Kenya: Obama steps in

2008-01-08 22:08

Washington - White House Democratic hopeful Barack Obama has called Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga to urge peace talks without preconditions in the wake of election violence that has killed hundreds, his spokesperson said on Tuesday.

"Barack Obama spoke with Raila Odinga on Monday," spokesperson Bill Burton told AFP. "He urged an end to violence and that Mr. Odinga sit down, without preconditions, with President (Mwai) Kibaki to resolve this issue peacefully."

Obama is "trying now to speak with President Kibaki," Burton added.

Obama, who has overtaken national Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton in the race for the party's White House nomination, has made a series of contacts this month on the crisis in Kenya, according to Burton.

Odinga told the BBC radio that he had spoken twice with Obama, whose father was from Kenya and like Odinga was a member of the Luo tribe, and added that he and Obama are relatives.

"He called me twice yesterday to express his concern and to say he is also going to call president Kibaki so that Kibaki agrees to find a negotiated satisfactory solution to this problem," said Odinga.

'My maternal uncle'

"Barack Obama's father is actually my maternal uncle," said Odinga, who is battling to overturn disputed presidential elections which have plunged Kenya into turmoil.

However, Obama's campaign offered no confirmation of the claim that they are members of the same family.

It is "true that his father was a Luo I haven't heard they're related," Burton told AFP.

The 46-year-old Illinois senator has spoken by phone with Secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, US Ambassador to Kenya Michael Rannenberger and Archbisop Desmond Tutu in between campaign stops, and also recorded a statement that aired on Voice of America radio, Burton said.

Communications director for Obama's campaign, Robert Gibbs, told MSNBC that "President Kibaki and Obama have yet to connect partly because of the senator's travel schedule."

Obama said in the radio message on January 2 that "despite irregularities in the vote tabulation, now is not the time to throw that strong democracy away.

'Call for calm'

"Now is a time for President Kibaki, opposition leader Odinga, and all of Kenya's leaders to call for calm, to come together, and to start a political process to address peacefully the controversies that divide them. Now is the time for this terrible violence to end."

Escalating international diplomatic efforts to seek a solution have so far failed, and Odinga, speaking from Nairobi on Tuesday, reiterated his refusal to meet Kibaki without mediation.

"He knows that there is no basis for me meeting with him directly cause he has stolen an election. I won the elections, he lost it. He is still sitting in the (...) house illegally," he told the BBC.

"We have been cheated, the people of this country have been cheated ... We are in a constitutional crisis."

Amid allegations of vote-rigging, violence erupted 10 days ago leaving 600 people dead and 250 000 displaced and sending diplomats scurrying for a political solution to the crisis.

Attempts to bring Kibaki and Odinga together so far have failed, although the president had extended an invitation to his rival for face-to-face talks on Friday.

Odinga rejected the offer, saying he would only meet Kibaki with Africa Union chief John Kufuor's mediation.

- AFP