Doused: A man threw water on a burning house last week in Eldoret, Kenya. It's part of ethnic violence that killed more than 750 and displaced 250,000 since a disputed Dec. 27 vote. Ben Curtis/AP

Now Homeless: Margaret Mumbi – a member of the Kikuyu ethnic group – took a break from washing her family’s clothes at a displacement camp in Nakuru, Kenya, where scores were killed in brutal clashes this past weekend. Scott Baldauf

SOURCE: Reuters AlertNet/Rich Clabaugh–STAFF Click to Enlarge

Tea plantation workers carry their belongings as they flee through Kericho, Kenya. Looters in one of Kenya's major tea-growing areas struck the estate as part of the post-election violence, causing workers and surrounding residents to flee the area. Thomas Mukoya

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How Kenya came undone

Long-simmering ethnic tensions threaten to tear apart East Africa's most stable, prosperous country.

from the January 29, 2008 edition

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Monitor Reporter Scott Baldauf talks with Kenyan refugee Julia Muthoni

	How Kenya came undone Kenya's infamous Mungiki sect gears up for reprisals
	How can Kenya avoid ethnic war? One man helps moderates tackle the roots of Kenya's ethnic rifts

Politicians have used the belief that Kikuyus control the economy as a battle cry, pitting Kikuyus as the perpetual "haves" against the Luos, Kalenjins, and other tribes as the perpetual "have-nots." Odinga has primed those feelings with a call for majimbo which, for many non-Kikuyus, means each tribe should return to its own ancestral land.

"The Kikuyus are greedy," says a Luo security guard named Innocent. "Who owns all the big businesses? Kikuyus. Who owns all the big farms? Kikuyus. And who are all the top leaders in Kibaki's government? Kikuyus. So when they go into our land and take our property, people are going to push back. It's our turn."

Kikuyus view majimbo as a danger to the future of the country. "The Luos are lazy," says one Kikuyu taxi driver named Johnson. "They don't invest. They don't create. They don't know how to run a business. And now look at the violence they are creating. Do you think these people should be running this country?"

This year, the violence has spread far beyond the Rift Valley into almost every urban center, tearing the social fabric of a cosmopolitan society that had made Kenya a regional economic force. Most foreign tourists have canceled vacations this winter, Kenya's peak season. The Central Organization of Trade Unions estimates that nearly 500,000 workers will lose their jobs.

"They have basically destroyed the local trade, and now that they can't buy food in the market, they are discovering to their shock and horror that they need each other," says Richard Cornwell, a senior analyst at the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa.

Kenya's current movement into a society of ethnic enclaves is a form of apartheid, Mr. Cornwell says. "In 20 or 30 years' time, this will be a powder keg. It's like what we saw in Northern Ireland between Protestants and Catholics; like Burundi and Rwanda. Unless this is handled, this will be a slow civil war that doesn't really break out, but it's insidious. It's always there."

A slow-burning civil war?

In the town of Nakuru, Keffa Magenyi Karuoya already feels the effects of that slow civil war. Since 1991, he has been displaced three times, including by this year's election violence. A Kikuyu himself, he has been working with a network of community activists from different tribes in the Rift Valley to advocate for peace, and to seek food aid and shelter for newly displaced victims.

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