Today was very quiet in the area, there were a few small demonstrations and the road to work was blocked but otherwise certainly not the huge chaos that we were expecting. We stayed at home today. Everything is fine, and we may go to work tomorrow.
Again, please don't worry! MENTOR has strict security procedures in place, which we have been following very carefully. We have developed contingency plans for all possible situations. I am in contact with the Canadian High Commission and there is a Warden 30km up the road should we need assistance. We are not in any danger. If you read the news reports, not a single foreigner has been injured. We are safe where we are. MENTOR is an organization that works in emergency situations much worse than this and we have been getting support from headquarters during this time. It's been a big learning experience and has actually been very interesting to learn about how to operate during a crisis. Very very rarely do aid workers become targets in security crises. In fact, they normally develop relationships with the various factions of any conflict so that they can work to help the people who need help.
As I've mentioned my concern is for the people here who we have not been able to get to in order to reduce the risk of malaria. There are far more people being killed by malaria during this conflict than being killed in the protesting. This fact has been completely lost on the international community and the media. The world is all upset about people dying in clashes with police but they turn a blind eye to the thousands of people, mainly children, who die of malaria every day. Or diarrhea. Or pneumonia, all diseases that are so easily prevented. It's criminal that we take so much for granted in the West while people here suffer.
Anyways, I'm not going to rant about that any more...just know that I'm safe and sound, if bored and frustrated. Thank goodness I bought the second season of Lost last time I was in Busia. We are almost through the first season, I thought it was really stupid for the first few episodes but now I'm hooked...once we get through Season 2 we really will be in a crisis. We may have to call in an airlift of Prison Break season 2!!!
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Stuck at home again
In preparation for the 3 days of mass protests that are planned this week we have shut down activities and Fanette and I are at home again until further notice. The political situation has deteriorated into complete absurdity. After John Kuofor couldn't talk any sense into either side, Kofi Annan is on his way along with a cadre of highly respected diplomats including ex-presidents. Unfortunately Kibaki has said that Annan "wasn't invited" but is welcome to "have a cup of tea" with him. Kibaki continues to insist that he won the election, fair and square, and every time a high level negotiator comes to town he or Odinga change the rules of the game. The international community is discussing pulling aid, and even the US has said that it will no longer be "business is usual" (after they removed the giant foot placed firmly in its mouth after sending premature congratulations to Kibaki). However, given the current US obsession with rooting out Al Quaeda, I think it's unlikely that these threats are more than bluffing. African "Big Men" know how to pull the levers when the US wants something of them (think Mobutu playing the US and USSR off against each other to get billions in aid from each side) and I'm sure Kibaki has played this card already.
Meanwhile, people are dying. We can't work and people are dying of malaria. There are an estimated 250,000-300,000 IDPs in makeshift camps across the Rift Valley and Western Province, the vast majority Kikuyu. I visited the police station in Busia yesterday (people are camping at police stations because they feel safe there) and there were 3,000 people there, sleeping under plastic sheeting, in wrecked buses, cars, whatever shelter they can get.
My job has turned into figuring out the logistics of security, supplies and keeping things running during this situation, which is not what I signed up for but that's OK. I call the police several times a day to get security updates. I've been coordinating with MSF in Busia to get diesel (petrol stations had no fuel for almost a week), figuring out how to organize to ensure water at the house every day, assessing security on the road to work and to Busia to determine if travel is safe, putting together emergency rations at the house, planning when to go to the bank ahead of potential unrest to ensure we have money, etc etc etc. It's stressful, but never a dull moment.
My biggest concern right now is for Joseph, our driver, who is Kikuyu. He finally managed to make it home after spending nearly a week in hiding near Nakuru and now he's having to hide again. He is the only Kikuyu in the area, and I'm worried that he could be in danger if things get tense here. We spent the afternoon on the phone and online with HQ putting together an emergency plan for various levels of security for Joseph. He can't stay with us because then we are potential targets. Worst case scenario we provide him with a tent, food, water and a radio and he hides in the bush behind our house. I'm not worried for our safety because foreigners have not been targeted, but I am very worried about Joseph.
I'm also very upset with the reaction I got from the Catholic Mission when I called them and asked if they could take him in for a few days. The (white European) priest said "Don't send a Kikuyu here, it will cause us problems". It's absolutely outrageous, just when I was beginning to think that the church had actually done some good here. How Christian is that? Did they guy think that he might be serving a death sentence to this poor man? I'm absolutely stunned. Maybe I'm wrong but I thought that churches were supposed to assist people in crisis.
Anyways, odds are everything will be fine but we need to be prepared for all possibilities. Parliament has convened today, with Kibaki's Cabinet of cronies installed. Everyone is glued to their radios, and so far there has not been a barroom brawl. Tomorrow will be the test of the situation and perhaps Odinga will call off the protests.
Again, please let me emphasize that we are very secure and that no one should be concerned about our safety. MENTOR HQ has been providing great support and direction and they have a lot of experience working under much worse conditions than this. It's been a huge learning experience, having to plan for all possible contingencies, having to think creatively about solutions to problems, and how to keep one step ahead of the "game" of the political situation and the fallout that might happen here. The Canadian consulate knows I'm here, I spoke with them today, and there is a local warden 30km up the road. Their advice is to stay put, which is what we are doing.
I will try to keep posting more regularly especially over the next few days.
Meanwhile, people are dying. We can't work and people are dying of malaria. There are an estimated 250,000-300,000 IDPs in makeshift camps across the Rift Valley and Western Province, the vast majority Kikuyu. I visited the police station in Busia yesterday (people are camping at police stations because they feel safe there) and there were 3,000 people there, sleeping under plastic sheeting, in wrecked buses, cars, whatever shelter they can get.
My job has turned into figuring out the logistics of security, supplies and keeping things running during this situation, which is not what I signed up for but that's OK. I call the police several times a day to get security updates. I've been coordinating with MSF in Busia to get diesel (petrol stations had no fuel for almost a week), figuring out how to organize to ensure water at the house every day, assessing security on the road to work and to Busia to determine if travel is safe, putting together emergency rations at the house, planning when to go to the bank ahead of potential unrest to ensure we have money, etc etc etc. It's stressful, but never a dull moment.
My biggest concern right now is for Joseph, our driver, who is Kikuyu. He finally managed to make it home after spending nearly a week in hiding near Nakuru and now he's having to hide again. He is the only Kikuyu in the area, and I'm worried that he could be in danger if things get tense here. We spent the afternoon on the phone and online with HQ putting together an emergency plan for various levels of security for Joseph. He can't stay with us because then we are potential targets. Worst case scenario we provide him with a tent, food, water and a radio and he hides in the bush behind our house. I'm not worried for our safety because foreigners have not been targeted, but I am very worried about Joseph.
I'm also very upset with the reaction I got from the Catholic Mission when I called them and asked if they could take him in for a few days. The (white European) priest said "Don't send a Kikuyu here, it will cause us problems". It's absolutely outrageous, just when I was beginning to think that the church had actually done some good here. How Christian is that? Did they guy think that he might be serving a death sentence to this poor man? I'm absolutely stunned. Maybe I'm wrong but I thought that churches were supposed to assist people in crisis.
Anyways, odds are everything will be fine but we need to be prepared for all possibilities. Parliament has convened today, with Kibaki's Cabinet of cronies installed. Everyone is glued to their radios, and so far there has not been a barroom brawl. Tomorrow will be the test of the situation and perhaps Odinga will call off the protests.
Again, please let me emphasize that we are very secure and that no one should be concerned about our safety. MENTOR HQ has been providing great support and direction and they have a lot of experience working under much worse conditions than this. It's been a huge learning experience, having to plan for all possible contingencies, having to think creatively about solutions to problems, and how to keep one step ahead of the "game" of the political situation and the fallout that might happen here. The Canadian consulate knows I'm here, I spoke with them today, and there is a local warden 30km up the road. Their advice is to stay put, which is what we are doing.
I will try to keep posting more regularly especially over the next few days.
will write later..
Sorry no posting for a while, very very tired every night since work started back up but we are staying home for the next 3 days while the planned rallies and protests go on, so will definitely have time to write tomorrow...everything is fine and we are safe.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Bread and Cabbage
Things are really improving here!! There was cabbage on the market and bread in the shops today!! i'm very excited as we have not had cabbage in a long time. We've had greens (similar to kale) and tomatoes every single meal for the past week as this was all that's been available in the markets. A little vegetable variety will be so nice!! (I'm kidding, but not really...you know you're living in Africa when you start to drool at the prospect of cabbage).
But seriously. Bread in the shops means goods are moving on the roads, so that means fuel and other necessary commodities like beer and coffee are also on the way. I called the bank in Busia today and they still have money (most banks have run out) so that's also cause for celebration. The price of fuel has quadrupled in Uganda to something like $4 a liter, and there is none to be found here.
And the best piece of news from today is that Kibaki has sworn in his cabinet. I guess he is quite serious about negotiating a power sharing agreement with Odinga (not). The rally planned for today was cancelled late yesterday afternoon but I'm sure will be back on the agenda for tomorrow or friday, just in time to disrupt things all over again. I'm sure Kibaki is quite aware of the short attention span of Westerners...just like Nigeria, Zimbabwe and a million other places where democracy has been subverted: wait a few weeks and they'll forget about it, there are more important things to pay attention to like Britney Spears' nervous breakdown.
But seriously. Bread in the shops means goods are moving on the roads, so that means fuel and other necessary commodities like beer and coffee are also on the way. I called the bank in Busia today and they still have money (most banks have run out) so that's also cause for celebration. The price of fuel has quadrupled in Uganda to something like $4 a liter, and there is none to be found here.
And the best piece of news from today is that Kibaki has sworn in his cabinet. I guess he is quite serious about negotiating a power sharing agreement with Odinga (not). The rally planned for today was cancelled late yesterday afternoon but I'm sure will be back on the agenda for tomorrow or friday, just in time to disrupt things all over again. I'm sure Kibaki is quite aware of the short attention span of Westerners...just like Nigeria, Zimbabwe and a million other places where democracy has been subverted: wait a few weeks and they'll forget about it, there are more important things to pay attention to like Britney Spears' nervous breakdown.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Sunday Calm
We left the house for the first time in seven days yesterday. What a relief. We've been talking to local police and other officials on a daily basis to determine security situation and was finally advised that it was safe to move around. I haven't posted for the past few days because I didn't want anyone to worry. There really was nothing to worry about, we were just stuck where we were. However, there were roadblocks of stones, tires, logs, whatever people could get their hands on, all over the area. Just an excuse to make some money. There has been fighting in the area, but no one bothered us up here.
Our driver is Kikuyu, and against our advice, decided to travel to reach his sister in Eldoret on the 21st. He got halfway there and had to stop and hide at a police station. He spent the week in hiding with a friend, but several nights had to flee to the bush to hide as mobs were looking for Kikuyu to lynch or set fire to their houses.
Anyways, we have been stuck at the house, and water ran out two days ago so we've been hauling 40L jerry cans from the house below us (the pump for our house seems to have broken and the caretaker for the Mission left to go to his village and took the keys to the pumphouse with him - a typical African scenario - "the man with the key has gone"). It’s really amazing how little water you need to get clean when it consists of a jerrycan and a margarine container. Makes me feel very guilty for filling the tub to its brim to have a bath at home.
We also ran out of cooking gas yesterday so have been boiling water and cooking over a charcoal pot (well, we haven't been, our cook has). Nothing left in the shops except tomatoes, rice and beans. Had to get a friend in Uganda to send airtime as there is virtually none left in the country. The icing on the cake, however, was that we discovered the spare tire from our only functional vehicle was stolen while we were away so we had no means of transport, which is a huge no-no in this situation. We scrambled around trying to find a wheel but the only place it was available was in Busia, which was inaccessable to us. We sent word out to see if anyone around had a spare tire that would fit on the pickup, and someone finally brought a spare from a Volvo that happened to fit the Toyota pickup yesterday so we could move.
No, wait a minute, the real icing on the cake was on Thursday, when the hillside behind us caught fire. There was a huge brushfire behind the house (people set fires all the time to clear brush and encourage fresh grass to grow for their cows and goats). It was literally 50 feet from the house. Of course this was the day the water ran out as well. I will admit I was pretty freaked out...I had my money, passport and laptop packed and was ready to leave. Thankfully it petered out (with the help of the local "fire brigade", a bunch of kids beating the burning bushes with tree branches).
I thought, "what's next, an earthquake? volcano? plague of locusts?" After it was over Fanette and I just laughed hysterically. What else could we do?
We watched all 22 hours of the first season of Prison Break this week. We almost cried as we watched the last episode…and are seriously considering calling in the Marines to airlift us the second season. This is truly a humanitarian crisis!!!
Anyhow, calm seems to have returned to most of the country. Reports from Nairobi indicate a sense of normalcy breaking out. Transport in Nairobi is moving, businesses are opening, and there is talk of some sort of negotiations occurring between Odinga and Kibaki. Archbishop Tutu is here trying to bring the two sides together (although initially Kibaki had refused to see him, saying "he wasn't invited". Brilliant, turn away a Nobel Laureate when he comes to visit). An American envoy arrives today and I'm sure the threat of withdrawal of American aid money will provide an incentive for both sides to seriously consider working something out. Kenya, and Kibaki, has been an important American "ally" (which means recipient of aid in exchange for intel) in the "war on terror" (ech, I hate that term) and has provided a base in East Africa and the Horn for their surveillance activities. In fact, the first reaction of the US was to send congratulations to Kibaki on his victory. That statement was quickly retracted when the US realized it was the only country in the Western world that didn't condemn the elections as being clearly rigged. Oops! My Bad! It's very interesting when you start to look below the surface at politics in Africa...so much manipulation by foreign interests and a historical context that most people are not aware of.
Here is an absolutely brilliant article from the Washington Post regarding the roots of the current conflict in Kenya:
DIVIDE AND RULE What's Tearing Kenya Apart? History, for One Thing.By Caroline Elkins
Sunday, January 6, 2008; Page B03
As Big Ben struck midnight, Londoners welcomed in 2008 by cheering a blaze of fireworks above the Thames skyline. But the new year has been marked by far less happy conflagrations in several fledgling democracies that had once been part of Britain's empire. Days earlier, Pakistan had been rocked by the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. Iraq seems trapped in a cycle of terror and counterterror. Afghanistan looks much the same. Zimbabwe squirms under Robert Mugabe's thumb.
Now Kenya, too, appears to be on the brink. The East African country -- widely seen as a model of economic and democratic progress since 2002, when the 24-year dictatorship of Daniel arap Moi was swept aside -- has been moving toward an ethnically charged civil war since a disputed election on Dec. 27. President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner of a second term after a vote that opposition candidate Raila Odinga denounces as rigged and that European Union observers agree was seriously flawed. As tens of thousands of Kenyans flee their homes and hundreds lie dead, part of the blame rests with Britain and its imperial legacy.
The immediate cause of the crisis was Kenya's delicate ethnic balance. The incumbent president, Kibaki, is a member of Kenya's largest and probably most powerful ethnic group, the Kikuyu, who total about 22 percent of the population; his rival, Odinga, is a member of the Luo, who comprise some 13 percent of the populace and live predominantly in western Kenya. In their bitter contest, in which Odinga promised to end ethnic favoritism and spread the country's wealth more equitably, ethnicity was the deciding factor, and a marred victory on either side had always been likely to spark violence.
Both men are rich, elitist African politicians who have far more in common with each other than they do with their supporters; in their struggle over power, both are using their followers as proxies in a smoldering war. Still, Odinga has a real point about vote tampering; the chief of the E.U. election monitoring mission said that his officials had been turned away from the central vote-counting room in Nairobi, and even Kibaki's hand-picked head of Kenya's electoral commission, Samuel Kivuitu, told reporters that he did "not know whether Kibaki won the election."
Enter Britain, Kenya's former colonial ruler, which now prides itself on being a purveyor of global democracy. Foreign Secretary David Miliband and his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, issued a joint statement calling for compromise. Prime Minister Gordon Brown rushed to the phone lines, offering Kibaki and Odinga a quick lesson in democratic principles. In a Kiplingesque touch redolent of the colonial "white man's burden," Brown reportedly told both men, "What I want to see is . . . ." Miliband directed the Kenyan leaders to "behave responsibly."
I doubt that the irony of Brown and Miliband's message was lost on Kibaki or Odinga. Today's Britain, between its botched war on terror and lack of checks on executive power (to name but a few flaws), falls far short of the democratic ideals so paternalistically espoused by Brown and other British leaders. Still, the prime minister's jaw-dropping chutzpah -- on display not only in Kenya but also in former imperial possessions such as Pakistan and Iraq -- is rooted less in Brown's own tin ear than in the nature and structures of yesteryear's British colonial rule. So are today's crises in the former empire. If you're looking for the origins of Kenya's ethnic tensions, look to its colonial past.
Far from leaving behind democratic institutions and cultures, Britain bequeathed to its former colonies corrupted and corruptible governments. Colonial officials hand-picked political successors as they left in the wake of World War II, lavishing political and economic favors on their proteges. This process created elites whose power extended into the post-colonial era. Added to this was a distinctly colonial view of the rule of law, which saw the British leave behind legal systems that facilitated tyranny, oppression and poverty rather than open, accountable government. And compounding these legacies was Britain's famous imperial policy of "divide and rule," playing one side off another, which often turned fluid groups of individuals into immutable ethnic units, much like Kenya's Luo and Kikuyu today. In many former colonies, the British picked favorites from among these newly solidified ethnic groups and left others out in the cold. We are often told that age-old tribal hatreds drive today's conflicts in Africa. In fact, both ethnic conflict and its attendant grievances are colonial phenomena.
It's no wonder that newly independent countries such as Kenya maintained and even deepened the old imperial heritage of authoritarianism and ethnic division. The British had spent decades trying to keep the Luo and Kikuyu divided, quite rightly fearing that if the two groups ever united, their combined power could bring down the colonial order. Indeed, a short-lived Luo-Kikuyu alliance in the late 1950s hastened Britain's retreat from Kenya and forced the release of Jomo Kenyatta, the nation's first president, from a colonial detention camp. But before their departure, the British schooled the future Kenyans on the lessons of a very British model of democratic elections. Britain was determined to protect its economic and geopolitical interests during the decolonization process, and it did most everything short of stuffing ballot boxes to do so. That set dangerous precedents. Among other maneuvers, the British drew electoral boundaries to cut the representation of groups they thought might cause trouble and empowered the provincial administration to manipulate supposedly democratic outcomes.
Old habits die hard. Three years after Kenya became independent in 1963, the Luo-Kikuyu alliance fell apart. Kenyatta and his Kikuyu elite took over the state; the Luo, led by Oginga Odinga (Raila Odinga's father) formed an opposition party that was eventually quashed.
Kenyatta established a one-party state in 1969 and tossed the opposition, including Odinga, into detention, much as the British had done to him and his cronies during colonial rule in the 1950s. The Kikuyu then enjoyed many of the country's spoils throughout Kenyatta's reign.
The Kikuyu's fortunes took a turn for the worse when Daniel arap Moi, a member of the Kalenjin ethnic minority, assumed dictatorial power in 1978. He managed to hang on for more than two decades. Western Kenya enjoyed the economic benefits of state largess until Moi was voted out of office in 2002, at which point the pendulum again swung back to the Kikuyu, led by the incoming President Kibaki.
Fears of ethnic ascendancies, power-hungry political elites, undemocratic processes and institutions -- all are hallmarks of today's Kenya, just as they were during British colonial rule. This does not excuse the undemocratic behavior of the current Kenyan president, nor that of his opponent Odinga, both of whom are bent on seizing power and neither of whom is necessarily a true voice of the masses. Nor does it excuse the horrific violence that has unfolded throughout the country or the appalling atrocities committed by individual Kenyans. Rather, it suggests that the undemocratic historical trajectory that Kenya has been moving along was launched at the inception of British colonial rule more than a century ago. It's not hard to discern similar patterns -- deliberately stoked ethnic tensions, power-hungry elites, feeble democratic traditions and institutions -- in other former British colonies such as Pakistan, Zimbabwe and Iraq that share similar imperial pasts. In retrospect, the wonder is not that Kenya is descending into ethnic violence. The wonder is that it didn't happen sooner.
Caroline Elkins is an associate professor of African studies at Harvard University and the author of "Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya."
Our driver is Kikuyu, and against our advice, decided to travel to reach his sister in Eldoret on the 21st. He got halfway there and had to stop and hide at a police station. He spent the week in hiding with a friend, but several nights had to flee to the bush to hide as mobs were looking for Kikuyu to lynch or set fire to their houses.
Anyways, we have been stuck at the house, and water ran out two days ago so we've been hauling 40L jerry cans from the house below us (the pump for our house seems to have broken and the caretaker for the Mission left to go to his village and took the keys to the pumphouse with him - a typical African scenario - "the man with the key has gone"). It’s really amazing how little water you need to get clean when it consists of a jerrycan and a margarine container. Makes me feel very guilty for filling the tub to its brim to have a bath at home.
We also ran out of cooking gas yesterday so have been boiling water and cooking over a charcoal pot (well, we haven't been, our cook has). Nothing left in the shops except tomatoes, rice and beans. Had to get a friend in Uganda to send airtime as there is virtually none left in the country. The icing on the cake, however, was that we discovered the spare tire from our only functional vehicle was stolen while we were away so we had no means of transport, which is a huge no-no in this situation. We scrambled around trying to find a wheel but the only place it was available was in Busia, which was inaccessable to us. We sent word out to see if anyone around had a spare tire that would fit on the pickup, and someone finally brought a spare from a Volvo that happened to fit the Toyota pickup yesterday so we could move.
No, wait a minute, the real icing on the cake was on Thursday, when the hillside behind us caught fire. There was a huge brushfire behind the house (people set fires all the time to clear brush and encourage fresh grass to grow for their cows and goats). It was literally 50 feet from the house. Of course this was the day the water ran out as well. I will admit I was pretty freaked out...I had my money, passport and laptop packed and was ready to leave. Thankfully it petered out (with the help of the local "fire brigade", a bunch of kids beating the burning bushes with tree branches).
I thought, "what's next, an earthquake? volcano? plague of locusts?" After it was over Fanette and I just laughed hysterically. What else could we do?
We watched all 22 hours of the first season of Prison Break this week. We almost cried as we watched the last episode…and are seriously considering calling in the Marines to airlift us the second season. This is truly a humanitarian crisis!!!
Anyhow, calm seems to have returned to most of the country. Reports from Nairobi indicate a sense of normalcy breaking out. Transport in Nairobi is moving, businesses are opening, and there is talk of some sort of negotiations occurring between Odinga and Kibaki. Archbishop Tutu is here trying to bring the two sides together (although initially Kibaki had refused to see him, saying "he wasn't invited". Brilliant, turn away a Nobel Laureate when he comes to visit). An American envoy arrives today and I'm sure the threat of withdrawal of American aid money will provide an incentive for both sides to seriously consider working something out. Kenya, and Kibaki, has been an important American "ally" (which means recipient of aid in exchange for intel) in the "war on terror" (ech, I hate that term) and has provided a base in East Africa and the Horn for their surveillance activities. In fact, the first reaction of the US was to send congratulations to Kibaki on his victory. That statement was quickly retracted when the US realized it was the only country in the Western world that didn't condemn the elections as being clearly rigged. Oops! My Bad! It's very interesting when you start to look below the surface at politics in Africa...so much manipulation by foreign interests and a historical context that most people are not aware of.
Here is an absolutely brilliant article from the Washington Post regarding the roots of the current conflict in Kenya:
DIVIDE AND RULE What's Tearing Kenya Apart? History, for One Thing.By Caroline Elkins
Sunday, January 6, 2008; Page B03
As Big Ben struck midnight, Londoners welcomed in 2008 by cheering a blaze of fireworks above the Thames skyline. But the new year has been marked by far less happy conflagrations in several fledgling democracies that had once been part of Britain's empire. Days earlier, Pakistan had been rocked by the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. Iraq seems trapped in a cycle of terror and counterterror. Afghanistan looks much the same. Zimbabwe squirms under Robert Mugabe's thumb.
Now Kenya, too, appears to be on the brink. The East African country -- widely seen as a model of economic and democratic progress since 2002, when the 24-year dictatorship of Daniel arap Moi was swept aside -- has been moving toward an ethnically charged civil war since a disputed election on Dec. 27. President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner of a second term after a vote that opposition candidate Raila Odinga denounces as rigged and that European Union observers agree was seriously flawed. As tens of thousands of Kenyans flee their homes and hundreds lie dead, part of the blame rests with Britain and its imperial legacy.
The immediate cause of the crisis was Kenya's delicate ethnic balance. The incumbent president, Kibaki, is a member of Kenya's largest and probably most powerful ethnic group, the Kikuyu, who total about 22 percent of the population; his rival, Odinga, is a member of the Luo, who comprise some 13 percent of the populace and live predominantly in western Kenya. In their bitter contest, in which Odinga promised to end ethnic favoritism and spread the country's wealth more equitably, ethnicity was the deciding factor, and a marred victory on either side had always been likely to spark violence.
Both men are rich, elitist African politicians who have far more in common with each other than they do with their supporters; in their struggle over power, both are using their followers as proxies in a smoldering war. Still, Odinga has a real point about vote tampering; the chief of the E.U. election monitoring mission said that his officials had been turned away from the central vote-counting room in Nairobi, and even Kibaki's hand-picked head of Kenya's electoral commission, Samuel Kivuitu, told reporters that he did "not know whether Kibaki won the election."
Enter Britain, Kenya's former colonial ruler, which now prides itself on being a purveyor of global democracy. Foreign Secretary David Miliband and his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, issued a joint statement calling for compromise. Prime Minister Gordon Brown rushed to the phone lines, offering Kibaki and Odinga a quick lesson in democratic principles. In a Kiplingesque touch redolent of the colonial "white man's burden," Brown reportedly told both men, "What I want to see is . . . ." Miliband directed the Kenyan leaders to "behave responsibly."
I doubt that the irony of Brown and Miliband's message was lost on Kibaki or Odinga. Today's Britain, between its botched war on terror and lack of checks on executive power (to name but a few flaws), falls far short of the democratic ideals so paternalistically espoused by Brown and other British leaders. Still, the prime minister's jaw-dropping chutzpah -- on display not only in Kenya but also in former imperial possessions such as Pakistan and Iraq -- is rooted less in Brown's own tin ear than in the nature and structures of yesteryear's British colonial rule. So are today's crises in the former empire. If you're looking for the origins of Kenya's ethnic tensions, look to its colonial past.
Far from leaving behind democratic institutions and cultures, Britain bequeathed to its former colonies corrupted and corruptible governments. Colonial officials hand-picked political successors as they left in the wake of World War II, lavishing political and economic favors on their proteges. This process created elites whose power extended into the post-colonial era. Added to this was a distinctly colonial view of the rule of law, which saw the British leave behind legal systems that facilitated tyranny, oppression and poverty rather than open, accountable government. And compounding these legacies was Britain's famous imperial policy of "divide and rule," playing one side off another, which often turned fluid groups of individuals into immutable ethnic units, much like Kenya's Luo and Kikuyu today. In many former colonies, the British picked favorites from among these newly solidified ethnic groups and left others out in the cold. We are often told that age-old tribal hatreds drive today's conflicts in Africa. In fact, both ethnic conflict and its attendant grievances are colonial phenomena.
It's no wonder that newly independent countries such as Kenya maintained and even deepened the old imperial heritage of authoritarianism and ethnic division. The British had spent decades trying to keep the Luo and Kikuyu divided, quite rightly fearing that if the two groups ever united, their combined power could bring down the colonial order. Indeed, a short-lived Luo-Kikuyu alliance in the late 1950s hastened Britain's retreat from Kenya and forced the release of Jomo Kenyatta, the nation's first president, from a colonial detention camp. But before their departure, the British schooled the future Kenyans on the lessons of a very British model of democratic elections. Britain was determined to protect its economic and geopolitical interests during the decolonization process, and it did most everything short of stuffing ballot boxes to do so. That set dangerous precedents. Among other maneuvers, the British drew electoral boundaries to cut the representation of groups they thought might cause trouble and empowered the provincial administration to manipulate supposedly democratic outcomes.
Old habits die hard. Three years after Kenya became independent in 1963, the Luo-Kikuyu alliance fell apart. Kenyatta and his Kikuyu elite took over the state; the Luo, led by Oginga Odinga (Raila Odinga's father) formed an opposition party that was eventually quashed.
Kenyatta established a one-party state in 1969 and tossed the opposition, including Odinga, into detention, much as the British had done to him and his cronies during colonial rule in the 1950s. The Kikuyu then enjoyed many of the country's spoils throughout Kenyatta's reign.
The Kikuyu's fortunes took a turn for the worse when Daniel arap Moi, a member of the Kalenjin ethnic minority, assumed dictatorial power in 1978. He managed to hang on for more than two decades. Western Kenya enjoyed the economic benefits of state largess until Moi was voted out of office in 2002, at which point the pendulum again swung back to the Kikuyu, led by the incoming President Kibaki.
Fears of ethnic ascendancies, power-hungry political elites, undemocratic processes and institutions -- all are hallmarks of today's Kenya, just as they were during British colonial rule. This does not excuse the undemocratic behavior of the current Kenyan president, nor that of his opponent Odinga, both of whom are bent on seizing power and neither of whom is necessarily a true voice of the masses. Nor does it excuse the horrific violence that has unfolded throughout the country or the appalling atrocities committed by individual Kenyans. Rather, it suggests that the undemocratic historical trajectory that Kenya has been moving along was launched at the inception of British colonial rule more than a century ago. It's not hard to discern similar patterns -- deliberately stoked ethnic tensions, power-hungry elites, feeble democratic traditions and institutions -- in other former British colonies such as Pakistan, Zimbabwe and Iraq that share similar imperial pasts. In retrospect, the wonder is not that Kenya is descending into ethnic violence. The wonder is that it didn't happen sooner.
Caroline Elkins is an associate professor of African studies at Harvard University and the author of "Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya."
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Don't Worry!
I know everyone has seen the news reports of the horrific violence all over Kenya, but we are in the safest place we could possibly be at the moment. It is peaceful and quiet here, but travel outside of our area is impossible so we are just staying put. People have asked me about evacuation, getting out, etc etc. This only happens in extreme situations (like Somalia or Rwanda). I am registered with the Canadian Embassy, they know where I am and have my phone number.
I have also been asked what MENTOR is doing for us...remember that MENTOR works in crisis situations, including much worse places than this. Fanette spent a year in Chad where there were rebel incursions into her area frequently. Since we are in a safe area, we have been advised to stay where we are and use our best judgement, but since we are not in any danger, there is no discussion of leaving.
We are just bored out of our skulls! We decided to delay going back to work until Monday, and we don't have much to do at the house. Thank goodness I have my books and can study, but that gets boring too! We have watched 12 episodes of "Prison Break" (great show by the way if you haven't seen it) and have 10 more left. Then I suppose we will move on to "Desperate Housewives". I am so glad I bought those DVDs!!!
Please don't worry, we really are in the best place we can be and have no intentions of going anywhere until it is absolutely safe. Fanette and I both understand the situation very clearly and we are not going to take any risks. We are in an oasis of calm here. Hopefully we can carry on with our work very soon as the longer we delay the more the risk to the people for malaria.
I have also been asked what MENTOR is doing for us...remember that MENTOR works in crisis situations, including much worse places than this. Fanette spent a year in Chad where there were rebel incursions into her area frequently. Since we are in a safe area, we have been advised to stay where we are and use our best judgement, but since we are not in any danger, there is no discussion of leaving.
We are just bored out of our skulls! We decided to delay going back to work until Monday, and we don't have much to do at the house. Thank goodness I have my books and can study, but that gets boring too! We have watched 12 episodes of "Prison Break" (great show by the way if you haven't seen it) and have 10 more left. Then I suppose we will move on to "Desperate Housewives". I am so glad I bought those DVDs!!!
Please don't worry, we really are in the best place we can be and have no intentions of going anywhere until it is absolutely safe. Fanette and I both understand the situation very clearly and we are not going to take any risks. We are in an oasis of calm here. Hopefully we can carry on with our work very soon as the longer we delay the more the risk to the people for malaria.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Announcement
Kibaki has won the election. This is not good news, and there is likely to be total chaos for several days. Nairobi is already worse. There have absolutely been irregularities, with one constituency reporting 115% of registered voters voting for Kibaki. EU observers have stated that they have serious concerns about the process. What a mess.
I am glad we are in the village now. There is a group of American missionaries staying in the house just down from us, which is good, because normally it would just be Fanette and I alone in the place. They were supposed to go to the Mara for safari yesterday and are now stuck here. We are all monitoring the situation and keeping each other updated. It is totally peaceful here so no worries, except we have no food!! We went and bought tomatoes, onions, kale, avocadoes and a loaf of stale white bread this afternoon, all we could find in the markets. Thankfully we bought some canned goods in Kisumu on Friday night so have some mixed vegetables, chickpeas, and some beans. Yum yum! Plus, Fanette has a couple of tins of foie gras that her mother sent from France, and a bottle of wine we bought in Kisumu. We'll have a swinging New Year in Budalangi!!
I am glad we are in the village now. There is a group of American missionaries staying in the house just down from us, which is good, because normally it would just be Fanette and I alone in the place. They were supposed to go to the Mara for safari yesterday and are now stuck here. We are all monitoring the situation and keeping each other updated. It is totally peaceful here so no worries, except we have no food!! We went and bought tomatoes, onions, kale, avocadoes and a loaf of stale white bread this afternoon, all we could find in the markets. Thankfully we bought some canned goods in Kisumu on Friday night so have some mixed vegetables, chickpeas, and some beans. Yum yum! Plus, Fanette has a couple of tins of foie gras that her mother sent from France, and a bottle of wine we bought in Kisumu. We'll have a swinging New Year in Budalangi!!
Home!
We left Kisumu at 6am and finally got home, back to the peace and quiet and isolation of Budalangi. We were stopped a couple of times on the main road by groups of thugs that had blocked the road with piles of burning tires. They wanted money to let us pass. Just an excuse to extort some money out of people. This has nothing to do with elections, it is pure thuggery. Kisumu is destroyed. We didn't pass through the town centre but the side roads looked like they had been hit by bombs. all the shops are looted. Debris litters the streets. Piles of still-smoldering tires on every intersection. We saw a Toyota dealership that had been burned, the roof collapsed and the cars inside destroyed. Restaurants with all the windows broken and everything inside stripped out. We saw people carting off christmas decorations, old computer monitors, chairs and filing cabinets from offices, books, washing soap, you name it. Banks have been robbed, all the shops, not just Kikuyu-owned ones, have been looted. Buildings are still on fire. I saw footage on TV of the downtown, people carrying TVs, refrigerators, stoves, everything, from the stores. Men, women and children. The police did nothing, and probably participated. I don't know how the city will recover. Unbelievable, to have come from such incredible beauty and peace in the Mara to the ugliness of human greed in the span of 24 hours. I can only imagine the damage in Nairobi. Violence occurred in every major city in the country, and even in smaller ones. Kikuyus were the most targeted in the West, which is largely Luo. I'm sure Luo were victimized in Kikuyu areas.
We can't begin to understand the tribal animosities that are so much a part of the fabric of life here. Unfortunately, politicians exploit these to their advantage and they have generated a great deal of the hatred. Politics are divided along ethnic lines here, with over 40 tribes, and over 300 political parties. I am, and the vast majority of Kenyans are, deeply embarrassed by these horrific events. I hate that these stories are the only ones that make international news. The world will again dismiss this country and its people as another backwards, stupid place that will never pull itself out of the mire (largely created by Western meddling and colonialism) it is in. Unfortunately the few people that have the opportunity to visit this place see the sanitized version of fancy hotels, game reserves and the airport, and never take the time to get to know people here beyond those in the bowing and scraping service industry that caters to them. The majority of people are some of the finest human beings I have been fortunate enough to meet in my life.
Some good links about the election:
Funny quotes, especially about former president Moi:
Latest news is that Odinga will refuse to accept the ECK results. This is a circus!!
Shifting gears....here are some pictures from our trip to the Masai Mara. Can only put up a few of the hundreds we took but we saw leopard, many lion, cheetah, and extra special, a mother and young black rhino. I managed to finagle a ride with the Rhino Monitoring Programme guy who i saw at the park gate and chatted up about his work... he said he was going out to look for the rhino and I asked if we could join him (I have no shame!) and we went out looking for the rhino. I have no idea how he did it but by lots of driving off track and scouting in thick bush, he found them. What a special thrill! there are less than a couple of thousand of these animals left in the world and we saw two of them. The Mara was down to 6 rhino 10 years ago and with this programme, financed by the Frankfurt Zoological Society, they have come back to 32. The mother we saw was pregnant so soon will be 33. That is a true success story, as most of the rhinos, especially black, have been poached out of Africa.
Shifting gears....here are some pictures from our trip to the Masai Mara. Can only put up a few of the hundreds we took but we saw leopard, many lion, cheetah, and extra special, a mother and young black rhino. I managed to finagle a ride with the Rhino Monitoring Programme guy who i saw at the park gate and chatted up about his work... he said he was going out to look for the rhino and I asked if we could join him (I have no shame!) and we went out looking for the rhino. I have no idea how he did it but by lots of driving off track and scouting in thick bush, he found them. What a special thrill! there are less than a couple of thousand of these animals left in the world and we saw two of them. The Mara was down to 6 rhino 10 years ago and with this programme, financed by the Frankfurt Zoological Society, they have come back to 32. The mother we saw was pregnant so soon will be 33. That is a true success story, as most of the rhinos, especially black, have been poached out of Africa.
We also saw cheetah, but I counted 25 cars surrounding it. Pity. Some say that it causes the poor things stress that ends up reducing fertility, while others say they have become habituated to it. It felt like a zoo. However, were it not for people's interest in seeing the animals, they likely would have been long gone, victims to a fast-growing population hungry for land. The only reason there are any animals left in Africa at all are because of the tsetse fly. People stayed away from tsetse-infested areas, leaving some space for animals. National parks and reserves were largely established in these few pockets of land where people did not use the land for cultivation or livestock grazing.
View from the "fancy camp" we stayed at the first 2 nights - Kilima Camp, overlooking the Mara
I FINALLY SAW A LEOPARD!!!! So beautiful!!
Being a really tacky tourist - I can't believe I did this...a very uncomfortable visit to a Masai village, which was quite interesting until they dragged out this sad group of old ladies who mumbled an unenthusiastic couple of songs for us...I hate this sort of "cultural voyeurism" but Fanette wanted to go...it's all about getting some $ at the end by buying some trinkets. ech.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Madness!
We are sitting in the restaurant of the hotel watching the election on TV. The ECK (Electoral Commission of Kenya) has been having periodic press conferences to announce results as they come in. Things have been getting more and more heated as the delay in announcing the presidential results continues. The Chief Commissioner came out and everyone was expecting him to "announce" as they say, but instead went on to read off the already known results again. The crowd went ballistic. Right now I am watching a mob at the press conference, screaming and yelling at the Commissioner, pushing and shoving, reporters and party agents shouting at each other and the Commissioner, and the Commissioner is refusing to budge on announcing, saying people will need to wait until tomorrow or the day after. He is saying that they cannot reach the officials to get final counts in some constituencies, but reporters are saying they have reached them and have results. it's like a Monty Python movie! He's just now said "I cannot continue my work so I will go home". Everyone in the restaurant shouted "Bwana Go!!"
It's interesting to be watching history being made but I WANT TO GO HOME!!!
It's interesting to be watching history being made but I WANT TO GO HOME!!!
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