UNITED NATIONS - / MaximsNews Network / - 14 April 2008 -- It has been a long and violent process, but Kenya has a government at last. After a contested election in late December fighting broke out between supporters of President Mwai Kibaki, who had been reelected, and those of Raila Odinga, who was challenging Mr. Kibaki for Kenya’s top office.

After two months of clashes, the two sides finally agreed a month and a half ago to put an end to the violence and form a coalition government. Today they finally fulfilled that promise and announced that they had worked out the arrangement of their power sharing.

The Secretary General told the international community that he “welcomes the announcement by President Mwai Kibaki on the agreement on the composition of the Grand Coalition Government, bringing both parties to the Kenyan crisis together.

While this is a large step forward, Kenya still faces serious problems stemming from the electoral violence. The underlying problems that caused the fighting have yet to be eliminated and will take extensive effort to mitigate. Ban Ki-Moon has said he “encourages both parties to urgently address agenda item 4 of the Kenyan National Dialogue and Reconciliation in order to find a solution to the root causes of the crisis.”

Furthermore, during the unrest, 1,000 people died and over 300,000 had to leave their homes and many have yet to return. Many have expressed fear about going back to their homes, hoping to put it off until national reconciliation initiatives have taken place. Others have little or nothing to go back to because their property and belongs were destroyed. They have only now what they carried when they fled and what they have been given my humanitarian organizations and refugee camps.

Finally, Kenya is facing a serious drought. Because of the combination of the political insecurity and the dire water shortage, the UN has asked for $189 million dollars for Kenya, an increase of $150 million for its original request. The amount given in the emergency appeal includes the money already paid this year towards 2008 relief initiatives for Kenya.

The massive increase was made necessary by the severity of the drought, which placed 840,000 people in jeopardy, and the lasting impact of the violence, which disrupted farming and drove people far from their homes. Also affected by the drought, caused by poor rainfall, will be Ethiopia, Djibouti, Eritrea, and south-central Somalia, all of which will also have fewer crops then usual.  

--Caroline Patton

Labels: United Nations, U.N.

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