Political tension is threatening to split the 18-month-old Kenyan government of national unity as constitutional reform activists gear up for another weekend of street protests. It is reported that police shot eight people (including two primary school pupils) in Kisumu in western Kenya, after a clash with demonstrators at Saba Saba celebrations last week.
Scores of international tourists are leaving Kenya’s coast as the high season ends and the long rains set in. But this year there are very few Americans among them. Shortly before the Easter holiday period, the United States government warned that the threat of terrorist attacks remained greater in Kenya and Tanzania than anywhere else in Africa.
When Mwai Kibaki became Kenya’s third president little more than a year ago, a Gallup International survey found that the country’s people were the ”most optimistic” in the world. Euphoria had greeted Kibaki’s victory over the autocratic Daniel arap Moi, who had ruled the country with an iron fist since Jomo Kenyatta’s death in 1978. But the elation has faded.
Eldoret could’ve been any dorpie on the platteland in the 1930s. The Afrikaner trekkers who’d settled here in Kenya’s western highlands played jukskei in the dusty streets; they baked koeksisters and melktert and braaied under acacia trees. The M&G tracked down the last remaining Afrikaner farmer in the East African country.