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Kenya's Rift Valley burns, death
toll soars
Tim Cocks and David Lewis, Reuters
Published: Monday, January 28, 2008
NAIVASHA, Kenya (Reuters) - Machete-wielding mobs faced off in
Kenya's Rift Valley on Monday and the death toll climbed to nearly
100 people in the latest bout of ethnic violence touched off by a
disputed election.
The tit-for-tat violence complicated the task of former U.N. chief
Kofi Annan, who has asked both sides to name teams to negotiate an
end to the electoral crisis that has laid bare the tribal
undercurrents of Kenya's politics.
In the normally peaceful Rift Valley town of Nakuru, a mortuary
worker said 64 bodies were lying in the morgue, all victims of the
past four days of ethnic fighting. In nearby Naivasha, a Reuters
reporter saw 32 bodies in the morgue.
Groups from rival communities have been fighting each other with
machetes, clubs, and bows and arrows in both towns, famous for
their lakes teeming with wildlife.
In the worst incident of the latest flare-up, 19 people were
burned to death locked inside a house in Naivasha on Sunday,
police officer Grace Kakai told Reuters.
The nationwide death toll is now more than 800.
The violence since Kenya's December 27 election has taken on a
momentum of its own, with cycles of killing and revenge between
tribes who have never reconciled divisions left by British
colonial policy, and exacerbated by politicians.
"What is alarming about the last few days is that there are
evidently hidden hands organizing it now. Militias are appearing
... the targeting is very specific," Britain's Africa minister
Mark Malloch Brown said on a visit to Kenya.
The government has for weeks accused the opposition of organizing
ethnic killings in the Rift and last week watchdog Human Rights
Watch made the same accusation after having said police used
excessive force in quelling opposition protests.
The opposition has retorted that police and criminal groups -- in
particular the outlawed Mungiki gang -- have been dispatched
against their supporters.
The number of 250,000 refugees, from one of Kenya's darkest
episodes since independence in 1963, looked certain to swell as
thousands more fled the chaos in Naivasha and Nakuru.
RIVALRIES REVIVED
The dispute over President Mwai Kibaki's re-election -- which the
opposition says was rigged -- has plunged Kenya into a spiral of
violence, battering its image as an east African trade and tourism
hub and one of the continent's more stable nations.
In Naivasha, a 1,000-strong group of mainly Kikuyus brandishing
axes, sticks, machetes and hammers confronted several hundred Luos
-- some also armed -- who wanted safe passage out of town, a
Reuters witness said.
A handful of riot police kept the groups apart as they threw rocks
at each other near the Lake Naivasha Country Club, and a military
helicopter kept watch from above.
"We want these Luos to go back home. They chased and killed our
people. Now we want the same thing to happen to them," said Kikuyu
protester Joseph Maina, holding a plank of wood.
Internal Security Minister George Saitoti arrived later and was
booed loudly when he urged people to drop their weapons: "We shall
not tolerate any kind of disorder in the country ... we will treat
Kenyans as Kenyans, not as tribes."
Police said 254 arrests were made overnight, but many Kenyans say
they have failed to stop the unrest.
In the pro-opposition western town of Kisumu on Monday, police
fired teargas and bullets in the air as several thousand people
took to the streets over the deaths of members of their Luo ethnic
community in the Rift Valley.
Residents said angry Luos burned two Kikuyus in their homes in a
Kisumu slum, and police shot two people dead.
Post-election violence has taken two distinct forms, one of which
involved a police crackdown on banned opposition protests over the
tally of the vote, which observers said was flawed.
The second is the revival by politicians of ethnic rivalries over
land, business and power dating from before independence, a tactic
that has caused bloodshed at all but one of Kenya's elections
since multi-party democracy returned in 1992.
Negotiators led by Annan have told the rival camps of Kibaki and
opposition leader Raila Odinga to draw up teams of four each and
study a blueprint for further talks in the next 24 hours.
An official close to the mediation said there was support on
Annan's team for deploying Kenya's military in a humanitarian
capacity and to reduce the threat of insecurity.
(Additional reporting by Wangui Kanina, Andrew Cawthorne,
George Murage, Guled Mohamed, Nick Tattersall and Kate Kelland in
London; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne and Bryson Hull; editing by
Andrew Dobbie)
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