A bitter wind of grievance

The memory of violence will be hard to suppress. The idea of a Kenya for all Kenyans is dead

Andia Kisia
Thursday January 31, 2008
The Guardian
By now, the question of who won the election is almost beside the point. Neither "President" Kibaki nor Raila Odinga should be allowed within sniffing distance of the presidency. The country is imploding, people are dying and destitute, and these two great men have to be coaxed to the negotiating table.


The idea of Kenya belonging to all Kenyans and Kenyans having the right to live where they like is dead in the water. For some of the victims of the violence in the Rift Valley, this is the second or third time they have lost everything. Many have vowed never to come back. The message being telegraphed by the violence is that the only really safe place to put down any roots is among your own kind. Rift Valley for the Kalenjins, Central Province for the Kikuyus, and so on.


As a child, my family and I travelled at least once a year to visit my grandparents via the western reaches of the A104, the road from Mombasa to the border with Uganda. The journey was a bone-jarring eight hours, but pleasant enough, through the Rift Valley province. We would stop periodically for bathroom breaks or food in Naivasha, Nakuru, Kericho and finally Kisumu. My parents would buy produce from local farmers, all of which ended up in the cabin of the pick-up truck. And so we would continue, ankle-deep in potatoes, carrots and cabbage.


In 1992, when the violence in the Rift Valley first reared its head in the run-up to the elections, the signs of trouble were everywhere. There were burned-out houses all along the road. The farmers who sold produce by the roadside were gone - at least the Kikuyu ones were. Long stretches of the countryside were emptied out.


The Rift Valley is the largest of Kenya's eight provinces and, bar Nairobi, the most populous and ethnically diverse. People from all over the country have flocked to its urban areas and rural plantations. So in addition to the indigenous Kalenjin, there are large numbers of Kikuyu, Luhya, Luo, Kisii and others. Nothing wrong with that. Kenya, we were told over and over, was for all Kenyans. We were free to go where we wanted, live where we wanted.


For years this rhetoric concealed abiding anger surrounding land and its distribution: who had it, who didn't, why some had so little and others so much, how the land-rich had come to own what they did. But the lid was mostly kept on this disaffection until, in 1992, with the real possibility of losing power, Arap Moi cynically gave that anger a murderous outlet. Non-Kalenjin, we were told, were only visitors in the Rift Valley. They were welcome to stay as long as they toed the line, which meant voting for the right candidates.


In the event, few "outsiders" got a chance to vote in the Rift. Most were driven out in an outbreak of slashing and burning and killing that shocked us to our core. With the elections over and Moi back in office, the violence lost its intensity. The "visitors" trickled back to rebuild their lives and homes, although many did not return, and in some places it was years before things returned to normality. But that Pandora's box of violence has never been successfully shut. It has simmered under the surface with occasional outbreaks and has now exploded once again into life.


Fool me once, goes the saying, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. There must be a lot of Rift Valley Kikuyu ruing their lack of sense in returning to live among people who had so violently communicated their dislike. And there are, no doubt, many Kenyans watching and wondering what it all means.


Will any "outsiders" ever again stake their livelihoods on the existence of a country called Kenya and buy land in the Rift - or anywhere outside their districts of origin? Will we all retreat to the safety of our homogenous ethnic enclaves? Will we ever again be able to look each other in the eyes, to suppress the knowledge of the things we have done and are capable of doing to each other? And if not, what kind of country will we become?


The national memory is very long, and injuries are not easily forgotten or forgiven. The Rift is evidence of that. But now we are sowing a bitter wind of grievance, and unless we handle this cataclysm judiciously and with more courage and honesty than we have ever before mustered, we will certainly reap the whirlwind. National memory is long indeed. Let us never forget that our so-called leaders sold us all down the river.

In the crisis, the buck stops with Kibaki - Daily Nation Editorial

The Daily Nation in an editorial came close to condemning Mr Kibaki for inaction while Kenya is falling apart. I consider the editorial to be a clever mix of half-truths and twisted reasoning. My critique is in red font colour. Read on

Whether the killing on Tuesday of Embakasi MP Melitus “Mugabe” Were was an assassination or — as the police put it — pure murder, it will certainly complicate the state of national insecurity, which threatens to turn Kenya into a failed state. It comes as the country grapples with national unrest in which 350,000 people have been displaced, at least 800 have died and property worth billions of shillings has been destroyed. Such is the cycle of violence that has poisoned ethnic relations that the fear of civil war is not far-fetched and the prospect of healing wounds and reconstruction is simply daunting. Every image of a razed house, every shot of a drying patch of blood is a chilling reminder of the deep fissures which have turned Kenya’s fabled unity into a mirage. Eldoret, Kisumu, Nakuru, Naivasha — it’s all a tale of blood-letting and destruction on a scale never envisaged in our beloved country. We have now reached a stage where we must wonder whether the Government has been absent or has been unable to function since President Kibaki was declared elected for a second term and sworn in under a cloud of controversy. Yet we are nowhere near resolving the dispute: Opposition presidential candidate Raila Odinga claims that the election was rigged and has refused to accept President Kibaki’s victory; The President insists he was fairly elected and duly took up office. The standoff has precipitated the worst crisis Kenya has faced since Independence. This is not about who won or who did not win the presidential election (Well, what is it about? If you imply that it is neither, then it certainly has to be about 'who stole the election?'). It is not about who is responsible for organising or fuelling the violence (Come on Nation, The State is executing innocent, armless and harmless civilians in Kisumu while it cheers on and protects armed gangs in Naivasha!). This is about the simple and indisputable fact that, whatever the circumstances of his victory, President Kibaki now occupies State House (albeit illegally and is shy to exercise the powers he usurped because he knows he is unpopular even among the people who inadvertently voted for him because they're dying right under his nose!) and owes this country a (ir)responsibility. Granted, the legitimacy of his presidency is in question, but nobody is better placed than he to deal with the daily slaughter of innocent Kenyans and the rancid climate of ethnic distrust. For now, he controls the instruments of State terror. If then there is a government in place, why has the situation been allowed to get out of hand? The killings and evictions in northern Rift Valley, the revenge attacks in Nakuru and Naivasha and the ethnic fighting in Nairobi slums all indicate an abysmal failure of government. The diplomatic effort Yes, the formal mediation by Mr Annan’s team has started, but the public’s confidence in the diplomatic effort is continually dampened by jarring remarks — bordering on the insensitive — from Cabinet Ministers and Opposition hard-liners harping on the legitimacy of their cause. How, for instance, does Mr Amos Kimunya propose to push ahead with the Safaricom flotation with internal refugee camps full and some mortuaries overflowing with strife victims? How callous can one be, Mr Otieno Kajwang’, to dismiss the fate of innocent women and children burnt to death in a church as a “wake-up call”? Then there are the politicians and businessmen who are fuelling a frightening new conflagration (Tell us more. Who are they and which gangs are they supporting? On whose behalf are they acting? Are you holding back something here?). Impatient with what they see as President Kibaki’s inability to handle violent dissent, they are reported to be raising funds and mobilising militias (Be specific. Which militias? Mungiki killing squads? How about their 2002 MOU which was dishonoured? The chicken will definitely come home to roost.) to counter what they (Nation, Nation, Nation. Come on and name names. Who are the 'they'?) see as the targeting of their community. The attacks in Naivasha and Nakuru may (Maybe? Get serious!) be part of this strategy, which may also include leaflets by a shadowy group containing a hit list of alleged tribal “traitors.” The list includes politicians, civil society activists and journalists. Much of what has befallen Kenyan indicates an absence of leadership (This honesty has been missing from your media for a long time. Keep it up, but what do Kenyans do when there is NO leadership?). No one can dispute the fact that in many of the worst hit areas, particularly in the Rift Valley, the government’s security and administrative organs fell flat on their faces. In Nakuru and Naivasha, the world watched in horror as police stood by while armed mobs set up illegal roadblocks and killed innocent people (Is this bluntness an incitement of Kibaki or an awakening following the product boycott calls by the legally elected government of President Raila? So, the bottom line is the bank balance, eh? Good. Now, guide Kenyans in a civilian counter-coup to remove Kibaki. Be on the frontline as you always were during Moi's regime. Come on, pick the gauntlet!). Whereas in Kisumu and Nairobi police were accused of using excessive force against rioters and demonstrators, in Nakuru and Naivasha the force appears to have done exactly the opposite (By the way, did you air the clip showing that 'Rambo-style killing of the main actor' in Kisumu? Because of selective honesty. If it were Moi's time, would you have failed to play it over and over again? Why this brazen hypocrisy?): It was ineffective against murderous mobs who killed and maimed in full view of television cameras. Mr Kibaki (GOOD! Mr. NOT President Kibaki!) has at his command awesome powers that can be called upon to restore sanity before things get out of control. This should not be about using the full might of the security forces against the opposition; this is about applying lawful force to counter all troublemakers, whatever their political or ethnic affiliations. It’s about defending the Constitution and protecting life and limb; it’s about enforcing peace; it’s about statesmanship. The same constitution which he dishonoured by not accepting the peoples' mandate had ended on Dec 27? Kibaki has a dismal record when it comes to honouring the constitution, indeed any contract and you know it. While all sides in the political divide bear responsibility (Stop this nonsense of 'we are all guilty and wronged', it will not wash. It is about a stolen election, stupid!) for what has happened to Kenya, it ultimately falls on the President to exercise his illegal authority and do what needs to be done. He has to restore law and order and drive the pursuit of a just political settlement. That is what occupying the Top Office is all about, Mr Kibaki, and there can be no evading that responsibility (Are you sure that occupying Top Office is NOT about sleeping ON TOP of everybody and everything?) . If Kenya disintegrates, history books will record that the collapse of a once great, united and prosperous country happened on your (AGAIN ambiguous. Just come clean and say 'Mr Kibaki's') watch.

Behind The Chaos In Kenya

A month ago, Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki brazenly stole a national election, abruptly reversing the nation's progress toward a mature democracy. Violence since Election Day has taken nearly 1,000 lives and left a quarter-million homeless.

Now a legislator allied with Raila Odinga - the man who actually won the election - has been assassinated. The police and military have been unable to contain the savagery in the streets.

First, Odinga's outraged backers ethnically cleansed members of Kibaki's tribe, the Kikuyus. Then put-upon Kikuyus struck back, driving out Odinga's Luo and other minority tribes. Spontaneous rage coalesced into organized purges. Ex-UN chief Kofi Annan's attempts to reach a compromise continue to fail.

Ralph Peters - Contributor Ralph Peters is a retired Army officer and the author of 19 books, as well as of hundreds of essays and articles, written both under his own name and as Owen Parry. He is a frequent columnist for the New York Post and other publications. [go to Peters Index]

But it's not only corrupt local pols who are to blame. Kenya's sudden nightmare is also the fault of pompous Western theorists and impossibly arrogant diplomats. (Our embassy in Nairobi's botched response to the stolen election alienated both sides in turn.)

The horrific violence in Kenya has its roots in three things: the corruption we overlook, the forms of democracy we demand - and, above all, the tribes that left-wing academics insist are only wicked European inventions.

Our tolerance for corruption (our ambassador initially hailed Kibaki's "victory") may be the most pernicious remaining form of racism - our all-too-ready acceptance that developing countries just can't rise above it. And corruption is a cancer that infects every organ of a society.

At least we grasp, on some level, that corruption is wrong. It's the other two factors - ill-fitting forms of democracy and the persistence of tribes - that steer our good intentions into the express lane to Hell.

Kenya was long one of the continent's few stable states - yet people there kept on voting along tribal lines. As they do in Iraq. And Afghanistan. And Pakistan, Indonesia, Nigeria . . . just throw a dart at the map. Impose Western forms of democracy, and majority or plurality tribes win - then view their victories as license to loot. It doesn't even occur to them to share.


The process has played out hundreds of times, in dozens of countries, but we still insist that democracy means "one citizen, one vote" for a central government with Western-style ministries. The model we've enforced around the world assumes that enlightened citizens won't be bound by tribal or religious loyalties.


But they are. So, in a country where an alpha tribe has the clout to dominate at the polls, a democracy that fails to formally apportion power among a country's various ethnic and religious factions just doesn't work.


Our type of democracy works in homogeneous countries, such as Sweden or the Netherlands, where campaigns are strictly about issues - or in countries, like our own, that are so diverse no "alpha tribe" can lord it over everybody else.


But democracy as we know it doesn't work in countries where competition for resources persists along tribal or religious lines. (Kenya also has a Christian-Muslim fracture, though it's not at the forefront now.)


At the bottom of virtually every electoral mess in the developing world are indestructible identities that Western academics long insisted didn't exist. In the 20th century, no end of professors declared that differences in ethnicity, tradition, language and perceived identity were all in our heads: European imperialists had created tribes to screw up Eden.


But our attempts to ride roughshod over fundamental identities to which human beings cling for dear life only resulted in the sort of failures we've witnessed in the post-colonial years - and the problems we faced in Iraq as we brushed aside sheiks in favor of corrupt bureaucrats.


To make democracy work in the developing world, you must adapt it to the pre-existing social structures and traditional loyalties, rather than assuming they'll wither away at the first election. Even Stalin couldn't finish off the Chechens. Afghanistan's Pathans won't vote for Tadjiks, or Sunni Arabs for Sunni Kurds.


The utterly wrong-headed and ultimately deadly insistence that everybody is just like us has led us to prescribe poison: In tribal societies, Western-style presidential or parliamentary systems produce, at best, authoritarian regimes. (As I argued years ago, our question in 2003 shouldn't have been "How do we bring our democracy to Iraq?" but "What would an Iraqi democracy look like?")


The immediate cause of Kenya's brutal street murders, slum rampages and neighborhood purges is a stolen election that cheated those who hoped democracy would finally work for their tribes. In the simplest terms, one tribe stole from the others. Now there's tribal warfare.


When we in the West analyze our own societies, we start with the individual and extrapolate to the mass. In tribal societies, whether in Africa, the Middle East or the Subcontinent, you must begin with the mass and work down.


We vote our individual consciences. In much of the world, that's unthinkable: You vote for your own kind.


Until we see the world as it is, rather than as we wish it to be, elections will tear tribal societies apart - as in Kenya today. The problem isn't democracy. It's "one size fits all" democracy.

Ralph Peters' latest book is Wars of Blood and Faith.

Redefining the public interest: the scandal of Kenyan media

By John Otieno-Onyando

On New Year's Eve, as protesters barricaded roads and civil strife was setting in, many Kenyans were outraged at the last-minute altering of election results that gave incumbent President Kibaki victory. Mass protests erupted across the country soon after Electoral Commission Chairman Samuel Kivuitu announced that Kibaki had indeed won the election.


A day earlier, the lights had literally gone out on Kenya. In what was easily the most tense and exhilarating moment in the country's history, every Kenyan with a television sat riveted in front of it. They were watching the drama of Mr Kivuitu reading out the last set of constituency results that would determine who would be Kenya's next president.


Politicians from the opposition Orange Democratic Movement were raising vigorous objections to changes in some election figures that had been agreed on jointly by all parties at the constituency level before being relayed to ECK headquarters for national tallying. Suddenly, the screens of all television channels went dark, except that of the state broadcaster, KBC. Hours later, as ODM presidential candidate at the election, Mr Raila Odinga, was doing a live press conference, the plug was again pulled. Then all live news broadcasts were outlawed.


Hours to Mr Kivuitu's announcement, independent tallying of ECK results broadcast on all media had shown Mr Odinga leading Kibaki by nearly one million votes. In its short message service, the Nation Group showed Mr Odinga leading with 4.3 million votes to Kibaki's 3.7 million just hours to the final declaration. The Royal Media Services showed a similar margin. Mr Odinga's lead was expected to fall marginally as results from some Kibaki strongholds not yet tallied trickled in.


Then the unexpected happened. The last batch of results announced at the KICC tallying centre indicated huge inconsistencies from the ones announced at constituencies. As the European Union observer mission indicated in its report, its representative in Molo in the former White Highlands witnessed the recording of 50,000 votes for Kibaki, but the result announced in Nairobi gave him nearly 75,000 votes.


Many constituency results were rigged in Kibaki's favour by simply crossing his numbers from the field and inserting higher figures. Overall, ODM said that at least 750,000 votes were stolen this way; that the 230,000 margin announced for Mr Kibaki camouflaged a 500,000 vote victory for Mr Odinga.


The announcement was followed by a hurried swearing-in ceremony for Kibaki at State House, Nairobi. Spontanous demonstrations erupted throughout the country, with youths barricading roads in Mombasa, Nairobi, Kisumu, Eldoret and other towns. They chanted pro-ODM slogans, expressing outrage at Mr Kivuitu's act and declaring not to rest until the person they believed won the election took over at State House.


At constituency level, where doctoring results is much harder, voters ejected an astounding 20 of Kibaki's Cabinet Ministers. Kibaki's own party won only 43 seats in the new Parliament, less than half of ODM's 99 in a 210-member house. To many, this was an astounding rejection of the government, and undermined any claim that it could have legitimately won the presidential poll.


In the circumstances, it was going to be difficult governing a disenchanted nation. The ban on live coverage was clearly intended to frustrate ODM whose leaders had detailed blow-by-blow the extent changes were being made to official documents at the KICC. Mr Kivuitu's behaviour during the three days of protracted counting (the exercise took a day in three previous elections) lent credence to Opposition fears that ECK was aiding the rigging. "I can't reach many of my officers from Central province, some have switched off their phones, they are cooking figures somewhere," he told an international press conference on December 29. Curiously, those very officers had released results for parliamentary and civic elections conducted simultaneously.


Gradually, the chairman himself had become something of an irritant. In response to a questioner at one point, Mr Kivuitu said that he would not fear his actions plunging Kenya into chaos, because, if anything, "I would also burn with it." Police finally evacuated the ECK offices of everybody (including journalists and observers) from the centre before Mr Kivuitu announced Kibaki the winner on KBC. Henceforth, all news was recorded by KBC for private media.


Outside the tallying centre and throughout the country, tension was rising, and the media, acting instinctively in consorts with the Commission, sudenly halted broadcasting their own tallies without explanation. In the meantime, more and more Kenyans were pouring onto the streets. They were always not going to accept that the man they are convinced won the election should be kept from assuming power. There was bitter anger in much of the republic, and violence immediately seized the nation.


Looking back now, this was just part of the problem. Almost immediately, much of the electronic media, the very media that had shown Mr Odinga in the lead, inundated viewers and listeners with repeats of the recorded swearing-in from which they were barred, music and messages of peace that singularly called on Kenyans to shun violence and accept the results. ODM and its leaders had become anathema for the media. Through to January 3, Mr Odinga had got not a single interview in local media compared to developing reports from BBC, Al Jazeera, CNN and other global broadcasters.


Most ironically, Kenya's media houses were calling for a peace whose breakdown they had not reported to begin with. In effect they became Kibaki's principal ally in the theft and subsequent suppression of freedoms of expression and assembly. The media allowed then Internal security minister John Michuki to set standards, giving new definitions of responsible journalism and incitement.


A vain explanation for the ban on live broadcasts was that editors were being empowered to check content. The Law Society of Kenya condemned media suppression, but journalists whose trade it affected appeared unable to raise issues.


Instead, the Media Council, a statutory body recently formed to police standards and arbitrate on media disputes, wrote a harsh letter to international media houses condemning their coverage of the Kenyan crisis. Of particular concern were CNN and Al Jazeera which were showing images of police shooting Opposition protesters or buildings set ablaze. The MCK also put media advertisements calling on Kenyans to observe peace. In all acts the Council's motive was clear, siding with Kibaki's standpoint of preaching peace without mention of what caused its breach.


Many journalists, including members of MCK itself did not believe the messages had indeed come from the Council. MCK Chairman Wachira Waruru, however, confirmed they initiated the calls, so that journalists could act "more ethically."


A journalists' Code of Conduct and ethical guidelines widely used in Kenya, and supported by the Council, does not support the logic in the letter, but Mr Waruru explained that he articulated the letter and messages (both never discussed by any MCK organs) in the public interest.


The public interest was indeed ovewhelming; a valuable exercise in the country's democracy, this election costed billions of shillings precipitated debate on the conduct and performance of public institutions. The public interest for peace was concurrent with then ongoing assessment on the conduct of the Chief Justice, ECK, the police department and President Kibaki himself. Had institutions worked to the limit of their capabilities?


Mr Waruru asserted that their warning to international media borrowed on standard international practice where journalists supposedly do not air images of anguish. But he could not specify which country, only insisting, "Even on 9/11 Americans were not showed dying people or the Twin Towers coming down."


The conduct of MCK today concerns many journalists. But like in the election coverage no newspaper or radio will facilitate this exchange. Journalists question decision-making in the Council, its role as a professional watchdog and, sadly, even how it hires staff. But it is the Council's grandstanding on the public interest with peace messages that annoy many. In the deteriorating security situation in Kenya, how safe are journalists covering politics and events? What happened to the media's tally of the results? Who ordered journalists evicted from KICC grounds?


Mr Hassan Kulundu, a managing editor at the Kenya Times, believes MCK is "composed of people with interests who cannot help the media." Mr David Ochami, a journalist who sits on MCK on behalf of the journalists' union, acknowledges questions remain regarding the council's conduct in the matter of these elections.


Mr Waruru is the managing director of Royal Media Services, a group with multiple, mainly vernacular radio stations that put much effort campaigning for Kibaki. The MCK aims to promote professionalism, yet its chairman heads Kenya's most embedded media group. The view now popular in the media is that Kibaki and Raila bear equal liability for ongoing crisis. For good measure journalists who have attempted to interogate the crisis from its origins now face death threats from shadowy groups. MCK is yet to release a statement on the threats to journalists from the Standard Group that state-aided merceneries raided two years ago. Perhaps that is not in the public interest.

The writer is a Kenyan journalist based in Nairobi.

Understanding Kenya's Politics

Introduction
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.

The Power of the President
In Kenya, most institutions -- including the judiciary, parliament, and the electoral commission -- are subservient to the president. The president appoints high court judges and electoral commissioners, has the power to dissolve parliament, and controls the federal budget. The extent of presidential power is a holdover from the colonial period, experts say, and has changed little since independence in 1963. For instance, the president still appoints provincial and district commissioners, who oversee municipal services such as education, health, and transportation. David Anderson, director of the African Studies Center at Oxford University, says these commissioners function like a "shadow government entirely in the control of the president." Districts known to be supportive of the opposition party, or with opposition parliamentarians, tend to receive fewer resources than those controlled by the ruling party, he says.


Members of parliament are elected by the general population but parliament has little power to address public grievances. When voters realize elected officials aren't going to address their concerns about social and economic inequality, this leads them to distrust institutions and produces a "sense of disempowerment and disillusionment," says Calestous Juma, a Kenyan professor of international development at Harvard University. The electoral commission's inability to resolve disputes over the legitimacy of vote tabulation following December 2007 elections served as further evidence that Kenya's political institutions could not be considered independent.


Widespread corruption has further eroded public trust in political institutions. Kenya ranked 150 out of 180 countries on Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, the same ranking as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Liberia, both of which recently emerged from civil war. The Kenya Bribery Index 2007, published by the Kenya branch of Transparency International, reported than Kenyans paid twice as many bribes in 2006 (PDF) as the previous year, but noted that the total sum paid by each person remained the same because each bribe was smaller.


Parliament has made efforts to fight corruption. In the past five years, it has made "enormous strides" in establishing a committee system, which includes oversight committees, says Joel D. Barkan, senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and professor emeritus of political science at the University of Iowa. Advocates of further reform note that parliament is still expected to rubber stamp the executive branch's budget, and lacks the ability to review the president's judicial and cabinet appointments.

Winner Take All: A History of Political Violence
Experts say elections are dominated by a winner-take-all mentality due to the consolidation of power in the executive branch. Though Kenya has had multiparty elections since 1992, the opposition has little power in the government. "If you lose the election, you have nothing to do," says Anderson. As a result, opposition MPs often don't even show up to conduct the business of parliament, he says.


Because elections are such high-stakes affairs, political candidates are accustomed to hiring groups of young, armed men to protect their interests (this practice is also common in Nigeria). Each poll since the introduction of multiparty elections -- in 1992, 1997, and 2002 -- has been accompanied by low-level outbreaks of violence. Most experts trace this violence back to tactics that President Daniel arap Moi, who led the country from 1978 until 2002, used to divide the population and retain political power. "When Western donors compelled Moi to institute multiparty politics, his reaction was to make a prophecy that it would end in ethnic violence," says Anderson. While there was not a history of ethnic violence under British rule, colonial officials fostered divisions among Kenya's ethnic groups to prevent them from uniting against their rulers.


Experts say this ethnic tension was stoked and manipulated by Moi. Kenya has forty-one different ethnic groups; the Kikuyu, with 22 percent of the population, is the most educated and prosperous group. When Moi, who is Kalenjin, faced the prospect of losing power to an opposition party that contained many Kikuyu, he started an anti-Kikuyu campaign and incited land clashes in the Rift Valley between Kalenjins and Kikuyus in 1992 and 1997. Major rights groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have reported extensively on the state-sponsored nature of this violence.


By the 2002 election of President Mwai Kibaki, who is Kikuyu, such political violence had become routine. According to Afrobarometer (PDF), an independent research project on public opinion in sub-Saharan Africa, 66 percent of Kenyans said in 2005 that competition between political parties "often" or "always" leads to violent conflict (up from 54 percent in 2003).

Political and Economic Tensions with an Ethnic Face
News reports were quick to label the violence that followed December 2007 presidential elections as tribal, but some experts say this is a gross oversimplification. Contrary to prevailing attitudes, Kenyans have not traditionally identified themselves by ethnic group and studies have shown they do not have significant feelings of ethnic injustice. In a 2003 Afrobarometer survey, 70 percent said they would choose to be Kenyan if faced with a choice between a national identity and their ethnic group (28 percent refused to identify themselves as anything but Kenyan). Analysts say much of the unrest that erupted after the December 2007 polls was just the latest display of politically organized violence. Political coalitions on both sides hired thugs to do their bidding, and ordinary Kenyans were caught in the cross fire, they say.


Though much of Kenya's ethnic violence can be attributed to political manipulation, there are economic inequalities between some ethnic groups, and long-standing bitter disputes over land, particularly in the Rift Valley. According to the 2007/2008 UN Human Development Index, Kenya ranks 148 of 177 countries on income inequality. Many Kenyans believe the Kikuyu have accrued a disproportionate percentage of the benefits of Kenya's recent economic growth. The head of the Nairobi Stock exchange, the Central Bank of Kenya, and Kenya Electric Generating Company, the region's largest power generator, are all Kikuyu (Bloomberg). These are "economic issues that get reflected through ethnic institutions," says Harvard's Juma.


Because Kenya's political system concentrates power in the hands of the president and his political cronies, it only exacerbates these economic inequalities, experts say. A book on inequality in Kenya, published by the Nairobi-based Society for International Development, says there is evidence that political patronage in Kenya's public spending has increased economic and regional inequalities (PDF). The president of the African Development Bank, Donald Kaberuka, told the Financial Times that the inequality issue is a chief source of Kenya's problems, saying: "40 percent of [Kenya's] people live in urban areas and many of them in slums. This is where this volatility arising from inequalities comes from."

Constitutional Reform
There is broad consensus within and outside Kenya that the country needs constitutional reforms that strengthen local government and rectify regional resource imbalances. There has been a push for such reforms since 1991, and some experts say the current political stalemate offers an opportunity to catalyze action. "If we don't create a new constitutional order, we will have even a bigger crisis in the future," says Juma. Others think there is a short-term opportunity for incremental reforms, including establishing an independent electoral commission and eliminating the president's power to dissolve parliament. These could be combined with an agreement on basic constitutional principles, says Barkan.


Most interested parties, save for the president and his advisers, agree that power should be shifted from the executive branch to strengthen the judiciary and parliament. But experts disagree on how to achieve that shift, and what other elements are necessary for effective constitutional reform. Some, including the opposition party led by Raila Odinga, argue for a system of governance with a federalist character, somewhat like Nigeria. Others recommend a system of subsidiarity, in which decisions are made at the provincial level and coordinated with the central government. Juma cautions that if power is decentralized, local capacity must be built up. "If you decentralize administration but not competence, these regions will continue to be poor," he says. He believes that constitutional reforms should be preceded by a long-term economic growth plan for the country.


How to initiate constitutional reforms in the current political climate remains unclear. Juma suggests the attorney-general, who has the security of tenure and is the legal adviser to all branches of government, could spearhead a reform process. Anderson says the Kibaki-Odinga stalemate could "rumble on for months and months and months. While this happens the economy will slip down the tubes."

Prospects for the Future
Kenyans see democracy and economic growth as inextricably linked. Their main aspiration for democracy, according to Afrobarometer, is that it will create more equitable distribution of economic opportunity (PDF). For Kenya's economy to take off, it must distribute power among ethnic groups. "Kenya could be a shining example," says Barkan. "But it could unravel further politically and the economy could become moribund." Juma believes for regional imbalances to be addressed, the country needs to upgrade its infrastructure. He suggests that a large-scale government employment scheme, structured like the New Deal in the 1930s United States, could employ youth to do this.


Most experts see a limited role for international actors such as the United States and the European Union in Kenya's political future. Despite recent turmoil, the country has a vibrant media, a thriving civil society, and an economy that -- prior to the election crisis -- was on the upswing. It is not dependent on international aid. Thus democratization "can only go as fast as the locals can go," says Barkan. Fallout from the December elections will likely slow this process, but to what degree is unknown. The tourism industry has already taken a significant hit, and the Economist Intelligence Unit says that foreign investors may be loath to pour funds into Kenya "over the medium rather than just the short term."

Kibaki must give back Kenya's stolen election

Once tribal bloodshed begins, it takes on a momentum of its own. As the inhabitants of Kenya's Rift Valley know from experience, all attacks breed retaliation and violence begets more violence.

An effective peacemaker must apply real pressure before this vicious circle begins in earnest. Yet this obvious maxim seems to have been lost on Lord Malloch-Brown, the Foreign Office minister responsible for Africa.

	President Kibaki has turned a blind eye to the hideous violence that's followed his re-election

Almost a month of killing took place, claiming perhaps 900 lives, before he arrived in Kenya and tried to break the impasse caused by the disputed election.

Lord Malloch-Brown has now left Nairobi for Sudan. To place his visit in context, Kenya has suffered more political killings in the past four weeks than Zimbabwe has known in eight years of turmoil.

His visit seems to have been utterly fruitless. The national broadcaster erroneously managed to claim that his main purpose had been to grant Britain's official recognition to President Mwai Kibaki's government.

Before leaving Kenya, Lord Malloch-Brown publicly lamented the intransigence of Mr Kibaki and his key opponent, Raila Odinga.

Yet the minister, who has long experience of Africa, appears not to have asked himself the crucial question: why is the president so unwilling to compromise?

From Mr Kibaki's point of view, the events of the past four weeks represent an extraordinary triumph. So far, he has managed to rig an election and have himself inaugurated for another five-year term as president. He has done this in the teeth of the condemnation of the blatantly rigged poll delivered by every independent observer group.

Mr Kibaki has appointed a cabinet of his choice and simply ignored calls from Gordon Brown, among others, for him to form a coalition government with a senior post for Mr Odinga.

Most remarkable, Mr Kibaki has done all this without incurring any major penalties from Britain or the West. You can hardly blame him for being determined to tough things out. He has all the confidence of a man who has managed to get away with the political equivalent of murder.

How to remedy this disastrous situation? Effective and robust pressure has been missing from Britain's response to Kenya's crisis. Mr Kibaki will compromise only if the cost of intransigence is made unacceptably high.

Mr Kibaki may have stolen an election and turned a blind eye to hideous violence, but he is no Robert Mugabe. He is not a ruthless, deluded megalomaniac like the Zimbabwean leader.

Mr Kibaki knows full well that Kenya is inherently vulnerable to outside pressure because its economy depends on foreign investment. Unlike Mr Mugabe, he is not willing to see his country bankrupted and its nascent prosperity destroyed.

So he will move if the right levers are used. The first step is to set out Britain's demands.

Incredibly, neither Lord Malloch-Brown nor any other British minister has publicly called for last month's election to be re-run under international supervision. The rigged poll was the principal cause of the violence. The only solution is for Kenya to have another election, under outside supervision if necessary.

If Mr Kibaki fails to oblige, a graduated scale of penalties should be imposed. First, Britain could marshal the EU and America to announce without any ambiguity that they no longer recognise Mr Kibaki as Kenya's president.

From that moment on, he would become an international outlaw. Then Britain could ask the Commonwealth to expel Kenya. Afterwards, London could press the EU to impose penalties targeted on Kenya's government.

Mr Kibaki and all his ministers could be banned from travelling to any EU state, while any assets they hold in European banks could be frozen. Kenyan ministers are not known for their financial probity. A measure that would deprive them of their loot and stop all shopping trips to Europe might concentrate minds.

Along the way, Western aid given directly to Kenya's government could be halted. All this would dramatically reduce foreign investment and deal a body blow to the country's largest single industry, tourism.

Unless Mr Kibaki knows these measures are on the table - and that Britain is serious about imposing them if necessary - he will not agree to hold another election. After all, he might lose such a contest. But without a free and fair poll, Kenya's political crisis will persist and the killings will go on.

In principle, the route out of this confrontation is clearly marked. The tragedy is that Mr Kibaki has been allowed to get away with so much.

Let us hope that the experience of the past four weeks has not convinced him that he can get away with anything.

The US and Kenya: Tragic setback for democracy in Africa

Keith Jennings

In the immediate aftermath of the recent elections in Kenya, the Bush Administration wasted no time in sending its glowing congratulations to incumbent President Mwai Kibaki and the Kenyan Election Commission. But despite the subsequent attempt to ignore the congratulatory message, and adamant claim of a global commitment to democracy, the Bush Administration’s official stamp of approval for Kibaki and the elections reflected a de facto endorsement of a naked powergrab and contempt for the democratic process.

To be sure, the Bush administration’s eagerness to embrace a stage-managed election reveals a sharp inconsistency between pronouncement and practice -- declining to support calls for a re-count and urging “all candidates to accept the Commission’s final result.” Some would argue that the Bush focus on security and economic interest supersede its rhetoric for democracy. Clearly, the Bush statement and its later about-face joint statement with Kenya’s former colonial masters –the British- reflects morally bankrupt policies which only see Kenya as a staunch ally and “frontline state in the global war on terrorism.”

The Kenyan people participated in a democratic process to elect the representatives of their choice. When the election results were leaning toward the challenger and long time pro-democracy activist, Raila Odinga, the democratic process was over taken by manipulation and fraud. How can a U.S. Administration that preaches democracy in almost biblical terms refuse to pressure the Kenyan government for a re-count or an independent audit? Of course, this question may strike some Americans as naïve in the light of the Florida and Ohio fiascos in our own 2000 & 2004 presidential elections.

After the Bush Administration, offered congratulations to Mwai Kibaki on December 30, in the midst of widespread violent clashes between civilians and Kenyan police, I have to agree with those commentators who have been critical of the Bush Administration’s democracy promotion policy in Africa. Moreover, how can the views of hundreds of European international observers, who proclaim a “staggering mismatch” between recorded vote counts at local polling stations and what the Election Commission officials announced, be ignored. One wonders what the Administration would be saying if this were Zimbabwe or Burma.

The fighting in the streets of Nairobi and police abuse started long before the recent election results were announced. In the pre-election period, numerous human rights violations occurred including the killing and beating of dozens of women candidates and widespread intimidation and violence against opposition politicians. Recent poll results indicate fraudulent vote counting in at least 72 constituencies, which equate to an undermining of the electoral process and a democratic set back once again on the African continent. While the democratic process should never be reduced to an election, it is during an election that the strength of a country’s democratic system is put to the test. This is clearly the case in Kenya.

After years of autocratic rule by Daniel Moi (who’s home was burned down last week), citizens from all walks of life and political persuasions closed ranks to elect a new government in 2002, one that promised never to treat the people the way they had been sidelined and marginalized by previous governments. The promises were soon broken as charges of corruption were leveled against high ranking members of the Kibaki Administration. Consequently, the Kenyan people rightfully expected and democratically prepared for change.

It is important to note that Kibaki’s party won only 35 of 210 parliamentary seats losing more than 20 of his cabinet ministers, including his vice president. These facts alone reveal the deep seated and widespread public resentment against the legendary corruption of the Kibaki Administration.

With an official result producing a less than 233,000 vote difference (4,584,721 for Kibaki to 4,352,993 for Odinga), what is in order is a recount and an independent audit of the tallying process and final results, not a hasty swearing-in of the controversial President for another five years with Bush’s blessings. That swearing-in was immediately followed by a media ban on live coverage of events, a ban on all public rallies and threats from the declared winner to “deal decisively with those who breach the peace.” We have heard those words before. The Kenyan peoples’ right of peaceful assembly and expression should be respected by the current government. The attempt to suppress any opposition to the fraudulent election results is bound to fail and only lead to more violence and conflict.

As it has been reported in the Kenyan and international media, even the Kenyan Election Commission chair, Samuel Kivuilu, admits that the Commission was under pressure by government, which raises questions of its independence. Commissioner Kivuilu also states that he is not sure ‘if Kibaki won the elections.’ At least five other Commissioners have said they are certain that the vote count was manipulated.

The Kibaki power grab may well cause Kenya, a model of stability in the East Africa region, to become another in the growing list of African countries that risk slipping down the path of ethnic conflict amidst a rekindling of old prejudices that has led to genocide in neighboring countries.

We have seen the U.S. government prioritizing its security concerns over democracy promotion in Africa before. Who can ever forget the shameful April 2007 elections in Nigeria, which provides the US with 12% of its oil needs? Nigerians refer to that election as the most fraudulent elections ever held in the country. Despite calls for electoral reform, official U.S. congratulations to Yar’Adua were followed by a recent White House visit, which ended with Yar’Adua promoting the establishment of the U.S. African Military Command that could potentially place U.S. soldiers throughout the continent despite opposition in Nigeria. No wonder many believe there is scant U.S. commitment to global democracy when its economic and military interests are relevant. The Bush Administration’s policies appear to respond to narrow, ill-perceived security and economic imperatives that will ultimately lead to long-term instability in Kenya and other parts of Africa.

It is more than noteworthy that as the 2005 Ethiopian elections were being won by the opposition at such an unprecedented rate that the Melis government intervened and halted the announcement of results. After a series of recounts and adjudication trails, which the opposition was not prepared for, it was once again business as usual, a witch’s brew of repression and torture. The arrest and detention on treason charges of all major opposition leaders followed. The Bush administration, which also sees Ethiopia as a staunch ally in the war on terror who is more than willing to do its bidding in Somalia, offered congratulations to Melis on his victory and urged “dialogue” and “reconciliation.”

As the optimism of the 1990s has given way to the more vexing problem of making democracy deliver on its promises, the past few years have been filled with setbacks for the democratic process in Africa, with the possible exceptions of the 2005 elections in Liberia and the 2007 elections in Sierra Leone. And the U.S. has been largely silent in its actions to reverse those setbacks.

The peace in Kenya was breached long before the day when the elections were stolen. Sanctimonious calls for peace, compromise and reconciliation will do no good when the people’s confidence in the democratic process is what is at stake and the legitimacy of those making the calls for “law and order” or respect for the rule of law is questioned.

The issue here is about power and the future of democracy in Africa not ethnic rivalries. Unfortunately some of the big men in Africa, as in other parts of the world, have not realized how to share power or to let it go when the will of the people is against their continued stay in office. There are those who talk about freedom and democracy but practice autocratic policies, they never really believed in the will of the people to begin with. What will be the world’s response to the farce currently underway in Kenya? Democracy in Africa or business as usual?

The U.S. Or Other Outsiders Will Not Save Local Democracy

By Jeffrey D. Sachs

Kenya is aflame after a disputed presidential election on December 27 . Hundreds have died at the hands of the police as well as from gang rampages and inter-ethnic violence. The US has led the international diplomatic response, but its approach has been deeply flawed.

Kenyans voted in vast numbers, waiting in the hot sun for several hours at crowded polling booths. The first results to be counted were for Kenya's parliament, with Cabinet ministers roundly defeated in their constituencies. The main opposition, led by Mr Raila Odinga, won more seats. It appeared overwhelmingly likely that the presidential vote count would similarly show Mr Odinga beating President Kibaki by a wide margin.

That, indeed, is how the early count transpired. As the tallies from polling stations came into Nairobi, Mr Odinga built up a lead of several hundred thousand votes. Then the trouble began. Vote tallies from Mr Kibaki's homeland in central Kenya were delayed. Independent observers from the European Union and elsewhere began to report serious irregularities.

Matters became even more dubious as the vote tallies were collected and recorded at the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK). According to detailed evidence submitted by the opposition, the tallies from the countryside, allegedly already padded for Mr Kibaki, were again manipulated, with additional votes awarded to him. As a result, many more votes were recorded by the ECK for the presidential race than for the parliamentary race, even though voters were clearly instructed - indeed required - to cast a vote in both races.

When the opposition tried to challenge these inconsistencies, the ECK abruptly declared Kibaki the winner. Days later, the ECK's head publicly acknowledged that Kibaki supporters had pressured him to announce the results, despite the protests. Shockingly, he declared that he did not know who really won.

The election is a disaster for Kenya, but the response of the international community, led by the US, is no less distressing. American foreign policy in Africa is in the hands of Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer, a former student of Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice. From the start of the post-election crisis, Ms Frazer took three flawed positions.

First, she declared that the vote could not be re-assessed by an independent tally. In fact, most observers believed that there was a long paper trail, from the polling sites all the way to Nairobi, which could be re-assessed in detail.

Second, she claimed that there had been vote rigging "on both sides," and suggested that the true election results were very close and that perhaps Mr Kibaki had won. Given the vast amount of direct and circumstantial evidence that the rigging was on behalf of Mr Kibaki, Ms Frazer's assignment of equal blame to each side was met with astonishment and dismay by the opposition. She also failed to acknowledge an exit poll carried out by a US foundation, which showed a clear Odinga victory.

Finally, Ms Frazer argued that the two sides needed to compromise and share power. Instead, Mr Kibaki disdainfully appointed 18 key Cabinet members even as "mediation" was about to begin. The opposition, of course, was perplexed by the US call for compromise without any serious call to review the vote itself.

In the end, only Kenya will decide its own fate. The US or other outside powers will not save Kenyan democracy. Threats, sanctions, or aid cutoffs would only cause further damage to an economy already in free fall, tragically punishing Kenya's poor while fomenting further violence.

Still, the international community can play a more constructive role than it has until now by pressing both sides to accept an independent recount. By standing up for democratic principles, the world would truly stand on the side of the Kenyan people. Ms Frazer told Kenyans that they shouldn't expect their vote to be tallied accurately, and that power can be seized or perhaps even negotiated in a backroom.

Perhaps, a recount would show that the election was too close to call. Perhaps, as the opposition insists, it would demonstrate a clear victory for Mr Odinga. Either way, Kenyans and their votes would be taken seriously, and tempers could well subside. Only if both sides accept that there was no clear winner is it reasonable to call for power-sharing (or a new election).

There is still time to get this right.

Jeffrey Sachs is Professor of Economics and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

Black Sunday

By Michael Mundia Kamau

The gloom, doom and utter uncertainty that this country has been plunged into following the callous theft of the general election of December 27th 2007, is the direct responsibility of the fascist regime currently in power and the irredeemably tainted Electoral Commission Kenya. If the illegitimate fascist regime currently ruling Kenya is allowed to get away with this felony by it's continued stay in power, then this country is doomed forever.

There cannot be and should not be any attempt to negotiate an obvious violation and abuse of office. Doing so will only further worsen an already deeply troubling situation. None of the so called high profile mediators currently in Kenya, voted in the general election of 27th December 2007, and their presence is of no value whatsoever to the masses who voted for the ‘de facto’ President of Kenya Raila Amolo Odinga and the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM). The continued presence of these impostors on Kenyan soil and their empty attempts at purported mediation, only serves to further infuriate and insult the overwhelming majority that voted for Raila Odinga and ODM. It is only those that voted for Raila Odinga and ODM, almost an entire nation, that should be consulted for any mediation or negotiation whatsoever.

Such "consultations" were however concluded by way of the ballot box on the 27th of December 2007, before a thief known as Samuel Kivuitu callously reversed the peoples' decision on Sunday, 30th December 2007. In the interest therefore of posterity, this country, it's people, it's institutions and it's future, Mwai Kibaki should immediately step down as President of Kenya, to pave way for the legitimately elected President of Kenya, Raila Amolo Odinga, to be sworn in, and immediately form an ODM government. Nothing else whatsoever can restore and/or sustain any semblance of faith in this country, it's future or it's institutions.

The power to effect regime change squarely lies with the citizens of this country and no one whosoever has the right to stand in the way of this right. This right was jointly violated on Sunday, 30th December 2007, by a bunch of hooligans known as the Electoral Commission of Kenya and the illegitimately sworn in President, Mwai Kibaki. Faith in this country and it's institutions had already been severely strained prior to "Black Sunday", 30^th December 2007, and the announcement of Kibaki's "victory" came as a devastating blow to the vast majority of desperate masses who had anticipated hope and change by overwhelmingly backing Raila Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).

It is clear that the last five years were a lie and a nightmare for the majority of Kenyans. Nothing else whatsoever can be held to be the case, given the bitter manner in which the majority of Kenyans shut out the so called Party of National Unity (PNU), and it's affiliates. The hyped up government campaigns of economic improvement, growth and development and of massively increased government revenue from improved tax collections, were clearly nothing more than empty propaganda. It is clear that Mwai Kibaki's five year regime miserably failed to bring about the reform and change anticipated by the majority of people who voted him President on 27th December 2002.

An unfeeling and insensitive Mwai Kibaki locked himself up at State House Nairobi for five years only appearing towards the end of this five year reign with a hastily constituted party known as the Party of National Unity (PNU), numerous decrees for extra districts to be created, a decree for an additional public holiday for the primary benefit of Muslims, a decree that crew of public service vehicles be no longer required to wear uniforms, and a decree that hawkers be allowed back on the streets to sell their wares. Mwai Kibaki genuinely believed that these were sufficient placating tokens for a population that he openly ignored for five years, and was a clear demonstration of the contempt with which he holds the people of this country.

Mwai Kibaki totally failed to touch base with the people of this country, establish what the real issues were, and facilitate genuine programs on how they could be addressed and resolved, in similar manner to F.D. Roosevelt's "New Deal" of 1933 in the United States.

Mwai Kibaki clearly failed to deliver the "New Deal" and the same majority that elected him to office on 27th December 2002, therefore chose to grant this mandate to Raila Odinga and the Orange Democratic Movement on 27th December 2007. The majority of Kenyans exercised the right to elect in a regime that they felt would deliver the greatly desired "New Deal".

Mwai Kibaki has no right whatsoever to stand in the way of this resolution, and he will surely and certainly destroy this country by doing so. He and several others misread the peoples' mood. He and several others, including this writer, underestimated Raila Odinga and the Orange Democratic Movement. In a classic re-enactment of David vs. Goliath, Raila Odinga and the Orange Democratic Movement skilfully triumphed over Mwai Kibaki and the chauvinistic Party of National Unity (PNU). These are the facts as will always be remembered by history.

Unless Mwai Kibaki steps down immediately in favour of the legitimately elected President of Kenya, Raila Amolo Odinga, this country is lost forever. Things will rapidly degenerate until this country becomes ungovernable, and eventually splits up.

Clearly, the last forty five years, and the last five in particular, have been a lie in which things have gotten worse rather than better. Even amongst Kibaki's revered tribe, the Kikuyu, things are in mayhem, turmoil and utter disarray. The community's wealth has been severely depleted and squandered by current generations of Kikuyus who are heavily in debt and who try to conceal this by showy expensive lifestyles and heavy consumerism. A glance at the obituaries in Kenya's dailies shows the heavy set backs that Kikuyus have suffered, and continue to suffer. The obituaries are glorifying and paint a picture of accomplishment, but the revealing details come at the end... "to be buried on father's farm" or even more demeaning, "to be buried on grandfather' s farm", a terrible indictment for a Kikuyu and a reflection of the true state of affairs in the Kikuyu community. The sad thing is that these obituaries are for people in their 40s and 50s.

If Kikuyus who are forty years old and above are being buried on either "their father's farm", "their mother's farm", "their grandfather's farm", "their grandmother' s farm", "their father-in-law' s farm", or "their mother-in-law' s farm", then it is a clear that even Kikuyus are in serious trouble, and indeed have been for the last forty five years. Even if this writer were to fall down dead today, then it would also be the humiliating and shameful "to be buried on father's farm", if not "to be buried at Langata cemetery". So there is nothing special about Kikuyus, even though they are now under siege both internally and externally because of terrible mistakes committed by themselves and by Mwai Kibaki.

Mwai Kibaki has revealed his true colours. He is no democrat or nationalist, and nor does he believe in freedom, equality and civil liberties. He is a liability to this country, a fascist, a bigot, a hooligan and a thief. Nothing other than him immediately stepping down to pave way for Raila Amolo Odinga to be sworn in as the legitimate President of Kenya, will keep hope alive, and save this country and ourselves from perishing.

Who owns the land? Blood and soil issue

By Job


The passion with which millions of wananchi valued their presidential vote in the stolen 2007 presidential elections can be reflected in scenes of the bloody post-election clashes today that engulf Rift Valley, Nyanza, Coast, Nairobi, Western and to a less extent in other parts of the country. Nakuru is now the latest epicenter of inter ethnic murders.

The violent reactions to rigged elections may reflect the pain of deep and historically rooted injustices some of which predate Kenya's independence in 1963.

They are in fact motivated and exacerbated by landlessness, joblessness, and poverty believed to be heavily contributed towards by the prevailing political status quo that has dominated Kenya since independence. This is a system that has continuously perpetrated, in successive fashion, socio-economic injustices that have been seamlessly transferred from one power regime to the next.

The Land Issue.

With a fast growing population in Kenya, limited resources including land and jobs, have severely been put in extreme pressure. Responsive political operatives cognizant of this reality have appreciated the importance of incorporating progressive policies that seek to aggressively address poverty, landlessness, unequal distribution of resources and unemployment, as a matter of priority (in their party manifestoes) if any social stability is to be maintained in Kenya.

Without doubt, the opposition party ODM sold an attractive campaign package that sought to address historic land injustices, unemployment, inequitable resource sharing and poverty through a radical constitutional transformation, under the framework of the people-tailored Bomas Constitution Draft.

ODM proposed to tackle the land problem through clauses in the Bomas draft, captured under devolution and land chapters, with specific plans to form a National Land Commission to address the issue of landlessness and historic injustices of expropriation of native land by colonial and post-colonial powers.

The roots of the land conflicts in Rift Valley land lie with the former colonial power, Britain; post-independence land policies by the Jomo Kenyatta, Daniel Moi and Mwai Kibaki administrations; and the tendency for ethnic favouritism and patronage by power wielders.

Colonial expropriation of native lands in Rift Valley and Coast.

In a nutshell, the British settlers literally grabbed native Maasai and Kalenjin lands in Rift Valley and Miji-Kenda, Taita and Taveta land at the Coast. At the Coast, there was also the added grabbing hand of the Middle-East Sultans who lay claim to another Coastal strip. Millions of voters from these communities (now deeply affected by landlessness and poverty) are today largely drawn towards ODM's reform policies that seek to address these INJUSTICES.

Long before Independence, vast arable tracts of the Rift Valley were designated as White Highlands, reserved for European settlers. The pastoralist communities, mainly Kalenjin and Maasai, were simply moved away.

The 1904 and 1911 Anglo-Maasai land "Agreements" details the unjust grabbing of Maasai lands in Laikipia, Naivasha, Ngong, Karen, and tracts along the Uganda Railway line whereby uneducated Maasai Laibons either friendly to, or fearful of the British (christened Paramount Chiefs) like Lanana Ole Mbatian, were cajoled and intimidated into giving away native fertile Maasai land to the colonialists.

The words in the "Agreements" read like ……"we the undersigned, being the Laibons of clans of Maasai, have of our own free will, decided that it is for OUR best interests to REMOVE OUR PEOPLE, FLOCKS, AND HERDS into definite reservations away from the Railway line and away from European settlements….." and "…..In conclusion, we wish to state that we are quite satisfied with the foregoing arrangement, and we bind ourselves and our successors, as well as OUR PEOPLE, to observe them as long as the Maasai as a race shall exist.."

The next thing we knew was that the Maasai were crumbled into arid portions of present day Kajiado and Narok districts. Grazing fields, and the very pastoral lifestyle of the Maasai instantly became threatened and continues to do so as we speak, without any restitution, compensation or pro-active rehabilitation into another life.

100 years later, when asked to address this burning Maasai land issue, former Lands Minister appointed by Mwai Kibaki, Mr. Amos Kimunya, once told the Maasai that there was nothing to address since the wise Maasai forefathers had given away their land to the British in a BINDING AGREEMENT which continues to apply to date.

Well, similar horrid but true stories applied in Kalenjin lands of Rift Valley and at the Coast too.
Before independence, Kenyan political parties argued over whether the native land should be returned to the indigenous population under a federalist system of government or kept firmly under the control of a centralised state. Needless to add, those who favoured the latter option, in the form of the Kenya African National Union (KANU), which went on to form a government under Jomo Kenyatta, prevailed.

1963 Independence, enter Jomo Kenyatta and GEMA Land-buying companies

Trouble is, we had a majimbo constitution at independence. Jennifer Widner explained in her 1992 book, The Rise of A Party-State in Kenya: From "Harambee!" to "Nyayo!" that KANU "urged central control of all regions in an effort to forestall local majimbo legislation restricting land transfer to those born in the area, and to maintain the foothold of the party's Kikuyu supporters in the Rift Valley land market".

Many settlers were returning to Britain. Kenyatta and his cronies quickly formed the Settlement Transfer Fund Schemes (STFS) and asked the British for a loan to the Kenyan government, to buy off land from colonial settlers returning to Britain. Good idea up to this point.

Britain, having been reassured by Kenyatta that those settlers still wishing to stay on in Kenya would not have their land repossessed, advanced the money. This money was used to buy settler land which was officially sold into the Kenyatta initiated Settlement Transfer Fund Schemes (STFS).

Next, Kenyatta began to give away and sell for peanuts, these government (STFS)-acquired, former colonial land parcels, to himself, his family and cronies around 1964 and 1965. This is the point when the rain started beating Kenya. Kenyatta's then Vice President, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, cried foul and rejected these acts of wanton land grabbing.

The opportunity to choose nationalism and selflessness over greed and ethnic tendencies was lost. Rather than address this land issue once and for all, Kenyatta opted to REPLACE the settler colonialsist in land they had initially grabbed from natives. We have began harvesting the seeds of the mustard sown by Kenyatta in the 1960s. It will not be sweet at all.

The Seroneys and other Nandi and Kipsigis leaders immediately cried foul when Kenyatta ensued in his land grabbing tendencies. So were many Maasai and Miji-Kenda leaders like Ronald Ngala. Their cries were feeble and over run. Today and tomorrow, their descendants will demand justice and restitution in an exercise that threatens to tear apart Kenya's social fabric.

Who will shoulder the burden of the fruits enjoyed by Kenyatta and his cronies, Moi and his cronies, and Kibaki and his latter day cronies? Will it be the poor Kenyan taxpayer taking the bill in form of blood, and more taxes?

Going back,.... down memory lane..... in the immediate post-independence era, the moment, the Seroneys and Ogingas started crying foul, and nothing was done, we entered a dangerous phase of our nation's socio-political path.

The political leadership of Kenya began carving out into two distinct groups. The pro-Kenyatta land beneficiaries, sycophants and apologists where Tom Mboya, Daniel Moi, Paul Ngei and others trooped towards,….and another force resisting the greedy post-Independence governance by Kenyatta which was led by Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, and included several former KADU operatives like Ronald Ngala, Jean Marie Seroney, Masinde Muliro, Martin Shikuku and others.

Kenyatta soldiered on with his grabbing. He concurrently went ahead with the help of Tom Mboya to change the constitution to give immense imperial powers to the Presidency. He further began using such powers to allocate more land to his cronies and sycophants. His salivating appetite for Rift Valley land largely motivated his choice of Rift Valley natives as Vice President after Oginga Odinga.

First he chose a Maasai, Joseph Murumbi, who read the scheme of land-betrayal on his people and resigned in a huff, then Kenyatta selected Daniel Arap Moi, a Tugen not drawn in the Nandi and Kipsigis land battles, as his next loyal VP. He then descended upon grabbing Rift Valley and Coastal land in a business as usual and "mtafanya nini" attitude that Kibaki is trying to emulate today.

Kenyatta cronies including Mbiyu Koinange, Njoroge Mungai and others devised a clever scheme to further benefit themselves from the land transferred from the colonialists. They formed land buying companies through loans which were actually funded with tax-payer money. At the height of land buying companies, most of the power brokers acquired huge chunks of land at the expense of the landless who were meant to be the initial beneficiaries of the scheme.

According to Widner (in her book), by 1971, more than 60 % large-scale farms around Nakuru and 40% of small scale settler farms, were held by Kikuyu, who fared very well from this arrangement, at the expense of other Kenyan communities.

Another scholar noted that "Using the political and economic leverage available to them during the Kenyatta regime, the Kikuyu, took advantage of the situation and formed many land-buying companies. These companies would, throughout the 1960s and 1970s, facilitate the settlement of hundreds of thousands of Kikuyu in the Rift Valley," wrote Walter Oyugi in Politicised Ethnic Conflict in Kenya: A Periodic Phenomenon.

In 1969, Jean Marie Seroney, a leading Nandi politician and MP, issued the Nandi Hills Declaration, laying claim to all settlement land in the district for the Nandi. His demands went unheeded. Aping the British Kenyatta government used a policy of divide-and-rule to neutralise such opposition by parcelling out land to other ethnic groups and thus winning their allegiance. Daniel arap Moi, the then Tugen vice-president was allocated the settler farms of the Lembus Forest and the Essageri Salient to divide the Tugen from the Nandi like Seroney.

Most of the power brokers in the Kenyatta regime who formed land-buying companies established huge farms in the Rift Valley either jointly or on their own. They included Njenga Karume, the then Chairman of Gema Holdings, who acquired 20,000 acres in Molo where he is growing tea, coffee, pyrethrum and potatoes and 16,000 acres in Naivasha.

GG Kariuki acquired his 5,000 acres at Rumuruti, Laikipia Division, while former Attoney-General Charles Njonjo bought into the 100,000 acre Solio Ranch. Don't forget, grabbing of settler land in Central by many colonial collaborators, at the expense of the Mau Mau fighters, was part of the scheme. Senior Chief Munyinge from Muiga took 400 acres. Initially, senior chief Munyinge was allocated only 70 acres but with time he managed to acquire 330 more acres.

Mwai Kibaki acquired 20,000 acres in Nanyuki, Former MP Munene Kairu has 32,000 acres at Rumuruti. Mr Isaiah Mathenge, the former powerful Provincial Commissioner under Kenyatta and an MP under Moi, is arguably the largest land owner in Nyeri municipality.

He owns Seremwai Estate, which is 10,000 acres. Kibaki's friend, Kim Ngatende, a former government engineer, has 500 acres too.Mathenge also owns—jointly with former Provincial Commissioner Lukas Daudi Galgalo—the 10, 000-acre Manyagalo Ranch in Meru.

Back in Rift Valley, as Jaramogi and the rest of Kenyans were saying, Not Yet Uhuru, it was land grabbing business as usual. Land-buying companies were heisting big. There result was big acquisitions, for instance, Munyeki Farm—which stands for Murang'a, Nyeri, Kiambu – (4,000 acres), Wamuini Farm (6,000 acres), Amuka Farm (2,000 acres), Gituaraba Farm and Githatha Farm (1,000 acres each) and GEMA Holdings 12,000 acres. A few of them are being utilized, today with the owners growing various crops ranging from coffee, tea, maize and dairy keeping.

The other big farms include Chepchomo Farm (18, 000 acres), owned by the former Provincial Commissioner Ishmael Chelang'a. The family of the late Peter Kinyanjui, who was a close friend of President Mwai Kibaki and a former DP Chairman in Trans Nzoia between 1998 and 1999 owns 1,800 acres.

In Nakuru, several politically connected individuals have acquired many acres of prime land within the town—they include lawyer Mutula Kilonzo, who owns an 800-acre farm for dairy farming. The immediate former Auditor General, D S Njoroge, owns 500 acres, while Biwott's Canadian son-in-law & co-owner of Safaricom (Mobitelea) a Mr. Charles, boasts a 100-acre piece where he is growing roses.

D. S. Njoroge also owns the extensive Kelelwa Ranch in Koibatek, which is less than 10km from Kabarak, where he rears cattle and goats. The 10,000 acre Gitomwa Farm—acronym for Gichuru, Tony and Mwaura—is owned by the family of the former Kenya Power and Lighting Company Limited (KPLC) managing director, Samuel Gichuru. Tony and Mwaura are his sons.

Another 10,000 acre farm in Mau Narok belongs to the family of the late Mbiyu Koinange, Kenyatta's side-kick and powerful minister of state in the Office of the President. His Muthera Farm (4,000ha) is leased to different people to grow wheat, while a group of squatters is demanding a piece of it. The owners are yet to clear the Sh7 million Settlement Transfer Fund loan.

Ford-People leader Simeon Nyachae's Kabansora Holdings owns 4,000ha in the area. Former Rongai MP Willy Komen's family owns 10,000 acres — 5,000ha adjacent to Moi's Kabarak Farm and another 4,800ha near Ngata in Njoro.

Coast Province was not spared. Kenyatta family owns almost 15% the prime resort land in the province, besides a huge sisal plantation spanning both Taita and Taveta districts, safely watched by his son-in-law and former MP Marsden Madoka, and another close friend to Uhuru Kenyatta, and current Minister in Kibaki's illegitimate government, Naomi Shaban.

Kenyatta, Moi and Kibaki land holdings

Kenya's two former First Families and the family of President Mwai Kibaki are among the biggest landowners in the country.The extended Kenyatta family alone owns an estimated 500,000 acres — approximately the size of Nyanza Province — according to estimates by independent surveyors and Ministry of Lands officials. (This report first appeared in the Standard Newspaper report by Mr. Otsieno Namwaya)

The Kibaki and Moi families also own large tracts, most held in the names of sons and daughters and other close family members, all concentrated within the 17.2 % of Kenya that is arable or valued. Remember that 80 per cent of all land in Kenya is mostly arid and semi arid land.

According to the Kenya Land Alliance, more than a 65% of all arable land in Kenya is in the hands of only 20 per cent of the 35 million Kenyans. That has left millions absolutely landless while another 67 per cent on average own less than an acre per person.

The building land crises in the country, experts say, will be difficult to solve because the most powerful people in the country are also among its biggest landowners. The tracts of land under the Kenyatta family are so widely distributed within the numerous members in various parts of the country that it is an almost impossible task to locate all of them and establish their exact sizes.

During Kenyatta's 15-year tenure in State House, he used the elaborate STFS scheme funded by the World Bank and the British Government, to acquired large pieces of land all over the country. Other tracts, he easily allocated to his family.

Among the best-known parcels owned by Kenyatta's family, for instance, are the 24, 000 acres in Taveta sub-district adjacent to the 74, 000 acres owned by former MP Basil Criticos. Others are 50, 000 acres in Taita that is currently under Mrs Beth Mugo, an Assistant minister of Education and niece of Kenyatta, 29, 000 acres in Kahawa Sukari along the Nairobi—Thika highway, the 10, 000 acre Gichea Farm in Gatundu, 5, 000 acres in Thika, 9,000 acres in Kasarani and the 5, 000-acre Muthaita Farm.

These are beside others such as Brookside Farm, Green Lee Estate, Njagu Farm in Juja, a quarry in Dandora in Nairobi and a 10, 000-acre ranch in Naivasha. There is another 200 acres in Mombasa, and 250 acres in Malindi.

Other pieces of land owned by the Kenyatta family include the 52,000-acre farm in Nakuru and a 20,000-acre one, also known as Gichea Farm, in Bahati under Kenyatta's daughter, Margaret. Besides, Mama Ngina Kenyatta, widow of the former President, owns another 10, 000 acres in Rumuruti while a close relative of the Kenyatta family, a Mrs Kamau, has 40,000 acres in Endebes in the Rift Valley Province.

Uhuru owns 5,000 acres in Eldoret, 3,000 acres in Rongai and 12,000 acres in Naivasha, 100 acres in Karen, and 200 acres in Dagoretti. A 1,000-acre farm in Dagoretti is owned by Kenyatta's first wife Wahu.

It is also understood that part of the land on which Kenyatta and Jomo Kenyatta Universities are constructed initially belonged the Criticos family. The government bought the land from him in 1972 under the Settlement Transfer Fund Scheme and transferred to the Kenyatta family the same day Criticos sold it to the government. Land for the two universities was subsequently sold partly and a portion donated by the family.

One of President Kibaki's earliest grabs is the 1,200-acre Gingalily Farm along the Nakuru-Solai road. And in the 1970s, Kibaki, who was then the minister for Finance under Kenyatta, via STFS transferred to himself, 10, 000 acres in Bahati from the then Agriculture minister Bruce Mckenzie.

Kibaki also owns another 10, 000 acres at Igwamiti in Laikipia and 10, 000 acres in Rumuruti in Naivasha. These are in addition to the 1,600 acre Ruare Ranch.

Just next to Kibaki's Bahati land are Moi's 20, 000 acres although his best known piece of land is the 1,600 Kabarak Farm on which he has retired. It is one of the most well utilised farms in the area, with wheat, maize and dairy cattle.

The former President owns another 20, 000 acres in Olenguruoni in Rift Valley, on which he is growing tea and has also built the Kiptakich Tea Factory (recently torched). He also has some 20, 000 acres in Molo. He also has another 3, 000-acre farm in Bahati on both sides of the Nakuru/Nyahururu road where he grows coffee and some 400 acres in Nakuru on which he was initially growing coffee.

The former President also owns the controversy ridden 50, 000 acre Ol Pajeta Farm—part of which has Ol Pajeta ranch in Rumuruti, Laikipia. Some time in 2004 Moi put out an advert in the press warning the public that some unknown people were sub-dividing and selling it.

Can solutions can be offered to address these land problems?

This is clearly a socio-political problem that requires a political solution. It involves digging up the archives, consulting experts, policy makers, local politicians and community elders to find a comprehensive solution.

Such formulated blueprints can then be sold to Kenyans of all creed, race, religion and ethnicity in a publicity campaign that seeks to draw in as many supporters as possible. A responsive political party genuinely keen to tackle this tough problem can actually sell a comprehensive and just land reform policy as part of its manifesto.

These must be cognizant of the constitutional implications concerned in addressing past and present land issues.

Guess what. This incidentally happened already. ODM party, using the Bomas draft constitution which proposes to establish a National Land Commission sold this idea to Kenyans during the referendum campaigns and at the 2007 General election campaigns.

Many Kenyans especially those directly affected by landlessness chose to give this idea a test. That party attributed to ODM's resounding win over Kibaki's PNU which prefers to sleep over the land issue quietly.

But before the coronation of ODM into government, Kivuitu and his ECK had other ideas. Blatant and daylight robbery of an outright electoral win by ODM was executed by Kivuitu and ECK to illegitimately hand over power to Kibaki.

None of the confident voters who were determined to start demanding results and accountability with regards to land and other biting issues such as unemployment and poverty, from the NEW government they elected seem ready to take Kibaki's attempted robbery lightly.

What we are witnessing in Rift Valley, lately in Nakuru, may just escalate to new heights considering the fundamental weight of the underlying blood and soil issue of land.


Source: http://jukwaa.proboards58.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1201303699