Kenyan Violence Kills at Least 300
CBNNews.com
January 2, 2008
CBNNews.com - Small pockets of violence continued Wednesday in the the Kenyan capital of Nairobi after post-election violence shook the African nation leaving more than 300 people dead in its wake.
International pressure has also been brought to bear on Kenya's leaders to stop the violence.
The murders of up to 50 ethnic Kikuyus Tuesday as they sought refuge in a church fueled concerns that ethnic conflicts were rising in what had been one of Africa's most stable democracies.
The U.N. cited Kenyan police as saying 70,000 people had been displaced in five days of violence. Around 5,400 people also have fled to neighboring Uganda, said Musa Ecweru, that country's disaster preparedness minister. Several hundred people also have fled to Tanzania, officials there said.
Government spokesman Alfred Mutua downplayed the violence, saying it had only affected about 3 percent of the country's 34 million people. "Kenya is not burning and not at the throes of any division," he said.
Mutua said the security forces had arrested 500 people since skirmishes began.
Rival Declares Election Was Rigged
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki was inaugurated for a second term on Sunday. However, his rival Raila Odinga says the election was rigged.
The head of the country's electoral commission, Samuel Kivuitu, said he had been pressured by both sides to announce the results quickly - and perhaps wrongly. The country's oldest newspaper, The Standard, on Wednesday quoted Kivuitu as saying, "I do not know whether Kibaki won the election."
In a joint statement, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband also said there were "independent reports of serious irregularities in the counting process."
The African Union had said it would send its chief, Ghanaian President John Kufuor, to mediate the conflict. The AU's spokeswoman Habiba Mejri-Cheikh said Kufuor was expected in Kenya Wednesday, but Kufuor's press office said the leader had canceled the visit. They gave no explanation.
Rice and Miliband called "on all political leaders to engage in a spirit of compromise that puts the democratic interests of Kenya first."
"The immediate priority is to combine a sustained call from Kenya's political leaders for the cessation of violence by their followers with an intensive political and legal process that can build a united and peaceful future for Kenya," the statement said.
"Guilty of Genocide"
Odinga accused the government of stoking the chaos, telling The Associated Press in an interview that Kibaki's administration "is guilty, directly, of genocide."
The Kikuyus in Eldoret had fled to the Assemblies of God Church on Monday night, seeking refuge after mobs torched homes. Video from a helicopter chartered by the Red Cross showed many homes in flames and the horizon obscured by smoke.
On Tuesday morning, a mob of about 2,000 arrived at the church, George Karanja told the AP. Karanja's family had sought refuge there.
"They started burning the church," Karanja said, his voice catching with emotion as he described the scene. "The mattresses that people were sleeping on caught fire. There was a stampede, and people fell on one another."
Up to 50 people were killed in the attack, said a Red Cross official who spoke on condition of anonymity because her name would identify her tribe, and she feared reprisal. Even first aid workers were stopped by vigilantes who demanded their identity.
The Kikuyu, Kenya's largest ethnic group, are accused of using their dominance of politics and business to the detriment of others. Odinga is from the Luo tribe, a smaller but still major tribe that says it has been marginalized.
There are more than 40 tribes in Kenya, and political leaders have often used unemployed and uneducated young men to intimidate opponents. While Kibaki and Odinga have support from across the tribal spectrum, the youth responsible for the violence tend to see politics in strictly ethnic terms.
More violence could be on the horizon. Odinga insisted he would go ahead with plans to lead a protest march in the capital Thursday. The government banned the demonstration, but Odinga said: "It doesn't matter what they say."
Sources: Associated Press, ABC News
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