wfn.org | KENYA: CHURCHES RESPOND TO LATEST VIOLENCE

[Audrey Whitefield <a.whitefield@quest.org.uk>]

Sept. 3, 1997 
ANGLICAN COMMUNION NEWS SERVICE
Canon Jim Rosenthal, Director of Communications
Anglican Communion Office
London, England

[97.8.5.4]

KENYA: CHURCHES RESPOND TO LATEST VIOLENCE

(ENI) Kenya's Churches have told the country's government to arrest the
"masterminds" behind an outbreak of violence in the coastal town of
Mombasa and the surrounding area following an attack on the town's
Likoni Catholic Church on 22 August during which two people were killed.

More than 2000 people had taken shelter in the Likoni church compound
on 13 August after a wave of violence broke out directed against
"up-country" settlers from outside the region. The  violence on 13
August cost the lives of nine police officers and at least 40 citizens
who were either shot or slashed to death with machetes. The attackers
have distributed pamphlets claiming they were fighting for self rule for
the coastal region including Mombasa, and that "up-country people"
should leave.

There is widespread speculation, however, that the killings and violence
have been orchestrated by people in senior government circles in Nairobi
and Mombasa to divert attention from a continuing debate about
constitutional reform and to strengthen the position of the KANU ruling
party in the region. Many of the new settlers in Mombasa support the
opposition.

The Anglican bishop of Mombasa, the Rt Revd Julius Kalu, told ENI that
the attackers who started the killings on 13 August "were a very
organised group. It was not done by little people in the villages."

Stating that the government had both the duty and the capacity to stamp
out the deadly violence in the tourist resort, the Roman Catholic
coadjutor bishop of Nairobi, Ndingi Mwana'a Nzeki said: "I cannot
believe that Kenya's respected intelligence services were not aware of
what was going to happen and its aftermath."

Referring indirectly to associates of the country's president, Daniel
arap Moi, whose names had been mentioned in parliament as being behind
the deaths, the bishop said: "Once  many people consistently start
pointing at you as a thief there is something - either you are a thief
or a friend ofthe thief."

The government has also been criticised by Mutava Musyimi, secretary
general of the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK). Unless the
attacks stopped, Musyimi said, "the churches would be constrained to
conclude the government was unwilling to act decisively".

The attackers at the Likoni church escaped even though they had
indicated in advance that they would attack the church.

Both Bishop Kalu and his Roman Catholic counterpart, John Njenga, had
complained before the attack on the Catholic church that a government
official - the District Officer for Likoni - had told the refugees in
the church compound to leave  the church grounds or be thrown out.
Bishop Kalu told ENI: "We made it very clear to the District Officer the
people had nowhere else to go."