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Rival Gangs Face Off in Kenyan
Violence
Associated Press
By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY
28.01.2008
NAIVASHA, Kenya (AP) - Hundreds of people from rival tribes
confronted one another on a main road in this western Kenya town
Monday, hefting machetes, clubs and rocks and retreating only when
a handful of police between them fired live bullets into the air.
Violence also broke out Monday in another western town, Kisumu,
where similarly armed mobs set some houses ablaze. Gangs set buses
ablaze at the main downtown bus station, and one driver was burned
alive in his minibus, according to witness Lillian Ocho.
A month of ethnic clashes roiling Kenya have claimed the lives of
800 people. The fighting began after President Mwai Kibaki's Dec.
27 re-election, which international and local observers say was
rigged. About 255,000 people have been forced from their homes.
The bloodshed has transformed this once-stable African country,
pitting neighbors against one another and turning towns where
tourists used to gather for luxury holidays into no-go zones.
In Kisumu on Monday, young men blocked roads out of the town with
burning tires and rocks.
"Kikuyus must go!" "No Raila, no peace!" they yelled, referring to
the tribe of Kibaki, and to his chief rival, opposition leader
Raila Odinga. Members of Odinga's Luo tribe are among those
challenging the official election results, and in Kisumu some of
them took out their rage on Kikuyus, including the bus driver who
was burned to death.
"The road is covered in blood. It's chaos. Luos are hunting
Kikuyus for revenge," said Baraka Karama, a journalist for state
broadcaster Kenya Television.
Violence spread over the weekend to Naivasha, 55 miles northwest
of Nairobi, a previously quiet tourist town with a stunning
freshwater lake. It is also the center of Kenya's horticultural
industry and a key flower-exporting area.
"We have moved out to revenge the deaths of our brothers and
sisters who have been killed, and nothing will stop us," said
Anthony Mwangi, hefting a club in Naivasha on Sunday. "For every
one Kikuyu killed, we shall avenge their killing with three."
At least 22 people died in the town over the weekend, said
district commissioner Katee Mwanza.
On Monday morning, the two sides, numbering up to 1,000, faced off
around the entrance to the Lake Naivasha Country Club. When they
advanced, a few police officers holding a line between them fired
live bullets into the air. They retreated, then regrouped.
On Sunday, looters used iron bars to smash the windows of shops
belonging to non-Kikuyu businesspeople, and made off with
television sets, groceries and clothing. One woman came screaming
down the road from a blazing house.
"They set it on fire, they are killing my brother and sister,"
Alice Okoth said.
Two-thirds of the town of Timboroa was set ablaze in a pre-dawn
attack Sunday that witnesses said left four dead.
Elsewhere, in Nakuru, the provincial capital of Kenya's fertile
Rift Valley, 55 bodies were counted Sunday at the morgue, said a
worker who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to
speak to the media. Ethnic clashes broke out there Thursday.
Bodies were still arriving Sunday, although the running battles
had largely cooled off.
National police Commissioner Hussein Ali told reporters in Nairobi
that police had arrested 159 people in Nakuru and Naivasha "for
possession of crude weapons and for suspected involvement in the
murders." He also said 95 people were arrested in Nairobi, but
gave no details.
Kibaki and Odinga, meanwhile, remain far apart on how to resolve
the crisis, the worst the country has suffered since it gained
independence from Britain in 1963.
Kibaki has said he is open to direct talks with Odinga, but that
his position as president is not negotiable. Odinga says Kibaki
must step down and only new elections will bring peace.
Odinga met with former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who is
acting as a mediator, on Sunday. Opposition spokesman Salim Lone
said they were asked to name three negotiators for the talks,
which he said he would hopefully start "within a week."
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