Posted: 1/10/08
Christians in Kenya administer
aid as unrest continues
By Hannah Elliott
Associated Baptist Press
NAIROBI, Kenya (ABP)—Still-simmering violence sparked by disputed elections in Kenya continues to affect Baptist organizations and missionaries in the previously stable nation.
Gunfire erupted Jan. 7 in Limuru, a small town less than half a mile from Kenya Baptist Theological College. Several people were killed and almost 200 young men were arrested in the melee, according to Don Ashley, a professor of religion at Wayland Baptist University. The Texas-based university’s Kenya campus is housed at the theological school.
The incident was one of the latest manifestations of unrest that began Dec. 30 after official results of a controversial presidential election were announced. President Mwai Kibaki was re-elected over rival Raila Odinga, but Odinga’s supporters—many of them from a different ethnic group than Kibaki—alleged fraud.
At least 600 people have been killed and more than a quarter of a million displaced, according to official reports. Locals have said the violence is Kenya’s most chaotic period since the nation won independence from the United Kingdom in 1963. Intermittent fighting between Kibaki’s dominant Kikuyu tribe and other minority groups—especially Odinga’s Luo—have caused considerable tension.
Claude Nikondeha, who trains new pastors in Kenya through a group called Amahoro Africa, said the most shocking thing about the uproar is that Kenya had been one of sub-Saharan Africa’s most stable nations, but now it is as treacherous as some of its most infamous neighbors, such as Congo and Sudan.
“To see neighbors going after each other, and policemen not helping—you read that these things happened in Rwanda, but you never think you’re going to see it or witness it,” he said, referring to the horrific 1994 tribal dispute that led to the worst genocide since World War II. “The last thing you think is that it’s going to happen in my country, but then it happens in your face.”
Christians there are planning humanitarian aid efforts and adjusting travel and education schedules to compensate for the situation.
Aaron and Kaarli Sundsmo embarked Jan. 9 with pastor Edward Simiyu leading a caravan to get relief supplies from Nairobi to the western city of Eldoret.
Aaron Sundsmo, an American who has lived in Kenya two years, said his caravan will wind through the areas that have witnessed the most extreme fighting in order to deliver food, blankets, clothes and medicine. Simiyu, the team leader of Nairobi’s City Harvest Ministries, and the Sundsmos also plan to spend time with the gangs of youth manning checkpoints on the roads. The gangs have reportedly been attacking and killing people of opposing ethnic groups.
In Eldoret, Sundsmo said, the smell of dead bodies pervades everything—since there are no government services, people are left to die in the streets. The death toll of 600 may be a low estimate, he said, because rural areas have no government assistance in gathering and counting bodies.
But leaders of minority tribes say they have resorted to violence because their requests for the justice that would maintain peace have historically “been swept under the rug,” Sundsmo said.
“They’re saying they’re willing to die in some of these demonstrations,” he said. “They’re saying that what they need to do for Kenya and for their children is that if they don’t stand up and disallow this election and say we need an honest election and a government that will represent all Kenyans fairly, and if we don’t hand that over to our children, then we can’t live with ourselves. And we’re willing to do what it takes to see justice.
“And these are Christians who have been leaders in churches. So that makes it difficult.”
Sundsmo said virtually everyone in Kenya believes the elections were rigged. Indeed, the U.S. envoy, Jendayi Frazer, told the Associated Press that “there was rigging,” although she did not blame either Kibaki or Odinga. “I mean, there were problems with the vote counting process,” she said. “Both the parties could have rigged.”
A recount is not feasible, since many individual ballots have already been tainted or destroyed and, according to Kenya’s Constitution, recounts must be conducted within 72 hours of the election. Contesting the election in the courts is also risky, Sundsmo said, since “all of the judges have been hand-picked by Kibaki.” Instead, some have called for a transitional government that would work for six months or so to help organize a complete re-election.
Nikondeha said Kenya’s economy cannot support the considerable expense of staging a re-election and noted that Kibaki and Odinga are working instead to create a unity government, with Kibaki acting as president and Odinga as prime minister.
The ethnic tensions in the conflict are running deep. But Sam Harrell, a worker for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, wrote in a Jan. 8 newsletter that understanding the scenario either as purely “ethnic” or purely “political” is “to miss the mark.”
“The shallow characterization of our current scenario as ‘darkest Africa again rearing its head’ is both demeaning and ignorant,” said Harrell, who has been based in Nairobi with his wife, Melody, since 1999.
“Our current state has to do with a mixture of issues now escaping from Pandora’s box, including unresolved land disputes, ethnic divisions fanned by opportunistic politics, an insulated and entrenched elite, abject poverty, failed religion, self-serving foreign policy on the part of Western countries that have varied vested interests in this part of the world, and last-gasp efforts of the ‘big man’ mentality whose era we hope is on its way out in sub-Saharan Africa.”
Harrell echoed Sundsmo’s estimate that the dead numbered more than official reports.
“Over the years, we have become accustomed to occasional flare-ups of violence,” he said. “This, however, is on a scale we have not witnessed before. The turmoil is tearing at the fabric of the country. It will be a long time in recovery, especially the social fabric.”
Harrell said he and his family plan to remain in the country for the time being. Their ministry is still effective, and they’re currently assessing how to give practical aid to the people affected by the violence, he said.
The most pressing current needs of Kenyans are basic—food, clean water and medical supplies. Safe escort for people trying to leave villages is in high demand as well, said Simiyu, who works with AIDS patients in the slums of Nairobi.
“People still can’t travel freely, and hundreds are still holed up in the villages for fear of being attacked and killed at those (check)points,” he said via e-mail, adding that he has been involved in conflict mediation before “but not to level of risk that this poses.”
He said the Sundsmos “are, of course, risking even more as Americans, but they are a gracious gift to me in this exercise and may actually help put a neutral face to me and help me cross tribal lines that may otherwise demand my life.”
Aaron Sundsmo, on the other hand, said Simiyu was at greater risk than he.
“Frankly, they haven’t been targeting international people as much,” he said. “This is where my wife and I felt that our white skin and our American citizenship are really a help. We are not being targeted.
“Pastor Edward is from the Luo tribe. For the first half of the trip, he could be very much at risk. So he’s putting himself at great risk.”
Sundsmo urged Christians in the United States to keep pushing for an international focus in dealing with international poverty.
“I have not heard of any of the presidential candidates taking about this at all,” he said. “Putting that on the agenda—how do we address these sorts of concerns, which come out of poverty? That’s something that I hope the next president pays more attention to.”
Locally, Nikondeha and his colleagues at Amahoro Africa continue to work against the prevailing opinion that violence will accomplish what traditional channels of power have not.
Anything that involves violence is not a solution, he tells people. If anything, it causes more problems, especially for the poor. The solution, he says, is to become involved in the political system.
“The church needs to be involved in both prayer but also in voting and in the whole political process,” he said. “And (Christians) should start studying politics and getting involved in political parties to make a change. Those people who want to see change, they need to be involved in the political process. God will honor that.”
“Africa still has a long journey of this road of democracy, but we’re not going to get there by fighting. We’ll get there by pushing and pushing and speaking the truth.”
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