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World leaders
deplore chaos in Kenya
Published on January 4, 2008, 12:00 am
By Ben Agina
EA STANDARD
Several world leaders have reacted to the violence arising from
the disputed presidential elections in Kenya.
According to Los Angeles Times, US President George Bush called on
both President Kibaki and ODM leader Raila Odinga to reach a
solution.
"It's very important for the people of Kenya to not resort to
violence," Bush told Reuters news agency in an interview at the
White House. "I believe that they have an opportunity to come
together in some kind of arrangement that will help heal the
wounds of a closely divided election."
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the U.S. was not
prescribing what the solution should be.
"They do need to come together, they need to broker some political
solution to the political crisis. . . . They are going to have to
define that."
South African Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, one of the
international figures trying to help mediate, said Kenya's
stability had been damaged.
"This is a country that has been held up as a model of stability.
This picture has been shattered. This is not the Kenya that we
know," Tutu said in Nairobi.
And the Daily Telegraph reported that Prime Minister Gordon Brown
has called for President Mwai Kibaki and the popular opposition
leader, Raila Odinga, to work together to ease tensions.
"I want to see the possibility explored where they can come
together in government," he told reporters.
"The reason is the violence must come to an end. There has been
criticism of the election procedures. I think it is important all
sides must recognise that by working together we can make progress."
David Miliband, the British Foreign Secretary, said both rival
leaders had "major responsibilities" for the violence, and called
on them to find "common ground" to heal their country's divisions.
"I very much hope that both Mr Odinga and President Kibaki will
realise that actually there is nothing to be gained by either of
them in pretending that this is cut and dried," he told BBC Radio
4's Today programme, adding that there was evidence of
vote-rigging by both sides.
The Canadian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Maxime Bernier and
Beverly J, Oda the International Co-operation Minister said: "Canadians
are shocked at the horrific deaths of people taking refuge in an
Eldoret Church as well as at the loss of life elsewhere in Kenya".
They said Canada is very concerned about the number of Kenyans
displaced in their own country because of violence and lawlessness.
The World Bank said on that the unrest threatened Kenya's
impressive recent economic growth and poverty reduction, citing
business leadersŐ estimates that the country was losing some $30
million a day.
And the ills here are hurting the entire region. Gas stations in
Rwanda are now rationing fuel because their supply from Kenya has
been cut.
In Uganda, Sudan and Congo, displaced people are running low on
food because United Nations relief trucks cannot get past
vigilante checkpoints.
''Production in places like Tanzania is slowing because materials
that come from Kenya have not arrived. Kenya is the dynamo of this
whole region," said Harvey Rouse, a diplomat for the European
Union.
Mr. Rouse spoke from a hill overlooking an enormous slum where the
police were battling protesters.
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