Kenya Diary

The Economist has a correspondent writing dispatches from Kenya. What's happening there - the unraveling of a successful African country into a tribal stew - is a story somewhat eclipsed by the Middle East and the election. But the parallels to Iraq are striking. An excerpt:

Alan Ogot, one of Kenya’s leading historians, is the chancellor of Moi University in Eldoret...The biggest threat to the country, he says, will not come from Luo secession, or even from other tribes’ reprisals, but from crime. In Luoland over half the population is under 18 years old. Unemployment in Kisumu is already 70%. Without jobs, political lawlessness will harden into organised criminality.