Dear friends, PAMHO, AGTSP.<\/p>\n
As some of you may have heard the general \/ presidential elections in Kenya last Thursday resulted in chaos, demonstrations, riots, looting, killing and severe violence and ethnic conflicts which are still going on.<\/p>\n
The previous President, Kibaki (strongly supported by his Kukuya tribesmen of central Kenya) was opposed by Raila (Odinga) – (strongly supported by his Luo tribesmen mainly from Western Kenya). The election ran as a close competition but Raila (opposition) seemed to take a clear lead as counting of votes went on. Then there was a delay in the last 20% or so of the polling stations results and when some were announced by the electoral commissioner, they differed in Kibaki’s favour from the first counts for those places announced earlier at the polling stations.<\/p>\n
To cut a long story short there was blatant rigging of the counts in favour of Kibaki as suspected by European observers. This delay and cheating enraged the opposition followers and sparked off a civil uproar. When Kibaki unceremoniously swore himself in as the new President the situation escalated practically into a war.<\/p>\n
I have been in Kisumu, in the Western part of the country for the past month where Raila’s support is fervent. The election day came and went with a few scattered incidences at polling stations and some tension as Raila’s name seemed to be missing on some of the ballot papers.<\/p>\n
The next day things had degenerated to such a degree that as I approached our suburban workshop for preparations of the upcoming East African festival tour, large clouds of black smoke billowed from the town centre 2Km away. This was the local reaction to delays and suspicion – burning tyres being placed as roadblocks in preparation for riotous demonstrations. As the day progressed we heard that downtown was in chaos and observed people carrying looted goods past our yard. Then on Saturday we waited at the yard, stopping our work so we could hear in advance if the riots might overflow to the residential areas.<\/p>\n
Fortunately (only for us – being in a posh part of town) they were more interested in the slums and estates, picking on people of the Kukuya tribe or known supporters of Kibaki and throwing them out, beating them and burning their homes. As the sun set occasional gunfire was heard from town.<\/p>\n
It was really getting very scary, still is, though I have fled to Uganda.<\/p>\n
At midnight on Saturday a devotee from the Asian community, Krishna Mayi dasi who started the Little Gokul orphanage in Kisumu called me. “Things are getting really really bad, we must leave, we are thinking of driving to Kampala (neighbouring Uganda’s capital city) early morning around five”. The border is 100Km or so from Kisumu. The same thought had crossed my mind earlier so I immediately agreed and started packing like we’ve seen people do in movies. As I brought my things to the car a lone drunk voice from the wilderness softly slurred “you have to leave, the thieves are coming!”<\/p>\n
Krishna Mayi was still waiting for some relatives to get ready by the time I and two others with me were set to go. So we agreed to go ahead first in our Toyota twin cab pickup which I’d brought from Uganda 2 weeks earlier. Softly singing prayers for protection we drove from the suburbs through the central part of town. It was 4am & there was absolutely no one around. I had a very strong intuition that as long as the sun did not rise we might avoid confrontation. We began encountering a constant array of rocks, broken glass, burned tyres – some still smoking – overturned kiosks and other eerie signs of violent intrusion to “normal” life.<\/p>\n
Deeply hoping to avoid punctures and people, we left Kisumu, crossing several diminished smouldering roadblocks. As we reached a few kilometres out of town there was a mixture of relief and cautious anticipation. We raced against the sunrise, breaking for the border. It seemed to take a long time, and similar remnants of upheaval at towns and junctions along the way confirmed that this problem was on a national scale. As time went on we started seeing one or two people in places but drove on with a confidence born of fear. It may have helped that our type of vehicle could be mistaken for a police car at night.<\/p>\n
Finally we approached the border town of Busia, as we entered I whispered out loud “even here, even here!” Though a border-town, where higher security might prevail, the place had been hit hard by the whirlwind of unrest.<\/p>\n
We stopped at the Kenyan border post, 5:30am, still dark, deserted but for two soldiers sitting with rifles. We greeted them and they were most polite and helpful. They phoned an immigration officer who came after 10 minutes, opened his office and stamped us out of Kenya. Then we filled in a book with the soldiers to record the vehicles exit and they opened the gate and we were out of Kenya.<\/p>\n
We had to park in no-mans land before the Ugandan gate was unlocked but found the immigration office open and got stamped into Uganda. As the sun rose we waited in the car, very relieved but beginning to regret not bringing more friends with us. After almost an hour it opened and we were in Uganda. We then had to stop before one last gate to sort out the vehicle papers and waited again for the gate keeper.<\/p>\n
In a relaxed fashion we strolled around a bit and got a newspaper then some policemen started looking like they were about to let cars through. We started the engine. Suddenly there were several gunshots, it sounded like they came from inside the Ugandan town next to us, maybe just some cops dealing with local robbers. But as we looked to the Kenyan side we realised it was from there and people were running and screaming in a cloud of dust just 200 metres away. Our wheels spun as we made our final getaway, through the gates, not stopping to find out more we just kept going until we reached Kampala a few hours later, to hear that the borders of Kenya were now closed.<\/p>\n
Krishna Mayi and her family didn’t risk driving our route behind us but managed to wangle a flight to Nairobi then onto Kampala (Entebbe) just before the Kenyan airports closed.<\/p>\n
If Krishna wishes to kill us then no-one can protect us, if Krishna wishes to protect us then no-one can kill us. Please pray that the Lord protects all the devotees still in Kenya as the troubles persist and food becomes scarce there, please think of them and hope that stability resumes soon for the people of Kenya.<\/p>\n
Your servant, Giridhari das.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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By Giridhari das<\/strong><\/p>\n