Tribal warfare ....

This report has just come to me through Reuters, and it tells of what has happened just this morning;
I can't comment really except to say that I think we are begin to live our worst nightmares, and we need to plead with all our hearts to those leaders to help stop this NOW !



Violence in Kenya's Rift Valley kills 7

Source: Reuters

NAIROBI, Jan 25 (Reuters) -

At least seven people have been killed in ethnic clashes around Nakuru town in Kenya's volatile Rift Valley, witnesses said on Friday.
In the latest unrest since a disputed Dec. 27 election, members of President Mwai Kibaki's Kikuyu ethnic group were fighting with Luos and Kalenjins perceived as supporters of opposition leader Raila Odinga, residents said.
"We can no longer stand back and watch as our brothers are killed in Eldoret while the Luos and Kalenjins have fun in Nakuru," said bus conductor Dennis Kariuki, referring to past killings of Kikuyus around Eldoret town, also in the Rift Valley.
"We have vowed that for every Kikuyu killed in Eldoret, we shall kill two Kalenjins who are living in Nakuru town."
Another witness, Joel Okumu, said his house was targeted in the town on Thursday night.
"The attack was sudden and well planned as they knew which house to burn despite the darkness," he said. "
As I was escaping, I saw two bodies with deep cuts by the roadside and I am sure there are many more as the violence went on for the better part of the night."

(Reporting by Antony Gitonga; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Wangui Kanina)

NTV live – SHOWDOWN

Just watched a programme in the last hour on Nation TV called “ShowDown” where they had Martha Karua, for PNU, and James Orengo, for the ODM side debate against each other, and what came out of it really?

Well I hung on every word, or so I thought, although it was kind of tricky not to drift off as they repeated the same thing again and again no matter what the question was! And all I can honestly say I heard repeatedly is this;

James Orengo say it was a ‘stolen election’ and Kibaki must admit that he did not win, and Martha Karua said; “It was clear Kibaki won, and if ODM accepted the tallying for Raila, why couldn’t it accept the numbers for Kibaki.”

They argued over the tallying and what happened and what didn’t happen

The firing went backwards and forwards and all I really got out of it is that although they “say” that PNU is ready to talk and ODM is ready to talk, they certainly do not agree on what they have to talk about!

Martha says they are not getting into any ‘mediation’ process, but dialogue only.
Orengo then said that there was no political goodwill in ‘dialogue’ and that these high profile mediators did not come to Kenya to ‘have a cup of tea’!

Orengo says the ONLY way forward is to have a rerun of the elections within 90 days as the current constitution says if there is no clear winner, then this is the way forward.

Martha retaliated with “Unless ODM takes this to court, and give the evidence to prove this, then the rerun of the elections cannot happen”.

Orengo said this was obviously impossible as if they took it to court, chances were they would still be waiting for a resolution in 5 years from now as history shows that the courts are compromised as the judges are appointed by the ruling government’s side and back in 1997 Kibaki took a case to court against the then President Daniel Arap Moi, and that case wasn’t solved until late 2005. ODM says therefore that by taking this case to court is just a trap by the government to do nothing for years and there would be nothing that ODM could do about it.

There was a lot of bickering about what, and what not, Kibaki’s government has achieved in the last 5 years and who scuppered the talks on the new constitution that was promised back in 2002 – Funnily enough, they both blamed each other!

Martha blamed Orengo for propaganda, and Orengo blamed Martha and the PNU for surrounding Kibaki with ‘power hungry old men’ who were not willing to discuss anything reasonable and were the ones who helped steal the election from Raila, and they went on disagreeing until, finally they agreed to ……….

Er, absolutely BOG ALL actually !!

At the end of the programme, Ms Karua and Mr Orengo were asked to shake hands. I honestly thought Martha was going to spit in his eye! As for Orengo, shaking Martha’s hand looked for him like an incredibly painful procedure – but perhaps she had one of those trick things in her hand that gives you an electric shock – in fact, she must have because that’s what his face showed – sheer pain!


And after that little debate, I’ll leave you with some up to date news.

1. Raila has called off tomorrow’s demonstrations at the request of the mediators – hope the supporters get the MEMO because that’s only just happened within the last half an hour and most Kenyans are probably all tucked up in bed by now. (Funnily enough, watching TV news is not generally on the evening agenda of slum dwellers who are lucky if they even have a roof on their head and power is certainly a rarity in most of those areas.)

2. Kofi Annan has spoken to Raila – although we are not told what about, but he didn’t speak to Kibaki and has rescheduled meeting him until tomorrow, so we will just have to wait and see what tomorrow brings.

- Mmmmmmm, Seems we’re getting quite used to that!

Do you think we started a trend?

We've had this over the weekend ......

Rally against Georgia poll result

Protesters say the vote was rigged in Mr Saakashvili's favour
Thousands of opposition supporters have taken to the streets in Georgia in protest at what they say were rigged presidential elections last weekend.

This one is just warming up .....

Pakistan sets new election date

Elections originally scheduled for 8 January in Pakistan will now take place on 18 February, polling officials say.

The main opposition parties say they will take part, despite having demanded the election not be delayed. They have accused officials of seeking to rig it.

and now we even have the 'Persil' USofA in on the act ......

- mind you - considering that Senator Obama had a Luo father (same tribe as Raila), I do suppose this one would make sense!

Hillary Clinton faces recount over rival's 'vote rig' claims

Hillary Clinton is facing an embarrassing recount after her win in the New Hampshire primary - because a rival claims there were "serious and credible" concerns about the poll.

Mrs Clinton revived her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination last Tuesday with her win over Barack Obama - despite trailing him in a dozen polls.

"Serious and credible reports, allegations and rumour have surfaced. It is imperative these questions are addressed."

An election official said the results merely revealed that Mr Obama was strongest in rural areas - where most votes were hand-counted - and Mrs Clinton strongest in the cities, where machines were principally used.

Looks like Kofi Annan might be in for a busy year ahead!

- "But please Mr. Annan, if you don't mind, come save us first!"

- ".. and by the way, if I can pick you up at the airport, it's not a problem, I'm pretty much free tomorrow, and I do realise all our big wigs will be busy in Parliament all day."

- playing musical chairs and having a punch-up I should imagine, but busy all the same!

Yet another disappointing day for Kenyans.

Well yesterday was another day of further disappointments.

I had a text message through my phone late in the afternoon that said Kibaki would address the nation at 5.30. I immediately rushed to put on the TV and wait for some positive news and what did we get …… He named half the cabinet.

Kenyans were stunned. He named Kalonzo Musyoka (the third main contender originally vying for the Presidency with the ODM Kenya party) as his Vice President and Minister for Home Affairs, he named 5 KANU MP’s as ministers (KANU being the former President Moi’s political party), one other ODM Kenya MP, and the rest from his own PNU. I’m assuming he’s saying ‘You see I left you the other half!’, but it seems he has filled all the major positions already.

He addressed the nation for all of about 2 minutes, named half of the cabinet and that was that. Half an hour later the President of the African Union and Ghana, President Kufuor touched down at Nairobi’s International Airport, in order to start negotiations between Kibaki and Odinga.

But from what I can gather of the Kenyans general reaction – we have had no official word yet from Raila Odinga with regards to this naming of half the cabinet as far as I know, but it is complete disappointment in Kibaki that it seems he has no wish to take these negotiations seriously.

Raila had a meeting (before this announcement) yesterday with his party and is still insisting he is the President and he will take his MPs and sit on the ‘Government’ side of the house when parliament resumes next Tuesday – so that’ll be an interesting bun fight when they’re all trying to sit on each others laps!

Well, well, the soap opera continues. Tension is high and all Raila has to do is snap his fingers right now and the people will rise up and we will be in serious uprising and more lives will be lost. They are just standing by waiting for the word from him.

All we can hope for today is that all these mediators we have in the country right now will start these talks between the two as soon as possible and will absolutely not let it come to that.

Quiet reigns for now.

Quiet reigns for now which is great news. People seem to have got the memo that they should not take to the streets and they have stayed away. Police presence is very high in town but quite relaxed. In the morning we all weren't sure if people may or may not heed Raila's cancellation of the rally to be held today so most of the public transport seemed pretty quiet coming into town this morning and traffic on the roads is also quiet again, so we seemed to have taken a small step backward again on the 'almost normal' situation that we had yesterday.

Once Raila agreed that he would negotiate with Kibaki with a mediator, Kibaki immediately invited him to a meeting at State House, which then he refused to comply with - unless the mediator tells him to go for the meeting, he will not do anything Kibaki tells him to do, as he keeps reiterating, he is the rightful President of this country and Kibaki is illegally sworn in and therefore should not be recognised!

Smells a bit of one step forward, two back to me!! Anyway I shall try my best to have faith and keep positive although I must say i am finding it particularly hard today - the lack of sleep from all the worry, and the fact that most of the people around me (not my employees who are the average poor Kenyans that are suffering in all this), but all those wealthy lot that are our directors (and sadly who we should be answering to), who have their heads stuck firmly up their arses or buried in the sand, is really getting me down.

There is a commentary here from the Daily Nation today here in Kenya which really tells it all. http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=25&newsid=114132

Please read it if you get a minute. He is thinking how I am thinking and it's really very depressing.

I really never thought I would get to a place where i wasn't sure any longer that my future is in Kenya, but for the first time in my life I have started to consider my options, and what would be the best thing for my son and I.

I'm not saying I won't survive if I stay, but it will be so much harder as a single mother with exorbitant school fees that will probably go up again, (currently about $4,000 per term), the price of food, and fuel, and seemingly everything around me, also going up apart from my salary, which I am reluctant to put up. (I have already given the majority of staff raises but now business is so low I don't feel I can justify raising my own, especially as chances are in the next few weeks that I'll have to lay off some of the junior staff which is playing on my mind, as I have no idea what they will do if I lay them off as business is so bad all over the country and there is no work, and it will probably get a lot harder before it gets better.)

I think perhaps I should stick my own head in the sand and not get quite so stressed about the situation and what these poor people are going through. Maybe I'd feel a whole lot better.

Er ............... maybe NOT!

The depressing situation continues .........

(This sign should actually read this Mzungu Chick has sharp edges. Do not touch the edges of this Chick!)


Reports from today are just incredibly depressing.

One of my staff lost a cousin who was only 12 years old and just went out to buy some milk for his mother and somehow got caught in some skirmishes and ended up with a stray bullet in his head.

I spoke to another fellow who had gone upcountry to vote and ended up stranded. He finally arrived back last night and was so very frightened. He couldn't stay up-country as although he is from the right tribe in the right area so he was relatively safe where he was and therefore his family is too, he says he couldn't stay there as his work is in Nairobi and there is no work where he is from. Without working and earning he has absolutely nothing for the family to live off. He had to risk his life to come back here and was on a bus with fellow tribesmen and they were warned that if they went through Naivasha town on their way back to Nairobi, they would be burnt alive in the bus. Anyway they ran the gauntlet, stayed on the highway, and thank god made it safely to Nairobi, but as you must have seen on the international news, not everyone has been so lucky.



I watched our local evening news this evening and cried in despair. It is absolutely shocking what these leaders have done to our fellow Kenyans. They spent millions of shillings on their campaigns and preached to the masses how they would make their lives better. All those who lived close to the poverty line were the ones who bought into all the ideals and voted for change and now, through the complete arrogance of our leaders, have been stripped of what little they had. They are now way below the poverty line and are homeless, hungry and only have the clothes they stand up in to wear. So how the hell did that improve their lives pray tell me.

The news showed men crying in shame when they were given handouts of food. They had fled from their homes and farms and left behind in the flames bumper harvests of food that could have kept themselves and their families for months and now they are standing in a queue in a field which they have no choice but to currently call 'home', to get something to eat for their families.



What i personally don't understand is how the main two contenders in this election contest really believed that we wouldn't have some form of rigging, and there is reports of it happening on both sides of the fence I might add. I'm not sure if any of you read my cynical blog on the 26th December - http://lostwhitekenyan.blogspot.com/2007/12/things-looking-little-tricky-here-on.html In that post I stupidly predicted a dodgy outcome, but it didn't for one minute cross my mind that it would come to this. Don't forget that we do live in what has been an incredibly corrupt country - although it was one of the most democratic in our region perhaps, it is still up there amongst the most corrupt. I completely understand that we want and deserve democracy but we will not get it this way surely. Killing each other cannot be the way forward.

I understand in Eldoret, which has been the scenes of the most horrific violence, some bright spark has evacuated all those from the Kikuyu tribe in this area for their own safety, but I want to know how it is that suddenly it is that tribe that has no rights to live in that area and yet others do. I think the real reason they are doing this is because the police realised they had lost control of the waring factions, and Eldoret is where the main oil pipeline comes into from the coast and it is from here that the petrol tankers all go to the Western areas of Kenya and more importantly other East African countries. This means they'd like peace here in a hurry so they can get on with supplying fuel around and about. I do understand the meaning behind this, but surely by moving one tribe out of the area is only a temporary solution and forced tribal divisions cannot be good in the long term.

Kenyans have co-existed for years in these various areas and how dare these leaders who have raped our country of millions and now live in peaceful large guarded estates now dictate to the masses who must live where.



Sorry about this post, I think I should shut up now and stop blatting everyone before i get blatted myself as I'm not sure that life is going to continue as free and fair as it has been for years now as I think we have just destroyed the last 50 years of our democracy in the last 5 days.

Please understand these are my personal thoughts of what is going on around us and they are probably written when I am in far too an emotional state to look at things rationally. I will go to bed now and hopefully wake up a little more rational tomorrow.

Goodnight all and please don't forget to stand up with us tomorrow and pray for peace!

Relative calm prevails

Today when I went into town, it was definitely busier than yesterday. There are a lot more shops open today and a lot more people and buses about in the centre of town.

The riot police are still in evidence on most street corners and all around Uhuru Park, although they were mainly sitting down reading the newspapers although fully dressed in their 'Ninja turtle' gear. The poor fellows must be absolutely baking like beans as its about 30 degrees Celcius out there.

Reuters has just announced that President Kibaki has offered to form a power sharing government with the other side, but first words from them (the ODM party), were 'Kibaki is an illegal President!'.

So as I predicted yesterday, we're not going forward fast but at least we seem to be going somewhere so that's a good thing.

Word on the street with the Luo community (which is Raila's tribe), is that they will protest in force again on Tuesday if nothing is agreed on by then. According to Raila's 'pentagon' though they will protest every day until further notice, but if it turns out anything like yesterday's little demo, we really don't have much to worry about for now.

So we seem to have a few days grace, if nothing else, in order to be able to feed those displaced who are camping out in the showground here in Nairobi next door to our polo club, and also in schools and churches throughout the country.