Kenya Stockholm Blog

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1. UHURU cancels some rallies in KISII after a fierce REBELLION

   Tuesday January 8, 2013 – The Kenyan DAILY POST has learnt that Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta has been forced to cancel some rallies in Kisii County after meeting a tough rebellion from Kisii County residents.

   The DPM who is the Jubilee coalition’s flag bearer was forced to abandon his rally at Etago Market, Bomachoge Constituency after residents heckled him dismissing his coalition with Eldoret North MP William Ruto.

   In what may have been a revenge for the 2007 embarrassment, the Kisii residents said that as long as Ruto was his running mate, he won’t get the Kisii votes.

   The Tuesday rallies were poorly attended that Uhuru had to instruct choppers to do rounds to attract attention.

   Follow the Kenyan DAILY POST for more political intrigues and conspiracies…..

   The Kenyan DAILY POST

   Comment by fenaya | January 8, 2013

2. Mau Eviction was a Cabinet decision, says Raila

   Prime Minister Raila Odinga today exonerated himself from blame over the Mau issue saying the decision to evict squatters from the Mau forest was a cabinet decision. He said he was simply carrying out in his capacity as the supervisor and coordinator of government affairs. Noting that he had been unfairly vilified for spearheading a noble idea of afforesting the Mau, Mr. Odinga said it was wrong for some Members of Parliament from the Kalenjin community who were themselves in the cabinet at the time that decision was being taken to rally their community against him for political expediency.

   The PM was Speaking at Siongiroi in Bomet county after opening the Holy Family Catholic church where he also attended Sunday mass. He explained that the cabinet did not intend to punish the evictees by making that decision adding that it indeed undertook to resettle them on suitable land elsewhere an exercise he said had unfortunately dragged on for long because of unavailability of funds to buy the land. He said, “We have now gotten money and acquired land at Majani mingi near Rongai where we settled 700 families last week, and will acquire more land to resettle all the remaining Mau forest evictees before the general election.”

   Once again, Mr. Odinga hit out at allegations that he influenced the arraignment of six Kenyans at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague for bearing the greatest responsibility over the 2008 post election violence emphasizing that he was not party to that decision. Noting that among the six ,there were two senior members of his ODM party Henry Kosgei and William Ruto , the PM wondered how he could betray his own people even if he had the influence. He said “It is unfortunate that my competitors have politicized the Hague issue to make political capital out of a grave matter.”

   At the same time, Mr. Odinga lashed out at tribalism saying it was the cause of bad politics and could impede democratic development in the country and bring about bad blood among different ethnic groups. Saying the hallmarks of leadership should be sound policies and not ones’ tribe, Mr Odinga called on Kenyans to elect a leader on account of his track record of development and not their tribe. He explained that ODM was not able to deliver as they pledged in the run up to the last general election due to the complex nature of coalition government, but hastened to add that when the party gets into government next year it will endevour to deliver to Kenyans.

   The Minister for Roads Franklin Bett reaffirmed that he was in ODM to stay adding that no one had given him reason enough to quit the party. The same sentiments were echoed by an assistant minister for energy Mager Langat who said he will be the last person to leave the orange party and that those leaving ODM were afraid of competition in the party . Also present were Ministers Henry Kosgei and James Orengo and assistant minister Beatrice Kones who is also the MP for Bomet.

   http://www.kassfm.co.ke/news/1078-mau-eviction-was-a-cabinet-decision-says-raila

   Comment by PJ | January 8, 2013

3. Raila Odinga Had no Role in the Mau Forest Eviction Exercises
   News Analysis By Leo Odera Omolo
   The younger generation of politicians, particularly the Kalenjin MPs who of late have been pointing accusing fingers at the Prime Minister Raila Odinga blaming him of complicity in the Mau Forest evictions and rehabilitation of this important water tower, are simply not telling the truth about the historical background of the matter.
   The political history of Mau Forest and other injustices related to the land distribution could as well be traced back to the final constitutional talks on the future of an independent Kenya, which were held inside the famous Lancaster House in London, UK in 1962.
   These problems are inter-related to the dismantling of the so-called “White Highlands”. It has since emerged that during the round table constitutional talks, the African delegates who were then representing two major political parties of the time, namely KANU and KADU were subjected to too much blackmailing by the White Settlers representative and those representing colonial authorities.
   And due for the then clamor for political independence and the liberation of the country from the colonial york to an independent African government, they hastily and hurriedly rubber-stamped many clauses in the then new Lancaster House constitution that were only meant for the protection of white settlers and their properties.
   Kanu delegates were led by the founding President the late Jomo Kenyatta, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Tom Mboya, James Samuel Gichuru, Eliud Ngala Mwanda, Muhinga Chokwe and other party stalwarts like Dr Julius Gikonyo Kiano,Samuel Onyango Ayodo, and Mbiyu Koinange.
   The KADU team was led by Ronald Gideon Ngala, Daniel T. Moi, Masinde Muliro, Taaitta Arap Toweett, Marie John Seroney, Peter Habenga Okondo, William Murgor and John Keen.
   The moderate white settlers were led by Michael Blundell, Sir Charles Markham, Mrs Agnes Shaw, Mrs Dorothy Hughes, Bruce Mackenzie, Sir Alfred Vincent , Culwick and Crosskill, R.S Alexander and Humprey Slade, Derek Eriaskin and others.
   There were also extremist racists/white supremacists like major BP Roberts, Major F. Day, Aircomodore Howard Williams and others. Ex-officio representatives included the Governor, the deputy Governor Sir Patrick M Renson, the Chief Secretary, W.F.Coutts and Minister for legal Affairs Griffith Jones ,Q.C. and others.
   The Indian community was represented by the likes of Avind Jammidar, Ibrahim Nathoo, D.B Kholi, J.S Patel, F. De Souza, C.B. Madan, and K.P Shah.
   Due to the clamor for political independence, KANU AN KADU delegates to the talks were coerced and blackmailed by the representatives of the Her Majesty government at the Whitehall and Colonial Office led by the then Secretary of State for the British Colonies Duncan Sandys to succumbed easily to the white settlers demands for compensation for those who wished to leave the county at the independence.
   The British government at the same time readily made available millions of sterling British pounds, which was to be given to the new Kenya government headed by he late Jomo Kenyatta. The money was meant to be utilized in compensation payout to the departing white settlers and partly to be used in the purchasing of the farms owned by European settlers and other for properties and partly for the settling of the millions of the landless African people of Kenya.
   Immediately when Independence came and the white settlers had realized that the new African government had the money for the compensation of their land an property, there was mass exodus of the whites despite of the repeated assurances given by Jomo Kenyatta and members of the post-independence cabinet that their property would be given maximum security protection under the Bill of Rights entrenched in the Lancaster House constitution, the majority of the whites settlers numbering about 200,000 in population opted to go out of Kenya for green pasture elsewhere.
   The new independent government half-heartedly used the money in settling few African populations in Subukia, Rongai, Londiani, Molk, Olkalou, Nyahururu, Laikipia, and other places.
   The settlement scheme and the re-distribution of the lands were, however, biased and only dished out selectively to favor one particular community [the Kikuyu] at the expense of other needy Kenyans.
   The Kikuyus were given farmlands in areas previously considered as the indigenous Kalenjin regions in total disregards of the local indignant communities.
   Members of the Kalenjin community dissented to this, but the senior Kalenjin politicians of the time who were none other than Daniel Arap Moi and Dr. Taaitta Arap Towett, were happily serving in the post independence cabinet and never raised any objection to the settling of Kikuyu people in area previously considered as the Kalenjin land.
   Two Kalenjin politicians, however, were vehemently opposed to the spread of Kikuyu settlement in what they considered as Kalenjin land. They were Marie John Seroney, then the MP for Tinderet and Morogo Saina, then the MP for Eldoret North. This was the source of hostility between Seroney and the KANU government, which led to both Seroney and Saina being jailed and landed in detention camps following the then infamous Nandi Hills Declaration.
   It was the same money given by the British government for the settlement of landless African people of Kenya that Kenyatta is being alleged to have used in acquiring vast plantation s land in Taita Taveta, Mwatate, Ziwani, Laikipia, Ruiru and Salgaa near Nakuru.
   Jomo Kenyatta died on August 22nd 1978 and the then Vice President for 12 years Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi, stepped into his shoes and took the mantle of power. It was during Moi’s presidency that the government half-heartedly opened up the Mau Forest and other areas for Kalenjin settlement; most of them illegal squatters.
   The first tribal land clashes between the Kalenjin, Kikuyu, Kisii, Luos, Luhyas were believed to have been launched with the full knowledge of members of the security apparatus during the Moi’s Presidency.
   It was also the Moi KANU regime which encouraged tribal land clashes which were meant to cleanse the region of what were commonly called madoadoa (dotted colours) out of the region.
   The dreaded Kalenjin warriors were secretly trained and armed with crude weapons in the Embobut Forest, Ndoinet, Marigat and Mau Forest and then ferried in government vehicles an other trucks donated by wealthy Kalenjin businessmen and farmers when they launched a three-pronged full scale attack on the Kisii in Sotik, Luos in Nyando Valley, Nyakach an luhyas in Lugari and along he Rift Valley-Western Provinces boundaries causing the first internally displaced persons in 1996/97 and the worst of all was during the 2007/2008 post-election violence.
   The original intention was to keep at bay those who were clamoring for the multi parties system of politics then opposed to the KANU doctrine of the monolithic one party dictatorship.
   On the latest opposition to Raila Odinga’s role in the Mau Forest saga, the Prime Minister had no personal interests in the forest, but was just executing and implementing the collective decision of the cabinet. Some of the now outspoken MPs like William Ruto were members of the cabinet when decision and government plans on the rehabilitation of Mau Forest were being deliberated upon, but they did not raise any objection.
   Mr Odinga should be exonerated out of these malicious accusations and falsehood as he has done nothing wrong to the Kalenjin community because the source of injustices done to this particular community as far as the land redistribution is concerned, lies elsewhere and not strictly with Raila Odinga.

   Comment by Ricky | January 8, 2013

4. “Even You?”

   ELDORET, Kenya — He slips into the backseat of a parked taxi and hides behind its darkly tinted windows. What he is about to say could get him killed.

   He won’t give his name. On the way over, he couldn’t shake the thought this might be a police sting. If he didn’t trust the human rights activist who brokered the meeting, he wouldn’t have showed. But here he is, uneasy, eyes following every person who walks past the car — and those who sit inside. From the back, he asks the driver, a member of a rival tribe, to wait in the parking lot. Then he takes a breath and begins to tell the story of the mysterious death of Lucas Sang. The witness is a Kikuyu. Sang was a Kalenjin. During the 44-year history of Kenya, like the North and South in early 19th-century America, these two tribes mostly managed to keep an uneasy peace, despite tensions over money, land and power. Then, after December’s presidential election, that peace was shattered. For a few weeks, it was as if the earth had split open, taken almost 1,000 lives, then snapped shut again.

   The Kikuyu says he was a soldier in that civil war. He says that he lives near a place called Munyaka, and that he knew Lucas Sang. Everyone knew Sang: national hero as an Olympian, local hero as a farmer and philanthropist. Even though he had retired from competitive sports, Sang continued to help young athletes. Together, they’d train outside Eldoret — the birthplace of many successful Kenyan runners — sometimes down the red dirt road that runs alongside the cornfields of Munyaka, Sang easily recognizable by his long, smooth strides. The Kikuyus working in the fields would stop and cheer Sang as he passed by. On Dec. 31, Sang came to Munyaka again, along that familiar road. The Kikuyu man saw him and was enraged. “Even you?!” he shouted at Sang.

   Ten minutes later, Sang was dead.

   No one could have imagined Sang would die in a clash between two lawless mobs, certainly not one that many say he instigated. Everything he’d done in his life suggested the opposite. He was born a week and a half before the country earned its independence, part of the first generation of true Kenyans. He became a standard-bearer when he ran a leg in the 4×400 relay at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul. He never achieved much fame elsewhere, but back home, people respected Lucas Sang. His professional career mainly consisted of selflessly setting a fast early pace in middle-distance races so his friends and teammates could win gold medals and set records. He was a man who helped other Kenyans become great.

   When he retired four or five years later, he bought a farm and became a local leader, paying school fees for needy children, buying seeds for neighbors too poor to plant. Hard working. Never wore a necktie. That’s how people described him. He helped create the National Association of Kenyan Olympians in 2000 and was immediately named treasurer. “We trusted that he wouldn’t touch a shilling,” says his friend Paul Ereng, the 1988 gold medalist in the 800 meters, a 4×400 relay teammate and now an assistant track coach at Texas El-Paso. Ten months before Sang died, the world cross-country championships took place in the coastal city of Mombasa, clear on the other side of Kenya. Brother Colm O’Connell wanted to give his students at St. Patrick’s School in Iten a rare opportunity to see elite athletes in action. But the road to Mombasa is dangerous. Bandits patrol the long stretches of desolate terrain, which means breakdowns are potentially fatal. Corrupt police and bogus roadblocks also threaten motorists. So who could Brother Colm trust to safely shepherd a bus of innocent children to their destination?

   Lucas Sang. He could handle a broken engine, or smooth talk a robber, or use his military connections to ease through checkpoints (Sang spent his six years in the Kenyan Army running for his country, retiring as a corporal in 1990). He was reliable and kind, and he escorted those children clear to the Indian Ocean and back. Now he’s gone. This has shaken Brother Colm, who believes in heaven and hell. If you know a man’s goodness, you can have faith in it. But this? Fans once lined the streets of Nairobi to welcome Sang home from the Olympics. How can such a man get hacked to death in a cornfield? By people who once cheered as he ran past? Brother Colm cannot understand what happened to his long-time friend. “Reason didn’t prevail,” he says, in his living room high in the mountains above Eldoret. “Everybody just turned into other people.”

   Fatally divided loyalties

   The cause seemed so important on the last day of his life. It was around noon. The moment of truth had arrived. Should he stay or go? Behind that small question was a big one, the biggest, the same one put to Robert E. Lee in 1861: Nation or tribe, future or past? Lucas Sang had to decide: Was he Kenyan or was he Kalenjin?

   He was 10 days older than Kenya, so he’d been Kalenjin a little longer. On the other side of the ledger, he’d walked into an Olympic stadium behind the red, black and green of his country’s flag. At one moment, he’d been the most Kenyan you could be. Still, it would have been hard for him to turn his back on his heritage. “Deep down,” Brother Colm says, “he was a loyal Kalenjin.”

   That’s how he was raised, in the old tradition, a little boy working the fields of his village. Farming was synonymous with his people. Even as he traveled the world as a professional athlete, he never forgot. Driving around Europe, he’d stare out the window when he passed a farm, dreaming. On many occasions, he’d turn to his companions and say, “I would like to own one.”

   When his racing earnings made that dream come true, he treasured his modest 20 acres just outside Eldoret, growing it little by little, becoming a union leader, organizing strikes, eventually adding some thousand acres of rental land to his operation. Two years ago, fellow national agricultural officials came to see his latest improvement — the grain warehouse, like a spaceship among the neighboring straw and mud huts, with metal sliding doors and thick concrete walls. Sang dressed up for the occasion, wearing black slacks and a white golf shirt. He walked the officials through the small grove to the back of the property, showing off his nearly finished home. Soon, after one or two more good harvests, he would be able to complete it. Sang beamed. He told them he was finally in the big leagues.

   That was then, this is now. Outside his gates, fires raged, smoke rising into the enormous Kenyan skies that stretch forever here in the Great Rift Valley, site of a geological battle fought eight million years ago, when the world tried to tear itself apart. All that remains is a scar, deep and angry, cut through the fields and villages outside Eldoret. The world was splitting open again, a rupture born in Kenya’s infancy, when new president Jomo Kenyatta took the land the British had stolen from Kalenjin farmers and gave it to his Kikuyu cronies. Four decades later, Mwai Kibaki took power. He was a Kikuyu. After years of dictatorial rule, Kibaki’s task was to bring Kenya’s economy into the 21st century, creating markets and growing a business class, largely of his own tribesmen. Suspicious Kalenjins saw this as another Kikuyu leader favoring his own. Meanwhile, global economic pressures skyrocketed the price of diesel and fertilizer. Farmers suffered; Sang never had enough money to finish his new home. Between 2002 and 2008, the price of fertilizer quadrupled, each year worse than the one before. “This year is catastrophic,” says Moses Tanui, two-time Boston Marathon winner and close friend of Sang’s.

   Many Kalenjin farmers blamed Kibaki. They blamed the Kikuyus.

   An opposition party, the Orange Democratic Movement, formed a coalition of most of the other 41 tribes in Kenya, promising to defeat Kibaki and help the farmers. But the Dec. 27 election was rigged, with Kibaki hastily declared the winner; the fraud turned blame into action. In less than 24 hours, the Kalenjins and other aggrieved tribes took to the streets. They would force the Kikuyus from Kalenjin lands. Machetes and torches would do what votes could not. No one seemed to remember or care that there had been violence after almost every election in the history of Kenya, and that all the killing and dying had changed exactly nothing.

   So, on the last day of 2007, Sang waved goodbye to his wife. Said he was going to town. She wishes now she’d asked him to stay at home, stay with her and the kids, let other men fight this fight. Around him was all he’d struggled to build: a fleet of tractors and combines, a trailer with Olympic rings painted on the side, a giant grain warehouse, a wife, four children. His life’s work. Fatefully, he opened the gate and drove through.

   It is impossible to know what went on in his mind in those final hours. But David Koros, a Kenyan human rights activist, said no matter what Sang had believed as a young man, by that afternoon, he’d come to see himself as more of a Kalenjin than a Kenyan. “He believed that other people should be moved away from the region.”

   Sang left his farm. Some say he was going to get supplies. Some say he was going to avenge four decades of injustice. Others say he was a mercenary who wanted more land. Some say he was on a mission of peace.

   Whatever the reason, Lucas Sang walked willingly into the middle of a war.

   Heroes became villains, killers became victims

   In the months that followed, a silence settled over Eldoret. Not peace exactly. More like the absence of war. People didn’t want to talk about the violence. Didn’t want to remember that some of their neighbors were killers and arsonists. Didn’t want to remember what had been done to them, or what they themselves had done. What did any of that matter in a place where there was no longer a bright line between good and evil? “There is no black and white,” says Francois Grignon, Africa director of the think tank International Crisis Group. “There were victims and killers on both sides. Sometimes it can be the same person. It is a story about fear and disillusionment. About wanting to redress injustice. Therefore heroes can become villains. Therefore killers can become victims.” The entire country went mad, though some days it’s as if people want to believe it never happened. But it did. Those who were there, waiting in the fields of Munyaka for Lucas Sang, the ones who heard his dying cries, they know.

   Shadrack Bett says he knows. He is a young Kalenjin man, little balls of spittle forming in the corners of his mouth, scared he might be discovered talking about the violence. He looks around the makeshift chapel in a downtown office building to see who is listening, who can see him. His hands shake when he speaks.

   On the day Sang left his farm, Bett says he was home. He worked for a Kikuyu farmer, which is why the gang of Kalenjins who came to his door accused him of supporting Kibaki. The Kalenjins are a warrior people, taught since childhood that an attack on one is an attack on all. Not participating wasn’t really an option. An impromptu draft took place. “If you don’t accompany us,” they told Bett, “we are going to kill you.”

   So he went along, toward Moi University, in between Eldoret and Sang’s farm. The Kalenjin mob began burning Kikuyu houses along the roadside. Flames kicked out of windows. When police arrived on the scene, firing shots into the air, the mob dispersed, then re-formed, awaiting instruction. That’s when Bett saw Sang, out front, giving orders. “He was just directing the people,” Bett says. “He was respected. Even when he was talking to this crowd, the people were respecting him.”

   Bett says Sang told the armed warriors not to loot houses. Just burn and go. Do not risk getting caught for material gain. Do your job. “He said, ‘Let us go to war.’”

   Burning as they went, the men started for the Kikuyu village of Munyaka. Sang, Bett says, was a leader that day in the fields outside Eldoret. Not one to just give orders and get out of harm’s way, he stood with the men. When a soldier was injured, Sang drove him to the hospital, got him treatment, then returned to the battle. “He was brave,” Bett says.

   By mid-afternoon, the mob had arrived at Munyaka. Sang knew this land well. He had often run these roads and farmed wheat in these fields. The Kalenjins surrounded the town, which sat atop a little hill, now a lonely island in a sea of violence. The work would be quick: Flames would leap from home to home, consuming the little shacks made from timber, mud and grass. In a few minutes, four decades of injustice would be cleansed.

   But as Sang and his crew were preparing to strike, three witnesses say, a gang of Kikuyus gathered to repel them. War cries filled the air. Behind the Kikuyu warriors stood their women and children, who screamed, too. That’s when the Kikuyu shouted, “Even you!?” Then the Kikuyus attacked. Most of the Kalenjins ran, but Sang held his ground. He had a pistol in his hand and war in his eyes. As his soldiers retreated through the cornfield behind him, the Kikuyu, armed only with rocks and machetes, decided Sang did not have enough bullets to kill them all. Maybe he didn’t have any bullets at all. Whatever the reason, witnesses say Sang began to run, finally, in long, smooth strides. But on this day, in this field, he was too slow and too unlucky. Separating two cornfields stood a fence with three strands of barbed wire, the top one elbow-high. On the other side lay an enormous fallen tree and safety. Sang tried to climb over or through, but his pants snagged on a barb. He turned to find the gang of Kikuyus almost upon him. Across the field, Bett could see their trapped leader. Before being swallowed up by the enraged Kikuyu, Sang called out to his brothers. “He just said, ‘Help me!’” Bett says.

   Blood-soaked Kenyan dirt

   The Kikuyu witness, sitting in the dark corner of a taxi outside an Eldoret hotel, says he still has nightmares about what happened next: Sang struggling to get free, twisting, turning, pulling, the barbed wire hooked to his pants. The Kikuyus descended upon him, the witness less than 10 feet away. First, they cut Sang free of the barbed wire, so they could get clear shots at their enemy. People they’d imagined were friends had burned their homes, and even killed members of their tribe. All of that anger was about to rain down on Lucas Sang. Even you?! “We expected him to be helping people,” the witness says, “not attacking.”

   The Kikuyus screamed at Sang, telling him what they were going to do, and why. Then out came the pangas, what Kenyans call machetes. About five men surrounded Sang, who curled up on his side. From 10 feet away, you couldn’t hear the sickening thud of blade on skin for the screaming. “There were so many pangas,” the witness says. “People were many, and each one of them wanted to cut him. You could even get cut yourself if you weren’t careful.”

   Sang’s blood soaked his clothes, then began to soak into the Kenyan dirt. The blows rained down on his head and his legs, one blade going up as another went down. The life flowed out of him, back into the soil. Dust to dust. At the end, Sang made noises that no one could understand. As he died, was there a battle for his soul? Sang was a devout Catholic, yet never forgot his tribal heritage. The Kalenjins do not believe in the Christian idea of heaven or hell. The end of life isn’t death; true death can occur only when people forget you. Everyone passes to an afterlife, to a time before the colonial powers arrived, when their land is still their land. Elders tell stories, making sure every hero is remembered. Above Sang, the big blue skies towered over the Great Rift Valley. The blows kept coming. The rocks kept hitting his body. To his attackers, his final words had no meaning, just sounds of fear and pain.

   For a moment, he was a hero. A martyr, even. The Kalenjins raged over the loss of such an important man. “When Lucas was killed,” elite marathon runner Wilson Chepkwony says, “it increased the war in Eldoret. Most of the people come from the farms, and they wanted revenge. They said, ‘For one Lucas, we want to kill a dozen people.’”

   The funeral was a tribal celebration. They came like pilgrims to the Sang homestead, passing through a hellish moonscape of wreckage and rubble, burned-out storefronts and shattered bricks. Dogs chewed on dead bodies.

   The family sat in the front. Thousands crammed in behind them, Olympic medalists and dignitaries and common folk alike, clutching programs filled with his accomplishments and photographs. On the cover, Sang stared off to the side of the camera. He looked melancholy. Like he knew. Above his head was written: A Life Well Lived. Brother Colm made his way down the mountain, arriving about 10:30 a.m. to find the speeches had already started. The atmosphere was tense. Outside, homes were still being burned, battles still being fought. “I think it appeared to the Kalenjin community that this was a rallying point at this time of need,” Brother Colm says. “They saw Lucas’ death and funeral as an opportunity to rally the forces, to really stand up for ‘our ethnic group.’ Lucas provided it, as nobody else probably could have provided.”

   A religious fervor swept through the crowd, voices rose in anger. When the priest switched from English to the Kalenjin tribal language, he looked out and said, “Sang died fighting for truth and justice.”

   Exactly what he died for, and why, would become a hotly debated topic in Kenya. The accounts of the final hours of Sang’s life differ depending on who is asked. A month after the violence, Grignon and the International Crisis Group released their report on its root causes. One sentence infuriated the Kenyan running community: “There are various accounts of how Lucas Sang, an athlete and ex-army corporal, died, but most accounts suggest he met his death on the outskirts of Eldoret while commanding part of a Kalenjin raiding party.”

   Sang’s friends deny it, sticking to the victim story. In a newspaper op-ed piece, Sang’s former Olympic teammate Peter Rono wrote that attempts to link Sang to the violence were slanderous: “I have found not a shred of evidence to support the ICG allegations.”

   Tanui, who found Sang’s mutilated and burned body, becomes angry when he hears Sang called a killer. Is he right? Is this all a plot to slander the memory of a Kalenjin leader? Is he covering for his friend? Is he naïve?

   “I don’t believe it,” Tanui says. “There are a lot of stories, but I have confirmed that Lucas was coming to collect diesel.” He sighs. “It is like when you are driving your car, then you have an accident and you find yourself in a hospital. You don’t understand what happened in the middle. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

   Daniel Kiptugen, a security, conflict and peace adviser for the British charity Oxfam, lives near Sang’s farm; they knew each other. He was at home during the violence. “I don’t believe,” he says.

   Do you not believe, or do you not want to believe?

   “I don’t want to believe.”

   The funeral lasted all day and into the night. When Brother Colm left around 5:30, the religious part of the service hadn’t even started. Finally, they put Lucas Sang into the ground. For a moment, the violence had kept Kibaki from stealing the election. There was still hope for the ODM to keep its promises, to right so many wrongs.

   For a moment, Sang’s death meant something. Moments never last.

   The more things change …

   Months have passed. Men sit on stools around an Eldoret bar. The barkeep pulls Tusker beers out for most of the patrons. A television is on in the corner, tuned as usual to politics, the most popular sport in Kenya. When a speech comes on in a restaurant, the music is muted, forks hit the plates and the volume is turned way up. Here at the bar, the men stop their conversations to hear President Kibaki.

   Yes, President Kibaki.

   All that has come from the violence was a power-sharing agreement between Kibaki and ODM leader Raila Odinga. None of the changes promised to the Kalenjins have happened. Many in Eldoret don’t believe they ever will. Even ODM officials are skeptical. “Angels can do nothing with this many devils in power,” local official David Nyangoto says. “Now the big thief is going to mix up with a clean man. One rotten potato mixed with a whole sack can make the whole sack rotten.”

   At the parliament building in Nairobi, the chaotic streets are still packed with the poor and needy of every tribe, bandaged men in worn suits, people with limps. They’ve come to see the ministers, who were sworn enemies seven months ago but now sit together behind the tall gates, enjoying the gym and sauna paid for by the taxpayers of Kenya, protected by soldiers on horseback carrying assault rifles. This election is over. Already, the politicians are giving speeches about the next one in 2012. Maybe then, true change can come to Kenya.

   On the TV, Kibaki begins speaking. “Forget what happened,” he says. “It will not help you.”

   The government is forcing the displaced Kikuyus to leave the refugee camps and return home. Many Kenyans do not support forming a commission to find out who did what to whom, which might deter future violence, and might add meaning to the death of Lucas Sang. “The government wants to say that we are back to business as usual,” Grignon says. “‘This is over. Let’s move forward.’”

   For some, things are normal. A Kalenjin named Jackson Kibor sits on a stack of fertilizer bags in an Eldoret warehouse. Some say he is a warlord. Whatever else he might be, he is rich. There is a pocket square in his linen suit jacket. His skin shines like onyx. He owns a thousand times more land than Sang did; he describes Sang as neither rich nor poor. In the days after the violence, Kibor admitted to the BBC that he had helped plan the chaos. But some believe he did it for himself, not just for his people. The workingman, it seems, often doesn’t know who is really to blame for his plight. “Jackson Kibor made his millions out of being on the land committee,” says Ben Rawlence of the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, “and illegally taking the land and selling it to the Kikuyus and then blaming the Kikuyus. It’s basically gangsterism. Just think Chicago, 1920.” Kibor’s got juice. If it’s worth knowing in this little corner of the world, he knows it. Did Sang’s death make a difference? Is he a hero? Kibor doesn’t bother to answer. Just sits there. Around him, his men load bag after bag of fertilizer and seed into waiting trucks. They carry the heavy bags atop their heads. It’s time to plant. Life is good. Life goes on. The rich man smiles. That’s his answer. A thin smile, as if to say: What a silly question — heroes are for campfire stories. He reaches for several wallet-sized coupons to add more cell phone minutes, tapping in the codes, one after another, tossing the spent cards onto the concrete floor of the warehouse. He has calls to make, business to conduct.

   Reminders of what can never be

   Sunday morning brings the sound of hammering. The solid whack of metal on nail is a beautiful song of rebirth outside Eldoret. People are rebuilding, putting together new roof beams, fixing what has been destroyed. Along the Eldoret-Iten road, the epicenter for much of the violence, there are signs of renewal.

   But down the road a bit, Pamela Sang sits alone in the grove of trees, the roosters pecking in the patchy grass for food. Every now and then, they crow. A wedding ring is still on her left hand. Her face is dark and cloudy. She looks lost. It has been five months and 19 days since Lucas left here for the last time and never came home. She knew something was wrong when he didn’t call to check in. He always checked in. That night, she tried his cell phone twice. The customer you are trying to call cannot be located. She did not try again. She already knew.

   The crowds who left the farm after the funeral haven’t returned. Kalenjin leaders don’t check in. People don’t visit, save a few old athlete friends. “It’s sad,” she says. “Nobody comes anymore.”

   Pamela is doing the best she can. Not long ago, she planted the first corn crop without Lucas. She could afford to lay seed only in the 20 acres they own, not the thousand or so he used to rent and farm. Twenty acres cannot pay for all of this; the life she once knew is over. After the crop was in the ground, she and the workers held a ceremony to honor her husband. “We prayed that God gives us strength so we can continue running what Lucas used to run,” she says.

   She sits in the plastic chair and tries to appear strong. Around her, signs of former success taunt: the tractors, the warehouse, the trailer with the Olympic rings painted on the side. From the porch of their house, she can see Lucas’ grave, a pile of dirt covered with flowers and marked by a simple wooden cross. There’s a hole in the mound, like someone has been feverishly digging.

   “Dogs,” she says.

   Behind her is another house, the empty one, the place where she and Lucas planned on growing old together. It is unfinished, and will probably remain that way, a reminder of what once was and what could have been. What can never be. Her husband is already fading from people’s minds. The voices of the elders are quiet. “All is forgotten,” his friend and fellow farming official David Nyamieno says.

   Pamela Sang stands up. It is time for church. She and one of her four children catch a ride to a red dirt path that runs parallel to the highway. They move along the road, on the way to hear about heaven and hell, their figures fading slowly out of sight. Wright Thompson is a senior writer for ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine. He can be reached at wrightespn@gmail.com. Special thanks to Ken Wafula, who assisted with logistics and translations.
   http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=kenya

   Comment by edithe | January 8, 2013

5. THE year 2012 kenya had very good rains attributable to conservation efforts which ruto and his cohorts opposed,including the mau forest.ruto is conveniently not saying anything about the good side of mau conservation.he sees only the evil side.
   ruto and his misguided rift valley mp followers have not told people the role of uhuru kenyatta and his company in destruction of forests in rift valley in the name of profits from wood products for his enrichment at the expense of people of rift valley for how long is kenyatta going to use the people and resources of rift valley ?

   Comment by christine | January 9, 2013

6. Christine, you are very right about linking Uhuru and Ruto politically, because both will continue destroying Kenya for personal benefit. Both were Cabinet Ministers when it was officially passed that Mau Forest needed restoration. However, Ruto the Butcher and mastermind of Kiambaa Kikuyu church burning went out crying that Raila evicted the Kalenjin from Mau without permission. This is a negative campaign yet the person gaining commercially from Mau Forest is his buddy Uhuru Kenyatta, whose family owns Timsales Limited, one of the largest logging companies in East and Central Africa. This company has been in legal battles with NEMA, the Government environmental authority which asked it to stop destroying Mau while efforts were being made to restore it. But as usual, Timsales challenged this in court claiming it was losing around Ksh5 million daily. How then, with Uhuru as President, will he respect environmental conservation, while his company is engaged in deforesting the country? Read below:

   Shocking New Details About Timsales Ltd Owned BY UHURU KENYATTA Destruction of Mau Forest for Timber Harvesting

   As the PM led Kenyans to plant trees, Uhuru’s impunity continued as his company, Timsales Ltd continued to cut down trees on the other side of Mau Forest water catchment on the same day Kenyans were struggling to save the forest. Like the late Professor Wangari Maathai said: “It beats the purpose”. Impunity must end now! Uhuru should stop destroying Mau or else….Now we know why Uhuru and his cronies are fighting very hard against the conservation of the Mau Forest. They think Kenyans are blind. Uhuru and his gang of thieves will not including Ruto Kabuga will not lead Kenya in 2013. Kenyans removed Gideon Moi in 2007 so who is Uhuru?

   Timsales Ltd was originally (founded in the late 30s) a Colonial/British company engaging in the timber business,. It specialized in harvesting cheaply, from Kenya’s vast natural forests, exotic hardwood trees being cleared for colonial settlement. After Independence, the clever British owners foresaw the significant role that local politics would impact in their business. Thus they invited President Jomo Kenyatta into partnership – for strategic reasons- to enable the continued plunder of Kenya’s trees.

   To sustain their current business, they steal from many gazetted State forests in Kenya including Mau by bribing Kenya government corrupt officials including Ministers and Members of Parliament. A lot of stealing of hardwood from gazetted state forests is part of their game. The Kenyatta, Moi and current Kibaki governments have all facilitated that robbery. The government has proven unable to protect our forests from the decimation by these political corporations like Timsales – with a heavy arm in government since independence.

   Timsales LTD owned by the Kenyatta family is destroying the forests in Kenya. When will the Kenyattas ever say enough? For how long will Kenyans allow them to destroy the country?

   Then comes Arap Moi the gizzard Dictator and his dinosaur buddy Biwott destroying other gazetted forests. Kenya must know the two own Raiply Eldoret which is a logging company owned jointly by Rai Brothers.

   Rai Timber started off its wood processing interests in Mt Elgon then it expanded to Eldoret. Immediately after the mysterious murders of Shabir & his wife in 1993,
   the remaining brother was forced into partnership by the two very powerful devils – Daniel Moi & Nicholas Biwott.

   Both TIMSALES & RAIPLY companies have previously forcefully evicted squatters and taken over their forest lands.

   Check the ownership of the people who are destroying our forests and you will be shocked!

   RAIPLY (MOI & BIWOTT) AND TIMSALES (UHURU KENYATTA FAMILY) are big competitors as you can imagine both businesses have destroyed and continue to destroy the Kenya State forests. It is a wonder these same people are fighting hard against the conservation of Mau Forest and all others.

   Kenyans, it is time to wake up and stop this Gross Impunity! These guys have gotten away with destroying our country for years. They are mere mortals yet the difference is they are joined by the evil axis of thuggery and thievery. They must be stopped at all costs.

   On the video link here, do you wonder why Minister Wekesa was sitting with Uhuru when he was busy denouncing saving Mau Forest? It only takes a few Kenya Shillings to bribe ministers and MPs for these Kings and Princes of Impunity to destroy all gazetted forests in Kenya.

   Kenyans must vote wisely in 2013!!!

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm-Rt9tW4aA

   Comment by Samson Bosire | January 9, 2013

7. Timsales Takes Nema to Court Over Tree Felling Ban
   By Irene Wairimu, 29 October 2011

   A giant timber company has taken its battle against the national environmental agency to court. Timsales obtained orders on Friday to allow it to continue felling trees in parts of the Mau forests already allocated to it by Kenya Forest Service until the court determines its case against the National environmental management authority .

   The firm asked the Nakuru High Court to revoke banning orders issued by the Rift Valley provincial director of environment Edward Masakha.

   The orders directed Timsales to immediately stop felling trees in the Mau until an environmental impact assessment is carried out. Timsales said the ban cost them Sh5 million loss a day as the factory could not run without raw materials from KFS plantations.

   Managing Director Sarbjit Singh Rai revealed that more than 3,000 workers from its plant in Elburgon were at risk of losing their jobs if the ban stays.

   In the letter dated October 17, Masakha had argued that a ground inspection conducted by Nema officers showed that Timsales was felling forest plantation trees without complying with the Environmental Management and Coordination Act of 1999 which calls for EIA before any logging. “The felling you are undertaking is therefore illegal. It should stop immediately until the impact assessment is done,” Masakha had warned adding that failure top comply with the order could result in a 24 month imprisonment term, a fine of two years or both imposed on Timsales’ management.

   The timber dealer however defended its operations saying that there was an existing agreement between it and the KFS to be allocat forests for harvesting after payment of royalties.

   Rai argues that his company has already been allocated two blocks within Kiptunga and Olengape forests within the Mau complex and had paid royalties for them. He adds that the agreement between them and KFS promoted ‘use of forest resources in responsible and sustainable way as Timsales is required to replant tree seedlings after clearing a forest plantation it pays royalties for’.

   The dealer has told the court that neither Nema nor any other person would suffer any loss should the order to stop felling be quashed since they reafforest all areas they harvest from.

   Timsales manufactures plywood and block boards fro local and export markets. It is among three companies exempted from a government logging ban in 1999. The other two are Raiply timber and the Pan-African Paper Mills. Judge William Ouko directed that the manufacturer’s case be heard and directed both parties to appear in court on December 8.

   Comment by Samson Bosire | January 9, 2013

8. Comment by Uhuru destroying Mau forest | January 9, 2013

9. CONGO 20million dead the role US and it’s allies played
   

   Comment by Rita marley | January 9, 2013

10. Comment by Rita marley | January 9, 2013

11. Ruto>“Achicha wendi Kitiyo” Ngulu Muguret Uhuru Kenyatta> Ruto ngulu muguret Uhuru Kenyatta Mashamba Yetu ngulu muguret or Nyazoret!

    Comment by Kimtai arap chuma | January 10, 2013

12. RAILA says KIKUYU properties will not be DESTROYED and addresses the LUO-KIKUYU rivalry

    Thursday January 10, 2013 – Prime Minister Raila Odinga has assured the Kikuyu community that their property and businesses will not be destroyed if he forms the next government.

    Addressing Kikuyu professionals in Nyeri town on Thursday, Raila assured residents that his government will free government land to allow large scale farming in the area.

    He said Coalition for Reform and Democracy (CORD) will offer a conducive environment for all Kenyan regarding the tribe they come from.

    “Our policy on land makes Kenya unattractive. We must change the land policy to make it available for development. Our people are land dependent. Subsistence farming perpetuates poverty,” Raila said.

    He also dismissed propaganda being peddled in the region that if Raila rules, properties in the region will be destroyed, saying properties belong to private sector and he is also an investor.

    “It is rubbish that if Raila rules property will be destroyed. I too belong to the private sector,” he said.

    On the Luo and Kikuyu difference, the PM said the rivalry started immediately after independence and the difference between Jomo Kenyatta and Jaramogi Oginga was not ethnic but ideological.

    He urged the two communities to practice what their forefathers taught them instead of spreading hatred among the two communities.

    The Kenyan DAILY POST

    Comment by amie | January 10, 2013

13. Comment by dingo | January 10, 2013

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