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South African mediator bows out
of Kenya crisis talks
04. Feb. 2008
NAIROBI (AFP) - A bid by South Africa's chief apartheid-era
negotiator to help broker crisis talks in Kenya failed on Monday
as thousands of terrified families continued to flee attacks in
the Rift Valley.
Cyril Ramaphosa, who led the African National Congress'
negotiations on black majority rule in the early 1990s, arrived in
Nairobi on Friday to help former UN secretary general Kofi Annan's
peace effort.
But he announced he was returning to South Africa after President
Mwai Kibaki's allies accused him of bias in favour of the
opposition.
"Kofi Annan reluctantly accepts the withdrawal of Cyril Ramaphosa
from the role of chief mediator. Withdrawal is a result of
reservations expressed by the government," a UN official said in a
statement.
The focal point of most of the violence, the Rift Valley in
western Kenya, remained tense after 74 people died over the
weekend in attacks between ethnic Kisiis and Kalenjins. Of those,
about 20 Kalenjins died in clashes with police.
About 4,000 Kikuyu, Kibaki's group which has dominated Kenya's
politics and business since independence in 1963, have fled their
homes near the town of Eldoret in the Rift Valley over the past
three days, a Red Cross official said.
"The movement continues," said the official.
Ramaphosa, a former trade unionist who became a wealthy
businessman in post-apartheid South Africa, denied he had business
dealings with opposition leader Raila Odinga as claimed by the
government.
But he acknowledged that he had failed to win the trust of both
sides.
"I thought that I should withdraw and go back to South Africa so
that I do not become a stumbling block," he told reporters.
Talks between representatives of the rival leaders resumed at a
Nairobi hotel after a roadmap for negotiations was reached on
Friday to end weeks of turmoil triggered by Kibaki's disputed
re-election win.
Kibaki's people, the Kikuyu, suffered heavily in the first wave of
violence following the December 27 vote at the hands of Odinga's
Luo group and other ethnic groups, but there have since been
numerous revenge attacks.
Hundreds of Kikuyus also fled a small village outside Molo
township in western Kenya over the weekend, saying they had been
threatened by Kalenjins.
"The Kalenjins came on Friday night and started burning houses. My
father told me that we had to come out and defend ourselves, but
they were too many for us," 14-year-old Evans Njoroge told AFP by
phone.
"They burnt our house and our foodstore and we had to flee and
spend the night outside," he said after arriving at the regional
capital Nakuru, which has also been torn by recent tribal killings.
In Nakuru, district commissioner Wilfred Wanyangah said the number
of displaced people had increased from 14,000 to 26,000 over the
past three weeks as villagers flee tense rural areas.
"This crisis has overwhelmed us and we were not prepared for it.
So we are calling on all corporate institutions to respond to the
humanitarian crisis at hand," he told reporters in the
northwestern town of Nakuru.
At the talks in Nairobi, the negotiating teams were briefed on the
humanitarian situation by the head of the Kenya Red Cross, Abbas
Gullet.
Both sides have pledged to address the emergency needs of tens of
thousands of Kenyans languishing in makeshift camps across the
country.
Over 6,000 displaced people, mostly Luos, from Naivasha refused to
be moved to a nearby camp patrolled by the army and police, saying
they wanted instead to return to their rural homes, a police
source said.
Annan has set a deadline of seven to 15 days to resolve one of
Kenya's worst crises since independence from Britain.
Weeks of turmoil have delivered a major blow to Kenya's tourism
industry, the top foreign currency earner, while tea production
and agriculture have also been hard hit.
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