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Starvation, Strife Tear Kenya Apart

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The New York Times

Published: March 1, 2009

NAIROBI, Kenya - One year after this country exploded in ethnic bloodshed, trouble is brewing.

Ten million people face starvation, partly because farmers in crucial food-producing areas who fled their homes last year have not returned, instead withdrawing deeper into their ethnic enclaves, deeper into fear.

At the same time, public confidence in the Kenyan government is plummeting. Top politicians have been implicated in an endless string of scandals involving tourism, fuel, guns and corn.

On Wednesday, U.N. officials called for the country's police chief and attorney general to resign after a U.N. investigation revealed that more than 500 people had been killed by police death squads. One of the Kenyan whistle-blowers himself was shot to death after providing evidence.

"There's a lot of anger," said Maina Kiai, the former director of Kenya's national human rights commission. "If we don't start resolving these issues soon, things could be worse than before. There could be complete collapse."

The grand coalition government that was formed last year between Kenya's governing party and the opposition, after a deeply flawed election, is now widely dismissed as the "grand letdown." It managed to stop the bloodletting between different ethnic groups that tore this country apart in 2008, killing more than 1,000 people, but has accomplished little else.

The only thing Kenya's ruling class seems to agree on is refusing to pay most of its taxes, even though Kenyan politicians are among the highest paid in the world, a stunning fact in one of the world's poorest countries.

"Corruption is the glue holding this government together," said John Githongo, the director of an anti-corruption institute here.

Ethnicity and the country's lingering Balkanization are topics studiously avoided in parliament. Few of Kenya's politicians seem ready to tackle land reform, constitutional reform or the dangerous culture of impunity, all of which were called urgent priorities after the bloodshed last year. Many Kenyans are urging the International Criminal Court in The Hague to get involved because they have no faith that the Kenyan justice system will prosecute the well-known political figures suspected of orchestrating last year's killings.

"This country hasn't healed," Kiai said, "because we haven't done anything to heal it."

A LAND DIVIDED

•Kenya pulled apart in 2008, when hundreds of thousands of people fled ethnically mixed areas for the safety of homogeneous zones.

•This was the result of a disputed election in which the president, Mwai Kibaki, was widely believed to have rigged the results to stay in power.

•Supporters of the top opposition leader, Raila Odinga, who hails from a different ethnic group, then vented their rage on Kibaki's people.

The New York Times

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