Issue date: 1/1/08 Section: International

In east-central Africa, Kenya lies across the equator on the coast of the Indian Ocean. This African nation is twice the size of Nevada, bordering Somalia to the east, Ethiopia to the north, Tanzania to the south, Uganda to the west, and Sudan to the northwest.
History records that Arab seafarers established settlements along the coast in the 700s, and the Portuguese took control of the area in the early 1500s. More than 40 ethnic groups reside in Kenya. Its largest group, the Kikuyu, migrated to the region at the beginning of the 18th century. The land became a British protectorate in 1890 and a Crown colony in 1920, when it went by the name British East Africa. Nationalist stirrings began in the 1940s, and in 1952 the Mau Mau movement, made up of Kikuyu militants, rebelled against the government. The fighting lasted until 1956.
On Dec. 12, 1963, Kenya achieved full independence. First led by Jomo Kenyatta and then Daniel Arap Moi, the country was ruled as a one-party state by the Kenya National Union (KANU), from 1964 to 1992. Demonstrations and riots pressured Moi to allow for multi-party elections in 1992.
The economy did not flourish under Moi's rule. In the 1990s, Kenya's infrastructure began disintegrating and official graft was rampant, contributing to the withdrawal of much foreign aid. In early 1995, President Moi moved against the opposition and ordered the arrest of anyone who insulted him.
The world watched as the Republic of Kenya, known by its national name Jamhuri ya Kenya, descended into violence and chaos following the Dec. 2007 presidential election. Raila Odinga, of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) appeared to be defeating incumbent Kibaki, 57 percent to 39 percent in the preliminary results. However, in the days following the election, Odinga's lead was reported by the media as dwindling and Kenya electoral commission declared Kibaki the winner, 46 percent to 44 percent. After the announcement, violence broke out among members of the Luo and Kikuyu tribes. Odinga is Luo, and Kibaki is Kikuyu.
According to international observers, the vote was rigged. A champion of the poor, Odinga had promised to eliminate corruption and tribalism. The fighting among tribes intensified in Jan. 2008, and scores of people have been killed as they seek refuge in churches in Kiambaa. Mobs have burned down homes, schools have closed and to date, nearly 600 people have died in fighting across the country and over 100,000 have been displaced. Meanwhile, Odinga refused Kibaki's invitation to discuss the political crisis after Kibaki appointed his cabinet, which did not include any members of ODM Party.
A fairly peaceful country since the days of Kenya, a well-known playground for affluent Westerns, Kenya appears to have joined the lot of African states--the Great Lakes, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Congo, Sudan and most recently, Côte d'Ivoire--struggling with the ills of poverty and internal conflicts over political power and subsequent control of strategic resources.
Although the responsibility of local leaders cannot be dismissed, it is safe to point out that perhaps, behind the crisis in Kenya is the globalization policy designed to set the entire Africa continent into a quagmire of permanent, and spreading, wars geared to destroying populations and sovereign nations. This, indeed, has been the underlying axiom of U.S. policy since Henry Kissinger's genocidal National Security Study Memorandum 200, promulgated during the Nixon Administration.
On Dec. 10, 1974, the U.S. National Security Council under Henry Kissinger completed a classified 200-page study, "National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests." The study falsely claimed that population growth in the so-called Lesser Developed Countries (LDCs) was a grave threat to U.S. national security. Adopted as official policy in Nov. 1975 by President Gerald Ford, NSSM 200 outlined a covert plan to reduce population growth in those countries through birth control, and also, implicitly, war and famine.
In an interview published by Executive Intelligence Review, Former Minister of Agriculture and former Ambassador to the United States, Professor Abdalla offers a pertinent suggestion: "Perhaps there are conflicts over resources, over water, over grass, over land. But these are just simple conflicts between tribes over these poor resources. If you develop these resources, then you remove these conflicts. It's not a problem of ethnicity or religion. It's a real problem of poverty and poor resources; and if these potential resources, big resources… land, numerous animals, and a lot of water. If these elements were managed well, then the conflict between tribes would be no more. So, it is really a political developmental issue.

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