Kenyan Peace Talks Delayed After Death of Second Opposition Legislator

EDMUND SANDERS: What's going on in Kenya is really multifaceted and has gone through different phases. And it really started in the beginning as election outrage, frustration over what they believe was a rigged election.

It spread to slums and where there was a lot of looting. And a lot of it was probably just motivated by -- we had a lot of frustrated young men, unemployed, poor, and this was an opportunity to vent.

And within a matter of days, though, is when it really started to spread into different parts of the country and took on a more ethnic dimension. And, really, you got the sense that tribes were using this as an opportunity to settle old scores, to reclaim land, try to push away rival tribes off of land that they might believe rightfully belongs to them.

We saw some really horrific attacks designed, burning houses, the horrible church burning near Eldoret here, where at least 17 people, many women and children, were burned to death. And that was seen as, in a sense, over land and over power and over resources.

And then, in more recent days, you saw it take on even another dimension, which was revenge attacks, again, tribalistic in nature, but people attacking in response to attacks that had taken place against their tribal members.

So it's really kind of evolving as time goes on. In terms of where it's taking place, you can't really say that the whole country is engulfed in this. I mean, much of the country is struggling to return to normal and probably has.

What happens and what seems to be happening -- and this is the future for Kenya for the next month or months -- is that it's flaring up in different cities, and it's very hard to see where or when it flairs up, and something like today, the killing of the lawmakers, something that can trigger it.

It flairs up. It might last a day or two, and then things sort of go back to normal and things calm down until the next incident.

EDMUND SANDERS: People are very pessimistic, actually, when you ask people on the street. I find them to be fairly pessimistic that these talks are going to go anywhere, so there isn't a high expectation. The men have sort of taken very firm positions, at least publicly.

But, personally, I think that there is room for compromise. These men have been political allies in the past. They've shown that they're willing to reach compromise. And, privately, I think that it might be closer to an agreement than they're admitting to publicly.

Whether or not that really resolve the issue for Kenya right now is another question, because many people think that the clashes and the crisis might even be out of their control because they've started something that has now grown into something even greater.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, again, very quickly, you said in a country with no history of assassinations, what's this doing to the social fabric?

EDMUND SANDERS: It's really been traumatic for people in Kenya. And I should clarify. There have been certainly assassinations in Kenya before, but it has grown to a point where people thought it had moved on and was beyond these kinds of things.

It never really had national or a big ethnic clash or a civil war like so many of its neighbors. It was like a beacon for democracy in this area.

So people are shocked that this is happening to the country and that it's unraveled and wondering, what was bubbling beneath the surface all along? And so I think it's causing people to sort of re-think their views about their own country.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Edmund Sanders with the Los Angeles Times reporting for us from Eldoret in Kenya, thanks very much.

EDMUND SANDERS: Thank you.