By Alistair Thomson
DAKAR, Jan 3 (Reuters) - The massacre of villagers in a Kenyan church has conjured up ghosts from the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda.
Both sides in Kenya have already alleged genocide.
So far the parallels end there.
Nevertheless, analysts say revulsion at the thought of following Rwanda's path could help bring politicians to the negotiating table.
President Mwai Kibaki's disputed re-election has sparked a week of killings between his Kikuyu followers and tribes backing opposition leader Raila Odinga, a Luo, in which more than 300 people have died.
Rhetoric from both leaders and mutual accusations of genocide seem calculated to claim the moral high ground and raise alarm bells by evoking the spectre of Rwanda's bloodbath 17 years ago when Hutu extremists slaughtered some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus while the world stood by.
"Of course it makes for great print to draw such parallels," said Professor Josh Ruxin, from New York's Columbia University, who directs two public health programmes in Rwanda.
"But essentially the genocide of 1994 began in 1959 -- you're talking about decades of deepening divisions. I think the analogies start to fall apart pretty quickly, but it is alarming to see a democracy fall apart so fast," Ruxin said.
Kenya has serious ethnic divisions, as previous bloodletting -- especially at election times -- testifies.
But during and after the disputed election, politicians appear to have exploited discontent and divisions to fuel ethnic strife among people who had lived peacefully together. "Every Kenyan knows that if the Luo and the Kikuyu were allowed to coexist, they would. But it's the politicians who exploit differences for votes. They exploit ethnic differences for political ends," said Jan van Eck, a Great Lakes analyst who has tracked the Hutu-Tutsi strife in neighbouring Burundi.
"That is the fundamental problem, because you frequently find that political parties, when you look at their policies -- even a schoolchild can see there is no difference," he said.
WAKE-UP CALL
Crucial factors that contributed to Rwanda's genocide -- civil war, the threat of an army in exile and months of planning -- are conspicuous by their absence in Kenya, analysts say.
"Also there is the fact there are more tribes in Kenya. One saying is that where there are fewer tribes, there is more danger of ethnic violence," said van Eck.
Nevertheless, reports of machete-wielding youths killing people at roadblocks and Tuesday's mob torching of a church near the Rift Valley town of Eldoret, killing around 30 people inside, are a chilling reminder of the region's past excesses.
They could serve as a wake-up call to motivate both political leaders and an international community still smarting from its failure to stop the Rwanda killing in 1994.
"The church ... it's like a scenario in Rwanda," said Veronique Tadjo, author of "The Shadow of Imana. Travels in the heart of Rwanda" which explores the genocide.
"When you have a sign like that it means everything is possible, so you have to immediately go into top gear and stop it," she said.
Tom Cargill, Africa programme director at London's Chatham House international policy think-tank, agreed revulsion at the attacks could be the lever to push Kibaki and Odinga to talk.
"The problems that are there are not really ethnic in nature, but they've been given an ethnic dimension ... I do think it is possible to separate them," Cargill said.
"I think the main thing that will encourage them to talk will be the sight of the church burning, and ethnic killing, and the sight of young men carrying machetes," he said.
(Editing by Barry Moody and Janet McBride)