Kenya's quicksands

By Cameron Duodu

Even as the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon, joins the diplomatic efforts of his predecessor, Kofi Annan, to try and get the politicians of Kenya to resolve the current crisis through dialogue, the situation on the ground in the country is fast disappearing from the control of the politicians.

The ethnic genie is truly out of the bottle and fuels its monstrous thirst for blood on anything dramatic that happens. For instance, the murder, within days of each other, of two members of the new parliament - Melitus Mugabe Were and David Kumutai Too - has reinforced the belief among non-Kikuyus that Kibaki and his "Kikuyu gang" will stop at nothing to hold on to power.

True, the murders have tilted the balance of power in the new parliament in favour of Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU) and the parties "friendly" to it. They now boast of a majority 103 seats against 101 held by the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).

The ODM leader, Raila Odinga, has described one of the murders as a "planned political assassination", and going by the litmus test of cui bono (who benefits), it is difficult not to agree with his interpretation.

But to his followers, a far more sinister perception of the murders offers itself - namely, confirmation that Kibaki and his supporters are a power-hungry bunch who want to monopolise political control in Kenya by any means, fair and foul. Whether any actual evidence exists to justify such a conclusion (or not) doesn't matter in the current political climate. For the police and the judiciary are as much under the cloud of suspicion as the politicians. At least 50% of Kenya's population, if not more, now ardently believe that Kikuyus want total control of Kenya.

And they have been reacting against this Kikuyu "plot" in a manner that has led some observers, including the US assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Jendayi Frazer, to conclude that "ethnic cleansing" is taking place in many areas of Kenya. (Her characterisation of the crisis in these terms has since been repudiated by the state department.)

But it is indisputable that the Kalenjin and the Luo, among others, are expelling the Kikuyus from what they consider to be their "ancestral land". Some of this land, they claim, was distributed to Kikuyus by the Kikuyu politicians who ruled the country after independence.

On the other hand, in Kikuyu areas, ethnic groups known to support the ODM are fleeing, afraid that the Kikuyus will reap vengeance for what is happening to Kikuyus elsewhere. It's become a classic case of the onset of national disintegration. The number of displaced people is now estimated to be at least 500,000. Some are finding safety in prisons; many more are in tents provided by the UN, where their safety is anything but guaranteed. Everywhere, it is suffering, suffering, suffering.

Meanwhile, the country is awash with rumours of people arming themselves for civil war. No proof of weapons-buying is offered, of course, but such rumours tend to feed upon themselves: since it stands to reason for ethnic groups threatened by others to defend themselves with weapons, the rumours must be true. And if they are true, then the ones being threatened with weapons must also arm themselves.

Kenya is in an area where weapons are, in theory, easy to procure - from anarchic Somalia, principally, but also from Uganda and as far away as Eritrea and Sudan. So the seriousness of the situation cannot be over-emphasised.

Can negotiations of the sort Ban, Annan and their colleagues are carrying out provide a solution? Success would depend on a deal that can be sold to the populace as a guaranteed path to economic equality. It would have to be seen as making it impossible for one ethnic group to be favoured above others in terms of important appointments (especially in ministerial office). But above all, an independent, inter-ethnic commission would have to be appointed to look into the question of land redistribution.

Such a commission must be given power to order that questionable titles held as a result of past political patronage be revoked, and ownership reverted to those who can prove that their ancestors held the land before colonial fiat turned them over to absentee landlords and nouveau-riche landgrabbers who had political leverage.

Even if such a rearrangement of Kenya's socio-economic landscape were to be agreed upon, the political antagonists would have their work cut out to get their followers to accept it as the basis for future co-existence. The trouble is that ethnic politics tends to operate under eternal suspicion - suspicion that, in the worlds of an African proverb, "there is always blood in the head of a tse-tse fly".

This is why it is totally treasonable for African politicians to play with the ethnic sensibilities of their people. Biafra (1967), the Ivory Coast (2002) and, of course, Sudan (since 1984) are among the more sanguine examples of what can happen when the greed for power blinds politicians to the realities of life among the people they claim to lead. But who cares for the lessons of history when the lust for power beckons?

It is now up to the entire world to pressurise Kenya's leaders to recognise the quicksand into which they have pushed their country and to retreat before they find themselves unable either to go forward or to turn back.