Kenya in Crisis Day 41: An Update

The crisis in Kenya reached a dubious number today as the death toll topped 1000.

Kenya's local Red Cross reported Tuesday that more than 1,000 people have died and 304,000 were displaced in Kenya's post-election crisis.

Meanwhile, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has led mediation for the speedy resolution of the crisis sparked by accusations of election rigging between opposition leader Raila Odinga and President Mwai Kibaki in late December.

Annan took over the mediation after Kibaki loss confidence to former mediator businessman Cyril Ramaphosa.

A power-sharing deal between government and opposition politicians is underway, which is seen to finally resolve the crisis.

I, myself, am dubious of the last paragraph. I will not only take a wait and see attitude to see if a power sharing agreement is reached, but also whether or not it will have any effect in stemming the violence. To me the whole thing is surreal. First, we are supposed to believe the hapless Annan who couldn't resolve any of the crises that faced the world during his entire tenure at the UN is going to resolve this crisis. Second, we are supposed to believe that armed men with machetes are going to stop tribal warfare because two political factions have agreed to share power.

I can't figure out if I am the only one that sees doom where it isn't or if the rest of the world is blind to it. Whatever did or didn't happen in the election, I doubt very much that the armed men with machetes are going to stop because of some power sharing agreement. This has turned tribal and primitive. The situation requires serious commitment to law and order. That isn't political, but security. It is possible that the current leader, Kibaki, is too weak to maintain law and order and that a power sharing agreement will give him the necessary power to restore law and order.

Personally, I read the reporting and I just don't think that most of the folks reporting on it have any handle on the situation. There is so much complexity to this situation that it seems almost absurd to me that some sort of a show power sharing agreement will resolve the crisis. Take a look at this article for instance...

When Steve Maina finishes a round of golf at Kenya's exclusive Windsor club, a waistcoated waiter hurries over with a tall iced drink while armed guards watch discreetly from the shrubbery, a few minutes' drive from one of Nairobi's oldest slums.

That's Mathare, the shantytown where Cliff Owino's tin shack leans over a river of sewage and almost every morning a corpse with machete wounds turns up in an alley.

Most of the time, these two faces of Kenya, so close geographically, exist on different planes. But clashes triggered by Kenya's disputed elections on Dec. 27 set them on a collision course. Some 800 people have died and more than 300,000 been displaced after opposition leader Raila Odinga accused President Mwai Kibaki of rigging the slim margin that secured him another five-year term.

Many factors contributed to the violence - frustration over poverty and corruption, ethnic rivalries exploited by politicians, criminal gangs and competition over land - but most of all the feeling of Kenya's poor that Kibaki's much-touted economic boom is passing them by.

I believe that the election unleashed all sorts of things that were simmering under the surface and they exploded as a result. There are elements of tribalism, class warfare, as well as all sorts of criminality. I don't belive for one second that any of these factions have any allegiance to any political party. They have found a vacuum and they have their own agendas.

I maybe wrong however I don't believe that men walking around with machetes looking to identify folks of opposite tribes and kill them are going to stop because two politicians have agreed to power sharing. Yet, that is what the reporting purports to present. This is what most of the so called diplomats are angling for. This situation requires the sort of military plan that was implemented in Iraq. It requires a force that will confront the violence and control it. Only when that violence is controlled will any power sharing plan have any meaning. Instead, the powers that be think that two politicians, who don't control the violent men, can sign some document get on television with figureheads from around the world and suddenly everyone will drop their machetes and go home.

The irony is that this latest round of violence is playing out much like the violence throughout the rest of the continent. The Rwandan genocide was also tribal and it also involved militias. No power sharing agreement stopped the tribal warfare, and yet we have diplomats angling for a power sharing agreement to stop this genocide.

I hope I am wrong, however the more I learn about this crisis the more I fear I am right.