10 April 2009
Nairobi — In a rare front page editorial on 10 April, Kenya's biggest selling daily newspaper urges political leaders to sort out their differences in order to avoid the "path of death and destruction"
Deepening rifts in Kenya's coalition government, a failure to press ahead with promised reforms and a proliferation of armed militia groups have given rise to fears that the country could slide back into the kind of violence that claimed more than 1,000 lives and forced about half a million people from their homes after elections in December 2007.
"Kenyans are not only growing far apart but also frustrated and angry at the way politicians are playing a game of Russian roulette with their future; the pent-up anger will erupt with volcanic ferocity," Wafula Okumu, a senior research fellow in the African Security Analysis Programme of the South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies, told IRIN.
"Don't lead us back to war," urged the country's biggest selling daily newspaper in a rare front-page editorial on 10 April. "The people of Kenya are watching as their political leaders threaten to once again send this country down the path of death and destruction," it added, lamenting that communication between coalition partners had broken down.
Multiple militias
What makes the prospect of the partnership's collapse all the more alarming are reports that several leading politicians, notably those representing constituencies in the Rift Valley, which bore the brunt of the violence last year, maintain armed and trained militia units.
"Conditions for armed violence in Kenya have never been so eminent," according to Charles Otieno, a security analyst whose research into peace-building strategies uncovered the existence of dozens of organised, trained and armed groups controlled by politicians, mainly in the Rift Valley.
"There is something behind all this organisation. It's not just organisation for the sake of [election] campaigns like you've seen in the past. This is organisation in preparation for potential violent confrontation," he said.
"Politicians are willing now to fund these militias to remain organised as a standing army, and that in itself means the potential for violence is very very high because each constituency has a politician [in office] who has an opponent on the ground and each opponent has his own militia group," he said.
Former military officers have been engaged to train such groups, which for the first time have begun to acquire significant quantities of firearms, Otieno reported.
According to Aeneas Chuma, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Kenya, the UN is working with the government to study such groups.
"A committee has already been set up, with three members from the Office of the President and two from the UN to develop the feasibility of addressing this issue of militias," he said. "Hopefully a rapid assessment will follow to establish the scale of militia activity in the country."
Resignations, recriminations
"Admittedly, the coalition is currently under some stress and this is a source of worry for us in the humanitarian community," Chuma told IRIN on 6 April.
"My hope is that the [country's] leadership will recognise that as imperfect as it is, the coalition is a useful instrument in pushing the required reform agenda; it is not an end in itself."
Chuma was speaking on the day that Martha Karua, previously a key ally of President Mwai Kibaki, resigned as justice and constitutional affairs minister after the head of state appointed seven judges without her knowledge.
Karua, who plans to run for president in 2012, showed no signs of quitting the political arena: "I will now be able to totally disagree with anything that is anti-reform."
Changes to the judiciary were among a host of reforms agreed by Kibaki and his election rival Raila Odinga during mediation talks led by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2008.
The 7 April departure from government of an assistant minister - in a country where resignations on principle are virtually unheard of - marked another blow for the coalition's stability. Danson Mungatana left complaining that corruption and anti-reform forces were frustrating those determined to bring change.
Meanwhile, Odinga, now the prime minister in the coalition government Annan steered into being, has become increasingly critical of the head of state, describing his leadership as "primitive".
The president's political party responded with a full-page newspaper broadside, labelling Odinga as "reckless," "abusive" and bent on "creating a crisis."
Time to act
"Kenya is at a crossroads," Annan declared at a meeting convened in Geneva on 30 March to review progress since the signing of a National Accord in February 2008. "The time to act is now," he added. Neither Kibaki nor Odinga travelled to Switzerland for the gathering.
"There is no disagreement on what needs to be done. The parties have already agreed on a blueprint for building a more equitable, prosperous and just society. That blueprint is found in the reform package agreed in the National Dialogue," he added.
This package includes constitutional, legal and institutional reform; tackling poverty and inequity and development imbalances; tackling unemployment, particularly among the youth; consolidating national cohesion and unity; undertaking land reform; and addressing transparency, accountability and impunity.
Annan warned that Kenya's situation had implications far beyond its borders.
"The politicisation of ethnicity, non-adherence to the rule of law, corruption and the abuse of power, and inequitable development, exist in other parts of Africa and across the globe. I believe this is one reason why the world is paying such attention to the way Kenya grapples with these issues."
According to Okumu of ISS, these issues "have slipped off the radar screen".
"At this critical juncture, when we are facing a global financial crisis, Kenya needs a government that is visionary, committed, disciplined, and dedicated to serving the people; not one that is driven by survival on the backs of the suffering population," he said.
The UN's Chuma also noted there was much more work to be done.
"The biggest achievement in 2008 was the stopping of the violence of course, but that alone is not enough without the far-reaching reforms, raising danger that the momentum may be lost.
"We hope that the Geneva meeting rekindled that sense of urgency in getting the politicians to look at the common good and meeting the hopes and aspirations of Kenyans," he added.
As Annan himself noted in Geneva, "the average person [in Kenya] finds it hard to comprehend why the changes, some of them very fundamental, are not taking place at a faster pace".
Alice Wambui, 38, a mother of three and resident of Kibera, Nairobi's largest slum, said: "This coalition has not met my expectations; none of the pledges they made to us have been fulfilled: the price of maize flour remains high, my business stall was looted then destroyed during the election chaos, hence I have no reliable means of livelihood. I now hassle doing casual work in order to feed my family."
Joseph Wanyama, 40, a watchman in a city estate, told IRIN: "I am disappointed in our politicians; they made promises which they promptly forgot once they started earning their huge salaries. Look at me, I walk about 10km every day to get to work, the price of maize flour has not come down, I can barely keep my children in school, let alone feed them, yet my salary has remained the same even after the violence; there has to be a way these leaders of ours can help us."
[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]
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Sir,
Thank you for your enlightening article. As a political scientist I see much more that you have talked about. Critisizing the MP's from the Rift Valley for maintaining actively trained Militias is not good enough. Who doesn't know about the Rift Valley? We need to know what is happening in the cabinet in kenya and who is sponsoring violence and why it has gone unpunished so long? What about the former MP from Kisii Nyachae- he has the Chincororo...which number thousands and its in Nyanza.
Then you have the notorius Mungiki, the largest in number...fueled by former and sitting MPs in the cabinet. It consists of everyone else and is no longer by ethnic lines. Anyone, man or woman can be a member...that is even worse. Then in the slums around Nairobi, even though these Militias are not organised and trained they do all kinds of wickedness to humanity. When they kill its deadly.
Talking about the violence of groups is not solving the problems. We need to drag the politicians by their collars to the Hague for a date with the Luis Moreno Campo. The groups will not act unless activated by the very same politicians who were the mastermind and sponsors of the well-planned, premeditated post-election violence.
Please do your research thoroughly and list all the trained and non-organized militias so that they can be identified by locals as well as foreigners.
We need peace in Africa and give us the roadmap to peace. The innocent young people in Africa need employment...they need jobs. If they had jobs they would not first resort to violence for their survival, but will think twice that they are risking their lives with every violent act against humanity.
The Private Sector needs to work harder to create jobs and opportunities to show our Youth that they care about Africa.
Love and Peace to You and Long Live Mama Africa.
Until the colonial mandated constitution is changed in Kenya, neocolonialists will continue to supress the people. These colonial prisons disguised as sovereign countries will continue to elect polticians who are guardians of colonial masters' interests. How human beings can be killed by senseless revolts and men of good repute continue business as usual, shows how little has changed in Africa. What did Kofi Annan do for Africa when he wallowed in the riches of his masters? Wake up Africa and demand for the federation of African States. It is only then that Africa will see peace and stop being a ward of the Western World. Politicians have been talking since so called independence and that is all they have done, talk while gennocide continues to claim the lives of our best youth. Compare the political map of Europe from the 40s to today. If their borders can be changed in order to have peaceful ethinic political units, why do we cling to the mandates of the Berlin Conference. All Kofi Annan can do is call for talks when he stood by and watched Hutus and Tutsis murder each other. Asking Kibaki and Odinga to do something that will indeed benefit the masses is like asking a mosquito to donate blood. Stop this nosense and for ounce do something that will free our people from the colonial grip.
Kofi Annan's "Kenyan Government of National Unity" was doomed because up till now, nobody has explained why over 1,500 poor Kenyans died and and over 350,000 left homeless..
Unelected "African Elder" Kofi Annan thought he could sholve a peace deal dictated to him by foreign powers he was representing to force these Kenyan elites to rain in on the poor people they have ignored since independence! Every Kenyan knows that the only people feeling good in Kenya are (a) homeguard elites (b) foreign corporations paying them bribes.
Unless underdevelopment, corruption and diseases are tackle, Kenya will remain a time bomb whose timimng cloct was set immediately after independence 1963. These leaders cannot feel comfortable as long as slums like Kibera are allowed to spring up everywhere iin the Republic's cities while vacation sports fit for kings are everywhere in the countryside!
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