Who does Kenya fear?

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 09:22:46 +0300

So the contents of the Faina, the mysterious boat whose cargo no one wanted to claim except for the Somali pirates who boarded a ship with loot beyond their dreams, were cleared in Mombasa on Monday, reports The Nation:

• unpacked spare parts for the T-72 tanks
• ZPU-4-Soviet-built anti-aircraft gun mounted on four-wheel carriage
• RPG7V-Rocket propelled grenades (RPGs)
• Spare parts for the RPGs
• BM21 on Ural Wheelbase-a type of heavy truck mounted with multiple-launch rocket system, and
812 tonnes of 125 mm rounds of ammunition
And 33 T-72 tanks from the Ukraine.
As The Nation so delicately puts it, “questions persist as to why Kenya is arming itself.”
It is not as if Kenya had no tanks. It already had some 170, 100 of those just purchased in 2007.
Who is worth so much to Kenya (or to one or two officials) to merit such protection, or such outlandish fear?

Report Suspected Witches to the Police

Mon, 9 Feb 2009 21:07:44 +0300

In the past six months, 15 people have been killed in the small town of Magarini, just north of Malindi on Kenya’s coast, the East African Standard reported today. The population is only some 6000 in the area. A father was killed by his own relatives for practicing witchcraft at the funeral of his son. The boy had died of a “mysterious illness” and in need for explanation, decided to accuse and lynch the boy’s father.

While you might think that tales of witchcraft and the murdering of witches would draw great attention, it does not. The news report in the East African Standards is so matter of fact as to be banal. The killings are so numerous that it is difficult to keep straight who has been killed where as described by the article. The bodies just keep piling up, and no one seems all that shocked.

At least, the report does state that they police have asked residents to stop “targeting old people on suspicion of witchcraft.” What about the young or middle aged? Are they on their own, to fend off lynch mobs of people looking for answers that will never come?

In other news...

Who does Kenya fear?

Report Suspected Witches to the Police