- Title: KENYA: Kenya election protests called off as talks near.
- Date: 7th January 2008
- Summary: (W3) NAIROBI, KENYA (JANUARY 7, 2008) (REUTERS) TRAFFIC ON STREET/BUS STREET SCENE / PEOPLE WALKING (SOUNDBITE) (English) JEFFREY, MUSICIAN, SAYING: "Cancelling the rally does not really solve the issue, people have got rage and they have to express it peacefully. I believe Kenya is a mature country and people can utter out their grievances in peaceful manner but at he
- Embargoed: 22nd January 2008 12:00
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- Location: Kenya
- Country: Kenya
- Reuters ID: LVA6MI4Y055JQ6IUIICVG59ZWWQ5
- Story Text: Kenya's opposition leader calls off election protests as mediation process begins, but displaced people continue to seek safety after violence claims nearly 500 lives. Meanwhile a relief convoy takes advantage of a lull in the violence to set off for the Rift Valley.
Kenya's opposition leader Raila Odinga said on Monday (January 7) he had called off protests because a "mediation process" to resolve the political crisis that has killed nearly 500 people was about to begin.
Violence flared after the December 27 vote that gave President Mwai Kibaki a disputed re-election.
African Union Chairman John Kufuor, Ghana's president, was due to visit this week to try to mediate between Odinga and Kibaki. Their mutual distrust is a key obstacle to a solution.
"We are now assured that the mediation process is about to start," Odinga said after meeting U.S. envoy Jendayi Frazer. "We are therefore informing our supporters countrywide that there will be no public rallies (on Tuesday).
"We want a facilitator who will sit there and bring us together, and once we are there we are going to put our cards on the table. We expect the government side to do the same and through a process of negotiation, we think we will arrive at an acceptable solution."
Frazer later said the crisis had not changed the United States' view of the country as a strong regional hub.
In Nairobi, reaction to the protests being halted was mixed.
One man said: "Cancelling the rally does not really solve the issue, people have got rage and they have to express it peacefully. Raila and Kibaki actually need to sit down as men who truly care about this country and see that children are dying."
A woman welcomed the decision, saying: "That is clearly what really needs to be done, I believe in Raila wholeheartedly and I think he has the country's best interests at heart, so I think that is the right decision."
The death toll from post-election violence has risen to 486, with a further 255,000 people displaced, the government said on Monday, although Odinga later claimed almost 1,000 had died.
Meanwhile, the U.N.'s World Food Programme (WFP) sent 11 trucks to western Kenya, heart of the refugee crisis, under escort with enough food to feed 38,000 people for two weeks.
WFP spokesman Peter Smerdon said trucks had previously been held up for days at checkpoints.
"But as far as we understand the check points are down, that's why we want to use this window of opportunity while there is relative peace to get as much food in as possible to the northern Rift Valley," he added.
Some of the displaced, hundreds of people from the Luo community living in the central province stronghold of president Mwai Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe, have left their homes for fear of attacks as tensions over ethnic differences rise.
Most incidences of violence have been in opposition areas but those who have fled their homes in Limuru, a government aligned area in the fertile Central province, are now fearing that the Kikuyus, some who have been displaced from other areas and are settling here, are retaliating.
"Many of the people who have been brought here from Rift Valley and they are now in Limuru, they are the ones who have been harassing us," said Benson Amento, a resident of Limuru.
Thousands of Kikuyus have fled the Rift Valley and Western regions of the country.
While most of the country largely returned to calm, there was an unconfirmed report from Uganda that 30 Kenyans drowned after being pursued by attackers into a river on the border.
Police on the Kenyan side could not confirm the report. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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