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Kenya opposition trying to
satisfy all sides
The Associated Press
10. Feb. 2008
NAIROBI: Kenya's opposition leader was involved in a delicate
balancing act Sunday, promising not to betray hard-line supporters
while assuring international mediators that he was ready to accept
a political solution to end weeks of post-election violence."We
are not going to betray our supporters, but as far as giving and
taking, we are prepared," the opposition leader Raila Odinga told
reporters as he left church.
He accuses President Mwai Kibaki of stealing the Dec. 27 election.
But both sides have come under enormous international pressure to
accept a solution proposed by an international mediation team so
Kenya can start dealing with more than 300,000 people displaced in
ethnic violence sparked by the political dispute.
A senior United Nations official warned Sunday that Kenya had a
long, hard task ahead in dealing with the hundreds of camps
scattered across the country that have absorbed people fleeing
attacks on one tribe or another.
"Clearly what we all hope is that people will be able to go home
as soon as they can, but ... for a vast majority of them it's not
something that we can contemplate in the near future," said John
Holmes, the UN humanitarian chief, told reporters in Nairobi,
Kenya's capital.
He said that a political compromise was needed to bring an end to
the violence.
Holmes, who visited several of the camps, said that the response
to the humanitarian crisis had been "reasonably satisfactory," but
that basic services were still only roughly available in many
places and called on all those involved in the effort "to do
better still."
He said about $22 million of a pledged $42 million had been given
so far through the UN for humanitarian assistance.
Odinga, meanwhile, still had strong words for Kibaki's
administration Sunday. He accused the government of hypocrisy for
promising to bring murder charges against a policeman who was
filmed shooting two unarmed protesters then kicking one of them as
he lay dying, but not taking action against other officers.
"How many more police officers have killed and not been caught on
camera?" he asked.
Scores of bullet-riddled bodies have turned up at morgues after
the police fired into demonstrating crowds and heavily populated
slum areas.
Odinga has given off mixed messages in recent days, telling
supporters on Saturday that Kibaki "must step down or there must
be a re-election - in this I will not be compromised."
Two days earlier, he indicated he would not insist on Kibaki's
resignation, saying "we are willing to give and take."
On Friday, the former UN secretary general Kofi Annan struck an
optimistic note after mediating negotiations between the two sides,
and Odinga's own political party said a power-sharing agreement
was in the works. Annan said he hoped to complete work on a
settlement early this week.
But Odinga returned Saturday to the themes that have rallied
supporters, repeating a comparison of which he is fond: "You
cannot steal my cow, and I catch you red-handed, and then expect
me to share the milk."
In Odinga's stronghold in western Kenya, his supporters have
threatened to burn down his farm and a large molasses factory his
family owns outside Kisumu if he returns as anything less than
president.
More than 1,000 people have been killed and 300,000 forced from
their homes since the election. The fighting has pitted members of
Kenya's rival ethnic groups against one another, gutted the
economy and left the country's reputation as a budding democracy
and a top tourist destination in tatters.
Only 8,000 people visited Kenya in January, far short of the
100,000 that officials had expected, according to the Kenya
Tourist Board.
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