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Normally after an election it's important to count the votes. After Kenya's disputed election, we've moved right on to different kinds of counting. The latest election results include 600 people killed and 250,000 driven from their homes.
Now a world leader is hoping to broker an end to the crisis. The former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan arrives today. Several hours before Annan was due to arrive, riot police fired teargas at protesters in the capital.
NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton has this report from the slums of Nairobi.
(Soundbite of crowd)
OFEIBEA QUIST-ARCTON: A man stands on top of a vehicle shouting out a list of names. Hundreds of expectant displaced Kenyans are jostling one another. They're camped outside Moi Air Force Base across the street from one of Nairobi's biggest slums, Mathare. Many residents have fled or been chased out of the shanty town. Relief workers are handing out provisions, including runner beans and gray blankets against the cool Nairobi evenings and unseasonal rain.
(Soundbite of crowd)
QUIST-ARCTON: Among the displaced people desperate for assistance is Mary Akinye Inda(ph), a mother of five from Mathare's slum. She's disappointed. Her name is not on the list. Yet she was forced from her shanty home by men with machetes barking threats. She didn't recognize them, she says. And some people with small children tried to resist, but the attackers brandished their machetes and some people got cut.
Ms. MARY AKINYE INDA: (Speaking foreign language)
QUIST-ARCTON: Mary Akinye Inda is a Luo, the same tribe as Kenya's opposition leader Raila Odinga. He insists he's the rightful president but was robbed of victory in a rigged election. Odinga is demanding a vote recount or a new election from scratch. The tense political standoff between Odinga and President Mwai Kibaki, a Kikuyu, has sparked weeks of ethnic bloodletting. It's allowed grievances over land and privilege which date back decades to resurface.
Now rivals are using machetes, daggers and bows and arrows to settle scores. Dozens of people have been burned alive in tribal violence. Add to that riot police cracking down on opposition supporters who've defied a ban on anti-government protest rallies. It's a murderous mix, and hundreds of people have been killed.
Ms. JOYCE ONEKO (Mothers and Sisters Africa): The way I see it, this is not really a political problem.
QUIST-ARCTON: Joyce Oneko, a counselor, heads the aid agency Mothers and Sisters Africa.
Ms. ONEKO: The politics have just helped to bring things which were already there to the fold. So they've now actually had the opportunity to vent out the anger that they've been having.
QUIST-ARCTON: She's organizing the handing out of relief stocks near the slum. Joyce Oneko says the politicians are responsible because of the way they campaigned in the run-up to the elections.
Ms. ONEKO: I am blaming the politicians because when we were doing the campaign it was very clear that the politicians were working on their own tribesman. The Luos were campaigning for the Luos. The Kikuyus were campaigning for the Kikuyus. And it was very clear that where there was a Luo voter, their person got him because it was Luo.
So I'm blaming this on the politicians because if the politicians talk to their various followers and made them see that as Kenyans - we are all Kenyans - it is not about tribes; they will follow because in this country people do follow their leader.
QUIST-ARCTON: There's still a huge gap between President Kibaki and Raila Odinga, his political rival. And the two men aren't talking.
Since violence erupted in Kenya after the disputed election results were declared late last month, there's been a steady stream of international figures trying to calm the waters. The opposition has been demanding that former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan come help. The government says he's welcome, but has resisted any formal outside mediation, saying Kenya is not at war or even in crisis.
Ms. INDA: (Speaking foreign language)
QUIST-ARCTON: Mary Akinye Inda, the displaced Mathare slum-dweller, says what she wants most is peace. No one doubts that Kofi Annan has a tough peace mediation mission ahead of him.
Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, NPR News, Nairobi.