Historical injustices again raise threat of vote violence

NAIROBI, Kenya — Jane keeps the well-worn sarong wrap neatly folded in her home in a Nairobi slum, a memento of a life-altering event a decade ago. She was draped with it after two police officers raped her and left her to rioters the officers had been deployed to stop during deadly postelection violence.

“I lost consciousness after the first two civilians raped me. After that, I don’t know how many people did it,” she said. “All this while my 5-year-old daughter was hiding in an empty water container. She hid there when the policemen started breaking into houses and looting.”

The 38-year-old tailor says she regained consciousness, with a broken hip and knee, when an elderly neighbor gently dressed her in the sarong. The neighbor “had also been raped by the police as her grown-up son watched and then they ordered him to clean his mother,” Jane said. The Associated Press generally doesn’t identify victims of sexual crimes.

Kenyans again face the threat of violence as the highly competitive Aug. 8 presidential election approaches, even as many who survived the deadliest period in the East African country’s history 10 years ago say they still haven’t found justice.

Experts have warned that the government’s failure to address old wounds risks passing them along for generations with the potential for cycles of violence.

More than 1,000 people died and 600,000 were evicted from their homes after what international observers called a flawed presidential election in 2007. Both President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto faced charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court after being accused or orchestrating the violence, but the court dropped the charges and cited unprecedented witness interference and bribery.

A government commission of inquiry found that deep-seated hatred over unresolved injustices and the belief that the court system was biased led to the explosion of violence — a pattern caused by each election cycle.

In response, the government committed to reforming the police and judiciary and adopting a new constitution to check the president’s powers.

Though some changes have been made, Kenya has not reformed the police force, whose officers were found by the government to have killed more than 400 people in the 2007 unrest.