another trip to the embassy

Yesterday, the five of us who were staying in the country for the weekend decided to go to the town hall meeting of Americans at the U.S. Embassy. The rest of the students on our program went to Uganda for the weekend to raft the Nile (which would have been amazing, but I couldn't justify spending over $300 to go to Uganda without seeing a good chunk of the country.) I've decided, along with my fellow students, that I hate U.S. Embassy meetings.

At the time of the meeting, they had not yet announced the news that Kibaki and Odinga had come to a power-sharing agreement, so everyone was still in the mindset that, should the talks fail, Kenya would have a civil war on its hands. Many people had questions that the ambassador either dodged or answered a little too optimistically in my opinion. Furthermore, he commended the police for their actions in maintaining stability in the country, which really sickened me and my classmates. He argued that the statistics released (which say that over 91% of the deaths in some areas were a result of police brutality) are "not very credible," even though numerous incidents have been caught on tape. He spoke highly of the Kenyan government structure and Constitution too, and it became even more clear to us that the reason the U.S. put so much pressure on Kenya to come to a political solution was not because the U.S. values democracy or freedom. So long as the country is stable, by any means necessary, the U.S. is fine and in fact, for most U.S. citizens in Kenya, it's business as usual. The ambassador even had the guts to say he thought the media over-dramatized the violence through the incident in Eldoret. I don't know how you over-dramatize over 30 women and children burned alive while seeking refuge in a church.

During the Q-and-A session, it was increasingly clear which citizens were in Kenya for exploitive reasons and which weren't. Many people had commendible questions on aid for IDPs and how to address the problem of ethnicity in the country, and others were more concerned with the state of their tourism industry or whether it was likely that the violence would spread to the "upper-class areas." I had to leave before the session was done because I was getting so upset.

I am happy that the two politicians reached their settlement, and was actually quite surprised with the amount of power Kibaki yeilded. It was great to see all of the Kenyans celebrating the news! Now only time will tell if this agreement is actually feasible, and if Odinga can live up to all of the promises he made to the people, or if he too will be swayed by power.