A seminal moment for Kenya - and nothing like Rwanda

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

January 5, 2008 at 1:13 AM EST

JOHANNESBURG — The horrific events in Kenya have caught the attention of the Western media, which are more accustomed to thinking of the country as an African success story, a democracy with a booming economy and a host of great vacation destinations.

Those media talk of the end of Kenya's bright future, even making the comparison with Rwanda and its 1994 genocide, suggesting Kenya is quickly headed down that path.

That comparison is specious. More than 800,000 people were killed in the ethnic-based frenzy in Rwanda, in a well-planned, calculated act of genocide. There are about 300 dead in Kenya, most at the hands of security forces, and those killed were from several different ethnic groups.

The comparison is also, in the opinion of many Kenyans, racist. "The media are trying to perpetuate the idea that this is something genetic or weird, ancient Africa 'ougabouga,' something that's different from the rest of the world," said Binyavanga Wainaina, one of Kenya's leading writers.

"That's stupid and ahistorical and lazy. One could call this an ethnic war but others could call it a constitutional failure…It's not that we have atavistic hatreds to fall back on, not that Kikuyus hate Luos and they're all killing each other. It's a political problem. Kenya itself has failed people, and so this [crisis] is happening."

Perhaps most importantly, trotting out clichés about inflamed tribal killing misses an important opportunity to understand what's happening in Kenya and the fact that there is a small cause for optimism in this spasm of protest as much as there is reason to condemn the violence.

Kenyans voted on Dec. 27, in only the second free vote in the country's history. It was an orderly, peaceful election, and it had a massive voter turnout. Many civic organizations had worked hard to mobilize often-cynical young people to get involved.

Everyone knew the election would be tightly fought, between the incumbent president Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga, though all the polls suggested Mr. Odinga would win. But in the days before the tally was released, there were more and more reports of rigging and fraud. Then the electoral commission said Mr. Kibaki had won by a slight margin. Within hours, he had banned live media broadcasts, called out the security forces in huge numbers and had himself sworn in again.

Protests began almost immediately. Crowds of opposition supporters in Nairobi's vast slums and other parts of the country clashed viciously with police. About 90,000 people have been displaced, seeking safety in airports or government buildings, or in other areas of the country. In a truly horrific turn of events, more than 50 people were burned to death in a church where they had sought shelter in Eldoret.

Some of the violence has had an ethnic overtone: Mr. Kibaki is a Kikuyu (an ethnic group to which about 22 per cent of Kenyans belong), and much of the ruling elite around him is also Kikuyu. That elite has been implicated in multiple acts of corruption — a large reason for support for Mr. Odinga. The public perception is that they engineered the theft of the election to make sure their group would be able to continue to skim from national coffers, and so Kikuyus have been targeted.

Meanwhile in Nairobi, Kikuyus have been killing Luos, Mr. Odinga's tribe, but many of those doing the killing are members of notorious gangs who are using the political upheaval as an excuse for terrorizing and looting.

Now there is something of a political stalemate. There is little point in a recount. The results have clearly been tampered with, so much so that the same electoral commission that certified the vote now says it did so under duress.

Mr. Odinga's party called yesterday for a new election. But international mediators such as South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu are trying to get the two sides talking.

Dan Juma, deputy director of the Kenyan Human Rights Commission, said his group and others want an independent inquiry into the alleged rigging, "because people are yearning for the truth of what happened in the electoral process, and without truth, any reconciliation will not be long lived."

Kenya's media, strong and feisty, are publishing united calls for a political plan that takes the country forward. Many are calling for a government of national unity that involves both Mr. Kibaki's and Mr. Odinga's parties. In all of this, Mr. Juma and others see reasons for optimism.

"What is happening right now is a problem in a democracy that's a moving country. Even five years ago the state of economy was such that nobody felt there was a point in having a stake in it. Now there's a reason [to steal an election]," Mr. Wainaina said. "The good thing about it is that there was a time when you rigged and we'd never know, like [former dictator Daniel] arap Moi rigged in 1992. Today the country is transparent; you can rig but you can't hide it, which people of Kibaki's generation don't understand yet."

A transitional government might finally be pushed to adopt a constitution that protects minorities and devolves power, something Mr. Kibaki's government has refused to do, he said. And that could change Kenya's future.

"This is our seminal moment," he said. "Many great nations were born in violence."