My driver has just had a phone call from relatives in Kisumu. They say that Ugandans are crossing over the border and killing the Luo's in revenge for the trouble that it has caused in their region with serious food and fuel shortages as no supplies can get up to Kampala.
I do hope to god this isn't true.
Sent from my BlackBerry®
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Rally in Nairobi has been “put off”!
I have just got home from my day out in mayhem and received this message from Nation Media:
“ODM puts off Uhuru Park rally to Tuesday ‘for the sake of peace’”
- can I just say – seeing as I’ve been out and about all around Nairobi City Centre including around Uhuru Park most of the day and seen what has been really going on, the only reason that ODM has put off this rally is because they couldn’t get into Uhuru Park and it had nothing to do with the ‘sake of peace’ as there was not a lot of peace around town this morning, that’s for sure.
What I can’t bear is that they are going to try and hold this meeting again on Tuesday – arrrgggh ……….I can’t bear it – Please will someone knock these peoples heads together, get some sense out of them and stop the carnage.
I saw riot police harassing a taxi driver for absolutely no reason. Their only excuse was that he wasn’t doing a ‘U’ turn fast enough for their liking. There were others who jumped on a perfectly innocent loner that happened to be walking past a group of them and although quite decent looking, they decided they didn’t like the look of him and so started harassing him anyway.
I saw tens of ODM supporters with water bottles in their hands, (which you can be sure were full of chang’aa – which is the local brew), eyes big as footballs from smoking bhang strutting down the middle of the road in groups (and also falling off the pavement if they happened to wander into it!), and watched helplessly as a small group of about 10 of them mugged a completely innocent passer by. I wanted to stop and help him but couldn’t for threatening of stoning and burning of the car.
I saw a massive group of ODM supporters move down the road and trash everything in their wake. They looted the kiosks and what they didn’t steal, they smashed or burnt. They even tried to burn down this petrol station but were luckily moved on too quickly for them to succeed.
There were people shouting at their ODM leaders outside their headquarters in Nairobi that their people were being killed and they wanted revenge.
I saw two of the ‘Pentagon leaders’ from the ODM party on the road, (Norman Nyagah and Charity Ngilu). My driver told them their supporters were causing mayhem and heading their way and all they had to say was “We know, we know, come and join us!”
We had people throw themselves in front of the car, rocks in either hand shouting ‘We want Peace’
Their chant is “NO RAILA, NO PEACE” and I saw it written on walls of buildings they passed.
Please STOP destroying our country. If you really do want peace talk to your leaders and ask them to please talk to each other and solve this awful situation one way or another.
Revenge
This is outside Orange House - Raila's party HQ here in Nairobi.
We have just seen Norman Nyaga and Charity Ngilu drive in there. The rest of them are at Pentagon House up the road.
Sent from my BlackBerry®
I wish some of these rich folk would remove their heads from their arses.
I am so angry, i have tears pouring down my face, and i want to scream.
Instead i will vent my anger on this keyboard and write this down.
I am sitting in my office right now with only about 5 other people, and we are surrounded by riot police and for the past couple of hours there has been gunfire and explosions on and off.
I have about 200 staff out there - all young Kenyans (hardly anyone above the age of 30), who all live in the various slums dotted in and about Nairobi, and today, because of this unrest that we expected, i gave them all the day off.
Well can you believe i have had numerous phone calls in the last hour asking me why my staff are not working and where's their commitment.
For Christ's sake - they are scared and they are locked up in their homes praying that they will live to see tomorrow, and all our directors have to say is that they are showing a lack of commitment as other shops are open and their staff have got to work, and if our staff can't do that, they should lose their jobs.
Why is it that these people with money, have their heads in the sand just because they feel safe in their big fancy cars and their fenced and guarded houses, it is NOT the same for the common wainanchi, I wish that they would wake up and please try and understand that. I am always in trouble for defending my staff - but if i don't - who the hell else will is what i want to know.
Just because we have lost one day's revenue in our shops - surely that is a lot better option than losing any lives of our staff?!?!
Current situation in Nairobi
I am driving through Nairobi city centre and this is what I caught on my blackberry.
This is all very close to the Uhuru Park where the rally is due to be held right now.
The riot police are everywhere and the military.
These guys sitting in the road are the protesters. The group on the side all are carrying bricks.
I can hear shooting from behind us.
Gotta go - will update in a bit when I know more.
Sent from my BlackBerry®
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
The first ‘working day’ of the Kenyan year.
Being the 2nd of January, and the first working day of the year where we generally all rush back into the office and are rearing to go after our Christmas break, today seemed a little strange.
I started off in the supermarket at 8.30 as soon as it opened in order to catch the few deliveries that had hit the shelves before the hordes of panic buyers rushed in. Basically, apart from their being absolutely no meat to speak of, no bread on the shelves and a meagre offering of mostly expensive fruit and very little veg to speak of, the shelves were fairly well stocked considering the mass panic buying that has been going on in the last few days, where the queues have been absolutely shocking and the supermarkets so overwhelmed that they have had to restrict the numbers through the door at any one time.
After doing my shopping in a relatively calm atmosphere, which was quite a novelty considering the antics of the last few days, I then headed for town and my office which is on the periphery.
We got there without any issues at all on the road - 'we' being my driver and I (my driver’s a rather large burly Luo chap who everyone thinks is my bodyguard and is armed – he’s not actually – but people often ask me the same!).
Raila, the opposition leader disputing the results, has insisted that he will go ahead with his ‘peaceful’ demonstration in the morning, but after the last few days of absolutely shocking violence rocking the country, absolutely no-one trusts that the demonstration will be at all peaceful as all it will take is one tribesman from the wrong side to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and it will more than likely all go pear shaped.
The government is insisting that the rally is illegal, but the opposition say they have gone through all of the right channels to announce the demonstration and are calling their supporters to go ahead with it.
We have no idea how it will pan out and all we can do is wait and see, but the police and military have been deployed all over the city and I’m sure will try and stop people marching into the city centre at all costs.
I understand Desmond Tutu is headed our way for a spot of mediation. All I can say is I hope he’s doing a lot of praying for us right now too, as I really think we will need it tomorrow.
Please wish us luck and a peaceful outcome.
I started off in the supermarket at 8.30 as soon as it opened in order to catch the few deliveries that had hit the shelves before the hordes of panic buyers rushed in. Basically, apart from their being absolutely no meat to speak of, no bread on the shelves and a meagre offering of mostly expensive fruit and very little veg to speak of, the shelves were fairly well stocked considering the mass panic buying that has been going on in the last few days, where the queues have been absolutely shocking and the supermarkets so overwhelmed that they have had to restrict the numbers through the door at any one time.
After doing my shopping in a relatively calm atmosphere, which was quite a novelty considering the antics of the last few days, I then headed for town and my office which is on the periphery.
We got there without any issues at all on the road - 'we' being my driver and I (my driver’s a rather large burly Luo chap who everyone thinks is my bodyguard and is armed – he’s not actually – but people often ask me the same!).
Once in the office people slowly trickled in. The police were stopping all the cars and matatus on the way into the city centre first thing this morning and were making all the passengers get out and walk to work, although as the day progressed, this seem to relax and as I was coming home this afternoon there were even a few public buses running.
It ended up being quite an odd day though. Some of the banks didn’t open before mid morning (if at all), and most of the shops, apart from the supermarkets and the odd cafe, stayed shut throughout the whole day. Traffic was easy, with very few cars on the road which was quite a nice change to the norm, but the few shops that were open were bustling with business.
Talk was all of politics and what had happened where and to whom, and who was still trapped in their houses surrounded by trouble. SMS's came through throughout the morning warning of roadblocks being manned by gangs on the road out of Nairobi to the west of the country, Nakuru, Eldoret and Kisumu, where apparantly the vehicles were all being stopped and all those of the wrong tribes (depending on who was manning the road block), were being thrown out and allegedly threatened with their lives.
We called around and found all our staff safe and well – although some of them are not able to move out of their estates for fear of their own safety. In some of the slums there is still a stand off between the different tribal factions with armed police in the middle keeping the two sides apart with live gunfire to stop them fighting.
It ended up being quite an odd day though. Some of the banks didn’t open before mid morning (if at all), and most of the shops, apart from the supermarkets and the odd cafe, stayed shut throughout the whole day. Traffic was easy, with very few cars on the road which was quite a nice change to the norm, but the few shops that were open were bustling with business.
Talk was all of politics and what had happened where and to whom, and who was still trapped in their houses surrounded by trouble. SMS's came through throughout the morning warning of roadblocks being manned by gangs on the road out of Nairobi to the west of the country, Nakuru, Eldoret and Kisumu, where apparantly the vehicles were all being stopped and all those of the wrong tribes (depending on who was manning the road block), were being thrown out and allegedly threatened with their lives.
We called around and found all our staff safe and well – although some of them are not able to move out of their estates for fear of their own safety. In some of the slums there is still a stand off between the different tribal factions with armed police in the middle keeping the two sides apart with live gunfire to stop them fighting.
Raila, the opposition leader disputing the results, has insisted that he will go ahead with his ‘peaceful’ demonstration in the morning, but after the last few days of absolutely shocking violence rocking the country, absolutely no-one trusts that the demonstration will be at all peaceful as all it will take is one tribesman from the wrong side to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and it will more than likely all go pear shaped.
The government is insisting that the rally is illegal, but the opposition say they have gone through all of the right channels to announce the demonstration and are calling their supporters to go ahead with it.
We have no idea how it will pan out and all we can do is wait and see, but the police and military have been deployed all over the city and I’m sure will try and stop people marching into the city centre at all costs.
I understand Desmond Tutu is headed our way for a spot of mediation. All I can say is I hope he’s doing a lot of praying for us right now too, as I really think we will need it tomorrow.
Please wish us luck and a peaceful outcome.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Kenyans keep their sense of humour.
Well, I have finally been out of the house to relieve a little of the cabin fever.
Things are fairly normal somehow and the tension has dropped a little. There seems to be the normal amount of people and traffic on the road that you usually get on a public holiday, and apart from the few shops that are open and are completely overwhelmed with customers who probably have little left in their homes after the continuous back to back public holidays we've been having and the tension that has kept most people at home, things seem to be ticking along in some form of resemblance of normal.
Some matatus (minibuses) are out plying some few routes although i think they are being extremely careful as to who is driving them and how far they go, as currently it seems that any Kikuyu's caught in the wrong place are likely to be lynched.
Sadly it has all become extremely tribal after the election results and after what seemed such a non-tribal and very peaceful voting day, it is a great shame for our country that it has come to this.
I did see a friend's driver at the shops who tells me that things in Kibera and Mathare (two of the biggest slums here in Nairobi), had more burning and looting overnight but he says that the police now seem to be in control in those areas this morning. (I should think this is basically because there is a total curfew being imposed in those areas and anyone found outside their homes will be shot on site).
There has been a few bigwigs who have got together and stood up and formed a 'Peace Initiative', and they are trying their utmost to get the two sides to talk, although i hear that Raila is not agreeing to any form of dialogue with Kibaki at this stage as he says by doing so it will be seen as recognising Kibaki as the president and he is not willing to do that. Lets hope though as the day progresses, someone, somewhere can get some form of dialogue going to relieve this tension.
One thing that has been great this morning is the New Year messages I have been getting. Throughout all of this it seems that Kenyans have certainly not lost their sense of humour, and are poking fun at the entire election process and what has happened since then from both sides of the fence.
I have had:
"I take this opportunity to wish you a most Happy and Prosperous 2008, as any further delay will be termed as rigging and I have no Form 16 or 16A to support my wishes!"
(The forms 16 and 16A are the ones used by the polling stations to send their official results to the Electoral Commission, the ECK)
Then i got:
"Wishing you a happy new year but unable to confirm which year as we await the final tally of days from the ECK. Early reports show we are in 1952. Note: This SMS is recorded and not live."
(Thus poking at the fact that we have been put under a live broadcast ban as the government says that live broadcasting is inciting violence - work that one out for yourselves.)
Finally i just had:
"HaPNU Year"
(PNU being Kibaki's party.)
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