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Kenya police kill two on second
day of clashes: aid worker
17. Jan 2008
NAIROBI (AFP) — Kenyan police shot two people dead in a Nairobi
slum Thursday, an aid worker said, in a second straight day of
battles with opposition supporters protesting the re-election of
President Mwai Kibaki.
"Two people were killed ... by the police," the aid worker said,
speaking from the opposition stronghold Mathare slum and
requesting anonymity.
"We are in the middle of a crisis," he added, as witnesses said
police fired tear gas and live shots into the air to disperse
groups of protesters in Nairobi's slums, and in the western cities
of Kisumu and Eldoret.
Opposition lead Raila Odinga charges that Kibaki engineered his
narrow victory in the December 27 presidential election through a
rigged ballot count.
He called for three days of demonstrations after attempts last
week to get the two to enter talks to find a political solution
failed to make headway.
But police cracked down with guns and sticks, in a grim echo of a
week of severe clashes and tribal killings sparked by the
presidential poll, in which some 700 died and more than a quarter
of a million were displaced.
The opposition vowed Thursday to press ahead with the second day
of banned nationwide rallies.
"The demonstrations are going on and we are neither going to be
cowed or stop at anything until all our aims are achieved,"
secretary general Anyang Nyongo of the opposition ODM party told
AFP.
In a repeat of violent scenes the previous day, paramilitary
police clashed with hundreds of protesters, armed with rocks and
panga machetes, in the capital's slums and in western cities.
Police shot and wounded two youths in the capital's Kibera slums,
witnesses said.
"They had blocked the road and then police started firing at them.
Two young men were hit by bullets -- one was hit in the arm and
another in the head," said witness Mark Okelo. Police confirmed
the shooting.
In the opposition strongholds of Kisumu and Eldoret, riot police
fired teargas on youths who had erected roadblocks on major roads,
AFP correspondents said.
Protesters in Kisumu vowed to revenge the killings of two
demonstrators in clashes with police the previous day, when
hundreds of Odinga supporters first tried to march on city centres.
A spokesman for Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) said in
a statement Thursday that they would include reports of police
violence, including images of police beating protesters captured
on local television, in a complaint to the International Criminal
Court in The Hague.
"This killing and other acts of violence inflicted on peaceful
protestors will be part of the case we are filing," said Salim
Lone in a statement.
Police maintained that the ban on rallies still held.
"Police will do everything to ensure that the law is respected,"
spokesman Eric Kiraithe told AFP, a day after police cleared the
streets of Nairobi with tear gas and batons.
Many shops were closed in major cities Thursday, after a police
lockdown Wednesday afternoon on city centres including Nairobi,
Eldoret and Kisumu, and the coastal city of Mombasa.
City accountant James Omondi voiced the frustration of many
ordinary Kenyans in Nairobi Thursday.
"The police are too strong. The rioters are not achieving anything
except violence. The situation now has gone too far. They need to
sit down and talk to each other, not just continue to protest," he
said.
In Nairobi, the historic Uhuru Park was manned all-night by
anti-riot squad officers to keep opposition supporters away from
the centrepoint of the nationwide ODM rallies.
Odinga warned Wednesday that a first victory for his movement in
parliament -- where their candidate won the position of speaker
this week -- had been the start of a fresh challenge to Kibaki's
rule.
"The main intent of the opposition is to destroy the way of life
of ordinary Kenyans," government spokesman Alfred Mutua charged
Thursday.
Mediation efforts between the two sides suffered a fresh blow
Tuesday when former UN chief Kofi Annan postponed a scheduled
mission to Kenya due to "severe flu".
He had been expected in Nairobi to try and broker direct talks
between Kibaki and Odinga.
"We are headed to tough times ahead both in parliament and outside
as both sides harden their positions," political analyst Evans
Manduku warned Thursday.
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