Class and Kinship in Kenya’s Killing Fields

By Oduor Ong’wen

It is easy “indeed tempting” to dismiss the violence that has engulfed Kenya in the last one month as an unfortunate, though not totally unexpected, resurgence of African atavist ontological disposition. Many analysts, particularly in the West, have argued that even though the breach of peace and mutual existence was triggered off by the stealing of the presidential election by the incumbent, what followed had nothing to do with electoral fraud in particular and politics in general, but an excuse by neighbours who have lived in an artificial harmony while harbouring pathological disdain for each other based on petty nationalism to settle scores with each other. This could be true. But only partially. The stark reality is that the crisis in Kenya has exposed the class tensions that have been peppered over for over more than one hundred years.

In May 2000, The Economist newsmagazine treated the world to an edition with a picture of a young man uneasily holding a rocket propelled grenade launcher, commonly known to guerrillas only as RPG, on his shoulder. His picture filled the whole map of Africa accompanied by the issue’s title: “The Hopeless Continent”. With this one stark phrase, all of us Africans, from diligent farmers along the Nile Delta to cattle breeders in Botswana, from dutiful fisher folks around Lake Victoria to merchants at Nigeria’s Kano Market, were summarised and relegated from the ranks of civilised humanity to one single, dishonourable reality: self-destruction.

The same publication admitted in one of its January 2008 editions that Kenya represented hope for Africa. What hope? Sadly, this hope was equated with a vibrant Stock Exchange, fast food outlets in every corner of central Nairobi, thriving casinos, manicured golf courses and booming tourist industry. Ignored were the facts that two thirds of Nairobi residents occupied only eight percent of the city’s land, living in informal settlements; that more than 63 per cent of Kenya’s urban population had no access to clean water; that two out of every three Kenyans survived on less than a dollar a day; and that a few own huge tracts of idle land while the number of squatters and landless labourers continue to swell.

Virtually bypassed by the benefits of prosperity and modernity that is enjoyed by the North, Africa survives and exists on the fringes of global economy and global politics. It is no wonder that while election observers from the European Union, the Commonwealth, the East African Community and the local observer team were in agreement that Kenya’s presidential elections were stolen, the West has insisted that this being Africa , the subversion of people’s will be ignored for “the sake of the country’s unity and stability”. This is a euphemism for “our strategic interests, our investments, our holidays and safaris are more important than your democratic rights; so shut up, trust and obey.”

Once undisputedly regarded as the repository of culture, the cultures of African people are also fast being relegated to the margins as the MacDonald culture, fiercely promoted by the cinema and television, takes over. This erosion of Africa’s culture is being seen as a good thing “integrating Africa into the global society” that must be encouraged. However, this integration is not being accompanied by the material conditions that sustain such avarice and ostentation. No wonder in Kenya , like would happen elsewhere in Africa , when the protests erupted it was the fast food stores, video libraries, electronic shops and supermarkets that were first targeted in the urban centres. Among the rural communities, it was eviction of “foreigners” from the land they occupied.

While most of the people in industrialised countries are affluent, most of the African people are impoverished, under-nourished, illiterate and without decent shelter and clothing. While the economies of industrialised countries of the North are strong and resilient – and therefore offering hope and security to the populations of these countries “those of Africa are mainly weak and vulnerable” and therefore offer nothing but despair and defencelessness to the African people. While the countries of the North are in control of their resources and destinies, those of the South, more so Africa, are vulnerable to external factors and lack in functional independence and sovereignty. This is the context in which we should understand the attachment to land in many African countries like Kenya and Zimbabwe. Ownership of land, however tiny, gives a sense of security and independence.

We can not contextualise the mayhem in Kenya without appreciating the Kenyan National Question. Kenyans are not polarised because they belong to different subnationalities. They are because they relate differently to the country’s resources and productive forces. At the centre of the National Question is land. It is instructive to observe that the epicentre of the clashes was the agriculturally-rich Rift Valley region. This was no accident. Rift Valley is the most settled region of Kenya. It is also in the Rift Valley where communities like the Maasai, the Pokot and the Nandi have unresolved grievances over land ownership centred on historical injustices traceable to colonial occupation.

It was in the Rift Valley where British settlers alienated huge tracts of land from indigenous Kenyans (paying a mere 10 cents per acre to the crown, not to the owners). It was in the Rift Valley where the Maasai community was duped into signing a 100-year agreement with the British in 1904 and denied a hearing by Kibaki’s government (a successor to the colonial administration) in 2004 when the agreement had elapsed. It is in the Rift Valley where the Pokot were forcefully pushed out of their communal land. As the struggle for independence ensued and the colonial rule looked destined to a sad chapter of history, a new ruling class with interest in landed property was quickly recruited from amongst African collaborators. With the help of the colonial state, the new gentry quickly occupied land belonging to entire communities “that had been herded into detention camps and concentration villages” and were awarded titles by the colonial authorities.

Upon the attainment of independence, the new rulers could not relinquish their claim to these lands but came up with a scheme of settling the new landless in former settler areas (which had been alienated through force or treachery). This led to non-acceptance of the large Kikuyu populations from Central Kenya settled among the Nandi, Maasai, Pokot and other communities in the Rift Valley. The area has since been a powder keg and this is not the first time it has erupted. Instances where the land issue in Rift Valley has threatened Kenya’s unity include early 1960s when a former legislator, Jean Marie Seroney, shook the country with what he called the Nandi Declaration calling for the region?s autonomy and expulsion of “foreigners”. Other major clashes over land occurred in 1991/92 in response to clamour for the re-introduction of pluralist politics, in 1997 and 1998. There have been similar land-related skirmishes along the KenyanCoast, even though the history is slightly different from the Rift Valley.

Going back to the issue that triggered off the chain of ugly events “fraudulent presidential elections” is in order. The incumbent Mwai Kibaki was trailing Raila Odinga by more than one million votes according to the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) print out at 4:07 a.m. on December 29, 2008. The latter had 3, 734,972 votes against the incumbent’s 2, 269,612. It was at this stage that the ECK and Kibaki’s Party of National Unity (PNU) did a quick calculation and arrived at the number of votes to add to Kibaki’s credit and how much to debit from Odinga to enable the former catch up with and overtake his rival. That day, results that had apparently been received the previous day but their release held waiting the “opportune” time were altered (sometimes more than once) and released to close the gap. Later in the day, the ECK announced results from 176 out the 210 constituencies placing Odinga at 4,046,010 votes ahead of Kibaki’s

3,760,233. Barely two hours later the Chair of ECK shocked the Kenyan nation when he announced results from 189 constituencies with Odinga leading with 3,880,053 votes against 3,842,051 for Kibaki. The art of counting backwards had been introduced!

Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party as well as various observer teams have detailed how the vote was stolen. What has not been talked about is why Odinga had to be stopped at all costs from assuming the presidency of the Republic of Kenya. It is safe to assume that if was any of his other five opponents that had won the elections, Kibaki would have no problem handing over to them – but not one Raila Amolo Odinga. The reasons for this may be found in the platform of his campaign and his personal history.

Odinga’s campaign was anchored on five planks: addressing economic and social inequalities; devolution of power and resources from the centre to the regions in the context of subsidiarity; eradication of corruption and administrative injustice; state provision of basic social services; and pursuit of a progressive Pan- Africanist and Foreign Policy. In a country where neo-liberal policies have found a very fertile ground, it was quite brave for Odinga to declare from the rooftops that he was social democrat and would faithfully pursue a social democratic agenda.

The first line of attack was that Odinga was trying to introduce communism through the back door. Scaring mongering that provision of free basic social services would mean increased taxation also did not wash. Kibaki’s supporters finally latched onto the pain factor – land. They demonised devolution of power as a recipe for dispossessing the Kikuyu people who had settled in the Rift Valley and elsewhere. This worked for members of the Kikuyu community but not other Kenyans. It is therefore not surprising that members of Kikuyu community from rural areas, regardless of whether they lived in their ancestral regions or not, voted for Kibaki to a person. Only young urbanised ones were able to see through this diversion.

But the biggest worry for the ruling elite was Odinga’s anti-corruption stance. On September 22, 2007, he declared that there would be no blanket amnesty for former heads of state and that both former President Daniel Arap Moi and Kibaki would be called to account personally for their improprieties. This announcement came barely two weeks after it had been exposed that Moi and his family had stolen public money to the tune of Kenya Shillings 130 billion (US$ 2 billion) and stashed offshore.

Wielding of or proximity to state power has been the main avenue of primitive accumulation in Kenya . All those who lay claim to being indigenous bourgeoisie in Kenya trace their wealth and status from state connections. On this score, concentration of power at the centre has been particularly beneficial. Odinga’s devolution, antiinequality anti-corruption package was therefore seen by the captains of politics and industry as going against the natural order of things.

Odinga’s personality and history did not help him either. From the onset of the campaign, Odinga did not refer to himself as a candidate. He simply declared himself “The People’s President.” Odinga cannot claim membership among the proletariat. He is not a peasant either. Nor was his father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga. In fact, although born to a simple school teacher, Odinga grew in relative privilege as his father abandoned teaching when he was still in his early teens, built a business empire and quickly plunged into nationalist struggle for independence. Odinga Senior was so passionately anti-colonialism, antiexploitation and charismatic that it was almost automatic for him to be named Kenya’s Vice President at independence.

The senior Odinga was anti-imperialist. During the struggle for independence, he opposed the exploitative economic system the colonialists had erected. The colonial government accused him of being a communist to which he retorted: “Communism is like food to me.” He was quick to establish Kenya nationalist movement’s fraternal links with the then socialist bloc and as a result, many Kenyans benefited from educational scholarships. Among the beneficiaries was Raila Odinga, who studied mechanical engineering in the then German Democratic Republic.

But Raila Odinga began charting a path for himself much early in life. As a student in the then East Germany , he took the initiative to establish an international office of the opposition Kenya Peoples Union (KPU), a left-leaning opposition founded by progressive nationalists and headed by his father. He was later to be independently involved in a number of underground political initiatives, including the still-born Kenya African Socialist Alliance – the effort made Moi rush a law to parliament to make Kenya a de jure one-party state. But many Kenyans only came to know Raila when he was arrested after a 1982 abortive military coup against Moi’s government and charged with treason. The charges were withdrawn after six months due to lack of evidence but Moi went ahead to detain Odinga without trial. He was to stay behind bars for close to six years before he was released and detained again only five months later. In total, Odinga has served a total of nine years behind bars without trial and spent a stint in political exile.

Having failed to tame Odinga, Moi tried to work with him in a courtship that culminated in Odinga becoming the Secretary General of the then Moi-headed Kenya African National Union (KANU) party. Six months later, Odinga was out of the party and had taken with him the majority of the party’s stalwarts. KANU was left a shell that it still is. Odinga then teamed up with the then opposition chief Kibaki on a platform of change to hand KANU a humiliating electoral defeat. The change never arrived and less than three years down the road, Odinga had mobilised Kenyans to humiliate Kibaki in a referendum vote over a new constitution.

Odinga was the only serious presidential candidate that was seeking a parliamentary seat from a metropolitan constituency (the rest only felt safe in their rural bases among people from their ethnic groups). He represents a parliamentary constituency whose bulk of voters are slum dwellers from one of Africa’s biggest slum settlements. Odinga is one of the few politicians who feel at ease in a slum beer hall as he does an exclusive members’ club. He would meet a foreign dignitary in the morning, be at the soccer stadium terraces in the afternoon and attend a burial fundraising gathering in the evening. The fellow is at home in designer Western suits as he is comfortable in a Swahili kanzu or Nigerian agbada.

To look at what is happening in Kenya purely with an ethnic lens is to blur one’s vision. That is not to say that ethnicity is a non-factor. However, ethnicity is a drug that the ruling keep administering to their victims to cloud their vision. It is escapist. I did not see Kikuyu residents in Nairobi’s exclusive Karen suburb hack their Luo or Kalenjin neighbours with machetes or worse still shoot at each other, even though the majority of them own guns. However, in the informal settlements, neighbours turned against each other. Why, because they believe “wrongly of course” that their neighbours are beneficiaries of the skewed resource distribution and since they cannot reach the culprits, they can settle accounts with their “representatives.”

At independence, Kenya , like the rest of Africa , inherited an edifice that promoted heavy dependence and corruption, both on the economic and political fronts. On the economic front, the country inherited an inordinately backward economy based on subsistence farming dominated by the peasantry and cash crop production and export, revolving around three crops (coffee, tea and pyrethrum) and almost solely in the hands of alien commercial farmers. Small-scale commodity production dominated by a backwardlooking, highly superstitious peasantry that was emerging from the nightmare of decades of oppression and dehumanisation; this was the predominant character of Kenya’s rural setting. The vast majority of the population was helplessly underdeveloped economically; their agriculture fragmented into tiny plots, each hardly sufficient to support a single household.

For any meaningful development to occur, it was necessary and urgent that this problem be tackled as a matter of priority. Instead, however, the newly installed leadership relied on Western “experts”, whose experiences were wholly metropolitan and whose background was entrepreneurial. In other words, Kenya’s leaders sought the solution to these urgent problems from business manuals and Harvard-trained economists seconded by the World Bank, IMF or bilateral “development partners”, rather than from the reality of the situation. The end result is that the new leadership succeeded in perpetuating the colonial division of labour where Africa extracted and exported (unprocessed) primary commodities and imported and consumed manufactured and processed goods.

The decision making processes that govern the international flows of goods, services, knowledge, finances, capital and technology are controlled by the major industrialised countries of the North and by the international institutions under their tight control. Kenya (and the entire African continent) is placed in unfavourable and therefore hopeless position in the global economic system. The country is linked economically mainly to capitalist economies of the industrialised Europe – both a legacy of slave trading and colonial pasts sustained by the relative economic strength of Europe and a consequence of development strategies adopted by post-colonial leadership. The West, and particularly Europe and the United States of America, are therefore as much interested parties as are our leaders. Is it any wonder that the EU, U.S and other major Western nations have been more concerned than our “African brothers?”

On the political front, the new post-independence leadership inherited a state that was monstrously oppressive and that was designed to serve the interests of colonial oppressors; a state that was not geared towards the improvement of the people’s social welfare and the country’s economic progress, but the one which coerced them into accepting and submitting to colonial subjugation so as to produce, through forced labour and other coercive mechanisms, for the metropolitan economies. It was a state that was designed to instill fear, subservience and diffidence in the people by destroying their self esteem through dehumanising and degrading treatment. This has become painfully manifested when state security apparatus are shown in television footages shooting dead unarmed demonstrators in one corner of the country while virtually escorting weapon wielding gangs in another corner of the country according to what they perceive be the preferred side of the leadership.

Since Ghana’s independence in 1957 unto the time of South Africa’s liberation from apartheid in 1994, many painful and largely unsuccessful attempts have been made at trying to put the economies of the fifty-plus African countries on the path of independent development and politics on the road to democracy and realisation of human dignity. In virtually all cases, these attempts at socially and economically altering the state of existence have met immense internal resistance and external obstacles. As has already been observed, the economies of newly-independent African states were weak and fragmented, mirroring centuries of colonial subjugation and exploitation. Industries and physical infrastructure “road, energy and communication” were virtually non-existent. The infrastructure for developing human resources through education and training was also grossly inadequate. Education, literacy and skills development levels were pitifully low.

Add to these economic and social deficiencies the spectre of an exponentially rising population and rapid urbanisation and the picture becomes clearer. As people flocked into cities, municipalities and other urban centres in the hope of securing a better life, pressure on public utilities and welfare services began to overwhelm the authorities, which had neither the administrative capacity nor the wherewithal to respond to these public needs. Raila Odinga promised Kenyans that he would address the foregoing. He articulated it in the people’s language and they understood him. Even though he might have been playing a populist game, Kenyans took him seriously. They decided to give him a chance. Kibaki stole the chance. Kenyans revolted. All the grievances were recalled. Now Kenya is a country openly at pains with itself. Only fundamental re-engineering of Kenya’s politics and economy will heal the wounds – not peppering over our inequalities, our ethnic differences, our exclusionist politics and our self-deception.

Research Points to Election Fraud

By Karuti Kanyinga
Karuti Kanyinga, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Development Studies of the University of Nairobi, explains in these excerpts from an AllAfrica interview why analysts have concluded that December’s presidential election in Kenya was rigged.

We’ve been able to look at the multiparty elections and ask ourselves how the 2007 elections compare with other elections and ask ourselves what justifies the claims of irregularities, of vote-rigging and of rigging in favor of a particular candidate, including Mwai Kibaki, the PNU (Party of National Unity) presidential candidate, and Raila Odinga, who was ODM’s (the Orange Democratic Movement) presidential candidate.

Our beginning point was a quick comparison of three elections held on the same day, at the same time, on the same spot: a civic election for local government, a presidential election and a parliamentary election. We are different from many countries – a voter comes to a polling station and is given three ballots for a civic, presidential, and parliamentary election, and the only difference is the color of the ballots... There are very few people who choose not to vote for a councillor – for local government – or not to vote for a member of parliament, or not to vote for president. The only difference is there might be a voter who might spoil a ballot...

In sum, we are saying the difference [between the number of ballots cast in voting for different levels of government] must not exceed one percent. How do we arrive at this one percent? We have done a forensic investigation of the 1992, 1997, and 2002 elections to ask ourselves the minimum number of votes that we can allow as anomalous, caused by spoiled ballots or any other reason. We have come to the conclusion that it is one percent.

In 2007, discrepancies [emerged] that cannot be explained by any scientific method.

Scientifically it does not make sense that out of all the elections that Kenyans have conducted, it's only the 2007 election where you find a difference of five percent [between the number of votes cast in balloting for different levels of government]. In some cases, five percent is a lot of votes because it's comprised of thousands of votes, implying... thousands of people went to a polling station and made a decision: "I am not voting for a member of parliament," or "I am not voting for a councillor. I am only coming here to vote for a president." That's unheard of scientifically, given what we have done in our own country [in the past]...

Put together, we found that the anomalous amount of votes - in all the results - is over 365,000. This number comes from the records of the electoral commission, even after everything had been resolved – implying that a week after results had been announced, after they had cleared their data, we still cannot account for 365,000 votes... The question is: to whom do we attribute these 365,000 votes?

When you do a cross-section of where these 365,000 votes come from, you realize that we cannot attribute all of them to Raila [Odinga], the ODM presidential candidate, because we do not have serious cases of anomalies in the ODM-controlled area of Luo Nyanza... The majority of cases where we find anomalies are in President Kibaki's strongholds, and also on the coast... We are not saying that we can attribute this wholly to that, but scientific evidence is pointing fingers to stuffing ballots, to inflating votes on the coast in order to ensure that the president gets 25 percent of the total [number of] votes. There is a constitutional requirement that a winning presidential candidate must have acquired 25 percent of the total vote in at least five out of the country's eight provinces... And on the coast is where we find very serious cases of anomalies between presidential and parliamentary votes.

Politically, of course, someone may want to argue that this is not true. Politically someone may want to argue that in the past - in 1992 and 1997 elections... the parliamentary votes had a difference of over 600,000 votes [from the presidential elections]. They forget that in both elections, there were 10 constituencies where there were no members of parliament contesting [seats]... meaning, there was no parliamentary election. There was only a presidential election, therefore presidential votes in those two elections were higher than the parliamentary vote.

The bottom line is that this election was fraudulent... that this election appears to have been rigged in favor of a certain presidential candidate, and all evidence seems to point fingers to President Kibaki's strongholds.

Share land, not power

By Peter Kimani

Kenya's independence from Britain brought political freedom, not the people's liberation - hence the current crisis.

"Until the antelopes have their own historians," counsels one sage, "History will always glorify hunting." There is succinct truth in this expression as revealed in the reportage of the Kenyan crisis over the past month.

The local press saw the events within the jaundiced prism of "post-election violence", parroting political reductionism that cushioned nefarious politicians from exposure, and punishment.

International journalists, with very few exceptions, fared a lot worse; to them this was a self-fulfilling prophecy, quoting Joseph Conrad's 19th century haunting travelogue across Africa, Heart of Darkness, as evidence.

The two narratives have been simplistic and misleading, if not outright fraudulent. But both have succeeded in throwing us off the spoor.

But there is no doubt that Kenya is one of the most unequal societies in the world, a land of "ten millionaires and ten million beggars," as populist politician Josiah Mwangi Kariuki put it, before he was brutally murdered in March 1975.

Several diagnoses have been suggested on what ails Kenya; namely, the failure of Westminster democracy and its "winner takes all" mould (hence Gordon Brown and others' prescription of power sharing); colonialism and its superficial borders (as though there is a state in the world with "natural boundaries"); tribalism - whatever that means - and the domination of the national economy by one community.

These prognoses are persuasive but defective. While it is true the imposition of western models of government ignored any home-grown structures of governance, as Basil Davidson elaborates in The Black Man's Burden, the actual birth pains for most of Africa, as manifest in the countless coups that destabilised the continent through the 1960s to the 1980s, were largely instigated by the west.

Tribalism and the domination of the economy are political expressions. Uganda's Idi Amin dreamt about the latter and subsequently expelled 80,000 Asians from his country in 1972. Jomo Kenyatta did it piecemeal from 1968 through a raft of oppressive, discriminatory legal instruments. Now someone thinks the Gikuyu are the problem. Next it will be someone else.

The ongoing mediation team, as with other past initiatives, have managed to skirt around the core issue, albeit shyly scratching its surface: land.

Land is what Me Katilili wa Meza and the Giriama people at the Kenyan coast, Waiyaki wa Hinga and the Gikuyu people in central Kenya, and the Nandi's Koitalel arap Samoei in Kenya's Rift Valley invoked over 100 years ago in their resistance against the British. As the Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong'o observes in Writers in Politics, among others, land wasn't just a means to a livelihood but the very basis of the people's social existence.

At the height of the British rule in Kenya, less than 1,000 white farmers held more than eight million acres of the nation's best land - virtually all the available arable land - acquired through brute force or shrewd conning.

The Maasai, for instance, who were the original inhabitants of the Rift Valley, lost their land through dubious "treaties" that allowed their forcible removal from their homelands to pave way for white settlers. The land in question covers the vast Laikipia plateau stretching across two million acres of mountain, savannah and forest, from Mount Kenya in the east to the Rift valley in the west.

The uprooting of the Kikuyu from their farmlands in Central Kenya triggered the Mau Mau armed insurgency that lasted one decade, one of the bloodiest periods in Kenya's history.

Kenya's founding president Jomo Kenyatta, mistakenly jailed as the leader of Mau Mau, emerged from incarceration preaching "suffering without bitterness," specifically urging the white settlers to "stay on and farm the land". And stay on and farm they did - but for the 780 white settlers who sold their land under the Settlement Transfer Fund Scheme.

Under this project, the British and West German governments and the World Bank contributed £20m towards land buy-out for redistribution. Only 1.2 million acres of the eight million acres held by settlers had been distributed by the end of 1971 when the scheme was wound up. To date, up to six million acres of land is estimated to be in settler hands, as happened 60 years ago.

Other lords of poverty include Kenya's political elite. According to the Kenya Land Alliance, a consortium of local NGOs pushing for social and land reform, more than a half of the arable land in Kenya is in the hands of just 20% of the 33 million Kenyans. Sixty-seven per cent of the population are squashed in less than an acre per person. A whopping 13% of the population is landless.

To demonstrate the obscenity of Kenya's political elite, two influential families hold between them land the size of one of Kenya's eight provinces. A former legislator owned an entire constituency, so the people he represented in parliament were not his constituents but subjects.

There are historical parallels between what's happening now and then. After the Mau Mau armed resistance, a political settlement was sought through the Lancaster House Conferences between 1960, 1962 and 1963 that among others, upheld the sanctity of the title deed, thereby legitimising the theft of the people's land.

Today, Kenyans are facing a forced political settlement going by the pronouncements from the Big Brothers. The US Congressional Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health concluded last week that what's happening in Kenya is a "political conflict with ethnic overtones", while European Union Development Commissioner Louis Michel warned that "those who push Kofi Annan to fail will pay for the consequences".

In the meantime, the settlers who took the people's land before independence still hold it. They use the fertile red volcanic soils to grow tea, coffee and horticulture while the expansive savannahs have been converted into eco-tourism sites where they draw the rich tourists. In 2004, for instance, the combined earnings from tea, coffee, tourism and horticulture grossed about £1 billion, nearly half of Kenya's annual national budget. Yet only 31% ended up in national coffers as tax and real earnings to Kenyans.

The rest went to largely British individuals and multinationals, validating Walter Rodney's treatise in How Europe Underdeveloped Africa that political independence in Africa did not mean economic liberation for the people and that the blood-sucking vampire, I mean, Empire is still intact.

Douglas Alexander, the British International Development Secretary, made a pitch for Kenyan roses this Valentine, saying their purchase would help an economy under a huge strain. That's very well, only that he didn't say 83% of the sector's total income goes to British firms like Homegrown and Sulmac.

If the British are not visible at the ongoing mediation, it does not mean they are not being heard. They learnt long ago, I suppose, one does not speak with his mouth full.

What Next - Moving from Loss and Trauma to Hope and Healing

By Paul Orieny, MA, LMTF and Alice Tindi, MSW, LGSW

A breach of humanity has occurred in Kenya, leaving people in a state of shock and disbelief. The see human beings willfully inflicting pain and death against another has wounded the souls of Kenyans not just at home but everywhere. The violence affects individuals as well as family and community.

As one Kenyan abroad recounts, “We cry ourselves to sleep, we worry about our families at home, we have severe headaches that we do not understand, our appetites are not the same, we feel or want to be left alone, we break into tears every so often, let us just say life ceased to be the same on December 30 2007.”

We feel the same pain; we are from Kenya and work at the Center for Victims of Torture (CVT). Here we have found tremendous support. In our work, we offer empathy to our clients, many from African countries. Little did we know we would be in a similar situation.

To help Kenyans through this difficult time, CVT is holding a talking circle for sharing and mutual support on Sunday, February 17 from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. at St. Alphonsus Church, 7025 Halifax Avenue North in Brooklyn Center.

We also offer below suggestions and information from our work experiences with people who experienced torture and war trauma. We hope these will be helpful to our brothers and sisters in Kenya and abroad.

When a traumatic (mfadhaiko or bumbwazi) experience happens to or is witnessed by a person, the body and the brain go into a state of alarm during and shortly after the events. This state naturally calls for one to fight, run away, or be inactive to counter the danger. When our bodies and minds stay in this state for an extended period of time, our well-being is negatively impacted.

For the first time, many Kenyans may be experiencing physical or emotional (psychological) symptoms. Although these feelings can be frightening, they are normal responses to abnormal situations. These reactions may include:

· Profound disbelief these incidents are happening. Feeling numb and helpless. This may lead to loss of feeling for people, including your children and spouse.

· When disbelief and shock fade, feelings of loss can occur. These may include profound sadness over loss of loved ones or the suffering of loved ones, loss of security, loss of assumptions about the world or your country (e.g., it could never happen here, we do not live in a war-torn or terror-filled world, etc.).

· Recurring unwanted thoughts, nightmares (jinamizi), and flashbacks may emerge, sometimes worsened by watching the media or being exposed to reminders of trauma. Irritability, anger and rage (Hasira), especially when the trauma is caused by other human beings. Angry reactions come from fear and hurt and can lead to aggressive acts, mainly as attempts to take control (e.g., family conflict, verbal arguments, etc.).

· Anxiety (wasi wasi, shauku), nervousness, increased states of alertness to counter danger; such as mistrusting people and suspecting danger everywhere, fear of leaving home, of letting loved ones out of your sight, of other people, etc

· Moodiness (huzuni), loss of interest or pleasure in activities nearly everyday, weight change, sleep problems, fatigue, feelings of worthlessness, helplessness and hopelessness, decreased ability to concentrate and crying more easily..

· Guilt (Uaili). Feel guilty for being okay, being in a good mood or having fun when others are suffering. Remember, it is okay to have positive feelings and thoughts.

· Physical problems such as headaches, stomachaches, breathing difficulties, insomnia, high blood pressure, nausea, changes in appetite, etc.

· Not wanting to be reminded of places or people associated with the trauma.

· Symptoms continuing over a month regardless of personal effort to lessen them.

· Forgetfulness and problems doing things you used to do.

· Drug or alcohol abuse – many people will tend to consume more alcohol or drugs in an effort to reduce the suffering associated with their symptom. This only adds to the suffering and should be seen as attempts to self-medicate. If you seek out drugs or alcohol, practice the self-care suggestions below or seek appropriate help if available.

Below are things you can do to help yourself and others:

· Recognize your feelings. These events have had a deep impact on you and affected your community in many ways. Accept that your emotions may fluctuate for a period. Grieving takes time and cannot be rushed.

· Deal with your anger in a non-destructive way. Don’t take it out on others or yourself.

· Reach out to others. Everyone needs reassurance and kindness during these times.

· Remember to do things that feel good to you. Try to eat and sleep regularly. Try not to give in to guilt. We all have a right to experience life to the fullest extent possible.

We realize that many Kenyans are reluctant to seek help, especially when it addresses psychological needs and specifically when it is associated with the word ‘mental health,’ because this implies being ‘crazy.’ But if help is not sought out and psychological needs not addressed, emotions are stored up and like a covered cooking pot, it is only a matter of time before the pressure explodes and spews out hot, dangerous steam.

As you try to resume your daily routines, remember, if you are experiencing the symptoms suggested above, find the courage to seek help. Even secondhand exposure to violence, such as through the media or by living with someone who experienced trauma, can be traumatic. You can find help from a teacher, counselor, pastor, priest, doctor, a nurse, family member or a friend.

Paul Orien and Alice Tindi are clinicians at the Center for Victims of Torture and are from Kenya. The Center for Victims of Torture is a nonprofit whose mission is to heal the wounds of torture on individuals, their families and their communities and to stop torture worldwide.

A talking circle for sharing and mutual support will be held from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Sunday, February 17 at St. Alphonsus Church, 7025 Halifax Avenue North in Brooklyn Center.

Breakthrough in talks as both sides climb down

By Fred Oluoch

Former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan appears to be on the brink of clinching a peace deal for Kenya.Getting President Mwai Kibaki to climb down from the position that the election dispute could only be resolved in a court of law was no easy task.

Neither was it going to be easy to persuade Raila Odinga to climb down from the position that the election was stolen and that the only option was for Kibaki to either step down or agree to a re-run of the presidential election.

It is noteworthy that even as a breakthrough was being announced, Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka was in the United States lobbying Congress to press Raila to seek redress in court.

Indeed, throughout last week, temperatures remained high at the Serena Hotel where the negotiations are taking place, with Kibaki’s team making it clear that a power-sharing deal was out of the question.

The standard refrain of hawkish elements on their side of the divide, including Finance Minister Amos Kimunya, was that they were not prepared to share power with “losers.”

In the midst of it all, one other factor was causing positions to harden even further on Kibaki’s side: As international pressure mounted on him, with one diplomat after the other issuing threats to members of his administration, his key players began taking exception to what they saw as bullying by foreigners.

Clearly, getting the parties to agree to discuss power-sharing was not going to be easy for Annan’s team.

Still, agreeing to discuss how to share power was the easy part. As long as the stakes for the hardliners on both side of the divide remain high, an agreement on a power-sharing deal may take much longer to achieve.

One on side, there is a group that fears that the mediation process may expose their culpability in the sins that may have been committed at the Electoral Commission of Kenya during the tallying of the presidential votes.

On the other are hardliners who fear revenge for the killings — especially in the Rift Valley. In the middle of the post-election violence, criminal elements have taken advantage, burnt people’s houses and displaced hundreds of thousands of members of President Mwai Kibaki’s community.

Their fear is that if Kibaki is allowed to entrench himself in power, they may face retribution.

Which is why one of the most important achievements by the Annan team was to get the negotiating parties to agree to a truth and reconciliation commission.

Implemented well, truth and reconciliation commissions have proved to be the best medicine for dealing with the fear of retribution for historical injustices.

What options will be on the table as the teams reassemble for negotiations? First is an interim coalition government that will last for a few years to give space for national healing, agreed constitutional reforms and reconstitution of the Electoral Commission.

Second, a grand coalition of all the major parties in parliament.

Third, where Odinga and Kibaki share executive powers — a compromise between what was stipulated in the Bomas Draft constitution and the Kilifi Draft during the constitutional reform debate of 2005.

Success will, however, depend on whether the principals manage to dissuade their agents from engaging in strident rhetoric.

The decision by the government to lift the ban on public rallies, which was announced a day before the “breakthrough” was a good starting point — as it signalled that the government was keen to implement decisions agreed on and signed off on by both parties at the Annan mediation process.

If parliament is recalled, and as long as the mood of hope is maintained, the country may be on the path of reconciliation.

Africa’s most decorated diplomat, Annan has handled more serious conflicts, where the stakes were even higher than in Kenya.

Before becoming secretary-general of the UN, in 1990, it was Annan who facilitated the repatriation of international staff and citizens of Western countries from Iraq after it invaded Kuwait. Subsequently, he led initial negotiations with Baghdad on the sale of oil to fund humanitarian relief.

As secretary-general, Annan used his good offices in several delicate political situations, including an attempt in 1998 to gain Iraq’s compliance with Security Council resolutions, as well as a mission that year to promote the transition to civilian rule in Nigeria.

In 1999, he helped to resolve the stalemate between Libya and the Security Council, and to forge an international response to violence in East Timor.

He has worked to encourage Israelis and Palestinians to resolve their differences through negotiations based on Security Council resolutions and the principle of “land for peace.”

It is Annan’s stature as former secretary general of the United Nations that has made it possible for the man to mobilise international opinion and resolve to return Kenya to normalcy.

Signs that the Kenyan dispute was likely to assume international dimension because of the country’s strategic importance in Africa came early in the dispute when the European Union made it clear that it was not satisfied with the way the poll tallying was done.

The EU was the first to threaten to impose sanctions on Kenya in case nothing was done to rectify the situation. Now Britain, the US and Canada are talking the same language, threatening to ban any individual who might have participated in rigging or violence from travelling to their countries.

Last week, the US issued banning letters to 10 politicians and business personalities whom it considers to have participated in either promoting violence or subverting the democratic process. The focus now is on individuals taking part in the mediation who may be deemed to have derailed the talks.

It is now apparent that the international community is reading from the same script and fears that the Kenyan crisis could overshadow or divert attention from complex cases like Darfur and Chad.

And, with the Kenyan crisis now being discussed at the UN Security Council, the matter has quickly taken on a global dimension.

In a statement, the Council said the only solution to the crisis was dialogue, negotiation and compromise, and strongly urged Kenya’s political leaders to foster reconciliation.

It reaffirmed its support for the African Union and the Panel of Eminent African Personalities led by Mr Annan in their efforts to stem the violence and requested Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to report on how the United Nations could further support the mediation efforts in Kenya and mitigate the impact of the crisis on the wider region.

Meanwhile, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes arrived in Kenya on Friday. A fact-finding mission deployed by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour arrived in in the country last week.

The team will conduct research for an initial period of three weeks, as it works to assess allegations of recent grave human-rights violations in the country.

Kenya’s election crisis exposes Africa’s flawed ‘democracy’

By Leon Louw


"Power is obtained by ballot instead of bullet only if there are sufficient constraints on what those with power can do to those without it to moderate the consequences of being out of power."


Few analyzes of Kenya's post-election crisis have addressed the fundamental issue of how African democracy can be converted into a peaceful means of transferring power from minorities-in-power to majorities out-of-power. Virtually every ‘solution' boils down to the unhelpful shibboleth that there would be peace if people were peaceful. The problem, as I see it, is a lack of appreciation for the fact that democracy not so much "fails" in Africa but that it hasn't really been tried.


A crude conception of what characterizes ‘Western' democracy has been exported by the West and imported by putative Third World ‘democracies'. In Africa, ‘democracy' is presumed to entail the crude counting of heads, the purpose of which is to find out who has the most support, and then to let them govern as they wish, rather than a sophisticated set of institutions and mechanisms aimed at ensuring good governance.


My contribution to the South African constitutional process, and that of a few other countries where I've been involved, has been to discourage obsession with the concept of democracy as being a process to establish winners and losers, and to focus instead on protecting losers sufficiently for them to surrender power peacefully.


There are 25 or so recognized ‘checks and balances' in the constitutions of most Western democracies, almost none of which have been incorporated in Third World constitutions, including Kenya. One of the most important is the Rule of Law, which has become a largely empty cliché.


The components of the Rule of Law, as opposed to the ‘rule of man', which are of greatest importance are:


Laws must be objective, not discretionary - so that rulers cannot engage in patronage, nepotism and favouritism, and people's rights are a function of law, not the whim of politicians and officials granting licenses, protection, subsidies and government contracts.


Corruption, for instance, is not a manifestation of poor governance, or not ‘clamping down' on corruption and having a ‘clean' administration, but of the formal ability of officialdom and politicians to grant or withhold benefits.


There must be a separation of powers - so that only the legislature legislates (makes laws), the executive executes (implements laws), and the judiciary adjudicates (settles disputes, and imposes sentences and penalties). There is virtually no separation of powers in the Third World, yet it is so taken for granted in the First World as to be virtually automatic.


In Kenya, for instance, countless substantive laws are made by executive decree, and the executive has many tribunals and quasi-courts settling disputes and imposing penalties. These should be functions of a truly independent judiciary working strictly in accordance with the jurisprudential principles of ‘due process'.


There's much more to the Rule of Law, but these two components alone, if understood and implemented in emerging democracies, would go a long way to reducing the intensity of the battle for power, because they reduce the negative implications of losing. What matters in mature democracies is the extent to which those who govern can victimize the governed.


Another well-known constraint on those who govern is a Bill of Rights, which is regarded as ‘democratic', yet its sole purpose is to limit what victorious majorities may do to vanquished minorities. Most Third World countries have Bills of Rights, but they miss the point. Unlike First World Bills of Rights, they are characterized the essential purpose of a Bill of Rights. Instead of specifying what's not voteable, what the majority may not do, they are wish-lists of what governments supposedly must, but cannot do, especially in poor countries, such as provide generous incomes, security, housing, education and health care. What paltry attempts most governments make at delivering on such wish-lists invariably entails making things worse because they claim a constitutional obligation to intensify abuse of elective losers by redistributing more of their wealth to the government's friends, relatives and supporters.


What we should all do at this time of crisis and reflection in Kenya is contribute to a better understanding of why there's conflict - because the price of being out of power is higher than the price of resistance - and how to prevent it henceforth - which is to have unambiguous institutions protecting the governed from those who govern.

Democracy charade undermines rights

Washington — The established democracies are accepting flawed and unfair elections for political expediency, Human Rights Watch said this week in releasing its World Report 2008. By allowing autocrats to pose as democrats, without demanding they uphold the civil and political rights that make democracy meaningful, the United States, the European Union and other influential democracies risk undermining human rights worldwide.

States claiming the mantle of democracy, including Kenya and Pakistan, should guarantee the human rights that are central to it, including the rights to free expression, assembly and association, as well as free and fair elections. But in 2007 too many governments, including Bahrain, Jordan, Nigeria, Russia and Thailand, acted as if simply holding a vote is enough to prove a nation "democratic," and Washington, Brussels and European capitals played along, Human Rights Watch said. The Bush administration has spoken of its commitment to democracy abroad but often kept silent about the need for all governments to respect human rights.

"It's now too easy for autocrats to get away with mounting a sham democracy," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "That's because too many Western governments insist on elections and leave it at that. They don't press governments on the key human rights issues that make democracy function — a free press, peaceful assembly, and a functioning civil society that can really challenge power."

In its World Report 2008, Human Rights Watch surveys the human rights situation in more than 75 countries. Human Rights Watch identified many human rights challenges in need of attention, including atrocities in Chad, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia's Ogaden region, Iraq, Somalia, Sri Lanka, and Sudan's Darfur region, as well as closed societies or severe repression in Burma, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Libya, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam. Abuses in the "war on terror" featured in France, Pakistan, the United Kingdom and the United States, among others.

Grave human rights abuses are fueling the worsening humanitarian crises in Somalia and the Ogaden region of eastern Ethiopia. "The situation in Somalia and Ethiopia's Ogaden region, where millions are suffering, is a forgotten tragedy," said Roth.

Sudan's government bears principal responsibility for five years of the Darfur crisis, Human Rights Watch said. Some 2.4 million people are displaced, and 4 million people survive on humanitarian aid. In the last weeks, villages in West Darfur have been attacked, and civilians are at great risk as all sides ignore international humanitarian law. Burma's military government, notorious for decades of abuse, used deadly force in August and September in response to peaceful protests by monks, pro-democracy activists, and ordinary civilians. Hundreds of people remain arbitrarily detained. In Sri Lanka, heavy fighting between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and government forces led to deliberate and indiscriminate attacks on civilians. Hundreds of people have "disappeared," and more than 20,000 have been displaced.

Israel's blockade of Gaza denies 1.4 million residents the food, fuel and medicine they need to survive, a collective punishment that violates international law. Palestinian armed groups continue to launch indiscriminate rocket attacks on populated areas of Israel in violation of international law.

Human Rights Watch said sustained international pressure around the 2008 Olympic Games could push Chinese leaders to better respect human rights in China. But Human Rights Watch warned that the staging of the Olympics is exacerbating problems of forced evictions, migrant labor rights abuses, and the use of house arrests to silence dissidents. The Chinese government is cracking down on lawyers and human rights activists.

"The 2008 Olympics are an historic opportunity for the Chinese government to show the world that it can make human rights a reality for its 1.3 billion citizens," said Roth.

U.S. abuses against so-called "war on terror" detainees are a major concern; 275 detainees are still held at Guantanamo Bay without charge. Some of those remain after being cleared by the United States for release, because they cannot be sent home and no country will resettle them.

The United States continues to have the highest incarceration rate in the world, with black men incarcerated at more than six times the rate of white men.

Human Rights Watch has documented a number of elections manipulated through: outright fraud (Chad, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Uzbekistan); control of electoral machinery (Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Malaysia, Thailand, Zimbabwe); blocking or discouraging opposition candidates (Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Libya, Turkmenistan, Uganda); political violence (Cambodia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Lebanon); stifling the media and civil society (Russia, Tunisia); and undermining the rule of law (China, Pakistan).

Many of these tactics are illegal under domestic and international law, but rarely do outside powers call governments to account for it. Human Rights Watch said established democracies are often unwilling to do so for fear of losing access to resources or commercial opportunities, or because of the perceived requirements of fighting terrorism.

Human Rights Watch said the United States and the European Union should insist governments do more than hold a vote, and demand they uphold rights guaranteed by international law, including a free media, freedom of assembly, and a secret ballot.

"It seems Washington and European governments will accept even the most dubious election so long as the 'victor' is a strategic or commercial ally," Roth said.

The United States and some allies have made it harder to demand other governments uphold human rights when they are committing abuses in the fight against terrorism. And when autocratic governments deflect criticism for violating human rights by pretending to be democrats, the global defense of rights is jeopardized, Human Rights Watch said.

In Pakistan, where President Pervez Musharraf has tilted the electoral playing field by rewriting the constitution and firing the independent judiciary, parliamentary elections are due in February. But the United States and Britain, Islamabad's largest aid donors, have refused to condition assistance to the government on improving pre-electoral conditions.

In Kenya, the United States has at least expressed concern about the apparent rigging of December's presidential poll and the violence that to date has claimed more than 700 lives. But having accepted the results of oil-rich Nigeria's February 2007 vote, despite widespread and credible accusations of poll-rigging and electoral violence, Washington left the impression in Nairobi that fraud would be tolerated. It has not even threatened to withhold aid to push the government to negotiate with the opposition.

"Nigeria's leader came to power in a violent and fraudulent vote, yet he's been accepted on the international stage," said Roth. "It's no wonder Kenya's president felt able to rig his re-election."

Bizarrely, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which is supposed to promote democracy, human rights, and security, agreed to give its chair in 2010 to Kazakhstan, which has vast oil and gas reserves coveted by both the EU and Russia. The OSCE decision came after the Kazakh ruling party "won" every seat in August parliamentary elections, in which, according to the OSCE's own monitors, the media was censored, the opposition suppressed, and the counting flawed.

Human Rights Watch noted positive developments in holding abusive leaders to account. Alberto Fujimori and Charles Taylor, the former presidents of Peru and Liberia, are on trial for human rights abuses. The International Criminal Court holds its first trial in May.

The World Report 2008 includes essays on China's foreign policy; how activists helped create the Yogyakarta Principles for gay rights; the scourge of violence against children at school, in the home, on the streets and in institutions; and the British government's erosion of the torture ban through "diplomatic assurances" against ill-treatment.

Source: World Report 2008

Who owns Kenya?

By Otsieno Namwaya

Kenya’s two former First Families and the family of President Mwai Kibaki are among the biggest landowners in the country.

A residual class of white settlers and a group of former and current power brokers in the three post independent regimes follow them closely while a few businessmen and farmers, many with either current or past political connections, also own hundreds of thousands of acres.

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 who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Kibaki and Moi families also own large tracts of land though most of the Moi family land is held in the names of his sons and daughters and other close family members.

Most of the holders of the huge parcels of land are concentrated within the 17.2 per cent part of the country that is arable. The remaining 80 per cent is mostly arid and semi arid land.

In fact, according to the Kenya Land Alliance, more than a half of the arable land in the country is in the hands of only 20 per cent of the 30 million Kenyans. That has left up to 13 per cent of the population 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, there was an elaborate scheme funded by the World Bank and the British Government, the Settlement Transfer Fund Scheme, under which the family legally acquired large pieces of land all over the country.

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 the first President, 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.

The acreage quoted in this report is not extracted from official government records — there are none and those that exist are scattered and some cases incomplete — but are estimates based on close to a year of interviews with farm staff, independent surveyors, Ministry of Lands experts and land rights NGOs.

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.

It is understood that in the late 1990s, the Kenyatta family started considering the possibility of disposing of parts of the land in Nairobi.

In the lead-up to the 2002 general elections, for instance, there were indications that the family was considering selling the 100-acre piece of land in Karen. But even with that, the Kenyatta family would still own a sizeable part of Nairobi, such as the 1,000-acre farm in Dagoretti 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.

It is alleged, though there is little compelling evidence, that the land was transferred to the Kenyatta family the same day Criticos sold it to the government.

Neither is it clear how much the family paid for it.

Land for the two universities was subsequently donated by the family.

Under President Kenyatta, most of the power wielders either formed or were associated with land buying companies through which they acquired huge chunks of land around the country, especially at the Coast and in Rift Valley.

They took most of the land previously owned by the former white settlers, which had initially been earmarked for resettling those who had been turned into squatters by the colonial land policies.

One of the most famous land buying companies was Gema Holdings.

Most of the people — including retired President Moi and his former Vice President, Mwai Kibaki — who had considerable political influence in the Kenyatta regime, were given the opportunity to buy as much land as they could.

One of President Kibaki’s earliest acquisitions is the 1,200-acre Gingalily Farm along the Nakuru-Solai road. He bought it in the late 1960s.

And in the 1970s, Kibaki, who was then the minister for Finance under Kenyatta, bought 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 that came to the limelight when it caught fire last year.

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. 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. Last year, the family put out an advert in the press warning the public that some unknown people were sub-dividing and selling it.

Land transactions are ongoing and some of these farms may have changed hands.

Lands minister Amos Kimunya said yesterday the Government is formulating a land policy, which will address the question of idle land.

"If it is lying idle, the Government will definitely apply the law to the letter to ensure it is put to productive use," he said.

"The policy is being developed by the people. At the end of it all, views that emerge are to be synthesised to come up with prudent policy." But the Government has no quarrel with the size of land one owns. "The question is, is that land, notwithstanding the size, being put to productive use?"

The truth about the Naivasha killings

By Odhiambo T. Oketch

I have been to Naivasha on two occasions to help evacuate some of my relatives who were victims of the violence that took place in Naivasha.

The first time, we did not get the gory details of what took place, and I bet, the press is afraid of bringing some of these planned murders and killings in Naivasha to the fore.

We must have the courage to face the truth and confront the same, then talk of the healing process. If we sweep this under the rug, we are doing nothing.

Politicians and administrative officers involved

The Naivasha Massacre was planned in complicity with government agencies. The police were informed, and they only brought officers who were not armed to confront the murderous Mungiki (banned militia) team.

The DC (District Commissioner) was in the picture, as some of the politicians who had lost in the recent general elections. They were well coordinated by donations from some current cabinet ministers and the pangas (machetes) that they used were bought at the Shamba Hardware store in Naivasha town.

When the Mungiki were to strike on the January 27, 2008, the prison warders came out and thwarted all their moves. They retreated so that orders could be made to bar the prison warders from coming out in support of non-Kikuyus who were the target.

When they struck the second time, they were under police escort, and they specifically killed Luos, in a systematic way. They torched their houses and chased them like rats in town.

When the Luo organized themselves to hit back, the police shot at the them instead. This went on for three days. Within this time, the Mungiki murderers were housed at LakeSide and Silver Hotels.

They used to come to town at 6:00 am, reign terror until 6:00 pm when they retreated to their hotels to brief their paymasters, chief among them former and current MPs.

The Naivasha Massacre of the Luos was well planned in a meeting attended by politicians like Uhuru Kenyatta and Jayne Kihara among others, and top businessmen such as Chris Kirubi, Jimna Mbaru, and George Muhoho.

They were annoyed that it is the Luo who had made things elephant for them. They hence came up with a plan that hitting at the Luo would be the best thing. They did not look at the fact that it is the Kalenjin who removed them mostly from the Rift Valley. They thought that it was the Luo who had made the Kalenjin do that.

Biased Red Cross and Mungiki paymasters

The Kenya Red Cross Society that has been acclaimed as one of the best relief support agencies, did not come to the aid of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) at Naivasha Prisons for a whole 3 days, yet, they were in Burnt Forest and Eldoret within hours of the fracas breaking out.

It came out that the Red Cross, just like the government, was partisan in addressing the problems. In the case of Naivasha, the Red Cross and the government were looking at it as a Luo affair, not a Kenyan affair.

This partisan approach to the massacre has exposed the Red Cross as a dishonest agency.

When the Mungiki youths went to Kabati cemetery for oath-taking, the police were very much in the picture. When they ransacked Kabati Estate, the police looked helpless. When the people ran to Naivasha Prisons for safety, the police moved in on the road, armed and ready to shoot at anyone who dared come out of the prison.

I reckon they should have been engaging the Mungiki so that they could save non-Kikuyu property, but they only escorted them on the macabre mission.

The world must know the truth. And it is this truth that will set us free.

Why were Kikuyus hell bent on eliminating Luos from Naivasha, when it is a known fact that Luos never killed any kikuyu in Nyanza at the beginning of the evictions?

Why were Kikuyus in Naivasha cheering and telling Luos that they wanted Majimbo (regionalism), yet now had to be evicted?

Why were the police under instructions to safeguard Mungiki, and to shoot to kill at any show of resistance, people who stood helpless as their houses were being burnt and their people killed as they watched?

It is time to make clear distinctions; those who shout loudest about crimes against humanity, are the main paymasters of the murderous Mungiki sect.

Kenya’s Darkest Days: A Nation Beset With Violence

How could a poorly handled democratic election quickly plunge this relatively peaceful nation into chaos? What does this reveal about Kenya, Africa—and mankind as a whole?

By Samuel C. Baxter

Election Day in Kenya, Dec. 27, 2007. Long lines of citizens patiently wait to pick up a ballot, mark off the candidates of their choosing, and drop the completed form into the ballot box. More than 30,000 local and international, accredited election observers scrutinize each phase of the process, working to ensure the vote is free and fair, even watching as each ballot is hand-counted.

The International Republican Institute, a nonprofit nonpartisan organization who monitored the election, initially commended Kenya in a press statement for “the peaceful manner in which Election Day was carried out.”

“However,” it stated, “voting is only one part of the process. The vote count and the acceptance of the results by the people are equally important.”

During the following hours and days, mobs armed with machetes and clubs roamed the streets, hacking and beating those who held opposing political views, and pillaging the areas they destroyed. Smoke from fires set by rioters mixed with retaliatory tear gas. Throngs of police wielding white batons and gray metal shields attempted to quell the unrest, firing live rounds, and beating rioters, onlookers or anyone loitering outside their homes.

The mobs left charred black frames teetering where villages once stood. A church was leveled in a fire, started after more than 50 people fled to it for safety, then were locked inside and burned alive.

The violence, which has been churning for over a month, has left over 850 people dead and displaced more than 300,000. The United Nations has stated that about 500,000 require urgent help. Many fear that Kenya will never acquire the relative peace that it once knew.

Blame for the violence has been pinned on a rigged election, stubborn politicians and ethnic tensions.

Opposing Sides

In only a matter of days, Kenya suffered a national meltdown. Held up as an example of a peaceful, developing African nation, this country has entered what have been called the “darkest days” since its 1963 liberation from Britain.

As the election drew near, Raila Odinga, the prominent contender against the current president, began to pull ahead in the polls. On the day of the vote, early reports declared Mr. Odinga the winner, but the official count declared that the incumbent, President Mwai Kibaki, had won by a mere 230,000 votes.

Mr. Kibaki, who was sworn in for a second term less than an hour following his electoral victory, was dismissed by Mr. Odinga, who asserts the election was a fraud.

International groups also question the results. The European Union and members of the African Union have expressed serious concerns about the nature of the election after reports surfaced that there were instances of voter inconsistencies in several large voting constituencies across Kenya. After meeting with both sides of the opposition, the United States envoy to Africa told the Associated Press, “Yes, there was rigging. I mean there were problems with the vote counting process...both the parties could have rigged.”

Both Mr. Odinga and President Kibaki refuse to budge on how they view the results. It took the better part of a month for the two leaders to discuss the election-related violence. However, most saw this meeting as fruitless—a mere handshake and a photo opportunity. Still, Mr. Odinga refuses to accept his rival’s victory, demanding another trip to the polls. President Kibaki holds that the election was fair and there is no need for a revote.

There is another obstacle complicating Kenya’s move forward: Mr. Odinga’s party won 95 parliament seats, while Mr. Kibaki’s party won only 43. Kenya will be hard-pressed to make any political progress unless these two parties can reach a consensus on the election results and how to end internal turmoil.

However, this is not merely a political problem. Bands of young men brandishing bows and arrows and machetes—who feel Mr. Odinga should have won—roam the countryside terrorizing villagers who largely supported President Kibaki. Boys carrying sticks attempt to block main roads, crying, “If the election fails, violence prevails.”

These problems run deeper than politics. The election has brought long-held ethnic tensions to the surface. Mr. Odinga is a member of the Luo tribe, as are many of his supporters. President Kibaki is a member of the Luos’ longtime rival, the Kikuyu tribe.

Kenya has a long history of tribal tensions. In 2007, 300 people were murdered due to inter-clan violence, prior to the presidential election flashpoint.

The Root Cause

It may be difficult for those in Western nations to understand nationwide unbridled acts of human nature resulting from one botched election. The blessings the West enjoys ensure that riotous violence rarely rears its head in such a complete way, making what is occurring in Kenya seem strange. However, it should not be.

News organizations and experts generally point to the political reasons and continuing tribal tensions as the source of Kenya’s current crisis. But this is not the case.

To best grasp the true cause of the crisis, we must look beyond the web of political wrangling and long-held intertribal grievances, and examine the very nature of human beings themselves.

One only has to look to Hollywood and literature to see what characteristics are inherent to the human condition—lust, greed, revenge and hatred, often lashing out with some degree of physical aggression. These bursts of violence drive nearly every plot ever written. And just as these fictional violent acts fill movie theatre screens, real violence fills the pages of newspapers and news websites from the world over.

The real life scenes in Kenya’s mob-ridden streets, still playing out daily more than a month after the election, illustrate this dark fact of humankind:

• A group of young Luo men set fire to a bus they believed was owned by Kikuyus, in response to an incident the day before, when Kikuyus trapped 19 Luos, including 11 children, inside a house and burned them to death.
• Hospitals have seen rape cases double—with doctors knowing well that the crime generally goes untreated and unreported.
• Men set up blockades to rob approaching cars or pull passengers out of vehicles and hack them to death with machetes.
• Police were forced to stand between 400 youths from one ethnic group and 500 from another in an attempt to extinguish an all out battle.

Violence is filling Kenya to the brim, with no end in sight.

History also is rife with examples showing violence is intrinsic to mankind. The last century was filled with such acts—the Holocaust, the Vietnam War, Tiananmen Square protests, genocide in Rwanda, etc. This list would be endless if one were to look back into the millennia mankind has existed. One such account recorded in the Bible shows that during the days of Noah, the entire “earth was filled with violence” (Gen. 6:11).

Scripture also reveals that mankind’s governments are leading humanity into the earth’s darkest days, that thousands of years of man ruling as he sees fit would result in a time that would be “as the days of Noah” (Matt. 24:37)—that in these days the earth would be “corrupt before God” (Gen. 6:11) and again would be filled with acts of violence—just like Kenya has become.

Human nature is defined in the Scriptures, detailing the reason for man’s long history of violence. The book of Romans explains, “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Rom. 3:10)—and reveals that mankind’s “feet are swift to shed blood: destruction and misery are in their ways: and the way of peace have they not known: there is no fear of God before their eyes” (3:15-18).

Said plainly, the capacity for violence and murder lies within all human beings! While this may seem a stretch for those in nations blessed with relative peace, it takes only one controversial law being passed, the killing of a citizen by a police officer or a natural disaster for riotous violence to surface even in these countries. In bleak times, violence boils over.

This human nature is a characteristic that no government system now in place can outlaw, or deter with tear gas, plastic shields or batons.

While recognizing mankind’s violent nature is helpful, as it identifies the cause of the problem, it is not a solution. Again, periods of lawlessness and violence have been seen throughout history and without a way to change man’s nature, these gruesome acts will continue to grow worse.

God’s solution for the times of Noah—which, again, typify the times in which we are now living—was to wipe out mankind, save a few. While He has promised to never completely do this again (Gen. 8:21), Jesus Christ will soon return to wipe out the governments of men, which are based upon human nature and have brought forth these dark times and the foreboding future. With these systems removed, a flawless government will be set in place. Coinciding with this monumental event, man’s violent nature will be changed, allowing peace, joy, equity and prosperity to flourish.

Quite a stark contrast to the present.

Copyright © 2008 The REAL TRUTH.