CLUTCHING a large rock on his shoulder, Sam Ogada is ready for battle. “This”, he says, gesturing with it, “is the only language our government understands”. A little way down the street, in Kisumu, a large city in western Kenya, piles of burning tyres spew black smoke into the air. Policemen, dressed in full camouflage and clutching assault rifles, mill about. The sting of tear gas hangs in the air. On the streets men have fashioned bricks, stones and tree branches into crude roadblocks, where, when not fighting with the police, they ask somewhat menacingly for donations from passing motorists.
The people of Kisumu are used to this. The city is the stronghold of Raila Odinga, Kenya’s veteran opposition leader. It has been a centre for discontent with Kenya’s government for as long as most Kenyans can remember. In 1969 the first president, Jomo Kenyatta, visited but had to be rescued from an angry crowd by policemen firing a hail of bullets. Yet people here, who are mostly of Mr Odinga’s Luo tribe, seem angrier than ever. “We have been marginalised for 50 years”, says Adam Mbatah, another protester. “It is as if we are not part of this country.”
The focus of their anger is the repeat of Kenya’s presidential election, due to be held on October 26th (as The Economist went to press)....Continue reading
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