Even You?
walking into war
Wright Thompson: ELDORET, Kenya -- He slips into the backseat of a parked taxi and hides behind its darkly tinted windows. What he is about to say could get him killed.
Two of Lucas Sang's sons walk ahead of their father's coffin during his funeral near Eldoret, Kenya, on Jan. 10. Sang's death remains a source of controversy throughout the country.
He won't give his name. On the way over, he couldn't shake the thought this might be a police sting. If he didn't trust the human rights activist who brokered the meeting, he wouldn't have showed. But here he is, uneasy, eyes following every person who walks past the car -- and those who sit inside. From the back, he asks the driver, a member of a rival tribe, to wait in the parking lot. Then he takes a breath and begins to tell the story of the mysterious death of Lucas Sang. The witness is a Kikuyu. Sang was a Kalenjin. During the 45-year history of Kenya, like the North and South in early 19th-century America, these two tribes mostly managed to keep an uneasy peace, despite tensions over money, land and power. Then, after December's presidential election, that peace was shattered. For a few weeks, it was as if the earth had split open, taken almost 1,000 lives, then snapped shut again.
The Kikuyu says he was a soldier in that civil war. He says that he lives near a place called Munyaka, and that he knew Lucas Sang. Everyone knew Sang: national hero as an Olympian, local hero as a farmer and philanthropist. Even though he had retired from competitive sports, Sang continued to help young athletes. Together, they'd train outside Eldoret -- the birthplace of many successful Kenyan runners -- sometimes down the red dirt road that runs alongside the cornfields of Munyaka, Sang easily recognizable by his long, smooth strides. The Kikuyus working in the fields would stop and cheer Sang as he passed by. On Dec. 31, 2007, Sang came to Munyaka again, along that familiar road. The Kikuyu man saw him and was enraged. "Even you?!" he shouted at Sang.
Ten minutes later, Sang was dead.
