The star of Africa fades

My heart is breaking when I see the horrifying pictures of Kenya. Having family in Zimbabwe, I was hoping that if things got worse there under the dictatorship of Mugabe my family could flee to what seemed to be one of the most stable and promising countries in Africa: Kenya. As the Newsweek Magazine puts it, the star of Africa is fading and with it my hopes for Africa.

Since the election on Dec 27. two tribes in Kenya , the Kikuyu and the Luo, have been fighting each other bitterly.Homes have been burned, women and children have been burned alive and the death toll has reached 1000 people in the last weeks. The election that made Mwai Kibaki President of Kenya has been called, not only by the oppostion but also by international leader, a flawed election and the outrage over this unfair election has caused the Luos (the ribe of the oppostiotion leader Raila Odinga) to massacre hundreds of Kikuyus (tribe of the elected President Mwai Kibaki).

More than 200.000 have been forced to leave ethnically-mixed areas. Jendayi E. Frazer calls it a "clear ethnical cleasing" and many feel reminded of the horrors that happened in Rwanda, where hundreds of thousands had been killed.

Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary general has been brokering political negotiations between Odinga and Kibaki for the last week, but the riots don't seem to quiet down. Two oppostions leaders have been assasinated in the last days and the murdering in the slums of Nairobi and other parts of the country continues.

With the international eyes being on Kenya for the last weeks, and many experienced leaders supporting Mwai and Rodinga on their way to finding a solution, all I can do is hope for things to settle down fast so we don't have to count more deaths in Kenya.