Level of anger grows in Kenya

NAIVASHA – Hundreds of people from rival tribes confronted one another on a main road of Kenya’s flower capital yesterday, hefting machetes, clubs and rocks and retreating only when a handful of police between them fired live bullets into the air.

Ethnic clashes sparked by a disputed presidential election a month ago have claimed the lives of 800 people. Trouble also broke out yesterday in two other towns in the western regions that are the opposition’s stronghold, and where members of the president’s Kikuyu ethnic group have been attacked and have counterattacked.In Kisumu, armed mobs set some houses ablaze.Gangs set buses ablaze at the main downtown bus station, and one driver was burned alive in his minibus, according to witness Lillian Ocho.In Kakamega, on the edge of a wildlife preserve, gangs looted and set ablaze a downtown hotel and two wholesalers, the Reverend Allam Kizili of the Pentecostal Church said.Police fired tear gas to try to stop the violence, he said.There was no immediate word on casualties.The ethnic makeup of that violence was not clear.The fighting began after President Mwai Kibaki’s December 27 re-election, which his main rival Raila Odinga and international and local observers say was rigged.What began as a political dispute has revealed deep resentment at Kibaki’s Kikuyu people, who have long dominated business and politics here.Britain’s visiting minister for Africa, Mark Malloch-Brown, came out of meetings with Odinga, Kibaki and their mediator, former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, yesterday saying they were making little headway “because the level of anger between the two sides is just growing exponentially.He said that Odinga appeared eager for international mediation to succeed but “the government feels the situation is being manipulated and internationalized to weaken its control.”Malloch-Brown also said the latest violence was particularly alarming because “there’s evidently hidden hands organising it now.”The bloodshed has transformed this once-stable African country, pitting longtime neighbours against one another and turning tourist towns into no-go zones.Nampa-APTrouble also broke out yesterday in two other towns in the western regions that are the opposition’s stronghold, and where members of the president’s Kikuyu ethnic group have been attacked and have counterattacked.In Kisumu, armed mobs set some houses ablaze.Gangs set buses ablaze at the main downtown bus station, and one driver was burned alive in his minibus, according to witness Lillian Ocho.In Kakamega, on the edge of a wildlife preserve, gangs looted and set ablaze a downtown hotel and two wholesalers, the Reverend Allam Kizili of the Pentecostal Church said.Police fired tear gas to try to stop the violence, he said.There was no immediate word on casualties.The ethnic makeup of that violence was not clear.The fighting began after President Mwai Kibaki’s December 27 re-election, which his main rival Raila Odinga and international and local observers say was rigged.What began as a political dispute has revealed deep resentment at Kibaki’s Kikuyu people, who have long dominated business and politics here.Britain’s visiting minister for Africa, Mark Malloch-Brown, came out of meetings with Odinga, Kibaki and their mediator, former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, yesterday saying they were making little headway “because the level of anger between the two sides is just growing exponentially.He said that Odinga appeared eager for international mediation to succeed but “the government feels the situation is being manipulated and internationalized to weaken its control.”Malloch-Brown also said the latest violence was particularly alarming because “there’s evidently hidden hands organising it now.”The bloodshed has transformed this once-stable African country, pitting longtime neighbours against one another and turning tourist towns into no-go zones.Nampa-AP