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ODM calls off mass action as
deaths rise
Story by NATION Team
Publication Date: 1/19/2008
The Orange Democratic Movement Friday ended its three days of mass
action and announced a new strategy of economic boycott to protest
against the outcome of the disputed presidential election.
General Service Unit personnel
patrol a one-kilometre section of the railway line destroyed
yesterday by residents of Kibera, Nairobi. They disappeared
with some parts of the line into the slum. Photo/CHRIS
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The new strategy would
involve a call on its supporters to boycott products of
certain companies whose owners and leaders were said by ODM
to be close to President Kibaki’s Party of National Unity.
The party’s spokesman, Mr Salim Lone, said they had
officially ended the peaceful demonstrations countrywide to
allow for international mediation which starts next week.
Street protests
The end of the street protests in several towns across the
country coincided with renewed hope that the political
conflict which has gripped the country since December 30
last year may be resolved across the negotiating table.
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On Friday, reports indicated that
former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and the wife of former
South African President Graca Machel are expected in the country
on Tuesday as part of the international mediation effort.
There were also reports that Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni
will be in Nairobi next week as part of efforts to end the Kenyan
conflict which has attracted worldwide attention.
Sources said that an advance team from Uganda was already in the
country.
Mr Museveni is the chairman of the East Africa Community and also
the Commonwealth.
It was not immediately clear whether President Museveni, Mr Annan,
Mrs Machel and other eminent African leaders will meet President
Kibaki and ODM leader Raila Odinga jointly or separately.
President Kibaki, meanwhile, named a 10-member team headed by
Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka, to spearhead efforts at national
reconciliation.
The team will be free to bring in more people to the effort, the
President said in the proclamation. Meanwhile, the death toll from
the three days of protests rose to 21 when 12 more people were
reported to have died in Narok, Nairobi and Mombasa.
Four of the dead were shot within the Kibera slums in the city as
police conducted a house-to-house search to arrest those who
destroyed a section of the Nairobi-Kisumu railway which passes
through the area.
Reports said three more people had been slashed to death in
Nairobi’s Kariobangi North area where TV footage showed men
wielding machetes and declaring they had armed themselves for
self-defence.
Four others were reported dead in Narok with arrow and spear
wounds, while one was shot dead in Mombasa.
Mr Odinga announced the end of mass action when he visited some of
the injured people who were being treated at the Masaba Hospital,
Nairobi, saying a news conference giving further details will be
called today.
Earlier, ODM spokesman Mr Lone said: “We have officially ended the
three days of mass action for now. This is to allow for
international mediation which starts next week.”
He said this was the position stated by the ODM leader, Mr Odinga,
to a group of Western journalists on Thursday afternoon.
Mr Lone recalled that the party had called off similar protests
when Ghanaian President John Kufuor arrived in the country two
weeks ago to mediate between President Kibaki and Mr Odinga over
the disputed presidential results.
He said the next plan of action on economic boycott targeting
“hard-liners” linked to President Kibaki’s PNU will be announced
next week.
Protestors also uprooted a section of the Nairobi-Kisumu at Kibos
in Kisumu.
In Nairobi, men driving in a pick-up vehicle lit tyres and
abandoned them on Mombasa Road near the junction to Imara Daima
estate in Nairobi and fled, but members of the public quickly
cleared the road allowing traffic to flow
Unlike on previous days, Nairobi remained relatively calm with
police searching for the arsonists who were captured on TV
destroying the railway line.
There was also a brief scuffle between police and youths who tried
to join Ugenya MP James Orengo and ODM activist Martin Shikuku on
a march after Friday prayers at the Jamia Mosque.
Mr Shikuku was briefly held by police but was later released.
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