Clashes continue in Kenya
2008-02-02 22:26
Nairobi - Ethnic clashes continued Saturday in western Kenya, where tribal rivalry has stoked mob attacks, a day after the country's opposing political forces reached agreement to take action to end the violence.
Police fired tear gas to disperse youths in Keroka town, along an invisible border dividing people of the Kisii and Kalenjin tribes, said a local police commander who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
He said they failed to disperse the Kisii youths who had set burning roadblocks between the towns of Keroka and Kisii. They were shouting that Kalenjin must get out of the area or face death, the officer said.
In western Kericho, about a dozen homes were set ablaze overnight and the town was blockaded by armed youths manning burning tire roadblocks, said a police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media.
The police appeared overwhelmed, even after being reinforced by paramilitary officers. The officer said the youths also grabbed four guns with ammunition in running battles with officers.
Immediate action
A police officer and four civilians were killed there on Friday, he said.
Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary-general who mediated talks between the two rival sides, said Friday they had agreed to tackle the most pressing issues, including resolving the immediate political crisis. Both called for illegal militias to be disbanded and for the investigation of all crimes connected to the violence, including alleged excessive use of force by police.
"The first (step) is to take immediate action to stop the violence and restore fundamental liberties," Annan said.
In western Kenya, police fired on armed mobs who set homes and businesses on fire. At least 14 people died in the latest clashes, ignited by a police officer killing an opposition legislator on Thursday.
Overnight, people turned an empty Pentecostal church in western Eldoret town into a smoldering ruin. The nephew of the owner who had fled, Peter Ndungu, said it was because his aunt was from President Mwai Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe.
Far from the violence, in neighboring Ethiopia, Kibaki told leaders at an African summit that "the security situation in the country is under control".
Annan said he had suggested to Kibaki on Tuesday that "a preventative deployment of the military may be necessary." He added, "Everyone would have to admit that the police are a bit over-stretched."
British Foreign Office Minister Mark Malloch Brown, who was at the African summit on Friday, also suggested deploying Kenya's army, saying police "at this stage seem to be seen as no longer neutral and behind some of the killings."
Thursday's shooting of legislator David Kimutai Too added to distrust of the police. Police stations were targeted in three western towns.
Kenya's leading tourism agency has declared western parts of the country as "off-limits" to foreign visitors, saying that they should avoid about a dozen areas in the region because of "sporadic incidents of civil unrest in recent weeks".
More than 800 people have been killed and 300 000 forced from their homes in violence that degenerated into ethnic clashes over decades-old grudges about land and resources. It has pitted other tribes against Kibaki's Kikuyu people, who are resented for their long domination of politics and the economy.
The trigger was the announcement that Kibaki had been re-elected despite a vote tally that the international community and international and local election observers all agree was rigged.
- SAPA