The Mountain Of Terror: A Report on the Investigations of Torture by the Kenyan Military at Mt. Elgon
By Kenya National Human Rights Commission, May 2008 In 2008, the Kenya National Human Rights Commission conducted a fact-finding mission to better understand local militias in the Mt. Elgon district of western Kenya and the deployment of military units to quell such activity. Evidence emerged that the militias were involved in manipulating land allocations, were influenced by local political leaders, and were responsible for killings and intimidation. The commission also found evidence that the military, which is often more respected and trusted than the Kenyan police, used illegal detentions, torture, and extrajudicial killings during its deployment, which undermined efforts to pacify the region. Download the Article: [PDF]Kenya: Assessing Risks to Stability
By Joel D. Barkan, Center for Strategic and International Security, June 2011.
Stability in Kenya leading up to elections in 2012 will in part be determined by the interaction between a young, urban, and increasingly assertive middle class that supports recent reforms and Kenya’s traditional powerbrokers who seek to limit changes to the current political system. Growing economic inequality, the continued utilization of ethnicity to mobilize votes, and ongoing investigations of top politicians are also complicating an already charged and volatile political atmosphere. The steady implementation of recent constitutional reforms and other changes to the judicial, and executive branches of government will be critical to continuing development and stability.
Download the Article: [PDF]The Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation (KNDR) Monitoring Project
By South Consulting, June 2011. The Kenya National Accord was signed in 2008 to establish a power-sharing government in the wake of widespread violence following highly disputed national elections. However, limited application of the Accord has lowered Kenyans’ perceptions of their government. In fact, the current administration has enacted just three of the sixteen reforms under the agreement. It should move more quickly to implement the remaining scheduled reforms before upcoming elections while also improving and expanding civic education to increase knowledge of Kenyans’ constitutional rights. Download the Article: [PDF]Internal Displacement and Land Peacebuilding in Kenya
By Jaqueline M. Klopp, Patrick Githinji, and Keffa Karuoya. United States Institute of Peace, September 2010.
Kenya’s failure to effectively resettle internally displaced persons (IDPs) years after post-election violence in 2008 indicates a concurrent failure of peacebuilding and worsening ethnic tensions. Remedial initiatives operate in distinct, parallel programs and often reach only urban- and youth-centric portions of the affected population. A systematic, cohesive approach to economic empowerment among IDPs combined with community education initiatives would more effectively solve security issues while promoting growth.
Download the Article: [PDF]Democratization, Sequencing, and State Failure in Africa: Lessons from Kenya
By Daniel Branch and Nic Cheeseman. African Affairs, Vol. 108, No. 430. 2008. Sound analysis places the roots of the 2007 post-election crisis in Kenya within three historical trends: elite fragmentation, political liberalization, and state informalization. The article discusses the sequencing debate within the literature on democratization and argues that the processes of democratization and reform can be undertaken simultaneously but this twin approach requires institutional reforms not yet undertaken by a large number of African polities like Kenya.Download the Article: [HTML]
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