Post Election 2007 Violence in Kenya: Rice with Kibaki

Peace talks: Ms. Rice shook hands Monday with President Mwai Kibaki She's pushing both sides to agree on a power-sharing deal.

Radu Sigheti/Reuters

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Kenya Monday to press for a power-sharing agreement.
By Rob Crilly | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the February 19, 2008 edition

Reporter Robert Crilly discusses the latest developments between the government and opposition leaders in Kenya.

Kisumu, Kenya - The pile of stones blocking the road here in this western Kenyan city is part tribute to a fallen comrade and part challenge to Kenya's politicians as they talk peace.

"We cannot remove the stones until we know that [opposition leader Raila Odinga] is the president," says Eliazar Otieno Oluga, one of the unemployed youths who hang out in a corrugated iron shed at the edge of a slum.

This area is the heartland of support for Mr. Odinga, who narrowly lost the disputed Dec. 27 presidential election that most observers say was deeply flawed.

Odinga has made conciliatory statements during recent peace talks brokered by former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Kenya Monday to urge both sides to agree to powersharing measures that diplomats hope will stem the violence that has killed more than 1,000 people and displaced more than 600,000. But Odinga faces pressure from his own supporters not to be too accommodating.

Angry youths don't want to compromise

The youths from his Luo ethnic group who burned buildings in Kisumu in the wake of the election say they will accept little in the way of compromise. The stones in the road – marking the spot where one their friends was shot by riot police – could quickly become missiles.

"We voted for a president, not a prime minister," says one. "The least we can accept is an interim government with a revote in six months."

The young men, who spend their days drinking or smoking bhang, the local name for marijuana, are typical of the dispossessed from whom Odinga draws much of his support.

He campaigned on a policy of majimbo – a form of devolved government that promised to share the benefits of Kenya's booming economy with those who felt they were missing out to members of President Mwai Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe.

In short, he offered his supporters hope.

Jaguba Nyabanda Anyango, a mechanic, says: "[Mr. Kibaki] has taken his people to the government. Now we want [Odinga] to take all Luos to government and provide jobs."

Without Odinga in the State House, they all say they will rip up their voting cards and turn their backs on Kenya's political system.

But first, they will burn what is left of Kisumu's once pretty city center.

"That is automatic if [Odinga] betrays us," says one of the young men.