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Annan pushes for peace as Kenyan
death toll mounts
AFP
January 27, 2008
Kofi Annan was to push Sunday for peace and talks in Kenya as
mediation efforts hit further hurdles after a surge in the death
toll from ethnic clashes in the country's west to 81.
On Saturday, the former UN chief said unrest sparked by President
Mwai Kibaki's disputed reelection had led to "gross and systematic"
human rights abuses, after visiting the violence-wracked Rift
Valley and calling for a probe.
As bodies covered in arrow and machete wounds filled up morgues
and hospitals in the provincial capital Nakuru, police said 45
people had been killed, taking the death toll since Thursday to
81.
At least 850 people have been killed, according to an AFP tally of
police and hospital figures, and some 260,000 displaced across the
country since the disputed December 27 election touched off a wave
of deadly rioting and ethnic killings.
An uneasy calm held in the lakeside town of Nakuru early Sunday,
after three days of pitched battles between members of Kibaki's
Kikuyu tribe and members of the Luo and Kalenjin ethnic groups who
supported opposition leader Raila Odinga -- who claims he was
robbed of the presidency.
Bodies still lay in the city's slums -- scene of the worst clashes
by fighters armed with machetes, spears and bows and arrows -- an
AFP correspondent said, adding they were nearly deserted, with
many houses burnt down or abandoned.
"We saw gross and systematic human rights abuses of fellow
citizens," Annan said in Nairobi Saturday after returning from
nearby in the Rift Valley province which, along with the capital's
slums, has seen some of the worst incidents of Kenya's
post-election violence.
"Impunity cannot be allowed to stand," added Annan, accompanied by
former Tanzanian president Benjamin Mkapa and Graca Machel, wife
of former South African president Nelson Mandela.
However, the latest effort to mediate the crisis sparked by the
closely-fought and widely-contested presidential election, was
undermined by the continuing violence.
Kenyan newspapers reflected many people's frustration on Sunday.
"For the umpteenth time we again ask President Kibaki and Orange
Democratic Movement (party) leader Mr Raila Odinga to work for
peace, truth and justice. They owe it to themselves, this
generation and posterity," the Sunday Standard said in an
editorial.
The mass circulation newspaper Sunday Nation lamented a surge in
sexual violence both inside and outside camps for internally
displaced people (IDP), where culprits walk away unpunished.
"In the first two days of the violence, 56 cases of rape were
recorded in Nairobi alone," the paper said.
The Standard, quoting US historian Howard Zinn, said: "There is no
flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people."
"Kenya has bled enough."
The crisis has damaged the economy and shattered the east African
nation's image as a beacon of stability in the region and a
traditional refuge for refugees from neighbouring conflicts.
Annan, Mkapa and Machel on Saturday toured camps of displaced
people in western Kenya who had fled fighting between supporters
of Kibaki and Odinga in an area tense with latent land and ethnic
disputes.
"Mr. Annan appealed to politicians from all parties to visit the
affected areas and camps of the displaced persons in order to see
for themselves the damage which can be caused by reckless
statements," said a statement from Kibaki's office after he met
with Annan Saturday.
The general hospital in Nakuru said 162 victims of violence had
been treated since the start of the clashes on Thursday and warned
that it was overstretched.
Annan, who was to continue a sixth day of talks with officials
Sunday, said he and the two other mediators would not stay in
Kenya "for months on end."
But he said a "mechanism" would be set up to allow negotiations to
end the political deadlock to continue.
The former UN chief on Thursday orchestrated a symbolic first
meeting between Kibaki and Odinga, who shook hands, called for
peace and hinted at a willingness to talk.
The gesture, hailed internationally, was later undermined by
further squabbling, with both sides maintaining their hardline
positions.
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