Our Kenya

2007-08 Post-Election Violence

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Kenya burned for two months. Between December 2007 and February 2008, approximately 1,300 people were killed and more than 600,000 displaced in violence that followed the disputed presidential election. What began as protests against election rigging metastasized into ethnic cleansing, neighbor turning on neighbor, and organized militia violence across the Rift Valley, Nairobi slums, Nyanza, and the Coast. The violence was not spontaneous. It was prepared, coordinated, and executed along ethnic lines that had been drawn and redrawn by decades of political manipulation.

The first wave came immediately after the Electoral Commission of Kenya declared Kibaki the winner on December 30, 2007. Luo and Kalenjin communities in Nyanza and parts of the Rift Valley, convinced the election had been stolen from Raila Odinga, erupted. Police shot protesters in Kisumu. Mobs attacked Kikuyu businesses and homes. The violence in these areas felt like political rage, chaotic and furious. But within days, the pattern shifted. What happened next was not a riot. It was a pogrom.

In the Rift Valley, organized groups of Kalenjin fighters, some armed with pangas, bows, and crude guns, began systematically attacking Kikuyu settlements. The targeting was precise. Kikuyu homes were marked with paint. Attackers had lists. Families were pulled from their houses and killed. Others fled, leaving everything behind. The violence was worst in Eldoret, Burnt Forest, Naivasha, and Nakuru. In some areas, entire Kikuyu communities were driven out. Land that had been contested since the colonial period, settled by Kikuyu under Kenyatta, and resented by Kalenjin who considered it theirs, became a battleground.

The Kiambaa Church massacre in Eldoret on New Year's Day 2008 became the symbolic atrocity. A mob locked dozens of people, mostly women and children, inside a church and set it on fire. Those who tried to escape were hacked down. At least 35 people died. The images of the charred church spread globally. Kenya, long considered East Africa's stable anchor, looked like Rwanda.

The violence was not one-sided. Kikuyu militias, notably the Mungiki sect, retaliated with their own attacks. In Naivasha and Nakuru, Kikuyu gangs killed Luo and Kalenjin residents, throwing bodies into the Rift Valley lakes. In Nairobi's slums, ethnic killings became routine. Mathare, Kibera, and Kawangware saw neighbors murdered for belonging to the wrong tribe. The police, overwhelmed and in some cases complicit, did little to stop the slaughter.

By January 2008, Kenya was on the brink of civil war. The economy seized up. Tourism collapsed. Businesses closed. International flights were diverted. The infrastructure that connected the country, highways and rail lines, became impassable as communities barricaded roads and destroyed property. The violence threatened not just Kenya but the entire East African region, which depended on Kenya's ports, roads, and economic stability.

The ethnic geography of the killing was not accidental. Politicians on both sides had spent months before the election mobilizing ethnic grievances, making exclusionary claims, and preparing communities for conflict. William Ruto, then allied with Raila, was later accused of organizing violence in the Rift Valley. Kibaki's allies were accused of arming Kikuyu militias. Both sides used radio, political rallies, and local networks to prepare their bases. The election dispute was the spark. The tinder had been laid deliberately.

The violence only stopped when external pressure and elite exhaustion forced a settlement. Kofi Annan's mediation brokered the National Accord in late February 2008. Raila became prime minister. Power was shared. The killing stopped, not because justice was delivered, but because both sides agreed to govern together. Most of the killers were never prosecuted. Most of the displaced never returned home. The wounds remained open.

See Also

Sources

  1. "Kenya in Crisis," International Crisis Group, February 2008. https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/horn-africa/kenya
  2. Commission of Inquiry into Post-Election Violence (Waki Report), 2008. https://www.hrw.org/reports/2008/kenya1008/kenya1008web.pdf
  3. Anderson, David, and Emma Lochery. "Violence and Exodus in Kenya's Rift Valley, 2008." Journal of Eastern African Studies 2, no. 2 (2008): 209-227. https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/rjea20
  4. Mueller, Susanne D. "The Political Economy of Kenya's Crisis." Journal of Eastern African Studies 2, no. 2 (2008). https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/rjea20