The crisis in Kenya

Re “First aid for Kenya,” editorial, Jan. 4

This editorial rightly warns of possible spiraling ethnic violence in Kenya, and your call for aggressive international mediation of its presidential election dispute is certainly prudent. Already, hundreds of Kenyans have lost their lives, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced. Those fomenting ethnic strife in Kenya should be put on notice that the world is watching.

All sides -- especially President Mwai Kibaki’s government, which apparently conducted a fraudulent election -- must be flexible to lessen tensions. Yet we should realize that the current electoral crisis is only a symptom of the ills of Kenya, which suffers deep tribal divisions that make a winner-take-all presidential election difficult. Unfortunately, too many Kenyan leaders view the ballot box as a means to gain through corrupt government service.

Building institutions that foster reconciliation and transparency will take decades. The international community should be engaged long before election day, so it isn’t called into more crises, in Kenya and elsewhere.

Rep. Ed Royce

(R-Fullerton)

The writer, who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, chaired the Africa subcommittee from 1997 to 2005.

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Re “Hunger, violence stalk the streets of Nairobi,” Jan. 7

This article’s image of “an angry, wild-eyed young man with a machete” reinforces a misleading “tribal” stereotype about Africa. Let us not confuse the Kenyan crisis with so-called tribalism. Kenya’s conflict is about ethnic politics -- or more accurately, how ethnicity becomes politicized in post-colonial Africa.

Like Barack Obama in the U.S., Raila Odinga has been a candidate for change in Kenya. In 2002, he sacrificed his own presidential ambitions to build a multiethnic coalition of progressive politicians that actually brought Kibaki to power. By 2003, when Kibaki came out against constitutional reform, he and Odinga split. Odinga formed a new coalition of Kalenjin, Luo, Luhya, Kamba, Maasai and others seeking a more equitable distribution of national resources. By 2007, Odinga had captured a multiethnic wave of popular support.

Let us underscore that Kenya’s current crisis was not caused by tribal hostilities between Luo and Kikuyu peoples, but by Kibaki’s suppression of the people’s choice.

Andrew Apter

Santa Monica

Willis Okech Oyugi

Los Angeles

Apter, a professor of history, is the director of the James S. Coleman African Studies Center at UCLA, where Oyugi is a history doctoral candidate.