Azore Opio
24 January 2008
opinion
The British have, on occasions, found themselves to blame for leaving behind them political chaos in their former colonies. Call them the world's hotspots - Palestine, Iraq, Cyprus, Southern Cameroons, Uganda, Kenya to name a few.
Is Kenya heading to a genocide?
Kenya's history has been plagued by politics and ethnicity being closely intertwined and one particular trouble - ethnic hatred. And it seems every regime that comes wants to exploit this weird relationship to maintain power.
If there existed tribal or ethnic differences in pre-colonial days, the British came to entrench them and this they did at Kenya's independence in 1963 by influencing the constitution for self-government along ethnic lines.
The British administration in Kenya also defended its position by always bringing to the forefront the presence of the Nilotic community, which was opposed to the Bantu people. This tended to strengthen regional rivalries, subsequently laying the foundation for ethnically based political parties.
The violence that has besieged Kenya lately is nothing new. It was only waiting for a spark and Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga provided it. And they opened up old wounds. First, the majority of members of the Mau Mau Rebellion and the emerging African political organisations were from the Kikuyu, Kenya's largest tribe. That might not have posed a grave problem.
But the blow that lifted the lid off ethnic fears and mistrust came on July 5, 1969 when Thomas Joseph Odhiambo Mboya (Tom Mboya) was assassinated. Jomo Kenyatta, a Kikuyu, was grooming Mboya, a Luo, who was likely to succeed him. This seemed to perturb many Kikuyu elite.
Then one bedevilled day, Mboya's tongue slipped in parliament - he suggested that some Kikuyu politicians were enriching themselves at the expense of other tribes. The atmosphere changed from calm to highly charged. Then a Kikuyu man killed Mboya. A political turmoil ensued. Kenyatta arrested Oginga Odinga, a leading Luo representative, and banned his opposition party, the Kenya People's Union, KPU.
These developments created great potential for ethnic division amongst the Kenyan tribes, which the pro-democracy movement of the 1980s strengthened. In this case, members of the Kenya African National Union, KANU elite, especially the Nilote Kalenjin and Maasai, strongly opposed any movement toward a multi-party state preferring regionalism (majimboism), practising self-government in "ancestral homelands."
Several tribal clashes have characterised the Kenyan landscape; the Enoosopukia clashes of 1990 between the indigenous Maasai and the immigrant Kikuyus. The Kikuyus replaced the pastoral Maasai as the majority in the area. With traditional cooperation thrown to the winds, tempers began to flare between the Maasai KANU elite, and the Kikuyus, many of whom favoured the opposition.
Government minister, William ole Ntimama, an ethnic Maasai, took advantage of the new politics of ethnicity to defend the perceived interests of his nation against all others. He accused the Kikuyus of having acquired their land by dubious means, cheating the illiterate Maasai and fanned the flames of ethnic hatred "blatantly inciting utterances at a public meeting, by saying that the non-Maasai living in Maasai land should respect the Maasai, and further warned that the title deeds owned and cherished by non-Maasai were mere papers that could be disregarded at any time."
The Enoosopukia clashes would witness five hundred Maasai warriors killing up to 33 Kikuyu and forcing 30,000 more out of the area. Accusations followed. The opposition said Ntimama, rumoured to have personally killed a Kikuyu businessman during the scrimmage, incited the clashes.
Odinga charged that the government had trained the attackers, who were not merely local warriors, but in fact military personnel. The opposition threatened to paralyse parliament if Ntimama did not step down or was removed from his ministerial position. Ntimama held firm. He enjoyed parliamentary immunity.
He refused to condemn the clashes. Other KANU politicians supported Ntimama, espousing the belief that the Maasai had "been oppressed too long by the Kikuyus in Enoosopukia." Even President Arap Moi blamed the clashes on the opposition and denied any ill will toward the victims of the attacks.
"I have done more for the Kikuyus than anybody else, yet they have been told I am the enemy," he would say. This was a typical case of ethnic cleansing, which had become almost routine after Kenya adopted the multiparty system. Recently, after the opposition party, Orange Democratic Movement, ODM, led by Raila Odinga, Oginga Odinga's son, said the presidential election was rigged, fresh clashes erupted in Nairobi, Eldoret, Kisumu and other towns in Kenya.
Hundreds of people lost their lives to police bullets, machetes and fire. All these happened thanks to an adamant old rag who wants to cling to power; a monster that if not tamed, will drag Kenya into a genocide. Will it be worth it?
In Eldoret, a rival ethnic mob - hundreds of Kalenjin youths armed with bows and arrows and machetes easily overpowered some Kikuyu women and children and burned them to death. Apparently, the Kalenjin youths felt cheated because the election victory was awarded in dubious circumstances to President Mwai Kibaki over opposition leader Raila Odinga. They were going to deal with Kibaki's Kikuyu ethnic group.
The Kalenjins seem to be reacting to the injustices inflicted on them by the Kibaki administration - they claim "violent and ruthless eviction from government forests without compensation, the massive sacking of Kalenjins from top civil service jobs without compensation, the discrimination of Kalenjin in police and army recruitment, minimal representation in the cabinet" and so on. They say they voted overwhelmingly against Kibaki because they were fed up with the intimidation.
Some opinion leaders, however, think Raila is a Kikuyu hater and his spearheading a pogrom against the Kikuyu. An MP and an Assistant Minister of Information and Communications, Koigi Wa Wamwere, says Raila is in strange company with Sir Charles Njonjo.
According to Koigi, ODM ideology is not just tribalism, but eliminationist anti-Kikuyu tribalism. He says recently, Raila and Njonjo accused the Kikuyu of tribalism and isolationism, a charge he says the British made against them when they fought for independence. Koigi says both Njonjo and Raila are passionate Kikuyu haters despite the fact that Njonjo blocked Odinga's return to Parliament in 1980.
The foibles of African leaders for not relinquishing power honourably and in the process sacrifice their citizens' lives and limbs, is evidence of the thankless, self-serving egoistic attitude, a facade for arrogance common with African leaders that has helped cause needless pain and suffering to Africans.
The Kibaki's the Paul Biya's, the Omar Bongo's, the Museveni's and their ilk should learn from Mali, Benin, Senegal's Abdou Diouf, Ghana from Jerry Rawlings to John Kufour, Tanzania, from Mwalimu Nyerere, to Mwinyi, Mkapa and Kikwete.
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