AMECEA News 18/2001

AMECEA SECRETARIAT

VIOLENCE CONDEMNED

Religious leaders all over Kenya have reacted angrily at the clashes that happened in Kibera Slum at the start of this month. In a joint statement issued on December 10th 2001 Christians and Muslim Religious leaders said: "…the effects of conflict, violence and insecurity to the country are well known. We the religious groups denounce in the strongest terms the violence being spread in some parts of the country." They regretted that 15 people were killed as a result of the skirmishes while an estimated 700,000 people in other slums around Nairobi live in fear and suspicion.

The Statement was signed by representatives of Kenya Episcopal Conference (KEC), National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK), Supreme Council of Kenya Moslems (SUPKEM), and Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK). Others who signed were: Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA), Methodist Church in Kenya (MCK), Hindu Council of Kenya, Muslim Consultative Council and Organization of Africa Instituted Churches (OAIC).

The statement urged the government and politicians to facilitate the process of reconciliation, to enable the warring parties to arrive at an amicable solution to the problem.

The Statement castigated the presence of the security forces, which instead of quelling the riot, enhanced the exodus of residents.

In a related incident, His Grace Raphael Ndingi Mwana 'a Nzeki Archbishop of Nairobi, December 8th, 2001, attributed the cause of fights in various parts of Kenya to the country's leaders. Archbishop Ndingi conducting a confirmation ceremony at Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in Kibera, was reported to have said that youth were paid by leaders to cause problems. He advised parents to counsel them.

Earlier on, December 5th, 2001, the Archdiocese of Nairobi released a statement which raised a scathing attack on the President, Cabinet minister Odinga and the government for the fracas in Kibera slums. " These two are wholly to blame for the deaths, the maiming and the destruction that Kibera is now witnessing."

The statement further castigated the irresponsible utterance saying that the Catholic Church is concerned with the contradicting statements that the president has continued to make. The statement alluded to the recent orders the president made about primary school fees.

It criticized also the relationship between violence and the run up to elections. "It is also no longer strange to Kenyans and the world that these confrontations always happen when the country is going into general elections."
Kibera Slum in Nairobi City is a home of about 700,000 people. At the start of December,2001, about 15 people were killed following clashes between tenants and landlords over house rent. In the eastern district of Tana River about forty people were killed and a hundred homes burnt down in what was attributed to struggle over land.

On November 31st 2001, President Moi while addressing a public meeting within Kibera directed the commissioner of Lands and the Nairobi Provincial Commissioner Mr. Cyrus Maina to resolve the land problem and resettle squatters somewhere else. Moi also is said to have asked the landlords to lower rent. Consequently a landlord who had gone to ask for rent and two other tenants were killed in the skirmishes that ensued. The situation worsened as clashes increased, resulting into more deaths and injuries. Some homes and churches were looted and burnt down and people fled from the area.

Three days later the area member of parliament Mr. Raila Odinga visited the slums and insisted that rents should be reduced.
Most of Kibera landlords are of Nubian origin from southern Sudan who were settled there by the British Colonialists after fighting on their side in the World War I.

Despite what happened nobody has been arrested as the cause of the skirmishes. (CISA)