March 30, Rpt 39, David Zarembka, IDP's attend Friends Church

Dear All,

The whole front page and four interior pages today in the Sunday Nation were titled "Kenya's Gift to America". What is this gift? The correct answer will appear in my next report. (Since the conflict has calmed down, I need some gimmick to keep you reading my reports!)

On Friday at 3:00 p.m., Gladys and I along with two others started off to take another delivery of goods to the internally displaced people in Turbo. By the time we got to Turbo, it had begun to rain and soon it was pouring. Since the IDP's cannot distribute the food and blankets in the rain, we returned home. On Saturday morning we set out again before the rains which might start in the afternoon. As usual we were greeted and thanked by the people; there were speeches, prayer, and song. As we were leaving Gladys suggested that they come to visit the Friends Church on the following day(Sunday).

We then returned home where I got a speeding ticket going 78 kilometer an hour when I was supposed to be going 50 kilometers per hours (roughly 50 mph and 30 mph). Since there was no sign and it was between two towns, I don't know how I was supposed to know. Almost everyone was being stopped because the police clearly had a new toy, a radar gun to check speeds. So we paid 2,000/- bond ($30) and I have to go to court on Tuesday in Eldoret. Bummer.

This Sunday morning we got up and went to Lumakanda Friends Church for the 8:00 a.m. service. About 50 to 60 people were there (a little below average) plus perhaps 30 to 40 children in the Sunday school. The Service lasted about an hour and fifteen minutes and after greeting people and buying the newspaper we went home. The electrician showed up. Now that the rainy season is in full swing and it is cloudy most of the day, I am only getting about 3 hours of laptop time per day--way under my needs. But while we were away in the United States, the electric company finally put the two poles and wires from the road to our house. We had ordered this in September and paid the require $500+ fee (you can easily see why only about 10% of Kenyans are hooked up to the electric grid). Yesterday they installed the meter, but we needed to have the solar power system disconnected and the regular power connected--later we will have an automatic switch installed so that when the power goes out as it often does, the solar will be a back-up.

As this was going on Gladys got a call from the pastor of Lumakanda Friends Church. The people from the IDP camp in Turbo had come for the second church service. The first service (mostly in Swahili) is for the older people and kids, while the second one (mostly in English) is for the youth. So we went back to Church. The forty people who came from the IDP camp outnumbered the 30 or so regular people. The service was already underway and lasted over two more hours--with all those guests, the singing was better, more songs were sung, the sermon was energetic, and the prayers were fervent. It was the most lively that I had ever seen this Church. (I consider Lumakanda Friends Church to be a "tired" Church.)

At one point they had people from the IDP camp who wanted to do so to make presentations. Five did, thanking the Church for remembering them and helping them out. These were the internally displaced people who had initially been housed Lumakanda Primary School, so these were our neighbors. The first man who spoke indicated that he attended the PAG (Pentecostal Assemblies of God) Church which is located right next door and where the congregation right at that moment was singing robustly through a loud speaker. Did this increase his feeling of alienation? I had mixed feelings--it was nice for him to be in the Friends Church, but it was sad that he was not in the PAG Church because they had not done any reconciliation or relief work.

Then they asked me to give a presentation. I started with a Kirundi (the language of Burundi) proverb, "a real friend comes in a time of need," although I translated this into Swahili as "a true friend comes in a time of trouble". Next I told one of my favorite stories which I will repeat for you here. In Kampala, Uganda, there is an association of HIV+ women who hammer stones into gravel and get paid the equivalent of about 75 cents per day (if they are lucky). I have seen these women alongside the road pounding away. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the surrounding area, these women collected about $900 among themselves to send to the US for relief. They said that they had heard that people had lost their houses and everything and had to flee and it was an African custom to help out those who were in need. So they were only helping those who needed it. I went on a little bit longer, but I tend to speak succinctly.

Then there was more singing, the sermon (which was not succinct), the offering, and the final prayers. Then the pastor, James Mugeti, who had really done a good job of warmly welcoming the internally displaced people, asked that they come again, but he asked that they give notice so that the Church could be better prepared to welcome them. I think this will happen.

After the break up of the service, Gladys and I had to shake hands with many and talk to some. I found out that a truck had brought them, that is, the forty of them rode in the back bed of the truck.

Is this not a wonderful piece of reconciliation work?

When we got back, the electricity was all hooked up. But as I wrote this report, it already cut off once!

Peace,
Dave

David Zarembka, Coordinator
African Great Lakes Initiative of the Friends Peace Teams

March 27, Rpt 38, David Zarembka, Discussion of 9 possible factors behind Kenya's recent violence

Here David Zarembka gives a good discussion of the complexity behind KEnya's recent history. He says to "choose one or more" of what he calls interpretations. I choose all except the first. Mary

Nine Interpretations of the Violence in Kenya in Early 2008
By David Zarembka, Coordinator
African Great Lakes Initiative of the Friends Peace Teams

People like simple explanations for world events. When I was young, "Godless Communism" explained US foreign policy and now "Al-Qaeda" serves the same purpose. I will be giving you nine interpretations of the recent events in Kenya. You may choose one or more of those interpretations that you feel comfortable with and reject others. As you will see I have some opinions.

First we need to understand the context. In about sixty days following the announcement of the election results on December 27, 2007, approximately 1000 to 1500 people were killed by violence in Kenya. This compares with 850,000 who died in the Rwandan genocide in a hundred days, 300,000 who died over twelve years of civil war in Burundi, and the estimated 4 to 5 million who have died in the eastern Congo since 1996.

Early in March I received an email from Hezron Masitsa, the AVP-Coordinator in Nairobi. He wrote that a Kenyan named Joran Shijenje had been shot and killed on his way home from work. In Baltimore, Maryland! During the two months of conflict in Kenya, when 1000 to 1500 were killed, there were 5,000 to 6,000 homicides in the United States. I also just read in the paper that one out of every hundred Americans is now in jail. Something is clearly wrong with American society-but that is not the topic of this report.

1. "Ancient Tribal Hatreds”: Almost all international coverage of the crisis in Kenya was based on the interpretation that the conflict was due to "ancient tribal hatreds". For example, on January 27, Reuters, the wire service, distributed a picture of a woman lying dead on the floor in a pool of blood with her baby boy crying on a chair behind her. The caption read, "The body of a woman lies on the floor as her child cries during ethnic clashes in Naivasha, after members of Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe fought running battles with the Luos and Kalenjins who back Kibaki's rival Raila Odinga." The problem with this interpretation is that the woman, a Luo married to a Kikuyu, was killed by the police! In fact 43% of those killed in Kenya were killed by the police and not in any ethnic fighting. Contrary to both international and Kenyan law the police used live bullets against demonstrators, rioters, and looters.

While the international media was focusing on those burnt to death in a church outside of Eldoret, the Kenya media was focusing on those killed and wounded by the police in Kisumu. Of the 82 people killed in Kisumu, the home city of the Luo, how many were Kikuyu were killed by the Luo? Zero, all 82 were killed by the police. In fact the Luo and Luhya (the ethnic group of most of the 139,000 Quakers in Kenya) do not kill people because they believe that the spirit of someone killed would haunt the killer with a guilty conscience. They may beat them and push them out of their homes, but they do not kill them.

Raila Odinga says that the election was not about ethnic divisions since many Kikuyu voted for him including 3,000 in Mwai, Kibaki's home constituency of Central Province. More to the point, one of his daughters-in-law is a Kikuyu. There are many, many ethnically mixed marriages in Kenya.

To understand the situation in Kenya as "ancient tribal hatreds" is to understand World War I and World War II as "ancient tribal hatreds" between the Germans on one side and the French, English, and Russians on the other. This interpretation explains nothing.

2. Stolen election: The second interpretation is that the conflict was a result of the election’s being stolen by the Kibaki Government. On the election day of December 27, I was a poll observer in Lumakanda where I live. The voting itself was excellent. People waited for an hour or two in the sun to vote (the lines were much shorter in the afternoon) and the voting for president, member of parliament (MP), and local county council was very orderly and well done. I watched as the votes were counted and the observers from the various political parties signed the results. Well done. It was in Nairobi during the counting that the fraud took place. As soon as the results were announced, the appropriate form was taken by the Head of the Electoral Commission to Mwai Kibaki. The Chief Justice just happened to be there to administer the oath of office - this is usually done a few days later with foreign dignitaries present.

Those people who supported Raila Odinga and his Orange Democratic Party (ODM) felt that the election had been stolen from them. They had gone to the polls to vote patiently and properly and then the results were manipulated. ODM planned a rally at Uhuru Park in Nairobi and a million of his supporters were expected to attend. Although freedom of assembly is one of the freedoms people have, the Government blocked the park by ringing it with riot police who used tear gas, water cannons, and live bullets to disperse those who planned to attend. Naturally many of the tear-gassed youth rioted, and thus began the destruction in Nairobi. Other cities where demonstrations were planned had the same result. For some reason the authorities in Kapsabet, in the volatile Rift Valley Province, allowed the demonstration which took place peacefully; the demonstrators blew off steam, went home and there was no violence.

The Government, again contrary to international standards, clamped restrictions on the media. I had to listen to BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) to learn what was really happening in Kenya. Twice people in the United States informed me of developments in Kenya before I had heard of them myself.

The difficulty with this interpretation is that, suppose that Raila Odinga did win and should in fact be the President. The problem is still the same - a sharply divided country-with only the faces having changed.

3. Class warfare: A third interpretation is class warfare. The election results were no more than a trigger for decades-long tension due to economic inequality. During the five years of the first Kibaki Presidency, after years of stagnation, the economy had grown robustly. The GNP increased by 7% in 2007. But this growth in income has gone almost exclusively to the wealthy. Kenya (along with the United States) is a nation with one of the highest rates of inequality in the world. Former President Moi's two sons are reported to have fortunes of over $500,000,000 and none of this is inherited since their father is still living. And Kenya is supposed to be a poor country. The Kenyan elite is extremely wealthy. Many of these elite are Kikuyu, so the average person who has no contact directly with the wealthy elite took out their pent-up rage on their Kikuyu neighbors who, really, were no better off than they were.

Another aspect of this inequality is that Government funds, economic development, and business opportunities were confined to Nairobi and Central Province, the home area of the Kikuyu, while much of the rest of the country was starved for funds. People everywhere paid taxes, which were disproportionately spent in the center of the country. The violence was a response to this economic injustice.

4. Youth rebellion: Another interpretation is that the violence was a youth rebellion. Many youth felt alienated in that they had no stake in Kenyan society and no hopes for a better future. While older people tended to vote for Kibaki, the youth tended to vote for Raila. I was at a meeting where two parents said that they had voted for Kibaki, while their children had voted for Raila, and this had created tensions in the family. When the youth voted for Raila they were voting for change and a better future. They felt that their vote had been stolen after they had gone, naively it turned out, to the polls to vote for change.

There is no doubt that the newly elected members of parliament are much younger and better educated than the previous parliament. Note also that in this election only 80 out of 222 MP's were re-elected! Many of those who lost were the old, old members who had been in government and politics since the time of independence in 1963. The youth also wanted this change at the top-Kibaki is 76 and Raila 62.

5. Land issues: Particularly in the Rift Valley, but also in other parts of the country, the issue was ownership and control of land. When the British came to Kenya at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Kalenjin and Maasi groups in the Rift valley opposed the British militarily. As a result the British crushed them, which in those days meant not only defeating the warriors in battle, but burning their villages, killing their animals, and destroying their crops. The surviving Maasi and Kalenjin groups were then pushed north and south to the more marginal areas of the Rift Valley, leaving the fertile, well-watered land in the middle mostly vacant.

In this now mostly vacant land the British created the "white highlands". They gave large estates to British settlers. We are not talking about the 160-acre quarter section given to American settlers (one fourth of a square mile). Karen Blixen, author of Out of Africa, had 6,000 acres. Others were given 10,000, 20,000, and even 100,000 acres. This is in a land where today there are only 1.5 arable acres per person. The Mau-Mau rebellion of the 1950's was partly a protest against this great inequality.

When Kenya gained independence in 1963 the Kalenjins and Maasi thought that the lands seized from them would be returned. What happened was that many of these large estates were transferred from the departing British settlers to the new ruling Kenyan elite, who were mostly the loyalist supporters of the British during the Mau-Mau rebellion. Others of these estates were bought up by land companies, divided into plots and sold to those who could afford them - in most cases this meant Kikuyu from Central Province rather than the original owners of the land.

These land issues have not been resolved but allowed to fester. At the time of the 1992 elections there was violence in the Rift Valley during which an estimated 1000 people were killed. Folks in Lumakanda tell me that it was even worse than the recent round of violence. At the time of the 1997 election there was violence again. On Mt. Elgon, since June of 2006, over 500 people had been killed over a land dispute between two clans of the Sabaot, a Kalenjin group. Note that this total is one-third to one-half the number killed in the recent post-election violence. There were other deadly disputes in Molo, Rongai, Laikipia, and elsewhere. The election 2007 election results triggered additional violence in these areas.

6. Violence as usual: Although Kenya had a reputation as a peaceful, calm country -- unlike many of its neighbors, I had always considered it otherwise. On May 5, 1969 I was in Kenya when the powerful Luo Minister for Economic Development, Tom Mboya, was assassinated. Kenya felt then just as it did during the recent crisis. The glue that had been holding the country together was no longer working. One didn't know if the country would descend into chaos. The difference this time was the existence of cell phones and the internet. In 1969 we had to rely solely on word-of-mouth rumor. This time we could use our cell phones to phone or text people in other parts of the country and ask them what was happening. Then, as I did, we could report events as we saw them to the outside world via the internet.

The electioneering period before December 27 was also very violent. At least 25 people were killed. An assistant minister was discovered to have "traditional weapons" (machetes, bows and arrows, clubs, etc) in his Government-sponsored vehicle and nothing happened to him, although he did lose the election. A prominent minister who had controlled the Kisii area for decades was shown on TV talking to the leader of a gang with a bow and arrow in his hand. Two minutes later the gang leader attacked members of the opposition who were alighting from a helicopter. One of the major leaders of the opposition, William Ruto, was put in the hospital for a week or more. Again nothing happened to this minister, but he also lost the election. At the local level, our electrician was the leader for the ODM youth here in Lugari District and he and four other youth, while putting up posters of their candidate, were attacked by youth from a rival candidate. He had to go to the hospital for treatment and two of his friends were hospitalized.

Roughly every few days one reads in the newspapers of people killed by mob justice. This occurs because the police are corrupt and when people turn in a thief, within a day or two, he has paid a bribe and is out on the streets again. I have seen this myself in Nairobi, where a large crowd runs after an alleged thief, who survives only if the police are able to rescue him. The attitude that makes this acceptable is the same attitude that allows a person to attack a neighbor because they happen to be from a different ethnic group.

7. Centralized government: The nature of colonial rule is that everything needs to be controlled from the center by the colonial power. Consequently when the British gave Kenya independence they also passed on a very strong central government. While Jomo Kenyatta was president, this centralization was increased. He was an icon that could not be challenged. As a result, the president of Kenya controls not only the executive branch, but also the judicial branch, the legislature, the electoral commission, the police, and the army. For example, President Kibaki had appointed all 22 members of the Elector Commission of Kenya which announced that he had won the Dec 27 vote.

The results of this highly centralized government are that winning the election is crucial, as the candidate either wins "everything" or nothing. It also allows for the control of wealth and power by the group that controls the presidency. Kenyatta was a Kikuyu who started the trend to reward the Kikuyu over others. When Kenyatta died and Daniel arap Moi became president he quickly accommodated himself with the Kikuyu elite power structure and survived for twenty-four years until Kibaki defeated him in the 2002 election. Part of Kibaki's platform during this election, where he was supported by the Luo and other ethnic groups, was to decentralized the government and make the distribution of resources more equitable. But as soon as he gained control of that centralized power, he refused to give it up. As a referendum on centralized power, Raila won six of the eight provinces, 99 members of parliament, and control of almost all the cities outside of Central and Eastern provinces which were won by Kibaki. So the violence was a demand for what is being called "devolution" of power.

8. International Community: We must not let the international community off the hook. I will give three examples of how actions of the international community have adversely affected the situation in Kenya.

The first is birth control. Remember back around 1980 when there was a big debate about abortion in the United States and the Reagan administration cut off funds for family planning accusing them of promoting abortion? In Kenya this came to mean opposition to birth control. When I was in Kenya in 1970, in Machakos District, the family planning clinic had three people to serve a population of almost 1,000,000. It is the large number of children born at that time who are the youth (youth in Africa is defined as anyone under 35) that participated in the violence after the 2007 election. At that time Kenya had one of the highest birth rates in the world. It dropped considerably in the 1990's but I understand that the birth rate in Kenya is again increasing because of the emphasis on HIV/AIDS.

The second is the structural adjustment program placed on Kenya in the 1980's by the International Monetary Fund. For our example here, this meant that the Kenyan Government could not increase the number of public servants, including teachers. So as the population of school-aged children was increasing rapidly, the number of teachers was not. Moreover, in 2003 the Kibaki government declared free primary school education and about 1,000,000 additional children showed up for school. The result is classes of up to 100 students with few resources for their education. So the large numbers of children born in the 1960's, 70's, and 80's have not received adequate education.

Lastly there is the issue of corruption. The former dictator of Zaire (now the Congo) is reported to have said, "I know I am corrupt, but who is corrupting me?" The centralized form of government in Kenya also allowed for gigantic corruption at the center. Kenya is known as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. In almost every case of this grand corruption there were international partners involved - businesses, governments, NGO's, and the UN agencies. I will give only one example.

Safaricom is the most profitable company in East Africa with 8.5 million cell phone subscribers. At one time it was owned totally by the Kenya Government. A few years ago they sold off 30% of its shares to Vodafone, a large British telecommunications company. Later it came out that the Government had only 65% of the shares left because 5% had been given to a mysterious company called Mobitelea Ventures. The public does not know who the officers or shareholders of this company are. It is therefore is assumed to be the "bribe" that Vodafone paid for buying the Safaricom shares. The Kenyan Government is now selling off another 25% of their remaining holdings in Safaricom.

9. Spiritual/religious: The zeitgeist of Kenyan society is Hobbesian economics -- if everyone does things in their own interest, society will function for the best. This has long ago been determined to mean that the fortunate few exploit the many for their own interest. In Kenya personal and family greed is more important than societal prosperity. This is true from the rulers at the top to those at the bottom who believe that stepping on others is the way to get ahead. Rather than praising Kikuyu for their hard work and emulating their success, the violence after the election was an attempt to bring them down to the level of everyone else because of the perception that they had succeeded.

The Biblical injunctions that one should love one's neighbor and do unto others as they have done unto you have been largely ignored. Within a few weeks after the violence began, I heard a sermon at the Lumakanda Friends Church which stated that a true Christian would never loot property, burn a home, or kill someone - and this was from a woman who had to move out of her house in Eldoret because it was owned by a Kikuyu. I have heard that this message has been preached in many other churches of all denominations.

*****

So you may select those interpretations that seem most logical to you. I would say that a viable solution to the violence requires much more than a political settlement by the two sides. Rather it means a major restructuring of Kenyan society addressing the underlying causes mentioned above. Kenyans are well aware of these issues and the need for corrective action. Unfortunately in the past in Kenya, whenever there has been a crisis, the tendency has been to ignore the underlying causes as the country returned to "normal". But "normal" in Kenya means the building up of pressures which will again explode into violence unless they are addressed. It is still too early to determine if fundamental changes will be made or all will soon be "back to normal", if there will be significant improvements for all or another round of violence, perhaps during the next election in 2012 .

David Zarembka, Coordinator
African Great Lakes Initiative of the Friends Peace Teams

March 27, Report 37, A good story is wonderful! David Zarembka

Dear All,

A good story is wonderful.

Chapter 1: Perhaps you remember that my email of February 24 concerned the two sons, Anthony and Nivan, of a distant relative of Gladys, who bring us our daily milk. They are Luhya. One evening after Nivan had brought the milk to our house about 6:00 PM, he and Anthony and another friend were walking in town when a Kikuyu youth attacked Nivan with a machete. He put up his arm to keep the blow from hitting him in the head and one of his arm bones was broken and the other bone badly cut. We saw Nivan and Anthony in the hospital and then went with them to the police station. Here we were told it was a case of a fight over a girl. I asked then if this was a case of ethnic hatred or ethnic love.

Before we left for the United States we talked with the two youth about doing an inter-ethnic AVP workshop here. They organized their friends, came to talk to us, and we arranged for an AVP workshop to occur while we were away. Getry Agizah, the AVP Coordinator, and two other local Lugari District facilitators conducted the workshop, which went very well with 23 youth of various ethnicities (but no Kikuyu).

Chapter 2: When we returned, we asked to meet with the organizing committee for the workshop. Monday evening they came to our house for a discussion. I first asked them what they learned from the workshop and their responses included the use of I-messages, transforming power, and one young woman said, "Even thugs have good in them." So they had learned the lessons well. I then asked them to give an example of when they had used something they learned from the workshop.

The first young woman said that when her sister came into her room all angry and upset, instead of arguing with her, she used I-messages which calmed down her sister. The second was a young man who said that a neighbor's cows had come to eat his napier grass (grown to feed the cows during the dry season). Instead of going over to argue with him about the incident, he used I-messages which he felt had better effect in keeping this from happening again. The third, also a male, gave two examples. Two youth had been fighting for a long time and he brought them together and used transforming power to get them to resolve their hostilities. His second example was a young man with a grave problem--he had "strong homosexual tendencies." So he talked with him, advised him to be positive (another AVP principle). He said that they now talk frequently. Moreover he said that before the workshop, he would have avoided this youth as being "bad and sinful." Nivan was the fourth and talked about resolving a long-standing dispute between two youth over 5 shillings (7 US cents). The last, a female, had great difficulties with her mother who was working her very hard, but always criticizing and yelling at her. So she used I-messages with her mother and this calmed down the situation and began to repair the relationship with her mother.

Note that all the males' testimony (except one) were resolving arguments between two macho males, while the two young women's issues were family concerns. I speculate that the young women are using the I-messages as a method to assert themselves without antagonizing the other person. It is amazing that one three-day workshop could be this effective. The examples recounted here are sufficient to justify having held the workshop and there were 18 more participants and even these five young people may have used the skills learned at other times than these examples which they shared with us.

Next we talked about what they had done since the workshop. They have been meeting twice a week and have developed a play on ethnic differences which they are going to perform on April 10. They also wanted more basic workshops because they had to turn down others who wanted to come to this workshop --they had to actually send home potential participants to keep the workshop at a tenable size. [ Note the ideal number of participants is 20.] A second AVP workshop will take place soon. They told us that they wanted to visit the IDP camp (of Kikuyu) in Turbo. I said, "Let's go tomorrow" as Gladys, Getry, and I already had plans to visit the camp to see how they had been doing since we left for the US.

So yesterday afternoon about 2:00 PM we headed off to the IDP camp. All five of the youth showed up. At the camp we found that there are still 4,000 people. Their chairman, George Njoroge, told me that they had settled in. The school (which has almost 700 students plus another 200 in nursery school) was going nicely although a teacher had just died (I did not ask what he died of). The Red Cross was bringing maize (corn), beans, and now flour for porridge for the children. Since the rainy season had begun, there was no more dust. On the other hand the people in the camp (from all over Lugari District) were unable to go back to their plots of land to cultivate and plant. Njoroge gave us a list of the things which he considered most important--the list really hadn't changed much except that there was now no need for flour for porridge.

We walked through the camp, surrounded by a horde of children, many of the young ones wanting to hold my hand (most young children are afraid of an Mzungu and shy away). The women, in particular, came to greet Gladys warmly. At one point we gathered together, the chairman made a short introductory speech, all eight of us greeted them, there was a song and prayer of thanks. Two camp leaders, Gladys, Getry, and myself then went into our "office"--the back of the pick-up truck where we then discussed the idea of doing an AVP workshop (which we explained) with the youth. Njoroge responded most positively to this suggestion as he said it would be a step towards getting people to be accepted back into their home community. The workshop was arranged for the following week. He promised to recruit youth from each of the ten locations (small administrative units) in Lugari District, half male/half female, find a room and chairs, and two women to cook lunch. Our prior visits to the IDP camp (the first steps in peacebuilding) made these arrangements very easy as the camp leaders were very willing to help with arrangements.

But a good story (real or fiction) needs a surprise ending. While Nivan was walking around the camp, he met the parents of the youth who had slashed him. The parents apologized profusely about their son's behavior (he is no longer around). They asked Nivan if he would forgive their son. Nivan replied that he had already forgiven him since his wound (a large scar on his arm which will never go away) was now healed and he wanted to get on with his life.

Peace,
Dave

David Zarembka, Coordinator
African Great Lakes Initiative of the Friends Peace Teams

March 23, Report 36, David Z is back in Kenya, others plan US visits

From: David Zarembka
Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2008 11:07 PM
Subject: AGLI--Report from Kenya--March 23


Dear All,

As you may remember, I have spent the last three weeks in the United States participating in the Friends Peace Teams annual meeting and making 15 presentations on Kenya including one radio interview. The presentations went well and there was a larger turnout than expected at most of the talks. Many of the people who attended received my emailed reports from Kenya, others were long-time AGLI supporters, and a number of Kenyan nationals came (and approved most of what I said). The talk included my nine interpretations of the events in Kenya. I hope to get a chance to write it up, in which case you will receive a copy.

Gladys and I will be returning to the United States from June 15 to about July 15 so anyone who would like to arrange for us to address a group during that time, please let me know.

Adrien Niyongabo who directs the HROC program in Burundi is currently giving talks in the US. He will speak Tuesday, March 25 at 6:30 pm at Fifteenth Street Meeting in New York City: contact Anna Crumley-Effinger via anna.crumleyeffinger@gmail.com From April 3-5 Adrien will attend the FWCC Section of the Americas Annual Meeting near Indianapolis. Along with Adrian Bishop, clerk of Friends Peace Teams Council he will present an evening interest group. On Sunday, April 6th Adrien will speak at Adelphi Friends Meeting in Maryland.


Florence Ntakarutimana, also from the HROC program in Burundi, will be in the United States on a speaking tour from June 11 to July 13. She will attend Illinois Yearly Meeting from June 18 to 22 and will be the evening speaker on Thursday. Then Florence will travel to Urbana-Champaign MonthlyMeeting in Illinois, and Inter-Mountain Yearly Meeting June 11-15 at Ghost Ranch in Colorado. Florence will attend both the Friends General Conference Gathering in Johnstown, PA and Friends United Meeting Triennial. Following this the plan is for her to travel to Colombia, South America, to introduce the Healing and Rebuilding Our Community program (HROC) along with Theoneste Bizimana from HROC in Rwanda.

Theoneste will then come to the United States where he will attend Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative) from July 29 to Aug 3. He will be the evening speaker on Wednesday, July 30th. Afterward he will join the sessions of New England Yearly Meeting.

This fall, in October/November, we plan to bring Getry Agizah, the AVP Coordinator in Kenya, to the US for a speaking tour.

If you would like to host an event with any of these speakers, please let me know. Sooner is better. You can learn more about each of these African Partners on our new website at the same url, www.aglionline.org.

We returned to Kenya on Friday (3/21) and came back to Lumakanda on Saturday. As I move around I will have more comments on the situation--we hope to visit the internally displaced people from Lumakanda in Turbo tomorrow. The mood in Nairobi didn't seem quite as buoyant as the reports I was reading from Kenya on the internet. While everyone is relieved that a seemingly successful power-sharing agreement has been reached, the concern is now that all three major political parties are in the government, all cooperating together so nicely, perhaps the bad old days of one-party dictatorship can easily return in the form of a three party dictatorship. This remains to be seen.

As we traveled up-country through Naivasha, Nakuru, Timbaroroa, Burnt Forest, Eldoret, and Turbo--all hard-hit by the violence-- we could see the plastic huts of many displaced people still in the camps alongside the road. There was the same destruction of houses, shops, and farms as we could see before, but seeing all this again was discouraging since it all seemed so unnecessary.

After a year of delays, AVP-Western Kenya conducted the first two basic workshops with the Turkana and Pokot. The first was with older participants while the second had younger ones. There were only three women in the first workshop and two in the second, which Getry was concerned about. Since I had been told that the men would not want women to attend until they had "checked it out," this seemed a step forward. There were a total of ten AVP workshops while we were away including a good one here in Lumakanda. We are going to do some advanced workshops so that we can conduct another "Training for Facilitators" so we will have additional facilitators available to conduct workshops.

When we left for the US, it was still the dry season and dust was everywhere with four months of almost no rain. By the time we returned the rainy season had come to Lumakanda so the air and atmosphere is very different. After the dry season, the first rain is like the first snow for a five year old in America. Here everything stops for that first rain. The dogs bark, the cows jump up and down, the children go run in the rain and wiggle their toes in the mud, and everyone looks forward to planting of the new crops. It's a different kind of spring.

But the rainy season also means a lot of clouds so I don't know how much electricity my solar panel will be generating. My time on the laptop may become limited. But the day before we returned, the electric company finally put the poles and wires to our house (we applied in September). Of course they haven't put in the electric meter yet. So communication will be touch and go (or rather "sun or meter").

Peace,
Dave

David Zarembka, Coordinator
African Great Lakes Initiative of the Friends Peace Teams

Celebration! Sukie Rice (ME)

I've received nothing new yet from David Zarembka, but here is a message from Sukie (in Maine) reporting on things in Kakamega, where she has close ties to the care Center for AIDS orphans. The Dorothy she mentions is Dorothy Selebwa, clerk of the United Friends Women (all the Kenyan Yearly Meetings) and runs the Care Center.

Mary

----- Original Message -----

From: Sukie Rice

Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2008 12:09 AM

Subject: Kakamega Up-Date March 18

Dear friends,

Well, today is a day to celebrate. The Kenyan National Parliament has voted to accept the new constitutional changes which will create the position of Prime Minister who will have 50-50% power sharing with the President. Thus, President Kibaki and Raila Odinga (who will be the new Prime MInister) will be working together on an equal footing.

As you know many, many delicate and difficult steps have been taken to get to this point. It was Kofi Annan who pulled off the miracle of bringing these two men together and getting them to put their country before themselves and their party/tribe. What they came up with addresses not just power sharing, but also

--- A Truth and Reconciliation Commission to address the recent violence and longer term injustices.

--- An ethnic relations bill that promotes tribal tolerance in Kenya.

--- The major area of continued conflict in the Western Province near Mount Elgon where there have

been long-time land clashes between peoples because the same land has been promised by the government to two different tribal peoples.

The agreement was brought to the National Assembly and approved unanimously today. People throughout Kenya are singing and dancing in the streets. It was just a few weeks ago that Kofi Annan almost walked out because President Kibaki would not sign what he had previously agreed to. But just as it seemed that the country might go up in flames again, pressure from everywhere poured onto Kibaki and he signed, making it look like he was indeed the leader in bringing forth this agreement. You could hear an audible corporate "whew" from all of Kenya and Africa on the day that he and Odinga put their signatures to the agreement. At least 1000 deaths and 600,000 displaced people have borne the brunt of the misery of this struggle. What is hoped for is that Kenya will now move forward in a far stronger, more socially and politically just manner. And that these events will be viewed in the future as the turning point for Kenya taking essential steps toward greater equality and cooperation.

In Kakamega

Meanwhile, things have cooled down in Kakamega and life is proceeding very close to normal with the children all back in school and laughter once more heard in the halls of the Care Centre.

New girl, Sharon and Clinton getting new shoes for school.

--- The walls, ceiling and flooring of the boys dorm are COMPLETE. Painting, windows, and wiring are left to go. It is anticipated that the boys will be moving into it in April. When they do, new girls will be brought into the Care Centre to the vacated bedrooms. It has been very challenging at times to do the

construction as the political crisis made it difficult to get materials, water for the cement, etc. But they have persisted and are very excited by the progress.

--- The rains have begun and so has the planting. We have two new acres that are being planted. Some of the previously planted acreage is getting cover crops and sweet potatoes to help enrich the soil.

THANK YOU to ALL of you who have sent contributions during the past two months when things were so hard for everyone. Extra food has been given for all the home-based sponsored children. Food costs at the Care Centre have gone way up. Plus, they have been cooking extra meals during the day for "refugee" children who are staying in the "Internally Displaced Persons" (IDP) camp. Your extra contributions have been invaluable.

Emergency Relief Work

Dorothy and other Quakers have been coordinating weekly Emergency Relief trips to areas where the IDP refugees are staying. They report thousands of people who are living in areas where there is no place for them to go and no way of knowing how to build their futures.

At Cheptulu IDP camp

When Dorothy goes with the other Friends, they pray and encourage the people, then the long lines form to receive the grains, cooking oil, soap and blankets. Although the Red Cross has brought tents and food (enough for one meal a day) to the larger of the camps, Dorothy says that very often the food stuffs get siphoned away by men who use it for their personal benefit, often selling it for profit. Thus, the Friends are careful to stay until the last of the grains is apportioned out so it is really the women and children who receive the food.

A corner of the kitchen at the Mt. Elgon relief camp

--- They have been a number of times to the Mt. Elgon area where the land-clash violence continues.

--- They have been to camps where Kikuyu have suffered from the violence of Luo and Luyha.

--- They have been to camps where thousands of Luyha have been transported into Kakamega towns from Nakuru and Naivasha areas to be "safe." But as these people have no homes or relatives in these towns, they have no where to go and it is pitiful how hopeless they feel and is a terrible stress on all the people around. The Care Centre has been the central location "jumping off place" for these relief trips --- for gathering the rice from Kisumu, maize from Kitale, beans from Eldoret and blankets which Dorothy buys in town. At the Care Centre they load these things into a large lorry and take it off to the IDP camps. They thank God and all the people in the US and Canada who have sent funds to make their Relief work possible.

Loading up the lorry with grain bags and blankets.

In Closing

Well, my friends, it feels like a much needed rest is due and can come now. Of course the on-going support of the Care Centre is needed. I'd be very happy to help you in any fund-raising ideas you might have that you'd like to do. We still have a couple of openings for people to join the Service Project trip this August. It should be a powerful experience following this time of turmoil and violence. If you are interested, please contact me.

Dorothy and others ask over and again to thank you for caring for the Kenyan people. You should know that you all have quietly formed a very important community of support and caring for the people in Kakamega. I have often felt an awe of the spiritual kinship we have developed and I can only say that I, too, am very grateful to have you all as an extended family.

Blessings to each of you,

Sukie