NAIROBI, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- Kenya will host an international conference in February to promote peace in the country to help bolster its battered image after the violence sparked by post-election crisis in 2008.
Prime Minister Raila Odinga told journalists that the Feb. 2-4 conference will chart the way forward for the east African nation.
"We have had many occasions to look back in the past, usually through task forces and commissions, the result has largely been to assign blame on who did or did not do what," the PM told journalists in Nairobi.
Odinga said the conference, whose theme is: "One Kenya, One Dream: The Kenya We Want" will be attended by slightly over 2,000 Kenyans of all walks of life including world's renowned personalities.
He said the conference will be addressed by a galaxy of present and past world leaders as well as local and foreign experts, scholars and entrepreneurs.
Among the foreign participants expected to address the conference are former UN chief Kofi Annan, Dr. Mahathir Bin Mohammed, former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Senegalese President Dr. Abdoulaye Wade, ex-Mozambican President Joachim Chissano and Graca Machel, former South African First Lady.
Odinga said some of the foreign leaders invited presided over nations that experienced more political turmoil than Kenya did last year, but pulled them out of chaos.
"Some pulled their nations from decades of civil wars and turned them into progressive countries," he observed, adding that Kenyans were particularly keen to hear from Rwanda on how they were able to emerge as a united nation in such a short time after an ethnic conflict that remains unparalleled in recent times.
Others expected to address the February conference are Cyril Ramaphosa, a respected South African business executive, Dr. Salim Salim, former OAU Secretary General, Geraldine Fraser Moleketi, Minister for Public Service and Administration, South Africa and Tharcisse Karugarama, Minister for Justice, Rwanda.
Odinga recalled that Kenya's peace and tranquility was shattered by last year's post election skirmishes and that there was need as a nation, to look at where we wanted to go.
He said one of the objectives of the conference was to provide the country with a platform to discuss issues that have kept the country on the edge and how to deal with them in the coming years.
He said the conference will take a break from looking at the past and instead look into the future in terms of where we want to go. "We will be meeting to lay the foundation of the nation we want the next generation to build on," he added.
The PM said some of the benefits to the country from the conference would be that the findings and recommendations would strengthen on-going efforts in national reconciliation and inter-group harmony that is the central goal of the grand coalition government.
He also said the forum will be used to demonstrate to the world that Kenyans are determined to solve their problems peacefully through open debate and also to strengthen investor confidence by showing our commitment to a bright future, complete with a roadmap on how to get there.
"We want to sit down as a nation and discuss tribalism or negative ethnicity as a problem. The intention will be to create strategies of promoting national unity out of the diverse ethnic groups that make what we call Kenya," he said.
The PM said recommendations from the conference would be used to strengthen ongoing efforts in national reconciliation under the Grand Coalition government.
