Kenya Has a Crisis, and I Still Can't Write Right.

"A Vote for Humanity: Kenya's Electoral Crisis" 
by Vivekananda Nemana
For Crossings Magazine, published on January 9, 2008. 

If you've done something wrong, how much should your family suffer for it? Your community? What about your entire country? 

That's exactly the question that faced Kenya as the country plunged into violent turmoil after disputed presidential elections in the last week of December 2007. The incumbent president Mwai Kibaki, who emerged victorious by a dubiously slight margin, refused to relinquish his title. Despite widespread evidence of electoral fraud, Mr. Kibaki maintains that he is the rightful leader of Kenya. This self-serving preservation of power sparked a firestorm of riots and violence, and generated a humanitarian disaster in what was one of Africa's most stable and developed countries. In the process, hundreds of innocent lives were lost and hundreds of thousands of innocent livelihoods were destroyed, and the nation has been ripped apart at the seams. 

The two candidates belonged to two separate tribes, the Kikuyu and the Luo. Although less than 25 percent of the population is Kikuyu, the tribe has enjoyed control of the government and economy since Kenya's independence in 1963, and a Luo political victory would have great symbolic value for the Kenyan people. So when Mr. Kibaki, a Kikuyu, claimed an apparently unfair victory over Raila Odinga, the Luo opposition leader, he inadvertently opened a floodgate of bitterness against Kikuyus, and left deep cuts in the inter-tribal harmony. 

And who must pay the price? The Kenyan people. The post-electoral period saw a wave of violence in which an estimated 500 people were killed by early January, mostly Kikuyus. In the worst example of ethnic rage, an army of Luo thugs sealed and set afire a church filled with Kikuyu refugees, many of them women and children, in the Rift Valley province, a Luo stronghold. The New Year's Day massacre claimed at least 50 lives and injured countless more. The United Nations estimated that over 180,000 civilians are displaced in a country that traditionally accepts, not creates, refugees. To add to the chaos, mass lootings are occurring across the country, causing millions of dollars worth of property damage daily, and bringing the Kenyan economy to its knees. Vital supplies such as food and fuel have become scarce, creating long lines at the few remaining supermarkets, and inflation rates have galloped. Armed men by roadblocks and machete-wielding militias now stalk a land that was once a model for African development. 

The atrocities, of course, extend to both sides. Kikuyu revenge groups have sprung up, seeking redemption for the violence against their tribe but really just brutalizing innocent Luo and other tribesmen. To make things even worse, the government has outlawed protesting and political broadcasting, two crucial rights, setting off brawls between police and protesters in Nairobi and other cities. 

Yet in spite of all the unease, a common opinion prevails among the Kenyan people and cuts across all tribal lines: if the politicians want it, the violence can end. In the turbulent week following the disputed elections, the Kenyan government repeatedly brushed off concerns by internal and international sources that election fraud has occurred. It rebuffed calls by many watchdogs, including the Kenyan attorney general, the United Nations, and the Human Rights Watch, for an independent investigation of the vote tabulations in order to avert further violence (though it escapes this writer as to why an investigation should present a problem if there really was no fraud like the government claims). And in the face of continuing chaos and mounting evidence of fraud, Mr. Kibuki's regime denied international diplomatic aid, saying that the situation was an "internal crisis" which they would handle. On the other hand, the opposition, led by Mr. Odinga, demanded nothing less than a recount, and cited Kikuyu oppression and power- mongering as the driving force behind election fraud. 

The stubborn refusal of either the government or the opposition to relax their stances and negotiate in the period immediately following the election fueled the bloodshed in Kenya. By all counts, Kenya is a stable and prosperous country in which such an upheaval should have never happened. But the greed of corrupt politicians, and their incompetence in looking past their own ambitions for the larger needs of the nation, set off a time bomb that sent the whole country up in flames. And it is a fire that will not be easy to extinguish. 

The good news is that in the most recent developments the Kenyan turmoil appears to ebb. Fewer people are being killed daily, families are returning to their homes, inflation is decreasing, and politicians are finally becoming open to negotiations. But the damage has already been done; deep lines of ethnic conflict have been drawn, like a hideous scar across the mosaic of Kenyan tribes. 

This is a universal theme in humanitarian crises across the world. A small powerful elite, in pursuing self-serving gains such as political power, sends shockwaves of disarray across the population, causing millions of people to suffer and severely limiting the potential of the nation. Power may be the most addictive drug, but leaders, Kenyan ones included, should nevertheless show that they're worth their salt by making sure that at least sometimes their followers don't have to suffer in order to protect their own interests. That cures half of the headache.