Kenya attack linked to land dispute kills 13
NAIROBI, Kenya - Thirteen people were burned alive or hacked to death yesterday in an attack involving a land dispute, the first major eruption of violence since a power-sharing agreement was forged last week to end Kenya's postelection crisis.
NAIROBI, Kenya - Thirteen people were burned alive or hacked to death yesterday in an attack involving a land dispute, the first major eruption of violence since a power-sharing agreement was forged last week to end Kenya's postelection crisis.
The attack in the fertile Rift Valley, 300 miles northwest of Nairobi, illustrated that land conflicts exacerbated by the political fight still were boiling.
Many fear the violence - often pitting longtime neighbors against each other - will not wane easily.
Kenya's presidential election Dec. 27 unleashed weeks of bloodshed that killed more than 1,000 people, exposing divisions over land and resentment toward President Mwai Kibaki's Kikuyu ethnic group.
Kibaki and his top rival, Raila Odinga, of the Luo tribe, both claimed to have won the election. International and local observers said the vote was rigged. On Friday, Kibaki and Odinga agreed to share power, with Odinga as prime minister.
Early yesterday, dozens of people with assault rifles and machetes stormed Embakasi village. At least 13 people were killed, including six children, police said.
Rabson Mbuya, a police reservist who said his wife, three children and housekeeper had been killed, was on patrol when he saw the attackers knock on the door of his home before dawn.
"One spilled petrol on the roof before torching it. I heard my wife and children scream, but there was no way I could go near and rescue them," Mbuya said, weeping.
The region sees frequent clashes over land, and 800 people have been killed since 2006, said Ken Wafula, executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Democracy in the Rift Valley.
Bernard Muli, an area police chief, blamed the Sabaot Land Defense Force, a militia fighting for the redistribution of land in western Kenya.
There was no claim of responsibility, but a member of the militia, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said it tries to "correct historical injustices."
The tensions trace back to Kenya's colonial era, when white settlers seized land in the Rift Valley. The British dispersed the Kikuyus who lived there throughout the country.
At independence in 1963, Kenya's first president, Jomo Kenyatta, helped his Kikuyu kinsmen by appointing them to top government posts and easing the way for them to buy land from white settlers.
The Kikuyu prospered, growing into the most powerful ethnic group in the country, running business and politics. The favoritism fueled a simmering anger among the nation's 41 other tribes.
