...
written by dubois , January 16, 2008

Nyabola,

We cannot solve the current crisis by running away from the truth. The pre-meditated violence against hundreds of Kikuyus was ethnic cleansing - period! Even in their heyday, Mungiki never specifically targeted whole communities like the "warriors" in Eldoret have been doing. However, I must agree that the international media has overblown the Kenyan crisis for commercial interests. This however is not surprising since that is their norm when it comes to Africa.

mis-reporting in the int\'l me
written by concernedkenyan , January 16, 2008

First, thank you for this newspaper and the fair literate atmosphere it provides. Like Nanjala, I have been angry about a lot of the content in the international media and have been writing to them religiously, asking that they do a little more research before putting out their reports.
As you can see from Khadija's comment in the Obama article, most of them don't know half of what they are talking about.

This is the email I have been sending, I do not know if anyone there has read it at all.

Thank you for the articles on Kenya in your newspaper. I have found that the international media seems to be taking a most slanted view of the election, and I am afraid that their success in seeking to oust Kibaki could lead to even more mayhem in Kenya. The ODM did commit massive vote fraud in its part of the country, there were no PNU agents, i.e. the party affiliated to the president there during the vote counting.

The turnout in many of the ODM parts of the country was just as inflated as those from the president's part of the country. As the ECK chairman asked when the opposition protested the figures from Nithi (75%), why are you protesting these ones yet you had numbers in the mid-90s.
I am afraid that not too many Kenyans are neutral, or indeed sensible and depending on who exactly the foreign correspondents are interviewing, they are likely to get very skewed and deceptive views. Many Kenyans have for example taken to labelling the police action in Western Kenya genocide, or stating that the government was killing, beating, raping and so on opposition supporters. The armed forces and the police in Kenya are mixed forces, and those being shot at (I admit this is draconian and abhorrent) are either looters, or those caught in the crossfire. There is no house to house selection, no checking of ID cards or anything, it is simply police brutality. A western city dominated by the Luo has been razed almost to the ground by looters and anarchists. There are very few minorities there, but these attacks have come just the same. True there have been Kikuyus and Kisiis killed there or sent away, but the violence has mainly been committed by looters and the over-zealous police. There simply is nowhere in Kenya a campaign to finish off the Luo. To pretend that this is a tit-for-tat, that there is any balance is false. It is almost only the Kikuyu, the Meru, the Kisii and the Kamba who are under attack.

The real victims, targeted victims of ethnic violence, so far have been almost exclusively the Agikuyu, but now there are reports that anyone who did not supported Raila Odinga's re-election bid is being targeted, especially but not only those who are seen as foreigners. In many parts of the country, even those who did support the ODM candidate are under attack if they belong to the wrong tribe.

There are a few facts worth mentioning that differentiate the Kenyan election from a Western one. I will be available to go into greater detail on this, but for the moment this may do.

1) All voting is extremely tribal and is not really a reflection of the worth of a government or whether or not Kenyans approve of it, or its performance. The international press seems to have taken the loss of many ministers as a sign that the government was rejected by Kenyans. I am not denying that this may be part of the reason, but the Foreign Affairs Minister for example, who is acknowledged by all sides as one of the best Members of Parliament (in delivering to his constituents) lost in his constituency, simply because he refuses to bend his knee to Odinga's whim. This is hardly a new phenomenon, Kenyans would reject even a miracle worker if he ran on a party ticket that was not of their tribe.
We do not have a true Westminster style parliament. Our Ministers are first local honchos (whether ethnic or not) and then secondly Ministers. The other factor worth mentioning is that big guns were felled on both sides of the political divide in what seems a totally irrational reaction to the invitation for change. Brilliant MPs on both sides of the divide lost their political office. Among those lost include Raphael Tuju, Kipruto Arap Kirwa, Wangari Maathai, Njeru Ndwiga, Muriuki Karue, Joe Khamisi, and many others.

2) The President and his people decided not to run on one platform but on many party tickets. This again is a symptom of the tribal nature of Kenyan politics. It was calculated that people in Western province for example, would find it easier to vote for the president a tribal party (Ford-K and New Ford-K) than they would through the PNU, the President's party. This was further exacerbated by the greed of party officials (you must pay to run on a party's ticket). These officials handed out party certificates left right and centre, so it was not uncommon in many places to have twelve, fifteen candidates running on any one ticket. This explains why in many parts of the country the President won the constituency's presidential vote, but the ODM won the party seat. Take the example of Rongai where one of Moi's sons lost. There were two (major) candidates supporting the President. One on a KANU ticket, and one on a PNU ticket. The total count for the winning ODM candidate was something like 15,000 votes. The combined total for the two main candidates supporting the President was something like 22,000 at least.
In Cherangani, a region called the breadbasket of the country, the Agriculture Minister (whose policies have seen rural poverty slashed by 35%) was beaten by a 29 year old political science student. There were in that constituency more than ten candidates supporting the President.
So two things here. First you cannot merely count the PNU seats and compare them to the ODM ones. All KANU, NARC-K, PICK, KADDU, UDM, Mazingira, DP candidates were elected in support of Pres. Kibaki.

3) I'd also like to point out that the rigging efforts on the part of the President's party were very last minute, haphazard and careless in nature. They do not at all have the nature of pre-meditation about them. Those of the ODM on the other hand were executed very smoothly, leading to the massive early lead on the part of the ODM and its candidate. This was also boosted by the party's collusion with the KTN which alliance led to the publication of exaggerated results that gave the country the perception that Raila's lead was unassailable. This in spite of the fact (lost on international media) that depending on which parts report first, a head start, or the semblance of one is built. This is not a homogeneous national constituency.

4) The electoral process in Kenya is very decentralised. Incumbency for example offers no advantage in Nyanza, Rift Valley or Western provinces. The machinery that allows rigging is at the grass-roots. Add this to the mania in some regions about specific candidates and parties, and you have a situation where no opposition agents were allowed into polling stations and vote counting areas in some parts of the country.

5) The international press has been reporting heavily about +100% turnout in the president's central province. There were many similar such constituencies in the Rift Valley and Nyanza. The Daily Nation reported on these I think on Saturday or Sunday. In any case all of those high figures were corrected, and the president's figures were brought lower.

6) President Kibaki led in all of the exit polls. Please fficial&client=firefox-a'>Google Reuters, Kenya, Exit Polls. These were conducted by the Institute for Education in Democracy. A polling agency allied to the ODM party was supposed to have published exit polls, but did not do so at all.

7)Kenya's electoral laws make the President of Kenya an immensely powerful position. To be announced as President is a fait accompli. This is the reason for the last minute rush to swear-the-president in, and the urge by the President's side to rig themselves into catching up (after they had seen the rigging by ODM in Western Kenya). My point here is that after discovering the ODM's fraud, the only solution for the president's side was to rig themselves ahead. There was no other option open to them.

9) If you have time after reading all of this, please do a little research on why these massacres are going on, and why they target the Kikuyu especially. Raila Odinga's tribe has worked diligently at demonising the Agikuyu and their cousins. It is not merely on account of the election, these are ancient rivalries that the ODM played on to win the election. He has famously called the Agikuyu adui, which means enemy, and promised perhaps harmlessly (who knows) that some regions of Kenya would cry were he to win the election.
Here is part of the effort from an ODM candidate at the nominations.

Please do some research on the ODM candidate's links to mercenary groups like Energem, Branch Energy and Executive Outcomes. He is partners in a shady privatisation deal with some of these people. This is also the link between him and the head Observer from the Commonwealth, the ex-Sierra Leonean President. Please look up the ODM's candidate's link to an attempt to overthrow the government in 1982- links which he boasts about in his biography. Please look into his history of his ruthless intolerance of opposition, whether in his party or at the national level. Here is a link from an article by John Githongo the anti-corruption crusader. This information has little to do with the election itself, but I hope it can show you why there are many Kenyans who are properly terrified of Raila Odinga.
Link One The battery to near death of James Orengo
Link Two NDP youths violence against Ufungamano constitutional reform group.
Link Three
Link Four Ochuodho, Orengo beaten to near death after IMF talk on aid in the days when Raila Odinga was powerful government Minister.

Raila acknowledges connection to the armed thugs.

Police said National Development Party leader Raila Odinga had promised to take Mr Ocholla and other men filmed with him attacking people in the street to Central Police Station to record statements.

Mr Odinga, chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on amending the constitutional reform act, had said he would take the men between 2pm and 4pm, then sources said.

The ODM candidate has previously assaulted two ministers. The first is the finance Minister, and the second, a woman is the Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs He is no cuddly bear.

10) Finally, may I point out that all the most corrupt officials from the darkness of the Moi government are in the ODM. These range from the Commissioner of Lands who stood over the theft of public lands, to the former Permanent Secretary for Internal Security who was accused of harbouring Rwandese fugitive Felicien Kabuga. The head of his elections board is a judge who was dismissed on corruption charges, his Party's Chairman is a Moi era Minister who bankrupted the national assurance company and who also spearheaded a massive financial fraud at the time of the 1987 All-Africa games. His running mate was one of the engineers of the infamous Goldenberg project, and his proposed prime minister is a massive land thief, with at least three cases pending in court. The former head of the civil service under the Moi government is also in this party, as is an old Maasai Minister who famously promoted the ethnic cleansing of the Agikuyu by telling them to lie low like envelopes. But they are nothing compared to the man who has in the period between 1997 and 2005 used his position as a public servant to become a billionaire four times over.
I hope you can pass this around to as many foreign journalists as you can find. Not to be published of course, but as inspiration for research. I do admit after all that I have a bias against the ODM candidate having watched his gangs clobber my city's mayor, and beat up two MPs who were my heroes to within inches of their lives merely for refusing to bow to his wishes. He operates something of a totalitarian fiefdom in my province, installing MPs and standing in the way of democracy. No wonder we are the poorest province in the country, 15 years after the advent of multi-partyism, the massive increase in devolved funds and a total control of local government on the part of his country.
Still, he cultivates in the Kenyan people a sense of victim-hood, blaming absolutely everything in their lives on some evil Kikuyu monster in Nairobi.

If the foreign press continues to demonise the president, and his party while allowing the ODM to get away with their part in the present tragedy, this situation will take much longer to solve.

to another paper yesterday
written by concernedkenyan , January 16, 2008

Your article in today's paper attempts a fairer portrayal of the situation in Kenya, but still falls far short. I am persuaded that your information on Kenya is wrong, and that a regular reading of such magazine's as would do you no harm. (I really hope that they will pay me for promoting them to you.)Kenya has a burgeoning media, with radio and television stations even in the slums and poorer parts of the country. The internet is replete with sources and sources from which you can gain both sides of the story.

As you have noted, Kenya is not any other country. The economic growth has not been restricted to the Kikuyu middle class. I am myself certainly not Kikuyu. There has been a great investment climate and the cost and access to credit have become easier for the entrepreneur. The government has promoted business start-ups, among the youth and women with grants for youth investment, the banking industry is making record profits, as are the mobile phone companies. There is a Coke, Nokia, GE, CelTel, the whole world is moving their headquarters to Nairobi. The ease of starting a business in Kenya has been greatly improved (please see the World Bank's doing business website). There is a great increase in bed occupancy rates, tourism was back up and spreading beyond the traditional hot spots.

Rural poverty is down 35%, aid makes up only 1% of GDP (the £175 figure you gave seems to me wrong. The DFID website has a similar figure for 2001-2007). Farm gate prices for tea, coffee, milk and maize have been raised up, and the public companies that cater to farmers like the Cooperatives, Creameries, the Meat Commission and the Cereals Board have been revived. These along with free primary (and now secondary) education and the rural electrification programme are making for a quiet but lasting revolution in the country side.

This growth I must insist is not limited to the middle class or to specific parts of the country. In Odinga's Nyanza province, farmers of tea, rice, sugar cane and fish have seen their fortunes really improve as a result of direct government action. The revenue authority is collecting record amounts around the country, and for such a small country as ours more than 5000 new cars registered every month. There are new and more specialised universities across the country and many Kenyans can afford what was once a luxury (both in Kenya and abroad). The HIV-AIDs war has been a resounding success, as has the campaign against malaria (Xan wrote on this in the summer). The government spends a large amount of revenue on social services, both directly and through devolved funds like the HIV fund and Bursary funds that are distributed at the grass-roots level.

We do have serious problems. The entire political class is incredibly corrupt, Kenyan MPs have a higher take home than UK ones, and with a far lower cost of living. The president and Raila are both billionaires who came by their wealth by using their public office. The president is wooden and aloof and fails to deliver politically, Mr Odinga on his part is an empty suit of economics and governance issues, even though he can rouse the rabble from the deepest sleep. He has managed like most demagogues to craft an image for himself which is truly beguiling, so much so that the foreign media forgets that every single one of his closest associates was a key official of the Moi regime in its most rapacious incarnation.

On a more specific level, the urban poor are really suffering the brunt of the quadrupling of crude oil prices since 2002, and the rise in food prices occasioned in part by government efforts to reduce rural poverty, and the global rise of food prices. Our police are brutal and our justice systems far from just. P.S, please write Jacques Carstens, jcarstens@gjlos.co.ke, at the Governance, Justice Law and Order Reform programme, an innovation which along with the performance contracts for civil servants represent a truly radical revolution, one for which the government gets very little credit.

The truth is, for as long as we have politicians who insist on demonising specific communities, no progress in Kenya will ever be acknowledged. There is real evidence that the president, in spite of the rigging on both sides did win the election, and for a fact through his new coalition, he does represent the majority of Kenyans. Those of us without a specific political reason to back either side would really like that we just move on, but the massacres in the Rift Valley which seem to have been organised and paid for are causing many positions (including the president's) to harden.

For three years, the opposition has preached hatred, hatred on ethnic lines against the Kikuyu who were presented to the Kenyan people much in the same light as the Nazis presented European Jewry, i.e. the resentments were there, but the Nazis like the ODM gave them voice and legitimacy. Never before, not even in the darkest of Moi's days was the country this divided, and there are very specific villains and events that have sent us to this bloody place. In the same voice as Der Ewige Jude, a picture of the Kikuyu region was painted, dominating the country to its detriment and taking the bulk of budget allocations while remitting the least.
Links to Muluka's lies here, and here.
a) the opposition did rig the vote in its part of the country, there is evidence as Jendayi Frazer attests
b) the violence is not spontaneous, nor is it particularly an act of rage, there were warnings given way before the election. Eldoret Bishop Korir of the Catholics confirms this
c) the police action in Kisumu was deeply tragic, but the truth is the country has never ever witnessed anything close to it, the city is properly ruined. I feel terrible for the families but I do not know what else the police would have done (please remember 3 police persons had already been killed in the week of the election)
d) the violence broke out BEFORE the announcement of the vote
e) the ODM has preached a system of devolution that has historically been translated as every tribe keep to its part of the country, it is for this reason that even some communities that voted ODM were kicked out of these regions
f) It is not just the Kikuyu that were settled in these schemes, people were moved into these fertile regions from across the country,and many have lived in these areas from before independence in 1963
g) Strictly speaking the president's 'party' won about 89 seats, and with their alliance with the ODM-K represent a substantial majority of Kenyans
h) overloading of pro-Kibaki candidates in many constituencies lost the Kibaki parties the election. Take the case of Cherangany, the Agriculture Minister's constituency where there was one ODM candidate, against more than 10 pro-Kibaki candidates!
i) all the reformers from the darkest days of the Moi government are on the president's side.
j) Please research a little on the ODM candidate, and ask Xan to do so too. It would be really nice for the west to understand what it is pushing on Kenyans when it forcefully suggests that he be involved in our government.

Pentagon showing example
written by Wuod Aketch , January 16, 2008

ODM pentagon is showing Kenyans that they are also being gased and harassed by police in the same way as them - shame on Kibaki on this violence on men elected by the people and on the people themselves:

...
written by Beverly , January 17, 2008

Dubois:

Where is your proof that this was "premeditated"? As I have said before, the country was largely peaceful and quiet Dec 26th. When did the people have time to sit down and plan out these attacks?

Seems to me that people just poured into the street. Thats politically charged ethnic violence. Not "ethnic cleansing". By using this term you disrespect the real victims of horrible government campaigns to eradicate certain ethnic groups.

Kenya's violecne and killing will stop when the leaders take into account the voices of those rioting. Call it what you want, but that's not ethnic cleansing.

And YES, I can hold this opinion without condoning the violence or approving of the killings.

the truth of the matter is
written by Timothy Wainaina , January 17, 2008

Beverly
We know it is premeditated because there were prior warnings to many people to move out, doors were marked, notices were given, groups were formed, groups that were marching and armed.

Ethnic cleansing refers to various policies or practices aimed at the displacement of an ethnic group from a particular territory in order to create a supposedly ethnically "pure" society.

Let me point out why it had nothing to do with the election. The Kisii in both Kisumu and the Rift Valley were attacked, they voted ODM. The Kamba who voted ODM-K were also attacked, both before and after the announcement of the alliance with the PNU. I have heard that in the North Rift even Luhya homes are being attacked, they voted ODM. Many of these attacks dear Beverly are in middle class areas. The middle class does not just rise-up spontaneously.

And yes, you are most irresponsibly excusing the violence. This spontaneity is what is referred to in court as temporary insanity, a departure from normal sensible behaviour. It does not explain how 300 men walked in single file, it does not explain why there were roadblocks or why people were being asked for their IDs.

Beverly, this is more than ethnic cleansing even, it is attempted genocide. Why the Big G word? The gangs in Eldoret were not just intent on flushing Kikuyus out of the Rift Valley, no they actually wanted to kill them. You will notice that in Kisumu there was no such attempt, a fleeing Kikuyu was a good Kikuyu, a Kisii on the way out was a good Kisii. In the North Rift they just wanted to kill them.

Please don't act like you are a foreigner. Remember the hatutaki madoadoa speech, words which were repeated perhaps as code by Raila in a speech in Eldoret just before election day? We have precedent Beverly of exactly such action, especially in the Rift Valley.

According to the committee's witness number 198, Mr Kiliku said, Mr Chang'ole addressed a baraza at Chimoge trading centre on December 16, 1991, and told the Sabaot to remove madoadoa (spots) from their midst.

Mr Chang'ole, who spoke in Kalenjin, asked: "If you have a red cow, when it starts to get white spots, what do you do?" According to Mr Kiliku, some of the people at the meeting replied that such a cow should be slaughtered.

Here is my explanation. Kisumu and parts of Nairobi. = spontaneous
Rift Valley and parts of Nairobi (Kibera especially) = planned and coordinated

We have seen admissions on television (int'l) we have seen Bishop Korir and Jendayi Frazer's statements, we have spoken with people coming from that area and we have heard three years of ODM preaching Majimbo and hatred for Kikuyus.
Still unconvinced? Watch this to the end, and watch as Raila Odinga, some people's choice of president laughs about the violence and describes it as being kama vita za mafanns wa Man U na Chelsea. Note the shock in the reporter's tone, and then look at the man who would be king cackling away.

cui bono
written by Regis , January 17, 2008

Asante kwa concerned Kenyan, kweli wewe mzalendo. I have been trying myself as much as possible to explain to people that there is more than the traditional idea that the government is oppressing people.

Now I wonder how anyone cannot see that this violence was in part caused by the great majimbo debate. Many had said that this was a poisonous idea, many had pointed at previous talk of Majimbo and its effect on wananchi, that it was in most places understood as ethnic cleansing, but then we were ignored. Even those anti-government foreign newspapers admit that the ODM spent the whole of the campaign period creating an atmosphere of extreme antipathy towards the GEMA communities, including the pieces there from Muluka.

P.S. Beverly
Please read Barrack Muluka's confessional from the Saturday Standard, or Phillip Ochieng's from the Sunday Nation, and then feel free to write an apology.

while at it
written by Regis , January 17, 2008

Beverly
Please talk to someone from Kisumu or the North Rift, the violence started long before the results were announced some of it as early as Christmas eve.

Make sure you ask a Luhya, or a Kalenjin, you know we Kikuyu like telling lies. Ask a landlord in Nairobi about people who have refused to pay rent since the beginning of the year, and who have been telling everyone in the world that they were serikali, yes. Please do, then tell us it was spontaneous.

re: while at it
written by Beverly , January 17, 2008

Beverly
Please talk to someone from Kisumu or the North Rift, the violence started long before the results were announced some of it as early as Christmas eve.

Make sure you ask a Luhya, or a Kalenjin, you know we Kikuyu like telling lies. Ask a landlord in Nairobi about people who have refused to pay rent since the beginning of the year, and who have been telling everyone in the world that they were serikali, yes. Please do, then tell us it was spontaneous.

Thank you, I will do that.

*rolls eyes*

By the way, I don't think that all Kikuyus tell lies, as you insinuated.

*sigh*
My people, my people.....

here Bev
written by Regis , January 17, 2008

Besides, I am looking for anyone who can persuade me that the mayhem in Western was not premeditated. As you know, I have visited our towns. I am amazed at the surgical and targeted precision with which the arsonists worked. I want someone to persuade me that if the disgraced Electoral Commission of Kenya had announced something different, the country would be at peace today. I dont believe that.

Read the rest of the article here. Now remember that Barrack Muluka is
a) a MuLuhya
b) a key member of the ODM, one who has run for a party ticket for the parliamentary elections
c) a key member of the campaign to demonise the GEMA.

Link to article

re: cui bono
written by Beverly , January 17, 2008

Asante kwa concerned Kenyan, kweli wewe mzalendo. I have been trying myself as much as possible to explain to people that there is more than the traditional idea that the government is oppressing people.

Now I wonder how anyone cannot see that this violence was in part caused by the great majimbo debate. Many had said that this was a poisonous idea, many had pointed at previous talk of Majimbo and its effect on wananchi, that it was in most places understood as ethnic cleansing, but then we were ignored. Even those anti-government foreign newspapers admit that the ODM spent the whole of the campaign period creating an atmosphere of extreme antipathy towards the GEMA communities, including the pieces there from Muluka.

P.S. Beverly
Please read Barrack Muluka's confessional from the Saturday Standard, or Phillip Ochieng's from the Sunday Nation, and then feel free to write an apology.

Barak Muluka is my uncle.

I've read his piece and agree with it for the most part.

I am an optimist, however, and believe that Kenya will get through this and that Africans are not "evil and wicked animal" like he said nor that those who claim to be "revolutionaries" want wanton death, as he claims. I do believe that MOST Kenyans want justice and peace.

But we must not confuse peace with a ceasefire. Ceasefires are still rife with tension. Peace is not the absence of war (or violence). We need a the poorest of the poor in Kenyan (encompassing all tribes) to be pulled up from the quicksand that is their reality in slums and in rural poverty.

My original comments were to emphasize that I think we need less demonizing and finger pointing more inter-tribal collaborating, reconciling, dialogue. But i know, this is easier said than done...

I Nanjala writes an important piece about what effect the "e" word is having on the psyche:

"What I have found most disturbing is the effect that this characterization of the conflict as merely ethnic is likely having on the future politics of this country"

This is what I was alluding to in my comments above. There are many, many who have been killed not because of their ethnicity. There are other crimes taking place and I am afraid they will go unreprimanded because of this stuck polarization of ethnicity.

I apologize if I offended anyone. I just want us to do/be better.


=(

biasness
written by jessy , January 17, 2008

i have noticed that you are being biased, you seem to edit and delete articles against the govt and kibaki but at the same time happily allowing anti odm and raila articles go on display.be fair man lest you destroy such a great website

...
written by Daniel Waweru , January 17, 2008

Nanjala,

I've put up a response to your article.


Beverley,

I'm at one with your desire for a political force that represents the poor. But I hope it is not bad manners to point out that ODM campaigned on an openly anti-GEMA ticket. The only source of political power for the poor is their numbers. So it is clear that ODM was happy to sacrifice at least one significant part of the poor. The disastrous consequences of that policy are going to be with us for the rest of our lives - one of the worst things about this mess is that won't soon be a powerful inter-ethnic coalition of the poor. It seems unlikely, then, that ODM is a party with the poor at heart. Neither, of course, is PNU; but then, we always knew that PNU was the party of capital.

Offended are we now?
written by Sijui , January 17, 2008

Offended are we now? I find such criticisms of the international media both hypocritical and disingenious. It is NOT THEIR FAULT that Kenya has allowed itself to descend in to a PREDICTABLE NARRATIVE of stupidity, greed and self interest.

ALL Kenyans SHOULD BE ASHAMED of the state of their country, STOP scape goating other people and FACE the full honesty of a DYSFUNCTIONAL and PAROCHIAL society!!!!! We deserve the shame, derision and dishonesty of an international press when we cannot even manage a civilized and transparent electoral process.

WHY I WILL NOT DEMONSTRATE!
written by millycent , January 18, 2008

WHY I WILL NOT DEMONSTRATE!

1. The elections are over, I lined to vote in the President, the MP and the Councilor, this I did peacefully. Why should I be violent now to put someone on a seat.

2. All the 3 people above are already on Payroll whether there are chaos or not. Why is my tax paying these guys who want me to lose my job (and my head) while running in the streets.


3. Our leaders are refusing to engage in dialogue, yet they want me to run in the streets and loose my daily pay


4. My neighbour, whether from what ethnic background is the brother & sister who we share lives, we celebrate the birth of our children, we brave the chilly nights having matanga when one of us dies, we help one another till our land, we borrow salt and fire from one another...etc,we share practically all aspects of our lives, then a politician who most of us have never seen face to face comes to tell me to take a panga and kill that neighbour, then he retreats to the comfort of his palacial house in the city and leave us for the dead. I will not bend that low!


5. Until our leaders lead by example and show their willingness for a peaceful solution, let them not drag us into chaos and violence which only leaves us the common Mwanachi, in more problems as if they have not created enough problems for us already.

MAY WE DWELL IN UNITY, PEACE & LIBERTY

...
written by Nguru , January 18, 2008

Just wanted to thank you for the extensive perspective above. I have been soo tired and exhausted at all that is going on particularly the continued uneven, un analytical western media coverage of what is going on. Asante for this

...
written by politicalscientist , January 19, 2008

No one is criticising the international media for highlighting the problems that we face in Kenya. We criticise them for the spin that they put on the story, as if to say "oh look, how sad, another bunch of Africans killing themselves over tribes. Hurry, send them some yellow maize and hope they shut up and go away".

In Colombia 5181 people have been kidnapped since 1992 (http://danger.mongabay.com/kidnapping_stats.htm) And yet there are no current travel alerts for Colombia, por que? (why?).

Criticise us if you must but don't be unfair and think about the implications of your actions is all I'm saying...

...
written by K-Train , February 04, 2008

You have blamed the international media for blowing the problem out of proportion - look at the comments that follow this article...people are already arguing and going off topic. You are the same people who are then coming back to criticize the int'l press. How hypocritical!
We all saw the violence even on NTV and KTN....so why hate the international press. Their pictures were similar to those of the local press. The only difference is that they are on a global stage. The conflict is truly tribal. People have been killed &displaced because of their tribes. You are just angry coz you have been put in the international press, yet it is true what is happening in Kenya...and it is this blame game that is fuelling the problems in Kenya. SHAME ON YOU!!!

where it started
written by kipkemboi tarus , February 05, 2008

being a Kalenjin guy I have never thought that a situation such as this could arise just because we be long to different ethnic backgrounds. The world should realise that Kenya is not in peace as some politicians think and preach. Having been a witness of the post-election chaos in the rift, I can attest that it is not to do with enmity but with the unfairness that Kibaki has showed in the distribution of public resources in the country,while others cry for an election spoiled and hearts broken, the Kikuyu were happy. This is what led to the hatred.

Moderated, Eds.

Miss
written by Kavalulu , February 12, 2008

The Kenyan media is even worse. Look at the Standard. In the name of scoops, they are acting like idiots. They are the guys helping looters and goons to go nuts. They have helped guys like Ruto, Raila, Henry Kosgei and the ODM crooks who wantto take over the country by force.
How come they have only meant to portray Raila supporters as aggrieved. What about the Kibaki supporters? Standard cries tribalism and the editors are the biggest bigots in the country.
When the history is written, Standard KTN will be judged harshly.

re: Miss
written by manta ray , February 12, 2008

Good observation, ignored or not noticed by the (...) ordinary Kenyan in the street.

(Hmm. We can understand anger and resentment, but felt that a general insult against Wanjiku was not warranted; thus moderated. Eds.)