Outgoing Kenyan police commissioner Hussein Ali shakes hands with his successor, Mathew Iteere. Photo courtesy Daily Nation.

One evening in December, during the post-election violence in Kisumu, Western Kenya, Dennis Otieno was walking down Tom Mboya Street with four other friends. Once a busy thoroughfare, he was now walking past empty stores with their windows smashed in and their goods looted.

Suddenly, a police car pulled up and two policemen spilled out and started shooting at the group of friends who were not armed or rioting. In a panic, Otieno ran. When he returned, he found his 17-year-old friend on the ground, his intestines spilling out onto the sidewalk. They tied him into a make-shift burlap sack carrier and brought him to the hospital.

When Otieno eventually confronted the guilty policemen, they refused to comment. In fact, his friend was one victim among many: out of the 50 killed during the riots in Kisumu, the police had allegedly shot 30. Three were under the age of 14 years and three, including a 10-year-old girl, were female.

As far as the Kenya Police goes, this is just a drop in the bucket. According to the Oscar Foundation Free Legal Aid Clinic-Kenya, over 8,000 people have already been killed in sect crackdowns. In 2001, 90 percent of people killed died at the hand’s of the police force. And, in more minor (though expensive) incidences, it is common to pay policemen bribes to get through road blocks and out of unfair arrests.

Such murder and mayhem within the police force has not gone unnoticed. Police reforms are apparently underway. Last week, Raila Odinga, Kenya’s Prime Minister, vowed that reforms would be initiated throughout September.

The reforms signal a changing of the guard in the Kenyan police force by Officers who have not already tarnished the force’s image. They would be given the necessary counseling, tools and paychecks to survive comfortably. With the sacking of the country’s police commissioner on Tuesday, it might also mean the removal of the force’s other top leaders, undoubtedly Mwai Kibaki’s, Kenya’s President, Kikuyu cronies.

William Odenge, leader of the Kenyan Youths for Positive Development youth group, highlights ethnicity and salary as two key issues behind the current situation. While I try to stay away from labeling any problem “ethnic” (blame it on my Canadian background or the slew of bad reporting that came out of Rwanda), the longer I stay in Kenya, the more I realize that this truly is a problem.

A traditional political tactic is to ensure that, as President, you have the full support of the police force and military. In the light of this, recruits to the Kenyan police force have been disproportionately in favor of Kikuyu, Kibaki’s tribe. And, once you send Kikuyu into a primarily Luo region during a time when politicians are paying and encouraging people to kill members of other ethnic groups, violence is expected. On top of that, there has been enough general “Othering” and stereotyping of ethnic groups in Kenya since independence for policemen to feel slightly desensitized to their Kenyan brothers of a different “descent” and find shooting a lot easier.

Another issue is corruption. Why would a policeman bother asking for $12 to let me through a roadblock instead of dragging me off to prison for the evening? On top of making his job a bit easier, he gets to feed his family. There is also the trickle effect: if the big guy at the top asks for bribes, it is almost expected that everyone beneath him would have the same right to ask a similar “favor” or “chai” from the next one down in the hierarchy (the Kenyan people being the cushy bottom rung).

While the government appears to take these police reforms seriously — and who knows, they might happen and be effective — long-term peace and stability still comes down to changes in government. Kenya is a country where the top political leaders are revered by the Kenyan people despite the wrong they continue to cause. Kenyans understand how government works; they know what the politicians are doing wrong; the newspapers recount, step by step, what Parliament is up to. Yet, intimidated by the sheer power and inflexibility of their leaders, government reforms are never prompted.

Key to changing the whole dynamic of the country is changing leaders. Finding leaders who are simply willing to accept what people want without buying their votes. Key to making sure this happens is showing leaders that inciting violence, bribing voters and encouraging a murderous police force has a price tag: the International Criminal Court (ICC).

As Otieno says, “police is a business and nothing will happen with the reforms unless international friends come in and intervene.” As part of the greater picture of post-election violence justice, a majority of Kenyans have voted in favor of this mechanism. However, as the government swears in the leading members of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission, the current justice mechanism preferred by a scared government, it looks like international pressure will be key in ensuring a better Kenya.

Members of the Obunga Youth Group in Nairobi's Kisumu slum. Photo by Siena Anstis.

The Obunga Youth Group sits on the edge of the biggest slums in Kisumu, the main city in the Nyanza Province of Western Kenya, and the epicentre of post-election violence. This week they held a forum and how to move beyond that horrific episode. With 12,000 people living on less than $1 a day, the slum is not only a humanitarian disaster, but was also a breeding ground for the dissatisfied rioters who looted Kisumu in 2008.

Steve, a student from the University of Nairobi who was born in Obunga, is quick to point out the economic roots of violence. “The election was about class, the divide between rich and poor,” he explains. The Hindus and Kikuyus in the region seem to have acquired much greater wealth than the Luo, who are the major ethnic group in Western Kenya. It is not that ethnicity is a dividing factor in Kenya—all in the room agree that they are aiming for a united Kenya, without ethnic divisions—but these ethnic groups form social networks based on trust and family which eventually acquire greater wealth than others, in one form or another.

The riots were an opportunity to protest perceived injustices against the poor, both by government and by the wealthy, in Kisimu. As Mwai Kibaki claimed the elections, the community mourned the loss of a President from their region—Raila Odinga—and resorted to rioting to “release frustration,” but also to protest the government. Television broadcasts showing the wreckage in Kibera, Nairobi’s largest slum, further incited an uprising.

Even now, a year after the post-election violence, the air is heavy with criticism and comment. Recently, the Kenyan government opted for a Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJCR) to deal with the post-election violence. While there is some merit to this approach in that it might foster some necessary dialogue, 68% of Kenyans favour trying offenders at the International Criminal Court.

Members of the Obunga Youth Group have a clear understanding of national politics. Emmanuel sees the ICC as a neutral ground in which government leaders—the big wigs of the post-election violence—will be impartially tried. Without this neutral ground, he suspects the outcome of the commission to be a further dividing factor as communities claim that indicted members were favored or punished by the government.

Others favour a local tribunal which would be partially overseen by the ICC. These young men voice hope that Kenya will use the opportunity “to learn from the violence” and alter their constitution to ensure that the President is not beyond the rule of law. They hope that a local tribunal will increase Kenya’s capacity to deal with its own problems. They also hope it will spur reform within the government.

While they highlight the merits of face-to-face dialogue brought by the TJCR, most believe that this option will allow the government to duck out of the mess they created and continue a regime of corruption and misinformation. Fred points out that previous “commissions,” such as that appointed to deal with the Anglo Leasing scandal, were largely useless as they failed to incorporate the public in the process and ultimately became a dead end.

Yet, despite the enthusiasm and drive to develop a connected Kenya, there remains the divide between government and local communities. “We must reach a point where we are proud to be Kenyans,” says Fred.