Kevin J Kelley, with Philip Mwaniki in Nairobi
26 August 2008
Denver — Fringe foes of Barack Obama are again turning to Kenya in what appears to be increasingly desperate attempts to discredit the Democratic Party's presidential candidate.
The latest lines of attacks include a lawsuit charging that Senator Obama was born in Kenya and is thus disqualified from seeking the presidency on the grounds that he is not a US citizen.
In addition, the Texas state branch of the US Republican Party is running a television advert claiming that Senator Obama neglects his half-brother, George Onyango Obama, who lives in the sprawling Huruma estate.
Birth certificate
Mr Philip Berg, an attorney from the Philadelphia area and a supporter of Senator Hillary Clinton, contends in a suit filed last week in federal court that Mr Obama's mother gave birth to him in Kenya and not in Hawaii, as the senator's birth certificate indicates.
Mr Berg told the Nation on Monday that "a reliable source" in Kenya -- whom he would not name -- had indicated that Mr Obama was born in a maternity hospital in Mombasa on or around August 4, 1961 -- the date listed on Mr Obama's Hawaii birth certificate.
Mr Berg could supply no proof for his assertion that Ann Dunham, the senator's mother, had travelled to Kenya with her husband, Barack Obama Snr, in an advanced stage of her pregnancy. She then delivered Barack Obama Jnr in Kenya and subsequently flew back to Hawaii to register her son's birth, Mr Berg's lawsuit claims.
The Obama campaign says that allegations that the senator's birth certificate is not genuine are part of an effort to "smear" the candidate by making baseless accusations.
In the Texas Republican advert, viewers are asked: "If Barack Obama cares so much about your family, why doesn't he take care of his family first?"
His own brother
The video then shows a photo of Senator Obama's house in Chicago as well as the White House. "His own brother lives in this one," the advert continues, showing a picture of George Onyango Obama's house in Huruma.
The younger Obama, who was six months old when his father died in a 1982 car accident, has defended his half-brother against attacks by those seeking to depict Senator Obama as neglectful of his Kenya family.
But in reaction to one such story in a foreign medium on Monday, George said he was happy in Huruma and dismissed as a fabrication, claims that he lived on less than a dollar a month.
"I do not live on less than a dollar a month. Life is good. I live with my cousin and niece in our family house in Huruma," he told the Nation in an interview.
Like vultures to a carcass, the international press has been all over the younger Obama, raising new queries about the media ethics Western journalists usually purport to teach the developing countries.
"When the journalists come here, they do not want even the neighbours to be near, and if they find other journalists, they take him away to a posh hotel and return him later," said a friend.
On Monday, when the Nation went to Huruma to track the younger Obama, they found journalists who took him to a city hotel where they did an interview. When they returned him in the evening, an unsteadily walking Obama was seen alighting from the car.
"Hawa wanataka kuchafua jina la Obama, na wanampatia maji ndio waone kama atawapa stori mbaya (These (white) guys want to defame Obama and they might have given him alcohol to see if they can get a nasty story)," said the friend. However, Obama denied he had drunk during the interview.
Trying to get a story from him is hard work, especially with the international press around. Some journalists found out how hard it was recently when during an interview, a crew arrived and whisked him away.
The man is also hard to interview. On Wednesday, the Nation tracked him down, but he would not agree to be interviewed and kept postponing it every time.
He is unhappy about the Italian magazine for portraying him as poor, and says he supports the Senator's quest for the presidency.
"The media come here, I give them a story, and when they leave, they write wrong things. I never said I live on less than a dollar a day. I go to college and I'm all right," he said with a newly acquired aide.
He may not know it, but his story has since been turned into a negative attack by the Republicans, who are now labelling the Democratic nominee "neglectful".
The new YouTube ad was not approved by the John McCain Campaign, but it was funded by members of the Texas Republican Party.
The younger Obama's relatives, realising the damage the attention has caused, have started to shield him away from the media before the situation gets out of hand, and have now insisted that an uncle be present during press interviews.
Read comments. Write your own.
Copyright © 2008 The Nation. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
MaCain was born in Panama, so, what is the issue if Obama was indeed born in Kenya.