The real reason for Kenya's violence

Contrary to popular belief, it isn't simply 'tribal' or 'spontaneous.'

By Jacqueline M. Klopp

from the January 14, 2008 edition

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NEW YORK - Hundreds have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced in the three weeks since Kenya's hotly disputed presidential elections. Once considered an island of stability in Africa, the country is suffering what the media has called a "shocking outbreak of violence" and "tribal clashes."

The key questions we should be asking are: Who is responsible for this violence? How is it happening? But we will not ask these questions if we continue to see the current violence as simply a spontaneous outburst of anger at the election rigging or "tribal warfare."

The international community must realize that Kenya's violence today is fueled by strongmen on both sides of the political divide. They are exploiting ethnic identity, pitting one community against another, as a means to gain power. It is a practice with a long history in Kenyan politics.

The fury of the violence may look like "tribal warfare" linked to election anger, especially in the worst instances of ethnic cleansing – as in Eldoret, where women and children were burned alive in a church. A common explanation is that members of the Kikuyu community are facing retaliation from others for their longtime "dominance." Like Kenya's first president, Jomo Kenyatta, President Mwai Kibaki is Kikuyu; opposition leader Raila Odinga is Luo.

Part of the violence is not directly organized and is instead linked to confrontations between protesters and police, who have a history of brutality. Many understandably feel rage at the election fraud carried out on behalf of Mr. Kibaki. But much of the ethnicized violence is linked to organized efforts by political strongmen who have experience playing divide-and-rule.

Remember Daniel arap Moi? He was Kenya's president from 1978 to 2002. He and most of his cohorts during this time were Kalenjin. In the 1990s, they faced the probable loss of power in multiparty elections to an opposition that included many Kikuyu. In response, Mr. Moi's men filled their campaigns with hate against all Kikuyu and convinced many that any member of that group, from a child to a poor farmer, represented "Kikuyu domination."

This ploy conveniently shifted blame from Moi and his mostly non-Kikuyu crowd who had been in power for years. It shifted attention away from the massive land grabbing and corruption they continued from the previous government that helped put the poor, including the numerous Kikuyu poor, in slums or sent them across the country in search of a small patch of land to eke out a living.

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