In this week hundreds of Kenyans have been killed, churches have been put on fire, huts have been burned to the ground and thousands of people have been injured. More than 100.000 people are on the run – human hunt in East Africa. A civil war threatens to break out because the opposition feels cheated out of their electoral victory.

The election fraud in the Government camp is obvious – the election director has personally admitted to it. One of the most stable African countries has turned into a chaos region in only a few days. Nevertheless still-president Kibaki tries to stick on to the government throne and the opposition under the most probable election winner Odinga wants to chase him off the throne.
 
According to independent watchdogs, both parties seem to be more concerned about power than the necessities of more than 38 million people of Kenya, of which more than two third live in unimaginable poverty and misery. The fights in Kenya are not only ethnical but also the rebellion of the poor against the greed of the powerful and corrupted in the country.
 
To learn about democracy - meaning to exercise power for only a certain period of time and to then hand this power over to the opposition - is difficult. In Europe this learning process has taken hundreds of years and had to be fought for hard as well. The genocide in Rwanda, the anarchy in Somalia, the civil war in Sudan and now the rebellion of the poor in Kenya prove that no politically patented recipe has so far been found to solve the conflicts in today’s Africa.  
 
The fact that all these conflicts are contributory settled with arms from democratic countries shows that the rich west carries a partial responsibility for the misery in poor Africa. The only real way out of this actual dilemma would be: to vote again or to count from the beginning – that is if not too many votes have already gone missing. That would be impossible without international supervision. Not scattered countries, but the west as an entire entity has to exercise pressure on the government in Nairobi. An important reaction is needed from the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) to which Kenya is a member. The present Kenyan government should be excluded from the African Summit at the end of January. The EU on the other hand should make it clear to the so called victor of the election scam that its presence is not welcomed anywhere in Europe.
 
There are no signs of hope from Kenya these days. Our daughter Caren is working with a young self help group in Kenya called Warriors. On the phone the young people say: „We are not interested in this whole election dispute. Those are the usual power games between the politicians. We people in Kenya just want to live in peace. We are organizing night watches to guard the streets for the inhabitants of the slums, so that the poorest can at least sleep in peace. And we are protecting our orphans. “The youth group has built an orphanage for 20 children in Korogocho, one of the slums of Nairobi. Now they are looking for a solution to leave the dangerous slum Korogocho and to move the orphanage to the saver Kosele in the east of Kenya. There the children would have more security and could go to school.  This move is unconditionally necessary.
 
To make it possible for the Warriors self help group, to move the orphanage from this highly dangerous Korogocho to the much saver Kosele the young groups needs funds. You can help with a donation that would save young lives: NEIA e.V. VR Bank Dormagen, Bank Code 305 605 48, Account Number 4610 9100 12. Important: purpose “Warriors“. Young Africans want to prove that they can solve their own problems but for this they need the help to help themselves – from democratic politicians as well as involved citizens.

Source:
Franz Alt 2008
Übersetzung: Omotuli Nafidi