Kenya News: February 19, 2008

* “Don’t tell us what to do.” The Kenyan government’s pride comes to the fore as it coolly welcomes US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Wasn’t that same pride the problem in the first place? Rice met with Kibaki and Odinga separately and with Kofi Annan. Rice: “[T]he time for a political settlement was yesterday.”

* Some of the reforms may include the return of the office of Prime Minister. The office was abolished by Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta , in 1964.

* “God welcomes everybody”: Normally a Christian missionary transport service, the Mission Aviation Fellowship has been evacuating Kenyan refugees from areas of heavy violence and it has done so without asking about tribe.

During these flights, passengers were sometimes eye to eye with members of the opposing tribe. [SNIP]

"The first thought, as a Christian, that you would have is ‘How can they kill each other?'" Terlouw said. What is happening here is absolutely horrifying. The church has called for reconciliation, but leaders realized that even their request was "preaching in a way that supported their own tribe."

The church made a leap forward recently when they confessed this. Terlouw said church leaders made a new statement of reconciliation: "Whatever our tribal background is, we belong to Jesus, and we want peace at any cost. We want to reconcile with anybody, whatever tribe, whatever color. And for the first time I think, that was not just lip-service, but that was real."

* With the 2008 Olympics on the horizon, Kenya’s team—whose members come from various tribes, of course-- may have to train in another country.

* A prominent Kenyan journalist—not my father—refuses to return home from a trip to New York. Interesting: he’s ODM’s Communications Chief.

* Six people have died of cholera in Kenya’s Mandera region.

* Who’s blogging Kenya? Its surprisingly large middle-class, naturally. (Thanks to Andrew Sullivan)

* Meanwhile, the proverbial "youths" don't want to compromise.

The youths from [Odinga's] Luo ethnic group who burned buildings in Kisumu in the wake of the election say they will accept little in the way of compromise. The stones in the road – marking the spot where one their friends was shot by riot police – could quickly become missiles.

"We voted for a president, not a prime minister," says one. "The least we can accept is an interim government with a revote in six months."

The young men, who spend their days drinking or smoking bhang, the local name for marijuana, are typical of the dispossessed from whom Odinga draws much of his support.

He campaigned on a policy of majimbo – a form of devolved government that promised to share the benefits of Kenya's booming economy with those who felt they were missing out to members of President Mwai Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe.

In short, he offered his supporters hope.

Jaguba Nyabanda Anyango, a mechanic, says: "[Mr. Kibaki] has taken his people to the government. Now we want [Odinga] to take all Luos to government and provide jobs."

Without Odinga in the State House, they all say they will rip up their voting cards and turn their backs on Kenya's political system.

But first, they will burn what is left of Kisumu's once pretty city center.

"That is automatic if [Odinga] betrays us," says one of the young men.

The Kenya Crisis