Kenya's opposition calls off rallies
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - January 7, 2008 The chief U.S. envoy for Africa, who has spent three days
negotiating with President Mwai Kibaki and the opposition, said
Kenyans "have been cheated by their political leadership and their
institutions." In particular, Jendayi Frazer said, the electoral
commission was flawed and needed reform.
The commission chairman has admitted that he is not sure Kibaki
won the vote.
Frazer said that the turmoil had not shaken U.S. confidence in
Kenya as a regional hub. She said the United States favored
whatever solution Kibaki and the opposition leader, Raila Odinga,
come up with to resolve the deadlock and halt violence.
Odinga called off protests planned for Tuesday after meeting
with Frazer. Kibaki's government, accused by Odinga of stealing the
Dec. 27 election, had said the proposed Tuesday demonstrations were
illegal and could provoke violence.
Reports of ethnic killings continued to stream in from the
countryside, with an official in neighboring Uganda confirming 30
Kenyan refugees were thrown into the border river by attackers, and
were presumed drowned.
Two Ugandan truck drivers carrying the group said they were
stopped Saturday at a roadblock mounted by militiamen who
identified the refugees as members of Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe and
threw them into the deep, swift-flowing Kipkaren River, said
Himbaza Hashaka, a Ugandan border official.
The drivers said none survived, Hashaka said.
A statement Monday from the Ministry of Special Programs put the
death toll at 486 with some 255,000 people displaced from their
homes. The toll, which did not include the drownings, was compiled
by a committee of humanitarian services set up by the government
which toured areas most affected by riots and protests.
Odinga told Sky News television that Kibaki's "rigging"
himself back into power caused the violence and therefore "Mr.
Mwai Kibaki must bear responsibility ... for the deaths we are
seeing in our country today."
But a government spokesman said officials were investigating
"premeditated murder" of people warned beforehand that they would
pay if they voted for Kibaki.
Such targeting of certain communities "can ultimately result in
serious crimes under international law such as crimes against
humanity and genocide," Mutua said.
He did not say who could be charged.
Attempts to hold opposition rallies last week were blocked by
police who fired tear gas, water cannons and live bullets over
people's heads. Human rights groups accused police of excessive
force and unjustified killings in the crisis, but police
Commissioner Hussein Ali insisted Sunday that "we have not shot
anyone."
For Frazer, Monday was the last day of a three-day mission in
which she has won an offer from Kibaki to form a coalition
government and a concession from Odinga that he would negotiate
without insisting that Kibaki first resign.
The United States, Britain and the European Union have urged
Kibaki and Odinga to negotiate. The East African nation is
considered an ally in the fight against terrorism.
Meanwhile, thousands of tourists have canceled vacations at the
beginning of the high season.
"Hotels have been projecting an occupancy of 80-90 percent of
capacity. But today, as we speak, that has dropped down to less
than 40 percent. That's a huge loss for the economy," Mohammed
Hersi, general manager of Whitesands Hotel in the coastal city of
Mombasa, told AP Television News.
Schools were to reopen after the holidays on Monday, but the
government postponed that for a week. Many are being used by
refugees.
The level of violence eased over the weekend, though ethnic
attacks continued, pitting Odinga's Luo and other tribes against
Kibaki's Kikuyu people, the largest among Kenya's 42 tribes.
Nearly 1,000 Luos were chased Sunday from their homes in one
small town, Limuru, 30 miles west of Nairobi, the capital. Some
with furniture and bundles of clothing, others with nothing, they
huddled around the compound of the local police station.
George Otieno, 30, said about 100 men armed with machetes,
hammers and sticks attacked his home and smashed his head with a
hammer.
"They said, 'You have to go back to your place,"' meaning the
Luo's native lands in western Kenya, said Otieno, whose head was
bandaged and shirt marked with dried blood.
About a mile away, more than 500 Kikuyu refugees were at a Red
Cross compound, forced from their homes in the remote Western
Province that is a Luo stronghold. Thousands of Kikuyus are fleeing
western Kenya under armed police escort.
Francis Waweru said he had arrived three days ago with his wife
and four children, fleeing a mob of hundreds who torched his shop
and home in Timboroa. He showed a leg wound where he said he was
shot with a bow and arrow.
"They said, 'No Raila, no peace,"' Waweru said.
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Associated Press writers Elizabeth A. Kennedy, Katharine
Houreld, Tom Odula and Malkhadir M. Muhumed in Nairobi, Todd Pitman
in Eldoret and Tom Maliti in Mombasa contributed to this report.