Kenya Erupts in Post-Election Violence

Subsaharan Africa is a collective basket case, but there are bright spots. One of the brightest until last week was Kenya. Dictator President Daniel arap Moi left office and entered a rather luxurious retirement, and Mwai Kibaki won an election in 2002 that was largely fair and free. The country had avoided the Rwanda, Somalia, Congo sorts of disasters and had become a tourist attraction. Last week's disputed election is putting that all at risk.

The voting on December 27 was largely peaceful and orderly, suggesting that Kenya was going to be OK. However, as the saying goes, “It's not how you vote that counts, but how you count the votes.” The counting was not clean, and the result was a hurried announcement that Mr. Kibaki had defeated opposition candidate Raila Odinga by about 230,000 votes. Mr. Odinga's people claimed a victory prior to the December 30 announcement, saying they had a 500,000 vote lead. Samuel Kivuitu, election commission boss, claimed he had been pressured by both sides to announce the results quickly - and perhaps wrongly. In Wednesday's edition, the country's oldest newspaper, The Standard, quoted him as saying, “I do not know whether Kibaki won the election.”

The stolen election, if that is what it was, is bad enough, Complicating the trouble is ethnic division. Kenya is a nation of 34 million people belonging to more than 40 ethnic groups. Mr. Kibaki is a member of the Kikuyu nation. Mr. Odinga is a Luo, as is Senator Barrack Obama on his father's side. Former dictator Moi's Kalenjin ethnic group supports Mr. Odinga. Other groups are also split their loyalities.

Ethnically-based gangs have been looting, burning, and killing for a few days now. The worst incident involved the burning of a church packed with people who were hoping for sanctuary from the violence around them. About 30 died in the fire, mostly old men, women and children. As of today, the death toll is approaching 400. The BBC reports that the security forces are either unwilling or unable to stop the violence.

Mwalimu Mati, a Nairobi-based anticorruption campaigner, told The Times, “I can see the beginnings of an ethnic conflict. There’s always been this undercurrent of suspicion, but by and large the poor were just the poor living together. Now the police are ringing those places and not allowing them to leave, so it’s a slaughterhouse situation.”

The last word goes to a Yusuf Ibrahim, a 24-year-old from the Nubian tribe, whom The Times also quoted, “The houses are torched, the kiosks have been torched but what have we gained? We’ve gained nothing. Where is Mwai Kibaki, where is Raila to come here and do what’s necessary?” Where indeed.

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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