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Kenyan president, rival agree to talks and cancel protests

The Kenyan president and his chief rival made key concessions to end the dispute over the country's elections, calling off protests and agreeing to talks under pressure from the US as the death toll from a week of violence reached nearly 500.

The top US envoy to Africa said the vote count at the heart of the dispute had been tampered with and both sides could have been involved. The Dec. 27 election returned Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki to power for another five-year term, with his rabble-rousing opponent, Raila Odinga, coming in second after his early lead evaporated overnight.

"Yes, there was rigging," US envoy Jendayi Frazer said in an interview on Monday in Nairobi, where she has been meeting with Kibaki and Odinga for the past three days.

"I mean there were problems with the vote counting process," she said. "Both the parties could have rigged."

She said she did not want to blame either Kibaki or Odinga.

The chairman of Kenya's electoral commission, Samuel Kivuiti, has said he is not sure whether Kibaki won, although the chairman officially declared Kibaki the winner in the closest presidential election in the country's history.

The US intervention appeared to be having an effect on the crisis, with both sides softening their tones since Frazer's arrival. Kenya is crucial to the US' "war on terror." It has turned over dozens of people to the US and Ethiopia as suspected terrorists, allows US forces to operate from Kenyan bases and conducts joint exercises with US troops in the region.

The US is also a major donor to Kenya. Aid amounts to roughly US$1 billion a year, US embassy spokesman T.J. Dowling said.

The violence has marked some of the darkest times since Kenya's independence from Britain in 1963, with much of the fighting degenerating into riots pitting other tribes against Kibaki's Kikuyu, long dominant in politics and the economy.

An official in Uganda said 30 fleeing Kenyans were thrown into the border river by Kenyan attackers and were presumed drowned. Two Ugandan truck drivers carrying the group said they were stopped on Saturday at a roadblock mounted by vigilantes who identified the refugees as Kikuyus and threw them into the deep, swift-flowing Kipkaren River, said Himbaza Hashaka, a Ugandan border official. The drivers said none survived, Hashaka said.

A statement on Monday from the Ministry of Special Programs put the death toll at 486, with some 255,000 people displaced from their homes. The toll, which did not include the drownings at the border, was compiled by a special committee of humanitarian services set up by the government, which extensively toured areas most affected by riots.

On Monday, Kibaki invited Odinga to his official residence for a meeting on Friday to discuss how to end the political and ethnic turmoil, according to a statement from the president's press service.

Just hours earlier, Odinga called off nationwide rallies amid fears of fresh bloodshed.

Odinga's spokesman, Salim Lone, said Odinga would meet with Kibaki as long as the meeting is part of the mediation process with the African Union.

Also see: Kenyan looters fear curse

Also see: If we don't understand\nAfricans, we can't help

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