Ethnic Violence in Rift Valley Tears Kenya Apart

[maddezmom]

Source: NYT

NAKURU, Kenya — Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, may seem calm, but anarchy reigns just two hours away.

In Nakuru, furious mobs rule the streets, burning homes, brutalizing people and expelling anyone not in their ethnic group, all with complete impunity.

On Saturday, hundreds of men prowled a section of the city with six-foot iron bars, poisoned swords, clubs, knives and crude circumcision tools. Boys carried gladiator-style shields and women strutted around with sharpened sticks.

The police were nowhere to be found. Even the residents were shocked.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said David Macharia, a bus driver.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/world/africa/27kenya....

[maddezmom]

1. Latest Kenya ethnic clashes kill 69

NAIVASHA, Kenya - Gangs armed with machetes and bows and arrows burned and hacked to death members of a rival tribe in western Kenya Sunday, as the death toll from the latest explosion of violence over disputed presidential elections rose to 69.

Some 55 bodies were counted Sunday at the morgue in Nakuru, the provincial capital where ethnic clashes erupted Thursday night and continued until Saturday. Bodies continued arriving Sunday, said a morgue attendant who spoke on condition of anonmyity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Houses were blazing in the tourist gateway town of Naivasha, 55 miles northwest of Nairobi, where at least nine people were killed, according to the count of a local reporter. A local newspaper reporter saw another five bodies Sunday in two slums on the outskirts of Nakuru, called Kaptembwa and Sewage.

more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080127/ap_on_re_af/kenya_e... ;_ylt=AkY4gNg8mcHuOpty1TnRY1Vw24cA

[slackmaster]

2. Great headline!

A little geophysical humor. Story deserves a Pulitzer Prize for that one.

[ohio2007]

3. UN is upset, but they may never connect the dots

...Kofi Annan, the former secretary general of the United Nations, visited the Rift Valley on Saturday. He called it “nerve-racking.”

“We saw people pushed from their homes and farms, grandmothers, children and families uprooted,” said Mr. Annan, who is in Kenya trying to broker negotiations between Mr. Kibaki and Mr. Odinga.

He called for the Kenyan government to investigate the attackers and increase security.
...

[ooglymoogly]

4. The UN pearl clutchers are always mortified about something but rarely do anything

unless their free ride is threatened.

[tabasco]

8. The UN has 37 ongoing successful peacekeeping operations around the globe.

Take your Limbaugh talking points back to FR and join the army, coward freeper.

www.goarmy.com

Take your partner ohio with you.

[ooglymoogly]

9. The UN has about thirteen on going operations

and many that have been completed and all are admirable and deserve the respect they get. There are many things that are admirable about the UN and most of that in my opinion is the peace keeping forces. Perhaps I painted with too broad a brush. My anger is at those who blocked and stalled action when millions of helpless Hutu men women and children were being slaughtered in Rwanda. That being said I support the UN and without it we would be much the worse off for it. But if you think all the people at the UN are sweetness and light you are naive. There are many working selflesly for the common good and many working against it and for their own agenda and it was to those I was referring.

[ohio2007]

10. Policeman Lynched In Kenya

The latest casualty is a police officer, killed by an armed mob of 3,000 people.

The killing took place in the home village of an opposition lawmaker who had been shot and killed by a police officer the day before.

The mob accused the officer of wounding a civilian during protests staged following the death of politician David Kimutai Too.

"The police officer injured three attackers before he was overpowered and lynched on the spot," said police commander Peter Aliwa.

The mob was armed with bows and arrows, spears, clubs and machetes.


http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d5e_1201968535


SO you think the UN is getting it done eh tobasco? You are a lot like the UN,
all meaningless talk on how others should see the world through your rose colored lenses. Any objections to your pov and they will feel your seething wrath.....be labeled freeper or worse... banned from your safe cyber space perch

Sort of like that feel good Berkeley crowd that solves all the worlds problems as if simply spitting on "a few good men" will make all the social problems in all the world go away.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/0...

http://www.dailycal.org/article/100158/code_pink_stages...

Africa summit wraps up amid concern over Kenya, Chad
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) - African Union leaders condemned the latest unrest in Chad and Kenya Saturday at the close of a summit overshadowed by new crises on the continent and which saw little headway achieved on older ones.
snip
Chadian rebels launched a massive offensive earlier this week from Sudan and were believed to be closing in on the presidential palace Saturday, where officials said President Idriss Deby Itno was holed up.

The African Union stressed it would reject any "unconstitutional change" of regime in Chad.

snip
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080202/wl_africa_afp/afri...

If we just throw money and food at the problem,guess what ?
It will make us feel better.... until it festers into an even larger mob rule when the UN debates wether or not the genocide is related to water shortages or some other undefined social ideology problems not understood by western thinking.


/screed

[karlrschneider]

5. Trying for a head start on World War IV

[dysfunctional press]

6. it's called coltan...

an ore that's found in very old soil, such as that in the rift valley. it's essential in the production of cell phones- making it very valuable. and as such, making the soil it's found in very valuable real estate.

[Sultana]

7. Oh Fucking Hell,

Kenya is like my second home. Kibaki OUT!
I am so fucking sick of corruption by heads of state.

It's more than just a "ethnic" thing, if you have been or seen photos the Kibera slums or the any other of the poor cities, you would know why this has got far out of control. Where in the heck is the world community?


God please save Kenya & Africa.

[maddezmom]

11. Kenya opposition wants AU peacekeepers

Kenya opposition wants AU peacekeepers By ABISALOM OMOLO, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 6 minutes ago



BONDO, Kenya - The leader of Kenya's opposition called Sunday for the African Union to send peacekeepers to help stem violence sparked by the country's disputed presidential election.


"The AU should bring in peacekeepers because the violence in Kenya is appalling," Raila Odinga told The Associated Press with his wife at his side at his family home in Bondo, a village in western Kenya.

Western Kenya has been at the center of fighting that has killed more than 800 people and engulfed the country since the Dec. 27 election, which returned President Mwai Kibaki to power after a tally that foreign and local observers say was rigged. The violence has often degenerated into ethnic clashes over decades-old grudges about land and resources, with much of the anger — and attacks — aimed at Kikuyu, who are resented for their long domination of politics and the economy.

On Sunday, gangs with machetes and arrows were facing off in the western town of Sotik, and smoke billowed into the sky from burning houses. A day earlier, young men from the rival Kalenjin, Kikuyu and Kisii tribes hunted each other through the streets of another western town, Eldoret, burning houses and blocking roads.

more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080203/ap_on_re_af/kenya_e... ;_ylt=ApJGxWF20oh9JlNeZBYCzA296Q8F