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Protesters face riot police after Kenyan election

Riot police fired tear gas and water cannons yesterday to beat back surging crowds of Kenyan protesters heeding an opposition call for a "million-man" rally that many fear could worsen the violence that has already killed 300 people and displaced 100,000.

There was no sign yet, however, of the gigantic crowds many feared.

Instead, small groups of a few hundred people each streamed toward the capital from various directions, as police tried to choke them off at strategic spots.

Opposition leader Raila Odinga called the march to protest Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki's re-election in the Dec. 27 vote, insisting the poll was a sham. The political dispute has degenerated into ethnic violence nationwide pitting Kibaki's influential Kikuyus against Odinga's Luos and other tribes.

On Wednesday, Odinga said the rally was meant to be peaceful. The government has banned it, though, and with security forces deployed in force, violence was likely to erupt if protesters followed the call en masse.

Truckloads of riot police in red berets armed with rifles and batons ringed the empty Uhuru Park in the city center where protesters were expected to converge.

On one main road, police fired tear gas and water cannons to push back a crowd of several hundred people from the Kibera slum holding branches and white flags symbolizing peace.

"Without Raila there will be no peace," said one of the protesters, 22-year-old Edward Muli.

Elsewhere, smoke from burning tires rose from the streets as gunshots rang out. Police Chief Mark Mwara called the protesters "hooligans" and accused them of attacking petrol stations and supermarkets.

Meanwhile, Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni congratulated Kibaki for being re-elected, a government newspaper in Kampala reported. It said Museveni has talked with Kibaki and Odinga to reconcile them.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke by telephone on Wednesday with Odinga and had a call scheduled with Kibaki to ask the pair to resolve their differences peacefully, the US State Department said.
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