KENYA: Opposition rally called off as Attorney General calls for independent enquiry into vote count

Record ID: 361520

  • Title: KENYA: Opposition rally called off as Attorney General calls for independent enquiry into vote count
  • Date: 3rd January 2008
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Swahili) GRACE RUGURU, NAIVASHA RESIDENT, SAYING: "Houses are being burnt and people are being beaten, some are beaten with clubs others with machetes, some ran into the forest we don't even know where they are."
  • Embargoed: 18th January 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Kenya
  • Country: Kenya
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA9SQ80BV9WHW94AQCOXPAE7KLB
  • Story Text: Opposition supporters clash with Kenya police as they head to a banned anti-government rally which was later cancelled by organisers.
    Protestors engaged police in running battles on Thursday (January 3) as they tried to make their way to a Nairobi park on a day when the opposition called for a million-strong rally in central Nairobi against President Mwai Kibaki's disputed re-election.
    Kibaki's victory has sparked ethnic violence in opposition strongholds and has killed more than 300 people.
    Police used teargas and water cannons against several hundred anti-government protesters, while some of the opposition supporters looted and burnt shops.
    Opposition party, Orange Democratic Movement, (ODM) has accused the government of acts "bordering on genocide" by ordering police to shoot protesters.
    ODM later called off the banned rally in an attempt to end running battles between police and protesters, but announced another gathering for Tuesday (January 8).

    "We are a peaceful people, we don't want violence, we don't want confrontation, that's why we are dispersing, but we are telling the commissioner of police that we will be back on Tuesday January 8th 2008 to hold our meeting in Uhuru Park," said ODM official William Ruto.
    There have been international calls for reconciliation in a nation that had become known as a vibrant democracy and peacemaker in East Africa, rather than a trouble-spot.
    Foreign observers said the vote fell short of democratic standards.
    ODM leader Raila Odinga has called Kibaki a "thief" who had carried out "a civilian coup", but said that he would, however accept international mediation and proposed setting up an interim power-sharing government to prepare for a re-run of the vote.
    Piling the pressure on Kibaki, Attorney General Amos Wako called on Thursday for an independent probe into Kenya's election.
    Warning Kenya was "quickly degenerating into a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions," Wako said both sides should agree on an independent person or body to carry out "a proper tally" of votes from the Dec. 27 poll.

    "And, taking into account that this crisis has arisen because of the perceptions that the presidential results were rigged, it is necessary, and here I agree with the Catholic bishops and others, that a proper tally of the valid certificates returned and confirmed should be undertaken immediately and on a priority basis by an agreed and independent person or body."
    But he added that while the tally should help political mediation, only a court could overturn Kibaki's win.
    Nobel Laureate, Desmond Tutu arrived in Nairobi on Thursday to offer his assistance in mediation over the disputed poll results and spoke to the German Ambassador, Walter Linder.

    "So I have been talking to Tutu and I have been trying to talk to Raila Odinga to tell them that everything should be done to avoid bloodshed.....Well they don't want bloodshed either," said Linder.
    Meanwhile thousands of Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe have started to flee the Rift Valley, running across the wastes of an ethnic battleground few Kenyans can believe is their country.
    In the highland Naivasha town about 100 Kilometres from the capital Nairobi, families boarded trucks and lorries that would normally ferry food stuff from the fertile area to major trading areas and more arid parts of the country.
    About 30 Kikuyus died when a mob torched a church near Eldoret, also in Rift Valley, a slaughter evoking memories of ethnic violence usually associated with other states in Africa, not one of its most stable.
    Thousands have taken shelter in churches and police stations across the country, prompting a humanitarian crisis as food and water run short.

    "Houses are being burnt and people are being beaten, some are beaten with clubs others with machetes, some ran into the forest we dont even know where they are," said Grace Ruguru, in Naivasha.

    "We were chased by the Maasais, they told us to leave and go back too where we came from. They are saying that it was wrong for us to vote for Kibaki so we decided to leave in peace. We left our things, they said they would watch over them for us from now on, so we left our land, everything on our farms because we were on foot we could not carry much," said one man.
    In the Rift Valley, gangs of youths have burned homes and crops while chasing away Kikuyus. Some Kenyans waited to get flights to Nairobi at Eldoret airport after youths blocked the main road to the capital city with tree trunks and rocks.
    Police estimate that roughly 75,000 Kenyans have fled their homes. Some have crossed into neighbouring states -- a reversal for a nation that for decades has accepted the victims of neighbouring conflicts like Somalia, Sudan and Ethiopia.
    jrc/
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