Kisumu gangs square up for action

Leaders of a Kenyan youth group known as the American Marines say it is named solely after the members’ towering height – that and the fact tthat they have been working out in near-daily three-hour gym sessions for years .

Residents of Kisumu tell a different tale about the American Marines – and its breakaway China Squad.

“They fight each other and if they [find] you on their way they will fight you, too,” Ismael Abdala, a hawker, says of violence characterised by hijackings, looting, harassment for protection money and, late last year, fatal riots following an assassination.

Kenyan human rights groups say youth militias across the country’s bitter political divide have been training and arming themselves in advance of Monday’s general election – raising the prospect of orchestrated ethnic violence.

The gangs compete for turf dominance in this lakeside city that considers itself a bastion of opposition to the rule of Mwai Kibaki, the retiring president. In the run-up to the polls, their conflicts have taken on electoral significance that residents and observers fear could presage a violent state crackdown.

Kisumu is still reeling from some of the worst violence in Kenya’s post-election meltdown five years ago. When residents – mostly ethnic Luo supporters of the twice-defeated presidential candidate Raila Odinga – protested against the 2007 poll results amid claims they were rigged, police shot dead more than 100 people.

“Kisumu is becoming hotter and the war between ‘America’ and ‘China’ is taking a political angle,” said Ken Onyango of the political parties liaison committee, who says members of the “warring groups” are bought as rival bodyguards and thugs for “a small handout”, despite all being Luo supporters of Mr Odinga.

He says the China Squad receives funding and bodyguard jobs from supporters of Mr Odinga’s rival, Uhuru Kenyatta, a Kikuyu from central Kenya and son of the founding president, Jomo Kenyatta, who held power at a time when several prominent Luo politicians were murdered. Memories of that era are still strong in Kisumu.

“We cannot have [a] Kikuyu out and [a] Kikuyu in,” said Rashid Ondu, one of the leaders of the American Marines of the presidential race, referring to Mr Kibaki, who is leaving power, and Mr Kenyatta – both Kikuyus in a country of 42 ethnic groups.

Betty Okero, co-ordinator of a civil society organisations network, links the gangs’ rise partly to a record of economic failure and state abandonment. As Kisumu’s traditional industries of sugar cane, cash crop farming and fishing have declined, so joblessness has set in.

Tension is rising. The state has already deployed armed paramilitaries to patrol Kisumu.

Mr Odinga, who held a rally here on Friday to the sound of euphoric cheers and car hooting, says the paramilitary presence is “meant to intimidate people” into not voting.

His most ardent supporters appear determined not to lose again. “If we lose there will be that anger. We must be ready to go to the streets to protest,” said Daudi Migot, a founder of the American Marines.