This sense of absolvent inevitability, that the violence had nothing to do with incitement or facilitation by the political leadership, continued unabated, pushed on by the ODM and by eager senior members of Kenya's civil society. Speaking before the US Congress, the Kenya National Human Rights Commission's Maina Kiai, denied that there was ethnic cleansing, famously terming the violence 'political, with ethnic undertones.' Those undertones burned the homes of people of specific ethnicities, markd them before they burned them, emblazoned them with messages of hate -remember 41 against 1, and completely cleansed entire districts of non-'native' residents. That this word, 'native' or the other, 'settlers' have gained such currency in our times is in itself truly shameful.

Others of this lot have sought to explain the violence as a case of land pressure, poverty, and hunger, acting to collect regiments of 2000 warriors and sending them into killing frenzies of such speed and efficacy that the victims had little chance of saving themselves. This explanation does not explain why fleeing people were pursued and dumped into a river.  Nor does it provide the motivation for the poisoning attempts at IDP camps across the border in Uganda.

"The root cause of our crisis is that the land did not get bought by the people who lost it but by the Kikuyu elite of the time. That was the situation in Central province where the Kikuyu came from. Kenyatta then settled the poor landless Kikuyu in the Rift Valley on land that had belonged to the Kalenjin," says Mati.

Further on in the interview, in an effort to explain the Mt. Elgon district violence, Mati explains:

"The violence was going to happen so long as the original grievance was not addressed. It never has been."

As has been averred severally on these pages, even a cursory look through the available evidence disproves this myth. John Oucho's Undercurrents of Ethnic Conflict in Kenya would be a good start at disproving this urban myth as would a look at any map of settlements prior to the British presence. Much of the land now claimed by the Kalenjin was in fact settled by them in recent times and in large numbers in the same wave of settlements as took the Gikuyu, Luhya, Kamba, Luo and Kisii there. It is difficult to see for example how expelling the Gikuyu from Uasin Gishu and Eldoret by Nandi and Kipsigis can be justified as a reclamation of lands alienated by the colonial state.

Later, Mohammed Najib Balala MP worked to show the evidence for ownership of the spirit of separation in his famous 'Lesotho Principles ': the president would make peace and give ODM what they wanted, or else the Gikuyu, 'his people' in the ODM's language, would be sent into an enclave where they could live by themselves, isolated from other Kenyans. (there's another version of the principles, enunciated here by Ababu Namwamba MP, which as it was a press release and coming on the heels of Balala's statement, may be taken as representative of ODM thought on the matter.) Throughout the negotiations, the Rift Valley MPs were adamant that those arrested on charges related to the violence must be unconditionally released. When Jackson Kibor was arrested for alleged association with the violence, the ODM head was livid and demanded his immediate release. Now, the newspapers report, the Rift Valley MPs do not want the Kenyans languishing in camps across the country to return to their properties.

This action, violence against Kenyans as a means to a political end is not new. When Kibaki filed his election petition against Moi in 1997, people from Nyeri were attacked in Laikipia. Pre-election messages at political rallies, on the radio and in leaflets about madoadoa, people of the milk and kufyeka nyasi have been the norm now for over 15 years. The consequences, as usual, have been the murders of large numbers of Kenyans - now termed 'settlers' - and the rendition of hundreds of thousands more to IDP camps. The recent stories are entirely predictable: the Rift Valley Province political class has grown accustomed to using non-Kalenjin residents of the Rift Valley as hostages since 1992 (many IDPs from that time have never been able to return to their previous homes). Clearly, those now in ODM are not about to give up the habit - especially not when it, self-evidently, brings such rich rewards.

There are some interesting differences this time. First, the severity, scale, and viciousness of the violence are unprecedented: while in the first 11 years of political violence in the Rift about 4, 000 people were murdered, surveys suggest that about half the (estimated) 1500 casualties of the 2007-08 post-election violence in Kenya were recorded in the Rift Valley's heartland; this is the highest number recorded in a comparable period. The ferocity of the violence is quite novel too: the Eldoret massacre, or the still relatively unknown murder of 40 mostly Kisii tea-workers at a tea factory in the South Rift are depravities of a sort hitherto unknown to Kenyans, as is the retaliatory burning to death of a family in Naivasha.

Second, permanent ethnic cleansing is now openly advocated, as is all too clear from the demand that IDPs be resettled on land outside RVP. The incentive structure for doing so is reassuringly ill-concealed: see the promise that mass murder will recur in future if the IDPs are 'forced' back into their homes, where 'forced' is a dysphemism for resettlement. The point bears repetition. For the very first time in Kenya, politicians are advocating, as a matter of policy, and not mere campaign rhetoric, the permanent ethnic cleansing of Kenyan territory. (The majimbo rhetoric of the 1990's, noxious as everyone knew it was, almost certainly was not a matter of policy; in every case, no serious steps were taken to institute it once power had been secured.)

As the violence has rolled on, justifications have been sought. The rationalizations have attained new levels of sophistication - there is now a clear, coherent, and self-conscious ideology driving the violence. A brief surf of the Kenyan blogosphere should reveal its bare bones. Sparing you the trouble....

The Rift Valley is Kalenjin ancestral land, which has twice been invaded, the first time by the colonial government, the second time by the Kenyatta administration. Gikuyu and other non-Kalenjin, however long they have lived in the province are settlers, or, more combatively, black colonialists; they have stolen the land. Since ethnicity determines ownership, there is no room in the Rift Valley for non-Kalenjin, except perhaps as an inferior class, which recognizes Kalenjin domination as the proper and permanent order of things.

If one were interested in the historical accuracy of this story, one might wonder what the consequences of a non-Kalenjin presence in the Rift Valley since before independence are. Just now, however, that is not at issue. What matters is that large numbers of people believe our little story, or something very like it, and that they are not soon going to be disabused.

At yesterday's meeting, only Kipkalya Kones and Henry Kosgey voted for the immediate resettlement of IDPs. Several Rift Valley MPs who have not been granted ministerial favour were quick to predict difficulties for the IDPs as a consequence. The ethnic cleansing and accompanying violence are supported by the communities involved: it would not have been possible to mobilise communities for the violence on such a grand scale. The Rift Valley Province political class, and most of their rank and file, favour ethnically-directed political violence. The political class for at least three ends: to get concessions off the state (the argument seems to be, if ODM did it and succeeded, why not us), to settle disputes internal to the elite itself, and to achieve the removal from the Rift Valley of non-Kalenjins. The rank and file probably favour it only for the last reason. At any rate, it is time to concede that the long-term goal of the violence is the ethnic purity of the Rift, and that this goal is popular in places high and low.

If the IDPs are to be resettled, and the violence stopped, there needs to be accountability for it. But responsibility for the violence reaches to the top of the political class in the Rift Valley - and for its spirit outside it as well. Since there is wide approval in the Rift Valley  - tacit and overt, high and low - for the violence, the political costs of accountability are high. As we saw, civil society is also willing to offer cover for the violence, by mis-describing, minimising, or justifying it. At any rate, there will be no pressure on the Rift Valley political class from that quarter. The PNU wing of the coalition appears to be the sole agent with a motive for applying pressure but since the Kibaki administration has proved anything but bold in the past, the chances of serious accountability following on their efforts are low. Consequently, we should expect the violence to recur should IDPs be resetted there.

This suggests compensation outside the Rift Valley is an alternative we must look into. But financial compensation for a productive asset when awarded to peasants does not promise the best outcomes. When the Samburu were paid their compensation for losses and damage caused by dumped munitions by the UK's ministry of defence, many blew it and were destitute within the year. It seems prudent therefore, to ensure that the compensation paid to IDPs is paid in two halves, one for private consumption, the other as a contribution to the cost of productive goods. The second would be eased by having the bulk of them re-settled in one place. Resettling them in the Rift Valley entails their dispersion.

In any case, if we should expect the violence to recur and knowing that the State's capacity to protect them or to dissuade the aggressors would be limited, it seems unwise and even unjust to send the IDPs back in. The solution, then, is to resettle them in a single area, and to give them enough in cash and other resources to resume productive activities. Ideally, the area would be ethnically mixed, to minimise tensions. Nominee location? Nairobi.

One final advantage of this is that non-Kalenjins in the Rift Valley would no longer be hostages. The costs of holding that province's political class accountable would be substantially lowered, and the land problem, such as it has been forced to be, would be permanently solved.

The downside. Firstly, there is the dangerous precedent that this will set. Think of the Coast or the future ability of cities like Kisumu to attract investment. Then there is the fact that a large element of our national productivity will be lost in this adjustment. New skills will have to be learned by the displaced -many of them too old to make the change-, new relationships and a way-of-life will have to be grown into in an unfriendly and alien environment.  More than that, previously independent, lower-middle class families will likely be turned poor and dependent. Such emasculation has been claimed as the fount from which the Mungiki sprung.

Worse, those expelled were in their own way among the most productive Kenyans anywhere, and the fact that many of them were business owners, or lessees casts into doubt the expectation that the local population have the desire to take over the role the expelled played in the local economies. This in turn will affect how much Kenya as a whole stands to lose in productivity from the expulsions, think Zimbabwe. The possibility of social disturbances, including increased crime and further pressure on already strained urban facilities place the final painful surcharge on this adjustment we should have to make. 

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