February 19, 2008
Anyone who has kept up with the news since late last year has probably heard about what's going on in Kenya.
It’s easy for the less well informed to dismiss the events taking place there as “just another crisis on the African continent,” since several other African countries have experienced situations that have led to massive internal upset.
However, despite the fact that Kenya has a history just as troubled as many other African countries, in modern times, it has typically been politically stable, with a normally progressing economy. Tourism has thrived.
Also, unlike some other places in the world, where differences in ethnicity have been major sources of conflict, Kenya has always embraced and boasted of its diversity. Multiple tribes co-existed peaceably with one another before the crisis broke out.
The presidential elections changed all that.
Incumbent President Mwai Kibaki of the Party of National Unity was running for re-election, and his main opponent (out of several candidates) was Raila Odinga of the Orange Democratic Movement. Odinga, a member of Parliament, is the former minister of roads, public works and housing.
The election was predicted to be very close. During the vote counting on Dec. 28, Odinga was in the lead at the beginning, and his party announced victory, but the Electoral Commission declared Kibaki the victor two days later.
Odinga’s supporters staged protests and accused the government of a fraudulent election, and violence broke out. The accusations of fraud were not very far-fetched; even Samuel Kivuitu, chairman of the Electoral Commission, admitted to problems with the vote counting, and international observers form the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United States noted flaws with the counting process and expressed concern.
On Jan. 2, the U.S. State Department rescinded its recognition of Kibaki’s current term as president due to allegations of election rigging and the violent situation.
Fighting is very much along tribal lines. Kibaki is a member of the Kikuyu tribe, and Kikuyus living outside of their traditional settlement areas have been targeted by tribes supportive of Odinga, mainly Luos and Kalenjin, and vice versa.
According to BBC correspondent Karen Allen, the election may only be the catalyst for the violence. Although ethnic violence has never been the problem in Kenya that it has been in Rwanda or Sudan, and although there has been much intermarriage between tribes, tribal divides are still a prominent — and relatively unaddressed — issue.
Whatever the reason for the violence, it is clear to the international community that a major humanitarian crisis is occurring and that stability must be restored. According to the Boston Globe, more than 850 people have been killed in the conflict and 250,000 people displaced. Countless children have been orphaned.
Kofi Annan, former U.N. secretary general, began mediating talks between Kibaki and Odinga in hopes of resolving the crisis in late January, but initially the talks only added to the animosity between tribal and political groups.
On Feb. 1, Annan was joined by current U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to facilitate the discussion.
According to the BBC, Kibaki and Odinga have agreed to an agenda to restore stability and peace to Kenya. However, optimistic forecasts for the discussion predict it will take at least 15 days to get through the first few items.
So far, the situation has not markedly improved.
I recently interviewed Alex McIntyre, a junior who used to attend Central Bucks East High School. She now lives in Munich, Germany, and attends Munich International School. Over the winter holidays, she went on a safari in Kenya, right as the conflict was starting.
Q: How long did your trip last?
A: It was about 17 days long.
Q: How much preparation was there for the trip? Were there any special procedures that you had to go through?
A: We prepared our safari well in advance because we had to book places to stay. There weren’t too many special procedures; we registered with the U.S. embassy before we went, but that wasn’t required. We each (my father, my mother and I) purchased a $50 visa once we arrived.
Q: Where did you stay in Kenya?
A: We started out in Nairobi on Christmas Eve. From there, we went to Lake Nakuru, then Samburu and then a place called Petra’s Ranch near the Aberdares, then Lake Naivasha, then Maasai Mara and then Diani Beach.
Q: When did the conflict start during your trip?
A: We learned that the counting was taking much longer than expected while we were at Petra’s Ranch. At the time, Odinga was almost a million votes ahead. The next morning, when we were moving on to Lake Naivasha, the counting still wasn’t done. That night, we were watching the news, and they announced that Kibaki had won.
Q: What was your understanding of the conflict at the time?
A: The people who worked at the country club that we were staying in weren’t happy, but the people in the city were celebrating, which goes to show that the voting there is very tribal. Traditionally, Kenya isn’t an area of huge conflict because there are about 40 tribes, whereas in Rwanda and other conflicted areas there are usually only two.
So, Kibaki was announced as winner, and then someone from the ODM party announced that they would set up a parallel government. After that, all live broadcasts were stopped, which was really frightening. I mean, as an American, seeing "The Government Has Suspended All Live Broadcasts" on the TV screen and then having the channel go to nothing is synonymous with the apocalypse. Apparently, that sort of thing isn’t rare in Kenya even in normal situations.
The anger is, or was, very focused. It’s not directed toward tourists or Americans or Europeans — the violence is internal. The vote was manipulated. The people expected a fair vote and change; they were furious that they didn’t get it.
It’s sort of similar to the whole Florida fiasco in the 2000 election with Bush and Gore, only the manipulation was a lot clearer. The vote wasn’t nearly as close, and it was obvious that the numbers had been toyed with. People in Kenya have a lot less to lose by going out and protesting because unemployment is so high.
Also, where Gore conceded and recognized Bush’s victory, neither Odinga nor Kibaki plans on conceding in the interest of restoring Kenya to stability. Some of the people I’ve talked to since say that having two presidents may be the way to stop this, but from what’s going on right now, it doesn’t seem that Odinga or Kibaki would like that very much.
Q: Were you worried about security at any time during the trip?
A: We were worried about driving from Lake Naivasha to Maasai Mara because it was a long trip and would take us through Nakuru, the stronghold of Odinga. We actually didn’t see much, just some unhappy people sitting around, and a few burned-up cars.
We stayed at a German friend’s house in Diani Beach, and we were concerned about how close it was to Mombasa. People were burning houses only 2 kilometers away, but we were assured that we didn’t really need to worry. The house we were staying in was equipped with bars over all the windows and a padlocked gate between the living room and bedrooms. It wasn’t a comfortable situation, but everything was fine.
Q: Was your return flight to Munich affected by how the airlines dealt with the unrest in Kenya?
A: Our original plan was to leave Kenya on Jan. 7. Five days before that, all national flights had been grounded, and fuel was scarce. The international flights were still going, but we had to get from Mombasa to Nairobi to fly back to Munich. We made backup plans to fly out of Mombasa to another country, and from there to Munich, but the flights started running again on Jan. 5.
The roads in Mombasa were closed, so we had to decide whether to take an armed escort to the airport there, or fly in from the mini-airport 10 minutes away from where we were staying in Diani Beach. We decided that armed escorts are more fun when we’re watching them on TV, so we took a plane into Mombasa.
We didn’t have any problems in our flight out. We had been worried, but we ended up on our scheduled flights, and nothing changed.
Q: What was your impression of Kenya before your trip? Has it changed at all?
A: I had considered it an extremely peaceful place. There really isn’t a precedent for what’s going on right now in Kenya. The trip hasn’t really changed my opinion, but it’s clear that the situation has the potential to escalate to a point where this is no longer so.
The tourist trade pretty much is the Kenyan economy, and the elections have completely wrecked it. It is worth noting, though, that only two tourists have been killed in Kenya this year and for reasons completely unrelated to the conflict. Despite that, there’s been a lot of hype about the killings, and people are jumping over themselves to cancel their trips to Kenya. In other African countries with a strong tourist industry, like South Africa, tourists getting mugged and murdered are regular events.
