1.0 Causes of Ethnic Clashes

Ethnic clashes, wherever they have taken place in Kenya, have generally been instigated by the fear of loss of political power and the consequences that might accompany such an eventuality such as loss of privilege and the patronage that goes with it. In this regard it has been noted elsewhere that the only distinct pattern that emerges from the ethnic clashes is that they appear to be connected to political tension in the body politic. For instances the Rift Valley clashes took place when the political atmosphere in the country was highly charged due to external and internal pressure for political pluralism. The main causes are briefly discussed in this section.

1.1 Politicized Ethnicity: A lot has been written about ethnicity as a source of conflict in Africa. It is suggested here that ethnicity per se, in the absence of its politicization, does not cause conflict. There is evidence to suggest that where ethnic conflict has emerged in Africa, there has always been political machinations behind it. Politicization of ethnicity often takes place in a situation characterized by an inequitable structure of access. Such a structure gives rise to the emergence of the “in group” and the “out group” with the latter trying to break the structure of inequality as the former responds by building barriers to access that ensure the continuation of its privileged position. At the centre of this scenario are the elites who, feeling excluded or threatened with exclusion, begin to invoke ethnic ideology in the hope of establishing a reliable base of support to fight what is purely personal and/ or elite interests.

1.2 Land issues: Land was an underlying factor behind much of the organised violence in the Rift Valley, as well as being critical to the more localised ongoing conflicts in Mt Elgon and Molo. Indeed, since the 1990s certain leaders have exploited grievances over perceived ‘historical injustices’ and poorly handled settlement schemes for electoral advantage. These grievances, are perceived as favouritism and corruption by successive governments in allocation of fertile land, including a refusal to prevent and reverse settlement of outsiders (notably Kikuyus) in land originally appropriated from the local residents by the colonial authorities. This of course has occurred in a context of rapid population growth in what remains a largely agricultural society.

1.3 Weak and disempowered institutions: Despite some attempts on reform since 2002, institutions in Kenya are easily manipulated or captured by personal agendas and vested interests. Popular distrust and political manipulation rendered crucial institutions unable to mediate the election impasse and respond effectively to the violence. For instance ECK (Electoral Commission of Kenya).

1.4 Culture of impunity: Since the advent of multi-party politics during the 1990s this political dynamic has been a key factor leading to the incitement of violence around elections (both constituency-level violence and more wide-ranging). Crucially, there has been a failure to hold accountable those responsible for past human rights abuses, including the ethnic clashes of the 1990s, abuses under the Kibaki presidency, and land-grabbing and economic crimes, despite the naming of many senior politicians in successive enquiries. In these circumstances, it was not illogical for politicians to believe that they could get away with trying to manipulate elections or incite violence.

1.5 Other causes: Other causes could be attributed to high unemployment rate among the youth, and high gap between the rich and poor.

2.0 Effect of Clashes

Clashes or any conflicts have their own positive and negative effects. This section discusses briefly the main negative and positive effects of conflicts with reference to Kenya.

2.1 Negative effects:Following the announcement of the results of the December 2007 National General Elections, violent skirmishes and riots erupted in many parts of the country that also involved destruction of both private and public property. The most violent scenes were witnessed in Rift Valley, Nyanza, Western and Nairobi Provinces, while there were limited incidents in the Coast Province.

Loss of Human Life: The violence resulted in the death of an estimated number of 1,300 persons. Most of them were those in Rift Valley province including women and children burnt in a church in Eldoret.

Destruction of Property: The violence was accompanied by looting, burning and destruction of private and public property. Most of this occurred in Rift valley province.

Effect on Economy: The political crisis that prevailed in the country did not only cause loss of human lives, livelihoods and properties, it also had significant impacts on the operations of many public and private sector institutions. The magnitude of the impacts may have been varied from institution to institution and from place to place. Nevertheless, the impacts reversed many gains that the country had made since independence. Various sectors were negatively affected. Water sector, for instance was affected in four main areas namely: Operations, equipment and physical facilities; Staff and their dependants; challenge in the provision of water to the IDPs. the impact was equally felt in agricultural sector. The violence reduced the exports of Kenyan flower exporters by nearly one quarter on average, and by nearly 40% for firms located in conflict areas like Naivasha. The impact was also greatly felt in tourism sector. In general the entire economy of the country was affected and further worsened by global recession.

Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV): This was employed as a tool of intimidation, with reports of the threat of rape being used to chase women from their homes. Other cases of SGBV appear to have been opportunistic, perpetrated by gangs of youth in slums or targeted at women fleeing violence. A few cases of ethnically motivated forced circumcision of males from the Luo and Luhya communities, allegedly perpetrated by Mungiki, were documented in Naivasha, Nakuru and Nairobi. However, the number of cases suggests that circumcision was sporadic rather than an overall trend in the violence.

Displacement of people: The violence led to widespread displacement. As of 27 February, KRCS estimated that there were 268,330 IDPs in organised sites, whilst a similar number of displaced were living in host communities.

2.2 Positive Effects of Conflict:

Conflicts have two dimenstions, positive and negative. Despite their negative effects, conflicts also do bring new hopes. Following eruption of violence after general erection in 2007, various interventions were undertaken and this move remains the greatest gains of conflict.

To resolve the issues, dialogue was initiated and power agreement deal was reached. Within the framework of the KNDR (The Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation), and including in the power sharing agreement of 28 February, 2008 embedded in the Kenya National Accord and Reconciliation Act, parties made commitments to address long-standing issues, such as land reform, the constitution, police and judicial reform, socio-economic inequalities, corruption, accountability and disarmament of militia. They also agreed to the establishment of key commissions and review processes. Such conflicts also bring about trials of perpetrators aimed at ending a culture of impunity. All these are just but positive effects of clashes.

3.0 Interventions

Various interventions have been made to bridge the gap between various ethnic communities. Such has been use of elders in the communities, some of whom have even been trained to deal with various issues. In each community and especially the pastoralist communities where conflicts are more severe, the elders have a traditional way of solving the problems. There has been a breakdown in holding the traditional mechanism because the new mechanisms confuse the traditional hence the conflicts are not solved. Most of the traditional mechanisms are affected by the judicial who don’t take into consideration what the community does traditionally. Hence community resolution mechanism is something that should be put in place when resolving conflict; else the conflict is likely to start again after sometime. Well aware of this, Government and NGOs have been making deliberate efforts in holding workshops with elders in communities especially in Rift Valley province with view of resolving issues and bringing about a spirit of reconciliation between warring communities.

Facilitating inter-ethnic dialogue between traditional elders, youth and women, as well as trust-building with local Administration is a must. For example, Mt. Elgon area is now part of peace consultations aimed at developing a 3-year peace building/conflict prevention strategy, where elders have been used. Training of elders have been carried out in other areas. For instance workshops have been held in areas like Molo (in Rift Valley Province of Kenya) to train elders on combating mistrust. Such efforts in other places have also been made to bring about a spirit of reconciliation among various communities in Rift Valley.