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The Polictics of Conflicts & Election Violence in Kenya

- Alfred Mulli

Kenya is a country, which can generally be said to be peaceful with Kenyans being peace loving though surrounded by very volatile situations in the neighbourhood. Since independence, Kenyans have enjoyed a peaceful co- existence even though Kenya has 43 different tribes and sub-tribes with quite different cultures. It was unheard of for the tribes bordering each other to be engaged in conflicts despite being effectively engaged in political hatred through the divide and rule policy during the 50 years of colonialism, safe for some occasional skirmishes mainly arising out of the infringement on one another's rights to grazing pastures or watering points. Kenya tasted serious threat to peace in the wake of the fight for independence particularly the famous MauMau uprising. Another time Kenyans experienced a near threat to the country's peace was during the 1992 abortive military mutiny.

Kenyans have never experienced a major peace-threatening situation except for the popularly known Shifta war, which pitted the government forces with the Kenyan community of the Somali origin in the Northern part of Kenya, who wanted to secede to the Somali republic. This conflict though contained, degenerated into perennial banditry and renders the northern parts of Kenya not very safe. Kenya has not been to war with any country and has never taken sides in any war involving other countries despite bordering war torn countries like Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Uganda and very close to the Great Lake region with its tradition of conflicts. It is proudly said that many of the Kenya military retire without having exercised their combat skills safe for during the training sessions and some few who have participated in peacekeeping missions abroad. Kenyan military has steered clear of politics and we boast of a professional and depoliticised military.

Today, the peace situation in Kenya has changed so much that it cannot be regarded as the peaceful country it used to be. Nothing else has changed much, safe for the political situation in the country. It is therefore right to conclude that the present situations of lack of peace can be attributed to the political climate in the country. It all started early after independence and the political forces started marshalling tribal support for their grip onto power. These became evident during the transition from the first Kenyan leadership to the present. A group of the ruling elite at that time, and from the Kikuyu ethnic group from whom the first Kenya president came, marshalled forces to block the present president who by then was the Vice President (VP), to directly assume presidency. As the law said, in the event of the passing over of the incumbent president, who was ailing at that time, the VP would assume the Presidency for 90 days by when a general election is held. Despite this opposition, Kenya had a peaceful transition and basked in tranquillity till 1982 when some disgruntled elements of the Kenya air force attempted a mutiny, which was crushed by the rest of the loyal forces. This shook the President so much that he assumed a new dimension of leadership. The government learnt very fast and perfected the art of authoritarian rule and political thuggery, police brutality, and militia style bloody ethnic clashes, which became the order of the day. This culminated into the ruling party Kenya Africa National Union (KANU) sneaking in a clause in the constitution, which illegally made Kenya a de-jure, one party state.

Due to internal and external pressure the government finally light-heartedly accepted to repeal section 2A of the constitution giving room to a multi party political system. With the Kenya's return to multiparty politics in 1991, violence variously christened ethnic violence or land clashes erupted in many parts of the country. According to "Killing the Vote", a human rights report by the Kenya Human Rights Commission, between 1991 and 1996, over 1,500 people died and almost 300,00 displaced in the Rift Valley and Western Provinces. In the run up to the 1997 elections, fresh violence erupted at the Coast Province killing over 100 people and displacing 100,000 0thers, mostly pro-opposition up-country people.

By 1998, when violence broke out again in the Rift Valley, it had become a handy election tool and an instrument by the government to reassert its absolute dominance over every sector of the Kenyan society. Over the years, it has become evident that, the government using surrogate agents to avoid responsibility sponsors these clashes. This has given rise to a new phenomenon dubbed "informal repression". Akin to disappearance and assassination of government critics in Latin American, informal repression styled along ethnic or land clashes is one of the threats to human rights in the multiparty era in Kenya. This violence is aimed at creating animosity between communities to split their political inclinations, to frighten whole communities into voting for the ruling party (KANU) as an assurance for their security. Driving out "politically incorrect" communities from specific electoral areas and even killing off communities as a final solution to ensure the political survival of the ruling party and its leaders. Hence the clashes have invariably erupted on the run up or immediately after elections.

While the one party repression centered on individuals considered a threat to the system, in multiparty era all groups perceived as pro- opposition have been a target. Genuine grievances and ordinary conflicts in multi- ethnic areas have been devilishly exploited to lend the violence an inter- ethnic animosity tinge while painting the government as an honest arbiter in the conflict, while they exploit the long standing but latent inter- ethnic disputes to foment ethnic violence. Hence multi ethnic areas with long-standing inter- ethnic rivalry over land, cattle rustling or simply competition for scanty resources have witnessed conflict and bloodletting.

The ruling party politicians have a disturbing propensity of uttering inflammatory and treasonable statements, imaginary or real. The ruling party actually as a long list of war mongers, some of whom have been said to own private armies/militia and whereas the government has the resources and machinery to curb these conflicts and violence, it has been totally lacking in political will to do so. This is a stark violation of its obligation under the Kenya constitution and can only conclude that it is the perpetuator and sponsor of these political and election violence in Kenya. A report by the Human Rights Watch/Africa named senior government ministers, members of parliament, government officials and senior KANU leaders in financing and organizing the orgy of violence. A parliamentary select committee was commissioned to investigate the causes of the violence and seemed to corroborate the Human Rights watch/Africa report. The ruling KANU used its muscle of numbers in parliament to vote down the report. More recently, a commission of inquiry into the clashes is yet to have its report made public, almost two years after presenting it to the President. This honestly tells a lot about the position of the government in these conflicts.

(The writer is a Community Development Consultant and human rights Advocate in Kenya.)

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