Kenya: Voice of Reason That Calmed Down Warring Communities

By Eric Sande

NAIROBI---The Kenyan 2008 post election violence was a situation that left a country that has lived for over 40 years in peace soaked up in gross uncertainty and heightened ethnicity. It is said to having been perpetrated by political incitement and religious differences that escalated into formation of tribal cocoons.

Three years on, the restless country is feeling the effects of the intervention by the international community and local NGOs working around the clock to see the restoration of sustainable peace.   

“Collective will of the international community had stopped the post-election violence in Kenya from escalating to genocide levels”, said a United Nations official on January 19.

A  local NGO, Youth United for Peace (YUPK) based in Nairobi Kenya, started its operation in March 2008 through an intervention of Religious Superior Councils of Kenya (RSCK).

The evangelization department of RSCK launched the idea to involve the youth across the country to build peace in Kenya out of a desire to restore sanity that was fading away.

Their experience indulging in the exercise to bringing peace to the nation came with some challenges but left a great impact in resolving the stalemate.

“Kenyans were divided along ethnic lines and political connotations,” says the Josephat Khamasi, the YUPK project manager.

“There was a direct and indirect involvement during the post election violence, direct involvement narrows down to the food crisis that hit the nation at the time and looting became rampant all because the state organs were unable to control the situation. Indirectly, organized groups could be seen live on Television mercilessly burning humans in their houses and churches,’’ added Khamasi.

The hot spot Rift valley was the nerve centre where YUPK staged these reconciliation efforts with the local communities. They worked closely with the area bishop’s office through the parishes to bring the message home.

Challenges

In dialogue forums, the two enemy camps could be seen keeping distance in their sitting arrangement which could be interpreted to the rooted volatile ethnicity wrangles at that time. The situation forced one of YUPK official from one  of the communities to change his names for security reasons and also to help him pursue the mandate that took him to the war torn region.

The local priests were also divided making their followers left with no choice but seek redress from their communities.

“The young men who were at the centre of the country’s mayhem were being manipulated by their parents and it was difficult to get them attend the forums” says Khamasi.

Some young men admitted to be given oaths by their parents in Nakuru with clear intentions to lure them into causing chaos and instill in their minds a notion that their rivals were the bad ones.

Khamasi reiterated that ,“We were at all times intimidated in our efforts to bring peace and only interventions from the church made us be at peace with the volatile regions”.

Warring communities perceptions

The Rift Valley natives argued that the people from Central Kenya who settled on their land (ancestral land) came illegally and could be seen to have interest in controlling their territory.

On the other hand the people from Central Kenya who settled in Rift Valley say that they legally bought land for the natives and they did not find any reason not to control their masses.

Other involvements

YUPK in its pursuit to bring peace in Kenya, has engaged in a number of activities. Last year, during the International Peace Day they participated in planning and mobilizing communities in Nairobi and around the country in conjunction with the national steering committee on peace building and conflict management in the Office of the President.

It has held a number of forums in peace building and reconciliation, civic education, dialogue and human rights activities.

In the recent past, YUPK in collaboration with Koinonia Action for Peace,  an initiative of Koinonia Community,  organized forums , trainings and a conference on children’s rights which culminated in a peace march at the heart of Kibera, one of sub- Saharan Africa’s largest slum settlement , besides being a hotspot during the 2008 post election violence.