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Fresh threats for Kibaki tribe
02/04/2008 21:28 - (SA)
Eldoret - Leaflets threatening members of President Mwai Kibaki's tribe have been scattered in a Kenyan Rift Valley town that was one of the worst hit by post-election violence.
The fliers, dropped in the western town of Burnt Forest in recent days, ordered members of Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe to leave the region, predominantly inhabited by the rival Kalenjin tribe.
The area is a stronghold of opposition leader Raila Odinga and Burnt Forest was affected by deadly police raids and tit-for-tat tribal killings in the unrest that erupted when Kibaki was declared the winner of the December 27 presidential election.
"We allowed you to leave hoping that you would not return... Rift Valley is our land which we were given by God the same way you were given central province," read one leaflet.
Other leaflets threatened Kikuyus with death.
Weeks of clashes that killed some 1 500 people and displaced hundreds of thousands were fuelled by unresolved land disputes, poverty and resentment over the Kikuyus' political dominance since Kenya's 1963 independence.
"It is clear that we have the same rights over the land as others," said Joseph Njoroge, the head of the town's camp for the internally displaced and himself a Kikuyu.
He argued that the area's original landowners are in fact Maasais and that the Kalenjins bought land there just like the Kikuyus, who are originally from central Kenya.
A meeting between elders from the two tribes brought no results, Njoroge said.
Kibaki and Odinga signed a power-sharing deal on February 28 to the crisis. The two sides have since suspended talks on the makeup of a power sharing coalition cabinet however.
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