Protest Ends as Kenya's Violence Ripples through the Economy

10.05 am EST

Odinga's opposition protest went on as planned in Nairobi earlier today, but without the level of bloodshed expected by journalists and observers. This, combined with a relative slowdown of deaths over the past 24 hours, may be good news for an overall decrease in the violence. A major police buildup prior to the rally may have contributed to the relative calm seen in some parts of the country; armed with riot gear and tear gas, the police pushed back as protesters spread through the city and gradually dispersed. Some protesters were also heard to shout for calm, telling others to put down their rocks and arms.

The day was not without violence, however. As protesters spread around the city and rallied in other parts of the country, doing their best to evade the police, they set homes and businesses on fire. The New York Times's Jeffrey Gettleman reports that in one Nairobi slum, a gang of men tore through, attacking, burning, and raping as they went. One of the gang was apparently caught by the residents of the slum, and hacked to death, his body remaining in the street. Police say the area is too tense for them to recover the body.

Since Tuesday, the death toll has risen to 300.

Intense pressure is being applied by diplomats from several nations, and the UN, EU, and African Union have all been using their resources to bring an end to the violence and resolve the hotly contested election results. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a revered figure throughout Africa and the world, arrived in Kenya earlier today with calls for peace. At 3.00 pm local time, Mr. Odinga's opposition party ended the protest; although chants of "No Odinga, no peace" continue to raise alarm, Odinga's opposition party seem to have shifted toward referring to President Mwai Kibaki, and not to the Kikuyu people, as the sole source of their discontent. The Kikuyu, who are the largest tribe within Kenya, were the privileged class in the days of British colonialism and maintain more influence over politics and business than most other tribes (among approximately forty around the country). Other tribes have banded together with the Luo (Odinga's tribe) during the recent violence, their enmity apparently shared against the Kikuyu.

What may be the bigger story today is the disruption of trade and the ramifications this violence has for Kenya's economy, one of the most important and stabilizing factors in the continent. Roads are considered too dangerous for travel, and looting & damage to businesses has severely disrupted the markets. After opening for only one hour, the Kenyan stock exchange closed again. With Kenya's roads as a major conduit for trade between several nations, including Congo, Uganda, and Sudan, this disruption is having an immediate impact and causing shortages of basic goods in other countries. Uganda has already raised concerns about the shortages along its border, where hundreds of Kenyan refugees have crossed over within the last few days. The trucks that normally bring supplies have not crossed with them.

For an very useful hour-by-hour breakdown of events, along with photos and eyewitness accounts from inside Kenya, go directly to the BBC's coverage.

For those following the forms of violence at hand, the use of rape and the growing use of machetes continues to raise alarms. The gratuitous violence engendered by these means spells trouble, for it creates more lasting grounds for stronger retaliation. Whether this and the church fire on Tuesday, whose victims are said to have been 50% children, will have further ramifications in the coming days remains to be seen.

Kenya Unraveling

Every dispatch from Nairobi for the past two weeks has gone from bad to worse. A summary of the situation:

Dec 30, 2007 - Allegations of election fraud intensify around the country as President Mwai Kibaki is sworn in. Violence begins to erupt in small pockets, and has an ethnic component from the beginning. President Kibaki is from the ruling elite, the Kikuyu tribe; the Kikuyu make up approximately 22% of the general population and have controlled the state in terms of politics, business, and other measures of socioeconomic power since the early 1960s.

Jan 1, 2008 - The UN and other nations question the validity of Kenya's elections; the UN calls for an investigation, which President Kibaki rejects. The Kenyan Red Cross reports that "over 100,000 people have been affected/displaced countrywide"; the New York Times notes that some now seek refuge in Uganda, a country that would have been considered far less stable and peaceful than Kenya only 2 weeks ago. On December 13th, the New York Times was reporting on Uganda's worries that the increasing violence and threat of war in Congo might push neighboring countries like Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi back into violence.

Jan 2, 2008 - Violence spreads and intensifies. At approximately noon on Tuesday January 1st, the estimate of the dead is at 100. By midnight on the 2nd, it has risen to 250. Kikuyu are fleeing their homes and gathering in and around police stations and churches. One church where hundreds of Kikuyu gathered in Kiambaa was set on fire with gasoline; although many escaped, 50 are reported to have died, and many more have suffered severe injuries. Women and children are said to make up the majority of the dead. Photographs of the violence also show clear evidence of police brutality against supporters of the opposition candidate, Mr. Odinga. The Luos, the tribe of Mr. Odinga, are said to be targeted by a fierce Kikuyu gang in the slums of Nairobi.

The news keeps going from bad to worse, and already Kenyans and observers have begun to talk about the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

The violence already bears the characteristic signs of genocide. People are being pulled from cars and asked for identity cards; a name often indicates one's tribe. The Eldoret area to the west of Nairobi has been one of the hottest spots for violence; there, several people have been hacked to death with machetes, and four were beheaded on Monday, December 31st. These facts are important for several reasons:

1. There is increasing evidence that the attacks have broken down entirely on ethnic lines. People being asked for ID cards aren't targeted because of who they voted for or the shop they might own; they're being targeted because they come from the wrong tribe.
2. The use of machetes (pangas), so notorious in the Rwandan violence of 1994, sharply decreases the distance between victim and killer. The violence is intentional, highly visible, and becomes deeply personal for the killer; if the use of machetes in Rwanda is any indication, then this violence is much more likely spread and intensify than it would be if the method were less direct & short-range.
   
3. Beheading people carries more than the blunt significance of death; it dishonors the dead and mutilates the body in a way designed to carry a broader message to anyone who might identify with the victim. It is a promise of more violence to come.

According to Jeffrey Gettleman, a veteran reporter for the New York Times who has covered much of the violence in Iraq and other intense conflicts, Mr. Odinga's opposition party is planning to hold a million-person march on Thursday, which many predict will cause a "bloodbath."

Not all the indicators are negative, however. Kenya has been considered one of the most stable countries in Africa in large part because its tribal tensions have been diffused by the multitude of stakeholders in politics and the economy. There has been a high rate of intermarriage between tribes, and unlike countries with fewer, more polarized tribes, Kenya's diversity has been a stabilizing influence. And some reports have carried promising news about calls for peace by people in the slums of Nairobi.

There is the potential for this violence to slow down, but given that Mr. Odinga ran on a platform that promised to end Kikuyu favoritism, it may be that months of sharp rhetoric have convinced people that the divide between Kikuyu and non-Kikuyu is wider than they thought. If that's the case, then talk about stakeholders and peace may not bear up under the weight of this bloodshed. And with war heating up in the Congo and the potential for a destabilized Uganda, now is not the time for optimistic assumptions.

To view the most recent reports on the violence, I recommend the coverage by the BBC World News service, and the New York Times online.