Jan 21
Dear All,
Shortly after the first Quaker missionaries came in 1902 and had their first converts to Christianity, the requirements of being a Christian were at great odds with traditional society. I know (or rather knew since many of these have died) some of these original converts and they are not like your every-day Christian that we know. They had to make major life changes to become a Christian, usually over the complete objection of most of their family members. These folks are/were stout Christians. As time went on many others converted and living separately was no longer necessary. By now almost everyone in Kenya considers him/herself a Christian (or a Moslem). But like the US and many other places many of the nominal Christians rarely go to church except for weddings and funerals and it plays only a little part in their lives.
On Sunday at Lumakanda Church the preacher was the wife of the pastor. She lives in Eldoret and is having to move because she rents a house owned by Kikuyu. Many of the houses around her have been burned down. She took as her text, Mathew 5:20 which reads, "I tell you, then, that you will be able to enter the Kingdom of Heaven only if you are more faithful than the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees in doing what God requires." She started out by saying that Christians don't smoke or drink alcohol (all Protestant religions in Kenya forbid smoking and alcohol consumption). But then she went on to the main part of her sermon, namely, that Christians do not take up weapons to use on their neighbors. She gave the example of a man who is a pastor and took a spear to join in on the violence in Eldoret. This man, she clearly indicated, was not a Christian.
Note that this was the sermon in a small church in an out-of-the-way place. But I think that this is a common feeling among those who go to Church. While this is a Friends Church, I think that this could be found in many Christian churches. In other words, the God-fearing Christians are against the violence. But that division between the "God-fearing Christians" and the nominal Christians is huge. The church-going Christians shun those who do not attend church and make little outreach to them. This is particularly true of the youth. Consequently when violence came, the God-fearing Christians had no points of contact with the looters. They were cowed down by fear, many expecting to be the next target of the wrathful crowds.
There is no political settlement in sight. One newspaper columnist stated today in the Daily Nation that the longer things drag out the better they are for the Kibaki side so that side has little incentive to genuinely mediate. On the Raila side this means that time is against them so they might turn to drastic measures.
Although there were no demonstrations over the weekend, the violence did not subside. Once the genie of violence gets out of the bottle, it is very hard to put back in. The papers report 10 or 15 deaths on Sunday. Eden Grace texted me that two people were killed in Cheptulu, the market right next to Kaimosi Hospital (which had formerly escaped the violence). Most of the deaths are in the Rift Valley where the various Kalenjin groups feel that outsiders have taken away their land. This is not only Kikuyu, but also Kisii, Luo, Luhya, and other groups. This happened before in 1992 where 1000 people were killed and 100,000 or more displaced. Many people (like all those who said Kenya was such a stable country) seem to have forgotten this. As we have learned from Rwanda and Burundi, when these kind of clashes occur and nothing is done about them, a renewed, more vicious cycle of violence will occur. This, I think, is what is happening in the Rift Valley (and I live only 3 miles from the Rift Valley). As Job, my son in law told me about 1992 when he was in fifth grade, the Kalenjin warriors came all the way past Lumakanda attacking the Luhya--this was in the days before Lugari was a district with a police station in Lumakanda.
To summarize, the spark for the violence was the election results. The tinder was all the alienated youth in the society. As time goes on the ethnic dimension will increase as attacks will lead to counter-attacks. As attacks become successful in forcing people to leave the Rift Valley, this becomes self-reinforcing leading to more attacks. At this point we must be thankful that the attachers have only traditional weapons--clubs, bows and arrows, machettes, and spears. If they had guns (which if the violence continues, they will soon acquire in one way or another), then the death toll can soar and soar. Even now I am not sure that a political settlement will end the violence in the countryside, although it would give the security forces a greater chance to deal with it.
Tomorrow Gladys and I go to Kisumu (for the first time since the violence began) to help plan the series of 40 listening workshops we are doing with the 900 employees of the Center for Disease Control. We are planning to begin doing AVP workshops in various sites in Western, Rift, and Nyanza Provinces. We have hired two more AVP facilitators to help organize this work--Peter Serete from Kakamega and Bernard Onjalo from Bondo, Nyanza Province near Kisumu. They will work under our energetic AVP coordinator, Getry Agizah. Malesi Kinaro, Gladys (my wife), and I will give direction and, of course, I have to raise the necessary funds.
Peace,
Dave
Jan 19
Dear All,
I have not written for the past two days because I mostly stayed home.
This was partly because I needed to catch up on my email and other work
at home and partly because with the continued demonstrations by ODM, many
people were not going anywhere since travel was so uncertain. My
son-in-law who is a motorcycle taxi driver here in Lumakanda told me
yesterday he earned only 200/- while he usually earns 800/- to 1000/- on
a normal day!
I did go for a walk with Gladys yesterday to her sister's house about two
miles down the hill. We passed the house of Silas Njoroge who is the
Kikuyu leader at the IDP camp. His house was looted, but not burned.
Further down the road his brother's house was looted and burned including
all the maize (corn) he had in storage. These are considered the
"richest" Kikuyu in the area, but neither one had a particularly fancy
house--much like many of the people around here.
Ray Downing who is a Mennonite doctor working at the hospital in Webuye
(the largest town next to us to the west towards Uganda) asks this
question: Why was there no destruction of Kikuyu shops and homes in
Webuye. (This is also true of Bungoma and many other towns in the
country.) He asks, Why did these towns escape the violence? Who is
studying the reasons why some places did not have violence? I think these
are really interesting questions--any students out there needing a
research topic?
AGLI and FPCD (Friends for Peace and Community Development, our Kenya
partner) will be doing forty one-day AVP-style listening workshops with
the 900 employees of the Center for Disease Control (CDC) from the US
which has a major presence in Kisumu. The conflicts in the country have
brought out latent ethnic feelings among the staff. We will be doing 2
workshops per day for 20 days. We are bringing one HROC facilitator and
one AVP facilitator from Rwanda to be part of each 3 person team. It will
be really interesting to see how this goes. This starts Wednesday this
week.
Friends United Meeting (FUM)--Africa Office has spearheaded the
arrangement of a Consultation next week for Quaker leaders in Kenya to
consider the Quaker response to the current violence and crisis. This
starts Thursday evening and will go through Sunday. Gladys and I will be
there (so don't expect any reports during that time). This will be a
chance for the Quaker leadership in Kenya to ready assert themselves as a
peace church. I hope they "grab it."
The ODM has not scheduled any more demonstrations but is now rather
turning to an economic boycott of Kibaki and associates controlled
institutions. I don't know how that will go. The 3 days of attempted
demonstrations resulted in 21 more deaths--all but one, I think, killed
by police including some clearly innocent people (a mother sitting inside
her house). While there are always ups and downs about some kind of
dialogue, I don't see anything significant happening yet so the stand-off
continues.
Peace,
Dave
Jan 16
Dear All,
Yesterday I ran out of electricity because it has been cloudy for the
last two days and my solar panel did not charge up my battery. It is
cloudy again today, but I am writing this early before the little
electricity I have runs out.
Last night the ODM candidate won the election for Speaker of Parliament
and as soon as it was announced on the radio, we heard shouts of joy from
the neighborhood. Today doesn't look so good. We had no problems in going
to Kakamega (except the Supermarket, where Gladys was shopping, closed
their doors and kept everyone inside when the police were chasing the
youth through town. In Nairobi, Douglas Shikuunzi, my step-son, called to
say that everyone in the central city was told to go home and there were
no matatus so he will have to walk home.
In Eldoret today I have heard from a number of sources that things are
really bad with the youth organizing to attack the police (and vis
versa). Stores have all shut down.
Gladys (my wife) and I went to Eldoret yesterday with Malesi, Getry, and
Shamala (our partners in Friends for Peace and Community Development). We
went for a listening session with the staff of the Eldoret Prison with
whom we have done a lot of AVP (and where we did two AVP workshops with
the inmates). The group was very diverse (but no Kikuyu). My favorite
image is of one of the guards who is an AVP facilitator indicating how
good AVP was with his automatic rifle pointing right to his mouth! I have
become so used to seeing police, guards, etc with guns, I didn't even
much notice this until he spoke about AVP. The situation in Eldoret was
really bad and everyone was affected. One whose husband is a Kisii (not
only Kikuyu are being targeted) was threatened after she was seen helping
some of her family members. Others talked about most of their neighbors
being burned out. The situation in Eldoret seems quite different from
elsewhere (Nairobi, Kisumu, Kakamega). A Kalenjin said that most of the
destruction in Eldoret was done by villagers from the countryside. There
everyone who is over 25 is required to join in a group with the old
warrior mentality and these are the ones who did the attacking, such as
at the church which was burned down. They can only be stopped by their
elders if the elders refuse to bless their attacks. This it seems is what
happened to calm down the town. But the same person said that last time
the violence was spontaneous, but now the violence is being planned and
therefore could be much worse. The Kalenjins consider the area around
Eldoret to be their homeland and everyone else is a "stranger" that can
be sent back to their home of origin.
We went by Kakamega Friends Church and found that the 65 people who had
fled to the church had left because school was beginning and they have a
nursery school on the Church compound. We were told that not all were
Kikuyu. They had given a few funds to travel back to their place of
origin, but most did not even know where they came from since they had
lived in the area for generations.
We went to Kakamega today. I helped interview new candidates for an
additional AVP position and Gladys went to town with Getry to buy relief
supplies--blankets, cooking oil, vaseline, tea, and sugar for the IDP's
from Lumakanda who are now in Turbo. The funds for this were supplied by
the American Friends Service Committee. When we got there, the police
gave us a rough time. The head officer said that the food had to be
inspected by the Health Department to make sure it was fit for human
consumption. Two policewomen at the entrance asked Gladys why we were
helping the Kikuyu when they were the cause of all the problems. So as
Gladys talked with the police, I went and found the camp leaders who knew
us well. One of the leaders and the clerk came and talked with the
police, letting them know that we were their friends, etc. So we unloaded
the goods which were written down by the clerk. It was late in the
afternoon and they were thinking if the could distribute the goods before
night. I suggested that they at least do the blankets since it will help
keep people warm in the cold nights (do to the cloudiness and rain two
days ago). Of course, the goods were much appreciated.
One of the people we interviewed for the AVP position was a Luo from
Nyanza province. He had many interesting stories. His brother is hiding
two Kikuyu in his house. When the youth blocked the road near his town,
he got out of the matatu and talked with the youth and got them to remove
the stones which were blocking the road.
All the matatus (and there were few of them) and trucks had green
branches on the front and back. According to ODM those who were going to
their demonstrations (today is the first of three days of national
demonstrations should be carrying branches and not participate in any
kind of violence. Those branches were a sign of support for ODM so that
your matutu or truck would not be stopped by youth. Then of course the
matutu which we had hired to carry the goods pulled into the IDP camp and
quickly were asked why they had the branches (ie, the folks in the IDP
camp clearly did not support ODM). The driver and conductor replied that
they had to do this in order to move safely down the roads. Such is the
ambiguity of the situation.
Peace,
Dave
Jan 15
Dear All,
I am unable to write a report today because I have no electiricty. It has
been cloudy the past two days--it rained a little last night (quite
welcomed to put down the dust)--, but this means my solar panel did not
charge up my battery.
Peace,
Dave
Jan 14
Dear All,
I didn't really write an update yesterday because it was Sunday and I was
resting (well, sort of resting). My "Hoodwinked" article seems to have
drawn considerable attention which may get published.
When we went to church yesterday, we found about 100 two hundred pound
bags of corn (maize) in the back. After church, I asked George, the
owner, why they were there. He replied that he had a big farm on the
other side of the road where the Kalenjin are the dominate tribe. He
feels he is the next target. "When they finish with the Kikuyu, they will
then come for me." He has moved out all his furniture and taken it to the
homes of his relatives nearby. This is another small indication that the
violence is not essentially political, but a chance to plunder and loot.
Today I heard two reports of cows being stolen--in the past this rarely
happened in Lumakanda.
This morning, Gladys (my wife), and I went to Turbo where the Lumakanda
IDP's have been transferred. I had heard that Turbo had had a rough time
during the violence, but it is another thing to see a whole block of
shops burned out. Many others were destroyed in the town. Some were
wooden and burned up completely. We then climbed the hill to the police
station and found our "refugees."
They were most happy to see us. "You have followed us here," was a common
comment. The women, in particular, were very pleased and welcoming to
Gladys who had been part of the group that had brought them the first
contingent of food. They were placed in a just-harvested corn field so
there isn't even any grass. For the first night(s) they were sleeping in
the open on the ground. Men were building eucalyptus pole houses with
plastic tops and sides. A few had found iron sheets (perhaps salvaged
from their burnt shops or houses) which make a more substantial wall. The
wind is blowing very hard, almost constantly so the plastic tarps were
blowing loudly in the wind. I would think it would make it hard to sleep
at night, but I guess they will get used to it.
They told us that they had not received anything since they arrived two
days ago from Lumakanda. Not surprisingly blankets were their first
request. They clearly enjoyed the rice we had delivered previously, but
it had run out--not surprising since there were only two 50 kilo (110
pound) bags. The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) has sent us a
small grant for the Lumakanda IDP's. We hope to go to Eldoret tomorrow
and get some relief supplies, but then one never knows.
Parliament begins tomorrow and both sides plan on sitting on the
Government side of the building so this might lead to a crisis there.
Then there are three days of demonstrations scheduled for Wednesday,
Thursday, and Friday. Desmond Tutu raised hopes which were dashed; John
Kufour, the African Union president, raised hopes which were dashed. Now
Kofi Annan is scheduled to arrive tomorrow along with a few other eminent
Africans. People are not getting up their hopes again.
Human Rights Watch has issued a strong statement against the Kenyan
Government for using excessive force ("shot to kill" policy) during the
crackdowns, restricting the media, and the illegal ban against
demonstrations.
Peace,
Dave