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Kenyans Say Neighbors' 'Arrogance' Sparked Rampage
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The Kikuyu have more or less dominated Kenyan government ever since. Generally speaking, they have done well here in farming and other businesses, a fact that they attribute to their own hard work, not government favors.
Even so, a sense of resentment has festered between them and other tribes, particularly the Kalenjin. "The problem with the Kikuyu is they always have a lot of pride," said John. "They want to dominate us politically, economically and socially."
He and a couple of dozen other young men had gone into hiding when the Kenyan military came to town over the weekend, but emerged Monday to sift through the blackened ruins of the roadside market where many of them had kiosks selling tea or beer or cellphone cards.
They said that the market, a place where people of many ethnicities gathered, was burned down by Kikuyus who were celebrating an announcement that Kibaki had won. It was Kikuyu "arrogance" that touched off the wave of attacks against them, they said. Houses were torched and dozens of roadblocks were created where the men searched out Kikuyus by forcing passers-by to show national identity cards.
One of the men, who gave his name as Alex, described all this as an effort to "sensitize the government that we're here. . . . We had to defend ourselves. In the process of protecting ourselves, we overcame them."
"We are glad they are leaving this land," yelled another man, Cheluleh.
As they picked out glass bottles and useable sheets of corrugated metal from the ruins, the men said that the violence was not tribal per se, but a matter of defending their rights in an election they believe was stolen by an entrenched Kikuyu elite and its supporters.
"I burned down a Kalenjin house because they were for Kibaki," offered Cheluleh, who is Kalenjin, by way of proving he did not only punish Kikuyu.
He and others can cite the election returns from all eight Kenyan provinces, for instance, and discrepancies between reported parliamentary turnout and presidential turnout. John referred repeatedly to Form 16A, the election tally sheet that Odinga's supporters believe was fixed. Another young man said he used to be a clerk at a polling station and could see through the scam.
The young men, many of them unemployed, described a kind of discrimination they've felt growing up among their Kikuyu neighbors.
Cheluleh and others said that even as they shared tea together, their Kikuyu friends would often joke that Kalenjin and other tribes were "sheep" or "monkeys" or "less civilized."
"They think it's funny, but they are hurting us," Cheluleh said. "They make jokes out of us."
