KENYA: Government and opposition call for international mediation in crisis following disputed election
Record ID:
362056
KENYA: Government and opposition call for international mediation in crisis following disputed election
- Title: KENYA: Government and opposition call for international mediation in crisis following disputed election
- Date: 3rd January 2008
- Summary: (BN11) KISUMU, KENYA (JANUARY 2, 2008) (REUTERS) LONG QUEUE OF SHOPPERS OUTSIDE NAKUMATT SUPERMARKET INTERIOR SUPERMARKET WITH SHOPPER PICKING GOODS FROM SHELF WOMAN PICKS GOODS OF THE SHELF TROLLEY LOADED WITH FOOD SHOPPING BEING SCANNED AT TILL VARIOUS OF PEOPLE QUEUING OUTSIDE A BANK TO WITHDRAW MONEY
- Embargoed: 18th January 2008 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Kenya
- Country: Kenya
- Topics: Domestic Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA9HP14QUFGVKSRYALWYWNV97TX
- Story Text: Kenyan opposition party condemns President Mwai Kibaki's re-election and calls on the international community to recommend ways of resolving the poll dispute. Meanwhile another day of violence and looting rocked slums in the capital.
Kenyans in the capital Nairobi made their way back to work on Wednesday (January 2) despite fears of a rising death toll from days of violence sparked by the re-election of president Mwai Kibaki in disputed polls.
Police blocked cars at major highways into the city centre telling people to go back home for their own safety. Roads were eventually opened and a steady stream of people made their way to their businesses and offices although the city remains less busy than usual.
Kibaki was sworn in on Sunday (December 30) after official election results showed he had narrowly beaten opposition challenger, Raila Odinga.
Kenya's opposition party, Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) accuse Kibaki of rigging his victory in last week's closely-fought poll. The disputed outcome has sparked ethnic killings in a country often seen as a bulwark of stability in a volatile part of Africa.
"Honourable Raila Amolo Odinga was democratically elected as the fourth President of the Republic of Kenya, and both Mwai Kibaki and the Electoral Commission of Kenya stand guilty of subverting the democratic process to perpetuate authoritarian rule in Kenya," said ODM official, William Ruto.
The EU's observer mission said the poll had fallen short of key international and regional standards for democratic elections.
In comments broadcast on local TV, the Electoral Commission of Kenya chairman, Samuel Kivuitu said he was pressured by Odinga and Kibaki's party colleagues to announce the poll results immediately. Four members of Kivuitu's team have said they would call for a judicial review.
More than 300 people have died during violence in Kenya since the ballot on Dec. 27, a state-funded local rights organisation and an international group said in a joint statement on Wednesday. Police engaged rowdy youth in running battles in various cities as gunfire crackled in slum areas.
"The popular rejection of the fradulent results by the people of Kenya has been met with extreme brutality by the police, with over a thousand people shot by the police. The mayhem has deteriorated into anarchy, destruction of property, wanton and unnecessary killings bordering on genocide. The government has in the meantime, taken a wait and see attitude," said Ruto at a news conference.
The government accused Odinga's party of unleashing "genocide" in Kenya on Wednesday as the death toll from tribal violence rose over 300. Odinga's supporters, drawn mainly from his Luo tribe, have made similar charges against Kibaki, whose Kikuyu have dominated political and business life in East Africa's biggest economy.
"We want to urge all Kenyans of good will to rally together at this dark hour in our national life to arrest this madness and set our nation back on the path of reconciliation and national healing. We wish to condemn most strongly the acts of genocide being perpetrated in parts of Rift Valley.
The alleged irregularities in the Presidential elections cannot under any circumstances be used to justify these crimes against humanity. Increasingly it is becoming clear that these well organised acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing were well-planned, financed and rehearsed by ODM leaders prior to the general elections. The post-election impasse is just an excuse for unleashing these criminal pogroms on our country,"the statement read by Lands Minister Kivutha Kibwana on behalf of his colleagues said.
In an apparent olive branch to ODM, Kibaki invited all members of the new opposition-dominated parliament to a meeting at State House in Nairobi on Wednesday. It was not immediately clear how many opposition legislators would attend. But the ODM has called for international mediation.
Odinga said on Wednesday that he would not meet president Kibaki for any dialogue without the presence of international mediators.
"How can you go and dialogue with a thief, we are not interested in talking to Kibaki without an international mediator," said the opposition leader.
In Nairobi's sprawling Mathare slum the rival groups weilding machetes and sticks attacked each other, burning houses and looting shops on a day when the city centre showed a semblance of normality.
"This fighting will not end. It will continue, either we die or they die because now I have no home, I was born here, I have no land, where will I go?" said one Kikuyu man whose house was burnt down.
Some residents in Mathare accuse the police of doing nothing as gangs wreck havoc in the vast slum.
"Why is the government favouring one side, here in Mathare North, when the Luos are moving around, it looks like the police are escorting them.... but for us, even when we are just going to the shops they chase us and shoot in the air," said Mary Njeri, a resident.
On Tuesday, about 30 Kikuyus died when a mob set fire to a church where they had taken sanctuary in the western town of Eldoret -- reviving memories of the slaughter in churches of hundreds of thousands in Rwanda's 1994 genocide.
The Eldoret attack was one the worst episodes of violence that has uprooted nearly 100,000 Kenyans, many of them fleeing across the border to Uganda.
Western powers have called for calm and Britain has urged the African Union and Commonwealth to try to reconcile Kibaki and Odinga.
African Union chairman John Kufuor was planning to fly to Kenya and start mediation, while British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was on the phone to both sides.
"And we've had very intense diplomatic activity because it's very important. Millions of people queued up in Kenya to cast their vote and they deserve a government that brings about stability and prosperity and they deserve to have a government that reflects the will of the people. Any election irregularities have got to be properly investigated and I think it's very important now that we do our bit and we do what we can to bring about reconciliation and unity in the country and particularly at this moment when we've seen such appalling, horrific and completey unjustifiable killings and to bring the violence to an end as quickly as possible," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said.
Kenya is an important ally of the West in its counter-terrorism efforts, takes growing money-flows from China, and is used to being the peacemaker -- rather than the conflict focus -- in African hot-spots like Somalia and Sudan.
Since independence from Britain in 1963, the president's Kikuyu tribe has dominated political and business life in what is now East Africa's biggest and fastest-growing economy.
There were long queues outside shops, supermarkets and banks in western Kenya opposition stronghold Kisumu, as shoppers struggled to stock up on supplies after days of violence and looting cut off the town.
Violence and arson have caused massive destruction in Kenya's third city and millions of shillings have been lost. To ration supplies, the largest supermarket is controlling the number of people who can shop at a time.
Fears are rising as a planned opposition rally and a call for mass action by Odinga is expected to cause a flare up in violence. The police have said the meeting is illegal.
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