What The Hell Is Going On Over There

What The Hell is Going on Over There??

"I've received some interesting email in the last few days. From my Kenyan friends it's been one harrowing story after another, from many of the Peacekeepers it's a question of how they can help. But then there are the emails with opening salvos like "the title of this blog. While Kenya may be "vital to our war on terror" (oops...I had to gag there for a moment) we don't really want to know the nittiy gritty of how the country is made up or what the real issues are. Poverty, famine, tribal warfare are not part of our vocabulary in Washington. It's nice that they are finally covering the news, but I find it particularly slanted towards the West. It's about our interests and not really the human tragedy that is evolving.

So here's the deal. I choose to bring you news from Kenya by Kenyans. Both of the articles are properly documented with the authors from the Nation (the better of the 2 newspapers). Frankly I think like our elections, we should let the Kenyan people speak for themselves about their country. I hope you are paying attention.

The first article has to do with the famine that is occurring over there. See because it's tribal, stealing isn't the deal, it's destruction. So many of the crops are being burned as are the supplies in the shops which will make it more difficult to farm once things settle down.
Story by SAM KIPLAGAT
Publication Date: 1/8/2008
"CLASH VICTIMS GRAPPLE WITH HUNGER DESPITE BIG HARVEST"
"The few who had harvested their produce lost it when arsonists set their stores on fire soon after President Kibaki was declared winner in the last General Election amid protests that the poll was rigged.

Mr Johnston Mwangi says he has never begged for food in his life.

We found the 46-year-old man and members of his family queuing for food at the Timboroa DO’s office. What angers him is the fact that lots of food was reduced to ashes in stores and those who are yet to harvest cannot do so because of fear of attacks.

“They (the attackers) should have taken the food and sold it or at least allowed us to take it away.

“Now we are suffering here without food yet we planted,” he said.

Mr Ayub Wanjohi, a father of 10, had to seek police protection to go and bury his son who was killed on January 2.

The boy was buried next to seven family members, who were hacked to death on the same night.

Mr Mwangi said that residents were forced to dig a trench and bury all of their dead together.

The burial was conducted in a hurry because the warriors kept chanting war songs from the forests. Attempts by police to scare them away by shooting in the air were fruitless.

An officer who asked not to be named said that many bodies were still lying on the farms uncollected.

Growing up

Mr Mwangi said that most of the attackers were young boys he had seen growing up and playing alongside his children. Most of them went to school with his children at Kamura primary and later Timboroa secondary.

“They are young boys who move in groups of between 100 and 200. They are heartless because they kill whoever they find on the way,” he said.

He added that most of the youths are his employees and he had paid them wages on December 24 and given them something for Christmas.

“They later descended on us and destroyed everything I owned,’’ he said.

The Second Article is a Commentary from Today's (well yesterday since it's Wednesday in Nairobi now) Nation. Macharia Gaitho is a real voice for Kenya and also quite eloquent in describing "What the Hell is going on over there" Frankly, though Americans claim they don't understand it is a little close to the bone this editorial.

"IT'S BUSINESS AS USUALFOR THE RICH AS THE POOR KILL EACH OTHER"

Story by MACHARIA GAITHO
Publication Date: 1/8/2008
I have been frequenting my local despite all the post-election chaos around.

Even when violence had reached crazy levels in the slums, not too far away, I found life pretty much normal.

At the shopping centre, typical of middle-class Nairobi, the beer was flowing, everybody was catching up with the news on TV, when not watching English soccer, and the car-wash and the outdoor roasts were doing their thing.

In the pubs, politics was of course the main conversation. While some may have a liking for specific joints, everything is pretty much multi-tribal. The barrel I sit around could be shared by a Kikuyu, a Kamba, a Luo, a Kalenjin, a Somali, a Maasai or any other person that makes it a microcosm of Kenya.

AND BETWEEN THE BEER AND THE banter, there is absolutely no tribal animosity even as the TV brings up images of ethnic violence hitting the poor all over the country, while their wealthy leaders fight by proxy over the spoils.

Even the jokes have been updated. In the early days of the vote count, the one about one Peter Marangi, hired by Mrs Ida Odinga, stocking up on gallons of orange paint was all the rage. And there was First Lady Lucy Kibaki getting packing and removals company, Othaya Express, in readiness for departure from State House.

By last weekend, Peter Marangi was desperately trying to exchange his orange paint for blue paint. Ida Odinga was stuck with rolls and rolls of orange curtain material. Othaya Express was demanding more money from Mrs Kibaki for unpacking and putting everything back in its place.

And life went on. Surreal? Bizarre?

Certainly, Kenya may be burning, on the brink of ethnic warfare and total breakdown, and yet the middle and upper classes carry on as before in the cloistered confines of secure estates, private clubs, gated compounds, razor wire and electric fencing.

Fools paradise, probably, and even more as we start to celebrate what we think is a return to normalcy.

The fact is that the artificial peace and tranquillity we have always taken for granted, has forever been shattered.

IN THE RIFT VALLEY, THE GENIE OF violence, uncorked in the early 1990s as the Moi regime sought desperately to halt the march of democracy, has never been stilled. It is always there, lurking below the surface, and ready to boil over at a moment’s notice.

Some elements, now in the Kibaki regime, might have created the Mungiki as a Kikuyu counterweight to the Moi era Kalenjin warriors in the Rift Valley (Such is a time we must cease this nonsense of a ‘certain community’ and say it as is it).

The problem is that such forces, once created, often take on a life of their own. We have witnessed after the elections an ethnic violence in the Rift Valley that could recur again and again unless the underlying grievances are properly and comprehensively addressed.

Some in the ODM initially welcomed the violence as the anti-dote to Kikuyu arrogance, until they realised it was directed by forces in their midst they had no comprehension of.

Then there was the urban violence, particularly in Nairobi, where the dreaded gang, Mungiki, was mentioned as the one leading the Kikuyu troops against their presumed enemies from the Luo and other communities.

If the Kalenjin warriors were an unofficial army of the previous government, then one wonders whether the Mungiki are playing a similar roles in this government.

One picture missed in all this is that it is the poor fighting the poor, the poor killing the poor, the poor burning the houses for the poor, the poor raping the poor, the poor decapitating the poor.

The poor are waging war against their fellow poor on behalf of the wealthy, who despite ethnic differences and party affiliations, are drinking together, sleeping together, pulling business deals together, partying together and playing golf together.

SO WHAT WILL HAPPEN WHEN THE poor realise they are nothing more than pawns and cannon fodder on the giant chessboard or monopoly set by which the rich and wealthy amuse themselves? "

And that my friends is what the Hell is going on over there.