unateseka kwa dhiki na shida za kila aina kutokana na ufisadi ambao sasa umekuwa dondandugu. Wengi wanakufa kutokana na ufisadi. SDP tunaamini kuwa serikali yoyote ile inayolinda ama kuongozwa na watu wanaofanya ufisadi haistahili kuwa madarakani. Vilevile, serikali ya kidemokrasi inayoongozwa na wazalendo na inayozingatia masilahi ya umma na ya kitaifa, haiwezi kushindwa kuumaliza utamaduni wa ufisadi. SDP tutakuwa katika msitari wa mbele wa mapambano ya kung'oa mizizi ya ufisadi nchini.

SDP siku zote tutapambania kuheshimiwa na kutekelezwa kwa haki za binadamu nchini na popote ulimwenguni. Kwani tunaamini kuwa kila binadamu ana haki ya kuishi maisha ya afya, amani, salama, furaha, shibe, kiutu na bila hofu wala wasiwasi. Binadamu wote ni sawa kwa mujibu wa kuwa binadamu. Hivyo, hakuna binadamu yoyote mwenye haki dhidi ya maisha ya binadamu mwingine. Wala hakuna mtu yoyote yule anaestahili kuteswa kwa sababu yoyote ile. Ndiyo kwa maana tunapinga hukumu ya kifo na uvunjaji wa haki za binadamu unaondelea ndani ya magereza ya Kenya na popote pale ulimwenguni. Tunalaani unyama unaofanywa na polisi dhidi ya raia. Tunapinga udhalimu wa aina yoyote ile mkiwemo ule wa wanaume dhidi ya wanawake. Tutatetea haki za kila mtu mkiwemo wazee, watoto, walemavu, wafungwa na wakimbizi. Tunakataa utamaduni wa hofu na kimya. Tunataka ule wa kidemokrasi. Watu waseme. SDP tunatoa mwito kwamba katiba mpya ya kitaifa iondoe sheria zote za kinyama na kufafanua, kuhakikisha na kulinda haki za binadamu wazi na bayana. Tena tunaamini kwamba hatua ya muhimu na ya kimsingi ya kuelekea kwa utekelezaji wa haki za binadamu ni kuondolewa kwa mfumo wa ubepari na ubeberu nchini na ulimwenguni.

SDP tu sehemu ya harakati za ukombozi wa jamii kutoka kwa ubaguzi wa kijinsia. Tunaamini kuwa wanawake na wanaume ni sawa na aidha hili sharti litekelezwe kwa maneno na vitendo. Tunatambua, kwa uchungu, kwamba katika jamii yetu wanawake, ambao ni zaidi ya nusu ya idadi ya watu, bado wananyanyaswa kiuchumi, kisiasa, kitamaduni na kwa kila hali na mfumo wa kibepari-ubeberu. Ndiyo kwa maana SDP tunaamini kuwa harakati za ukombozi wa jamii kutoka kwa unyanyasaji wa wanawake lazima ziende sambamba na harakati dhidi ya mfumo wa ubepari na ubeberu. Tunafahamu kuwa njaa, umaskini, ukosefu, unyonyaji, ujinga na ushenzi unaosababishwa na mfumo wa ubepari-ubeberu nchini ni kiini cha nyanyaso za kila aina. Tena katika jamii kama ya Kenya ambayo imegawanyika kitabaka, mapambano ya kuondoa unyanyasaji wa wanawake hayawezi kamwe kutenganishwa na harakati za kitabaka. Wala mapambano ya ukombozi wa wanawake si ya wanawake pekee bali ni ya wanawake na wanaume wapenda haki na maendeleo. SDP tushikilia kwamba mojapo wa mizani muhimu ya kupima kiwango cha uhuru na maendeleo katika jamii ni kiwango cha ukombozi wa wanawake katika jamii. Mfumo wa usoshalisti ndiyo msingi wa kujenga usawa wa kijinsia nchini na duniani.

The Charter of the Social Democratic Party

THE
CHARTER
OF
THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY

Kenyans demand social justice!
The future of Kenya can only be rooted in socialism.
We cannot build a future on the suffering of many Kenyans for the benefit of a few.

WHEREAS a Government reflecting all the people of Kenya, and excluding none, is an historical demand of the Kenyan People;

AND CONSCIOUS of Kenya’s noble history and greatness and its true traditions of national struggle for its ideals;

AND WHEREAS we cannot base or build our society on class division, prejudice, fear or hatred of each other; and whereas Safety will not be found in the bosom of one’s tribe, nor will the nation advance by the making of war pacts between the potentates of fiefdoms or tribal warlords, which besides cannot be a formula for choosing our Presidents or the lawmakers in Bunge;

AND WHEREAS Kenyans have rejected dictatorship and must substitute government as an opportunity for personal enrichment with government as a duty to the people;

ACKNOWLEDGING WITH GRATITUDE AND HUMILITY the lives, struggles, sacrifices, fortitude and courage of those in whose path we follow to ensure a free and truly independent Kenya AND PLEDGING that we will not betray them or our people now or in the future;

RECALLING that those elders who died or survived with great suffering in the struggles for national freedom with their lives and blood gave us self-respect in the period and aftermath of colonial domination. To them we owe and return, and shall forever return, our respect and give them also our admiration and affection, and seek to emulate their love for our country, courage and persistence against tyranny and corruption;

WE PROMISE THEM that THEY SHALL NOT BE FORGOTTEN nor their deeds be unknown to our children in the generations to come, and that the deceitful veils that still withhold true acknowledgment of them will be torn away;

AND WE FURTHER PROMISE THAT THIS NATION in generations to come is inherited by the spirit of its freedom fighters and not that of its Home Guards, from wherever they come;

AND WE FURTHER PROMISE that those who were ready to give up their lives, freedom and few possessions for others and a better Kenya for all after 1963, in 1966 and thereafter, and who lit candles in the encroaching gloom of successive debased, murderous and corrupt governments of betrayal will not have made their sacrifices in vain;

AND RESTATING THAT THE UNDERSTANDING of all our freedom fighters of phenomena of colonialism, imperialism and the forces of exploitation and extraction in our country, our region and our Continent is the example and that our understanding of imperialism and the forces of exploitation and extraction in our country, our region and our Continent is critical and necessary to the realization of SDP’s political tasks and socialist ideological beliefs;

AND WHEREAS we need to reclaim our country and give it its true national and international outlook, democracy and justice, with a government founded institutionalized systems of participatory democracy, our history of struggle and the ideology of socialism;

RESTATING that THE ATTACK ON POVERTY IS OUR NATION’S MOST URGENT PRIORITY AND THUS OUR FIRST DUTY TO OUR PEOPLE;

REALISING THAT ONLY THROUGH SOCIALISM CAN THE MAJORITY EXPLOITED AND OPPRESSED KENYANS BE LIBERATED FROM POVERTY;

NOW THEREFORE THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY (THE SDP) COMMITS ITSELF TO SOCIALISM AND THE GUIDING PRINCIPLES THAT ITS DECISIONS AND POLITICAL ACTIONS ARE, AND SHALL REMAIN, GOVERNED BY ITS IDEALS, PRINCIPLES AND BELIEFS THAT:

• The unity of Kenya and its peoples, led by the working class, is paramount and the firmest guarantee of the well-being of every Kenyan.

• The SDP denounces and categorically rejects political activity and political parties based upon ethnicity, regional origin and religious divisions.

• The SDP rejects ethnic hegemony by any group or groups.

• Every Kenyan is a part of the nation and its rightful beneficiary.

Our diverse peoples in unity are cords of unassailable strength.

The unity of Kenya is the bedrock of all our national political, economic and social activity and the test of our political actors and actions.

All Kenyans are equal parts of Kenya, equal in dignity, in the right to equal resources and to equal opportunity.

The SDP’s urgent task is to ensure a national democratic change away from the destruction, sectionalism and inequities of the past and the present.

The SDP’s ultimate task is the establishment of socialism and a socialist state in Kenya.

The SDP is and shall remain a political party committed to socialism.

The values and ideals that Kenya brought to its nationhood in 1963 were the rejection of colonialism that among other things meant the abuse of power; the affirmation of freedom, both national and individual, of safety from arbitrary harm. Uhuru was for national unity, tolerance, hospitality and inclusiveness; for the sharing of both power and resources equitably; for freedom to think, for the concept of individual and academic independence and the flowering of creativity, among other aims.

• These ideals have persisted against governments of betrayal, corruption and murder.

• Government is a covenant that there shall always be increasing convergence between the promises of the Constitution of Kenya and the circumstances of every Kenyan’s life.

• The purpose and priority of Government is to ensure that life, liberty, nutrition, health, shelter, education and democratic governance shall be adequately and increasingly the possessions of all Kenyans.

• Education shall be the foundation of Kenya’s future, ever improving and deeper.

• Technological knowledge and resources are for the widest possible use by all Kenyans in every single part of Kenya.

Attack on poverty shall always be the priority of the SDP Government and vigilance against poverty and all forms of injustice shall always be a constant.

Government is a duty carried out in accordance with principles and policies approved by the people with free and informed consent.

The SDP will be and remain real. For only words and actions that have a basis in truth and possibility have reality to those in long difficulty. To a people in difficulty, change is only change if something has moved from the intent of words to the tangibility of altered circumstance in the positive direction. We must not offer only words where we can deliver action. We must not offer only hope where we can offer change. Cynicism and disappointment will be the harsh critics of false words and false hope. We must be ready to face the possibility of that criticism, spoken and unspoken, with action that is clear and decisive.

• The task of government approached correctly and with the affirmation of our people, will not only make the SDP a strong force within the country but also make Kenya a strong force for social justice within our Region and on the Continent, pushing back the ever-alluring masks of reaction.

• The SDP as a party and its officers and members have loyalty to the socialist ideas and ideals of the Party and not loyalty to an individual or to any ethnic group or region or ethnic hegemony.

• The SDP will be an energetic party in Local Councils, Parliament and Government, zealous about the immediate welfare of all its peoples.

• Government is on the basis that all its peoples are an integral part of the nation and its decisions, remembering always that our different provinces are mutually interdependent in ensuring our national political and economic survival and advancement.

• New resources discovered, whether oil or others, are national assets on trust for all the peoples of Kenya and are to be managed accordingly for the present and future generations, not for the personal enrichment of any holder of public office in Kenya.

Kenya’s destiny as a democratic socialist society, as a loyal partner in a community of nations, as a leader in our region and on our Continent awaits the efforts of the SDP and all Kenyans.

So then should Kenyans join the SDP?

We say do not only join us. Instead, when we come to implement change, let us already find your ready hands working. When we come out in peaceable street mass action, let us already find you there. When we come to elections, let us find you already there as our candidate or voter for that change. We will be there. Let us meet there.

SDP therefore does not ask Kenyans to follow. We say, let us instead meet in the efforts ahead of us, more and more Kenyans meeting together for the real change which is democratic socialist Kenya, the vision of the SDP and that of the overwhelming majority of Kenyans.

“Is there an alternative?” Kenyans are asking.

Yes, the SDP is the alternative.



COMMITTED TO by the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY, its officers and members AT NAIROBI on 23RD OF SEPTEMBER 2007

SDP'S MINIMUM PROGRAMME

MINIMUM PROGRAMME OF THE SDP

INTRODUCTION: SOCIAL DEMOCRACY

Six years into the 21^st century and 43 years after independence, Kenyans are still grappling to achieve social and national liberation and thus assert their collective right to self-determination. We are still fighting to entrench political democracy and establish an economy centred on all our people’s needs and geared towards sustainable development. We are still struggling for social and national liberation and to move from a poor and underdeveloped nation to a developing one.

It is upon this background that the SDP has risen to the historic challenge of spearheading the fight for a New Kenya:

A NEW KENYA with a new democratic constitution that empowers Kenyans to control and participate in and at all levels of government;

A NEW KENYA that recognizes its responsibilities of Pan-Africanism, i.e., including working towards the establishment of East African Federation and the United States of Africa;

A NEW KENYA that adheres to the ideals and principle of Non-Aligned Countries and that stands up against imperialism and all forms of colonial domination and all manifestations of neo-liberal globalisation;

A NEW KENYA that carries out agrarian, economic, social, cultural and political reforms geared towards bringing the masses to the foreground of our national development process;

A NEW KENYA that redresses the decades old litany of historical injustices, including political assassinations, land grabbing and looting of state resources;

A NEW KENYA that works for the equality of women and men for the benefit of all;

A NEW KENYA that cherishes and works for a secure future for the young generation;

A NEW KENYA that elevates the working people, the poor and marginalised people of this country to take control of state power and to use such power to transform our nation;

In short, a NEW KENYA that makes a radical, decisive break with the capitalist path Kenya has been pursuing so far in order to move towards socialism;

The Social Democratic Party of Kenya rededicates itself to this historic challenge and patriotic responsibility of providing a vehicle for the democratic transformation of Kenya; the implementation of sound economic and social policies for widespread prosperity and sustainable development for all, for socialism;

To do this, the SDP presents the following MINIMUM PROGRAMME to the people of Kenya as basis for the country’s transformation under its leadership.

The vision for the SDP is a socialist society governed through a democratic socialist state while our mission is to create, develop and entrench socialism in Kenya by transforming, progressively, Kenyan society into a socialist society and the Kenyan state into a decentralised democratic socialist state.

Why do we in the SDP opt for socialism? In order to answer this question we have to point out that capitalism has failed in Kenya as in other countries of the world:

1. Capitalism in all its political forms - colonial, neo-colonial, or global - has failed to serve the majority of Kenyans and has benefited only a tiny fraction of the population. Colonial capitalism benefited primarily the white setter and Asian businessmen; neo-colonial capitalism has admitted the rich Kenyan African while global capitalism has further admitted/allowed some professionals into the exclusive club of the rich. The majority of Kenyans standards of living have improved little despite the seemingly major political changes.

2. Capitalism is inherently unequal, exploitative and oppressive; capitalism in Kenya is responsible for the situation where a few enjoy sumptuous dinners and wine while the majority of Kenyans go to sleep hungry daily! Only socialism can enable the majority to obtain adequate food daily.

3. Capitalism is inherently and expensively wasteful; for instance, it wastes the energies of millions of young Kenyans by not availing jobs. Capitalism requires and demands large pools of unemployed to keep wages and salaries down so that high profits may be obtained.

4. Capitalism inherently breeds extreme inequalities not only between persons and gender, but between regions and communities, it is the root cause of the ethnic animosities virulent in our politics.

5. Perhaps, worst of all, capitalism reveals the great possibilities for improving the material and social wellbeing of people, but immediately closes them to the majority on account of its high inequalities in the distribution of income.

The Social Democratic Alternative for Kenya:

Social democracy is a stage in the transformation of society through which the highly productive/innovative aspects of capitalism are put to the benefit of the whole society by ameliorating, in a democratic manner, the socio-economic consequences and inhuman conditions created by capitalism. Social democracy is the partial antidote of the unacceptable social conditions of the poor arising from capitalism. Social Democracy was adopted by practically all Western countries as their response to the great Depression of the 1930s and which oversaw the tremendous economic growth and improvement of the conditions of the poor in the West during the period after the 2^nd World War. Social democracy is differentiated from African Socialism which has been a cover for capitalism in Kenya and other African countries and which was a classic failure in Tanzania. African Socialism denies that our modern society is unequal and, therefore, could not develop either sound economic policies or adequate measures for protection of the poor. Social Democracy is, also, different from the so called poverty eradication, which is, in fact, poverty entrenchment.

1. Social Democracy is the alternative to capitalism at this stage of our development. Caught in a similar situation, post II World War Europe adopted Social Democracy for its own development;

2. Social Democracy will retain all the progressive aspects of capitalism and put them into the service of the people, especially the majority, and not in search of super profits;

3. Social Democracy will encourage savings among Kenyans, the state and the public sector to finance the large socio-economic development agenda ahead of us;

4. Social Democracy will provide and guarantee, progressively, basic needs to the individual and the family such as, security to person, shelter, food, water, health, education and employment;

5. Social Democracy will provide social security for all Kenyans;

6. Social Democracy will reinstate sovereignty over our country, people and resources rather than surrendering it to neo-liberal globalisation as is the case today;

7. Social Democracy will foster partnership with the Kenyan people in the ownership and provision of services by the commanding heights of the economy, such as money/banks/financial institutions, transport and communications infrastructure, major natural water towers and water works, power generation, etc.

8. Social Democracy will engage the most suitable technologies available in the provision of services and implementation of development and maintenance of projects. We need not invent the wheel; we need only adopt it and make it work for our purposes.

9. Social Democracy will conserve, protect and develop our natural environment as a national asset for the present and future generations of Kenyans.

10. Social Democracy will deliver a political constitution based on the sovereignty of the people, separation of powers, checks and balances, devolution of governments with popular participation of the people at all levels of government.

11. Social Democracy will develop a national milieu of peace and inter-community based our heritage to a rich and diverse culture and shall promote development of local languages, including Kiswahili as our national language and English as an important international language;

12. Social Democracy will adopt a gender and class approach to development in all spheres of life.

13. Social Democracy will adopt policies and actions that empower the youth of this country through political representation and participation in the country’s economic life.

14. Social Democracy will foster international friendship and solidarity with all countries and peoples struggling for social and national liberation.

15. Social Democracy will protect, conserve and develop the environment as basis for sustainable development.

TOWARDS BUILDING THE FOUNDATION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND OF MOVING TOWARDS SOCIALISM, THE SDP PUTS FORWARD THE FOLLOWING SPECIFIC MINIMUM PROGRAMME:

1. RESTORATION OF OUR NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE AND SOVEREIGNTY

The ideals the Kenyan people had been fighting for, particularly since the 15-Century, were blatantly betrayed by the successive regimes that took over from British colonialism.

For colonialism meant appropriation by settlers of our best land, natural and human resources for the benefit of the white settlers and the British colonial power. To our people, colonialism meant forced labour, pass laws, colour bar, restricted movement, denial of basic freedoms and democratic rights, arbitrary arrests, imprisonment and detention, torture and humiliation. It also meant backwardness and poverty, poor and inhuman living and working conditions, poor medical care, housing and other social services. During colonialism there was low-level and limited schooling for the majority of the indigenous African people. There was also mass illiteracy and ignorance, foreign domination and imposition of a foreign language and culture and total impoverishment of our people. It meant cultural domination and subordination of African people to other racial groups.

However, after independence, the governments that took over hardly addressed the problems our people fought against. Those whose lands were forcibly taken away by the settlers are still landless. In fact, the problem of land has exacerbated with the majority of Kenyans hardly owning enough land to subsist on. More and more are becoming landless and squatters while foreigners and the greedy people who control state and economic power own and grab thousands and thousands of acres of land, a lot of it under-utilised or unused. Squatting is a way of life for the majority of indigenous Kenyans from the Coast to many parts in the Rift Valley. It is also the basic cause for the sprawling urban slums.

Slave-like labour conditions still exists in foreign and locally owned plantations that pay starvation wages to poorly organised labour. Similarly, in industries and commercial enterprises, the conditions of Kenyan workers have worsened. Foreign and locally owned companies continue to exploit and expose workers to inhuman working conditions with meagre slave-like wages. Colonial labour laws have been retained and enacted to ensure that the national workers organisations are nothing but a pacifier and demobiliser of the workers, while independent workers movements are suppressed and refused recognition. The economy of our country is highly influenced by the plans and management of foreigners through the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, with the adoption of neo-liberal social and economic policies that include privatisation of state enterprises.

Our courts and lawyers slavishly adhere to foreign laws in selective cases when it suits them. The majority of people cannot afford lawyers’ fees. The police still perpetuate the same colonial brutality against the Kenyan people; they arbitrarily arrest, detain, intimidate, harass, torture, and murder with impunity. The Kenyan prisons continue to be overcrowded and maintain their colonial character despite some minimal reforms.

Our soldiers have no democratic military ideology and culture. They thus consciously or unconsciously regard the Kenyan people as their enemies. The sovereignty of our nation has been mortgaged by those in power. Foreign nations have been granted military bases and facilities, without the consent of the people, to protect their interests in Kenya, while foreign security forces are allowed to arrest, interrogate and torture Kenyan citizens in the name of fighting terrorism.

In summary, foreign domination and control of our motherland is almost as bad as it was before 1963. The difference is that the group of local collaborators has expanded and uses state power to buttress its collaborations.

To restore the national independence and sovereignty for which many Kenyan patriots shed their precious blood and continue to struggle for, the SDP shall do the following:

(a) Dismantle the undemocratic and repressive neo-colonial state machinery, including the so called Public Administration, inherited wholesale from the colonial state; create a new pro-people police force, armed forces, prison system, judicial system, new democratic and pro-people laws and civil service, so that they may serve the people as opposed to individuals, tribal bigots, parochial and foreign interests.

(b) Restructure the current provincial and local government administration system, which is based on tribal and parochial interests to give room for more participation in governance and decision-making by the people at grass-root level.

(c) Work consciously towards evolving a national economy, culture, and spirit of patriotism, democracy and humane morality.

(d) Do away with all foreign military bases and installations.

(e) Review and re-negotiate all unequal treaties and agreements with other nations.

(f) Repeal colonial anti-people laws and evolve a legal system that is democratic, based on indigenous systems of justice and that reflects the Kenyan moral aspirations.

(g) Ensure that all Kenyans participate in conserving, utilising and benefiting from the resources of the country, live like human beings and enjoy the fruits of their labour.

(h) Define and defend the national integrity and sovereignty of Kenya.

2. COMMITMENT TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF BROAD NATIONAL AND POPULAR DEMOCRACY

Democracy can only be meaningful when the entire Kenyan population is involved in the planning and management of production and distribution - including consumption; have unhindered say in how the country is governed; have real freedoms to associate, including the freedom to form political and non-political organisations, and to assemble and demonstrate without bureaucratic licences; hold opinions and express them in words, deeds and writing; choose leaders and recall them through free and fair elections; profess religious faith and beliefs of their choice; have their human rights justly protected under the law and disputes decided in democratic courts; and participate voluntarily in the defence of their motherland and in all day to day affairs of the nation.

To work towards establishing this kind of democracy the SDP commits itself to the following:

(a) Creating and consolidating democratic political structures namely, true peoples’ assembly or parliament, constituted by freely, regularly and democratically elected representatives. Other representative organs shall be at sub-locational, locational, divisional and district levels. The latter will deal, at each level, with local and national affairs, including control and management of the local resources, defence, justice - subject to superior national laws and recourse to and supervision of a democratically reformed judiciary.

(b) Promote and safeguard the emancipation of women and gender equality.

(c) Promote and safeguard the interests of the masses of workers, peasants, children, youth, people with disabilities, the aged and students, professionals, artists, those engaged in the informal sector, indigenous entrepreneurs, clergy, and the civil society in general.

(d) Support the struggle for the realisation of a new popular national constitution, based on the Bomas Constitution that was born out of thoroughly debated popular consensus.

(e) Revive the economy and strive to ensure that every Kenyan has access to the means of production or, when employed, to a just and living wage.

(f) Ensure that all elected leaders and people with national responsibilities are at all times answerable and accountable to the electorate and the people in general.

(g) Ensure the establishment of constitutionally protected social welfare systems commensurate with our resources and levels of production.

3. TO FORGE AN UNSHAKABLE UNITY OF ALL KENYAN NATIONALITIES AND RACES

Kenya is a country of diverse pluralism. The British colonialists and successive regimes hitherto have long used this fact to divide, rule, oppress and exploit our people through tribalism and racism. Yet the enemies of the Kenyan people are those, who through parochial and selfish motives and aims, continue to stir race against race, nationality against nationality, clan against clan, Muslims against Christians, etc., so that Kenyans may not unite to confront their common enemy, i.e., underdevelopment and exploitation of person by person resulting from the capitalist system.

To ensure and consolidate the unity of our people, the SDP shall strive to do the following:

(a) Dismantle the undemocratic and repressive neo-colonial state machinery, including the so called Public Administration, inherited wholesale from the colonial state; create a new pro-people police force, armed forces, prison system, judicial system, new democratic and pro-people laws and civil service, so that they may serve the people as opposed to individuals, tribal bigots, parochial and foreign interests.

(b) Restructure the current provincial and local government administration system, which is based on tribal and parochial interests to give room for more participation in governance and decision-making by the masses at grass-root levels.

(c) Abolish the system and laws instituted by the colonialists and their neo-colonial heirs that divide, oppress and exploit Kenyan people along racial, ethnic, religious or any other lines.

(d) Rectify all errors committed by the previous regimes in their pursuit and conspiracy to hang onto power, including:

(i) National discrimination.

(ii) Neglect and marginalisation of some Kenyan areas and communities.

(iii) Administrative boundaries drawn along ethnic lines.

(iv) Distortion of the history of our nation.

(e) Use political education to enhance national unity by combating petty nationalism and ethnic chauvinism and inculcate into the minds of Kenyans the sense of national identity.

(f) Actively promote Kiswahili as both a national and official language.

(g) Respect and promote the cultures and languages of all our nationalities as part of our rich national cultural heritage and diversity.

(h) Combat poverty and underdevelopment while ensuring that all opportunities are open to all Kenyans irrespective of their national, racial, religious, ideological or class background.

(i) Encourage a balanced rewriting of our history to reflect our rich ethnic and cultural diversity while, at the same time, conserving its national outlook.

4. BUILDINING AN INDEPENDENT, INTEGRATED AND SELF-SUSTAINING NATIONAL ECONOMY

Kenya has been reduced into a producer and exporter of mainly primary agricultural commodities, e.g., sisal, tea, cotton, coffee, horticultural produce, etc. These crops are not geared to satisfy the needs of the Kenyans, but those of foreigners, who are the ones who determine the prices of the goods themselves. As a consequence, we have no strong industrial base of our own and we have to import a lot of finished manufactured consumer goods at very exorbitant prices and greatly unequal terms of trade. There is hardly any relationship between our agriculture, industry and consumption. For example, we produce cotton and wool, yet we have to import cotton and woollen clothes. There is therefore no linkage between the cotton and wool we produce and the cotton and woollen products used in the country. This is precisely what a lack of integration means. An un-integrated economy is not independent. It is dependent on importing finished goods that it could economically manufacture and improve upon so as to become competitive in the international market while creating employment at home and developing local skills.

The fundamental remedy to all this is the building of a sustainable national economy that is independent, integrated and weighted in favour of self-reliance.

To work towards this goal, the SDP shall strive to shift from the present unbalanced arrangement where we mainly export primary commodities and import processed and manufactured goods:

(a) Build and consolidate an industrial base in order to increase the capacity for heavy industrialisation while laying the basis for a heavy steel industry, which will promote light industry and agriculture.

(b) Invest in the building and development of infrastructure: road networks, railway systems, sea and lake ports, airports, urban and rural electrification, water supplies and modern communication and telecommunication systems.

(c) Protect, conserve utilise and process marine resources, including fish, in our seas, rivers and lakes for domestic and export markets.

(d) Explore for and exploit oil, gas and other mineral resources, and expand the production of salt, and fluorspar.

a) Diversify agriculture away from traditional export crops like tea, coffee and pyrethrum and put emphasis on food crops.

b) Construct essential land, water and air transport and communication systems to develop the nation’s trade both internally and within the region.

c) Closely monitor all insurance companies and banks so as to co-ordinate banking services, regulate economic activities and accelerate economic development.

d) Combat and eliminate contraband trade.

e) Regulate the exchange and pricing of various domestic products in such a way as to stimulate production and distribution of the most basic and essential commodities.

f) Formulate and implement an equitable and rational taxation policy to finance production, social services, administration and defence of the country.

g) Prohibit usury and gambling except public approved and controlled national lotteries and raffles.

h) Extend credit at low interest to peasants, small business enterprises and the popular economic sector (so called informal sector) in order to eliminate the attendant exploitation of the masses.

i) Establish trade relations with all countries that respect Kenya’s independence and sovereignty, irrespective of political system, on the basis of mutual benefit.

j) Enter into joint ventures with foreign investors where it is in the national interest and in such cases, to pay particular attention to the control of management.

k) Scrap colonial marketing boards and restructure workers, peasants and people-based and controlled marketing co-operatives to handle their functions.

l) Encourage scientific and technological research to realise our agricultural, commercial and industrial potentialities.

m) Bring the tourist and hotel industry firmly under national control and make it serve our people without lowering their dignity.

n) Democratise economic management and production by enhancing worker participation in the policy formulation and decision-making in the production process.

5. INTIATING AND IMPLEMENTING A PROGRESSIVE LAND REFORM

When our patriots fought against British colonialism, their demands were summarised by two words: land and freedom.

Without interfering with individuals’ right to own legally and justly acquired property, this is an area where public goods demands that justice be done and seen to be done. Land, like water, the sun, air, and the environment, is a common heritage of all people and every Kenyan has a right to benefit from it.

The SDP shall, therefore, strive to implement land reform as follows:

(a) Abolish colonial and neo-colonial land relations and carry out a progressive and equitable redistribution of land.

(b) Carry out comprehensive land and agrarian reform on the principle that land belongs to those who till it. This includes resettling the landless rural and urban poor.

(c) Put all the agricultural and commercial land to the services of the Kenyan people.

(d) Consolidate and establish state farms for large agricultural production and scientific research.

(e) Encourage the establishment of large co-operative farms by creating conditions for co-operation and mutual assistance so as to develop modern and advanced systems of agriculture and animal husbandry capable of increasing the income and improving the lot of the peasantry in the rural areas and reducing the rural-urban gap.

(f) Work with the peasants to encourage them to adopt modern agricultural techniques and sustainable agriculture.

(g) Ensure that agricultural co-operatives are of the members and run by the members and for the members.

(h) Involve the peasants in the price-making process for their produce and ensure prompt payment of their dues.

(i) Provide nomadic and semi-nomadic peasants with veterinary services, livestock breeding experts, agricultural advisors, financial assistance and markets in order to enable them to lead settled or more stable lives, adopt modern techniques of agriculture and animal husbandry and improve their livelihood.

(j) Encourage agricultural policies that will ensure national food sufficiency and security, and sustainable development especially in the rural areas.

(k) Make large pastures, forests, mines, dams, and game parks state property or communal property with progressive and sustainable environmental policies.

(l) Provide for the peaceful and amicable settlement of land disputes and inequality among individuals, clans and villages in such a way as to harmonise the interests of the aggrieved with that of the national economic and political interest.

(m) Make all urban land public property while protecting private ownership rights over legitimate structures constructed thereon.

(n) Nationalise and appropriate with or without compensation and put to good use all the derelict, unutilised or under-utilised land.

(o) Promote peasant and farmer associations that will mobilise, politicise, organise and arm the peasants with clear political consciousness so that they can fully participate in the anti-tyranny, anti-oppression, anti-exploitation and anti-corruption and anti-imperialist struggle, defend their democratic gains and manage their own affairs and that of the nation.

6. ESTABLISH A NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS CHARTER AND INSTITUTIONS

Since the attainment of flag independence, Kenyan people have had to contend with the systematic and deliberate onslaught on fundamental rights of individuals and groups and the repudiation of civil liberties. Kenyans’ right to life and right to personal liberty; right to protection from slavery and forced labour; right to protection from torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment; right to protection from deprivation of property; right to protection against arbitrary searches or entry; right to fair and public trial by an impartial court; right to freedom of conscience and religion; right to freedom of expression; right to freedom of assembly and association (including to form or join a political party or organisation); right to protection from discrimination on the grounds of gender, ethnicity, race, religion, ideology or class; and many other fundamental rights and liberties, have been and continue to be trampled underfoot. This is despite some limited written guarantees in the present national constitution.

Street shooting by police; illegal confinements; torture of suspects and prisoners; banning of students’, workers’ and professional unions and religious sects; arbitrary expulsion of students; lack of academic freedom in institutions of higher learning; persecution of patriotic and progressive lecturers and teachers; discrimination and abuse against women in employment, hotel accommodation, payment of housing and other allowances, etc.; demolition of peoples’ dwellings without alternative housing provided; and the denial of many Kenyans of the right to work, among other abuses, are hallmarks of the successive regimes that have ruled Kenya since 1963.

The SDP shall strive to reverse this by drawing and implementing as part of our laws, a national charter that will ensure, by creating necessary conditions for the exercise of human rights including:

a) The right of all Kenyans to benefit from the natural and collective resources of our country.

b) The right to work and proper working conditions, leisure and study. This includes removing colonial and capitalist labour laws and replacing them with those that strengthen trade unions and workers rights.

c) Building welfare system in Kenya to ensure the exercise of basic rights of all Kenyans that include the right to food, housing, clothes, education, health services and security.

d) Inviolability of the person.

e) Freedom of residence and humane living conditions.

f) Secrecy of correspondence and inviolability of privacy.

g) The right of association, including the right of workers, peasants, students, artists, professionals and civil society in general to form, run and control their own independent mass organisations.

h) The right to a healthy and peaceful life.

i) The right to education.

j) The right to freedom of movement and immigration (a passport is a right not a privilege).

k) The right to free expression.

l) The right to conscience, religion and to profess them.

m)The right to a clean environment.

n) The right to establish a press and to publicise information.

7. ELIMINATION OF CORRUPTION AND MISUSE OF POWER

Corruption and misuse of power have become institutionalised in Kenya. Corruption is so rampant that it has made the day-to-day life a nightmare for the majority of the Kenyan people. It plays a key role in the destruction of the economy. Corruption and misuse of power go unpunished despite protestations from the people and reports of commissions that deal with corruption created by successive regimes but that are never implemented.

To make sure that the current trend of corruption and misuse of power is eliminated, the SDP shall strive to:

a) Ensure that the neo-colonial, socio-economic structures that have given rise to corruption and misuse of power, are systematically annihilated.

b) Establish the office of the Ombudsman with enhanced power to investigate and prosecute cases of corruption and misuse of power.

c) Increase the independence and powers of the parliamentary committees, including Public Accounting Committee and Public Investment Committee.

d) Enhance freedom of press, expression and other liberties.

e) Ensure that public tenders shall be awarded on merit and in accordance with regulations set down - publicity will be used to ensure transparency.

f) Ensure that trade and other licences shall be awarded according to laid down procedures.

g) Through political education, establish an exemplary leadership, free from corruption, which shall abide by a justifiable leadership code.

h) Politicise, mobilise and empower the people to fight corruption and abuse of power.

i) Encourage the public to form citizens’ watch committees to complement state bodies in maintaining responsible leadership.

j) Encourage the growth of a robust civil society.

8. DEVELOPING A PROGRESSIVE NATIONAL CULTURE

Culturally, our people are exploited and dominated by values that are alien to us. Culture is the sum total of a people’s way of life. It is about people’s struggle against nature for subsistence, survival and development, as well as struggles and accommodation with other human beings. It includes eating habits, dressing habits, housing trends and designs, art, education, science and technology, how people spend their leisure time, language, ethics, morality, religion, politics, traditions and customs. It is, in short, the expression of our civilisation.

Realising the significance of culture the SDP shall strive to:

(a) Conserve and cherish our rich and progressive cultural heritage while doing away with the reactionary aspects of it.

(b) Obliterate decadent culture and disgraceful habits that colonialism had spread and continues to spread in order to subjugate and exploit the Kenyan peoples.

(c) Build a strong cultural base by democratising and diversifying the national economy along the lines pointed out earlier.

(d) Promote Kiswahili as our national and official language, as identified previously, while also encouraging the growth and development of the languages of other Kenyan nationalities.

(e) Give material and moral support to our artists and cultural workers in craftsmanship, literature, theatre, drama, poetry, music, cloth making, fashion and design, architecture, film, sport and entertainment.

(f) Develop and guarantee freedom of art, theatre and all cultural activities of our diverse nationalities.

(g) Pursue a tourist policy that does not abuse or demean the dignity and cultural cohesion of our people.

(h) Discourage cheap and decadent aspects of foreign influences through books, films, magazines, videos, etc., and educate our youth and adults to appreciate and be proud of their motherland and its people.

(i) Develop sporting activities and facilities; forge cultural and sporting links between Kenyans and other peoples globally, as a means of promoting international solidarity and friendship.

(j) Provide libraries and promote the culture of reading, research and the love of books and knowledge throughout the country.

(k) Promote and develop national museums, archives and art galleries throughout the country.

(l) Through political education, promote a progressive and democratic culture among our people and fearlessly combat the culture of silence and fear and all retrogressive and backward cultures.

9. DEVELOPING A PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION SYSTEM

In the field of education too, the colonial education, which violently destroyed traditional non-academic education, had as its main objective, the control of the African mind and values so as to mould obedient servants of the colonial system. White collar education, which produced clerks, court interpreters and Bible interpreters, was institutionalised by the colonial Beecher Commission. After colonialism, various education commissions have all reinforced the policy of education that reinforce foreign domination.

Thus, really functional education has been inaccessible to the children of the majority of Kenyans. In Kenya today, the exorbitant school fees have made education a luxury only available to the sons and daughters of affluent and influential elite. The best facilities, teaching equipment and staff are accumulated and over-concentrated in the so-called private and high-cost schools reserved for the children of the rich. In the meanwhile, children of the peasants, workers and lower middle-class parents are confined to grossly understaffed, poorly equipped schools and bogus “private” schools operated along commercial lines by unscrupulous profiteers. The implementation of the structural adjustment programmes is not only killing education in general but it has made it inaccessible to the majority poor. At the same time, the noble teaching profession is today under threat more than ever before due to poor salaries and working conditions for teachers and economic mismanagement by the regime in power. The current education system is a vicious conveyor-belt which inculcates cut throat competition among students, while failing miserably to provide any meaningful opportunity for the country’s youth who are brutally pushed off as they try to scale the slippery and elitist educational pyramid.

The SDP views education as a right and not a privilege and the state is obligated to provide it to all citizens. It is also a condition and embodiment of development and culture. We shall, therefore, endeavour to create conditions to ensure that we:

(a) Provide for public-funded universal and compulsory primary and secondary education as a first stage, with high quality, affordable and subsidised college and university education, with the ultimate objective of making education free at all levels.

(b) Redistribute resources and dismantle segregated educational systems which classify schools into high-cost, low-cost, national, provincial, district, harambee, private, etc., thereby giving some groups unfair advantages over others in terms of facilities, staff and student quality and increasing class inequality.

(c) Abolish the 85% admission rule that restricts students to their locality. This type of education denies our youth the opportunity to interact with students from other parts of the country and militates against national unity.

(d) Strive to wipe out illiteracy in order to free the Kenyan people from the darkness of ignorance and superstition by waging a nation-wide revolutionary anti-illiteracy campaign.

(e) Integrate education with the economy and production and put it to the service of the Kenyan people.

(f) Formulate a relevant educational policy that will change the Kenyan educational system into a cultural implement and resource, which integrates school life with relevant aspects of practical, economic and political realities of our people. This will be attained by the active participation of the teachers, parents, students and the society in formulating and implementing the education policy and system.

(g) Develop and sustain institutions of higher education and training in various fields of science, arts, technology, agriculture, etc.

(h) Strive to make available books, magazines, newspapers, radios, video, library services, and computers and use the media, schools and other avenues to promote the latest scientific and technological advances and progressive ideas to our people.

(i) Engage in educational, cultural and technological exchanges with other countries on the basis of mutual benefit and equality and to promote international solidarity and friendship.

(j) Democratise education by guaranteeing academic freedom and by involving the students, teachers, lecturers, parents and society in formulating educational polices and disseminating knowledge.

(k) Opening avenues for research and useful scientific and technological innovation of our economy.

(l) Creating working and material conditions that will ensure the dignity and prestige of the teaching profession.

10. DEVELOPING A PROGRESSIVE HEALTH PROGRAMME FOR ALL

Our people suffer from many preventable diseases. Many people attribute this to an inadequacy of doctors and paramedical staff, a shortage of drugs, and to the tropical climate. While this is partly true, still the root causes of the health problem lie in the social conditions and relations arising from the brutal political and economic arrangements in our society. Our people develop many diseases because they are under-fed or lack various food substances. Many diseases are due to a polluted environment, poor sanitation, and lack of clean drinking water, inadequate shelter and clothing, overwork, stress, violence and ignorance.

In order to correct this, the SDP shall strive, by mobilising resources and citizens, to accomplish the following:

(a) Shift the emphasis from the curative to preventive health care.

(b) Raise the people’s living standards so that they may afford proper food, housing, leisure and a clean environment.

(c) Provide clean habitation, clean water, proper sewerage, drainage, sanitation, and electrical power.

(d) Provide free health education services countrywide.

(e) Establish peoples’ health committees and promote the use of health brigades to wipe out chronic epidemics like cholera, meningitis, malaria and other diseases arising from unhealthy living conditions.

(f) Render medical services genuinely free and available to all Kenyans, with the rich having to pay for such services in the interim period.

(g) Establish a national pharmaceutical complex for the research, production and distribution of drugs and medical equipment, as well as to scientifically develop indigenous medicines.

(h) Promote comprehensive maternal-child health, including safe contraception, and provide adolescent health-care for young girls.

(i) Carry out regular and free mass medical examinations.

(j) Promote and popularise among the people sports and physical culture.

(k) Punish and re-educate medical and paramedical staff who develop inhuman, corrupt and anti-people attitudes.

(l) Mount a community campaign to prevent the spread of HIV and educate society to care for people with Aids.

(m) Democratise the society to ensure the exercise of civil liberties and human rights. This will help to remove stress, fear and violence that too are health hazards in Kenya.

11. PROGRAMME FOR DECENT HOUSING FOR ALL

A decent dwelling is a necessity and fundamental right of every human being. Over the years, we have had a perverted conceptions of “development”, where a few rich individuals, foreigners and/or their local agents, put up magnificent tall houses in the city centre and other major towns, but the pavements of such sky-scrapers turn out to be the bedrooms of many Kenyans. The ruling cliques, under the command and supervision and protection of the corrupt regimes, continue to use national resources and the labour of working people to live a luxurious and extravagant life in both rural and urban areas. On the other hand the workers and the poor languish in slums and hovels. The majority of peasants also live in small, unhygienic shelters, while what accrues from the country’s economy whose basis is national resources and working people’s labour is used to sustain the culture of consumerism for the few.

The SDP, in creating a peoples’ democratic state, shall strive to:

(a) Initiate a nation-wide housing programme to provide affordable and decent housing for the Kenyan people.

(b) Create construction brigades in towns and rural areas under peoples’ committees. This serves two purposes: construction of affordable and decent houses for the Kenyan people, and also provision of employment.

(c) Make houses available on the principle of effective occupancy.

(d) Provide land and cheap building materials most of which are abundant in the country.

(e) Make urban land public property.

(f) Regulate rent and protect tenants from unscrupulous landlords, i.e., encourage tenants to form autonomous tenant’s committees to defend their rights.

(g) Provide good roads and electricity to all homes, and clean drinking water to all neighbourhoods in urban and rural areas.

(h) Create national housing insurance schemes and give material assistance to those wishing to build homes to live in.

(i) Ensure that all workers are housed decently or given adequate house allowances in lieu by their employers.

(j) Ensure the creation of adequate recreational facilities and amenities around housing estates.

(k) Ensure the eradication of slums and inhuman dwellings.

(l) Strictly ensure that the construction of any houses or housing estates in cities or towns adhere to laid down plans and regulation by local authorities.

12. PROTECTION AND CONSERVATION OF THE ENVIRONMENT

There exists an environmental problem in our country, which is a great threat to our future. The successive regimes that have governed our country have hardly addressed the problem. All they have done is pay lip service to the environmental problems, while through their greedy and unpatriotic policies, they exacerbate the very problem. As a result, we are unable to live in harmony with nature, our air, water, soil, flora and fauna. Our ecological system is selfishly and rapidly being disturbed and destroyed.

To protect and conserve our environment, the SDP shall mobilise the people to do the following:

(a) Appreciate and realise practically, in words and deeds, that protection of sustainable environment is the most important task of the time, it is about our very survival as a nation and as life on earth.

(b) Make and enforce laws geared at protecting the environment; ratify and creatively implement progressive international policies and agreements on protection of the environment.

(c) Make and implement afforestation programmes that will ensure the restoration of our forests, through scientific research aimed at the restoration and conservation of indigenous trees and plants and the introduction of exotic trees in a sustainable way, etc.

(d) Educate, encourage through various incentives and oblige all Kenyans to value trees, plants and protect forests and the environment in general.

(e) Carry out urban and rural electrification programmes that will ensure that all families in Kenya use electricity and/or other alternative sources of energy, other than wood or charcoal to ensure the conservation of our forests.

(f) Jealously protect and conserve our wildlife heritage. Carry out scientific research on wildlife aimed at increasing and controlling the quality and quantity of the wildlife.

(g) Fight against desertification and soil erosion by changing the colonial land tenure system, planting trees, building gabions, dams, terraces and employing other appropriate scientific methods of soil conservation.

(h) Ensure that industries conform to national and international environmental codes and regulations.

(i) Outlaw and invalidate all/any contracts and agreements that have been signed to allow the dumping of nuclear and toxic waste in our country.

(j) Provide clean and healthy environments for habitation and working.

(k) Ensure that cities, towns and other areas are planned in such a way as to eradicate slums and provide for facilities like parks, sports fields and other recreational facilities.

(l) Control the use of chemicals, pesticides and herbicides that are harmful to health and that disturb the ecological balance.

(m) Ensure proper conservation and utilisation of water resources.

(n) Control industrial and motor air pollution by instituting strict environmental control legislation and policy.

(o) Put the people at the centre of environmental conservation by involving and empowering communities to manage and benefit from the natural resources in their localities.

13. POLICY OF REGIONAL CO-OPERATION AND NEW PROGRESSIVE PAN-AFRICANISM

We have reason to search for closer co-operation in Africa that will lead towards the United States of Africa. Our continent is the most well endowed with climate, mineral, agricultural and animal resources. Paradoxically, we are the poorest and the most backward. This is partly because these small national units which furthermore are bedevilled with internal and external conflicts and wars. Instead of developing a common economy and market we waste our resources, time and energy competing with each other for foreign markets.

The East African Community, provide a good example of regional co-operation and prove how the destination of the people of these countries are intertwined. The only obstacles to the realisation of the East African Federation is the foreign interests that our leaders are serving and personal pride, greed and narrow nationalism among the elitist ruling classes in these countries.

Being committed to the realisation of East African Federation, United States of Africa and the ideals of revolutionary Pan-Africanism, the SDP will strive to:

(a) Work for fast tracking of East African Federation and the United States of Africa.

(b) Actively promote Kiswahili as a common language of East and Central Africans states.

(c) Allow free movement of the people of East Africa into and out of Kenya.

(d) Encourage inter-African trade, educational and cultural exchanges.Support progressive struggles and the end of conflicts in East Africa and Africa as a whole.

14. AN INDEPENDENT AND CONSISTENT FOREIGN POLICY

The foreign policy of any nation is always a reflection of her domestic policies. A country whose economy, culture, education and institutions of state are dominated by foreign powers cannot have independence in her foreign policy. A country ruled by a reactionary and backward leadership, which thrives on exploitation and repression of her people, cannot take a stand against exploitative, repressive and hegemonic foreign countries. Kenya’s lack of a consistent independent foreign policy is simply consistent with what the real powers behind the Kenyan throne do inside their own country.

To reverse this shameful and reactionary foreign policy, the SDP will endeavour to:

(a) End foreign domination and control of Kenya by always maintaining an independent line in politics, economics and international relations.

(b) Relate with nations and states of the world on the principle of peaceful co-existence, the right to all nations to self-determination and national sovereignty, mutual advantage and sanctity of human life.

(c) Work for regional, continental and world peace and progress.

(d) Dismantle all foreign military bases and installations on our soil and work for the creation of the Horn of Africa and the Indian Ocean as a permanent zone of peace.

(e) Consistently work for the realisation East African Federation and the United States of Africa.

(f) Play a militant and progressive role in African Union, the Non-Aligned Movement and the United Nations.

(g) Develop closer political, economic, diplomatic, commercial and cultural ties with countries that pursue progressive policies and are willing to relate with us as equals.

(h) Isolate and condemn all states, however powerful, that adopt and institutionalise repression, human rights violations, imperialist policies, terrorism, war mongering, invasion, racism and all forms of discrimination as weapons of diplomatic, national and international relations.

15. DEFENDING THE PEOPLE AND THEIR DEMOCRATIC GAINS

Creation of a democratic state means democratising the state. Arms and organs of state and Government such as the legislature, the executive and judiciary, must themselves be transformed. Democratisation must deal with the economy, culture, education, health, land ownership, housing, etc. It means enabling Kenyan people to be in charge of all their affairs.

Naturally, there will be elements in our country and from beyond our frontiers who have benefited from the old order that has denied our people these birthrights since the 15^th Century, but more so since 1895. They will want to use all methods, including sabotage and violence, to regain or retain their privileges and unfair advantages. The people will defeat their machinations by organised struggle and vigilance.

We have already stated in this manifesto that our people, working through the democratic grassroots structures, will be the determining force in the economy, politics, justice, diplomacy and culture. This independence and the democratic gains must be defended. The defence of our democratic national gains will be the duty of every Kenyan. The SDP shall therefore strive to ensure the following:

(a) Transform the state to be a popular peoples’ state by the people with the people and for the people.

(b) Create popular defence units within popular committees to ensure vigilance and defence against restoration of foreign control and aggression from the enemies of our country.

(c) Develop a national defence force with humane military doctrines so that the spirit of patriotism and love of Kenyan people may always be upheld.

(d) Politicise, mobilise and arm the people for the defence of their motherland and their democratic gains.

(e) Ensure that soldiers are involved in productive activities and nation building.

(f) Develop a friendly, efficient and effective peoples’ police force.

(g) Develop a progressive and advanced military academy whose curriculum must include political and human rights education.