Posted on 01/02/2008 10:09:22 AM PST by NYer
NAIROBI, Kenya - International pressure mounted on Kenya's leaders Wednesday to end postelection violence that has killed more than 300 people, including dozens burned alive as they sought refuge in a church.
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The killing of up to 50 ethnic Kikuyus as they sheltered in a church in the Rift Valley city of Eldoret fueled fears of deepening tribal conflict in what has been one of Africa's most stable democracies.
The Kikuyu, Kenya's largest ethnic group, are accused of using their dominance of politics and business to the detriment of others. President Mwai Kibaki, who won a second term in the disputed elections, is a Kikuyu, while his rival Rail Odinga is from the Luo tribe, a smaller but still major tribe that says it has been marginalized.
The Bush administration expressed dismay over the turmoil, which erupted over allegations that the government stole the election.
"It's a terrible tragedy what happened yesterday to the Kenyans who were fleeing the violence and were killed in the church fire," said White House press secretary Dana Perino. "It's hard-pressed to comprehend here how this could have gone so wrong in terms of Kenya being on its way to some stability and then having this election turn into such a violent situation."
Much of Nairobi was quiet and deserted Wednesday, though clashes continued in the city's giant Mathare slum. Odinga has said he will go ahead with plans to lead a "million man" protest march in the capital Thursday even though the government has banned it.
Government spokesman Alfred Mutua downplayed the violence, saying it had only affected about 3 percent of the country's 34 million people. "Kenya is not burning and not at the throes of any division," he said.
The U.N. cited Kenyan police as saying 70,000 people had been displaced in five days of violence. Around 5,400 people also have fled to neighboring Uganda, said Musa Ecweru, that country's disaster preparedness minister. Several hundred people also have fled to Tanzania, officials there said.
Mutua said the security forces had arrested 500 people since skirmishes began.
The violence has cost the country $31 million a day, Vice President Moody Awori told a local television station. He gave no details, but many businesses have closed during the unrest and some foreign governments have advised their citizens against travel to usually tourist-friendly nation.
The conflict has begun to affect regional trade. Many petrol stations in Uganda have temporarily closed down due to shortage of fuel, much of which is imported by road from Kenya's Indian Ocean coast.
The head of the country's electoral commission, Samuel Kivuitu, said he had been pressured by both sides to announce the results quickly — and perhaps wrongly. The country's oldest newspaper, The Standard, on Wednesday quoted Kivuitu as saying, "I do not know whether Kibaki won the election."
In a joint statement, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband said there were "independent reports of serious irregularities in the counting process."
Both welcomed news the African Union would send its chief, Ghanaian President John Kufuor, to mediate the conflict. AU spokeswoman Habiba Mejri-Cheikh said Kufuor was expected in Kenya on Wednesday, but Kufuor's press office said the leader had canceled the visit. They gave no explanation.
Rice and Miliband called "on all political leaders to engage in a spirit of compromise that puts the democratic interests of Kenya first."
"The immediate priority is to combine a sustained call from Kenya's political leaders for the cessation of violence by their followers," the statement said.
On Tuesday, Kibaki called for a meeting with his political opponents — a significant softening of tone for a man who vowed to crack down on rioters.
But Odinga refused, saying he would meet Kibaki only "if he announces that he was not elected." Odinga accused the government of stoking the chaos, telling The Associated Press in an interview that Kibaki's administration "is guilty, directly, of genocide."
U.S. Ambassador Michael E. Ranneberger urged both sides to work together.
"This is a time where two of the greatest Kenyan patriots, the president and Raila Odinga, need to step forward and work out a practical way forward in the interest of the Kenyan people," he told British Broadcasting Corp.
Miliband said he did not know who won the election but that both sides had a responsibility to resolve the conflict. "I very much hope that both Mr. Odinga and President Kibaki will realize that there is nothing to be gained by either of them pretending that this is cut and dried," he told BBC radio.
In Nairobi's slums, which are often divided along tribal lines, rival groups have been fighting each other with machetes and sticks as police use tear gas and bullets to keep them from pouring into the city center. The capital has been a ghost town for days, with residents stocking up on food and water and staying in their homes.
In Mathare, mothers clutching wide-eyed infants and suitcases were evacuated by riot police while angry youths armed with machetes and axes heaped abuse on the police as the slum burned.
"All you do here is come to pick up bodies," shouted Boniface Shikami.
Several threw rocks toward the police vehicle, and officers fired in the air before a patrol truck skidded around a corner to try to separate battling supporters of Odinga and Kibaki.
As shopkeepers battled with flames leaping through their corrugated iron roofs, a dazed woman clutching a kitten wandered through the smoke.
"They have burned down my house and all I have now is my cat," wailed Hannah Warigui.
John Okello, a doctor, said clinics around the city were running short of basic materials like gauze because so many people have been arriving with machete wounds. He said the city's main Nairobi Hospital was trying to ferry supplies to the clinics.
The people killed in Eldoret, about 185 miles northwest of Nairobi, were members of Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe.
The Kikuyus in Eldoret had fled to the Assemblies of God Church on Monday night, seeking refuge after mobs torched homes. Video on Tuesday from a helicopter chartered by the Red Cross showed many homes in flames and the horizon obscured by smoke. Groups of people were seen seeking sanctuary at schools and the airport, while others moved into the forest.
On Tuesday morning, a mob of about 2,000 arrived and started burning the church, said George Karanja, whose family had sought refuge there.
Karanja, 37, helped pull out at least 10 people, but added, "I could not manage to pull out my sister's son. He was screaming 'Uncle, uncle!' ... He died." The boy was 11.
Up to 50 people were killed in the attack, said a Red Cross official who spoke on condition of anonymity because her name would identify her tribe, and she feared reprisal. Even first aid workers were stopped by vigilantes who demanded their identity.
Karanja said his two children raised their hands as they left the church and they were beaten with a cane, but not killed. His 90-year-old father was attacked with a machete, but survived, he said.
ROP alert?
“ROP alert?”
Of course.
Of course, there is absolutely no mention as to which group of fighters is the MUSLIMs.
This is a rare exception where the “Religion of Peace” is not the culprit. These guys are heathens and savages, by the literal definition of those words.
I don’t think so-
Islam is not a major religion in Kenya.
A bit more info on the situation:
http://allafrica.com/stories/200801020027.html
Kenya: Clerics Call for End to Chaos
The Nation (Nairobi)
2 January 2008
Posted to the web 2 January 2008
Nairobi
Muslim clerics on Tuesday appealed to Kenyans to stop lawlessness and avoid plunging the country into civil strife.
Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims (Supkem) Mombasa branch chairman Muhdhar Khitamy said violence in various parts of the country had led to senseless loss of life and massive looting of property.
The call for peace came as the protests at the Coast over the results of the presidential election spread to other areas, including Kilifi, Diani and Wundanyi, and the death toll reached 16.
The clerics appealed to top political leaders to meet and iron out their differences for the sake of peace.
“What we need now is peace as no development can be achieved at times of chaos. Kenyans should know that acts of violence would impact negatively on our economy,” Mr Khitamy said.
The clerics called on Kenyans to shed their tribal differences and live in harmony “just as it used to be.” Their views were echoed by Supkem national deputy chairman Alhaji Abdullahi Kiptonui.
Separately, the chairman of the Islamic Lobbying for Justice and Truth, Sheikh Ali Shee appealed to President Kibaki to accept Raila Odinga’s suggestion for a recount of the presidential vote under the supervision of independent people in the presence of the media.
“The results from this recount must be accepted by both Mr Kibaki and Mr Odinga”, he said.
He called on Muslims to stand firm and support truth and justice.
“Muslims should not to involve themselves in riots, killing of innocent people or destroying property as it is against Islamic teachings,” he said.
Sheikh Shee appealed to the Kibaki administration to allow Raila and his team to express their views freely.
Panel of judges
And Coast Human Rights Network yesterday called for the establishment of a panel of judges from the Commonwealth to oversee the recount of the presidential vote.
The 16 human rights groups said the task should be completed in six weeks.
“We are utterly disappointed by the Electoral Commission of Kenya, specifically with the manner in which they handled the counting, tallying and announcement of presidential results,” they said in the statement. In their view, the ECK is solely responsible for the mayhem in the country. They said they did not support either President Kibaki or Mr Odinga, but were suspicious of the manner in which the results were announced and the speedy swearing in of the President.
They want President Kibaki to step down voluntarily awaiting the verdict of experts on the elections.
Reports by Mathias Ringa, Abdulrahman Sheriff, Abdulsamad Ali and Sollo Kiragu
Copyright © 2008 The Nation. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200801020027.html
This is probably more “tribal†in nature and unlike Sudan there is less of a religious component. In Sudan your argument would hold true, and there the issue is discretely hidden away in the political correctness of our MSM which won’t mention other Islamic states financially propping the Islamic government, the blatant and planned displacement of Christians etc etc etc. Sudan is a religious conflict, this is a tribal power play and a semi-stable, semi-modern, African country falling back in time to when they ran around naked with speer’s. Call it racist, I don’t care, that’s exactly what it is. -IMHO
Bring back the British Empire. Some countries are incapable of self rule.
“ROP alert?”
Of course.”
Bad guess this time.
Multiculturalism at work, coming some day to a region real near you as we plunge relentlessly toward the same tribalism...
“Bad guess this time.”
Actually, no.
See previous post
There surely is a religious component. But I doubt this is the major driving force behind the problems. Don’t be over zealous to point the finger at Islam. Just like every Serb claims the Balkans was about Islamic terrorists, these are often facades, and some who have a predisposition in believing certain things quickly jump on the bandwagon. While it is true that the majority of active terrorist groups in the world are Islamic, that religious tension mounts in near all countries where their population becomes significant, that most wars in some way involve an Islamic state either directly or through proxy (i.e. Iran in the Lebanon war in 2006), it is unlikely this is the cause of the problem here. It does not fit/make sense. It’s like the American liberal trying to claim that Iraq is another Vietnam; people sometimes try to “force” the shoe to fit, even though it doesn’t.
I don’t know enough to speak intelligently on this subject, so I’ll bug out; but I doubt this is a religious strife at its heart. It’s a good ole African tribal power grab (Uganda, Somalia, etc etc etc).
LOL
But he’d be right in MOST cases and that’s quite a statement!
Protestant 45%, Roman Catholic 33%, Muslim 10%, indigenous beliefs 10%, other 2%
"note: a large majority of Kenyans are Christian, but estimates for the percentage of the population that adheres to Islam or indigenous beliefs vary widely" -CIA World Factbook
The United States by any chance?
related story.
http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN333305.html
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya’s major newspapers united on Thursday in an unprecedented joint front-page editorial, pleading: “Save Our Beloved Country.”
Under images of charred shanty towns, distraught villagers and youths burning tyres, all the main dailies appealed to President Mwai Kibaki and his opposition rival Raila Odinga to end the tribal bloodshed threatening to tear Kenya apart.
“Our beloved country, the Republic of Kenya, is a burnt-out, smouldering ruin,” said the statement.
It was published on a day Odinga and backers were protesting Kibaki’s disputed re-election in defiance of a police ban.
TV and radio stations read out the editorial on air.
Both sides have traded claims of ethnic cleansing in a week of violence that has killed 300 people, shocking Kenyans whose nation is normally an oasis of peace in a volatile region.
“In the midst of this, leaders — who are the direct cause of this catastrophe — are issuing half-hearted calls for peace, from the comfort of their hotels and walled homes in Nairobi, whence they are conveyed in bullet-proof limousines,” the editorial said.
“It must be a blind and deaf person who does not hear the cries of the 70,000 people, many of them our children, who are now refugees in their own country,” it added.
Private television channel KTN aired its own similar plea.
“Kenya looks to you to bring it back from the edge of anarchy, from a bloodbath our nation has never witnessed before,” a newscaster read from a statement.
The media’s joint appeal came four days after the government imposed an indefinite ban on live TV and radio broadcasts — condemned by activists as an attempt to muzzle the press, which has become more robust under Kibaki.
snip
“There surely is a religious component.”
Agreed.
“I don’t know enough to speak intelligently on this subject, so I’ll bug out; but I doubt this is a religious strife at its heart. It’s a good ole African tribal power grab”
Agreed.
Luo tribe... reminds me of this comment which mentions the church incident:
To: wgflyer
The latest on Obama.
On the 27th, Raila Odinga, Obama’s friend, lost the presidential election in Kenya. Obama and Odinga share the same Luo heritage and history and has made it possible for them to share the same spotlight at this defining moment in Kenyan and American histories about hope and fear.
Raila Odinga has, in his own words, a "close personal friendship" with Obama.
When Obama went to Kenya in August of 2006, he was hosted by Raila and spoke in praise of him at several rallies in Nairobi. Obama’s bias for his fellow Luo was so blatant that a Kenya government spokesman denounced Obama during his visit as Raila’s "stooge."
When Raila Odinga lost the presidential election to Mwai Kibaki, he claimed the vote was rigged, whereupon his tribal followers went on murderous rampages, such as in the town of Eldoret, where on New Years Day dozens of Christians were burned to death in a church set on fire. Throughout Kenya, hundreds of people have been politically murdered in the last few days.
Islam had picked Raila to win.
The Evangelical Alliance of Kenya has posted on its website a photograph copy of a Memorandum of Understanding, dated and signed on August 29, 2007, between Raila Odinga and Shiekh Abdullah Abdi, chairman of the National Muslim Leaders Forum of Kenya.
Here is a summary on the agreement which was signed:
* It pledges the support of Kenyan Moslems for Raila’s election. In return, as President of Kenya, Raila agrees to 14 actions, listed a) through n) on page two.
* Within 6 months re-write the Constitution of Kenya to recognize Shariah as the only true law sanctioned by the Holy Quran for Muslim declared regions.
* Within one year facilitate the establishment of a Shariah court in every Kenyan divisional headquarters. [Note: everywhere in Kenya, not just in "Muslim declared regions."]
* Popularize Islam, the only true religion… by ordering every primary school in Kenya in the regions to conduct daily Madrassa classes.
* Impose a total ban on open-air gospel crusades by worshippers of the cross…
* Outlaw gospel programs… on KBC, the National Broadcaster.
* Impose a total ban on the public consumption of alcoholic beverages…
* Impose an immediate ban on women’s public dressing styles that are considered immoral and offensive to the Muslim faith…
Obama's involvement in Kenyan politics, whether tribal or religious, is bothersome.
Especially if it is both.
The Obama File
15 posted on 01/07/2008 5:11:00 AM PST by Beckwith
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