Jane Andahwa is a 93 year old lady who lives in the western Kenya town of Butere. Though not bed-ridden, her mobility is confined to her compound. She is from the Luhya community, Kenya’s second largest community after the Kikuyu.

‘They killed our very own son!’ the 93 year old lady exclaimed to Charity, her eighteen year old grandchild. The frowns were not discernible on her wrinkled face but the intense sorrow in her eyes was very much evident. Without closing those eyes and without warning, she began to pray.

‘Oh God, please unravel the chains of conflict that are binding this country. And God please touch the president so that he can stop causing suffering. I pray that the suffering that has been experienced in Nakuru will not find its way here.’ Grandma Jane always prayed as if God was right there at her couch. A few moments earlier, Charity had told her about the violence that had rocked Nakuru, prompting the prayer. Now, her ever-misty eyes as she appeared lost in thought. Then in her abrupt manner, she reminisced aloud about the olden days.

‘I have lived in this country for almost one hundred years and I have never heard or seen what I saw and heard last month. Although I never leave these compound and thus never saw all the turmoil and death you people have told me about, in my mind I could see my grandchildren in Nairobi scared. And I kept wondering if they were fine. These leaders have destroyed our country. We need other leaders who will remake and re-mould this great country. As I recall, the village elders who ruled our villages when I was your age never used to incite people to fight. They often disagreed but not violently. They were servants of the people who ate from the same plates with us and washed in the same rivers with everyone. Where are such leaders?’

Malaika
She is a performing artist and a medical student. She reminds people to be the change. To preach peace and act peace.
Click to listen or right-click to download

Jacinta
She is from Loitoktok, a border town near Tanzania. She believes that the Kenya electoral commission chairman Samuel Kivuitu is responsible for the unrest in the country. She asserts that the new cabinet is upuzi (nonsensical).
Click to listen or right-click to download

Ongeri
He is a performing artist. He reminds people that the concrete issues of houses and infrastructure cannot be separated from the search for lasting peace.
Click to listen or right-click to download

Metta
Metta is from Denmark but has made Kenya her home for five years. She is a performing artist and also an artists promoter, both locally and abroad. She says that whichever politician stands for truth will eventually prevail.
Click to listen or right-click to download

Christopher
He is a Kenyan who emphatically reminds Kenyans, especially the leaders, of the power of the vote. He tells them to respect the power of the vote. He also insists that Samuel Kivuitu the Electoral Commission chairman should be held responsible. He also doesn't mind the new cabinet.
Click to listen or right-click to download

Tina
She is a volunteer at Jamhuri park, in Nairobi, the center for the displaced people in Nairobi.
Click to listen or right-click to download

Tony Muchiri
He is a volunteer at Jamhuri Park. He felt that he was "being called to give the little that I can and that's my service." He feels that things are getting better.
Click to listen or right-click to download

John Ndungu
He feels that the problems and animosity in Kibera are politically instigated.
Click to listen or right-click to download

Lets face it, what we have witnessed over the past week is not simply a matter of politics and leadership; we have, in fact, been mute spectators to the horrors of tribalism. It seems that this demon has been suppressed, in its current form, for quite some years now...and now that it's been given the opportunity to emerge, it has done so with a vengeance. How else can one explain the fact that a country and a people so admired all over the world as 'the African exception', could metamorphose into another African statistic (and a reason for cynics of Africa around the world to smile) in such a short span of time?

Yet, as we look back on the horrors, we must ask ourselves whether we brand such things as a matter of tribalism because we understand what tribalism is, or simply because someone told us that was what it was. Let me explain.

Truth be told, a majority of MIYA members (if not all) are urbanites whose only claim to having experienced tribalism is by virtue of a simplistic human tendency to identify with one's own tribe/race/community. According to me, though it might still be termed tribalistic, this is a healthy thing. For example, having a preference for a life partner of the same tribe not only satisfies one's need to have someone to relate to, but ensures that one's culture and traditons are passed on to the next generation. Being proud of your tribe is equally healthy. Desiring success for your tribe might be healthy too. But, this term of 'healthy' is only relative to the means used to achieve it. Can marrying someone of the same tribe to ensure the tribe's success and continuity be viewed in the same light as murdering others from another tribe (Hitler style) to achieve that same success and continuity? In matters of governance, I really doubt that in the name of eradicating tribalism, one would suggest that a Luo be included in the group of elders for a Maasai village!! On the other hand, when speaking of a national government (which serves the interests of all 43 of Kenya's tribes) it would only be in the right spirit if responsibilities/portfolios/etc were as mutually inclusive of all the tribes as possible. Yet, in democracy, though everyone has a voice, the majority always wins....and what if the majority all belong to one tribe? Can we still call this tribalism?

I'm sure i'm confusing a lot of people with all this nonsensical banter! Honestly, as urban Kenyans, do we really know what tribalism is? Can we confidently say that we fully well know what would drive a man to burn a church full of people of another tribe? I don't think we can. And as long as we have this 'disability', it would be arrogant on our part to try and 'address' tribalism. We may be able to address issues of peace and war, but not tribalism. However, we could most definitely make an attempt to understand tribalism. So, maybe the best course of action would be a self-education camp on the causes and issues of tribalism. We could talk to individuals who 'cause' tribalism, as well as those who are victims of it. It might be ugly, and get messy...but its only through that can we get to the root of things. And from that stepping stone, can we then start taking some action.

At the end of the day, tackling tribalism is not easy. Contradictory to belief, it may even involve strengthening people's association with their tribes, of course, in a positive manner. Or, we could simply raise our hands in surrender...continue to watch rap videos, wear baggy pants, and claim to be American!!

I'm in the recovery process for the trauma I went through watching our dear country been torn apart. At some point I regretted why there were elections in the first place but just a wish could not solve anything.

When I watched the TV and also the streets all I saw were young people being used. Even most of the uniformed officers are also young people. People I'm not so sure they know what it means being the president or an MP, but all in all their wish for leadership had been violated by fraudulent election results.

Never in my life have I ever imagined Kenya in such a state. I felt helpless as a youth leader and there was absolutely nothing I could do to help the situation. Currently I'm based at Bamburi, Mombasa and before I left for Nairobi there was a youth group I was forming at Kisauni because those sides there are so many youths who are idle and hopeless. They don't have an idea of what they can do with their lives, no wonder the Kisauni area of Mombasa was the worst affected at the coast. Now I'm planning when I go back there to strengthen the group then arrange for an exchange program with KENVO (Kijabe Environmental Volunteers) so that they can come and experience how an organized group can be beneficial to them.

Kenya as a country I believe is more important than any one individual. It’s a shame that one persons ego can lead to chaos, violence, deaths and extensive property damage. The electoral process should be reviewed so that one body like the ECK does not have all the mandate to an extent it can alter the outcome.

Talking to people from the clash hit areas like Molo and Burnt forest you'll realize that the problem is bigger than what we can read from the papers or even the election outcome. Many people have just been existing together peacefully but keenly looking for a vent through which they could exhaust the past injustices. One issue that cannot go unaddressed in Kenya for there to be real harmony and peaceful coexistence is the issue of LAND and equitable distribution of resources.

Kenyans voted for peace, Kenyans had nothing to do with the votes tallying yet they are the recipients of all the violence arising out of the process while those responsible are comfortable with government immunity.

PART I

A week after the violent post-election crisis in Kenya exploded onto the global stage, there is an emerging consensus among progressive, patriotic and democratically minded Kenyans:

1. Kibaki and his PNU cronies stole the Presidential election using the Electoral Commission of Kenya, and it should be underscored, the police, the paramilitary and other coercive organs of the state;

2. What we have in the country today is the reality of a civilian coup with increasingly fascist tendencies as can be evidenced by massive presence of the police and the paramilitary in the Kenyan capital and the fact that it is often Police Commissioner Major-General Hussein Ali and the Chief Propagandist, Dr. Alfred Mutua who are the visible expression of government policy;

3. Mwai Kibaki’s credibility as a would be elder statesman is forever tarnished and his credentials as a "reformer" and "democrat" shattered to smithereens;

4. The poor and other elements of the lumpen elements de classe have turned their anger on each other reducing the conflict to crude tribal terms as they simultaneously hunt the “evil ethnic other” and cower from the same; unless stanched and nipped in the bud, the ethnicized violence poses immediate and long term threats to the very notion of Kenya;

5. That the business and professional elite as well as other sections of the comprador/petit bourgeoisie, rattled by the financial ramifications of the current unrest are desperate to restore an element of “stability” and social control by bombarding Kenyans, via the air waves and media channels of the need for a “peace” which is not necessarily anchored in justice or democracy;

6. The major players in the capitals of capital- from Condoleeza Rice at the US State Department, to David Miliband the British Foreign Secretary to their counterparts and opposite numbers in Ottawa, Canberra, Paris, Berlin and elsewhere are concerned that the current unrest could degenerate into something that they cannot control or to a situation that threatens the economic and geopolitical strategic interests of international global monopoly capital;

[Read more...]

Everyday, I have been buying bread at his shop. He has lived in Butere, (Butere is a small town in western Kenya) for most of his adult life. He has never had any problems with the luhya people here. In fact, he considers himself to be one of us. But when the presidential results were announced, people went crazy. I was also so angry that I actually cried. I had voted for the opposition and just the previous day, it appeared as if Raila Odinga was going to win. He was leading with almost one million votes and many of the places remaining were his strongholds. In Butere, he had won with a landslide as had the member of parliament from his party. And then, I had from the radio what I was sure was a joke by someone. But it couldn’t be. Samuel Kivuitu the Electoral Commission chairman had just announced that Mwai Kibaki had won the elections. How could it be?! As I was asking myself these questions, I had what I thought were gunshots. I had never for the thirty years that I have lived in Butere heard gunshots.

Though I was later to learn that they were not gun shots but tear gas shots. There were violent riots in Butere as people went on a rampage and destroyed property. That was how my friend the middle-aged shop keeper became a target. It’s as if he and others from the Kikuyu community were the face of Kibaki and people vent their anger on his property as some cried for his life. He is still at our local police station. I would like to go and see him and tell him how sorry I am. Where will I be buying bread now? Of course there are other shopkeepers but I don’t have a similar relationship with them. For me, buying bread is more than a commercial act – it’s about friends building one another up.
By Bukachi, P.O Box 62, Butere

Kenya Indymedia is a platform and movement of alternative media in Kenya. Kenya Indymedia comprises of individuals, institutions and organizations who subscribe to freedom of information. Kenya Indymedia members and partners include Maseno University, Koch FM Community Radio Station, Maseno University Campus Community Radio Station, Warriors Self Help Group, Sasafrica Productions and the Million Youth Action, amongst others.

Kenya’s post-election violence and unrest has left the country in unprecedented turmoil. Though the unrest was ignited by a release of flawed presidential results, it seems to have been further fuelled by undercurrents of ethnic and class divides in the country. As such, Kenya Indymedia believes that the search for peace should now go hand in hand with the search for justice and equality for all Kenyans. In light of this, our strategy has three approaches:

SEARCH FOR PEACE
1. Is peace the absence of violence? We are using the current violence as a premise for exploring what we really mean by peace. This should help us not to assume that when violence subsidizes, peace is attained.

2. Busting Prejudices: There are many different prejudices about different ethnic communities. Kenya Indymedia is soliciting for and compiling historical information about the roots of Kenya’s present day ethnic prejudices. We will show why many of this prejudices are myopic and self-defeating. For example, we will debate on and comprehensively explore why (elite) Kikuyus have been dominant politically and economically. Our exploration may help us to unearth the fact that maybe elitist snobbery and exploitation was the main problem and not Kikuyu domination. Maybe the bigger problem is an extreme form of an intense class structure that forever rewards the upper class as it punishes the lower class.

3. Owning up: Some prejudices are appear to be earned. For instance, if members of a certain community have extreme dominance in a given field, at the expense of another community, then this should be acknowledged. Kenya Indymedia is soliciting for and packaging articles on the self-defeating nature of such greed.

SEARCH FOR JUSTICE
1. Documenting justice: This post-electoral violence and unrest is full of ‘justice moments’ when justice prevailed amidst rampant injustice. A definite justice moment was when James Orengo, a fiery lawyer and newly elected Member of Parliament literally jumped towards the Electoral Commissioners desk and prevented him from the charade of reading falsified election results.

2. Documenting injustice: An atmosphere of injustice breeds even more injustice. In this case, a disenfranchised people, whose votes were reduced to pawns for the ruling elite are more vulnerable to perpetrate further injustices. Below are some injustices that have mushroomed from the post-election violence:

a. The right to life: More than 400 Kenyans who have lost their lives either from a cop’s bullet, arson’s fire or someone’s machete. Their basic and fundamental right to life was brutally yanked away. Kenya Indymedia will seek to give them a voice even in death. This will be done by profiling one life at a time. Kenya Indymedia would like to show that out of the people who died, there was someone's uncle, father, mother, aunty, son, daughter... That one of them was the shopkeeper at the corner or the middle-aged cobbler who had been fixing shoes for years. That one of the 400 people was the eight year old cheeky boy across the hill.

Kenya Indymedia would like to show that this boy was the second born child of his parents and that though he was an average student he was tipped as a future marathon champion. After all, he was from Eldoret, the town with the highest concentration of long distance runners in Kenya. This way, we hope that Kenyans and the world at large will put a life behind each number and remember that this life need not have been lost. That though it is too late to save that life, another life can be saved, not just in Kenya, but also in Somalia, in Southern Sudan, in Congo, in Colombia, in Pakistan and in other parts of the world.

b. The right to vote: Every five years, Kenyans get a chance to hire and fire leaders. Whichever leaders that they hire end up making their lives better or worse. It takes only a few hours to sow their vote, but the harvest takes five years. In those five years, elected leaders can destroy or build an economy; annihilate or establish healthcare; create or vanquish employment; encourage or discourage tribalism….and much more. In this regard, when a vote is stolen, five years are stolen; livelihoods are trampled upon; hope is lost; justice is raped. If a vote in the just concluded elections was stolen, then this must be acknowledged, documented and rectified. Kenya Indymedia will solicit for and package accounts of why Kenyans voted and why they voted as they did.

c. The right of every Kenyan to live anywhere in the country: Kenya Indymedia will document the plight of Kenyans who can no longer live and work in places where their respective communities are in the minority.

d. Violation of other rights: The post-election violence has resulted in a violation of numerous other rights. Kenya Indymedia will solicit for and package such violations.

SEARCH FOR EQUALITY

Equality is the right of different groups of people to have a similar social position and receive the same treatment. In Kenya’s recently concluded elections, voters did not receive similar treatment from the Electoral Commission. To the extent that tallying of votes was falsified, some votes were rendered useless. Kenya Indymedia will solicit for accounts of such shameless disregard of inequality.

ACTION POINTS

In its quest to document and enhance peace, justice and equality, Kenya Indymedia and the global Indymedia family, together with the Million Youth Action movement will engage in the following activities:
1. Write articles related to peace, justice and equality within the post-election unrest context.
2. Write poetry related to peace, justice and equality within the post-election unrest context.
3. Take photos related to peace, justice and equality within the post-election unrest context.
4. Take videos related to peace, justice and equality within the post-election unrest context.
5. Record audio related to peace, justice and equality within the post-election unrest context.
6. Use mobile phone telephony as a means of gathering information on peace, justice and equality.
7. Use the Kenya Indymedia website in particular and the Global Indymedia websites in general as a platform of sharing accumulated articles, photos, video and audio.
8. Prepare an audio documentary about peace, justice and equality within the post-election unrest context. This documentary will be distributed freely to all community radio stations and will be freely available on the internet.
9. Prepare a video documentary about peace, justice and equality within the post-election unrest context. This documentary will be freely available on the internet.
10. Organize an open forum entitled, ‘alternative media as a means of enhancing peace, justice and equality.’
11. Mobilize legal expertise to build a legal case on behalf of at least one rape victim of the post-election violence.
12. In the immediate short term, engage in targeted humanitarian assistance.

Dear Indymedia comrades,
Five days ago, on the 27th of December, I stood in a queue for six hours - from 5.30 AM to 11.30 AM, waiting for my turn to cast a vote in my country Kenya’s presidential, parliamentary and civic elections. When the votes were counted later that night, Raila Odinga, the opposition leader, began taking a near-unassailable lead. At one point, he led with almost one million votes. But somehow, Mwai Kibaki the incumbent president squeezed through a disputed victory. I can live with that. What I can’t live with, is that in the last three days, more than 200 Kenyans have lost their lives because of this disputed election results.

When the tension escalated, I had to move to my brother’s house because I stay in a neighborhood dominated by the Kikuyu, the biggest tribe in Kenya and also one that President Mwai Kibaki comes from. Tragically, Kikuyus around the country are bearing the brunt of an angry people and they are also beginning to retaliate.

After two days of a house arrest of sorts, it was extremely important that I leave the house. But when I tried to do so, I could not pass a human roadblock of more than fifty people who were sitting by the roadside in a tense and excited mood. But I had to proceed because I needed to call my friend in Eldoret town. She is from the Kikuyu community while most of her neighbors are from the Kalenjin community. Due to know fault of hers, the president happens to be from her community. Due to his own fault, the president has greatly angered the Kalenjin community together with thirty eight other communities. Even the supposedly official results show that he only led in two provinces out of eight. Consequently, members of all other communities generally feel that the president has robbed them. Unfortunately, they are taking it out on innocent members of the three communities that voted overwhelmingly for the president - Kikuyu, Embu and Meru. It is becoming a ping-pong game of violence as members of these three communities are also starting to hit out.

I blame the people who commissioned and condoned the rigging of these elections. While I realize that most losers usually blame rigging for their losses, these particular rigging claims are not mere speculation. Samuel Kivuitu, the chairman of the Electoral Commission of Kenya has already admitted that he announced the presidential results under pressure from the President’s Party of National Unity. He also conceded that there were widespread irregularities which resulted in extended delays in announcing results from some forty eight constituencies. Both local and international observers have explicitly reported that while the actual voting process was beyond fault, the tallying of the votes was riddled with faults. Raila Odinga has refused to accept these results. Millions of Kenyans have refused to accept these results. Business has been paralyzed across the country and it is not business as usual. Lives have been lost and life cannot go on like this.

Kenya is now in a state of panic. Just yesterday when the rest of the world was celebrating the New Year thirty women and children were burnt alive in a church that they had sought refuge. They have died because someone found it fit to rig an electoral process and someone else found it fit to either facilitate or condone that rigging. They have died because there has been no concerted high level effort to quell a fire that is now consuming highways, byways and villages of this great nation. They have died because a subjective mass intolerance has been borne from massive political deception.

I hold all the aforementioned persons responsible for these deaths and any other deaths that may result from this tragic situation. The blood of these fellow Kenyans is primarily on the hands of the politicians whose legs have trampled on the fundamental voting rights of Kenyans. This innocent blood is also on the guilty hands of those whose acts of violence inflicted irreversible death blows. No injustice, however heinous, warrants murder of the innocents. As we learnt from the Rwanda genocide, this blood will also be on the hands of all those who will turn a blind eye on this simmering conflict. Which is why we cannot, and must not turn a blind eye on this violence and other violent situations around the world.

But what can you and I do to stop this violent, raging fire that is razing down innocent Kenyan lives?

1. Share this information far and wide: Send this piece to your local newsrooms and radio stations. When more and more people are informed, more possibilities avail themselves.

2. Volunteer as a web designer for the Kenya Independent Media (Indymedia) website: The Kenya Indymedia website can and should act as a platform for accurate and widespread expression. We need to publish dozens of first account stories that may not make it to the mainstream media. We also need to publish photos, audio and video. We therefore need volunteer web designers and programmers to work on it consistently for a period of 2 - 3 months as the Kenya Indymedia team builds its web designing and programming capability. As Kenya Indymedia, we now need to communicate to the world what is really happening and a vibrant website will be one way of doing this. We are liaising with national movement known as Million Youth Action to call and text people from across the country, moreso the worst hit areas of western Kenya and Rift Valley, so that we can in turn share their stories. This way, statistics will cease to be cold figures and they will take on a personal, human angle.

3. Host the Kenya Independent media website: In order to enable a download of videos, images and audio of this conflict, the website needs to have sufficient space. We would like to use this site to keep track of all the Kenyans who are needlessly losing their lives, getting injured, robbed and displaced in this post-electoral violence. We would also like to use it to keep track of who is instigating, undertaking and condoning this violence. Even more important, we would like to know the victims of this violence so that we can reach out to them one way or another, in our own small way.

4. Mobile phone communication: The only way that most endangered people can communicate and be communicated to, is through mobile phones. We would like to distribute mobile phone air time to as many people as possible so that we can enable them to communicate about what happened, is happening or may be about to happen. As already mentioned we will file all this communication on the website and pass it on to relevant authorities. One dollar will provide four minutes air time. These four minutes may make a difference between life and death.

5. Help relocate someone from a danger zone: This violence has taken on ethnic dimensions, which means that people from certain communities are now no longer safe in certain places in which they are the minorities. Property belonging to such individuals is being looted and destroyed. Even worse, their lives are in grave danger. Many of them are however not able to flee since many public means of transport have suspended their services due to rampant insecurity on the roads. We intend to relocate such people through any means possible. This includes tipping food delivery trucks, cargo trains, newspaper vans and any other vehicles that are moving from one point to another for whatever reason.

6. Help feed a relocated person: we have identified and are continuing to identify families in Nairobi and other parts of the country that can temporarily host relocated persons. As this is a grassroots movement with an emphasis on grassroots solutions, we intend to temporarily host displaced persons in host families. These families will greatly appreciate whatever food supplements we can give them.

7. Diplomatic missions: Contact your respective embassies in Kenya and seek to know what they are doing about the deteriorating situation in Kenya. Give them our contacts and forward this paper to them. Embassies can do more than issue blanket statements for people to ‘keep the peace’ as if don’t already know that!

8. Tend to a child: More than 75,000 Kenyans are now internally displaced. Most of them are women and children. What a tragedy when young children are caught up in such a mess. There is no perfect formula for reaching out to such innocent ones. We intend take to them toys, clothes, chocolate, drinks, books and more gifts that can cheer them up. We will particularly target children who have been displaced or those whose parents have died in this conflict.

9. Pray: For those of you, who like, believe in God, do whisper a prayer that peace will eventually prevail in Kenya.

10. Share your ideas: it will greatly help if you share any concrete ideas that you may be having. Most politicians are just telling Kenyans to keep the peace and not really taking any concrete action to address this situation. People power and solutions can make a BIG difference.

You can do any of the above by donating any of the mentioned things or what you would consider to be their monetary equivalent. Just go with your gut feeling and thanks for your thoughts.

Cheers,
John