DALLAS (ABP) — Religious extremism prompted much of the violence surrounding Kenya's disputed presidential elections, according to a Kenyan expatriate and Baptist pastor who lost a bid for a seat in parliament. But international experts with contacts in the region point to ethnic and political divisions — not religion — as precipitating the bloodshed.
International media reported widespread violence erupted throughout Kenya's rural areas after the nation's electoral commission declared incumbent President Mwai Kibaki defeated challenger Raila Odinga, and Odinga's supporters claimed the voting was rigged.
But Solomon Kimuyu, a Dallas resident who has maintained his Kenyan citizenship, said he saw televised images of the violence long before the polls closed, just prior to a media blackout in Kenya. And he asserted members of Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement with close ties to the National Muslim Leaders Forum orchestrated much of the rioting.
Muslim extremists tied to the opposition party pledged long before the election that if certain conditions were not met prior to the Dec. 27 voting, violence would result, he insisted.
But Joel Barkin, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Iowa and senior associate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said his sources in Kenya reported no involvement by Muslim extremists in orchestrated violent demonstrations.
“The violence has been interethnic, not religious,” he said.
Barkin pointed to different types of violence surrounding the elections. Some violence was organized, but he insisted it was generated by rival political factions who seized on tribal differences, not fomented by Muslim extremists.
Some violence was spontaneous, breaking out in reaction to the allegations of rigged elections. And some of the violence was caused by police who were “overly aggressive and who killed more than 100 people,” he said.
William Zartman, director of the conflict management program at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, agreed some violence was planned well in advance of the election.
“Militias were prepared and ready to move,” he said.
But like Barkin, he saw the differences in Kenya in terms of ethnic groups and political parties, not along lines of religion.
“I've heard nothing about Muslim involvement,” he said. “Of course, that's not proof to the contrary. But I don't see religion as a major element in this conflict.”
Kimuyu, however, insisted he had a one-of-a-kind vantage point for observing the developments surrounding Kenya's election.
“I was in a unique position as both a pastor and a politician. I was in meetings where I heard what the politicians were saying, and I was in meetings where I heard what the bishops were saying,” he said.
Kimuyu participated in interfaith meetings with religious leaders as a representative of the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya, he explained. And he joined political strategy meetings as a candidate for parliament.
Before moving to Texas, he served as pastor of Athi River First Baptist Church in Kenya, general secretary of the Baptist Convention of Kenya and vice president for the All-Africa Baptist Union.
In early fall, Kimuyu appeared almost certainly headed to a parliamentary seat to represent Machakos township, about 35 miles east of Nairobi. He had received the nomination by the Kenya African National Union. He represented the Akamba tribe, which dominates the area. And polls showed him receiving 80 percent of the expected vote. He was the first Kenyan in the United States — living in what his countrymen call “the diaspora” — to be nominated by a major political party.
But when the party that nominated him was folded into a coalition Party of National Unity, another candidate was given the new party's endorsement. Kimuyu ran as the United Democratic Party of Kenya candidate, but he was soundly defeated.
While violence in Kenya has been portrayed as a spontaneous reaction to injustice and vote fraud, Muslim radicals planned much of it in advance, Kimuyu insisted.
And while “we will never know” if the election was rigged by the party in control, he maintains voters unquestionably were threatened and harassed by Muslim supporters of the opposition party.
“People were prevented from going to the polls, and people were prevented from counting votes,” he said.
Kimuyu has lived in the United States more than two decades, earning degrees from Howard Payne University, Dallas Baptist University and the University of North Texas and launching several homes for children and youth.
When he ran for office, Kimuyu made the Micah Challenge a centerpiece of his platform. The Micah Challenge is a church-based campaign in developing nations of the Southern Hemisphere to achieve the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals-cutting global poverty in half by 2015, reducing child morality and fighting HIV/AIDS, malaria and other preventable diseases.
Kimuyu remains committed to those goals. And while he is concerned about the “loss of moral authority” by multiple parties both inside and outside Kenya, he wants to stay engaged in both political and religious reform in his homeland.
“I will be back,” he said.
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