DEVELOPMENTS
Until the recent outbreak of violence, Kenya was the only country in the Greater Horn of Africa not to experience a complex political emergency and to continually hold relatively free democratic elections. Because of Kenya‘s stability, it was most favored to chair both the Sudanese and Somali peace processes.
With four consecutive decades without a civil war, and no history of hosting foreign insurgents, Kenya is an anomaly in the region. This is not to say that Kenya does not fall prey to some of the same patterns as its neighbors. The pastoralists along its northern borders with Somalia and Ethiopia move freely across state boundaries in search of grazing land, as well as to conduct livestock raiding. The current humanitarian crisis in Somalia has also heavily strained Kenya’s ability to host displaced persons, causing Kenya to clamp down on the Somali border. Kenya has reason to be reticent. Somalia has been used as a corridor for multiple terrorist attacks on Kenyan soil.
BACKGROUND
The Kenyan population consists of roughly forty ethnic groups, of which the Kikuyu tribe makes up 22%. Intermarriage is extremely common, although the Kikuyu have largely controlled the economy and politics since independence from Britain in 1963. That said, Kenya has long suffered from mild ethnic and religious tensions, endemic corruption, and high crime rates in its urban centers. Post-independence, Kenya was led by President Jomo Kenyatta until his death in 1978. He was constitutionally succeeded by President Daniel Toroitich arap Moi, who in 1991 acquiesced to internal and external pressures for political liberalization from de facto one party rule of the Kenya African National Union (KANU). KANU stayed in power through elections in 1992 and 1997, which were subject to low levels of fraud and political violence although generally agreed to reflect the will of the Kenyan people.
President Kibaki, as part of the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), defeated the KANU candidate in 2002 in elections agreed to be free and fair. He took office that year in a peaceful handover of power. After NARC splintered in 2005 due to a constitutional review process brought about by Kenya‘s institutionalization of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), government detractors joined with KANU to form the Orange Democratic Movement.
ANALYSIS
Although the current violence has caused comparisons to the Rwandan Genocide of 1994, there is one glaring difference: The United States has a vested interest in keeping Kenya stable. The 1998 bombing of the American embassy in Kenya as well as the bombing of an Israeli hotel in Mombassa by Al Qaeda affiliates has made Kenya a central ally in the War on Terror. This fact has led to urgent phone calls by both President Bush and Presidential-hopeful Barack Obama, whose father was Kenyan, to Kibaki and Odinga asking for direct talks without preconditions. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Jendayi E. Frazer,is on the ground in Kenya trying to end the stand-off between the two parties.
The African Union (AU) sent Ghanaian President John A. Kufour to mediate, although this seems unlikely if Kibaki and Odinga continue to threaten the opposition. Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Desmond Tutu and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon are also playing active roles in trying to convince the parties to negotiate. Despite the best efforts of all of these actors, violence continues to escalate. As Kenya is the country most often called upon to facilitate mediations in the region, the pressing question that begs to be asked is: Who can successfully mediate for Kenya?
