NAIROBI PROTESTS

More trouble on the streets of Nairobi today -- a thousands-strong student protest over alleged police killings degenerated into rioting and looting in the centre of the Kenyan capital. http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5292FB20090310
I briefly wondered this week if I should stock up on essentials -- water, biscuits, beer -- but then thought I was being paranoid, which is probably true. Call me Cassandra. Nonetheless, and despite the fact that students wouldn't be students if they did not protest against the establishment, today's violence feels like the beginning, not the end. The students were apparently joined by unemployed youths, and others from the many slums of Nairobi as well as professionals. Heaven knows there seems to be enough anger and frustration around to bring people onto the streets, even in a country with a lot to lose, relative to other African states, a strong middle-class and years of corruption behind it.
I had a strange, thought-provoking chat with a man in Limuru at the weekend. He was definitely not middle-class, and as he dragged on his cigarette, he opined: "We look to Zimbabwe and see what happened there." It might seem an exaggerated comparison, and indeed the histories and current circumstances are so different, but if a Kenyan is looking to Zimbabwe as a vision of a possible, albeit very pessimistic future, it is very depressing.
Fear seems to be gripping a large segment of the Kenyan population -- the flipside of the impunity that appears to have a stranglehold on the security forces and the political class. This article from the Daily Nation this week makes chilling reading -- it investigates alleged torture and executions by the army in Mount Elgon -- claims the military deny -- and the retribution that still awaits those who dare to speak out about the events a year ago. http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/543462/-/u33lps/-/And now in Samburu, an operation is underway against cattle rustlers that appears marked with the same callous abuse of power by those with guns. http://www.eastandard.net/InsidePage.php?id=1144008415&cid=4&ttl=Leaders%20condemn%20Samburu%20security%20operation
Kofi Annan said today he is sure the Kenyan Grand Coalition, which was born out of the post-election violence of 2007/8 -- will survive but notes that it must reform. Reform is the word on everyone's lips -- but talk is cheap and increasingly discounted in Kenya.