Kenyans say tribal clashes are politicians' fault

By C. Bryson Hull

TIGONI, Kenya (Reuters) - When the time came for a tribal reckoning in Kenya, the fact Mashuno Onyango was born in Limuru and speaks Kikuyu meant nothing.

The town's dominant Kikuyus, angry over attacks on their tribe sparked by a disputed presidential election, came and told him it was time to go home because he was a Luo.

"Now how can we stay here? Our landlords don't want to see us, and our employers don't want to see us," Onyango said at the nearby Tigoni police station, where about 800 Luos have taken refuge from threats of attack.

Limuru, a factory town surrounded by farms of tea, coffee and bananas 40 km (25 miles) north of the capital Nairobi, is an unlikely site for ethnic conflict since it almost entirely populated by Kikuyus, the tribe of President Mwai Kibaki.

But about 1,000 Luos, whose parents or grandparents were brought from western Kenya while the British colonial government built the railway, have called it home for decades and lived peacefully with their neighbours.

Onyango, 52, is a typical case. His grandfather worked on the railway, and he was born in the Bata shoe factory's clinic to parents who both worked in Limuru.

Now, Luos here say it's the political elite which is again responsible for their migration, having sparked clashes that will see them sent back to their ancestral land in western Kenya -- no matter that Limuru is the only home many of them know.

Opposition leader Raila Odinga, a Luo, says Kibaki stole votes to win last month's election.