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Rice set to push for Kenya deal
18/02/2008 08:21 - (SA)
Alexis Okeowo
Nairobi - United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is set to push for a power-sharing deal in Kenya on Monday to end turmoil that has left more than 1' 000 dead in a key US ally in east Africa.
But President Mwai Kibaki's government served notice on the eve of her visit that it would not bow to pressure to enter into a agreement with opposition leader Raila Odinga.
"We encourage our friends to support us, to encourage us, but not to make any mistake by putting a gun to anybody's head and say 'either or' because that cannot work," said Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula.
US President George W Bush called for a power-sharing deal at the start of his Africa tour on Saturday. He said he was sending Rice to Kenya to support Kofi Annan's mediation, which appeared deadlocked over a proposed coalition government.
'We'll find a solution'
However, Rice "doesn't expect ... to come away tomorrow with a final deal," her spokesperson Dana Perino told reporters in Dar es Salaam.
While Wetangula did not specifically mention the US, he said: "Those who support us should avoid judgmental language that tends to appear like we are being told 'you must do this or you must do that'. We will find a solution, and as Kenyans and we are committed to that."
Kibaki's camp had balked at a power-sharing deal, saying in talks led by Annan that it was willing to include opposition members in government, but under the strong executive leadership of the president, according to a government official.
After initially welcoming Kibaki's re-election, the US backtracked in the face of mounting evidence of flaws in the presidential poll and was now pressing Kibaki to agree to a coalition with Odinga.
But during his visit to Tanzania on Sunday, Bush took pains to specify that the US did not want to "dictate" a solution to Kenya, but wanted to "help move the process along".
Kenya 'strategic US ally'
The statement came after talks with Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, who held the rotating chair of the African Union.
The US considered Kenya a strategic ally in the fight against militant extremists and a key player in resolving conflicts in neighbouring Somalia and Sudan.
Negotiators for Kibaki and the opposition moved from a Nairobi hotel to a secluded safari lodge in southern Kenya last week to finalise details of a deal that Annan said was only days away.
But the former UN secretary-general emerged from talks on Friday to announce that no final deal had been reached and that "the last outstanding issue" remained power-sharing in a new government.
Negotiations were due to resume on Monday, with Annan to meet separately with Kibaki and Odinga ahead of a new round of talks the following day.
US officials had stressed that Rice would support, and not upstage, Annan's embattled mediation after she held meetings with Kibaki and Odinga to deliver the message that a power-sharing deal was the way out of crisis.
- AFP
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