"A Looter who broke his legs . . . ."

"A looter who broke his legs is carried by private security guards to a police car in Kisumu"

That's a fact

Check out the picture from Kenya.

This, however, packages fact with something else: "President Mwai Kibaki's government accused rival Raila Odinga's party of unleashing "genocide" in Kenya on Wednesday as the death toll from tribal violence over a disputed election passed 300." [1]

The phrase ". . . death toll from tribal violence" would seem a logical conclusion given the behavior of the two chest pounding leaders; however, there's that looter (and doubtless his and other individual's stories for every atrocity and murder committed), and I would suggest, if tapped to tell the tale, coherent discussion of tribal antagonism and politics would vanish from the conversation inside of a minute or two.

I want the looter's story.

I want to know how roving gangs of youths (and the odd individual) who may have been primed by older or local politicians and set off by election-related controversy get credited with representing tribal interests or stakes when their anarchic authority, disorganization, and the characteristics of their violence belie other than the most feral and pathetic of motives.

Claim "tribal violence" if you will, but detail for me, please, the lives of the leaders and generals, their warriors, and the specific disputes between them, and then connect whoever they are and whatever the issues with the burning of a church and the always politically expressive, I guess, act of looting.

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1. "A looter who broke his legs is carried by private security guards to a police car in Kisumu".  Reuters, January 2, 2008.

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Correspondence: James S. Oppenheim

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