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             DotConnectAfrica                              
07 August 2012

Alice Munyua: 

Read ICANN's Guidebook First

before Misrepresenting and Distorting Facts to the African Publics

 
Alice Munyua
Alice Munyua-Vice Chair, ICANN GAC
 
Alice Munyua: trying to legitimize a massive cover-up and Fraud

Misrepresenting a non-Community TLD application as the official AUC-sponsored .AFRICA gTLD application for the African Community 

Alice - You should resign from any official government positions and all Committee posts that you presently occupy including the ICANN GAC
   

In the above YouTube Video interview at ICANN 44 Prague, Alice Munyau made the following statements which DCA transcribed after watching the video on YouTube: 

  1. Alice by her own admission "I have not read the ICANN Applicant's Guidebook",  i.e she has no truthful understanding of the ICANN new gTLD requirements, despite.  

  2. Alice claims to be the Chairperson of the Kenyan Internet Governance Steering Committee under the Ministry of Information and Communications of the Republic of Kenya, and says "I have supported the DotAfrica applicationthe legitimate one".               

  3. Alice also claims that her Ministry supported the application because, in her own words: "the new gTLD Guidebook requires that for a geographic string that you have community support - and in our case, this translates to the number of governments - 60 per cent of governments supporting that application, being a geographic name."             

  4. In attempting to explain further, Alice also mentioned that: "when it comes to applying for a geographic string or a geographic TLD, you have to have support from the community, and the community here actually translates into government, the Internet community, and other stakeholders."     
  5. Furthermore, Alice tried to explain why the African Union Commission application is "the legitimate one" in her own words: "because it is the only organization that brings together the African member states and that has the mandate to represent African member states in these matters, and so it is the only one we recognize as the legitimate one because our Ministers have actually written and supported that application through the African Union Commission.  We were not approached by the other one, so we have no idea what the other one is about - and that is why it is quite clear to us which is the correct one."

Alice finally ended her ludicrous self-expos� interview by admitting that she has NOT looked at the Applicant Guidebook in detail.

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Unforgivable Ignorance & Fallacious Claims and wrongly citing ICANN's Guidebook

 

Perhaps, Alice Munyua, you should have looked at the guidebook, before making your outlandish claims on a video that you have posted on Youtube. Chances are that "having not looked at the Guidebook in detail", you will be displaying palpable and unforgivable ignorance in trying to cite its provisions.  Therefore, we believe that your fallacious claims should not go unanswered! 
  • First, it is NOT stated anywhere in the ICANN Applicant's Guidebook that in applying for a geographic name, community support is required.  
    • You cannot confuse governmental support for community support.  Community support is required only for a Community TLD application. 
  • Second, NO actual application Community TLD application was legally submitted for .AFRICA.   Therefore, since you have already tried to explain why support from the community is so crucial to an application for a geographic name, you should also explain why "the government, the Internet community, and other stakeholders" that you have cited, failed to submit a Community TLD application for .AFRICA or why the so-called selected registry operator failed to submit a Community TLD application for .AFRICA on behalf of the African Community.
  • Third, if the African Union Commission, actually selected a registry operator to apply on behalf of the African Community, then you should have also tried to explain why NO Community TLD was actually submitted on behalf of the African Community. Therefore, you must now cease and desist  from further engaging in this act of deliberate manipulation, by misrepresenting a non-Community TLD application as the 'legitimate one' that was ostensibly submitted on behalf of "the government, the Internet community, and other stakeholders".  Nothing could be further from the truth.          

  • Fourth, the African Union Commission is not a legal TLD applicant in the eyes of ICANN, so it is a deliberate misrepresentation on your part to give people the impression that there is an African Union Commission-application.
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The Political and Diplomatic Machinery of the African Union seized to serve the interest of a  special interest group - The Cabal

 

We believe that an outright fraud has already been committed by those who deliberately made the African Union to believe that it must take ownership and leadership of a certain extraordinary process that would lead to the realization of a Community TLD for .Africa,  but clearly, this has not happened. 

 

The African Union Commission has simply been deceived into being 'used' in a surreptitious manner as the political/diplomatic machinery to garner the necessary support from governments without getting the African Community TLD that it was inveigled into supporting. 

 

Therefore, as a Kenyan government representative, you should be showing more accountability than what you are presently doing. You MUST stop this deliberate manipulation by trying to obfuscate the issues regarding governmental support for a non-existent Community TLD application.

 

Instead of trying to explain or justify how (and why) governmental support was used to give specious legitimacy to what you term as the 'official .AFRICA application', you should really be explaining to the whole world, why the African Union supposedly appointed a registry operator to apply for a gTLD on behalf of the African Community which has now failed to materialize.  


The truth of what we know is that the African Union Commission has not applied for any gTLD in its name, so it is not considered by ICANN as an applicant; thus, no gTLD string name will be legally delegated to it under any circumstances.  Moreover, no Community TLD application was actually submitted to ICANN regarding the .AFRICA string (a geographic name) so it is rather patent that there will be no Community-owned .AFRICA string regarding this particular geographic name. 

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
No Community TLD Application was submitted on behalf of the African Community

Therefore, against the backdrop that no Community TLD application was actually submitted on behalf of the 'African Community', could you please explain the exact interest of "the government, the Internet community, and other stakeholders" in this supposititious 'official/legitimate' application that has been supported by the African Union Commission? 

 
You cannot deceive the AU into thinking that it can lead and own a particular extraordinary gTLD process that would result in a Community-owned .AFRICA string; applied for on behalf of the African Community  

try to perpetuate the same deception and misleading the global public through further acts of deliberately distorting or obfuscating the provisions of the ICANN new gTLD Applicant's Guidebook

which you claim NOT to have read. 


 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

African Governments should demand Accountability

 

The African Union Commission as a Pan-African institution should be demanding accountability. The Pan-African Parliament (PAP) should be holding public hearings in order to get to the bottom of this unpardonable fraud that has been committed.  African governments have been hoodwinked into supporting a TLD application for a .AFRICA string that would be for the 'African Community' and Community-owned, and as a governmental representative, you should be ashamed of yourself Alice Munyua for trying to 'legitimize' a massive cover-up. Therefore, since you lack a manifest understanding of what constitutes legitimacy or otherwise, we believe that

 

You should now resign from any official government positions and all Committee posts that you presently occupy including the ICANN GAC. 

 

We seriously believe that you are not fit to represent the Government of the Republic of Kenya in the ICANN Government Advisory Committee (GAC) and we hereby urge you to resign now and save yourself any further public embarrassment.


 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We do not have any idea what the other one is about! 

Finally, your claim that you "were not approached by the other one, so we have no idea what the other one is about" is outright falsehood. 

 

DotConnectAfrica Trust has set-up its operational base in Kenya, and as soon as it made its Final Investment Decision, it signed important strategic partnerships with several organizations in Kenya such as Safaricom, and duly notified the Kenya governmental authorities in that country of its intentions and also indicated the projected benefits to Kenya, and further requested support for its initiative via an official letter that was submitted directly to the Minister of Information and Communication of the Republic of Kenya.  Therefore, your claim that DCA Trust did not approach the Ministry that you work for is quite untruthful.  
 

Additionally we have outlined below some pictures and an entire section of report below to refresh your memory of our .africa activities in Kenya that you are well aware of and which also provides a testimony that our work is known to the people of Kenya and its Government.

  

generation.africa
genaration.africa invited by Tandaa, organized by ICT Board Kenya
Sophia Bekele with PS Ndemo of Kenya
Bekele with Permanent Secretary Ndemo, on Launch of Yes2dotAfrica
Alice Munyau and Sophia Bekele
Munyua & Bekele on .africa domain

  

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Alice Munyua, Stop justifying the unjustifiable 


In conclusion, we believe that UNTIL you have properly studied the ICANN Applicant's Guidebook:

  • you are not in any position to make any type of comments about the competing .AFRICA application and applicants.   

  • You cannot be seen to be using your governmental pedestal to make and disseminate irrelevant comments about community support for a geographic string and falsely citing non-existent guidebook provisions when in truth, no Community TLD application has been submitted for .AFRICA.

It is this type of deliberate misrepresentation on the part of people like you that should know better,  that was used to deceive African governments into providing the so-called 'community support' simply to garner specious governmental support for the .AFRICA geographic name, but after getting the desired support, no Community TLD application was actually submitted on behalf of the African Community.   An inexcusable fraud has been committed, and you should not be associating your name with it.   We therefore exhort you Alice Munyau to stop justifying the unjustifiable and to desist from further acts of deliberately misrepresenting a non-Community TLD application as the official AUC-sponsored .AFRICA gTLD application for the African Community.   

  

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"You can fool some of the people all of the time

and all of the people some of the time, 

but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

Abraham Lincoln (and later Bob Marley)

 

 

 

Below details evidence of DCA's activities in Nairobi and the wide media coverage it has received and that DCA is well known to Alice and 

the people she mentioned.

 

Flickr photos of some of DCA Activities in Kenya

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dotconnectafrica/sets/72157627710299793/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dotconnectafrica/sets/72157625080047673/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dotconnectafrica/sets/72157625204833616/

 

March 2010: ICANN Nairobi --The making of dotafrica in Nairobi

--http://www.prlog.org/10609436-nairobi-technical-community-urged-icanns-strong-support-for-dcas-efforts-on-africa-domain.html- ICANN Nairobi 

--http://dotafrica.blogspot.com/2010_03_01_archive.html Nairobi introduction of .africa

--http://nbo.icann.org/node/4985, ICANN Nairobi, DCA announced AU endorsement

--http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJUGsLWKumQ  Nairobi Ihub

 

Aug 2010: Africa Domain attracts Interest-  media coverage of .africa with Alice Munya and Sophia Bekele picture together stating  "Alice Munyua and Sophia Bekele at the EAIGF"  

--http://www.cio.co.ke/news/main-stories/Africa-domain-attracts-interest, CIO Kenya --This event was in Kampala Uganda, and Ms Alice herself gave platform for DCA to speak on .africa, who was also the sponsor of the event.   DCA has received a lot of post conference media coverage on itsK Kampala presentation such as:

 

--Cost of Website Names to drop next year,  AllAfrica

--A group Picture with teh EAIGF Campala with DCA , EAIGF picture

--DCA PR of Kampala activities with Media Interview pictures, Monitor Kampala

--Dilpo Report on EAIGF activities comments on the .Africa presentationsas "The dot Africa  was presented as a compliment rather than a competitor to existing ccTLDs".  Diplo

--Balancing Act - Computer Brief


    Sept, 2011: Launch of Yes2dotAfrica campaign in Nairobi 

--Launch of teh Yes2dotAfrica Campaign- Nairobi

--Launch of the .africa EAst Africa Campaign - Nairobi

--DCA Partners with SafariCom to set up .africa Registry in Kenya

 

March 2011: 

CIO magazine based in Kenya  recently quoted Sophia, stating her 3 years campaign:

Sophia Bekele has been in the news if not for promoting Dot Connect Africa's bid for the Dot Africa geographical gTLD then in a controversial statement about the same. For the past 3 years, she has been clear about one thing, DotConnectAfrica (DCA) is better positioned to manage the DotAfrica domian and they will put in a strong bid .

--Governments have No Role in gTLDs - CIO EAst Africa , based in Kenya

  

General  TOP print media coverage of dotafrica in Kenya

-Search on for Africa Domain - Daily Nation, Nairobi

-Can Africa get a "make-over" Re-branding Africa -The Economist,based in Kenya

-Announcing the birth of generation.africa - The East African, based in Kenya

-KENYA- Tap into the largest Economy  - UK UpperReach covers DCA, dotafrica

-Internet War- Scramble for .africa Domain - East African - based in Kenya

-Generation.africa thanks ICANN& DCA- AfricaDomains, Kenya
-AITEC Kenya  - Kenya Conference
Kenya Set to House the .africa DomainCIO East Afric, based in Kenya

 

DCA Sources: Photos and PRs

   

Live Media coverage by most popular TV & Radio  coverage in Kenya

Wallance of Nations Media spoke to Bekele on .africaNations Media TV

-Jeff Koinange presents Sophia Bekele & .africa  : K24 Kenya

-KASS Media spoke to Sophia Bekele on dotafrica , Nairobi, Kenya

 

Related Articles on UNIFORUM,  founders of ARC and AU EOI/RFP Process:

 

    -Rejoinder: Kevin Murphy - DCA believes only ICANN should decide on DotAfrica (.africa) 

   -DCA Press Briefing :African Union & UNIFORUM SA should beware of Wrong Doing 

   -DCA: Yes2dotAfrica Campaign say "NO" to African Union RFP  (11/23/2011)

   -Say "NO" to the Masquerade 'African Agenda' for Dakar and the Illegal Cabal Supporting It! 

   -Say NO to DotAfrica CABAL (Whither DotAfrica amidst Confusion, Promiscuity and...) 

   -Say NO to African Registry Consortium  (ARC) 

   -Beware: DotAfrica has been hi-jacked by new gTLD cuckoos  

 -DCA REJOINDER:African Union requests proposals for.africa domain registry 

   -Yes2DotAfrica Campaign say "NO" to African Union "EOI" 

   -DCA Alarmed over AU Unofficial mandate over dotafrica registry  

   -DCA REJOINDER: African Union and the .Africa debate 

 

Related Articles on dotafrica issues:

   

    -Say "NO" to the Masquerade 'African Agenda' for Dakar and the Illegal Cabal Supporting It!

   -You Asked, We Clarified: The Justification for our NO Campaign

   -Say NO to DotAfrica CABAL (Whither DotAfrica amidst Confusion, Promiscuity and...)

   -Say NO to African Registry Consortium  (ARC)

   -Our Score Card- Regarding our NO Campaign

-Beware: DotAfrica has been hi-jacked by new gTLD cuckoos  

-DCA REJOINDER: Misleading and Unfair reportage on dotafrica - The Daily Champion Newspaper 

-The Daily Champion: AFTLD, DCA battle for the Soul of DotAfrica

   -The Daily Champion: Ministers seek framework for DotAfrica Project 

   -DCA REJOINDER:African Union requests proposals for.africa domain registry
   -ComputerWorld Kenya: African Union requests proposals for .africa domain registry

   -DCA Response to AU TaskForce/Infrastructure & Energy "Briefing Note on .africa"  

   -Yes2DotAfrica Campaign say "NO" to African Union "EOI" 

   -African Union Yanks .Africa Bid Support - Seeks Registries 

   -DCA Commentary: Response to the African Union Commission Communiqu�  

   -Say "NO" on Nii Quaynor, Vice Chair of African Union ".africa" Task Force

   -"Corruption" claims as .africa fight heats up.

   -DCA Alarmed over AU Unofficial mandate over dotafrica registry 

   -DCA to Challenge AFTLD on DotAfrica Domain 

   -DCA REJOINDER: AfTLD seeks mandate to manage .africa   

-ComputerWorld Kenya: AfTLD seeks mandate to manage .africa 

-Yes2dotAfrica Campaign Successful at ICANN 40, SanFrancisco, CA 

-Vote 'NO" on AfTLD to manage the .africa TLD 

-Competition for .africa heats up 

-DotAfrica project alleges Sabotage from AU 

-DCA REJOINDER: African Union and the .Africa debate 

-ComputerWorld Kenya: African Union Joins the .Africa debate 

-Vote "NO" to Candidate Pierre Dandjinou for ICANN Board  

-Yes2dotAfrica campaign announced in Kenya 

 

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let it do

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. Radio Netherlands Worldwide:
A Dotafrica Generation soon to be born: more... 

 

. Sophia Bekele DCA founder and former ICANN gNSO policy advisor was noted by The Economist, Sept 15, 2010, as "leading the dotafrica initiative":  Can "Africa" get a make-over? more...

  

. Brains behind .africa, Diplomat East Africa more...  

 

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DCA in the News more.

 
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DCA is a not-for-profit, non-partisan org incorporated in Mauritius Africa & will sponsor, establish & operate a TLD registry with global recognition & regional significance dedicated to the needs of Pan-African &African community. DCA Reg.ID.CT8710DCA90
Press Contact: Thomas Kamanzi, Newsletter Editor [email protected] DotConnectAfrica, www.dotconnectafrica.org