Word: ethnicity
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...Attitudes like Kimani's, which seem to be increasingly shared by many ordinary Kenyans toward their neighbors, are raising fears that the ethnic violence which began as a protest against an allegedly rigged election is spiraling out of control. Kenya is no Rwanda, of course, where a 1994 ethnic genocide claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. For one thing, Kenya contains many ethnic groups - 42, as compared to two in Rwanda - and none constitutes more than about 20% of the population. And the country's political leaders are currently talking, under the mediating hand of former U.N. Secretary General Kofi...
...other supporters of opposition leader Raila Odinga. The opposition initially characterized the violence as a spontaneous upsurge of anger, but fliers scattered around Witeithie - and the findings of a Human Rights Watch investigation - indicate that activists on both sides of the political divide have fanned the flames of ethnic resentment and perhaps even planned the violence to drive their enemies away...
...ethnic clashes have certainly exposed deep grievances over land and other resources. Much of the worst violence has occurred in the Rift Valley, where land ownership has always been politically sensitive. In the colonial era, the region's fertile farmland was reserved for British settlers. Britain sold it off to the newly independent government, which in turn parceled it out to members of the Kikuyu tribe, setting off a pattern of ethnic conflict in the Rift Valley that has persisted for much of Kenya's independent history. Many Kalenjins and others who had once lived there believed - rightly or wrongly...
...Although Kenya analysts believe the country remains a long way from descending into the horrors of Rwanda, they warn that the ethnic violence that has already killed more than 850 people cannot be allowed to fester. Regardless of what started the violence, or whether it was planned, there are worrying signs that the killings have created their own momentum and a cycle of vengeance that threatens to defy control by politicians...
...Kikuyu are going to find themselves as a single ethnic group very isolated if Kibaki refuses to go for a recount or some sort of power-sharing arrangement," said Binaifer Nowrojee, director of the Open Society Initiative for East Africa. "As long as there is international attention, there will be restraint. The day the international community is taken by other crises on the globe, Kenya will be left to stew in its own juices and it will get worse. This is the kind of situation if it's not resolved now it will blow up later, and that's where...