Source: Christian Science Monitor 

By: Jacqueline M. Klopp

Date: January 14, 2008 

NEW YORK - Hundreds have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced in the three weeks since Kenya's hotly disputed presidential elections. Once considered an island of stability in Africa, the country is suffering what the media has called a "shocking outbreak of violence" and "tribal clashes."

The key questions we should be asking are: Who is responsible for this violence? How is it happening? But we will not ask these questions if we continue to see the current violence as simply a spontaneous outburst of anger at the election rigging or "tribal warfare."

The international community must realize that Kenya's violence today is fueled by strongmen on both sides of the political divide. They are exploiting ethnic identity, pitting one community against another, as a means to gain power. It is a practice with a long history in Kenyan politics.

The fury of the violence may look like "tribal warfare" linked to election anger, especially in the worst instances of ethnic cleansing - as in Eldoret, where women and children were burned alive in a church. A common explanation is that members of the Kikuyu community are facing retaliation from others for their longtime "dominance." Like Kenya's first president, Jomo Kenyatta, President Mwai Kibaki is Kikuyu; opposition leader Raila Odinga is Luo.

Part of the violence is not directly organized and is instead linked to confrontations between protesters and police, who have a history of brutality. Many understandably feel rage at the election fraud carried out on behalf of Mr. Kibaki. But much of the ethnicized violence is linked to organized efforts by political strongmen who have experience playing divide-and-rule.

For the full article, please visit: http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0114/p09s02-coop.html?page=1

Source: IRIN

Date: January 15, 2007

NAIROBI, 15 January 2008 (IRIN) - As Kenya counts the human and material cost of the political violence, hospitals are reporting an increase in reported rapes during the immediate post-election period, spurring the government and health organisations to find ways to treat these cases as well as protect the displaced from further incidents of sexual violence.

"In the first two days of the violence, 56 people were treated for rape and admitted; there are so many other victims back in the slums who have not received any medical attention," Lucy Kiama, chief nurse at the Nairobi Women's Hospital, which specialises in sexual violence, told IRIN.

She added that the number of rape survivors seeking treatment at the facility had doubled during the violence. Many women who came to the hospital, she added, reported that there were many more in the slums who had failed to seek treatment because of security reasons or fear of stigmatisation.

For the full article, please visit: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=76247

ScienceDaily (Jan. 15, 2008) — The Rwandan government, Great Ape Trust of Iowa and Earthpark have announced that the Gishwati Forest Reserve is the future site of the Rwanda National Conservation Park, setting into motion one of Africa's most ambitious forest restoration and ecological research efforts ever. The selection of Gishwati as the location for Rwanda's first national conservation park comes less than three months after the project was unveiled at the Clinton Global Initiative by Rwanda President H.E. Paul Kagame and Ted Townsend, founder of Great Ape Trust and Earthpark.

The Gishwati Forest, in Rwanda's Western Province, was deforested in the 1980s by agricultural development and in the 1990s during the resettlement of people following the civil war and genocide.  Human encroachment, deforestation, grazing and the introduction of small-scale farming resulted in extensive soil erosion, flooding, landslides and reduced water quality - as well as the isolation of a small population of chimpanzees.

For the full article, please visit: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080115085344.htm