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Kenya violence kills 13 ahead of
peace talks: police
Feb 3, 2008
NAIROBI (AFP) — Clashes in western Kenya left 13 people dead,
police said Sunday, taking the weekend death toll to 70 ahead of
talks on a roadmap for peace more than a month after disputed
elections.
"A total of 13 people were killed overnight," along the
Kisii-Kalenjin tribal border and in nearby areas in Nyamira
district in western Kenya, a local police commander told AFP on
Sunday, declining to be named.
An AFP photographer said hundreds of fighters armed with bows and
arrows and rocks fought pitched battles Sunday as police struggled
to contain them.
Police reported at least 47 new deaths Saturday, adding to 10 on
Friday, as President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila
Odinga traded further barbs, despite Friday's tentative first
peace accord since the start of the crisis.
The document -- overseen by former UN chief Kofi Annan -- aimed to
end weeks of unrest that has claimed around 1,000 lives, within
two weeks.
Odinga claimed Kibaki robbed him of the presidency in closely
fought December 27 elections, amid widespread concerns from local
and international observers over the vote-counting process.
The new deal called for illegal militias to be disbanded and for
the investigation of all related crimes, including those allegedly
committed by the police, who have killed scores of people.
Both sides also promised to address the ongoing humanitarian
crisis, after 300,000 people have fled their homes.
As thousands languished in makeshift displacement camps across the
country, amid reports of rapes and fears of ethnic reprisals, a
government newspaper advert reminded Kenyans "you have a right to
be wherever you choose in the country."
The political unrest has stirred up latent ethnic clashes,
economic and land disputes.
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.
Ethnic fighting between villagers armed with bows and arrows,
spears and machetes spiralled in western Kenya after the killing
of David Kimutai Too in Eldoret on Thursday, the second opposition
MP killed in two days.
Police said at least 57 people died on Friday and Saturday in
clashes and a police crackdown in Nyanza province, and in Too's
home village of Ainamoi in the Rift Valley province and nearby
localities.
While Ainamoi was deserted after a police crackdown Sunday,
tension remained high in nearby Nyanza.
Police trailed fighters after they razed more than 100 houses and
a primary school, a police commander said, and the trading post of
Chepilat was burned down overnight.
Arsonists burnt down a church overnight Friday in the northwestern
town of Eldoret where Too was killed, causing no injuries. A
school was also destroyed there overnight Saturday.
Odinga on Sunday called for the deployment of foreign peacekeepers,
saying security forces were not impartial in crackdowns.
"It is necessary that we should have a peacekeeping deployment
from the United Nations or the African Union because the police
have often been misused and we do not have faith in the army to be
neutral," Odinga told reporters in his hometown of Bondo, near
Kisumu in western Kenya.
The Kenyan army has so far played a backseat role in the crisis,
deployed to assist police in clearing road barricades and
transporting humanitarian supplies to affected zones.
As the peace roadmap was inked Friday, Kibaki insisted, in a
speech in Ethiopia, that opposition protests over the election
results be taken to court, and accused the opposition of
instigating the violence.
Odinga rejected the claims and said Kibaki's comments "undermined
the mediation talks."
He also hinted Sunday that he had a contingency plan in case the
talks should fail.
"We have a fall-back (plan)," he said, without elaborating.
The two sides were due to resume Annan-led talks Monday, joined by
South African businessman Cyril Ramaphosa -- who chairs the
African National Congress's Negotiating Commission.
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