Posted on 01/21/2008 9:26:11 PM PST by neverdem
KERINGET, Kenya — At first the violence seemed as spontaneous as it was shocking, with machete-wielding mobs hacking people to death and burning women and children alive in a country that was celebrated as one of Africa’s most stable.
But a closer look at what has unfolded in the past three weeks, since a deeply flawed election plunged Kenya into chaos, shows that some of the bloodletting that has left more than 650 people dead may have been premeditated and organized.
Leaflets calling for ethnic killings mysteriously appeared before the voting. Politicians with both the government and opposition parties gave speeches that stoked long-standing hatred among ethnic groups. And local tribal chiefs held meetings to plot attacks on rivals, according to some of them and their followers.
As soon as the election results were announced, handing a suspiciously thin margin of victory to Kenya’s president, Mwai Kibaki — whose policies of favoring his own ethnic group have marginalized about half the country — all the elements lined up for the violence to explode.
Thousands of young men swept the countryside, burning homes and attacking members of rival ethnic groups. The killings go on. On Friday, six bodies arrived at a morgue in the town of Narok, northwest of Nairobi, some with deep spear wounds. On a strip of white medical tape affixed to the victims’ foreheads was written their names, dates of death and the cause: “Post-elections violence.”
“It wasn’t like people just woke up and started fighting each other,” said Dan..
--snip--
A few villages away and a couple of hours later, Kikuyu farmers scanned the hilltops with a pair of old field glasses that never seemed quite in focus. They carried homemade guns built of wood, water pipes and umbrella springs, highly illegal but highly necessary, they said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Muslims are relatively few in number among the Kalenjin.
The New York Times
Christophe Calais for The New York Times
Mud-smeared Kalenjin men, one with a cellphone tucked in his belt, wielding clubs, knives and other weapons near the small town of Keringet in the Rift Valley.
I’m sorry but wasn’t Obama fixing this in his spare time? I’m just going to go back to ignoring this until the Magic Negro announces that he has brought peace to his distant homeland.
I have relatives that are missionaries in Kenya. They have told us that more people have been killed than what has been reported.
Of course obama, being born a muslim and raised as one for a time, shouldn't give us any cause for concern.
Raila Odinga, the Kenyan opposition leader, believes he is a cousin of Barack Obama....
He said Mr. Obama had taken time out from campaigning for the New Hampshire primary to call him...
twice...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1949514/replies?c=15
http://www.freedomsenemies.com/_more/obama.htm
Interesting. Thanks to all posters linkers/researchers/factfinders.
I have a relative who trained for a long while to be a missionary in the Philipines.
Soon after he arrived a friendly villager warned him that the islamic terrorists would take his head if he stayed one more day.
I do not know if Obama is guilty, but he has been reported to support the real bad guys over there. If the races were reversed Obama would be crucified in the liberal media.
The Christians in Kenya should be heavily trained and armed so they can defend themselves.
More than 15 years ago I visited Mombassa Kenya on liberty. It was a nice place for a couple of days. There were no problems or warnings out of the ordinary about violence or anything then. My how things seem to have changed there...
Seems like the only stable country in the eastern part of Africa anymore is Ethiopia...
Welcome to Africa. I will guarantee you that it is FAR, FAR worse than anything reported in the media. And far more gruesome. Before the Islamists started slaughtering people in (pick one: Kenya, Sudan, etc,), it was tribal aggression swinging the machetes.
You might want to direct your outrage at US politicians who glibly negotiate ‘peace’ in places where genocide is seen as an effective means of creating converts to Islam. You want a real villian? Go to the UN building and listen for the diploweenie who yells loudest when the US recommends sending in peacekeeping troops to fight the machete wielding gangs. I’ll bet your loudest yeller will have a French or a Chinese accent.
As for bonafides, my own mother has done missionairy work in Kenya. And Tanzania. And Benin. I’ve worked with Christians who were in Kenya full-time and I can give you some great tips on how to hide your valuables in the care packages you send there to avoid having the customs agents steal them before they get to the aid workers. This isn’t new territory for me.
Apparently it is new territory for Obama and he is working for ‘peace’ through a guy who is on the side of the machete wielders. Obama ought to talk to the christian churches in Midland, TX who have been trying for the last 7 years to put pressure on the UN and the Sudanese government to stop backing the muslim gangs who have been killing hundreds of thousands of christians. All of their work and good intentions are wasted because the French are on the UN Security Council and won’t allow anything forceful to be done.
Not exactly something you can solve in your spare time while you are running for President. Not that it is unusual for liberals to believe that all of the worlds problems could be solved if only a liberal was in the White House so that all the other countries in the UN and all these murderous dictators and thugocracies would sense our compassion or good intentions and simply capitulate to our demands. John Kerry believed that the French would back us in Iraq if HE was in the WH. Hillary thinks that OPEC will cut oil prices if SHE asks them. Carter though the USSR would stop building weapons if HE asked them to. And Obama apparently believes that muslim fanatics will stop killing christians if HE asks them.
You might want to advise your family that regardless of how much the non-muslims in Kenya need help from well intentioned Christians, they might want to seriously considering getting the hell out of that country before they are in mortal threat themselves. We’ve had at least two wars started in the last century over American christian missionairies who were killed or held hostage in places which were a lot like Kenya. Missionairies never take geopolitics into account when they choose places to go and they rarely heed the State Department warnings to their own detriment.
Is it the messenger, or the message, that is despicable? Once again, those who claim the mantle of “caring” for such peoples’ plight are nowhere to be seen when aid is most dearly needed. Yes, his post is tasteless ... but only because it reflects a reality far worse.
Kenyans have told me before that often the problems there are due to tribal violence and disagreements and this appears to be the case here. Such stories indicate it must be pretty bad over there presently.
Rest in Peace Wesley Ngetich.
Some marathons started separating financial awards between international runners and American runners. This is fair but now we also see the kind of world these others come from as well.
“the problems there are due to tribal violence” .......... as is the case for much of the undeveloped world.
I think it’s tasteless to call anyone a “Magic Negro”. But maybe I’m just sensitive about stuff like that.
I’m not sure how bad it has to get before our family members have to leave. I do know that a lot of corruption is taking place and has always. Missionaries have a different mind set than the average person. They will come back when they feel like they should or the church headquarters says they should.
Your relatives are to be admired and you are correct in your post. I’ll pray for everyone in this situation.
http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgindex.asp
This is one website I check ever so often for news; though the BBC probably has better news coverage.
I keep tabs on what is happening because I have known a few of the runners and others. Kenya is a rather important country in the Horn of Africa.
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