18/09/2012 Newsnight

Fiona Bone was 32 years old with five years service. The second

officer to die was Nicola Hughes, 26 years old, with three years

service. There has never been a killing like

it in this country. As the body of the second young policewoman was

removed this evening, what lay behind today's appalling events. We

have been hearing the details of what has been a brutal and shocking

end to a violent summer of guns and grenades across Greater Manchester.

NATO steps back from two too close engagment with the Afghan Army. The

decision seems to have caused confusion in London and Washington.

What about the effects on the ground in Afghanistan. Mitt Romney

tries to take his foot out of his Can it be true, one half of America

pays no tax and the other half they live off. In Kenya, elections are

six months away. TRANSLATION: torched the houses, the others

carried off the injured, and the others whose job was just to kill.

Shocking, senseless, inxes henceable, the adjectives catch the

bafflement of police officers and politicians. The shooting dead of

two police officers in Manchester where shock is the dominant feeling.

The questions remain, how can Britain remain one of the few

countries in the world where police are unarmed. And how have guns

become so readily available to the wrong people. We're near the seen

in Hattersley. -- the scene in Hattersley. Guns,

grenades and gangland feuds and a criminal conspiracy to intimidate

witness and protect the guilty. All that was laid out by the Chief

Constable of Greater Manchester, Peter Fahy, in Anne attempt to put

-- in an attempt to put into context what has been happening in

Manchester over the last few week. But nothing to today's

extraordinary circumstances where two young policewomen were killed.

One witness who arrived at the scene after hearing gunshots said

it all seemed unreal, then he saw the abandoned police car with the

blue light still flashing. Sir Peter Fahy likes to quote Sir

Robert Peel, saying "the police are the public and the public the

police", if that is the case, then tonight both are striken. It had

been a normal quiet morning on this Manchester suburb, the violence was

so sudden, unexpected and quite savage. By mid-afternoon the Chief

Constable was in mourning, and trying to make sense of it all.

Clearly this is one of the darkest days in the history of Greater

Manchester Police, if not the police service overall. Because we

have lost two deeply-loved and valued colleagues, because they are

part of our team, policing is very much a family. Fiona Bone was 32,

calm and gentle, she was called, she had been planning her wedding.

Nicola Hughes was 23, bubbly and always smiling. Both were described

as great bobbies, good people. want to look beyond the uniform

here, what we have here are two young girls, who went out this

morning, and they have got an absolute right to come home tonight

to their loved ones. This is cold blooded murder, it is the slaughter

of the innocent. What happened of the two policewomen, unarmed, were

answering what was supposed to be a routine call to a supposed burglary.

Down the road there in Abbey Gardens. Now, one theory is they

were deliberately lured into an ambush. 13 gunshots were fired, and

then, incredibly, a grenade of thrown. A local window cleaner,

Warren Shepherd, heard the whole thing. I was out the front and I

just heard gunshots, it sounded like at least 10, one after each

other, and then a small delay, five seconds and a big bang. So, you

were about 20 yards away, you went around to the front of the house

then? I was cleaning the front of a house, and I went around the back

to see what it were. That is when I saw the police car, just one police

car there, the lights were still going, I think the engine was still

going. And there was quite a few local residents around. And I said

what was that bang, what's happened, one of them said to me they have

been shot. I said who has been shot, the policemen they said, they have

been killed. Dale Cregan is the man the police have been hunting for

months for incidents like this, where a hand grenade was thrown in

Manchester. They offered a �50,000 reward for information. This

followed a shooting in a pub of Mark Short who was in his 20s, and

then the murder and grenade attack of his father, 46-year-old David

Short, at his Manchester home. Short was killed in Droylsden, and

ever since then the residents have been terrified because of the

criminal activities going on in the past weeks. After the shooting in

Droylsden, members of the public were left shaken and scared and

fearful as to what was going on. This was a normal pub where the

attack happened? Working men's pub, people going after work for a drink.

His father was killed in August? was, he was killed at a home in

Clayton, in quite a brutal, targeted attack, so the GMP have

said. Using hand grenades? Yes, it is not every day a hand grenade is

launched in England. In the past six weeks there has been four cases

of grenade explosions. We believe he has been protected by criminal

conspiracy to harbour him, we are absolutely determined to fully

investigate that conspiracy, and bring the people involved to book.

This case tells us something about the nature of organised crime, the

web of intimidation that it creates. And the fact that people then

sometimes see others as folk heros. Dale Cregan gave himself up,

walking into a police station in Hyde this afternoon. The Prime

Minister was, meanwhile, expressing his horror at the day's events.

What we have seen is just an absolutely despicable act, one of

pure evil, the cold-blooded murder of two female police officers doing

their job, out there, protecting the public. Another reminder of the

incredible risks and great work our police service does. As the Chief

Constable said, two policewomen killed in cold blood. He called it

one of the darkest days in the had history of the Greater Manchester

force. In fact, few forces anywhere in the land have had worse than

this. The local MP Jonathan Reynolds, and inspector Ian Hanson,

chairman of the Greater Manchester Police Federation are joining us

from Manchester. Jonathan Reynolds, can you tell us what sort of an

area is this where the crime took place? It is a strong community, it

is a good area, good people here. A mixed area, as you would expect,

like most parts of Greater Manchester. There is a profound

sense of shock and disbelief here tonight. It is very hard to

comprehend what has gone on here, it is not an area with a

particularly high crime rate to neighbouring areas, it has a good

relationship with the neighbourhood police. It is an absolute shock

something has happened like this today. There is clearly an on going

problem with organised crime in the Greater Manchester area, the Chief

Constable talked today. It was striking, he talked about the

nature of organised crime, the level of intimidation it create,

the fact that people sometimes see others as folk heros for being

involved in that sort of activity. What is he talking about? Well, I

think the high-profile nature of the crimes associated with this

individual does attract, sometimes, negative publicity. I would say

that actually Greater Manchester Police have a very good record of

reducing violent crime, particularly gun-related incidents

in Greater Manchester. They have done a tremendous job over the last

ten years in particular. It would be among to malign Manchester with

gun crime again. The Chief Constable, I think, spoke correctly,

when he said you have to alienate, or certainly tackle anyone who

voices any kind of support for these actions. Nobody wants this

kind of thing to happen in their community. It is absolutely

dreadful, and no-one should at all celebrate or look to admire people

involved in this kind of thing. is very unusual, in this country,

for a man to commit a double murder, then to be on the run for as many

week as this man was, for there to be a �50,000 reward, which illicits

no information, it is odd, isn't it? It is, there was a huge manhunt

for this individual, it had taken over 40 days, but there was a huge

amount of police resources into it. A great many properties already

searched and firearms warrants executed. It was their number one

priority, I certainly got the impression they were doing

everything they could, but Greater Manchester is a big area, there was

obviously no intelligence linking him to this address here, and no

reason to believe this was something other than a routine

callout when this occurred. That is the result of the tragedy we have

seen today. Do you happen to know if any more information has been

forth coming since the tragedy occurred? There was no information

that this address had any link to the person wanted for the original

murders. Had there been, a risk assessment would have been done,

and unarmed officers wouldn't have been deployed. From the information

we have got, there is no criticism in that respect. Can you help us in

a point of information, if a couple of officers are sent out to inquire

into a burglary, as this was said to be, what protection do they

carry with them? Well, what we have to do really is look at the facts

of the incident, GMP handles thousands of incidents a day, the

Tameside division, a busy division, handles several hundred incidents

per day. We can't deploy armed police officers to every incident

in Tameside, whatever the specter in the background is. The price of

these officers being deployed, there would have been a risk

assessment, hindsight is a wonderful thing. There is no words

to express theoror -- horrors that has descended on Greater Manchester,

I don't think it is the time to be pointing fingers. I wasn't dreaming

of pointing a finger, I don't think anybody is. You raise the question

of armed officers, why is it that within the police there is such

opposition to the idea of carrying weapons? I think it is something of

a cultural thing. We in the British police service are proud of

policing with consent. We are born out of communities, we police

communities and we are part of those communities. Today is making

us take a cold, hard look at ourselves. I know the media today

have been asking questions about an armed Police Service, today isn't

the day for that debate. It is time to grieve and move the force on, we

have to police the city tomorrow. There will be a tribute to the

officers today who paid the ultimate price, if we pick

ourselves up and a move on in on their behalf. There is still

considerable shock? This is unprecedented. Sadly the British

Police Service does see officers pay the ultimate sacrifice with an

unfortunate regularity, something like this, is completely off the

scale. There is no script for this. Greater Manchester police officers,

and everyone part of GMP is numb. We don't know how to deal with it.

We will pick ourselves up and move on. Mr Reynolds, in the broader

community? The community is in absolute shock here, I agree, I

don't think today is the debate for the wider implications of this. I

think nothing can provide an answer to why something like this happens.

No-one can explain why someone would be driven to do this. But I

just hope there is some comfort for the families of these two officers,

knowing the whole nation is thinking of them tonight and

standing alongside them. What they are facing at this minute is

absolutely horrendous.. Thank you very much. If you were watching

last night, you would have seen the Defence Secretary defend the

continuing British commitment of British troops in Afghanistan. So

far this year over 50 international soldiers have been murdered by

members of the Afghan military, or people pretending to be members of

the Afghan military. So today NATO announced it was scaling back joint

operations with the Afghan Army. If the plan to hand over to them is

supposed to be still on course, one for Mark Urban to work out. This i

ZAF decision today? The decision was d ISAF decision today? This

decision was made at the weekend, to scale back work between the two

forces. It seems to be temporary. It was briefed to the American

press that this was quite a significant change in policy, from

one two years ago, when General McChris kal was there and he said

they would fight shoulder-to- shoulder with the Afghans. Then the

British got on and said they don't do as much as we do, and we have

our ways as well. And the emergency statement today stressed that the

American commander of regional command south-west, had said it was

all right for the British to carry on pretty much as they have been

doing. He has endorsed the approach currently being taken by the UK-led

task force, Helmand, including mentoring at below, mentoring and

parting at below Ka nark dak level. That means the UK partnering

operations will continue substantially unchanged by the

order. How does this change things on the ground? It seems to be one

more incremental step, both in terms of disengaging those forces

and trying to minimise these called green-on-blue incidents. Going to

patrol bases even a couple of years ago, I could see there was a line

in the base where it was shared with the Afghans, where they were

told not to cross the line without permission from NATO forces. This

all started happening in the British area, after an incident

called Blue 25, and five British soldiers were killed off duty.

Those changes happened a few years ago and they have been increasing.

And the places where the troops can be cheek-by-jowl have been

transferred to entire Afghan control over the summer, they have

been trying to mitigate risk then. But there will still be meetings

and communities if people want to carry out a crime of this kind.

does it affect the exit strategy? You can argue that cutting the

apron strings with the Afghan forces is a good thing. It

encourages them to take more responsibility, and reduces the

chance of friction with American and British soldiers who are not

always the kindest in pointing out the error of their ways. It could

have a positive effect, or it could leave them floundering.

Thank you. Joining us from Washington to discuss the

significance of today's announcement is the former US

Ambassador to NATO, Kurt Volker, here in the studio is the former

Military Intelligence Officer, Frank Ledwidge, who served in the

Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan, his book, Losing Small Wars, is his

account of why he thinks Britain has fared so badly.

How do you imagine the Taliban will see this announcement? I think they

will see it as a success for their strategy. I think that when we look

at the bulk of the Afghan national security forces, they are very

patriotic, they are fighting for their country, working together

with us. A small number of Taliban can infiltrate that, and attack

with green-on-blue attacks, some international fores, that causes a

shift or halt in the way we execute our strategy. They will see this as

something of a success. How do you think they will see it? I agree,

over the last few years we have had a rowing back of an extended

involvement up to 30 years, it was to finish at the end of 2014, now

we are looking at even a moderation of that. From the Taliban's

perspective, they will see and preach it. It will seem a

demonstration of continuing success on their part. That's wait they

will play it. In other circumstances, you might have, if

this is a perceived success, or a reverse for western strategy in

Afghanistan, you might see that as shifting the timetable, but the

timetable apparently is not going to shift, all the forces are going

to be out by the end of 2014? see, time will tell. I think what

we can do today, and we can used to's or yesterday's announcement as

an opportunity, as an -- today or yesterday's announcement as an

opportunity to say it is time the Afghans cut away on their own,

another two years alongside them will not make any strategic or

operational difference, or any major difference. And the

difference for us, of course, of hanging on, continuing in combat

over the next few years, 40, 50, 60 more families without sons. What do

you think is going to be the long- term impact of these attacks?

think attacks themselves are not all that difficult, we have lost

forces because of the attacks and other situations too. The issue is

what are we trying to achieve in Afghanistan, if we are trying to

get out we are on that track any way, the attack won't help that. If

the effort is really to try to bring about a stable state, to

bring about some security, to give the Afghan people a chance to

pursue their own development, and make sure extremist groups, such as

the Taliban, or those they have given access to, don't get control

of Afghanistan again, then we need to take the attacks as a signal,

and say we need to re-think the strategy. Transitioning in two

years to Afghan leadership looks less and less convincing that this

will be an effective way to ensure we deliver the kind of Afghanistan

we said we seek to do. We need to think about the deadline and our

commitment, we need to renew our engagment with supporting the

Afghan, the vast majority of which do want to build their own country.

You are saying the deadline is integral to successful completion

of the strategy? Yes, it signals to the Taliban when they will know we

will be gone, and to the population in the middle, we won't be there,

but the Taliban will. It is very important we don't inflate the

Taliban, they are a southern resistance movement, and Al-Qaeda

are an international terrorist movement. We can talk to the

Taliban, Al-Qaeda is a different thing. We have essentially beaten

off Al-Qaeda to the front end of 2002, since then they haven't been

in Afghanistan. We must draw that distinction. As for a viable state,

something of 95% of Afghan regard their Government as a bunch of

thieves, robbers, rapists and war criminals. There is aepblment of

truth in those accusations -- an element of truth in those

accusations? There is. Given that both these countries and many

others are committed to getting out as quickly as possible, by the end

of 2014, can they do so and loaf a credible Afghan security structure

in place? Time will tell, the problem is, our perspective is very

different from that of many senior Afghan officers, who realise that

3% of their force is of southern Pashtun origin, which is the

heartland of the Taliban. How that plays out in future is unclear. One

thing we can be sure, most of the Afghan Army is as foreign to

southern Pashtuns as the British army is. How do you see it, is it

possible that the western countries are going to leave a credible

security system in place in Afghanistan? It is certainly

possible.S if certainly possible. We are making the effort -- it is

certainly possible. We are making the effort to train Afghan forces,

support governance, it is possible. It is a very risk strategy, we have

to think about what if it doesn't work out that way. It is credible

to believe an alternative scenario would have the Taliban taking

control of the south. The Afghan security forces essentially

controlling the north. One of the warlords in the west re-

establishing control there. And then you have a question of does

the Taliban retry to take the entire country, as before. Or do

the Afghan national security forces try to fight back against them. You

may see something of a civil war emerge a few years from now. No-one

wants that, we need to think about the strategy we pursue today to try

to make that scenario much less likely than it now may appear.

Now, a President for all Americans, we have heard that promise time

after time, as someone or other runs for election for the White

House. Astonishing to hear Mitt Romney, the Republican challenger,

say he isn't much bothered about representing half of the electorate.

He spent most of today not trying to unsay what he said, but to

apologise, without apologising. He fell victim to every phone being a

camera, and declaring to a room full of private donors that half

the electorate are a bunch of scroungers, is up there with

playing strip poker with Las Vegas In internet gaming slang, the exact

moment of defeat is called "getting owned". For some reason it is spelt

like that. It was the Internet that turned up Mitt Romney's potential

faux pas, made at a private donors dinner in bok ka ratten to.

understand there has been a video on the Internet. Cue some artful

rephrasing from the candidate today. I believe the point I made is the

President starts out with a large number of the voters, 49%, these

are people in his camp. And they will vote for him, almost no matter

what, I have also a large number of people who will vote for me almost

no matter what, at least I hope so. And that my campaign effort is to

focus on the people in the middle. Owning a presidential candidate is

a tough proposition, in 1980 Ronald Reagan owned Jimmy Carter like this.

There you go again. Bill Clinton did it to George Bush

senior. While Bush junior, infamously owned

Ronan Kerr with this one. I served with Ronan Kerr. -- John Kerry.

served with John Kerry. John Kerry has not been honest about what

happened in Vietnam. Senator Kerry almost owned himself when he

dismissed the pence vainals in his So, is this one a terminal cock-up,

or just another thing. Here is what some voters in the swing state of

Florida told us this morning. It's not surprising. It's not

surprising that he would say something like. That I think he

should pay more attention, but that's the Republican state, that

they care only about themselves and a certain class of people. If

you're not like me, if you don't look like me or have as much money

as I, then I really don't want to have anything to do with you.

I support him? I'm a registered Republican and he makes me ashamed

at times. Why is that Because of his comments and his fill loss fees.

He should be appeal -- Philosophys. He should be appealing to the

country, elections are not one by one demographic but the entire

country. I think the comments were aimed at the target audience, but

probably reveals his true nature about how he feels about the

different classes in America. Lost in all this was another Romney

comment, made at the same event, also leaked to the Internet,

suggesting his administration would see no point in pursuing the

Palestinian peace process with any vigour. But some political

commentators now think a Romney administration looks a lot less

likely. Paul Mason is here with us now. This claim that 47 perof

Americans don't pay income tax, is it true? Amazingly it is true.

Although it is complicated. If we run this graph, it shows that over

the past few decades, large numbers of people have become exempted from

paying this one tax, income tax. You can see the crucial decades of

the last two, are free market economics where Democrats and

Republicans have done this, given tax breaks to the upper echelon,

and sweetened the pill with tax emsems of the middle-classes and

47% don't pay income tax. It seems a big number? Here is where the

complication of the tax service get politically complicated for Romney.

It is true half of those who fall through the tax net on income tax

are on benefits. The other half are really, what's happening, is they

are getting tax credits that offset their tax bill, it is called tax

units, if we break that down, 44% of them are elderly. Immediate

problem, because there is a lot of elderly Republicans who don't pay

tax, therefore. The other 25%, 33%, are working poor with family. And

there is this is just income tax. Even the poor can be paying sales

tax, property tax, local taxes. The idea that they don't have a stake

in the system because they don't pay this one tax is something that

you can only really believe if you don't study the graphs. It is not

true, if it is true it is the run cans' fault? -- Republicans' fault?

The politics have been spinning around in the last 24 hours. The

balance sheet looks something like this H the first problem he has got

is judgment, if you want to be President, do you want to go around

making speeches like this, even in private. The second is the idea

that Democrats are people who don't have a stake in the American dream,

and Republicans are. It is quite simplistic one, and if you are

trying to win a small number of swing voters, which he says he's

trying to do. Some of them have been caught in the misunderstanding

of what who pays this. The final thing is the demeanor, throughout

the campaign Romney has looked like a waxwork dummy, uncomfortable in

speeches, quite stiff. In that video, it has been well noted on

the American media, he's completely fluent, he's happy, comfortable in

his skin. It doesn't take much psychology to work out that is

probably what he believes. Some of the other stuff he's saying he's

not so on top of. He's among his own people there? It was a private

speech, there will be a certain part of the Republican Party it

won't damage him W but you could hear there, in the swing state of

Florida, among middle-class voters, including Republicans, they are not

comfortable with the idea that if you don't pay tax you don't have a

stake in the system. To discuss Mitt Romney's comments,

and what they can tell us about the philosophical conflict at the heart

of this year's presidential election, we have from Washington,

Matt Lewis, conlumist for the daily website, -- columnist for the daily

website Daily Caller, and my other guest.

Can you tell us on this side of the Atlantic who are always being told

about the wonderful dynamic capitalist economy you have, this

is astonishing that half of your people don't pay income tax? As was

mentioned they pay taxes, property tax, sales tax, but about half of

Americans don't pay federal income tax. On top of that about 49% of

Americans get some form of benefit. This is not widely known. It is a

legitimate issue. Romney would have probably preferred it didn't come

out in the sort of "gotcha" way. But it is a debate to have. It is

also true, isn't it, as Paul, my colleague, mentioned, that a lot of

people who don't pay federal income tax are Republicans? That is

absolutely true. Although, I would say, if you listen closely to Mitt

Romney's comments, he wasn't just talking, he was talking about

people not vested in paying income tax, but he also talked about the

entitlement philosophy. And Romney actually said, who think they are

entitled to a house, and to food, and to healthcare. I think we can

all agree where he all need those things, the question is, should

Government be providing from cradle to grave, everything that we need,

or should we as individuals take responsibility for that. That's the

big debate that I hope we have in the next 50 days. He has tapped

into something, hasn't he. The state has been growing, hugely in

the United States? I'm not so sure I would agree with that. The point

your commentator made earlier, to the extend a large number of

Americans aren't paying taxes or are getting credits or benefits,

like increased food stamps, or Medicare to get drugs. They were

two initiatives that game under George Bush, whether or not the

state is growing in the US, there is a debate going forward about how

much the state should be helping. I think Romney has positioned himself

very badly in that debate. We have a methology, or we have had -- a

mythology in this country that we can make it up the ladder by

ourselves, we don't need any help at all. I think post 2008 we

realise that is not right. I think Romney is on the wrong side of that

debate. And you pointed out earlier, he was sitting and making these

comments at a $50,000 a plate dinner with his own people. There

is a portion of the Republican Party that buys into this mythology,

the rest of America doesn't. says something about the state of

politics in your country, that somebody, and frankly, it must be

true to some degree on both sides, that effectively you can write off

a huge chunk of the electorate, as people who you are never going to

be able to reach out to? Absolutely. Mitt Romney is guilty of talking

like a strategist. And there is a famous saying here in the United

States that politics is like making sausage, you don't want to see it

being done. That was what Mitt Romney was doing. The truth is, we

live in a world of limited resores, if you are going to run --

resources, if you are going to run a campaign, you have three people,

the people for you, the people against and you the undecideds. The

people who are for you turn out on election day, the people undecided

you persuade. The people against, you frankly, ignore. It should be

noted that there was a gap will you please tracking poll that came out

today that showed Barack Obama has, you guessed it, 47% of the vote.

The exact per cent that Mitt Romney said he had. He was right about

that. Go on? Sorry, I lost you for a

minute. I think that going to your point

earlier about how this is going to affect the election, this is a huge

turning point. I think this week will be remembered unless there is

some major change that we can't foresee right now, as the week that

Mitt Romney lost the election. And I think it is going to start a

bigger debate in this country about what kind of country we want to

have, what kind of role we want Government to play, how big or how

small we want it to be, and how easy it is to work your way up the

ladder in this country. There are big questions about this. You say

this will be going down as the week he lost the election because of

these comments? I think this is one of a number of mistakes he has made.

I see a mood change. I think that you really can't write off 47% of

the population. I think that the comment that you played earlier

from the voters in swing states like Ohio, are very apropo, what is

interesting is Republicans are no longer the party of optimisim. I

think this plays to that. I think Democrats have grabbed that, they

are the party of optimisim. Obama's speech to the convention was a can-

do speech, we we are all in this together, we will reach back to

those behind us and pull them up. Republicans sound like they are

complaining about half of the population, that is not a message

that will go down in November, I don't think. I would like to be

optimistic, but we have very serious problems, a $16 trillion

debt that we have to bring down and make changes. There are three

debates between now and the election, anything could change. I

agree, I hope there is this national Conservatives, I think

there is a real question about whether or not we want to have an

entitlement society, or opportunity society. Whether or not we want to

have the American dream, or a welfare state. I think Mitt Romney

should welcome that debate, and vigorously be at the forefront of

challenging President Obama to have that discussion. Thank you very

much. If you look up the description of the former British

colony of Kenya in Wikipedia, you will find the country described as

having maintained a remarkable stability, despite changes in its

political system. Looking up anything in Wikipedia is a risky

thing at the best of times. Tell that to the police who today found

two mass graves in the Tana Delta region, in the east of the country.

The graves are believed to hold the remains of a hundred people, killed

in the last month, as Kenya prepares to hold a general election,

which is still six months away. After the last election violence

claimed over 1,000 lives. The BBC East Africa correspondent

investigates the links between the latest massacre and the upcoming

vote. By the time we got to the village

of Gillows, there was no-one left. Most of the -- most of the houses

had been torched, not a home remained untouched. The only living

things were the flies and the remains of butchered animals in

silence. The attackers had had come in the early morning. Several

hundred men, some armed with guns, most carried spheres, clubs or bows

and arrow, they set fire to the villagers' hut. Some ran for

shelter in the mosque, but 38 people were hacked to death. Men,

women and children, indiscriminately. This was a

massacre. TRANSLATION: All of a sudden the village was under siege,

there were so many of them. They were wearing red bandanas and white

shoes, they didn't speak. They just shouted "kill, kill, kill". At a

hospital nearby we met Jamila, she's eight years old, her face was

slashed open with a machete, she's still too traumatised to speak. The

doctors say she will pull through. She was fortunate to survive. In

the abandoned village, a square patch of freshly-dug earth, marks

the spot where some of the victims lie buried in a mass grave. It will

be a long time before people venture back here. The stench is

pretty strong here, still. Even all these days later, because of the

crack cusses of slaughtered livestock that -- crack kass of

slaughtered livestock that - crack cusses of slaughtered livestock. It

looks like this was more than a spontaneous outburst of anger, you

have to wonder if it was more well planned or premeditated.

TRANSLATION: The attackers were divided into three groups, one

torched the houses, others carried off the injured, there was a third

group whose job it was to just kill. On the surface, this is a conflict

over access to land and water. On one side are the pokomo people,

armers, small holdings, who eek out a living growing groups by the

banks of the river. On the other side are the Orma, semi-onadmic

cattle drovers who roam the land in search of grazing grounds for their

herds. The farmers complain the herds trample their crops. In the

past the difficulties have been resolved peacefully, but things

have changed. This herder says he's afraid, showing us his newly-

acquired dagger, he says if anything happens they will

retaliate and defend themselves. Five years ago Kenya shocked itself

and the world. Violence erupted, following a disputed general

election. The clashes were centered on the Rift Valley and in the

capital Nairobi. Communities turned on each other, killing and maiming,

with apparent abandon. In their fury, those who believed

victory had been stolen from them, lashed out at those they saw as

benefiting from the outcome. Attacks provoked counter-attacks,

and the bloodshed continued for months. At the end of it 1,200

people were dead, over half a million homeless.

But the killings were not entirely spontaneous. Four men are due to

stand trial at the International Criminal Court in the Hague,

accused of orchestrating the violence. Two of those men are also

running for President in the next election. The long shadow of 2008

now hangs over Kenya, as it prepares to go to the polls next

March. Election season has already begun, there was by-elections in

three constituencies on Monday, and tensions between the main

candidates are simmering. When people go to the polls in Kenya,

they are generally not thinking about manifestos or political

platforms, it is all about getting your candidate elected to office.

And your candidate generally means somebody from your tribe or

community. Your candidate's success or failure can mean the difference

between you getting a job or becoming unemployed. And the

success or failure of your political block can mean the

difference, say, between a road being built to your area or not. So

in Kenya elections are a matter of poverty or prosperity. They can

even be a matter of life and death. In the tan da delta, religious

leaders and politicians are preaching piece to their

constituents. Many don't believe these massacres were caused by

small, local land disputes. Someone local MP has been sacked from the

cabinet, on suspicion of inciting violence, others are suspected.

fits the pattern that before an election you have violence, the

motive is to affect the way people vote. To gerrymander violence. To

create fear and terror. Political income bancy, means free --

incumbanc means freedom to steal, you become rich in Government,

people areing will to kill for that. Land is a valuable commodity, not

just for those who live on it. Big investors, local and national, are

becoming interested in the region's potential. What is happening on the

other side of this electric fence is a pilot project. They are

growing crops to be converted into biofuels, if the experiment is

successful, it will be repeated across vast situates of land here,

currently used -- swathes of land here, currently used for cattle.

The potential conflict over land takes place on various different

levels, there is the individual herdsman versus the individual

farmer, but there is potentially bigger business at stake here.

There is a lot of external interest in the area. People want to set up

large farms. They always do that with local partners, the local

partners are always politically connected. And you know, moving

people off land that you may want, can be done in various ways.

As you drive through the Tana Delta now, you come across abandoned

village after abandoned village. Many residents have fled in

anticipation of trouble to come. Thousands have ended up in camp

like this one, sometimes far away from home. Whether they return in

time to register to vote, will depend on whether they feel

confident enough in the security forces to guarantee their safety.

After four weeks of violence and more than a hundred deaths, the

Government has, belatedly, sent in the paramilitary police, to try to

disarm and protect the area. The fear is, as the scramble for vote

intensifies, and spreads across the country, these killings may mark

the start of another bloody Kenyan election.

That's all tonight. It was announced today that the film

producer John Coates has died, his best loved him of the animated