by Shailja Patel
- Kenya -

A February 7th article in The Economist, "Ethnic Cleansing in Luoland," dangerously presents the crisis in Kenya as an issue of inter-communal violence. It focuses on the violent attacks on Kikuyu Kenyans in Western Kenya, by their Luo neighbors, following the December 27th election.

The term "ethnic cleansing" is both inaccurate and unhelpful to Kenya's current crisis. It fuels the buildup by the Kibaki (Party of National Unity) camp to the declaration of a state of emergency, the deployment of the military or, worse, the usurpation of civilian governance by military governance.

Unquestionably, victims of the current violence experience the violence as being directed at their ethnicity. But the violence is politically instigated. It finds ethnic expression or manifests itself ethnically because Kenyan politics are organized ethnically.