January 09, 2008 (the date of publication in Russian)
Eduard Korneyev
PEOPLE DIE FOR HEROIN
Kenya as the African Klondike for drug dealers
Reports about large-scale ethnic conflicts shaking the Black Continent rarely attract attention of the well-to-do Western public which perceives regular massacres in Africa as not more than a brawl between one tribe of underdeveloped humans and another. The very term of ethnic cleansing is traditionally attributed to Yugoslavia, the blame laid mostly particularly on the Serbs. Meanwhile, the African toll of ethnic massacres has championed in the late XX century, with a dire perspective of prevalence in the new millennium as well.
The carnage, involving the peoples of Hutu and Tutsi in the neighboring nations of Burundi and Rwanda, though being sufficiently covered in global media in mid-1990s, has not raised the issue of responsibility of former colonial powers for this and other tragic developments. The "mother countries" were reluctant to intervene in the conflict, though it was predetermined decades before, yet in the period of the hasty recognition of formal independence of African nations that were since supposed to solve their internal problems conveniently alone. The Western community had been displaying similar indifference to the brutalities in Liberia for years before its dictator was finally dragged to The Hague.
Criticizing Soviet leaders for the "division and conquest" of Central Asia, with largely arbitrarily established borders, the Western community would not see the beam in its own eye. The borders between African nations have been established arbitrarily as well, in accordance with pragmatic needs of the "mother nations". After the withdrawal of Europeans, many of the artificially formed countries failed to consolidate efficient statehood due to the rivalry of local clans, established on the ethnic principle.
Withdrawing from the Black Continent, the "mother countries" did not care of the capability of the abandoned "kids" for efficient nation-building. Meanwhile, global corporations, continuing to operate in the resource-rich regions of Africa, received a carte blanche for manipulating ethnic rivalry in their interests. Many of the separatist movements, emerging in the formerly British Nigeria and the formerly Belgian Congo, originated from corporate interests, allied with the ambitions of local clan leaders.
Meanwhile, the conditions of life of the poorest population hardly improved with declarations of independence that mostly benefited the narrow circles of local elites. Therefore, the ostensible triumph of independence has not put an end to the self-reproducing violence on the brink – or often beyond the brink of genocide, to the brutalities of insane dictators like Bokassa, Mobutu or Idi Amin Dada, and to the manner of local military and financial bosses to rob the peoples of their own. Progress was visible rather in the means of violence, experienced first-hand by the desperate majority of the population.
THE SMOKESCREEN OF STABILITY
One the eve of and right after the 2008 Christmas, a wave of violence covered Kenya, earlier reputed as one of the most stable and economically developed countries of Africa. Actually, the country had been electrified with ethnic hate during decades before. By the time of the misfortunate elections, the number of internally displaced persons exceeded 350,000; this number is going to zoom after the massacre.
The Western community used to display sympathy towards Kenya, even despite the 1998 explosion at the US Embassy in Nairobi, reportedly carried out by the ubiquitous Al Qaeda. The current elections, according to the expression of the US Ambassador in Kenya, were supposed to portray a showcase harmony of African democracy. Instead, the political competition turned an outburst of brutal violence which affected not only the voting population but also innocent children. The total number of casualties varies in public reports from 500 to 1000; a hard piece of evidence is a hundred of civilians locked and burned alive in a local Christian church.
The major controversy is unfolding between two largest ethnic communities of Kenya – the Kikuyu and the Luo. The Kikuyu people comprising 21% of the Kenyan nation, belongs to the family of Bantu peoples. The Kikuyu dominate in the country's capital and along the Central Mountain Range, where British settlers used to reside in the colonial period. The Luo, representing the Shari-Nile group of peoples, inhabit the area along the coastline of Lake Victoria, forming a compact community of 12% of the total population.
At the parliamentary elections which sparked the massacre, the ruling Kenyan African National Unity (KANU) Party was represented by incumbent president Mwai Kibaki, an ethnic Kikuyu. Meanwhile, the opposition was headed by Raila Odinga, a politician of Luo origin. After the elimination of the single-party rule back in 1991, Odinga and his clan took part in the foundation of a unified oppositionist movement that later split over an ethnic controversy.
The major rivals of the political competition had been trying to camouflage the ethnic background of their disaccord, portraying themselves as pursuers of democracy, common justice, Kenyan unity etc. Still, you can't hide a cat in a bag. The Kikuyu domination in the ruling establishment could not last for an indefinite time; sooner or later, it would be questioned.
The Kenyan economy, displaying relatively stable growth (the per capita income increasing in three time during the rule of Mwai Kibaki), remains primarily agrarian, most of the incomes being derived from export of food products. In the division of labor in the global economy, Kenya used to play the role of the major provider of tea. This industry has developed a shadowy sector, playing a major role in administrative corruption.
THE DRUG CRESCENT OF AFRICA
Drugs, predominantly heroin and methaqualon, are massively traded through and from Kenya, under the guise of tea exports. Serving as the major gateway for import of heroin from Southern Asia to Europe and North America, Kenya also increases its own production of drugs. Nairobi-based drug barons also efficiently supervise production of drugs in the war-ridden countries of Somali, Rwanda and Burundi, as inaccessible for international police authorities as convenient for criminals, particularly as a source of cheap labor. Controlling the turnover of drugs across most of Eastern Africa, Kenyan drug traffickers amass dozens of millions dollars from a single deal.
Though being heavily corrupted, Kenyan police annually registers around 7000 drug deals, which is only the top of the iceberg. The ambitions of local ethnic groups are just small pawns in the big transcontinental game. The same is true about the Hutu and the Tutsi, whose clash has just provided more convenient conditions for shadowy transit, as well as shadowy employment of dispossessed people.
From this viewpoint, Kenya could be viewed as just one of the links in the international "arc of instability", very convenient for global shadowy interests. This arc encompasses Myanmar and Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan. The implications of instability fuel wars between Eritrea and Ethiopia, as well as the long-term insurgency in Southern Sudan. The "arc of instability" is likely to involve more nations, extending through Central Asia to Pakistan and India. Ethnic and religious warfare, increasing in these countries, provides preconditions for instability exploited by global shadowy communities for their narrow interests.
Failure of efficient statehood, as well as transparency of borders for illegal trade, provides preferable conditions for global drug business. Enjoying political support from top Western circles, local tribal leaders rely upon incomes from huge trade turnover and eventually fall victims of global competition in the same kind of international shadowy trade that downgrades billions of humans across the globe to the condition of easy controllable human cattle.
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