Post-election Violence Research Articles

Violence, Political Instability, and International Trade: Evidence from Kenya’s Cut Flower Sector

We assess whether and how violence and political instability affect trade between developed and developing countries considering the special case of EU imports of Kenyan roses after the 2007/08 post-election violence and political instability in Kenya. Using the Rotterdam model to estimate EU demand for roses from Kenya and other global competitors, we find evidence of a structural change in the import growth rate for Kenya, approximately equivalent to an 18.6% tariff. These results highlight the importance of non-tariff barriers to trade and contribute to the growing literature on the role of insecurity and instability in hindering international trade.

Teaching Conflict Management Skills in Schools: Prerequisite for Peace and Achievement of Millennium Development Goals in Kenya.

The Kenyan society is experiencing a lot of conflicts, some with devastating effects such as deaths, starvation, disease and destruction. These normally arise out of difference between people. Secondary schools being part of the society have not been left out of this challenge as evidenced by mass media reports on strikes, demonstrations and resulting closures. This being the formative age of the youth who are the majority of the Kenyan population according to 2009 census results, the opportunity of their being in school may be exploited by the society to address conflicts as a major challenge to peace today. The Ministry of Education can impart a curriculum that would perpetuate peaceful conflict management skills in the youth. So far, this has evidently not been done adequately creating gaps for mishaps such as the 2008 post-election violence, whereby if the international community had not timely sent the former United Nations Organization Secretary General, Koffi Annan of Ghana who mediated to resolve the conflict, Kenyans would have ended up in self- destruction. Police have been called in by various authorities, severally, to quell riots and disperse demonstrators across the country. Many people have been, sentenced to death, life in prison, jailed or fined by Kenyan courts due to their poor conflict resolution methods. A peaceful environment would facilitate achievement of ‘millennium development goals’ at the international level, and the vision of industrialization by 2030 in Kenya. It is against the backdrop of the importance of conflict management skills to Kenyans that this paper is addressed. Key words: Conflict management skills, schools, disasters, curriculum, youth, peace, Kenya

More than political tools

This paper examines how the Kenyan police responded to the 2007/08 crisis of post-election violence. It provides a critical re-evaluation of the well-known argument of the police being political instruments of the regime of the day. In addition, it develops the argument that the view of the police as mere tools of the political leadership is too limited an explanation of police conduct in responding to ethnic and election violence. It suggests that even with the limited available knowledge of the operations of African police organisations there is room to introduce more variables and complexity in explanations of their conduct.

Postelection violence, posttraumatic stress, and comorbidity of behavioral and emotional problems among Kenyan youth

relationship between substance use and use disorders and religiosity. These studies are largely limited to adolescent or young adult populations in the United States and use proxies for religiosity that have not been validated. Only one study (to our knowledge) uses DSM-IV current diagnostic criteria for alcohol and drug abuse/dependence. No study explores DSM-IV current nicotine dependence. This study explores the relationship between religiosity and multiple substance-related outcomes in an adult Israeli sample using a clearly defined and understood religiosity construct. Methods: Household residents selected from the Israeli Population Registry (n = 1349) were interviewed. Multivariate logistic regression was used to investigate the association between religiosity and 2 types of outcomes: current substance use and current substance use disorders. Demographic covariates were controlled. Results: Self-reported level of religiosity was inversely related to current nicotine, alcohol, and drug use. Secular individuals were more likely than religious individuals to have current nicotine dependence (AOR = 1.92; CI, 1.15-3.21) and alcohol use disorders (AOR = 2.73; CI, 1.26-5.94). Among alcohol users, alcohol use disorders (AOR = 2.33; CI, 1.06-5.12) remained significantly associatedwith religiosity; however, this did not occur for nicotine or drugs. Conclusions: Theeffectof religiosityshouldbestudiedfurther tounderstand its associations with specific substances, especially among substance users, and withinvariouscultures andreligions.Additionally, clinicians shouldbeawareof the effect of religiosity when providing services to clients, as some studies of Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step groups have shown that spirituality is an important component of treatment. Limitations of the study design include data collection by self-report rather than by observation and cross-sectional data that reduce the ability to determine causal direction. Public Health Relevance: Understanding possible protective mechanisms of religiosity, such as social support, social acceptance and inclusion, and a relationship with a “higher authority,” could lead to greater understanding of the etiology of substance use disorders and, eventually, the development of public health policies and clinical interventions.

Nutritional Status of Under-five Children Living in an Informal Urban Settlement in Nairobi, Kenya

Malnutrition in sub-Saharan Africa contributes to high rates of childhood morbidity and mortality. However, little information on the nutritional status of children is available from informal settlements. During the period of post-election violence in Kenya during December 2007-March 2008, food shortages were widespread within informal settlements in Nairobi. To investigate whether food insecurity due to post-election violence resulted in high prevalence of acute and chronic malnutrition in children, a nutritional survey was undertaken among children aged 6-59 months within two villages in Kibera, where the Kenya Medical Research Institute/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducts population-based surveillance for infectious disease syndromes. During 25 March-4 April 2008, a structured questionnaire was administered to caregivers of 1,310 children identified through surveillance system databases to obtain information on household demographics, food availability, and child-feeding practices. Anthropometric measurements were recorded on all participating children. Indices were reported in z-scores and compared with the World Health Organization (WHO) 2005 reference population to determine the nutritional status of children. Data were analyzed using the Anthro software of WHO and the SAS. Stunting was found in 47.0% of the children; 11.8% were underweight, and 2.6% were wasted. Severe stunting was found in 23.4% of the children; severe underweight in 3.1%, and severe wasting in 0.6%. Children aged 36-47 months had the highest prevalence (58.0%) of stunting while the highest prevalence (4.1%) of wasting was in children aged 6-11 months. Boys were more stunted than girls (p < 0.01), and older children were significantly (p < 0.0001) stunted compared to younger children. In the third year of life, girls were more likely than boys to be wasted (p < 0.01). The high prevalence of chronic malnutrition suggests that stunting is a sustained problem within this urban informal settlement, not specifically resulting from the relatively brief political crisis. The predominance of stunting in older children indicates failure in growth and development during the first two years of life. Food programmes in Kenya have traditionally focused on rural areas and refugee camps. The findings of the study suggest that tackling childhood stunting is a high priority, and there should be fostered efforts to ensure that malnutrition-prevention strategies include the urban poor.

Floating Down the River of History: Ban Ki-moon and Peacekeeping, 2007–2011

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO PEACEKEEPING UNDER BAN KJ-MOON? WHEN BAN bid for a second term as Secretary-General of United Nations in June 2011, performance of peace operations on his watch was important part of public case for his reelection. In previous six months, UN missions had overseen unexpectedly smooth independence referendum in South Sudan, guided Haiti through controversial elections, and weathered four months of postelectoral violence in Cote d'lvoire. (1) Ban had taken a tough stance against defeated Ivorian incumbent Laurent Gbagbo, whose supporters menaced UN personnel. In April, UN helicopters attacked Gbagbo's forces, acting on directions from Security Council to protect civilians from heavy-weapons fire. Gbagbo was taken into custody by his opponents, and Ban described events in Cote d'lvoire as a milestone for international community's commitment to democracy. (2) He avoided triumphalism, recognizing that thousands of civilian lives had been lost in crisis. Nonetheless, Secretary-General clearly perceived Ivorian episode as important moment in defining his leadership. So too did his staff. Since taking office in 2007, Ban had often been lambasted inside and outside UN Secretariat as inept leader, but officials now declared a new respect for his political judgment and courage. (3) Having made his pitch for another term, Ban won support of Security Council and General Assembly within weeks. Asked by a South Korean news agency to comment, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Alain Le Roy praised Ban's in-depth knowledge of peacekeeping coupled with his outstanding negotiation skills, adding that the Secretary-General's personal dedication to peacekeeping has been invaluable in assisting to maintain peace and security in so many countries and giving people a fighting chance in some of world's most dangerous and inhospitable places. (4) Under circumstances, Le Roy could be forgiven for offering Ban Ki-moon particularly fulsome praise. But were his words justified by Secretary-General's performance? Ban's leadership of UN peace operations had received relatively little attention prior to Ivorian crisis. While there are a number of widely read accounts of how Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Kofi Annan shaped peacekeeping, there is as yet no equivalent account of Ban's stewardship. (5) While he has been subject of much press coverage since 2007, it has tended to focus on his climate change diplomacy (usually treated as a good thing) and managerial style (frequently described as a bad thing). (6) This inattention to Ban's oversight of peace operations is striking because number of military and police personnel involved has hit record highs during his tenure, approaching 100,000. (7) The cost of peace operations has hovered between $7 billion and $8 billion. In May 2011, Le Roy warned that UN faced an unprecedented number of demands which have dramatically increased. (8) There is a need for a more rigorous reckoning of how Ban has dealt with these challenges, looking beyond specific episodes such as success in Cote d'Ivoire to explore his attitude toward peacekeeping as a whole. In this article, I do not aim to offer a final verdict on Ban's guidance of peacekeeping throughout his first term. Instead, I offer initial assessment of whether Secretary-General has demonstrated a consistent vision of peacekeeping during his time in office, and how this has manifested itself in terms of both reforms to UN bureaucracy and organization's reaction to individual crises. This is not to claim that Ban could shape peacekeeping to his will. To focus on any Secretary-General's vision of peacekeeping is problematic insomuch as UN operations are shaped by Security Council, troop contributors, and power brokers in field. Clarifying division of labor between these actors--and carving out autonomous role for Secretary-General amid them--has been a long-standing headache within UN. …

When Does Ethnic Diversity Lead to Violence? Evidence from the 2007 Elections in Kenya

Exploiting a district level data set on the 2007/8 post-election violence in Kenya, this paper investigates why polarization between ethnic groups results in violent conflict in some cases, but not in others. After the announcement of highly controversial election results in December 2007, ethnic-based violence erupted in many parts of Kenya. Violence occurred more often and with greater intensity in areas characterized by a high level of polarization between the Kikuyu ethnic group and other ethnic communities. At the same time, in several districts with a very high level of Kikuyu-non-Kikuyu polarization, only few and sporadic incidences of violence occurred. The paper attempts to explain why in areas with similar levels of ethnic polarization, a flawed election process produced so different reactions. Results suggest that the main triggers of ethnic violence were poverty, unemployment among young males, and deteriorating public services. On the other hand, there is little evidence that clashes resulted from land inequality, land pressure or political competition.

Inscribing memory, healing a nation: post-election violence and the search for truth and justice in Kenya Burning

The violence in the wake of the Kenya general elections in December 2007 found one of its most profoundly haunting, provocative and creative expressions in a photographic text called Kenya Burning. This article renders a reading of photographs in Kenya Burning in an attempt to lay bare the complex sphere of multiple narratives that speak to the issues of what ails Kenya. We argue that as an artistic piece of work, the picture-text represents the ways in which the photographers as artists have constructed representations of the realities of Kenya's socio-political life around and up to the eruption of the post-election violence. In engaging with these pictures, we unveil the complex history of Kenya's multi-party politics and the burden of ignored or forgotten narratives. We navigate a terrain of sordid pictures capturing death, destruction and mayhem, pictures that attest to the truth that the memory of the collective populace cannot be “shut down” just for political expediency. The article's conclusion signals the ways in which versions and subversions around the pictures embrace a spirit of remembering and shared collective experience that speaks volumes to the place of the creative arts in confronting violence and building bridges between divergent communities in Eastern Africa.

Museums in Kenya: Spaces for Selecting, Ordering and Erasing Memories of Identity and Nationhood

This article discusses representations of ‘nationhood’ at National Museums of Kenya (NMK) and community peace museums (CPMs). The representations range from a virtual absence of exhibitions on nationhood to exhibitions of cultural objects associated with specific ethnic groups and commemoration of local and/or national heroes. The representations at NMK appear to be informed by the expressed and/or assumed wishes of the country's political leadership. As such, the social memory they evoke has suffered episodic interruptions through time. On the other hand, representations at CPMs are, to a large extent, informed by influential individuals or small sections of the community and tend to concentrate on the ethnic group within which they are located, thus articulating local as opposed to national issues. This situation contributes to contestations of ‘nationhood’ in Kenya, a phenomenon that has come to the fore with every general election since the re-introduction of multi-party politics 20 years ago and, in particular, with the 2007/08 post-election violence.

Transitional Justice in Kenya? An Assessment of the Accountability Process in Light of Domestic Politics and Security Concerns

This article explores how domestic politics have shaped the process of seeking accountability for Kenya’s 2008 post-election violence as well as the impact the accountability process has had on the political landscape and more broadly security in the country. It is argued that the absence of a profound political transition has caused significant resistance to establishing accountability measures. However, due to the existence of the International Criminal Court, there are now prospects that the masterminds of the electoral violence will be brought to justice, something which has a significant impact on succession politics and security in the country.

The Policy Requirement in Crimes Against Humanity: Lessons from and for the Case of Kenya

Article 7(2)(a) of the Rome Statute stipulates that crimes against humanity are pre-conditioned on the existence of an attack on a civilian population “pursuant to or in furtherance of a State or organizational policy to commit such attack”. This requirement has given rise to considerable controversy in the legal literature. This article examines how the provision has been applied by Pre-Trial Chamber II of the ICC in the two cases currently pending before the Chamber concerning Kenya’s post-election violence. The question of under what circumstances non-state actors may qualify as an organization in the meaning of article 7(2)(a) is elaborated significantly on in these cases. Further, the question of whether state actors can adopt an organizational policy is discussed in the Kenyan cases. The article critically reviews the practice of the ICC and seeks to establish new criteria for how article 7(2)(a) should be applied.

P2-S3.07 Responding to problems of sexual violence and vulnerability to HIV/AIDS within crisis and unstable situations: a case study of Kenya's post-election violence

Introduction and BackgroundSexual violence and the risk of HIV transmission are clearly linked through multiple pathways underpinned by gender inequalities and poverty like increased genital injury, anal rape, multiple perpetrators...

Constitutional Review and Referendums in Kenya

In 2005 the Kenya constitutional referendum failed. This led to a crisis in government which culminated in postelection violence in 2007. In 2008 the new power-sharing agreement re-started a constitutional process, but this time a Committee of Experts was engaged and citizen involvement was smaller. The Committee of Experts presented a harmonised draft which again was converted by government. It included US-style presidentialism with a number of checks and balances. The subsequent referendum in 2010 was successful. The Kenya constitutional process gives important insight for constitutional engineering as well as for confl ict resolution in other African countries, such as Zimbabwe, as well as globally.

Stopping a Conflagration: The Response of Kenyan Civil Society to the Post-2007 Election Violence

Kenya experienced unprecedented political violence following the flawed and disputed presidential election result in December 2007. Over 1,100 people were killed and another 600,000 displaced. The violence spread rapidly and threatened Kenya as a nation-state. Following international mediation by the African Union's Panel of Eminent African Personalities under the chairmanship of Kofi Annan, the former United Nations Secretary General, the two main protagonists agreed to end violence and to share political power. Although much has been written about the Kenya post-election violence, little has been said about the role the country's indigenous civil society groups played in the mediation process, and to end the violence. This article discusses the role they played in ending the crisis by responding to two questions: ‘How did civil society put out the fire?’ and ‘What lessons can other African civil society organizations learn from the experience?’

Kenya's indigenous radio stations and their use of metaphors in the 2007 election violence

The article focuses on the use of metaphors during the 2007 pre- and post-election violence in Kenya that left at least 1400 people dead and more than 350,000 internally displaced. During and after the violence, vernacular radio stations, though not entirely responsible for the violence, were highly chastised for constructing and disseminating narratives of hate, using embellished metaphors. This article acknowledges the presence of these metaphors and the ethnicized stereotypical humour they provided before the election. But it is the political tension that provided the context for the deployment of metaphors in a way that framed their meaning and potency of use. Whether these metaphors contributed to fanning ethnic passion cannot be quantitatively assessed. However, their potency was not in themselves, but in the meaning imbued in them; which was as fluid and transient as the context changed. Metaphors, therefore, became substitutes for past ethnic grievances. They served as a rallying cry and a call to arms, not because of the totality of what can be inferred from them, both positive and negative, but their signification of the aspects of difference. It is this difference, which was exploited during the election violence, not because of the metaphors but in spite of them. With the background of the political tension that suffocated the country, metaphors became materials to propagate ethnic identities and a basis for ethnic nomenclature.

Youth Violence: Perspectives on Risk and Protection

It is recognized that absence of social protection increases risks and compound vulnerability to economic shocks. Social protection is defined to be policies and programmes aimed at providing individuals and families income and other support for coping with the consequences of economic shocks. In Kenya, worsening economic conditions has made employment opportunities, particularly in the formal sector are scanty. This is recognized as potentially one of the most important shocks faced by the youth, circumstances that make them susceptible to risky behaviours. The youth are observed to be increasingly involved in various forms of crime and violence. The risks to which youth are exposed are a reflection of the absence of social protection policies which can provide some degree of protection against economic shocks. In view of this, the crucial role which the government must play in terms of development of labour market based policies and programmes to protect and support the youth is emphasized. The aim of this paper is to open a discussion on the notion of ‘youth at risk’ as seen from the perspective of social protection. The paper specifically seeks to capture the economic factors on the likelihood of youth violence, using the case study of Lugari constituency in the context of the post election violence in which it was mostly the youth that took part. We however take cognizance that while this analysis focuses on youth violence in Kenya, the findings can easily be projected to the wider Sub-Saharan Africa context.

The consequences of post-election violence on antiretroviral HIV therapy in Kenya

Over 1000 individuals were killed and 600,000 were displaced during post-election violence (PEV) in Kenya in 2008. Antiretroviral therapy (ART) depends on continuous access to medications which may have been interrupted due to PEV. In a mixed-methods retrospective review, treatment interruption of ART during PEV was measured among 2534 HIV-positive adults attending the Coptic Hope Center for Infectious Diseases in Nairobi, Kenya. Clients experiencing treatment interruption were compared between the PEV period (30 December 2007 to 28 February 2008) and the same time period one year earlier. Treatment interruption was defined as visiting the pharmacy ≥48 hours after antiretrovirals were calculated to have been completed. Despite clinical services remaining open throughout the PEV period, more clients (16.1%) experienced treatment interruption than during the comparison period (10.2%). Mean daily pharmacy visits were significantly lower (87 vs. 104; p < 0.006) and more variable (p = 0.03) during PEV. Among clients present at both periods (n = 1605), the odds of treatment interruption were 71% higher during PEV (95% confidence interval [CI], 34–118%). In multivariate analysis, men (odds ratio [OR], 1.37; 95% CI, 1.07–1.76) and clients traveling ≥3 hours to clinic (OR, 1.86; 95% CI, 1.28–2.71) were significantly more likely to experience treatment interruption. Clients affected by PEV were interviewed about factors associated with treatment interruption using semi-structured methods. Clients described fear, lack of transportation, and violence as contributing to treatment interruption. Widespread violence associated with the 2007 election in Kenya revealed the dependence of HIV patients on a stable civil society and infrastructure to access medications. Without the ability to maintain consistent HIV therapy, some patients face rapid treatment failure. HIV programs should have appropriate contingency plans wherever political instability may occur. Peace may be one of the most effective and most important public health interventions in Africa.

Violence, hate speech and inflammatory broadcasting in Kenya: The problems of definition and identification

During and after the 2007/8 post-election violence in Kenya, media monitors, human rights groups, politicians and journalists accused sections of the Kenyan media - notably local vernacular radio stations - of broadcasting messages of hate and inciting ethnic hatred and violence. Some observers went so far as to suggest that certain radio stations had acted like the infamous Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) in Rwanda, during the 1994 genocide. This article looks at the context of the violence, the inflammatory and at times violent nature of political discourse in Kenya, the role in that discourse of vernacular radio stations, and the ways in which we identify and define hate broadcasting and propaganda. The behaviour of the stations is viewed in the context of Kenya's political environment, language of political discourse, and media structure and history.

Commonwealth News Update

Pakistan fell further into the grip of religious extremists when Salmaan Taseer was shot by his bodyguard in the most high-profile political assassination since the murder of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007. The Punjab governor was killed for condemning a blasphemy law used to persecute minorities and settle scores. Revelations in 250,000 classified US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks spawned diplomatic crises and shocking revelations across the world, including allegations of dirty tricks by the US drug firm Pfizer and espionage by Shell in Nigeria; Rahul Gandhi in India saying Hindu fundamentalists were a bigger threat than militant Islamists, and fears about the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons. The International Criminal Court indicted some of Kenya's most powerful men over the post-election violence that saw 1,500 people killed. An area the size of France and Germany in Queensland was inundated in Australia's worst floods in half a century.

An Appraisal of the Contributions of the Civil Defence Corps in Containing 2011 Post Election Violence in Nigeria

The massive rigging of election results against the choice of the people and cross inability of the electoral commission to conduct free, fair and credible elections are the core issues that have been fuelling post-election violence in Nigeria since the occurrence of the first high-intensity post-election violence in 1965, code-named ‘Operation Wetie’in the defunct Western Region. These causative factors have served as early warning signals which security operatives used to monitor closely in the period of general elections. In the Second Republic, election results in the South-West zone of the country were massively rigged and these were violently rejected by the people. However, in the Aborted Third Republic, the June 12 Presidential election was not rigged but was unjustifiably annulled by the military junta; this consequently , led to series of violent protests dubbed ‘June 12 Crises’. This paper takes a critical look at the conduct of the 2011 presidential election and submits that rigging was infinitesimal, hence did not override people’s choice and the conduct was generally acclaimed free, fair and credible both nationally and internationally. It case-studied the efforts of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, (NSCDC), in containing the spread of the violence and concludes that though the post-election violent protests caught the law enforcement agencies unaware as there were no early warning signals which would have been used in the preparation of the intelligence reports, that would have helped to checkmate the violence, they still perform efficiently in mitigating the spread of the violence.