كينيا بين فردوس الديمقراطية ونذر الحرب الأهلية

Kenya: Between a Democratic Paradise and the Omens of Civil War

Image: The skyline of Nairobi, capital of Kenya — Lmwangi, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0) — Image page

This article was written in early January 2008 and published on the former Nuqush website (nuqush.com).

People greeted the Kenyan election with high hopes, and most observers expected it to be a model of the clean elections that Africa so rarely sees. Instead it ended in gross last-minute rigging, as if to prove that it was African and Third World to the core.¹ As soon as the surprise victory of the incumbent, President Kibaki, was announced, against everything the early constituency results had promised, the opposition declared that there had been massive fraud, that it would not accept the result, and that it would bring a million people onto the streets against it. The government set itself against these demonstrations, and violence broke out that is still going on. It has so far claimed more than 600 lives, has taken a tribal turn, and has shown signs of the beginning of a civil war in Kenya, a country spared that fate through all the decades since its independence in 1963, even as its neighbours fell into that dreaded trap: first Uganda, which has since climbed out of it; then, in a way, Ethiopia and Sudan; and then Somalia, which is still mired in it. Will these events lead Kenya into civil war? What lies behind such a war, and is Kenya ripe for one? And what scenarios are there for a solution?

The ballot box was nothing new to Kenyans, even in the one-party era, when they used it to choose their members of parliament from among the members of the single party. Yet of the three presidents who have ruled Kenya since independence in 1963, only the last, Mwai Kibaki, came to power through the ballot box. The first, Jomo Kenyatta, came with the legitimacy of his struggle against colonialism, like most presidents in the Third World. The second, Daniel arap Moi, succeeded constitutionally on the death of the first, as his vice-president. Late in his rule came political splits and alliances whose leading figures included the present president, Kibaki, and the present opposition leader, Raila Odinga, both of whom belong to large tribes. These forces waged a political struggle for a multi-party system in Kenya, and the opposition was eventually able to fight an election and win it. Kibaki and Odinga, who had fought that battle side by side, had agreed that the premiership would go to Odinga. President Kibaki did not keep that promise, and a new opposition broke away under Raila Odinga's leadership as the “Orange Democratic Movement”.² It is this movement that fought the present contest, and it would have won but for the last-minute surprises that nobody had reckoned with.

It is worth noting here that all of them, heads of government and opposition leaders alike, came originally from the ruling party, the Kenya African National Union (KANU), which had fought for independence. But the splits that began under arap Moi gave rise to new parties that allied against President Moi.

Tribe and Politics

Political competition was never free of tribal polarisation, as was plain to anyone who followed the Kenyan election campaigns. The contest was between the tribes of the president and of the opposition leader, each trying to draw the other tribes to its side.

For Kenya is a mosaic, home to 42 African tribes of differing ethnic stock. Among them are the Kikuyu, holders of wealth and power, to whom Jomo Kenyatta and Kibaki belong and who make up 23% of a population of some 32 million; and the Luo, who make up 11% and to whom the present opposition leader, Raila Odinga, belongs. The other African tribes are smaller than these two big ones, except the Luhya, who stand between them at 12%. Besides these there are the Somali clans in the north-east and the Swahili on the coastal strip, Muslim communities, some of them of Arab descent, as well as Asian and European communities.

Even the political quarrels of the Moi era were tribal at root, for the Kikuyu have dominated the country's economy and power from independence until now, followed by the Luo. President Daniel arap Moi, who belongs to the Kalenjin, counted among the tribes smaller than the three big ones (the Kikuyu, the Luhya and the Luo) that compete for political dominance, tried to strengthen the small tribes against the hegemony of the big ones. This turned the big tribes against him and roused the wrath of their political leaders, who waged a political struggle against him inside his own party, KANU, and so brought about major splits in the party.

Religion and Politics

Besides tribe, which had a strong presence in the election, what stood out in this latest election was the competition between the two sides for the Muslim vote. Muslims, drawn from every tribe, make up somewhat more than 35% of the country's population,³ and the rest follow other religions: Christianity and the various African pagan creeds and sects. The areas of dense Muslim population, however, are the North Eastern Province and Coast Province. The repeated visits both candidates paid to the Somali-inhabited province and to Mombasa, capital of the Coast, and the many promises each made to Muslims to win their votes, became a phenomenon that drew media coverage and was the subject of seminars.

Muslims were divided in their support for the presidential candidates, but observers noted that most of them backed the opposition candidate, Raila Odinga. They felt that Kibaki had not kept the promises he made to Muslims in the election he won five years earlier, and they were angry that Kenyan Muslims had been handed over to Ethiopia after being arrested on charges of fighting in the ranks of the Islamic Courts in Somalia against Ethiopia, in the battles between the two sides at the end of 2006.⁴ Raila Odinga and his bloc also refused to vote for the anti-terrorism bill in parliament, which brought the bill down.⁵

A Democracy Caught Between Corruption and Poverty

Since independence Kenya has maintained a remarkable stability, despite changes in its political system and the crises that have battered its neighbours. Kenyans have enjoyed a degree of freedom, which became more marked with the emergence of a multi-party democracy, and especially after the parliamentary reform initiative of autumn 1997, which amended some of the repressive laws inherited from the colonial era that had been used to curb freedom of speech and assembly. This improvement in public freedoms helped to lend credibility to the elections of December 1997.

That in turn led to the elections of December 2002, when Kenya held democratic elections that local and international observers described as fair, and which produced Mwai Kibaki as Kenya's first elected president. It was an important turning point in the development of Kenyan democracy. President Kibaki carried out the reforms he had promised in the economy and education, but failed in two other areas where he had made promises: implementing the new constitution and fighting rampant corruption.

Constitutional reform moved more slowly than expected after disagreements among the partners in the governing coalition. These led to quarrels within the coalition, which in turn hurt other vital areas of government, especially the plans for large-scale privatisation of state-owned enterprises.

Kibaki's rule saw corruption scandals that stank to high heaven. In early 2006 investigative reports exposed two of the biggest government-linked corruption scandals, which shook Kenya and led to resignations, among them those of three ministers. The first, known as “Anglo-Leasing”, was one the government failed to investigate honestly. In its wake John Githongo, the head of the anti-corruption drive, resigned in protest at the government's obstruction of the inquiry and left the country to live in exile.⁶ He revealed a great deal of evidence of how far corruption had spread, and tapes came to light recording conversations of corrupt figures inside the cabinet. Donor countries, especially Britain, publicly criticised the lack of progress in the investigation.

The second was a huge scandal involving money laundering and tax evasion in the Kenyan banking system. Then, in March 2006, came the raid by a band of masked Kenyan police on the Standard media group, which met with international condemnation and with anger from the Kenyan media and civil society. The government offered no adequate explanation; indeed, no one was ever held to account for it.

Corruption in Kenya has been entrenched since independence, and the Western countries have lived with it, having no wish to confront the ruling regime as long as it served their interests, as is their habit with every corrupt regime in the Third World. Indeed, people believe the West thinks that the barons of corruption are the ones who serve its interests best.

The aid given to Kenya from independence to date has reached 16 billion dollars, and no one has asked how it was used. It has done little to change the lives of the Kenyan people, half of whom live below the poverty line and 85% of whom spend less than two dollars a day. And the capital, Nairobi, said to be “the London of Africa”, or “half a London”, contains one of the largest shanty towns in Africa.

Civil War: Is It Possible?

If the causes of civil wars are tribal, sectarian and ethnic differences and their entanglement with politics, together with poverty, class disparity and the corruption of those in power, then Kenya, as we have seen, has every ingredient, like other African countries. But these ingredients are not enough on their own unless someone stirs them up, inflames them and uses them to ignite war, most often outside powers that want to overturn the situation so as to control how it is reshaped afterwards. And this last ingredient is what is still missing in Kenya.

Kenya is regarded as a colonial creation: there was no country called Kenya before Western colonisation of the region. It is a patchwork of pieces cut from neighbouring lands.⁷⁸ Its north-eastern half was cut from Somalia,⁹ its southern half from Tanganyika, and its western part from Uganda. The coastal strip, for its part, was part of the Omani empire in East Africa. It then became a German protectorate by agreement with the Omani sultan in Zanzibar, passed to Britain in an exchange of coastal territories between the German and British colonisers, and remained a British protectorate that was joined to Kenya after independence.¹⁰

Many observers believe that Kenya has managed to remain stable from independence until now because it has been under the care and protection of its former colonisers, who have many interests in keeping it stable. America and Europe have regarded Kenya as a strategic ally since the days of the Cold War, and afterwards in the war on terror, in a region once ringed by communism and later by the growth of active terrorist cells that carried out successful attacks on American interests in the region.¹¹

Kenya became independent with a great deal of British investment in place. Laws were then passed to encourage that investment, and the Americans and Germans joined the British. As for tourism, Kenya enjoyed an excellent reputation among Westerners and became a safe destination for a million foreign tourists who come every year from Europe, North America and Asia.

It is also counted among the countries that attract foreign investors, who pour huge sums into many fields, including finance, agriculture, tourism, the media, technology and so on; in other words, into the largest sources of Kenya's national income.

Kenya is, moreover, home to many international institutions, agencies and organisations, belonging to the United Nations and others, that work in various fields of development, especially those working in Somalia, and it serves as a base for relief and aid operations into Somalia, Sudan and eastern Congo. Among these institutions are Western intelligence agencies, so much so that some people believe Kenya is ruled from behind the scenes by Western intelligence.

It would therefore be hard to let Kenya sink into civil war like other African countries. This explains the swift international move to contain the crisis: the African Union, the European Union and America, with all its weight, moved to stop the snowball that had begun to roll. African leaders even chose not to comment on the results of the Kenyan election so as not to pour oil on the fire, as the South African president, Thabo Mbeki, stated. The African Union and the European Union called for “restraint” and for dialogue between representatives of the two camps.

Within this framework, African and European leaders and senior officials began a shuttle diplomacy between the two camps, travelling to Kenya in a desperate attempt to end the violence and reach a solution acceptable to all sides. Among them were Washington's top diplomat for Africa, Jendayi Frazer; the South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize; and the Ghanaian president, John Kufuor, current chairman of the African Union. In addition, a great many others telephoned both sides, among them the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi.

Observers believe that all these efforts, and the dispatch of a special US envoy to Kenya, express Washington's determination not to abandon a strategic partner that helps in fighting terrorism and in keeping the Horn of Africa stable. This is all the more so because America is now building a large military base in eastern Kenya¹² and wants no threats, no instability and no change of hands at the wheel at this historic stage in Kenya. That is why it made the mistake of congratulating President Kibaki, endorsing the fait accompli, before being forced to withdraw its congratulations when the opposition took to the streets. The tide of popular feeling was greater even than Odinga, who had no wish to enter into a confrontation with America.

Beyond all this, a civil war in Kenya, once begun, would not stop at Kenya. It would affect the neighbouring countries, starting with southern Sudan, eastern Congo, Rwanda and Burundi, and parts of Tanzania too. Its effects would also reach many countries in the region whose economies depend on Kenya, especially those that rely almost entirely on the port of Mombasa, the second-largest port in Africa, for their basic supplies.

The efforts have begun to bear fruit, as both sides have responded to international and regional appeals. The opposition has called off the million-strong demonstrations it had promised to stage, and the government has shown its readiness to form a government of national unity representing all Kenyans.

Possible Scenarios

The efforts are still in full swing. If they are destined to stop a civil war, which still seems the likelier outcome, the scenarios on the table are these:

The American–European scenario: a government of national unity. This is the likeliest possibility so far, and it is the one being cooked up by the powers pressing on Kenya. What is now being discussed is how to frame this solution so that it satisfies both sides. It may be framed in one of two ways:

Either by a constitutional amendment that Odinga had demanded in the past: replacing the “presidential” system, in which the head of government is the head of state, with a “ministerial” system, in which a prime minister forms the government and the president's powers are reduced, and giving the premiership to Odinga, the post he had sought before.¹³

Or by forming a national coalition government in which the opposition has a broad share together with a parliamentary majority, with constitutional change postponed until a consensus is reached. This is what Kibaki, as head of government, indicated he would accept in his talks with the US envoy, Jendayi Frazer.

A recount of the votes in the final results and the announcement of the true result under international supervision. This is what the opposition is demanding, but the international parties believe it would have a negative effect on the political scene, would do nothing to restore trust among the political rivals, and might cast its shadow over the stages to come.

A caretaker government, with the election rerun after three to six months. This, too, is what the opposition is demanding. It is an unlikely scenario, since Western governments believe that the tension and polarisation this election produced have divided Kenyans along ethnic or tribal lines, and that any early election would bring violence back to the country in a worse form and would do nothing to bring the calm and stability hoped for. The West is therefore seeking a consensual solution among the political leaders, without recourse to an agitated people.

All these efforts aim to calm the situation for now and get past the violence, but they are more like political sedatives. They will not pull out the root of the problem, which is the corruption of the ruling elite and of those seeking to rule, and the legacy of the Western capitalist system, which has opened a vast gulf between the classes: most of the people are poor and serve a rich minority, most of them Europeans, Asians and Arabs. This will go on feeding the resentment that the weak and downtrodden majority harbours against the pampered few, and one day, in one way or another, it will explode.

English translation prepared by artificial intelligence and reviewed against the Arabic for accuracy of meaning and rhetoric.