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Kenyan police seek stolen
weapons as turmoil rages
02.02.2008
NAIROBI (AFP) - Kenyan police on Saturday scoured villages in the
volatile western region to recover stolen weapons as turmoil raged
after unrest claimed some 1,000 lives since December's disputed
elections, officials said.
Thousands of villagers in Ainamoi area near the western flashpoint
Kericho town on Friday razed a government office, killed a
policeman and stole weapons from a local armoury. The villagers
were protesting the killing of an an opposition lawmaker.
"It is an operation aimed at recovering the guns and any other
security apparatus stolen by the hooligans. The operation will not
be stopped until the guns are found," a police commander told AFP.
The incident occurred shortly before the parties of President Mwai
Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga agreed a joint roadmap
to end the Kenyan crisis that has displaced nearly 300,000 people.
"The Kenyan dialogue and reconciliation has started, we are off to
a good start ... We are going to push as hard as we can to get
results," former UN chief Kofi Annan said after talks with both
sides produced their first joint agreement since the December 27
elections set off a month of bloodletting.
The agreement came as 10 people, including a policeman, were
killed in clashes in western Kenya and dozens of houses were
burned.
Annan, who has been in Kenya for more than a week, said the first
priority of the four-point agenda was "immediate action to stop
the violence and restore fundamental rights and liberties."
Both sides would then address the growing humanitarian crisis
caused by the unrest and resolve the political crisis created
after Odinga accused Kibaki of having rigged the election to rob
him of the presidency in the widely-contested polls.
Annan gave a deadline of seven to 15 days from the start of the
dialogue on January 28 to resolve the first three points.
But the document gave little detail of how the political crisis
would be addressed, saying only that "its resolution may require
adjustments to the current constitutional, legal and institutional
frameworks."
The fourth point concerned long-term issues such as unemployment,
poverty and land reforms.
The opposition cautiously welcomed the deal.
"Given the very wide differences betweeen the sides, this is a
very important breakthrough. But it is not an agreement that will
end the crisis," Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) spokesman Salim
Lone told AFP.
The current UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, added his weight to
diplomatic efforts on a visit to Nairobi Friday and called for an
end to the cycle of violence.
"The killing must stop. The violence must end for the sake of the
Kenyan people and for the sake of Kenya," Ban told a news
conference.
Some 1,000 people have died and up to 300,000 have been forced
from their homes in fighting sparked by Kibaki's re-election.
The crisis has severely shaken the formerly stable east African
nation, a refuge for many people displaced by neighbouring
conflicts.
"You have lost already too much in terms of national image, in
terms of economic interests," said Ban, who held talks with the
feuding leaders. "What I'd like to ask you is to look beyond these
individual interests, look beyond the party lines."
Kibaki told African leaders in Ethiopia that his poll victory
represented "the will" of the Kenyan majority and blamed the
opposition for the unrest, before returning to Kenya Friday
evening.
US embassy spokesman Thomas Dowling said in Nairobi that the FBI
had offered to probe the killings this week of two opposition MPs,
Melitus Mugabe Were and David Kimutai Too.
But the government rejected the offer. "We are capable of
conducting our own murder investigations," said government
spokesman Alfred Mutua.
Too was shot dead by a policeman on Thursday. On Friday, a police
commander said that a crowd in his home village bent on revenge
and armed with bows and arrows, spears, clubs and machetes, had
attacked and killed a policeman.
Fighting in Nyamira district further west killed eight people and
wounded 12, a police commander told AFP. A ninth person was killed
by police in the western city of Kisumu.
Odinga said earlier the killings of the MPs were "part of a plot"
to reduce his Orange Democratic Movement's (ODM) majority in
parliament.
The ODM secured 99 seats in the legislative elections that
coincided with the presidential poll on December 27, making it the
largest single party but leaving it short of an overall majority.
Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU) won 43 seats.
Members of Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe suffered heavily in the first
wave of violence at the hands of Odinga's Luo tribe and other
ethnic groups, but have since carried out numerous revenge attacks.
Annan said the talks would resume Monday morning.
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