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BEIJING — Election violence that has killed hundreds in Kenya proves that Western-style democracy isn't right for Africa, China said Monday, at a time when Beijing is under fire for maintaining friendly relations with authoritarian African leaders.
Pre-colonial Africa had its own ways of resolving problems through consensus, those traditional systems were ignored when former European rulers “tyrannically” imposed Western democratic systems upon independence, the People's Daily newspaper said in a commentary.
“Western-style democratic theory simply isn't suited to African conditions, but rather carries with it the root of disaster,” said the paper, the official mouthpiece of China's ruling Communist Party.
Fighting has raged in Kenya since its disputed Dec. 27 presidential election, killing 575 people, according to the Kenya Red Cross Society.
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The violence has pitted other tribes against President Mwai Kibaki's Kikuyu people and has shaken Kenya's image as a stable democracy in a region that includes war-ravaged Somalia and Sudan.
Human rights groups and some overseas politicians have accused Beijing of helping prop up despotic regimes in Sudan, Zimbabwe and other African states.
China says it maintains a strict policy of not interfering in other country's internal affairs and claims Chinese investment in Africa is helping to improve human rights by bringing economic development and alleviating poverty.
Beijing has sizable infrastructure projects in Kenya that include mining and road-building.
Chinese President Hu Jintao also signed an oil exploration contract with Kenya during a visit to the country in 2006, part of a series of deals aimed at keeping Africa's natural resources flowing to China's resource-hungry economy.
In its commentary Monday, the People's Daily also said that colonialism was to blame for ongoing tribal and ethnic strife in Africa because European rulers turned native societies against each other to facilitate their rule.
“Colonialism is the chief culprit, the fuse that sparks ethnic conflict,” the paper said.
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