Spotlight: Kenya in Chaos – Kibaki Hoses His Opponents — World Pleads for Rivals to Negotiate

By Elizabeth A Kennedy

NAIROBI, Kenya – Police used tear gas, water cannons and batons Thursday to block thousands of people from protesting Kenya’s disputed election amid a political deadlock between the president and his chief rival.

The U.S. and Europe pushed for reconciliation, but said a “made- in-Kenya solution” was needed to end the violence that has killed about 300 people and displaced some 100,000 since President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner of the Dec. 27 election.

Nairobi slums burn

As diplomats discussed unity, Kenya’s slums burned.

“War is happening here,” said 45-year-old Edwin Mukathia. He was among thousands of people who poured out of Nairobi’s slums to heed opposition candidate Raila Odinga’s call for a million-man march in the city’s Uhuru Park.

Police blockade: But Mukathia and the others were kept at bay by riot police, who choked off the roads and fired live bullets over their heads. The opposition canceled the march but said they would hold it today, setting the stage for another day of upheaval stretching from the capital to the coast to the western highlands.

Smoke screen: Smoke from burning tires and debris rose Thursday from barricaded streets around Nairobi’s huge slums, where hundreds of thousands of Odinga’s supporters live, as well as on main roads leading into suburbs that are home to upper class Kenyans and expatriates.

In Mathare slum, rival groups of men hurled rocks at each other. Black smoke billowed from a burning gas station, and several charred cars sat on roads. The corpse of at least one man lay face down on a muddy path, and a wailing wife pulled her battered husband from the dark waters of the Nairobi River, where he had been dumped and left for dead.

“There is no food, there is no water,” said Peter Ochieng, 37, who lives in Kibera slum, home to tens of thousands of opposition supporters. “People here are dying.”

The dispute

Kibaki/Odinga: The election dispute has degenerated into violence pitting Kibaki’s influential Kikuyus against Odinga’s Luos and other tribes.

Rigged vote? Kenya’s electoral commission said Kibaki won the Dec. 27 election, but Odinga alleged the vote was rigged. Foreign observers have questioned the vote count, as has the chief of Kenya’s electoral commission.

Attorney general

Atty. Gen. Amos Wako called for an independent probe.

“Because of the perception that the presidential results were rigged, it is necessary … that a proper tally of the valid certificates returned and confirmed should be undertaken immediately” by an independent body, he said.

Wako, who was appointed to the lifetime post by former president Daniel arap Moi, has been seen as close to Kibaki. The decision to launch an investigation was a surprise and could reflect the seriousness of the vote-rigging allegations.

Originally published by Elizabeth A. Kennedy Associated Press .

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