Scene: North Texas Daily (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 91, No. 36, Ed. 1 Friday, March 14, 2008 Page: 2 of 11
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Friday 03.14.2008
NEWSSCENE
9
Political instability continues to plague Kenya
By Courtney Roberts
Copy Assistant
The Model International
Organization and Africanists
United hosted a lecture Thursday
on the prospects for Kenya's future
and the challenges the govern-
ment faces with ethnic polariza-
tion and power struggles within
political parties.
Guest speaker
David Wachanga
of the journalism
faculty gave a
presentation titled
"Cry My Beloved
Country" named
after the book by
Alan Paton. In his
lecture, Wachanga
described the
history of Kenya
and its insta-
bility developing
through colonial
spheres of influ-
ence and ethnic
stratification.
"In Kenya, partitioning was
done with a disregard to linguistic
differences, ethnic setup and intel-
lectual endowment," Wachanga
said. "The culture has become a
commodity in the international
market. It is being defined by
outsiders while trying to iden-
tify itself."
Wachanga said Kenya became
"Kenya" in 1920 and gained
its independence in 1963. The
country is considered relatively
harmonious in contrast to its
surrounding war-torn coun-
tries.
"With more
than 42 commu-
nities, it was given
one name because
of its geograph-
ical location," he
said. "But Kenya
cannot be consid-
ered a nation,
just a political
entity."
After watching
a YouTube video
rA -iw i of a Kenyan man
-DavidWachanga being yhacked
journalism professor to death with a
machete in the
street, Wachanga
discussed genocide resulting from
political crises with ethnic over-
tones and the reality of people
manipulated by politicians.
"How can we discuss what we
are afraid to see?" Wachanga said.
"I believe those are not human
"ft is being
defined by
outsiders
while trying to
identify itself."
beings. They are hopeless, unem-
ployed people. They don't know
where they will be in the following
day, so they become gullible."
Disparity in resource allocation,
lack of leadership, poverty and
abrogation of responsibility by
professionals are just some of the
reasons why waves of genocides
are occurring in the country.
At present, Kenya is relatively
calm, but there is still ethnic
tension in the form of power strug-
gles because of the new govern-
ment.
"We need a constitution to
be amended," Wachanga said.
"We need a strengthened insti-
tution to enforce this part of
government. There are so many
campaign promises, but once in
power, nobody puts them to task.
People need to be empowered to
challenge leaders."
Prudence Ukwishatse, a senior
from Kigali, Rwanda, and presi-
dent of Africanists United, said
that the main objective through
this lecture is to learn and teach
the history of Africa.
"We want to educate students
because the media tends to portray
a negative image of Kenya,"
Ukwishatse said. "We want to
open the eyes of students."
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Border measures pushing
migrants to travel by sea
SAN DIEGO (AP)— The
migrants board rickety boats
in the dark, taking orders from
inexperienced seamen. From
sandy Mexican shores popular
with weekend tourists, they can
see downtown San Diego's lights
when the sky is clear.
Smugglers who charge them
about $4,000 each for the illegal
crossing often use two boats with
different crews for the short trip,
forcing them to change at sea,
authorities say. That way the
hired hands will have less to tell
if they are captured.
U.S. officials and academics
suspect heightened enforcement
on land is pushing migrants to
gamble their lives on the kind of
dangerous voyages — on flimsy
watercraft and with little regard
for winter — more commonly
associated with Cubans and
Haitians braving the Florida
Straits.
"Anytime you put pressure
on a point along the border,
the traffic moves somewhere
else," said Juan Munoz Torres,
a spokesman for Customs and
Border Protection. "The only thing
left is the ocean."
A spate of recent captures and
discoveries of abandoned boats
off California's coast climaxed
shortly after sunrise Wednesday
with a dramatic example of the
increased risks that migrants are
taking.
The crew of a pleasure cruise
sawpeople waving from a 24-foot
skipjack adrift about 12 miles off
the San Diego coast and 20 miles
north of the Mexican border. The
cruise ship called a private towing
firm, which alerted authorities
to the 11 men and four women
aboard a boat meant to carry
far fewer.
The 14 Mexicans and one
Salvadoran told rescuers they had
been afloat for three days without
food or water. Some were dehy-
drated and sunburned, but no
one was seriously hurt or killed.
Authorities say the boat was
leaking water and hardly anyone
on board knew how to swim.
"They repeatedly expressed
how they feared for their lives
and thought nobody was going
to rescue them," said Lauren
Mack, a spokeswoman for U.S.
Immigration and Customs
Enforcement.
Some of the people on the boat
told authorities they left Playas
de Rosarito, a city of 130,000 just
south of the border, and changed
boats at Mexico's uninhabited
Coronado Islands, according to
ICE. The engine died 20 minutes
into the second leg of the trip.
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Scene: North Texas Daily (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 91, No. 36, Ed. 1 Friday, March 14, 2008, newspaper, March 14, 2008; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth145561/m1/2/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.