Kenya Teeters On Brink Of Civil War

As World Urges Reconciliation, Post-Election Violence Death Toll Hits 300

(CBS/AP)  The death toll from more than five days of post-election violence in Kenya rose above 300, rights groups said Wednesday as slums burned and thousands were left homeless.

The violence was sparked by charges President Mwai Kibaki stole his way to re-election - even his elections chief was quoted Wednesday as saying he could not be sure who won. The political rift quickly took on a tribal element in what has been one of Africa's most stable democracies.

"Kenya has been thrown into chaos. There is little evidence here of any government at all. All across the country there is fear and distress, CBS News reporter Katherine Arms reports from Nairobi.

"What has taken more than 40 years to build in independence has been wiped out in days," Arms reports.

In one of the worst attacks, a mob set fire to a church Tuesday in a town about 185 miles northwest of Nairobi where people from Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe had taken refuge. There were conflicting accounts about how many people died. The Kenya Red Cross said in a statement it retrieved 17 bodies from the smoldering church, but other witnesses put the toll at up to 50.

The Red Cross said houses and "large parcels of land and crops have been burnt" in the area, and major roads were barricaded, making it difficult to deliver aid. Some displaced in Eldoret have not received food for three days, it said.

Government spokesman Alfred Mutua said: "Kenya is not burning and not at the throes of any division," adding clashes had only affected about 3 percent of the country's 34 million people.

But the intensity of the violence was sobering, and Kenya's political leaders continued to wrangle.

The independent Kenya Human Rights Commission and the International Federation for Human Rights said in a joint statement more than 300 people had been killed since the Dec. 27 vote.

The U.N. cited Kenyan police as saying 70,000 people had been displaced in five days of violence. Around 5,400 people have also fled to neighboring Uganda, said Musa Ecweru, that country's disaster preparedness minister. Several hundred people have also fled to Tanzania, officials there said.

Vice President Moody Awori said over a local television station the violence was costing the country US$31 million a day. Many businesses have closed down during the unrest and some foreign governments have advised their citizens against travel to the usually tourist-friendly nation.

Opposition leader Raila Odinga has said he would go ahead with plans to lead a protest march in the capital Thursday even though the government has banned it. The Kenya Human Rights Commission and the International Federation for Human Rights called for calm Thursday.

"If that takes place, there will certainly be bloodshed. A clash is certain to occur," Arms told CBS' The Early Show.

Government spokesman Mutua said the security forces had arrested 500 people since skirmishes began.

Though much of Nairobi was quiet Wednesday, mothers clutching wide-eyed infants and suitcases were evacuated by riot police from the slum of Mathare while angry young people armed with machetes and axes heaped abuse on the police as the area burned.

"All you do here is come to pick up bodies," shouted Boniface Shikami.

Several threw rocks toward the police vehicle, and officers fired in the air before a patrol truck skidded around a corner to try to separate battling supporters of Odinga and Kibaki. As shopkeepers battled with flames leaping through their corrugated iron roofs, a dazed woman clutching a kitten wandered through the smoke.

"They have burned down my house and all I have now is my cat," wailed Hannah Warigui.

One man, Livingstone Wesonga, said his wife lost their fifth child on Tuesday night after complications during the delivery. Vigilante groups roaming the streets kept the family penned in their home and no ambulance or doctor was willing or able to come.

Arms reports people across the country are living in fear that ethnic divisions suppressed in recent years could again erupt in war. "The veneer of this country is so thin. There has been this hatred all along," she said.

Many people who live in the slums spent Tuesday night sleeping outside, for fear their homes may be set on fire as they slept, reports Arms.

Dr. John Okello said clinics around the city were running short of basic materials because so many people have been arriving with machete wounds.

While Kibaki and Odinga have support from across the tribal spectrum, the young people responsible for the violence tend to see politics in strictly ethnic terms. Kenya has more than 40 tribes, and political leaders have often used unemployed and uneducated young men to intimidate opponents.

Kibaki's Kikuyu, Kenya's largest ethnic group, are accused of using their dominance of politics and business to the detriment of others. Odinga is from the Luo tribe, a smaller but still major tribe that says it has been marginalized.

Kibaki, 76, won by a landslide in 2002, ending 24 years of rule by Daniel arap Moi. Kibaki is praised for turning the country into an east African economic powerhouse with an average growth rate of 5 percent, but his anti-graft campaign has been seen as a failure, and the country still struggles with tribalism and poverty.

Odinga, 62, cast himself as a champion of the poor. His main constituency is the Kibera slum, where some 700,000 people live in poverty, but he has been accused of failing to do enough to help them in 15 years as a member of parliament.

Kibaki was inaugurated for a second term Sunday, soon after election results were announced.

The head of the country's electoral commission, Samuel Kivuitu, said he had been pressured by both sides to announce the results quickly - and perhaps wrongly. In Wednesday's edition, the country's oldest newspaper, The Standard, quoted Kivuitu as saying, "I do not know whether Kibaki won the election."

In a joint statement, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband said there were "independent reports of serious irregularities in the counting process."

Odinga rejected a call by Kibaki for a meeting Tuesday, saying he would meet Kibaki only "if he announces that he was not elected" and telling The Associated Press in an interview that Kibaki's administration "is guilty, directly, of genocide."

[shirk3-2009]

Let me guess, it''s YT''s fault somehow.
It was a peaceful place before it was colonized? We taught them to hack eachother up with machetes?

Don''t mind me I''m just prepareing myself for the guilt.

[dsr57]

Like I said before Africans need ofther countries to run theirs. Because they are worthless. Just like the arab countries. They''ve been fighting for thousands and thousands of years. Why America thinks they can step in and stop this by imposing a democracy on people who don''t want one is beyond me. Why not just let them kill each other off ? Who really cares about Africa anyway. If we really cared we would have stepped in During the genocide in Rwanda? The fact of the matter is, Africa has nothing we want so we don''t care what goes on there. Now if they had Oil and other natural resources then we''d be all over it.

[runningralph]

Tribal warfare goes way back. This is inot The US taxpayer''s fault, it''s not any outsider''s fault. The situation in Kenya will provide a opportunity for Islamic jihad to make gains.

[ianlou]

I just read an article last month on this site about how Kenya was going to be the next global call center.

Question: How can you tell if you are talking to a customer service rep based in Kenya?
Answer: You can hear gun fire in the background.

I can hear the big-wigs now: " Outsourcing American jobs to third world countries would be a perfect way to improve our bottom line if it wasn%u2019t for all these pesky revolutions and ethnic cleansing periods, perhaps we can get a bailout from the American Tax Payer.

[brianbwb-2009]

Boy, that is some advanced armor the soldiers are wearing, I wonder where they got it?

[brianbwb-2009]

Now if they had Oil and other natural resources then we''''d be all over it.
Posted by DSR57

They have diamonds, Uranium, and don''t forget, Nigeria is one of the founding OPEC members, so they do have oil, and a lot of it, in fact some of the worlds largest light sweet crude fields are Nigerian. Shell oil used slave labor there for years until the story made international headlines, now they pay a token fee to "managers" who are work the slaves, so they can say they have stopped.

The big problem for Africa is that If the US starts meddling, we all know how that one will go, instead of the usual inter-tribal warfare that has been going on ever since there were tribes, we would then trade that for Americans over there killing everyone, and we all know there is a faction in the US for whom genocide against "Blacks" is their fondest wet dream. A few of them can be found posting on these threads...

[dogsoul]

Come ON liberals... surely you can find a way to blame THIS one on Bush too, right??? Don''t let us down now... you''re slippin''! There''s got to be SOME way to blame America & Bush for this - perhaps you just have to rely more heavily on your conspiracy theorists this time ''round...

[beehive21-2009]

They did''nt have any trouble back when there ruler would eat you.

[antoniof123]

The world is becoming unlivable and no one sees it coming.

[ozonmojo]

Talk of civil war has become all too common with the journos for some reason.It is probably part of the sensation building and over the top language they indulge in.First,it was Iraq where the media tomtommed a civil war.Next it was the turn of Pakistan after the killing of that "great democrat" Benazir Bhutto.Now they are telling us of a civil war in Kenya.Don''t believe the journos ,if you want to keep your sanity.

[dogsoul]

"The world is becoming unlivable and no one sees it coming. "

...and back during the days of WWI, WWII, slavery, colonial wars, Moorish conquests, Roman Empire, etc... and NOW you''ve declared the world unliveable???

Get some perspective buddy...

[healthycynic]

What the news is not telling you is that the root of the tribal conflict is that all Bantu tribes, of which the Kikuyu are the major one, are circumcised, and look at uncircumcised men with contempt. Kibaki is Kikuyi. His rival, Odinga, is from the Luo tribe. They are markedly different for most other Kenyan tribes, which are Bantu, because the Luo are not Bantu, nor are they circumcised. That makes all the difference for a Kenyan, It shouldn''t, and maybe it matters less for educated Kenyans, but at the street level it counts.

I lived there for 4 years, and I can tell you that, yes, Kenya is a great place; it was peaceful in the 70''s when I was there, but things can fall apart quickly, as we are seeing here.

This tribal power conflict goes way back...Odinga''s father, Odinga Odinga, lost in "elections" to Jomo Kenyatta, and was for one reason or other always banned from subsequent elections. One of Odinga Odinga''s strongest allies, Tom Mboya, a much loved Kenyan leader (who was actually a Kikuyu), was assassinated the in the 60''s...They were actually working together for at true democracy in Kenya...

The "democracy" of Kenya has for decades been a facade; Kenyatta was more or less a dictator as was his hand picked successor Daniel Arap Moi. It is really no surprise that when there is an election you get this mess.

[michellet35]

Virtually every single country in Africa is just one incident or one election or one assasination away from total anarchy and civil war. Kenya just joined that list. Gee, note that as each European-led government moves out, the anarchy then begins? Well, I''m sure that''s just a coincidence.

[j-whitman]

ilikecats1---- Our government is brroken & you Bush Lovers haven''t been the majority once --- You still represent less than 30% of our voters.

[j-whitman]

ilikecats1,,,, Do you have trouble walking ??? Your head is 5 times bigger than it should be.

[michellet35]

J-Whitman, say what you like: I''d bet you a hundred bucks today that the GOP will win in November. There''s a large(perhaps 15%) of undecided go-either-way voters in the middle, and in the end, they will vote for the party that supports national security. Nobody on the Democrat side fits that bill, so the GOP will win by default. Romney will be the next President. Mark my words.

[j-whitman]

MichelleT35,,,, Give us a break, this GOP has & still is causing the highest government damage catagory there is in National Security -- "EXCEPTIONALLY GRAVE"

[j-whitman]

MichelleT35,,, More "exceptionally grave damage is still comming ----- We''ve killed 3 prisoners at least with abusive treatment & torture under our custody

[excoachken]

There is nothing Civil about War!!!!!!!!!!

[j-whitman]

MichelleT35,,, The GOP is so bad it''s the Humpty Dumpty that fell off the wall, it''s finished for decades. -------- Romney isn''t the least bit honest at all, you want another liar, vote for him ---

----- He complaines about Edwards haircut he gets every month costing $400 yet every day Romney puts on make-up it cost over $600 a pop.

[rafterman1]

===and in the end, they will vote for the party that supports national security.===

Since both parties believe in national security and just difer in the ways to achieve it, your "analysis" is nothing more than propaganda. A more correct analysis is, the party whose propaganda is most deceiving will win and, in the recent past, that has been the GOP.

[michellet35]

J-Whitman, you''re deluded if you think more than 50 Americans are going to vote based on how we treat prisoners, at Gitmo or anywhere else. Ask 10 strangers at random what their hot-button voting issue is: bet you won''t find one that says "Uhhhh, it''s torture. Yeah, dats it." Wake up.

[michellet35]

Oh, and I don''t give a rat''s behind how much Romney spends on makeup or haircuts, even though your $600 figure is a fabrication. At least Mitt spends his OWN money on haircuts. He''s earned millions via hard work. Unlike the typical "I''m entitled, you''re entitled" Dem candidates, who all want to spend MY money on their makeup, haircuts, food, healthcare, transportation, liquor, food stamps, welfare, on and on and on and on and on and on and....

[j-whitman]

MichelleT35 ,,,, It isn''t left up to a ramdam polling of strangers to decide what damage is done to our National Security --
--- Ask some people & they will tell you the only issue is abortion or tax cuts

Bush has even damaged our National Security with his trade policies.... Yes even GITMO & secret prisons hurt is as well,, & the destabilization of the entire Middle East as well causes "grave damaghe"

[j-whitman]

MichelleT35,,,, Romney has lied from the very beginning of his campaign --- You want more dishonor in our White House ????

[j-whitman]

MichelleT35,,,, What good is a Religious President if he does''nt keep his word ??? -- More hyprocracy ???

[harp1963]

To bad they don''t have mineral resources or slave labor American Fortune 500 companies could use. Old George and Cheney would send in the military if they did.

If I could choose between being Jeffery Dalmer, George Bush, or D i c k Cheney on judgement day, I would pick Jeffery Dalmer every time.

[abdoul_pasha]

Goodevening!

[j-whitman]

Abdoul,,, Hello, Looks like things are heating up in Africa, not just in Kenya

[abdoul_pasha]

Yesw, but it`s usual for Africa.

[dogsoul]

"If I could choose between being Jeffery Dalmer, George Bush, or D i c k Cheney on judgement day, I would pick Jeffery Dalmer every time. "

That''s because you''re an idiot

[j-whitman]

dogsoul,,,, Bush is an Idiot --- Jeffery Dalmer was just hungry

[abdoul_pasha]

How did you celebrate new year?

[j-whitman]

Abdoul,,, New Years isn''t anything big to me, unless it brings with it progressive changes & that''s not likely -
---- I went out in my front yard at midnight & watched a good fireworks show,,,, I should rain tomorrow, that''s when we notice the bullet holes from idiots shooting in the air.

[abdoul_pasha]

I like them, we give (and maybe receive) gifts. We went to welcome the new year at one square, there was a stage and programme with live music.

[hillaryin08]

Maybe we should pull out? Oh wait a minute we are not there.

[lawyertom1]

When I was in Kenya last year, all I heard from the locals, from blue collar to white collar, was how much they hated the culture of corruption that pervaded the country. I also had the joy of seeing such corruption first hand. Although it is easy to type the dispute over the election along tribal lines, it is not nearly so simple. Kenya has the potential to be the star of East Africa, and the current government is doing nothing but promoting a kleptocracy. The U.S. needs to help the good citizens of this fine country to throw out the thieves. It is an opportunity to make friends and allies for life.

[beehive21-2009]

Hope President Bush handles this from across the Ocean, that whole country is full of meat eaters and the last few presidents ate people.We don''t what President Bush eaten.

[amazedd]

If he doesn''t want him marching on the the capital he''d better offer him something of some substance, a PM-ship, ''co-habitation''...

BE A SPORT, MATE!

[michellet35]

J-Whitman, it''s called a "spell checker". Look into it. I''m tired of debating people who come across as total retar*ds.

[jtb230]

People need to recognize the international forces at play in the election result in Kenya. The US showed its cards by being quick to congratulate incumbent Kibaki on his "victory," even though EVERYONE knew that the election results were a sham. Opposition candidate Odinga has led in all independent polls leading up to the election and he had a sizable lead after 70% of the vote was counted leading into Sunday when everything went to hell. Both Odinga and Kibaki are responsible for the fomentation of visceral ethnic politics causing much of the violence, but now the US must use vigorous pressure to get all parties together to bring an end to the violence. The US must equally pressure for an independent investigation into the voting irregularities and for a vote recount. The State Department''s call for the situation to be resolved through "constitutional and legal remedies" is deliberately naive because such remedies are heavily weighted in the incumbent''s favor and thus will merely support the status quo: Kibaki. The Bush Administration knows this and they must relinquish their passive support of Kibaki and truly support the will of the Kenyan people by calling for a legitimate process to reevaluate the election in order to restore peace and justice! In parts of Kenya comparisons are already being made to Rwanda, we cannot wait and those in power will be judged by the lives they did or did not save, and by their bold leadership or their callous indifference.

[hypnotoad72]

Don''t blame me, I voted for Kodos...

[brianbwb-2009]

24:34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. Posted by ilikecats1

The contradiction being that since that line was quoted, many generations have passed...

[brianbwb-2009]

"Watch out that no one deceives you. 5For many will come in my name, claiming, ''''''''I am the Christ,'''''''' and will deceive many. 6You will hear of WARS AND RUMORS OF WARS, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8All these are the beginning of birth pains." Posted by singinrick

And all these things have been happening ever since long millenniums even before the days of those quotes.

[brianbwb-2009]

"Watch out that no one deceives you. 5For many will come in my name, claiming, ''''''''I am the Christ,'''''''' and will deceive many. 6You will hear of WARS AND RUMORS OF WARS, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8All these are the beginning of birth pains." Posted by singinrick

And all these things have been happening ever since long millenniums even before the days of those quotes.