Kenia (Continuación)

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'Africans make up stories." I heard this refrain over and again while researching imperial history in Kenya. I was scarcely surprised when it came from former settlers and colonial officials living out their days in the country's bucolic highlands. But I was concerned to find that this position took on intractable proportions among some historians.

At the time of decolonisation, colonial officials destroyed and removed tons of documents from Kenya. To overcome this, I collected hundreds of oral testimonies and integrated them with fragments of remaining archival evidence to challenge entrenched views of British imperialism.

My methods drew sharp criticism. Revising the myths of British imperial benevolence cut to the heart of national identity, challenging decades-old scholarship and professional reputations.…  Seguir leyendo »

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L'attentat revendiqué par les islamistes radicaux chabab au centre commercial de Westgate à Nairobi soulève bien des questions sur le déroulement de l'attaque et les capacités des Chabab à répéter une telle opération, au Kenya ou dans les autres pays de la sous-région. Il interroge aussi sur la violence extrême qui s'y est déployée et dont on ne mesure pas, pour l'instant, toute l'étendue. S'il est encore trop tôt pour mener une analyse de grande envergure, il est temps de s'arrêter sur l'impact d'un tel événement sur la société et la vie politique kényanes.

Le Kenya est longtemps resté à l'écart du conflit somalien et a même profité de certaines des retombées économiques de cette guerre grise, dont les revenus de la piraterie.…  Seguir leyendo »

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I was watching the 1 o’clock news at home on Saturday when the Westgate mall story broke. Young, casually dressed men — carrying very sophisticated weapons — had opened fire on shoppers in Nairobi’s luxury mall, killing dozens, and taking an unknown number hostage.

Westgate is 10 minutes’ drive in clear traffic from where I live. I listened hard for gunshots. Like most Kenyans, my first instinct was to jump on a bus and go and see for myself — a bad habit we have often been warned against. Instead I stayed glued to the screen, watching CCTV footage — a man grimacing and holding his side, his AK-47 beside him, another taking aim from behind a pillar.…  Seguir leyendo »

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At a burger restaurant, the body of a man and woman lie in a final embrace. As Kenyan soldiers launch their assault, pop music is still playing from loudspeakers.

The grisly consequences of an attack by al-Shabaab on Nairobi's Westgate shopping centre are still unfolding. As individual families mourn, Kenya is once again counting the cost of its point position as a regional bulwark against militant Islam. The country has been here before: in 1998 al-Qaida bombed the US embassy in the Kenyan capital; and in 2002 a terror attack against an Israeli-owned passenger aircraft and hotel took place in the coastal city of Mombasa.…  Seguir leyendo »

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There is a dreadful symmetry to the terrorist atrocity in Kenya. The outrage in Westgate shopping centre shows not only the enduring ability of al-Qaeda’s brethren to kill and maim in the teeth of the biggest counter‑terrorism campaign in history, it reminds us that Nairobi was the place where Osama bin Laden’s network first demonstrated its lethal potency.

Almost exactly 15 years ago, a truck bomb exploded two miles from the site of the Westgate mall. The heavily fortified US embassy was the nominal target, but a vulnerable nearby tower block bore the brunt of the blast. For a terrible instant, the sky above the crowded streets of central Nairobi rained shards of jagged glass, blinding scores of bystanders.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Helicopters hovered overhead. Ambulances raced through crowded streets to hospitals around the city. As late as Sunday evening, more than 24 hours after the initial attack, bursts of gunfire echoed through the mall in central Nairobi where Somali terrorists killed 59 people and hold about 30 hostages. Their demand: that Kenya withdraw the forces it deployed to Somalia two years ago as part of an international effort to drive Islamist extremists known as Al Shabab out of Mogadishu and other major cities, and return the country to government rule and a semblance of normal life.

That demand was rejected, out of hand, at a press conference on Sunday by President Uhuru Kenyatta, who said he himself had lost loved ones in the heinous attack.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Among the raft of al-Qaeda groups that sprung up round the world after 9/11, the Somali branch of the franchise was not one of the more promising start-ups. A direct product of life in the most lawless corner of the planet, al-Shabaab’s followers were considered too violent and quarrelsome even to work with each other, never mind pose a threat to the rest of the world. For all their videos declaring themselves “at Bin Laden’s service”, the joke among Western intelligence agencies was that even al-Qaeda’s high command, like everyone else, would struggle to get anything organised in somewhere as chaotic as Somalia.…  Seguir leyendo »

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On Tuesday, the eyes of Kenya will be firmly fixed on The Hague, where the trial of the country’s deputy president, William Ruto, and his co-defendant, Joshua arap Sang, an influential radio executive, is set to begin before the International Criminal Court. They have been charged with crimes against humanity for their alleged roles in the violence that rocked Kenya in late 2007 and early 2008. Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, will face similar charges in a related case set for trial in November.

As the world reels from atrocities committed in Syria and Egypt, it may be easy to forget that nearly six years ago, it was Kenya that was on fire.…  Seguir leyendo »

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On one of Kenya’s main television networks on Wednesday night, the news announcer wore a funereal expression as she called the fire that destroyed the arrivals terminal of our main airport earlier that morning a national “calamity.”

The response to the blaze was slow. There was a shortage of fire engines and a lack of sufficient water for the fire hoses. Soldiers resorted to carrying buckets of water to douse the flames, which took four hours to put out. There are reports that emergency responders may have engaged in looting.

A third of Europe’s flower imports, a majority of Kenya’s tea exports and millions of tons of fresh produce pass through the airport each year.…  Seguir leyendo »

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The British do not torture. At least, that is what we in Britain have always liked to think. But not anymore. In a historic decision last week, the British government agreed to compensate 5,228 Kenyans who were tortured and abused while detained during the Mau Mau rebellion of the 1950s. Each claimant will receive around £2,670 (about $4,000).

The money is paltry. But the principle it establishes, and the history it rewrites, are both profound. This is the first historical claim for compensation that the British government has accepted. It has never before admitted to committing torture in any part of its former empire.…  Seguir leyendo »

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There was something deliciously serendipitous about the power going off in northern Kenya on May 27 just as Judge J.A. Makau read his much-anticipated decision in a case could alter the status of women and girls in Kenya and maybe all of Africa.

But the lights did come on. And the judge in the high court in Meru declared: “By failing to enforce existing defilement laws, the police have contributed to the development of a culture of tolerance for pervasive sexual violence against girl children and impunity.”

Guilty.

An extraordinary story of tenacity and courage, wit and survival led to this victory.…  Seguir leyendo »

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I was in the giant crowd in Uhuru Park in downtown Nairobi in the run-up to the 2007 election when the presidential candidate Raila Odinga told his supporters they were tiny but fiery safari ants, who were going to drive the snake that had invaded the bird’s nest out of the tree.

This analogy comes from African folklore. Mr. Odinga suggested that his supporters, by their sheer numbers, were capable of achieving what the other animals of the forest were afraid of doing. The reformers who supported his democratic movement, which stood in opposition to the presidency of Mwai Kibaki, embraced the label of safari ants.…  Seguir leyendo »

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I must have been about 10 in colonial Kenya when I saw men, women and children in a convoy of lorries being forcibly removed from their land and relocated to some dry plains they called the land of black rocks. They sang a sorrowful melody, but one that described their love and solidarity in hardship: even when they picked a morsel from the ground, they split it among themselves. It was an image that captured vividly the ideals of mutual care and collective hope in the Kenyan anticolonial resistance. In my first trip to Europe, in 1965, virtually the entire village saw me off at the airport.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Uhuru Kenyatta is the president-elect of Kenya. Together with his deputy, William Ruto, he has persuaded just over 50% of Kenyans that with his Jubilee coalition in power there is a strong chance that there will be lasting peace in the Rift Valley. Voters are fully aware of this, and what this election means. International media have missed the point.

For half the country, especially the Kikuyu and Kalenjin, this election has been all about security. Nobody believes, for example, that the international criminal court is serious enough, strong enough or material enough to the political reality in Kenya to make much of a difference.…  Seguir leyendo »

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An extraordinary scene played out Monday night in Kenya. The seven men and one woman seeking the presidency came together for only the second time in the country’s history for a debate ahead of next Monday’s election. Most of their answers were thoughtful and respectful.

It will be the first presidential election since 2007 when the opposition, responding to allegations of vote rigging by President Mwai Kibaki’s party, began an orgy of violence that left more than 1,100 people dead and 250,000 displaced. It took former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan months to mediate an imperfect truce that nonetheless continues to hold.…  Seguir leyendo »

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When Kenya goes to the polls on Monday, it will mark a generational change – no matter who wins. For the first time in its history, the country will be run by a leadership with hardly any direct experience of colonialism. There are risks to this development: the new leadership might trivialise what it means to be colonised, and the insidious ways in which imperialism is reproduced.

The outgoing president, Mwai Kĩibaki, is the last of the generation that led the country to independence, and for whom, whatever the policy, imperialism and anti-colonial resistance were not just slogans. They had seen blood in the streets and mass incarceration; the Hola massacre was mere smoke at the gates of hell.…  Seguir leyendo »

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A medida que en Kenia se aproximan las elecciones generales del 4 de marzo, se mantienen frescos en la memoria los recuerdos del derramamiento de sangre que empañó la polémica elección presidencial del año 2007. La votación terminó en un enfrentamiento entre el presidente entrante Mwai Kibaki, quien se declaró como ganador, y el candidato de la oposición, Raila Odinga, quien desestimó la votación indicando que la misma fue manipulada. Los enfrentamientos étnicos subsiguientes cobraron la vida de más de 1.200 personas y desplazaron a otras 250.000.

La violencia sólo terminó después de que el ex Secretario de las Naciones Unidas Kofi Annan ayudara a negociar un acuerdo de reparto de poder según el cual Kibaki retuvo la presidencia y Odinga se convirtió en el primer ministro.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Tema: Al-Qaeda estableció una célula en Kenia a inicios de los 90. Al-Shabab se formó posteriormente en Somalia. Pero la relación entre ambas es muy estrecha, constituyendo una amenaza terrorista para la región del Este de África y más allá.

Resumen: El Este de África es desde el inicio de la década de los 90 un escenario particularmente significativo del terrorismo yihadista, aunque sea en estos momentos cuando adquiera una especial relevancia. Al-Qaeda estableció una célula en Kenia al poco de dar comienzo aquella década y desde entonces no ha dejado de constituir una amenaza para la estabilidad del país y su economía nacional.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Kenyans have just finished voting on whether to approve a new constitution that would limit presidential power and devolve power from the centre. I did not vote. Since the early 1990s when Kenya was emerging from a single-party, authoritarian period, I have mostly lived and worked abroad. Referendum day finds me watching CNN or the BBC, laptop at hand and my phone bill rising precipitously as I call for news of the mood, the winners and losers. I worry for the safety of family and friends since elections have almost invariably been followed by violent conflict. A complex politics pits ethnic blocks against one another in ever-shifting allegiances, led by the same class that has mostly been in control since independence.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Kenya's parliament has an inexhaustible capacity to debate on an issue for days without reaching an agreement. But when it comes to an issue touching on their welfare, they can expedite it in an amazingly short time.

This week, they voted to award themselves a massive pay hike – at a time when everyone is feeling the pain of inflation and the weight of heavy tax burden. Currently, an MP takes home 851,000 Kenyan shillings (approximately £8,510) per month. The new salary will see them take home Sh 1.1m.

The issue of MPs' salaries has been controversial for a long time.…  Seguir leyendo »