I-man:

Surely it takes less effort to achieve the above than going around killing and raping innocent people.

Comparing the civil war to ethnic cleansing is pointless.A war between 2 armed factions is different from sporadic acts of violence aimed at innocent civilians. Why are we even debating whether ethnic violence is good for Kenya?

bibiking1:


that is exactly what Kibaki wants the issue to be viewed as,,,,,,,,,,,,,ethnic violence
when in the true sense it is a people's fight against slavery

davidylan:

@ Mutegi, this is not about Kibaki or Raila Odinga . . . this is about the collective shame we should feel as Africans that North, south, east, west . . . we cannot conduct proper elections!
Why is rigging so rampant in Africa? Why are we so hellbent on proving James Watson right after all?

noetic:

no leader will willingly relinquish power when faced with a threat of going to jail, regardless of his status ( guilty or not)

onikoyitop:

The fundamental problem in Africa is thats of the ignorance of the grassroot.Most of the people who who support rigging and other corrupt tendencies are being u the used by people at the helms of affairs.There are notable examples-Adedibu , Saraki and a host of other grassroot politicians who have turned into negatively justified demagogues. Not until we the masses take the bull by the horn the saying "people deserve the kind of leadership they get would continue to hold sway".Remember the Jacobins and Girondins in France , the serfs in Russia-how they got rid of the czarist monarchial absolutism we are experiencing in Africa today.We are the architects of our destinies.What are we doing?

onikoyitop:

The fundamental problem in Africa is thats of the ignorance of the grassroot.Most of the people who who support rigging and other corrupt tendencies are being u the used by people at the helms of affairs.There are notable examples-Adedibu , Saraki and a host of other grassroot politicians who have turned into negatively justified demagogues. Not until we the masses take the bull by the horn the saying "people deserve the kind of leadership they get would continue to hold sway".Remember the Jacobins and Girondins in France , the serfs in Russia-how they got rid of the czarist monarchial absolutism we are experiencing in Africa today.We are the architects of our destinies.What are we doing?

Mutegi:

noetic

Kibaki shot himself in the foot a few times; he refused to act on corruption touching his cronies infuriating people and the reason his ministers were purged during this elections.

Kenya 5 powerful ministries were filled by Kibaki cronies and this was seen as tribalism.

Raila took advantage of this and the economic boom to say only Kikuyu’s benefited from it. Given, some of the structures set up had not trickled down to the common man to feel effect. Raila ran a dirty campaign provoking emotions inciting the poor and other tribes feeling left out and it was not based on issues. He did not hide it; his strategy was 41 against 1 which has turned disastrous meaning 41 tribes against one. Kikuyus thought it was a political gimmick and did not for once think they would be attacked. On the other side other tribes took it literally to mean tribal cleansing. The electorate there needs to disqualify anybody inciting such kind of violence but they don’t have those powers. Then he has a fanatical kind of a cult following from the LUO. To Luo’s Raila is like God and his word is final.Raila is one of those politicians that does not play fair, vengeful, inciter and a manipulator.He will be a constant thorn in Kenya politics for a long time.

omoge:

Must they resort to violence to send their messages across? Africa sef!

bibiking1:

@Debosky
quite right! what is going on now is detestable and outrightly denounceable,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, but like i said before, there is an idealogy in all of this

when next an election is held in Kenya, NOBODY will want to rig, because they will not want a repeat of all of this

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-7188107,00.html

Tribalism Fuels Kenyan Election Violence


Political and ethnic loyalties have long intertwined in Kenya, and the violence that erupted after President Mwai Kibaki claimed re-election shows how volatile the mix can be.

As in previous ballots, candidates campaigned using a mix of direct and indirect ethnic appeals. Phrases like ``It is our time to eat'' were understood by voters who know that whoever controls the presidency has power to allocate money, jobs and other benefits to his own group.

Kibaki's Kikuyu people comprise the largest ethnic group in Kenya and are frequently accused by other tribes of monopolizing business and political power. Chief among the critics are members of another major tribe, the Luo. The president's rival, Raila Odinga, is a Luo.

Kenya has more than 40 tribes in all. It is easy to identify some by their looks or their dress, such as the stately, cattle-herding Masai, but most tribe members cannot be easily identified just on appearance.

What is common among all tribes is that most people are poor because of Kenya's high unemployment. In the past five years, Kibaki's administration introduced a fund that saw money allocated and disbursed directly to all of Kenya's 210 constituencies that saw some areas receive government funds for the first time since independence from Britain in 1963.

In an attempt to force candidates to reach beyond their own groups, lawmakers amended the constitution in 1992 requiring a winning presidential candidate to get both the most votes overall and at least 25 percent of votes in at least five of Kenya's eight provinces. Provinces tend to be dominated by different tribes, so the amendment was aimed at ensuring a president has at least some support across much of the country.

But in 1992, the new opposition parties campaigned primarily in their perceived tribal strongholds. That was easier for parties only a year old and, in any event, government officials stopped them campaigning elsewhere.

Tribal clashes fanned by politics in that campaign resulted in hundreds of deaths and forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes. To date many have been unable to return.

Similar violence preceded the 1997 election, though on a smaller scale, with dozens killed.

Campaign violence was even milder before this year's ballot, held Thursday. But that changed when officials declared Kibaki the winner Sunday. Opposition supporters accusing Kibaki of fraud have clashed with police, and direct tribal fighting also has flared across Kenya.

Both the president and his rival urged an end to ethnic violence that killed more than 100 people since Saturday, according to reports from police and witnesses. But there was no let up.

The head of the Kenyan Red Cross, Abbas Gullet, said mobs in many provinces were attacking the homes of Kikuyu, forcing the families to seek refuge in police stations. Rioters even demanded to know the ethnicity of Red Cross workers offering first aid to the wounded, he said.

In Kibera, a huge slum in Nairobi, panicked residents called journalists to report ethnic gangs roaming the narrow, sewage-filled alleys seeking out rival tribe members to avenge their own tribe's deaths in overnight violence.

``Why are we burning these shops?'' 26-year-old Abdi Ochieng said as he watched his Luo neighbors cart away sheets of corrugated iron looted from smoldering Kikuyu businesses. ``Kibaki does not own them. Neither does Odinga.''

bibiking1:

Omar's case is different!
but whatever point you are trying to make,,,,,,,,,,one thing is clear the elections in that country will always be conducted with some amount of trepidation and reverence

http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/01/08/560005.aspx

ANGRY KENYAN: ‘WE ARE DYING FOR NOTHING’


NAIROBI, Kenya – I was drinking lemon tea in the Bambara lounge of the Serena Hotel in Nairobi on Tuesday, as two conflicting images kept tripping over each other in my mind.
Earlier, on the way into the hotel, I had passed a long line of drivers standing by their black sedans – Mercedes, Chrysler, and SUVs of all kinds, all gleaming clean. Once inside the hotel, I was surrounded by their passengers – laughing, excited Kenyans in dark suits and ties and shiny shoes. I sat and listened and watched. They stood and hugged each other, laughed uproariously, and slapped and shook hands vigorously. I understood immediately: These are the politicians who won the elections that sparked a week of mayhem and murder.

That’s one image.

I witnessed a very different spectacle earlier in the day at the agricultural fairground, where tea with milk was all a group of refugees had to consume. An angry young man in a black shirt had pulled at my arm and jostled me, not in a hostile way, but in a bitter way, and shouted that his home was burned, his business looted, his neighbor killed, and he had nowhere to go. There were hundreds like him scattered around the benches inside the stadium sitting on the grass outside, staring blankly.

Handshakes and laughter
Back in the hotel lounge, one man seemed to be the center of attention. He laughed the loudest, the longest, and shook the most hands. A kindly looking gentleman of medium build and height, he was wearing gold spectacles and gold cufflinks with a starched white shirt. They all seemed to have starched white shirts. A telephone rang with a jolly jingle, and it was his. I was sitting at the next table, so I could hear him clearly. That was easy as the room instantly hushed with his first words: "Yes sir, "

"Yes sir, this is Professor , " He was silent for a moment, listening intently, just as he was watched intently by the others in the room. His face stiffened in concentration and then broke into a huge grin and he nodded abruptly to his friend.

"Yes sir, thank you, yes sir, of course Mzee, I am honored to be appointed your minister, Mzee. It is a great honor for my community and for me. There is a large number of people to call, yes sir, thank you sir, " and so on. (Mzee is a term of respect for an older man in East Africa). Then he added, "Can I see you tomorrow?" Pause. "Yes, I will phone you tomorrow. Thank you, sir, thank you, thank you," and he slowly folded the phone.

He stood there, silent, looking at his phone, and sat down slowly, satisfied, expanding almost in his suit. The room stayed hushed. Everyone looked at him. He didn’t look up. He leaned forward and whispered to his friend. "You heard? I asked to see him tomorrow." He said it proudly, as if it was an achievement.

Then he began to dial, talk, dial again, talk again, dial another number and so on and on. The room was silent; in respect, I think.

Winners and losers
I thought to myself, "I bet he isn't calling anyone in the fairground. There are winners and losers in everything, and these are the winners and the losers are sipping their tea for dinner."

I wandered off, dejected. It isn't fair. There has been so much violence this week in Kenya, so much looting and burning and raping and hacking people to death and police shooting at rioters, and for what?

One of the local newspaper columnists asked the same question a few days earlier. Roughly: Why are we simpletons fighting when the leaders wear their black suits and are driven in their limousines and their families are not even in the country, and we kill each other? For what? Because two rich men can't decide which one will run the country?

The angry man in the fairground told me: "The leaders, the elephants, they don't care, we must make peace, among ourselves. Back in Kibera [Nairobi's biggest slum], we are dying for nothing. It's all about rich men wanting more of everything. What do they care about us? Why should we fight for them?"


I stood up and walked to the raised floor of the lobby seating area. There were dark suits everywhere, all excited, slapping hands, laughing loudly.

One big man had his arm around the shoulders of a white-shirted waiter, who wore a fixed smile, and the big man pointed and shouted: "Meet the new member for, and here is the leader of, " And I heard another group erupt in laughter and hand-slapping and heard the word "Vice-president."

Clearly President Mwai Kibaki, the man who one newspaper kept referring to as "the man who calls himself president," was appointing his cabinet, although many had advised him against this, because it would be seen as a provocation to the opposition, which still disputes the election result.

I thought of a little girl, about three-years-old, with tears flowing down her face, that we had seen in the stadium of refugees, all slum-dwellers who had almost nothing to begin with, and now had nothing at all. She just looked at the camera and silently cried.

"It's been a rough week in Kenya," I thought. "But it looks as if things are getting back to normal."

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Martin Fletcher is an NBC News Correspondent and Tel Aviv Bureau Chief. He is on assignment in Kenya.