Media round up on Kenya election crisis 5 January 2008
Violence continued in several parts of the country on 4 January. After Friday prayers in Mombasa Najib Balala led demonstrators onto the streets, who were then dispersed by the police. The secretary-general of the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya called on Kenyans to demand their rights in a peaceful manner:
http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=1&newsid=113984
Other media accounts ...
Other media accounts describe the toll of death, violence and displacement in the Rift Valley and in Nyanza:
http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143979936&cid=159
http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143979934
A report from the UN’s news service focuses on the humanitarian situation facing the two million people living in Nairobi’s slums. Many rely on casual work and social programmes which are no longer operating. Health centres are closed, creating serious problems for those reliant on regular anti-retrovirals. Around 3000 residents of Kibera, half of them children, are now camped in the Jamhuri showgrounds:
http://www.irinnews.org/PrintReport.aspx?ReportId=76107
Kenyan e-commerce sites report ‘unprecedented’ volumes of business as Kenyans in the diaspora, anxious for news, buy phone credit for friends and family back home, including those stranded up-country and unable to access banks or pay cheques:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=76108
Analysts in Uganda are questioning their country’s dependence on Mombasa as its principal gateway to the sea, and its over-reliance on transport routes through Kenya:
http://www.monitor.co.ug/artman/publish/news/Uganda_needs_alternatives_to_Kenya_gateway.shtml
The Tanzania Ports Authority expects a steep rise in throughput as cargo is re-directed from Mombasa. But the port at Dar es Salaam was said to be congested before the current crisis began:
http://www.thecitizen.co.tz/newz.php?id=2348
Archbishop Tutu left for South Africa as Jendayi Frazer arrived from the US to continue the discussions on a possible political settlement. Before leaving the country Archbishop Tutu commented that both parties were willing to enter into dialogue and that President Kibaki was willing to consider a coalition government. The ODM, on the other hand, has proposed a transitional government followed by fresh elections in three months:
http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=1&newsid=113977
http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143979964&cid=4
The secretary general of ODM-Kenya, Mutula Kilonzo, has expressed the party’s interest in participating in a coalition government:
http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143979965&cid=4
A group of senior women editors from Kenya’s media houses have launched a joint campaign to highlight the work of ordinary people trying to make a difference within their neighbourhoods. The group called on the media to make more space for grassroots women working for peace:
http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143979953
Civil society groups and church leaders have continued their calls for a peaceful resolution to the crisis, calling on both political leaders and the media to exercise their responsibilities:
http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=1&newsid=113987
This article explains the regulations governing presidential and parliamentary elections and highlights shortcomings in the recent electoral process. The author argues that, in law, a void process does not confer legitimacy. He also criticises the stands taken since the election by both the PNU and ODM:
http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=39&newsid=113952
Human Rights Watch called on 4 January for an independent review of the tallying process which led to the appointment of President Kibaki. They also urged the government to lift restrictions on the media and freedom of assembly, and recommended an independent investigation into the post-election violence:
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/01/04/kenya17688.htm
Binyavanga Wainaina, writing in the UK’s Guardian newspaper, examines the relationship between language and identity. He argues that the Kenyan state has run out of steam – ‘Kenya’s various ethnicities are now stranded in their own paranoia for lack of a viable national structure and process’:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2235785,00.html
The UK’s Financial Times argues that the resurgence of investor confidence in Africa, including Kenya, has ignored deeper realities. Headline statistics of economic progress have masked growing inequalities and an underclass left with little to lose. Consultants, bankers and politicians have been blind to ‘the despair found outside the bubble’:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1f73ffb6-baf5-11dc-9fbc-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1
Patrick Gathara suggests that the current crisis is the result of ‘decades of unequal development’, and that neither Raila Odinga nor Mwai Kibaki has much regard for the interests of suffering Kenyans. He sees hope, however, in the efforts by other groups in society to chart a different path:
http://www.kenyaimagine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1008&Itemid=86
This Kenyan blogger also believes that Kenyans have the power to ‘re-write the script’, and that despite the violence of the past week, the foundations still exist to build shared values and bridge differences:
http://gukira.wordpress.com/2008/01/
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