Rioting began in Kenya after sitting president Mwai Kibaki was declared winner in presidential elections on 27 December. Opposition leader Raila Odinga challenged the result, accusing the ruling party of ballot rigging.

Odinga’s popularity had grown out of discontent with the ruling elite. In many poor areas demonstrators took to the streets in anger at the “stolen election”. The notorious GSU internal security forces killed scores of people as they opened fire on protests around the country. They are responsible for the majority of deaths that have occurred in the last weeks. The demonstrations and riots were an uprising of the poor, and a demand for change and reform. Though the discontent has also laid bare festering ethnic tensions, the most striking thing is that ordinary people have had the confidence to contest a rigged ballot.

The first really free election in recent history was held only five years ago. In 2002 there was rejoicing across the country when Kibaki beat Uhuru Kenyatta, the anointed successor to former dictator Daniel arap Moi, who had ruled Kenya since 1978. At the time Kibaki and Odinga were together in the National Rainbow Coalition – an alliance of parties campaigning against the Moi regime and promising change.

Zahid, a socialist in Kenya’s capital Nairobi, told Socialist Worker, “There were two flawed elections after the return to multi-party democracy, in 1992 and 1997. Real change only came in 2002. Raila Odinga was important in pushing to turn things around.” Now Kibaki stands accused of the kind of election rigging that his original victory was supposed to end.

In the parliamentary poll that ran at the same time as the presidential ¬election the government suffered heavy defeats, with 20 ministers losing their seats. Evidence emerged of widespread ballot rigging in the presidential vote. International observers complained and protesters took to the streets. Within days members of Kibaki’s own electoral commission were distancing themselves from the results.

Rights

Two events sum up the reasons why Kibaki’s popularity fell after 2002. First was the attempt to introduce a promised new constitution. It was drafted to enshrine civil rights and defend ethnic minorities. However, the government then added clauses increasing the power of the president. Fearing that this might herald a return to authoritarian rule, voters rejected the modified constitution in a referendum during 2005. Odinga was a leading figure in the no campaign and soon afterwards launched the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), which became a focus for discontent.

The second issue was corruption. Kibaki’s government appointed John Githongo as an anti-corruption commissioner.

His reports, particularly into a scheme to print Kenyan passports through the British company Anglo Leasing, accused senior members of Kibaki’s government of the kind of corruption that it been elected to eradicate. These were not isolated incidents and as Kibaki’s fortunes waned Odinga positioned himself at the head of the opposition. Since last month’s election Odinga has called himself “the people’s president”, but his party has not offered leadership to the demonstrators on the streets. His ODM is a loose alliance. It doesn’t have the kind of grassroots organisation that could maintain the demonstrations and organise to challenge ethnic attacks. It has nothing serious to say about the grievances that are leading to the ethnic fighting – chronic unemployment and lack of housing in the cities, and landlessness in the countryside.

This has allowed the slide into ethnic fighting to go unchecked. There are 43 ethnic groups in Kenya. The largest is the Kikuyu who make up 22 percent of the population. Other major groups include the Luhya, the Luo, and the Kalenjin.

Kibaki is Kikuyu, Odinga is Luo. In the excitement of the 2002 election ethnicity was not a central issue explaining why either was elected. Steve, a Kenyan living in Britain, told Socialist Worker, “Tribal tensions have smouldered for a long time in places like Nairobi’s Kibera, the biggest slum in Africa, where a million people live in total poverty.

“Sometimes this has flared up in battles between ethnic gangs such as the ‘Taliban’ who are Luo, ‘Jeshi la Mzee’ who are Luhya or ‘Mungiki’ who are Kikuyu.” Mungiki originally emerged claiming it would bring back the spirit of the Mau Mau rebellion that fought British rule and win rights for the dispossessed. But it degenerated into a violent gang living on extortion, mostly targeting fellow Kikuyus. Many Kenyans believe that all Kikuyus benefit because a large proportion of the ruling elite is Kikuyu. So one section of the poor takes out its anger at Kibaki’s regime and the corruption of the rich on its equally impoverished Kikuyu neighbours.

The United Nations estimates that 250,000 people have fled ethnic attacks across the country during the election crisis.

Zahid said, “This violence is not new. Millions of Kenyans have already been experiencing ethnic strife, particularly in rural areas like the Rift Valley north of the capital.” Mungai, who spent Christmas in the Rift Valley town of Kericho, told Socialist Worker, “I tried in vain to get back to Nairobi. Finally, armed police escorted us. Youth had barricaded roads and we had to use power saws to clear the way. I saw the property of Kikuyus and Kisii [a minority ethnic group] burnt and stolen. People were being killed for belonging to these communities. It was terrible.” The most notorious attack was the massacre of more than 30 women and children sheltering in a church in the town of Eldoret in the Rift Valley.

Steve said, “My aunt narrowly escaped death in the Eldoret massacre. Many Kikuyus now live in areas that were once seen as belonging to other tribes. “We have lived together and intermarried for a long time. It frightens me that so many people can’t see that Kenya’s real tribal division is between rich and poor.”

Zahid said, “Millions of Kenyans continue to live below the poverty line. The high growth rates that international bankers talk about have only affected the rich.”

Otieno, a union activist in Nairobi, told Socialist Worker, “It is like war in poor areas. I don’t have food, paraffin or money. I can’t even go out to get more airtime for my phone. “But we are hoping for a big rally in Uhuru Park in central Nairobi over the election rigging. I think ordinary people will go.” Unfortunately after we spoke the ODM called off the protest.
Despite the ugly ethnic clashes, the majority of the confirmed killings have been by the internal security forces attacking protesters. And these are not ethnic attacks by a Kikuyu dominated state on non-Kikuyus. In Nairobi’s Kariobangi slum the GSU paramilitary police attacked Kikuyu slum dwellers.

Organise

Since 2002 there has been a relatively free media and some space for opposition groups to organise. If Kibaki is allowed to get away with stealing this election all this could end. Shirley, a British socialist who was in Kenya during the election, told Socialist Worker, “The excitement of the election campaign was unbelievable. There was none of the cynicism you see in Britain. So the sense of betrayal is much greater. “I stayed with a Kikuyu family who had voted for Kibaki. They were genuinely shocked at the blatant ballot rigging. Live TV broadcast local returns from polling stations long before electoral commissioners in Nairobi announced them with Kibaki’s vote vastly inflated. That was why the government banned live TV reports.”

The campaign for a recount or a rerun of the election must continue. Either would almost certainly make Odinga president. Mungai said, “Odinga was the better candidate, though there are questionable characters around him. His victory would not result in a revolution but it would be a step forward, even if it was only a matter of time before power struggles disintegrated his coalition.”

Once in government the question would arise of what could pressurise Odinga to keep his election promises, rather than following Kibaki’s path. Beyond populist rhetoric about opposing corruption and cronyism there is nothing particularly radical in Odinga’s programme. Like the ruling party, the ODM is committed to free market policies. A real political alternative to the existing elite is needed.

In January 2007 thousands of activists met at the World Social Forum in Nairobi to develop alternatives to neoliberalism.

The event started with a 5,000 strong march from Kibera to Uhuru Park – just as protesters were attempting last week when they were met with water cannon and tear gas. Onyango Oloo, one of the organisers of the forum, has answered calls for general calm by saying, “No justice, no peace”.

Notes

Onyango Oloo’s piece can be read at Pambazuka News »
www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/45206
On ESSF: Kenya: No justice, no peace!

Also read ’Slums, resistance and the African working class’ in International Socialism journal 117 » www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=398&issue=117

* From Socialist Worker 2083, 12 January 2008,
www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=13839

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 Kenya’s rulers are allies of the West

The US sees Kenya as a strategic ally in the “war on terror” particularly as it borders countries including Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan. The government has allowed military bases for both the US and Britain, as well as anchorage in Mombasa for naval vessels. The country’s fabled “stability” has allowed it to be used as a base for NGOs and Western based firms operating around Africa. Though economic growth in recent years has averaged around 6 percent this has not been equally distributed. There has been an enormous expansion in the consumption of the rich. New shopping malls and coffee shops are constantly opening.

The growth is not based on raw materials such as oil, as in Nigeria, but on tourism, and exports of fruit, flowers and tea.

Michael Holman wrote in the Financial Times, “The gap between the haves and the have-nots is widening. To see the crisis only in terms of tribal allegiances and ethnic clashes is to miss a vital element in the Kenyan picture.

“The population has doubled in 25 years to 31 million. Unemployment is growing, and the number without land is growing. For these people there is nothing to lose by taking to the streets, driven by frustration and fury that transcend their tribe.”

Scarce

There is huge competition for scarce fertile land, especially in areas like the Rift Valley where much of the worst ethnic violence has occurred. The main divide in Kenya is not between ethnic groups, but between rich and poor. The people who are suffering are the urban and rural poor. Corruption is a real and ongoing issue in Kenya as with many African countries – but the West’s hypocrisy is breathtaking.

In the same way that a country like Kenya can be described as “democratic” because it has been allied to the West through its long period of dictatorship, corruption only becomes an issue when it threatens the interests of Western companies. Furthermore the policies that are pushed by organisations like the World Bank on countries such as Kenya associate lack of corruption and “good governance” with neoliberal policies and deregulation.

As with privatisations in Britain and developments in the health service and education, these policies inevitably lead to less democratic control and accountability. It is precisely the kind of grassroots control that socialists talk about that is more likely to challenge corruption.

Also corruption can’t be seen as a single indivisible entity. In the same way that in Britain there is much more advertising threatening people who do casual work while on the dole than people dodging their tax payments, there is more than one kind of corruption. For instance most slums and shanty towns are built illegally. Many anti-corruption programmes start by bulldozing these rather than confronting the culture of corruption among the elite.

* Socialist Worker 2083, 12 January 2008,
www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=13840

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 The brutal legacy of Britain’s colonial rule in Kenya

Ken Olende looks how British intervention has shaped Kenya’s problems.

The British occupied Kenya, east Africa, in the late 19^th century when they were rushing to grab the headwaters of the Nile in Lake Victoria, in what is now Uganda. They wanted to stop any other European Empire being able to threaten “British interests” in the Middle East. They built a railway across modern Kenya, then called the East Africa Protectorate, to supply the garrison near Lake Victoria. The colony was only developed after the indigenous peoples were savagely crushed. In London there were debates about what to do with the new territory. It never occurred to the British government to ask the people already living there.

This area had its own history before the imperialists arrived. Africans had not been living in an unchanging way since time immemorial. Ethnic groups, popularly called “tribes”, are relatively fluid. Indeed many modern tribes were given their current dimensions and even names when they were classified by the colonialists. Intermarriage between groups was not uncommon – to the extent that there is a Kikuyu saying “We marry our enemies”.

Having subdued the people, the British imposed a system of what they called “indirect rule” through local chiefs who they appointed themselves. Many of these became very wealthy by appropriating land in the “African reserves”. European settlers took the best farmland for their own use in the “White Highlands”, where no African could own property.

Taxes

Africans paid most of the taxes, while settlers received virtually the entire benefit of government services. Africans were banned from growing the most profitable crops. Various African rights organisations developed in the 1920s and 1930s. Some united people across ethnic groups and were successful in starting to push back European privilege. The settlers responded with the divide and rule tactic of only dealing with organisations based on a single “tribe”.

Africans found their situation deteriorating after the Second World War. The settlers’ “Kenya plan” encouraged white ex-soldiers to immigrate by offering good farming land, while demobbed Africans could find neither land nor work. A new resistance to the apartheid that Africans lived under developed in the cities, often through trade unions, which led some very effective strikes. Africans who supported colonialism, known as “loyalists”, and black police were killed in the beginning of what became known as the Mau Mau rebellion. Several white settlers were also slain.

The colonial administration declared a state of emergency in 1952 and successfully detained the African nationalist leadership, conservative and radical alike. There was a vast expansion of detention without trial as a system of detention camps was established. The Home Guard, armed and encouraged by the government, entered into an effective civil war with the Mau Mau and their supporters. There was a distinct class element to this. The chiefs and loyalists had grabbed the best land in the reserves. Setting up a black landowning class was Kenya government policy. The government’s leading agricultural expert said, “Able, energetic or rich Africans will be able to acquire more land and bad or poor farmers less, creating a landed and a landless class. This is a normal step in the evolution of a country.”

Rebellion

Since those convicted of rebellion could have their land confiscated there was an incentive for loyalists to accuse local enemies of Mau Mau membership. Farmers were forcibly moved into guarded, fenced villages. This process involved almost the entire rural Kikuyu population of 1.5 million. With no outside support the movement was effectively defeated by 1956, though the state of emergency remained until 1960. A few statistics cut through the demonising of the Mau Mau as “barbaric” – 32 white civilians, 63 white military and 527 “loyalists” were killed in the rebellion. In contrast, the official figure for rebel deaths was 11,503, while the real toll was probably closer to 30,000. On top of this some 80,000 people were held in detention camps.

Britain won the war, but would never again risk the costs of another insurgency. The settlers, who were reliant on the British, had to accept African demands for Kenyan independence in 1963. But the situation created during the emergency remained under independence – the poor remained largely destitute, while loyalists were able to buy up white farms and join a new black capitalist class. The demands of the rebels for land redistribution were never seriously met, although in the period immediately after independence there were genuine radicals in parliament who tried to argue for the rights of the poor. These included Oginga Odinga, the father of Raila Odinga, the populist candidate in the recent election.

There was some attempt at land redistribution in the 1960s when Britain worked with the new government on the “million-acre scheme”. Eventually about 17 percent of the land held by white farmers was redistributed, but it was nowhere near enough to solve the problem of land hunger. The British shaped the new government, and ensured that it would protect British interests. As these interests remained protected and the government became increasingly authoritarian, successive British governments turned a blind eye to increasing repression and poverty, always preferring to praise Kenya’s “stability”.

* Socialist Worker 2083, 12 January 2008,
www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=13841