This is getting serious

[nairiporter]

Mob Burns Church in Kenya, Killing Dozens
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/world/africa/02kenya.html?ref=world

NAIROBI, Kenya — Dozens of people seeking refuge in a church in Kenya were burned to death by a mob on Tuesday, according to witnesses and Red Cross officials, in an escalation of ethnic violence that is threatening to plunge the country into chaos.

 

Up to 40 people died inside the church, a few miles from a town called Eldoret, after young men from a different tribe poured gasoline on it and set it on fire, the witnesses and officials said.

In Nairobi, the capital, tribal militias squared off against each other in several slums. Witness reports indicate that more 200 people have been killed in the past two days in violence connected to a disputed election Kenya held last week.

The European Union said there was clear evidence of ballot rigging, and European officials called for an independent investigation. Kenya’s government, which won the election by a razor-thin margin, has refused. Government officials said they would crack down harshly on anyone who threatened law and order, and they banned political rallies for the foreseeable future.

A knot of rage seemed to be moving across the country, from the slums of Nairobi, the capital, to the cities along the Indian Ocean, to usually tranquil towns on the savanna. Many people were furious that President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner on Sunday in the country’s most fiercely fought election, despite widespread evidence of fraud.

On Tuesday, some Nairobi streets seemed to return to a sense of normalcy, with gas stations reopening and fewer soldiers in the streets, but in the slums, heavy fighting continued. In some areas, trucks filled with soldiers rumbled through a wasteland of burned cars and abandoned homes, their tires crunching over broken glass.

Gangs of young men have built roadblocks between the neighborhoods of the Kikuyus, Mr. Kibaki’s tribe, and the Luos, the tribe of Raila Odinga, the top opposition leader, who narrowly lost the election.

The no man’s land between them is often a single lane of potholed asphalt, patrolled by men holding huge rocks in their hands.

The election has uncorked dangerous resentment toward the Kikuyus, the privileged ethnic group of Kenya, who have dominated business and politics since independence in 1963.

On Monday, witnesses said that in some areas mobs had stopped cars and pulled out passengers. They demanded identification cards to determine whether they were Kikuyu — one can often tell by the name — and if so, they were lynched.

The most intense fighting, though, has been in western Kenya, Mr. Odinga’s stronghold, where a mix of hooliganism, political protest and ethnic violence has taken dozens of lives. The police have responded by shooting looters on sight and ordering a curfew in Kisumu, barring people from leaving home at night or walking around during the day in groups of more than two.

The Kenyan internal security minister has outlawed live television broadcasts nationwide because, he said, the coverage was inciting riots.

 

Many Kenyans, who take pride that their country is one of the most stable and prosperous in Africa, said they felt ashamed about the turn their nation has taken. “This is a total throwback,” said Maina Kiai, chairman of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights. “We are going back to the days of dictatorship.”

 

But many people have not given up on democracy. On Monday, several hundred men in a mixed Kikuyu-Luo slum held a peace march. They met in the road that divides their enclaves, distinctions nobody really cared about until a few days ago, and spoke about putting down their weapons and working out their problems.

“For all these years, we’ve been living together,” said Stanley Maina, a Kikuyu shopkeeper. “Why are we fighting now?”

One Luo man yelled out: “Let Raila and Kibaki fight! They are presidents; we are just people!”

Those in the crowd pumped their fists in the air and cheered.

The decision by Kenya’s election commission on Sunday to declare Mr. Kibaki the winner of the disputed election held Thursday has thrown the country into a crisis without an obvious solution. Western diplomats said that there was undeniable evidence of fraud in the ballot tallying, but that election officials refused to do a recount because they wanted to keep the government in power.

Mr. Kibaki, 76, faces trouble not just on the streets, but in Parliament as well. More than half of his cabinet was voted out of office, and his party won about 35 seats in Parliament, compared with about 100 for the opposition.

Before the election, Mr. Kibaki was considered a courtly gentleman who stirred few passions. Now mobs of outraged voters are burning pictures of him and calling him a cheat.

It is not clear what opposition leaders will do. They had planned to hold their own inauguration last Monday and anoint Mr. Odinga, 62, the “people’s president.” But the government warned that such an event would be considered a coup and sent hundreds of riot police officers in padded suits to the Nairobi park where the ceremony was to take place. The opposition decided to postpone the ceremony until Thursday.

Mr. Odinga has rebuffed the government’s invitations to negotiate a power-sharing deal, saying that Mr. Kibaki is not the legitimate head of state. “We will bring down this government by peaceful and democratic means,” he said Monday, without specifying the means.

Western officials have become increasingly critical of the elections, and two of Kenya’s largest donors issued pointed statements on Monday. The United States, which initially congratulated Mr. Kibaki on his victory, said there were “serious problems experienced during the vote-counting process,” including “unrealistically high voter turnout” and “apparent manipulation of some election reporting documents.”

Canada deplored the news media blackout and said it was “very concerned about incidents of violence, and by irregularities in the post-election process and the response by Kenyan authorities.”

The mood in Nairobi was hardly festive on New Year’s Eve. Though the wealthier neighborhoods have not been hit by riots, stores were running out of food. Many people skipped parties, frightened of driving in the dark. Many roads to town were blocked by soldiers who warned drivers that if they entered the city, their cars could be burned.

 

Comments

hi there

[batgrl85.livejournal.com]

hi there, i hope you dont mind i added you. I was recently working in and soon to return to Nairobi and I just wanted to keep updated with as much news as possible.

Geraldine

Re: hi there

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

Thanks for adding me! I'll add you back.

I usually put all-African news here, not only about Kenya. But I'm really concerned about what's happening in Kenya right now. Hopefully reason will prevail after all...

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

*shivers*