Displaced Kenyans

From the Friday, January 25, 2008, World & Comment section of the Toronto Star, pages AA, AA3, an article about displaced people from Kenyan in refugee camps  in Nairobi:

HANDSHAKE CAN'T HEAL THE HATRED

Amid high-level attempts to resolve political crisis, displaced Kenyans doubt violence can be contained

Tia Goldenberg

Special to the Star'

Days after Kenyans voted in hotly contested elections, Mary Muthoni was told to leave her job at a paper mill and never return.

"I decided I did not want to see what could have happened later that day. So I left," said Muthoni, 25.

Later that day, machete-wielding men stormed through towns across Kenya's Rift Valley province, leaving in their wake torched houses, dead civilians and a stream of displaced people.

Muthoni is part of what she calls the "incorrect" tribe in the Rift Valley, the epicentre of the conflict.

As a Kikuyu, Muthoni is not wanted back at work. She's the same tribe as President Mwai Kibaki, who was swept back into power in disputed polls last month, and the ethnic group that traditionally holds the levers of power in the East African nation.

Despite the arrival of former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan to seek a solution to the impasse over the polls, some of the 250,000 Kenyans displaced in the conflict say, no matter what is accomplished politically, tribal violence has been unleashed and cannot be contained.

As far as they're concerned, they no longer have a home to return to.

"We friends. We were co-workers. And then they just turned on me," said Muthoni, hunched over a plastic basin washing laundry at Show Grounds displaced persons camp in Eldoret, now home to more than 12,000 people.

The embittered opposition Orange Democratic Movement is pushing for a recount.

Kibaki's government is trying to portray an image of business as usual in a country reeling from the political and tribal crisis that has killed 650 and virtually paralyzed East Africa's largest economy.

To cement that image, the government has begun shutting camps in the capital Nairobi, where 1,300 people camped at a fairground were hurried out, sent back to slums where ethnic violence still rages. Many have refused to leave.

Other camps countrywide are set to be dismantled. But with tangible uneasiness in the Eldoret camp, it's unclear where these displaced Kenyans might return to.

"The place I lived was burnt down so I have nothing to go back to," said farmer Mwangi Wanderi, 65.

"My cattle and livestock were stolen from me. They cut down all my trees. My maize stocks were destroyed." He said his only belongings were the stained blue collared shirt and grey trousers he wore.

Many Kalenjin, the dominant tribe in the Rift Valley, say the Kikuyu have held land throughout history and now deserve to feel landless. Some say even the white tents they now occupy in camps are too much property for them.

In a sign of hope yesterday, defeated opposition candidate Raila Odinga shook hands with Kibaki. They emphasized "working together" to solve the stagnating political crisis.

Annan spoke of "fair steps" made in their meeting but offered no specifics. A group listening to Odinga's speech from across the street applauded raucously as he called for peace and calm.

Kibaki, meanwhile, began nearly every sentence with "my government," and was the only speaker to use a podium marked "the Republic of Kenya."

But with the cameras put away, Odinga's camp came out against Kibaki. "True to his fraudulent character, Kibaki abused the occasion by attempting to legitimize his usurpation of the presidentcy," said Anyang Nyong'o, the ODM party secretary.

No solution, it seems, is in sight.

No matter how the political haggling goes, the violence remains.

Human Rights Watch said yesterday the opposition planned the ethnic-violence that has swept the country, with local leaders renting trucks to take armed youths to Kikuyu communities.

"We visited many Kalenjin communities and people there said 'Of course the Kukuyus can come home, if they sing our songs and speak our language. If they don't, then we'll kill them all,'" said Ben Rawlence, a researcher for the New York-based rights group.

People such as Muthoni and Wanderi say their only choice is to travel to Central province, where most Kikuyus live, and where they hope they will be safe.

"All I know is that I can't go back to my old life, to my old job. The position has already been filled," Muthoni said.

Tia Goldenberg is a Canadian journalist based in Nairobi.