“We never thought it could happen here” is the most common phrase you hear in Kenya today.
In three decades of covering conflict in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Korea, Chile, Argentina, Namibia, Angola and Mozambique, the two weeks I have just spent in Kenya saw the worst violence I’ve ever experienced among many of the nicest people I’ve ever dealt with.
These are some notes from two weeks in Kenya as a counsellor to those who were raped and/or experienced extreme violence as well as assisting people in refugee camps and debriefing aid workers, medical staff and trauma counsellors.
Six hundred families, as an example, live in the nursery school and primary school of the Star of Hope Academy in violence-torn Mutare North in Nairobi. Principal David Gathura moved them to sleep in the open air of the grounds of the school, to make way for his 250 pupils when school began this week.
“We need food, bedding, tents; this is hectic. People fled here from Kijiji-Chachewa, a village across the river [five minutes from downtown Nairobi], when it was attacked by Luos two weeks ago. The villagers include Kikuyu, Kamba, Kisii and Taita …” He sighs and, standing on a hill, waves his hand across a vast open space where the village once stood. Now only soil and bits of plastic remain.
In that small refugee camp alone, there are nine newly orphaned children ranging in age from two to 15, with an average age of nine. The severely overstretched Red Cross has only delivered food to them twice, the last time six days ago, and starvation is setting in.
Teachers and children across Kenya have been profoundly traumatised. The Kenyan Counselling Association and the Kenyan Psychologists’ Association have stepped up calls for voluntary or trained counsellors.
Lilian Kasarani (35) is not Kikuyu but her husband, a teacher, is. When their home in the Rift Valley was attacked along with others, she and her husband picked up their two small children and ran, leaving the house they had worked hard to build, and even their car. They now live with relatives in Nairobi, too frightened to return.
Her six-year-old son, Bob, sits motionless with vacant eyes. She says: “He wakes up screaming at night, saying, ‘Have they cut daddy up? Is he dead?’” He refuses food.
Her 18-month-old daughter, too, refuses food and has gone back to being breast-fed. Lilian, a master’s student in engineering, sobs: “We have nothing. Everything we worked for has gone. I wish I was dead.” She does not know how Bob (he is a second-grader) or her husband, a teacher, whose hands now tremble, will cope at school.
There is possibly not an individual in Kenya who has not been touched by the violence, either directly or through a family member or friend.
More than 1 000 children (at conservative estimates by the United Nations Children’s Fund, which provided scant assistance – 35 000 tents yes, and some aid packs, but there is still no database of missing children or attempts to reunite them with families) have been orphaned or separated from their parents. Some are now being subjected to rape in refugee camps (which have sprung up at churches, schools, mosques and sports arenas) and on the streets.
Horrific ongoing revenge killings are taking place even in central Nairobi. The estimate of 1 000 killed is probably low.
In one instance, a group of young men was abducted at 6.30pm on Monday on Jogoo road in downtown Nairobi, by a Kikuyu gang. The men were taken to a house and then called into a room where one by one they were hacked to death. The only person to survive was allowed to live because he had a card showing he was a volunteer with a relief organisation, but the skin was partly removed from one hand with a scalpel, he was badly beaten, made to lick the blood of those hacked before his eyes, and had to open his mouth while attackers urinated into it. He, too, is profoundly suicidal.
Rape statistics have at least trebled, even though few are able to go to hospitals for help because of erratic public transport in Nairobi and dangerous road travel in rural areas — military convoys escort those on roads outside cities and even those convoys get stoned, shot at or have to dodge burning barricades or rocks. Most factories remain closed and many tour agencies with thousands of bookings cancelled are laying off people, which means the wage-earning economy has been cut dramatically. People without money not only cannot afford transport, but they are also starting to starve.
In one instance this week in Nairobi, eight women were abducted by a gang and taken to a burnt-out building where they were repeatedly raped, some with their daughters. A tampon was removed from a menstruating woman and attackers squeezed her menstrual blood into the mouths of those they raped.
Counsellors and medical workers are burnt out and profoundly traumatised. Jane Mburu, a social worker, said: “I can’t take any more. This is not the country I know. I can’t sleep. I want to leave this country. I can’t bear it.”
The Nairobi Women’s Hospital is an outstanding example of how Kenyans are rallying to help. CEO Dr Sam Thenya has personally visited refugee centres daily, listing those needing medical treatment and sending in ambulances, medical personnel or counsellors to help. Funds have been diverted from a $60-million building project for a desperately needed new hospital to send assistance in the form of medical staff and counsellors across Kenya. The country is awash with angels, like him and his staff, among profound horror and deepening misery.
Rains have come early and a potentially significant health crisis faces the country with hundreds of thousands of Kenyans living in the open with little or no sanitation and a plague of flies and mosquitoes already in some refugee camps.
There is scant government assistance to a massive but haphazardly coordinated relief effort led by NGOs that are facing huge demands with minimal foreign donor support. The bags of cast-off clothes left by middle-class Kenyans at relief centres or food items donated by some supermarkets are simply not enough to cope.
President Mwai Kibaki visited one relief area, under heavy security, in Kachibura, Kitale East district, and promised to build houses for those who had lost their homes — a promise no one believes, with severely rutted, badly congested roads in Nairobi that haven’t seen any upgrades in years and little maintenance.
There was scant trust in the mediation process initiated by Ghanaian President John Kufuor, who is also chairman of the African Union, which Kibaki rejected out of hand or that underway with former UN secretary general Kofi Annan. The day before the Kufuor process began, Kibaki appointed his new Cabinet in a move widely seen as contemptuous of the mediation process.
Media coverage has been critical of the ruling party, with Jaindi Kisero writing in the East African, as an example: “In Kenya, winning and losing elections is a high-stakes affair because it means exclusion of the losers from power and distribution of resources for five years … Members of the Kalenjin tribe of former president Daniel arap Moi voted massively against Mwai Kibaki. [They feel] too many of their tribesmen were sacked when Kibaki took over in 2003. A nascent Kalenjin business class that had emerged during Moi’s regime disappeared overnight, their links to sources of patronage having been suddenly cut off.”
A report I wrote to aid agencies included this: “Heroic efforts have come from many Kenyans who have given up their jobs and their time to work long, thankless hours to assist those who need aid. There are endless heroes and heroines at this time in Kenya; however, given the nature of this being an emergency effort, there are gaps — most of which can be easily filled and remedied.
“Aid organisations and government need to anticipate a looming crisis in the hinterland because so many people have relocated there. This will put pressure on land, housing, education and health services.
“Early rains, too, bring the risk of water-borne diseases ranging from typhoid to cholera and malaria in already-overcrowded refugee centres. The small, underserved ones in Mutare North that already have plagues of flies and mosquitoes are an example.”
Kibaki shows no evidence of a desire to negotiate a peaceful compromise to end the ethnic violence in Kenya. When Parliament opened on Tuesday January 15, MPs from his ironically named People’s National Unity party formed a minority even though he persuaded a splinter party, ODM-Kenya, to add its 16 MPs to the PNU, bringing its representation in Parliament to 77 — still lower than the ODM’s 105 MPs.
Former Tanzanian president Benjamin Mkapa toured some refugee camps in early January with Zambian statesman Kenneth Kaunda and former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano.
The United States and the European Union have warned that it could not be “business as usual until there is political compromise which leads to a lasting solution that reflects the will of the people”. US aid to Kenya alone tops $1-billion a year.
Analysts are warning the situation in Kenya and political uncertainty in South Africa could affect investor confidence in the continent. Last year, international banking saw a record number of investments in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the International Monetary Fund. There was $46-billion in net private capital flows to the continent in 2007 and $15-billion in private portfolio investments.
Kenya’s economy, last year one of the best performing in Africa with growth of 7,5%, is, after less than a month of violence, in rapid freefall with best-case growth projections now at 4%.
Disinformation is escalating with a nine-page email purporting to be a confidential “Executive Brief on the Positioning and Marketing of the Orange Democratic Movement and ‘The People’s President’ Hon Raila A Odinga”, dated September 8 2007, being circulated among business leaders and NGO heads with the message: “ODM’s core strategy was to market hatred of Kukuyus [sic] to other tribes.”
The document notes: “Tap into pledged funding from external donors including the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Germany, the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Venezuela, Libya, the Democratic Republic of Congo as well as individuals/institutional caucuses such as the GTZ Network, Cyril Ramaphosa, the Deya Ministries and US Republicans.”
It says, as an example: “Anti-Kikuyuism must be reinforced with promises of jobs and economic gains to key players from every community supporting this initiative [to elect Odinga].”
Ramaphosa says South African businessmen were approached by Odinga for funds, but he knows of none who assisted.
SMSs spread fear. Take this one as an example: “Got this from a Kikuyu friend at 3am: House of Mumbi, they killed hundreds of our people. We didn’t retaliate — we knew they were very angry. But their new call to mass action means kill more Kikuyus in Rift, Western and Nyanza. If Kibaki stole votes, he was not with us so why are we being killed. We say, no more innocent Kikuyu blood will be shed. We will slaughter them right here in the capital city. For justice compile a list of Luos, Luyhias and Kales [different tribes] you know at work, your estate, anywhere in Nairobi, plus where and how their children go to school. We will give you numbers to text this info …”
The Kenya Government Office of Public Communications has placed full-page ads in newspapers calling on, among others, “ambassadors of the USA, UK and Germany, international and local media, Law Society of Kenya, UNDP and UN observers”. It says: “You have claimed that the presidential elections were irregular. For the sake of justice and transparency, can you provide evidence that this is so? … You have made allegations; Kenyans want evidence, not analysis nor biased reports, utterances and opinions.”
Thirteen donor countries have threatened to withdraw direct aid to Kenya’s government unless it shows a commitment to “good governance, democracy, the rule of law and human rights”; they include the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Norway, Spain and the European Commission. The country has already lost R2-billion in tourist revenue.
In Mombasa, many hotels usually filled with tourists at this time of year have closed. In Nairobi, hotels that were filled to capacity in November and December are down to 10% or 20% of capacity and have laid off most staff.
Restaurant terraces that served 150 people lunch a day are grateful if five arrive. The only institutions that are full are hospitals, but because so many patients have lost everything, most are being treated free and hospitals are facing financial dilemmas.
Kenya’s powerful economic growth has seen skyscrapers in downtown Nairobi and a wealthy political elite, but Kibera, Nairobi’s slum of three million people, is the biggest in East Africa. Roads are potholed and overcrowded and clean water a privilege. Violence is being led by young people who have no work and no prospects of getting a job; they have nothing to lose – if we ignore all dangers presented by Kenya, we must consider this.
Any peace in Kenya now will only be temporary until a more socially just system emerges, but whether any of Kenya’s present array of politicians will bring that is moot.
Fear is everywhere. The day after four people died after violent protests emerged in 11 towns, the Nairobi Star carried a double-page feature headlined: “Genocides of the 20th century: Kenya could go this route.” Live broadcast of unrest is forbidden and threatening sounds are being directed toward the media by the government.
There are fears that direct foreign investment, which had been shrinking, could disappear — United States investors spent $68-million in Kenya in 2006, down from $145-million in 2005, according to the US Commerce Department. However, US investments rose by 14% in Uganda to $14-million and in Tanzania by 40% to $35-million in the same period.
The seven landlocked countries around Kenya, including Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, which rely on Kenya for fuel imports and up to 20% of their exports, have been seriously affected. Fuel supplies have been affected in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania, all of which rely on Kenya as a hub for fuel supplies — most of which travels by road. It is unsafe to travel on Kenyan roads outside cities without a military convoy and many truckers refuse to take the risk.
As an example, Uganda relies on 100 truckloads of fuel daily from Kenya; last week only 36 fuel trucks entered Uganda from Kenya. Uganda also has more than 5 000 Kenyans in refugee camps. In Eldoret, a Kenyan town with at least 12 000 displaced people, dairy farmers are unable to process 30 000 litres of milk a day because there is no fuel for boilers to pasteurise milk.
The Nairobi Stock Exchange estimates that $31-million is being lost a day at present. The NSE, which has seen growth of 280% over the past five years, saw 5% of market capitalisation wiped off the value of shares when the bourse reopened after Kibaki announced he had been re-elected as president.
Major agricultural exports — tea, French beans, flowers and milk — are rotting with transport perilous on roads outside cities and even in some urban areas. Property damage is estimated at R10-billion with none of it covered by insurance — all of it is classified as riot damage.
Violence flared on December 30 after allegations from European Union election observers and five members of the Kikuyu-dominated Kenyan electoral commission that there were irregularities and rigging in the December 27 vote, which saw a record turnout of 14-million Kenyans.
The first and third weeks of January saw intense violence across the country with well more than 1 000 dead. Those displaced after losing their homes is estimated at 300 000, but this figure is almost certainly an underestimate. Kenya’s Red Cross secretary general, Abbas Gullet, estimates that food aid is needed for one million people in Nairobi alone — widespread poverty and unemployment has seen need exacerbated by the torching of shops, most factories are also still refusing to open.
Finance Minister Amos Kimunya estimated the first week’s violence cost the county $1-billion — but costs continue to rise with flare-ups, a large population of displaced people, many factories closed and businesses destroyed.
Kenya Ports Authority officials have appealed to companies to move freight. The port is experiencing unparallelled congestion with 23 000 containers clogging it. Fruit and vegetables have rotted at the docks without workers to load them on to ships. Kenya’s horticulture industry, which earns in excess of R5-billion in revenue each year, is crippled without transport to get flowers and potted plants to ports. It lost R250-million in the first week’s violence because transport stalled during unrest, according to Stephen Mbithi of the Fresh Produce Exports Association of Kenya.
What is probably more dangerous to the economy and employment figures — which in turn affect stability — is the vast number of small businesses and informal traders who have seen their lives and businesses destroyed by violence. Their needs to restart their lives are pathetically small, but no one has yet intervened to assist.
Professor Emmy Gichinga, who coordinates counselling at Jamhuri Park refugee centre (in Nairobi’s showgrounds) — which has more than 6 000 registered refugees, of whom 684 have lost everything — has pages of list of their needs. “If Jackie Auma of Kibera had R200 she says it would be enough to start a business and build a shack; Catherin Mwikali wants R150 to return to relatives in Katura to restart her life; Naomi Kimuntu needs R400 to return to her home village near Kisi and set up a small business.”
But no one has yet offered help. In the crowded counselling centre there are not even chairs; people stand in corners or sit on the lawn outside.
Schools and universities were due to start classes on Monday January 14, but many schools are being used for refugees, were burnt or the situation in their areas is too unstable to open. Classes at Jomo Kenyatta University and the Kenya Medical Training College in Nairobi have been suspended until early February.
The gravest threat facing Kenya is tribalism that founding father Jomo Kenyatta already began stoking in the 1960s, and which reached a pitch during electioneering last year. This is not the first time that ethnic violence has flared in Kenya, but it is the worst.
Phyllis Mukui, who lost her home near Nairobi and saw 15 neighbours die in the violence, said: “My husband’s father is Kikuyu, his mother is Zulu, my mother was Chonyi, my father Kisii — so what tribe are we? What tribe are our children? Our home was burnt by Luos who were killing Kikuyu … why can’t we just be Kenyans?”
Martin Kimani wrote in the East African of interviewing a woman imprisoned in Rwanda for her part in the 1994 genocide. “The war,” she said, “started when I was a little girl in the 1970s and other children would tease me for having Tutsi legs …”
Ten-year-old Daniel Nzise told aid workers in a refugee camp in Muthare North that he had seen his father hacked to death and neighbours killed. He said: “I want to go and kill now.” Kenya has to ensure his words are not a prophecy.
Kimani, writing in the East African, observed: “Our country won its independence but has never broken free from the idea that political power is a licence to rob by means fair or foul … It would do well to heed the fire [political violence] for it has only been damped down for the moment.”
Dante wrote that “hell is reserved for those who in times of great moral crisis maintain their neutrality” — the world has learned too few lessons from the Rwanda genocide of 1994. It’s hot in Kenya.
All I can say is,Cry Africa,cry. Oh,when will they
ever learn.Your article has made me so sick to my stomach that I will end my comments right,here.
our leaders need to learn from the KENYAN situation. we are all sitting on some sort of time bomb or another due to our political instabilities.hope nothing of the sort is experienced elsewhere.
Two questions:
1. I read and see a lot keeping updated on general world news and politics, why is this extreme and widespread violence not show/reported on in the main stream media here in Africa and worldwide?
2. Why does the world, especially the ruling elites, continue to ignore (at best) the plague of tribalism (worldwide not just Africa) and at worst vigorously deny it and aggressively attack anyone who wishes to discuss it?
Saddened African
there are so so many factual inaccuracies in this article i don’t even know where to begin…it also seems you have sources of information that the Kenyan and international press have not yet tapped into.
Why do journalists feel the need to do this??
If the article is so full of factual inaccuracies why don’t you list just one to start off?
THANK YOU, CHARLENE! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!
Your courage and compassion, coupled with tender insight, a journalist’s precision and perspective, and your evocative narrative skills make for one of the most compelling reports to come out of Kenya.
Like so many African flashpoints – Sierra Leone, Eritrea, the DRC, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Rwanda/Burundi – only the most religiously blind refuse to see the shadow of Kenya lurking just behind the curtain of Polokwane.
I have been speaking with many friends in KZN (Zulu) who tell me what my family in PE (Xhosa)says – the undercurrent of tribal enmity is almost palpable. And that’s in the cities! I don’t know how you keep positive when here at Fortress Kriel even my noddy dog and happy face are miserable and depressed.
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever Learn?
Go ahead, IM, point out any inacuraccies you can find. There are none.
You should have also noted that I quote extensively from the Kenyan press.
As you, sitting outside of Kenya appear to know better, please enlighten us.
IM, please do point out the ‘factual inaccuracies’, rather than throwing vague accusations and generalisations.
This just shows how thin the veneer of civilisation on all human beings is. The perpetrators and those rich and powerful who look the other way.
How does a leader look himself in the mirror let alone his constituants when something like this plays out.
Be specific, IM. What is factually incorrect, and why should we believe your over Charlene? She’s an experienced journalist who has just returned from Kenya. Why would she lie?
@ IM — This kind of silliness cannot go unchallenged. Do you know anything about blogging and/or journalism? Charlene is one of SA’s best at both disciplines. Being with aid agencies also gives her access where other less competent hacks don’t go. And from what I’ve heard the authorities have most foreign press under pretty tight rein – as in Zimbobwe. Also, most reports I’ve seen ( about 110 or so in my job) don’t hit the ball quite straight themselves. So uninformed comments kinda stick in the craw, IM.
Why do commentators feel the need to do this?
I could not finish this article as it brought back a memory. In December 1989 my home was burnt because my father was an IFP supporter. The people that were “baying for our blood” were neighbours we had lived amongst all our lives. It was not in a township so we all knew each other but suddenly the hate just arose (as if out of nowhere). I speak to friends from Rwanda and they say the same thing your neighbour suddenly becomes your enemy. am sure similar things happenned to people whose parents or siblings supported ANC. Politicians thrive on manipulating people and I hope that Africans find a better way to get to power and a better way to vent our frustrations. This is so sad
Thanks for sharing this with us. It takes courage to go to Kenya when you did. Our hopes and prayers must be with the good people you metion are doing all the huminatarian work. These power hungry politicians must realise that their is futility/madness is wanting to rule, even if it means destroying the country in the process. What are the possibilities for a political settlement?
first one might seem a bit pedantic…but i used to live in Mathare 4A(North). Kijiji-Chachewa is not 5 minutes from downtown Nairobi(unless you are taking a helicopter). Nairobi has about 3.5 million people, do you seriously want us to believe that 3 million of them live in Kibera? I also find it distasteful that people like you bandy the word genocide around quite, I feel, irresponsibly. what is going on in Kenya doesn’t approximate a genocide either in scale or intent. and, by the way, i don’t mean to say that what’s happened isn’t terrible or something shouldn’t be done about it but the impression created by your article doesn’t belie the reality on the ground.
DSM, you might choose to believe Charlene over me, but what about people who actually live in Kenya(full time rather than just dropping by fro two weeks) see if their impressions of the situation tally with Charlene’s
http://africaexpatwivesclub.blogspot.com/
http://www.kenyaimagine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1068&Itemid=141
http://www.kenyaimagine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1079&Itemid=141
You have responded very defensively, I didn’t post here because I wanted to attack you or your integrity…I did because i cared. Normally, I wouldnt even respond to articles like this because this is what we’ve come to expect, especially from the western press. But I expected better from you because you are African for what that’s worth!
IM – get out of the denial mode m’lad. The hardest part is admitting that there is a problem. Charlene is a writer whose eyes shed sulphuric acid tears as she writes, and she calls it as she sees it. You are not the first person who has been threatened by the content of her writing and reacted angrily. The outbursts that she has sustained in the past have been so bizarre that they have only served to increase her credibility.
There are over twenty distinct ethnicities present in South Africa, some of them indigenous. Diversity is a critical performance area in our national development and if a group emerges that do not include other ethnic groups there will be trouble. Think of this when you hear some one spouting “100% Zulu boy”
Beware of people who come to you asking you to pick up their offences – you have your own battle to fight in getting by every day.
@IM: and I am sure crime is just a perception to you, and there’s no electricity crisis either eh?
We’re all waiting for one of your “factual errors” with bated breath!
Africa is a basket case filled with barbarians. I’m relieved to be out of there. Everyone who can, should get out. If they don’t, they’re crazy.
When two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers
———-
The Kenyan election rigging is similar to Bush outrigging Gore.The party political rivalry(tribalism) played itself out.
Having a dense network of fora to express themselves most probably ensured that no violence occured-at least physical at that.
But the interesting thing about Kenya is that it is similar to Zimbabwe, similar to South Africa, similiar to Namibia-the natives are all landless??????????????????? There is a link with landlessness, alienation and violence(?).
I like the twist in your journalism,reportage as well as supporting huminatarian work. Brilliant.
Excellently written, Charlene. And you spent two weeks RIGHT THERE rather than just pull stories off the news agencies. Two weeks of “immersion” in a story is a very substantial immersion indeed, especially when you are not just absorbing the general atmosphere as a tourist might, but are actively following the trail of stories.
Well done for giving us names, ages and pen-pictures of these unfortunates. When the killings and the travails afflict hundreds and thousands of people, they become dehumanised by news coverage. We read about it and go to the kitchen for a cheese sandwich and sit there thinking that they don’t make PROPER cheese any more. The horror story is lost in our hunger pang simply because it had no faces with which to connect. It happened to a mob. Somewhere where nobody we know lives anyway.
If strangers are to bother about these benighted people, we have to cease being so strangerly. If we have knowledge of real people with real identities facing personal crises, we may more readily empathise and get off our chumps to assist. Even if it is just to spare a thought and write a cheque or something.
You did a good thing, Charlene. Well done.
Charlene Smith, I am a Kenyan & I’ve also been following the Kenyan media extensively & hence can attest to the correctness of your article! Forget about IM, s/he is most likely a Kibaki—apologist. According to the East African Standard (Kenyan paper), the Kenyan Medical professionals are so divided—along tribal lines—that now, it’s feared that medical massacre might happen in the hospitals! I am almost 40 years old & I’ve never thought that anything remotely close to what is now happening in Kenya—would happen in my beloved country—it’s like a bad dream! Please pray for us.
Their problem not ours. We have enough of our own worries, high crime, worlds highest rape rate, anANC gverment, 40% un-employment, to worry about with out worring over other nations.
A key phrase in this blog is “.. those with nothing to lose …” That is the difference between a colourful neighbour and an implacable foe to be destroyed.
If you have nothing and are surrounded by those who have everything, your natural impulse is to reduce all around you to your own level of devastation.
Add to that the example of a looting culture from those in power and you have the recipe for excess.
I think the meltdown in Kenya is horrific, but am even more apprehensive about the denouement in ZimBobwe that is yet to come.
Are we building up to the same head of steam?
One third unemployment, floods of indigent illegal immigrants, universal examples of corruption as a way of life, from ‘lunch’ for a traffic cop, to political leaders being cheered and chaired, shoulder-high, into jail.
The recipe is there. Plenty of people with ‘nothng to lose’ and plenty of examples of contempt for the law.
Cry, the beloved country.
…if IM is so obsess with this article why don’t he just give us his own which is true and factful, its people like this who always go all their out to make people lives miserable…well said and i believe we will continue to assert whoever dares to challenge that we are Africans.every gov is fragile, anything is possible, i hope we are not going to count ourselves out.
A Moment Of Truth For Africa…By Rev P E Adotey Addo
The violence that rocked the world
Reached horrific levels resulting everywhere
With loss of children, women, and men for days
Burned in a church as they were seeking sanctuary
And sanctuary was denied
In flames by mobs infuriated by votes.
The innocent victims faced their rage
Seeking help from locked doors and homes ending
As charred bodies and trash in the once silent streets
No water from kinfolks and no food from neighbors
With nothing gained to be sure.
Only we can save ourselves from this rage
Dedicated to Those who lost their lives in the
Post Elections Riots.Kenya . January 2008
Kenya always had a problem. My Zimbabewan friends used to draw parallels between Arap Moi and Robert Mugabe, the teargassing of students at the universities in Nairobi and in Harare. The suppression of opposition, the similarity of KANU and ZANU.
Now when the saviour becomes the villain what happens. He cannot assert the fear that the dictator instilled in the populace (reminds one of Saddam). So people can go beserk and burn everything they can lay their hands on. In the meanwhile comes a truly myopic opposition leader. The situation is calming. He wins a crucial Speaker’s seat and how does he celebrate the democratic victory he calls for three days of protests which he cannot control. The result mayhem. I was in London when I saw the mob on TV uprooting a rail track with their bare hands. For the sake of crying out loud, that was expensive infrastructure. Does Mr Odinga want to preside over inxiwa i.e. ruins. Mr Odinga has not behaved responsibly as has Mr Kibaki. He has become over excited at his perceived support and ability to arouse the wrath of the “masses” which I term incitement.
The situation is similar to the other foolish behaviour of a “povo” that is easily excitable, manipulated and that is not armed with the critical consciousness to reclaim the state from the party and make decisions that build the nation and not destroy it. That is South Africa. The violent delivery protests, the Khutsong scenario, some sentiments about the troubles of Jacob Zuma and the burning of the train. All these point to a recipe for disaster and the danger of selfish, cunning politicians. Lord Betrand Russell in his essay “The ancestry of fascism” made a good point of how easy it is to selfishly exploit people’s grievances and appear the hero but lead to dictatorship and anarchy. I was joking with a friend from Zimbabwe who was laughing at me saying if we were experiencing the kinds of powercuts they have in Zim Metro rail and Transnet rail or Spoornet will cease to exist. Somebody in cutting fashion said during PW’s time they would not have gotten away with burning trains and besides who uses the trains. The only people who were capable of such arson were taxi owners then. Zimbabwe for all its problems does not have such acts. Which got me thinking about what the Soviet Glasnost era Foreign affairs Minister Shevadnadze said when he became president of one of the former soviet republics is it Georgia. On being asked about seemingly undemocratic tactics he remarked that order in some countries could only be maintained by such tactics. So when strongman Robert Mugabe goes, and no one respects the other what happens? Will Zimbabweans leave the only thing that has kept the country in relative stability i.e. the pursuit of money, trying to make a living, seeking economic livelihood elsewhere (thank heavens they are in demand and have the skills and work ethic and adaptability to live anywhere).Or perhaps Zimbabweans have the consciousness not to be manipulated into burning their country in a post dictatorship era. Or will people long for the stability of the strongman era.
“We never thought it could happen here” is the most common phrase in SA today, with regards to brutal killings, home attacks, ESKOM etc.
In many decades of conflict the sight of white families brutally murdered in their homes is some of the worst violence ever experienced among many of the nicest people in the world.
Farmers, the aged, the young, thousands every year, hundreds of families. Now only blood and pieces of bodies remain.
Teachers and children across SA get attacked and are profoundly traumatised. Young children say why did they shoot dada for our car? Why didnt they buy one themselves?
There is possibly not one white South African who has not been touched by the violence, either directly or through a family member or friend.
A government spokesman said if you don’t like the crime you can leave.
They killed thousands of our people. We didn’t retaliate. Fear is everywhere.
With no power, farm attacks, land claims etc major agricultural exports are declining. What is probably more dangerous to the economy and employment figures — which in turn affect stability — is the vast number of small businesses who will be forced to shut down.
Dante wrote that “hell is reserved for those who in times of great moral crisis maintain their neutrality” — the world has learned too few lessons from Zimbabwe.
Oops, who cares? These are White people. It is not PC to worry about their plight. There is a deafening silence in the world media. The sooner this embarrassing white tribe of Africa disappears the better. Lets rather focus on Kenya.
That was heartbreaking to read… all South Africans must learn from the experiences of the Kenyan people. We have to start being more tolerant of each other with actions and not just talk. And any icitement to racial hatred must be punished, ie. the Skielik murders
@Yam
You are confused. Funny you only pick on the White example.
The Skielik killings were no incitement to racial hatred or violence. He incited no one. Just did the killing himself. No white ever incited any killing, nor was further killing called for.
Now the ANC official outside who led the mob in ‘Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer’, the ANC offical who said ‘We will kill you Whites like flies’, Meneer Mandela who chanted ‘Kill the amaBhulu, kill them all’ etc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKiePbTcAfY
When said to mobs, is this not incitement to racial violence?
Why do you not suggest they be punished? I have news for you; they will not be.
Tolerance is something expected only of whites, and incitement of racial violence appears to be a charge to which Blacks are granted immunity. To accuse them of it is racist.