19 Burned to Death in Violence in Kenya

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan. 27th. (NY Times) — Ethnically driven violence intensified in Kenya on Sunday, and police officials said at least 19 people, including 11 children, were burned to death in a house by a mob. Even the Kenyan military, deployed for the first time to stop antagonists from attacking one another, has been unable to halt the wave of revenge killings. More than 100 people have been killed in the past four days, many of them shot with arrows, burned or hacked with machetes. It is some of the worst fighting since a disputed election in December ignited long-simmering tensions that have so far claimed at least 750 lives. The fighting appeared to be spreading Sunday across the Rift Valley region, a particularly picturesque part of Kenya known more for its game parks and fancy lodges.

The Kenyan government is now threatening to arrest top opposition leaders on suspicion of orchestrating the bloodshed, but opposition leaders are in turn accusing the government of backing criminal gangs. According to police officials in the Rift Valley town of Naivasha, fighting erupted Sunday morning between gangs of Kikuyus and Luos, two of Kenya’s biggest ethnic groups, who have clashed across the country since the election. Witnesses said mobs threw flaming tires and mountains of rocks into the streets to block police officers from entering some neighborhoods. The mobs then went house to house, looking for certain people. Grace Kakai, a police commander in Naivasha, said a large crowd of Kikuyus chased a group of Luos through a slum, trapped them in a house, blocked the doors and set the house afire. Police found 19 bodies huddled in one room, and Ms. Kakai said some of the children’s bodies were so badly burned that they could not be identified. “All I can say is that they were school age,” she said. The episode was similar to one on Jan. 1, when up to 50 women and children seeking shelter in a church in another Rift Valley town were burned to death by a mob. The victims in that case were mostly Kikuyus, and Kikuyus across the country seem to have been attacked more than any other group.

In the past few days, many Kikuyus have organized into militias, saying they are now ready for revenge. “The situation is very bad,” Ms. Kakai said. “People are fighting each other and trying to drive them out of the area. We have to evacuate people.”Thousands of families are streaming out of Naivasha, Nakuru, Molo, Eldoret and other towns across the Rift Valley, which has become the epicenter of Kenya’s violence. The province is home to supporters of both Mwai Kibaki, Kenya’s president, and Raila Odinga, the top opposition leader, and the site of historic land disputes between members of rival ethnic groups. Mr. Kibaki is a Kikuyu and Mr. Odinga is a Luo, and the disputed election, in which Mr. Kibaki was declared the winner by a narrow margin despite widespread evidence of vote rigging, set off the ethnically driven violence.

The Kenya of today is almost unrecognizable compared with the Kenya that until recently was celebrated as one of the most stable and promising countries on the African continent. On Sunday night, local television stations showed menacing young men waving machetes and iron bars at roadblocks along one of the country’s busiest highways. The men threw rocks at buses, with one large bus run off the road, as police officers stood by. The Kenyan Army was assigned early this month to help evacuate people from conflict zones, but on Friday, for the first time, soldiers were ordered to intervene between warring groups. That did not seem to make much of a difference, and witnesses said the soldiers had been as ineffective as the police.

A dusk-to-dawn curfew has been imposed in several Rift Valley towns, including Naivasha and Nakuru, but witnesses said violence continued to rage in the countryside, with bands of armed men burning down huts and attacking ethnic rivals. Many Kenyans have said the most distressing aspect is that the opposing politicians, instead of cooperating to stop the bloodshed, continue to bicker over who started it. That is exactly what happened on Sunday after news of the Naivasha killings spread. Salim Lone, Mr. Odinga’s spokesman, sent out a cellphone message calling the killings “ghastly” and saying that they were the work of criminal gangs backed by police officers and “part of a well orchestrated plan of terror.” “The government is doing this to try to influence mediation efforts,” the message said, referring to the continuing but so far fruitless negotiations led by Kofi Annan, the former secretary general of the United Nations. “After stealing the elections from Kenyans, Kibaki now wishes to deny them justice and peace.”

Alfred Mutua, a government spokesman, called the accusations “ridiculous". "What is really happening is a continuation of the ethnic cleansing that Raila’s people are doing to kill the president’s people,” he said. Mr. Mutua said the violence would stop “when we indict the leaders responsible for this.” “We are working on indictments,” he said Sunday night. “That will happen very soon.” Western diplomats have said there is a debate raging within Mr. Kibaki’s inner circle about the wisdom of arresting top opposition figures, with some advisers pushing for it, while others fear that the violence will only get worse if the leaders are jailed because their supporters will go on an even more intense rampage. Kenyan newspapers reflected the gloom. “For the umpteenth time, we again ask President Kibaki and Orange Democratic Movement leader Mr. Raila Odinga to work for peace, truth and justice,” said an editorial in The Sunday Standard. “Kenya has bled enough.”
By Jeffrey Gettleman
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French Activists Fight Female Genital Mutilation

National Public Radio, Jan. 26th. - Female genital mutilation is an ancient rite practiced mostly in some sub-Saharan and North African countries. Many Muslims in that part of the world wrongly believe it's dictated by Islam. In recent decades, the practice has spread to immigrant communities in Europe. Women activists in France have led the campaign in prosecuting those responsible for excisions performed on young girls, and the United Nations now considers the practice a human rights abuse.

GAMS, the French Women's Association for the Abolition of Sexual Mutilations, estimates that there are more than 50,000 mutilated women in France. One of them is Aissata, a young woman from Mali who has a 2-year-old daughter. "I come from a village in Mali where excisions are always practiced," she says. "My sister had a daughter and when the baby was not even 2 years old, she was mutilated. When I was four months' pregnant and my doctor told me it was a little girl, I was scared for her and ran away to France. I didn't want my daughter to undergo what they did to me when I was young." But Aissata is in France illegally. She went to GAMS to file a request for political asylum. On average, six women a day, five days a week, come seeking asylum in France to protect their daughters from being subjected to mutilation in their home countries, says GAMS worker Khadi Diallo, 53. She claims GAMS has a 99 percent asylum success rate.

Diallo was mutilated when she was 14, and the brutality of the practice is etched in her memory. "I was mutilated against my parents' will," she says. "It was during the summer visiting my father's family in a village near the capital Bamako. In Mali, it's the father's relatives who decide everything in the family." Diallo describes how several women held her down as one of them inflicted excruciating pain. Supporters of female genital mutilation say it dampens a girl's sexuality and protects her honor. Diallo says she can't even begin to list the psychological traumas she has since suffered. "They cut off my sex. It was as if they cut off my finger. They took away a piece of me," she says. "They imposed customs of a society where it's not permissible for a 14 -year-old girl to remain intact." In most cases, the excision involves the removal of the clitoris and minor labia. The most extreme form is infibulation, where the vaginal opening is stitched closed. Often, knives or razor blades are used in unsanitary conditions. The result is scar tissue that not only makes sex difficult and not pleasurable, but can also create complications for childbirth and long-term infections. "There is such a strong taboo against sex that girls often learn they were mutilated at an early age only when visiting a doctor or after their first sexual experience, when their boyfriend says, you're not normal, you're not like the others," says Diallo.

Female genital mutilation is alien to the great majority of Muslims in Europe, but GAMS claims there's a growing number of fundamentalist imams, funded by Islamist movements from abroad, who preach that removal of the clitoris is endorsed by the Koran. Women activists here have enlisted rap singer Bafing Kul to help convince poor and uneducated immigrants to stop mutilation, saying the practice is backward and harmful. One song's lyrics include: "May my ancestors forgive me. Not all traditions should be preserved. Islam does not endorse this one." The producer and distributor of Kul's CD is lawyer and human rights activist Linda Weil-Curiel. "The aim of the mutilation is to deprive the woman of her own sexuality. She is only left to be a baby-maker," Weil-Curiel says. Weil-Curiel is the person most responsible for making France the leader in tracking and prosecuting both perpetrators of female genital mutilation and the consenting parents. Representing the interests of child victims over the last 15 years, Weil-Curiel has been involved in most of the 40-some trials that have led to convictions.

She says clitorectomies have all but been eradicated in France, but the tragedy continues. Families started taking their daughters to their homelands for summer vacations. So she and other activists go to schools. It's not easy, she says, to warn children about the risks. "And we are there saying, 'Beware, be very careful, 'cause your parents are planning to send you over and this is what will happen,'" Weil-Curiel says. "And each time … You have two to three girls, we can observe tears running down their face, so we know in the family, if it is not them, it has happened." But last year the law was toughened. It's now illegal for any girl who lives in France to be sexually mutilated whether it happens in France or not, whether the girl is a citizen or not. Doctors are obligated to report cases they discover, and parents can be prosecuted for neglect, even if they say it was done somewhere else, without their knowledge.
by Sylvia Poggioli
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KENYA: Diocese Evacuates Workers as Ethnic Violence Claims More Lives

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan. 28th. (CISA) - An operation to evacuate Catholic personnel trapped by ethnic violence was underway Monday afternoon in the Catholic Diocese of Nakuru where a priest was brutally killed Saturday. The diocese was moving to safety priests and other church workers from 10 parishes in the Kalenjin heartland where members of the Kikuyu and Kisii communities have been targeted in the ongoing post-election skirmishes. The death toll continued to rise Monday and more people were displaced as rival groups clashed in the Rift Valley, Nyanza and Western provinces. Over 800 people have been killed nationwide since the clashes broke out a month ago following the disputed re-election of President Mwai Kibaki. Suspected Kalenjin warriors on Sunday raided Burnt Forest, intending to kill displaced people camped in the town, but security personnel repulsed them, a Catholic priest told CISA. The warriors returned early on Monday and police killed seven of them, including two schoolboys. The priest expressed fears that the warriors, armed with bows, arrows, spears, machetes and petrol, were planning another attempt on the camp.

Clashes persisted in Naivasha, where, according to Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC), four more people were killed Monday. Other reports say 14 more bodies were collected, bringing the toll to at least 28.Thousands of people are camped at the local police station fearing for their safety. The chaos spread to neighbouring Gigil Town, where at least two people were killed, according to a witness who spoke to us from inside a Catholic parish compound. She said houses had been torched, businesses closed down and about 800 people had fled to the parish compound. A nun who spoke to us from a religious community a few kilometers outside Gilgil said the violence had trapped the community between Gilgil and Nakuru. Fighting in Nakuru and Naivasha at the weekend triggered riots in towns in western Kenya, the stronghold of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM). Chaos erupted in Kisumu Monday morning, with thousands of angry youths barricading roads and burning tyres apparently in anger over the killing of their tribesmen. Police shot in the air to disperse the demonstrators. Skirmishes were also reported in Kakamega, Busia, Migori and Kapsabet. Fr Fred Ogambi in Kisumu said youths chased away teachers and students from schools to ensure the institutions remained closed. The Provincial Education Officer had announced that schools would open for the first term on Monday.

But Eldoret, scene of some of the worst violence in the immediate aftermath of the election, has been calm in recent days, except on Saturday when tensions rose after a Kalenjin man was stabbed. He had boarded a taxi and got into an exchange with the Kikuyu crew. About 13,000 displaced people camping at the Eldoret Show-ground are unlikely to leave soon for fear of being attacked again. Idleness in the camp and dismal leaving conditions have led some women to prostitution, Nixon Oira of the Eldoret Catholic Justice and Peace Commission said. In Nyahururu, “everything has returned to normal” after a brief confrontation between police and youths on Sunday, said Fr Joseph Waititu. About 50 non-Kikuyu residents have sought refuge at the local police station.
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Ethnic Violence in Rift Valley Tears Kenya Apart

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan. 27th. (NY Times) - 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 residents were shocked. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” said David Macharia, a bus driver.

One month after a deeply flawed election, Kenya is tearing itself apart along ethnic lines, despite intense international pressure on its leaders to compromise and stop the killings. Nakuru, the biggest town in the beautiful 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 one another in the road, with the bewildered children of the two ethnic groups staring out the windows at one another. 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 Dec. 30, when election results were announced and the incumbent 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 the 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 revenge. The city is surrounded by spectacular scenery, with Lake Nakuru and its millions of flamingos drawing throngs of tourists each year. The city has a mixed population, like much of Kenya, split among several ethnic groups including Kikuyus, Luos, Luhyas and Kalenjins. On Thursday night, witnesses and participants said, bands of Kikuyu men stormed into the streets with machetes and homemade weapons and began attacking Luos and Kalenjins. Paul Karanja, a Kikuyu shopkeeper in Nakuru, explained it this way: “We had been so patient. For weeks we had watched all the buses and trucks taking people out of the Rift Valley, and we had seen so many of our people lose everything they owned. Enough was enough.” In a Nakuru neighborhood called Free Area, hundreds of Kikuyu men burned down homes and businesses belonging to Luos, Mr. Odinga’s ethnic group. The Luos who refused to leave were badly beaten, and sometimes worse. According to witnesses, a Kikuyu mob forcibly circumcised one Luo man who later bled to death. Circumcision is an important rite of passage for Kikuyus but is not widely practiced among Luos.

The Luos and the Kalenjins, who have been aligned throughout the post-election period, then counterattacked, resulting in a citywide melee with hundreds wounded and as many as 50 people killed. By Friday night, the Kenyan military was deployed for the first time to intervene. Local authorities also placed a dusk-to-dawn curfew on Nakuru, another first. Many people in Free Area, which is now almost totally Kikuyu, say it will be difficult to make peace. “We’re angry and they’re angry,” said John Maina, a stocky butcher, whose weapon of choice on Saturday was a three-foot table leg with exposed screws. “I don’t see us living together any time soon.”

That is the reality across much of Kenya, and it seems to be nothing short of so-called ethnic cleansing. Mobs in Eldoret, Kisumu, Kakamega, Burnt Forest and countless other areas, including some of the biggest slums in Nairobi, have driven out people from opposing ethnic groups. Many neighborhoods that used to be mixed are now ethnically homogeneous. Kofi Annan, the former secretary general of the United Nations, visited the Rift Valley on Saturday. He called it “nerve-racking. We saw people pushed from their homes and farms, grandmothers, children and families uprooted,” said Mr. Annan, who is in Kenya trying to broker negotiations between Mr. Kibaki and Mr. Odinga. He called for the Kenyan government to investigate the attackers and increase security. On Saturday, Kenyan soldiers in Free Area escorted Luos back to their smoldering homes and stood guard with their assault rifles as the people sifted through the ruins and salvaged whatever they could before leaving.

Many Luos said they had no choice but to go to far western Kenya, the traditional Luo homeland, just as many Kikuyus who have been displaced said they would resettle in the highlands east of Nakuru, their traditional homeland. Mr. Macharia, the bus driver, who is Kikuyu, conceded that many Kikuyus were feeling vengeful. But he said it does not mean they actually want to fight. “I saw it myself,” he said. “The elders called ‘Charge!’ but not all the boys charged.” Still, enough did charge that the Luos who used to live in Free Area were not taking any chances. On Saturday afternoon, hundreds of people carrying trunks on their heads and bags of blankets streamed toward a government office that was protected by a few soldiers. Nancy Aloo, a Luo, was guiding four frightened young children. “God made all of us,” Ms. Aloo said. “We need his help.
by Jeffrey Gettleman
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Nepal - From Treks to Sex

Is a new sort of thrill-seeker heading for Nepal?
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Jan. 24th (Economist) - “I CAN only dance when I'm drunk,” confides Srijana, a 20-year-old employee of the Pussy Cat Bar and Shower, a tavern in Thamel, Kathmandu's main tourist hangout. A few slurps from a customer's glass later and she mounts a small stage. There, to whoops from a few tipsy locals, she sheds most of her clothes and gyrates to a Hindi pop tune. Dangling above her is the Damoclean sword included in the bar's name: a silver shower nozzle, positioned to spray flesh-revealing water on a dancer below.

Such gimmicks are common in Thamel's bars, where competition for lascivious males is fierce. Until a few years ago Nepal had no obvious sex industry. There are now an estimated 200 massage parlours and 35 “dance bars”, such as the Pussy Cat, in Thamel alone—with over 1,000 girls and women working in them. Many sell sex. In the Pussy Cat, another dancer admits to turning tricks, for 1,800 rupees ($28). That is a tidy sum in Nepal, South Asia's poorest country. It is much more than Nepali women are paid in India's flesh-pots—to which over 5,000 are trafficked each year, according to the UN. But the dancers in Thamel are chasing a richer sort of Indian: tourists. And their government seems to be encouraging them. In an advertisement for “Wild Stag Weekends”, the Nepal Tourism Board offers this advice: “Don't forget to have a drink at one of the local dance bars, where beautiful Nepali belles will dance circles around your pals.”

In a country with a rich tradition of dance, where paying for sex is illegal, this might be harmless innuendo. But not everybody thinks so. During the recently-ended civil war, Nepal's Himalayan tourism industry collapsed. Some activists think that sex tourism is replacing it. According to John Frederick, an expert on South Asia's sex trade, “Ten years ago the sex industry was underground in Nepal. Now it's like Bangkok, it's like Phnom Penh.” The war, which put much of rural Nepal under the control of Maoist insurgents, has increased the supply of sex workers. Srijana is from the poor and still violent district of Siraha in southern Nepal. She was widowed there two years ago, and left an infant son to come to the capital. Yet she is remarkably cheerful—perhaps because she is drunk, and the shower is not working.
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Catholic Priest Killed as Ethnic Violence Toll Rises

NAKURU, Kenya, Jan. 26th. (CISA) -A Catholic priest of the Diocese of Nakuru was today killed as vicious inter-ethnic violence claimed more lives in the Rift Valley town. Fr. Michael Kamau Ithondeka, 41, was killed Saturday morning at an illegal roadblock set up by armed youth on the Nakuru - Eldama Ravine Road. He was vice rector at St Mathias Mulumba Senior Seminary in Tindinyo. According to Fr Simon Githara, the parish priest of Eldama Ravine, Fr Kamau was accosted by armed youths who claimed they were on a revenge mission after one of their own was killed in Nakuru. His pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears as the youths descended on him with crude weapons, killing him on the spot.

The news comes as other reports indicate that public mortuaries in Nakuru have received at least 51 bodies and police are still collecting more from around the town. Our reporter in Nakuru, David Omwoyo, says the violence appears to be revenge against members of the Kalenjin, Luo and Luhyia communities following the recent killing of members of the Kikuyu community in the Rift Valley. Suspected Kikuyu gangs have taken over the town, our reporter says. There are about six groups of about 1,000 armed men conducting raids in various parts of the town. Businesses remain closed and there is no public transport. Police and the military are evacuating non-Kikuyus from the town. Hundreds of newly displaced persons have sought refuge in four Catholic parishes.

Meanwhile, security sources say a group calling itself Kalenjin Land Defence Forces is distributing leaflets calling for continued violence against members of the Kikuyu community in the Rift Valley. Kikuyus will be attacked even in their homeland in Central Kenya, the group says. In a Thursday report which accused the opposition Orange Democratic Movement of helping to plan the chaos, Human Rights Watch collected accounts from several Kalenjin men present at community meetings where local elders and ODM mobilizers urged Kalenjins to contribute money to buy automatic weapons. Some communities had reportedly managed to obtain such weapons already.

The death of Fr. Kamau comes in the wake of threats to Kikuyu Catholic personnel working in the Rift Valley Province. In Eldoret, two priests based at Moi University escaped death narrowly last week when goons attacked their house at night. One of the priests told CISA that he and his colleague had received several threats after violence broke out following the disputed re-election of President Mwai Kibaki. The priests were successfully evacuated to Burnt Forest, a small town teeming with displaced people on the Eldoret-Nairobi highway.

The late Fr Kamau was born in Kiambu, near Nairobi, in 1966 and was baptized at Riara Parish in 1967. He joined St Mary’s Minor seminary Molo in 1986 and later St Augustine Seminary in 1987, before proceeding to St. Mathias Mulumba, 1989-1992. Kamau was ordained a priest of Nakuru Diocese on January 9, 1993, and sent to Lower Subukia Parish. Between 1998 and 2002, Fr. Kamau studied scripture at the Biblicum (the Pontifical Institute for Biblical Studies) in Rome. Between 2003 and 2005, he served in Mwaragania Parish and as principal at Archbishop Ndingi Secondary School in Naivasha. In 2005, he was posted to St Thomas Aquinas Seminary, Nairobi, before being moved to St Mathias Mulumba Seminary as Vice Rector.
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U.S. Envoy Wants Political Pact in Kenya

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan. 24th. (NY Times) — The American ambassador to Kenya said Wednesday that his deepest worries about the postelection crisis here were not about Kenyans rampaging in the streets or killing one another because of ethnic hatreds, both of which have claimed hundreds of lives. Possibly even more dangerous, he said, were the deep rifts among the country’s opposing politicians, who seem “entrenched” and surrounded by “hard-liners.” “You can never underestimate the ability of just a couple of people to tear a place apart,” said Michael E. Ranneberger, the ambassador, during an interview at his home in Nairobi, the capital. He said his chief concern was whether Mwai Kibaki, the president and Raila Odinga, the top opposition leader, were “prepared to rise above themselves and put the interests of the nation ahead of their own personal or their group’s political interest. That is still an unanswered question,” he said. The politicians need to sit down and compromise, the ambassador added, because “we’re in the middle of a very serious crisis.”

It has been four weeks since Kenyans went to the polls in record numbers, and the country is still reeling from the aftershocks of a disputed tally in which Mr. Kibaki was declared the winner over Mr. Odinga, despite widespread evidence of vote rigging. The Kenyan government has said that more than 650 people have been killed, though Western diplomats and aid workers say the death toll is several hundred higher. On Wednesday, Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary general, met with Mr. Odinga and persuaded him to call off another round of protests that had been scheduled for Thursday. Mr. Annan was also supposed to meet with Mr. Kibaki, but the president postponed the get-together until Thursday and chose instead to meet with Yoweri Museveni, Uganda’s president and a close political ally who is pushing his own peace plan. So far, Mr. Kibaki and Mr. Odinga have said they are willing to negotiate, but neither has offered substantial concessions, despite pleas from Kenyans and other African dignitaries. The two men have yet to talk face to face.

Mr. Annan, who arrived on Tuesday, seems to have created more buzz and hope than any visitors involved in the previous mediation efforts. “I think everybody knows that if this mission fails, there are no others in the offing,” said Salim Lone, a spokesman for the opposition. The stakes are clearly high. Killings driven by ethnic strife continue in the Rift Valley, one of Kenya’s most scenic provinces but also the most violent because of historic tensions over land that have been ignited by the election controversy. On Wednesday, two more people were killed there by poison arrows. In Nairobi, street clashes are becoming the norm. A funeral on Wednesday degenerated into a riot. Opposition protesters pelted cars with stones and set a government building on fire. Last week, protesters sabotaged a crucial railway line running to Uganda. It is still out of commission. The violence has been a mix of ethnically driven killings, fighting in Nairobi’s slums and battles between the police and protesters. Mr. Ranneberger, who has been ambassador here for about a year and a half, said he was “outraged” when he saw television reports last week showing what appeared to be a police officer shooting an unarmed demonstrator. The protester had been dancing in the street and making faces when one officer leveled an assault rifle and shot him at close range. The officer, who is under investigation, was then shown on television kicking the protester, who later died.

Mr. Ranneberger said the fighting, even in the Rift Valley, was not purely ethnic but “politically, economically and socially motivated,” stemming from tensions over land and the perception that Mr. Kibaki’s ethnic group, the Kikuyu, had marginalized others. He said the violence in the Rift Valley after the election appeared to have been organized because of the involvement of large numbers of heavily armed men who seemed to strike just minutes after the disputed results were announced. Mr. Ranneberger said the American government, which gives more than $600 million in aid to Kenya annually, was frustrated at the political impasse but was not at the stage where it was ready to cut assistance. “It’s counterproductive,” he said. “And it’s way too premature to talk about anything punitive.” The way forward, he said, was for the Kenyan government to be more inclusive and to address the long-simmering grievances over economic and political inequality. He also said officials should investigate the postelection violence and fix Kenya’s election system, which has been badly discredited by the balloting on Dec. 27. “I really am fundamentally optimistic about the future of the country,” he said, citing Kenya’s strong middle class, its high literacy rates and its independent media. “There are all sorts of reasons why Kenya can overcome this.”
by Jeffry Gettleman
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China’s Genocide Olympics

Jan. 24th. (NY Times) - The Beijing Olympics this summer were supposed to be China’s coming-out party, celebrating the end of nearly two centuries of weakness, poverty and humiliation. Instead, China’s leaders are tarnishing their own Olympiad by abetting genocide in Darfur and in effect undermining the U.N. military deployment there. The result is a growing international campaign to brand these “The Genocide Olympics.” This is not a boycott of the Olympics. But expect Darfur-related protests at Chinese Embassies, as well as banners and armbands among both athletes and spectators. There’s a growing recognition that perhaps the best way of averting hundreds of thousands more deaths in Sudan is to use the leverage of the Olympics to shame China into more responsible behavior. The central problem is that in exchange for access to Sudanese oil, Beijing is financing, diplomatically protecting and supplying the arms for the first genocide of the 21st century. China is the largest arms supplier to Sudan, officially selling $83 million in weapons, aircraft and spare parts to Sudan in 2005, according to Amnesty International USA. That is the latest year for which figures are available.

China provided Sudan with A-5 Fantan bomber aircraft, helicopter gunships, K-8 military training/attack aircraft and light weapons used in Sudan’s proxy invasion of Chad last year. China also uses the threat of its veto on the Security Council to block U.N. action against Sudan so that there is a growing risk of a catastrophic humiliation for the U.N. itself. Sudan feels confident enough with Chinese backing that on Jan. 7, the Sudanese military ambushed a clearly marked U.N. convoy of peacekeepers in Darfur. Sudan claimed the attack was a mistake, but diplomats and U.N. professionals are confident that this was a deliberate attack ordered by the Sudanese leaders to put the U.N. in its place. Sudan has already barred units from Sweden, Norway, Nepal, Thailand and other countries from joining the U.N. force. It has banned night flights, dithered on a status-of-forces agreement, held up communications equipment and refused to allow the U.N. to bring in foreign helicopters. The growing fear is that the U.N. force will be humiliated in Sudan as it was in Rwanda and Bosnia, causing enormous damage to international peacekeeping.

Another possible sign of Sudan’s confidence: an American diplomat, John Granville, was ambushed and murdered in Khartoum early this month. Many in the diplomatic and intelligence community believe that such an assassination could not happen in Khartoum unless elements of the government were involved. Chinese officials argue that they are engaging in quiet diplomacy with Sudan’s leaders and that this is the best way to seek a solution in Darfur. They note that Sudan has other backers, and that China’s influence is limited. It is true that since the start of the “Genocide Olympics” campaign (www.dreamfordarfur.org) a year ago, China has been more helpful, and it’s only because of Chinese pressure on Khartoum that U.N. peacekeepers were admitted to Darfur at all. But the basic reality is that China continues to side with Sudan — it backed Sudan again after it ambushed the U.N. peacekeepers — and Sudan feels protected enough that it goes on thumbing its nose at the international community.

Just a few days ago, Sudan appointed Musa Hilal, a founding leader of the Arab militia known as the janjaweed, to a position in the central government. This is the man who was once quoted as having expressed gratitude for “the necessary weapons and ammunition to exterminate the African tribes in Darfur.” Other countries also must do much more, but China is crucial. If Beijing were to suspend all transfers of arms and spare parts to Sudan until a peace deal is reached in Darfur, then that would change the dynamic. President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan would be terrified — especially since he is now preparing to resume war with South Sudan — and would realize that China is no longer willing to let its Olympics be stained by Darfuri blood. Without his Chinese shield, Mr. Bashir would be more likely to make concessions to Darfur rebels and negotiate seriously with them, and he would no longer have political cover to resume war against South Sudan. That would make long-term peace more likely in Darfur and also in South Sudan.

I’m a great fan of China’s achievements, and I’ve often defended Beijing from unfair protectionist rhetoric spouted by American politicians. But those of us who admire China’s accomplishments find it difficult to give credit when Beijing simultaneously underwrites the ultimate crime of genocide. China deserves an international celebration to mark its historic re-emergence as a major power. But so long as China insists on providing arms to sustain a slaughter based on tribe and skin color, this will remain, sadly, The Genocide Olympics.
by Nicholas Kristof
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Zimbabwe Police Break Up Protest

Rally Organized as Test of New Laws on Political Freedom
JOHANNESBURG, Jan. 23 (Washington Post) -- Zimbabwean police dispersed hundreds of opposition demonstrators with tear gas Wednesday afternoon in the first major test of new laws granting greater political freedoms in one of Africa's most repressive nations. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change said the demonstrations were staged to reveal whether President Robert Mugabe was prepared to loosen his grip on Zimbabwe after nearly 28 years of increasingly authoritarian rule. Despite months of negotiations on the changes, including what appeared to be significant government concessions on a planned new constitution with a bill of rights, true freedom remains elusive, opposition officials said. They estimated that dozens of their members were arrested Wednesday. "This was a severe test for Robert Mugabe, and he has failed," said Tendai Biti, secretary general of the largest faction of the opposition party, which fractured in 2005.

Tensions have been especially high in Zimbabwe since March, when police beat and arrested dozens of opposition figures, including party leader Morgan Tsvangirai, shortly before a major demonstration was to begin. That incident led to an intensive regional diplomacy effort led by South African President Thabo Mbeki, who last week traveled to Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, in an attempt to close a deal. But after negotiations faltered in recent days, opposition leaders decided to challenge Mugabe's forces on the streets of Harare, something the movement has rarely done with success since its founding in 1999. Police banned the planned demonstration. Then at 4 a.m. Wednesday, officers went to Tsvangirai's home and took him into custody for four hours of questioning before he was released, opposition officials said. That was followed by an urgent court hearing during which the party asked a judge to allow the rally. The judge told the opposition members that they could not hold their demonstration in Harare's city center, as planned, but could protest in a nearby park. But as protesters walked to the park, police blocked their way, fired tear gas and beat some of them, according to opposition accounts and news reports. Two truckloads of protesters, as well as some party leaders, were arrested, Biti said.

Calls to police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena and Mugabe spokesman George Charamba did not go through on Zimbabwe's troubled phone system, one of many elements of the country's infrastructure that has markedly deteriorated in recent years. State radio said police believed that the opposition protest was not intended to be peaceful and had "sinister motives," according to news reports. After police dispersed the protest, a small number of opposition activists traveled toward the park where the court ruling had explicitly allowed a rally. Tsvangirai spoke to the crowd there, saying the police action had made a mockery of regional diplomatic efforts led by Mbeki, Biti said.

Negotiations in recent months between Mugabe and the opposition have led to agreement on the new constitution as well as the relaxing of laws limiting political expression and rallies and press freedoms. But there has been sharp disagreement over the timing of presidential and parliamentary elections, with the opposition insisting they should be delayed for several months so that the constitution can be implemented and a free vote guaranteed. "Under these conditions . . . the election will be a farce," Biti said, but he added that no decision had been made on whether the opposition would boycott the vote. The country has been in steep economic decline for nearly a decade and has the world's worst hyperinflation along with mounting food shortages, widespread power cuts and massive unemployment.
by Craig Timberg
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Kenya: Do we Seek Relief or a Solution?

Mombassa, Kenya, Jan 18th. - One of the saddest aspects of the post election nightmare is that every utterance or statement is scrutinized with suspicion by just about everyone in Kenya. As the middle ground disappears, even non-Kenyans are forced to take sides as the battle lines are drawn. In such a highly polarised environment, the wise man might well be advised to keep his mouth shut and only reveal his heart to the Almighty. Yet, the crisis that faces the country demands that we all search for solutions that can bring hope and encouragement to Kenyans.

What we witnessed on our TV screens on December 29th and 30th are events that we will recall for decades with outrage, horror and disgust. Our dignity and our innocence were violated before our eyes by an inept, incompetent and disgraced electoral commission. The angry rebellion all over the country was a spontaneous reaction to a vicious assault on the voter's choice and voice.

While the ECK Chairman claims he does not know if Mwai Kibaki won the election, no one knows for sure whether Raila Odinga won either. All we can say with certainty is that Kalonzo Musyoka lost miserably but recovered quickly to pick up the scraps. He now serves in a government that may be legally in place but lacks legitimacy. So we face the prospect of being ruled by a government that is deemed illegitimate at home and lacks credibility abroad.

What ever happened to our nascent democracy? Were we naïve to imagine that our votes were important, or that ultimate power rested with the people? What the December 27th election proved beyond doubt is that democracy without constitutionalism is simply ethnic majority tyranny. We may
possess an energetic civil society, a courageous media, a host of freedoms and a growing economy but we are still governed by a constitution designed to facilitate a one-party or single-ethnic community dictatorship. For two decades we have laboured to create a Constitution that protected and promoted human rights; that freed the Judiciary and Legislature from the excesses and whims of the Executive; and that produced legislation that would dismantle the colonial authoritarian structures and replace them with institutions that were accountable and effective. But our efforts have not borne fruit.

There was a "Constitutional Moment" in 1997 that was snatched from wananchi by the political class under the guise of the IPPG. They have not returned it to its rightful owner since. The Bomas farce and the Referendum fiasco were just opening rounds in a battle for power that reached its climax on December 29th. The events of the past two weeks confirm that without constitutionalism our politicians can reduce the country to ruins and deny us even the few freedoms that we thought were inherent and guaranteed rights. We are in a crisis that is recognised by everyone except a small powerful clique who are currently in denial. We have frequently heard that the best constitutions are made in times of crises. How much deeper must we sink before the protagonists acknowledge that our biggest crisis is constitutional and not merely political or ethnic?

Our religious and civil leaders keep addressing the symptoms of the crisis as they try to bring relief from the suffering. Regretfully, such platitudes and admonitions are inadequate as any resolution must begin by acknowledging the root causes of the present chaos. Any analysis that lacks substance will in any case be considered by the public as support for one side or another. Let us first admit that it is a futile exercise to attempt to revisit the tallying as the ECK has had over three weeks to complete their dirty work. There are genuine demands for a repeat presidential vote, but how satisfactory would that exercise be as the ethnic arithmetic and voting patterns have changed dramatically with the capitulation of ODM-K and the disenfranchisement of 300,000 IDPs? An early repeat election would satisfy no-one and leave us just as divided, regardless of the outcome.

Many have called for the immediate establishment of a Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission as recommended by the Prof Makau Mutua task force in 2004. Commissions of this nature, however, should follow constitutional settlements rather than precede them. When institutions are established and stability restored, we possess the capacity and confidence to face the dark side of our nation's past. But to present truth commissions as the panacea for all our ills especially when we are hurting and vulnerable is simplistic and imprudent.

It would appear then that the only viable and realistic option is for the country to endorse a power-sharing transitional government whose chief mandate would be to complete the constitutional review process within a period of 18 months and pave the way for elections in 2 years time. This proposal will not be welcomed by the conflicting parties. It will not appeal to their die-hard supporters either who are convinced that 'their man' won. Yet it has the capacity to garner the support of most Kenyans as a win-win solution that can move us slowly forward as a nation out of this dreadful mess. Such a solution demands humility, self-sacrifice and generosity, qualities which appear to be in short supply at the moment. However, I contend that any other proposal will give us just temporary relief from our misery and not heal the deep divisions that are so apparent at the moment. What is required is a solution that requires an institutional setting in which the state is no longer communalised and no longer the monopoly of a particular ethnic group, but in which the state is reinvented as the arbiter of a civic pact between all the ethnic communities. That can only occur when we acknowledge that the current crisis is about constitutionalism and not about politics.

However, I would hasten to add that a transitional government would fail once more in this task if it were not bolstered and monitored by a vigorous civil society and a panel of experts who would guide the process and prevent the political hegemonies from hijacking and politicising the process for the umpteenth time, We know the darkest hour is just before the dawn. We are surely at the darkest hour in Kenya's history but a quantum leap in terms of imagination, generosity and faith can still save the country. Our leaders must make that leap in the dark and trust the goodwill of the public and the guidance of the good spirit to see them through. Despite signs to the contrary, I believe that they are up to that challenge and I pray that
they can take it.
by Fr Gabriel Dolan SPS
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Annan in Kenya to Mediate in Crisis

Nairobi, Kenya, Jan 23nd. (Financial Times) - Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary-general, has arrived in Nairobi to try to reinvigorate the international community’s attempts to reconcile the two sides in Kenya’s political crisis. President Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga, leader of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement, have not met since a disputed election on December 27 that has triggered widespread bloodshed and crippled parts of east Africa’s biggest economy. Mr Annan’s first challenge will be convincing the two men to begin a face-to-face dialogue, but their public pronouncements indicate the gap between the two remains large.

Mr Kibaki insists he was elected legitimately and has rebuffed attempts at international mediation: his allies say Mr Annan is in Nairobi to “facilitate” not mediate. ODM has called for the formation of an interim government to oversee a rerun of the election, or the creation of a coalition government in which the powers of the president are reduced and the opposition has full control over certain ministries. Diplomats say both men have been heavily influenced by hardliners in their camps who do not want to see dialogue or have set unrealistic pre-conditions. Steven Smith, vice-chairman of the Kenya Private Sector Alliance who met both men last week, said: “People may be taking a breath this week and reconsidering what their position might be … There are things going on behind the scenes that indicate there is flexibility.” But Macharia Gaitho, a columnist with the Daily Nation, said in an article on Tuesday: “Short of getting them both in chokeholds and banging their heads together, Mr Annan has very little leverage on either president Kibaki and Mr Odinga or their respective entourages of myopic warmongers and sycophants.”

While most of Kenya is peaceful, Mr Annan is due to arrive in a bad tempered atmosphere. Michael Ranneberger, US ambassador to Kenya, on Tuesday described as “scurrilous propaganda” advertisements placed by the government that accused him and others of inciting violence by questioning the election result. Adam Wood, the British high commissioner in Nairobi, was summoned by the foreign minister on Monday to explain why a deputy foreign minister told parliament last week that the UK government had not recognised the Kibaki government. Over 600 people have died in clashes between police and opposition supporters and ethnic violence sparked by the election. More than 200,000 have been forced from their homes.
By Barney Jopson in Nairobi
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Starving Refugees Eat Endangered Chimps

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan. 23rd. (Toronto Times) –Hungry refugees in Tanzania are eating chimpanzees and other endangered species in order to supplement their meagre diet, says an international conservation group. Refugees living near national parks are also illegally hunting buffalo, topi, eland, elephant and waterbuck, the wildlife-trade monitoring group Traffic said yesterday.

In neighbouring Kenya, aid and conservation groups say refugee camps housing thousands of people who fled violence after the disputed Dec. 27 election are damaging the environment, as displaced people chopped down trees for firewood. Camps such as the Show Ground site in Eldoret – currently hosting 11,200 people – could cause "significant environmental damage," Jemini Pandya, a spokesperson for the International Organization for Migration told reporters in Geneva. "IOM will try and protect the areas around camps in Rift Valley Province through the rebedding of saplings and plants in other areas until the crisis is over," she said.

George Jambiya, lead author of the Traffic report on Tanzania, said the refugees' vegetarian food aid rations were partly to blame for the poaching problem. "The scale of wild meat consumption in East African refugee camps has helped conceal the failure of the international community to meet basic refugee needs," he added. Traffic's report was based on studies carried out in 2005 and 2006. But Christiane Berthiaume of the UN's World Food Program, which feeds 215,00 refugees in Tanzania, said meat spoils quickly and canned meat is much more expensive. Substituting canned meat for cheaper beans as a protein supply would add $46 million to the estimated $60 million cost of feeding Tanzania's refugees in 2007 and 2008, she said. Traffic said Tanzania's illegal bush meat trade has also eaten into government revenues from licensed sport hunting and game viewing.

According to the UN refugee agency, Tanzania hosted 11 camps in January 2007, housing 287,061 refugees, down from 350,590 in 2005. Most of the refugees fled conflict in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo as far back as the 1960s, and Rwanda in the 1990s.
by George Obulutsa (Reuters)
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Saudi Rape Case Lawyer 'Reinstated'

Jan. 21st. (CNN) -- The Saudi lawyer who represented a woman kidnapped and raped by seven men said his license to practice has been reinstated. Lawyer and human rights activist Abdul Rahman al-Lahem told CNN's Nic Robertson that the Justice Ministry has reinstated his license. Al-Lahem had previously told CNN that the Saudi judge revoked his license as punishment for speaking to the media about his client's case, which attracted international attention. His client, an engaged teenager, was raped by seven men who found her alone with a man unrelated to her. She has said she was meeting with the man to retrieve a photograph. The attack took place in Qatif in March 2006.

The seven rapists were sentenced to two to nine years in prison but she also was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in prison for having violated the kingdom's strict Islamic law by being alone with an unrelated man. The woman's sentence provoked outrage in the West and cast light on the treatment of women under Saudi Arabian law. Under Saudi law, women are subject to numerous restrictions, including a strict dress code, a prohibition against driving and a requirement that they get a man's permission to travel or have surgery. In challenging what he said were his suspension and disbarment, al-Lahem said he had received threats on his life from the religious right.

Last month, Minister of Justice Abdallah bin Mohammed al-Sheikh, in a phone call to a Saudi Television newscast, said the lawyer's license had never been revoked. "Such decisions are made through institutions in the kingdom," he said. "The punishment of the lawyer or any lawyer does not come from a reaction; it comes from a carefully examined procedure within a special council in the ministry." He said the council charged with deciding law license revocations had not issued any decisions in the case.
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Kenyan Refugees, With Hatred in Tow

A large crowd of residents of the Kibera slum in Nairobi line up at a local school to receive personal food staple rations, January 15, 2008

Time Magazine, Jan 19th. - More than 6,000 Kenyans have fled since last month's disputed presidential elections erupted into violence. For more than two weeks, Kenyan towns have suffered mass riots and looting, more than 600 people have been killed and a qaurter of a million have been uprooted. The refugees bring horror stories of torched homes, murdered family members and bloodthirsty mobs. Ethnic clashes between the tribes loyal to incumbent President Mwai Kibaki, a Kikuyu, and opposition leader Raila Odinga, a Luo, have been a particularly ugly aspect of the post-poll conflict. Ugandan authorities say they have been forced to separate refugees by tribe due to simmering tensions.

Kikuyus have suffered the brunt of ethnic-targeted violence. In Nairobi's sprawling slums and northern towns in the lush Rift Valley, reports abound of Kenyan Kikuyus being stopped at roadblocks by drunken gangs of Luo and Kalenjin tribesmen to be beaten or killed. "We don't put tribes together in the camps because they have extended their conflicts into Uganda," said Bimpabaza Hashaka, the top government official in the eastern Ugandan district Tororo. Hashaka said youth gangs of the Kalenjin tribe have repeatedly threatened attacks on Kikuyus, even going as far as to try to poison the food being prepared for Kikuyu refugees sheltering in a church. Hospital emergency rooms in Tororo have also been the site of further fighting between men of differing tribes. Refugees poured in this week as the Kenyan opposition waged three days of rallies in all parts of the country. Says Hashaka: "They keep on coming, saying their homes have been burnt." The number of refugees is expected to rise as the political tumult continues in Kenya. Nairobi's slum Mathare could have passed for a war zone on Thursday. Ambulances roared through trash-littered streets, as hundreds of protestors faced off with police. Between makeshift roadblocks, residents dodged flying stones, tear gas and live bullets. "We are after peace, but only peace with solidarity!" shouted a young man armed with a machete. Behind him, the streets teemed with crowds of people and abandoned bullet-scarred shacks. But voicing the opinion of many violence-weary Kenyans, Pamela Atieno complained of the riots: "You go out to buy food and get teargassed."

The United Nations World Food Programme says that the timeline for when the Kenyan refugees will return home is highly uncertain. The agency has started distributing food along the Uganda-Kenya border. Kenya's opposition announced Friday that it would switch to economic protests and boycotts next week, but refugees seeking shelter are still expected to flock to Uganda. It is an unusual situation for Uganda, which still has millions of its own citizens displaced due to a brutal 20-year civil war. The conflict between Lord's Resistance Army rebels and the Ugandan government only ended in July 2006. Nevertheless, says Hashaka of the refugees from Kenya: "They think they're safer here than where they're coming from."
By Alexis Okeowo
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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. Mozlink

2 Arrested in Bhutto Assassination Plot

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan Jan 20th. (AP) — A 15-year-old detained near the Afghan border has confessed to joining a team of assassins sent to kill Benazir Bhutto, officials said Saturday, announcing the first arrests in the case since the attack that killed the opposition leader. Police also announced they had foiled new suicide attacks against the country's Shiite minority. Interior Secretary Kamal Shah confirmed the arrest of two people in the town of Dera Ismail Khan in North West Frontier province, and said one — a teenage boy — had confessed involvement in the Dec. 27 attack that killed Bhutto. He said interrogators were trying to get corroborating testimony from the other detainee before accepting the confession.

In the southern city of Karachi, meanwhile, the police chief said officers detained five men with explosives, detonators and a small quantity of cyanide intended for attacks on this week's Shiite Muslim festival of Ashoura. "With these arrests we have foiled major attacks," said police chief Azhar Farouqi, adding that the militants may have wanted to put the cyanide into the municipal water supply. Security officials elsewhere in the country said they had arrested at least 55 other terrorist suspects in a crackdown apparently sparked by a surge in rebel attacks along the restive border with Afghanistan and a spate of bombings targeting Shiites. The growing bloodshed has cast doubts on the ability of the security forces to maintain peace during the campaign for parliamentary elections on Feb. 18. It has also sparked calls from opposition politicians for President Pervez Musharraf to step down.

In North West Frontier province, a senior intelligence official said the 15-year-old suspect in the Bhutto assassination told investigators that a five-person squad was dispatched to Rawalpindi, where Bhutto was killed, by Baitullah Mehsud, a militant leader with strong ties to al-Qaida and an alliance with the Taliban in nearby Afghanistan. The official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the boy was arrested Thursday and was also involved in a plot to attack Shiites during the Ashoura festival on Sunday. Sunni extremists, who regard Shiites as heretics, often attack the community during Ashoura. On Thursday, 11 people died and 20 were injured in a suicide attack on a Shiite mosque in the northern city of Peshawar.

In Dera Ismail Khan, a town 170 miles southwest of Islamabad where the teenager was arrested, a district police commander said the suspect had made "a sensational disclosure." The officer also asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter. But Maulvi Mohammed Umar, a purported spokesman for Mehsud, dismissed the report. "It is just government propaganda ... we have already clarified that we are not involved in the attack on Benazir Bhutto." The CIA concluded that Mehsud was behind Bhutto's killing shortly after it occurred, an American intelligence official has said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. The Musharraf government fingered Mehsud for the former prime minister's death in December, but some members of her political party and her family have questioned those assertions. There have been complaints that the government failed to provide her adequate security and vague allegations that elements within the government might have been involved in the assassination.

Bhutto died when an assassin fired at her and detonated an explosive vest as she was leaving an election campaign rally. The blast killed at least 20 other people and wounded scores more. The death of Pakistan's most popular opposition leader threw the country into turmoil and triggered riots that left more than 40 people dead. It forced the government to delay by six weeks parliamentary elections that had been set for Jan. 8. Bhutto, who had returned to Pakistan in October after spending nearly eight years in exile, had vowed to support tough military measures against Islamic militants who have used the border areas as staging points for infiltration into Afghanistan. Suspected Muslim militants shot and killed a top intelligence official in North West Frontier Province as he left a mosque after offering dawn prayers Sunday, local police officer Javed Khan said. Nisar Ahmed, who was shot in Srekh village, headed the Inter-Services Intelligence agency's section on security in the province, an official from the agency's regional office said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to address the media. Separately, the army said in a statement it had found 5.5 tons of explosives hidden in a mosque in the Swat Valley, an area in the north of the country that it recaptured from the militants in December.
By SLOBODAN LEKIC Zarar Khan & Munir Ahmed contributed.
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Signs in Kenya That Killings Were Planned

KERINGET, Kenya, Jan. 21st. (NY Times) — At first the violence seemed as spontaneous as it was shocking, with machete-wielding mobs hacking people to death and burning women and children alive in a country that was celebrated as one of Africa’s most stable. Kenya’s tensions are especially evident in the Rift Valley. But a closer look at what has unfolded in the past three weeks, since a deeply flawed election plunged Kenya into chaos, shows that some of the bloodletting that has left more than 650 people dead may have been premeditated and organized. Leaflets calling for ethnic killings mysteriously appeared before the voting. Politicians with both the government and opposition parties gave speeches that stoked long-standing hatred among ethnic groups. And local tribal chiefs held meetings to plot attacks on rivals, according to some of them and their followers.

As soon as the election results were announced, handing a suspiciously thin margin of victory to Kenya’s president, Mwai Kibaki — whose policies of favoring his own ethnic group have marginalized about half the country — all the elements lined up for the violence to explode. Thousands of young men swept the countryside, burning homes and attacking members of rival ethnic groups. The killings go on. On Friday, six bodies arrived at a morgue in the town of Narok, northwest of Nairobi, some with deep spear wounds. On a strip of white medical tape affixed to the victims’ foreheads was written their names, dates of death and the cause: “Post-elections violence.” “It wasn’t like people just woke up and started fighting each other,” said Dan Juma, the acting deputy director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission. “It was organized.” What is not clear is if there was a systematic plan to start a nationwide ethnic war, and whether high-level political leaders played a role beyond possibly inciting violence through hate speech. Before the election, it was easy to forget that even Kenya, with its reputation as an African success story and land of tolerance, was split along ethnic lines that are ripe for political manipulation. The grievances, typically about land, economic opportunity and political power, are real and often justified, though usually held in check.

Nowhere are those tensions more evident than in the Rift Valley of western Kenya, which has some of the most fabled and productive land in Africa but recently has been turned into a scene out of “The Grapes of Wrath,” with tens of thousands of desperate people fleeing in battered pickups piled high with beds, chairs, blankets and children. Some trucks are so overloaded their bumpers hang just millimeters above the road. The violence here is decidedly different from that which grinds on in Kenya’s slums, where police officers have opened fire on unarmed demonstrators and rival gangs prowl alleys with rocks in their hands. In the Rift Valley, people do not keep their hatreds or activities secret. Those who have taken part in the killings say the attacks were community efforts, sanctioned by elders and guided by traditions that celebrate a warrior culture.

On a recent day, a dozen young men with faces smeared with mud stepped out of the forest near the small town of Keringet. They were from the Kalenjin ethnic group and said they had killed 20 people this month. They were armed with bows, arrows, clubs and knives. Some wore animal skins with cellphones tucked in the folds. Rono Kibet, one of the men, said elders in his community called a big meeting on Dec. 30. That was the night that Kenya’s election results were announced, giving Mr. Kibaki the victory over Raila Odinga, the top opposition leader, despite widespread evidence of vote rigging. More than 2,000 young men gathered, Mr. Kibet said, and the elders urged them to kill Kikuyus, Mr. Kibaki’s ethnic group, and burn down their houses. The Kalenjin had fought them before. “The community raised the money for the gasoline,” Mr. Kibet said. He explained how the elders blessed the young men, who then split into teams of 50 to hunt down Kikuyus with bows and arrows. He did not feel bad about shooting them, he said. “We attack people, we burn their homes and then we take their animals,” Mr. Kibet said matter-of-factly. A few villages away and a couple of hours later, Kikuyu farmers scanned the hilltops with a pair of old field glasses that never seemed quite in focus. They carried homemade guns built of wood, water pipes and umbrella springs, highly illegal but highly necessary, they said. Some of the sentinels were among the most educated people in the area. One, Wilson Muiruri, a University of Nairobi student, was spending his Christmas holiday moonlighting as a warrior. “I don’t hate Kalenjins at the university,” he said. “But out here, it’s different.”

In Nairobi, the capital, a senior Kenyan police official cracked open a thick binder, with the subject line “ETHNIC CLASHES,” that revealed evidence of what he called a pattern of highly orchestrated mayhem in the Rift Valley. According to the reports, a nine-foot ditch had been cut in an asphalt road by an earth mover, apparently to prevent authorities from being able to get to conflict zones to intervene; thousands of armed men had suddenly materialized in thinly populated villages; and a roadblock had been built with 10 tons of concrete. “You don’t move 10 tons of concrete on your back,” said the police official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to share this information publicly. “This is a full military operation.” Most clashes are in rural areas, which are difficult for the police to reach, and the government strategy so far has been to use military escorts to evacuate the people who want to leave. But government officials may have been part of the problem.

About a month before the election, the police found a large weapons cache — 20 bows, 50 arrows, 30 clubs, 30 machetes and 30 swords — in a government car belonging to an assistant minister, a member of the president’s party. The assistant minister, who was not in the car at the time and has denied involvement, has yet to be charged. In any case, several residents in the Rift Valley and local aid workers said parliamentary candidates had been arming young men, though no arrests had been made. Although the authorities have not produced any evidence directly linking top politicians to violence, human rights groups documented speeches by political leaders assailing certain ethnic groups in the run-up to the election. William Ruto, a charismatic opposition leader and Kalenjin chief, was quoted talking about Kikuyu domination.

Kikuyu politicians, meanwhile, made disparaging remarks about Luos and about how Mr. Odinga, a Luo, was not fit to rule because he is uncircumcised. At the same time, fliers appeared in several towns in the Rift Valley telling Kikuyus to leave. “Warning! Warning! Warning!” read one flier. “Anyone who does not obey will die.” In some cases, the literature seemed to be part of a campaign of dirty tricks to tarnish rivals. In November, a document surfaced in Nairobi, marked confidential and supposedly written by opposition leaders, that laid out a strategy to use “ethnic tensions/violence as a last resort.” “It’s absolutely fake,” said Peter Wanyande, an opposition strategist whose name appears on the document with the wrong first name. “Our opponents are the ones using ethnic violence. It’s terrible.” The government is blaming opposition supporters and their leaders for the Rift Valley bloodshed, especially the episode in which up to 50 women and children seeking sanctuary in a church were burned alive. “This is ethnic cleansing,” said Alfred Mutua, a spokesman for the Kenyan government. Several local chiefs of the Kalenjin and Masai communities said they held meetings before the election discussing how they would attack Kikuyus and push them off their land. Top opposition politicians have said they were not involved and that there were no plans for violence. “The problem was created at the spur of the moment when the elections were stolen,” Mr. Ruto said.

The disappointing reality is that all this has happened before in Kenya: the same places, the same ethnic fault lines, even the same tactics, down to the mud-smeared faces. Both of the times that ethnic violence has swept across the Rift Valley, the early 1990s and now, local tensions have been ignited by politics. The problem starts with land. In the 1960s and 1970s, Kikuyus from the central highlands of Kenya acquired large farms, some legally, some questionably through their connections to Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta, a Kikuyu. That planted a grudge with local groups like the Kalenjin and Masai. Kenya’s president in 1991, Daniel arap Moi, exploited the hard feelings for his own agenda. Mr. Moi, a Kalenjin, was facing re-election, and he used his network of police chiefs and tribal elders to attack Kikuyus and other ethnic groups affiliated with the nascent opposition movement. The clashes claimed more than 1,000 lives, and though they had subsided by the late 1990s, they never really stopped.

And this recent election cycle, once again, was primed for disaster. For the first time since the 1960s, two heavyweights from rival ethnic groups squared off in a hotly contested race, giving it an inevitable ethnic tinge. The backdrop was growing resentment toward Kikuyus, partly because Mr. Kibaki had put Kikuyus in charge of the most powerful positions in Kenya. Many Kalenjin in the Rift Valley felt their time for redress had come. Mr. Odinga was polling well and promised to implement a policy called majimbo, which means something like federalism but has been interpreted by many to imply the eviction of ethnic groups (namely the Kikuyus) from areas not native to them. Ethnicity in Africa, said Ted Dagne, an Africa specialist for the Congressional Research Service, is an easy flash point because of the perception — and often the practice — that the ethnic group in power will help its own people first and marginalize others. “You don’t see these issues in Kenya as obviously as you see them, say, in Somalia,” Mr. Dagne said, “but underneath, it’s there.”

So are cultural undercurrents. Mr. Kibet, the Kalenjin fighter, explained how at 14 he was sent into the forest for a few months to be circumcised and learn the ways of his people. He was taught how to shoot a bow and crack a skull with a wooden club. He described a transformation that he and his friends routinely make, shedding their jeans and day jobs for war paint and clubs. “The Kikuyu are our enemy because they are on our land,” he said. “It is not good to kill their women or children. But to kill one of their men, that is an achievement.”
by Jeffrey Gettleman
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A Cutting Tradition - Female Circumcision

Female circumcisers and their attendants waiting in an elementary-school classroom, where they do their work.

NY Times Jan. 20th. - When a girl is taken — usually by her mother — to a free circumcision event held each spring in Bandung, Indonesia, she is handed over to a small group of women who, swiftly and yet with apparent affection, cut off a small piece of her genitals. Sponsored by the Assalaam Foundation, an Islamic educational and social-services organization, circumcisions take place in a prayer center or an emptied-out elementary-school classroom where desks are pushed together and covered with sheets and a pillow to serve as makeshift beds. The procedure takes several minutes. There is little blood involved. Afterward, the girl’s genital area is swabbed with the antiseptic Betadine. She is then helped back into her underwear and returned to a waiting area, where she’s given a small, celebratory gift — some fruit or a donated piece of clothing — and offered a cup of milk for refreshment. She has now joined a quiet majority in Indonesia, where, according to a 2003 study by the Population Council, an international research group, 96 percent of families surveyed reported that their daughters had undergone some form of circumcision by the time they reached 14.

These photos were taken in April 2006, at the foundation’s annual mass circumcision, which is free and open to the public and held during the lunar month marking the birth of the prophet Muhammad. The Assalaam Foundation runs several schools and a mosque in Bandung, Indonesia’s third-largest city and the capital of West Java. The photographer Stephanie Sinclair was taken to the circumcision event by a reproductive-health observer from Jakarta and allowed to spend several hours there. Over the course of that Sunday morning, more than 200 girls were circumcised, many of them appearing to be under the age of 5. Meanwhile, in a nearby building, more than 100 boys underwent a traditional circumcision as well. According to Lukman Hakim, the foundation’s chairman of social services, there are three “benefits” to circumcising girls. “One, it will stabilize her libido,” he said through an interpreter. “Two, it will make a woman look more beautiful in the eyes of her husband. And three, it will balance her psychology.” Female genital cutting — commonly identified among international human rights groups as female genital mutilation — has been outlawed in 15 African countries. Many industrialized countries also have similar laws. Both France and the U.S. have prosecuted immigrant residents for performing female circumcisions.

In Indonesia, home to the world’s largest Muslim population, a debate over whether to ban female circumcision is in its early stages. The Ministry of Health has issued a decree forbidding medical personnel to practice it, but the decree which has yet to be backed by legislation does not affect traditional circumcisers and birth attendants, who are thought to do most female circumcisions. Many agree that a full ban is unlikely without strong support from the country’s religious leaders. According to the Population Council study, many Indonesians view circumcision for boys and girls as a religious duty. Female circumcision in Indonesia is reported to be less extreme than the kind practiced in other parts of the globe — Africa, particularly. Worldwide, female genital cutting affects up to 140 million women and girls in varying degrees of severity, according to estimates from the World Health Organisation. The most common form of female genital cutting, representing about 80 percent of cases around the world, includes the excision of the clitoris and the labia minora. A more extreme version of the practice, known as Pharaonic circumcision or infibulation, accounts for 15 percent of cases globally and involves the removal of all external genitalia and a stitching up of the vaginal opening.

Studies have shown that in some parts of Indonesia, female circumcision is more ritualistic — a rite of passage meant to purify the genitals and bestow gender identity on a female child — with a practitioner rubbing turmeric on the genitals or pricking the clitoris once with a needle to draw a symbolic drop of blood. In other instances, the procedure is more invasive, involving what WHO classifies as “Type I” female genital mutilation, defined as excision of the clitoral hood, called the prepuce, with or without incision of the clitoris itself. The Population Council’s 2003 study said that 82 percent of Indonesian mothers who witnessed their daughters’ circumcision reported that it involved “cutting.” The women most often identified the clitoris as the affected body part. The amount of flesh removed, if any, was alternately described by circumcisers as being the size of a quarter-grain of rice, a guava seed, a bean, the tip of a leaf, the head of a needle. At the Assalaam Foundation, traditional circumcisers say they learn the practice from other women during several years of apprenticing. Siti Rukasitta, who has been a circumciser at the foundation for 20 years, said through an interpreter that they use a small pair of sterilized scissors to cut a piece of the clitoral prepuce about the size of a nail clipping. Population Council observers who visited the event before the 2003 study, however, reported that they also witnessed some cases of circumcisers cutting the clitoris itself.

Any distinction between injuring the clitoris or the clitoral hood is irrelevant, says Laura Guarenti, an obstetrician and WHO’s medical officer for child and maternal health in Jakarta. “The fact is there is absolutely no medical value in circumcising girls,” she says. “It is 100 percent the wrong thing to be doing.” The circumcision of boys, she adds, has demonstrated health benefits, namely reduced risk of infection and some protection against H.I.V.

Nonetheless, as Western awareness of female genital cutting has grown, anthropologists, policy makers and health officials have warned against blindly judging those who practice it, saying that progress is best made by working with local leaders and opinion-makers to gradually shift the public discussion of female circumcision from what it’s believed to bestow upon a girl toward what it takes away. “These mothers believe they are doing something good for their children,” Guarenti, a native of Italy, told me. “For our culture that is not easily understandable. To judge them harshly is to isolate them. You cannot make change that way.”
By SARA CORBETT
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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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