U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, center right, and his predecessor Kofi Annan,center left, meet with government, left, and opposition officials, at a Nairobi hotel, Kenya, Friday, Feb. 1, 2008. Ban Ki-Moon is in Nairobi to hold talks to help resolve the monthlong postelection crisis that has killed more than 800 people and forced 300,000 from their homes. He was later scheduled to meet Opposition leader Raila Odinga. EPA/BERNAT ARMANGUE POOL
...It is too early to know whether the new face-to-face meetings between Kibaki and Odinga will produce the kind of answers that Kenya desperately needs to defuse the crisis. If mediation talks do succeed in quelling the violence temporarily, and if both sides agree on a comprehensive overhaul of the political system and electoral process, the current crisis will, undoubtedly, offer the country an opportunity to prepare the ground for a more comprehensive social rehabilitation process.
On the other hand, failure will propel the country towards chaos and the risk of ethnic cleansing -- something the international community would want to avoid at all costs, given the recent memories of Rwanda and of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
On the other hand, failure will propel the country towards chaos and the risk of ethnic cleansing -- something the international community would want to avoid at all costs, given the recent memories of Rwanda and of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Besada is senior researcher, working on fragile states, at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Canada. Kariithi is chief financial officer of the Unified Financial Group and a Kenyan analyst.
