POLITICS-KENYA: Partial Curfew Draws a Variety of Reactions

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Feb 6 1998 (IPS) - As Kenya’s government and opposition traded accusations over unrest in the country’s Rift Valley Province, even the imposition of a curfew in the provincial capital — ostensibly to help end the violence — has been used as ammunition by the two sides.

The 9 p.m.- 6 a.m. curfew, which Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi imposed Thursday to stop ethnic violence in the region, will affect bar owners, hoteliers and transporters, said a businessman here who requested anonymity. “It is not a good move for business,” he said Friday. “It amounts to a coup d’etat against the business community.”

Moi appeared angry when, on Thursday evening, he accused “businessmen and local authorities of a particular community” living in Nakuru town of funding the violence which has claimed more than 100 lives since Jan 10. The unrest has pitted people from the Kikuyu ethnic group — Kenya’s largest — against Moi’s Kalenjins and allied communities.

Speaking on local TV, Moi warned that anyone found loitering between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. would be arrested by the police.

Nakuru, located some 156 kilometres northwest of here, is the main town in the Rift Valley Province, where Njoro and Laikipia — the scene of the current violence — are located.

The two localities are near the famous Maasai Mara Game park and Lake Bogoria, which is popular for its springs and flamingos. The majority of the 750,000-odd tourists who visit Kenya every year pass stay in hotels in Nakuru, or pass through the town.

A top administrator in the Rift Valley Province, Nicholas Mberia, denied that the curfew and security checks announced Thursday would have any effect on business. “Travellers … and tourist lodges will not be affected but security officers would visit such places to ascertain that those there are genuine tourists,” he was quoted as saying by the independent East African Standard newspaper on Friday.

Mberia said the ban targeted mainly bars and night clubs “where touts and some criminals go to hibernate.” “The ban mainly concerns joints in town which are open around the time the ban has been slapped,” he said.

On Feb 4, a group of 41 parliamentarians of the ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU) from the Rift Valley accused Kenya’s opposition, particularly the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) of Kenya, led by Mwai Kibaki, of being behind the killings in the province.

“This conspiracy entails isolating ethnic communities in the Rift Valley with the aim of demonising them, KANU and the President (Moi), to justify a clandestine plan to bring down the democratically-elected government of Kenya. It further aims at targeting certain leaders in the province as a means of achieving a hidden agenda,” said a statement issued by the group.

The legislators charged that some opposition politicians had threatened to make Kenya ungovernable if KANU and Moi won general elections held on Dec. 29 last.

The accusation was dismissed by the DP. “The Rift Valley MPs are only looking for scapegoats which can only worsen the crisis,” it said in a statement.

“Their attempt to blame some DP personalities is an admission of the government’s impotence at solving the problem since by now the government should have arrested and charged those it suspects are behind the massacre,” it added.

The majority of the people killed were from the Kikuyu ethnic group, most of whom voted for the DP.

Following an outcry by the relatives and friends of those killed, a group of mainly Kikuyu opposition politicians led by Kibaki last week called on their community to defend itself against violence blamed on groups loyal to KANU.

“From today, l call upon all young men over 18 to stand up and defend the community …,” said Kibaki, as he led the calls at the burial of 19 victims of communal unrest in the province. “We have evidence that the ethnic violence unleashed against our people is planned.”

The violence has also been condemned by the church in Kenya, which demanded that government end it immediately. President Moi said he was saddened by religious leaders “supporting aggressors.”

Some here suggest that Moi’s decision to do something about the killings, which the opposition blames on the government, had to do with the proposed arrival of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) team here on Feb 8.

Donor sources here say they fear the violence will jeopardise negotiations with the IMF for a 205-million dollar aid package, if nothing is done to stop it.