Ethnic violence could be Kenya’s unity Gov’t Achilles heel

For the past one week, Kenya’s dailies have been reporting of mass killings by the suspected Mungiki militia group in Nyeri District, central Province. At least 29 people had been killed by Monday overnight clashes between residents on the border of two villages in central Kenya and suspected Mungiki members of whom all belong to Presidents Kibaki’s Kikuyu community. How can the Provincial Administration, the Kenya Police and the Department of Security Intelligence fail to detect the planning and execution of such an operation? Or did they deliberately ignore the information? The coalition Government has failed totally. They have been unable to sort out the underlying ethnicity problems which caused the post elections violence. They have not sieved the hate speech because of their own selfish reasons. This has resulted to a fractured government that cannot handle a simple dispute like Migingo island without disintegrating into factions. There have been blogs on the net following last week’s central Kenya massacres and the sad thing is that majority Kenyans bloggers are in agreement that the Kikuyu should be encouraged to massacre one another as the perfect solution to a problem that has been “sitting on them for too long”. One blogger described the Kikuyu as ‘ghasia’ (some sort of gutter) that should be totally eliminated from the nation. “The sooner this ‘takataka’ (rubbish) is finished, the sooner we Kenyans shall begin to develop”, the blogger boasted, outrageously. The old Lugard principle of divide and rule, of setting brother against brother until the stupid fools slaughter themselves off, has taken root once again. It has been said that politicians are willing to fund these tribal militias, so that they can remain organized as a sort of ‘standing army’. This means that the potential for violence in Kenya is very high because each constituency has a politician in office who has an opponent on the ground and each opponent is believed to have his ‘own’ militia. It was the same greed and hunger for power that prevailed in Rwanda pre-1994. The sad reality is that criminal elements are quick to take advantage of any political vacuum to wreck havoc for their own pleasures. The (Interehamwe), who killed hundreds of thousands of Rwandans, were not self financing. They had the money men like, alleged moneyman Felicien Kabuga, who funded their activities. The Interehamwe in Rwanda, and the ‘Mungiki, Kalenjin warriors, Baghdad boys, Musumbiji ( all these are tribal militia’s in Kenya,) were all financed and covertly supported by corrupt government officials-who use/ or used their violence for their own ends. These kinds of crimes against humanity not only affect a nation socially but also the economy of a country is affected. The people who are affected mostly by these political wars are the poor, illiterate and vulnerable. Maybe, the visit of Kenyan MP’s to Rwanda (they had a retreat in this country where they came to learn from our experience) was not really effective because it seems that the leadership didn’t learn anything. Unfortunately the people likely to be affected in ethnic clashes can hardly afford three meals a day, let alone a trip to Rwanda, to witness what happens when a land lets itself become a hostage to politicians that will do anything to keep their hold on power . And finally, I believe that there is no difference between the evil doers and spectators. For as long as Kenyans continue to shelter, excuse and sympathize with these criminals simply because stolen money is being re-invested in their own ‘land’, then I fear that more and more violence shall be heaped upon the people of Kenya. karuthum@gmail.com