Having Driven Out Business, Kenyan Town Faces Consequences

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Kenya Election Sparks Violence

Kenya plunged into crisis after the re-election of President Mwai Kibaki, which opposition leader Raila Odinga and his supporters claim was rigged. Since the vote on Dec. 27, more than 800 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced.

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Kikuyus who have settled in the area over the past 50 years, often with the help of loans and other favors from the Kikuyu political establishment, have fled by the busloads as their houses and businesses have been burned. Nearly 800 people have been killed and 200,000 displaced in post-election violence, most in the volatile western part of the country.

At least 70 people were killed over the weekend, as the fighting between Kikuyu gangs and those supporting Odinga spread to the previously calm cities of Nakuru and Naivasha, a lakeside tourist haven.

In Kisumu, a city of pleasant green parks, two-story buildings and once-bustling outdoor markets, tensions remained high last week.

"We don't want to see them here," said Theresa Atieno, referring to her Kikuyu neighbors as she sold tomatoes along a street.

Rose Juma Adhiambo, who was selling greens in front of a row of shuttered Kikuyu shops, said she has not been able to find pineapples, mangoes or bananas lately, because the trucks that usually bring them to Kisumu have stopped coming.

Her income has dwindled from $15 a day to about $7.

"My customers have gone back to the rural areas," she said, referring to Kikuyus and others who have fled. She was a bit sad to have seen her Kikuyu friends go, she said, but saw it as a political necessity. "Maybe after all this fracas has gone, they will come back," she said.

In another neighborhood just outside town, shop owner Joel Siderra was not so sure they would return.

His supply of bread has been cut off. By early afternoon, he had just one loaf to sell.

"God knows when they will come back," he said. "People are still very bitter."

The suffering is a sign of the inequality that has existed for years, he said, and people are fed up with it.

With access to bank loans and capital monopolized by a single community, he said, it is unlikely that the remaining residents will have the wherewithal to replace the businesses that have left, unless Odinga is able to negotiate a significant share of power.

Until then, many people seemed willing to bear the consequences of life without their Kikuyu neighbors.

"I have to accept that," said Odongo, the looter at the hotel, whose own bar was burned down during the riots because it was next to a Kikuyu liquor store. "I don't regret."