Leading article: A lethal failure of political leadership

Africa is a complex continent that defies facile generalisations. This is especially true where violence is concerned. Comparisons between the present turmoil in Kenya and the mass killings that took place in Rwanda in 1994 are misguided. Kenya has seen nothing like the levels of violence of Rwanda's genocide, where almost a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered in 100 days. Most of the killing in Kenya has, so far, been spontaneous, localised and tribal in nature – a far cry from the state-planned and executed genocide seen in Rwanda.

In Kenya, members of President Mwai Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe are being harassed and attacked by Luos, Kalenjins and Luhya, the coalition that backed Raila Odinga in last month's elections. Where the Kikuyus are in a majority they are responding with persecution of their own. But the Kenyan army and police, ineffective and institutionally biased towards the Kikuyus as they may be, are trying to quell disturbances and arrest instigators rather than overtly siding with any one group. In Rwanda, police chiefs were key architects of the slaughter.

Yet we should be no less concerned about the situation in Kenya because of those differences. Some 250,000 civilians have been forced from their homes. The road from Nakuru, the capital of the Rift Valley, to Nairobi is reported to be thronged with refugees. And fighting has spread to Naivasha, the home of Kenya's lucrative flower-exporting industry. The breakdown of law and order has seen a spate of sexual attacks on women and children. Aid workers have been unable to estimate the death toll with any accuracy, but it is likely to more than 800. And the violence is becoming more brutal, with civilians being burned alive in their homes and others hunted down by machete-wielding thugs.

Old scores are being settled, but there can be no doubt that the root of the violence is political. As John Githongo, Kenya's former anti-corruption chief, points out: "Violence has deepened the politicised ethnicity – but the politics came first". And politics must be the solution. The problem is that there seems to be little willingness on the part of Kenya's rival groups to meet and hammer out a peaceful way forward. Attempts at mediation by the head of the African Union, John Kufuor, the former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, and a succession of African heads of state, have failed to bring the two sides together. Both Mr Kibaki and Mr Odinga have been asked by Mr Annan to name three negotiators to participate in talks that should start "within a week". But this timetable appears to be far too leisurely.

The international community should be doing more to end the deadlock. The threat yesterday by EU foreign ministers to cut £300m in development aid to the country unless its political leaders sit down together is a start, but it should have happened weeks ago. Meanwhile, the United States' refusal to threaten similar sanctions represents a shameful shallowness of concern for what is taking place in Kenya.

Mr Odinga is justified in maintaining a firm line over the polls. All the evidence suggests that the election was stolen by Mr Kibaki. But Mr Odinga needs to set that aside for now and calm his supporters. The right future for Kenya remains a re-run of the election, or failing that, some form of power-sharing. But in the immediate term the objective must be for the two sides to sit down together and send an unambiguous signal to their supporters that the killing must stop.

One of the most stable nations in Africa is tearing at its own flesh, and the responsibility lies with a generation of politicians who are refusing to act in the best interests of the Kenyan people. It is a scandalous and lethal failure of leadership.

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