Kenya: Street Battles Rage On

by Barry Artiste | January 26, 2008 at 04:58 am

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Opinion

Barry Artiste, Now Public Contributor

Certainly makes one wonder the Decline of Civilization where once it is said it all began for Humankind, whether Africa is increasingly becoming a Lost Cause, where no one listens to reason. You have to wonder about the mental capacity of a peoples who butcher neighbours over a lost electoral candidate, because in their world they feel their innocent neighbours are responsible for the outcome. IMF, World Bank and countries shovel aid to African countries by the aircraft load only to see the average family seeing little of it and the bulk of the money used to prop up despots and their armies and the rest squirreled away in Swiss Banks for the Despots families. IMF, World Bank and Aid Organizations need to sit back and stop being held hostage by these countries where it seems that Western Aid money is sent in order to appease Despots to stop the Genocide of it's own peoples.

NAKURU, Kenya - Sporadic gunshots sounded Saturday in a main Rift Valley city as Kenyans forced from their homes by postelection ethnic violence threatened to seek revenge. Streets were strewn with bodies slashed by machetes and pierced by arrows.

Hundreds of homes were burned down in Nakuru, regional capital in the Rift Valley, which has seen some of the worst clashes between members of President Mwai Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe and other groups who accuse the president of stealing Dec. 27 elections. The Kikuyu are resented for their domination of politics and the economy.

Police brought 16 charred bodies to the Nakuru mortuary Saturday, some missing limbs. Some appeared to have other wounds as well. Police would not say where they came from. Witnesses had reported seeing 12 bodies Friday in Nakuru, but the complete toll was unclear.

Men at the mortuary sobbed as the bodies were taken away. "

"We are planning revenge, we are searching for weapons," said 23-year-old Njenga, who didn't want his last name used for fear of reprisals.

He was among hundreds of people taking refuge at the Catholic church of Nakuru after their homes were reduced to smoldering rubble.

Nakuru, a city of 300,000, had until now been spared the political violence. Soldiers began patrolling the streets after fighting broke out late Thursday, and a dusk to dawn curfew was imposed. A barrier of rocks and wood blocked a main road Saturday.

As the violence raged, Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga remained far apart on the central question of who really won the Dec. 27 election.

The two rivals are under international pressure to find a way to share power. But Odinga said he was not interested in that option, insisting holding new elections was the only way to restore peace. Kibaki made clear he would not give up his position as head of state.

Mediator Kofi Annan of Ghana, the former U.N. secretary-general, on Saturday was visiting trouble spots in the western Rift Valley.

Annan flew by helicopter to Molo, where some 50,000 people have been chased from their homes in ethnic clashes in recent days, according to the Kenya Red Cross Society's secretary-general Abbas Gullet.

Half the nearby town of Total Station was burned down Thursday night, and at least two people were killed and 50 wounded by clubs and machetes, Gullet said. The area is about 160 kilometres northwest of Nairobi, the capital.

Across the country, riots and ethnic fighting following Kibaki's disputed re-election have killed at least 685 people and forced 255,000 from their homes, with violence convulsing the capital, the coast and the western highlands.

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