The bomb attacks in Kenya

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33783, 4 March 1975, Page 16

The bomb attacks in Kenya

Kenyan authorities appear to be as baffled as outside observers about the motives for the three bomb attacks in Nairobi since February 14. The last of them killed 27 people at a bus terminal. A group calling itself the Poor People’s Liberation Front has said that it is responsible and has threatened more attacks; it is not clear what the aims of any such group are, nor whether it is linked with any political or tribal movement in the country. Reasons for dissatisfaction abound in Kenya, but signs that a protest movement is in the making have been few. Motives apart, the killing of people by bombs is a new element in Kenya’s internal affairs and the response of the Government will bear watching. President Jomo Kenyatta has hitherto run his country with considerable astuteness — even wisdom. Although Kenya is a one-party State, voters have a considerable choice among candidates — an arrangement by which the people have a say and the Kenya African National Union wins. Kenya has rather more press and Parliamentary freedom than many other African States; the Parliament was prorogued last November, but there have been no reports of political suppression. If the Government response to the bomb attacks were to be action against political opponents, the country would probably divide bitterly on tribal grounds. Already, the Kikuyu people dominate the K.A.N.U. The Luo, the second largest group, resent the Kikuyu’s place; they allege that western Kenya, home of the Luo, is neglected in Government planning. A few suppressive moves would be sufficient to inflame suspicions and passions among the two main tribes and the smaller groupings.

Although Kenya has followed reasonably enlightened political policies, economic and land reforms are long overdue. At the beginning of 1974, 29 per cent of the men and a higher percentage of women were unemployed. Of those who worked, most had small land holdings and more land is desperately needed. President Kenyatta and Government Ministers themselves hold vast areas. The usual afflictions of underdeveloped countries — maldistribution of wealth and urban drift — exist in Kenya. In spite of a cautious attitude to aid and foreign investment, the country has reached an average annual growth-rate of 7 per cent. The rate was 9.1 per cent in 1972. But the population increase of 3.5 per cent a year offsets the increase in productivity. It has been politically unpopular to say that there are too many Kenyans, and one Minister who said so lost his seat in the last elections. Recent price increases and the closing of shops which sell cheap fool and drink, to help combat cholera, have doubtless caused ill-feeling. Whatever the faults in Kenya, the country seems to have coped with the transition from being a colony to running its own affairs rather more competently and humanely than many other States. President Kenyatta, who speaks rarely, is listened to with respect. It must have been hard at times to maintain a stable country when the neighbour to the west is Uganda. Reforms have been slow in coming but a 1972 report by the International Labour Organisation recommending a more equitable distribution of the wealth of the country was accepted with some grace and promises of action by the Government. The bomb attacks may, however, have ended benevolence for a while in Kenya.