A Very African Coup

Kenya's president steals an election, showing utter contempt for democracy and his people

Jan 3rd The Economist - The mayhem that killed hundreds of people following Kenya's election on December 27th completes a depressing cycle of democratic abuses in Africa's biggest countries. Nigeria held its own mockery of an election last April. Scores were killed and observers pronounced it the most fraudulent poll they had ever witnessed. Congo held a more or less peaceful election in October 2006, since when the main opposition leader has been hounded into exile. And the year before that, flawed elections in Ethiopia resulted in the deaths of 199 protesters. Needless to say, the incumbents all won. So it is easy to be angry, as well as gloomy, about African leaders' continual betrayal of the democratic values they say they hold so dear. And all the more so in the case of Kenya, which has a strong tradition of holding elections, a vibrant political culture, a relatively free press and a sophisticated economy. Given all these advantages, as we wrote before the election, Kenya had an opportunity to “set an example” to Africa and hold free and fair elections. But the country blew it.

Or, more precisely, the political elite blew it. A small cabal of politicians almost certainly stole the result by fraud. In the parliamentary vote, President Mwai Kibaki's ruling party was routed. Yet in the presidential vote Mr Kibaki emerged victorious at the last moment and had himself sworn in only a few minutes later, forestalling pleas from all sides—even from the head of the election commission he himself had appointed—for a pause to investigate mounting claims of malpractice. The report of the European observers was unusually strong in its condemnation of the count. As in Nigeria, Kenyans queued quietly to exercise their right to vote, reflecting the enormous appetite for democracy that exists on a continent that was until recently dominated by dictators and “big men”. But for democracy to survive, it is not enough to hold elections. Politicians must accept that they may have to give up office, and thus all the opportunities for self-enrichment that come their way. It is no coincidence that the most corrupt politicians are also those who cling most desperately to power—as in Kenya and Nigeria.

In stealing the election, Mr Kibaki has also invited a dangerous backlash against his Kikuyu tribe, the country's largest. Tense tribal divisions have long threatened to widen as the minority groups, including opposition leader Raila Odinga's Luo, have come to feel marginalised by the concentration of power in Kikuyu hands. If the current violence does evolve into something worse, perhaps even civil war, Mr Kibaki and his henchmen will bear much of the blame. Initially, America, which sees Kenya as a front-line ally in a war against Islamist militias in neighbouring Somalia, made the mistake of endorsing the president's re-election. Now Britain, America and the African Union are urging Mr Odinga and Mr Kibaki to talk in an effort to stop the bloodletting. That lets Mr Kibaki off the hook far too easily. All the violence should certainly be condemned, but most of the diplomatic pressure should be exerted on Mr Kibaki's supposed new government to annul the results and organise a recount—or a new vote. If Mr Kibaki will not do this, the rest of the world should suspend direct aid to his regime and impose a travel ban on his officials. That is the least the wretched people of Kenya have a right to expect from their friends abroad.
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Rich Nations Attacked for Failing Congo

Jan. 2nd. (Financial Times) - The head of the United Nations refugee agency has accused the rich world of failing to respond adequately to the humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo, even as its multinationals “systematically loot” the country of its resources. In an interview with the FT shortly after his return from the DRC, António Guterres, UN high commissioner for refugees, said western assistance came nowhere near meeting people’s needs in a vast country where continuing instability and widespread poverty had created one of the worst humanitarian situations in the world. Mr Guterres, a former Portuguese prime minister, attributed this neglect in part to the fact that, unlike Iraq, Afghanistan or even Somalia, misery in the DRC involved no perceived threat to western governments. “Even if we face a humanitarian disaster, as in North Kivu where there has been a dramatic increase in violence, nobody in the outside world feels threatened and so the international community is not really paying attention to DRC.”

Aid groups say 3m-4m people in the DRC, a country with a population of about 60m, have died in recent years as a result of conflict, poverty and disease. While most of the country is now stable – the civil war ended in 2003 and UN-supervised elections were held in 2006 – 400,000 people have been uprooted in the past 12 months by a resurgence of violence in the eastern province of North Kivu. The UN estimates that 800,000 people have been displaced in North Kivu, which has also seen violence against women, including rape and mutilation, reach terrifying proportions. Although international agencies and donor governments are providing some assistance, and the UN has mounted its biggest-ever force of some 16,500 peacekeepers, this is small in comparison with needs, Mr Guterres says. He points to the sheer size of the DRC – about four times that of France – and the high cost of operating there, given a lack of infrastructure that requires everything to be transported by aircraft.

Failure to improve living conditions would put at risk the democratic process and could threaten regional stability, he warned. “One of the most frustrating things is to see a country in which you had [successful] elections but then you have to say to people: nothing can be improved in the next few months, even in the next few years, in infrastructure, in water, in sanitation, in health, in education, in jobs. And so the population starts to ask itself whether democracy has any value. “Think about the amount of resources that have been taken out of this country. Lots of companies operate in DRC, taking out its resources, in many circumstances, without a minimum respect for any rules. The international community has systematically looted DRC and we should not forget that.”
By Frances Williams in Geneva
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Kenyan Riot Police Turn Back Rallying Protesters

NAIROBI, Jan 4th. (NY Times) — Nairobi degenerated into violence again on Thursday, as riot police used tear gas, batons and water cannons to push back thousands of opposition supporters who poured into the streets to answer a call for a million-person rally that had been banned by the government. But later in the day, Kenya’s attorney general broke ranks with the president and insisted on an independent investigation into disputed election results, an indication of the growing divide within Kenya’s government about how to resolve a crisis that has ignited chaos and ethnic fighting across the country, killing more than 300 people. Starting at about 10 a.m., protesters burned tires, smashed windows and clashed with police across Nairobi, Kenya’s capital. Some demonstrators showed restraint, yelling to the rowdier members in their ranks, “Drop your stones!” Others tore through the slums, witnesses said, raping women and attacking people with machetes. The body of one young man who had been hacked to death lay in a muddy alleyway. His face was covered with plastic bags and his shoes had been stolen.

The trouble even spilled into the garden of the Serena Hotel, one of the fanciest in town. Guests in safari vests looked down from the balconies of their $400-a-night rooms and watched the turmoil below. Police officers in padded suits charged a scrum of demonstrators and shot their rifles in the air. As soon as the tear gas wafted up, the tourists ducked inside. “This country is going to burn!” a protester yelled. It has been a week since Kenyans went to the polls in the most contested elections in the country’s history, and the dispute over whether Mwai Kibaki, the president, honestly won the most votes continues to violently divide the nation. The government and opposition leaders continue to blame each other for the bloodshed, trading accusations of genocide and ethnic cleansing. They have set such strict conditions on negotiating that nothing, including the entreaties of Western ambassadors, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the cries of their own people, has succeeded in getting them to talk to each other.

Kenya’s two biggest newspapers printed the identical banner headline on Thursday: “Save Our Beloved Country.” But a breakthrough may be in the works. Kenya’s attorney general, Amos Wako, said on Thursday afternoon that an independent body should investigate the disputed vote tabulations, which gave the president, at the eleventh hour of the counting process, a razor-thin margin of victory. Western officials and opposition leaders had been calling for such a probe. It is not clear if Mr. Kibaki will agree to this. A few hours after the attorney general spoke, the president reiterated at a news conference that he had won the elections fair and square and would not relinquish power. “I will personally lead this nation in healing,” he said. Alfred Mutua, the government’s top spokesman, said the attorney general was merely making a suggestion and that an independent investigation into election irregularities “was not necessarily going to happen.” “The president prefers the court system,” Mr. Mutua said, meaning the opposition could file a complaint in court, which most people here think is futile. But, he added, “the president has nothing to hide.”

Foreign diplomats have been meeting day and night to find a way to bring Mr. Kibaki and Raila Odinga, the top opposition leader who says he was cheated out of the presidency, to some sort of détente. Until last week, Kenya was one of the most promising countries on the continent, but the ethnic violence, fueled by political passions, is threatening to ruin that. The economy, one of the biggest in Africa, has ground to a halt. Roads are blocked. Shops are closed. Factories are idle. The currency, the Kenyan shilling, is taking a dive. The World Bank said on Thursday that the unrest threatens Kenya’s impressive recent gains in economic growth and poverty reduction, citing business leaders’ estimates that the country is losing some $30 million a day. And the ills here are hurting the entire region. Gas stations in Rwanda are now rationing fuel because their supply from Kenya has been cut. In Uganda, Sudan and Congo, displaced people are running low on food because United nations relief trucks cannot get past vigilante checkpoints. Production in places like Tanzania is slowing down because materials that come from Kenya have not arrived. “Kenya is the dynamo of this whole region,” said Harvey Rouse, a diplomat for the European Union.

Mr. Rouse spoke from a hill overlooking an enormous slum where police were battling protesters. The slum, named Kibera, has become the protesters’ stage. Every morning, the journalists take their spots on the hillside, the police line up at the mouth of a road leading from the shanties to the glass towers downtown and the protesters mass in the streets, screaming slogans, lighting fires and burning pictures of the president. On Thursday it was an effigy stuffed with greasy rags. Thursday was supposed to be the day that Mr. Odinga’s supporters rallied in downtown Nairobi at a place called Uhuru Park. But they never got close. Thousands of riot police fanned out at dawn and sealed off the main routes into the city. They refused to let any demonstrator pass. Some were clearly peaceful, like the hundreds of women carrying palm leaves and walking barefoot to town. They were chased away choking on tear gas and clawing at their eyes. Others’ intentions were so clear. One young protester crouched in the street with a green leaf, the sign of peace, in one hand and a rock in the other. “We have been patient long enough!” he yelled. It is indeed difficult to tell which way things are going here. In the past two days, there have been no big attacks, like the one on Tuesday in which up to 50 people hiding in a church were burned alive. But reports from the provinces indicate the killings are still going on. Much of the violence is ethnically based, with tribes that support the opposition, like the Luos, Masai and Kalenjin, hunting down Kikuyus, the tribe of the president. On Wednesday night, residents of a quiet town in the Rift Valley said that a mob of Masai killed four Kikuyu shopkeepers and looted their stores. The opposition says it will hold a rally on Friday and every day after that until the president steps down.
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
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Kenya 'Facing Humanitarian Disaster'

Nairobi, Wed. Jan 2nd. (Guardian) - Aid agencies today warned of a humanitarian disaster in Kenya amid claims of "ethnic cleansing" and increased international pressure on Kenyan leaders to end the post-election violence. The Kenya Red Cross said up to 100,000 people had so far been displaced. According to Kenya's Human Rights Commission, more than 300 have been killed. More than 5,000 people have fled to neighbouring Uganda, and several hundred people have fled to Tanzania. Abbas Gullet, the secretary general of the Kenya Red Cross, described the situation as "national disaster", adding: "A few hundred thousand will need assistance for some time."

Meanwhile, Kenya's disputed president, Mwai Kibaki, and his main rival, the opposition leader Raila Odinga, have come under mounting diplomatic pressure to reach a compromise to end the violence. In a joint statement, the foreign secretary, David Miliband, and his US counterpart, Condoleezza Rice, acknowledged the "irregularities" in the elections but called on both Kibaki and Odinga to negotiate. The head of the African Union, the Ghanaian president John Kufuor, is due to meet both leaders tomorrow in a mediation effort. His mission is being backed by Gordon Brown, who said he would do everything in his power to promote reconciliation. "The whole international community has been coming together to try to bring an end to violence in Kenya and I believe that there is a responsibility on the part of all opposition and government leaders in Kenya to call on their supporters to end the violence that's taking place," Brown said.

Brown has been in phone contact with Odinga and Kibaki, whose re-election on Sunday is widely seen to have been rigged. "Millions of people queued up in Kenya to cast their vote. They deserve a government that brings about stability and prosperity," Brown said. Yesterday Odinga rejected a plea by Brown to negotiate with Kibaki, saying he would only do so if Kibaki acknowledged that he had lost the election. He has urged his supporters to take part in a rally against the result tomorrow. Kibaki has invited all members of the newly elected parliament, which is dominated by his opponents, to a meeting to soothe tensions. Anger at the poll's result has stirred ethnic tensions. In the worst incident, up to 50 ethnic Kikuyus were burned alive as they sheltered in a church in the Rift Valley city of Eldoret.

Eyewitness reports of victims being hacked as they fled echoed those from the Rwandan genocide in 1994, in which more than 500,000 people were killed. Red Cross officials visiting the Moi University hospital, in Eldoret, reported seeing people who had suffered gunshot and arrow wounds. "The hospital is overwhelmed with the number of casualties," Gullet said. "One tribe is targeting another one in a fashion that can rightly be described as ethnic cleansing," an unnamed senior police official told the AFP news agency. Kibaki's government has accused Odinga's supporters of the violence, while Odinga accused the government of "genocide". The UN's humanitarian information service reported that 30 checkpoints had been set up between Burnt Forest and Eldoret by vigilantes.

More than 5,000 people have fled to Uganda. "If you are not of the right ethnic group, it's no go," one Red Cross official was reported as saying. John Okello, a Nairobi doctor, said clinics around the city were running short of basic materials such as white gauze because so many people had been arriving for treatment suffering from machete wounds. Accounts of the fire at the church in Eldoret have continued to emerge. A mob of around 2,000 arrived at the building, George Karanja, whose family had sought refuge there, said. "The mattresses that people were sleeping on caught fire. There was a stampede, and people fell on one another," he said. The 37-year-old helped rescue at least 10 people from the flames, but added: "I could not manage to pull out my sister's son. He was screaming ... he died." First aid workers were stopped by vigilantes who challenged them to declare their ethnicity.

There are more than 40 tribes in Kenya. The largest, the Kikuyu, Kibaki's tribe, is accused of using its dominance of politics and business to the detriment of others. Odinga is from the Luo tribe, a smaller but still major tribe that claims it has been marginalised. While Kibaki and Odinga have support from across the tribal spectrum, those responsible for the violence see politics in strictly ethnic terms.
by Matthew Weaver and agencies
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Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
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