NOTE: This exclusive interview was originally published by wOw on January 30, 2008.

Helen Epstein, the AIDS researcher and author of The Invisible Cure: Africa, The West, and the Fight Against AIDS, was in Kenya six weeks ago. Yesterday she called to say how upset she was about the riots and chaos that followed the December 27, 2007 elections, and the murder of the opposition politician, Mugabe Were, earlier this week. I asked her to explain it for our readers.

JOAN: What were you doing in Kenya?

HELEN: I was doing a brief investigation of water and sanitation in the Nairobi slums, including Kibera, which is now in flames. I arrived in mid-December, two weeks before the elections that set off the current crisis. I spoke to people in NGOs, government people, scientists. Everyone was focused on development, poverty eradication, getting services like health care, water and education to poor people. There was a lot of interest in these issues — these are the concerns of a stable country, trying to pull itself out of poverty. It didn’t seem as though the place was about to explode.

Since my last visit five years ago, a new free education program had brought a million children into primary schools, health services had improved, the World Bank was planning an enormous water and sanitation project, and investment dollars had poured in. Kenya’s legendary corruption continued, but was a little bit less blatant than before. Daniel Arap Moi, the former President, who had done so much to wreck the country in the 1990s, went off somewhere to grow flowers for export and had stopped causing trouble, or so it seemed. I think a lot of people were surprised by what happened, but of course, not everyone was.

JOAN: What’s your experience in Kenya?

HELEN: I had been to Kenya a few times before, and had worked on a Human Rights Watch report on the elections of 2002 that brought Mwai Kibaki to power. Back then, everyone was worried that the place would go up in flames, but it didn’t. Throughout the 1990s, various political leaders had manipulated tribal sentiments and stirred up hatreds that gave rise to ethnic clashes before each election. During the clashes, certain tribes would be scattered, intimidated, displaced from their homes and effectively disenfranchised. Thousands were also killed. In 2002, President Moi, whose associates were implicated in much of this, had agreed to step down. His preferred successor was a drowsy bon vivant named Uhuru Kenyatta, whom no one took seriously, although they knew that if he won, Moi would continue to pull the strings and nothing would change.

My understanding is that back in 2002, the politicians made some sort of deal and agreed to work together for a peaceful election, and so nothing happened. The transition occurred peacefully and the country, a trading and tourism hub in East Africa, saw five years of rapid economic growth. But even before that election, people were scared. There were rumors of militia groups training in the countryside.

About a month before the 2002 elections, I went up to a Maasai village to talk about AIDS (which is my usual job). It was a drive of many hours from Nairobi, in the middle of nowhere, nothing around but wind and grass and a few huts. After the AIDS discussion, the elders urged me to go back to Lancaster House in London, where the Colonial office used to be, and find the original early 20th century records showing that the land they were now on was originally theirs, and did not belong to Kikuyu — a rival tribe. They were terrified that if Uhuru Kenyatta won, they would be driven out of these windswept, desolate hills. It was all they had.

JOAN: If the 2002 election ended up being peaceful, what set off the violence this week?