Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyatta to meet UK’s David Camero
Mr Kenyatta is charged with crimes against humanity
May 7, 2013 (BBC) — Kenya’s President and ICC indictee Uhuru Kenyatta will meet UK Prime Minister David Cameron during a three-day visit to London, his office says.
A Kenyan rights group has condemned the visit – his first to a Western nation since his election in March.
The UK had said it would maintain only essential contact with Mr Kenyatta, but has invited him to London to attend a conference on the Somalia conflict.
He denies International Criminal Court charges of crimes against humanity. Read more…
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Kenya: Inside Story – Heavy is the head … Is ICC irrelevant? (Listen to discussion)
March 11, 2013 (Aljazeera) — How can Kenya’s new president govern while facing trial for crime against humanity in the Hague? Discussing with Jane Dutton are guests Muthoni Wanyeki, former executive director of the Kenyan Human Rights Commission; Jendayi Frazer, who spent more three and a half years as US assistant secretary of state for African Affairs; and Paul Moorcraft, director of the Centre for Foreign Policy Analysis. Read more…
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Kenya Race Is Said to Have Winner, but Rival Won’t Concede; The Election May Offer U.S. Tough Choice
Supporters of the Kenyan presidential candidate Uhuru Kenyatta surged as he arrived at a rally in Nairobi on Saturday. He has been charged with heinous crimes, accused of using a vast fortune to bankroll death squads that slaughtered women and children. His running mate also faces crimes against humanity charges, and as Kenya’s election drew closer, the Obama administration’s top official for Africa issued a thinly veiled warning about the vote, saying that Kenyans are, of course, free to pick their own leaders but that “choices have consequences.”
March 9, 2013, NAIROBI, Kenya (The New York Times) — Uhuru Kenyatta, the son of Kenya’s first president and a divisive political figure who has been accused of bankrolling death squads, appeared to have secured enough votes to win the race for Kenya’s presidency early Saturday. But no official announcement was made, and the other top contender indicated that he would not concede defeat, raising worries of violence and chaos. Read more…
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Kenyatta takes early lead as Kenya counts votes
Kenyan presidential candidate Uhuru Kenyatta casts his vote, accompanied by his wife Margaret Wanjiru Gakuo, right, at the Mutomo primary school near Gatundu, north of Nairobi, in Kenya on Monday.
March 5, 2013 (Reuters) – Kenyan presidential hopeful Uhuru Kenyatta opened an early lead as the country counted ballots on Tuesday in an election that brought out millions of voters despite pockets of violence that killed at least 15 people.
Kenyans, who had waited patiently in long lines to vote, hope the poll will restore the nation’s image as one of Africa’s most stable democracies after tribal blood-letting killed more than 1,200 people when the result of the 2007 vote was disputed.
Partial tallies from Monday’s broadly peaceful voting in the presidential election gave the edge to Kenyatta, the 51-year-old deputy prime minister, over his rival, Prime Minister Raila Odinga, 68.
Kenyatta’s lead held through counting overnight but could still be overhauled with about two-thirds of polling stations still to report. The election committee said counting might not be completed till Wednesday, delaying any official announcement. Read more…
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At least 15 killed on Kenya coast on election day
REFILE – ADDING DATE Masai wait to cast ballot papers outside a polling station during the presidential and parliamentary elections near town of Magadi some 85 km (53 miles) south of Nairobi March 4, 2013. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic
March 4, 2013 (Reuters) – At least 15 people were killed in attacks by machete-wielding gangs on Monday as millions of Kenyans voted in the first presidential election since a disputed 2007 poll unleashed weeks of tribal bloodshed.
Voting the tight contest passed off peacefully across most of the East African nation, although many of its 14.3 million voters were caught in long lines. Election officials said there was a high turnout without giving figures.
Officials and candidates have made impassioned appeals to avoid a repeat of the tribal rampages that erupted five years ago when disputes over the poll result fuelled clashes between tribal loyalists of rival candidates.
More than 1,200 people were killed, shattering Kenya’s reputation as one of Africa’s most stable democracies and bringing its economy, sub Saharan Africa’s fourth-largest, to a standstill. Read more…
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Kenya elections: What if Raila Odinga doesn’t win? Background
FILE – In this Monday, Feb. 11, 2013 file photo, Kenyan presidential candidates, from left, Uhuru Kenyatta, Peter Kenneth, Musalia Mudavadi, Martha Karua, and Raila Odinga, take part with other candidates, unseen, in a televised debate in Nairobi, Kenya. The toll of more than 1,000 dead after Kenya’s last election makes the presidential vote on Monday, March 4, 2013 the most important in the country’s 50-year history, while a slate of new races and a presidential candidate Uhuru Kenyatta who faces charges at the International Criminal Court also make it Kenya’s most complicated. (AP Photo, File)
March 3, 2013, NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) – Tomorrow is the day the much anticipated general elections in Kenya will occur. Much as the Kenyans are right to promote it as a national exercise, the regional interest in the elections is inescapable.
The excitement in the region is understandable: its importance to the region is irreplaceable (at least for now and in the near future). That is why the whole region (actually even global powers), is ‘looking forward’ to these elections with keen interest.
The interest in the polls derive from two areas: The violence that followed the December 2007 elections (which almost paralysed regional trade) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) indictment of one of the presidential candidates.
Read more…
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Deadly ‘revenge’ raid in Kenya’s Tana River Delta region
January 11, 2013 (BBC News) — At least 10 people, including five children, have been killed in a dawn raid in south-eastern Kenya in what officials say is a revenge attack.
More people were injured in the attack by suspected ethnic Ormas on a Pokomo village in the Tana River delta region.
Survivors were being treated for gunshot wounds, machete cuts and burns, said Red Cross officials.
The attack on Kibusu village came a day after raiders attacked a nearby Orma village, killing at least six.
The two villages are some 20km (12 miles) apart, with a police road block nearby.
Security had been stepped up after more than 100 villagers died in attacks in the area last year. Read more…
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Former GSU officer among 50 suspects held over Tana killings
IN SUMMARY
- The new wave of attacks comes even as a commission investigating the cause of clashes between two communities – Pokomo and Orma – which erupted in August when more than 100 people were killed, is yet to conclude its findings.
December 23, 2012, Kenya (Daily Nation) – A former GSU officer was among more than 50 people arrested on Saturday morning in the wake of fresh attacks in Tana River County.
Tana River county commissioner Joseph Rotich said the officer deserted duty recently.
“We also recovered one AK-47 rifle with three rounds of ammunition. The suspects are all locked up at the Gamba and Garsen police stations,” he said, adding that they arrested 56 people in the raid carried out by about 200 GSU and Administration Police officers at Ngao village. Read more…
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Kenya: The Killings of Orma by Pokomo people
IN SUMMARY
39 people killed during attacks in Kipao village, Tana Delta
Red Cross officials walk away after residents of Kipao village stopped them from taking away the bodies of the ten suspected Pokomo raiders after they were killed by Ormas after they had attacked and killed twenty Ormas. Photo/GIDEON MAUNDU NATION MEDIA GROUP
December 22, 2012, Kenya (The Nation) – More than 39 people, most of them women and children, were on Friday massacred in a dawn raid hours after elders from the Pokomo and Orma communities had sued for peace.
Tana Delta district commissioner David Kiprop said security officers were aware of the tension in the area, but the attack caught them unawares.
“I want to tell you that last night I received a mobile phone text message from a senior politician and leader of the other community, warning his people to be ready for an imminent attack. From today, the government is on hot pursuit of the person,” said Mr Kiprop.
The flare-up might force the judicial commission investigating past violence in Tana River to review its position, Lady Justice Grace Nzioka who is chairing the team told the Nation. Read more…
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Kenya: Oromoota Sodaa Keessa Jiran irraa – Quba qabduu yaa warra Ayyaantuu!
Nobody has yet said they carried out Friday’s attack
December 8, 2012
Nagaa jireenya, fayyaa qaamaa fi dagaagina warraaqsaa isiniif hawwa! jechaa:
As magaalaa Naayroobii aanaa Eastleigh/iistley/ keessa kan jiraannu baqattoonni Oromoo sodaa guddaa keessaa jirra. Kutaa magaalaa kana keessatti yoo xiqqaate yeroo ji’a tokko hin guunne keessatti boombiin sadi darbatameera. Inni dhuma ji’a sadaasaa keessa konkolaataa irraa dhoowe nama 7 ajjeesee 22madeesse. Sababuma kanaan “ummanni Somaalee nurraa ka’uu qaba” jedhanii warri lammii biyyattii ta’an hookkaraa fi lola jalqaban. Booda immoo warri humni nagaa eegsisu kan GSU (General Service Unit) jedhamu jidduu seenee erga tasgabeessee booda roobii guyyaa dheengaddaas boonbiin tokko asuma Easleigh keessatti naannoo Joster supermarketii kanatti darbatame. Namni 7 madaa’ee boodarras tokko hospitaalumatti du’e. Joosterii kana biratti qofa yeroo 3ffaaf dhoohuu isaaati. Read more…
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Pitched battles between ‘Kenyans’ and Somalis in Nairobi
But for many Somalis in Eastleigh the bus bombing is a mere pretext for non- Somali youths from the slums on the other side of Juja Road to come and steal/FILE
November 2012, NAIROBI (AFP) – One side surges forward only to retreat under a hail of stones then the opposing side advances and comes in for a flurry of stones – in Eastleigh, a quarter of Nairobi that was the scene of a deadly attack, youths of Somali origin Monday battled Kenyans from other communities.
“Those Somalis are terrorists,” say the youths on one side, lumping together the Somali refugees and Kenyans of Somali extraction who together make up the majority of Eastleigh’s inhabitants.
“They have money and they are bankrolling the Shabaab,” say several members of the group that calls itself the “Kenyans”, referring to Somalia’s Al-Qaeda-linked Islamists. Read more…
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At least 32 Kenya police killed in cattle raider ambush
Reuters/Reuters – An unidentified injured policeman rests in a hospital bed in Kenya’s capital Nairobi November 11, 2012, following an ambush in Baragoi. Armed cattle raiders killed at least 32 Kenyan police officers when they ambushed them in the remote northern county of Samburu on Saturday, a government official said on Monday, in the latest fighting between rival tribes in a dispute over land. REUTERS/Stringer
November 13, 2012, NAIROBI (Reuters) - Armed cattle raiders killed at least 32 Kenyan police officers in a military-style ambush, officials said on Monday, calling it the worst attack on police in Kenya’s history.
Officers hunting down the cattle thieves in a remote northern region on Saturday came under machinegun fire and rocket-propelled grenades in an ambush the police said was conducted with “military precision”.
“We have recovered more bodies, we now have 32 in total. They were ambushed by attackers bearing sophisticated weapons, including machine guns,” Osman Warfa, provincial commissioner for the vast Rift Valley province of Warfa, told Reuters.
The police were pursuing raiders from the ethnic Turkana community who had stolen cattle from the Samburu tribe, authorities said. The two groups frequently raid cattle from each other and fight over grazing land and watering points.
The violence has created security concerns ahead of a presidential election scheduled for March next year – the first since a disputed election in 2007 fuelled ethnic slaughter that killed more than 1,200 people and forced about 300,000 from their homes. Read more…
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Kenya Falling Apart – Interview Thomas Mountain (Audio)
September 4, 2012 (Natna) – Thomas Mountain, independent journalist based in Eritrea, discusses with Scott, Kenya’s problems with rising food prices, IMF demands and looming civil war …. and Al-Shabaab’s fight in Somalia against overwhelmed African Union peacekeepers.
http://ia600802.us.archive.org/1/items/ThomasMountain-KenyaAboutToFallApart/83112ThomasC.MountainOnScottHortonShow12_08_31_mountain.mp3
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