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Lets hope that today is a little more calm. Things were quiet in Nairobi last night, and we are all pinning our hopes on the mediated talks going on between the government and opposition. Surely they can now see that the level of violence has got beyond their control, so they must feel the need to put their heads together and make a plan. Who knows?
Last night when we went to bed we thought: 'what will we wake up to tomorrow?' This morning my husband got out of bed, sighed heavily and said: 'I'm just so sick of worrying all the time.'
Our house helper who lives nearby said that her friend has been chased out of the poor area where she lives, 'Karangware' solely because she is from Western Kenya and therefore is the wrong tribe. There have been lots of reports of threats and ultimatums for outsiders to leave in OngataRongai too, a suburb outside Nairobi on the edge of Langata/Karen. There are rumours that bus loads of Kikuyu 'mungiki' terrorists have arrived in town to 'clean up'.
Death threats seem to be the 'in' thing at the moment and a highly popular form of intimidation.
MPs have said they received death threats in order to manipulate their parliamentary votes, civil society leaders have received death threats and ten are now in hiding, numerous journalists have had death threats for reporting stories of foul play within government, one political editor Paul Ilado has now officially gone into hiding. One of the text messages he received read: 'Mr Paul Ilado, we have known you for long. We want to let you know that if you don't stop publishing stories of people who have betrayed us like Githongo, Kiai and Wainaina, we will cut off your head and bring it to Kiss FM.' Very Nice.
The national media have come forward to report this problem and police are currently investigating.
I, personally have been fighting the urge to send 'hate' text messages to RailaOdinga and MwaiKibaki for selfishly masterminding the destruction of Kenya in one month - but sadly I don't seem to be able to put my hands on their personal mobile phone numbers.