Kenya Kenya Kenya

This Week in Kenya




What a week it has been for Kenya and the United States. Barack Obama won the Iowa Primaries while his father's homeland erupted in more violence. Great for Obama. What will happen in Kenya? Condoleeza Rice is doing her best to monitor the situation. Obama, test-drive your foreign policy credibility. The world is watching you.

Obama issued the following statement -

"Despite irregularities in the vote tabulation, now is not the time to throw that strong democracy away. Now is a time for President Kibaki, opposition leader Odinga, and all of Kenya's leaders to call for calm, to come together, and to start a political process to address peacefully the controversies that divide them[.]"

What Kenya needs now is action. This situation is not tied to Kenya alone. This will have a devastating impact on its neighbors in Congo, Uganda, Rwanda and Burindi.

Please Please Please don't misunderstand this post!!!!! No one is asking Obama to solve the Kenya crisis. No one is asking Hilary Clinton or Mike Huckabee to solve the Kenya crisis. No one is even asking Bush to do it. All the "humanitarian world" is asking is that African leaders learn accountability to, responsibility for, and genuine interest in the people who elect them. Put humanity before greed and ego. I understand that this is easier said than done, but what good will it do for another country to embark on a mindless genocide and economic destabilization - this is where we are headed. Leaders, Please stand up and Lead!!!!!


Kenya in the News during the First Week of 2008!!! Happy New Year? Probably Not!!!

Kenya’s embattled President Mwai Kibaki is appealing for calm after announcing his readiness to hold talks with Raila Odinga of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) to end the escalating violence. Kibaki’s announcement followed calls by some concerned citizens and the Kenyan media to end the ongoing political crisis after last week’s disputed elections. But Raila Odinga has dismissed Kibaki’s call saying he would only join an interim government, which would oversee a re-run of the presidential election. Read more from VOA.


Post-election violence in Kenya has crippled the delivery of fuel to Rwanda, forcing authorities to institute petroleum rationing. Rwandans who depend upon their cars for business say they fear a continuation of the crisis may have devastating economic consequences. Rwanda imports most of its petroleum from the Kenyan port city of Mombasa, but ethnic clashes have blocked roads across Kenya following the nation's hotly contested Presidential election. Read more from VOA.


Kenya’s main opposition party, the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), is calling for new elections as a way of ending days of post-election violence. Hundreds of people have been killed. Among those watching developments in Kenya is Barack Muluka, a columnist with the East African Standard Newspaper. He’s currently in Western Kenya, near the Ugandan border, unable to travel to Nairobi for fear of violence. He spoke to VOA English to Africa Service reporter Joe De Capua about whether to post-election violence came as a surprise.

“No, I’m not surprised at the current state of affairs. To start with I think the political opposition, and particularly the ODM, invested a lot emotionally in the elections. It became quite clear very early at the outset that the race was going to be between President Kabaki’s Party of National Unity and Raila Odinga’s ODM. And both sides invested a lot of emotion and hope. And therefore when the results were announced, my take on this is that whoever was going to win the other side was going to end up (with) the kind of emotional outpouring and perhaps display of violence that we are witnessing in the country today,” he says. Read more from VOA.

The Kenyan government says it will accept a re-run of last week's disputed presidential election, if a court orders a new vote. A spokesman for President Mwai Kibaki, Alfred Mutua, made the comment to reporters in Nairobi Friday. He spoke after the opposition Orange Democratic Movement called for new elections to end days of deadly unrest that has killed more than 300 people.

Opposition leaders accuse the government of rigging last Thursday's election to ensure Mr. Kibaki's re-election. A United Nations spokeswoman says Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke with both the president and opposition leader Raila Odinga Friday and appealed for a return to calm and normalcy. He called for both leaders to resolve their differences through dialogue. The U.N. says the unrest that followed the election has now displaced 250,000 people within Kenya. Read more from VOA.

The World Bank is warning that post-election unrest in Kenya is threatening east Africa's largest economy and could wipe out impressive gains the country has achieved in recent years. As VOA Correspondent Alisha Ryu reports from the Kenyan capital Nairobi, widespread violence, triggered by allegations of vote-rigging in last Thursday's hotly-contested elections, has disrupted transportation and closed businesses, creating food and fuel shortages in Kenya. The Kenyan government estimates that it has lost more than $60 million in revenue since Sunday, when the capital and other parts of the country exploded in political and tribal violence over the re-election of President Mwai Kibaki.

Mr. Kibaki, a member of Kenya's dominant ethnic Kikuyu tribe, was declared the winner of an election that was too close to call before the December 27 vote. The opposition, led by Raila Odinga, an ethnic Luo who has the support of many other tribes, charged the election was rigged. International observers have also questioned the final tally. Battles between protesters and police and ethnic clashes have killed more than 300 people in Nairobi, the Rift Valley, and the coastal town of Mombasa and have paralyzed the country. Read more from VOA.

Kenya Politicians
Obama Wins Iowa
Kenyans Fleeing to Safety
President Kibaki
Displaced Kenyans