Cover Profile: Kenya Kenyan Envoy Insists Crisis Sullies Otherwise Solid Image by Larry Luxner In the aftermath of Kenya’s worst ethnic violence in 15 years, Nairobi’s man in Washington insists the bloodletting is an anomaly that will quickly be forgotten as his country gets its political and economic house back in order. As of press time, some 700 people had died and more than 250,000—including an estimated 100,000 children, according to the United Nations—had been left homeless throughout Kenya in the wake of Dec. 27 elections, which pitted President Mwai Kibaki, 76, of the Kikuyu tribe, against opposition leader Raila Odinga, 63, of the Luo tribe. Protests by Luo, Kalenjin and other groups exploded into violence following the government’s hasty declaration of Kibaki as the winner in elections despite early returns showing a large lead for Odinga and his party, which won the most seats in parliamentary elections that same day. International observers widely described the vote as flawed and rife with irregularities—so much so that it’s impossible to confirm who actually won the presidential election. Kenyan Ambassador Peter N.R.O. Ogego says the election-related atrocities left him and his embassy staff in “shock.” “This never happened before. The elections were very hotly contested, and the expectations on both sides were very high. We had a lot of people vying for various political offices, and that heightened the stakes more than ever before,” he told The Washington Diplomat. “The institutions of democracy should have had the capacity to sustain the volume of excitement generated by the campaign frenzy. Everybody wanted to jump in and participate. On the presidential level, we had eight candidates, but the institutions of democracy were not strong enough to sustain that fervor. We never expected them to give in to this pressure.” The world also never expected that Kenya—once viewed as a bedrock of economic and political stability in East Africa—could devolve so quickly into chaos. Since the election, the country has been virtually split down the middle, as both sides have blamed the other for the ensuing violence, with Kibaki supporters pointing to the opposition’s machete-wielding mobs—which have gone on house-burning rampages and chased off tens of thousands of people, mostly Kikuyus—while Odinga supporters accuse government security forces of acting on “shoot to kill” orders against demonstrators. And despite worldwide pleas for dialogue and reconciliation, neither side seems to be budging, as Odinga calls for continued boycotts, while Kibaki maintains that the election was fair and that there will be no re-vote. This was hardly the scenario that international observers pictured when optimistic Kenyans initially went to the ballots. Indeed, hopes were high that voting would go as smoothly as it had in previous elections following the end of one-party rule in 2002, when the autocratic regime of Daniel arap Moi was democratically ousted by Kibaki, after which Kenya was touted as one of the most promising success stories in the turbulent Horn region (also see Jan. 10, 2008, news column of the Diplomatic Pouch online). Ogego, 50, was 5 years old when Kenya declared independence from Great Britain in 1963. The British colonial rulers who had kept the Kikuyu, Luhya, Luo and other tribes divided also left handpicked successors in place, and when Jomo Kenyatta—independent Kenya’s first president—came to power, he naturally favored members of his own Kikuyu tribe. Today, the Kikuyus are Kenya’s largest and most powerful ethnic group, accounting for 22 percent of Kenya’s 37 million inhabitants. Together with the Luo and the Kalenjin, these three tribes have dominated political life since independence. Yet the recent violence has clearly spread along ethnic lines, mainly because Kenyans usually vote in tribal blocs. The Luo and other tribes have long accused the Kikuyus of oppressing them, economically and politically, but the ambassador denies that tribalism influences the government and blasts those whom he says are using the “ethnic card” to play on peoples’ emotions. “We are 42 ethnic communities, so if a politician says my community is being marginalized by others, that’s manipulation,” Ogego charges. “It cannot be true, because communities don’t run governments. And we have a history of manipulation, not just in Kenya or in Africa but all over the world. Yet the social fabric of Kenya—although it’s now being tested—is solid enough to ward off any manipulation by politicians.” He adds: “Most Kenyans have intermarried across ethnic lines, so you will not have extremely pure ethnic groups anymore. Any politician playing the ethnic card won’t go far. The tragedy that ensued after the election ensures this.” The ambassador, a private consultant who represented his country in Canada and Cuba before coming to Washington, admits “Kenya’s stability and economic accomplishments over the last five years are facing a very serious test, but we think we will pull through this and regain our shattered image.” Ogego laughed off suggestions by the International Republican Institute (IRI), a U.S. government-funded group that sent observers to Kenya, that exit polls indicated a clear win for opposition leader Odinga. Maina Kiai, chairman of Kenya’s National Commission on Human Rights, told a Washington forum via a video link from Nairobi in early January that there had been “an orchestrated, well-planned approach to make sure the election process went one way.” Kiai, who suggested that it’s not possible to say with certainty who won the election, called for “an internationally supervised forensic audit” of the vote to determine whether a recount could be conducted, or whether a new round of voting is needed. Ogego discounted the idea of a recount but wouldn’t produce official results or numbers when prodded by The Diplomat. “I have heard reports of flaws and irregularities in the elections process, but I never had anybody say categorically that the opposition won—other than the opposition,” he argues, noting that if, in fact, the IRI can show that Odinga was the winner, “let them go to court and table their findings if they have evidence, rather than peddle them as rumors.” Ogego—who doesn’t generally give interviews—thinks Kenya has been misrepresented in the international media. “For some, it was like the African question is complete, and that the remaining front of stability has finally joined the circle. You see a lot of that Afro-pessimism in the media,” he says, accusing some media outlets of “using old photos and footage that are not related to the current story. They have not shown life going back to normal in Nairobi.” Pressed on the issue, Ogego declined to identify which media outlets were engaged in such practices. But he did level criticism against those now portraying Kenya as a basket case. “Don’t have this impression that the whole country is a wreck. There are only pockets of unrest,” he says. “Even before the elections, there were some flashpoints where politicians have always used ethnic divisions to bring disunity among the people. The displacement of these 250,000 people is concentrated in those few parts of the country.” Next Page

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