More Violence in Kenya

The New York Times
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January 27, 2008
Mob Violence Is Tearing Kenya Apart
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

NAKURU, Kenya — Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, may seem calm, but anarchy reigns just two hours away.

In Nakuru, furious mobs rule the streets, burning homes, brutalizing people and expelling anyone not in their ethnic group, all with complete impunity.

On Saturday, hundreds of men prowled a section of the city with six-foot iron bars, poisoned swords, clubs, knives and crude circumcision tools. Boys carried gladiator-style shields and women strutted around with sharpened sticks.

The police were nowhere to be found. Even the locals were shocked.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said David Macharia, a bus driver.

One month after a deeply flawed election, Kenya, despite international pressure on its leaders to compromise and stop the killings, is tearing itself apart along ethnic lines.

Nakuru, the biggest town in the beautiful but deeply troubled Rift Valley, is the scene of a mass migration now moving in two directions. Luos are headed west, Kikuyus are headed east, and packed buses with mattresses strapped on top pass each other in the road with the bewildered children of the two ethnic groups staring out the windows at each other.

In the past 10 days, dozens of people have been killed in Molo, Narok, Kipkelion, Kuresoi, and now Nakuru, a tourist gateway which until a few days ago was considered safe.

In many places, Kenya seems to be sliding back toward the chaos that exploded on Dec. 30, when election results were announced and Kenya’s president, Mwai Kibaki, was declared the winner over Raila Odinga, the top opposition leader, despite widespread evidence of vote rigging.

The tinder was all there, even before the voting started. There were historic grievances over land and deep-seated ethnic tensions, with many ethnic groups resenting the Kikuyus, Mr. Kibaki’s group, because they have been the most prosperous for years.

The disputed election essentially served as the spark, and opposition supporters across Kenya vented their rage over many issues toward Kikuyus and other ethnic groups thought to have supported Mr. Kibaki.

In the Rift Valley, local elders organized young men to raid Kikuyu areas and kill people in a bid to drive the Kikuyus off their land. It worked, for the most part, and over the past month, tens of thousands of Kikuyus have fled.

More than 650 people, many of them Kikuyus, have been killed. Many of the attackers are widely believed to be members of the Luo and Kalenjin ethnic groups.

What is happening now in Nakuru seems to be payback.

On Thursday night, witnesses and participants said that bands of Kikuyu men armed themselves and began Luos and Kalenjins.