What Is The Problem With Tribal Wars In Kenya?

By Author: Amar Shah
Total Articles: 215
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Ever since attaining independence and becoming a republic back in the year 1963, Kenya boasts of having one of the largest numbers of tribe living within it's over five hundred thousand square kilometres. This majestic country has also been endowed with a diverse culture oozing with undiluted language, traditions and tribes.

Up until the 2007 general elections, there has been a substantial peace and a steady growth in the country's economy with almost all its sectors receiving escalation in profits and income. The tourism sector, being one of the country's export earners, was topping the list with immense volumes of the number of tourist received in the country. Other sectors such as transport, local entrepreneurship, trade, industry were also experiencing growth.

After the much disputed general elections, the country went through one of its worst dreaded experiences; tribal war. This, however, did not come as much of a surprise since there have been quite a number of unrests in some parts of the country over the last couple of years that might have been an indicator of the worse to come. In areas such as Molo, ...
... Kuresoi, the Mount Elgon region, the Rift Valley among others, there have been wrangles brought about by land disputes, cattle rustling, and disputes over grazing areas and what have you. The clashes had subsided just before the elections but after later on they were freshly rekindled after the elections.

The results of the general elections are believed to have sparked the turmoil that rocked the country in the beginning of the year 2008. However, there had always been tension especially due to the fact that many parties had somewhat become regionally and tribally affiliated. For example, some of the major parties had great popularity within some regions than others; this in the long run led to a major rift between tribes. There was also much talk about how members of a particular tribe were not the favourable leaders in the next government, how members of particular tribe were causing the perpetrators of corruption and all other related occurrences.

The country was thrown into confusion after each party came out strongly opposing the results that were tallied by the Electoral Commission. Each one of them had their own results tallied and as expected the confusion and disagreements led to great spate of violence and war. To everyone's surprise, those areas that had been experiencing clashes were the hardest hit. This suggested that as much as the election results had a hand in the wake of the violence, tribalism and ethnicity which had been building over the past finally got a leeway and erupted.

The post election violence dealt a major blow to the country's economy as a whole, and this also affected the neighbouring countries since most of them being landlocked depend on Kenya as a transit country for their exports and imports and international trade.

The tourism sector was not spared the pain. As a matter of fact, the period that saw the skirmish (which is seen as the high season) saw no tourists coming in or even staying in any of the major hotels in the country. The political unrest resulted in countries from where many of the international tourists come from imposing travel advisories to their citizens thus creating a negative impression on the country's safety.

Transport, industry, trade and education are among the other sectors of the economy that were adversely affected by the violence.