Annan meets Odinga as fighting continues

NAIVASHA – Ethnic clashes killed at least 10 people in Kenya’s Rift Valley yesterday as former United Nations chief Kofi Annan met opposition leader Raila Odinga to try to resolve a month-long crisis that has claimed 750 lives.

A Reuters reporter in Naivasha counted ten bodies, six burnt and four hacked to death as members of President Mwai Kibaki’s Kikuyu tribe fought running battles with Luos and Kalenjins who back his rival Raila Odinga. Two truckloads of soldiers were deployed as sporadic gunfire rang out and smoke poured from torched homes and vehicles.Barricades blocked Kenya’s main western highway outside the town and police togwards the area.sm iin Kenya are jay tribe is against us, and no one is protecting us,” said Dominic Karanja, a Kikuyu watching troops dismantle roadblocks that he had helped build.”These people are attacking us, so now we want those Luos and Kalenjins to go back.”Several shops including a nearby Internet cafe were looted and smashed and burnt computers littered the street outside.The violence threatened to undermine mediation by Annan, who called on both feuding parties yesterday to name four officials for further talks after he held discussions with Odinga.The former UN chief visited parts of the Rift Valley on Saturday that have been hit by clashes and warned that turmoil triggered by Kibaki’s disputed re-election had now evolved into something worse with “gross and systematic” rights abuses.”Let us not kid ourselves and think that this is an electoral problem.It’s much broader and much deeper,” he said.”We have to tackle the fundamental issues that underlie what we are witnessing today.If we do not do that, three, five years from now we may be back at this.”The sudden slide of Naivasha and another previously quiet tourist town, Nakuru, into pitched tribal battles has deepened growing anxiety since December 27 polls cast the country into chaos.Hundreds have died in the turmoil and quarter of a million more have been forced from their homes.The unrest has shattered the east African nation’s image of stability and damaged one of the continent’s most promising economies.Many Kenyans say leaders on both sides of the political divide show few signs of addressing deep seated tribal rivalries over land, business and power – many of them born more than 45 years ago under British colonial rule.”The elections were just a veneer for hate that has simmered for years,” wrote columnist Gitau Warigi in the Sunday Nation.Nampa-ReutersTwo truckloads of soldiers were deployed as sporadic gunfire rang out and smoke poured from torched homes and vehicles.Barricades blocked Kenya’s main western highway outside the town and police togwards the area.sm iin Kenya are jay tribe is against us, and no one is protecting us,” said Dominic Karanja, a Kikuyu watching troops dismantle roadblocks that he had helped build.”These people are attacking us, so now we want those Luos and Kalenjins to go back.”Several shops including a nearby Internet cafe were looted and smashed and burnt computers littered the street outside.The violence threatened to undermine mediation by Annan, who called on both feuding parties yesterday to name four officials for further talks after he held discussions with Odinga.The former UN chief visited parts of the Rift Valley on Saturday that have been hit by clashes and warned that turmoil triggered by Kibaki’s disputed re-election had now evolved into something worse with “gross and systematic” rights abuses.”Let us not kid ourselves and think that this is an electoral problem.It’s much broader and much deeper,” he said.”We have to tackle the fundamental issues that underlie what we are witnessing today.If we do not do that, three, five years from now we may be back at this.”The sudden slide of Naivasha and another previously quiet tourist town, Nakuru, into pitched tribal battles has deepened growing anxiety since December 27 polls cast the country into chaos.Hundreds have died in the turmoil and quarter of a million more have been forced from their homes.The unrest has shattered the east African nation’s image of stability and damaged one of the continent’s most promising economies.Many Kenyans say leaders on both sides of the political divide show few signs of addressing deep seated tribal rivalries over land, business and power – many of them born more than 45 years ago under British colonial rule.”The elections were just a veneer for hate that has simmered for years,” wrote columnist Gitau Warigi in the Sunday Nation.Nampa-Reuters

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