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Kenya's Odinga refuses to relent

Kenya's embattled opposition vowed another day of rallies yesterday, setting the stage for more violence amid a political deadlock between the president and his chief rival, who claims the closest election in the country's history was rigged.

The US and Europe pushed for reconciliation, but said a "made-in-Kenya solution" is needed to end the violence that has killed 300 people and displaced 100,000 since President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner of the Dec. 27 polls.

Jendayi Frazer, the top US diplomat for Africa, planned to leave on Thursday for talks with Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga, US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. McCormack said Frazer would not serve as a mediator -- Kibaki has rejected such outside help. McCormack said she would try to encourage the leaders to get together and work toward a political solution. It was not clear how long Frazer would be in Kenya.

Nairobi was calm early yesterday, but Salim Lone, a spokesman for opposition chief Raila Odinga, said "we are not going to give up our right to assemble peacefully."

"We will not back down until there is a clear solution for the crisis caused by the stolen election," Lone said.

On Wednesday, riot police fired tear gas and water cannons to beat back crowds of opposition protesters in Nairobi, where postelection violence in what had been one of Africa's most stable countries left shops, cars and a church in flames.

"War is happening here," 45-year-old Edwin Mukathia said on Thursday.

He was among thousands of people who poured out of Nairobi's slums on Thursday to heed Odinga's call for a million man march in the city's Uhuru Park.

Mukathia and the others were kept at bay by riot police, who choked off the roads and fired live bullets over their heads. Opposition leaders canceled the march but said they would hold it yesterday, setting the stage for yet another day of upheaval as one of Africa's top tourist draws and one of the continent's most stable democracies approaches chaos.

The violent images -- of burning churches, machete-wielding gangs, looters making off with petrol -- are heartbreakingly common in a region that includes war-ravaged Somalia and Sudan. But Kenya had been spared.

The dispute has degenerated into violence pitting Kibaki's influential Kikuyus against Odinga's Luos and other tribes.

In the Mathare slum on Thursday, rival groups of men hurled rocks at each other. The corpse of a man lay face down on a muddy path, and a wailing wife pulled her battered husband from the waters of the Nairobi River, where he had been dumped and left for dead.

The upheaval stretches from the capital to the coast to the western highlands. Hundreds of young men marched on Thursday in the coastal resort of Mombasa but were quickly repulsed by security forces. Police shot one protester in the head and he was taken to a hospital, said witness Moses Baya.

Kenya's electoral commission said Kibaki had won the Dec. 27 vote, but Odinga alleged the vote was rigged and international observations say it was flawed. On Thursday, Attorney General Amos Wako called for an independent probe of the counting.

Wako did not elaborate or say whether an independent body would include foreign observers, and it was unclear whether he had Kibaki's backing or had made the statement independently.

Also See: After election, two men hold the fate of Kenya in their hands
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