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Kenya police accused of 'killing
spree'
By Mike Pflanz in Nairobi - 9:11pm GMT 17/01/2008
Kenya's police have been accused of "shooting innocent civilians
at will” after 12 people were killed during protests against
President Mwai Kibaki.
At least seven
died when police used live rounds in Nairobi’s Mathare slum,
according to Raila Odinga, the opposition leader who was
defeated in last month’s bitterly disputed election.
Outside the slum of Kibera, The Daily Telegraph saw 12
officers armed with rifles opening fire on a crowd of
demonstrators, who immediately dispersed in the face of the
gunfire. No-one appeared to have been killed in this incident. |
Kenya protests continued
for a second day
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Two people were shot elsewhere in
Nairobi and three died in the western city of Kisumu, an
opposition stronghold which has experienced some of the worst
violence.
"Police are shooting innocent civilians at will,” Mr Odinga, 63,
told reporters in Nairobi. "The government has turned this country
into a killing field of innocents.”
In the Rift Valley town of Eldoret, another stronghold of support
for Mr Odinga, police broke up a demonstration and tear-gassed a
hospital, filling its casualty department with choking white
clouds.
Mr Kibaki’s allies blame Mr Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement
for inciting the violence by organising demonstrations against the
government. Some 632 people have now died since last month’s
election.
Most Kenyans, however, defied both demonstrators and riot police
and tried to go on with business as usual. Shops opened in central
Nairobi and ships docked in Mombasa, a crucial port serving all of
East Africa.
British and American efforts to resolve Kenya’s crisis have so far
achieved nothing. Mr Kibaki, 76, has ignored calls for a unity
government.
The European Parliament unanimously passed a motion today calling
on the Commission to suspend the European Union’s aid programme
for Kenya, totalling £280 million over the next five years.
The MEPs urged the EU to freeze "all further budgetary support”
until a "political resolution to the present crisis has been found”.
But Kenya is far less vulnerable to this pressure than most of its
neighbours. Foreign aid accounts for only six per cent of the
national budget - compared with about 50 per cent for neighbouring
Uganda.
The Commonwealth has become the latest organisation to criticise
the conduct of the election, saying that the count "did not meet
international standards”.
Don McKinnon, the Commonwealth’s secretary general, said he was "deeply
saddened and troubled by the appalling incidents of violence in
the wake of the elections”.
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