enough said: now what??? are we going to talk about this tribal crap every time we kill each other?? its about time we find solutions one clique at a time. What have u personally done to improve inter-tribal cohesion between uaself and other tribes. i think all kenyan’s learned one thing after the last elections

We’ve been playing this game far too long. After every round of violence in the past, the cry has gone up that we’re all Kenyans now, so let bygones be bygones. Kenyanness doesn’t entail immunity from legal consequence from wrongdoing (yet). Unless the perpetrators of the violence are brought to book, reconciliation is a sham.

Your best security is your neighbor, irrespective of tribe

That slogan has not been true in RVP since 1991. Perhaps you’ll retire it.

” what i am still proud of is that i still drink with my gema buddies like nothing happend,despite the fact that something did… ”

Thank Kibaki for that!

enough said: now what??? are we going to talk about this tribal crap every time we kill each other?? its about time we find solutions one clique at a time. What have u personally done to improve inter-tribal cohesion between uaself and other tribes. i think all kenyan’s learned one thing after the last elections; Your best security is your neighbor, irrespective of tribe. one nobody talks about is how tonnes of lives were saved not by police, but by everyday Kenyan’s. what i am still proud of is that i still drink with my gema buddies like nothing happend,despite the fact that something did…

Whats your beef with kaleos, all kales care about is freedom. what the hell do u think we sacrificed hundreds of our brothers just for a luo president?? As for your millitary shake up issue. moi was smart enough to put kales where it matters most; even though the military recruitment is based on the census.kales are the majority in the army and air force. it will take kibaki atleast 20 plus years to change that, all kales know what kibaki has been doing in the last 5 years: posting some high ranking officers to foreign embassies and retiring some.. he has to be the dumbest president to piss off the military, even moi was not dumb as to piss off all the other tribes in the military. dont you forget that kamba generals were the ones that saved moi in 1982.

Every important claim in this post is false. Moi did his best to pack the top ranks of the army with Kalenjin officers. That seriously pissed off most non-Kalenjin officers in the army. (cf. Throup (1987) “The construction and destruction of the Kenyatta State” in Michael G. Schatzberg (ed). 1987 The political economy of Kenya.) Which is why Moi reverted to his usual tactic of divide and rule by enlarging the GSU and initiating extra lines of command. Nonetheless, Kalenjin are not the majority in either the army or the air force; though they are wildly overrepresented in almost all the disciplined forces. The case for reducing that overrepresentation is unanswerable, and the quicker it is done – fairly – the better.

Five rounds of organised ethnic violence since 1991 disprove the claim that ‘all kales care about is freedom’ – a substantial number of them fully support the goal of ridding RVP of non-Kalenjin.

would you imagine the head of the british army plotting to oust the queen in order to ‘avenge’ his ‘tribe’?
without traditions and a common institutional history, armies are as dangerous as they are useful, and thats why any smart african president wants his armies full of people who speak his language and see things the way he does. however right or wrong that may be.

It is indeed true the incompetent coup plotters started drinking before executing the “coup”. It was a shambles I tell you. I even laugh when I think about it.

They then announced “victory” on Voice of Kenya before they had secured any of the military garrisons in the city, let alone the country! They just had to be drunk.

In comes Mahmoud Mohamed a young ambitious Somali army officer raring for a fight. It was all over within half an hour. The rest was just Mahmoud showing off!

Mulinge was quietly retired shortly after the coup or the non-coup. How could this have happened in his watch. And guess who got his job – Mahmoud Mohamed.

*****

Compare this with Museveni stowing himself and 11 other men on a truck into Masinde Barracks in Kampala. They proceeded to launch an attack right inside the barracks, steal some weapons and escape! The pro-Obote troops in the barracks panicked thinking they had been invaded by a much bigger force. That was the beginning of the Museveni guerrilla campaign that saw him score a real military victory to power.

They were sober, of course

Kalenjins seem to have developed a penchant for organized, mass violence, which was encouraged by the state under moi, which is now being used {again} by politicians like Ruto and which is very dangerous for the country. They have to be stopped.

Moving on..

The coup plotters stopped a senior common rooms to drink busaa and general mahmud mohammed, a non-drinking muslim, swung into action and kicked their drunken butts. The lesson? if you are going to overthrow a government, make sure you are at least sober.

Dee,
The richest ethnic group in the US is actually indians from india with an average per capita of $66kpa. I agree some red indian tribes near urban areas are rich, after that leglislature in late 80’s allowing them to build casinos…as you say the seminole indians in florida, mohegans in connecticut or lenni-lenape of new jersey. But compare that to the vast majority leaving in reserves, I’ve been to a reserve in wisconsin and its not pretty.

Get your facts right. Moi was not saved by the Kamba generals in 1982. He was saved by the sheer incompetence of the plotters. I was actually in Nairobi on the day!

The man who actually hammered the rebels in Nairobi was Mahmoud Mohamed, later rewarded to become the head of the military.

Do not deify the military. There is nothing special about the military. Mobutu’s army was routed by a small Banyamulenge force. Obote’s military machine was routed by Museveni’s rag tag army.