Rwanda Revisited

History doesn't repeat itself. It stutters.

It's an often used quip to remind people that there are patterns in history. One such pattern is a history of genocide and ethnic cleansing that gets overlooked by the international media and the UN that refuses to take action other than passing weakly worded resolutions that do nothing to stop the carnage.

The latest human rights catastrophe is in Kenya, where disputed elections in December have led to ethnic cleansing, more than a quarter million people displaced and more than 1,000 dead. The prospects for even more carnage is on the horizon as the government is now engaging in strafing the opposition with helicopters.

Army helicopters strafed crowds with machine-gun fire and police struggled to separate rival gangs yesterday as Kenya endured yet more violence. About 100 people have been killed since Saturday, bringing the number of deaths in the wave of tribal bloodshed since last month's disputed election toward 900.

With vital roads blocked and tourists staying away, Kenya's economy is suffering. Chaos in East Africa's richest and best-developed country threatens the entire region. Near the tourist town of Naivasha, about 600 terrified people cowered inside a small police outpost. They were from the Luo tribe, as is the opposition leader, Raila Odinga. Outside were about 600 men armed with machetes from the Kikuyu tribe of President Kibaki.

At first, Kikuyus were the main victims of the violence as Luos and other smaller tribes, notably the Kalenjin, sought revenge for Mr. Kibaki's victory in what they believe was a rigged election. Now Kikuyus are striking back.

Many of the Luo refugees had been driven from their homes during the weekend. Now, with only one armed policeman to protect them, they faced murder at the hands of the Kikuyu mob.

Unable to offer protection, police summoned three army helicopters. These swept low over the Kikuyu crowd, firing bursts from their machine guns. This spread panic, forcing the crowd to disperse. The pilots seem to have been firing not to kill but to intimidate and scatter the mob. They do not appear to have inflicted any casualties.

Ralph Peters notes that the West's failures to address the mess in Kenya is due to a three-fold problem:

The horrific violence in Kenya has its roots in three things: the corruption we overlook, the forms of democracy we demand - and, above all, the tribes that left-wing academics insist are only wicked European inventions.

Our tolerance for corruption (our ambassador initially hailed Kibaki's "victory") may be the most pernicious remaining form of racism - our all-too-ready acceptance that developing countries just can't rise above it. And corruption is a cancer that infects every organ of a society.

At least we grasp, on some level, that corruption is wrong. It's the other two factors - ill-fitting forms of democracy and the persistence of tribes - that steer our good intentions into the express lane to Hell.

Kenya was long one of the continent's few stable states - yet people there kept on voting along tribal lines. As they do in Iraq. And Afghanistan. And Pakistan, Indonesia, Nigeria . . . just throw a dart at the map. Impose Western forms of democracy, and majority or plurality tribes win - then view their victories as license to loot. It doesn't even occur to them to share.

Tribalism is quite strong in most parts of the world, and ignoring that fact is troubling. Diplomats do this all the time, which is why the US middling response to the disputed elections isn't so much a conclusion of itself, but a symptom of an ongoing problem within the State Department - an unending series of failures to recognize the facts on the ground for what they are and not to carry out foreign policy based on those very facts.