Tuesday, January 29, 2008
32 to face court over killings
Twenty-four people will soon appear in court over the ongoing killings across the country.Police commissioner Hussein Ali said Monday that files of the suspects had been forwarded to the Attorney-General’s office after his officers completed investigations. However, Maj-Gen Ali declined to provide their identity saying “it would be premature” to release such information on suspects before they are charged.More than 600 people have been killed, thousands displaced and property worth millions of shillings destroyed after announcement of the presidential poll results.
MoreThe seeds of mistrust were sown decades ago, but this will not explode into genocide
As the situation in Kenya grows worse by the day – and the worst is almost certainly still to come – many people are drawing parallels with the Rwandan genocide of 1994. Pictures of gangs of young men carrying spears, clubs and machetes to cut down strangers in their area look like Rwanda ‘94. But the cause is very different. Rwanda has a social system unique to that region. Hutu and Tutsi are technically the same ethnic group. They speak the same language (indistinguishable even by accent), they are part of the same culture and worship the same gods. They are separated by race and caste, not ethnicity. Physically distinguishable (though the stereotypes are not always a certain guide), they had different roles in a single society.
MoreKenyans ‘forcibly recruited to fight’
A Kenyan (who wishes to remain anonymous) in the Rift Valley town of Naivasha describes how members of an outlawed sect - the Mungiki - are forcibly recruiting members of their Kikuyu ethnic group to kill non-Kikuyus - allied to the opposition. Law and order has broken down in the Rift Valley area since the disputed 27 December presidential election. Kenyan politics is polarised and because of this, when a community feels threatened, groupings or gangs arise in their defence.
MoreUN genocide adviser urges end to violence in Kenya, sends staffer there
The United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide today called for an immediate halt to the destructive cycle of attacks and revenge attacks in Kenya, where post-electoral violence continues to claim lives, and announced plans to dispatch a staff member there. Francis Deng urged national and local leaders on all sides to publicly call for an end to the violence and to statements inciting violence, UN spokesperson Marie Okabe told reporters in New York. Mr. Deng is dispatching one of his staff members to Kenya as soon as possible to examine the situation, Ms. Okabe added.
Understanding Kenya’s politics
Until late 2007, Kenya was considered one of the most stable countries in Africa. It has functioned as East Africa’s financial and communications hub, the headquarters of many international nongovernmental organizations, and a magnet for tourism. Analysts looked favorably upon its healthy and broad-based economic expansion under President Mwai Kibaki, which stood in marked contrast to the growth of countries such as Angola and Equatorial Guinea that depend on the export of a single commodity—oil. Yet disputed elections in late December 2007 spurred outbreaks of violence across the country that killed more than six-hundred people. That prompted some fears that Kenya would split on tribal lines and descend into prolonged unrest. Experts say such a scenario is unlikely, but also suggest that prior depictions of Kenya’s stability were premature. Kenya is a young democracy, they say, and its weak institutions—not inherent ethnic divisions—are at the root of the current political crisis.
Kenya’s problem goes beyond ethnicity and elections
There is more to Kenya’s post-election violence than a bungled vote count and so-called tribal rivalries. As protests degenerate into organised ethnic violence in Rift Valley towns and countryside, the root-cause of the unrest lies elsewhere. “We must tackle the fundamental issues underlying the disturbances—like equitable distribution of resources—or else we will be back here again after three or four years,” former U.N. chief Kofi Annan told journalists in Nairobi’s Serena Hotel Sunday, after talking to survivors of the violence which has claimed over 1,000 lives and displaced some 250,000 people since the December election.
Stanch the bleeding and change the constitution
Putting aside the political contestations and the protests that followed President Kibaki’s controversial re-election, the ethnic violence has acquired a familiar historical meta-narrative that does not seem obvious to this government, let alone the nation. The government, in its bid to defend its legitimacy, has married the political contestation by Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) to the ethnic violence in the Rift Valley.
Kenya clashes spill over to Busia, Malaba
Protests erupted in western Kenya as machete-wielding mobs faced off in the Rift Valley yesterday after scores of people were killed in ethnic violence, complicating mediation by former U.N. boss Kofi Annan. The flare-up in Kenyan violence also spilled over close to the Ugandan border points of Busia and Malaba. In Busia, a mob of youth attacked and dispersed people in a market early Monday morning -sending most of them fleeing to the Uganda side in fear of a possible escalation of violence. In Malaba, protests broke out in the afternoon, with rioters pulling down a bill-board with President Mwai Kibaki’s portrait. Some chanted; “This is not the Presiden, Raila is the President.¨
MoreMonday, January 28, 2008
Weekend violence claims 90 lives
Thirty more people were feared dead, bringing the toll of the weekend bloodletting to almost 90 as the epicentre of the violence shifted to Naivasha, 70km from the capital, Nairobi. And in a chilling episode, at least 16 people — most of them women and children — were burnt to death in a house torched by attackers in Naivasha.
Human Rights’ officials threatened
Human rights’ officials fear for their lives following a report released by an international group on post-election violence. The Human Rights Watch report accuses opposition leaders in the Rift Valley of planning skirmishes in the province. Eldoret human rights organisations said the report was being linked to them yet they did not participate in its preparation. Led by the Executive Director of the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (CHRD), Mr Ken Wafula, the officials said their lives were in now danger. “We are accused of feeding Human Rights Watch with information that led to the compilation of the report,” Wafula told the Press in Eldoret.
MoreHuman Rights’ officials threatened
Human rights’ officials fear for their lives following a report released by an international group on post-election violence. The Human Rights Watch report accuses opposition leaders in the Rift Valley of planning skirmishes in the province. Eldoret human rights organisations said the report was being linked to them yet they did not participate in its preparation. Led by the Executive Director of the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (CHRD), Mr Ken Wafula, the officials said their lives were in now danger. “We are accused of feeding Human Rights Watch with information that led to the compilation of the report,” Wafula told the Press in Eldoret.
MoreFriday, January 25, 2008
Spaces of Hope
“We cannot stop life for the sake of two people who are not in agreement” said a twenty-three year old Kenyan woman in Nairobi. The two men in question - Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga - both claim to have been elected president in the national vote on 27 December 2007. The incumbent Kibaki was sworn into a second term of office, and Odinga publicly challenges the legitimacy of the vote count.
During their stand-off, more than 250,000 people have been displaced from their homes; police have shot and killed unarmed civilian protesters; vigilantes (some posing as traditional “warriors") have prevented Red Cross food relief from reaching victims; police fired teargas into a hospital; and more than 650 people have died in violent conflicts, including some forty women and children who were incinerated in a church where they had taken refuge (on the background to some of these events, see Jeffrey Gettleman, “Signs in Kenya That Killings Were Planned,” New York Times, 21 January 2008). Food and fuel supplies have run short in Kenya and neighbouring countries.
MoreChaos in North Rift unmasks historical disputes over land and cattle rustling
A new wave of violence has hit the North Rift region casting doubt on the position that the ongoing mayhem was purely a result of the disputed presidential election results. Initially thought to have targeted just one community from Central province, the violence is now targeting two other groups this time from western Kenya, raising the possibility of other causes. Already, one church says there are indications that there could be other reasons fuelling the violence.
MoreInternational Criminal Court Observing Violence Closely
The Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) is closely observing recent post-election Kenyan violence, according to reports from The Hague, the court’s seat. Two Kenyan opponents, President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), threatened separately Tuesday to appeal to ICC, but apparently being unaware of the rules of referral. Asked over the issue, a member of the office of the prosecutor told the Hirondelle News Agency, that “Kenya is a state party of ICC and the Office of the Prosecutor follows all allegations of crimes within its jurisdiction.” The statute of the ICC enables it to exercise its jurisdiction if a situation is submitted to the Prosecutor by a State Party or by the Security Council of the UN but it also allows it (Art 15) to exercise its jurisdiction under the terms of an investigation opened by the Prosecutor by his own initiative.
Breaking Kenya’s Impasse: Chaos or Courts?
Executive Summary & Recommendations
Kenya’s 2007 election has precipitated the country’s worst crisis since the abortive August1982 coup by the Air Force: 700 deaths, nearly 300,000 others displaced, an estimated 60 billion Kenya shillings ($850 million) and continuing instability which has undermined the country’s international image and rapidly eroded donor confidence. Typically, international observers viewed Kenya through the prism of other failed states in Africa, and proffered the obvious ‘liberal peace’ solution: peace talks leading to a power sharing deal between the various ‘warlords’ or elites. As a result of this flawed diagnosis, Kenya has witnessed a parachuting of international mediators (Desmond Tutu, John Kufor and Kofi Annan) to broker yet another peace deal in a troubled continent.