America and the west do not care about the interest of Africa and for that matter Kenya, what they care about is their own interest. Whether the Kenyans Election were fair or not fair Is not what they care about. It is what they can get from the incoming president. The question I keep asking is; did Raila promise the west something? One minute the elections were fair as “long as the opposition was winning and the next when the government side starting winning, wow, the elections was flawed!!! Does this have something to do with the fact that Kenyan government had been getting comfortable with China? We need fair reporting for both side and not only the opposition.
Recently, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced the creation of a new, unified military command for Africa. This command is not to safeguard the interest of Africa, but the self-interest for the United States in Africa. Currently sub-Saharan Africa supplies the U.S. with nearly 20 percent of its petroleum needs and, according to National Intelligence Council estimates, within a decade, the West African sub-region will be providing more than one-quarter of North American oil imports by 2015, thus surpassing the total volume of oil imports from the Middle East. Chinese are also interested in this pie. It is about the west interest and not Africa.
We as African and the progressive world need to be very careful when we read news or watch news. The situation in Kenya is very grave and the press needs to report balanced news. What we are seeing now in Kenya is the western press reporting biased against the Kenyan government and the favorably to side that they will benefit more. There is a seating government in Kenya and there are governing bodies that need to be respected and obeyed just like the western government. There are set process to challenge what happened and the opposition need to follow that.
When there was a flawed election in u.s.a, American did not run burning the personal property, they followed the law of land. Gore went to court and he put the interest of United States first. Raila needs to do the same. This is hooliganism; the same hooliganism has been running the street for the last four years. Anytime something does not go their way, they will storm the government offices. The Kibaki government has been very patient and I commend them for that. There is history of the so called “ODM ‘and people need to research before they comment.
You cannot blame the government for the place like Kibera. Kibera has always been there even before the independent. This African ‘Ghetto” was created by colonial government. Kibera is completely not the subject with what is happening. What do you want the Kenyan government to do? Demolish people’s house? There is poverty everywhere in the world; there are places I would not go in Oakland California. Democracy and capitalism is the price. I have been to Kibera and I have been to East Oakland and I feel safer in Kibera. Here, it is a question of encouraging the rule of law. Without the rule of law there cannot be democracy, or economy economical growth. We need to cultivate this in Africa. We have to do it ourselves since the west will not do it for us.
James Gatihi
Thursday, January 17, 2008
The Real Reson for Kenya's Violence
The Real Reson for Kenya's Violence By Jacqueline M. Klopp : Christian Science Monitor : January 16, 2008http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0114/p09s02-coop.html------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Contrary to popular belief, it isn't simply 'tribal' or 'spontaneous.'------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Hundreds have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced in the three weeks since Kenya's hotly disputed presidential elections. Once considered an island of stability in Africa, the country is suffering what the media has called a "shocking outbreak of violence" and "tribal clashes."
The key questions we should be asking are: Who is responsible for this violence? How is it happening? But we will not ask these questions if we continue to see the current violence as simply a spontaneous outburst of anger at the election rigging or "tribal warfare."
The international community must realize that Kenya's violence today is fueled by strongmen on both sides of the political divide. They are exploiting ethnic identity, pitting one community against another, as a means to gain power. It is a practice with a long history in Kenyan politics.
The fury of the violence may look like "tribal warfare" linked to election anger, especially in the worst instances of ethnic cleansing – as in Eldoret, where women and children were burned alive in a church. A common explanation is that members of the Kikuyu community are facing retaliation from others for their longtime "dominance." Like Kenya's first president, Jomo Kenyatta, President Mwai Kibaki is Kikuyu; opposition leader Raila Odinga is Luo.
Part of the violence is not directly organized and is instead linked to confrontations between protesters and police, who have a history of brutality. Many understandably feel rage at the election fraud carried out on behalf of Mr. Kibaki. But much of the ethnicized violence is linked to organized efforts by political strongmen who have experience playing divide-and-rule.
Remember Daniel arap Moi? He was Kenya's president from 1978 to 2002. He and most of his cohorts during this time were Kalenjin. In the 1990s, they faced the probable loss of power in multiparty elections to an opposition that included many Kikuyu. In response, Mr. Moi's men filled their campaigns with hate against all Kikuyu and convinced many that any member of that group, from a child to a poor farmer, represented "Kikuyu domination."
This ploy conveniently shifted blame from Moi and his mostly non-Kikuyu crowd who had been in power for years. It shifted attention away from the massive land grabbing and corruption they continued from the previous government that helped put the poor, including the numerous Kikuyu poor, in slums or sent them across the country in search of a small patch of land to eke out a living.
Sadly, this anti-Kikuyu campaign gained supporters among unemployed youth who learned to project their problems onto a Kikuyu face. Poor men were given weapons and paid to kill and displace. In return, they were promised or sold vacated land. Ultimately, in the 1990s, thousands of people died and almost half a million were displaced. This violence helped Moi's small group of corrupt "big men" stay in power for a decade. In the deeply flawed elections of 1992 and 1997, displacement became a form of gerrymandering.
Not one person has been tried, let alone convicted, for these killings and displacements. The international community at the time seemed quite ready to forget as well.
Since his election in 2002, Kibaki has collaborated in this deliberate forgetting. Part of the reason was that he had brought into his ruling coalition many of the worst perpetrators of violence. They could deliver votes in key areas and were willing to drop their anti-Kikuyu rhetoric once in power.
Mr. Odinga, the opposition leader, has also brought notorious ethnic cleansers into his coalition. Their anti-Kikuyu rhetoric is a useful political tool against the Kikuyu incumbent.
All these advocates of violence have lived with complete impunity. They have learned that they could preach hate, organize youth to kill and displace, and be rewarded with a cabinet post. They could get rid of voters who were unlikely to support them. They could use violence for bargaining power at the national level, something that appears to be happening today. The current project of "ethnic cleansing" in the Rift Valley suggests that some politicians, this time allied mostly with the opposition, have learned these lessons well.
The key lesson for the international community to learn from past violence is that a new government alone, especially if it welcomes perpetrators of violence into its core, cannot fix this deep problem of strongmen politics.
This time we must demand a thorough and independent investigation into all forms of violence. We should demand that those guilty of organizing, funding, or authorizing killings from any ethnic community be, at a minimum, excluded from high office. Let us not forget that this violence has a history and perpetrators and that there are responsibilities to be assigned. This time let us demand justice and not repeat the mistakes of the past. Otherwise, we set more roadblocks on Kenya's path toward a just, democratic, and truly civil society. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jacqueline M. Klopp is a professor at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The key questions we should be asking are: Who is responsible for this violence? How is it happening? But we will not ask these questions if we continue to see the current violence as simply a spontaneous outburst of anger at the election rigging or "tribal warfare."
The international community must realize that Kenya's violence today is fueled by strongmen on both sides of the political divide. They are exploiting ethnic identity, pitting one community against another, as a means to gain power. It is a practice with a long history in Kenyan politics.
The fury of the violence may look like "tribal warfare" linked to election anger, especially in the worst instances of ethnic cleansing – as in Eldoret, where women and children were burned alive in a church. A common explanation is that members of the Kikuyu community are facing retaliation from others for their longtime "dominance." Like Kenya's first president, Jomo Kenyatta, President Mwai Kibaki is Kikuyu; opposition leader Raila Odinga is Luo.
Part of the violence is not directly organized and is instead linked to confrontations between protesters and police, who have a history of brutality. Many understandably feel rage at the election fraud carried out on behalf of Mr. Kibaki. But much of the ethnicized violence is linked to organized efforts by political strongmen who have experience playing divide-and-rule.
Remember Daniel arap Moi? He was Kenya's president from 1978 to 2002. He and most of his cohorts during this time were Kalenjin. In the 1990s, they faced the probable loss of power in multiparty elections to an opposition that included many Kikuyu. In response, Mr. Moi's men filled their campaigns with hate against all Kikuyu and convinced many that any member of that group, from a child to a poor farmer, represented "Kikuyu domination."
This ploy conveniently shifted blame from Moi and his mostly non-Kikuyu crowd who had been in power for years. It shifted attention away from the massive land grabbing and corruption they continued from the previous government that helped put the poor, including the numerous Kikuyu poor, in slums or sent them across the country in search of a small patch of land to eke out a living.
Sadly, this anti-Kikuyu campaign gained supporters among unemployed youth who learned to project their problems onto a Kikuyu face. Poor men were given weapons and paid to kill and displace. In return, they were promised or sold vacated land. Ultimately, in the 1990s, thousands of people died and almost half a million were displaced. This violence helped Moi's small group of corrupt "big men" stay in power for a decade. In the deeply flawed elections of 1992 and 1997, displacement became a form of gerrymandering.
Not one person has been tried, let alone convicted, for these killings and displacements. The international community at the time seemed quite ready to forget as well.
Since his election in 2002, Kibaki has collaborated in this deliberate forgetting. Part of the reason was that he had brought into his ruling coalition many of the worst perpetrators of violence. They could deliver votes in key areas and were willing to drop their anti-Kikuyu rhetoric once in power.
Mr. Odinga, the opposition leader, has also brought notorious ethnic cleansers into his coalition. Their anti-Kikuyu rhetoric is a useful political tool against the Kikuyu incumbent.
All these advocates of violence have lived with complete impunity. They have learned that they could preach hate, organize youth to kill and displace, and be rewarded with a cabinet post. They could get rid of voters who were unlikely to support them. They could use violence for bargaining power at the national level, something that appears to be happening today. The current project of "ethnic cleansing" in the Rift Valley suggests that some politicians, this time allied mostly with the opposition, have learned these lessons well.
The key lesson for the international community to learn from past violence is that a new government alone, especially if it welcomes perpetrators of violence into its core, cannot fix this deep problem of strongmen politics.
This time we must demand a thorough and independent investigation into all forms of violence. We should demand that those guilty of organizing, funding, or authorizing killings from any ethnic community be, at a minimum, excluded from high office. Let us not forget that this violence has a history and perpetrators and that there are responsibilities to be assigned. This time let us demand justice and not repeat the mistakes of the past. Otherwise, we set more roadblocks on Kenya's path toward a just, democratic, and truly civil society. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jacqueline M. Klopp is a professor at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)