Ethnic riots tear country

By Els De Temmerman and Mathias Mugisha
In Eldoret

The otherwise bustling border post at Malaba, the main passage between Kenya and Uganda, is deserted. No trucks or buses are passing either way.

It has been like that since December 30, when President Mwai Kibaki was declared winner in an election disputed by both local and international observers.

Travellers are so rare that the custom officials have to be called by telephone to come and open their offices.

Within minutes after crossing the border, the New Vision team is surrounded by angry supporters of opposition candidate Raila Odinga.

“Raila is the people’s president,” shouts Gordon Okello from Kisumu, who seems to be the group’s leader.

“Out of the 42 tribes in Kenya, 41 voted for Raila. Only one voted for Kibaki. We request Kibaki to leave the seat and make way for the president. He is there by mistake.”
Others join in, chanting: “Raila is the president of the people, the president of Kenya!”

An older man wants us to note down: “Kenyans are ready to die for Raila. They are ready to battle the whole war machinery of Kibaki. This is not a tribal war. It is a war for democracy.”

Asked if they would support a coalition government, they say: “Why? We don’t need it. We elected our president. We don’t want a government of national unity.”

Emotions run high when Wafula Wamunyenyi, former Member of Parliament of Kanduyi constituency, Bungoma district, shows up at the customs.

He was on his way to Nairobi but was stopped at one of the road blocks outside Eldoret.
“I couldn’t pass because I am a target,” he says.

“I stood on a PNU ticket (Kibaki’s coalition) and lost to an ODM candidate (Odinga’s party). So I will try to reach Nairobi through Entebbe.”

The crowd presses close to him when he gives the official version of events.

“The security forces have been working hard to restore order. The Police escorts public transport. The road blocks are still there but they have turned criminal. These are thugs asking for money.”

A government of national unity with Raila Odinga’s ODM may not be necessary, he says.

“We may not necessarily have to work towards that. If Kibaki took in the smaller parties, he would be able to run a Government.”

When asked if he believes Kibaki fairly won the elections, he says: “Whether fair or not, we are now looking at peace and stability. Bush’s election was also disputed. Do you want to continue fighting because elections were rigged?”
He concedes that there was a problem with tallying. “But Odinga has an opportunity to petition in court. That is the only option”, he says.

“The President has been sworn in. He has all the authority now. He disposes of the instruments of power. There is no vacuum.”

Wafula expects things to calm down in a day or two. “When food prices start biting, people will quickly open their shops and go back to work. Those fighting in the streets, when they are managed by the Police, will be pushed out.”
His words do not go down well with the crowd. “These are Kibaki’s hooligans,” a visibly furious Okello shouts.

“They have brought these problems. We don’t want them in the system. Wafula should not use Kenyan roads. He should use Ugandan roads.”

The mob surrounds his car and the shaken MP has to distribute money to buy his way out.

The 90 km-stretch from Malaba to Eldoret bears testimony of the tribal and political violence that have ravaged western Kenya in the past week.

Burned shops and destroyed houses dot the villages along the highway. They stand out like black scars in a landscape that tries to keep up a semblance of peace and normalcy.

In Turbo, a village 33 km before Eldoret, the main petrol station is reduced to a skeleton, its fuel pumps burned and strewn about.
A damaged school bus is parked in front of the petrol station, a stone stuck in its shattered windscreen.
Smoke still billows out of the ruins of what was once the trading centre. People scavenge among the debris to look for whatever valuable items survived the inferno.

“Some people don’t want this government,” a group of young villagers are quick to justify the destruction.

“The majority voted for Raila. They stole the elections from us. We feel that our president has been overthrown.”

But a passing-by military patrol chases them away. “These are bad people,” the army officer shouts while urging us to leave. Two soldiers aim their guns at the crowd, dispersing them.

The entire Kikuyu population of the area is packed in and around the local police station and the church, about 3km from the main road.
They are about 16,000, says an army officer who declines to be named.

“We escort them from all over the place and bring them here where they are a bit safer.”

The police, the army, the Highway Patrol and the general service, a paramilitary unit, all work hand in hand to try and restore law and order, he explains.

His colleague from the Highway Patrol says they managed to clear the last illegal road blocks on the Malaba-Eldoret road on Friday evening.

“We used tractors from the armed forces,” says Sergeant Peter Maina. “There was no resistance. Those manning the roadblocks just ran away.”

Approaching Eldoret, the destruction becomes more evident. Remnants of cleared road blocks are as frequent as burnt-out shells of cars and trucks.

Four kilometers before the town, Abbas Mohamed, the Malaba branch manager of Anwarali and Brothers Company, looks in disbelief at mechanics trying to salvage the rims of his truck.

The trailer, which was carrying wires to Tororo Cement factory in Uganda, was stopped by a mob and set ablaze, he explains. “The driver narrowly escaped.”

Half a dozen charred vehicles, including two matatu buses, also lie at the side of the road; a nearby Coca Cola depot is reduced to a heap of broken glass.

The full extent of the humanitarian disaster becomes clear in Eldoret town, where thousands of displaced cram the police station and the compound of Sacred Heart of Jesus Cathedral.

“They came the night the election results were announced, torching our houses,” recalls Michael Kamau Mwanji of Ray Farm, a village 40km away.

“They were our neighbours, Kalenjins, armed with pangas, swords, petrol bombs, arrows and spears.

“They shouted ODM slogans and said no Kikuyus were wanted in this area.”

Mwanji, a Kikuyu married to a Kalenjin, was torn apart.
To save the lives of his wife and two sons, he left his family behind and fled alone.

He now plans to board one of the numerous trucks and buses that, under armed escorts, are taking people out of the Rift Valley.
“I am going to look for a job in Nairobi,” he says. “I don’t know when I will see my family again.”
The sight of truck after truck of scared passengers, being ferried out of Eldoret to an unknown fate, is – more than anything else – evidence of the veritable ethnic cleansing that is taking place in western Kenya.