An Update on Kenya

This update on Kenya is brought to IRWatch by our from Senior Correspondent Carl M. (who is too lazy to set up his own Blogger account).

Today I attended a seminar on Kenya's political climate. It was "headlined" by one of the few female parliamentary candidates that ran in 07. She talked a lot about the post-election violence, as well as highlighting the problems facing women in the country's political arena.

She was, as you were, disgruntled by western media outlets labeling of the "tribal violence". Her stance on the issue was that it was, at it's core, political protests against corruption. Violence to this and other issues, such as land use, was encouraged, and even paid for by tribal elders. This lead to much of the violence being along tribal lines, but not for tribal differences, rather it was over land use issues that the government has failed to resolve.

There were numerous cases of "warring" tribes taking each other in from the violence.

Another speaker pointed out that half the deaths in Kenya were caused by police in response to the protests. Live rounds were regularly used by riot police the moment anti-government protests turned violent. I do not know the source of her numbers, but the scenario is quite believable.

Concerning technology in Africa, one of the main reasons the populace believed they were robbed of the election is the widespread use of texting. Landlines are fairly rare, but cell phones are apparently quite common. Local election results were posted at each polling place. This information was spread through texting, and it was widely held by the populace that the challenging candidate won by a large margin. When results were delayed and eventually announced in favor of the incumbent, the protests that eventually turned violent began.