CTV News Africa Correspondent
 
Updated: Thu. Nov. 28 2002 4:44 PM ET

He steps carefully down the busy Nairobi street, white cane tap-tapping out a hesitant rhythm on the cracked sidewalk before him. The crowds jostle mercilessly. Street boys sometimes taunt and threaten.

It's been four years now, but Douglas Sidialo is still learning to live as a blind man. "It's not a question of brooding over what's happened," he says carefully. "Right now, it's a question of 'how do I move ahead'?"

Sidialo was once an insurance broker making a decent if quiet living in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. In 1998, a car bomb exploded near the U.S. embassy in the city's downtown. The explosion destroyed nearly an entire block.

In all, 213 people died, almost all of them Kenyans whose only attachment to the embassy was geographic -- walking down the street, standing in a nearby park, or sitting in an office adjacent to the embassy building.

The terrorists' car bomb propelled hundreds of glass shards into Sidialo's eyes. A surgeon removed both eyes on the same day the bomb exploded.

Behind Sidialo's dark glasses there is now emptiness: dry scarred craters have replaced living eye sockets. He was among nearly 1,000 Kenyans killed or maimed the last time Kenya played host to terrorism's grisly theatre. In the word of military planners -- and perhaps terrorists also -- Sidialo and those like him are "collateral damage." Unfortunate, unavoidable.

These days he survives on the diminishing charity of friends and relatives. His home is an untidy apartment in a rough section of Nairobi. Sidialo won't leave his home without the company of a relative. Instead, he spends most of his time listening to the television -- ironically, he bought the expensive TV before the attack. Its crisp picture is now useless to him and he can't afford a decent radio.

Sidialo looks lost for a moment when asked about vengeance. "Me, I'm peace-loving," he says. "But it's also my prayer that the Americans, the FBI the CIA should hunt for the terrorists. Osama in particular. Catch him and bring him to justice. Maybe then we can know why he is doing this."

Many other Kenyans are joining Sidialo in asking, "Why us?" For the second time in four years, terrorists have chosen to mount an attack in one of the poorest countries in the world. The effect on Kenya's population and economy will be devastating.

In responding to the Mombasa attack, Kenya's president Daniel Arap Moi looked exhausted and exasperated when he spoke to reporters after the Mombasa attack. He is clearly angered that the West is not doing more to stop terrorists operating in Africa. "Kenya had another attack in 1998, along with our friends in Tanzania," Moi said. "And still, the world has not come our aid. Even our friends."

In addition to the three suicide bombers and three Israeli tourists, nine Kenyans are reported to have died in the blast at The Paradise Hotel in Mombasa. Another 80 have been sent to hospital with injuries.

The dead and injured Kenyans are most likely hotel workers -- bell hops, check-in clerks, and taxi drivers working near the lobby of the hotel where the suicide bombers drove up in their explosive-laden four-wheel drive. One report says several dozen Kenyan traditional dancers were badly burned while performing for newly-arrived guests.

If there is a grade of innocence, these Kenyan victims must surely be the most innocent of the innocent. Kenya is a country where 40 per cent live in absolute poverty -- defined by the United Nations as earning less than a $1-a-day. Hauling luggage or dancing for visitors is the only way many Kenyans can earn enough money to stave off their families' starvation. This isn't an overstatement: Kenya's only social safety net is the kindness of well wishers and extended family.

Tourism was once Kenya's biggest earner of foreign currency. More than one million Kenyans benefit from tourism indirectly, with another half-million directly.

After the attack in 1998, tourism moved to second place in importance. Restaurants closed, curio dealers went out of business, and many of the seaside resorts of Mombasa shut their doors. According to the Kenya Tourism Board, 200,000 lost their jobs. These people would wind up on the streets or back in their villages, without access to proper health care or decent nutrition.

After this latest attack, Mombasa's powder-white beaches remain as beautiful as ever, and the warm waters of the Indian Ocean still lap softly outside the smoldering rooms of The Paradise Hotel. But all over East Africa, the telephone lines are already humming with the sounds of cancelled tour bookings.

"We have been recovering very well...until now. I can tell you that news like this is not good for the industry at all," said Kenya Tourism Board managing director Betty Buyu to a reporter from Kenya's Nation newspaper.

The attack at The Paradise killed three innocent Israeli tourists, and cost the terrorists three of their own in the suicide attack. In the hideous calculation of terrorism, the score would seem to be even. But long after the media has moved on to the next al Qaeda attack, tens of thousands of Kenyans will be struggling to make a living, literally, to stay alive. For the injured, the latest attack will live on -- in severed limbs, blinded eyes, and lost loved ones.