06-06-2016, 10:06 PM
*** 7-Jun-16 World View -- Increasing violence in Kenya revives fears of tribal war
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
****
**** Increasing violence in Kenya revives fears of tribal war
****
![[Image: g160606b.jpg]](http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g160606b.jpg)
Police officers walk past burning tyres in Kisumu, Kenya, on Monday (AFP)
In Kisumu, Kenya's third largest city, police opened fire on
demonstrators on Monday, killing at least two. Another 61 people were
injured in the clashes, 20 of whom were hospitalized with wounds from
bullets or sharp objects. One of the wounded was a five-year-old
child.
Police then used tear gas and water cannon to quell the protests as
news of the deaths spread. Word of the shootings fueled heavy
clashes in the center of Kisumu. There were widespread scenes of
looting and two supermarkets were destroyed.
Protests have been occurring across the country since early April.
Clashes with police have been increasing, but Monday's violence in
Kisumu was the worst so far. Kisumu, a port city in western Kenya on
Lake Victoria, is considered a hotbed of anti-government protests.
The protests are related to the presidential election scheduled for
next year. After the election in December 2007, the entire country
suffered from tribal violence that killed 1200 people, and forced
600,000 from their homes. (Jan 2008: "Post-election massacre in Kenya raises concerns of tribal war"
) The ethnic violence was started, according to many
sources, by youthful activists in the Orange Democratic Movement
(ODM), an anti-government Luo ally supporting Odinga for President.
The worst known atrocity occurred when 30 people died in a church
fire. Dozens of people had gone to the church to escape increasing
violence, when a youthful gang set the church on fire, trapping people
inside. This atrocity drew international attention.
There are many tribes in Kenya, including the Luo, Luhya, Kalenjin,
Kisii of western Kenya, and the Kikuyu, Embu and Meru (GEMA) people
from the Mount Kenya area.
The two most prominent tribes are the market-dominant Kikuyu tribe and
the disadvantaged Luo tribe. In the last three elections, the two
leading candidates were Kikuyu and Luo, respectively, and the Kikuyu
candidate always won. The violence after the 2007 election was
triggered because of widespread accusations that the Kikuyu government
had rigged the election, to score a new victory.
The same issue is propelling the new rounds of protests and violence.
The current president is Uhuru Kenyatta, a Kikuyu, and his principal
challenger is Raila Odinga, a Luo.
The Kenyatta government has created an Independent Electoral and
Boundaries Commission (IEBC), whose job it is to define the rules and
procedures for next year's election. The opposition, led by Odinga,
has formed the Coalition for Reform and Democracy (CORD), which is
conducting the nationwide protests that triggered Monday's violence.
CORD is accusing the IEBC of rigging the election so that Kenyatta
will win again next year.
The protests are becoming increasingly violent. The concerns are that
the violence will continue to increase, and there will a new round of
widespread violence, no matter who wins next year's election.
Coast Week (Kenya) and The Star (Kenya) and Al Jazeera and AFP
****
**** Generational history of tribal violence in Kenya
****
What's happening in Kenya is a pattern that I've described many
times when a generational crisis war is an internal civil war.
Among generational crisis wars, an external war is fundamentally
different than an internal civil war between two ethnic groups. If
two ethnic groups have lived together in peace for decades, have
intermarried and worked together, and if then there's a civil war
where one of these ethnic groups tortures, massacres and slaughters
their next-door neighbors in the other ethnic group, then the outcome
will be fundamentally different than if the same torture and slaughter
had been rendered by an external group. In either case, the country
will spend the Recovery Era immediately following the war setting up
rules and institutions designed to prevent any such war from occurring
again. But in one case, the country will be unified in the decades to
follow, while in the other case, the country will be increasingly torn
along the same ethnic fault line.
Kenya's last crisis war was the "Mau-Mau Rebellion." Britain had been
exerting a fairly heavy hand as a colonial power, starting from the
1850s. An independence movement began in earnest in the late 1940s,
leading to the rebellion that began in 1952 and climaxed in 1956. In
the Recovery Era that followed, Kenya finally gained independence in
1964. As population increased over the decades, the Luos, with
traditional lifestyles as fishermen, had land conflicts with the
Kikuyus and were marginalized.
When I wrote about the violence in 2007-8, I wrote that it was
POSSIBLE but UNLIKELY that the violence would spiral into a full-scale
civil war at that time. The reason is that the previous crisis war,
the Mau-Mau Rebellion, had climaxed in 1956, only 52 years earlier.
After 52 years, there would still be many survivors of the Mau-Mau
Rebellion with personal memories of the war. They may have been only
children at the time of the rebellion, but they would have had
experiences that scarred them for life, and they would do everything
possible to prevent anything like that from happening again. So in
2008, there would still have been enough of these survivors in senior
positions to prevent the violence, as bad as it was, from spiraling
into a full-scale civil war. This analysis turned out to be
completely correct in 2008, as the violence fizzled within a few
weeks. (Feb 2008: "Kenya settles into low-level violence on the way to Rwanda"
)
As I explained at that time, historical research and analysis had
shown that a new crisis war starts to become increasingly likely at a
point 58 years past the climax of the preceding crisis war. That
seems to be the time when the survivors of the preceding crisis war
lose their ability to prevent a new one. This is because children
younger than five would not have any personal memory of a crisis war,
and the children five years old and older become 63 year old and older
after 58 years have passed.
Many Kenyans believe that nothing has changed and that any new
violence that breaks out after next year's election won't be any worse
than the 2008 violence. But that's not true, because there have been
major changes since then. Eight more years have passed since the 2008
violence, and it's now 60 years past the climax of the preceding
crisis war. This means that the survivors of the Mau-Mau Rebellion
have almost completely disappeared, and will no longer be able to
exert enough influence to prevent a major new civil war. This means
that a new civil way is not CERTAIN, but it's far more LIKELY than it
was in 2008. The Nation (Nairobi) and Open Democracy
****
**** Kenya facing fierce criticism over closing the world's largest refugee camp
****
![[Image: g160606c.jpg]](http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g160606c.jpg)
Dadaab refugee camp in 2012
Kenya has announced that it will close the Dadaab refugee camp
later this year, and require the residents to return to their
home country, which is almost always Somalia.
Kenya is the world's largest refugee camp, home to 350,000 people. It
was opened in 1991, at a time when people in Somalia were fleeing
civil war, lawlessness and recurrent droughts. (Recall that 1993 was
the year of the famous "Black Hawk Down" incident, where Somali
militia fighters shot down two American helicopters using
rocket-propelled grenades. Mobs then hacked the fallen pilots to death
with machetes and dragged their mutilated bodies through the streets
as trophies.)
At its peak in 2012, the Dadaab refugee camp housed nearly a
half-million people. Many children had been born there and grown to
adulthood without ever leaving the camp. Since then, some Somalis
have left the camp and returned home voluntarily.
Kenya has given two reasons for closing the camp. One reason is the
enormous expense of supporting hundreds of thousands of refugees, with
little or none of the financial support promised by the EU or the US
having actually been provided. And second, it's believed that
Somalia's terror group, al-Shabaab, is using the camp as a base to
launch terror attacks on Kenya. (See "3-Apr-2015 World View -- Al-Shabaab kills 147 mostly Christian students in Kenya school"
and "23-Sep-2013 World View -- Minnesota link to Kenya shopping mall attack raises U.S. fears"
)
Human rights organizations are taking action to prevent Kenya from
closing the camp. There's little doubt that forcing 350,000 people to
leave their homes and move somewhere else is the stuff of historical
genocides, and closing the camp will not be smooth in the best of
circumstances. Anadolu (Turkey) and AFP and VOA
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Kenya, Kisumu, Luo, Luhya, Kalenjin,
Kisii, Kikuyu, Embu, Meru, GEMA, Uhuru Kenyatta, Raila Odinga,
Mau-Mau Rebellion, Dadaab refugee camp, Somali, Black Hawk Down,
Mogadishu, al-Shabaab
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
- Increasing violence in Kenya revives fears of tribal war
- Generational history of tribal violence in Kenya
- Kenya facing fierce criticism over closing the world's largest refugee camp
****
**** Increasing violence in Kenya revives fears of tribal war
****
Police officers walk past burning tyres in Kisumu, Kenya, on Monday (AFP)
In Kisumu, Kenya's third largest city, police opened fire on
demonstrators on Monday, killing at least two. Another 61 people were
injured in the clashes, 20 of whom were hospitalized with wounds from
bullets or sharp objects. One of the wounded was a five-year-old
child.
Police then used tear gas and water cannon to quell the protests as
news of the deaths spread. Word of the shootings fueled heavy
clashes in the center of Kisumu. There were widespread scenes of
looting and two supermarkets were destroyed.
Protests have been occurring across the country since early April.
Clashes with police have been increasing, but Monday's violence in
Kisumu was the worst so far. Kisumu, a port city in western Kenya on
Lake Victoria, is considered a hotbed of anti-government protests.
The protests are related to the presidential election scheduled for
next year. After the election in December 2007, the entire country
suffered from tribal violence that killed 1200 people, and forced
600,000 from their homes. (Jan 2008: "Post-election massacre in Kenya raises concerns of tribal war"
) The ethnic violence was started, according to many
sources, by youthful activists in the Orange Democratic Movement
(ODM), an anti-government Luo ally supporting Odinga for President.
The worst known atrocity occurred when 30 people died in a church
fire. Dozens of people had gone to the church to escape increasing
violence, when a youthful gang set the church on fire, trapping people
inside. This atrocity drew international attention.
There are many tribes in Kenya, including the Luo, Luhya, Kalenjin,
Kisii of western Kenya, and the Kikuyu, Embu and Meru (GEMA) people
from the Mount Kenya area.
The two most prominent tribes are the market-dominant Kikuyu tribe and
the disadvantaged Luo tribe. In the last three elections, the two
leading candidates were Kikuyu and Luo, respectively, and the Kikuyu
candidate always won. The violence after the 2007 election was
triggered because of widespread accusations that the Kikuyu government
had rigged the election, to score a new victory.
The same issue is propelling the new rounds of protests and violence.
The current president is Uhuru Kenyatta, a Kikuyu, and his principal
challenger is Raila Odinga, a Luo.
The Kenyatta government has created an Independent Electoral and
Boundaries Commission (IEBC), whose job it is to define the rules and
procedures for next year's election. The opposition, led by Odinga,
has formed the Coalition for Reform and Democracy (CORD), which is
conducting the nationwide protests that triggered Monday's violence.
CORD is accusing the IEBC of rigging the election so that Kenyatta
will win again next year.
The protests are becoming increasingly violent. The concerns are that
the violence will continue to increase, and there will a new round of
widespread violence, no matter who wins next year's election.
Coast Week (Kenya) and The Star (Kenya) and Al Jazeera and AFP
****
**** Generational history of tribal violence in Kenya
****
What's happening in Kenya is a pattern that I've described many
times when a generational crisis war is an internal civil war.
Among generational crisis wars, an external war is fundamentally
different than an internal civil war between two ethnic groups. If
two ethnic groups have lived together in peace for decades, have
intermarried and worked together, and if then there's a civil war
where one of these ethnic groups tortures, massacres and slaughters
their next-door neighbors in the other ethnic group, then the outcome
will be fundamentally different than if the same torture and slaughter
had been rendered by an external group. In either case, the country
will spend the Recovery Era immediately following the war setting up
rules and institutions designed to prevent any such war from occurring
again. But in one case, the country will be unified in the decades to
follow, while in the other case, the country will be increasingly torn
along the same ethnic fault line.
Kenya's last crisis war was the "Mau-Mau Rebellion." Britain had been
exerting a fairly heavy hand as a colonial power, starting from the
1850s. An independence movement began in earnest in the late 1940s,
leading to the rebellion that began in 1952 and climaxed in 1956. In
the Recovery Era that followed, Kenya finally gained independence in
1964. As population increased over the decades, the Luos, with
traditional lifestyles as fishermen, had land conflicts with the
Kikuyus and were marginalized.
When I wrote about the violence in 2007-8, I wrote that it was
POSSIBLE but UNLIKELY that the violence would spiral into a full-scale
civil war at that time. The reason is that the previous crisis war,
the Mau-Mau Rebellion, had climaxed in 1956, only 52 years earlier.
After 52 years, there would still be many survivors of the Mau-Mau
Rebellion with personal memories of the war. They may have been only
children at the time of the rebellion, but they would have had
experiences that scarred them for life, and they would do everything
possible to prevent anything like that from happening again. So in
2008, there would still have been enough of these survivors in senior
positions to prevent the violence, as bad as it was, from spiraling
into a full-scale civil war. This analysis turned out to be
completely correct in 2008, as the violence fizzled within a few
weeks. (Feb 2008: "Kenya settles into low-level violence on the way to Rwanda"
)
As I explained at that time, historical research and analysis had
shown that a new crisis war starts to become increasingly likely at a
point 58 years past the climax of the preceding crisis war. That
seems to be the time when the survivors of the preceding crisis war
lose their ability to prevent a new one. This is because children
younger than five would not have any personal memory of a crisis war,
and the children five years old and older become 63 year old and older
after 58 years have passed.
Many Kenyans believe that nothing has changed and that any new
violence that breaks out after next year's election won't be any worse
than the 2008 violence. But that's not true, because there have been
major changes since then. Eight more years have passed since the 2008
violence, and it's now 60 years past the climax of the preceding
crisis war. This means that the survivors of the Mau-Mau Rebellion
have almost completely disappeared, and will no longer be able to
exert enough influence to prevent a major new civil war. This means
that a new civil way is not CERTAIN, but it's far more LIKELY than it
was in 2008. The Nation (Nairobi) and Open Democracy
****
**** Kenya facing fierce criticism over closing the world's largest refugee camp
****
Dadaab refugee camp in 2012
Kenya has announced that it will close the Dadaab refugee camp
later this year, and require the residents to return to their
home country, which is almost always Somalia.
Kenya is the world's largest refugee camp, home to 350,000 people. It
was opened in 1991, at a time when people in Somalia were fleeing
civil war, lawlessness and recurrent droughts. (Recall that 1993 was
the year of the famous "Black Hawk Down" incident, where Somali
militia fighters shot down two American helicopters using
rocket-propelled grenades. Mobs then hacked the fallen pilots to death
with machetes and dragged their mutilated bodies through the streets
as trophies.)
At its peak in 2012, the Dadaab refugee camp housed nearly a
half-million people. Many children had been born there and grown to
adulthood without ever leaving the camp. Since then, some Somalis
have left the camp and returned home voluntarily.
Kenya has given two reasons for closing the camp. One reason is the
enormous expense of supporting hundreds of thousands of refugees, with
little or none of the financial support promised by the EU or the US
having actually been provided. And second, it's believed that
Somalia's terror group, al-Shabaab, is using the camp as a base to
launch terror attacks on Kenya. (See "3-Apr-2015 World View -- Al-Shabaab kills 147 mostly Christian students in Kenya school"
and "23-Sep-2013 World View -- Minnesota link to Kenya shopping mall attack raises U.S. fears"
)
Human rights organizations are taking action to prevent Kenya from
closing the camp. There's little doubt that forcing 350,000 people to
leave their homes and move somewhere else is the stuff of historical
genocides, and closing the camp will not be smooth in the best of
circumstances. Anadolu (Turkey) and AFP and VOA
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Kenya, Kisumu, Luo, Luhya, Kalenjin,
Kisii, Kikuyu, Embu, Meru, GEMA, Uhuru Kenyatta, Raila Odinga,
Mau-Mau Rebellion, Dadaab refugee camp, Somali, Black Hawk Down,
Mogadishu, al-Shabaab
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
