Kenya's Parliament to Meet on Tuesday

there is some progress in Kenya?

Kenya's Parliament to Meet
As Opposition Plans Protests

By SARAH CHILDRESS
January 14, 2008 1:48 p.m.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Kenya's sharply divided Parliament is scheduled to meet Tuesday for its first session since flawed elections last month. Meanwhile, opposition leaders have called for mass demonstrations this week, dimming chances a simmering political standoff will ease anytime soon and raising the prospect of more violence.

Early last week, President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga made some tentative steps towards reconciliation after flawed voting late last month disintegrated into widespread violence and ethnic killing.  But both sides have since reversed course, and Kenyans are hunkering down again.

Amid the standoff, former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan was expected here Tuesday or Wednesday to help broker talks between the two sides.

Associated Press

Displaced Kenyans waited for aid to be distributed outside Kenya's Air Force barracks in Nairobi Monday.

Election officials declared President Mwai Kibaki the winner of the vote. Challenger Raila Odinga says polling was rigged, and demonstrations by his supporters fanned violence, which has so far displaced about 250,000 and left an estimated 600 dead, perhaps many more. The international community has denounced the results as flawed.

Mr. Odinga's party says it plans to send its 99 elected lawmakers to the opening session of Parliament Tuesday. But last week, party leaders said they will take their seats on the government's side of the chamber, a dig at Mr. Kibaki's leadership and a provocative move that raises the possibility of shoving matches, or worse, inside a house of government. Along with minor parties that have sided with him, Mr. Odinga controls 103 seats, compared to Mr. Kibaki's 61.

The opposition has also called for three days of nationwide protests beginning on Wednesday. Two previous rallies, scheduled for Uhuru Park, a large meadow in Nairobi, were banned by the government and ended in sporadic clashes with police.

The largely peaceful election was supposed to secure Kenya's reputation as a model for democracy on the continent. The country was enjoying a booming economy -- the largest in East Africa -- and served as a business and transportation hub for the region. As a spot of calm in the midst of its war-torn neighbors, Kenya also played an important peacemaking role.

The two sides appeared to be inching closer to a resolution last week, when they agreed to negotiate through an international mediator after a visit from the top U.S. diplomat for Africa, Jendayi Frazer. Ghanaian president and current African Union chairman John Kufuor flew in to meet with both parties, but failed even to bring the men into the same room. Mr. Kibaki then announced the appointment of half his cabinet, infuriating Mr. Odinga and his opposition allies.

The dispute has pitted the two men's tribes against each other, inflaming long-held animosities. Mr. Odinga, a Luo, campaigned on the notion that Mr. Kibaki had funneled more resources to his own tribe, the Kikuyus. If he won, Mr. Odinga promised to right that imbalance, endearing himself to many Luos and members of other tribes, such as the Kalenjins, who are frustrated by the country's growing income gap.

Mr. Odinga now says he cannot negotiate with Mr. Kibaki as long as he considers himself president; Mr. Kibaki maintains that he was fairly elected.

Outside Kenya's big cities, the thousands of Kikuyus who were driven from their homes and had their businesses looted and torched, are clustered in camps on the outskirts of towns. Those who drove them out -- mainly Kalenjins and Luos -- live in fear of reprisals.

Kenya's Parliament to Meet As Opposition Plans Protests - WSJ.com

Kenyan deaths rise to 612

NAIROBI, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Kenya's feuding parties prepared on Monday for fresh fighting in parliament and on the streets despite another international push to mediate a post-election crisis that has now killed at least 612 people.
But the priority for many in the east African nation was getting millions of children back to school after a week's delay following the turmoil caused by President Mwai Kibaki's disputed re-election last month.

"Life has to go on," said Esther Muhito, preparing her children for classes in Molo, a town in the Rift Valley where ethnic clashes have killed scores. In some camps housing refugees, volunteers were setting up temporary classrooms.
Scores of others, however, were still fleeing the same tea-growing area, fearful the opposition's call for three days of nationwide protests starting on Wednesday would stoke more bloodshed.
Police have banned the rallies.
The crisis has dented Kenya's democratic credentials and resurgent economy, hit supplies to east and central African neighbours, and rattled Western donors.
Rachel Arungah, chairwoman of the government's Humanitarian Services Committee, told Reuters the death toll stood at 612 on Monday. But local media said it was higher, at 693.
Most of the deaths have come from fighting between rival ethnic communities, clashes between police and protesters, as well as looting and mob violence.
The number of refugees had dropped, as some people return to their homes, to 199,204, Arungah added.
Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was due in Kenya on Tuesday or Wednesday as the head of an "Eminent Africans" group to kickstart dialogue between Kibaki and opposition rival Raila Odinga, who have not met since the Dec. 27 vote.
African Union head John Kufuor, and other international figures, including Washington's top diplomat for Africa Jendayi Frazer, failed last week to bring the sides together.
"NO BUSINESS AS USUAL"
Kibaki has entrenched his position by naming half a cabinet, convening parliament and continuing with state functions.
But the opposition has more seats in the new assembly and Tuesday's opening session promises to be a bruising affair. "It will be a battleground where all manner of wars are going to be fought," analyst Mutakha Kangu told Reuters.
Opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) legislators are threatening to sit on government seats they say are rightfully theirs. The first business will be to name a new speaker.
At the weekend, the European Union and United States said there could be "no business as usual" with Nairobi unless a political compromise was agreed that restored stability.
One of Kibaki's hardline allies, Roads and Public Works Minister John Michuki, was quoted as saying the government may sever ties with countries that are piling on the pressure.
"We are just turning a blind eye, but we can just one day wake up and tell them to leave the country," he was reported as saying in the Daily Nation newspaper.
"We do not need any foreigners to tell us what to do."
A government spokesman said Kibaki's administration had not asked anyone to mediate its affairs. He said Kenya, as a sovereign state, should be "treated with the same respect shown to other stable democracies".
On German radio Deutschland Funk, Odinga urged the world to express its disapproval of Kibaki.
"Robert Mugabe has been tolerated for too long in Zimbabwe. We should not create another Mugabe with the name Kibaki," he said. "I think the international community has a duty to send a signal that what (Kibaki) is doing will not be tolerated."
Kibaki, 76, has said he is prepared to speak to Odinga, 63, about a possible power-sharing arrangement. But the former ally, who split with Kibaki in 2005, says he will only meet through an international mediator and wants the election re-run.
ODM on Monday accused Uganda -- one of four African nations to recognise Kibaki's win along with Swaziland, Morocco and Somalia -- of sending troops across the border to help Kenyan security forces. Kenyan police denied that.

By Katie Nguyen and Andrew Cawthorne (Additional reporting by Bryson Hull, Wangui Kanina, Tim Cocks; Madeleine Chambers in Berlin, editing by Mary Gabriel)  

Kenya braces for tough week, deaths rise to 612 | International | Reuters